Southern Ruby

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘Do you have snakes here?’ I asked. I’d come across enough deadly spiders and snakes in our garden at Roseville to be wary of digging around under old houses without taking precautions.

  ‘We get garter snakes now and then,’ said Grandma Ruby, shining the torch around the space. ‘But they’re harmless. Their fangs can’t break your skin.’

  The light caught a large rectangular metal object. I took the torch and saw that it was the lid of an army-green World War Two military trunk. I’d seen enough of them at vintage fairs to recognise one.

  ‘There it is,’ said Grandma Ruby, her voice trembling.

  I grimaced. The trunk was large enough to hold a body if you twisted the corpse into a foetal position or . . . cut off some of its limbs. I gulped and chastised myself for being so morbid.

  ‘It’s half out of the ground,’ I said. ‘The water must have pushed it up from the soil.’

  Grandma Ruby shook her head. ‘We never buried it. Clifford and I hid it under the floorboards. It must have sunk into the soil over time.’

  ‘Clifford helped you?’ I felt a surge of relief at the mention of my grandfather’s name. From Grandma Ruby’s description, he had been so noble, so upright, I couldn’t imagine him burying anything sinister under his beloved home.

  Then I remembered something Blaine had told me the day we drove out along the River Road: that during the Civil War many plantation families had buried their money and jewels in the ground. Perhaps Grandma Ruby and Clifford had been following a Southern tradition of burying their treasures.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what’s in the trunk before I take it out?’ I asked.

  Grandma Ruby opened her mouth, but emotion got the better of her and she shook her head. ‘I’m not sure there will be anything left now.’

  The relief I’d felt a moment before deserted me again. The situation seemed surreal, like I was overseeing a grim exhumation.

  I used the shovel to clear the soil away from the sides of the trunk. Then I took the crowbar and held my breath as I prised the trunk out of the soil. The humid climate of New Orleans was brutal and I expected the metal to break apart at any moment with rust. But apart from some scuffs and scratches, the trunk was in good condition. It was also lighter than I’d expected.

  ‘Is it all right if I turn it on its end to lift it out?’ I asked.

  Grandma Ruby didn’t answer, and I looked up to see her standing at the end of the porch staring at the garden.

  I managed to lift and then push the trunk up onto the porch, before climbing out of the hole myself. The front clamps were rusted, so I found a screwdriver and a hammer in the potting shed to break the locks open with. As I worked at them, I kept looking back at my grandmother but she was as still as a statue.

  Dawn was breaking and the sun cast a soft orange light onto the porch. I remembered what Grandma Ruby had said to Leroy about them being vampires that disappeared with the morning. For a moment, I saw myself opening the lid of the trunk and an undead creature leaping out at me. I shook my head to get rid of the absurd image and turned my attention back to the task. Finally, the locks gave way and I pushed the lid open.

  The first thing I saw was a layer of muslin that had yellowed with age. I put my hand on it and felt something soft underneath. I glanced at Grandma Ruby, but she remained with her back to me. My hand trembled as I lifted the fabric. It came away like a magician’s scarf to reveal something red and sparkly underneath.

  ‘Oh!’ I cried, when I recognised what it was.

  I remembered seeing a pair of cotton gloves under the kitchen sink. I rushed to the kitchen and put them on before returning to the porch.

  ‘Grandma Ruby! Look!’ I gently lifted the red sequined dress from the box. The matching bra and G-string were underneath. It was the outfit that Orry-Kelly had made for Jewel for one of her Mardi Gras performances.

  Grandma Ruby turned slowly and the agony on her face transformed to wonder.

  I’d learned enough about fabric preservation to know that we were witnessing a miracle. Although it had been packed in a watertight and airtight trunk, by rights the dress should have disintegrated from the changes in temperature or be covered in mould and mildew. But apart from some faded patches and a strong musty smell, it looked almost new.

  I took it and the underwear inside and laid them out on the rug in the parlour. The sight of the costume brought not only Jewel to life before my eyes but Leroy too. The cut of the dress was exquisite. How could he not have been in awe of Jewel when she wore this?

