Ruby Tuesday

RUBY TUESDAY

“Just back off for me will you … please?” asked Rose. “I’ll never get the job if you’re applying for it as well … “She must have noticed the mutinous look on my face because she said pleadingly, “Please Ruby …”

I shook my head, “I can’t Rose … I really want this job. I’ve always wanted to work in the school library and this is just too good an opportunity to miss … “I glance at her from the corner of my eye. At her pretty face, light blue eyes framed with long black lashes set above high cheekbones, the lips shaped like a fancy bow on a gift, the lower one being as thick and fleshy as a seductive pout. A face that I gaze at every day. Oh … not Rose’s face, but my own, barely noticing it really though. Rose’s face is my mirror. Rose is my identical twin.

We’re in our home town, Emsworth in Hampshire, sitting on the harbour wall, our legs, long and tanned, dangling down. A wrinkly expanse of sand spread with rock pools and seaweed sparkles in the sunshine and boats, lopsided and abandoned, patiently wait for the tide. People carrying buckets and spades dig deep searching for seafood for tea and kids with massive nets try to catch scuttling crabs.

Seagulls squawk overhead, one flying low enough to try to steal the sandwich from Rose’s hand. Horrified, she bats it away and ducks her head, as it gives a ghostly squeal and flutters into the clouds. The sun, hot and yellow as a bowl of custard, scuds across the sky pushed by a salty breeze. It’s almost June and we have the whole summer ahead of us. And today is Saturday which is even better.

“Who’s to say you’d get the job anyway?” I ask her, taking a bite of my own food, and attracting unwanted attention from a mass of meaty gulls that hover nearby. “Maybe neither of us will get it.”

“You’ve already got your foot in the door,” she whined. “You’ve got a far better chance than me.”

What she meant was that I already work in the school, a secondary school in Warblington, on the reception desk. I enjoy my job. I love greeting visitors, liaising with teachers and parents, talking with the kids and telling them off when they run along the corridors or push and jostle on the stairs. I get on well with my colleague, Jo, who is super-efficient, smooth and in control. I’d done okay exam wise at school then gone to college to do a computer course. In between I’d passed my driving test which I was really proud of but, the downside, do you know how expensive it is to buy and run a car?

Rose hadn’t done too well at school and had drifted from one low paid job to another before going to college to re-sit her failed exams while I’d gone on ahead and got a job. A job that I could hardly believe was mine at the tender age of nineteen in a school with all the benefits it entailed including the holidays. But now, three years later, Rose, successful exam results tucked firmly under her belt, wanted a good job in a school which just happened to be the job that I wanted too. Surely there were other jobs in other schools? You’d think there would be wouldn’t you!

I know that the two of us need the money, after all we are trying to save for a deposit on our own place. Being happy at home with mum and dad comes second to our need for independence and buying somewhere together is the only way we can afford to do it.

“Will you think about it Ruby?” she asked swallowing the last morsel of sandwich and, crumpling the wrapper in her hand, slid down from the harbour wall and placed it in the nearby bin.

Reluctantly I nodded as we began to walk back down the High Street towards home, past the little gift shops, charity shops and cafes, mum’s work place as a PA, the solicitors “Butcher & Steele” and the two most popular pubs in Emsworth, the rough wooden seats outside already taken on such a warm day, the Bluebell and the Coal Exchange. We attracted a lot of stares as usual from strangers but friendly nods and waves from the locals, with our identical looks and clothes.

I always tried to dress in private, which is difficult when you share a room, even a room with a divider decorated with fancy butterflies and flowers set square down the middle, so that I could at least be different from Rose but as if by magic she always seemed to know what I would be wearing that day. Ha, I suspected that she had some sort of physic powers. Today we wore matching denim shorts and tee-shirts with trainers. “Do you spy on me when I’m dressing?” I asked her repeatedly, only for her to vehemently deny it. Today, like a couple of gypsies, we wore large silver hoop earrings. Now how could she possibly have known that without watching me?

In fact, the only distinguishing mark between us is the large mole that I have to the left of my nose. “Thank God for that mole,” Mum always said, “It was the only way me and your Dad could tell the two of you apart when you were babies.”

Of course I’d been teased unmercifully by our so called “friends” at school. “Oh you mean, Ruby with the mole that lives in the hole?” I remember Leanne saying in a sing song voice and Claire took great pleasure in calling me Simon Templar because the hero from an old programme in the seventies had a mole just like mine. Mum and Dad laughed at that a lot. “Look,” said Claire, showing them a picture on her phone, “I think he’s called Roger Moore.”

“Yes,” agreed Dad, “He was Simon Templar, and the programme was called “The Saint”. One of my favourites.”

“When you’re an old lady,” I remember Rose saying one sunny day as we played in the garden, “You’ll have long spiky hairs growing from your mole like a wicked witch.” That comment made me cry and I ran to Mum in a frenzy, tears pouring down my cheeks.

