Southern Ruby

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘Of course, darling,’ said Aunt Louise, opening the rear door for me. ‘I’m free the day after tomorrow. I’ll take you, and then we’ll go to lunch somewhere nice afterwards.’

  I kissed Uncle Jonathan good night and got into the car. I’d only met him, Grandma Ruby and Aunt Louise a day ago but already they were feeling like family.

  Back at the house in the Garden District, Grandma Ruby made a tisane of rose petals, lavender and chamomile, and we drank it together in the dining room.

  I was sitting in my mother’s place again and was tempted to ask which place setting had been my father’s: next to her or next to Grandma Ruby? I was pierced with a longing to know about my parents’ daily lives in New Orleans. Every detail mattered. But I hesitated, remembering what Uncle Jonathan had said about Grandma Ruby never going to the cemetery. Perhaps that was why she was so attached to this house. It was a place to remember everyone without having to think about how they’d died.

  ‘I love Louise with all my heart,’ Grandma Ruby suddenly offered, ‘but sometimes I wonder if I really gave birth to her. We are like chalk and cheese. But she has an inherent goodness that I admire. She got that from her father. Clifford was an honourable man.’

  I held my breath, hoping that she would recommence her story about Clifford. I was thirsty to hear more.

  Grandma Ruby stared at the space in front of her, as if thinking deeply about something, then she stood and gathered our empty cups and saucers to take them to the kitchen.

  ‘Well, to bed,’ she said when she returned, standing by the light switch and waiting for me to follow her upstairs.

  My heart sank. Things seemed to happen slowly in New Orleans. I’d have to be patient and wait.

  NINE

  Amanda

  Blaine arrived at the house the following morning wearing a banana yellow suit and a paisley shirt. He told me he was taking me to a funeral.

  ‘You should go,’ said Lorena, stacking the breakfast plates in the dishwasher. ‘Funerals in New Orleans are something to see.’

  Grandma Ruby had left a note to say that she’d gone to a dental appointment, so I didn’t have her to come to my defence. I didn’t want to go to a funeral, especially for someone I didn’t know. My grief over Nan was still raw and I was afraid that seeing other people’s pain would trigger my own depressed feelings again. At the same time, I didn’t want to offend Blaine, who had obviously taken seriously Grandma Ruby’s request to show me the sights of New Orleans.

  ‘I only brought one black dress with me,’ I said, fishing for an excuse, ‘and it’s far too short for the occasion.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t wear black to this kind of funeral,’ replied Blaine, pointing to his own bright outfit. ‘The more colour, the better. It’s for a member of a family who were clients of your grandfather’s law firm,’ he added. ‘I know that Ruby would appreciate it if you went on her behalf. She hasn’t attended a funeral since Dale and Paula died.’

  Wearing colourful clothes to funerals, releasing balloons into the sky and calling the service ‘a celebration of a life’ had become trends in Australia too. But death was always a loss and I found it hard to be cheerful about it no matter how it was represented. Then it occurred to me that Blaine might be talking about a jazz funeral. I’d seen one on a re-run of the James Bond film Live and Let Die and had been curious enough to look up jazz funerals on the internet. The ceremony was a tradition unique to Louisiana. A band led the mourners through the streets in a slow dancing march step with dirges and hymns; however, once the funeral service was over and the body entombed, the band played upbeat music and the mourners danced wildly to celebrate the soul’s ascent to heaven. Although I still didn’t like the idea of going to the funeral, I had to admit that participating in a jazz funeral would be a unique part of my discovery of New Orleans.

  ‘All right,’ I told Blaine. ‘Give me a minute to get ready.’

  After my anticipation of a funeral parade, I was disappointed when Blaine and I arrived at an ordinary-looking funeral parlour with curtained French windows and azaleas in planter boxes bordering the driveway.

  ‘Traditionally the wake was held the night before the funeral,’ Blaine explained, leading me into the marble foyer and signing the memorial register on behalf of both of us. ‘But these days we do the viewing, service and burial all together.’

