Wearing Paper Dresses

by Anne Brinsden

  ‘Crop looking good this year?’ farmers would ask each other as they peered from under their hats at the sky.

  ‘Reckon it might see us through the next couple of years, if this weather keeps up,’ they would reply with a nod.

  And that weather they would be referring to was a hot, dry, relentless summer. ‘How many bags to the acre do you reckon?’ they would ask as they rubbed warm, dry, golden wheat grains in the palms of their hands, and gazed enraptured as summer gusts lifted the husks and swirled them up into the incessant heat and desiccating dry of the heavens. This scorch of summer was necessary, because this was what the wheat needed. The Mallee knew that.

  Mallee scrub lived lazily and effortlessly in its essential stinginess. It used little water and sprouted few leaves. But it had to work in summer. It would bend its niggardly leaves side on to the sun and refuse to part with any moisture, waiting out the turning of the sun.

  Birds sat mute and motionless in summer. No complaining from the crows, no squabbling from the galahs. Vacant skies. Silent skies. Baking skies. Waiting for night-time.

  Sheep retreated to the hard-baked clay of the dam bank, where they stood in silent dusty bunches and eyed the dwindling water and stared at the colleague stuck hard in the mucky clay. Or they stood together in the middle of a bare paddock, in a line, one behind the other, each patient sheep face tucked into the tiny patch of shade created by the sheep in front. Hundreds and hundreds of sheep in a line, forbearing and quiet, until nightfall.

  Even the flies had trouble. In the boiling heat of summer the flies had no option but to gather together in whatever shade they could find. And the paltry shade of a back was as good a place as any. There they would congregate in as big a bunch as they could get away with – quiet and still.

  But then there was Elise. She was unfit to live in the Mallee. Elise and her nerves were tight and reverberating and the Mallee wouldn’t tolerate that. But Elise knew that piano strings work best when they are rigid – they are not magnificent if they are tractable – so she refused to modify. Even though everything in the Mallee had to modify in order to survive. And people who survived knew austerity and frugality were paramount in the Mallee – you could not be magnificent and thrumming and think you could survive with that; you needed to conserve. Mallee people were frugal with water. But Mallee people were also frugal with behaviour. They were thrifty with their speech and prudent with their dress and parsimonious with their movements. But not Elise. She was profligate. She was lavish.

  When Elise was introduced to someone in the Mallee, she would step forward to shake their hand and would say, ‘How do you do?’ when she should have stayed where she stood and simply nodded her head and said, ‘Hello.’

  Elise, when asked how she was, would answer, ‘I am very well, thank you – and how are you?’ when she should have said, ‘Good, thanks.’

  Elise, when asked what she thought of the weather, would answer, ‘I find this summer weather intolerable. It has been over one hundred degrees in the shade for ten days and nights now. When do you think it will pass?’ when she should have said, ‘It’s hot enough.’

  The Mallee could see Elise was unfit. It was always good at spotting an easy target and it assaulted her relentlessly throughout summer. And the arrogant, undressed asbestos house collaborated. All that baking heat, day and night after day and night, climbed right on top of everyone’s nerves. But everyone in the Mallee prepared for this. It happened every year. So, while it did climb right on top of everyone’s nerves, it could be tolerated in the long run if your nerves were in good condition. But if you were a bit high-strung, then the chances were that any baking heat getting on those sorts of nerves would dry them right out and string them even higher. Make them twang.

  Chapter 3

  Marjorie was outside on one of those necessary, baking, hot summer days. It was school holidays and she had just finished grade two. She was playing absently in the dirt when Ruby rushed out the back door. ‘Quick. Get up,’ she said, pulling Marjorie out of her dusty play and onto her feet. ‘They’ve left us behind.’ She hauled Marjorie towards the path leading to the front gate.

  ‘Who’s left us behind?’

  ‘They have – all of them,’ said Ruby, dragging Marjorie through the gate and turning towards the farm track. ‘Come on. We have to catch them.’ Her legs flew down the track after the disappearing car.

  Marjorie didn’t argue. Ruby knew things.

