The Dressmaker

by Rosalie Ham

  ‘Worse,’ said William and they nodded to each other, resigned. Elsbeth pulled the baby closer.

  Tilly leapt out of bed and went straight outside. She stood knee deep in her garden, watching the town empty as the convoy of spectators drove towards Winyerp.

  Bobby was running late. He’d had trouble starting the bus. It revved and leapt along the main street towards the hall, and as it ground to the kerb the director, Lady Macbeth herself, shot from the front doors – ejected like an empty shell from a gun chamber. She fell backwards in the bright sunlight onto the footpath and bounced twice, then with the energy of someone possessed, sprang to her feet like a circus acrobat. She clenched her fists and raised them against the hall doors, screeching and pounding.

  ‘It’s mine, mine, none of you would be here without my direction, my planning and guidance, none of you. I HAVE to be in the eisteddfod, you can’t sack me, I made this play …’

  Inside, the cast barricaded the doors with chairs and the sand bucket the Christmas tree once stood in. Trudy pushed at the doors. They did not budge. She turned and eyed the bus. Bobby pulled the handle and the door slapped shut, then he grabbed the keys and sprang to fall flat on the floor. Trudy started kicking the bus door, but it wouldn’t open so she climbed onto the bonnet and pounded the windscreen with her fists.

  The painted faces of the scared Macduffs and soldiers peered from the hall windows. William waved up at the doctor, watching from the balcony. He drained his whisky and put the empty glass on the rail, picked up his bag and was soon sauntering up behind the energetic lunatic, dancing at the bus. He tapped her on the shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

  Trudy was foaming and gnashing. ‘Them,’ she screamed, ‘that bunch of talentless hams want to sack me!’ She swung and pointed at Mona, ‘She wants my part, she’s just like her mother.’

  Then she ran at the locked hall doors, shoulder first, bouncing back and throwing herself bodily against them again. ‘Mona Muncan is not playing Lady Macbeth. I am!’

  The doctor beckoned Bobby, peeping up over the dash. He shook his head. The doctor beckoned again.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ called Nancy.

  ‘That’s my bus too!’ screamed Trudy. Bobby ran at her and grabbed her and the cast applauded. He held her wrists with his strong footballers’ hands. Trudy screamed. ‘I’m Lady Macbeth, I am!’

  The doctor held up a large syringe, flicked it with his middle finger, aimed, grinned malevolently, then jabbed it into Trudy’s big bottom. He stepped back while she dropped to the footpath to lie like a discarded cardigan, then looked down at her.

  ‘Full of scorpions is her mind.’ They carried her to his car and lifted her in.

  The cast formed a firemen’s line, loaded the set onto the top of the bus and tied it down securely. As they got on the bus, Mona stood by the door with a clipboard in the crook of her velvet arm marking them off, Lady Macbeth’s frock creasing on the ground about her lacy shoes and Macbeth at her side. Everyone found a seat and sat flapping lace hankies in the heat. Lesley stood at the top of the aisle and clapped his hands twice. The cast fell silent. ‘Attention please, our acting director and producer needs to speak.’

  Mona cleared her throat. ‘We’re missing Banquo –’

  ‘I’ll be Banquo!’ cried Lesley and shot his hand in the air, ‘Me me me.’

  ‘We’re picking him up at the station,’ said Bobby. He tried to start the bus, which coughed and spluttered. There was a long silence. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘everybody out.’

