Melting Moments Page 2

  A week after the party at the Palais, Arthur still hasn’t called.

  ‘I’ll ring him myself and tell him he has to take you to the John Martin’s Ball,’ Florence declares, which of course is terribly forward, but the waiting has become intolerable. Arthur Jenkins. The name doesn’t trip off the tongue like Dale Robinson, and yet the following weekend, when Arthur arrives in his Essex sedan, it is clear – even to the Drake sisters – that he is a very promising catch indeed. After the dance, he drives straight past the house on Prospect Road and out to the British Tube Mills to show her his office. As soon as he switches off the engine, her heart starts pounding: could this be the moment of her very first kiss? But instead he explains, with great care, the intricacies of book-keeping during a world war.

  ‘Naturally, good record-keeping is an integral part of accountancy at the best of times. But as you can no doubt imagine, international conflict raises the stakes still further.’

  She feels enlarged by such remarks, and flattered to have been invited into his masculine world – but at the same time it is a relief, on the way home, that the conversation turns to hobbies. Arthur explains that he does not have a great deal of time for them, on account of his book-keeping responsibilities, but that he has an abiding interest in the study of German. When Ruby replies that she has always enjoyed gardening, he says something truly extraordinary.

  ‘That’s a turn-up for the books! We’ll be sure to have a lovely garden in our future home.’

  And at that very moment the car sputters and glides to a halt.

  ‘Blasted rationing,’ he says, leaving Ruby his coat as he sets out in search of petrol.

  Outside, the world is entirely black, with scant evidence of the human. By the time Arthur returns she is shaking uncontrollably. She doesn’t know if she shakes from the cold, or from his casual mention of their future home.

  Early the following year, Ruby is joined by her sister, Daisy, and they move into a boarding house in North Adelaide. It is a great pleasure having Daisy with her, on account of both her company and her meticulous housekeeping. The weekend Daisy arrives, Ruby takes her out on the tram for a tour of Adelaide landmarks: the Fruit and Produce Exchange; the Royal Exhibition Building; the Botanic Gardens. When Ruby points out the Palais, Daisy gasps in wonder – Oh, how I would so love to go! – but Ruby proffers no invitation. Her own foothold within this smart city set still feels tenuous; a wide-eyed sister from the country would surely be a liability. But on the way home, she buys Daisy a snowball from Beehive Corner, for the sheer pleasure of watching her devour it.

  Their landlady at the boarding house is a divorcée, a fact Ruby warns Daisy not to relate to Mother; nor is she to mention the frequent visits of a Dr Fitzgerald, with whom their landlady appears to enjoy some sort of understanding. Instead, the girls report that their landlady runs a very tight ship, and that the meals are nutritious and varied. Ruby now has a busy social calendar, but it is always a pleasure to return to the boarding house to find Daisy sitting in the parlour, working at some embroidery, or old Mr Wilson propped up in the sunroom, listening to the war report. And then of course there is Mr Steele, Arthur’s boss, who occupies the large room at the front. That’s Adelaide, Arthur had said when he first made the connection; Ruby had agreed that it was just a big country town.

  Mr Steele keeps such odd hours that the two of them rarely cross paths, but the house feels different when he is there, punctuated by his confident step in the hallway, or his explosive laugh in the drawing room. Usually he takes his time returning home from work, stopping off in town somewhere for a drink and no doubt meeting up with a certain type of woman. One evening, Ruby sees him waiting out the front of National Mutual; for a moment she panics he is there for her. When Isla emerges from the typing pool, and casually threads her arm through his, she mostly feels relief. The following morning, Isla brings her new silk stockings into work, stroking them in front of the other girls as if they are some sort of pet. No doubt they are supposed to feel envious, but instead Ruby feels a triumphant contempt. Nevertheless, she always makes a particular effort to freshen up on Monday and Thursday evenings, when she knows Mr Steele will be at home for dinner.

