Wearing Paper Dresses

by Anne Brinsden

‘You need to tell someone,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘Why?’ asked Jesse. ‘You don’t. Do you?’ He looked at Marjorie until she turned away.

  ‘I am the cause of it all, anyway,’ said Jesse.

  ‘How could you be?’

  ‘My father had to marry my mother. And I am their firstborn. So, I am both my mother’s and my father’s ruin. I really loved Mum when I was little. But that’s what little kids do. But now sometimes I think I hate her. She is a worn-out mother, an ingratiating, placating, fawning woman, who totters around and around the drinking, then the arguing, and then the hitting and the fighting, only to get up the next day – or the day after that – and sign up for it all over again. My brothers and me are trapped. We’re like those sheep who have got stuck in the mud in the middle of a nearly empty dam. Killing ourselves just trying to survive.’

  ‘You could call the police.’

  ‘Why? What would they do?’ Jesse grabbed a lump of wood and threw it hard into the middle of the fire.

  ‘My mother is a hoarder,’ he went on. ‘She collects things for all of us. Like broken teeth and split lips. She used to hide things. Like my little brothers in cupboards, and our bruises under the jumpers. But that’s my job now. And my mother is a wordsmith. She transcribes things – like being bilious instead of being beaten. And I do too,’ he said, looking at Marjorie. ‘Like the time I told you about a bike accident instead of a bashing.’ And he smiled a lopsided, chipped-tooth smile at her.

  Marjorie felt sick at the relentless dread that boarded at Jesse’s place. She felt the helpless fury of Jesse when he hid his little brothers all over the place; she felt the abject futility of any effort his mother made. And Marjorie had a measure of sympathy – just a bit – for her own mother and her desire to go inside herself and shut the door on the world. Because that was exactly what Marjorie wanted to do with Jesse’s story.

  She was gentle when Jesse finished talking. ‘Having a deranged and mentally unstable mother isn’t that bad, I’ve decided,’ she said. ‘At least we have some good times.’ She rolled a smoke and handed it to him.

  Jesse smiled, his face crooked and sad. ‘I’d like to see those plasticine nativity things your mother is making. One day.’

  And it was Marjorie’s turn to comfort Jesse. She slid her arm around his back. But she knew one arm wouldn’t be enough for this kind of story. So she slid her other arm around his front. She put her head on his shoulder. Her hands joined – they let Jesse know. And Jesse and Marjorie sat there, waiting for the train.

  Because Marjorie saw that some people are chipped and damaged, cracked and frayed, exquisite and talented. But they care. They love whenever and wherever they can. In spite of their madness and their sadness, they still try.

  But some people are just mean bastards.

  *

  No one at the house ever found out about Marjorie’s night-time schedule. Because no one there could have contemplated her getting up in the middle of the night and running off. And Marjorie couldn’t blame them for that. Even she found it all a bit hard to fathom. Someone who was scared of bees and a life without Ruby, just getting up in the middle of the night and running off across the paddocks by herself, alone and in the dark.

  So it was no surprise, really, that nobody ever knew. But there were certainly enough indications there if they cared to pay attention. Because the house kept trying to warn them with its creaks and its squeaks. Every time Marjorie ran off. Every time she snuck back in. And maybe they should have known. Maybe they should have been trying a bit harder to look out for Marjorie. Perhaps things might have turned out differently if they had known.

  Marjorie and Jesse met at Jimmy Waghorn’s all the rest of that year. They had already gone past the early winter frosts and the emergence of the plasticine nativity scene and into the shearing season. Through the sleepy, silent woolly sheep and the quiet, blinking naked sheep. They had sat and listened to the night train lug away the carefully sorted and graded and baled wool. They had sat around that campfire through the ploughing and the sewing. They had eaten campfire rabbit as pale green wheat poked through the damp red dirt. And met all through the winter and into spring, watching as those hopeful baby shoots changed from pale green to deep green; and from deep green to the promise of harvest. The two of them had thrown Mallee stump after Mallee stump on that fire all through Ruby’s last year at school. All through the apprehension of her exams, the elation at her results and the relief at Ruby’s acceptance into teachers’ college. And Marjorie’s terror of a life lived without her.

