Gucci Gucci Coo by Sue Margolis

she challenged him about it, he said he had done it because he was a male feminist who believed buying little girls dolls severely restricted their view of the world. Ruby was certain he had bought the train set for himself.
    He picked the ball up off the table. “There’s a computer inside and it plays twenty questions with you. Go on, think of an object. Hard as you like. I guarantee it’ll get it.”
    “Hang on, before I do that, I need to talk to you about Mum. It’s driving me mad. What’s this big secret she’s been keeping?”
    His huge grin left Ruby in no doubt that he was bursting to tell her.
    “Grandma Esther didn’t end up leaving you a fortune in her will, did she?”
    “I wish,” he chuckled.
    “So, what is it?”
    “I think we should wait for your mum. She’s upstairs in her studio. I’m sure she won’t be long.”
    “But you know what it is, right?”
    “Oh, yes,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes. “I know.”
    “And it’s good news. Nothing bad has happened.”
    “Let’s just say it’s taken a bit of getting used to. OK, no more digging. Now then, you have to think of an object.”
    She thought. “Really hard, you say?”
    “Yep. Hard as you like.”
    “OK. Capybara.”
    “Capy-what?”
    “Capybara. It’s a semiaquatic South American rodent. There was this mad girl at my school who was obsessed with them. Her bedroom was covered in pictures of capybaras.”
    “Oh, come on, be fair. How’s it going to get capybara?”
    “You said it could get anything.”
    “Yes, but not some weird rodent nobody’s ever heard of.” He seemed to decide the time had come to change the subject. “Tell you what, why don’t you go upstairs and let your mum know you’re here?”
    Ruby started to climb the stairs, leaving her father to see if by any chance the twenty questions gadget could guess capybara.
    A few years ago her parents had converted the loft into a workspace for Ronnie. The two giant windows meant it was flooded with light all day.
    Ronnie was wearing her trademark workman’s overalls, covered in paint. Her long red hair was pulled back and held in place by a large tortoiseshell claw clip. A few loose strands hung around her face, making her look girly and coquettish. Ruby could hardly believe her mother was fifty. Of course she dyed her hair now and she had a few fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but nothing deep enough to be called crow’s feet. And although she had put on a bit of weight around her middle in the last few months—which most women seemed to as they approached menopause—she was still leggy and slim. But it wasn’t just her physical appearance that made Ronnie seem so young. It was her vibrancy, her facial expressions, that indefinable something behind her eyes.
    All of Ruby’s friends’ mothers were in their sixties. Some were even older. They tended to be thick-waisted and heavy of hip, with bosoms that in recent years had become singular rather than plural. People were always shocked the first time they met Ronnie. For her part, Ronnie rather enjoyed the flattery and being told she didn’t look remotely old enough to have a daughter who was in her thirties.
    The reason Ruby’s friends’ mothers were older than Ronnie was that they hadn’t got pregnant at eighteen and eloped with their art student boyfriends.
     
    R UBY LEANED AGAINST the doorframe and looked around the studio. As her eyes wandered, she breathed in the familiar smell of oil paint and turpentine. There were canvasses everywhere, mostly propped up against the walls. Surfaces were strewn with old sketches, ends of charcoal and long discarded paper palettes dotted with tiny cracked peaks of oil paint.
    In the middle of the room her mother was standing in front of a canvas dibbing and dabbing at her latest painting. Ruby was so proud of what her mother had achieved. Unlike Phil, who had been in his final year at art school when Ronnie got pregnant, she had been forced to abandon her