  It is on one such Thursday evening in September that everything comes to a head. Apart from the distant drone of the war report, the boarding house is unusually quiet, and Ruby takes her time getting ready for a night at the Palais. She has overdone it lately with the mauve, so Daisy helped her renovate her debutante dress: a racier cut to the décolletage; a yard of material shorn from the skirt. All traces of the 1930s removed, and of her old country self. You look like Katherine Hepburn, Daisy had enthused when she first tried it on. At the time, Ruby had shushed her, but now, as she applies her lipstick, she fancies her sister may have been right.

  There is a loud knock on her bedroom door. Of course it is Arthur: he is always over-punctual. She lingers a moment longer, blotting her lipstick, but the second knock is even louder.

  ‘Hold your horses,’ she mutters, but even before she opens the door she feels a warning thud from her heart, as if her body knows first.

  And there he is, holding a frangipani from the side garden.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Steele.’ Technically it is evening, but afternoon sounds more proper.

  He bows, presenting her with the garnish. ‘For the charming Mademoiselle Whiting.’

  ‘Why, thank you. You’re too kind.’

  She remembers carrying on like this with her father sometimes, at the farm. Nothing that would trouble Arthur, if he knew.

  But then he moves in closer, pinning the frangipani to her dress, so that she can smell the alcohol on his breath, and something else beneath.

  He steps back and appraises her. ‘A fetching picture. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  ‘Perhaps we could join Mr Wilson in the sunroom instead,’ she suggests. ‘I could make you a cup of tea.’ She reproaches herself immediately for sounding old-maidish: why in God’s name didn’t she suggest a port?

  ‘I think I’d rather come in here with you.’ And he walks into her room and sits down on Daisy’s bed, just like that.

  Ruby busies herself at her dressing table, picking up her lipstick and compact and placing them in her evening bag.

  He watches, amused. ‘No sign of your sister this evening.’

  ‘Daisy’s gone home for the weekend. I mean, back to the farm. To help Mother. You know, with the spring cleaning and with one thing and another.’

  She has warned Daisy, in the vaguest of terms, to be careful around Mr Steele. Though this was probably unnecessary: he has never shown much interest in Daisy, poor girl.

  ‘No young ladies staying overnight either.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘None of Dr Fitzgerald’s “patients”.’

  She would like to ask him who they are, these weepy young women who sometimes pass through overnight, the spare bed stripped so quickly the next morning they might never have been there. But to ask would put her at a disadvantage.

  ‘A necessary service,’ he says with a wink. ‘But I’m sure you’d never put yourself in that position, Miss Whiting. Or would you?’

  ‘No,’ she says uncertainly – and then he settles back onto Daisy’s bed and offers her a cigarette. In her own bedroom! The cheek of it!

  ‘No, thank you,’ she says, as if it were the only response she knew.

  ‘Hope you don’t object if I partake, all the same. It’s been a long week at work. I’m sure your young paramour will vouch for that.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Arthur will be here shortly.’ She takes her gloves out of the drawer and places them on the dressing table, as proof of her imminent departure.

  ‘He’s a very lucky man. And, I must say, a fine accountant.’

  She had once suggested to Arthur that his boss had quite a reputation. That girls at work were implicated, though she didn’t mention Isla by name. Arthur didn’t seem to understand, or didn’t want to understand, and
she had felt gossipy and small-minded and left it at that.

  ‘There are outside pressures, of course. Especially with the Japs coming into the picture. But I’m doing my best to protect his place on the reserved list.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The last thing she wants is Arthur going off to war. She likes having him around, for one thing. And it would hurry things up between them too much.

  ‘As I said, he’s a fine employee.’ He studies her for a moment. ‘And I’m sure you’d do your bit to keep him here.’

  She glances at him. He is a nice man, really, despite his weakness. Surely he would not be making a threat.

  He smiles. ‘I’ve seen you in that gown before. But you’ve altered it.’

  She blushes, despite herself. For all Arthur’s qualities, he would never have noticed.

  ‘It becomes you. You’re a credit to womanhood at this time. Very resourceful.’