  The viewing! My mind raced. I’d been brought up a Protestant, and to me a wake meant tea and sandwiches after the funeral service. But Catholics were different, weren’t they? I remembered an Italian girl at university describing how she’d been taken to view her grandmother’s body before the coffin was closed and had to kiss her cheek. She’d described her grandmother as looking like a shrivelled potato. My jaw tightened. The sight of Nan’s pale and lifeless body in the morgue at the hospital had been traumatic enough.

  ‘Isn’t the viewing for family members only?’ I asked. ‘Maybe I should wait outside until the service?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Blaine, guiding me into the reception room. ‘Estée was the most gregarious person I’ve ever known. She knew she was dying and planned this funeral herself. She wanted everyone to come!’

  I became lightheaded as we followed the other mourners into the softly lit room. Although it was air-conditioned to a refrigerator-like chill, I was sweating. I scanned the crowded space for the coffin. But all I could see were vases of brightly coloured flowers: crocuses, dahlias, asters and hyacinths. The coffin must have been in another room. Maybe I wouldn’t have to view it at all.

  I had been self-conscious about coming to a funeral in a sky-blue skater dress, but the other mourners were also brightly attired. We looked more like we were celebrating Mardi Gras than attending a sombre event. A guitar and double bass duo played jazz in one corner; and a woman dressed like a gypsy and wearing sunglasses sat at a table to one side of the room, with a deck of tarot cards spread out before her and illuminated by a beaded lamp. People were lining up in front of her — I assumed to get their fortunes read. How had I ended up at this bizarre funeral with people I didn’t know?

  ‘This wake is Estée down to a tee,’ said Blaine, nodding towards the fortune-teller. ‘She came from one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans but liked nothing better than to sit in Jackson Square on Sundays and read the palms of tourists. Wasn’t that a marvellous life?’

  A waiter carrying a tray of cocktails offered us drinks.

  Blaine picked up a couple of glasses and handed one to me. ‘Have you tried a Hurricane before? It’s the quintessential New Orleans drink.’

  I wondered how many ‘quintessential’ drinks New Orleans had. It seemed irreverent to be drinking at somebody’s funeral, but my nerves were getting the better of me and I sipped the red-coloured liquid. From the orange-wheel garnish, I’d expected the cocktail to be fruity but the caramel taste of rum burned my throat and went straight to my head.

  ‘What’s in it?’ I asked, coughing. ‘Besides the rum?’

  A man standing behind me heard my question. ‘Grenadine,’ he answered in a casual and friendly voice. ‘But it’s got healthy content too — orange juice with lime and passionfruit thrown in.’

  I turned to find myself face to face with a man in his early thirties wearing a Hawaiian shirt. His eyes were the colour of blue chintz and stood out against his dark eyebrows and fair skin. I hadn’t intended to lock gazes with him but it was unusual for me to share the same eye level with anyone — I usually towered over people. I resisted the temptation to run my hand through his glossy brown hair, which fell to his shoulders in waves and was enough to make any girl envious. Instead, I discreetly placed my drink behind a vase. While getting drunk at a funeral might be forgivable, I doubted throwing up would be.

  ‘Well, hello, Professor Elliot,’ said Blaine, shaking the man’s hand daintily. ‘This is my friend Amandine, fresh from Australia.’

  ‘Australia?’ repeated Elliot. He looked at me for what seemed an eternity, then smiled. ‘One of
my graduate students is from Australia — Melbourne. He’s writing his thesis on Don Burrows.’

  ‘Professor Elliot Davenport teaches music theory and jazz history at the University of New Orleans,’ Blaine told me.

  Jazz history? Elliot was too young to have heard my father play but he might know something about him. I was about to ask him, when the funeral director, dressed in a white suit with an orange gerbera in his lapel, stepped onto a podium and the chatter in the room quietened.

  ‘Dear family and friends of our beloved Estée,’ he said. ‘We are going to take her away soon to prepare her for the service. If you haven’t said your last goodbyes, could you kindly do so now.’

  I glanced around, expecting some of the mourners to leave the room to pay their respects to the corpse wherever it was displayed. No-one did. Instead they lined up in front of the table where the fortune teller was reading cards. My blood turned cold. I stared at the woman. She hadn’t moved. It wasn’t simply that she hadn’t got up from her chair, turned her head or reshuffled her cards. She hadn’t moved at all — not a twitch or a tremor. She was as still as a statue.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said under my breath. ‘She’s dead!’

