‘“Put in the boot!” I sez. “Put in the boot!”
“Shame!” sez some silly coot!’ yelled Pa.
Shirlene Doherty whirled around and glared at him and Pa grinned back.
‘Good line, but let’s leave C.J. Dennis out of it,’ whispered Jimmy as he thumped Pa in the arm and grinned at Shirlene.
The supper after the concert was almost a disaster. People were so busy telling Elise and Ruby how wonderful it all was that the cream sponges were nearly forgotten. Even Shirlene Doherty tried hard to have a good word to say:
‘Paper dresses,’ she said. ‘Made them yourself on your Singer. Well I suppose that couldn’t have cost too much. And you can always burn them afterwards.’
‘Look what Elise did,’ said Jimmy, smiling quietly at Bill, watching the women crowding around his friend’s wife.
‘She’s a marvel,’ said Bill. ‘A bloody marvel.’
‘And what about that Ruby of yours?’ said Jimmy.
‘Yeah.’ Bill smiled. ‘I didn’t know she had it in her.’
Marjorie hadn’t been able to see Jesse Mitchell because he had been sitting right behind her. Not until the final scenes of the play had she realised this when she heard him whispering lines to himself:
‘See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love,’ he recited in time with the actor on the stage.
Marjorie turned and stared.
‘It’s alright, mate,’ said Jimmy, who had also turned to Jesse.
*
There was a long, splendid autumn after the school concert and the stunning success of the crepe paper dress, as far as Elise and the Mallee were concerned. And Marjorie was like a wheat farmer after a good rain. She made the most of it. ‘Hey, you, Kevin Doherty. I told ya Elise was making the costumes out of paper. What in tarnation made you think I would lie to you? I reckon you should believe everything I say from now on, if you know what’s bloody well good for you.’
‘Yeah, and what if I don’t?’
Marjorie shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘Up to you. But I go more than a bit crazy if I think people don’t believe me,’ she said. ‘Crazy like Crazy Elise.’
Kevin hunched his shoulders and squinted at her. He looked around for backup, but he was a mean kid, even if he was good at footy, and as a result his backup was generally not reliable. The onlookers were already shifting off out of the perimeter of the conversation. Like farm dogs slinking away from each other after a fight.
Jesse Mitchell was still there, though. ‘Leave him alone. He’s not worth it.’
‘Mind your own bloody business, Wheat Bag Boy,’ said Marjorie.
‘Just trying to help,’ said Jesse, slowly shaking his head.
‘Stop swearing, Marjorie,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s swearing.’
‘Go away, Kevin,’ said Jesse.
‘Yeah. I’ll go. I’ll go to the principal. To tell her Marjorie’s swearing.’ Kevin glanced over his shoulder, expecting the deserting spectators to halt their retreat. And they did. They liked the thought of Marjorie having to answer to the principal about swearing. They hesitated. But flagged their non-committance by looking side on and scuffing the dirt with their shoes. Those at the back of the group kept a handy eye on the safety of the shelter shed.
‘Go ahead, Kev. It would be a very foolish bloody thing to do. But go ahead,’ Marjorie said in an oddly soothing voice.
‘Leave it, Marjorie,’ said Jesse.
‘Why should I, Wheat Bag Boy? You know Kev would be very bloody stupid to go to the principal.’ Marjorie stepped towards Jesse. She poked him in the chest. ‘Because,’ continued Marjorie, poking him in the chest again to illustrate her point, ‘young ladies’ – poke – ‘do not’ – poke – ‘bloody well swear.’ Her hand shoved at Jesse’s chest and landed him on his back in the dirt.
Marjorie stood over Jesse. ‘Hell and damnation, Wheat Bag Boy. The whole world knows it’s not seemly for young ladies to swear. Do you for one moment think Crazy Elise would allow me to bloody well swear?’
She watched as Jesse picked himself up and ran his hands through his dusty hair, before turning to walk after Kevin and the skulking retreaters. She watched until the bunch of them disappeared behind the comfort of the shelter shed.
