School Days for Ruby

by Lucia Masciullo

  ‘Fireworks are so pretty,’ Ruby said to May. ‘It’s a shame Uncle James is afraid of them.’

  ‘He’s not afraid,’ May said. ‘It’s more like the noise gives him scary memories. Poor Dad – Mum says he used to be a really happy person. He changed, after the war. And things are bad now anyway, with the drought and everything. We’re quite broke, and no matter how hard Dad works, he can’t get back on his feet.’

  Ruby gazed into the flickering remains of the fire. It’s true, she reflected. People do change. Mother used to be happy, but since our business went bankrupt it seems as if she’s turning into a different person, too.

  She remembered her friends from her old school – Marjorie Mack, and Sally, and the twins, Violet and Thelma. Had they changed as well? They all said they’d write to me, she thought, but they never did. I suppose that means they weren’t really my friends after all. Even Brenda Walker never wrote to me. I wish I had a proper best friend. I could try to like Doris better, but . . .

  May was speaking again. ‘It must be hard for you, seeing the way Dad treats Baxter,’ she said. ‘He’s not really cruel, though. It’s just that he – he can’t relax, and he gets angry about little things. He gets angry with Walter, mostly. Dad wants Walter to be a farmer, but all Walter wants is to go back to school.’

  ‘Uncle James always used to be cross with me,’ Ruby said, ‘but I think he’s been a bit nicer, lately.’

  May gave her a quick sideways look. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re starting to be a country girl at last.’

  ‘Am I really?’ Ruby asked, pleased.

  ‘Well, you’re not nearly such a townie as you used to be. You do a good job looking after the chooks, and you’re not bad at milking.’ May blew on her hot chocolate to cool it. Then she said, ‘Remember your fancy-dress birthday party last year, when that snobby friend of yours – Marjorie, was it? – thought I was dressed up as Little Orphan Annie? And I was wearing my own clothes?’

  Ruby’s happy mood faded. She had a horrid feeling she was about to hear something she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘You and your friends wouldn’t even talk to me,’ May continued. ‘Apart from Aunt Winifred and Uncle Harry there was only one person who tried to be friendly, and that was Hilary someone. I can’t remember her other name.’

  ‘Hilary Mitchell. She had to leave my school too. I haven’t thought of her in ages. She was nice.’

  ‘Yes, she was nice. You weren’t, though. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive you. Then I told myself you just didn’t know any better.’

  Ruby was silent. So that was why May didn’t like me, she thought. After a while she asked, ‘Have you forgiven me now?’

  May shrugged. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘You want another potato? Walter’s got a whole pile of them.’

  THE minute she woke up next morning, Ruby felt excited. She had a pound to spend! Surely a pound would buy her a new film for her camera. Maybe even two films!

  ‘James is busy, so I’m driving in to town today for the mail,’ Aunt Vera said at breakfast time. ‘I have some eggs to take to the store, too.’

  ‘And I have some boots that need re-soling,’ said Aunt Flora, ‘if you would be so kind as to drop them off at the shoemaker’s, Vera.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Aunt  Vera replied. ‘Does anybody else want anything?’

  ‘Nothing for me,’ May said. ‘Bee and I are going to start working on the veggie garden, aren’t we, Bee? It’s our holiday project.’

  ‘It’s your holiday project,’ grumbled Bee. ‘And it’s going to be jolly hard work, because the earth is as hard as stone. I can’t remember the last time it rained.’

  ‘You could help us,’ May said to Ruby. ‘There’s a lot to do.’

  ‘I will later,’ Ruby promised. ‘I have to go to town first. There’s something I want to buy. Can I come with you, Aunt Vera?’ She turned to her mother, who was pretending to eat a piece of toast by cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces. ‘Why don’t you come too, Mother?You know how much you like shopping. We can pretend we’re going to Moore’s.’

  ‘That’s a splendid idea, Ruby,’ said Aunt  Vera. ‘Do come with us, Winifred. You and Ruby can keep each other company while I do my errands.’

  ‘I don’t think –’ Mother began, but Aunt Vera put a hand on her arm. ‘That’s settled, then,’ she said.

