She recognises something supplicatory in her voice, and realises she is asking for her daughter’s blessing.
There is a pause, and then Eva’s warm contralto.
‘You did your duty for long enough, Mum. Now go out there and enjoy yourself.’
Sometimes, over the years, Ruby has gazed at certain couples and felt a pang of something. Not envy, exactly; envy spoilt the complexion, and at any rate, Arthur was an entirely admirable man. He was always able to provide, and his integrity was never under dispute. While he may have admired the female form, there was never any concern he would act improperly or bring shame upon the family in the manner of, say, Ralphy Phillips, or that disappointing Ned. All the same, Ruby would occasionally gaze at those golden couples, like Florence and Dale Robinson, and feel the faintest hint of wistfulness. It was not as if Florence was a women’s libber or anything like that – far from it – but there was some sort of equality to their arrangement that had to do with their engagement with the world. There was no sense that Florence had to jolly Dale along to get him out of the house; he just went out and got on with things of his own volition. Together, they reminded her of those exquisite figure skaters Torvill and Dean, travelling alongside each other with velocity and grace. Neither pulling the other along, except by choice.
Over the weeks that follow, as Bill takes her out for drives – to lunch on the Esplanade, or to the pictures on Kensington Road – Ruby is offered a glimpse of such a partnership. In the first week of April, they set off up the freeway to view the autumn leaves at Mount Lofty. She doesn’t enquire if he used to bring Mavis up here, or how regularly. Instead, she asks him to turn on the car radio because it is a Wednesday morning and she would like to hear Charlie’s program. And there is her boy, sounding awfully clever as usual. Schubert exists in the moment. Beethoven might surprise us, but there is no real sense that he surprises himself. There’s always that feeling of inexorability, of logic.
‘Jolly impressive, I’m sure,’ says Bill. ‘Though I don’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about.’
She has the fugitive thought, Arthur would have understood. On the other hand, Arthur never would have handled that lane change so adroitly.
‘I think it’s just about enjoying the moment,’ she offers.
‘Couldn’t agree more! It’s all borrowed time.’
He places his hand on her knee, as if when something was borrowed there was less obligation to use it responsibly.
‘How about we stop in Stirling and get ourselves a treat,’ he suggests. ‘A takeaway hot chocolate. My niece bought me one last time we were up here.’
Ruby doesn’t usually drink hot chocolate, and certainly not takeaway hot chocolate, but the old rules no longer seem to apply. As they enter the crowded café, she keeps one eye on her own step and one on Bill’s. Out and about in the world, she is aware of a certain fragility in them both. But he walks at a great clip, heading purposefully towards the counter.
‘Hello there, lovey,’ smiles the waitress, as if Bill were a schoolboy out to spend his pocket money. ‘And what can I do for you today?’
‘Two takeaway hot chocolates, if you please.’
‘Getting ourselves a treat, are we? That’s a bit special.’
He winks at Ruby. ‘Of course! It’s all about enjoying the moment.’
They drive further up the hill, with the polystyrene cups trembling in her hands like castanets, until Bill pulls in at the lookout.
When the children were small, Arthur would sometimes bring them up here on their Sunday drives. Granny Jenkins would claim a window seat so she could escape first in the event of an emergency; Eva and Charlie would compete to find the most beautiful tree. But Ruby sees now that there is no most beautiful tree. Together, they are an effusion of autumn colours: gold and crimson and copper and magenta, splashed across the valley below.
‘Those leaves,’ she says. ‘They’re like coins.’
The hot chocolate has become lukewarm, but it is still a treat. She cannot quite believe that this is all hers for the taking. That pleasure could be so readily available. That it is as simple as getting in a car and driving up to the hills, and buying a takeaway hot chocolate – just like that!
Behind her is the epic undertaking of her marriage, more or less successfully accomplished. Ahead is – who knows? An appointment with her doctor. Tests. Her gradual or sudden unravelling. But at this moment she is glad to be sitting on this hill alongside this man, with that slight tic in his left eye and that ready grin. This fellow traveller – on his own parallel track for half a century – who has found his way back to her, and brought her to this.
