Melting Moments Read online

  The ceremony is brief and to the point, followed by cucumber sandwiches in the church hall. Mother has baked a ginger cake, on account of it being Ruby’s favourite; Mrs Jenkins picks at it with her fork, complaining that it tastes medicinal. After the refreshments, Aunt Marjorie sings ‘Softly Awakes My Heart’ – her formidable vibrato matched by her formidable cleavage, travelling down her chest in a tremulous line – with Mother accompanying her on the piano. Ruby hopes Mother might play one of Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, but she is too shy to ask, and at any rate Mrs Jenkins has soon pushed her aside to thump out ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ – Of course I play entirely by ear – with her stumpy, dogmatic fingers. Arthur seems jolly enough, singing along and clasping Ruby’s hand with a quiet, thrilling intensity.

  Finally, after Father and Dolores have retired from the dance floor, and Mrs Jenkins has enlightened all present about the Studebaker Champion, it is time to leave. When the newlyweds arrive at the Murray Bridge Hotel, it is well past midnight, so that only a few hours remain before Arthur’s departure. The room is not large, but it is tastefully appointed, with elegant French doors opening onto a small terrace. Arthur steps outside immediately for a cigarette.

  Now what?

  Should she change into her nightgown?

  It is the most delicate item from her glory box: bias-cut and trimmed with ecru lace, with an intricate smocking she had laboured over for some weeks. On Tuesday, when it had become clear that marriage was imminent, she had tried it on before the mirror, and was reassured to find herself fetching. The unthinkable task was surely more manageable in the correct attire. And yet now it feels presumptuous to change without invitation. If only someone had provided guidance on such matters! If only Dr Wilkinson had offered more than those few stern words about family planning!

  They have such little time; but even after she has changed and turned down the bed, Arthur shows no indication of coming inside. And so she is forced to take matters into her own hands.

  Outside, the sky is crowded with stars, burning at full volume. Arthur continues to gaze upward as if he has not heard her approach.

  ‘Just taking a final gander,’ he explains. ‘May be the last time I enjoy this view.’

  It seems to her that he will have plenty of opportunities aboard the ship, but she holds her tongue.

  ‘I reckon that must be Mars over there,’ he offers. ‘Planet of war.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘With that red glow. Can’t think what else it could be.’ She has never known him to smoke so many cigarettes. ‘Planet of desire, too. Or so they say.’

  And yet still he does not turn to her.

  Sometimes events occur as one might wish, but sometimes they do not. It is hardly improper to slip one’s arm into the arm of one’s new husband, but all the same she is glad there are no witnesses. The moment she touches him, he drops his cigarette and stamps it to the ground, and his mouth upon hers is a warm cauldron of spice and tobacco. Then he takes her by the hand and leads her inside, and she is relieved that they are back on course.

  3

  Travel light, Arthur’s telegram had read, but of course she had needed to pack linens and clothes, not to mention key items from her glory box, so that now she struggles to heave her suitcase onto the train. Allow me, offers a voice behind her, and a gentleman in tweed takes her case and slips it on the luggage rack at the front of the carriage. He is tall and well built in a way she wishes she did not notice, but presumably too mature for active service. After she thanks him, he doffs his hat and follows her down the aisle, where he takes the opposite seat and disappears behind his newspaper. INVASION: Allies Land in France.

  ‘Arthur Rightus,’ groans a middle-aged woman, settling into the seat beside her.

  Ruby blushes. Is the nature of her mission written all over her face?

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s the arthur-itis. Cold weather sets it off without fail.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

  The conductor blows his whistle, and Ruby braces herself for the thrust.

  ‘Reading, eh?’ observes the woman, once they are on their way. ‘What’s the book, then?’

  ‘Oh, just a novel. All Quiet on the Western Front.’

  The man glances up with interest. ‘A fine read, that one.’

  ‘What kind of novel?’ the woman persists.

  ‘It’s about the Great War,’ he informs her loftily, with the impeccable diction of a doctor, perhaps, or a professor.

