Eddie took the money and gently stroked her cheek. ‘Look after yourself. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you,’ he said as he left her alone.
She lay back down, pulling the covers up over her shoulders. The fire in the bedroom was burning well and, with the rain again rattling against the windows, she took a little comfort in its warmth. Who’d have thought it was August? She shivered as she thought again of her daughter, who should have been a September baby. ‘I’m going to do my best to find you, Sarah,’ she whispered. ‘You deserve to have a decent resting place – and I deserve to be able to pay my respects. As soon as I’m on my feet, I’ll find you . . .’
2
‘I’m not sure you should be out and about so soon. You still look very pale,’ Stella Green said as she accompanied Ruby on her walk into town. ‘It hasn’t been three weeks since . . .’
‘Since my daughter died,’ Ruby finished, giving the older woman a sympathetic look. ‘Please don’t feel you can’t mention it. It’s bad enough indoors, with Mum refusing to talk about it. Her last comment was “it’s done and dusted”, as if I could ever forget about losing Sarah. I’m glad to be out of the house for a while, and away from her advice. I’m all right, honestly I am.’
‘If you say so,’ Stella said, giving her a hard stare. ‘Sarah?’
Ruby’s face looked a little flushed as she tried to explain. ‘I’ve named her Sarah. My baby deserved a name, at the very least. I may never have seen her, but somehow she feels more real if I can think of her as Sarah.’ She looked sideways at the older woman. ‘Do you think I’m daft?’
Stella stopped walking and turned to face her young neighbour. ‘You must do as you feel fit. I wish I’d given my oldest a name. I love my three sons dearly, but my firstborn is a ghost of a person . . . a ghost I reach out to, but can never quite touch,’ she said with a note of sadness to her voice. ‘Giving him a name might well have helped me grieve his death. I was told by my mother that as he hadn’t cried or taken a breath, he was never a person and must be forgotten. When I lost a second child – he was born after my Donald – it was different. I named him and I could grieve; I know him as my little Stanley.’
Ruby slipped her arm through Stella’s and gave it a squeeze. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. It must have been so hard, being your first.’
‘First, second, third. Is it ever any different? I’ve known women never have another child because they couldn’t bear another loss.’
Ruby frowned. ‘But how . . .?’
‘They either had understanding husbands, or they were strong characters and banished their man to another bed.’
Ruby thought of how Eddie had begged and sulked until she had relented and allowed him back into their marital bed, even though she had no interest in what went on between them. In the past few days she had simply gone through the motions of being a wife and mother, her mind firmly on the daughter she’d lost. Eddie and her mum acted as though the pregnancy and Sarah’s death had not occurred. ‘I can understand why they did it,’ she answered, with a haunted look in her eyes.
‘You and me have got a lot in common, Ruby Caselton. There may be nearly thirty years between us, but we’ve both shared a suffering that we hold deep inside us. I’ll always be here for you, if you need to talk about this. Now, let’s get our shopping done, and then I’ll treat us to a cup of tea in the cafe. I reckon we deserve it, don’t you?’
Ruby gave her new friend a weak smile. ‘I’d like that, thank you. There is something else I’d like to speak to you about, but it doesn’t seem right here in the street.’
‘Then leave it until we’re in the cafe. Hopefully we can find a quiet table. Speaking of being quiet, where is your George today?’
‘Mum’s got him. I had to beg her to keep an eye on him, as shopping with a lively child is something I couldn’t cope with today. Give it a while and I’ll be as right as rain and back to normal. Well, if I ever feel really normal again.’
Stella patted her hand, and they continued walking. For Ruby, this outing was her first look around the thriving riverside town. Shiny new trams followed tracks in the road while linked to overhead cables that seemed to be alive. She could hear a distinct hum from the carriages and spotted sparks, which she found unnerving. Businesses and shops filled the two main roads, with horses and carts delivering all kinds of wares to the traders. She even spotted a motor vehicle parked by the cottage hospital. ‘George will love seeing all this,’ she declared, as the uniformed chauffeur nodded good morning to the two women. ‘It’s much posher than where we lived before.’
‘You’re not from Erith, then?’ Stella asked as they stopped by a butcher’s shop and she peered at a display of skinned rabbits in the window. ‘You know, there was a time my husband brought them home for me to skin . . .’
Ruby wrinkled her nose at the thought of skinning an animal. She was partial to a bit of rabbit for her dinner, but didn’t want one in her kitchen wearing its fur coat. ‘I suppose needs must if you’re hungry enough, but I’ve not got the stomach for doing the skinning,’ she said, turning away from the window.