  All the while Jimmy Waghorn never failed to provide a midnight haven. And in the middle of all those months, Marjorie ran smack into love.

  Love was sneaky. Like a lot of things in the Mallee – sneaking about, waiting to knock you down. So Marjorie wasn’t prepared for love to turn up on the school bus. That’s the last place it should have been but there it was, lying in wait. Rolling around under the seats like a discarded, half-sucked gobstopper. Sneaking about until it could get in behind and bite her on the ankle.

  Marjorie was tardy that day in shoving to get to the back seat, so she missed out. And the only seat left was next to Jesse.

  ‘There’s a seat there next to Jesse Mitchell,’ said Ruby as she grabbed the other vacant seat.

  But Marjorie and Jesse never sat together on the bus anymore. Marjorie wouldn’t. She was scared of anyone, especially Ruby, finding out about her and Jesse and their night-time runs. So that was her rule: no sitting together on the bus. Except for this morning, when she had no choice.

  ‘Go on,’ said Ruby. ‘I don’t think he bites.’

  Marjorie had no choice. Refusing a seat and standing up for the whole trip would have drawn attention to herself. She always fought for a seat. So she pushed past Jesse’s knees and sat next to the window. Maybe it was pushing past his knees that did it? She wasn’t sure. It certainly wasn’t looking into his eyes that did it, because she carefully avoided looking at him as she elbowed past. But what she did know was that as she bent to get her book out of her bag she noticed his long brown fingers. All those fingers staring at her underneath their covering of crossed arms. Marjorie liked those fingers. She wanted to touch them. Right there on the school bus.

  Her mouth dropped open. She straightened up and twisted around to stare at Jesse. At the same time that he turned to look at her. He smiled. Marjorie loved that soft mouth, and that lovely smile, with its chipped front tooth. Why had she just realised this? And there was that smell of him that she knew so well now. She breathed it in. No one else but her should be allowed to smell that smell of Jesse.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ whispered Jesse. ‘And stop staring.’

  Marjorie all of a sudden wanted to grab his hand and hold it and lean into him and smell him. But she couldn’t. She wanted Jesse to put his arm around her and pull her into his chest. But that couldn’t happen. She was on the school bus. So she shut her mouth and did her best to read her book.

  That night Marjorie ran to Jimmy’s place. Her run was purposeful – like it always was. But she had never had a purpose such as this before.

  She ran into the firelight. Jesse was putting down an armful of firewood and he turned towards her as she ran in. Marjorie didn’t bother to say hello. She didn’t stop either. She untied her jumper from around her waist, threw it on the old blue bench and walked straight up to Jesse. Marjorie walked slowly and carefully. But even so, she didn’t stop until she had walked straight into him and his body stopped her. She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him – slow and close up. First at his wavy brown hair, the ends glinting copper and gold now from the fire; then at the skin on his face – brown and smooth; and then into those complicated coloured eyes fenced in by all those long, thick eyelashes. She leant in towards his neck and smelt him. Before pulling back to look at that lovely mouth of his with its chipped front tooth.

 
And before she knew what was happening she was kissing that mouth. And it was soft, and warm, and Jesse had his arms around her and was kissing her back like he thought this was something they should have done a long, long time ago. And Marjorie didn’t want to stop. Because love had been standing there, waiting for Marjorie, for a very long time, there at Jimmy’s place.

  But Marjorie had no idea how strong that love was. It took her by surprise. It grabbed her and bowled her right over. Threw her down and left her there, gasping in the dirt.

  Chapter 12

  It was getting so close to Christmas people were out everywhere scouring their favourite sandhill to bags a fine native pine for a Christmas tree. It was a proper time for a nativity set. ‘Do you remember that plasticine nativity set I said Mum was making?’ asked Marjorie.

  Jesse was sitting in the dirt, leaning back against their bench, his knees comfortably bent. Marjorie was sitting in front, the back of her head against his chest, her arms wrapped around his knees. Jesse had one hand resting lightly on her head and a smoke in the other one. They were sharing the same smoke these days. The fire-poking stick was lying in the dirt in easy reach as they sat there, staring at the fire.