  Tilly looked down at the dull buildings and the slow, brown creek. The roof of the silo shimmered under the sun and dust whipped along the dry, dirt track to the oval. The trees leaned with the hot wind. She went inside. She stood in front of her tailor’s mirror and studied her reflection. She was wreathed in a brilliant halo, like a back-lit actor, dust from tailor’s chalk and flock floating in shafts of light about her. The skeletal backdrop was cluttered with the stuff of mending and dress-making – scraps and off-cuts, remnants of fashion statements that spanned from the sixteenth century onwards. Stacked to the roof, shoved into every orifice in the small tumbling house were bags and bags of material bits spewing ribbon ends, frayed threads and fluff. Cloth spilled from dark corners and beneath chairs and clouds of wool lay about, jumbled with satin corners. Striped rags, velvet off-cuts, strips of velour, lamé, checks, spots, paisley and school uniform mixed with feather boas and sequin-spattered cotton, shearer’s singlets and bridal lace. Coloured bolts stood propped against window sills and balanced across the armchair. Bits of drafted pattern and drawings – svelte designs for women who believed themselves to be size ten – were secured to dusty curtains with pins and clothes pegs. There were pictures torn from magazines and costume designs scribbled on butchers’ paper dumped in clumps on the floor, along with piles of frail battered patterns. Tape measures dripped from nails on studs and the necks of naked mannequin dummies, while scissors stood in empty Milo tins beside old jars brimming with buttons and press studs, like smarties at a party. Zippers tumbled from a brown paper sack and snaked over the floor and onto the hearth. Her sewing machine waited erect on its housing table, an overlocker sitting forlornly at the bottom of the doorless entrance. Calico toiles for baroque fineries filled a whole corner.

  Electrical wire looped through studs and beams, along which sat cotton bobs and reels. In the kitchen area the disused oven stored used teacups, plates and bowls.

  She leaned close to the mirror and peered at herself. She saw a thin, tired country-ruddy face with red-rimmed eyes. She picked up the can of kerosene at her feet. ‘The night is long that never finds the day,’ she said, and started splashing.

  • • •

  Inside the police station, Banquo pondered his big scene, his tongue searching for the end of his nose. He too was haloed by a sun shaft which caught the sheen of the ornamental rose on his patent leather baroque shoes. He clasped his sword handle as though to draw and bellowed,

  ‘And when we have our naked frailties hid,

  That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

  And question this most bloody piece of work …’

  The hot and bothered baroques pushed the bus backwards into the middle of the road, then adjusted their frothy hats, picked up their skirts and minced to the rear of the bus to push again. It banged, shuddered, and chugged away, oily black smoke wafting.

  When Sergeant Farrat heard the explosion he breathed deeply and grabbed his ostrich-trimmed felt hat. He called out, ‘Time to go.’

  The inspector emerged from his cell in his muddied hessian rags holding a large wooden spoon. ‘Think I should use this Horry? For effect?’

  ‘Please yourself,’ said the sergeant.

  The bus spluttered to a halt in front of Banquo and witch number three, outside the police station. ‘Good morrow,’ cried Banquo, sweeping and bowing largely then shoving his hat down hard on his platinum ringlets. No one smiled back.

  ‘Carburettor?’ asked the inspector and climbed aboard. He sat with the other witches.

  ‘Bit of muck got into the fuel I think, but we’ll get there,’ said Bobby.

  ‘Well, you go on then,’ said Banquo, ‘I’d better follow in the police car, it runs perfectly.’

  ‘I’m Lady Macbeth now,’ said Mona, ‘Gertrude is, um …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Banquo and placed his hat over his heart. ‘Terrible news.’ William looked out the window.

  The bus rumbled away from Banquo, who stood waving his plume. Behind him, up on The Hill, a lonely curl of blue smoke wafted from Tilly’s chimney.

  Tilly untied the cow and slapped her big bony hip, sending her hurrying down The Hill with her bell clanging and her teats swinging. Tilly passed through the empty town for the last time. As she walked she untied tethered dogs, opened chook yard gates
and liberated all Bobby Pickett’s pets. She removed collars from sheep tied to old railway sleepers on vacant blocks and sent little girls’ ponies trotting off to the plains.

  Sergeant Farrat gathered his script and admired his reflection one more time then walked to his car. The keys were usually on the floor under the steering wheel, but they’d gone. He patted his thigh then realised he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Behind him, blue-grey sheets of smoke streamed from beneath Tilly’s rusty corrugated roof, oozing through the budding blue vines covering her house.

  Tilly Dunnage sat on her portable Singer sewing machine on the platform at the railway station, watching grey steam clouds chuffing towards her from the golden horizon. For her travelling outfit, she had chosen close-fitting paper-bag pants made of brilliant blue Matelasse and tied at the waist with a red silk rope. Her blouse was delicate and simple, expertly cut from a yard and a half of white nun’s veiling sent from Spain. She checked her watch. Right on time. She winked at the galah in the cage beside her suitcase. Behind them, a blue fog drifted to cover Dungatar.

