A Harsh and Private Beauty

by Kate Kelly

  LISA LEANS TOWARD HER GRANDMOTHER and shakes her gently. “Nan?”

  Ruby’s eyes open wide. She’s surprised by the brightness of the rail car and the concern on the young woman’s face. “Where is Leland?” She looks around, unfamiliar with the scene she has so abruptly found herself in. Was she dreaming? Yes. As she gathers her thoughts and settles into the present moment, the images of the night club and the ache in her chest begin to slip away, leaving only a flavour, a whispered impression of something she can barely recognize. Now there is this young woman leaning toward her. Who is this again? Surely, I know her. Looking down, she sees a book in her lap and a hand, aged and arthritic. This is me in old age. And the young woman…. She’s too young to be my daughter. She must be my granddaughter. Yes…. Lisa.

  “Nan?”

  “Was I snoring, lovey?” Ruby slips the glasses from the end of her nose and places them on the book in her lap, the movement centering her in the present.

  “I think you were just dreaming.” Lisa smiles, relieved by the recognition she sees in Ruby’s eyes.

  “More like reliving a nightmare. Ha!” Ruby laughs with relief.

  “Was it a bad one?”

  Thinking, Ruby turns to the window, her mind struggling to recall the dream as it drains from the crevices of her thoughts like sand. “No.” She shakes her head sadly. “More like bittersweet.” How unfair, she thinks, these dreams of youth trapped in her mind to be relived in the harsh isolation of age.

  “What is it, Nan?” Lisa asks, watching the past flickering behind her grandmother’s blue eyes, holding her captive.

  “Lisa!” Ruby laughs, surprised again by her granddaughter’s presence. Reaching for the younger woman’s hand, Ruby continues. “Funny isn’t it? When I was young, I could never remember a dream if my life depended on it, and now these dreams feel more like reality than my waking life does. Well, they are my life, aren’t they? They’re my memories unravelling themselves like a reel of film, burning through the projector with no one to control it.” Looking at Lisa and sensing her concern, Ruby continues with a chuckle, “Old people! We’re not much fun. Are we, lovey?”

  “Well, you always are.” Lisa replies, patting Ruby’s hand in a gesture of reassurance.

  “Good. I’m glad you feel that way. Now just remind me—where are we right now and what are we doing?” Ruby smiles, keeping the moment light, focusing on the present.

  “We’re on the train heading for Chicago to see your daughter, my aunt Phoebe. Do you remember?”

  “Chicago. I was born there, you know?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Phoebe was born in Montreal. Francis, my first son; Phoebe, my second daughter.” She nods, remembering her children as babies.

  “You mean your only daughter.”

  “No. Phoebe was my second daughter,” Ruby says, her eyes fixed intently on Lisa’s. “I had another baby girl, still born. We named her Julia Rose. Francis was born soon after.”

  “Nan?” Lisa is hardly able to get the word out, shocked by the information. “I never knew about this. Mom, Dad, Aunt Phoebe … none of them has ever mentioned this to me. You have never mentioned it. Why? Why wouldn’t I know about this?”

  “It’s all right Lisa, Lovey. Don’t sound so hurt. It was a long time ago.”

  “But do they even know about this? I mean your other children? My dad? Why wouldn’t he tell me?” Like her thoughts, Lisa’s words tumble over one another, scrambling for some familiar ground.

  “He wasn’t born yet. None of the kids were born yet. It was my first baby.” Ruby turns to the window, watching the countryside moving by. Then, almost to herself, she adds, “And life has a way of moving on so quickly.” She turns back to Lisa and smiles. “Your aunt Phoebe sounded excited that we were coming.”

  Lisa is hesitant, still feeling overwhelmed by the new information. “Yes. After the initial surprise, at least. I mean, you know aunt Phoebe—she’s pretty buttoned up. She doesn’t go anywhere unless she’s planned it at least two weeks in advance.” Lisa is speaking almost absently.

  “No!” Ruby shakes her head, smiling. “Spontaneity was never Phoebe’s strong suit. Even as a little girl she liked everything planned out. She certainly didn’t get that from me, did she? Ha!”