  ‘Yep,’ he said. Blowing smoke at the peppercorn tree.

  ‘Do you still want to see it?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Come over and take a look. Ruby’s playing in the tennis grand final next Saturday, and everyone’s going to watch her. I’ll say I have too much study to do. I’ll get away with that. It isn’t a lie. I just don’t intend on doing it. I’ll meet you here.’

  ‘All that scheming – I’m impressed,’ said Jesse. ‘I won’t have to say anything at my place. And no one will ask anything either. Your life is so much more complicated than mine – living in a house with people who actually bother to think about you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jesse.’

  ‘Don’t be. I wouldn’t be here with you if it wasn’t for them,’ Jesse said, his breath as he spoke making soft, warm currents in the hair on top of Marjorie’s head. ‘I’ll be here on Saturday – waiting for you.’

  So that Saturday was different. This time they met in the middle of the day at Jimmy’s place. And this time, for the first time, they walked off from Jimmy’s place in the same direction.

  Marjorie fell silent as they approached the house. Jesse was the first person she had ever been brave enough to invite there. It was a perilous thing to do. Even with love to support her. They could have gone through the back door. That would have been quicker. But Marjorie took Jesse around the boundary of the house yard fence so they would go in through the front door. If she was going to let him see her house, then she was going to let him see the house.

  Jesse was silent too now. He could see the bare house yard with its inappropriate eight-foot-high wire-netting fence. He, too, felt the wind pushing the fence backwards and forwards at them. Shove off! it was saying as it strained to jostle them. But Marjorie kept walking until they were at the front gate and staring at the front verandah.

  The gate squeaked and clattered and moved in the wind. A sudden gust came to its aid and it slammed shut in front of them. But Marjorie was used to this. She grabbed it and slammed it back open, throwing it hard against its hinges. And they walked the bare dirt paths to the beautiful gardens with the immaculate red-brick borders and the jaunty, perpetual plastic flowers. Marjorie flung out her arms. ‘Elise’s plastic garden. The one I told you about. It is, apparently, without end.’

  Jesse said nothing. He crouched down and studied the plastic flowers. ‘Next?’ he said, looking at the verandah boards and the sullen, shabby curtains.

  It was a staccato of explanation from Marjorie as she marched into the house and down the hallway:

  ‘Dad and Mum – sleep-out . . . Pa – bedroom . . . Spare bedroom – never used except to conceal clandestine artwork and to make paper dresses . . . Ruby and Marjorie – bedroom.’ Thumbs jerking to the right and to the left.

  Jesse stopped Marjorie at the girls’ bedroom. ‘Which is your bed?’

  ‘That one,’ said Marjorie, pointing to the messy one.

  ‘So that’s where you dream your dreams.’

  ‘I try not to dream dreams here. They’re usually bad if I do. Come on,’ Marjorie said. ‘We haven’t finished the tour.’ She headed for the lounge room. ‘This is where Pa spends most of his time when he is not outside distributing poison and setting traps.’

  ‘I like your Pa. He’s not really the cantankerous old bastard he likes to think he is.’

  Marjorie shrugged. ‘I couldn’t really see anything else when I was younger because of all that meanness hanging around him all the time. But he managed to get Ruby and me out of the house once when Mum was stark raving. And gave us his hairbrush. I will always like him for that. Anyway,’ Marjorie said, entering the lounge room, ‘this is where my mother plays the piano and sings.’

  Jesse noticed the smells of things first. The smell of Bakelite tobacco pipes, and the smell of new tobacco. The smell of old dead ash on chimney hearths. And the scent of a piano.

  The piano was an instrument of power in that room. It had Jesse transfixed, even though it had not uttered one sound. He ran his fingers over the wood and sniffed at it. He sat on the piano stool, lifted the lid and touched the keys before turning to stare at the careful castle of pianola rolls guarding one end of the piano. And at the mountain of sheet music gathered way down the other end, propping each other up on the top of the piano – arias, sonatas, concertos. Jesse picked up a sheet and studied the pencil scribbles and notes and comments. ‘Your mother has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard.’

  Marjorie nodded.

  ‘And she plays the piano like I have never heard,’ Jesse said.

