Authors: Non Pratt
The time we portmanteaued our names into Stuby and couldn’t stop laughing at how lame it sounded.
Talking about music, lying on our sides, noses almost touching, or in his car, the windows down and the stereo up…
Him teaching me how to peel a satsuma so the skin comes off in the shape of a cock and balls.
Showing him my portfolio of line work I’d been developing, copying tattoos I found on Google Images, geometric patterns and tessellations – drawing, drawing until I found a style of my own.
Him handing me a Sharpie marker and asking me to draw him a new tattoo and the anatomical heart I drew on his chest with an arrow through it:
Stu hearts Ruby
. A week later he’d turned my design into a T-shirt for my birthday. Just the heart and the arrow, positioned over the left of my chest. No words necessary.
The evenings when all I wanted was to be held and told that Lee leaving my house was not Lee leaving my life and it didn’t matter that I’d never be the daughter my parents wanted me to be so long as I was the person
I
wanted to be.
But none of that added up to enough to keep him faithful and I force myself to relive the memory of Stu sitting astride the wall that borders the dunes, facing me but looking through me, eyes sad, voice deadened. The chill I felt because I knew what he was going to say and the ache it turned into as he found the words to tell me that he’d slept with someone else.
I play it over and over and over and over until my time is up.
Until the memory of the time after that sneaks in. The time Stu turned up at my door. I tried to slam it in his face, but Stu was too fast and too strong.
“Please. Five minutes.”
I let him in as far as the lounge, where I sat on the armchair and Stu picked the closest corner of the couch.
“What do you want, Stu?” I kept my eyes trained on the patch of carpet where Ed spilled red wine at Christmas. You can only tell if you know to look for it.
“You.”
I made the mistake of looking up. Stu looked rough, dark under the eyes and more than a five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. He played with his labret piercing as he watched me.
“If you really wanted me,” I said, “you wouldn’t have—” I stalled … rebooted. “You wouldn’t have shagged someone else.”
Stu looked down at his fingers then back at me. His gaze was so sharp that it hooked into me, pulling me towards him. “You knew what I was like when we got together. You
knew
I didn’t do relationships until I met you. Five
months
, Ruby. I’d barely lasted five days before then. I’d never met someone I wanted to stay faithful to—”
“Why did you stop wanting to?”
“What?” He frowned before catching up. “I didn’t. I was angry –
hurt
– and I was drunk and it was too easy. She was all over me…”
“Could you stop talking, please?” I said, wishing I could erase the echo of his words in my head. “I don’t need to hear this.”
“But you do. I want you to understand that it meant nothing to me at all. She meant nothing.” He dropped off the sofa so he was kneeling on the floor in front of me, his face level with mine.
“How is that
better
? That you were happy to throw away
everything
for someone whose name you can’t even remember?” I’d started crying, wishing desperately, uselessly, that I could stop. I don’t cry.
“We don’t have to throw it away. I’m sorry, Ruby. I fucking
love
you.” He stopped. Swallowed. His fingers rested on either side of my face, our foreheads touching as he looked me in the eyes. “I. Love. You.” I blinked away the tears that blurred my vision. “I have never loved anyone before you.”
But I believed him even less than when he’d first said it.
“Your five minutes is up,” I said.
There’s clusters of people spread out across the grass around the Heavy Tent and it takes a while to find a space. Once we do, Lauren embarks upon making a daisy chain whilst I hold up my flower crown, framing the central peak of the tent against the sky, and take a photo to send to Mum.
All good here. How was your date last night?
It doesn’t take long for her to reply:
Good. He enjoyed the cassoulet you cooked
.
I almost choke in horror as I hammer away at my phone.
YOU LET HIM COME TO YOUR HOUSE ON A FIRST DATE? THAT’S REALLY DANGEROUS!!!
It’s like she’s never watched
Silent Witness
or
Luther
or
CSI
. All of which she’s got entered on her dating profile as her favourite TV shows.
Who said it was a first date?
I’m confused. Who did you send me a photo of?
That was tonight’s one, the one I need the red clutch for. That *is* a first date. Last night was Tony. You’d already vetted him
.
Mum has a curious definition of “vet” – I’ve never met any of these men.
Don’t invite tonight’s one round to the house
.
Her reply’s as fast as if she’s actually sitting next to me:
Sex at his, then?
