‘I would certainly know the difference between wearing a tea cosy and wearing a hat,’ said Elise, glaring in glittery indignation at Marjorie and Ruby in turn.
The glittery look was not lost on Ruby or Marjorie. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, does it, Marjorie?’ said Ruby quietly. And all talk about the tea cosy stopped.
The talk might have stopped but the hint of a glittery look and the wearing didn’t. The tea in the teapot went cold from then on. But naked teapots and cold tea didn’t bother Elise because she drank coffee – and coffee percolators didn’t generally dress themselves in cosies.
Nobody mentioned the tea cosy on Elise’s head. Ruby and Marjorie didn’t mention it again. And Bill’s powers of observation seemed to deteriorate with its arrival. ‘Where is the tea cosy?’ asked Bill, noticing the unclothed teapot.
‘I have no idea,’ said a cosy-headed Elise.
These days not even Pa was bold to say anything.
Ruby and Marjorie told Jimmy Waghorn about the tea cosy and Jimmy was quiet. He followed up his quietness with a cup of coffee and sat as the tea-cosy-capped Elise made coffee and talked about all manner of things. And glitter lurked at the back of her smiles. So Jimmy followed up with a yarn with Bill.
‘You know about that tea cosy business then?’ asked Bill.
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t care if she’s wearing a tea cosy,’ said Bill. ‘If it makes her happy.’
‘What people wear on their heads is their own business,’ agreed Jimmy.
‘But a man’s got to worry a bit,’ said Bill. ‘About Elise. She’s highly strung. A thoroughbred.’
‘Things are fine, are they? With Elise?’
Bill shrugged.
Jimmy nodded. ‘Who’s it gunna hurt, anyway? That tea cosy?’
‘Yeah,’ said Bill.
They made no mention of the glitter, or who that might hurt.
Chapter 6
The bus creaked and groaned to a stop near the railway line. Ruby and Marjorie shoved forward and waited for the doors to slap open. It was the end of another hot summer school day. And nearly the end of Marjorie’s third year of high school.
‘Ruby, are you going to tell your mum?’ called one of her friends as Ruby and Marjorie crossed the dirt road and headed for the ute waiting under the tree.
‘Yes,’ yelled Ruby.
‘What will she do?’
‘Dunno,’ called Ruby.
Ruby and Marjorie rushed to get home. There was no dawdling tonight. No stopping at the railway crossing and checking for trains – even though they could have heard a train coming for twenty miles. No slowing at the neighbour’s turn-off to check for cars even though they could have seen the dust cloud of a car coming for at least five miles.
Ruby drove over the sandhills, around the bends, through the clay pans. She slammed on the brakes at the front gate. They arrived at the house in record time. And barged hot, dusty, sweaty into the kitchen. ‘Ruby is going to be in the school Christmas play,’ shouted Marjorie.
Bill was there with Elise. He was often there these days. Sitting with her at the kitchen table at dinnertime, their faces fixed on the wireless as they listened to ‘Blue Hills’ by Gwen Meredith. No good rains meant no decent crops which meant no real harvesting. So Bill tended to spend more time at the house. A spending Marjorie considered to be well worth the money. He could spend a bit more time tending the vegetables. And a lot more time tending Elise.
‘What’s all this then?’ asked Bill. ‘You can’t be in the school play. You can’t act.’
‘Yes I can, Dad,’ said Ruby. And she was glad of the hotness still in her face from the late-afternoon heat outside.
‘Yeah. She can so. You should see her. She’s going to be Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.’
‘Is it true, Ruby?’ asked Elise.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, congratulations. I am proud of you,’ said Elise.
‘You have to make Ruby some costumes. You have to make her a nightie and a dying scene dress, a wedding dress and a fabulous dress for the masquerade ball.’ Marjorie nearly missed the look of alarm that passed between Bill and Elise. Ruby saw it straight away. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘There is nothing the matter,’ said Elise. ‘Is there, Bill?’
Bill’s face screwed up, a twisting that scared Marjorie. So she pushed her teeth together and concentrated on trying to keep an eye on both adult faces at the same time.
