Tuesday Poem: Ruby

It’s Ed and me today at the end of the seawall

on the way to Lion Rock. We lean on it, feel

the crust of lichen beneath our elbows, watch 

the dogs

running on the shingle beach. Billy’s a softie

for a staffie-cross but he’s pulled  Ed’s arm

from the socket too many times to count. Ruby’s

not a softie, she has eyes like coins, a seal’s coat.

Together they’re the tigers in that story

running till they’re butter. Ed’s talking

about the dances in Limerick and

gets onto how he trod the boards with Harold

Pinter. Ed’s a painter now, or was – his duff

shoulder tells that story. Some days we fall in

with Charlie the blue heeler and his owner

whose name I always forget. Both of them have

a touch of wilderness about them.  Charlie’s

owner’s parents ran the Oasis Motel

in Palmerston North. Colin lived in Palmy, too,

before he moved to Rome to sculpt; his peke 
Andrew is pissing on the wall now and Colin’s

following in his shark tooth hat. He tells a story
about living on Long Island and how, walking
with his bulldog, he was sometimes mistaken

for Truman Capote.  Justine  is blonde and pregnant 

and makes me think of vanilla icecream.

When she hoves into view with slobbering

Aaron and Beagle-eyed Georgie, the men

hold themselves tighter. She’s pretty,

Justine. Her husband’s a musician and

at weekends you see them out and

about. One day

Ed, Charlie’s owner, Justine, Colin and I are

up by the Rec’ in the pingao grass,

and we’re talking baby names while the dogs

churn. Her face is plump and tired, and Justine 

says, 'Ruby, I think,' then louder, 'Ruby’ –

and we stop talking a moment and breathe

in the sea and the sharp grass and the frangipane

scent Justine wears and the must of Colin’s

sheepskin coat and whatever it was Billy rolled

in, and then we laugh, and I mean laugh. The

belly kind that makes it hard to breathe anything

at all. We laugh, Ed, Charlie’s owner, Justine, Colin

and me

because there’s Ruby - over there – sniffing

Charlie’s arse, sleek and black, eyes a-gleam,

nothing vanilla about her, nothing like

ice-cream. Weeks later, by Lion Rock,

Colin catches me up. He’s got some results back.

His blood is revolting, turning on his heart.

I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back, eyes

on the oily sea, the other hand holding a bouquet

of the stiff pale seaweed that washes up

in storms. Some days it’s so luminous here,

it’s like standing inside a shell.

Next time we see Ed, he’s at the corner

of  Nikau and the Promenade waving

and waving with his good arm.  ‘Justine had

her baby! I’ve seen the little mite.’ We
stop and wait. The wind 

getting up. Ed has Billy’s lead tight around

his wrist and pants when he reaches us. He mimes
lifting a pram cover and peering in. ‘Now ask me,’

he says, ‘ask me her name.’ We say all together,

a straggly chorus, ‘What’s her name, Ed?’ What’s

her name, Ed?  says the sea, and Ruby circles
Billy like a tiger, and the gulls ratchet it down to a mew

and everything is one big smile, everything on this

beach, one big ear. ‘Sure as I’m standing

here,’ says Ed, ‘You’ll never guess.’  He heaves Billy

along the path now, a grin like shark’s teeth,

then Charlie shows up, and his owner –

Garwain? – and they want to know too,

and Ed’s having a ball. We’re all having a ball. 

Mary McCallum 

This poem was written very long time ago. Nine years. But I've been redrafting it over the past two months. 

Ed doesn't walk Billy now because he isn't well enough so his wife Patricia does it instead.  We always stop and chat when we see them, but Billy and Ruby are older and greyer and only sniff each other now - no churning. Colin passed away five years ago and his beloved Andrew followed. Garwain, if that was his name, moved away with  Charlie. So, I think, did Justine and her dogs and her Ruby - but I'm not sure about that. I just haven't seen them in a while. I still enjoy my daily walks with my Ruby but it's been a while since it was quite so social and quite so much fun. 

Do get along to the Tuesday Poem hub to read a delightful fragment of Robin Hyde's, editor Janis Freegard.