Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

‘Morning.’ She placed her hand on his shiny dome. He marked time with his feet until the ‘Stop’ signal from his brain made its way to them.

‘Good morning,’ he said, an elastic line of saliva settling between his shoes. Ruth placed a brown paper and string bundle under one stiff arm, inched him about-face and pushed at his shoulder blades with an index finger. He shuffled off again.

‘Stay on that middle line now.’

Outside the chemist shop a block away, Nancy stopped sweeping and waved to her friend. Reginald skipped into the chemist, beckoning Nancy to follow.

‘What can I do for you, Reg?’

Reg looked pained. ‘I need something for a … rash,’ he whispered.

‘Show me,’ said Nancy.

Reg grimaced, ‘It’s more like chafing, raw …’

‘Oh,’ said Nancy and nodded knowingly, ‘something soothing.’

‘Soothing,’ said Reg and watched her open Mr Al-manac’s fridge. ‘I’ll take two big jars,’ he said.

Muriel was rubbing a polishing cloth back and forth over the petrol bowsers in front of the shop when Beula Harridene marched up to her, red and bothered.

‘Hello Beula.’

‘That Myrtle Dunnage, or Tilly she calls herself now, went to the dance Saturday night.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘With that Teddy McSwiney.’

‘You don’t say?’ said Muriel.

‘You’ll never guess what she wore, or almost wore: a green tablecloth she bought from you. Just wound it about her. Didn’t hide a thing. Everybody was speechless with disgust. She’s up to no good again that one, worse than her mother.’

‘I dare say,’ said Muriel.

‘And guess who Gertrude was with, all night .’

‘Who?’

Just then William drove slowly past in his mother’s old black monstrosity. As they turned to watch he lifted two fingers on the steering wheel, inclined his hat and glided on.

Muriel looked at Beula and folded her arms. Beula nodded. ‘Mark my words Muriel, he’ll have her out behind the cemetery before you know it.’

• • •

Lois was on her knees, one grimy arm wrist deep in a bucket of warm soapy water, the floor around her wet and shiny. She was a squat woman with an adipose apron that bounced on her thighs when she walked. Her short grey hair featured a permanent cocky’s crest and scattered snowy flakes of sticky scalp all over her shoulders. She was sweating, salt water dripping from the end of her blood-rushed nose, yet she had washed just one square yard of Irma Almanac’s floor.

Irma was heading for her spot, her rusty knuckles working the wheels of her chair, her bones grating like chalk on a blackboard. As she inched towards the fire hearth, her axle squeaked.

‘Where’s your butter, Irmalove?’ said Lois.

Irma inclined with her blue eyes to the fridge. Lois attacked the sprockets and joins of the wheelchair with butter then shunted it back and forth, back and forth. Not a squeak, but Irma winced and her eyes grew watery.

‘Need some for your bones Irmalove?’

Irma watched Lois wipe away at her floor. She wished she had the strength to tell her to put the chairs up on the table and wash under it – that patch of floor hadn’t been washed since Lois had been hired to ‘clean’ the house years ago.

‘How was the dance?’ she asked.

‘Well. I’m not gossipin’ or anythink …’

‘No.’

‘… but that Myrtle Dunnage who calls herself Tilly these days, well she’s got a nerve I tell you, turned up wearing a very bold frock – obscene – and followed Teddy McSwiney around all night. It’s a bad lot it is, if you ask me. I’m not saying anythink just like I’m not saying anythink about Faif O’Brien and her goings on but that Tilly will cause more trouble, you just wait. Apparently young Gertrude Pratt and that William spent the whole night wif each other …’

‘Gertrude you say?’

‘… and Nancy tells me that Beula told her that she finks Gertrude’s getting married now. Can you imagine Elsbef?’

The morning sun shone on Sergeant Farrat’s back as he sat on his back porch, eating breakfast. He held the tip of a banana, steadying the curve against a plate and slit it down the centre, then dissected it at one-inch intervals. He put his knife down and carefully peeled back the skin using a dainty dessert fork, then popped a small half moon into his mouth and chewed quickly. He’d heard about the green dress and wondered if he could ask Tilly for an ostrich feather. He ate some toast and marmalade, then brushed the crumbs from his out-fit – a Rita Hayworth ensemble that he’d copied from a magazine picture of Rita’s marriage to Aly Khan. He’d given his hat a bigger brim – 18 inches – and edged it with pale blue net and white crepe paper roses. He sighed; it would have been perfect for the Spring race meeting.

Up on The Hill, Tilly was bent over her machine sewing a six-inch zipper to the bodice of a deep amethyst frock, her expert fingers guiding the cloth over the grinding needle plate. Molly came into the kitchen, and as she moved towards the back door swept the salt and pepper shakers, a vase of dried herbs and an incense burner from the bench with her walking stick. Tilly continued to sew. Outside, Molly steadied herself against the veranda post and watched a figure approaching: a young man swinging his arms high to counter a club foot enormously booted at the end of his withered leg. At the gate he removed his battered hat and stood hot-smelling and grinning widely, despite a face rashed with yellow-topped red spots. His mouth was small and he had too many teeth. His jacket was tight and his shorts loose.

‘Mrs Dunnage?’

‘I know,’ she said.

Barney’s smile dropped. ‘It’s me, Barney.’

‘Are we related?’

‘No.’

‘Thank heavens.’

‘I’d like to see Tilly, please.’

‘What on earth makes you think she’d like to see you?’

Barney blinked and swallowed. His face fell and he crushed his hat in his fists.

‘Hello Barney.’ Tilly stood behind Molly. She smiled at him.

‘Oh good,’ he said, then noticed she wore only a short vivid blue silk petticoat. He stepped from one foot to the other and back again, dipping sadly on his club foot.

‘Did Teddy send you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Barney …’ She came down the step towards him, and he stepped back. ‘Will you please go back and tell Teddy I said I didn’t want to go to the races with him and I meant it?’

‘Yeah, I know but I thought you might like to go with me. Please.’ He bobbed again, punching his hat.

As Molly opened her mouth Tilly turned and put her hand over it. ‘I don’t care if you kill yourself Molly, I’m not going,’ she said. Molly’s burned thighs still smarted in a warm bath. Tilly turned back to the crestfallen lad. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to go with you –’

‘Nonsense, it is. It’s because you’re a spastic,’ chirped Molly.

Tilly looked at the ground and counted to ten then she looked back into Barney’s hurt face, his small blue eyes brimming with tears. ‘If you’d care to step inside to wait while I hem my frock Barney? I’ll only keep you a minute.’ She turned back to her mother, ‘You’ll keep.’

‘I’ll hardly go rotten,’ she said, and smiled at Barney. ‘Come inside laddy, I’ll make you a cup of tea. Don’t let her make anything for you, she’s a sorceress. It must be a great nuisance dragging a club foot about with you – have you got a hump on your back too?’

Sergeant Farrat stood at the mirror, stripped to his new Alston high-waisted rubber reducing wrap-around girdle, styled ‘to inhibit the spare tyre while controlling the diaphragm’. He dressed carefully, then picked up his box brownie camera, admiring his slimmer reflection. He caught sight of Rita Hayworth’s ensemble flung across the bed behind him and frowned.