  The girls rounded the top of the sand ridge and saw the car. It was halfway to the gate. They kept running. The car is tiny, thought Marjorie. I could pick it up and put it in my pocket. The car was stopping. They saw Pa get out to open the gate.

  ‘Wait for us! Wait for us!’ Ruby yelled.

  Pa pulled the wire loop off the top of the fence post and started dragging the wire gate across the track to let the car through.

  ‘Wait for us! Wait for us!’ Ruby yelled as the car moved through the opening and stopped on the other side. ‘Wait for us! Wait for us!’ Ruby yelled as Pa dragged the wire gate back across the track. ‘Wait . . . Wait . . . Wait . . .’

  Pa climbed back into the car. The car started off again along the track through the paddock and into town.

  The galahs near the gate saw what was happening and rose into the air, swirling around the car in a pink-and-grey chattering warning cloud, trying to get the car’s attention. But no one noticed the galahs, or the two running girls. And now the car had all but disappeared through the standing stubble of last year’s wheat crop.

  ‘What will we do?’ called Marjorie.

  ‘We’ll just have to run after them all the way into town.’

  They ran for miles. Ruby in front and Marjorie behind, her small legs and arms pumping for all they were worth. The sun above and the dirt below. Brawny golden wheat stubble on either side, standing neatly in the red dirt, row after row in dependable, perfect lines.

  They were halfway through the paddock when the farm ute appeared over the hill, driving along the track towards them. And in that ute, doing the driving, was Jimmy Waghorn. Jimmy who lived in the hut on their farm. Jimmy with his salt-and-pepper hair and his eyes like a stirred-up salt lake.

  Jimmy’s ute slowed and stopped. A classy slowing and stopping. Executed with effortless precision that left the wound-down driver’s side window placed exactly opposite Ruby: the red dust cloud doggedly tailgating the ute hovered momentarily behind it, nonplussed at the unscheduled stop and displeased by the prospect of having to go on alone.

  ‘You two having a bit of a run, are ya?’ asked Jimmy, pushing his hat onto the back of his head before leaning his elbow on the wound-down window. ‘Where’re ya heading?’

  ‘We have to catch them. They went off without us,’ said Ruby to Jimmy Waghorn.

  Marjorie watched from her careful position behind Ruby. She was busy. She had a lot to keep track of, simultaneously afraid at the tremor in Ruby’s voice and transfixed by the appearance of Jimmy Waghorn in her father’s ute.

  ‘I reckon you’ve gone about far enough,’ said Jimmy, studying the girls. ‘Probably done a couple of miles. Want a lift?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Waghorn,’ said Ruby. ‘We need to get into town and you’re going the wrong way.’

  ‘I could turn around.’

  Ruby looked at the track and the ute and the stubble and thought about the turning around. Marjorie looked up at Jimmy Waghorn.

  ‘Or I could take you back to the house. To make sure the gates are shut. Then I’ll take you into town. What d’ya think?’ Jimmy smiled and waited for Ruby.

  ‘Alright, Mr Waghorn,’ said Ruby; she knew the importance of making sure farm gates were shut.

  ‘Good-oh then.’ Jimmy alighted neatly from the driver’s side. He picked both girls up at once and deposited them in the ute – Marjorie near the passenger window and Ruby in the middle. He glanced at the girls
and unhooked the dusty water bag from the front fender before getting in the ute. ‘Want a drink of water?’ He unscrewed the cap and handed the water bag to Ruby. Ruby grabbed the damp ball of hessian and handed it to Marjorie, who suddenly realised that all she wanted to do was drink a lot of water from a water bag.

  Jimmy Waghorn watched as the two girls drank then said, ‘Let’s go.’ He smiled, his teeth perfect and white against the brown of his skin as he pulled the column shift in towards himself and down, and started off down the track.

  Marjorie sat there on the hot, red leather seat with the lines of stitching – hoary and broken – rough against her bare legs and marvelled. She had run for all she was worth. And she felt sure that run could have lasted all the way into town. This red seat is the seat of heaven, she thought as it massaged her legs. There is no way I would ever let Ruby down, she whispered to the wound-down window. Marjorie gazed at her short legs sticking straight out over the end of the seat and listened to the burning and tingling coming from the soles of those bare feet. I love you, Jimmy Waghorn, thought Marjorie. She wanted to stay in that ute forever.