‘We all need to cut back. The crop is bad. You know that. We have to tighten our belts,’ he said.
‘We must find a way,’ said Elise. ‘This is important.’
‘How do you reckon we are going to do that, Elise?’ Bill snapped. ‘What would you know about finding a way? When have you ever had to find a way in your life? The bank won’t extend the mortgage on the farm and you’re talking about spending money we haven’t got on a school concert. You think that’s important?’
Bill’s chair threw itself back from the table as Bill charged out the back door, grabbing his hat from the peg as he went. The flywire door clapped and clapped. Ruby and Marjorie sat rigid. There was no sound except for the flywire door and its clapping. The girls looked at each other across the table. They knew what the other was thinking. They had seen those thoughts in the eyes of farm kids everywhere these days.
‘Don’t worry. We will find a way,’ said Elise brightly.
‘How? There aren’t any decent curtains left,’ said Marjorie.
‘That is uncalled for. An unkind comment,’ said Elise.
‘Stop it, Marjorie,’ said Ruby.
But Marjorie didn’t stop it. ‘Maybe you could start cutting up the sheets and towels,’ said Marjorie.
‘Marjorie, I said stop it,’ warned Ruby.
Elise sighed. ‘Ruby, why don’t you two go and tidy your bedroom while I have a think.’
Marjorie wasn’t much for tidying. It reminded her too much of her solitary kitchen-tidying episode at the start of high school when Elise was a lump in her bed and the rose garden was aborted. But she went with Ruby and tidied. For Ruby’s sake.
‘I knew it wouldn’t happen. Those sorts of things don’t happen to us,’ said Ruby in the bedroom. She began a frenzy of tidying.
‘It must be the drought,’ said Marjorie. ‘Do you think Dad is worried we might have to walk off?’
‘What?’ asked Ruby as she stuffed clothes into the wardrobe.
‘We’ll have to leave a lot behind if we walk off.’
‘What?’ asked Ruby from the inside of the wardrobe.
‘We won’t be able to carry everything.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘What about the clothesline? It will be just hanging there. With its forked sticks lying useless on the ground. What about the rabbit traps? Will we take those with us? And who will shut the house gate? It will just be hanging there, slapping and cranking in the wind.’
‘Marjorie, it will be alright,’ said Ruby.
‘Do you know anyone who has lost a farm or walked off a farm?’ Marjorie went on.
‘No.’
‘There’s no crop, is there?’
Ruby stopped her tidying. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There is no crop this year.’
‘If you lose your farm you’ve lost bloody everything. That’s what Pa always says.’
‘Marjorie, everything will be alright.’
‘How do you know? You can’t know that. But anyway, the drought and having no money isn’t as bad as Mum and that tea cosy hat!’
Elise appeared at their bedroom door soon after that. ‘I know how I can make the costumes for very little cost,’ she said. She made no mention of anybody walking off, or of the tea cosy.
‘Well I would like to know how you think you can do that,’ said Marjorie. ‘Becaus
e we can’t afford it, can we?’
‘I said it won’t cost much, Marjorie.’ Elise’s eyes settled hard on Marjorie and she folded her arms.
‘How much? How much will it cost?’
‘Stop it, Marjorie. Just listen for once,’ warned Ruby, watching the hardening of Elise’s eyes.
‘They will all look lovely, I can assure you. Even to a selfish, self-centred little article such as yourself, Marjorie,’ said Elise.
‘Thank you, Mum,’ said Ruby. Shut up! she mouthed at Marjorie.
‘And the masquerade ball dress will be absolutely splendid. Come here, Ruby. I need to measure you up.’
Ruby was dragged across the hallway. Marjorie followed. Ruby stood beside the Singer sewing machine while Elise measured and noted. Elise copied measurements onto old newspaper, the newspaper transformed itself into dress patterns. And Elise and the Singer sewing machine treadled away.
The girls were now forbidden to enter the bedroom with the Singer sewing machine. They knew Elise was working on costumes while they were at school. And she was often working on them late at night after they had gone to bed. That was all they knew. They were fidgety and anxious. They were leery of the tea cosy.