“You won’t say anything about the job to Mum and Dad will you?” whispered Rose, bringing me out of my reverie, as we walked up the garden path and entered the house through the wide open back door. There was a lovely smell of cooking and Mum, May Deacon (named for the month she was born), turned from the stove and smiled, telling us that tea wouldn’t be too long.

“We’ve just had a snack,” I told her, “So we can wait …”

She frowned and I suspected was just about to tell us off for eating so soon before tea but changed her mind and said, “How’s Emsworth on this fine sunny day?” She peered over her shoulder and fixed us with her dark brown gaze, so unlike mine and Rose’s light blue eyes without a doubt inherited from our Dad, Doctor Stan Deacon, who was at work as we spoke in his small GP practice, just three partners, in nearby Havant. Our dark hair definitely came from Mum though.

“Crazy busy as usual,” we said in unison.

“I’ll call you when it’s ready,” she replied, “When Dad’s home …”

“Well?” asked Rose, as we climbed the stairs to our room, “You won’t, will you?”

“No, I won’t say anything to anyone,” I whispered back, “But I need time to think Rose … I’m really interested in this job.”

Sitting down on my neat and tidy bed, I noticed that Rose’s side of the room was a mess as usual. Piles of books littered the floor along with screwed up tissues and empty chocolate wrappers (even though she said she was always watching her weight!). It drove me mad!

I went to the window and, opening it wider, looked out on the garden that was bursting with colourful flowers. Bees buzzed amongst their silky soft petals collecting nectar for the yummy honey that I drizzled over my breakfast every morning. The lawn looked ragged, the grass being slightly too long and needing mowing which I was sure would be Dad’s first job when he got in from work. Yeah, even before he sat down to eat which was just as well as the sandwich I’d eaten earlier laid heavy as a stone in my full stomach!

Throwing myself back down on my bed I wished for the hundredth time that I had a room of my own but as we lived in a two bedroomed house, there was no chance of that any time soon. Okay this house was only small but as it was in Emsworth and overlooking the harbour it was much sought after. Mum and Dad had lived in it for years, even before we were born, when the whole row of two up, two downs were nondescript, tumbledown, even considered poor dwellings, but they’d done right to buy it as it was now worth more than double the original price.

The smell of salt from the sea wafted through the window and something else too so I wrinkled my nose. Mud! Yeah streaming in on the breeze from Langstone. Langstone on the mud. We’d had fun there as kids squelching in the slimy stuff like basking hippos plastic shoes on our feet, or sitting with our cousins in an old discarded fishing boat, screaming, as crabs scuttled around in the water, and slimy seaweed long as a mermaid’s hair tangled around our legs.

“Have you got a text from Vanessa?” asked Rose interrupting my nostalgic thoughts.

Scrabbling in my bag for my phone I went to messages. “Yeah, meet tonight in the Coal Exchange? No … I don’t think I’ll go … not in the mood …”

Rose’s face peered, frowning, over the top of the divider, “Why?”

I shrugged, “Just as I said, not in the mood.” I knew it would be the same old, same old. Same old group of people. Same old pubs and places. And as well as that, even though I love my sister, do I have to go everywhere with her? I’d tried getting involved with separate groups of people who had interests that I had like writing and art, but Rose always followed me, turning up unannounced and, being the more forceful personality, like an eclipse of the sun, she soon put me firmly in the shade. I don’t think she meant to do it, but it always seemed to happen.

“James will be there,” she said cheekily. “He really likes you, Ruby …” She paused for a minute and then said, “Don’t you think it’s weird that he likes you so much when we look so alike?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, why can’t he settle for me? What’s the difference?”

“Rose …” I said indignantly, “It’s not just looks, we have our own personalities of course …” and then as an afterthought although okay genuinely wanting to know, “Would you like James to take an interest in you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied, “Although he is pretty cute, but too tall for me, I think my neck would suffer eventually and, anyway, I like shorter stockier men, but anyway, what’s the use, it’s you he likes. I think he’s turned on by your mole …”

I smiled and shook my head, God that mole! I’d thought so many times of having it removed but how would people tells us apart if I did? My thoughts turned to James. James Lister. We’d known him and his sister, Lara, since school. He lived nearby, only a couple of streets away and worked in an engineering firm in Emsworth called Sonic on the aptly named Seagull Lane.

He was cute looking, and, as Rose had said, very tall, so much so that I always had to crane my neck to look up into his face. A face that lit up like a switched on light bulb every time he smiled set with deep brown eyes and long long lashes, and all this framed with shoulder length black hair and a fringe that often grew too long so he was always nervously it seemed (especially when I was around) pushing it out of the way with his fingers.

Yeah, I knew he liked me, but I was restless lately and needed a change and becoming romantically involved with a local boy was perhaps not what should be happening at the moment. Maybe it was a good thing that Rose wanted me to “back off” as she said from applying for the library job. Maybe I should leave the school altogether and go travelling.

