Southern Ruby (17 page)

I smiled through my tears, remembering how the photograph I'd found of my father on the internet had impacted on me.

‘Were we alike in other ways?' I ventured.

Aunt Louise grinned. ‘Once you're over your jetlag I'll know for sure. Even when we were young, Johnny and I were settled, but your parents could go to sleep in a different town every night and not think a thing of it. If someone offered them a trip to the moon they would have taken off right away, while Johnny and I would still be writing out our packing list. They had so much zest for life; it was almost as if they knew they would die young and were making the most of everything.'

She turned to the granite urns on either side of the tomb. They were filled with gardenias that had wilted and turned brown from the heat. ‘Someone besides me always brings flowers,' she said, lifting out the finished bouquets. ‘I think it's either one
of Dale's fans or someone who is grateful to my father for the help he gave the Civil Rights Movement.' I kneeled beside her to refresh the water in the urns with water from my drinking bottle, then I arranged the flowers I'd brought with me in them.

‘Your parents were on their way to Florida with you and the band on the night they were killed,' Aunt Louise said, her expression growing sombre. ‘No-one knows what happened except that the car suddenly left the road. There was nothing that could be done for your parents, but by some miracle you survived with only a scratch to your forehead.'

Instinctively I touched my head. There had never been a scar there. The scars were all in my heart.

‘Why didn't Nan come for the funeral?' I asked. Could she really have been so angry she refused to see her only child laid to rest?

‘There wasn't time,' Aunt Louise explained. ‘According to New Orleans law, the deceased must be buried, embalmed or cremated within twenty-four to thirty-six hours. We offered to hold a special memorial service for your grandmother, but she cut off all communication with us, except through her lawyers.'

We were moving onto shaky ground and this wasn't the time or place for it. I stood up and ran my fingers over the list of family members buried with my parents. There were twenty of them. I tried not to think about Blaine's explanation of what happened to the bodies after entombment, but then thought perhaps it was fitting for them all to eventually mingle as one.

My finger stopped on
Clifford Benjamin Lalande
. It was strange to be standing in front of the final resting place of a man I'd never met but who Grandma Ruby had brought to life with her story. It was stranger still to think that everyone in this tomb had once lived in the house on Prytania Street. If I stayed in New Orleans and never married, would I one day be interred here too?

‘Did my grandfather mind that my father became a musician rather than a lawyer?' I asked, remembering how adamant Nan
had been that I should become an architect and not pursue music.

Aunt Louise shook her head. ‘Daddy was real open-minded that way, and he respected Dale. New Orleans can get wild. From a young age, Dale played in bands and saw a lot of things — drugs and prostitution. While he never judged anyone for what they did, he never got into bad things either. And of course he was the apple of Momma's eye.'

‘Did that make you jealous?'

‘Oh, no, not at all.' She indicated with a nod of her head that we should start making our way back to the car. ‘Dale was charming and energetic. He brought creative people to the house — musicians, painters, writers, actors and dancers — and their company made Momma come alive. She was brought up in the Quarter. It was quite a thing for her to marry an American and move to the sedate Garden District. She was friendly with the American society ladies, but I think they bored her.'

We reached the car and Aunt Louise unlocked it. ‘It wasn't that Momma neglected me or was cruel,' she added thoughtfully once we were seated inside. ‘She was always very interested in my education. But it's not easy for a young girl to find her place in the world when she has such a stunning mother. When I was a teenager I wished I had a mother that was more . . . you know, ordinary. Not to mention the fact that she was a heroine of the Civil Rights Movement — a Great Lady of New Orleans — while I was just an average girl. It was difficult for us to find sympathy with each other, but Dale's death brought us closer together. We realised that all we had left in the world was each other, and Johnny of course.'

‘I admire your lack of bitterness,' I told her. ‘I knew a girl at university who blamed all her problems in life on the fact that her parents had taken more baby pictures of her older sister than of her.'

Aunt Louise laughed. ‘Well, Daddy more than made up for any shortfall. He treated me like a princess. He was the kindest person I've ever known. He never raised his voice. He never had to. I would have done anything he asked. But then isn't every girl a little enamoured of her father?'

I nodded in agreement although I didn't know. How could I?

For lunch, Aunt Louise took me to Commander's Palace, a swanky restaurant located in a turquoise and white Victorian mansion. Inside were tables dressed with starched white tablecloths, gilt mirrors and a troop of dutiful waiters. After the maître d' had seated us, Aunt Louise nodded to the sommelier, who appeared a few moments later with two martinis. One sip of mine and the menu became blurry. I decided that if I was going to stay in New Orleans for an extended period, I'd have to limit myself to one drink a day.

‘Johnny usually has the spring pea gazpacho and the citrus salad,' Aunt Louise said. ‘Would you like that too? I can see you're into fitness by looking at your biceps.'

While it was true I liked to run a few times a week and go to the gym, even when I didn't exercise my arms and legs stayed toned. That must have been something else I'd inherited from my father besides my height and facial features.

I agreed, and Aunt Louise ordered those dishes for me, and the seafood cakes and Louisiana shrimp and grits for herself.

‘You know that Momma is going to leave the house in the Garden District to you,' she said, buttering her bread roll.

My stomach turned. I hadn't come to New Orleans to sniff around for an inheritance. I'd simply wanted to meet my father's family and learn more about him. Grandma Ruby's letter to Nan had mentioned that she intended to leave some property to me, but I hadn't anticipated it to be the family home.

‘I don't expect that,' I said.

