Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

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.

Beula Harridene leaned close to Lois. ‘She’s only been married eight months.’

When Evan got home that evening he found his nature strip ploughed, his front fence demolished, all the doors and windows open and an odd smell permeating the house. There was a large stain on the carpet and, in the middle of it, a pile of soiled towels. On top of the towels was a fly-blown lump of afterbirth, like liver in aspic. Marigold, fully clothed, was unconscious in bed.

Three women from Winyerp stood at Tilly’s gateposts, tiny flakes of ash from the burning tip settling on their hats and shoulders. They were admiring the garden. The wisteria was in full bloom, the house dripping with pendulous, violet flower sprays. Thick threads of myrtle crept around the corner, through the wisteria and across the veranda, netting the boards with shiny green leaves and bright white flowers. Red, white and blue rhododendron trumpets sprang up against the walls and massive oleanders – cerise and crimson – stood at each corner of the house. Pink daphne bushes were dotted about and foxgloves waved like people saying farewell from a boat deck. Hydrangea, jasmine and delphinium clouded together around the tank stand and a tall carpet of lily of the valley marched out from the shade. French marigold bushes, squatting like sentries, marked the boundary where a fence once stood. The air was heavy, the garden’s sweet perfume mingling with the acrid smoke and the stink of burning rubbish. A vegetable garden faced south: shiny green and white spinach leaves creaked against each other in the breeze while fuzzy carrot-tops sided against straight, pale garlic stalks and onions, and bunches of rhubarb burst and tumbled against the privet hedge, which contained the garden entirely. Bunches of herb bushes lined the outside edge of the hedge.

Molly opened the door and called, ‘There’s a bunch of old stools from out at fart hill trespassing out here.’

Tilly arrived behind her, ‘Can I help you?’

‘Your garden …’ said an older woman. ‘Why, Spring isn’t even here.’

‘Almost,’ said Tilly. ‘The ash is very good and we get the sun up here.’

A pretty woman with a baby on her hip turned to look down at the Tip. ‘Why doesn’t the council do something about the fire?’

‘They’re trying to smoke us out,’ said Molly. ‘They won’t though, we’re used to being badly treated.’

‘What can I do for you?’ asked Tilly.

‘We were wondering if you were still seamstressing?’

‘We are,’ said Molly, ‘but it’ll cost you.’

Tilly smiled and put her hand over her mother’s mouth. ‘What would you like?’

‘Well, a christening gown …’

‘Some day wear …’

‘… and a new ball gown would be nice, if you’re … if it’s at all possible.’

Molly shoved Tilly’s hand away, pulling a measuring tape from within her blankets, and said, ‘Yes – now take your clothes off.’

Again Molly woke to the sound of pinking-shears crunching through material on the wooden table, and when she got to the kitchen she found no porridge waiting, only Tilly bent over her sewing machine. On the floor about her feet lay scraps and off-cuts from satin velour au sabre, wool crepe and bouclé, silk faille, shot pink and green silk taffeta, all perfect to decorate her chair with. The small house buzzed with the dull whirr and thudding of the Singer and the scissors rattled on the table when Tilly let them go.

Late one afternoon Molly sat on the veranda watching the sun draw in its last rays. A mere breath after the last tentacle of light had been pulled below the horizon, a skinny woman marched up The Hill towards her hauling two suitcases. Molly scrutinised the severe woman’s widow’s peak, the mole above her dark lipstick. Ash settled on the tips of the pin-point nipples pressing against her sweater and the pencil-line skirt she wore stretched over her hip bones. Finally she spoke. ‘Is Tilly here?’

‘Know Tilly do you?’

‘Not really.’

‘Heard about her though?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Figures.’ Molly turned her wheelchair to the screen door. ‘Tilly – Gloria Swanson has come to stay,’ she called.

Una’s hand went to her throat and she looked afraid. The veranda light flicked on.

‘We saw Sunset Boulevard earlier this year,’ said Tilly from behind the screen door. She had a tea towel flung over her shoulder and a vegetable masher in her hands.

‘I’m Una Pleasance,’ said the woman.

Tilly said nothing.

‘I’m the –’

‘Yes,’ said Tilly.

‘I’ll get to the point. I’m afraid I’m rather inundated and need some sewing done for me.’

‘Sewing?’

Una paused. ‘Mending mostly, hems, zips, darts to alter. It’s all very simple.’

‘Well then I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake,’ said Tilly. ‘I’m a qualified tailoress and dressmaker. You just need someone handy with a needle and thread.’ She closed the door.

‘I’ll pay you,’ called Una.

But Tilly was gone and Una was left on the veranda in the yellow light with a few moths and the sound of night-crickets chirping and frogs croaking.

‘Oh,’ said Molly, beaming up at her, ‘that’s very good, it worked very well in the film too, the way you open your eyes, bare your teeth and curl your top lip like that. It suits you.’

• • •

Mrs Flynt from Winyerp stood in front of Tilly’s mirror admiring her new outfit – a white silk satin jumpsuit with flock printed roses. ‘It’s so … so … it’s marvellous,’ she said, ‘just marvellous. I bet noone else is game to wear one of these.’

‘It suits you,’ said Tilly. ‘I hear there’s to be a concert?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Flynt, ‘poetry and recitals. Mrs Beaumont has been teaching elocution – wants to show off. She’s determined to beat us at bridge as well.’

‘Nothing like a bit of one-upmanship,’ said Tilly. ‘You should challenge her to a bit of singing and dancing as well.’

‘We’re not much good at either, I’m afraid.’

‘What about a play then? – best actress, best set design, best costume …’ suggested Tilly.

Mrs Flynt’s face lit up. ‘A play.’ She opened her purse to pay.

Tilly handed her the bill. ‘Plays are such fun to put on. They bring out the best and worst in people, don’t you think?’

• • •

Purl was being a good barmaid. She patted William’s wrist.

‘It’s horrible,’ said William. ‘I didn’t know it would be like this. She smells like stale milk and there’s pink, crusty secretions all over the bed, the baby’s all floppy and gooey, I feel so … alone. I wanted a boy.’