Southern Ruby (60 page)

While Grandma Ruby took a shower and Leroy stretched out on the floor — he refused to lie on the bed until he'd cleaned up — I called Aunt Louise.

‘Amandine!' she sobbed when she heard my voice. ‘Oh my God! Where are you? Where's Momma? Is she all right?'

‘We're fine,' I told her, nearly dropping the receiver as my hands began to shake. I burst into tears. The shock was wearing off and the trauma was setting in.

Aunt Louise was too overcome to talk, so Uncle Jonathan came on the line. ‘A journalist acquaintance of mine got us through the National Guard on Wednesday. We found your note that you were evacuating to your friend's sister's place,' he said. ‘But when we rang the number you'd left, Elliot's sister said none of you had arrived. She's beside herself with worry. I'll call her right away.'

‘Elliot's not with us,' I told him, my voice trembling. ‘I don't know where he is. When I last saw him he was rescuing people with a rowboat.'

Uncle Jonathan paused, then said, ‘The house in the Garden District is undamaged, but the power is out and the city has turned off the water. Lake Terrace flooded in some areas, but according to one of our neighbours the water didn't reach our house. Our office building is a wreck though. We've rented a house in Baton Rouge until we figure out what to do. We'll book flights for you and Ruby to join us here tomorrow. Flambeau can come by pet transport. I can't see real estate being a booming business in New Orleans for a while.'

I glanced at Leroy; he'd fallen asleep on the floor. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do when we met Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan, but I'd think about that later.

‘A good friend of Grandma Ruby's is with us,' I told Uncle Jonathan. ‘He's lost everything in the storm. Can he stay too?'

‘Of course,' he said without hesitation. ‘Give me his name and I'll get a ticket for him as well. I'll call you back once we've booked the flights.'

Grandma Ruby came out of the bathroom after I'd hung up with Uncle Jonathan. She kissed Leroy on the cheek to wake him up. The natural closeness between them made them seem like an old married couple. It hard to believe that they hadn't been together all their lives.

Leroy offered me the bathroom next, but I told him I was waiting for Uncle Jonathan to call me back. I reclined in the armchair and thought about all the people in New Orleans, like Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan, whose livelihoods were gone: the tour guides; entertainers; hoteliers, restaurateurs and waiters; doctors and nurses; construction and council workers; teachers; hairdressers; cleaners and gardeners; accountants; lawyers; shop assistants; plant operators; and oil refinery and shipping workers. As the list grew in my mind, the full significance of what had happened and what the after effects would be hit me. Was New Orleans even going to be able to come back from this? Perhaps I had been witness to the last days of the city. Exhaustion overcame me and my eyes drooped. Despite my intention to wait for Uncle Jonathan's call, I surrendered into a deep sleep.

I woke a few hours later to see a good-looking elderly couple staring at me.

The man was wearing a golf shirt, khaki shorts and loafers. The woman was decked out in a Hawaiian-print pantsuit with a white beach hat.

‘Well, you were lights out to the world, weren't you?' said the woman. ‘We couldn't wake you for anything! Not even when Johnny called back, or room service arrived.'

‘Oh my God,' I said, struggling to sit up. ‘Where did you get those clothes? You look like a couple of escapees from a Florida retirement village!'

‘The spare clothes we brought with us smell like the Superdome and resort wear was all we could find in the mall,' Grandma Ruby replied. ‘We got some things for you too.'

‘Oh, good,' I said, rubbing my face and discovering it was gritty with dirt. ‘I'll take them into the bathroom with me. Did you see a doctor?'

She nodded. ‘Yes, she checked me over and filled the script for the warfarin. I feel fine, Amandine. You've got to stop worrying. You're the one who looks like a wreck now.'

In the bathroom, I peeled off my skirt, top and underwear, dropped them in the bin and tied off the plastic bag. They stank like week-old garbage and there was no point trying to salvage them.

I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I was burned, peeling and filthy. Nan's pendant was still around my neck, and I took it off and rinsed it under the tap. Then I turned to get in the shower and saw the angel wings on my back.

‘Thank you,' I said, brushing my hands over them. ‘Thank you.'

I wasn't exactly sure who I was thanking. My mother for being my guardian angel? Or Nan? All I knew was that I was alive and that was something to be very grateful for.

When I stepped out of the shower, I smothered myself in the hotel's lavender-scented moisturiser, even though it stung my skin, then put on the clean underwear Grandma Ruby had bought me. She'd also acquired a floral shirt-dress, a pair of ankle boots and some aviator sunglasses.

‘Not too bad,' she said with a giggle when I modelled them for her.

I put my mobile phone on charge and checked to see if there were any messages from Elliot. There weren't. But there was a frantic one from Tamara and I realised I'd never called her back.

‘Oh, God!' she cried when she heard my voice. ‘We've seen the pictures on TV! We were so worried when we didn't hear back from you. Come home, Amanda! You can't stay there.'

I rested my head against the back of the chair. ‘I'll call you as soon as things settle down,' I promised her.

Hearing Tamara's voice was like being called back to another life, to safe Sydney with no guns, no hurricanes, and nice sane people. But those couple of weeks in New Orleans before the storm had shown me another life, another way of being. Crazy maybe, but also . . . expanded, richer, full of possibilities. I'd seen the best of New Orleans and now it was gone, blown away before my eyes.

‘Let's get something to eat,' said Grandma Ruby, touching my shoulder.

She'd rolled up a blanket so Flambeau could sit comfortably in an armchair with a bowl of oats she'd found in the mini-bar. Leroy put the
Do Not Disturb
sign on the door so the maids wouldn't discover our feathered companion.

