Melting Moments Read online

  A month after Ruby’s arrival, on the morning of Arthur’s first proper rostered day off, she brings him breakfast in bed, the toast spread with the final remnants of Mother’s apricot jam.

  ‘Never mind the crumbs,’ she says recklessly, as she kisses him goodbye.

  ‘Leaving me at the scene of the crime, are you?’

  She blushes, but all the way to work she cannot stop thinking about the previous evening, in which their exertions had resulted in an unprecedented level of mutual success, and as the bus rolls over the bumpy road, and the other passengers swing around her, she replays a key moment repeatedly in her mind – particularly the way Arthur actually held her gaze – to the extent that her body threatens to remember also, a little too effectively, and she hastily redirects her attention to the passing streets. Nonetheless, she arrives at work in a state of some agitation, so that when Mrs Ashley-Brown asks if she is feeling unwell she replies on a whim that she has a headache, and since it is a quiet day at the office she is soon back on the bus, flushed and craven, wondering what she will possibly say to her sleep-addled husband when he answers the door.

  Fortunately it is a Wednesday, so Mrs Berenice Bower is offering her services to the cheer-up society, but Ruby hesitates at the front nonetheless, before rapping on the window.

  He opens the door with that small furrow in his forehead.

  ‘Are you quite all right, dear?’ he asks.

  ‘Quite all right.’

  He grasps her hand – In that case – and leads her into the bedroom.

  Later that afternoon, she wakes to find her husband looking at her. As she reaches over to smooth his brow, he utters words he has not uttered previously, either before or in the immediate aftermath of the wedding. She has never used such words either, but she reciprocates easily, as if such words only needed to be earned by a month together in bed, where they could be found to be true.

  4

  Ruby has anticipated this moment since girlhood: the proper unpacking of her glory box, the setting of the stage for her adult life. She has found a little cottage on Cross Road – or Cross Roads, as the locals call it, even though it is only one road as far as the eye can see. Daisy brings up Mother’s second-best silver tea service from the farm, polishing it until every surface is a mirror, and when Ruby arranges it on the sideboard it lifts the tone immeasurably. On Daisy’s recommendation, she allocates a white tea towel for cutlery and a plaid one for saucepans, and irons the tablecloth directly onto the table, so that all is spick and span for Arthur’s arrival.

  And yet even once demobilisation is complete, and Arthur is restored to her bed, a feeling of home remains elusive. Every morning she sees him off to work, and is reassured by the purposeful traffic outside their gate, by the sense of everyone properly getting on with their business. But after he has driven off, she gazes along the span of Cross Roads from the Adelaide foothills all the way out to the west and feels the emptiness rush in at her, as if she were living on a road from nowhere to nowhere. As if the entire city were built on a desert, and her fledgling rose garden the thinnest of veneers. No doubt it would help if Arthur stopped bringing the newspapers into the house, with their reports from Belsen or Auschwitz or Nuremberg. Or if Florence ceased regaling her with those appalling stories from Dale Robinson. You would never believe what they found when they returned to collect the wounded. She is glad that Arthur, at least, has the discretion to keep such things to himself, and urges Florence to encourage Dale in a hobby.

  When she sees a job advertised for a part-time telegraph operator at the General Post Office, she realises this is exactly what she needs: to be back in the thick of it, a moving part in the moving world. And so, after four months of training, she becomes an official operator of the Murray Multiplex machines, transmitting and receiving telegrams from every capital city in Australia. Please wire money STOP Tell Ellie I love her STOP Will honour your decision either way STOP Still no official information available STOP A baby boy but that does not bring him back STOP God bless you both on your marriage STOP