  The film in Ruby’s camera contained all the special ‘last day’ photographs she’d taken of her home in Adelaide. She was longing to see how they’d turned out, but first she had to finish the film. There was just one exposure left. What would make a really good photograph? The chooks, perhaps? The cats? What would Dad like to see?

  She found what she wanted almost at once. Aunt Flora was sitting on a chair in the courtyard, warming herself in the wintry sunshine and puffing on her little pipe. The big black cat Gaf was curled up on her lap. And the light was perfect.

  Ruby stood at an angle to the old woman, aimed the camera, and tripped the shutter. Winding the film to the very end, she took it out of the camera and put it in her pocket.

  Aunt Vera opened the back door. ‘I’m leaving in ten minutes, Ruby!’ she called.

  ‘I just have to get Baxter off the chain, Aunt Vera!’ Ruby called back.

  She ran to the dog kennels, said hello to the sheepdogs, Shep and Sharpie, and unclipped the chain from Baxter’s collar. Uncle James insisted that the little dog must be tied up all night, and he hated it. He greeted Ruby with joy, jumping up and wagging his short tail.

  ‘Be a good boy today, Baxter,’ Ruby said. ‘Leave poor Gaf alone, and don’t you dare upset Uncle James.’ She gave him a quick hug before racing back to the house to get her money.

  Ruby was astonished to see how busy the township was. As soon as Aunt Vera got out of the car she bumped into an elderly woman in a hideous brown suit and a hat like a flower-pot. They talked and laughed while Ruby hopped from one foot to the other and Mother looked pale and nervous. Ruby could see that Mother didn’t want to join in the conversation. It might have been because she wasn’t very interested in pickle recipes, but Ruby didn’t think so.

  Oh, Mother, she thought. Please try! You used to like being with people. You gave cocktail parties all the time, and you had heaps of friends – remember?

  Sighing, she looked up and down the wide, dusty main street. Cars and trucks and buggies were lined up on both sides, and little groups of people stood about, chatting. To Ruby’s left was the long, low hotel building where Doris’s father worked, and opposite it was the much newer Institute, where the school’s end-of-year concert would be held. To her right, just before the road began to wind up a hill, there was a garage with a single petrol bowser.

  Ruby groaned quietly as the woman in the brown suit began a new conversation about the best way to preserve eggs.

  After several minutes Aunt Vera seemed to remember that Ruby and Mother were waiting for her.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Winifred,’ she said to Mother. ‘Whenever I run into Ida Rogers we can’t stop talking! Why don’t you and Ruby go into the store and have a look around? Ruby can collect the mail and buy whatever it is she wants. I’ll deliver these eggs, and then I have to go to the shoemaker’s. I’ll catch up with you in a jiffy.’

  ‘All right, Aunt Vera.’ Ruby jumped up on to the wide verandah and pushed open the door, holding it for Mother. A bell tinkled.

  It was cold inside the store, and after the bright sunshine outside it seemed quite dark. When Ruby’s eyes became used to the dimness, she could see a wide counter backed by shelves running around three walls. On the left-hand wall was the post office, with wooden pigeon-holes for people’s mail. Ruby could see one with Cameron written beneath it. Next to it, to her delight, she saw the familiar red-and-yellow Kodak sign, and a notice that said Leave your films here to be developed.

  Behind the main counter were shelves of tinned groceries, and in front of it were open boxes of rice and tea, onions and potatoes. On the right-hand
wall was a drapery selling bolts of fabric, skeins of knitting wool, and things like aprons and handkerchiefs and tea-towels. Bunches of boots and galoshes and bedroom slippers hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the long room were tables piled with everything from crockery and lamps to scented soap and novelty money-boxes.

  Ruby had never been in the store before, and she stood and looked around, fascinated. ‘There’s everything you could want here!’ she said to her mother. She giggled. ‘It’s not a bit like Moore’s, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Mother. ‘I must say, I’d prefer to be in Moore’s – although it has dreadful memories for me now. I’ll never forget the day we were trapped in the Victoria Square riots. I felt so badly about it, putting you in danger.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Ruby said. ‘It was awful, though, wasn’t it? It still gives me nightmares.’

