Southern Ruby (44 page)

Her words hit me like a blow. I staggered and clutched my stomach, struggling to breathe.

‘Somebody killed Leroy?' I turned towards the funeral home and the mourners.

‘That's for him,' Bunny said. ‘Mama laid him out.'

My legs were leaden weights and yet somehow I began to move one step at a time towards the building. I felt as if I'd become a corpse myself. The part of me that had been excited and joyful only a few minutes before had died.

‘Don't go in there, Jewel,' Bunny pleaded. ‘Please don't, it will only distress you.'

I kept walking. How could I not see him? I loved him. I'd had no chance to say goodbye.

The mourners parted when they saw me coming. Inside the parlour, a woman was singing a hymn in a strange sweet voice. The open casket stood at the end of the room, surrounded by bouquets of gladioli, hydrangeas and lilies. Pearl was sitting at
one end of the casket weeping into a lace handkerchief. Joseph and Milton were standing at the other end, their heads bowed. How could my beloved Leroy, so warm and alive a few days before, be lying in that box?

Above the casket was a carving of Jesus carrying his cross. I'd seen that image many times but only now did I understand it. I had a much heavier burden to carry than the one of a secret love.

As I walked towards the casket, the world turned foggy around me. An elderly man looked at Leroy and threw his arms above his head and fell into a faint. He was caught by one of the mourners and helped to a chair.

Bewildered, I regarded the grim faces of Eleanor, Alma, Dora, Dwight and Gerard. They were not the same people I knew. The joy in their eyes was gone.

Dora reached forward and grabbed my arm. ‘No, don't look, Jewel,' she said, a note of warning in her voice. ‘I don't know why —'

I disentangled myself from her and continued towards the casket. A sickly smell pervaded the space undisguised by the flowers. I reached the casket and looked down. My cry of horror pierced the air of the parlour. There was no jaw, and the top half of the head was missing and so were the hands. The flesh was so bloated that the body barely appeared human. That mangled mess couldn't possibly be Leroy!

I reeled backwards in horror. Milton grabbed me so I wouldn't fall.

‘Why didn't you fix him?' he asked Pearl. ‘Why did you put him on show like that?'

Pearl lifted her face. The vivacious person I'd cooked with all those Sundays was gone. In her place was a broken old woman. She stared at us with vacant eyes.

‘Because nothing was going to fix that! Nothing! I want the world to see what they did to my son!'

Bunny rushed towards me and hugged me, sobbing into my hair. ‘I wanted you for my sister-in-law. It's all I've been able to think about for months. And now he's gone. Oh, Jewel, what are we going to do?' she wailed.

I couldn't feel her arms around me. No arms could comfort me after this. Nothing could offer any consolation. My beautiful Leroy was gone.

I turned away from the Thezan family, away from those wonderful times of shared meals and conversations. A strange numbness overtook me entirely as I left Tremé. I couldn't smell the gardenias that bloomed in profusion in the pots on porches, or feel the breeze from the river, or hear the birds in the trees. The cars that rushed by on Esplanade Avenue made no sound, and one of them nearly hit me when I tried to cross.

I didn't care. I staggered back to the Quarter, away from my life as Jewel and back to my life as Ruby, Leroy's destroyed face and desecrated body etched in my memory forever.

G
randma Ruby and I sat in silence in the summerhouse. I heard bees humming in the lavender, and the doves cooing on the lawn, but for us the whole world had come to a standstill. The tears that I'd seen glistening in her eyes while she was telling the story of Leroy's death now rolled down her cheeks. My heart ached for her. While she'd been telling her story, Leroy had come vividly to life for me. I had pictured his warm smile and his handsome face as if he were standing right in front of me. I knew something had happened to break off their relationship, but I had not anticipated such a horrific end.

I looked out over the garden and the dragonflies hovering above the grass. Nan and I had once watched a documentary about Martin Luther King Junior that mentioned the story of the torture and murder of a teenage boy named Emmett Till in Mississippi. His mother displayed his body in an open casket to show the world what had happened to her son, and his death sparked the racial rebellion that led to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus and the Montgomery
bus boycott. But I could not have conceived a similar event had occurred so close to my own family.

Grandma Ruby and I stayed together the whole day, finding comfort in each other's company. We strolled around the garden with Flambeau following us, listened to Beethoven on the CD player, and read together in the sitting room. We both needed to process the past — Grandma Ruby anew, and me for the first time.

At five o'clock I remembered that I'd promised to meet Elliot at Preservation Hall.

‘I'll cancel,' I told Grandma Ruby. ‘I'm not leaving you alone, especially not tonight.'

