Chapter 79
No one was coming to help. Ruby looked into the darkness and told herself the truth.
She wasn’t a child any more. This wasn’t one of those fairy stories where the knight in shining armour was hacking his way through an overgrown forest. If there had been anyone outside the hotel who’d seen her get into the car, they’d had ample time to report their suspicions.
No. The truth was far more simple. She was going to die here, and then he’d bury her, next to the other girls.
Ruby found a certain comfort in her new-found clarity. It helped with decision-making.
She had an idea. A bad idea. Almost definitely bound to fail. But, it turned out, almost definitely bound to fail started to look a lot better when you compared it to the alternative of definitely going to be killed.
The Anderson shelter was designed to be put up quickly. Anyone with a garden could erect one themselves. They’d been giving them away free to anyone who wanted one.
The shelter wasn’t meant for anyone to live in long-term.
If you were building a house, you’d want some kind of concrete floor.
Something to keep out the vermin and the damp.
The Anderson shelter, on the other hand, didn’t need any such foundation.
Just put it in the ground and Bob’s your uncle, as they said.
He’d put down a scrap of old carpet. A man’s attempt at making a hole in the ground into a home.
Ruby peeled back the edge of the carpet. As she’d thought, underneath was bare soil.
Soil underfoot. Soil outside. The metal sides of the Anderson shelter would have been stuck into the soil to keep the whole thing stable, but not very deep.
Ruby hadn’t seen one going up, but she guessed about a foot.
A foot of corrugated metal in the mud, between her and freedom.
All she needed was some way of digging. She could use her hands, but it would be too slow, and while she was prepared to take a risk, she wasn’t stupid.
The faster she could dig, the better chance she had of doing it in one go, between visits.
He’d left her a plate. He’d brought her a slice – a common meal on the island.
One slice of day-old bread, fried in whatever fat was left over from the last meal.
To Ruby, half starved, it had been one of the most delicious meals she’d ever had, the bacon grease coating her lips and fingers.
She could still smell it. She’d licked the plate clean once she’d finished, and then, again, an hour later. Just in case.
Now, the plate would serve another purpose. A spade, of sorts.
Ruby pushed the plate into the soil, and scooped back a handful.
She looked around. She slung the soil under the bed.
It wasn’t perfect, but if her plan was going to work, she’d be gone before he saw the inside of the shelter.
The same logic suggested she could simply pile up the soil where she knelt, but that felt too brazen. So under the bed it was.
She dug right at the edge, where the corrugated iron wall disappeared into the ground. As she dug down, the metal wall continued. She got a foot down, and stuck her fingers in the hole, trying to feel the bottom edge. But the metal wall continued down.
It took another hour to get two feet down. This had been a bad idea. She looked at the soil under the bed. She couldn’t believe how much there was – it seemed so much more than the size of the hole she’d dug.
It wasn’t too late to put it back. Lay the carpet over it. Pretend it had never happened.
She stuck her fingers into the soil. It was damp at the bottom of the hole. A worm wriggled against her hand. Just a worm, she told herself.
Then she felt it. The bottom edge of the wall. Sharp metal. She was right. The plan was going to work. She’d need another foot down to give her space to wiggle underneath, then she could come up the other side.
*
Ruby was practically upside down, lying on her back, leaning backwards into the hole.
She had her head and one arm under the wall, all her narrow tunnel allowed, and was digging upward.
Every movement of the plate, a shower of soil landed in her face.
She’d worked out a system. She kept her eyes and mouth shut, let it fall, then wriggled out of the hole, turned over, and scooped out the loose soil.
It wasn’t very efficient. Her back was killing her. Her hands were bleeding from all the times she caught them on the underside of the metal wall, and her eyes, nose, and mouth were full of soil. But she was making progress. At least, she had been, until she’d hit a snag.
There was a big stone in the soil. It was a problem.
Ruby was underneath it, looking up. Her plate scraped across the stone and she shuddered, like when the teacher scratched her nails on the blackboard, back at St John’s.
Ruby reached up and felt the stone. It was the size of a football.
She loosened the soil around the edge, then stopped, realising the dilemma.
If she loosened the stone enough, it would fall downwards, onto her face.