“I give up.” I murmur the words as I type.
“On what?” Lauren holds up a chain of four daisies and pulls a face at it.
“My mum. She invited a man from the Internet over to her house. For dinner,” I add, since I don’t want Lauren getting the wrong impression about my mum. (Even though it would be an accurate one.)
“Your mum dates men off the Internet?”
“Doesn’t everyone’s?” I feel a bit defensive, having inadvertently opened up my mum’s love life for review, but Lauren just laughs.
“I hope not! Mine’s married to my dad.”
Sometimes I forget that other people have normal parents. Parents who don’t give their daughters boxes of condoms and rape alarms as presents. Parents who think a boyfriend in the hand is better than ten at a festival. Parents who know when the cat needs flea treatment and how to reset tripped fuses.
Even with my help, the daisy chain is only two links longer when there’s an especially discordant crash of guitars that fades to feedback and people start to emerge from the Heavy Tent, surrounded in a miasma of dust and gently steaming skin.
“Hottie alert.” Lauren whistles through her teeth exactly the way Ruby would, before glancing nervously at me. “Don’t tell Tom I said that.”
As if Tom has any grounds for objection.
“My lips are sealed.” I link the ends of our rather woeful chain together and look up. “Where?”
“Twelve o’clock. Looks kind of familiar…” She’s frowning.
When I look up, my heart sinks. It’s Stu. He’s walking in this direction, talking to someone obscured from view by a clot of burly metal-heads wearing an ill-judged amount of black leather. The vest Stu’s wearing is ripped along the seam and as he twists to say something to his companion, the material flaps open to reveal the dark fingers of his tattoo curled around his side like a giant clawed hand. Watching him approach is like seeing a magnet dragged through iron filings with every girl’s attention aligning as he passes.
Next to me, Lauren murmurs, “Be still, my beating ovaries.” Which I find disappointing – I always imagine a Venn diagram of people who fancy Stu and people who fancy Tom to be two entirely exclusive circles.
“You know Stuart Garside, then?” I ask, surprised. Lauren told me she lives in the next town inland and goes to a completely different school from anyone I know in Clifton.
Lauren waggles her hand. “I know the name. And the face.”
I guess Stu’s reputation carries further than I thought.
“Who’s that he’s with?” she asks, and with dismay I realize who it is.
“That’s Owen,” I say. “One of the boys we’re camping with.”
Owen and Stu are about to walk right past us when Lauren asks, “Shouldn’t you say something?”
Reluctantly, I stand and call for Owen.
Owen scans the surrounding area as he approaches, clearly relieved at the lack of Ruby. Stu’s expression is less easy to interpret.
“Owen, this is Lauren. Lauren, this is Owen. We like Owen.” Owen reaches out to shake Lauren’s hand, sees the dirt that’s gathered in the creases of his palm and retracts it into a wave, before wiping his hands on his shorts. Stu watches me, eyebrows cocked as I mutter, “This is Stu. We’re not so keen on him.”
This time it’s Lauren leaning in for a handshake as she says, “Hi. I’m Lauren.”
Stu meets her eye. “Oh, I know who you are.” Lauren blinks at him in flattered surprise so that she doesn’t see his attention flicker to me. “I know your boyfriend, Tom.”
I think back to the undercurrent of unspoken things that passed between him and Tom last night and I feel like strangling him. And Tom. And possibly myself for being so stupid. I’m very throttle-happy today.
Lauren is so flummoxed by this recognition that when Stu asks where Tom is, I’m the one forced to reply – although my one-word answer of “Hospital” is enough to prompt Lauren into a lengthier explanation.
“… Kaz has been awesome, letting me tag along with her so I might actually get to see some bands. Plus it’s about time we got to know each other.” She beams brightly in my direction as if I’m someone worthy of knowing.
I feel anything but and when Stu’s eyes flash with amusement, the thought of him seeing the way I was around Tom last night crawls under my skin until I actually have to scratch.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I’m anxious in case Ruby arrives. It’ll be hard enough explaining the Lauren situation to her without Stu here to disrupt things. “Friends of your own to irritate?”
“You’re going to have to stop disapproving of me at some point, Kaz.” Stu smirks.
“Unlikely.”
Owen, who has been preoccupied wiping his face on the front of his T-shirt, now clamps a hand on Stu’s shoulder.
