Chapter 22
Ruby
The time I spent with James in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell stays with me in my thoughts every single day of the following week. And the week after that. And the one after that.
I can’t forget how it felt to be so close to James, to feel his hands on my body, to feel his breath against my ear. In that night, nothing existed but the two of us, and I catch myself thinking about it at the most impossible moments, wishing I could turn time back to that exact moment.
Sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast with my family, I can’t help thinking back to our morning, the delicious fresh bread, and James’s intimate smile as he passed me the jam.
Whenever I try to focus on A-level studying, I can’t help remembering the flat that James showed me and the night we lay side by side in bed, planning how to decorate it if the sale went through.
And whenever I try to fall asleep at night, I can’t help remembering his voice, whispering hoarsely and breathlessly in my ear, James telling me how much he loves me and that he’s never been this happy in his whole life.
“Earth to Ruby,” says Lin.
Guiltily, I turn to look at her. “Sorry, what was that? I was miles away.”
Lin gives me a sideways glance. “I noticed. Is everything OK?”
I feel the warmth spreading through my cheeks and nod hastily. “Yeah. What were you saying?”
“I was just saying that your bag looks like it’s about to burst at the seams.” Lin points to the James, which is hanging at my side. It’s the first day I’ve taken it to school again, and I’ve got so much in it that I’m worried the strap won’t hold.
I shift it cautiously on my shoulder. “I know, but James said this morning that it’ll cope, so I’m hoping for the best.”
“If James says so, it must be true.” Lin opens the library door and holds it for me to walk in.
“Do you also get the feeling you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown from stress?
” I ask her as we walk past the bookshelves toward the group meeting room.
Just thinking about A levels being right around the corner, and all the things that the committee still has to organize for the last two events of the year, I’m filled with a panic that even my very favorite ASMR videos can’t calm.
And the pressure is only growing the closer we get to the end of term.
“Oh, I had a breakdown ages ago,” Lin replies. “And I really have no idea how I’m going to be able to make Lydia a present by Saturday.”
“I told you we can give her a joint present.”
She shakes her head. “No, that wouldn’t be right. You’re practically her sister-in-law, and I’m not that close a friend. But thanks for the offer.”
I exhale a long breath out. “Well, just let me know if I can help with anything.”
That just makes Lin laugh. “You were just telling me that your head’s about to explode, and now you’re offering me help. That’s so you, Ruby.”
“So me?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Oh come on, you know what I mean. Trying to do too much and then moaning about it once it’s too late.”
I stick my tongue out at her.
“But we’re planning the guessing game together, right?” I ask.
She nods. “Did we want to get on with the baby-food jars now, or the cards, or both?”
“Both. Then there’ll be a bit of variety. Mum’s got tons of craft stuff at home, so we won’t have to buy anything.”
“Have you had the photos from Lydia’s aunt yet? And has she told you the theme? Is there even a theme?” Lin asks.
I shake my head. “Better not to ask. According to Lydia, Ophelia’s gone a bit crazy. She’s buying anything she can get her hands on so long as it’s brightly colored. So Lydia thinks that’ll be the theme.”
“Bright colors?” Lin asks, giving me a dubious side-eye. “That’s not a theme.”
“I know,” I reply. “But apparently it is for Ophelia.”
“OK, then we’ll have to…” Lin falls silent and stops dead. I look at her with a frown, then follow her gaze.
Standing outside the events committee room is Cyril.
For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t look like he’s tumbled straight out of some wild party and into school. His uniform has been ironed, his tie is straight, and he’s styled his hair. The shadows under his eyes are less dark, and he seems to have shaved. He looks almost back to normal.
“Lin?” I ask quietly, seeing that my friend still hasn’t shaken off the shock.
She gulps hard, then straightens her back. A split second later, she carries on talking as if nothing ever happened.
“…we’ll have to work with that,” she finishes. “I don’t have anything going on after school—shall we make the cards today?”
I blink in surprise, then nod hastily. “Sure.”
“Great.” You’d have to know Lin really well to notice how stiff her shoulders are and how forced her cheerfulness is right now. “Let’s do that.”
When we get to the door, Cyril pushes himself away from the wall and stands up straight. Lin stops in front of him, and for a moment the two of them look at each other without a word.
I walk into the room and shut the door quietly behind me.