Later, Marjorie was called upon to stand in front of the entire class and answer to the charge of swearing. Kevin Doherty smirked. Jesse stared straight ahead.
‘I cannot believe this of you, Marjorie.’ The teacher’s face was squashed and pale – a rotten paddymelon. ‘Were you swearing?’
‘How could I?’ asked Marjorie. ‘You know my mother would never allow me to swear.’
‘I know that. So were you swearing?’
‘I could not have,’ repeated Marjorie. ‘My mother would be horrified.’ She paused. ‘And who do you think is the more likely to be swearing, Miss? Me? Or them?’ Finger pointed towards Jesse Mitchell and Kevin Doherty. ‘I could not have been swearing because my mother does not allow it.’
The teacher’s face swung like a pendulum. It was caught between the aggrieved face of Marjorie, the righteous face of Kevin and the stony face of Jesse. Its bag of rotten paddymelon seeds swilled and clattered against its crinkled casing. She had been in the Mallee for a long time. She had seen a shearing shed or two. She knew about pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. Her hands touched her face – to check on the condition of the saggy melon. The fingers climbed to her eyes – to see if there was any wool evident. The outraged claim of innocence from Marjorie was credible. The teacher knew that for sure: Marjorie’s mother had schooled her daughters in ways of being more suited to a city life than life in the Mallee, and that included impeccable speech – not a vulgar word and definitely no swearing. She looked at the other end of the pendulum’s arc: Kevin Doherty. And took in the apparent silent complicity of Jesse – a boy with a mother whose face never had the energy to raise itself out of the shadows. A mother whose interest in her children’s education was lethargic at best and whose eyes spent their time studying her hands in her lap.
‘Thank you, Marjorie. I believe I have to accept you are in the right. You can go back to your desk. And you two – you will stay in after school.’
‘No,’ said Jesse.
‘I beg your pardon!’
‘You can’t keep me in. I have to take the littlies home.’
‘You are skating on very thin ice, Jesse,’ warned the teacher. ‘Your brothers will stay here with you until you have finished your punishment. And then you can all go home.’
‘That’s not fair!’ said Jesse. ‘We’ll miss the bus. How are we going to get home?’
The teacher stared at Jesse. ‘I am disappointed in you, Jesse. I actually thought you might have been going to make an effort regarding your schooling this year. You will complete the essay neither you nor Kevin have yet submitted, and you, Jesse, will also write two hundred lines of I will not engage in deceit, lies and impertinence. I will phone your mother and let her know what has happened. It is up to you to complete your punishment before the school bus leaves. How you make arrangements to get home if you miss the bus is not my concern.’
‘Stupid bloody fool,’ crooned Marjorie as she glided past the desk of Wheat Bag Boy.
All in all, despite the legs and the pimples and the drought and the bank and the debt on the farm and the tea cosy hat, times were not too bad as far as Marjorie was concerned.
But while times might not be too bad for Marjorie, they were not that way for everyone. Because Marjorie didn’t have to stay in after school that day. She was well and truly gone when at last Jesse and his scared and waiting little brothers raced from the long since empty schoolyard to start the lengthy run home, all by themselves, trotting as fast down those dusty roads as Jesse would let them. Their only companion the late afternoon sun
that shone regretfully on them for as long as it could before it couldn’t wait for them any longer and sank behind the distant sandhills.
And she certainly wasn’t at home with their waiting mother. With her beaten brow and her clouted ribs. Lying huddled and limp like a discarded rag there on the kitchen floor.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t know where they are. Don’t you give me that. You’re a useless bloody excuse for a mother, you are,’ his voice bawled at her as his shoulders and legs loomed over her.
And she certainly wasn’t there with their father, waiting at their house gate with his jumpy legs and bunched arms, lurching and pacing with his flailing leather belt. Ready to finish the job.
Jesse slowed when he saw his father out the front of the house. Arms and legs of his brothers mashed themselves onto the back of his legs. ‘Don’t worry. Just keep walking,’ he said to them. ‘Go right past him and in the back gate. Find Mum and tell her I will be a bit busy with Dad for a while.’