  Jimmy drove the girls back along the track they had just run and stopped at the front of the house. Picking them both up again, he walked along the dirt path, then climbed the verandah steps separating the dirt gardens with their red-brick borders.

  ‘Elise,’ he called. ‘Are you there?’

  And there was Elise. At the front door. Staring. Looking from the face of Jimmy Waghorn to the face of Ruby to the face of Marjorie and back to Jimmy. The girls grabbed a harder hold of Jimmy and watched her.

  ‘I found these two running into town. They’d run through the house paddick and were way down in my paddick – halfway to Smiths. Chasing the car,’ said Jimmy, watching Elise.

  ‘Why?’ asked a bewildered Elise.

  ‘They thought they’d been left behind.’

  ‘But I was here. I was looking after them.’

  ‘Were you?’ asked Jimmy.

  He scrutinised Elise. He noted the faded voice, the hair and the hands. Elise tried to escape his gaze. But Jimmy Waghorn was good. He had seen enough. ‘You going to make me one of those cups of coffee?’ he asked, gently plonking the girls down on the verandah. ‘And you got any of those pretty egg-white things?’

  ‘Thank you, Jimmy,’ said Elise so softly the girls could hardly hear. ‘Come here, girls.’

  The two girls walked to Elise and cautiously accepted her hug.

  ‘Let’s go and make Mr Waghorn a cup of coffee.’

  Of course, Jimmy had more in mind than a cup of coffee and a meringue. He bided his time, sitting at the kitchen table and saying nothing. Elise put the coffee on and got out cups and saucers and plates while Jimmy watched the girls sitting at the table, eating their meringues. Ruby watching Elise. Marjorie watching Ruby. Jimmy was a patient man when patience was needed. He waited until Elise sat down. Then he launched a surprise attack. It was the best way. More humane.

  ‘Why don’t you play the piano anymore? What are you scared of?’

  Elise spilt her coffee into her saucer.

  ‘Don’t hear you singing anymore either. Used to hear your singing when I was out and about. Could hear you clear as anything all over the place. Didn’t matter which paddick I was in. Coulda been Guys, or Morrisons, or Smiths. Could still hear ya. What’s the matter? Can’t you walk over that hallway anymore?’ Jimmy stopped talking and kept watching.

  Elise carefully mopped the liquid from her saucer.

  ‘You can’t be letting the littlies run all over the place havin’ to look out for themselves. It’s not right,’ said Jimmy. ‘You and Bill been fighting?’

  ‘No. Bill and I never have arguments,’ said Elise.

  ‘Good-oh,’ said Jimmy as he got up from the table. He smiled at the girls. Four silent eyes above pink sugar cheeks latched onto his face.

  ‘Well. Come on. Let’s hear you play that piano. And you can sing too. In one of them foreign languages. Maybe Italian.’ And Jimmy Waghorn rounded up that mob of women and drove them out of the kitchen, across the hallway and into the lounge room.

  He shut the door and backed up against it. They would have to jump out the window to get away. And while Jimmy thought Ruby might try it (which meant Marjorie might follow), he knew for sure Elise was not a window jumper. Ladies did not jump out of windows. Not even to avoid playing a piano.

  Jimmy smiled and folded his arms and leant against the door. He nodded in the direction of the piano. ‘Off you go then.’

  Jimmy Waghorn had them trapped in that lounge room, while he waited for the music to finish the job.

  Elise sat at the piano, positioned the sheet music and lowered her fingers to the piano keys. The first sounds were hesitant, neither the piano nor Elise sure of the outcome. But then she surrendered to the magic of music, and the lounge room resonated with the sound underneath her fingers.

  The house shuddered. But it had no weapon against this kind of extraordinariness once it got going. It creaked and groaned a bit. The corrugated iron on the roof popped and moved a bit. And then it was quiet. For the time being – defeated.

  Ruby and Marjorie had been standing either side of Jimmy, stiff with the waiting, right up to the time Elise started playing. Now they leaned into Jimmy and drank in the fabulous familiar sound.