4
Back in September, in the immediate aftermath of the afternoon tea, things had become quite warm between Ruby and Phyllis. Phyllis had clipped out a newspaper interview and placed it in Ruby’s letterbox with a small handwritten note. Thought you might be interested in this article about our Charlie. It was an act of great thoughtfulness – Ruby had mentioned that she didn’t subscribe to The Australian – and she had to admire Phyllis’s lovely copperplate handwriting. All the same, it struck her as a little odd that Phyllis should use the phrase our Charlie, as if she had a claim on him that rivalled Ruby’s own.
But recently, Phyllis’s greetings have become a little frosty, and Ruby realises she has allowed too much time to elapse before returning the invitation, so distracted has she been with Bill. It is unforgiveable, really, and she hastens to make amends, inviting Phyllis around the following Thursday afternoon, and warning Bill to stay well away. She gives a great deal of thought to what she might bake. Only a few jars remain of her final batch of strawberry jam; although she will not be making it again, the edification of a neighbour strikes her as a worthy cause. Reciprocating with scones is out of the question, so she decides upon a sponge sandwich, which turns out very well indeed, sitting there on its Wedgwood cake stand like minor royalty. In fact, the entire apartment looks immaculate.
‘Oh, you collect antiques!’ Phyllis observes when she arrives. ‘What do the young people call them? Brown furniture. It’s terribly sad, the way they’ve depreciated in value. Of course, we’ve upgraded our interiors to something more modern. Wilf just required a degree of comfort, and I was far too busy with all of my commitments to care for trinkets. But I applaud anyone who takes a stand for elegance.’
She smiles, and Ruby unaccountably thinks of the pet axolotl Charlie kept when he was a boy: its slow blink as it ate a worm. But she is a fine-looking woman and must have been a great beauty in her prime. Ruby offers her a slice of cake, but she demurs, which seems somewhat against the spirit of an afternoon tea.
‘Don’t let me stop you from helping yourself.’
Ruby is hardly going to partake of a sponge sandwich alone, so the cake remains intact upon its stand, exuding a jilted grandeur.
‘I see our Charlie is presenting another concert next month,’ Phyllis says. ‘At the Adelaide Town Hall.’
‘Oh yes, he mentioned something about that.’
‘Wilf and I were thinking it would be lovely to spend a little time with him.’
‘Oh, that reminds me!’
At Sunday lunch at Eva’s, Charlie had given her a copy of his new book, with a touching inscription on the title page. She fetches it from the hall stand to show Phyllis. ‘Hot off the press, as they say.’
Phyllis gasps in delight – Really, you shouldn’t have! – and places the book in her handbag, though Ruby hadn’t meant for her to keep it.
‘You must be terribly proud of him.’
‘Both of them, really. Neither of them chose an easy path, but both were conscientious.’
‘Is your daughter musical?’
‘Eva is a doctor.’ After so many years, it still gratifies her to say this. ‘With her own practice in the city.’
‘I don’t see as much of her as I once did. But then you’ve been otherwise occupied. With your … gentleman caller.’
‘Oh,
you mean Bill,’ says Ruby breezily. ‘We used to be part of the same set. All of us were dear friends.’
‘And how does his wife feel about his frequent visits?’
‘Poor Mavis has passed on.’
‘I see.’
Nothing about this afternoon tea is unfolding in the manner Ruby had hoped.
‘Well, I’m not one to judge. Each to their own, I say. But I will ask that your visitor park his car in the street, rather than cluttering up the driveway.’
‘I hadn’t realised he was taking up too much space.’
‘It’s not simply a matter of space. It’s all this coming and going that makes Wilf jumpy.’
Ruby feels the telltale whoosh of the Vauxhall in the driveway before she hears it. Then, sooner than she can absorb the fact of Bill’s unwelcome arrival, there is that familiar jingle at the door, as he sorts through his enormous collection of keys. It would be impolitic to reveal to Phyllis that she has given him a spare, so she hurries to the door to let him in. Alas, he is too quick for her.