‘Is Elliot the lovely young man who called here? The jazz professor? We talked a long time.'

I looked at her in surprise. I knew that Elliot had called the house, but not that he and my grandmother had shared a lengthy conversation. ‘About what?' I asked.

Grandma Ruby took the telephone from me and put it back in its stand. ‘We talked about the city and its music. He was going to take you to Snug Harbor.' With a smile she added, ‘He sounded so charming I nearly went with him myself.' She pushed me towards the stairs. ‘I don't want you to not go because of me, Amandine. I've been alone in this house many nights with my memories — one more isn't going to kill me.'

I took her hands. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course! Now go and pretty yourself up. Southern men appreciate it when a woman makes the effort.'

Although I thought Grandma Ruby's advice was old-fashioned, I did take time to blowdry my hair straight. Then I dusted my shoulders and legs in shimmer powder.

Having been told that Preservation Hall was the place to hear
authentic New Orleans jazz, I expected that the taxi would pull up at the equivalent of the Opera House in Sydney or London's Royal Albert Hall. Instead I found myself alighting in front of a dilapidated townhouse. The weather-beaten exterior hadn't been painted in years and the ironwork was coming apart at the joins. However, the line of people outside stretched a distance down St Peter Street.

Elliot was waiting out the front for me, looking hot in an ethnic-print shirt and white Panama hat. ‘Hey, Amandine!' he called, and waved me over. ‘You look beautiful,' he said, kissing me and admiring my python-skin-patterned top and pencil skirt. ‘You Sydney people sure know how to dress.'

‘You look pretty good yourself,' I replied.

He took a bottle of water from the vintage canvas satchel he had hanging on his shoulder and gave it to me. ‘No drinks or food are served here. There aren't even bathrooms. Just great jazz.'

Because he'd been able to reserve tickets through a friend, we were placed next to the musicians. Elliot grinned as we squeezed with another couple into an old church pew. The rest of the audience sat on backless benches or cushions on the floor, or stood at the rear.

‘Not what you were expecting, is it?' he said.

‘Not at all.' I laughed, and gazed over the cracked soundproofing on the unpainted walls. The wooden floor was rough with gaps in it and the seats set aside for the musicians looked rickety. I sneezed from the dust in the air.

‘God bless you!' said the woman sitting next to us.

‘We talked the other day about music and segregation,' Elliot said. ‘Preservation Hall broke the barrier between black and white. You left your racism at the door when you came here. It was all about the music.'

It was a steamy night and there was no air conditioning in the building, but Elliot and I pressed against each other happily.

He looked into my eyes. ‘I'm glad you came to New Orleans, Amandine.'

‘I am too,' I told him.

A saxophonist and two trumpeters came out first, and placed their chairs only an arm's length from us. The pianist, bassist and drummer followed. A thrill of excitement ran through me as they began a rousing rendition of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In'. I remembered what my mother had written in her letter to Nan about seeing my father at Preservation Hall for the first time:
We locked eyes and I didn't take mine off him until the last note was played. It was like being drunk on a magic potion from the witchcraft store.
I looked out into the audience and imagined my mother there with her pretty face and wild blonde hair, falling in love. Then I looked to the saxophonist and pretended he was my father making eyes in my mother's direction. The picture warmed my heart. I took Elliot's hand and squeezed it.

‘Wow! What an amazing coincidence,' he said, nodding in the direction of the pianist: a stocky man in his fifties, with grey sideburns and a white goatee. ‘That's Glenn Neville. He played with your father on many occasions.'

Glenn's piano technique was raw and wild. He stomped his black running shoes on the floor as he played and kept his long grey hair out of his eyes by flicking his head. The untucked purple shirt he wore barely hid his beer belly. I tried to picture what he would have looked like in his twenties, when he and my father played together. Then I tried to imagine what my father would have been like now, in his fifties. Would he still be clean-shaven and sharply dressed in a suit? Or would he have adopted Glenn's more modern ‘I've just rolled out of bed' style?

The night was magical, with the band playing jazz classics like ‘Saint Louis Blues' and ‘Sugar Rum Cherry'. When they performed ‘Shake That Thing', the audience — as crowded in as we were — got up to dance. When the show was over, I felt that
the pieces of the puzzle about my father were coming together faster now.

Elliot and I waited outside on the street, and when Glenn Neville came out, Elliot explained who I was, because I was suddenly too choked with emotion to tell him myself.

‘Wow!' Glenn said, grabbing my shoulders. ‘Look at you, Amandine! It's like seeing Dale again — only in drag!' He hugged me so fiercely that my feet lifted a few inches off the ground — not a small feat as I was a good deal taller than he was.