  “No, Nan. In that I’d say you two are polar opposites. Actually, you’re pretty different in every way.”

  “I suppose that’s what happens with children. They try to become the complete opposite, to distance themselves from their parents.”

  “I guess to a certain extent that’s true. Even Dad needs a strong sense of order in his life, unlike me.”

  “Or me. That’s probably what made them the way they are. The way I am.” Ruby falls silent, her thoughts gathering around her like a storm. When she continues, her voice is hollow with regret. “Oh, Phoebe, trying to distance herself, becoming someone so different from me, as different as day and night. Polar opposites. I think it’s my fault.”

  “Your fault? That she’s a planner?” Lisa laughs.

  “No, that she needs to feel secure. That she needs to feel in control. As mothers we try to do the best we can….” Ruby falls silent, caught up in a sequence of moments that stretches to the edges of her memory.

  “And I’m sure you did, Nan.”

  “Did what, honey?”

  “The best you could for your children.”

  Ruby’s voice drops. “Yes, that’s what I’ve always said, but sometimes I wonder.”

  “Oh, Nan. You were an excellent mother who loved her kids and put them first. I wonder how you did it sometimes. When you were my age, you had three kids and a career. And you had lost a child. I can’t even imagine.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true, you know, that I put them first. Did I, or is it just easier to think and say I did? I’m not really sure if we thought of children in those terms back then.” Ruby nods to herself as both women gaze out the window, following their separate thoughts, their separate stories. When Ruby continues, it takes Lisa a moment to recall the conversation, and she is pleasantly surprised at her grandmother’s continuity. “Well, it’s good that you can’t imagine losing a child. I hope you have only beauty in your life, Lisa, but even with life’s trials and hardships, it’s always beautiful. That’s what life is, a harsh and private beauty ready to overwhelm us at any moment. That’s what keeps us going, isn’t it? This life and the beauty we can make of it.”

  “The beauty in life? Yes, I guess that does keep us going.”

  “Or finding the beauty, creating the beauty. It’s always there, you know.”

  “Well, I suppose some people are better at finding it than others.”

  Ruby takes stock of her granddaughter, the movement of the train rhythmically soothing. “So, lovey,” she continues, “are you one of the people struggling to find the beauty?”

  Lisa stays quiet, unsure how to articulate her feelings or even if she should. Her grandmother is old; her mind is slowly being stolen by dementia. Her father only humours her, keeping everything light, and her aunt Phoebe has always seemed distant with her. Lisa’s own mother never talks about anything meaningful to Nan, feeling somehow that the old shouldn’t be involved in the concerns of the young.

  As though she has read Lisa’s mind, Ruby laughs. “Don’t worry about telling me anything, lovey. You can burden your old Nan anytime you like. That’s what grandmothers are for. That’s the reason there are grandparents, so the younger generation can unburden themselves and we can hopefully put the problem into perspective. I can’t guarantee that I will remember what your problem is the next day, or the next minute,” Ruby laughs, “but I know that I can give excellent advice. At my age, Lisa, the filter of decorum and civility has pretty much dissolved. My advice is tempered with the truth of age; it’s as close to the truth as possible.” Ruby readjusts herself in the c
hair, easing her weight from one hip to the other. “Come on, girl, out with it now.”

  Lisa smiles at Ruby’s determined look.

  “I’m listening, lovey.”

  “I don’t know, Nan. This might be out of your realm. I don’t know if you would understand. Your life was so different; the time you lived in was so … I don’t know … far removed from today. Women in your time, they had everything set out for them; their decisions were already made. You were a mother and a wife….”

  “You forgot to say a wife three times.” Ruby nods.

  “Yes, exactly. A wife three times, and here I am at thirty-one. I’m not married, and I don’t know if I want to be married. Well, part of me does and part of me doesn’t. And…”

  “So, this is what’s bothering you? That you’re not married yet?”

  “No, it’s not that. Well, that’s part of it. But…” Lisa turns in her seat and looks into her grandmother’s calm, compelling eyes. Maybe she should be telling her mother this and not Nan? “Oh, forget I even said anything, I’m just going around in circles here and sounding pretty silly.”