Aunt Louise was unperturbed. ‘Johnny and I want you to have it. I was delighted to learn that you've studied restoration architecture — you're the right family member for it. I love the old house but don't have the patience to give it the attention it needs; and Johnny would never live there.' She smiled and patted my hand. ‘Please don't think you're causing trouble in the family. Momma has provided generously for me and Johnny in other ways.'

Our food arrived, and Aunt Louise changed the subject to the Brennans, the famous family of restaurateurs who owned the Commander's Palace, and the doyenne of the family, Ella Brennan, who was a master of haute Creole cuisine. But I barely heard a word she said. Grandma Ruby wanted me to have ‘Amandine'? Owning a historic house was beyond my wildest dreams, but I felt overwhelmed too. It was a greater responsibility to bear than an aristocratic-sounding French name.

The waiter returned and Aunt Louise recommended the bread pudding for dessert. ‘It goes straight to your hips but you simply have to try it. They spike it with whiskey!'

After our meal, Aunt Louise had an appointment to attend so she dropped me off at the front gate of the house. Before I got out of the car, I turned to her. ‘Uncle Jonathan said that you'd planned to go to Arizona for your anniversary next week. Please don't cancel because of me. At the moment I don't have any commitments in Australia to rush back to and I can look after Grandma Ruby.'

‘That's very generous of you,' replied Aunt Louise. ‘I'd feel comfortable leaving her with you. I know you'll take good care of her. Let me discuss it with Johnny.'

We kissed each other goodbye and I watched her drive down the street.

The bread pudding had been delicious but I could feel it sitting in my stomach so I decided to walk around the garden before going inside.

I'd only seen the garden from the perspective of the summerhouse up to now, but as I strolled along the paths and across the lawn I fell in love with its magic. Squirrels were scampering along the branches of the crepe myrtle trees, and there was a dovecote with several beautiful white fantails sitting on its perches. The plants and garden design were in historic agreement with the house, and I looked forward to meeting the gardener, who, Lorena had told me, came two or three times a week depending on the season.

I stopped by the potting shed and peered inside. It only held gardening tools now, but I thought of Clifford and his boxing gym and smiled. If I was going to inherit the house, I wanted to know every bit of its history.

I approached the back porch, and it was only then that I discovered a major problem. While the porch was freshly painted and decorated with wicker chairs and pots of Boston ferns, those touches were cosmetic. The roof was in reasonable condition, but the end grains of the floorboards and the bases of the columns were showing signs of rot. Underneath, there were indications of real trouble. The lattice that covered the crawl space had deteriorated from the damp, and the tilt of the porch suggested it was on the verge of tearing loose from the house entirely. It was hard to fathom the reason for the neglect. While it was true that many people were so fixated on the interiors of their homes that they failed to notice exterior issues, the rest of this house was impeccably maintained and the front porch was in good repair. Then an idea came to me. I went to my room and rummaged in my suitcase for the sketch pad and pencils I'd brought with me. I'd seen a measuring tape in one of the kitchen drawers and I took it and spent the next half hour measuring up the porch and making a sketch of what we needed to do to fix
it. I'd look into finding a suitable carpenter. The restoration of the porch would be my gift to Grandma Ruby and a project that would allow me to learn more about the building techniques in the Garden District.

I found Grandma Ruby sitting in the parlour reading
The Pursuit of Love
by Nancy Mitford.

‘Did you have a nice lunch with Louise?' she asked, looking at me over the top of her reading glasses.

‘The food was very nice and the martinis too – I think I'm still a bit tipsy.'

I'd intended to approach the subject of the porch diplomatically but I was so excited about my potential project I couldn't contain myself. ‘You know the back porch is in pretty bad condition,' I blurted out. ‘It needs to be repaired as soon as possible. I've taken the measurements and I'd love to fix it for you. It can be my pet project.'

Grandma Ruby slipped her reading glasses further down her nose. ‘I hadn't noticed. It gets painted every five years like the rest of the house, but we never sit out there.'

Her lack of enthusiasm deflated me. ‘Nobody uses the porch?' I asked. ‘But it catches the afternoon breeze and the view of the garden from it is so pretty. But it's not structurally safe. If it tears away from the house it'll take part of the exterior wall with it.'

Grandma Ruby pursed her lips and put her book down. ‘Clifford's mother died there one morning, Amandine. It was a sudden and severe stroke. The porch was her favourite spot to sit and read, or to type her letters about civil rights to the various governors. Nobody sat there after her death. It was too heartbreaking for us.'

The explanation was given gently, but I felt chastised. I should have brought up the subject more sensitively. But a porch in that condition could do structural damage to the house, which might not be so easy to repair.

Grandma Ruby regarded me curiously. ‘You love this house, don't you? I saw it in your face the afternoon that you arrived. Amandine has come home to care for “Amandine”, I thought.'

The warmth in her eyes eased my embarrassment. I realised that while I was getting to know her and bond with her again, she had never stopped loving me. It touched me deeply to know that I had someone in the world who cared for me like that. I would drop the subject of the porch — for now.

I sat down next to her and pointed to her book. ‘Are you enjoying it?' I asked. ‘Mitford's novel
Love in a Cold Climate
is a favourite of mine.'

Grandma Ruby shrugged. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘It's something Louise gave me to read. I'm finding the characters too ordinary.'

I stifled a chuckle. Only Grandma Ruby could find a story about an eccentric British uppercrust family that ‘hunts' its own children with bloodhounds ‘too ordinary'.

Lorena had left us pasta tossed in Cajun alfredo sauce for dinner, and Grandma Ruby and I ate it in the dining room, with a side dish of sautéed mushrooms and toasted French bread. My eyes kept wandering to the other place settings and inwardly I willed her to tell me more of her story, but instead she returned to the subject of the house.