When the three of us got in the elevator to go downstairs, we looked at our reflections in the mirror. ‘I feel like I'm going to a Halloween party with my wife and granddaughter,' Leroy said. We all laughed so hard I thought my sides would split. I'd never imagined I could ever laugh like that again.

‘I love you!' I said to Grandma Ruby and Leroy, my laughter melting into tears. ‘I love you both so much.'

We hugged each other, then Leroy kissed Grandma Ruby and me. ‘I love you both too,' he said. ‘The storm took away everything I had, but it gave me a family.'

The waitress showed us to a table near the window. A gardener was trimming the hedges outside and the street was clean and free of debris. After being in a flooded city, the orderliness of
our current surroundings was surreal. I tucked into my roasted beet risotto like I'd never seen food before. Grandma Ruby had ordered a green bean and wild mushroom casserole to build herself up again, while Leroy ordered shrimp and grits ‘in honour of New Orleans'. We were silent as we ate, each lost in our own thoughts.

‘Everything changes in fifty years and nothing changes too,' Grandma Ruby said finally. ‘When I think of those people in the Superdome . . . and the people who died in the Lower Ninth Ward . . .' She choked back her tears. ‘There were moments when I was sure we were going to die too, but the fact that we didn't tells me that we have something to do.' She clasped Leroy's hand. ‘New Orleans is going to be hurting for a long time. The city needs our story. It needs people who will help it bridge the gap between its black and white citizens. And that is exactly what I intend to do with whatever time I have left.'

She ordered dessert and sherry for us, but I wanted to give her and Leroy some time alone to celebrate their reunion so I made the excuse of returning to the room to check on Flambeau and see if there were any messages from Elliot.

Before I left the restaurant, I turned back to spy on my grandparents from the doorway. They were holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes like young lovers. Despite all they had been through and the years they'd been separated, their expressions were serene. For a moment I saw them both as they had been when they were young: Grandma Ruby as Jewel in her red sequined dress, and Leroy in his sharp suit. Life had been cruel to them, but it had also been kind. Grandma Ruby was right: she and Leroy should share their story. It was a story of injustice but also one of love — a true New Orleans story.

I was heading towards the elevator when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see Elliot. A rush of warmth hit my heart. If I'd had the energy I would have leaped for joy. Instead I ran to him and threw my arms around him and pressed my
face into his chest. ‘Thank God, you're all right!' I cried. ‘I was beginning to think I'd never see you again!'

‘Easy,' he said, laughing. ‘My ribs are bruised and I smell like a sewer.'

I didn't care how he smelled, I was so happy to see him. I took his hand and led him to the elevator. ‘What happened to you after you dropped us off at the bridge?' I asked him.

‘I ended up at the Superdome on Friday after my boat hit a submerged post and sank,' he explained. ‘But I managed to get about one hundred and fifty people out and a truckload of cats and dogs into the hands of animal rescuers. I don't think that experience is something I'm ever going to forget.'

I gazed into Elliot's eyes, so thankful that I hadn't lost him. He'd rescued so many people and animals. He was a hero, but I knew he'd never call himself one. ‘We've got a room upstairs,' I said, when the elevator doors opened. ‘You can clean up and I'll order you some food. How did you find us?'

‘I was moved to the Hyatt Hotel as everyone was being shipped out. I couldn't find you and was put in a group to be flown out to San Antonio. On the flight I got talking to a couple of Australians who had seen you and said you'd been sent on a bus to Dallas. I caught a flight to here then asked around at the convention centre until I traced you to the hotel.'

While Elliot took a shower, I turned on the television. It was the worst thing I could have done because all the news bulletins were showing ghastly images from New Orleans: the city underwater; bloated bodies floating in the muck or left on bridges and at other supposed rescue points; looters and armed guards roaming the streets because law and order had broken down and people were shooting each other simply because they could.

‘We had a narrow escape in the storm,' I heard Elliot say behind me. ‘A very narrow escape.'

He took a beer from the mini-bar and sat down next to me on the edge of the bed, a towel wrapped around his waist. There
were scratches on his stomach and back, and blisters on his feet. I looked at my own blistered feet and understood then that we'd been through something that would bond us forever.

‘You won't want to stay now, will you, Amandine? You'll go back to Australia,' Elliot said. There was a sad ache in his voice. ‘It'll be months before New Orleans is habitable again, maybe even years, and many people probably won't ever come back. I'm not sure if the university is still there, or where all the students will go. I might not have a job to return to.'

He put his beer down and rubbed his face. ‘Hurricane Katrina didn't kill people. Neglect did. Plain, criminal neglect. How do you ever recover from that? How do you make peace with yourself knowing that people were murdered by the corruption, arrogance and apathy of their own government?'

I turned the television off and took his hand in mine. ‘Grandma Ruby thinks we survived because we have a duty to fulfil,' I said, and squeezed his hand harder. ‘I'm not going back to Australia, Elliot. New Orleans is going to need people who love it to nurse it back to life. As well as its doctors, nurses, teachers and government employees it's going to need its storytellers — its writers and its musicians. And it's going to need architects to help people rebuild their homes. I'm not talking about big fancy plantation homes or mansions in the Garden District — there'll always be people to renovate them. I mean architects who'll work for free to help poor people rebuild their homes — and make them better than the ones they had before. Homes designed for the local conditions, that won't collapse so easily in hurricanes or floods.'

‘Amandine . . .' Elliot tried to say more, but he was too choked with emotion. Instead he curled his fingers around mine and pulled me towards him so I was nestled in his lap.

I kissed him like my life depended on it, then I pressed my face to his neck and thought back to that crazy night with Blaine in the Louisiana swamplands and the racoon and
putting my wish in the cauldron. That wish had come true, despite all the horror and turmoil that had threatened to destroy it.