Chapter 27
FRANKIE
I had to walk past Ruby working in the café on my way up to the flat, and I stay holed up in my kitchen until I’m sure that she will have gone home.
And then I stay holed up for the rest of the day anyway because I can’t face seeing any of the people in the café.
And that is quite a big disadvantage of living here, I have to say.
I mean, usually it’s lovely. Little chats with friendly locals on your way out. But right now it really isn’t.
Eventually, I think I might be out of tears – for the time being at least – and I feel as though the four walls of the flat are closing in on me, so I text Ellie to see if she’s free.
No. She isn’t.
I know she’d drop everything if I told her I needed to talk, but I don’t want to be that needy.
Maybe Miranda. No. She’ll be busy with her kids’ Sunday evening homework and bedtime routine.
Simon. I’m pretty sure he’s in this evening.
And he’s a very, very good friend. And would be nice to me, which is what I need right now.
But, also, I don’t think I can tell him all about it without admitting that I’m going to have to leave and go back to London because I can’t deal with staying here.
But he’s my boss and is providing me with my home.
And so it’s awkward. Because I can’t go until I find a job but as soon as I do, I’ll be going, maybe at short notice, and therefore maybe leaving him in the lurch again.
So when I think about it like that I do have to tell him my plans, but also I really, really don’t want him to find a replacement for me until I’m ready to go.
My phone buzzes.
For a moment I’m hoping that it’s Marcus saying that it was all a big mistake and Ruby loves the idea of him and me together.
But no, obviously not. It’s Simon:
You okay? Want to come down?
Apparently he’s a mind reader.
I’m going to go and see him; it’s too miserable sitting here by myself.
Ten minutes later Simon is saying all the right things and I’ve discovered that I was not in fact out of tears, because I’m crying enormous, gulpy, snotty ones all over his new, lime green Ralph Lauren shirt.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says when I momentarily raise my head and look at the mangled shirt front. ‘It’ll all wash out.’
In the end, I tell him everything, including the fact that I wanted to stay because I love it here but that I just can’t.
‘Don’t accept the wrong job,’ Simon says.
‘Don’t just leap into something. You can keep your head down here surrounded by your friends and family.
Marcus will stay away. We can’t fire Ruby, obviously, but we can arrange the shifts so that I work with her and you don’t.
Oh.’ He pauses. ‘It’s just that next Saturday I have to go to a design fair near Yeovil. ’
‘I’ll be fine. By next Saturday I can be in the same room as Ruby.
It isn’t like we have to talk. And it isn’t like she hates me—’ I hope it isn’t specifically me, anyway ‘—it’s that she hates the idea of her father having a relationship with anyone.
I’m sure a lot of it’s to do with the fact that her mother left her.
And I do understand that. Fourteen is still very young.
She’s a child. It’s Marcus I can’t bear to see at the moment.
And not because I’m angry with him, because I’m not, but because I love him too much.
’ I do another one of my deeply attractive honking sniffs, and Simon pulls me into another hug.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘You weren’t like this after Rick.’
‘I know. I think Marcus is – was – my One.’
‘There isn’t just one One,’ Simon says. ‘There are lots of Ones. You just need to meet your next one.’ Simon reaches for a tissue and hands it to me. ‘What I’m trying to say is, it’s true that there are plenty more fish in the sea.’
‘I don’t want to go fishing, though.’
‘Well, not right now. But in due course.’
I just cry again.
* * *
The week is not fun, but Simon and Ellie do their best to keep me extremely busy, and I make myself even busier beginning to apply for jobs in London and keeping an eye on the rental market for when (if) I get a job and move back.
I don’t lay eyes on Marcus once, so I begin to feel that I can cope with staying in the village for as long as it takes to get a job that I’d actually like.
Ruby turns up bright and early for work on Saturday morning, and I tell myself firmly that she is only fourteen and that I need to be the adult here, because clearly she is not happy.
I am polite to her. I ask her a polite question about once an hour.
I ask her if she’s had a good week at school.
I tell her I like her top. I ask her if she’s looking forward to her Christmas holidays.
I ask her what her favourite cake is. I don’t want to have to work in silence and on frigid terms with someone, and I also don’t think it can be good for her to be full of so much negative emotion.
Around lunchtime, she cracks and actually smiles at me.
