Southern Ruby (10 page)

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 simple 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.