I don’t get the chance to ask Lin why Cyril was waiting for her.
Almost the moment I went into the group room, Camille and Doug turned up, closely followed by Kieran; Jessalyn and James arrived less than two minutes later.
After the meeting, Lin gave James and me a lift home, and however much I was burning up with curiosity, I didn’t want to talk about it with him around.
Now James has gone off to a meeting with a woman who might buy his Beaufort’s shares, and we’re sitting on my bedroom floor with Ember, cutting out little onesie-shaped cards for the baby shower so that people can write their guesses for the twins’ genders, lengths, and weights.
And if I don’t ask Lin right now, I am actually going to burst.
“What did Cyril want?” I blurt out, so fiercely that she jumps.
Ember looks up in surprise. For a moment she looks from one of us to the other, but then her eyes rest on Lin’s stiff shoulders.
Without a word, she picks up another piece of card and starts drawing around the template with a white pencil.
Lin stares at the romper suit she’s just cut out. “He said sorry.”
I frown. “And?”
She shrugs. “There’s nothing more to tell.”
I put my pen down. “What was it like? Was he…kind?” Not a word I’d normally have connected to Cyril, but I get the feeling there’s more to Lin’s silence.
“I don’t know. He was…odd.”
“In what way?” I ask cautiously.
“He said we’d be seeing each other at the baby shower at the weekend and that he didn’t want things to be weird between us. He even asked if he should stay away.”
Lin makes it sound like that’s the weirdest thing Cyril’s ever said.
“He apologized to me too. I think he’s in the middle of getting his life back together,” I suggest. “James reckons he genuinely regrets what he did.”
“Sounds more like he wants an excuse to get out of the party,” Ember says, not looking up.
I blink in confusion. “What?”
Ember shrugs her shoulders indifferently. “Lin said he was acting odd. I bet he wants to avoid seeing the girl he loves together with the man she loves.”
“You think?” I say dubiously.
By Ember’s standards, that’s a worryingly dark view of things. Normally, she’s the optimist, the one who believes in the good in people, while I overthink everything.
I’ve been suspecting that there’s something wrong for a while now.
She’s throwing herself into her blog more than ever, barely leaving her room, and if I ask her if everything’s OK, she immediately changes the subject to something innocuous.
After all those weeks when I was wondering who she was spending so much time with, I’m now wondering why she’s not spending time with that person anymore.
And why she still doesn’t get that she can talk to me about it.
“I think Cyril hit rock bottom, and now he’s working his way back up again. After what you told me about you and him, I think it’s respectful of him to ask,” I say soothingly to Lin. “It can’t have been easy for him. Anyway, do you want him to not come to the party?”
Lin shakes her head. “No, that would be childish. We’ll both be in Oxford, and we’re bound to keep bumping into each other. And I won’t be able to tell him to piss off then.”
“You could. Theoretically speaking.”
Lin’s lips twitch. She tucks her hair back behind her ears and reaches for the scissors. “Anyway, I’m over him.”
I look searchingly at her. Last time we talked about Cyril, it was obvious that Lin was taking it really hard. I’m not so sure now.
“I’m sure Lydia would understand if you didn’t come to the party,” I suggest carefully.
“No,” Lin shouts out. “No. I want to be there. And who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone there who I like.”
Her remark surprises me, but I feel relieved at the same time. It sounds like Lin really is ready to move on to pastures new. I don’t tell her that all the other guests will be old friends of Ophelia’s. I’m just too happy for her, and she looks too optimistic for that.
“Ruby, can I draw a little dick on it?”
The abrupt change of subject takes me by surprise, but I try to fight down my grin. “If you really want, then knock yourself out. I don’t know whether Lydia would like it.”
“It would make her laugh,” Ember replies, using one of my favorite glitter pens as she starts to add male genitalia to the cardboard onesie.
“There was no need to make it quite that big,” I remark dryly, but Ember just grins over her shoulder.
“Oh, that’s great,” Lin says with a smile. “I need to draw something funny too now.”
I take a deep breath and look at the image I saved from Pinterest earlier.
It shows how to punch a hole in the top of the cardboard onesies and then thread them onto a ribbon to hang up.
In the picture, they’re brown cards with a golden rim and delicate lines, and the writing is fancy, looping calligraphy.
Ember’s masterpiece couldn’t be more different, but if it makes Lydia laugh, then it’s fine by me.