“Go away, Garside. You know who we’re waiting for.” Owen’s warning isn’t without warmth and Stu feigns injury.
“That’s me told. Nice to meet you, Lauren. Later, Kaz, O…”
But as the boys clamp forearms in farewell, Owen’s fingers tighten briefly around Stu’s as he looks him in the eye. “I meant what I said. Steer clear.”
The humour vanishes from Stu’s face so that I almost see something real in his eyes – something that has more in common with hurt than with anger. “I thought we were friends?”
“We are.” Owen relaxes his grip and steps away. “But family comes first.”
“You and Lee get married on the sly, did you?” Stu waves away whatever reply Owen was about to make. “I get it: stay away from Ruby. First Kaz, now you – you want a go, Lauren?”
But Lauren holds her hands up in surrender. “I’m just a bystander. I literally have no idea what any of this is about.”
“Guess Kaz has some explaining to do.” Stu’s eyes bore into me for a moment, before he turns away, his gait more predatory than ever.
“What were you doing fraternizing with the enemy?” I say to Owen, aware that Lauren’s attention is still focused on Stu’s diminishing figure.
“Stu’s not the enemy, Kaz.” Owen looks at me carefully. “Just because someone makes a bad boyfriend, doesn’t make them a bad person.”
“Whatever he is, Stu’s bad news,” I mutter.
I hold on to the thick wire supporting the Heavy Tent and watch as he talks to them. In a moment, I will worry about what Lauren’s doing there, but for now, the only person I have eyes for is Stu.
Whatever I’m feeling, it can’t be healthy, or I wouldn’t feel so faint.
Alternatively, perhaps I need to eat.
My throat closes at the thought of food, my body reverting to the weird kind of lockdown it went into after I dumped Stu.
I’m not sure whether my hands are clamped so tight around the guy rope because I’d crumple to the ground without the support, or because it’s an anchor stopping me from getting swept over to Stu on a wave of weak willpower.
He’s leaving now, sent away before I get there, by Owen or Kaz, not by Lauren, judging by the way her gaze follows him. It’d be hypocritical of me to criticize her for it as I watch him prowl through the crowd.
For a moment, just before he turns around the corner of the stalls towards the main stage, Stu’s eyes slide in my direction.
We stare at each other for a fraction of a second.
Then he’s gone, walking away with the crowd, and whatever spell he had on me vanishes with the sight of him.
Seriously. What the fuck is Lauren doing here?
She got my name wrong.
Rachel?
Fuck. Right. Off.
“It’s Ruby. As in ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby’…?” I Kaiser Chiefs it.
Blank look.
“As in ‘Ruby Soho’.” Best track on
…And Out Come the Wolves
, a stone-cold classic.
Lauren screws her face up.
“As in the gemstone.”
“Well, obviously.” The look I get very clearly indicates that she thinks I’m a nut job before her expression opens up in astonishment. “Oh my God, are you the Ruby that Stuart Garside was just talking about?”
I glower at Kaz for an explanation, but it’s Owen who steps in. “Garside is Ruby’s ex, if that’s what you mean.”
Love Owen for putting it that way and my heart trembles at the small sympathetic smile he gives me.
“I can’t believe you
dated
him!” I am really not liking her tone. I might not be a fox, but I’m not a complete moose either. Also “dated” is a revolting word.
“We went out for a bit. It’s over now.”
“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Lauren singsongs and I want to punch her.
“Not wishing to be rude” –
so
wishing to be much ruder – “but why are you here?”
Ruby doesn’t take the news well.
We walk back to our spot on the hill. When we get there, Dongle moves over to make space for Lauren and Kaz and it is
very
tempting to shout across and ask if Lauren is “that fit girl from the tearooms” who he was talking about yesterday, because she’s the one who is going out with Rugby Tom. A fact that no one seems to be acknowledging, because IT WOULD BE TOO FUCKING WEIRD.
That’s not the only thing that’s weird, because Kaz and Lauren don’t just have matching taste in Toms, they also have matching fake-flower crowns. Sitting together, Kaz in a sun dress and Lauren wearing a pretty cotton vest, they look like a pair of fairies made real. All they need are the wings. I look down at the limp-looking daisy chain Kaz pushed on to my wrist, my big black boots and faded Army & Navy vest.