The Dressmaker

by Rosalie Ham

  ‘She made him jump.’

  ‘She murdered him.’

  ‘She is cursed.’

  ‘She gets it from her mother.’

  Very early one morning she snuck down to Pratts for matches and flour. Purl and Nancy stopped to stare as she passed, their hate piercing her heart. Faith shoved her when she saw her standing searching the shelves, and someone ran up behind her and pulled her hair. Muriel snatched the flour and money from her hand and threw them out onto the footpath. They drove up The Hill to throw rocks onto the cottage roof in the middle of the night, driving around and around, revving, calling, ‘Murderers! Witches!’

  Mother and daughter stayed behind their locked door cuddling their desolation and sorrow, moving about very little. Sergeant Farrat brought them food. Molly buried toast and jam and hid boiled eggs in the folds of her blankets or shoved steamed vegetables into crannies about her chariot. On warm days flies circled her. She was silent, rising each day only to sit staring at the fire, her scarred old heart beating on and on. Tilly left her only at night to roam the plains or scout along the creek for dry gum branches to burn. They stayed together by the fire staring at the flames, and wound themselves tightly under their blankets to listen for sounds in the night’s blackness. Bitterness rested on Tilly’s soul and wore itself on her face. Her mother let her head drop and closed her eyes. People threw their rubbish into the smouldering pit so that the stench wafted up The Hill and filled the house.

  21

  Lesley swung down the deserted main street between Mona and her mother’s cousin, Una Pleasance, who was shivering. ‘Of course, I’m used to European winters. I was in Milan for many, many years,’ he said. ‘I was working with the Lippizzaners.’

  Mona slipped her arm through her husband’s. ‘He taught the horses, didn’t you Lesley?’

  ‘And now you are in Dungatar?’ Una looked at the few shabby shops along the main street.

  ‘I was forced to return to Australia upon the death of my dear, dear mama. Her affairs had to be settled and just as I was on the verge of returning to Europe, I was snapped up by the Beaumonts.’

  Mona nodded, ‘Snapped up, by us.’

  ‘But Dungatar’s hardly –’

  ‘Snapped up just like you, Una!’ sang Lesley and smiled sweetly at her.

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘here we all are! That’s the Station Hotel – miles from the railway line,’ and he laughed nudging Una.

  ‘They do a lovely steak and chips,’ said Mona.

  ‘If you like steak and chips,’ said Lesley.

  Una pointed to The Hill. ‘What’s up there?’ They stopped, looking at the smoke curling up to shroud the vine-covered walls and creep away to the plains. Smoky fingers stretched around the chimney and up into the clouds.

  ‘That’s where Mad Molly and Myrtle live,’ said Mona gravely.

  ‘Oh,’ said Una, and nodded knowingly.

  ‘This is Pratts Store,’ said Lesley breaking the trance. ‘The only supply outlet for miles, a gold mine! It’s got everything – the bread monopoly, the butcher, haberdashery, hardware, even veterinary products, but here comes Dungatar’s richest man now!’

  Councillor Pettyman was walking towards them, smiling, his eyes on Una.

  ‘Good morning,’ he cried. ‘It’s the Beaumont family with my special guest.’ He grabbed Una’s hand and kissed her long white fingers.

  ‘We’re just giving Una a guided tour of her new home –’

  ‘You must allow me!’ said Evan, rubbing his hands and licking his lips, his warm breath visible in the winter air. ‘I can drive Miss Pleasance in the comfort of the shire car, after all – she is my guest.’ He looped her arm through his and spun her off towards his car. ‘We can drive along the creek to some of the outlying properties and then …’ He opened the car door and helped Una settle in the front seat, lifted his hat at Mona and Lesley left standing on the footpath then drove the new girl in town away.

  ‘The cheek!’ said Lesley.

  • • •

  Tilly sat against the wall looking down through the grey mist to the round green and grey mud-smudged oval fringed by dark cars, the supporters standing between them like caught tears. The small men washed from one end of the field to the other, black bands on their flaying arms as they grabbed at the tiny ball, the supporters howling their scorn at the opposition. She knew anger and woe propelled them. Their cries bounced off the great silo and shot up to her and out across the paddocks in the smoke.