  ‘And soon after that our lovely life came to an end,’ Mother continued. ‘Vera is kindness itself, but I wish so much that we were still living in Adelaide. I miss the shopping, and going to the movies, and all those pleasant things we used to do. Do you miss them too?’

  Ruby thought about that. ‘Not as much as I expected to,’ she said. ‘I mean, I do miss them, of course. But we couldn’t do those things anyway, now, because we don’t have enough money.’

  ‘I miss everything,’ Mother said, in a low voice. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. Most of all I miss your father.’

  Ruby was horrified to see that her mother’s lips were trembling. She hoped that Mother wouldn’t burst into tears where people might see. ‘I miss Dad too,’ she said. ‘But he’ll get a job soon, won’t he? And then we can all be together again.’

  ‘Of course we can,’ Mother said, quickly dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I must stop worrying. Your father would be very cross with me.’ She picked up a teapot shaped like a thatched cottage. ‘Oh my dear,’ she said, ‘isn’t this stuff dreadful?’ She put it down again and dusted off her fingers.

  The bell over the doorway tinkled. ‘There you are,’ came Aunt Vera’s voice. ‘Come with me, Winifred – I want to introduce you to old Mrs Evans. You too, Ruby.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute, Aunt Vera,’ Ruby told her.

  As she touched the film and the pound note in her pocket, she heard a quick indrawn breath. ‘Pretty!’ somebody whispered.

  A little girl was standing next to her. She was very small and very thin, and her short straight hair was so fair it was almost white. She was gazing at some sheets of brightly coloured pictures piled on one corner of the table. They were scraps – pictures of fairies and kittens, teddy bears and roses. Ruby remembered how, when she was younger, she had loved to stick scraps like these in her scrapbook. Once she had decorated all her school exercise books with them.

  The little girl picked up a sheet and showed it to her. ‘Look, this one is flower fairies. I like the violet fairy best.’ She spoke in such a tiny voice that Ruby had to bend down to hear her.

  ‘Put it down, Josie,’ a woman said loudly. ‘You know we haven’t got money for them things and you shouldn’t be touching it. Put it back right now.’

  Without a word, Josie put the sheet back on the table. A stout woman in a print overall took her hand and led her away, the little girl shuffling after her in filthy sandshoes without any laces.

  Ruby didn’t think twice. She picked up the sheet of flower fairies and went over to the post-office counter, where the shopkeeper was rolling up newspapers and stuffing them in the pigeon-holes.

  ‘I’ll have the mail for Cameron, please,’ Ruby said. ‘And these scraps, and a roll of one-twenty film. I have a film to be developed, too.’ She handed him the exposed film, and the pound note. ‘I hope this is enough money.’

  ‘You’re the lass who’s staying out at Kettle Farm, aren’t you?’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Good people, the Camerons. Here’s your mail. Your new film is four shillings and sixpence, and it’s threepence for the scraps. I can’t tell you how much the developing will be because we send the films down to Adelaide to be processed. You pay when you pick up the prints.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ruby said. She put her change in her pocket and flicked quickly through the pile of envelopes. Nothing from Dad, of course. Why was there never any news from him? What could Dad possibly be doing that stopped him from writing to her?

  Josie was sitting on the floor and sucking her thumb while her mother sorted through a box of potatoes, putting the ones she wanted into a cut-down kerosene tin with a wire handle.

  ‘Here,’ Ruby said, holding out the sheet of scraps. ‘This is for you.’

  Josie took her thumb out of her mouth and stared up at Ruby with wide eyes.

  ‘Well, that’s real kind of you,’ said the woman. She gave her daughter a nudge with her foot. ‘What d’you say, Josie?’

  ‘Ta,’ whispered Josie. She took the sheet from Ruby, and with one careful finger she stroked the violet fairy’s wings.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Ruby said.

  Out on the street again, she heard a rush of footsteps behind her, and turned to see Josie. In the bright sunlight Ruby could see how worn and patched her clothes were.

  Josie looked up at Ruby, her pale face now very pink.

  ‘You look like a fairy too,’ she said.