  Grandma Ruby stood in the doorway watching me, as if afraid to have any contact with the dress.

  ‘Why did you hide it under the porch?’ I asked her. ‘Why didn’t you store it in the attic?’

  She was quiet for a moment before answering. ‘I never got to say goodbye properly to Leroy. I got rid of everything from the room in Chartres Street, yet I couldn’t bear to part with this costume. But I couldn’t keep it in the house where someone might discover it. Clifford locked the costume away in his military trunk, but when we returned from our honeymoon and I discovered I was pregnant, I knew that I had to move forward. I told Clifford I wanted to bury the trunk. It would be the funeral for Jewel and Leroy that could never have taken place publicly.

  ‘Clifford thought under the back porch was the best place — his mother so dominated that spot that nobody would disturb it. It was better than the garden where it might accidentally be dug up or float up after heavy rain. It was a good choice in the end, because Helen wouldn’t have thought to interrupt her civil rights crusade by having anyone work on the porch. Back in those days, it was in good repair anyway.’ A faint smile came to her face. ‘You defeated me, Amandine. You and your strong will and your perfectionism. What a magnificent combination of your parents you’ve turned out to be.’

  She sat down on the sofa but still didn’t touch the dress. ‘I was lucky to have been loved by two great men. Clifford was a good husband to me. He was never jealous of Leroy and did all he could to help me and to love me, including entombing the dress. If he thought it was absurd, he never made me feel it.’ She paused, the beginning of a tear glinting in her eye. ‘Every night of our marriage, when Clifford came to bed he would touch my shoulder and say, “I love you, Ruby. Sweet dreams!” In the morning when we awoke, he would put his arms around me and say, “Good morning, my lovely wife.” Then one morning he didn’t say anything at all. My beautiful loyal husband of nearly a quarter of a century was gone. He’d passed away quietly in the night. That was so like him, so gentle, not one to be made a fuss over. Even now, after all these years, I ache to hear his greeting in the morning.’

  Grandma Ruby’s description of Clifford’s death made me think of Nan. I’d been furious with her only a few hours earlier for deceiving me about the circumstances of my parents’ accident. Now the grief that she wasn’t in my life any more came back as a heavy suffocating fog.

  ‘Nan went too quickly, without any warning,’ I said. ‘There was no chance to say goodbye.’

  Grandma Ruby looked at me compassionately. ‘The longer you live, the more loss you will live with. I’ve had so many losses that at times I thought they would crush me. But something always came along to give me hope again. It was terrible to lose Clifford when he was only in his fifties, but nobody on his side of the family seemed to live to old age. Kitty had died the previous year, the same way as her mother, from a stroke. As hard as it was for me to bear the loss of my husband, it was harder still for Dale and Louise of their father. I had to be strong for them even as my own heart was breaking. But then your mother appeared like a burst of sunshine that saved us all . . . and then you were born, Amandine. Your name means “deserving of love”. Did you know that?’

  I went to sit next to Grandma Ruby. Putting my arm around her and resting my head on her shoulder, I replied, ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  The sleepless night and the recovery of the Mardi Gras dress had drained Grandma Ruby. Her should
ers were slumped and her eyes drooped with exhaustion so I made her go to bed. Afterwards, I sat on the steps of the porch and drank a cup of tea to calm my racing thoughts. Despite not having slept either, I was too overwrought to go to bed. What I’d learned about the accident the previous night had unbalanced me, and digging under the porch for the dress had only intensified the feeling of coming unstuck.

  Lorena arrived for work, but Oliver was late. I found a spool of yellow ribbon in a sewing box in the linen press and tied it around the porch posts as a safety warning. What Grandma Ruby had said about me being a perfectionist came back to me and I was seized by an idea. I went to my room and examined the restoration plan that I’d sketched out. A project was what I needed to restore my equilibrium.

