Melting Moments

by Anna Goldsworthy

  Now, in the dressing room, Ruby hastily freshens up.

  ‘A lady should never be seen to rush,’ says the exquisite Mrs Shmith. But then she offers a nod of approval. ‘Very polished indeed.’

  Before Ruby has time to absorb this compliment, the girls begin stepping out in alphabetical order, and now it is her turn. Very polished indeed, she reminds herself as she slides out onto the catwalk. She feels a collective intake of breath; the atmosphere contracts, and fixes her there, under those lights. After a moment, the rehearsed moves unfold of their own accord. Five strides towards the front, turn, then pause. Lead with the legs, body weight follows. Forward foot pauses; maintain discipline of the torso at all times. She catches the eye of a young man in the audience and his face softens, and she rests for a moment in his regard. Two steps to the right, then pivot. Heel a split second before the toe. There are a few sharp points in the audience, a few small jags. There are always going to be some jealous girls, and she can hear Granny Jenkins coughing as if she has the plague. She knows she will pay for this moment, but that doesn’t matter. It has been worth it. If only Arthur could have been here to photograph her. She doesn’t even feel vanity, just rightness. She should be admired, and now she is.

  At home that night, she serves dinner to her family with a gentle condescension.

  Eva tips her milk into the mashed potato. ‘Ma!’ she says, gesturing at the empty cup.

  Arthur has not yet asked about the parade.

  ‘How was work today, Arthur?’ asks Granny Jenkins.

  ‘Grim, Mother. These are difficult times.’

  Ruby wishes her resentment away.

  ‘Uh-oh!’ warns Eva, and drops her cup on the ground.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Ruby’s voice has too sharp an edge, and the family finishes its meal in silence.

  Finally, Arthur leans back in his chair, turning his attention towards her. ‘You’re looking particularly well tonight, my dear.’

  Ruby feels so grateful she could cry.

  ‘Didn’t you have something on today? A parade of some sort?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Granny jumps in, before Ruby has a chance to respond. ‘And there were some lovely girls, weren’t there, Ruby? Girls of true elegance and poise, such as you have never seen the likes.’

  Arthur chortles. ‘Wouldn’t have minded getting a load of that!’

  At the end of the parade, Mrs Shmith had singled Ruby out for commendation, and offered her a place in the advanced course. It was a great honour, of course, but she realises now she will not be accepting it.

  The secret to a graceful exit is a light gait. Judgemental thoughts ruin the complexion. Ruby eases herself to the edge of her seat, rises in a single vertical movement, and clears the table with smoothness and grace.

  6

  Glenda claims the day her youngest started school was the best day of her life, and that she had cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

  ‘Dear gracious me,’ says Ruby, into the telephone.

  She doesn’t go in for that type of gesture herself, and doubts that Glenda does either, in reality.

  ‘I had my life back,’ her neighbour explains.

  But what is that life?

  Ruby is not sure if she has uttered these words, or just thought them.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What can I bring on Saturday?’

  ‘Darling, I’ve told you before that George would divorce me for one of your fruitcakes. And be sure to warn Arthur that George has revenge on his mind. He’s been up early, practising his serve.’

  Some sort of response is required, but Ruby can’t think what it is.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t mope around,’ exclaims Glenda. ‘What are your plans? Do something wonderful. Get your hair done. Take a lover!’

  Ruby has to laugh. Even if she were not in this condition, a lover would be the last thing on her mind. It is strange now to remember the early days of their marriage, the way she savoured Arthur’s body. Studied every inch of it. His dense upper thighs; his tapering calves; his plate-like feet, which he jokingly referred to as his large under-standing. The loose pattern of hair on his torso, directing the eye downward to his touching, earnest sex. He kept the book on married love in his bedside cabinet, and together they managed to get the whole thing working very nicely. Everyone possessing the least athletic training – i.e. the majority of people – will easily comprehend the need for exhalation during orgasm. It was a revelation to Ruby: that such pleasure was available. Sometimes, when they visited the farm, she wondered whether Mother could guess just by looking at them – though she doubted Mother knew what an orgasm was; and even if she did, she certainly would never have been so rude as to have one.