  RUBY waited until she and Aunt Vera and Mother were all back in the Ford before she handed over the mail. ‘There isn’t much,’ she said. ‘It looks like bills, mostly.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Aunt Vera made a face. ‘Bills are the last thing we need.’ She started up the car, which coughed and stopped three times before roaring into life.

  ‘I suppose there’s nothing from your father,’ Mother said.

  ‘No,’ said Ruby. As the car moved slowly down the main street, she leaned forward in her seat. ‘Mother, there’s something I don’t understand. I know you send our letters to Dad addressed to Uncle Donald Walker at our old house, because Uncle Donald always knows where he is. But if Uncle Donald knows where Dad is, why don’t we?’

  ‘He doesn’t stay at any one place for very long,’ Mother said. ‘It’s very hard to get a job these days, and he has to move around to find the best opportunities. He might be interstate, looking for work on building sites.’

  ‘It still doesn’t make sense, though,’ Ruby argued. ‘And why doesn’t Dad say anything in his letters? I’ve written to him at least six times, and when he writes back, which he hardly ever does, he never answers my questions. He always just says he’s quite well. Why won’t he tell me where he is and what he’s doing?’

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ Mother said. ‘For heaven’s sake, Ruby, let it go. We made these arrangements, and that’s the end of it.’

  Mother’s sudden crossness made Ruby cross too. She slumped back in her seat. Why couldn’t Mother realise how much she, too, missed Dad?

  Back at the farm, she ran to the bedroom she shared with May and Bee, and found her camera and the wallets of photographs she’d taken so far. Most of them were photos of her old home, and she had a sudden urge to see them again, even though she knew it would make her miserable. How she wished that she still lived in that beautiful house with Dad and Mother and Baxter!

  Taking everything with her, she went out to the sunroom and sat at the little round bamboo table. The last time she’d loaded a new film into her camera, Dad had been there to help her. This time she did it on her own. She felt quite proud of herself, and she was sure that Dad would have been proud of her, too.

  She jumped as someone opened the door behind her.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, as Walter clumped up to her in his heavy hobnailed boots. She liked Walter. When she’d first come to Kettle Farm he’d been much friendlier to her than May was. She felt sorry for him, too, because Uncle James was always shouting at him, calling him lazy or a fool.

  ‘Dad’s let me off work so I can chop some wood for the stove. What are you doing? Hey, beaut camera!’

 
; ‘It’s the sort professional photographers use,’ Ruby said. ‘My father gave it to me, and he knows all about cameras.’

  ‘Yeah? It’s a Kodak Series Three, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is! How did you know?’

  ‘I was in the camera club when I was at Scotch College. I’ve got a Box Brownie. It’s nothing like as good as yours, but that’s what most of the boys had. I haven’t used it in months – can’t afford the film.’

  Ruby remembered what May had told her on Cracker Night. ‘You liked being at school, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Walter answered. ‘I miss it, but Dad needs help on the farm and he hasn’t the money to pay a man now, so there’s no point moaning about it. Plenty of people are worse off than us.’

  ‘I miss my school too,’ Ruby said. ‘But after what happened to us, losing the business, I mean, we didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘Any chance you’ll ever go back?’ Walter asked her.

  ‘I don’t think so. What about you?’

  ‘May thinks I should apply for a scholarship for next year – that would get me my Intermediate Certificate. One of my teachers sent me the application form and said he’d speak up for me. I don’t know, though.’

  Walter sat down opposite Ruby and picked up the camera, looking at it from all angles. ‘It’s got a reversible finder!’ he said. ‘Nifty.’

  Ruby didn’t know what a reversible finder was, but she wasn’t going to tell Walter that. ‘I haven’t used that yet,’ she said.

  Walter grinned as if she’d said something funny, and put the camera carefully back on the table. ‘Can I have a look at your prints?’

  Ruby handed them over, and Walter spread them on the table. He laughed. ‘Some of these are shockers, aren’t they? Look at this one – Aunt Winifred without a head! At least I suppose it’s Aunt Winifred. And here’s Baxter sliding down the lawn, which is at a forty-five degree angle. . . and here’s Baxter again, or is it a big cat? It’s so blurry I can’t see. No, it must be Baxter: he’s eating a shoe. Or is it a rat?’