  Somehow, Mr Steele has calculated her secret vanity. Not her looks: she doesn’t feel that she owns them, particularly. They came on so quickly, like an attack of something. But her resourcefulness – this she has worked on.

  ‘Though I suspect you could do with a few extra luxuries once in a while.’

  She feels an odd sensation in her nipples. As if they have been switched on, like light bulbs.

  ‘Oh, I make do,’ she says feebly.

  And then there are voices in the hall, and a loud knock at the door. Of course it is Arthur: he is always over-punctual.

  Arthur drives the length of O’Connell Street in silence, parking the car on North Terrace and staring glumly at the Palais.

  ‘Turn off the headlights, dear,’ she suggests.

  There is a heady fragrance in the car that she struggles to identify; when she remembers, she hastily removes the frangipani from her dress. On the other side of the windscreen, eager couples make their way into the dance. The men look sober and adult in their dinner suits; the pale-clad women seem to flutter under the gas lamps. It all seems a little frivolous, when there is a war on and all.

  Arthur clears his throat. ‘That was inappropriate, that was. And I trust it will not happen again.’

  ‘Arthur dearest,’ she tries. ‘Nothing happened.’

  This is not entirely true. For one thing, Arthur came bursting into the room, flushed and handsome in his dinner suit, and bore down upon Mr Steele on the bed before the poor fellow even had a chance to stand. They shook hands vigorously, too vigorously, and volleyed each other’s names back and forth.

  Mr Jenkins. Mr Steele. Mr Jenkins. Mr Steele.

  Then – and this is what feels irrevocable – Mr Steele stumbled as he tried to stand. And reddened, and righted himself.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what happened, but I trust it will not happen again.’

  When he steps out of the car and comes to her door she can hardly bear to look at him. He is too beautiful, with his grave face framed by that white bow tie. Part of the problem tonight was that he had looked so splendid.

  ‘Off dancing, are we?’ Mr Steele had asked, once he had regained his footing.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Arthur had replied. ‘Off to the Palais.’

  And he had placed his hand on the small of her back and steered her out of the room before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

  ‘Regardless of what happened, we will not speak of it again,’ he says now, magnanimously, and takes her arm and guides her across the street. As soon as they push through the wide swing doors, they are engulfed by sound. Harry Smith is playing ‘Cheek to Cheek’ and everybody seems to be laughing, never mind the war.

  ‘Look! Florence and Dale Robinson already have a table!’

  She waves more vigorously than she might otherwise, and they make their way through the crowd.

  ‘How are you, Florence darling?’

  ‘Ruby, you are enchanting!’

  ‘Haven’t you two done well, finding a table like this!’

  They are fine and ordinary words, of the type they have exchanged many times before. And a little later Arthur will lead her out to the dance floor, and they will dance well together, as they always have.

  Perhaps nothing happened.

  Except that, as Arthur guided her out of the bedroom, she had turned to collect her gloves from the dressing table and caught sight of Mr Steele’s unguarded face in the mirror. This was the moment of intimacy, of transgression. There was a private resolution in his smile, exactly as she had feared.

  2

  It all happens so quickly. He has cycled over from the Keswick Barracks, and is waiting outside the boarding house when she returns home from work.

  ‘Ruby. Let’s go for a walk.’

  She is keenly aware that her nose requires blotting, and she would have liked to have changed her blouse. But Arthur has a look about him that means business, so she threads her arm through his, and together they set off for the corner. The footpath radiates warmth like a hotplate; the agapanthus, shabby from the heat, crowds in upon them. She cannot remember ever having seen him so serious.

  ‘To skip the preliminaries, I’ve been posted overseas.’

  At the beginning of the year, when his exemption had been lifted, he had insisted it was because the Japanese had entered the war. As promised, they had never spoken of Mr Steele again, and yet Ruby couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible.

  ‘I figure we might as well secure the war widow pension for you.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  At the corner, a cocker spaniel releases a cluster of expletives and she almost jumps out of her skin. Put a cork in it, Winston, a voice calls out. Words that stay with her. She feels not quite up to the circumstances, but time is running out.

