Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

‘We’ll bring the matter up at the next meeting,’ said the treasurer, lamely.

‘Well, that’s settled then,’ said Elsbeth, wiping her hands down her skirt and starting off down The Hill.

‘I won’t start until I’ve been paid the outstanding accounts and I want cash up front. Otherwise I’ll offer to take on Itheca and Winyerp’s costumes instead. They always pay me.’

Elsbeth and Trudy looked to Muriel, who looked back at them evenly. ‘He’ll never lend it to us,’ she said.

‘Mother!’ said Trudy and stepped up to the treasurer, and poked at her nose, ‘You have to ask father.’ Alvin had ceased extending credit to his daughter and her family again, charging only food to the Windswept Crest account – they even had to do without soap.

Muriel folded her arms. ‘No one’s paid Alvin either, he’s got accounts go back ten years. We can’t feed everyone for nothing forever,’ she said haughtily and glared at Elsbeth. Elsbeth and Trudy looked accusingly at each other.

‘Well,’ said Elsbeth, ‘William will just have to wait another year for his new tractor.’

‘He can play Macbeth!’ said Trudy.

‘Yes!’ they said and the committee moved as one towards the gatepost.

As she watched the women waddle off down The Hill, Tilly smiled.

• • •

Tilly rose early and dressed for gardening, then attacked the French marigold bushes, cutting the branches from the thick stem and carrying the bundles inside. She selected a big bunch of flowering heads and put them in a vase of water, then she stripped the remaining stalks of leaves and flowers, chopped them roughly, and threw them all into a huge pot of boiling water. The kitchen filled with steam, boiled wood and a sweet burned scent. When the marigold water cooled she bottled it. That night she packed a bag and headed for the shire offices.

Two mornings later Evan woke depressed and moody. He checked his comatose wife in her cot, then lay down and conjured lewd images of Una, but the only thing he felt was an uneasy numbness-– a faint plegia contaminating his limbs and appendages. He stood up and looked down at his penis, hanging like a strip of wet chamois. ‘I’m just anxious,’ he said and started packing.

Mid-morning Evan threw his Gladstone bag onto the back seat and ducked down behind the wheel of his Wolseley. The curtains on all the neighbours’ windows fell back into place. He set off for Melbourne, eager for Una.

Tilly’s stomach lurched but she stayed, and when Marigold answered the door she handed her a bunch of French marigolds.

Marigold’s hand flew to cover her rash. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve brought flowers,’ she said and swept into the Pettymans’ house.

Marigold sneezed and said, ‘How unusual.’

‘Tagetes patula ,’ said Tilly. ‘They deter white fly from tomato plants, and they’re good for repelling eelworm in roses and potatoes as well. The roots have a component that deadens the detector that triggers eelworm release – numbs it completely,’ said Tilly.

Marigold looked at Tilly’s feet. ‘You should have taken your shoes off.’

Tilly sat down in the lounge room. Marigold studied her features; a fine looking girl with a pale complexion, Evan’s complexion, but Mad Molly’s thick hair and full mouth. ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ she said.

‘No you’re not,’ said Tilly.

Marigold’s eyes bulged and the tendons in her neck rose like a warring lizards, ‘Evan sent a wreath!’

‘The very least he could do,’ said Tilly. ‘Shall I find a vase?’

Marigold grabbed the flowers and rushed out to the kitchen holding them at arm’s length. They were dropping pollen on the carpet. ‘What do you want?’ she called again.

‘Nothing – just visiting.’ She picked up a photograph of Stewart on the table beside her and was studying it when Marigold returned and sat down opposite. ‘It’s all very hazy now, but you left I seem to remember, because your mother became unwell?’

‘Not quite in that order, however –’

‘Where did you learn to sew?’ Marigold fiddled with the button of her dressing gown.

‘Lots of places.’

‘Like where?’ Marigold’s eyes darted across Tilly’s face, searching.

‘I returned to Dungatar from Paris but before that I was in Spain and before that in Melbourne, at a clothing factory. While I was at school in Melbourne I took sewing classes. It wasn’t a very good school, my benefactor –’

‘Who was your benefactor, your father?’ Marigold was tugging at the button at her collar now and the veins on her temples pulsed.

‘He’ll be paid back,’ said Tilly.

‘I had quite a bit of money put aside for Stewart’s education,’ Marigold said and looked out the window, ‘but it’s all gone.’ The button popped off into her fingers.

Tilly continued, ‘Apprentices don’t get paid much but I managed to travel and keep on with my learning so –’

‘Well,’ said Marigold, ‘no one was ever displeased with anything you made for them here, not like that Una …’ She slapped her hands over her mouth, ‘Don’t tell Elsbeth I said that!’

‘Never,’ said Tilly. ‘Would you like me to make you a new frock for the eisteddfod?’

‘Yes!’ she said and sat forward. ‘I’d like something special, very special. Better than everyone else. I won Belle of the Ball you know. Do you want a cup of tea?’ Marigold flitted into the kitchen, returning a short time later with an afternoon tea tray.

‘There’s one thing I’m going to say. I know you didn’t mean to murder that boy,’ she sipped her tea and Tilly’s stomach twisted, ‘that Teddy McSwiney, but I know how Mae felt. You see, my son fell out of a tree and died. Landed on his head.’

Marigold showed Tilly all her photograph albums – Evan and Stewart when Stewart was three weeks old, Marigold and her parents before they died, the house before the front fence was built, and there was even one of Tilly in a school photo, with Stewart. Marigold glanced at Tilly and said, ‘Where did your mother come from?’

Tilly looked directly at Marigold and said, ‘Would you like to hear the whole story?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would.’

Tilly took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘Molly was an only child and still unmarried, quite late in life for the times. She was very innocent, and easily swept off her feet by an ambitious, conniving and charm-wielding man. The man wasn’t very successful at anything, but told everyone he was. Her good Christian parents believed him with all the might of their open hearts and closed imaginations, and they let her go on a walk with him. The charming man was very persuasive. She found herself in a position where her parents would be deeply hurt and embarrassed unless she married quickly –’

‘I know this story!’ said Marigold, her voice shrill.

‘I know you do,’ said Tilly.

• • •

Evan lay on his back with the bed sheets pulled up to his chin. Around his knees the sheets humped, buckled and bulged, then Una emerged from under them and fell on his shoulder, breathless, red faced and moist. She lifted the sheet and looked down at Evan’s squishy, orange, wet conger lolling on his thigh. She giggled. Evan began to cry.

He arrived home early, undressed on the back sleep-out and headed for the bathroom. His wife sat calmly by the radiogram, knitting. ‘Hello Evan,’ she said softly, ‘how were things in Melbourne?’

‘Oh,’ he said absently, ‘a little disappointing.’ He was sitting on the toilet with a wad of crumpled Sorbent wrapped around his right hand when the door kicked open. Marigold leaned casually on the door jamb, still knitting. ‘You’ve been in here a long time, Evan.’