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ chuckled Blaine. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  He linked his arm with mine and directed me into the line that was heading towards Estée’s corpse. I looked back to Elliot as if he might somehow save me, but an elderly woman in a bejewelled kaftan had engaged him in conversation. She was digging her long fingernails into his forearm and scrunching up her face. He glanced at me and grinned ruefully before turning back to the woman who was determined to have his full attention. Meanwhile, people were kissing Estée and telling her how well she looked. Others were touching her hands. I was horrified but I couldn’t turn away.

  As it came closer to our turn to pay our respects, I was twitching from head to foot. I wanted to run away but my legs were like lead. Then I noticed something. As each person touched Estée, whatever was propping her upright in the seat started to give way. At first it was a slight lean, but then she slipped sideways when someone patted her head. An elderly man made a grab for her, but her deadweight was too much for him and she toppled to the floor with a thud that sent the room into a stunned silence.

  The funeral director and an assistant rushed forward to set her back upright, but as they lifted her, the sunglasses slipped from her face and we were treated to the sight of her flattened, half-opened eyes staring at us.

  ‘Well, that’s awkward,’ said Blaine, nudging me. ‘Can I get you another drink?’

  The burial was in Lafayette Cemetery. I’d thought such a historical place would be well-maintained, but many of the tombs had been vandalised or were falling into disrepair. If Estée’s family was so wealthy, why, I wondered, did her family’s tomb look like it was on the verge of crumbling? The door of the tomb next to it had already collapsed; and while the priest was conducting the burial service, I tried to ignore what looked like a femur bone poking out of the gap.

  The funeral assistants took forever to line up the coffin properly on the top platform. The woman in the bejewelled kaftan fainted from the heat and I thought I might drop next. I was glad when Blaine suggested we skip the luncheon and go see the French Quarter.

  We were making our way back to his red Mini Cooper when Elliot caught up with us. ‘Would you two like to get a bite to eat somewhere?’

  ‘I was going to show Amandine the French Quarter,’ Blaine said. ‘Why don’t you join us?’

  ‘Sure!’ Elliot agreed.

  When we reached the car, I turned to him and said, ‘I think you’d better take the front seat.’ We were the same height, but he was built like a bear, with broad shoulders and muscular legs.

  ‘A gentleman would never allow a lady to sit cramped in the back,’ he said. ‘Besides, the Quarter is only ten minutes away with Blaine driving.’

  I’d seen pictures of the French Quarter many times but it was another thing to lay eyes on the old town centre for myself. The Spanish colonial townhouses that dominated it, with their ornate galleries and arcaded walls, gave the narrow streets an air of romance and mystery. It seemed fitting that Grandma Ruby had grown up here.

  Blaine parked the car in front of a dusky pink and green-shuttered house in Royal Street with a gift shop on the ground floor. Nearly all the townhouses had some sort of commercial business at street level — art galleries, restaurants, antiques stores and souvenir shops. As we walked along the street, I caught glimpses of inner courtyards with banana trees and palms: little oases from the oppressive New Orleans heat.

  Blaine prodded me. ‘Ruby said you studied restoration architecture? Seeing all this must be getting your fire started.’

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve been to the Vieux Carré?’ Elliot asked. ‘Well, it couldn’t be more different from the Garden District.’ He pointed to a crown of vicious-looking spikes near the top of one of the gallery posts. ‘That’s called a Romeo pole. The Creoles constructed them to prevent amorous young men climbing up the posts to reach their daughters.’

  ‘Ouch!’ I giggled.

  ‘Elliot lives in the Quarter,’ Blaine said. ‘In an apartment that’s certified haunted.’

  ‘It’s a friendly ghost of an old woman who still likes living there, so I don’t mind,’ Elliot said with a shrug. ‘She doesn’t disturb me so I don’t disturb her.’

  ‘It must be amazing to be surrounded by so much history,’ I said to him. ‘As soon as I can, I’m going to take an architectural tour.’

