Chapter 54
He looked pleased with himself, Ruby thought. He’d been clever. Wanted to tell her about it. Like a little boy coming home from school.
He pulled a paper bag from his pocket and the smell made her stomach growl. A bacon roll. Still warm by the smell of it.
‘Brought you a present,’ he said. He put the bag on the floor by the door, took his coat off and hung it on the hook.
‘Got a job for you,’ he said, showing her the two postcards. Beach scenes from Southend.
The postcards were a good sign. Good for her. It meant he was worried. It meant somebody out there was looking for her, and he’d had to come up with a way to deflect them. But if she wrote them, telling everyone she was all right, she’d be putting the power right back in his hands.
‘Why would I do that?’
He held up the bag. The smell of the food made her stomach growl.
He took the bacon roll out of the bag. Looked at it. Took a bite.
She tried to resist. She wasn’t going to die of starvation. Not for a while. But try telling her stomach that.
He took another bite. Her food, disappearing in front of her.
Where there’s life, there’s hope, her mum used to say. That was one of hers. Keep your strength up. That was another one.
He raised the roll to take a third bite.
‘All right,’ she said. He smirked, and she hated herself for giving him the satisfaction. But her mum was right. Where there’s life, and all that.
He made her write the postcards first. The pencil was hard, one of those ones that scratched the paper without leaving much of its lead behind.
He dictated the first one:
Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. Met a chap. Might be away for a bit.
Tell Frankie I’m sorry I missed his birthday.
She edited his wording slightly, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He’d said ‘Tell Frankie’ but she slipped in the word ‘our’.
Her mum would know something was wrong. Ruby never referred to Frankie that way.
It was a nuance her mum would see in an instant.
She finished up with a doodle. A whimsical touch but something that perhaps someone would recognise.
She tensed as she handed the postcard back, wondering if he’d be angry at her embellishments, but he took it without looking.
She ate the roll, trying to make every mouthful last, in the end licking the waxed paper clean of grease.
Maybe Mum would notice her message, maybe she wouldn’t.
But she liked the feeling of having done something.
Maybe it was the food, making her feel like things were looking up.
A little voice told her she’d given in to him, but she told that voice to shut up.
Told it she’d made a good choice. Live to fight another day.
He raped her after she’d eaten. Took his clothes off, got into bed with her. Almost apologetic. Didn’t look her in the eye.
Ruby watched him getting dressed, afterwards. A domestic enough scene – a man pulling on his vest. Buttoning his collar.
He was in a hurry to escape, his shame rising off him like the stink of his sweat.
‘It won’t always be like this,’ he said. ‘After the war we can go somewhere, be together properly, like husband and wife. A farm in Wales. You can grow vegetables and I’ll tend the sheep.’
He pulled on his trousers, pulling the braces over his shoulders. He reached for his pullover, folded neatly over the back of the chair.
Ruby had a chance, she realised. A slim chance, but better than nothing. She saw it coming, quite clearly. He’d put both arms in the sleeves. Put the pullover over his head, arms up, like a little boy being dressed by his mother.
He put his arms in the holes, noticed her watching him. He stopped.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ruby said.
He thought.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Too warm for this. I’ll leave it for you in case it gets cold tonight. Don’t want you catching a chill.’
It was too much to bear. Lying there, her stomach in knots. All for nothing. Ruby launched herself from the bed and flew at him with a shriek.
He was fast. Faster than his physique suggested. He stepped out of her way and grabbed her, slamming her into the metal wall. She felt something go in her shoulder – a sharp pain like she’d been stuck with a red-hot needle.
‘There there,’ he said, calmly, albeit through gritted teeth.
She kneed him between his legs. Didn’t hold back. He gasped and for a second he loosened his grip on her arm. She pulled away and made a retreat to the far corner of the shelter, trying to ignore the shooting pain from her shoulder, preparing herself for whatever was coming.
But he didn’t advance. He stepped backwards.
He pulled the door open.
‘Come on,’ he said.
She eyed him, warily. What kind of trick was he playing on her?
He grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her outside.
They were in the middle of nowhere. There was a house in the distance but nothing else. Just trees, and fields, and sky. A flock of birds took off from a distant tree.
‘Look,’ he said, nodding at a rough patch of ground down the side of the shelter.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘What do you see?’
Ruby saw stinging nettles, some brambles – a few blackberries. Then she went cold, realising what he was pointing at. The earth had been disturbed in places. It had sunk, and nettles grew instead of grass. The shapes were recognisable. Six feet long. Two feet wide. Spaced a few feet apart.
Graves.
She counted them. Five in total, varying ages judging by the weeds. The oldest was entirely overgrown. The most recent was still earth.
‘In case you’re wondering how good you’ve got it, and how bad it can get if you don’t play along,’ he said. He kept his voice calm, like he was telling her about the weather.
‘And it wouldn’t just be you,’ he said. ‘There’s others you care about. The boy, for a start.’
Ruby couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She nodded.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, and I forgive you. We’re meant to be together, Ruby, you and I. You’ve always known that, same as I have.’
After he left, locking the door behind him, she listened as his boots crunched on the gravel path, the sound fading to nothingness. Then it was just her and the crows.
Ruby was scared. More scared than she’d ever been in her life. She’d been managing to tell herself it was all some kind of misunderstanding. A momentary thing that would end. But now she’d seen the graves, she knew exactly how it would end.