She loosened a bit more soil to the side of the stone. It shifted. Keeping the plate in her hand, she felt the stone to see if she could judge its weight. But it was still supported by the soil. Would she have time to wriggle backwards once it fell?
Ruby reminded herself of her decision rule. Was the chance of getting a rock in the face better or worse than the certainty of being killed?
She kept digging, wincing with every shower of soil, anticipating the weight of the stone on her face.
The rock gave way gently, almost elegantly. It slid down into Ruby’s hand, and she wriggled backwards, letting it fall. Then it was a simple matter of reaching back into the tunnel, pulling it out, like delivering a baby.
Without the obstruction, the digging was easier. Soon she was digging through roots. She punched the plate up, and with a final shower, she saw stars.
*
Ruby took one last look around the shelter.
There was nothing she could take. Nothing useful.
She left the plate, and wriggled into the hole.
Under the sharp edge of the wall, then up, into the moonlight, climbing out onto the grass.
She must have looked a sight. A mole-child, being given up by the soil.
She lay on the grass, feeling the breeze.
Time to go.
There was a house in the distance. His house. He’d be gone, back to the island. Back to his duties.
Her stomach growled. The house would have food. It might have a telephone. But most of all, food.
She’d be in and out quickly, then she’d be on her way.
The back door was unlocked. It let her into a kitchen. Linoleum floor. Paraffin cooker. A dresser holding plates and cups. Two of each. Not a family’s home, or a place to welcome visitors.
There was a cold-cupboard, the door opening onto a metal box clamped onto the outside of the house.
Ruby’s stomach groaned as she opened it, praying there’d be food.
Her prayers were answered. A bottle of milk and a block of cheese, wrapped in cloth.
She found a loaf of bread on the side, ripped it apart and ate, alternating between mouthfuls of bread, cheese, and milk.
She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. Didn’t see the other woman, even as the marble rolling-pin swung towards her head.
Ruby felt a sharp pain above her ear, then nothing.
It wasn’t like being asleep. She had no sensation of time passing. It was instantaneous. One second the rolling-pin was coming towards her, the next second she was opening her eye, one side of her face pressed against the lino floor, her head pounding with the worst headache she’d ever known.
A pair of flowery slippers appeared, eighteen inches in front of her face.
Something poked her in the shoulder. A broom, held backwards, the handle wavering above Ruby’s face. It poked her again. She opened her other eye. An elderly woman was sitting on a kitchen chair, watching her.
She held the rolling-pin in her right hand, using the left to wield the broom like a knight at a jousting tournament.
‘You been playing the tease?’ she asked. ‘Father tells me all about you girls, prancing around the West End with your tits and your arse on display to the world, as if there weren’t a lick of decency left in people. You were lucky it were Father what brought you in. Could have ended up much worse.’
The woman studied Ruby as if she were a butterfly pinned to a collector’s board.
‘You’ll be wanting to play the good girl. Let him put a baby in your belly. That’ll be the easiest way out of it.’
Ruby didn’t respond. She kept an eye on the rolling-pin. Another knock and she might never wake up.
‘Not like it’s the first time, is it?’ the woman said. ‘Baby-snatcher we call you, Father and I.’
Ruby didn’t respond. Not that it seemed to matter to the woman.
‘Course I knew,’ the woman said. ‘My idea. All you girls sent here, rude not to take advantage. You always seemed like a strong lass. Good bones. I was right, weren’t I? How’s the lad turned out?’
Ruby kept quiet. Frankie was her secret. What felt like a lifetime of keeping it quiet certainly wasn’t going to stop now.
The woman smiled.
‘Father tells me all about him. Got him evacuated for me. Got him away from you and yours. Give it a year and he’ll have forgotten you all.’
‘Stay away from him,’ Ruby said.
‘Or what?’ This was accompanied by another poke from the broom. Ruby grabbed the end of the pole and pulled it away. It clattered on the ground.
‘Always knew you was a strong ’un. Picked you out myself.’
The woman got up from the chair and walked, warily, towards Ruby. She held the rolling-pin ready.
‘Going to put you back in your hole now. You be good and I’ll send you down a bit of fish, keep your bones strong. Make another baby.’
The rolling-pin swung and Ruby heard a crack. The pain was ten times worse this time, but she welcomed the blackness.