Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

She held the button jar against her grey post office shirt and dropped it into her jacket pocket, then carried the Milo tin to her cupboard to hide it.

• • •

They arrived at the base of The Hill, tired and laden. Molly carried on her lap a pile of groceries, a curtain rod and some material from Pratts. Tilly stood fanning herself with her straw hat. A large, piebald half-draft loped from around the corner dragging a four-wheeled flat-bed cart and Teddy McSwiney perched on the corner, the reins looped loosely over his fists. ‘Whoa-boy,’ he said. The horse stopped beside Tilly and Molly. It sniffed at Tilly’s hat, then sighed.

‘Want a lift?’ said Teddy.

‘No thank you,’ said Tilly.

Teddy hopped down from the cart and swept Molly Dunnage from her chariot, bundles and all. He placed her neatly on the trailer in prime position.

‘This cart’s got the shit of Dungatar spilt all over it,’ said Molly. Teddy pushed back his hat and heaved the wheelchair up onto the cart. He grinned at Tilly and slapped the boards behind Molly. She looked at his flat man’s hand, resting in a dusty brown smear.

‘Leg up?’ he said.

Tilly turned to walk up The Hill.

‘Safer for Molly if you ride with her.’

‘It’d suit her if I fell off,’ said Molly.

Teddy leaned in close to Molly and said, ‘I’m not surprised.’ Tilly placed two hands behind her on the cart and heaved her neat bottom onto the boards beside her mother. Teddy clicked and lightly flipped the reins over the horse’s back. They lurched forward, Molly’s eyes fixed on the warm round equine rump folding and bobbing two feet from her sensible lace-ups. The horse lifted and swished its tail, whipping at hovering flies, the fine sharp strands of tail hair prickling her shins. He smelled delicious, like hot grass and greasy sweat.

Teddy flicked the reins again. ‘We won the grand final, did you hear?’

‘Yes,’ said Tilly.

‘What’s the horse’s name?’ said Molly.

‘Graham.’

‘Ridiculous.’

They rolled resolutely up, sunshine on their faces and the smell of horse and night cart pungent. Graham stopped at the gatepost in front of the tilted brown house. Tilly headed for the clothes line and Teddy scooped up Molly again and bore her to the front veranda. She put her arms around his neck and fluttered her sparse, grey eyelashes at him. ‘I’ve got a packet of Iced Vo Vos – care for a cuppa?’

‘How could I resist?’

They sat in silence in the kitchen, the Vo Vos pink and neat on Molly’s best plate.

Molly poured the spilt tea from her saucer into her cup. ‘I like normal tea. Don’t you?’

Teddy looked into his cup. ‘Normal tea?’

‘She made normal tea for you – she makes me drink tea made from grass and roots. Have another bicky.’

‘No thanks Molly, better leave some for Tilly.’

‘Oh she won’t eat them. She eats birdseed and fruit and other things she has sent from the city. She gets things from overseas too, from places I’ve never heard of. She mixes things up – potions – says they’re herbs, “remedial”, and she pretends to be an arty type, so why would she want to stay here?’

‘Arty types need space to create.’ He drained his tea, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and leaned back.

‘You’re just trying to sound as if you understand her.’

‘Girls like her need a bloke like me about.’

Molly shook her head, ‘I don’t want her. She used to think I was her mother but I said to her, “Any mother of yours could only live in a coven,”’ then she took her teeth out and put them on her saucer. Tilly came inside and dumped a pile of stiff linen on the table between the conspirators. It smelled of dry sunshine. Molly lifted her teeth to Tilly, ‘Rinse those for me,’ she said and looked apologetically at Teddy, ‘It’s the coconut see.’ Tilly ran her mother’s teeth under the tap.

‘Do they still have those dances here Saturday nights?’ lisped Molly innocently. Tilly placed the dentures on the saucer in front of her, then began folding, snapping pillowcases and towels dangerously close to Teddy’s left ear.

Teddy leaned forward, ‘Footballers’ dance this Saturday, we won the grand final –’

‘Oh, how lovely.’ Molly smiled sweetly at Tilly. Then she looked at Teddy, raised her eyebrows and mouthed a gummy, ‘Take her.’

‘The O’Brien Brothers provide the music.’ He looked to Tilly who continued folding and smoothing the hard cotton into square piles.

‘I hear the O’Brien Brothers are rather good,’ said Molly.

‘Bonza,’ said Teddy, ‘Hamish O’Brien on drums, Reggie Blood on fiddle, Big Bobby Pickett plays electric guitar and Faith O’Brien tickles the ivories and sings. Vaughan Monroe and the like.’

‘Very flash,’ said Molly.

Tilly folded, slap fhutt fhutt slap.

‘How about it Til? Fancy a spin around a polished floor with the handsomest born dancer in town?’

She looked straight into his twinkling blue eyes. ‘I’d love it, if there were such a person.’

• • •

Nancy settled on the couch beside the exchange with the eiderdown and pillows. Ruth brought the steaming cup of brown liquid to her. They sniffed it, held it and looked at it.

‘It’s not Milo,’ said Nancy.

‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘Prudence says she must be a herbalist. She read it in a book.’

‘I’ve got salts from Mr A’s fridge in case we’re sick.’ Nancy patted her shirt pocket. ‘You go first.’

‘Nothing happened when we ate the green, weedy stuff.’

‘Slept like babies,’ said Nancy.

Ruth looked at the brown drink. ‘Come on, we’ll drink together.’

They sipped, screwed up their noses. ‘We’ll just have half,’ said Ruth, ‘see if anything happens.’

They sat wide-eyed and waiting. ‘Anything happening to you?’ said Nancy.

‘Nothing.’

‘Me neither.’

They woke to rapping at the back door. Ruth looked about, touched herself. She was all right, still alive. She went to the door. ‘Who is it?’

‘Tilly Dunnage.’

Ruth opened the door an inch. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve lost something, or rather, I never actually got it.’

Ruth’s eyes widened. Behind her Nancy crept to stand behind the door.

‘It was powder,’ said Tilly, ‘brownish powder.’

Ruth shook her head, ‘We haven’t seen it, don’t know anything about a tin of powder at all.’

‘I see,’ said Tilly. Ruth’s lips were brown.

Ruth frowned. ‘What sort of powder was it?’

‘It wasn’t important.’ Tilly walked away.

‘Not poison or anything?’

‘It was fertiliser for my plants,’ replied Tilly, ‘South American Vampire bat dung – the best, because of the blood they suck.’

‘Oh,’ said Ruth.

As Tilly left (wondering where she could get some more henna) she could hear retching and feet scurrying about inside. The bathroom light flicked on.

As Tilly was strolling towards Pratts she met Mae at the library corner. Mae was on her way home with pegs and milk.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘Morning,’ said Mae and kept walking. Tilly turned to the big red flowers hurrying away and called, ‘Thank you for looking out for Molly.’

Mae stopped and turned. ‘I didn’t do anything, thought that was obvious.’

‘You hid the fact that she was …’ Tilly couldn’t bring herself to say the words lunatic or mad because that’s what they had used to call Barney. Once some people had come to the school to take him away and lock him up, but Margaret had run and gotten Mae. Someone was always with Barney, even now.

‘It’s better to keep to yourself around here, you should know,’ said Mae and walked back to Tilly. ‘Nothing ever really changes, Myrtle.’ She strode away again, leaving Tilly stunned and sobered.