  Then along came Eva, long and golden and covered in down. A seal pup in her arms.

  Of course, she continued to submit to Arthur’s attentions, but they became another thing to get through. Monday was Washing Day; Tuesday was Ironing Day; Sunday was Love-making Day. It was a necessary duty like any other, yet somehow less satisfying without a pile of starched linen to show for it.

  When she hangs up the phone, she is unnerved by the silence, and distracts herself with a series of large tasks she should not be doing in her condition. Arthur still hasn’t got around to the pruning, so she does it herself, bumping the wheelbarrow against her swollen belly on the way to the compost. As if to show him, or the baby, or someone.

  It is only when she passes the incinerator and sees Eva’s small batch of mud cakes that she realises what she should be doing. She should be baking. Eva would surely welcome her at school if she brought a cake.

  Sometimes, when Ruby makes a fruitcake, she soaks the dried fruit in a little brandy first, the way Mother would if she was in a forgiving mood. She doesn’t tell Arthur, because it would only cause him to fret – at the risk to health, or the expense – and she couldn’t be bothered explaining that the alcohol cooks off and just makes for a richer cake.

  But now she realises she forgot to replace the brandy after the incident. To think that Granny Jenkins might have poked around on her last visit, and noticed it missing! Thank heavens for small mercies.

  Absently, she switches on the wireless.

  Girls and boys come out to play.

  And the voice of Anne Dreyer: Good morning, children.

  For once, nobody replies good morning, but apart from that, Eva might still be lying on her back behind the couch, singing to herself and quietly chattering.

  Clickety-clunk, a-lunk-a-lunk, the train is coming, a-chunk-a-chunk.

  It fills the large silence anyway, and provides a rhythm for her baking. At the end of the program Anne Dreyer says goodbye now, children, and Ruby feels a fleeting shame. She switches off the wireless and tidies herself up for school.

  It is a curious thing to walk down a street without a child. You can go a lot faster, even when loaded down with a fruitcake. Unless you slow at the bottlebrush tree at the corner and finger its soft baby leaves. Just like velvet. It was Eva’s favourite tree, and had been one of her first big words. Bot-tle-brush. She always took meticulous care arranging the consonants in her mouth.

  When she arrives at school, Ruby takes a seat under the peppercorn tree, and as soon as the children are released for lunch Eva runs up and catapults herself into her lap.

  ‘Mummy’s going to have a baby,’ she announces.

  ‘Hush, darling,’ Ruby says, smoothing the back of her daughter’s hair. ‘Nobody needs to hear about that.’

  ‘Imagine if you was very old and just about to die and you turned into a baby. Only the Tooth Fairy could do that. Does she have a wand?’

  ‘I’m not sure. How was your first morning?’

  ‘Good thanks.’

  She has traces of paint on her fingertips in bright primary colours: red, blue, yellow. How casually your children betray you. How quickly they belong to someone else.

  ‘Now, my darling, would you like some cake?’
r />   ‘No thanks Mummy. Can I please be accused?’

  ‘But I thought you’d like a treat.’ Absurdly, Ruby’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I baked a cake for you to share with your new friends.’

  ‘I don’t want cake thank you Mummy I love you.’

  And so she releases her daughter, who hurtles to the playground. Then she wraps the unwanted cake in its tea towel, places it in her basket, and lets herself out of the school gate.

  Usually Ruby prefers the week to the weekend. There is comfort in the fact of all the husbands packed into their offices, of the wives and babies in their modern homes. Everyone in their rightful place, guaranteeing the safe stewardship of the world. This, after all, is what they had fought for.

  But today the footpaths are so empty that the whole suburb might have lost its children. How was this allowed to happen? Where is the Rumpelstiltskin with whom she made this pact?

  A baby cries out from the tree above her, and she looks up in alarm – but it is only a blue-black crow, splendid and tyrannical.

