Wearing Paper Dresses

by Anne Brinsden

  Marjorie tried to act like the specialist materials conservator she was. She tried to stab Jesse in the eye with a look of contempt. But libraries were never a good place for violence – and especially not the conservation section. Her look failed. It changed instead to a look that noticed the lovely long fingers resting on the polished wood. She loved those fingers. One of those damned derailed wheat trucks just reminded her of that. It also reminded her that right now she didn’t have much option. And that options had never been much available to her where Jesse Mitchell was concerned. ‘I finish work in a few minutes,’ she said, hurrying through her words to cut him off. ‘We’ll talk then. If you leave right now.’

  Jesse considered the proposal for a downright wasteful amount of time. ‘Good-oh, Marjorie,’ he replied at last. ‘I’ll see you in five minutes.’

  ‘I’ll meet you on the steps at the front of the library,’ she said. ‘Now go. Please.’

  Jesse seemed to take his own sweet time pushing himself off the reference desk. He turned to gaze at all the ears trying so hard to look like they weren’t listening. He was tempted to nod and give a couple of those peeping faces a wave. That would stir things along. And she deserved it.

  But he didn’t. ‘See you on the steps,’ was all he said.

  As he left, he gave Marjorie a wink and a Mallee nod, though. Which was more than enough for all those eyes roundabout.

  *

  Marjorie stopped just inside the front doors and scanned the crowd on the lawns in front of the library. All she could think of was the pile of letters from Jesse lying unopened and unanswered in her cupboard; she hadn’t received a new one in a long time. She wanted to cry.

  Shoving a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses on her face, she stepped out of the shadows of the library and into the late-afternoon sunlight slanting onto the steps. She tried to look poised and indifferent as she stood there for what seemed like ages, looking for Jesse. And Jesse leant quiet against the statue for as long as he could – looking at her.

  ‘Gidday again, Marjorie,’ Jesse finally said as he moved away from the shelter of a bronze soldier on a horse and into the sunlight. Marjorie swung towards the voice. It was a quiet voice in a crowd. But she heard it. Even after all this time of forgetting, Jesse’s voice had been lurking there in the back of her memory, waiting for its part in the concerto to arrive. And now it was playing. It was the sweet low sound of the cello.

  ‘There you are. I’ve booked a table,’ she said. And in saying it, and in seeing him twice in one day, Marjorie was suddenly back at Jimmy Waghorn’s with Jesse. She fought it. But she was never as strong as the Mallee. So she headed off at a fast pace. Taking charge so as to maintain her fragile advantage. To leave the Mallee behind. Wheat Bag Boy would have to puff and get red in the face if he wanted to keep up. She would have run if she could.

  But Jesse didn’t have a problem keeping up. He was at her side from the moment he emerged from the shadows of the statue and he stuck there – weaving through the busy streets and effortlessly keeping pace. He was like a sheepdog, the way he instinctively negotiated the moving mass of people. He was like a ball of spitty grubs in a tree the way he shimmered and swayed beside her – fascinating and dangerous as he stepped through the crowd. Ready to spit at anyone. Ready to spit the whole poisonous lot at Marjorie.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Marjorie arriving at a cafe and abruptly sitting down. Outside – where escape routes were enhanced. ‘The waiter will be here in a moment. He’s from Italy. He knows me. They make great coffee here.’ Marjorie glared at Jesse, daring him to disagree. Pulling her cigarette case out of her handbag, she lit a cigarette and inhaled so the smoke could to do its work on her tight strings. She took her time, inhaling and slowly exhaling before she allowed herself to look at Jesse. He was leaning back. His chair tilted just a bit. Brown arms lightly crossed. Long legs loosely crossed.

  ‘I reckoned you would still be smoking,’ he said.

  ‘Of course I bloody am. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Because it is unladylike to smoke.’ Jesse smiled and pulled out his tobacco.

  Marjorie’s stomach lurched as she saw the tin, the packet of delicate papers, the box of matches. She turned to her own cigarette to smoke out the memories now buzzing in her head.

