Ruby has been harbouring a heartbreaking secret for over 30 years, after being sexually abused by her father growing up.
In recent scenes, she confided in Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) that daughter Steph Miligan (Georgia Jay) may not be Caleb’s, and the landlady encouraged her to do a DNA test.
Following Chas’ advice, Ruby ordered a test kit and sent off for the results, which are set to arrive in upcoming scenes.
‘She’s torn between desperately wanting to know that her greatest fear isn’t true, that it’s Caleb’s baby and not her dad’s,’ actress Beth Cordingly explained.
‘She wants that reassurance so that she can move on. But she’s always had this fear, from the minute she got pregnant that it may not be Caleb’s. She didn’t deceive him, she just desperately wanted it to be his.’
As Ruby clutches the results, anxious about what they hold, she is startled when Caleb returns home, and stuffs the envelope in her bag.
After spending the night agonising over the unopened envelope, she finally finds the courage to rip it open – only to be interrupted by Steph before she can read the results.
Growing increasingly overwhelmed, Ruby once again turns to Chas for support.
Chas assures her that Caleb will understand and won’t turn his back on Steph even if he isn’t her father, but Ruby decides that it is better not to know, and heads home to destroy the results.
‘She realises that there isn’t really a good outcome,’ Beth explained. ‘She sees Caleb and Steph together and they are so close, and Caleb always talks about how they’re two peas in a pod, she decides that he has to be her dad and that she can’t destroy whatever they’ve got.
‘So this helps her make her decision that it’s better not to know and just to continue with some hope.’
However, unbeknown to her, Caleb has been rooting around in her handbag looking for painkillers for a headache, and ends up pulling out the envelope.
As Ruby returns home to find Caleb holding the results, is their marriage set to come undone?
‘She’s like a deer stuck in the headlights in that moment. He is standing there looking at her, and until he says what the results are, she has no idea herself. So it’s not even just the situation of walking in and finding out someone has found something that you didn’t want them to find. On top of that is the bombshell that she doesn’t know what’s in it.‘So it’s like this unexploded bomb he’s holding, that he now knows the answer to, and no one else in the whole world knows. So she just doesn’t really know what to do.
‘I remember filming it, I remember exactly the feeling when I was standing there looking at him, thinking, there’s so much going on. All it says on the DNA test is whether Caleb is the father or not. It doesn’t say who the father is.’
Will Ruby finally let Caleb in on her harrowing secret?
