Southern Ruby (8 page)

When we came to the last house on my schedule and the men still weren't impressed by my story of the star-crossed lovers who had leaped from its roof and whose heart-wrenching death cries could still be heard on summer evenings, I was ready to admit defeat. Until a pretty Victorian mansion on Prytania Street caught my eye. On my tour, I'd deliberately chosen antebellum houses or ones that were falling into decay, but this house was immaculate and the garden was a magnificent display of spring roses, honeysuckle and day lilies in full bloom.
Everyone
is unnerved by a creepy house
, I thought,
but what could be scarier and more unexpected than an angry ghost inhabiting a home as pretty as this one?
It occurred to me that the men from Los Angeles didn't want to be scared, they wanted to be horrified. A story formed in my mind, drawing on Aunt Elva and Uncle Rex as characters. I brought my group to a stop.

‘This is the last house on our tour,' I said, lowering my voice to an ominous whisper. ‘A couple named Parkinson bought this beautiful home in 1897, but they were unhappily married. He was a kind, generous man, but she was the sort of woman who wouldn't even spare a few pennies for a limbless Confederate veteran. The couple had a niece whose family had fallen on hard times and whose mother was sick. When the wife found out her husband had been giving this niece money to help with expenses, she became so enraged that she cut her husband's throat while he lay sleeping, decapitating him.'

The woman from San Francisco gasped. The others rolled their shoulders or rubbed their necks as if trying to resist prickly feelings of horror. I glanced at the two men from Los Angeles. One of them had his mouth wide open while the other shivered noticeably. I looked down at the ground for a moment to compose myself so they wouldn't catch me smiling.

‘When people asked Mrs Parkinson where her husband was, she answered that he'd deserted her and gone to Chicago. Given her cantankerous disposition, nobody found the story too incredible to believe or questioned that Mr Parkinson's tolerance might have finally broken. But for years afterwards, on the anniversary of the murder, a headless ghost appeared in the neighbouring houses, pointing to the blood dripping from its neck and beckoning the occupants to follow it. Of course, people were terrified and made all sorts of bedlam to scare away the ghost.

‘One night, two young men who were visiting an elderly aunt saw the hideous apparition in her parlour. One of the men shot at the wraith with his pistol, but the other said he was sure
the ghost was trying to tell them something. He followed the eerie figure out the door and down the steps, struggling to keep up with its supernatural speed. It led him to the house you see here, to its back porch, before it disappeared. Although it was summer and the garden was alive with the scents of jasmine and magnolias, the young man detected a whiff of a foul odour. The next morning he went to the police, convinced there was a body under that porch.

‘Sure enough, when the police investigated they found the decayed corpse of Mr Parkinson — but not his head. The wife was found guilty of murder and hanged for her crime, but even as she went to the gallows she refused to say what she'd done with her husband's head. Some say she burned it in the fireplace. Others say she cooked it and served the flesh to the niece as a chicken jambalaya.'

I paused, readying myself for the clincher. One of the Los Angeles men was opening and closing his fists, the other was staring at me, waiting for what was going to come next.

I turned and pointed to a live oak tree in the garden. ‘But one thing is for certain: people around here say that on that same night once a year, Mr Parkinson's severed head appears in that tree there and laughs raucously, knowing that his death has been avenged.' I stared at the tree as if I was seeing a vision, then turned back to the group. ‘Today is the anniversary. Who dares to come back here with me tonight?'

Everyone looked very uneasy and slipped me their tips quickly before slinking away. But when the men from Los Angeles tipped me five dollars each I knew that Selene Moon had triumphed!

I gave most of the money I earned from my growing tour business to Mae for the housekeeping, but once I kept a little
back to buy Maman a lilac satin and lace slip and a chiffon peignoir to replace the ones that were worn and frayed. The delighted expression on her face when she found them hanging in her wardrobe made me feel like we were in high cotton again. If I could keep up my success as Selene Moon, maybe I could slowly get us out of our money problems.

What could possibly go wrong?
I thought, lying on my bed and dreaming up more ghost stories. But as Mae always said, it wasn't a good idea to count your chickens before they hatched.

‘A
mandine,' repeated Tamara. She sipped her carrot juice and stared at the exposed brick walls and pipework of the Newtown café, deep in thought, before turning back to me with an air of appraisal. ‘It sounds exotic. It suits you. But I'm wondering why you've waited so long before telling me about your Grandmother Ruby's letter?'

‘Anything to do with my past always brings up complicated feelings that I need to process first,' I explained. ‘It's a big name — one that probably comes with an aristocratic history and a sense of duty. I'm not sure I can live up to it.'

Tamara put down her glass. ‘You could grow into it,' she replied, grinning. ‘I'm picturing a Southern belle in a satin and lace gown sitting in a rose-covered summerhouse and surrounded by ardent beaus.'

I grimaced. ‘That's because we were addicted to
Gone with the Wind
when we were younger. I don't know how many times we watched that together.'

Our kelp noodles and zucchini pasta arrived, and we took a few mouthfuls of the food before Tamara said, ‘So are you going to contact your grandmother in New Orleans?'

