Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

‘I’m sick. There’s something wrong with me,’ he said.

‘I used to be sick Evan, you used to make me sick, but Tilly Dunnage has cured me.’

‘What?’

She sighed. ‘You’ve had a lot of affairs haven’t you Evan?’

‘She’s mad, we can have her committed –’

‘She’s not mad Evan. She’s your daughter.’ She smiled down at him and said very sweetly in a baby voice, ‘Poor Evan is miserable and I know why and I think she’s a clever, clever girl, that Tilly.’

Evan stood up and closed the door but Marigold kicked it open again, ‘It’s in your electric jug, at the office-– poison, so you can’t do those things you used to do to me at night anymore, can you Evan?’ She walked away, chuckling softly.

He followed her to her immaculate kitchen where she stood gazing at a speck of fly shit on her otherwise spotless windowpane.

‘She murdered Stewart, did you know? Your new friend –’

‘You mean Tilly, your daughter, murdered your son?’ Marigold turned and looked at Evan, ‘Your son the bully. The fat, freckled, rude and smelly little boy who elbowed me when he passed, spied on me in the shower and assaulted little girls. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have had to marry you, I may have woken up to you.’ She shuddered.

‘Why don’t you fall down Marigold, faint, have one of your headache fits – you’re insane.’

‘You stole all my money!’

‘You’re unstable, drug dependent and neurotic, the doctor knows all about you!’

‘Certifiable,’ she said peacefully. ‘Beula says it’s nice in there.’ She sighed and fell gently to her knees. Evan looked down at her. He caught a flash of light as she reached behind his ankles and slid the razor-sharp carving knife across his calcanean tendons. They tore and snapped, making a sound like a wooden tool-box lid slamming shut. Evan hit the linoleum, trumpeting like a tortured elephant as his Achilles tendons shrunk to coil like snuggled slugs in the capsular ligaments behind his knee joints.

‘This is very wrong Marigold,’ he cried.

Marigold looked at Evan twitching, smearing a red puddle across her polished linoleum. ‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure for many years,’ she said, ‘everyone knows that, and they know all about Una Pleasance. They’d understand completely. But that doesn’t matter.’ She stood spread-legged over him and wiped the knife on her apron, then dropped it in the drawer.

‘Please,’ cried Evan. ‘Marigold, I’ll bleed to death.’

‘Eventually,’ she said and wrenched the telephone from the wall.

‘Marigold!’ he screamed.

She closed the door behind her and Evan was left in agony on the floor, his shins like loose thread at the ends of his knees and the door knob unreachable.

‘Marigold, please?’ he squealed, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am,’ she said. She sat on her bed and poured the whole bottle of her sleeping tonic into a jug, topped it up with sherry, stirred it, closed her eyes and drank.

The galah called ‘Wallopers’ as quick steps crossed Tilly’s veranda. The back door burst open and a haystack-size bundle of brilliant coloured frocks, feather boas, hats, shawls, scarves, satins and sequins, cotton, chiffon, blue gingham and matador brocade – the contents of Sergeant Farrat’s secret wardrobe – stood rustling in her kitchen. Tilly looked down at the sergeant’s navy pants and shiny shoes. ‘The district inspector’s coming to stay with me,’ he said and rushed out to Tilly’s front room. He dumped his load and rushed outside again, then came back and put his photo albums, some wall paintings, his gramophone and record collection on her table. ‘He might think I’m queer,’ he said but stopped at the table to rub some cloth he’d never seen between his fingers and thumb. ‘Silk or Peau de soie?’ he asked.

‘What exactly is the district inspector going to do?’ asked Tilly.

‘First Teddy, then Molly, then Beula’s incident and Mr Almanac, but it was my report on the Pettymans that sparked his interest. Committing Marigold was bad enough, but Evan – the things we found in that house! Drugs … pornographic books, even blue films. And he was an embezzler!’ Sergeant Farrat rushed out to his car for another load.

‘I’d like to meet the inspector,’ said Tilly.

‘Why?’

Tilly shrugged, ‘Just to see if he’s … smart.’

‘Not in the least. He wears brown suits – and I’m sure they’re made from slub.’

She fell asleep in the empty, busted armchair and dreamed of her round soft babe suckling at her breast, and of Molly when Molly was her mother, young and smiling, strawberry blonde and walking down The Hill to greet her after school. She was there with Teddy again on top of the silo, on top of the world. She saw his face, his mischievous grin in the moonlight. His arms stretched up to her and he said, ‘Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey, And glutton-like she feeds …’

Then her round soft babe was still and blue and wrapped in cotton-flannel and Molly, pained and cold in her rain-soaked coffin turned stiffly to her, and Teddy, sorghum-coated and gaping, clawing, a chocolate seed-dipped cadaver. Evan and Percival Almanac stood shaking their fingers at her and behind them the citizens of Dungatar crawled up The Hill in the dark, armed with firewood and flames, stakes and chains, but she just walked out to her veranda and smiled down at them and they turned and fled.

• • •

A fart drummed through Sergeant Farrat’s station, then a loud yawn. The district inspector was still in bed, in the cell. He was a scruffy middle-aged man with slovenly habits and very bad manners. At dinner time, Sergeant Farrat moved close to the wireless and turned the volume up so that he could eat his meal without retching, because the district inspector propelled his dentures about his mouth with his tongue, to suck out remaining food particles. He used his sleeve as a serviette and did not swish out the hand basin after shaving, he left drips on the floor after using the toilet, he never switched off lights or taps, and when Sergeant Farrat asked if he needed clothes washed – ‘since I’m just about to do a load myself,’ – the inspector lifted his arm, sniffed and said, ‘Narrr.’

The district inspector – ‘call me Frank’ – talked a lot. ‘I’ve seen a lot of action – been shot at three times. Had to leave my wife – broke her heart – but it was to keep her out of strife. Freed me up to solve a heap of unsolvable crimes – single handedly – caught a bunch of fugitives in me time, they’d done the crime, I made them pay the fine. Wasn’t fair on the cheese-and-kisses at all, the danger of it all. You understand, don’t you Horatio?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the sergeant, ‘that would explain why they’ve put you here, in rural Victoria.’ Sergeant Farrat just wanted his evenings back – his radio serial, his books and records, his sewing … and his 9:00 pm drive around, in peace.

‘What’s for tea tonight, Horry?’

‘We’re going out. We’ll be having tripe,’ said Sergeant Farrat and dropped his pencil onto the counter.

‘My favourite, love a tripe in parsley sauce.’ The inspector wandered out to the bathroom. ‘I like this place,’ he called and started whistling.

Sergeant Farrat closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

They arrived early for dinner. The inspector removed his hat and bowed when he caught sight of Tilly posing in the doorway. She wore a clinging black swanskin fishtail with a neckline that ended at her waist. The sergeant poured champagne and Tilly made conversation. ‘I hear you’re quite an effective crime fighter, Inspector?’