‘Will Mum be lying down again?’ they whimpered.
Jesse’s teeth gritted. ‘If Mum is having a lie-down then get outside and do your chores. And stay out there. Don’t come back inside until I come looking for you.’
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ his father yelled when he saw Jesse leading his brothers up the home paddock track. ‘It’s nigh on dark. How is this farm supposed to keep going with the likes of you never around to pull your weight?’
‘At school,’ said Jesse as twenty little-brother-fingers grabbed the back of his shirt.
‘Don’t lie to me. It’s well past time for school.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘And don’t smart mouth me, either. By the crikies you’re going to get a belting for this. The lot of you!’
‘Leave the littlies out of this. They had nothing to do with it,’ said Jesse.
Jesse’s father stopped his pacing. His eyes glinted and narrowed. His hands knotted and they gathered his leather belt in a tight loop. ‘I thought I told you not to smart mouth me, boy,’ he whispered. ‘Come here, you useless piece of shit.’
Jesse bunched his own hands into hard fists. He rolled onto the balls of his feet and faced his father. ‘Go on to Mum and do what I said,’ he told his brothers.
Jesse wasn’t at school the next day. Or the day after that.
‘What happened to you?’ asked Marjorie a few days later when Jesse and a couple of fading black eyes and a chipped front tooth did finally decide to turn up at school.
‘Went head first over the handlebars. My fault,’ he said. ‘I was riding in the dark.’
‘So you stayed home from school because you fell off your bike? You’re such a sook. And such a fool.’
Jesse shrugged and kept his mouth shut. He knew she could see the remnant colours of the black eyes but she didn’t have to get too much of a good look at the broken front tooth if he could help it. Not just yet.
‘Been a bad bloody week for you all round then, hasn’t it?’ said Marjorie. ‘First, being kept in to write lines for lying about me swearing. And then stacking your bike and smashing your pretty face.’ She shook her head at Jesse and laughed.
Chapter 7
It was just an ordinary winter’s night like so many before. The air was gloomy and heavy with the business of another pre-dawn frost. The kitchen windows were already cloudy, the kitchen doors were creaking, the tin on the roof above was popping in anticipation. Marjorie was setting the table. Ruby was putting out the plates. Elise, tea cosy on head, was checking the contents of saucepans and smiling vaguely at the girls. Pa was sitting at the end of the table smoking his pipe and tapping his fingers on the table. Irritated and impatient at the continued inability of any one of these women in his house to serve him some sort of decent tucker on time.
Bill came through the back door. ‘Hello, dear,’ said Elise.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been all this time? It’s way past teatime,’ said Pa. ‘I suppose you broke the bloody tractor again and had to walk back like a damn fool.’
Bill didn’t answer. He looked at the girls. He looked at Elise. Vague Elise but contented Elise – no glitter lurking anywhere.
‘I’ve been over at Jimmy’s,’ said Bill.
‘What the hell were you doing over at Jimmy’s at this time of night?’ asked Pa.
‘He’s crook. I’ll be taking him to the doctor’s tomorrow.’
The kitchen went quiet. Pa took his pipe out of his mouth and watched Bill. The walls, the windows and doors were quiet; the coffee percolator was quiet.
‘Jimmy Waghorn doesn’t like going to the doctor,’ said Elise.
‘I know. But he’s ailing. He has to go.’
‘I will come with you tomorrow,’ said Elise.
‘Thanks, love,’ said Bill.
Tea was served. And eaten. A couple of cups of tea were made and gulped or slurped. A cup of coffee was made and sipped. Dishes were washed and put away. The girls got out their homework. It could have been any winter’s night. Except Bill and Pa forgot to argue with each other. Even afterwards, when Marjorie woke in the early hours of the morning, it seemed ordinary. The same dark-time stillness. The same biting chill in the bedroom outside of her blankets. The same quiet pinging of the fuel drums out near the garage. The same alien brilliance of the stars speckled across the frosty sky framed by her bedroom window.