Part of me had wanted to rush off to New Orleans in search of my remaining family as soon as I'd read Grandmother Ruby's letter. She sounded intriguing, and her mention of a historical family property was like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey for someone who'd specialised in restoration architecture. But old habits die hard. Even thinking about my father's family made me feel disloyal to Nan. Although she was dead, I couldn't bear the idea of hurting her.

‘I keep wondering how Nan felt when she got that letter,' I said. ‘Obviously she didn't want me to go to New Orleans or she'd have shown it to me. But why did she keep it then? Do you think she was conflicted — torn between her desire to keep me and sympathy for Grandmother Ruby's request?'

‘I don't know,' replied Tamara. ‘And you'll never know either. But you shouldn't be worrying too much about your nan's feelings now. You have to decide what
you
want to do. It's your life.'

Easier to say than do
, I thought. My whole life had been directed by Nan. I'd studied architecture instead of becoming a musician on her advice. When she had shut down the subject of my father, I'd obeyed her. She might be dead, but that only increased my sense of obligation.

‘Reverend Taylor said at Nan's funeral that the departed let go of their worldly anger and forgive everyone from their greater perspective,' I said. ‘Do you think Nan might have forgiven my father and his family?'

Tamara frowned. I knew she hated any sort of traditional religion. ‘I don't know, but I do know you were the best granddaughter you could have been to your nan when she was alive. It's time to make your own path now, Mademoiselle Amandine Desiree Lalande, and figure out who you are for yourself.'

A week after that conversation, I lay in Tamara's spare room with the bedside light still on. Since Nan's death I'd developed a loathing of going to sleep in the dark and preferred to keep reading until I fell asleep.

I cast my eye over the items in the room — the odd bits and pieces that Tamara and Leanne didn't want but for some reason couldn't part with. There was a bicycle that had only been ridden once; a hideous pair of coral pink ceramic table lamps left by the previous renters; and a computer desk with a wobbly top shelf. Tamara's early experiments in photography lined the walls, including a black-and-white picture of me taken four years ago in the Central Station concourse. I was standing in front of the train timetables with my arms folded, staring down at the lens, my expression proud, haughty and confident. I resembled a young Anjelica Huston. But I've never felt proud, haughty or confident in real life.

I studied my face in the photograph — those high cheekbones and full lips. Somehow the picture gave me the courage to do something I'd been thinking about ever since reading my mother's letters. I pulled my laptop from under the bed and connected it to the telephone line. The static bonging sound of the dial-up was so loud that I was worried that I'd wake up Tamara and Leanne who were asleep in the next room. I strained my ears but nobody stirred. They were sound sleepers. I had known my father's name since I was a child as it had been required on all my school applications, but it was only since reading my mother's letters that I'd learned of his profession. There might be something about him on the internet that would add to the little I knew.

I typed
Dale Lalande jazz musician New Orleans
into the search engine and winced from the tight knot of anxiety that formed in my stomach. Only two results appeared. The first was a souvenir poster for a show at Preservation Hall in
1979 with the listing
Dale Lalande and his Band
. The second result was a list of well-known New Orleans jazz artists of the 1970s. Would my father's name really be included among them?

I scrolled down the page and reeled back when I saw not only my father's name but a head-and-shoulders photograph of a young man with tawny eyes and dark brown hair: a man who looked uncannily similar to the photograph on the wall, although not so haughty. I waited for the buzz in my head to clear before scrutinising the image more closely. My father had been a masculine version of myself. Our angular features and squarish Egyptian noses were identical. After years of looking at my face and wondering who I resembled, the answer was right in front of me. I used the zoom option to magnify the picture and smiled. While I was ‘creative' in my dress sense, my father looked like the perfect clean-cut college boy. He was wearing a tan jacket over a striped shirt, and his hair was short and parted severely at one side.

The description next to the photograph was brief:
Dale Lalande is a young up-and-coming jazz musician. His unique style is relaxed, swinging and exuberant all at once. He mesmerises his audiences with a repertoire that ranges from traditional Dixieland clarinet to a piano style that incorporates Brazilian and Cuban rhythmic influences
.

I read the description over again slowly, my heart thumping so loudly in my chest I could hear it.
His unique style is relaxed, swinging and exuberant all at once.
It was as if my father had appeared from a thick fog and was now taking form alongside my mother.

I rushed to my suitcase and grabbed the box of letters I'd brought with me. Grandmother Ruby's letter was on top. Printed in the left-hand corner was an address and telephone number. After checking the time in New Orleans — eight o'clock in the morning — I dialled the international code and
then the number. What would I say to her? How would I even begin?

After five rings a woman with a Spanish accent answered: ‘The Lalande residence.'

I opened my mouth to say something but my nerves got the better of me and I hung up.

