Southern Ruby (55 page)

I put the other overnight bag I'd found on top of the blanket box at the end of her bed. ‘Pack a couple of changes of clothing,' I instructed. ‘But leave some room on top so I can put your medications inside — in case we have to evacuate.'

‘We don't
have
to do anything,' she replied irritably. ‘They can't make you leave if you don't want to.'

A smile danced on my lips. I remembered Uncle Jonathan telling me that if something was forbidden it attracted Grandma Ruby all the more. She didn't like being told what to do. Was
that really only eleven days ago? My life had so completely changed that I didn't feel like the same person. On the other hand, I felt as if I had just arrived in New Orleans and had come to love it. Now we might have to leave.

I left Grandma Ruby to pack her bag while I returned to the kitchen and put some supplies in a cooler box, including titbits for Flambeau who never seemed to eat anything as common as chicken feed.

‘What do you think?' I asked him while he perched on a stool and watched me. ‘Should we go or should we stay? Aren't birds supposed to be able to sense danger?'

Elliot arrived with some beignets.

‘Firstly, how did you know that Grandma Ruby eats beignets in the morning?' I asked him. ‘And secondly, how did you find a bakery that was open?'

‘The Quarter looks surprisingly normal,' he answered. ‘There are tourists walking up and down Bourbon Street and many of the shops are open.'

‘Where's Duke?'

‘My neighbour was leaving for Baton Rouge this morning. He took Duke and his portable cage with him to drop off at my sister's place. I thought that would give us more room in the car.'

Grandma Ruby came downstairs, and Elliot propped her legs up on an ottoman before serving her the beignets and a cup of hot water with lemon.

‘I usually have coffee for breakfast,' she told him. ‘And strong.'

‘Not if your stomach is upset,' he said.

She rolled her eyes but drank the hot water and lemon obediently. I smiled. She would never have listened to me.

Elliot turned the television on and we watched the weather broadcasts in between stowing valuables away in the safe and wrapping up breakables and storing them in the cupboard under the stairs or in the bathrooms.

As I was sealing up one box I heard a male reporter say, ‘
“Gassing up and getting out” is the catchphrase in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama today as residents await confirmation of Katrina's dangerous track.
'

I walked into the sitting room and stared at the image on the television screen. It showed a technicoloured swirl brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. The orange eye of the hurricane seemed to be growing bigger by the second.

The image switched to a diagram of New Orleans, which showed how the shape of the land and the levees did indeed form what looked like a soup bowl.

‘
The worst-case scenario of this hurricane if it heads towards us or slightly west of us,
' continued the reporter's voiceover, ‘
is that the Downtown area of New Orleans could be covered in ten to fifteen feet of water. Of course, this is what many residents have been worrying about for several years now . . .
'

‘A lot of people talking and not a lot of action,' said Elliot, coming up behind me. ‘That's why so many people are cynical about leaving. They can't believe there can be any real danger if the authorities haven't done anything to prevent the city being flooded.'

I thought of Terence and went to check my mobile to see if he'd rung. He hadn't. The low-charge signal was flashing. Because of the different power voltage between the United States and Australia, it took ages to charge my phone. I connected it to the charger on the kitchen bench, next to my bag so I wouldn't forget it.

By evening, the weather reports were becoming more dire. Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center was being quoted by a reporter as having said: ‘This is the worst storm I've seen in my thirty-three-year history as a meteorologist. The conditions are the worst I've seen. The storm is the worst I've seen. This is the one that we have all been dreading.'

My stomach tightened. This wasn't some news anchor trying to improve ratings. It was the opinion of an experienced meteorologist.

Elliot noticed my concern. ‘Landfall won't be until Monday,' he said. ‘We've prepared everything we can prepare. We'll set off first thing in the morning. Hopefully Ruby will be feeling better by then. If not, we'll go to the hospital on our way out of town and get a doctor to check her before we go on to Baton Rouge.'

That night I sat with Grandma Ruby reading to her from a book I'd found on the shelf in the parlour,
The Bonfire of the Vanities
. Although I'd read it years before, it was only now that its racial themes hit home. Gradually Grandma Ruby's eyes began to droop and she fell asleep. I watched her chest rise and fall for a few minutes before turning out the light.

I made my way down the hallway to my room. Elliot had made himself a bed from cushions spread out on the floor and was fast asleep, sprawled on his stomach. I kneeled down and kissed his cheek. ‘We could have shared the bed,' I whispered. He stirred and smiled but continued on sleeping.