  ‘As if there weren’t more than enough war already,’ the woman harrumphs. ‘Without folks reading about it on the train.’

  Ruby returns to its pages, somewhat chastened. As it happens, the novel has some sentimental value. She and Arthur had spoken of it during their first foxtrot – they had both been reading it at the time, which she took as some kind of sign – and then over the months afterwards she had become so busy with stepping out with him, and then with the excitement of the enlistment and the wedding, that she never got around to finishing it. She had been reluctant to pick it up when he was off in New Guinea – lest it jinx him, somehow – but now that he has returned to Australia, it seems important that this small task is completed, before she gets to the rest of their unfinished business. Not that she feels any inclination to share this with her fellow passenger.

  ‘What takes you to Broken Hill, then?’ the woman demands.

  Ruby is reluctant to admit that she is in fact travelling all the way to Brisbane, occupying seats that should rightly be reserved for troop movement. Although she is officially a married woman, she still feels there is something unseemly about her journey: she is heading across the country to climb into bed with a man who is, essentially, a stranger.

  Over the twenty months of their separation, she has never for a second forgotten that she is married, but Arthur himself has come to seem less specific and more generic, so that his features are now less clear than, say, those of Bobby McInernay, who was unable to enlist on account of his childhood polio but who nonetheless cuts a striking figure helping Father out at the farm, and has a lovely smile to boot. For months, whenever she has tried to conjure up Arthur’s face, all that has come to mind has been a hurried photograph from their wedding day, as if his head were forever half-tilted into the light, and his mother’s proprietorial arm always around him. That aside, all she has had to go on is a handful of letters from New Guinea which, although full of facts and timings, contain very few clues about the man who penned them.

  ‘I’m visiting family,’ she tells the woman.

  ‘Family in Broken Hill?’

  ‘No, in Sydney.’

  ‘What sort of family?’

  ‘My aunt.’

  This is not entirely a lie. Ruby has devised a circuitous route to Brisbane in order to avoid detection by the authorities, tracking from Murray Bridge to Adelaide to Broken Hill to Sydney, whence Aunt Marjorie, who has moved there to study nursing, will convey her to the flying boat.

  ‘Your ma must have been sad to say goodbye.’

  In fact, Mother had not seemed especially glad to have Ruby back at the farm – but nor, on the other hand, had she seemed glad to see her go. On the way to the station, it had appeared as if she might be weeping. It’s just the pollen, dear. As the train pulled away, Ruby watched Mother’s stoic face slide into oblivion, her cheeks shining with tears. But surely Mother could not have been crying for her.

  ‘It’s always hardest on the mothers,’ muses the woman. ‘Not that anyone gives two hoots about us.’

  ‘Is that right.’

  Ruby punctuates this with a full stop rather than a question mark, and picks up her book. After a disappointed silence, the woman takes out her knitting, and Ruby is soon carried along by the clack of her needles, syncopated with the clatter of the train. She places her book back down and dozes to a sense of purposeful binding – of things being knitted and fastened back together – and when she awakens, it is to a darkened
sky. Her reflection has come into focus in the window; it is clear her victory rolls would have benefited from more lacquer.

  Soon enough the train slows into Broken Hill. The woman packs up her knitting and limps off without a word of farewell, but the gentleman gallantly carries Ruby’s suitcase onto the platform, even going so far as to suggest he might buy her a milkshake. Ruby politely declines, and all seems to be going smoothly until an orderly informs her she has been summoned by the stationmaster.

  Shame.

  She feels it physiologically; she can almost see it carved into the evening air. It is that childhood terror of getting in trouble, of being found out. But she reminds herself of what Arthur has been through, and steps into the stationmaster’s office, resolving to be brave.

  The stationmaster has a brazen handlebar moustache, and the slightly defensive air of a man who should be in active service.

  ‘Final destination?’ he barks.

  ‘Sydney.’

  ‘Purpose?’

  ‘Visiting family.’

  ‘Exact nature of familial connection?’

  ‘Aunt.’

  ‘Maternal or paternal side?’