  It must be the noisiest room in Adelaide, and she returns home energised from her shifts, impatient to get on with things: the housework, the lovemaking, the starting of a family. Unfortunately, Arthur’s approach to their evenings is somewhat more stolid. It becomes clear that he expects her to sit alongside him as he reads, on the uncomfortable chaise longue in the front room – all very well for him since he gets the backrest – where he drapes an arm around her shoulders or rests a heavy hand on her leg, like a fleshy type of shackle. Nobody had warned her of this aspect of married life: a husband’s constant need for physical contact. Now that she is out during the day, all of her wifely work needs to be crammed into the evening, but Arthur fails to appreciate that the successful completion of chores is more important than any amount of sitting and being touched. For a time, Ruby submits to being patted, all the while revising the list of things that need to be done: the oats to be soaked; the socks to be darned; the laundry to be brought in and folded. Then, in search of achievement, she tries knitting, but the clinking needles only exacerbate his tic. He can cope better with the quiet rhythms of needlepoint, but there is only so much needlepoint one wishes to do whilst the ironing is still pending. It is always a relief when he nods off beside her, and she can remove his hand from her leg and escape the chaise longue, liberated into her chores.

  Apart from visits to see his family at Henley Beach, Arthur is reluctant to get out much at all, and would be quite happy for the two of them to spend their entire weekends on that chaise longue, meals excepted. Ruby fears that if she does not make an effort to get their social life going again they will become recluses, and phones Florence in a state of some desperation. As it happens, Florence is organising a table for the Semaphore Palais, to celebrate the anniversary of Victory in the Pacific, and would only be too delighted for Ruby and Arthur to join them.

  Despite some grumbles, Arthur scrubs up admirably in his old suit, and as they drive out to Semaphore she is hopeful they might recover something of their former selves. And when they arrive, who should they see but Mavis Adams! She is as sturdy and handsome as Ruby remembers, and as endlessly interested in everything, and as endlessly certain about everything.

  ‘Ruby, glorious creature! You haven’t changed a bit. Allow me to introduce my husband, Captain Bill Clarkson from the RAAF.’

  The last time Ruby and Mavis crossed paths, Mavis had been on the arm of Ralphy Phillips. It is clear immediately that Bill Clarkson is a superior catch. He has that pilot glamour about him, though not in the aloof manner you often saw. Instead, all parts of his body seem to be in motion, from his eyebrows to his hands, which are more expressive than might be desirable in a man.

  He takes Ruby’s hand in his own and kisses it.

  ‘Rubies are red, violets are blue. Sweet Ruby Rose, may I dance with you?’

  ‘The man’s a rogue,’ Mavis says. ‘Don’t trust a word he says.’

  Ruby doesn’t think she needs the warning. She knows the sort. As Bill guides her to the dance floor, she is reminded of Father: the attentiveness, the charm, the desperate need to be liked.

  ‘Follow the nags, Ruby Rose?’

  ‘From time to time.’

  ‘Ever place a bet?’

  She glances at Arthur, who seems safely ensconced in conversation with Dale Robinson.

  ‘Don’t mind a little flutter, once in a while.’

  He laughs robustly. ‘A woman after my own heart.’

  It is a lark to dance with him, but he is not the sort you would choose to marry. There is something indiscriminate about the way he sprays around his charm, grinning at the other couples as they pass, winking at the men. Florence appears to be quite besotted, swirling up to them and almost intercepting – like a man! – so that Bill has no choice but to ask her for the next dance.

  Ruby takes the foxtrot with Arthur, who may be less nimble on his feet but is more reliably present.

  ‘I�
�m not entirely convinced by this Bill Clarkson fellow,’ he mutters. ‘Big-noting himself about land speed records, and this, that and the other.’

  At supper, Bill orders a bottle of French champagne so that they can toast victory yet again.

  ‘To Victory in the Pacific!’

  ‘Can you imagine, a year already?’ gasps Mavis.

  ‘It’s certainly hard to believe,’ Ruby agrees.

  On VP Day, she and Arthur had still been in Brisbane. Although he did not usually care for crowds, he had grabbed her by the hand and taken her to the streets. In Queen Street, just outside Custom House, a young woman had seized him by the shoulders and planted a kiss smack on his lips, before moving along to the next group of servicemen. Arthur could not stop laughing, surrounded by those honking horns, the confetti caught in his eyelashes and on his tongue.