  Sergeant Farrat heard the train in the distance. It arrived and stopped, then blew its whistle and pulled away. He waved his plumed hat across his face to dismiss the smoke. He frowned, sniffed, swung around and looked up. His translucent skin purpled.

  ‘My frocks!’ he cried. ‘Oh my Lord, oh Tilly …’ He dropped his hat and slapped his cheeks. The members of the fire brigade were heading for the stage at the Winyerp town hall.

  He decided to run. For the first time in forty years he bolted, heading for Tilly’s burning house, screaming, heat scorching his throat.

  At the top of The Hill he staggered to a heaving, wet-red standstill to watch through dripping sweat and running pancake foundation the flames fan past his patent leather high heels, across the dry weeds and stems to the brown grass, then down The Hill towards town. Fire billowed from the doors and windows of the leaning cottage and tiny strands of smoke squirted from holes in the corrugated iron roof. A nice effect, chiffon tulle, something Margot Fonteyn might have worn … then he collapsed, prone, where the myrtle patch once bloomed between the oleander stand and the rhubarb patch. Perhaps if he’d changed his shoes he might have made it to the water tap, but it would have been of no use, for Tilly had shut the water off.

  • • •

  Outside the Winyerp hall the cast of Macbeth spilled from the bus and stood on the footpath listening to the loud applause. Inside, the curtain had finally fallen on the last encore for the cast of A Streetcar Named Desire. The applause went on and on.

  When they piled into the foyer the audience paid little attention to the Macbeth cast, posing along the back wall near the toilets. They shrieked and laughed about Blanche and Stanley. The canny inspector sensed the taut nerves and low morale and said, ‘We’re the best, we’ll win.’

  ‘You wouldn’t bloody know,’ snarled Fred.

  H.M.S. Pinafore went for a sweltering hour while the Dungatar cast waited, surrounded by glasses, cups and vases stuffed with flowers with cards attached that said, ‘Congratulations Itheca’, or ‘Break a leg Winyerp’. They listened to the singing sailors and the audience clapping along. Lesley tapped his foot. Mona stood on it. Their pancake began to run, the glue which held eyelashes melted and their costumes became stained with sweat.

  ‘Very effective,’ said Lesley, ‘they were like that you know. They didn’t have washing machines and they never bathed.’

  ‘Some people still don’t think they need to wash,’ said Faith and waved her fan at Lois.

  ‘Some people don’t think they have to honour their marriage vows either,’ said Nancy.

  ‘At least I have a preference for men, some sick people in this town –’

  ‘That’s enough!’ cried Mona.

  ‘Getting a bit uppity aren’t you, Mona?’ said Purl.

  ‘Now now,’ said William.

  They counted eleven foot-stomping encores for H.M.S. Pinafore. When the din subsided Lady Macbeth led her cast onto the stage. The set-dismantler sang, ‘I-yam the ve-ry mo-del of a mo-dern ma-jor gen-er-ral …’

  ‘Ahem,’ she said, glaring, then handed him the stage plan.

  ‘We’re going to do a quick run through, then our limbering and stretching exercises but first we’ll do our vocal warm-ups.’ They stood in a circle and sang ‘Three Blind Mice’ in rounds. Lesley insisted they end their warm-up with a group hug then they retreated to ‘focus’.

  The curtain was due to go up and Banquo had not yet arrived. Lesley clapped his hands together and said, ‘Attention please.’ Then Mona said, ‘We have no Banquo so Lesley will be Banquo.’

  ‘He doesn’t know the lines –’ said William.

  ‘I’ve taped them to the column next to the doorway,’ said Mona, ‘he’ll read them.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘He can do it,’ said Mona, ‘he’s an actor.’

  The audience – cast members’ husbands and wives, mothers and children from Winyerp, Itheca and Dun-gatar – sat in the seats to the rear of the hall near the exit sign. The judges sat in the first row behind a trestle table. The curtain went up.