  ‘Paternal.’ Why this should be of interest to the war effort is beyond her.

  ‘Address whilst in Sydney?’

  She is once again nine years old, summoned to the front of the country school to recite the twelve times tables she has not yet got around to memorising. For the life of her she cannot think of a single destination in Sydney.

  ‘Where exactly is your paternal aunt domiciled?’

  To her dismay, all that comes to mind is Fort Denison, though she cannot imagine this would aid her cause.

  ‘I’m sorry, but’ – he peers at her ticket – ‘Mrs Jenkins, I cannot allow you to board a train to Sydney without a confirmed destination.’

  ‘Redfern,’ she says for no good reason, except that it has suddenly dropped into her head.

  ‘Redfern?’ He looks her up and down slowly, in a manner that can only be described as salacious, then dismisses her with a wave of his hand.

  In Brisbane, Arthur has found accommodation in the guest rooms of an American widow, a Mrs Berenice Bower, who is mercifully visiting her daughter in Townsville the week Ruby arrives. On their second evening together in bed, he produces a book he has acquired from somewhere, and of which he has clearly made close study. At first Ruby surrenders to his embarrassed suggestions with incredulity, then with the beginnings of pleasure, and soon she feels well enough married, as if her life has finally caught up with her official status.

  Aside from the ubiquitous presence of troops, Brisbane reminds her of a diluted, sunnier version of Adelaide, and she remembers that sense of promise upon moving up to town, when life still seemed ahead of her. She finds a job at the Department of Aircraft Production, readily making friends with the other girls, but every evening she detaches herself from their easy laughter, as a laughter that no longer belongs to her, and walks briskly back to the flat in order to prepare Arthur’s tea. He is due at the barracks early each morning, so she awakens at first light to prepare him a hearty breakfast, consulting the invalid section of The Green and Gold Cookery Book – though, as she can attest, he is certainly no invalid. At the end of their first week together, she breaks out in spots. She is not sure whether these blemishes are the results of the tropical climate, or have something to do with her new wifely duties, and the surprising assertiveness of her body, but she reels from the bathroom mirror in horror, fearful of their impact on her husband. Fortunately, Arthur either does not notice or is too polite to acknowledge he has.

  It is something of a disappointment that Mrs Berenice Bower returns from Townsville. She reveals herself as a woman of formidable opinions, with eyelashes so curly they look to be permed, and an unnerving, emphatic stare.

  ‘If I had a nickel for every time Reverend Bower said there’s no place like home,’ she says.

  ‘Your husband was clearly a man of sound principle,’ Arthur observes.

  ‘Sharp as a tack was the Reverend Bower. A pastor in the Baptist Church.’

  ‘So you said,’ Ruby replies sweetly. Already, the late Reverend Bower has been invoked so frequently that he has come to seem a fourth member of the household.

  ‘And of course Reverend Bower, may he rest in peace, was a great fan of my roast dinner. The secret’s in the gravy, you see.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ruby agrees. ‘The secret’s always in the gravy.’

  Indeed, Mrs Berenice Bower’s roast is a passable example of its kind, particularly for an American, though the lamb is not quite as caramelised as Mother’s, and the beans strike Ruby as a little underdone: bright green rather than tenderly khaki, and not quite ready to relinquish their peas. The gravy is browned nicely, if somewhat under-salted. Unfortunately, it seems the potatoes have been cooked in too much water and allowed to gallop, and have consequently lost form; but the carrots are an utter credit to Mrs Berenice Bower.

  ‘I have seldom had nicer,’ Ruby compliments her.

  ‘Just wait until you try my rabbit stew.’

  It becomes clear that Ruby and Arthur are expected to dine with Mrs Berenice Bower every night, as she summarises her day’s errands and good deeds. By her own account, she is particularly acclaimed for her verve and vigour in the act of reading aloud, offering this service several times to Arthur, who declines – graciously at first, but then with some vigour of his own.