Which is good, because so far my London job hunt is going slowly.
She eats her lunch in the kitchen while I carry on serving.
I pop in at one point and see her with her back to me, hunched round something in the corner.
‘Ruby?’ I ask, because her posture is odd, like she’s hiding something.
‘Nothing,’ she says, making herself sound very guilty since I didn’t ask anything that that might be the answer to.
I assume that she’s probably doing something with cigarettes or a vape or something similar, and decide that right now I should turn a blind eye.
I mean, I’m not a meaningful part of her life in the slightest, obviously, and what can I do?
I’ll maybe mention it to her in a week or two.
But only vaguely. I mean, all teenagers do the occasional thing their parents wish they wouldn’t.
We all did and we’re all fine. She seems overall like a great kid (even if she has been the source of my current misery).
I suddenly notice that her phone is on the side, face up, with the screen lit up, and allow my eyes to slide to it to check that there’s nothing bad there. And, no, there is nothing bad – she’s just on Skyscanner looking at flights – so I just feel rude and intrusive.
‘I’d better get back outside,’ I say, and she nods and gives me a tight smile.
She’s okay with me in the afternoon, and by the end of the day, when she actually looks me in the eye and gives me a nice smile when she says goodbye, I feel that I can do this; I can carry on working with her once a week and not seeing Marcus at all, and I don’t need to rush to leave the village.
Although I am still going to leave. I’m going up to London this week for a couple of job interviews, in fact.
* * *
I’m sitting with Simon in his flat later, sipping the glass of red that he’s just poured me and telling him about how today was with Ruby, when my phone buzzes with a call. I ignore it. It buzzes again. I ignore it. It buzzes again. I suddenly worry that something’s happened to Gran and pick it up.
It’s actually Marcus calling. I stare at the phone for a couple of moments and then, of course I do, I swipe and say, ‘Hi, Marcus.’
‘Hi. Could I ask what time Ruby left the café?’
I go cold.
‘Five thirty.’ I check the time on my phone. It’s eight. ‘Has she not come home?’
‘She told me she was going to Libby’s for the evening but she isn’t there. She hasn’t been there at all.’
‘Oh, Marcus. Have you spoken to any of her other friends?’
‘Calling them all now. Did she seem as normal today?’
‘Yep. I think so.’ I need to get off the phone so he can try other people. ‘I’ll message you if I think of anything.’
I end the call and look at Simon. ‘Ruby said she was going to Libby’s after work and didn’t go.’
‘Fuck.’
There’s something niggling at me.
‘I’ve just remembered that Ruby was being odd in the kitchen earlier,’ I suddenly say. ‘Can we go downstairs and just check something?’
We run and get to the kitchen very quickly.
‘Ruby was in the corner over there hunched over something,’ I say. ‘She looked really odd when I came into the room briefly.’
‘Could she…’ Simon goes over to the corner. ‘The cash box. Would she know that I only empty it every two or three weeks?’ He opens it. ‘Oh my God. Empty. With a note with Simon on it.’ He unfolds the piece of paper and scans it. ‘It says “Sorry. I’ll pay you back. I needed to borrow it.” Fuck me.’
I shiver. ‘How much was in there?’
‘I don’t know. Several hundred pounds I’d say. Loads of people pay in cash for the potluck suppers, don’t they. Plus all the elderly people who don’t like to use their cards. There’s usually about five hundred quid whenever I clear it out.’
‘Her phone was open on Skyscanner,’ I say. ‘She was looking at flights to Munich.’
‘What, do you think she was looking at flights for herself, for now?’
‘Maybe. I need to call Marcus.’ I take the stairs back up to Simon’s flat two at a time to reach my phone, with Simon close on my heels.
Marcus is on another call and doesn’t accept mine. I keep calling and he keeps not accepting.
‘God,’ I say. Okay. I send him a message telling him about the money and Skyscanner, and then I look at Simon. ‘We have to do something if she is flying to Germany. I just can’t remember what outward airport she’d put.’
‘Heathrow probably. That’s the airport people from here use most. And she’d go there by train or coach.’
‘We’ve got to do something,’ I say. ‘Let’s go round to Marcus’s and speak to him in person if he’s there. And in the meantime keep calling him.’
Simon nods.
We’re just outside the café when Marcus finally picks up and I tell him about the money and the flight.