The air in the room was motionless and a chorus of frogs was croaking in the garden. Sweat was dripping down my back from the humidity. I stood under the shower for a full ten minutes, letting the cold water stream over my burning skin. After going up and down the stairs so many times, I was dead on my feet and wasn't sure I even had the energy to reach the bed. When I climbed on top of it, I lay down on the bedspread — still too hot to get under the covers. I closed my eyes then opened them again. Every nerve in my body seemed to have switched itself to high alert. ‘Oh no!' I said.

‘You all right?' Elliot asked.

I looked over the side of the bed to see that he was awake and watching me.

‘I was exhausted a moment ago but now I can't sleep.'

He propped himself up on his elbow. ‘That's called adrenal exhaustion. I get that sometimes when I'm marking final examination papers. I find a packet of Fig Newtons and a cup of herb tea usually does the trick.'

‘Damn!' I said, tongue-in-cheek. ‘We don't have any Fig Newtons.'

Elliot stood up and came to the bed, nudging me to move over and let him lie down next to me.

He smelled delicious, like coconut and lime. A warm thrill ran through me when he smoothed his hands over my hair and gazed into my face. ‘You're getting the full menu of what New Orleans has to offer, aren't you?' he said, running his hand down my side then back again to my shoulder. ‘This beautiful home in the Garden District, jazz, evacuating for a hurricane . . . but I think you've missed out on a very important thing.'

‘What's that?' I asked.

He kissed me softly on the lips then reached for the hem of my nightdress and drew it up over my stomach. Waves of desire stirred in my belly when he pressed his body against mine. ‘The exquisite pleasure of making love in a four-poster bed that's going to creak like crazy,' he said. I laughed and lifted my arms as he pulled my nightdress over my head and dropped it to the floor. He brushed his fingers over the curves of my breasts and I quivered. ‘Do you think you might like to experience that?'

I slipped my hand around his back and nuzzled into his neck, then whispered in his ear: ‘Why don't you try me?'

W
hen I awoke the next morning, Elliot was already up. I lay back on the pillows and smiled when I recalled the pleasure of our love making. Then I heard him closing and lashing the shutters downstairs and remembered the impending hurricane. I went to the bedroom window and saw a stream of cars heading down Prytania Street. People were getting out.

The house was gloomy with the shutters closed. I searched for Elliot and found him outside nailing plywood boards to the parlour windows, which didn't have shutters.

He had his shirt off and for the first time I noticed the tattoo on his left shoulder, a treble clef and musical notes. I hummed the melody. It was the refrain from Louis Armstrong's ‘It's a Wonderful World'. I sneaked up behind him and kissed it.

‘I didn't notice that last night,' I said.

He turned around and smiled. ‘I didn't think you noticed too much of anything,' he replied, kissing me on the lips. Then his face turned serious.

‘I got up early and listened to the broadcasts,' he said. ‘The Mayor has ordered a mandatory evacuation. It's the first time in the history of New Orleans that an evacuation has been mandatory. I'm not even sure if he can legally do it.' He finished securing the plywood then looked me straight in the eye. ‘He wouldn't be doing that unless he was certain the storm was going to hit us and it was going to be a category five.'

While Elliot locked up the potting shed, I went to the kitchen and turned on the television. The station was replaying the Mayor's evacuation order: ‘
Hurricane Katrina will likely affect the Louisiana Coast with tropical force winds and heavy rainfall by this evening. Governor Blanco and I, Mayor C. Ray Nagin, have each declared a state of emergency. Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the City of New Orleans . . .
'

I rushed upstairs and told Grandma Ruby that we had to leave and she'd better have a shower. I took her overnight bag downstairs. It was heavier than mine, but she was a snappy dresser so I assumed she'd included at least one pair of dress shoes. I unzipped the bag and placed her medicines on top of a couple of scarves she'd packed, checking and rechecking that I had included all four of them. I tucked the script Doctor Wilson had written in my own bag next to my passport.

Elliot took one of the cardboard boxes I'd got from Blaine's assistant and punched holes in it with a screwdriver. He went to the kitchen and returned with Flambeau, opening the box flaps to put him inside.

‘He won't like that,' I told him. ‘He's used to sitting on Grandma Ruby's lap.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Elliot. ‘But we can't risk him getting a fright and flapping off.' He put Flambeau in the box, took a permanent marker from his pocket and wrote my mobile number on the bird's wing.

‘You think of everything,' I said.

Grandma Ruby came downstairs and rolled her eyes while Elliot and I did the final checks on the house. ‘I'm only going along with this because of all your theatricality in making an evacuation,' she said. ‘This house and its stories will outlast all of us. It's not going to blow away in any storm.'