‘What do you think she is making them out of?’ asked Marjorie as they lay in their beds listening to the rhythm of the sewing machine treadle.
‘How would I know?’ replied Ruby into the dark.
‘I meant it about the curtains. There aren’t any decent ones left.’
‘I know.’
‘And there are so many costumes. How could she make that many proper costumes?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s going to be a public disgrace. We are going to be that family with the weird mother that everyone laughs at. Again!’
‘Go to sleep, Marjorie.’
‘And that tea cosy isn’t helping. What if she takes to wearing it into town?’
‘Shut up, Marjorie!’ hissed Ruby.
The girls could have had a look any time at what was going on in the spare bedroom. But they did not.
‘Why don’t we sneak in and have a look?’ suggested Ruby.
Marjorie shook her head. ‘Why would we want to do that? If there is a costuming debacle in there and a public humiliation in the wings, it can wait, as far as I’m concerned. Why face it before we need to?’
So they settled on pretending. And why not? The adults in that house pretended. All the time. Ruby and Marjorie pretended the costumes were being made out of the beautiful crystal wedding dress hiding in its plastic bag in the cupboard while Ruby spent her time learning lines. It was better than nothing.
There were the kids at school to contend with, though.
‘How’s your mother going with those costumes?’ asked Jesse Mitchell. ‘She going to make them out of curtains?’
‘No,’ Marjorie said, scowling. ‘She’s making them out of old sheets.’
‘Yeah, but what about the ball dress? Your dad’s already too hard up and I reckon the bank isn’t going to lend him any dough in this drought to spend on a ball dress.’
‘I bet your mum’s going mad trying to figure this one out,’ said Kevin Doherty, one of the kids from Jesse’s footy team. ‘It’s enough to send any decent sane person crazy, isn’t it? So I reckon it must be having a field day with your crazy mother.’
‘I don’t know about any of that. But your mother seems to think she knows. Why don’t you ask Shirlene?’ suggested Marjorie.
Kevin’s self-possession bleached. ‘Yeah, well, you leave my mum out of it,’ he said. Then he grabbed for the upper hand again. ‘So what about that ball dress, then? Is she going crazy trying to figure out how to make it? Is the princess going crazy, Marjorie?’ And dozens of schoolyard eyes swivelled to Marjorie and Ruby. Ruby shoved the grinning face out of the way and dragged Marjorie towards their friends. ‘She’s fine. She’s making the ball dress out of old wheat bags, idiot,’ Marjorie yelled over her shoulder as she stumbled after Ruby.
*
‘I have finished the ball dress, Ruby – come into the bedroom and try it on,’ said Elise one day after school.
The two girls looked at each other and Marjorie tried to make a run for it out the back door she had only just entered. But Elise was quick. Even for a lady. She rounded them both up and ushered them towards the bedroom.
Ruby and Marjorie stepped through the doorway into the bedroom with its Singer sewing machine and secret costumes and stopped dead as they banged up against magic. There were any number of other costumes there. But they were all beaten by the masquerade ball dress.
There, hanging glorious and solitary, was a ball dress fit for royalty. It took their breath away. And it took their voices away. A work of art was drifting in the late-afternoon light, surrounded by ministering spangles of Mallee dust. It was fabulous. It was gathered and tucked and layered. It was exquisitely stitched and sewn. No one could beat this. No matter how brand spanking new a Singer sewing machine might be. This dress was without doubt the best Juliet ball dress ever made. And it was made out of paper. Crepe paper. All the costumes were. Even the ones made out of old sheets and old curtains had been embellished with crepe paper. The two girls gawked at the delicate papery creation floating on its humble wire hanger.
‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Ruby.
‘Where did you get all the paper?’ asked Marjorie.
‘It’s crepe paper. It is very inexpensive,’ said Elise.
‘It’s a dress made out of paper,’ said Marjorie redundantly. Nodding at the wonder of it.
‘Yes, it is.’ Elise smiled. ‘It’s made out of paper. Try it on, Ruby,’ she said.
And there, in front of Marjorie, her sister was transformed into a medieval crepe paper princess. Elise had put a mirror in the bedroom. Ruby twirled in front of it in her fragile, crinkly costume, and the paper crinkled and talked while she twirled.