  Oliver would be pleased that we were finally going to repair the porch, but we needed a skilled carpenter to advise us on the tricky bits of the restoration. I knew the perfect person: Terence. The senior architect I’d worked with in Sydney had advised me to always use older carpenters. ‘The younger ones will take short-cuts so they can get off in time to go to the beach,’ he’d warned. I could see that Terence was detail-orientated and meticulous. I’d arranged to have another music lesson with him that day and I could ask him about it then.

  I showered and changed before checking on Grandma Ruby again. She was asleep on her back with her head and body perfectly aligned and she looked peaceful. The red dress was on a hanger near her window. There was no need to hide it any more. If anyone asked about it, I could say it was something I’d picked up in a vintage store. I’d promised Grandma Ruby that I’d contact the textiles curator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, who was a friend of Tamara’s, to find out the best way to clean and store the costume.

  I was on my way back downstairs when the house telephone rang and Lorena called me to the kitchen. ‘It’s your aunty,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Amandine! I hope you can hear me?’ Aunt Louise’s voice sounded faint through the buzzing static. ‘We’ve had trouble with our connections in the desert. From midday we’re off on a trek. It’s a retreat so we won’t have any communication with the outside world until Monday. I wanted to check that you and Momma are all right?’

  Apart from the dress upsetting Grandma Ruby, she seemed fine. ‘We’re good,’ I told my aunt. ‘Don’t worry about us. You enjoy yourselves.’

  More crackles and static interrupted the connection. ‘I’m sorry about the phone — I think we’re about to drop out. We love you, Amandine. I’ll call you when we’re back at the ranch.’

  The connection cut out, but I stood holding the receiver to my ear as if Aunt Louise was still on the line. With a simple phrase that meant the world to me — ‘We love you, Amandine’ — she had calmed the mental tumult that had plagued me all morning. Despite all the ups and downs of the past week, I would have made the decision to come to New Orleans all over again, if only to hear those words from somebody who was related to me.

  I put the receiver back and returned to the porch step, where I waited a while longer for Oliver. When he didn’t come, I figured he must have gone to the garden nursery for supplies.

  ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours,’ I told Lorena, picking up my handbag. ‘I’m going to visit a friend.’

  ‘Amandine!’ said Terence when he answered his doorbell. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you today.’

  He invited me into the front room, then pointed to my kneehigh gladiator sandals. ‘I like your shoes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the seat he offered me. ‘But the straps aren’t so good for tan lines.’ I opened my purse and took out my restoration plan. ‘I wanted to talk to you about a project I’m going to start at my grandmother’s home; she’s got a porch in need of restoration. I’ve done all the measurements, but I want a carpenter experienced with New Orleans houses and the climate. I was wondering if you could come over and look at it?’

  I was surprised when he hesitated. ‘Oh, I’m retired now, Amandine. And my eyesight and my back aren’t what they used to be. But I know a carpenter in Gentilly who would be perfect for the job. If he sees a joint you can fit a credit card into it drives him crazy. He’s done a lot of restoration work too.’

  I did my best to hide my disappointment. Not only would I have enjoyed working with Terence but I wanted to introduce him to my family. He’d told me what he thought of ‘fancy folks’, but I was sure Grandma Ruby, Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan would love him. I wouldn’t push it for now. I might be able to convince him later.

  ‘Maybe you could help me select the wood then?’ I suggested.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I can get you exactly what you want at the lumberyard at a good price. Those guys remember me. They won’t dare cheat you.’ Then rubbing his knees and turning to the piano, he said, ‘Well, let’s get started on our lesson. Since I saw you last, I’ve remembered a piece that your father told me he wrote for your mother.’

  I flinched. The pain of the previous evening flooded back to me. I still didn’t have an answer to what had upset my father so much on the night of the accident. ‘Amandine, are you all right?’ asked Terence, frowning.

  I shook my head. ‘I met a friend of my father’s last night. He told me my mother was driving the car when the accident occurred. I’d always believed it was my father.’

  Terence looked at me a long time, then took a breath before answering. ‘I didn’t know it was your mother driving. The details didn’t make a difference to me. All I knew was an accident had taken place and two beautiful people had died.’

