My aunt and uncle, I learned, were real estate lawyers with their own practice in the central business district. As they spoke about their work, I was distracted by the rooster Grandma Ruby now had perched on her lap. At first I was anxious that the bird was going to be beheaded for a welcoming meal for me — I had heard that the food in New Orleans could be savage — but it soon became obvious from the way Grandma Ruby stroked him, and the adoring manner in which he gazed at her, that the rooster was a pet. She even kissed him and addressed him by name: Flambeau.
Aunt Louise noticed my interest in the bird. ‘Two years ago, Momma and I were watching a documentary on factory farming on PBS. When the chicks hatched, the male ones were thrown alive into a meat grinder. Momma was so shocked she demanded that Johnny go to a chicken farm and find a male chick for her to raise as a recompense for the cruelty of the human race. Momma’s always been a compassionate person.’
‘He’s very handsome,’ I said.
As if he’d understood, Flambeau jumped down from Grandma Ruby’s lap and strutted towards me. I reached out to scratch him and he turned himself into various poses so that I could reach his favourite spots.
‘Your neighbours don’t mind you having a rooster?’ I asked. I was partial to the sound of a rooster crowing in the morning. It created an atmosphere of waking up somewhere romantically rustic, like Provence. But if anyone acquired one in Roseville the other neighbours would get a petition up to the council about ‘the noise’. Children screaming all day and leaf blowers destroying peaceful Sunday afternoons were acceptable in Sydney’s suburbia, but a rooster crowing a few times in the morning was not.
‘It’s illegal to have a rooster in the city of New Orleans,’ explained Uncle Jonathan, ‘but people here are pretty laid-back about things like that. And besides,’ he said with an affectionate glance in his mother-in-law’s direction, ‘if something is illegal, forbidden or frowned upon it only makes it more attractive to Ruby.’
Grandma Ruby grimaced, but I could tell by the way she stuck her chin in the air that she was pleased by the description. Flambeau leaped onto my lap and I scratched his head.
‘He likes you,’ Grandma Ruby said. ‘He’s a flock bird. He’s used to protecting his lady friends. Until now he’s only had one henny — me — but now he’s got you too.’
‘Do you have any pets in Sydney?’ Aunt Louise asked me.
I shook my head. I’d longed for a dog or a cat, as many only children did, but Nan had grown up with animals on her family’s farm and didn’t like them as pets. She thought they made too much noise and created too much mess.
Aunt Louise swirled her glass thoughtfully for a moment. ‘It’s incredible that you studied restoration architecture,’ she said. ‘You are going to love New Orleans. The neighbourhoods are so different from each other. The Garden District was built by Americans after the Louisiana Purchase. They weren’t welcomed by the aristocratic Creoles of the French Quarter so they settled here.’
Uncle Jonathan stretched out his legs. ‘Growing up in an antebellum house cured me of the desire to ever live in a historic home myself,’ he said. ‘I hated sitting in the same rock-hard armchair my great-great-grandmother had sat in, and the slave quarters gave me the creeps, although the house servants were all gone of course by the time I came into the world. We only had two maids, and they lived in their own homes and weren’t required to whistle while carrying food to prove they weren’t eating it. Not everything about the past is idyllic, and there’s a lot to be said for a house that stays put, has windows and doors that close properly, and can be heated or cooled in minutes.’
I noticed the way Aunt Louise gazed at Uncle Jonathan when he spoke, as if every word he uttered was brilliant. I also saw how Grandma Ruby regarded both of them with amused interest. Uncle Jonathan had voiced an objection to historic buildings I’d heard hundreds of times, so I didn’t take any offence.
‘I do like classic design though,’ said Aunt Louise. ‘Our house in Lake Terrace is built in the French provincial style. It has all the appealing proportions of an historic house but without the need for constant repairs and the inconvenience.’
Grandma Ruby winked at me. ‘Amandine is starting to look tired,’ she said to her daughter and son-in-law. ‘Why don’t you two hurry along now, and we’ll get together again for dinner tomorrow night.’