My mind turned over at a million miles per hour. Had that been Grandmother Ruby who'd answered the telephone? No, that couldn't have been her. My mother had described her as a French Creole and that woman's accent had been decidedly Latino: maybe Puerto Rican or even Mexican. But she had said ‘The Lalande residence'. I lay back on the bed and took in gulps of air. Given my overwrought state, a telephone call out of the blue was probably not the best way to re-establish contact with my New Orleans family. If it had ruffled me, what might it do to Grandmother Ruby with her weak heart? If I wrote first, she would have time to digest the shock of hearing from me and decide how to respond. I stared at the ceiling, working myself up to a decision. After nearly an hour of deliberation, I took out my notebook and wrote:

Dear Grandmother Ruby,

I am sure you will be surprised to hear from me after all these years. My grandmother, Cynthia Darby, passed away last year and I came across some correspondence from you to her regarding my coming of age.

I understand the relationship between the both of you wasn't good, and I didn't know of your existence until I read the letter. I am very sorry to learn of your condition and hope that you remain well.

I will understand if you don't wish to have contact with me now that so much time has passed, but I would very much like to speak with you and to learn more about my family, especially my father, who I know very
little about. I hope that you will agree to meet with me should I come to New Orleans.

Yours sincerely,

Amanda (Amandine) Darby

My words seemed woefully inadequate for the occasion, but they were the best I could muster. I enclosed a graduation photograph of myself, and included my address, my email and my telephone numbers on the letter. When I posted it the next day, I had a strange sensation of having cast myself out into the unknown. I prayed Grandmother Ruby would reply, because no response would be unbearable.

The rent from Nan's house and the money she had left me provided a modest monthly income and I no longer had to work at the real estate office. But I wanted to do something to keep myself occupied. Tamara introduced me to the manager of an Italian restaurant on King Street and I got a gig singing cabaret numbers on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. One morning, after a late night singing at the restaurant, I slept past my usual rising time and found that Tamara and Leanne had already left for the day. I made myself a cup of green tea and sat on the couch with it for a few moments before I turned on the television.

Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Mariah Carey and her mother, Patricia, about the challenges of being an interracial child in the United States. Patricia said the family had originally lived in a mixed-race neighbourhood, but both the black and the white children shunned Mariah. They thought things would get better if they moved to a more affluent white suburb, but someone poisoned their dog and they were shot at through their front window.

‘What?' I said out loud and put my cup down on the coffee table. Guessing from Mariah's age, it must have been in the
1970s. I'd have thought the people of the United States would have resolved their conflicts over interracial mixing after Martin Luther King, Junior.

The telephone rang. I got up to answer it but before I could reach it the ringing stopped. I looked at the caller ID but no number appeared. Either the battery was flat or it was one of those annoying marketing calls we were always getting. I returned to the couch and to the
Oprah Winfrey Show
. Mariah's story intrigued me. Through my architectural course I'd met a Eurasian girl, Yumi, who had an Australian mother and a Japanese father. I thought she was the most exquisite human being I'd ever seen with her almond-shaped eyes, silky chocolate brown hair and smooth even-toned skin. It was Yumi who'd given me the courage to play up my unusual features rather than disguise them.

‘Stop hiding your hands,' she told me one day when we were exploring Paddington Markets together and I'd shied away from trying on some papier-mâché bracelets she was enamoured with. ‘Paint your nails vibrant colours so everyone will notice them. My grandmother always said to take what magazines would have you believe is a fault and make it your most fabulous feature.'

Under Yumi's tuition I transformed myself from a social outcast to the School of Architecture's avant-garde ‘It' girl. I bobbed my hair, wore heavy eyeliner and drew attention to my unusual hands with bold shades of nail polish and giant amethyst power rings. I may not have looked like a Victoria's Secret model, but that didn't mean I had to hide myself away. Instead of being shunned as I had been at school, I found that boys flirted with me and girls wanted to know where I bought my clothes. The other students began taking my lead on the hippest nightclubs, the best house music and where to get their tattoos done.

The telephone rang again, giving me a start. I picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?' I answered, impatiently waiting for the
inevitable marketing spiel about a better telephone company or a ‘once-in-a-lifetime' real estate investment offer.

There was a pause. Then a woman with an American accent came on the line. ‘Could I speak to Amanda Darby, please?'

My fingers tingled. ‘This is Amanda.'

The woman paused again as if to catch her breath. ‘This is your Aunt Louise,' she said. ‘We got your letter. Momma is too emotional to speak right now so she asked me to call. We want to see you as soon as you can come to New Orleans, darling. We want to tell you all about your father. When do you think you can come?'

The blood drained from my face. Although I'd given my telephone numbers I hadn't expected Grandmother Ruby — or Aunt Louise — to call. I'd thought they'd lack courage like me and write first. It took me a moment to find my voice and even then I could barely get the words out. ‘I'm sort of a free agent now,' I told her. ‘I can come anytime.'

Aunt Louise gave a warm chuckle. ‘I'm delighted to hear that,' she said. ‘I know it must be strange for you after all this time and it's difficult for me to say all I'd like to on the telephone. I'm going to email you the details of our travel agent. She'll book everything for you. Johnny and I will pick you up at the airport. We'll have so much to say to each other then and I'm looking forward to showing you our New Orleans hospitality.'