  “No, you don’t sound silly, lovey. You sound confused about something. We have all felt like that at one time or another. Even women like me, who, as you say, lived in a time when everything was set out for us.” Ruby chortles. “When I was young that was what confused me the most. My life was already set out, as if I had no choice in the matter—ha! If I had had a choice or even thought I had a choice, I probably wouldn’t have been married three times.”

  Lisa, deep in thought, watches the sunlight falling across her arm. She feels the motion of the train, and the hard knot of worry in the base of her stomach, and something else that she can’t place. Pulling herself together, she looks at Ruby. “Are you hungry, Nan?”

  “You’d think that since I’ve been married three times, I would be the type of woman who doesn’t like to be alone, but it’s quite the contrary,” Ruby continues as if there has been no lull in the conversation. “I enjoy my own company; I always have. The marriages were as surprising to me as a January thaw….”

  They are quiet, both women lost in their own thoughts. Lisa is thinking ahead, consumed with anxiety and concern; Ruby is thinking back, always thinking back.

  A January thaw is a surprise, that’s for sure. And marriage and children—another surprise. I can’t say that I should have never married John Grace—otherwise I would never have become Ruby Grace—but I felt the unhappiness, felt I was missing the beauty. I was Ruby Grace. I had a growing awareness of myself, but it was an awareness of loss. Just at the time that I began to know a little bit about who I was, I was lost in the day-to-day demands of being a wife and mother. Struggling against something, but not knowing what. It wasn’t John and it was John. It wasn’t the children and it was the children. It was a slow seeping away of potential, a potential unknown but deeply felt. How different Ruby Grace would have been if not for Leland James. Everyone needs someone as I needed you, Leland. You were like a divining rod pulling at the centre of who I was, bringing to the surface what was already there. I would have been lost without you. Do my children have this? Do my grandchildren?

  Ruby brings herself back to the present moment. “Lisa, let’s go to the bar car. My legs could use the stretch, and we could both do with a little drink.”

  “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day. I wonder if they’ll be able to make you a vodka gimlet.”

  “Ha! It doesn’t matter. They don’t taste the same as they did when I was young. Nothing does. I suppose my taste buds are worn out along with everything else. The only thing I can taste anymore is salt, but it’s not good for my high blood pressure.” Ruby throws her hands in the air.

  “I know. It’s just not fair.” Lisa smiles at the tirade.

  “And I’m not complaining, mind you. Just stating the facts. Time was I could enjoy a vodka gimlet and eat a few pretzels. Now I can’t taste the damn drink, and eating the pretzels I’m taking my life in my hands. Ha! Maybe we should just sit in the bar car and let me go out with a bang!”

  “Well, that’s always an option.” Lisa stands, waiting for Ruby to struggle up. “What’s wrong, Nan? Are you okay?”

  A look of pain passes across Ruby’s face like a shadow, sharpening her features and settling in the lines around her mouth. Lisa sits back down, taking her grandmother’s hand. “Nan?” Concern raises the corners of her voice.

  “It’s nothing, nothing. My left leg was asleep. Now it’s prickling with pins and needles.” Ruby extracts her hand from Lisa’s and rubs her upper thigh.

  “Do you need me to do something?”

  “No, not unless you have a magic elixir to turn back time. This may take a while.” Ruby looks at Lisa, eyebrows raised. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. We’ll just take our time. It’s not like we’re following a tight schedule or anything. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “I thought that once.” Leaning forward, Ruby uses her cane to help herself up, then reaches for Lisa’s hand. “I suppose we all think that don’t we—that time is on our side? ‘But just when did time, that diaphanous material, fray into rush?’ I forget where I read that, but I’ve always remembered it.” Ruby stands and gently shakes her foot, watching the offending appendage as if willing the blood to move. “You always think time is on your side, and then one day you find yourself on the other side and time is suddenly against you, pulling on the rope like a tug of war. Suddenly you’re scrambling to hold on for dear life, all your good intentions and someday plans forgotten in the immediacy of your battle.”