‘Good idea,’ said Uncle Jonathan, standing and straightening his shirt cuffs. ‘We can eat at our place.’
We moved back into the house, where Aunt Louise retrieved her handbag.
‘I’ve stocked up the fridge for you,’ she said. ‘Momma has a maid, Lorena. If you want any specific type of food ask her. She does the shopping.’
Grandma Ruby and I waved Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan off as they went down the drive. Then she turned to me with a mischievous smile. ‘You’ll see their house in Lake Terrace tomorrow, but I have a feeling you’ll like this one much better. Would you like me to show it to you now?’
It was difficult to take my eyes away from Grandma Ruby. As she stood in the dappled light of late afternoon, her long neck and ivory skin gave her an ethereal beauty that transcended age. But I sensed a contradiction between her lilting Southern accent and the fiery glint in her eyes; I felt there was a complex duality to her.
She lowered Flambeau to the floor to let him run free, and led me to a music room with a Baldwin grand piano that looked the same age as the house. An open-armed statue of the Madonna by the window and a painting of a saint with the Christ child on the opposite wall were at odds with the otherwise Victorian-period style of the house. But then I remembered that New Orleans was a predominantly Catholic city, which made it different from the rest of the United States.
‘Your father used to play this piano,’ Grandma Ruby said. ‘My husband, Clifford Lalande, was a lawyer, as the men in this family have been for generations. But I knew Dale would be a musician. Even as a small child, he would listen to something playing on the radio and then I’d find him in here, picking out the tune on the keyboard.’
I stroked the yellowed keys of the piano and was again overcome with the feeling that my father was stepping out of the shadows. I imagined him as a small boy, his feet swinging from the piano stool as he intently worked out the tune in his head. I glanced up to see Grandma Ruby watching me.
‘You’re more like your father than your mother,’ she said. ‘Paula was a firecracker, always ready to thrill us with her bright colours. Dale was quieter, more considered. The night they died, they say I screamed like a crazy woman and wouldn’t stop. Yet despite my sorrow, I’m thankful your parents died together. I don’t think one of them could have borne to go on living without the other.’
I felt a catch in my throat and couldn’t bring myself to speak. The description of my parents’ bond moved me. Nan had always given me the impression that the marriage was a hasty infatuation that wouldn’t have lasted more than a few years.
But if my father was so calm, considered and responsible, as both Grandma Ruby and my mother in her letters had described him, how come he’d driven drunk with his wife and daughter in the car? Despite Grandma Ruby’s vibrant personality, I heard the brokenness in her voice. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her about the accident — not yet. Let me get to know him better first, I thought, before I have to judge him.
Grandma Ruby directed me to a sitting room that overlooked a circular lawn with a cottage on the left; and then to a grand dining room where the mahogany table was laid with Georgian silver and Waterford crystal.
‘I like to leave the table set,’ she explained. ‘Although it creates more work for Lorena, it makes me feel that all the family are still in the house.’
I tried to imagine what dinner must have been like when my parents lived here: the conversation, the laughter, the lavish meals. As I took in the splendour around me, I wondered what my mother had made of it all. It was so different from the house in Sydney we’d both grown up in with its comfortable but s
imple furnishings. Had she been as dazzled as I was now by the stained-glass feature windows and Venetian chandeliers?
There was no air conditioning on that I could discern, yet the house was cool compared to the sticky atmosphere outside. One of the papers I’d written as an undergraduate had been on the poorly designed ‘Tuscan villas’ that were appearing all over Sydney, especially on its outskirts: oversized, energy-inefficient homes with eaveless roofs, poor orientations and treeless, paved gardens. The architect who had designed this home, with no computer programs or modern building materials to work with, had created an airy space with high ceilings and windows situated opposite each other for cross-ventilation. The inclusion of balconies and porches made it perfect for the climate, and the canopy provided by the live oak trees would prevent the hard surfaces from becoming such conductors of radiant heat that you could fry an egg on them.