“Lydia and Graham will treasure our creativity,” she says, starting to decorate the penis.
“Exactly,” Lin agrees, drawing on her onesie with a look of total concentration. After a while, she picks it up and eyes it critically. She’s used one of the metallic pens to draw the Superman logo.
Ember cheers.
“I should have cut it so it has a cape,” Lin says gloomily.
“Well, do that on the next one,” I say—only meaning it as a joke. But now Ember and Lin look at each other with a glint in their eyes, then turn to beam at me. The next moment, they’ve bent over the sheets of card, and they’re starting to make alterations to the template outline.
After a while, I can’t help joining in, and before long, all we care about is seeing who can come up with the funniest ideas and make the others laugh the most.
We give one suit angel wings, and another an ice hockey stick and puck.
Lin designs a bikini-style suit with a fruit pattern and adds devil horns to another.
But my favorite is a failed attempt at a horse’s head that Ember is particularly proud of.
I can’t even look at the thing without losing it and starting to laugh again.
After a while, there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I call.
James sticks his head into the room.
“Hey, lover boy,” Ember says in a deep voice that makes Lin and me crack up more than ever.
James comes in with an eyebrow raised in amusement. “You seem to be having fun.”
“Look at these cards for the baby shower guessing game and pick your favorite,” Lin says, pointing to where they now almost cover the floor.
“Is that…” James asks, breaking off and tilting his head to one side.
“It’s meant to be a unicorn,” says Ember, rolling her eyes. “Like that’s so hard to tell.”
“Looks more like a pig. And even that requires a fair bit of imagination.”
“Hey!” Ember yells in outrage, grabbing a pillow off my bed and throwing it at James. The pillow sails across the room and hits the floor before it reaches him, which makes him give a wonky grin.
“I only wanted to tell you that I’m back. Oh, and Angus says that dinner’s nearly ready, so can you come down?”
“How was your meeting?” I ask.
“Really good,” says James. “She seems to be well up on the details of the company, and she made a good impression on me. She seems genuinely interested and not just like she was only after a slice of the pie.”
“What does your gut say?” I ask cautiously.
James has been looking for a buyer for weeks, but Fiona Green is the first of them he’s wanted to meet in person. Beaufort’s was his mum’s whole life, and I think the pressure of finding the right person to take it on is weighing on him more than he’d like to admit.
“My gut tells me that I shouldn’t wait too long over it,” he replies.
“My gran always says your gut instinct is the most important thing when you’ve got an important decision to make,” says Lin, and Ember nods in agreement.
“You need to click, or she’s not the right person.”
“I hardly ever just click,” James replies. “I need to take time to get to know a person properly—more than just the first impression, I mean. But I’m meeting her again next Tuesday. Maybe it’ll be easier to decide after that.”
“Sounds good,” says Ember. She picks up the cardboard unicorn. “And if you need any advice, you can ask Ernie here anytime—in the strictest of confidence.”
James’s lips twitch. “Good to know.”
“We’re done here, right?” asks Lin.
“Yep,” I reply, looking at the floor. “We’ve got more than enough.”
She lifts her arms over her head and stretches. Then she sticks her legs out and reaches over to grab on to her feet. I hear something in her back creak alarmingly, and my eyes widen.
“I love that you’re doing all this for Lydia,” James says, and as our eyes meet, his smile changes slightly.
It’s more open. Warmer. A touch more familiar.
It’s a smile that’s meant only for me, one that’s full of secrets that only the two of us know.
The longer he looks at me, the more my throat dries out. And the warmer I feel.
With jittery hands, I start piling up the cardboard cutouts. I’m sitting in my childhood bedroom with my little sister. I can’t start thinking about James’s naked body now.
“Shall we go down?” Ember asks suddenly. “Dad just messaged.” She holds up her phone to show us. The next moment, I see another text come in. But before I can see who it’s from, Ember’s turned her phone away. Her expression darkens. She shuts off the phone and pushes herself up from the floor.
As Lin and James walk to the door, I grab my sister’s arm for a moment. “You can always talk to me, Ember,” I whisper. “Always. You know that, don’t you?”
She looks at my hand, then up into my face. For a moment it’s like she’s wrestling with herself, but in the end, she shakes her head.
“Not about this, sis.”
Before I can reply, she’s following the others down the stairs.