Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

‘Congrats + Good Luck from all us X X X’.

‘Oh Maestro,’ said Mona, ‘I’ll be back in one moment.’ She grabbed her suitcase and disappeared next door into the bathroom. Lesley ran to the men’s, leaned over the toilet bowl and started dry retching. He returned eventually, sweaty-palmed and ashen to the Grand Suite where Mona reclined nervously on the chenille bedspread in her new negligee.

Lesley was overcome. ‘Ohmygod, Mona.’ He took her hands and pulled her up then stood back and walked around her twice. Then he rustled into her fine silk peignoir up to his elbows and said, ‘Mona it’s just GOR-gess!’ He opened the wine, filled their glasses and they twined arms and sipped. Mona flushed.

‘I don’t think I’ll have too much wine … darling.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Les and pecked her cheek. ‘You’ll do as you’re told you naughty wife or I’ll make you whip me with your riding crop.’ They squealed and clinked their glasses.

Halfway through the first bottle Lesley produced another from his suitcase and plunged it into the ice. Halfway through the second bottle Mona passed out so Lesley finished the last of the champagne, wrapped folds of his wife’s peignoir about his neck and shoulders, popped his thumb in his mouth and slept, nuzzling deep in silk folds which were tinted with fragrance of lily-of-the-valley.

Mona woke feeling headachy. The first thing she saw was her new husband posing in the window – dressed, spruced and ready to catch the train home. Mona’s heart was sluggish, saturated with hurt, her chin quivered and a sad lump as big as a quince stuck at her tonsils. She could hardly swallow. Not even so much as a cuddle.

‘Come now wife,’ smiled Les, ‘there’s a nice hot cuppa waiting for us downstairs.’

Back at Windswept Crest Trudy showed her her old room – it was a nursery now – then her mother handed her a cheque.

‘Mother …’ Mona’s face lifted.

‘It’s not a gift, it’s your inheritance. I’ve been to a great deal of trouble for it. As you can see it’s made out to Alvin Pratt Real Estate, a deposit for that vacant cottage in town.’ She turned on her heel and as she passed through the stable doorway she called behind her, ‘You’re Lesley’s responsibility now.’

That afternoon Mr and Mrs Lesley Muncan moved to the workman’s cottage between Evan and Marigold Pettyman’s orderly house and Alvin and Muriel Pratt’s comfortable weatherboard.

• • •

Faith cut out letters from a Women’s Weekly and painstakingly pasted them together on pink cardboard to make up the words, then she drew balloons and streamers weaving through the letters and sprinkled glitter on Clag. She cut out a bell from a Christmas card and pasted it on an angle next to the word ‘Bell’.

Come one come all

start the football season dancing

Dungatar Social Club Ball

Featuring the new music of the new

‘Faithful O’Briens’,

AND

BELL OF THE BALL

Bookings – Bobby or Faith.

Hamish was waving the afternoon train in as Faith glanced over on her way to Pratts. When the train had stopped he assisted a strange woman to step down from the carriage onto the platform. She looked around anxiously before asking, ‘When is the next train out?’

‘Day after tomorrow, 9:30 sharp, it’ll be a D Class Steamer –’

‘Is there a bus?’

Hamish put his hands behind his back and crossed his fingers. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said and stepped away.

Hamish pointed at Edward McSwiney waiting at the doorway with his cart, ‘Ye can catch a ride to the hotel with our cab there,’ he said. The woman placed a gloved finger under her nose and pointed to her pigskin suitcases standing on the platform between the mailbags and the crated chickens. Hamish handed them up to Edward and the stranger picked up her attache case and walked cautiously around Graham, giving him a very wide berth. She picked her way along the broken cement footpaths in her alligator skin court shoes, and at last stood in the foyer of the Station Hotel, removing her sunglasses and gloves, and clearing her throat. Fred looked up from his paper and searched the bar. She cleared her throat again and Fred wandered through to the residential entrance. He considered her over the rim of his bifocals: the dusty slippers, skinny but shapely calves, the pencil line skirt and tent jacket which she removed to reveal a white shirt tailored entirely of broderie anglaise. He could see her underwear.

‘Are you lost?’

‘I’d like a room for two nights please … with a bath.’ She held out her coat to him. Fred put down his form guide, folded the coat over his arm and smiled graciously. ‘Certainly madam, you may have the room next to the bathroom. It’s a share bathroom but you’re the only customer along with Mr Pullit and he hasn’t bathed in nine years, so it’s all yours. It’s a nice room, west-facing windows which will give you a view to the setting sun, a featured hilltop cottage and sweeping vista beyond.’

Edward came through the front door and placed her suitcases gently at her knees. ‘Thank you,’ she said and smiled faintly at him, then looked back at Fred, who bowed, took up her cases and led her upstairs. She inspected the room, opened the cupboard doors, sat on the bed, lifted a pillow to check the linen and then looked at herself in the mirror.

‘Travelling far?’ asked Fred.

‘I thought a night or two in the country would be refreshing.’ She looked at Fred. ‘That is what I thought anyway.’

‘Will you be eating this evening?’

‘That depends,’ she said and wandered out onto the balcony.

Fred told her that if she needed anything just to yell out, and rushed downstairs to find Purly.

The stranger sat in the afternoon sun. She lit a cigarette and inhaled, then glanced down at the people in the main street, noticed their dresses and stopped, agape. The women of Dungatar dressed astonishingly well, strolling from the library to the chemist and back again in luxurious frocks, showing flair in pant suits made from synthetic fabric, relaxing in the park in sun frocks with asymmetric necklines common to European couture. She went downstairs to the Ladies Lounge and found a group chatting at a table, drinking lemon squash and wearing Balenciaga copies with astrakhan trims. She peeped out the residential entrance door and studied a group of women holding common cane baskets, reading something in the general store’s window. A fat woman with unsightly hair wore a streamlined, waistless wool crepe, princess-cut frock with a standaway collar and magyar sleeves, which hung like cold honey and flattered her fridge-like form. A small, pointy woman wore a soft pink suit, double-breasted and wide-collared with revers and purple trim, all of which softened her leather-like complexion. Next to her, leaning on a broom, a girl with a boyish figure wore a design she was sure had not yet even been invented. It was a fine black wool dress with a shallow boat-shaped neckline and short sleeves. The bodice bloused gently into a wide, black calfskin belt with a huge black buckle. The skirt was narrow and knee length! There was a blonde showing great panache in satin-velour pedal-pushers, a shopkeeper in a smart faille tunic suit, and a small, taut woman in silk capri pants and a very chic sleeveless paletot. The stranger went back to her room to smoke her cigarettes. She wondered how Paris had found its way to the dilapidated confines and neglected torsos of banal housewives in a rural province.

‘Faith’s done a good job with the notice,’ declared Ruth.

They all nodded.

‘Very artistic,’ said Marigold.

‘Doesn’t say how much it costs,’ sniped Beula.

‘It’s always the same,’ said Lois.