Because Grandma Ruby's stomach was still upset, Elliot and I decided to go to the hospital before we left the city. We hadn't expected it to be so crowded. All the private clinics that were closing for the hurricane had sent their patients there and, as many of the doctors had left town, anyone who was sick had come too.

We found Grandma Ruby a seat in the waiting area, but Elliot and I had to sit on the floor. We hadn't wanted to leave Flambeau in the car because of the heat, but we knew there was no way he'd be let into the hospital, so I'd emptied the contents of my overnight bag into a shopping tote and put Flambeau inside with the zipper open at the edge for air. I'd expected him to protest about his captivity, but he seemed to sense something serious was at stake and kept quiet.

Storm updates were flashing on the television in the waiting room and were growing more ominous by the minute. ‘
A powerful hurricane is now predicted to directly hit New Orleans within twelve to twenty-four hours
,' said one newsreader. ‘
At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. There is potential for great loss of life.
'

A convoy of ambulances arrived with elderly patients from a care facility. Some of them were on ventilators. A couple of nurses rushed past us towards the new arrivals.

‘If it floods, we are in deep trouble,' one nurse said to the other. ‘Our back-up generators are below ground-floor level. If they get water in them, they'll fail and we'll lose our capacity for life support.'

I wondered what was going to happen to all the people who couldn't evacuate the city: terminally ill patients, women in labour, paraplegics, premature babies, the homeless and the mentally ill. I slipped my hand into my bag and patted Flambeau to calm myself, but then started thinking about all the animal shelters and the pounds. What about the zoo? Were they going to get the animals out? And what about those Australian tourists? The airport would be closed now. Could they rent a bus and get away?

Panic seized me as the scale of the impending catastrophe grew in my imagination. This wasn't some tiny coastal town that was facing annihilation; it was a major American city!

The woman next to me must have been thinking similar things because she turned to her husband and asked, ‘What do you suppose they'll do at the prison if it floods?' I assumed she was concerned about the welfare of the prisoners who would be trapped there, until she added, ‘I guess the guards will leave them to drown, or shoot them if they try to escape. And good riddance too. It will save taxpayers' money.'

I turned to Elliot for comfort, but he was watching the elderly patients being wheeled into the hospital on gurneys and in wheelchairs.

‘My grandparents used to shelter at the hospital during hurricanes in the 1940s and 1950s,' he told me. ‘My grandfather was a doctor and my grandmother was a nurse. They'd bring sandwiches, flasks of coffee and their pet dogs and stay here the night helping with the patients until the storm passed over.' He nodded towards the nurses I'd overheard earlier, who were now directing the flow of patients towards the elevators. ‘It sounds like they're worried how the hospital will hold up to this hurricane though.'

News bulletins continued to race across the television screen. I saw that the Mayor had informed residents that the Superdome would be a shelter of last resort for those who had no means to
leave town. I thought of Terence, and took out my mobile to see if there were any messages, but the battery was flat.

‘Are you all right?' Elliot asked.

‘Terence is going to die in his home if he doesn't get out.'

Elliot frowned. ‘He'll go to the Superdome surely.'

I shook my head. ‘He told me that if his neighbours can't leave, he won't either. I left him a message to say he could stay with them in the house in the Garden District, but I haven't heard back from him.'

Elliot rubbed his arms and shuddered. ‘After the doctor sees Ruby, we'll drive down there and persuade him to leave. We can give his neighbours a ride to the Superdome, or they can stay at my place. The French Quarter is on higher ground than the Lower Ninth Ward.'

I thought Grandma Ruby was dozing, but she must have heard our conversation. She suddenly stood up, looking perky. ‘The other people here are far worse than me,' she said. ‘I don't want to waste the doctor's time. Let's go, otherwise we'll be stuck in gridlocked traffic.'

Although I was still concerned about her, she was right. It would be hours before she could see a doctor, and if we stayed, we'd possibly end up weathering Katrina in the hospital. We could go see a doctor once we'd arrived at Baton Rouge.

As we drove to the Lower Ninth Ward, I had a sinking feeling that we'd left our escape too late. The traffic making its way to I-10 had slowed to a crawl. Elliot had to periodically turn the air conditioning off so his car wouldn't overheat.

We had brought only what was most essential, but some of the cars we passed were packed with not only adults, children and pets but also quilts, books, musical instruments and even paintings. I'd put Flambeau back in his box when we'd returned to the car but he had busted out and was now sitting on top of it, looking out the window. I thought it was cool that we were
travelling with a rooster, but we were topped by a driver with his python draped over his shoulders.

It took us two hours to make the short trip to the Lower Ninth Ward. The wind was starting to pick up. It was the first sign so far that a storm was coming.