  ‘I’m more than happy to keep my own company in my reading, thank you all the same.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s all about dramatic inflection, Mr Jenkins. The late Reverend Bower described it as the art of oratory and insisted I had a gift for it.’

  Throughout Mrs Berenice Bower’s soliloquies, Arthur nudges Ruby’s leg, until she feels obliged to perform the necessary extractions, explaining that it has been a long day at the barracks for her husband, and that although they are grateful for Mrs Bower’s hospitality, they really ought to be turning in for the night. It is always a vast relief for her to be back in their own quarters, and even more so to be back in bed, with Arthur’s body beside her.

  There had been times, when he was still in New Guinea, that Ruby had contemplated the possibility he might not come home. So many, after all, had not: Bobby McInernay’s elder brother, Sammy; Mr Wilson’s son from the boarding house; even Eddie Pickworth, her very first date at the Palais, who had enlisted at the same time as Arthur. Such an outcome, of course, would be a tragedy for Arthur, but as he receded from her memory the more pertinent tragedy became her own. She imagined herself shut out from her future life, trapped at the farm with her parents, or in a spinsterish existence on Prospect Road, dusting a framed photograph of a soldier amidst the doilies.

  But now that he is returned to her she has a clearer sense of what could have been lost. It is less her future as homemaker than this person in her bed. She maps his body with her hands and eyes: the boyish nape of his neck; the girth of his upper arms; those thick fingers that seem to carry a charge even when he is at rest. It can only be fate to have him back, so she doesn’t press the issue of his release from active service; and at any rate, he is still making an honourable contribution through his book-keeping.

  However, Mrs Berenice Bower cannot leave well enough alone – Forgive my curiosity, Mr Jenkins, but a landlady is entitled to know, why exactly did they send you back from New Guinea? – until Arthur’s deflections become more perfunctory, and his urgent nudges more frequent. The last straw is when Mrs Berenice Bower enquires, over her acclaimed rabbit stew, whether Ruby is still regular, given the young couple’s clear enthusiasm for – how can she put this – repopulating Australia, if you will forgive her for prying, but of course the walls are very thin and she is in no way squeamish about such issues, given some of the things she has seen whilst volunteering at the hospital.

  What type of thing is this to say at the table, and before a returned serviceman at that?

  Arthur t
urns to Ruby in mute despair; she summons up a brand-new matronly manner that brooks no argument, thanking Mrs Berenice Bower for her hospitality up to this point, but informing her that she and Arthur will be dining privately in their rooms from this day on. Thenceforth, Mrs Berenice Bower’s gift for oratory is contained by the adjacent wall, and Ruby is glad to be back in charge of their meals.

  As she cooks, Arthur parks himself at the table, reading through his pile of books from the local library, mostly on historic military campaigns – hardly the most restorative material, in her private opinion – or tuning into Deutsch Kurzwellensender to practise his German, which strikes her as a risky activity indeed in such close quarters to Mrs Berenice Bower. Sometimes, as he keeps his own company in his reading, she glances over at him and is ambushed by something: a release of the salivary glands, an internal duress. She feels almost pained by his serene brow, his steady gaze. Of course he was other even before the war, as any man must be; but he has returned encased in a greater otherness.

  In bed, she often senses that he too is awake, and yet there is some invisible boundary that she cannot traverse, something that stops her reaching for him and slinging a leg across his body. At first, she is alarmed by his nightmares, but she comes to welcome these disturbances as an excuse to turn to him, mooring her breath to his, her heartbeat to his, so that they plummet together back down the leagues of sleep, like that parachutist and his sweetheart she saw on a war report. When it is he who approaches her in the night, she receives him gratefully. He is initially too polite even to look at her breasts, so that she fears her naked form displeases him, but in time he becomes accustomed to taking them in his hands, and nuzzling them in a way she is not persuaded is proper – but whom could she possibly ask? – and at any rate she supposes one should do what one can for a returned serviceman, and besides she rather likes it. As he labours atop her, there are moments in which she meets his eye and briefly imagines she understands him, though at the cumulative instant his gaze always becomes opaque, and he retreats once more into his private world.