To Be Someone Read Online Free PDF Page B

devastated to realize how few friends I really had now that Sam was gone.
    “Would Ruby like a drink?” I heard myself ask.
    The man hesitated.
    “Orringe, pleathe!” said Ruby enthusiastically.
    At that moment, Rosemary the tea-lady hove serendipitously into sight with her trolley.
    “You could have thome tea with me, too, if you like,” I said, cringing at how needy I sounded. Billy No-Mates, indeed.
    “Well, that would be nice,” the man said uncertainly. “I’m Toby, by the way. And you’ve met Ruby, obviously.”
    He stretched out his arm and we shook hands tentatively.
    “Helena,” I replied, relieved and embarrassed that he was staying. Strangely, once I looked properly at him, he seemed slightly familiar.
    Rosemary poured us both a cup of tea, handing Toby his with a faintly censorious, “There you go, Mr. Middleton. White, no sugar.”
    “Thanks, Rosemary,” he replied.
    The thick plottens, I thought. Does he work here or something?
    “There’th thome cartonth of Ribena in that cupboard there. Would you like to give Ruby one? ”
    I pointed to my locker, and Toby obligingly extracted the juice, unwrapping the straw and piercing the carton’s foil hole with a pop.
    Ruby sidled over and took the drink silently, obviously cowed by her recent near-death experience. With her free hand she spent the next five minutes opening and closing the locker door to hear the magnetic click of its catch. It was irritating, but better than listening to her howling.
    “Pleathe, thit down,” I said to Toby, pointing to the shiny armchair. The whole situation felt horribly awkward.
    “So, what are you in here for, then?” asked Toby politely, looking away from my Technicolored puffy and stitched face.
    “Oh, my varicothe veinth are playing me up again,” I managed, as airily as I could. He smiled, and again I thought I recognized him.
    “Actually, I, er, had a fall,” I said, feeling like an old lady who’d fallen off a curb. “Onto thome broken glath. My teef were knocked out, too, which ith why I thound like thith.”
    Toby winced sympathetically. “Ouch,” he said.
    “Ouch,” echoed Ruby. “Me kith it better.”
    “I with you could,” I said, with feeling. “Thankth for the offer.”
    “I kith Mummy better, but she still seeps,” Ruby added conversationally. We were definitely speaking the same language.
    Toby’s face scrunched up with pain. “My wife’s in Intensive Care in a coma,” he said, looking at the floor. “She’s been unconscious for ten days now—bad car crash.”
    “I’m tho thorry,” I said again. My lisp was irritating the hell out of me. It made everything sound so trite. There was a short silence. I stared at the wall, noticing the silhouette of a small long-legged insect that had been carelessly painted into the emulsion. It made me even more depressed. When I looked back at Toby, he had that same empty expression of desperation on his face that I recognized from my own, when Sam was so ill.
    Eventually Toby spoke. “Rubes just can’t understand why she won’t wake up. It’s terrible. She gets so frustrated. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, bringing her here at all, especially since Kate’s face is still so swollen, but I’m sure it helps her to hear Ruby’s voice.… ”
    “My friend jutht died, a few month ago,” I blurted out shamelessly, unable to help myself. Suddenly it felt as if both our sorrows had sparked and ignited into one great big furnace of hot grief. When I looked up, we were both in tears, embarrassed and overcome.
    “Don’t cry, Daddy,” said Ruby, her tone suggesting that this wasn’t something new. “Don’t cry, lady,” she added, slurping her drink noisily through the straw. She climbed onto Toby’s knee and threaded an arm around his neck. He hugged her back, and I had never felt so alone.
    “Ith all tho unfair!” I bawled, not really knowing whether I was crying for Sam, for Toby’s wife, for Toby, or for myself.
    Toby