  Jimmy waited until well after he saw Elise’s shoulders and arms begin to mould into the rhythms of her playing. He watched until he saw a small oblivious smile. ‘Now,’ Jimmy said, ‘what about a song to go with that?’

  And without seeming to have heard and without missing a chord, Elise’s hands changed the music sheets and Elise sang.

  The house was outraged. This was an utter rout. The stove belched a gout of smoke into the kitchen. But that was all the house could muster. Jimmy and Ruby and Marjorie all leaned then. They leaned into the sound. Like the pragmatists they were, they drank it all in. Best to make use of it while it lasted. And it lasted for a very long time. Marjorie would have said it lasted for hours.

  ‘Thank you, Jimmy,’ Elise said to the sheet music. And shut the piano.

  ‘Thank you, Elise,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Would you care for another cup of coffee?’ Elise asked the sheet music.

  ‘Too right, I would,’ said Jimmy.

  When Jimmy had finished his coffee he said, ‘I’m gunna go outside for a smoke now. I’m gunna wait there for Bill and Pa so I can have a bit of a yarn with them about the girls running all over the place.’

  Elise shook her head, her eyes apprehensive over the rim of the coffee cup.

  ‘And about you and that piano. And you singing.’ He watched Elise’s face struggle against a rising tide of panic. ‘You can’t just hide from a thing forever, Elise,’ he said. ‘It’ll kill you in the end if you do. Sometimes you just have to run at it and grab it, both hands around its neck, and shake it until it’s dead.’

  *

  Bill and Pa arrived home to see the farm ute parked out the front of the house and Jimmy Waghorn sitting on the front verandah.

  ‘What’s Jimmy doing here?’ asked Pa.

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ replied Bill.

  They had a long time to wonder. All the time it took to notice him on the verandah as they neared the house. All the time it took to drive into the car shed and all the time it took to get out of the car and walk from the car shed up to the verandah.

  Jimmy was in charge, so when Pa and Bill reached the bottom of the verandah steps he started. All three men had their hats on: Pa and Bill on account of having just been into town and Jimmy on account of being outside. Their conversation went like this:

  ‘Pa. Bill.’ Slight left side to right side dip of the head from Jimmy in the direction of Pa and Bill.

  ‘Jimmy.’ Slight left side to right side dips of the heads from Pa and Bill to Jimmy.


  ‘Hot enough for ya?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Near enough,’ said Pa. ‘Reckon we’ll get that cool change?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Jimmy, scanning the sky from his perch on the verandah.

  Talking stopped. Pa and Bill waited for Jimmy to get down to it. Which Jimmy did. Delicately. No point shaming anyone.

  ‘Elise alright, Bill?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered,’ said Jimmy. ‘How are the two littlies?’

  ‘They’re alright,’ said Bill, looking around as if he suddenly remembered their existence and expected them to materialise from out behind one of the side verandahs.

  Pa folded his arms.

  Jimmy took out his tobacco tin and rolled another smoke. ‘Elise been playing that piano lately? Haven’t heard it when I’ve been walkin’ by,’ he said, eyes on his smoke but ears pricked for the sound of the answer.

  There was no answer.

  Jimmy gave his smoke a quick check. ‘She been singin’ lately? I used to hear that voice everywhere. Could hear it from here to kingdom come. Didn’t seem to matter where I was. Made me feel good. Can’t say I’ve heard it for a long time now, though.’

  There was no answer.

  Jimmy Waghorn pounced, lithe and graceful. He looked up from his smoke and looked first Bill then Pa straight in the eye. ‘You fellas need to look after your family. Elise and the girls are not in good shape.’

  Bill and Pa were engulfed in their silence.

  Jimmy started with Pa. ‘You let her play that piano, you hear? Regular. Or look out. What sort of family business you doing round here? You’re just chucking it out in the rubbish.’ He studied Pa. ‘And I’ll be coming by now and again for a cup of coffee. I’ll be asking Elise to play for me. And to sing.’

  Jimmy nodded once at Pa and the matter was settled. ‘You can go now if you want,’ said Jimmy. And Pa, who hadn’t uttered one word since the real conversation began, went inside. Because he knew Jimmy Waghorn hadn’t really offered him a choice. Jimmy was just being polite.