‘I can't believe you're all grown up!' he said, putting me back on the ground and holding me at arm's length. ‘I used to bounce you on my knee and pretend it was a bumpy horse ride. You were a good kid. You only made trouble once when you covered my suede shoes with toothpaste.'

‘It sounds like I was a pain!' I told him. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was strange to have had this other life that I couldn't remember. ‘No, you were our mascot,' he said, lighting a cigarette. ‘The whole band loved you!'

‘Listen, would you like to join us at Pat O'Brien's?' suggested Elliot. ‘Amandine has come to New Orleans to learn about her father. You knew Dale well, didn't you?'

Glenn's eyes lit up. ‘He and I were the best of friends. I'll tell you anything you want to know,' he said to me.

The three of us went to Pat O'Brien's bar, which was crowded with both locals and tourists. Elliot led us straight to the patio to get away from the noise of the duelling pianos.

‘Let's take that table by the fountain,' he said. ‘It will give you two a chance to chat.'

We sat down, and a waitress took our orders for Hurricane cocktails.

‘I can't believe that your father has been dead for twenty-three years,' said Glenn. ‘I still talk to him sometimes. I'll always miss him.'

The affection for my father in Glenn's voice touched me. I pressed my hand to my chest. It was as though I was stepping into a new life, one where my father could be a real person to me. In the short time I'd been here, I'd learned more about my him than I'd ever thought possible.

‘How did you become friends with my father?' I asked Glenn.

‘I met him at a gig — I took to him straight away,' he replied, putting out his cigarette and taking out another one. ‘He was smart but very easy-going. Your mother was more of an extrovert. But together they were a dynamic pair. When you came along, it didn't slow them down. They took you everywhere. Half our van was filled with music gear and the other half was packed with all your baby stuff. The band loved you, and we even took turns at changing you. Though I did get in trouble from Dale once for spiking the juice in your sippy cup!'

Elliot and I laughed.

‘It must have been a handful having a small child on tour,' I said. ‘I'm surprised my parents didn't leave me with Grandma Ruby or Aunt Louise.'

Glenn shook his head. ‘Your father would never have had that. He didn't want to be another musician with a divorce and a broken family. That's why he insisted you all stick together. But he did tell me once that he and Paula were planning another baby and then they'd stop touring. He wanted to open his own jazz club and stay put in New Orleans to give you stability.'

Glenn's revelation stung my heart. My parents had been planning another child. How different would my life have been if I'd had a brother or a sister?

‘Was my father . . . was he a happy man?' I asked, my pulse racing. I was surprised at myself for asking the question. But I knew why I had, even though it tore me in two. I was ready to know about that night — about the accident.

‘Your father didn't have any demons,' Glenn answered emphatically. ‘He wasn't a jolly, roll-about-on-the-floor kind
of guy. But he was a glass-half-full person. He had the quiet contentment of a man who loved his family.'

The waitress returned with our cocktails. I knew the time had come to ask the question that I'd needed an answer to for so long. But it was agonising because I was afraid it would undo all the good feelings I was starting to have about my father.

‘What happened the night my parents died? I was told my father had a blood alcohol reading of 0.21. But everyone who knew him says he was a light drinker.'

Glenn grimaced, then cleared his throat. ‘We had a gig to play in Jacksonville, Florida the following evening. We were used to working and travelling at night and sleeping during the day, so we had an early dinner on Canal Street and set off around 7 pm, planning to make a few stops along the way. I remember that your father was different that night. He seemed preoccupied with something, not at all his relaxed self. He usually limited himself to one drink a night, but I noticed over dinner that he knocked back at least four or five. Maybe more, I don't know. The band and I were in the van driving behind your father's car. The accident happened just after Mobile.' Glenn glanced down at his hands. ‘I'll never forget the horrible sight of the car swerving across the road and rolling over the embankment.'

Tears pricked my eyes. ‘Everyone says my father was a responsible person,' I said, my voice trembling. ‘But if he was so responsible, why did he drive drunk with my mother and me in the car?'

Glenn looked confused. ‘He wasn't driving, Amandine. When the car left the road, it was your mother at the wheel.'

I couldn't sleep that night. I played the CD of my father's music that Elliot had made for me and tried to lose myself in the passionate and elegant rhythms, but there was no solace there.
I'd hoped that coming to New Orleans would give me a sense of belonging and offer me some peace. Now, a gaping hole had opened in my heart. My father hadn't been driving the car when it veered off the road. That was a lie I'd believed all my life.