1

      Like an unsettled thought, the train rattled through the tunnels beneath the city. Ruby Brown was praying to get home. That was her only concern. The baby was finally asleep, thank God, cradled against her chest in the harness, but her legs ached and her breasts were leaking. The journey was pure Hell. Ruby just wanted to be off this train. She hated the Tube. She hated the noise, the smells, the screeching wheels and the endless delays. Why couldn’t it just be over?

      Most of all she hated the crowds. So many people. They shuffled into the carriage, pressing up to her. Closer and closer. Why couldn’t they just back off? She wanted to yell and scream at them to give her space. They didn’t. Instead, they pressed in around her, digging their briefcases into her back, shoving their stupid rucksacks into her face.

      It was like this every day now, thanks to Marvellous Marvin, who had chosen this moment in time to lose his job. They’d lost the place they had and now he was living with his brother while Ruby was staying with her mother again. This would have been bad enough in itself, but it also meant commuting every day from Morden, back and forth to deliver her son to school in Finsbury Park and then pick him up again. Not that she minded not having Marvin around. There hadn’t been anything marvellous about him for longer than she could remember.

      ‘I’m not fucking telling you again, Tyler! Stop it!’

      Ruby ignored the frowns of disapproval from the people around her. Fuck them. She was tired. The boy was driving her insane. She couldn’t take any more. He just went on and on, kicking and kicking. His foot went back and forth, knocking against the knee of the old man standing over him. Ruby ignored the man’s glare. It was bad enough having to deal with the boy, let alone apologise for him. What did people expect? Tyler’s foot began to move in circles, ramming out right, straight into her knee, over and over. What did he want? She’d given up trying to find an answer to that one. He wanted whatever he couldn’t have. That’s what it felt like. Her mother said he needed help. But her mother’s head was stuck back in 1984 or whatever. She thought you could still get that kind of help on the NHS for free. Nothing was free nowadays. His smart arse teacher, Mr Perfect, said he was suffering from ADHD, that he needed to be enrolled in one of those special needs schools. Marvin, being Marvin, insisted all the boy needed was a little discipline. Not that he was ever around enough to take care of that himself. And besides, when he was around Marvin tended to let the boy do whatever the hell he liked until he lost his temper and started yelling, which made all the little ones cry.

      ‘I said, stop it!’

      Ruby leaned over and jerked his arm hard.

      ‘Aouw!’ Tyler cried, making a meal of it. More looks. As if any of them would be better at parenting than her. The boy sat still for all of ten seconds.

      Her legs were aching. She had thought that letting Tyler have the only seat might calm him down. Fat chance. To add insult to injury the train had come to a halt. They were just outside Clapham Common station. This was the worst. She felt trapped. The ticking over of the engine felt like a bomb way down inside her.

      What was it that made him think he could just sit there and kick her? Some kind of male instinct. And the little bastard wasn’t even nine years old yet. No prizes for guessing where he got that from. She closed her eyes and wished herself far away from all of it.

      They were close to the doors. She was holding onto the handrail. Behind her was another mother with a pushchair the size of a fucking SUV. She kept shifting it from side to side so the wheel dug into Ruby’s ankle. Her child sat staring up at Ruby, a blonde princess on a fucking throne. The mother and her friend, a couple of snooty bitches, were giving Ruby the cold stare, but she ignored them. Why did the Tube always smell so badly? She reached out to slap Tyler’s arm.

      ‘I won’t tell you again.’

      Tyler sulked the same way his father did. The same sorry grudge against the world. What can you do? You can’t fight nature. Of all the bad choices she had made in life, Marvin was up there at the top of the list.

      Miraculously Tyler had stopped kicking. Her knees would be covered in bruises. Not that anyone was going to notice that these days. Marvin had lost interest in her that way with the arrival of the baby. He had other women now. She didn’t care.

      ‘Leave that alone!’

      Tyler had turned his attention to something tucked into the corner of the baggage area to his right. She was standing over it, but she hadn’t noticed it when they’d got on. One of those blue nylon bags with yellow writing on the side. She had one for the laundry. He was twisting his foot round, kicking at it, nagging. She ignored him. All he wanted was more attention. The toe of his shoe eventually found the strap and pulled it. Again and again.

      ‘I said, leave it, Tyler!’

      A woman in a suit was watching her from further down the carriage. All dolled up with make-up and lipstick. The kind of woman who looked like she never had any problems. Ruby threw her a cold stare until the bitch dropped her eyes back to her phone.

      The baby began to cry. Ruby felt exhaustion wash over her. Tyler took her silence as a reason to carry on. Let him, she thought. What difference does it make? Maybe it will stop him kicking my legs.

      ‘When are we there, Mummy?’ Tyler