  Marjorie nodded.

  ‘And now I’ll show you the nativity set,’ she said, leading him to the kitchen. And the piano knew that even though it had the power to spellbind many, it had nothing to compare with the power of the plasticine.

  Jesse walked through the kitchen door behind her and the first thing he saw – delicately balanced on one leg with three legs moving through the air in a frozen moment of running, its mane and tail blowing in a non-existent breeze – was a perfect tiny horse. It was dancing in the middle of a piece of old newspaper, in the middle of the kitchen table. Jesse walked around the table studying the tiny horse from all sides. He crouched down to table level and looked at the horse from that angle. He pulled up a chair and just sat in front of it and stared at it, his chin resting on his hands.

  ‘There’s more of them,’ said Marjorie after a while.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Everywhere.’ said Marjorie.

  And they were everywhere. As Elise completed a piece, she would position it according to some complex design known only to her. Some pieces were on the windowsill. Others were on the washing-up bench. A few were in the crockery cupboard. A collection of them were precariously balanced on the dado board at the top of the tongue-in-groove boards lining the kitchen. They were animals of Elise’s deciding regarding the make-up of a nativity set. There were sheep, cattle, dogs, more horses, a pig, chooks, a cocky and a cat. There were men and a mother and a baby. There were kings and presents and camels.

  Jesse studied them. Some he touched with just the tips of his fingers. ‘How can she do that?’ he asked. ‘They’re like tiny pieces of magic.’

  Marjorie stared. First at Jesse, then around the room at the nativity pieces. She didn’t see it that way. She saw delicate beauty and unmatched talent. But it was hard not to examine everything for the lurking, suspect gleam of madness. To peer furtively at her mother in case a tinge of glitter be found in the intense concentration. To stop herself from seeing an artful sprinkling of it in the allocation of space and position. She knew the nativity pieces were good. But she was scared of what Elise could do when glitter was around.
So she answered Jesse as best she could. ‘Dunno,’ she said shrugging. ‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’

  He looked up. He had been so absorbed in the pieces. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wanted to have a cup of Elise’s coffee.’

  So Marjorie poured coffee and they went to sit on the back porch.

  They were sitting, lazy and comfortable, talking and drinking coffee and smoking, when the dogs started barking. Somehow, they had not noticed time leaking sneakily out behind them. And now they heard the car coming back. They should have heard it miles back but they were not paying attention. It was nearly at the house paddock gate. Marjorie rose up in a panic. ‘They’re home,’ she said. ‘Quick. What will we do?’

  Jesse raced back into the kitchen. He called over his shoulder as he ran. ‘First rule, Marjorie. Just act normal.’ He scanned the room to see what was out of place. ‘I’ll fill the coffee pot and wash the cups. You get your schoolbag and stick your study stuff everywhere. Make a mess. You’ve been studying hard.’

  Marjorie raced to get her schoolbag. ‘Quick. Out the back. They’ll come in the front,’ she said as she threw books and pens on the table and scattered notepaper around. ‘Get going.’ She slid into a chair and buried her head in a textbook.

  Jesse glided out the back door, melted through the back gate and merged with the waiting scrub. He was gone.

  He took one of the plasticine horses with him. He couldn’t resist all that beauty stuck with such thoughtless ease in an old chipped cup in the crockery cupboard. No one would notice one less perfect, tiny horse, he reasoned.

  And he was right. No one noticed. Only Jesse. He noticed it every day.

  *

  Marjorie might have started looking at other people besides herself, but she was not very strong. She couldn’t afford to just keep adding wheat bags of people to the pile on her shoulders. She was likely to collapse under all that weight. So when she put Jesse on, she dropped others off. She neglected to watch her mother and she forgot to look out for her sister. And then there was Christmas to think about as well. Everyone was bustling with Christmas. Womenfolk were cleaning the town hall for the Christmas concert. Menfolk were downing a giant Mallee pine for the hall Christmas tree. Some dad somewhere was practising in the Santa suit. Bill was servicing the kerosene refrigerator, and checking the Coolgardie safe to make sure they could cope with the extra Christmas load. Pa was out in the horse and cart, scanning the sandhills for their own Christmas tree.