Ruby's War by Johanna Winard Page A

on your own here, love? I don’t know how long Jenny will be across the way, and Sadie’s working until late. Then she’ll probably go to Lou’s. She’s going to be upset, no doubt.’
    â€˜Can Bess stay here?’ she asked.
    â€˜I suppose so, but watch she doesn’t upset Monty if you take her outside. I don’t want him upset. Or the hens. They can be put off laying, see.’
    When Granddad had gone, she took Bess into the yard. She couldn’t hear any sounds from the cottages down the lane, and she thought that Mrs Lathom would be exhausted after so much sobbing and Jenny might be helping her to bed.
    When her mother died Ruby didn’t cry. She’d had the odd feeling that she was floating above everything, looking down on herself. She didn’t cry when Auntie Ethel moved her out of the room she’d shared with her mother and into the box room, or when Ethel had thrown all her mother’sstage make-up away. She didn’t cry at the funeral, when her mother’s friends from the theatre hugged her and left her face sticky with lipstick kisses. Then weeks later her teacher had read her class a story called
Black Beauty,
about a horse that was treated cruelly. When they read about the horse’s death quite a lot of girls cried, but Ruby couldn’t stop. In the end, the teacher took her into the office, and the caretaker made her a cup of tea.
    Ruby tried to imagine what Jack was like. She wondered if he was handsome. She’d thought the soldier on Preston station was quite handsome and imagined Maggie Joy sitting in her sunny bedroom stroking the creased envelope. She wondered if she should have written on the back to explain to Maggie Joy how her soldier boyfriend had given her the letter at the railway station.
    Ruby could hear Bess snuffling in the garden and followed her. On the other side of the lane, she could see the dark outline of Bardley’s farm and the illegal slivers of light leaking through the gaps in the milking parlour’s wooden door. The sky was clear. It was a night that would be good for the bombers. Then the hens in the shed began clucking, and she called softly for Bess and went back inside.
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    Bo pushed open the pub door and the others followed. The air was warm and smelt of beer and cigarettes. When his customers fell silent, the portly landlord, who was reading a newspaper on the bar, looked up and reached for one of the glass tankards hanging above his head.
    â€˜Now, lads,’ he said with a smile, ‘the first pints are on me.’
    On the other side of the bar, a row of men in overallsand railway workers’ uniforms stared over at them, as the landlord took down five glass tankards hanging above his head and pumped each one full of pale golden beer. For a moment, the five pint glasses stood on the bar. Then the landlord handed one to each of them, before taking the final one for himself.
    â€˜Your good health, sir,’ Bo said raising his glass to the landlord.
    â€˜And yours too, son,’ replied the landlord.
    The beer was the colour of honey but tasted bitter. Con found the sensation of warm beer in his mouth unpleasant. He tried to avoid meeting the eyes of the silent men on the opposite side of the bar and forced the bitter liquid down. Bo was the first one to put his pint glass back on the bar, and with relief, Con did the same.
    â€˜That’s a mighty nice drink, sir,’ Bo said, wiping a line of white froth from his pencil-slim moustache.
    â€˜Aye, we like to think so,’ replied the landlord. ‘Cheers.’
    â€˜Aye, cheers,’ called the men on the opposite side of the bar, suddenly nodding and smiling as Con put the glass to his lips again.
    The room on their side of the bar was in semi-darkness, lit only by the wall lights and the blazing coal fire. An elderly couple with sunken faces sat at one side of the fire, and on the other side of the hearth, a British soldier