‘Yoohoo!’
‘Gracious,’ Phyllis exclaims. ‘Striding in as if he owns the place.’
Bill’s face lights up. ‘Oh, you have company. Don’t allow me to interrupt.’
‘Not at all,’ says Phyllis, standing up. ‘We’re quite finished here.’
‘Allow me to introduce Mr William Clarkson,’ offers Ruby, but Phyllis has already brushed past him and out through the front door, taking Charlie’s new book with her.
Most mornings, Ruby hears his car draw in the driveway, grinding to a sudden stop, as if he is testing his work on the brake pads. Then the sound of his whistle as he lets himself in.
‘What are we getting up to today then, dear?’
Being out and about with him is a little as she remembers being out and about with Father: that spring in his step; that ready grin, which the world largely returns – with one exception. She passes on Phyllis’s request that he park in the street.
‘Blow that,’ he replies. ‘Driveways are for driving into.’
She is not sure if it is just her fancy but the following morning it seems that he makes even more noise when he arrives.
‘Blimey!’ he says, tripping over something at the front door.
‘What is it?’
‘Some sort of booby trap. No, by jingo, it’s a package!’
She opens the package to find Charlie’s book, accompanied by a handwritten note.
Dear Mrs Jenkins, I shall no longer be requiring this. Courteously, Mrs Windsor.
‘Seems I’ve been demoted from Ruby back to Mrs Jenkins,’ Ruby observes.
Bill frowns. ‘Nobody’s ever hated me before. Not sure that I like it.’
It is the only blight on their happiness: that judgementalism she feels issuing from their common wall.
One afternoon, as Ruby is dusting Arthur’s study, she knocks an album on his bookshelf and a photograph flutters down to the floor. When she picks it up, she recognises it from his art photography days in Melbourne, taken when she was still breast-feeding. She is wearing a diaphanous nightgown, and her head is caught in profile, as if she has just that very moment glanced out the door, but as she remembers it, she had to hold that pose for what seemed like hours, while he tried different focal points and fussed around with his lenses. He had arranged the lamps behind her so that they softly picked out her silhouette, and there is something about the combination of the sculptural lines of her face and neck, and her plump, milk-filled breasts – more voluptuous than she ever recalls them being – that makes for a striking photograph. It seemed to her, at the time, that the composition was just as good as in any of those images of Bambi Shmith, taken by her husband, the celebrated photographer. Of course, Ruby didn’t pretend to have Bambi Shmith’s perfect doll features, but she always had a fine profile and used it here to great effect.
She remembers that Arthur had shyly asked permission to share the image with his photography club. He was clearly proud of his magnum opus, but she also sensed that he wished to show off his wife. In truth, she felt a little titillated by the prospect of all those strange gentlemen admiring her form, commenting learnedly on camera angles and lighting. She never had the nerve to ask how it was received.
It is curious to look at it now. It beggars belief that she ever was this thing, that she ever took this form. A radical thought occurs to her: she would rather like Bill to see it.
Then she is so embarrassed by the very idea that she sticks the photograph back in the album and places it on the top shelf of the bookcase, where Bill would never think to look.
In the winter, the Windsors head up to Noosa, and the entire village feels lighter. Ruby makes an appointment to see a neurologist, who asks her to relax her arm, as he moves it up and down like a gearstick.
‘Cogwheel rigidity not too bad. Feeling stiff at all, in your body?’
She describes the increasing labour of her walk around the block each morning. The way the air itself seems to have become more viscous, impeding progress.
When she receives the diagnosis, her first thought is that Arthur will be inconsolable. Then there is the immediate relief that he will never know. She suspects Bill will take it in his stride – he nursed Mavis through her Alzheimer’s, after all – but on the other hand, he may want nothing further to do with her. Regardless, she will find a way to bear it.
As soon as she gets home, she calls the children. Eva seems unsurprised, but Charlie becomes teary. I’m sorry, but you’re the only mother I’ve got. The following morning, Bill turns up with his suitcase.