Tea that next night was not ordinary. Jimmy Waghorn loomed over the table. ‘The doctor said Jimmy can’t live by himself anymore. Says he’s too old. He needs looking after.’ Bill started the conversation by telling this to his plate. He raised his eyes and looked at the faces around the table to see if they were as shrewd as his plate.
Elise said nothing. She didn’t need to. She already knew this.
Knives and forks were arrested in the middle of their duties. Forks hung stupidly in mid-air, laden with the hot food they were now unable to deliver. Knives were halted in their cutting. Some cutlery was dropped impolitely – clattering onto plates, or thumping on the table.
‘How can Jimmy Waghorn be too old? He’s only a bit older than you,’ said Marjorie.
‘It’s different for Jimmy,’ was all Bill said.
‘He can live with us, Dad – in the spare bedroom,’ said Ruby. ‘We’ll look after Jimmy.’
‘We’ve already suggested that,’ said Elise. ‘Jimmy doesn’t want to. He wants to travel up north. To be with his family.’
‘But we are his family,’ said Marjorie.
‘No, we are not,’ said Bill. ‘Jimmy is sick and he has real family – kinfolk up on the river – and he wants to move up there to be with them.’
The tea table was silent. Everyone looked at their plates. But the plates said nothing. Because plates don’t care.
‘He never talked about having any family before,’ said Marjorie into the silence.
‘And why do you suppose that might be?’ asked Bill.
‘Leave her be, Bill,’ said Pa. ‘A young girl like that is not about to be knowing these things. How could she know? And it’s Jimmy’s business, anyway.’
‘I’ll be packing Jimmy up and taking him up to his relatives in the next couple of days,’ said Bill. ‘Now eat your tea. It’s getting cold.’
‘In the next couple of days?’ Marjorie’s face went red and her hands slammed the cutlery. ‘What about Ruby and me? We’ve got to go to school. When do we get to say goodbye to Jimmy?’
‘Don’t raise your voice at your father, young lady,’ said Elise.
‘I’ve already said that’s the end of it,’ said Bill. ‘Now eat your tea.’
So they all ate their tea. Because there is no sense in ruining even a half-good hot tea by letting it get cold.
‘What are we going to do without Jimmy Waghorn?’ whispered Ruby later that night.
‘I don’t know.�
�
‘What do you think Dad will do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about Mum?’ asked Ruby after a long dark silence. ‘How do you think she’ll go without Jimmy?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marjorie. Which was a lie. She had more than a fair idea and it all had to do with the dangers of strings getting far too tight.
‘We’re in big trouble,’ whispered Ruby.
‘I know,’ said Marjorie.
Ruby flung herself back on her pillow.
‘Let’s wag tomorrow,’ said Marjorie.
‘What if we get caught?’ whispered Ruby. ‘It will just make things worse.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Marjorie. ‘I want to say goodbye to Jimmy. No one will know. We’ll have to leave the ute home. We can ride our bikes so they can’t hear us. We can leave early and ride off as if we were going to the bus stop then cut across the paddick to Jimmy’s place.’
So that was what they did. Bill was gone before daylight so Ruby and Marjorie didn’t have to be careful around him. ‘We’re riding our bikes today. Need some exercise,’ said Marjorie as they headed out the back door. Elise didn’t answer. She was busy with her coffee percolator. Pa was busy with his boiled eggs. The cocky was the only one who commented and he was more worried about personal appearance and farm safety than wagging. ‘Girls, do your hair. Shut the bloody gate,’ he said.
Just an ordinary school day. Wagging was so easy.
The two girls turned off at the first gate after the home paddock and headed to Jimmy Waghorn’s place.
It looked like Jimmy was waiting for them. They left their bikes and walked over the sandhill behind the peppercorn tree – which was the opposite way to how they would usually arrive. But there was Jimmy Waghorn. Sitting on his old blue bench with a huge pile of wood stacked beside the campfire. His billy already nestled in its patch of coals at the edge.
Wearing Paper Dresses Page 10