  She wouldn’t have mentioned the pregnancy to Eva at all, except that Granny Jenkins had somehow sniffed it out.

  ‘At it again, were we?’ she had asked. ‘At your age!’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ Ruby had snapped. ‘I’m all of thirty-two.’ It’s not my doing, she should have said. Speak to your son about it.

  Anyway, who was Granny Jenkins to talk, given that she was on the wrong side of forty by the time Dolores came along?

  ‘I thought Walter finished off on my abdomen,’ Granny had once told her, as Ruby peeled apples for a crumble. ‘That’s what Mrs Wilkinson said Mr Wilkinson did. I just assumed all the husbands knew to do that.’

  Fancy saying that! Fancy speaking that way to a daughter-in-law, and in the kitchen!

  There is a thought that keeps bobbing up that Ruby cannot afford to have. It concerns Granny Jenkins’ shame at her own late pregnancy, and the measures she likely took to end it. It concerns all the ways in which Dolores is not quite right.

  When Ruby pushes open the hotel door, she is disorientated at first by the darkness, but then she recognises the smell of Father after a harvest – tobacco and perspiration and beer – and it gives her the courage to approach the bar.

  ‘What can I do for you, love?’ asks the barman.

  ‘I’m looking for the bottle department.’

  ‘That right, love? Any bottle in particular?’

  There is a lone man sitting at the bar, staring into his drink. He does not acknowledge her, but she does not need to see his face to know what he is. It is not just the stink of alcohol, but something besides: the rancid odour of his scalp, the encrusted dirt behind his ears. The smell of a man with no woman to care for him.

  ‘A bottle of brandy, please.’

  ‘Hold ya horses, sweetheart. Be right back.’

  The man on the stool clears his throat. ‘What’s in the basket, missus?’

  He turns to her and she flinches to see he is missing an eye. There is a terrible intimacy to that glistening pink socket.

  ‘Fruitcake.’

  ‘I like a bit of fruitcake meself.’

  Sometimes Ruby makes accommodations for Arthur in her head, as if he had been damaged, somehow, by the war. But it is important to remember that he is no down-and-out. He is a fine, upstanding man, who thoroughly fulfils his responsibilities as husband and father.

  ‘Always was partial to a slice of cake.’

  ‘Were you just.’

  ‘Always was keen on a piece of cake.’

  Ruby is tired of carting the damn thing around anyway, heavy as a need. She swings it out of its basket and onto the counter.

  ‘For goodness sake, take it then!’ Her voice is harsher than she intends; the poor old boy has probably not had cake in years.

  ‘Everything all right there, miss?’ asks the barman, returning with the brandy.

  The cake sits stolidly upon the bar, wrapped in Ruby’s second-favourite tea towel. The man has made no move to claim it.

  ‘Fine, thank you very much.’

  There is no dignified way to retrieve her tea towel, so she just pays for the brandy and leaves.

  At home, she replaces the bottle in the chiffonier, and hurries to the bathroom to wash her hands. In the mirror, she sees that the mascara has pooled around her eyes in two dark bruises, and realises she has been crying.

  The shame of it is that she had taken extra care with her make-up this morning before going in to see Eva. She had sought to make herself beautiful for her daughter – as if she was meeting a lover.

  It was a Friday when she found out. It had been a difficult few weeks at home, with Granny Jenkins visiting and generally making a nuisance of herself.

  Ruby’s heart sank at the sight of the doctor’s smile.

  ‘Good news, Mrs Jenkins. God has been kind to you and your husband a second time.’

  For some moments afterwards she could not stand up. How had this been allowed to happen?

  She remembered that night when she had left her diaphragm to air-dry in the bathroom and forgotten about it entirely. The following evening she had found Eva playing with it in the bath, wedging the plastic cap – stretched to the point of transparency – on and off her bony knee.

  ‘Look Mummy! A knee cap!’

  She had whisked it away – Not for children! – and waltzed out of the room before there could be any further questions.

  Is that all it took? A single moment of carelessness?