  He tries again. ‘It doesn’t do, you know. All those boys at the front, putting themselves on the line. Time for me to do my bit. And if I’m going to perish in action, you might at the very least get the pension.’

  She has always liked him well enough, has always felt he was a go-ahead young fellow: dashing in his way, and of solid character. And he certainly cuts a fine figure in his uniform – if you overlook that doom-laden trudge, that self-pitying set to his mouth. Several times she tries to speak but no sound comes out. Cicadas screech relentlessly; the air smells of baked eucalyptus. Everything is pale and lilac and awfully far away. There is really nothing to do but continue putting one foot in front of the other, until they are back outside the boarding house, where he seizes her by the arm.

  ‘To get to the point, Ruby, I’m shipping out on Monday. And I’m suggesting, with the greatest seriousness, that we marry before I leave.’

  She would have preferred to have been wearing something other than her everyday office suit, wilting in the heat; and for there to be some sort of declaration involved; and for him to have been looking at her with an expression other than such wild dismay. But one is rarely able to script such things, and at any rate these were hardly the times for romance.

  ‘Very well then.’

  He sweeps her into his arms, and she is comforted by the density of his chest, by the friction of his chin against her forehead, prickly with the growth of a day. His smell is pungent but above all manly, and for a moment she wonders if she might weep. My soldier fiancé.

  The following afternoon, Arthur takes Ruby to Henley Beach to meet his family. Mrs Jenkins is a sturdily built woman, with a bulbous nose and shrewd, darting eyes. She is full of news about a car she plans to buy – Investing in a Studebaker is like putting money in a bank! – which overshadows the young couple’s announcement entirely. Mr Jenkins sits silently in his wooden grandfather chair, straight as a die; it is not quite clear whether he is awake. The place is like a Chinese laundry, with bed linen decked out everywhere: clearly Arthur’s sister, Dolores, has been having some of her troubles.

  To Ruby’s surprise, Mrs Jenkins serves bought cake, which is dry and over-sweet, but presented almost as a delicacy. Dolores does not touch it, nibbling instead on her own sandwich: an elegant-looking affair
with its crusts removed, rather like the cucumber sandwiches Mother used to prepare for afternoon teas.

  But this is no cucumber sandwich. ‘Mother’s little helper,’ Dolores explains. Her voice is soft and adenoidal, issuing from some fleshy part of her face. ‘Bex and honey.’

  ‘Keep your troubles to yourself,’ Mrs Jenkins snaps. ‘We’re discussing the Champion model. By all accounts, it’s a living room on wheels.’

  In fact, Ruby is more interested in Dolores than the Studebaker. She has buck teeth and a narrow chin, so there is no real resemblance to Arthur, and yet there is something affecting about her gaze.

  ‘You have beautiful eyes,’ Dolores tells her. ‘They glitter like diamonds.’

  Mrs Jenkins doesn’t like that one bit, but Arthur explodes into his delighted laugh. ‘What did I tell you! She’s a real gem, my fiancée. A ruby and a diamond rolled into one.’

  On the weekend, the two families converge at the Church of England in Murray Bridge. There is no time to be a bride, so Ruby wears her best wool crepe, and a tilt hat accessorised with a sculpted ribbon. Arthur is a fine, upstanding groom in his uniform, and Mother the very picture of dignity and sobriety. She never intimates that she finds Mrs Jenkins common – it would be far too common – and yet already Ruby harbours a private shame about her new mother-in-law, who has sought to upstage her today in polka dots. Naturally, Father charms all present, with even Dolores taking a shine to him.

  There is not much in the way of gifts, which is hardly surprising given the late notice, but Mother has the wherewithal to present them with the very latest edition of The Green and Gold Cookery Book, ‘containing many good and proved recipes’. Folded into the back is an appendix of Mother’s own tried and true recipes – her sago plum pudding, ginger cake and melting moments – transcribed in her immaculate copperplate.

  ‘I will treasure it,’ Ruby declares.