  Ruby, aware that a look of helplessness has settled on Lisa’s face, continues, “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to get so melodramatic. It happens when one becomes maudlin, and I’m getting that way with age. Everything is beginning to take on a new meaning. And I don’t think living in that so called ‘retirement home,’” Ruby’s voice raises sharply, “helps in any way. Everyone is old there! Ha! Sometimes I look around and I wonder: what are all these old people doing here? Is it a Saturday afternoon and I’m in the foyer at intermission? Did we perform at an old age home and this is the reception? Then I remember: no, I’m here. This is me. I’m one of these damned old people!”

  Ruby’s voice has gotten louder during her tirade. Although there are only a handful of people in the car, they have turned to look at Ruby and Lisa. Lisa smiles and nods, dropping her voice as she answers, hoping her grandmother will take the hint. “Oh, Nan. I never knew you felt like that. It must be confusing.”

  “Confusing as hell!” Ruby answers loudly. “But what’s worse is when my mind finally lands in this body…” she stops, places her hand on the backrest of a chair, and looks at Lisa, “…and I think, just a minute, this can’t be right.” Ruby laughs, looking around. “Well hello and good day to you all.” She nods at the passengers who are watching her, their faces pinched with interest. “Getting old is just such a bother. Don’t let this happen to you.” She nods to each one as if from the stage, then turns back to Lisa. “Okay, I think we can make our move now. You lead and I’ll follow.” Ruby points with her cane in the direction of the bar car.

  Lisa laughs with unguarded emotion, enjoying this moment. She moves along the aisle, nodding and smiling at the other passengers, her embarrassment of a moment ago forgotten in the humour her grandmother seems to bring to every situation. Then, deferring to her grandmother in mock salute, she raises her voice to include the entire car in the fun. “To the bar car we go, Ruby Grace!”

  6.

  MONTREAL IS COLD, a cold unlike anything Daniel has ever experienced. In the brief time it takes him to walk from the cab into the newly completed Ritz-Carlton Hotel, it snaps his nose hairs and numbs his face. Earlier that day, when the sun, shining from a cloudless sky, had warmed the air to a more tolerable temperature, he walked the streets of Montreal. Although wide and
snow-covered, many of them in various stages of development, they somehow reminded him of the streets he walked in France; one area in particular was reminiscent of Place du Tertre in Paris. The architecture here was more eclectic, yet retained enough of the classical to lend weight to the city’s atmosphere. He stopped in the Place d’Armes square as though he was being held in place, lost in a frozen landscape of memory.

  The New York Life Insurance Building, standing at eight storeys high, was Montreal’s first skyscraper—erected thanks to Elias Otis and his elevator, which had opened up futuristic possibilities for the world. The very first of these skyscrapers was in Daniel’s hometown. The Home Insurance Building, completed in 1885, was a familiar beacon for Daniel who, loving architecture, often marvelled at mankind’s ability to design and construct. For him, architecture, like art, represented the beauty of the human soul. Facing the Place d’Armes square was the Notre-Dame Basilica, its Gothic Revival design amongst the most dramatic in the world. Walking inside, Daniel found himself assailed by unexpected emotion. The god of his childhood, so omnipotent and undeniable, had been lost in the cold mud of France, the battleground where his idealism, his morality, and his faith were sacrificed in the immediacy of survival. But entering the church, Daniel suddenly encountered that lost god again. He was shocked at his own visceral reaction to the church. The basilica, almost ephemeral in its beauty, was too much to take in. Its vaulted ceiling rose above him, absorbing and alienating, calling to a primal need to believe in something bigger than himself, while at the same time reinforcing a rage he can’t articulate. He staggered from the building into the harsh light of a winter sun, inebriated with emotion.

  Now, at six o’clock, the evening closes in like a raven’s wing, dark and claustrophobic, the omnipresent cold re-establishing itself with a vengeance. The people he passes, often deep in conversation with each other, are definitely speaking French. Although he can’t understand the words, the cadence, the accentuated lifts are recognizable. Except for the painful cold in his extremities, he can almost imagine he is in France, Bordeaux, or Paris, walking with the guys from the regiment and looking for some fun: fast French skirt or good French wine, or both.