  ‘Wonderful news,’ she said to the doctor.

  But she had her Eva. There was no need for any more babies.

  If she never returned to that doctor, nobody would ever know.

  Back at home, she knew exactly what to do: Isla had told her during the war. She placed a tureen of water on the boil and ran a bath. Then she returned to the kitchen, carried the tureen carefully into the bathroom, poured it into the tub, and repeated the process. She didn’t keep gin in the house, but she had a bottle of brandy in the chiffonier, which was surely a good enough substitute.

  As she slipped into the bath, there was a loud thud from her shocked heart, and her skin puckered away from the heat, but she slid down further until her torso was submerged and her breasts bobbed to the surface. She covered them with a flannel out of modesty, and then sipped at the brandy until the heat became bearable and finally almost pleasant. Her limbs were heavy; there were sparkles in the air. She might have been a fruitcake herself, marinating in brandy, dense and rich. It was not murder, after all, just a belated contraception.

  Afterwards, she had just enough wit to hide the empty bottle amongst the preserving jars, and take herself upstairs to bed.

  She woke to Arthur’s concerned face hovering above her.

  ‘Scrambled eggs for tea tonight,’ she offered brightly.

  His brow remained furrowed. If he detected the smell, he didn’t mention a thing.

  At school that afternoon, a couple of mothers are nattering away outside Eva’s classroom. Young mothers, with that gloss on them – that unearned confidence – of those who hadn’t properly known the war.

  And the shop attendant said well my dear she said why don’t you come back when you’re twenty-one – when you’re twenty-one she said! – and I’ll be pleased to fix you up with some of our lotion. I didn’t mention that I am well and truly into my mid-twenties and that little Susie was waiting out front with Mother.

  Ruby pushes past them to the classroom window, leaning in to search for her daughter.

  And suddenly a lot of things make sense – the looks I get when I’m out and about with little Susie for instance.

  She scans the rows of desks for the specifics of her child: the cocky tilt of head, that peach-fuzz hair. Her heart is pounding, but she is not sure what it is that she fears.

  As if I’m – forgive me for saying it ladies – but as if I’m some unfortunate girl.

  There she is. Her head resting on her desk. Thumb in her mouth.
Fast asleep. Still a baby, after all.

  She lets herself into the classroom, entirely vindicated, ignoring the young mothers – I really don’t think you should – to reclaim her child. As she picks her up, Eva stirs slightly and then fastens to Ruby’s body; she is the exact same weight she was this morning, before she started school. Ruby shoots the distracted teacher a reproving glance and carries her baby outside.

  My Susie would never fall asleep in the classroom, she hears, she just has too much pluck. But she moves away from the other mothers, back to the bench beneath the peppercorn tree.

  The voices of other people’s children carry over from the oval; her own child is warm in her lap. A magpie chortles above them, and she picks out the discreet smells of her baby: the burnt sugar of her hair, the tender scent of her scalp. By knowing her she may be able to keep her. As the afternoon sun beats down, the girl’s hair becomes warm and a little stiff in her fingers, like spun gold. Soon the bell will ring, and Eva will startle awake and spring off her mother’s lap before anyone sees her there. But now, her thumb is jammed into her mouth, and for once Ruby is not tempted to remove it. Instead, she takes the child’s other hand in her own, spits on her handkerchief and washes the limp fingers one by one, removing all traces of paint.

  7

  Arthur was always very fond of his sister, and the whole thing is a very great tragedy, but it is hardly reason enough to move back to Adelaide. His parents still have each other, after all, and Ruby firmly believes it is in his best interests to remain as far away from his mother as possible. So whenever the subject comes up, she urges him to give due consideration to his career prospects, which are surely much greater on the eastern seaboard. But then they return home for Daisy’s wedding, and everybody is so taken with baby Charlie, and Eva makes such a splash, that she begins to reconsider. Their cottage in Flemington, though pleasant enough, is hardly their dream home; and while the neighbours have made them very welcome, it is not the same as being around old friends.