  ‘You must tell your Uncle Frederick that Samuel is retiring from the Law,’ says Mavis. ‘But that his eldest – that’s Rupert, whom you may know through Florence – he married that lovely Blackburn girl, I mean the younger one. What was her name? It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

  The bubbles seem to have gone to Ruby’s head, and she finds Mavis’s conversation hard to follow. Instead, her attention keeps drifting towards the men.

  ‘She’s a beauty,’ Bill says to Arthur. ‘We’re in with a chance at the new Sydney to Hobart, I reckon.’

  ‘Never been one for sailing,’ Arthur replies, as if he had even tried.

  ‘Come out one weekend and give it a burl.’

  ‘Don’t know that I care to, thank you very much. Tennis does me nicely.’

  ‘Anyway, Rupert has it all in hand,’ Mavis reassures her. ‘He’s still a keen sportsman, of course. Joins Bill for the occasional round of golf. That’s Samuel, I mean, not Rupert. Though Rupert’s always had that unbeatable backhand.’

  Ruby inadvertently catches Bill’s eye, and soon enough she feels his hand on her lower back, guiding her to the dance floor. There is something purposeful about the way he steers her. The way he pilots her, perhaps. She realises she likes it.

  ‘Say, what did you make of the Cup last year?’ he asks.

  ‘My father had a lot to say about that Rainbird. Reckons she robbed him of a fortune.’

  He laughs. ‘Your father wasn’t the only one to be hoodwinked. Proud moment for South Australia all the same.’

  Other couples sail by, silent and earnest, succumbing to Harry Smith’s muted trumpet. Ruby might have liked to do the same, but Bill talks too much for the music properly to take hold.

  He leans in closer.

  ‘The last time we ventured out here we had quite a scene, let me tell you. Mavis was riding pillion, wearing a brand-new frock. Pretty as a picture, just as you’d expect. So there we are, going at a good clip, and all of a sudden I sense Mavis getting a little hot under the collar. Wasn’t sure why, so I gave her hand a couple of tight squeezes. Our secret signal, you see. That all is well.’

  Ruby feels curiously excluded from this signal; even robbed of something.

  ‘And, God bless her, Mavis squeezed right back.’

  Mavis passes by with Dale Robinson. ‘Darling,’ she calls out. ‘I hope you’re not telling tales out of school. I’d be frightfully embarrassed if you were.’

  ‘Just relaying the story of our recent mishap.’

  Mavis tinkles with a laughter that does not seem remotely embarrassed.

  ‘It was only when we arrived at Semaphore that everything became clear. Blow me down, but hadn’t her frock gone and got itself all tangled up in the back wheel!’

  ‘Goodness.’

  ‘The entire backside completely ripped off!’ He hoots. ‘Must have given our fellow motorists a fine show. Remarkable we weren’t stopped for public indecency.’

  The story has a curious effect on her, and she files it away for later. She can see the scene clearly: Bill steering the motorcycle down the highway with heedless cheer; his near-naked, unflappable wife riding pillion behind him. It is a vision that remains with her long after that evening, sometimes rising unbidden across the inside of her eyelids as she lies beneath Arthur in bed. At first, the mental picture is of Bill and Mavis, but in time Mavis transforms into a version of Ruby. She is in a state of reckless dishabille; air roars against the backs of her legs; her garter straps are visible for all to see. Bill sits ahead, gripping the handlebars, and together they grin against the wind, leaving scandal in their wake.

  The following month, Arthur is posted to Melbourne, and they do not see Bill and Mavis again for some time, which is likely all for the best.

  5

  It seems to Ruby that Arthur has more of a spring in his step in Melbourne, possibly on account of being away from his mother. Certainly, he is more inclined to try new things. One night he returns home from work with a brand-new Canon, demonstrating the shutter speed – which she agrees is decidedly modern – and holding the lens up to the light. Fast glass on this one. No doubt about it.

  To Ruby’s surprise, he proves to have quite an eye. She herself is his favourite subject, and over the months of her confinement he becomes adept at concealing her bulge. Sometimes the photo shoots can be trying, as she is forced to hold a pose interminably while he experiments with lighting and camera angles, but she co-operates because it is clear that it calms him, and it can only be a good thing that he has a hobby. And occasionally an image might emerge from his darkroom that offers some truth about herself, or at least a version of herself in which she would like to believe.