  An hour or so later, in Act 1, Scene V, Mona writhed on the canopied bed;

  ‘… that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

  Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

  That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here …’

  She masturbated through her petticoats, she gasped and sobbed and thrashed. The audience wriggled, chairs creaked, the Act ended and the lights dimmed.

  When they came up thirteen seconds later for Act 2, Banquo and Fleance swept onto the stage to find their audience had vanished. Only the four judges remained, leaning together, whispering. A broad matronly woman in a straw hat stood and said, ‘That will be all,’ then they clattered out together without a backwards glance. The cast emerged from the wings to watch them disappear into the refreshment room for supper and presentations.

  33

  They said very little on the journey home. They drank watermelon firewater from the cup awarded to them for Best Costume, and lolled moistly in the rattling bus.

  ‘Sergeant Farrat will be pleased,’ said Mona.

  ‘We should have done a musical,’ said Nancy looking back at Mona. ‘Who picked Shakespeare?’

  ‘It was the only play in the library,’ said Muriel.

  ‘Anyway, no one can sing,’ said Ruth.

  ‘No one can act!’ snapped Faith.

  Late in the afternoon the bus and all the cars of the townspeople stopped outside the hall, or at least where the hall once stood. The cast climbed slowly down from the bus and stood looking about them. Everything was black and smoking – the entire town had been razed. A few smouldering trees remained, and a telephone pole here, a brick chimney there. Anxious pet dogs sat where front gates once swung and chooks scratched between the twisted water tanks and iron roofs littering the black landscape. The cast stood in the wafting smoke, hankies to their eyes and noses, trying to block out the smell of burned rubber, scorched timber, paint, cars and curtains. They had been burned out of existence. Nothing remained, except Tilly Dunnage’s chimney. Mona pointed to a figure sitting beside it, moving his arm up and down, waving.

  They walked in a pack to the main road where they paused to check for cars before crossing, then along the charcoal footpath, past the creaking shell of Pratts store where tin cans had exploded and cloth bolts still glowed. Reginald went to check his butcher’s saw but found only a molten abstract sculpture. When they got to the top of The Hill they stood ankle deep in the hot charred clumps looking down to where their homes had once stood, and saw only mounds of smoking, grey-black coal and rubble. The goalposts at the footy ground were spent matchsticks lying on the black oval, and the willows that once crowded the creek ben
d were big, bare scaffolds, dead and curled.

  Sergeant Farrat, singed and soot-smudged, sat on the chimney hearth, slapping a blackened, withered branch up and down between his blistered patent leather shoes.

  ‘What happened?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘There’s been a fire.’ Sergeant Farrat slapped his twig up and down, up and down.

  ‘My school,’ sobbed Miss Dimm. They all started to cry, first slowly and quietly then increasing in volume. They groaned and rocked, bawled and howled, their faces red and screwed and their mouths agape, like terrified children lost in a crowd. They were homeless and heartbroken, gazing at the smouldering trail splayed like fingers on a black glove. It had burned north as far as the cemetery, then stopped at the town’s firebreak.

  ‘Well,’ said Lois, ‘we’ve all been down to Rufe and gave over our money for our insurance, haven’t we?’

  They began to calm, nodding, ‘Yes,’ wiping away their tears and rubbing their noses on their sleeves.

  Ruth looked horrified. ‘I gave it to Tilly for the soldiers’ costumes, remember?’

  The people of Dungatar gazed at Ruth. They stood numbly on the black hill, the air around them still and hot, wisps of smoke crawling up their stockings and filtering through their ribboned skirts, the charred wood planks of Tilly’s house behind them softly clicking and spatting. The sergeant started to giggle hysterically.

  ‘What will we do now?’ asked Fred.

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Scotty, and drank. The inspector reached for the bottle.

  ‘I can see Mum’s house from up here,’ said Mona and smiled slyly at her brother. He grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet. The people of Dungatar looked out over the ruined town to the homestead, standing whole and perfect, untouched on the slight rise in the distance, its corrugated roof shimmering red in the setting sun.