  Rain started and fell from the clouds in sheets, pelting and drenching, pounding the cars and the iron roof above her. It bashed at the windows and bent the vegetable leaves in Barney’s garden. A diesel engine groaned away from the Dungatar station, the passenger carriages empty. The cow, tethered half way down The Hill, ceased munching to listen, then turned her rump to the weather and folded her ears forward. The players stopped and stood about, blinded and confused in the grey flooded air until the rain eased, when they started playing again.

  Tilly feared football defeat would send the people to her, that they would spill wet and dripping from the gateway of the oval to stream up The Hill with clenched fists for revenge blood. She waited until there was a scattered clapping from the crowd and a horn tooted. The galah bobbed, raising his crest, and lifted a claw from the veranda rail … but it was Dungatar who had lost, failed at its last chance to make the finals. The cars drove out the gate and dispersed.

  She went inside where Molly sat turning the pages of a newspaper. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s only you.’

  Tilly looked at her mother, her skeleton shoulders under her tattered hessian shawl. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s me and you; there is only you and you have only me.’

  She sat down to sew but after a while she shoved the needle safely in the hem of Molly’s new dress and leaned back to rub her eyes. She gazed at Teddy’s empty seat and the wood box where he always put his boots and let her mind rest in the orange flames dancing in the stove. Molly spread the paper on the kitchen table, squinted through the bifocals perched at the end of her nose and said, ‘I need my glasses, where have you hidden them?’

  Tilly reached over and turned The Amalgamated Dungatar Winyerp Argus Gazette the right way up. ‘Well,’ Molly said and smiled slyly, ‘they got another seamstress, from Melbourne. There’ll be trouble now, she’ll have a trail of Singer Sewing Machine men after her, roaming the countryside leaving broken hearts and hymens in their wake.’

  Tilly peered over her mother’s shoulder. The one item in ‘Beula’s Grapevine’ column read, ‘High Fashion Arrives’. There was a photograph of the president, secretary and treasurer of the Dungatar Social Club – wearing creations by Tilly – smiling at a severe woman, whose middle part dissected her widow’s peak.

  ‘This week Dungatar welcomes Miss Una Pleasance, who has brought to us her considerable dressmaking talents. The Dungatar Social Club, on behalf of the community, welcomes Miss Pleasance and we look forward to the grand opening of her dressmaking establishment, Le Salon. Miss Pleasance is at present a guest of Councillor and Mrs Evan Pettyman. Her business premises will be temporarily located at their home. The grand opening will be celebrated on Friday 14th July, at 2 p.m. Ladies bring a plate.’

  First thing in the morning they heard the Triumph Gloria arrive and sit idling on the lawn. Tilly crept to the back door and peeped out. Lesley sat behind the wheel and Elsbeth waited in the back seat with a hanky held to her nose. The new seamstress sat beside her, staring at the wisteria climbing the veranda posts and up and over the roof. Mona stood on the veranda, twirling a riding crop around and around in her hand. Tilly opened the door.

  ‘Mother says she wants … all the things you’ve got half made, mine and hers and Trudy, Muriel … Lois …’ Her voice faded.

  Tilly folded her arms and leaned on the d
oorjamb.

  Mona straightened. ‘Could we have them please?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mona ran back to the car and leaned in to talk to her mother. There was a small conversation in spatting tones then Mona stepped hesitantly back to the veranda.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because no one’s paid me.’ Tilly slammed the door. The frail building creaked and leaned an inch closer to the ground.

  That evening, there was a knock at the door. ‘It’s me,’ called Sergeant Farrat, sotto voce. When Tilly opened the door she found the sergeant standing on the veranda in black linen gaucho pants, a white Russian Cossack shirt and red quilted waistcoat with a black hat with flat brim balanced at a scandalous tilt on the side of his head. He held a white paper package and from beneath his waistcoat he produced a long brown bottle which he held high, moths fluttering about his shoulders. ‘One of Scotty’s finest,’ he said, smiling broadly.

  Tilly opened the screen door.

  ‘Nightcap, Molly?’ asked the sergeant.

  She looked at the sergeant, horrified. ‘Don’t wear them, they’re the sort of thing that’d get wrapped around your neck while you’re asleep.’

