Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

‘Do you know your lines?’ Tilly asked politely.

‘Oh yes, Trudy helps me.’

‘She’s taking it all very seriously.’

‘Very,’ said William and blew his breath through his bottom lip so that his fringe lifted, ‘it’s a very complex play.’

‘Do you think you’ve got a chance to win?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘it’ll all come together.’ He looked down at the fur on the hem of his coat. ‘The costumes are splendid.’

‘Splendid,’ said Tilly. She tacked the adjustments and he tried it on again. William, admiring himself in the long mirror, said, ‘How do you think it’s going?’

‘Pretty much as I expected,’ said Tilly.

He was running his hands over the thick, ornate satin, touching the fur trim.

‘You can take it off now,’ said Tilly.

William blushed.

That night he found he couldn’t sleep so wandered out onto the veranda. He lit his pipe and stood looking out at the moonlit croquet lawn, soft and square, the straight white lines on the tennis court, the new stables and his broken-down tractor sitting in large, separate chunks under the gum tree.

• • •

Three weeks before opening night, at the end of the run-through of Acts One and Two, Trudy asked, ‘How long did they take tonight, Miss Dimm?’

‘Four hours and twelve minutes.’

‘Christ.’ The director closed her eyes and curled a large chunk of her hair around and around in her fingers. The cast backed away, tiptoeing sideways towards the wings or dressing room, eyeing the exits wildly.

‘Right. Everybody back here – we’re doing it again.’

They had to sweat it out again on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and every week night. At last it was time for costume inspection. Tilly noted that Trudy had lost a lot of weight. She’d bitten her nails down to the quick and there were big, white patches of scalp on her head where she had tugged chunks of hair out. She also muttered lines from Macbeth and shouted obscenities in her sleep. She stood before her cast in a soiled dress and odd shoes. Tilly sat behind her, a tape measure around her neck and a serene expression on her face.

‘Right,’ said Trudy, ‘Lady Macduff?’

Purl floated onto the stage in a voluminous satin skirt with a huge bustle. Her face was white-powdered and red-rouged and her hair arranged in storeys of curls, piled high, with a tall, ribboned fontange perched on top. Her pretty face was framed by a wide, wire-framed collar that swung from the top of her fontange to her armpits and was trimmed with bead-tipped ruffles. The sleeves were enormously pumpkin-shaped and the neckline of her gown was straight and low, cutting across her lovely breasts so that they burst out of her very tight, corsetted bodice. The men leered and the witches sneered.

‘This costume is very heavy,’ gasped Purl.

‘I designed it like that, you fool – that’s the type of thing they wore in the seventeenth century. Isn’t that so, costume maker?’

‘Yes. That’s definitely what aristocrats wore in the late seventeenth century, at court,’ said Tilly.

‘I can’t breathe very well,’ said Purl.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Trudy. The men nodded.

‘Next – Duncan!’

William stepped from the wings. Burning red ringlets framed his face which was white-powdered, red-rouged and crimson-lipped, with a beauty spot on each cheek. The curls fell from a fat emerald-encrusted gold crown, like the top of the Taj Mahal. Around his neck he wore a lace bow that plummeted to his waist over a lace bodice. Over that was the fur-trimmed knee-length yellow coat. The enormous deep-folded cuffs of his coat hung all the way to his fur-trimmed hemline. He wore sheer white silk stockings and jackboots with cuffs that turned down and flopped about his ankles. He struck a gallant pose and beamed at his wife, but all she said was, ‘Won’t that crown topple off?’

‘It’s attached to his wig,’ said Tilly.

‘Let’s see what you’ve done to Macbeth then.’

Lesley swept onto the stage wearing a tall sugarloaf hat that supported a forest of standing and sweeping feathers. Lace and ruffles bunched and danced around his earlobes from the collar of a voluminous white silk shirt which had tails that hung about his knees, swinging with the artificial flowers stitched to the trim of several skirts and petticoats. He had a red velvet waistcoat and matching red stockings, and his high-heeled shoes featured satin laces so large it was impossible to tell what colour the shoes were.

‘Perfect,’ said Trudy.

The soldiers behind her mimicked her, ‘ PERFECT ’, and flapped their wrists.

Trudy circled them, her seventeenth-century baroque cast of the evil sixteenth-century Shakespeare play about murder and ambition. They queued on the tiny stage like extras from a Hollywood film waiting for their lunch at the studio canteen, a line of colourful slashes and frothy frocks, farthingaled frills and aiglets pointing to the heavens, bandoliers and lobster-tailed helmets with love-locks hanging, feathers sprouting from hats and headdresses that reached the rafters, their red-lipped, pancake faces resting in white plough-disc collars and arched white-wall-collars like portraits.

‘Perfect,’ said Trudy again.

Tilly nodded, smiling.

Tilly’s back and shoulders were stiff and hurt sharply. Her arms ached and her fingertips were red raw, her eyes stung and had bags that reached her perfect cheekbones, but she was happy, almost. Her fingers were slippery with sweat, so she awarded herself a concession – she used Paris stitch for the lace-trim of the soldiers’ red and white Jacquard jersey pumpkin pants when she knew she should use whip stitch. She tied-off the very last stitch and when she leaned to bite the cotton thread she heard Madame Vionnet say, ‘Do you eat with scissors?’

Sergeant Farrat was telling her about rehearsals. ‘And Lesley! Well if he doesn’t think he’s important, keeps butting in, telling everyone their lines – which of course upsets Miss Dimm because it’s her job to prompt. The inspector over-acts but Mona’s very good, she fills in when people don’t show up. We’ve all got summer flu, sore throats and blocked sinus, no one’s seen Elsbeth, everyone hates Trudy – I’d be a better director than her, at least I’ve been to the theatre.’

They arrived at rehearsal, their arms piled with pumpkin trousers and ostrich-edged velvet coats, the hot northerly outside wailing through power lines. Inside, the cast were still and afraid. They were bailed up by the director at the rear of the stage, surrounded by several splintered wooden chairs. Trudy had glazed eyes with large bluish circles around them and her cardigan was buttoned in the wrong holes.

‘Do it again,’ she whispered menacingly.

Lady Macduff, holding a doll wrapped in a bunny rug, looked at her son. Fred Bundle breathed deeply and began:

Son: ‘And must they all be hang’d that swear and lie?’

Lady Macduff: ‘Every one.’

Son: ‘Who must hang them?’

Lady Macduff: ‘Why, the honest men.’

Son: ‘Then the liars and swearers are fools; for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.’

‘NO! NONONONONONONONONONONO, YOU’RE HOPELESS …’ Trudy screamed.

‘That was right,’ said Miss Dimm, ‘he said it right this time.’

‘He didn’t.’

‘He did,’ chorused the cast.

Trudy walked slowly to the front of the stage and fixed the cast with a demonic gaze. ‘You dare to contradict me?’ Her voice jumped an octave. ‘I hope you develop dysentery and I hope you all get the pox and die of dehydration because enormous scabs all over your body ooze so much, I hope all your dicks turn shiny-black and rot off and I hope all you women melt inside and smell like a hot rotted fishing boat, I hope you –’