  But then the baby comes along, and either Arthur loses interest in Ruby as a subject or Ruby loses interest in herself, and before she knows it the camera has remained in its case for nearly a year. None of which troubles her at first, so entranced is she by little Eva. Even Glenda from next door, who is an expert on everything from Dr Spock to Ingrid Bergman, remarks that she has never met so personable a baby. It is only when the child is weaned, and has started sleeping through the night, that Ruby wonders whether she might have lost something of herself, and become a little stodgy and stale.

  ‘Darling, you couldn’t be stodgy and stale if you tried,’ says Glenda. ‘But I know how easy it is to let oneself go. After William came along, I did a modelling course and it brightened me up no end.’

  ‘What sort of modelling course?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Deportment and make-up application and so on. At the Bambi Shmith Modelling College in the city.’

  ‘Not the Bambi Shmith? That lovely creature in the Weekly?’

  ‘The very same. And very clever, I believe, on the violin. People used to go to the Symphony just to look at her.’

  Ruby phones the East Melbourne offices that very morning. Although she blanches at the cost, it is immediately clear that she has to do it. That evening, she prepares a creamy sago pudding for dessert, which complements the stewed apples admirably. It is only after Arthur has asked for a second helping that she mentions the course, carefully spelling out the benefits for his art photography.

  ‘A marvellous idea,’ he agrees, and indeed he is inspired to take out his camera again that very night.

  During their photo shoots, Arthur has always been fascinated by Ruby’s disrobing. She submits, of course, but thinks of it as somewhat hackneyed – a children’s game with a single outcome: Peekaboo. How much more interesting to put together an outfit; how much more erotic, even.

  Today, she starts by pulling on her stockings and fastening the stays. Then she buttons up the silk blouse she has just mended. Never mind that it is a bit worn under the collar; she ties her scarf a little raffishly, as she saw in last month’s Vogue. Next she steps into the skirt, which she has brought up to this season’s length, and slips on the shoes, resoled and really as good as new. Finally, she pulls on her new cashmere gloves – her only indulgence – in the perfect fawn to complement the skirt. As she turns to the mirror and sucks in her cheeks, she dares to think it: she looks smart. And not just smart, but resourceful. It’s a
ll very well to have an expense account at David Jones, but some people have to make do with the materials on hand, and perhaps develop a keener, more exacting taste as a consequence.

  Of course Granny Jenkins never waits to be invited to Melbourne: she just announces she is coming. And on this occasion in particular, Ruby wishes she was not there. But now that she is all put together, she feels better able to handle her mother-in-law, and so she scoops up the baby and knocks on Granny’s bedroom door.

  ‘Time to go!’

  Naturally, the old woman takes her time, emerging in a mint-green twin set, accessorised with a maroon hat. Ruby is unsure whether this is a deliberate act of sabotage. Surely even Granny Jenkins knows that red and green should never be seen.

  ‘I do so like bright colours,’ she says defiantly. ‘None of those dreary hues you see today.’ Her eyes alight upon Ruby’s gloves. ‘But I couldn’t find my gloves anywhere. Eva must have taken them.’

  ‘Bot-tle!’ insists Eva.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ says Ruby. ‘The baby hasn’t been near your room.’

  ‘Why don’t you give me those beige ones?’ Granny Jenkins suggests. ‘You can wear your other pair. The salmon.’

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if you wore the salmon,’ Ruby tries, but she knows already that she has lost.

  They are late getting to the parade. Eva resisted being left with Glenda, and even after Ruby had prised her tiny fingers from her blouse, and fled ruthlessly from her screams, there was still the matter of the gloves. On the way into the parade, she had pulled up outside David Jones and rushed through the ground floor to Accessories, leaving Granny Jenkins in the car with the engine still running.

  ‘Don’t expect me to pay for the parking fine,’ Granny declared.

  Miraculously, there was a single pair left. Ruby told the attendant not to bother wrapping them, and returned triumphantly to the car.

  ‘An early Christmas present,’ she said to Granny, who pulled them onto her stout fingers without a word of thanks.