‘What’s all this about, then?’
‘Eva called me. You’re going to need a live-in carer. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it proper. I’ll set myself up in the spare room. But I won’t be argued with.’
So this is how it happens. This is how one settles into a life of sin. Mother would be turning in her grave, as would Arthur. But neither of them are here, and those who are seem unfazed by it. The Windsors, fortunately, are still in Noosa.
At first, Bill is courteous and a little formal around the house, as if these new living arrangements require a certain decorum. In the evening, as they watch Sixty Minutes, she wonders what will happen at the program’s conclusion.
It turns out there is no cause for concern.
‘I’ll be retiring now,’ he says, with a gallant bow. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’
So he is as good as his word, and she climbs into bed feeling mostly relief. It is a tremendous comfort to know he is there, in her spare room. She realises she shouldn’t overestimate his efficacy against intruders, and yet she sleeps particularly soundly that night. It is the first thought she has upon waking in the morning. There’s a man back in the house.
In early spring, the Windsors return from Queensland, but Bill and Ruby remain so busy they barely see them. There is a lot of wink-winking and nudge-nudging from Charlie and Eva, but on the whole they seem happy for the two of them. Bill takes them all out to the McLaren Vale, navigating the new expressway with one hand atop Ruby’s nylons. Charlie clears his throat from the backseat: Both hands on the steering wheel, young man. Ruby blushes but Bill laughs uproariously. If only they knew how innocent it all was!
Back at home, Bill installs a rainwater tank in the side garden and trusses up a row of tomato plants. His competence affects her physically; it makes her giddy. One afternoon, he summons her outside to show her a wheelbarrow heaped with compost, writhing with fat and happy worms. Worth its weight in gold!
‘What are you planning to do with that, then?’
‘Thought I’d take it out the front for Mrs Windsor’s geraniums. Peace offering, you might say.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
‘But how else can I get her to like me?’
‘Who cares if she likes you?’ She says this with great conviction, as if a leave-taking from the world of opinion were possible. ‘I’d urge you to stay well away.’
Occasi
onally they spend an evening in Bill’s old apartment in Marino, which he refers to as their ‘seaside residence’, but it appears that Mavis never managed to get the place well appointed, even before her illness, and it now exudes a sad air of bachelor neglect. Just before Christmas, Bill has a brief spell in hospital for his heart, but is soon released. Ticker’s still going strong. It’s you that does my heart good. It is the first Christmas that Ruby cannot write legibly in her cards, and she enlists Amy as her scribe. She dictates a cordial message to the Windsors but does not expect a card in return. Nor does it trouble her when she does not receive one.
Some nights they don’t even turn on the television, but spend the entire evening in conversation, so that they both awaken hoarse in the morning, and Ruby has to prepare a honey and lemon tea. One evening Bill brings out a photo album he unearthed in the spare room, and they pore over it together on the sofa, sipping sherry. They come across a group photograph taken at the Palais, in which Arthur looks particularly fine, but she doesn’t like to draw Bill’s attention to it.
‘Look at that Ralphy Phillips, would you? Always the dandy.’
‘And there’s my Mavis in her prime. Scrubbed up well, she did.’
‘That she did.’
Ruby is better able to acknowledge this than she once was, with the sherry weighting her blood like mercury, and her foot resting against something she thought was the coffee table but now realises is Bill’s ankle.
‘Don’t bother with these next ones. They’re just the Melbourne years. The children and me and Arthur and so on.’
‘It’s you I want to look at.’
They turn to a photo of the house in Flemington, in which Eva and Charlie are arranged on the front lawn alongside Glenda’s children, grinning at the camera. Once it might have pained her to look at this lost world, and at these child sprites who inhabited it. Once she might have wished herself back into it, to be that young woman again, smiling elegantly but not excessively, held together by that immaculately laundered pinny. But right now she feels no need to return to that time, sitting here alongside Bill, with the side of her leg absorbing his warmth.
Melting Moments Page 15
