Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

Lesley and Mona arrived. Mona looked crisp and summery in a lemon Nankeen sun dress with a cross-over top and pegged skirt – one of Tilly’s.

The socialites sat on the new leather lounge suite chatting as Lois came through the door pushing a tea trolley, the cups and spoons rattling. ‘Thank you,’ said Elsbeth in her most dismissive voice, but Lois remained. ‘Hello,’ she said, smiling and nodding at the visitors. ‘My, don’t you look lovely in your smart outfits?’

‘Thank you,’ chorused the ladies.

‘I’ve got a new frock myself!’ she said beaming, nodding to Una, ‘our town dressmaker made it for me.’

Lois held her arms away from her sides and turned slowly, saying, ‘I’ll just fetch the semmiches, cucumber they are, real thin.’ As she walked across to the kitchen the accordion pleats rose and dropped on her cliff hips and because the hem rose alarmingly in the centre, the ladies glimpsed the bulge where her step-ins ended and the flesh behind her knees quivering like a baby’s bottom.

Una paled and Elsbeth excused herself, following Lois to the kitchen. A short time later the back door slammed and Elsbeth returned to calmly discuss the program for the concert.

‘We have an idea,’ said Mrs Flynt.

Elsbeth blinked at them. ‘An idea?’

‘An eisteddfod,’ said Mrs Flynt, ‘a DRAMA eisteddfod. That’ll test your elocution, and everything else, won’t it?’

Elsbeth stiffened. Trudy looked afraid.

‘What’s an eisteddfod?’ asked Mona.

‘I’ll explain, shall I?’ said Mrs Flynt, graciously.

‘If you would,’ said Muriel.

It was agreed the Winyerp hall was the most suitable venue. Trophies would be awarded to best actor, best actress, best play and best costumes … Elsbeth’s hand went nervously to her marcasite brooch and Trudy cleared her throat.

Muriel said, ‘I guess we’ll get Una to make ours –’

Mrs Flynt from Itheca slapped her knee and cried, ‘Splendid, because we want your Tilly.’

‘No!’ said Trudy and stood up. Her hem caught in the heel of her sandals and her full skirt peeled away from her waist like greased paper from a warm cake, exposing her off-white nylon slip. ‘She’s ours. I’ve spoken to Myrtle Dunnage, this morning in fact,’ she lied.

‘You could ask her to fix your skirt then,’ said Mrs Flynt. ‘They just aren’t made the way they used to be, are they?’

Hamish slid the one-way ticket across the slippery leather counter to ‘Miss Unpleasant’, as Faith called her. Miss Unpleasant picked up the ticket with her fingernails, turned wordlessly away and went to the end of the platform to look down the tracks towards the setting sun, her suitcases about her knees.

The station master approached the Beaumonts. He checked his watch, twisted the ends of his moustache and said, ‘It’s a steamer t’night, R class, type 4-6-4. A “Hudson” it’s called, running to time o’course. It’ll be a grand trip.’

‘Yes,’ said William, and bounced on the balls of his feet. Hamish ambled down the track towards the signal levers. William wandered down to Una and said, ‘It’s a steamer, an R class, a “Hudson”, on time as well. You should have a pleasant journey.’ He puffed on his pipe and wandered back to his family.

Hamish moved back to the edge of the platform and held out his flag, the whistle between his teeth.

A tear welled and slid down Una’s cheek to plop between the dots on the rayon scarf tied at her throat.

• • •

Evan Pettyman stood over his wife’s bed and carefully poured thick syrup tonic into a teaspoon.

‘I think I need two spoonfuls tonight, Evan,’ said Marigold.

‘Will two be enough do you think, dearest? Mr Almanac said you could have as much as you needed remember?’

‘Yes Evan,’ said Marigold. He poured her another spoonful then fluffed her pillows, adjusted the photo of Stewart and tucked the bedclothes in. Marigold folded her hands across her ribs and closed her eyes.

‘Marigold, I have to go to Melbourne soon, just for a few days,’ said Evan.

‘Why?’

‘Shire business, very important.’

‘I’ll be alone in the evenings –’

‘I’ll ask Nancy to call.’

‘I don’t like her.’

‘I’ll get Sergeant Farrat to call, or someone …’

‘You’re so important, Evan,’ she muttered. Soon her mouth fell open and her breath came evenly, so Evan left her. He closed himself in his office and took a photograph of Una from his locked safety box and propped it on his desk, then leaned back in his leather chair, loosened the tie on his pyjama pants and reached in.

Tilly was dreaming. Pablo came and sat above her bed in his nappy, the down on his perfect round head haloed in the light. He looked at his mother and laughed, wet-mouthed, showing two short round teeth. He flapped his cushion-arms and Tilly reached for him, but he hugged his pale round tummy and looked serious. He frowned, puzzled. It was the same expression he had worn the day he heard the new sound-– the fluid chocolate noise of a street busker’s oboe. He had been perched on her hip when he turned his clear blue eyes to hers with a look of wonderment and touched his ear where the sound had caught the side of his head. His mother had pointed to the oboe and he understood and clapped.

Tilly held her arms out to him again but he shook his head – no – and her singing heart fell flat.

‘I have something to tell you,’ he said in an old voice.

‘What?’

He faded – she cried out but he was moving away too quickly. Baby Pablo looked down at her and said, ‘Mother.’

It was daylight, the sun shining on her through the window, so she got up and went to find her mother. Molly sat upright in her wheelchair by the stove, dressed, her hair brushed. She’d re-kindled the fire and was gently pulling the fibre threads and material strips from the armrests of her chair and throwing them into the flames. The hard dirt-shiny cushions that were usually stuffed about her thighs and back were gone. In the flames old boiled eggs, serviettes wound tight in lumps and chicken legs caught the golden flames and melted to embers. Molly ceased working and looked up at her daughter. ‘Good morning, Myrtle,’ she said in a soft voice. Tilly paused with the kettle at the stove to look down at her mother, amazed. She picked some lemon grass and was standing watching the lemon bits float about on the hot water in her cup when Molly spoke again. ‘I had a dream last night,’ she said, ‘about a baby. A bonny, round baby with dimples in his knees and elbows, and two perfect teeth.’ The old lady looked closely at Tilly. ‘It was your baby.’

Tilly turned away.

‘I lost a baby too,’ said Molly, ‘I lost my little girl.’

Tilly sat down in Teddy’s chair and looked at her mother. ‘I was working in Paris,’ she said haltingly, ‘I had my own shop and lots of clients and friends, a boyfriend, my partner – his name was Ormond, he was English. We had a baby, my baby, a boy we called Pablo, just because we liked the name. We were going to bring him here then take you back with us, but when Pablo was seven months old I found him one morning in his cot … dead.’ Tilly stopped and took a long deep breath. She had only ever told this story once, to Teddy.

‘He died, he just died. Ormond didn’t understand, he blamed me and couldn’t forgive me – but the doctors said it must have been a virus, although he hadn’t been sick. Ormond left me so I had to come home – I had nothing anymore, it all seemed so pointless and cruel. I decided I could at least help my mother.’ She stopped again and sipped her tea. ‘I realised I still had something here. I thought I could live back here, I thought that here I could do no more harm and so I would do good.’ She looked at the flames. ‘It isn’t fair.’