  I tried to blink back the tears that were pricking my eyes. ‘My nan blamed my father for my mother’s death. I don’t know if it was because she wanted to believe that, or she deliberately lied to make me hate him like she did. I wish I could talk to her, to ask her what she was thinking telling me that.’

  Terence went to the kitchen and poured an iced water from the fridge. He handed it to me with an apologetic grin. ‘I haven’t had a chance to make more root beer yet.’

  He sat down again and waited for me to continue, but I was too choked up.

  Then leaning towards me, he asked, ‘Do you mind if I tell you something as an old man who has seen much of life?’

  I took a sip of the water. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘When you’re young, you have an ideal version of how you’ll be when you’re older. How you won’t feel fear any more and you’ll always know the right thing to do.’ He sat back and smiled. ‘Then you get to my age and you realise that, apart from some valuable life experience, you are still scared and you still do stupid things. In the end, we’re all only human.’

  I looked at him. His face turned serious again.

  ‘It’s a painful fact of life, but we can never know all the answers, Amandine. That your nan loved you, there can be little doubt. She brought you up, didn’t she? But whether she was deliberately lying in telling you that your father was to blame for the accident is a question that can never be answered now. By asking it, all you’re going to do is create so much pain that you can’t ever go forward. And go forward you must . . . because there’s no going back.’

  Terence was right, I knew it. Maybe I was more intimidated by the idea of creating a new life — my own life — than I cared to admit. If I took responsibility for myself, who could I blame if things didn’t work out?

  I took a few more sips of the water and steeled myself. ‘Okay, let’s work on the next piece.’

  After our lesson, as I was about to leave, I asked Terence how he’d managed to become such a proficient musician while working as a carpenter.

  He regarded me with a bemused expression on his face. ‘In New Orleans it’s quite rare to be a full-time musician. Most people have some other line of work besides their music. Nearly all the jazz greats, including Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson and Buddy Bolden, worked in trades, in factories or as labourers at some point in their lives. That’s why the music here feels so real, because it’s made by real people.’<
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  I thought about how difficult it had been to keep up the piano when I was studying at university.

  ‘You’d need superhuman energy!’ I said. ‘It’s hard to hold down a job and follow your passion.’

  He laughed. ‘Who told you that? Passion gives you the energy. That’s the difference between New Orleans and other big cities. In New York, you’re a judge or you’re a musician. You can’t be both. Down here we’re less pretentious. Our city coroner plays trumpet in gigs all over town. We’ve got judges and lawyers who think nothing of jamming with garbage collectors and city clerks. Jazz is a great equaliser. There’s no reason you can’t be an architect and a musician, Amandine. The only person stopping you is yourself.’

  When I returned to the house in the Garden District I found Oliver moving the outdoor furniture into the potting shed. ‘That tropical depression that’s been hanging around the Bahamas is growing,’ he explained.

  I nodded, embarrassed that I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. I hadn’t listened to the news since coming to New Orleans.

  ‘Do you think it’s going to threaten us?’ I asked.

  ‘At the moment, it could hit anywhere,’ he answered, folding down a patio umbrella. ‘But I’m following an old family superstition: When they give a storm a name, you better start preparing.’ He pointed towards the dovecote. ‘I’ll take the birds to my mother’s place in Natchez. I was planning to take my wife and kids to visit her anyway.’ He peered at me like he’d just thought of something. ‘You’ve got a plan, don’t you, for you and Ruby to get somewhere safe?’

  Aunt Louise had told me that she and Uncle Jonathan would be out of communication for a while. Did that mean they wouldn’t have heard about a storm potentially heading for New Orleans?

  Oliver took my hesitation for a negative answer. He went to his truck and opened the glove box, took out a pamphlet and handed it to me. ‘That’s the evacuation route out of the city. You better call some places in the non-coastal towns listed and make bookings. Even if you don’t end up using them it’s better to waste your money than have your grandmother sleeping in the car for three days. Especially in this heat.’