  ‘And I am glad to hear you’re still swearing. Even though I believe it’s impossible for you to swear. Again because, if I recall correctly, ladies do not bloody well swear.’ It was his turn to blow out a puff of smoke. He watched it wisp away. Then turned to look at Marjorie

  ‘Hell and damnation,’ said Marjorie. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I just wanted to see you.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you just sneak a look at me through a window and keep going?’

  ‘I wanted to see for myself that you were alright.’

  ‘Of course I’m alright. I’m not bloody dead, am I?’

  Jesse looked at her while he thought about other dead people. And other dead things – like love. ‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.

  ‘Crikey, Wheat Bag Boy. It’s nearly four years since I last saw you,’ she lied. ‘What could we possibly have to say to each other now? The past is dead.’

  Jesse looked away. He could see himself, a young kid, pushed over on his backside in the red Mallee dirt. He watched as he picked himself up and brushed the dirt off. ‘You look fine,’ Jesse said. He tried to keep sadness out of his voice. But it got in. ‘Fine like a lady.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you look fine. Like her.’

  ‘Like whom?’ Marjorie asked very carefully.

  Jesse knew it was risky. But no one won a war without taking risks. ‘Like Elise. You look like her. Except for the hair, you look a lot like your mother.’

  He struck swift as a tiger snake and grabbed her arm as she surged up from her chair. Her chair toppled backwards. It tried but couldn’t regain its balance and it was the chair’s turn this time to fall on its backside. But Jesse had Marjorie’s arm. He held her arm hard so she couldn’t get away. Not without making a public spectacle of herself.

  Jesse picked up her chair, still holding her arm. So they stood chest to chest. Eye to eye. On the pavement. ‘You are a fine lady. Even if you do still swear and smoke.’ He smiled at her. Well, at least half of his mouth smiled at her. The other half tried hard but couldn’t really manage it. While he held her so she couldn’t move.

  Marjorie could feel him; she could smell that Jesse smell. She hadn’t smelt that smell for so many years. But it wasn’t that many years really – it just seemed like forever ago. And Marjorie also knew by now that four years could actually be an eternity. Marjorie breathed in that smell again, but even while she was breathing it in she knew she was making a mistake. Because she couldn’t afford that smell anymore. It was much too expensive for Marjorie.

  ‘Do you reckon we should sit down and have something to eat now?’ said Jesse. ‘The waiters are looking a bit worried they might miss out on a tip.’

  Marjorie sat back down in her chair. Jesse ordered coffees to tie her down to a commitment.

  ‘Here. Let’s see if you still have the knack. Something to pass the time while we wait for coffee.’ He pushed the tin, papers and matches across the table.

  Marjorie tried to stop it, but a small smile escaped her mouth. She grabbed the tin and papers and matches. And Jesse sat back and watched as Marjorie, for the tiniest time, forgot. She forgot pangs, and a mad slaying mother, and a sister who couldn’t stay. She remembered instead for a fleeting moment a boy who loved her and magical campfire nights and peppercorn trees and an old blue bench. ‘That was good,’ said Marjorie when all was done but the butting out at the end of the smoking. She could have meant the smoke. Or something else.

  ‘Why don’t you ever go back?’ asked Jesse into the last drifts of their smokes.

 
‘Back where?’ asked Marjorie as carelessly as she could.

  Jesse placed his arms on the table and leant towards Marjorie. ‘You know where I mean,’ he said. His eyes refusing to let Marjorie off the hook.

  ‘I went back.’ Marjorie looked away to stop his eyes boring into her.

  ‘I don’t mean that time at the cemetery. I mean after that. You never went back. Did you?’

  ‘I don’t need to. Dad and Mum and Pa come down to visit me. There’s always the telephone.’

  ‘I don’t go back much either.’

  Marjorie looked at him in surprise. She wondered why she had not known that. ‘Don’t you live there anymore?’

  ‘Haven’t lived there for the last couple of years.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ he lied.