‘You will be the most beautiful Juliet ever to take the stage,’ said Elise. The crepe paper dress whispered its agreement and so did the mirror.
In the weeks leading up to the concert Marjorie taunted her schoolmates. ‘Hey, you reckon Elise is going crazy?’ Marjorie had their instant attention. ‘Well, you’re right. She is going crazy trying to make those costumes. And you’re right, Kev – trying to make that ball dress is driving her especially crazy.’
Marjorie smiled at the satisfied look on Kevin’s face as she walked off. Then she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Jesse standing beside Kevin. ‘Remember when I said the dresses were made out of wheat bags? Well, they’re not. They’re made out of paper.’
‘You’re crazy like your mother,’ said Kevin. ‘How can you make a dress out of paper?’
‘You’re right. Costumes made out of paper? That would be bloody stupid. That couldn’t work. They’re made out of wheat bags, boy,’ Marjorie agreed.
Elise didn’t stop at making a fabulous ball dress out of crepe paper. She made petite, crepe paper slippers as well, with tiny crepe paper roses to match the roses on the dress. And she rescued the crushed and broken crown lying forgotten on its shelf for so many years now. Elise cleaned it and straightened it and made it to fit Ruby’s head of glorious red curls.
*
Bill drove his family to the town hall on the night of the concert. He was nervous for Elise. ‘You’ve done your best and a person can’t ever do better than that, so don’t you worry about what anyone might think. Just keep your chin up,’ he said, patting her hand.
Jimmy Waghorn knew how worried Bill was, so he came along to be there for both of them.
But for once, Elise was sure and confident. She didn’t need any buttressing from Bill. Or from Jimmy. She didn’t care what the Shirlene Dohertys of the world might think. And neither did the girls. They were quiet in the back seat, squashed there between Jimmy and Pa, buoyant
in their fragile costuming secret: their approaching triumph.
Marjorie sat on a bench between Jimmy and Pa. Bill was on the other side of Jimmy. Elise was out the back helping Ruby with all that paper. Marjorie could see Jesse Mitchell’s mother with her bowed head and Jesse’s lanky, dusty brothers – all sidelong eyes and surly shoulders these days. She looked around but couldn’t see Jesse. Aunty Thelma and Aunty Kathleen were there. She could see Shirlene Doherty and Kevin sitting with Mrs Cameron. ‘Are you ready, Kevin?’ she muttered. ‘For this is the winter of your discontent!’
‘What?’ said Pa.
‘Shh!’ Jimmy whispered as the curtains began to rise.
Ruby and Marjorie were right to be confident. For that night, in the dusty town hall, Ruby was a princess. Ruby captivated as Juliet in her dresses of curtains and old sheets with their sprinkling of crepe paper, but the masquerade ball scene was a moment of sheer magic as Ruby and her crepe paper stepped onto the stage. Marjorie’s steadfast, sheltering Ruby. Her glorious Ruby with the green eyes, the curling, tumbling red hair, the translucent skin, and that beautiful smile:
‘My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!’ cried Ruby in her fanciful creation.
Jimmy squeezed Marjorie’s hand and Aunty Thelma and Mrs Cameron sighed at the ill-fated lovers.
‘You kiss by the book,’ she complained to Romeo, and all the girls laughed.
But Romeo was not put off:
‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!’ he said.
And everyone in the hall, looking at Ruby in her fabulous dress, knew that those lines had been written hundreds of years ago in England for just this night in the Mallee. She ruled the stage in a glory of paper.
And it was a good thing it was a warm summer night, and the doors and windows were open. Because the gasp of awe from that compilation of Mallee folk was enough to suck all the oxygen from the hall. The hall could have become a mass grave site if the doors and windows were shut. As it was, though, the entire Mallee marvelled in open-windowed summer safety at the beautiful princess dancing, and loving, and dying in her magical crepe paper costume. It had truly never seen the likes. Pa was so captivated by Ruby he decided to help. He called out some of his own favourite lines during the fight scenes:
Wearing Paper Dresses Page 9