‘Would you like to see your parents’ room?’ Grandma Ruby asked. ‘I’ve hardly changed a thing about it since they stayed there — except for your cot. I couldn’t bear looking at that after you were taken away.’
I touched Nan’s pendant. It was the first thing Grandma Ruby had said about that time and the bitterness in her tone was palpable. But I couldn’t be disloyal to Nan. It was an agreement I’d made with myself before I left Australia.
Grandma Ruby met my gaze and regained her self-control, nodding as if she understood. She led me up the grand oak staircase to the second floor, then down a corridor with a door at the end of it. I followed her into the room, and the first thing I noticed was a wing-back chair and footstool in the part of the room where the turret created a curved space. Dusk had fallen and Grandma Ruby switched on the table lamps, casting a cosy glow on the walls. One side of the room was taken up with shelves stacked with books; the other by a four-poster double bed with a Renaissance-style crucifix on the wall above it. A saxophone and a clarinet were propped on stands near a desk.
‘We usually keep Dale’s instruments in their cases,’ she said. ‘But Johnny took them out for you. He thought you’d like to see them.’
I ran my finger over the smooth brass of the saxophone. The tranquillity of the room gave me a sense of my father’s personality. Although I’d grown up without my mother too, there’d been pictures of her in the house and Nan, Janet and Tony had told me things about her. Yet my father still felt evasive. I was trying to guess what kind of animal he’d been from the tracks he’d left behind.
‘My father liked to read?’ I asked, moving to the bookshelves. There were collections of works by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde and Edith Wharton. I noticed a copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was one of my favourite books. My father had been eclectic in his tastes.
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Grandma Ruby. ‘I don’t remember him ever being without a book. He even used to read between sets.’
I ran my hand along the spines of the books, thrilled to know that my father had once touched them. On one shelf, next to a copy of The World According to Garp, I found a small portrait in a frame. It was of my parents with me; I was wearing a white christening dress. My mother looked angelic, her wild hair tamed and stylishly parted to one side. But it was my father who held my attention. He was gazing at me with pure love. My vision blurred with tears and I blinked them away.
‘Why don’t you lie down for a while?’ Grandma Ruby suggested. ‘Then come down for dinner. I eat late. It’s a habit I’ve never been able to change. I believe Johnny put your bags in the cupboard there.’
After Grandma Ruby left, I took off my boots and lay down on the bed. It was thoughtful of her to give me this room rather than one of the guest rooms. As my gaze travelled from the botanical print curtains, to the tall chest with the hurricane lamp on top of it, and finally rested on the chandelier above the bed, I tried to fathom that this was the room I’d been born in and where, for the first two years of my life, I had slept with my parents.
My eyelids drooped. I’d intended to nap for only half an hour, but when I woke up and checked my watch, it was two in the morning. I’d slept well past dinner time. I hoped Grandma Ruby would understand.
The hallway was quiet, but the wall sconces were lit. I followed the lights to the top of the stairs. Jazz music played softly somewhere. Was Grandma Ruby still awake?
I crept down the stairs and noticed that the sound was coming from the dining room. The door was open and I peered in to see Grandma Ruby sitting at the table wearing a glamorous pearl satin nightgown and peignoir set. The candelabra on the table were lit and she was staring at the place setting next to her, moving her lips silently as if in prayer. I had intruded on a private moment and was about to move away when she looked up.
‘Amandine! I checked on you earlier but you were out cold.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s the jetlag.’
She gestured to the place setting diagonally opposite her. ‘Sit there. That was your mother’s place. I’ll fix you a po’ boy if you’re hungry.’
I had no idea what a ‘po’ boy’ was, but didn’t want to put her to any trouble. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, but my stomach rumbled right on cue and betrayed me.
‘You stay here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen while I took my mother’s place at the table. I realised that Grandma Ruby had been looking at a photograph in a frame, but the image was turned away from me.