  Tilly placed three chilled glasses on the table and Sergeant Farrat poured. He unwrapped the package he’d brought. ‘I have a challenge for you. I’ve been reading up on the Spanish invasion of the South Americas and I have here a costume for my collection which needs alteration.’ Sergeant Farrat stood and pressed a diminutive matador’s costume against his round form. It was bright green silk brocade, heavily beaded, bordered with elaborate gold lamé binding and tassels. ‘I thought perhaps you could improvise some inserts, similar or at least blending with the general glitter of the costume. They could be disguised quite cleverly by Dungatar’s only real creative hands, don’t you think?’

  ‘I see there’s a new seamstress in town,’ said Tilly.

  Sergeant Farrat shrugged, ‘I doubt she’s travelled, or received any sophisticated training.’ He looked down at his shiny green outfit, ‘But we’ll see – at the fund-raising festival.’ He looked back up at her expectantly, but she merely raised an eyebrow. Sergeant Farrat continued, ‘The Social Club have organised it, there’ll be a gymkhana and a bridge competition during the day with refreshments of course … and a concert – recitals and poetry. Winyerp and Itheca are participating … there will be prizes too. It’s in this week’s paper, and Pratts’ window.’

  Tilly reached to feel the beading on the matador’s costume. She smiled. Sergeant Farrat beamed down at her, ‘I knew a bit of needlework would lift your spirits.’ He sat down in the old armchair by the fire, leaned back and put his leather slippers up on Teddy’s wood box.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and wondered how her teachers in Paris – Balmain, Balenciaga, Dior – would react at the sight of Sergeant Farrat sailing down a catwalk sparkling in his green matador’s costume.

  ‘Poetry and recital you say?’ Tilly swallowed heavily from her glass.

  ‘Very cultural,’ said the sergeant.

  22

  William was slumped in a battered deckchair on what was now called ‘the back patio’, formerly the porch. His heavily pregnant wife sat inside, filing her nails, the telephone caught in the fatty folds of her chins and shoulder, ‘… well I said to Elsbeth today that there’s no hope at all of getting any of our mending back, lunacy is hereditary you know – Molly most likely murdered someone before she came here so Lord knows what they get up to in that slum on that hill … Beula’s seen her milking the cow and she sneaks along the creek to steal dead wood, like a peasant, in broad daylight! Doesn’t look the least bit guilty, Elsbeth and I were just saying the other day, thank heavens we’ve got Una …’

  ‘Yes,’ muttered William, ‘most important.’ He reached under his chair for the whisky bottle, slopped a generous amount into the thick glass, held it up to his eye and viewed the horse jumps in the front paddock through the amber liquid. Inside his wife talked on. ‘I’ll get William’s cheque book but I really shouldn’t have a new wardrobe until after the baby … must dash, here’s Lesley with the car, see you there.’

  William waited until the scurrying heels had ceased and the front door slammed. He sighed, drained his whisky, refilled the glass, banged his pipe against the wooden armrest and reached for his tobacco.

  Una Pleasance stood at Marigold’s front door wearing a navy A-line with matching pumps featuring a striped bow at the toes.

  ‘Please remove your shoes,’ she said to the arriving guests before they walked on Marigold’s bright, white floor.

  Beula cruised the parlour, peering at photos, searching for dust on the skirting boards and picture rails. ‘What an unusual sideboard,’ she said, opening the top drawer.

  ‘It’s antique – my grandmother’s,’ said Marigold, worrying Beula would leave fingerprints on her polish.

  ‘I chucked all my grandmother’s old junk out,’ said Beula.

  Just then Lois lumbered past pushing Mrs Almanac in her wheelchair: there were bindis in the tyres and oil traces on the axle. Marigold shuddered, and ran to her room, grabbed a Bex powder sachet, flung back her head and opened her mouth. She winced as the powder slid from its paper cradle onto her tongue, then reached for the tonic bottle on the bedside table, unscrewed the cap and sucked. Just then Beula barged in. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘your nerves again is it?’