  ‘I will never set foot in that place again.’ Marjorie’s red fingernails mashed the remains of the smoke into a pulp in the ashtray. ‘It’s getting late. I have to get home. Thanks for the smoke.’ She got up and turned to run. Or at least to walk as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself.

  ‘But you haven’t eaten your tea,’ said Jesse. ‘You haven’t even ordered it yet.’

  ‘I don’t have time now,’ snapped Marjorie. ‘And it’s not tea, it’s dinner. We eat dinner in the evening.’

  Jesse ignored the rudeness. He also ignored the confused waiter approaching with two coffees and a menu, and joined her on a double-time march back down the street.

  ‘I need to talk to you again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I haven’t finished.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘No, you haven’t, Marjorie. You haven’t finished.’

  Marjorie glared at Jesse but he ploughed on. He could handle that look. ‘Will it ever be finished for you?’ he asked as they walked back past her library, now resting in the evening quiet. ‘I want answers, Marjorie.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I said so.’

  ‘What are you scared of?’ Jesse asked the back of her beautiful sleek head of hair as she tried to flee.

  And there it was. Marjorie’s determined march back to a semblance of safety was thrown off course. But she recovered well. So well that anybody other than Jesse would not have noticed.

  ‘I’m not scared, Wheat Bag Boy,’ she said, spinning around to face him. ‘That scared Marjorie you are referring to, who ran around being scared in the Mallee – she doesn’t exist anymore.’

  But Jesse wasn’t looking at her. He seemed to have already forgotten his question.

  ‘I can always find you in there, you know,’ he said, gazing up at the magnificent structure. ‘I can always think of a million things I need to research about the Mallee. And it’s all in there. Probably take me months. And if you are not there to assist me, then I am sure another librarian will.’ Jesse moved his gaze from the beautiful repository to Marjorie. ‘Surely one of your colleagues would be willing to help out a bloke who’s come from the Mallee. Where you come from.’ Jesse locked his eyes on Marjorie.

  Marjorie couldn’t remember Wheat Bag Boy ever beating her before. But Jesse Mitchell had beaten her. Many times. She tried her best to look him up and down. But she couldn’t because his eyes wouldn’t let go of her. ‘For Pete’s sake. Alright. One more time and then that’s the end of it.’

  Jesse smiled and nodded. Two muddy green eyes watching her. ‘After work tomorrow then, fine lady?’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘I can’t.’ Then, ‘Yes,’ she said, trying to drag her eyes away.

  ‘I’ll be right here same time tomorrow. And if you don’t turn up, I’ll just have to come in and find you.’ He smiled at her, then left her floundering there, gasping for air, as he turned on his heel and walked into the evening crowd.

  *

  ‘Where to this time, fine lady?’ Jesse asked the following evening.

  Marjorie said, ‘I don’t know. We can take our time. I don’t have to work tomorrow. You choose.’

  ‘Right-oh,’ Jesse said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Let’s just wander off and see what comes up.’

  So that was what they did. They wandered through the sunset into dusk, and through dusk into evening. They wandered from evening into teatime. They wandered far into the night and right through it, all the way to the next morning.

  They didn’t run – not this time. They didn’t stoke a campfire. They didn’t sit on an old blue bench within arm’s length of a protective and patient peppercorn tree. They couldn’t sit still like they used to. So they wandered up and down streets wide and hustling and bustling with the energy of the night-time city. They roamed tiny laneways, cosy with small talk and small groups. They strayed into parks and sat on iron benches – carefully not touching each other – and looked at the possums and the stars.

  But they did talk. And after a while, it was almost like it used to be. But it didn’t start out that way.

  ‘You don’t ever want to go back home?’ Jesse’s question seemed to take both of them by surprise as it barged in suddenly.

  ‘No, I don’t. I like it here. Why should I go back? I can have a bath anytime I feel like it here. I don’t even have to wonder if the windmill has been turned on or if the dam is full before I do.’

  ‘It’s not such an easy thing to go home, is it?’ Jesse said, ignoring Marjorie’s watery explanation.