I glanced about the room. Uncle Jonathan had said that New Orleans was supposed to be the most haunted city in the United States, and if the sensations I was experiencing were anything to go by, the Lalande home was full of ghosts. But they weren’t the type that appeared on stairways or floated through doorways. They didn’t make themselves visible at all, but I could smell them in the scent of the cypress-wood wainscoting and sense them in the air.
Grandma Ruby returned with a sandwich made of crusty French bread on a gold-edged plate. My mouth watered at the sight of the sliced tomato and chargrilled eggplant.
‘Good?’ she asked, after I’d taken a few mouthfuls. ‘I make the aioli myself.’
I nodded. ‘Very good!’
She picked up the photograph frame and turned the picture towards me. It showed a handsome young man in a white linen suit.
‘That’s my husband, Clifford,’ she said, smiling fondly. ‘That’s about the age he was when I met him. Do you want to hear about him?’
My heart raced. Clifford Lalande was my grandfather.
‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘I want to know about the whole family.’
I was starving for information about my New Orleans relatives even more than I’d been starving for the sandwich. With every little piece I learned, it was as if nerve connections had started to re-form and parts of me were coming back to life.
Grandma Ruby seemed pleased by my answer. ‘Well,’ she said, sitting back in her chair and tapping her manicured hand on her lap, ‘let’s begin with Clifford. When I was a young woman, my family had financial difficulties and I used to run a ghost tour . . .’
SEVEN
Ruby
One day, after a month of taking ghost tours around the Garden District, I’d led my group to the Victorian mansion and was relating the gory tale of Mr Parkinson’s murder, when a dark-haired young man dressed in a white linen suit appeared from around the corner and joined us. I was reaching the climax of the story and didn’t want to stop to ask him what he was doing or explain that the next tour was on Thursday, so I ignored him.
The tourists applauded when I finished the story and tipped me before making their way to the streetcar. But the young man remained, regarding me with an inquisitive expression. He was in his late twenties with a square face, tanned skin and grey eyes that turned down at the corners, giving him the sweet countenance of a puppy.
‘You say that this house is haunted by the ghost of old Mr Parkinson?’ he asked, bending a little so his tall height better matched mine. ‘And so
metimes his missing head appears in that tree over there?’
‘That’s right,’ I replied.
‘Killed by his own wife and buried under the porch?’
I nodded, thinking that if he wanted me to relate the whole story again, he was going to have to buy a ticket.
‘Fascinating!’ he said, putting his hands in his pockets and scanning the garden.
‘Yes, it is,’ I said.
He turned back to me as if suddenly struck by an idea. ‘I would like to invite you to tea. Do you care to join me?’
The merry sparkle in his eyes was fetching, but an invitation without a formal introduction wasn’t proper. I found his American brashness both disconcerting and strangely appealing.
‘I have to get back to the Quarter,’ I said, unconvincingly.
‘Oh, we don’t have to go far,’ he replied, opening the gate to the garden and beckoning me in. ‘I thought you might like to come in and see the house for yourself.’
I hesitated. What I had taken as flirtation seemed to have another motive.
He grinned at my confusion. ‘You see, I live here. This is my house.’
A flush of heat burned my cheeks and my spine stiffened. I suddenly felt foolish, and forced a laugh to hide my embarrassment. I’d been telling false and horrific stories about his home but I still resented his playing with me. My irritation dissipated when he reached out his hand to shake mine heartily. His expression was so good-natured that it smoothed my ruffled feathers.
‘I am Clifford Lalande, but all my friends call me Cliff,’ he said, the dimples on his face springing to life as he smiled. ‘And you are?’
For a moment I was tempted to stay aloof and say my name was Selene Moon. But he’d already seen straight through me and didn’t seem to care. His tongue-in-cheek manner hinted at a penchant for fun and adventure. It appealed to my own sense of mischief.
‘I’m Vivienne de Villeray,’ I said, regarding him as if we were now conspirators. ‘But you may call me Ruby.’
Southern Ruby Page 8