  She smiled and backed out. Marigold put her hand to her neck rash and took another long swig, then popped two tin oxide tablets onto her tongue just for good measure. In the parlour, Beula selected the chair in the corner for a prime view and sat with her chin tucked down, her arms folded over her white blouse and her skinny legs under her kilt. The rest of the ladies sat on plastic-covered sitting room chairs sipping tea from cups that tasted faintly of ammonia, tsk-tsking at the offered cream cakes. When Lois landed on the couch next to Ruth Dimm stale air billowed, and Ruth pressed a hanky to her nose and moved to stand by the door. Then Muriel Pratt caused a stir when she arrived wearing a frock made by ‘that witch … just to show you what we’re used to,’ she said to Una, who looked closely at it then went to stand next to her display.

  For the opening of Le Salon, Una had provided a sample of her work. A mannequin stood in the corner wearing a button-through seersucker peasant floral frock with a flounce-collared neckline and small puffed sleeves. The mannequin wore vinyl Mexican moccasins to match and a small straw bonnet. It was an outfit straight from Rockmans of Bourke Street catering for the ‘not-so-slim figure’.

  When Purl arrived she dumped a concave sponge on the table and said, ‘Lovely day,’ then turned to Una and looked her up and down. ‘Get sick of Evan or Marigold, you just come and camp at the pub.’ She lit a Turf filter tip and, looking about her for an ashtray, spotted the mannequin in the corner. ‘That one of the first things you made back at sewing school, is it?’ she asked with interest.

  Beula turned to the Beaumonts standing together by the window like a grim wedding photograph from 1893, and said loudly, ‘My you’re big Ger, I mean Trudy. When exactly are you due?’ Mona offered the cake plate around again. Soon everyone’s saucer was crammed with thick bricks of lemon slice, hedgehog, cinnamon tea cake and pink cream lamingtons, and they were picking the crumbs and coconut flakes from their bosoms.

  When Marigold stepped red-faced and shaking back into the crowded room, Mona handed her a cup of tea with a cream scone on the saucer. Nancy marched through the door behind her, bumping Marigold and sending her cup and saucer splashing onto the carpet. Marigold collapsed, her face resting in the tea and cream puddle, the two fluffy pods of scone dough resting at her ears. The clucking, floral women assisted her to bed, and when finally they returned, Elsbeth stepped to the table, clapped loudly and began the formal proceedings. ‘We welcome Una to Dungatar and wish to say –’

  At that moment T
rudy bellowed like a distressed cow and doubled over. There was a noise like a water bag bursting. Pink, steamy fluid flowed from her skirts and a circle of carpet around her feet darkened. Her belly was lurching as if the devil himself was ripping at her womb with his hot poker. She folded down on all fours, yelling. Purl finshed her tea in one swallow, grabbed her sponge and left hastily. Lesley fainted and Lois grabbed his ankles and dragged him outside. Mona watched her sister-in-law labouring at her feet. She put her hand over her mouth and ran outside, retching.

  Elsbeth turned crimson and cried, ‘Get the doctor!’

  ‘We haven’t got a doctor,’ said Beula.

  ‘Get someone!’ She knelt beside Trudy. ‘Stop making a scene,’ she said. Trudy bellowed again.

  Elsbeth yelled, ‘SHUT UP, you stupid grocer’s girl. It’s just the baby.’

  Lesley lay on the lawn, flat on his back with Lois hosing him down. His toupée had washed off and lay like a discarded scrotum on the grass by his bald head. Mona stalled the Triumph Gloria three times before lurching up onto the nature strip, shattering Marigold’s front fence and roaring away with the hand brake burning, the front fender left behind, swinging from a denuded fence post. Just then Purl jogged back around the corner calling, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming.’

  Lois called to Una. ‘He’s coming,’ and Una called to Elsbeth, ‘He’s coming.’

  Trudy yelled and howled.

  Elsbeth shrieked, ‘Stop screaming.’

  Through clenched teeth between contractions Trudy growled, ‘This is all your son’s fault, you old witch. Now get away from me or I’ll tell everyone what you’re really like!’

  Twenty minutes into the labour Felicity-Joy Elsbeth Beaumont shot from her mother’s slimy hirsute thighs into the bright afternoon and landed just beside Marigold’s sterilised towels with Mr Almanac standing in distant attendance.