IN PRINCESS WOODS

A bitter mother's malign influence on her daughter

IN PRINCESS WOODS

Ruby Grimshaw knew that she loved Michael Harrison but she didn’t think to tell him until it was too late. And that was last Wednesday when she discovered his mangled naked body in Princess Woods.

She had known him for ages, in a distant sort of way and had even started off by liking him because he’d smiled when he said hello to her for the very first time.

But that very first tie had been ages ago, when she’d been little more than a toddler going to her very first school. And he’d smiled at her and told her he was called Michael Harrison and wasn’t it fun starting school, and she’d sort of shrivelled up inside because he was a boy and she hated boys.

It was what mummy had always told her: that she hated boys.

“But why, mummy?” she had asked, and had added, “Michael Harrison seems quite nice.”

“But he’s a boy and you hate boys,” mummy had said, and then had added in a more threatening tone of voice, “don’t you, Ruby my dear?”

“But you liked daddy,” she had dared to suggest because it made sense that mummy liked daddy or they wouldn’t do some of the things they did when they were in bed together, would they, before he’d disappeared?

“Mummy divorced daddy,” her mother had replied, her voice triumphant. “That means mummy hates daddy,” she had added, and that just had to be that, until Ruby was eleven and going to the comprehensive school.

And before she went mummy had produced a long flexible stick, waved it in front of her face, and said,

“We need to have a serious talk,” to her.

She’d threatened her with that stick before, told her just how much it would hurt her if she hit her with it, but had never actually done it. But now she was looking severe.

“Yes, mummy?” she had whispered.

“Now you’re good girl aren’t you, Ruby?”

Of course she was! “Yes, mummy,” she had acknowledged, “you know I am.”

“And you know the big school you’re going to the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, mummy, Carlton Comprehensive.”

“And you know who goes there, Ruby?”

“Girls and boys. Lots of girls and boys,” she replied.

“Yes, Ruby. Boys and girls. Not just girls, but boys as well! But not like your old school where the boys are all your size or smaller, but big boys as well. Big boysoys who want to do nasty things to girls, especially to pretty girls like you…”

And so it had gone on The things that might happen to her if she wasn’t being ultra careful, the things that must be avoided at all costs.

“But, mummy, didn’t you meet daddy at school?” she dared to ask, and her mother flicked her stick so close to her back that she could feel a puff of wind as it passed.

“We don’t talk about that b*****d, and anyway, he’s dead.” The words shot from her mother like verbal bullets from an alphabetic gun.

“And there was one rule that must always be obeyed or I’ll flail the skin off your back,” came the final threat, “Ruby must make quite sure than no boy ever goest anywhere near her bra.”

“But I don’t have a bra, mummy,” she had said.

“But you will, the day after tomorrow,” her mother had foretold.

And she had! It meant, said mummy that from now on she was untouchable.

“Especially by evil boys.”

“Was daddy one of those?” she dared to ask.

“Your daddy did something to me and put me with child,” growled mummy, “and you were born.”

“I know,” sighed Ruby.

“And then he died in the woods,” muttered the older woman, “a mess, it was, him going out into the wilds looking for a piece of totty to despoil, and finding one. Or so they say”

“And Robbie, was born,” sighed Ruby, “my baby brother. I would have loved to have a brother to play with. Some girls at my old school say how it’s fun having a brother, playing football, kicking balls around, that sort of thing.”

“Boys are rotten and you don’t have anything to do with them. That’s why we had to find a new home for nasty Robbie” Her mother’s voice was fierce. It put an end to the talk.

And the very day she started at Carlton Comprehensive she found herself walking along with Michael Harrison, and he was jolly and decent and looking forwards to science lessons with a huge amount of enthusiasm. And then, when he’d told her quite a lot about the solar system with special references to Mars he changed the subject quite abruptly.

“I really like you, Ruby,” he said, and added to make sure she understood, “I always have.”

“And you’re nice,” she dared to say, and then she ran off. He was a boy and she’d actually said he was nice! Mummy had better not hear of that or that stick of hers might finally get some use.

But one thing could be said of Michael Harrison and that was he persisted. Next day he stopped her on her way to school and asked her what might be wrong with him that she hated him like she most obviously did.

She was stuck for words and ended up saying, quite feebly, “you’re a boy.”

“Oh,” h said, frowning, “does that mean you’re gay?

“I don’t know,” she told him, because she had no idea what he meant, “but my mother says that boys can ruin girls.”

“We can if we’re rotten,” he told her, “but I’m not like that.,”

From then on she spent some time at school and going back and forth to the place with Michael Harrison and she even got to wondering if what he mother had taught her about boys might not be perfectly true. She was in her late teens, the sixth form at Carlton Comprehensive, when she dared broach the subject to her blessed mother again.

“Tell me about daddy,” she asked, thinking it might be a back door into an awkward conversation.

“He was a b*****d,” snarled mother, “and much better off dead.”

“How did he die, mum?” she dared to ask because hitherto it had seemed that the question was taboo. But she wanted to know.

“He was savagely murdered and it served him right,” snapped her mother.

“But he was your husband!” almost wailed Ruby, “the man you married, the man you loved!”

Her mother’s face twisted into a vicious reflection of what it had been.

“Loved?” she barked, “the man I married? I hated the b*****d and only married him for his money!

“But you loved him!”

“What does a simpering little b***h like you know about love and marriage? A man marries a woman for her flesh and a woman marries a man for his wealth, full stop! So when your father wandered off into Princess Woods I knew he was only after one thing and that was totty! That’s why he died! Because he was in the right place at the right time to put his wedding tackle to some use! And she was a common little s**t, all short skirts and no knickers and long, long legs!”

“Michael Harrison isn’t like that,” whispered Ruby, “and I really, really like him.”

“Pah!” her mother screeched at her, “go on then, find him in Princess Woods! You and your fancy little boyfriend, think I don’t know anything about him? I’m looking after you my young lady, just like I looked after your father and the little brother who couldn’t quite make it!”

Ruby’s eyes opened wide and suddenly she saw the hugeness of parental folly. Then suddenly she found herself running like the wind towards the woods a mile away. She wanted Robbie, to tell him something, before it was too late…

© Peter Rogerson 17.06.23

...