Page 32 of Between Us

‘Yes,’ Matt said, in a flat voice. He didn’t seem remotely pleased by the cameo, more like he was condemned to trudge to the scaffold.

Ruby turned to the two men. ‘Bring my luggage into the hallway, Mark. Drop it anywhere, until we’ve chosen rooms.’

Luggage?Choosing rooms? Who were the entourage?

It was spectacularly evident that they did not have the full story of Ruby from Hinge, the reverse catfish.

19

‘I’ll need a bedroom at the back, if there’s one on that side of the house,’ Ruby said to Matt, as if there were only two of them present, as opposed to eight of them round the dining table, having filed back in for a pudding that had been unfortunately, yet inevitably, abandoned. Plus, their number included a pedigree dog and two men who looked like agents fromThe Matrixroaming somewhere in the bowels of the house beyond.

‘Mark and Ted will need rooms, too, but I presume you have plenty of space. Is this everyone?’ She surveyed the stupefied gallery of faces.

Youpresumequite a lot, huh,Roisin thought.

Matt went round the table, pointing and reciting their first names, as Ruby stared.

‘I can’t be around phones, I’m afraid,’ Ruby said to Gina, who was toying with her iPhone as a displacement activity. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, just …’

She pointed with both her index fingers, down the length of the table, shaking them lightly, like an air hostess indicating where the aisle lights were.

‘What?’ Gina said, not unreasonably.

‘I can’t have phones present, if you don’t mind. No cameras. No photos. Easiest to say phones away. People forget.’

Ruby returned to whispering sweet nothings to the bum-faced mutt.

‘No, I don’t understand. No one’s taking photos,’ Gina said, and Roisin winced.

‘I know you are not taking photographs,’ Ruby said with a sort of solemn, exaggerated graciousness. ‘You understand, however, it’s simpler not to risk it at all.’

‘You keep saying I understand why you don’t want photos – I really don’t?’ Gina said, her tone now openly querulous.

‘I’m a person with a profile,’ Ruby said.

There followed a pause in which everyone wondered how to politely vocalisewhat the fuck.

‘A what?’ Gina said. ‘Anita’s got a big following on Instagram too, she doesn’t care.’

‘I mean I’m a prominent creative.’ She flicked her curtain of immaculate cinnamon hair back over her shoulder. ‘Oh, Granville, no! Oh, he’s shy, bless him,’ she said, as the dog abruptly disembarked from her lap and began rhythmically headbutting the door. ‘Shy’ wasn’t how Roisin would characterise his behaviour.

Ruby had a very unusual manner to go with the uncommon accent: sort of Head Girl in a boarding school, combined with the rigidly poised, religiose self-certainty of a West Coast wellness guru. Roisin could imagine her selling you a five grand cucumber juice enema in a way that made it clear you were lucky she’d even speak to someone with a non-salad flavoured arse.

Roisin cast a look at Matt, who looked a queasy stew of both hideously stressed and lightly stunned. Why? A date inserting herself like this was embarrassing, but he seemed exceptionally ill at ease for a man who usually carried himself effortlessly.

‘Do you want some wine or tiramisu, Ruby?’ Dev said pleasantly, the only one remembering she was a guest, albeit one who’d fallen out of the sky.

‘Thank you, I’ve brought my own food,’ she said, as she settled the pedigree dog back on her lap. ‘And I don’t drink. Trying to persuade Matthew it’s the way to go. I’ll get there …’

She tinkled a laugh, showing a mouthful of exceptionally white, expensive dentistry.

‘Wasn’t your Lisbon trip a wine tour?’ Meredith said.

‘I taste and spit,’ Ruby said, poker faced, which was absolutely begging for the kind of punchline no one dared supply.

There was something about Ruby that was nagging at Roisin. As she stared at her peculiarly perfect, tiny features, her creamy, shimmering skin, she realised what it was. She could, for some reason, exactly picture her in Forties garb. Pencil-thin eyebrows, dark lipstick drawing a cupid’s bow. Curled and pinned hair, a wartime bride’s cap-like veil over the top, with the voile flowing from ear level.

Where had she seen Ruby before, and why would it be from that era? Was she the world’s most assertive ghost? The Bossy Lady? Had Roisin erased the memory of a fancy dress party?

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