  But Marjorie wasn’t listening to Jesse. ‘You know that the Mallee root is not a root at all but a stunted, twisted underground trunk? Did you know that?’ Marjorie scowled.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jesse.

  ‘And what about that layer of kerosene we used to put on top of the water in the tanks to suffocate the mossies? Remember that?’

  Jesse nodded. ‘Yeah, I do,’ he said. ‘But I don’t see why you should concern yourself with that anymore. Not when you haven’t set foot in the Mallee since that time you visited the grave.’

  Marjorie’s voice, heavy and bitter, had trailed off down the street, though, so she couldn’t answer straight away. ‘What about you?’ she asked gaily when a bright voice finally came back, leaving its heaving bitterness around the corner somewhere, back with all those other soggy, encrusted memories. ‘What do you like about it?’

  ‘The night-time in winter – frost on the fences, those bright stars everywhere, and foxes calling. The smell of a full bag of wheat in the summer sun. And the smell of a shearing shed.’ Jesse stopped. He could have added a few other things to the list:

  —Night-time campfires near an old peppercorn tree.

  —An old blue bench.

  —Jimmy Waghorn.

  —A strange and consoling friendship with an extraordinary and melancholy friend.

  And he could have mentioned other things as well. Like the echoing mystery of looming Furphys, thirsty for water; windmills and their Southern Cross fins, creaking and cranking and labouring to catch that waft of wind; a few thousand head of brown lanolin and wool roaming contented in the stubble. Or the damn trouble with families. But he didn’t. He busied himself instead staring into the trees above their heads.

  Marjorie broke the silence. ‘I miss the rain, Jesse,’ she said. She was quiet as she said it. ‘I miss hearing it pelting down on a tin roof.’

  Jesse nodded.

  ‘People here don’t drink rainwater.’

  Jesse turned and looked at her. ‘I know. Strange, isn’t it? Why do you reckon that is?’ he asked.

  Marjorie shrugged. ‘Do you remember how we would stand in puddles after a good rain? When there was a bit of a breeze rippling across the puddle? And if you looked at the water long enough you felt like you were sailing away on the puddle?’

  Jesse nodded and smiled.

  ‘And that’s the other thing I miss,’ she said at J
esse’s smile. ‘City people don’t head outside to sniff the coming rain. They don’t stand in rain. Everyone has an umbrella here. It seems it is best not to let the rain touch you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I really don’t know why, though,’ said Marjorie. ‘The idea is not to get wet, isn’t it? If you get caught in the rain without an umbrella you use newspaper. You run around with newspaper on your head. Do you remember your father running around in the rain with a wheat bag over his head?’ she said. ‘Much better than newspapers.’

  ‘I try not to remember my father,’ he said as he stubbed out his smoke.

  Marjorie went stiff. She knew she was precarious these days – more than she imagined Jesse could know. She was sharp, like all the bleached fence posts and rusted fencing wire and blackened tree stumps standing surrounded and trapped in their perfect crystalline salty prison. Nowadays she was brittle and frayed and paper thin, like the beautiful books she fought to conserve. And she was a fool. She had forgotten about Jesse’s father.

  She looked up at the evening star high above the tree. She knew what Jesse meant about the stars littering the Mallee sky. The stars were demure here. They didn’t jostle – pushing and shoving for their bit of space in a black velvet sky that spread from one side of the world to the other. They didn’t cram here. They were shy. They hid their real selves behind a veil here. Marjorie looked at that one fearless star and said nothing for a long, long time. Until the star gave her enough courage to look Jesse full in the face. ‘You know why I left. But I don’t know why you are here,’ she said so quietly the noise of the star almost blotted out her words.

  ‘No,’ said Jesse. ‘I don’t know why you left.’

  ‘Why are you here, Jesse?’ Marjorie asked.

  *

  They were in a tiny coffee shop when dawn started creeping in. It was Marjorie’s choice of table. At the back. The coffee was good here, and the teapots were not naked. Marjorie was sitting against the wall and facing the door. They had somehow talked right through every hour of the night. Though neither of them had yet bothered to answer the other one’s question.