To Love and Be Loved(93)

‘I think about it a lot,’ Ruby confessed.

‘Well, don’t. Stop it! It’s stupid and destructive and we’ve just lost our dad – our family’s got a little bit smaller, and Dad’s right: we need to be tight and close and supportive. We have never needed each other more than we do right now. We need to look after each other, hold each other close, celebrate the good and not dwell on the bad. That’s what he said.’

‘You’re right.’ Ruby nodded. ‘I’m tired of feeling mad at you because of my own stupid insecurity. It’s like it’s built up. It started as a joke when we were kids, but then I didn’t know how to stop it, how to be different. I do love you, Merry.’

‘And I love you.’ She felt a lightness to her being as Ruby’s posture softened and she and her sister sat quietly in an atmosphere of calm.

‘I wish my babby had met Dad.’ Her lips trembled.

Merrin reached for her hand and held it, mitten to mitten. ‘I remember saying once to him that I wished Gramps was here, and he told me he was, and I think the same. I think Dad’s here with us, and so are Gran and Gramps; I think they always will be.’

‘I think so too.’ Ruby wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘We’re going to be okay, aren’t we, Merry?’

‘We sure are. We’re Kellow girls.’

‘Kellow girls,’ Ruby repeated.

‘Oi!’ Bella shouted from the top of Fore Street, waving from the other side of the slipway as she pushed baby Glynn in his pram in the early-morning sun.

‘She’s got some gob on her,’ Ruby noted.

‘She has. I sometimes hear her yell when I’m in Thornbury.’

They both laughed a little, as much as their sadness would allow.

Bella came close and jumped up on to the wall with baby Glynn snug as a bug, asleep and swaddled warmly in his pram.

‘Look at us all up and out like early birds!’ Merrin commented.

‘Actually, I haven’t been to bed,’ Bella corrected her. ‘Not in the way we used to in the olden days when I didn’t have to be a responsible adult and we danced till dawn, but in the way that I got drinking tea, and then before I knew it, the sun was coming up, and here I am. I thought the funeral was the best it could be.’ Bella smiled. ‘I think we did Ben proud and Jarv did so good with them singers.’

‘He really did.’ Ruby beamed with a pride that was heartening.

‘And you’re heading back to Thornbury and Miguel this afternoon?’ Bella pulled a sad face.

‘I am; need to find a way to hide my eyes that I’ve cried into little puffy slits and my sore nose that won’t stop running. I look a right state.’

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you it is what’s inside that counts?’

‘Oh, Bells! Says the girl who won’t go out to the doorstep to collect the milk if she hasn’t got her push-up bra in place,’ Ruby tutted.

‘I wasn’t talking about what my mother told me, I was talking about what her mother told her!’ Her friend gave the thin defence.

‘Do you really believe that, Bells? That the outside wrapping doesn’t matter?’ Ruby snorted her laughter. ‘Cos you sure used to spend a lot of time making sure you were nicely wrapped!’

‘Truthfully?’ Bella seemed to consider this. ‘I think men want the whole package. They want you to be funny, smart and sexy.’

‘What about what we want?’ Merrin asked a little sheepishly.

‘The same, I think, and why not?’ Bella stood her ground.

‘Agree.’ Ruby looked up to the bedroom window where her husband slept. ‘I guess I got lucky with my Jarv.’

She and Bella looked from one to another, as if not quite seeing the same level of appeal, but knowing what voicing it would mean, even in jest.

‘You sure did.’ Merrin snuggled up to her sister.

‘I can’t see myself dating any time soon.’ Bella checked on Glynn. ‘It’s not the dating that bothers me as much as the idea of stripping off in front of a stranger . . .’ She exhaled. ‘Sure, I can glam up the outside, but I caught sight of myself in the mirror yesterday and I’ve got this bulge of tummy that now hangs over my knickers and stretch marks that have destroyed my once immaculate boobs. Honestly, my chest looks like a map of the Nile Delta. I can’t imagine any man finding me remotely attractive. I think I might have to face the fact that the Flying Dutchman might actually be the last man to see me naked and dancing in the candlelight.’

Merrin and Ruby stared at her, and then at each other. Merrin wondered if her sister, like her, was thinking she’d never had the confidence to dance naked in the candlelight, stretch marks or not.

‘And there’s no chance of anything happening with him?’ Ruby asked gently. ‘I know you really liked him. We all did, but I can’t say I’m so keen now after how he’s treated you, just running off like that.’

‘I did. I do.’ Bella smiled warmly at her baby boy. ‘And in his defence—’

‘There is no defence!’ Ruby asserted.

‘In his defence,’ Bella carried on regardless, ‘it was not meant to be any more than a fling and, as I told Merry, he didn’t know about the baby until he was back at sea on the other side of the world. But that ship has definitely, metaphorically and physically, sailed. I hear from him, he sends money for Glynn and we get the odd text and call, but . . .’ She shook her head.