  We entered a bar that was so dark inside it could have been night-time. The oriental carpet and green walls reeked of stale beer, and the patrons were dressed in shorts and flip-flops, but at least it was a cool relief from the heat outside. We took a table near the window and I studied the menu:

  Gator meatballs

  Drunk squirrel

  Coon

  Garfish

  ‘What would you like to eat?’ Blaine asked me.

  ‘Do you really eat squirrels and racoons here?’ I asked, flustered. ‘Those were the animals that inhabited Snow White’s forest in my favourite childhood Disney film. I can’t imagine eating them.’

  ‘I was wondering about the choice of restaurant myself,’ said Elliot. He leaned towards me and mock whispered, ‘Blaine’s ancestors were from the Caribbean: he’ll eat anything that comes out of the swamp. But don’t worry, they also serve salads with French fries.’

  Blaine threw back his head and laughed good-naturedly. ‘Well, if it was up to Elliot we’d be at some dive on Frenchmen Street listening to poetry readings and chewing on kale. I don’t usually eat here — it’s for tourists and I don’t recommend it. But they’ve got a good selection of beer. Why don’t you try the Lazy Magnolia Jefferson Stout?’ he said, before adding with a wink, ‘it’s the ideal Southern stout: dark and chocolatey. But I won’t make the obvious joke. We can have a drink here and then walk to the French Market for something to eat.’

  The waitress arrived and we placed our orders for drinks. A trombonist, bass player and saxophonist started setting up in the corner.

  I watched them for a moment before turning back to my companions. ‘Was that a normal funeral for New Orleans?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t your typical Catholic service,’ said Elliot with a wry grin. ‘But it was what Estée wanted, and in New Orleans we aim to please.’

  ‘But that tomb?’

  ‘A lot of people are under the impression that we bury above ground because of our high water table,’ said Blaine, missing my point. ‘They say the coffins float up in heavy rains. But our above-ground tombs are actually an environmentally friendly form of slow cremation.’

  I gritted my teeth, sure he was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘In the tropical heat, it can get up to three hundred degrees Fahrenheit inside those tombs,’ he continued. ‘After a year and one day, the official waiting time, there isn’t much left
of the deceased but bones and dust. Whatever is left of the coffin is disposed of, and the remains are swept to the back of the tomb where there’s a space for them to drop to the bottom of the vault. Then the tomb can be used for another family member. Some of those tombs hold dozens of people. Tell me that’s not a great space-saver!’

  I must have been pulling a face because Elliot glanced at me sympathetically. ‘You’ll have to forgive us, Amandine. We New Orleanians tend to forget that other people aren’t as comfortable with death as we are. Death is as much a part of this city as a nose is part of a face. Four years after the colony was first settled, it was wiped out by a hurricane. In the 1700s it was destroyed twice by fires; and later, more than forty-one thousand people died from yellow fever. I think our history of death is the reason why we make merry today and don’t worry too much about tomorrow.’

  The waitress brought our drinks. I took a sip of mine. It tasted like a blend of roasted chocolate, coffee and caramel; more like a dessert than a beer.

  ‘My grandmother told me that in her day when a hurricane was approaching, they used to party,’ I said, glad to get away from the subject of cemeteries and funerals.

  Elliot grimaced and turned serious. ‘New Orleans was smaller then, and the wetlands were still intact. Professor Ivor van Heerden, a friend of mine, is a hurricane expert at Louisiana State University. He’s been warning the city authorities that New Orleans is poorly prepared for a category four or five storm. He predicts even a category three hurricane could potentially destroy the city and surrounding areas.’

  ‘I saw an article about that in NOLA Life News,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t understand how that could be possible.’

  ‘New Orleans is below sea level and, according to Ivor, with climate change even a slow-moving hurricane could create a storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain and flood the industrial areas,’ Elliot explained. ‘The waters, full of toxic chemicals, would then flow into the city, which would fill up like a soup bowl. The poorer, lower lying areas will be the worst hit. There are thousands of families who don’t own cars in this city and many homeless, elderly and disabled people who won’t have a way out if the city rapidly floods.’