A sudden idea came to me, exploding in my head like a firecracker, and I thought, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have to leave the school … the six weeks summer holidays are coming up very soon. Instead of staying local with Rose and going on days out to places like Southsea, Hayling Island and the Witterings, or even Prinstead, why don’t I go off alone to … I don’t know … several countries raced through my mind before I came to the obvious one, the nearest one, one that was easy to get to from Portsmouth … France!”

Excitement gripped me and my heart started beating really fast as if I’d been exercising hard with one of those kettlebell things, “Yeah, I could get a ferry from Portsmouth to either Caen or St Malo. St Malo would probably be best, yeah, I’d always wanted to go there, and now this was my chance.”

I glanced at the room divider, imagining Rose lounging on her bed on the other side, nonchalantly scrolling through her phone, head bent, staring at the screen, and making plans for tonight. Thinking about what she was going to wear, wondering what boys would be there. I knew that she quite fancied James’ friend, Steve, and would probably home in on him just to brighten up the evening a bit, while I was planning a holiday miles away from here. What would she say? I knew without a doubt that she would be mad, that she would try to stop me. She wouldn’t be able to go with me because of lack of funds so I would have to keep it a secret. My own little secret.

While she was out tonight, I would google ferry crossings, work out costings and travel dates, and look at accommodation in St Malo. Yes! A big grin split my features until I felt sure that I looked just like one of those yellow smiley face patches that mum painstakingly sewed on her jeans in the nineteen seventies and then, feeling eyes boring in to me, glanced up to see Rose once again peering over the divider.

“What are you grinning at, Ruby Tuesday? You look like the cat that got the cream …”

“Maybe I have,” I said teasingly, feeling buoyed up with the excitement of my big secret, and then hearing the whirring of the mower, jumped up again and peered from the window to see Dad still wearing his suit trousers, shirt sleeves rolled up, trundling backwards and forwards, leaving smooth cut grass in his wake. Our Dad who in his mid-fifties looked at least ten years younger and with his piercing blue eyes and razored greying hair bore the nickname in his little GP practice of “Silver Fox.”

“Dad’s obsessed with that lawn,” said Rose lazily, coming to stand at my side. She stood quietly for a few minutes before saying, “James will be sure to ask about you tonight, as I said before, he really likes you … do you think he stands any chance at all?”

I glanced at her and said, “No, not at the moment, I don’t want a local boy … I …” Mum’s shout up the stairs telling us to come down for tea interrupted our conversation, although I just had a few seconds to change the subject and say, “I won’t stand in your way, Rose, I’ll back off from the library job as you asked me to …”

Surprise opening her blue eyes wide, Rose replied, “Oh wow, Ruby, thank you …”

“It doesn’t mean you’ll get it though, Rose, other people in the school, far more qualified people, are interested in it too you know.”

She nodded and squeezed my hand in another thank you as we left the room and sped down the stairs to the dining room. Thoughts whirred around in my head like washing in a machine. An ugly green imp suddenly appeared on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. “What have you done giving up on applying for the job so easily?” “You wanted that job, it could have been yours.”

Be strong I thought to myself as I turned my head and with difficulty glared at the ugly green imp, “Yes, but I might not get it anyway,” and “I need an adventure before I turn old and sour … France beckons …”

“You okay Ruby?” asked Rose, giving me an odd look, as we took our seats and gazed around at the dishes that stood on the table, steaming dishes full of vegetables and potatoes and the piece de resistance Mum’s special chicken casserole. I nodded my head, “Of course I am.”

“Ha,” said Dad happily, clapping his hands together, a smile creasing his face, “My girls … my double the trouble …what adventures have you been up to today?” Yeah … double the trouble. The tale of Dad at our birth was legendary and had been told many times at many family gatherings.

It always went like this with Dad holding a captive audience right in the palm of his hand, “Right in front of my startled eyes, the first one, Ruby, popped out (he’d look around at the audience then, blue eyes glittering, and say, “I knew it was Ruby because of the mole) (this always got a good round of laughter) and, after peering closely, and shaking my head, I’d said, “Hmm … a girl … one is trouble …” and then the second one, Rose, slipped out and, peering closely at this one too and shaking my head again I’d said, “Hmm … another girl … and two is double the trouble …”

Of course as Rose had been born second, she’d always been known as the after birth, the placenta … which, not at all amusing to her, made me smile every time. And then of course there’s our names. I’m Ruby Tuesday because Mum and Dad have always been really big fans of the Rolling Stones and Rose is Rose Marie because of their love of country music! “That’s not the only reason,” Mum always told us, “You were both so precious to us … and a ruby is a precious jewel and a rose a precious flower.”

“Well?” asked Dad, as Mum chivvied us to take plenty of vegetables. “Adventures? Come on girls, let’s hear about your escapades today …”

I had to grin at Dad’s word “adventures” … very apt. Excitement rose high up in my chest and into my throat just like Christmas morning as my secret impending adventure came to mind. Rose, giving me a look which clearly said, “Don’t you dare tell them about the library job,” we began to tell him about our day, whilst helping ourselves plentifully to the good food.