We parked the car in the shade of a crepe myrtle tree that was starting to bend in the breeze. Elliot left the tops of the windows cracked open, and I passed Grandma Ruby a bottle of water. ‘We'll only be a minute,' I told her. I looked up at the sky, which was starting to grow darker. A minute was probably all we could spare before the heavy rains that preceded a hurricane starting pouring down, making the evacuation even more difficult.

The houses on either side of Terence's and across the road had plywood fixed to their windows and doors. I suspected he had installed that form of hurricane protection.

The sound of hammering came from the back garden and Elliot and I went around to find Terence securing plywood to his rear windows. He gave a jolt of surprise when he saw us.

‘Amandine! Elliot! I expected you'd be well on your way out of town by now. I've heard I-10 is banked up already, even though they opened up the incoming lanes to outgoing traffic.'

‘We've come to take you with us,' said Elliot. ‘This storm sounds bad, Terence. Really bad.'

Terence shook his head. ‘I can't leave. Augusta's son took her to the hospital, but I've still got elderly Mr and Mrs Williams across the road and the lady down the street with all her children. Then there's Jerry near the bus stop.'

‘We can give them all a ride to the Superdome,' said Elliot. ‘They'll be safer there.'

Terence grimaced. ‘You know who's going to go to the Superdome? All the gangs, drug dealers and troublemakers. I went there during Hurricane Georges and got robbed at knifepoint. Those elderly people are too frail for that, and how's a young woman with five kids going to defend herself?'

‘Hey, Ti-Jean!' called a man on a ladder from the house behind. ‘You staying too?'

Terence nodded. ‘And you?'

‘Sure am!' the man replied. ‘I got my arsenal of weapons. Any looter trying to get into my house is gonna get one hell of a surprise!'

‘Why did he call you Ti-Jean?' I asked when Terence turned back to us. I remembered that had been the name of Leroy's brother.

‘It's a diminutive, not a name,' he explained. ‘My grandfather was named John Terence, and apparently I greatly resembled him so my family always referred to me as Ti-Jean — Little John — as a joke. I told my neighbour that story once at a crawfish boil and ever since he's called me Ti-Jean.'

‘Well, that's the longest minute I've ever spent in a hot car,' said Grandma Ruby, coming around the corner with Flambeau under her arm.

She stopped in her tracks when she saw Terence and blinked. Then she brought her hand to her mouth, staring at him as if she'd seen a ghost.

‘How can it be?' she said, her voice quivering. ‘Is it you? Is it really you?'

Terence dropped his hammer. He was trembling from head to foot. For what seemed like an endless moment, neither of them moved.

Elliot and I exchanged a glance, confused. Terence and Grandma Ruby knew each other?

Terence tried to say something, but his voice died in his throat. He stepped forward, like he wanted to rush towards Grandma Ruby but couldn't move his feet.

Grandma Ruby edged back from him, looking bewildered. ‘All these years,' she said. ‘For all these years I thought you were dead. I saw you in the casket.'

My heart thumped in my chest. What was I not seeing? What was I overlooking? Then my mind jammed and I stopped breathing for a moment as the realisation hit me.
When she came on stage the whole world stopped. She was mesmerising. She danced at the Vieux Carré nightclub, a classy place on Bourbon Street. It's gone now, of course.
I knew from Grandma Ruby's stories that black men weren't allowed to watch white strippers. Terence would never even have been allowed in the Vieux Carré Club unless he was in the band. What had been jumbled up started to make sense — but in a way that seemed crazy.

Now I understood Terence's deep love for my father: he'd loved him because he was Jewel's son. He was the one who had been leaving flowers at my parents' tomb. I also understood why he hadn't wanted to help with the porch or stay at the house in the Garden District. Terence didn't want to see Grandma Ruby because he was Leroy!

Tears ran down Grandma Ruby's cheeks. ‘Why would you fake your own death? My heart was broken!'

‘Every day, every second of every day, I always thought of you, Jewel,' Leroy said, his voice broken. ‘I never left you. The Klan killed my brother Terence — Ti-Jean — because of his activities, but that wasn't enough for them — they went after my family too. And I could only imagine what they would do if they found out about you. When Terence was murdered, I begged my family to tell you that it was me who'd been killed. It was the only way I could set you free. No matter what I did or said, I knew you'd follow me anywhere, even to your own destruction. They only agreed because they loved you too, Jewel. They knew it was the right thing.'

It was clear now that Jimmy had lied when he'd told Grandma Ruby he'd murdered Leroy: he was the sort of person who would try to take credit for someone else's racist execution.