Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker

Mr Almanac waited, stuck and coiled against the shop counter until Nancy came. ‘Yoohoo … I’m here boss.’ She gently guided him by the elbow to the front door, pushed his hat tightly onto his bent head and wound his scarf around his neck, tying a knot at the nape to sit where his head used to belong. She curled over in front of him and looked up into his face. ‘Close game today boss, only beat ’em by eight-goals-two! There’d be a few minor injuries I’d say, but I told ’em you got gallons of liniment and crepe bandage.’

She patted the arched cervical vertebra pushing on his white coat and shuffled with him to the curb. Mrs Almanac sat in her wheelchair in the front gate opposite. A quick glance up and down the street and Nancy gave her boss a shove, and he chugged straight over the rise in the middle of the bitumen and down to Mrs Almanac who held a cushion out at arm’s length. Mr Almanac’s hat came to a soft halt deep in the cushion and he was safely home.

Out at Windswept Crest, Elsbeth Beaumont stood at her Aga in her homestead kitchen lovingly basting a roasting pork joint – her son loved the crackle. William Beaumont Junior was at the oval, laughing with the men in the change rooms, standing in the steamy air with naked blokes and the smell of sweat and stale socks, Palmolive soap and liniment. He felt easy, bold and confident among the soft ugly intimacy of the grass-stuck grazed knees, the songs, the profanity. Scotty Pullit was smiling next to William, sipping from a tin flask, springing on the balls of his feet. Scotty was fragile and crimson with a bulbous, blue-tipped nose and a wet, boiling cough from smoking a packet of Capstans a day. He’d failed both as a husband and a jockey, but had stumbled on success and popularity when he stilled some excellent watermelon firewater. His still was set up at a secret location on the creek bank. He drank most of it but sold some or gave it to Purl for food, rent and cigarettes.

‘And how about the first goal of the third quarter! Had it in the bag for certain then mate, just a question of waitin’ for the siren, all over bar the shouting …’ He laughed then coughed until he turned purple.

Fred Bundle snapped the top off the bottle with a barman’s finesse and tilted its mouth to the glass, black fluid pouring thickly. He placed the glass on the bar in front of Hamish O’Brien and picked through the coins sitting wetly on the bar cloth. Hamish stared at his Guinness, waiting for the froth to settle.

The first wave of football revellers neared, singing down the street then tumbling into the bar trailing chilled air and victory, the room now full and roaring. ‘My boys!’ cried Purl and spread her arms to them, her face alive with smiles. A young man’s profile caught her eye – most did – but this was a face from her past, and Fred had helped her bury her past. She stood, arms spread, watching the young man drink from his beer glass, the footballers singing and jostling about her. He turned to look at her, a smudge of foam sitting on his nose. Purl felt her pelvic floor contract and she steadied herself against the bar, her eyebrows crumpled together and her mouth creased down. ‘Bill?’ she said. Fred was beside her then. ‘William resembles his father rather than his mother – wouldn’t you say Purl?’ He cupped her elbow.

‘It’s William,’ said the young man and wiped the foam from his nose, ‘not a ghost.’ He smiled his father’s smile. Teddy McSwiney arrived at the bar beside him. ‘Is there a ghost of a chance we’ll get a beer, Purl?’

Purl drew in a long unsteady breath. ‘Teddy, our priceless full forward – did you win for us today?’ Teddy launched into the club song. William joined him and the crowd sang again. Purl kept a close eye on young William, who laughed readily and shouted drinks when it wasn’t his turn, trying to fit in. Fred kept a close eye on his Purly.

From the end of the bar Sergeant Farrat caught Fred’s eye and pointed to his watch. It was well after six pm. Fred gave the sergeant the thumbs-up. Purl caught the sergeant at the door as he paused and put his cap on. ‘That young Myrtle Dunnage is back I see.’

The sergeant nodded and turned to go.

‘Surely she’s not staying?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. Then he was gone and the footballers were fastening Masonite covers to the glass doors and windows – night air raid covers left over from the war. Purl went back to the bar and poured a fat foamy pot of beer, placed it neatly in front of William and smiled lovingly at him.

At his car Sergeant Farrat looked back at the pub, standing like an electric wireless in the mist, light peeping around the edges of the black-outs and the sound of sportsmen, winners and drinkers singing inside. The District Inspector was unlikely to pass through. Sergeant Farrat cruised, his wipers smearing dew across the windscreen, first down to the creek to check Scotty’s still for thieves then over the railway line towards the cemetery. Reginald Blood’s Ford Prefect was there, steamy windowed and rocking softly behind the headstones. Inside the car Reginald looked up over Faith O’Brien’s large breasts and said, ‘You’re a fine-grained and tender creature, Faith,’ and he kissed the soft beige areola around her hard nipple while her husband Hamish sat at the bar of the Station Hotel sucking on the beige foam of his pint of Guinness.

There was a gap in the McSwiney children after Barney, a pause, but they had got used to him and decided there wasn’t much wrong really, and started again fairly quickly. In all there were now eleven McSwiney offspring. Teddy was Mae’s firstborn, her dashing boy – cheeky, quick and canny. He ran a card game at the pub on Thursday nights and two-up on Fridays, organised the Saturday night dances, was the SP bookie, owned all the sweeps on Cup Day and was first to raffle a chook if funds were needed by anyone for anything. They said Teddy McSwiney could sell a sailor sea-water. He was Dungatar’s highly valued full forward, he was charming and nice girls loved him, but he was a McSwiney. Beula Harridene said he was just a bludger and a thief.

He was sitting on an old bus seat outside his caravan, cutting his toenails, looking up from time to time at the smoke drifting from Mad Molly’s chimney. His sisters were in the middle of the yard bobbing up and down over soap-sud sheets in an old bath tub that also served as a bathroom, a drinking trough for the horse and, in summer when the creek was low and leech-ridden, a swimming pool for the littlies. Mae McSwiney flopped some sodden sheets over the telegraph wire slung between the caravans and spread them out, moving the pet galah sideways. She was a matter-of-fact woman who wore floral mumus and a plastic flower behind her ear, round and neat with a scrubbed, freckled complexion. She took the pegs from her mouth and said to her oldest boy, ‘You remember Myrtle Dunnage? Left town as a youngster when –’

‘I remember,’ said Teddy.

‘Saw her yesterday, taking wheelbarrows full of junk down to the tip,’ said Mae.

‘You speak to her?’

‘She doesn’t want to speak to anyone.’ Mae went back to her washing.

‘Fair enough.’ Teddy held his gaze to The Hill.

‘She’s a nice-looking girl,’ said Mae, ‘but like I said, wants to keep to herself.’

‘I hear what you’re saying Mae. She crazy?’

‘Nope.’

‘But her mother is?’

‘Glad I don’t have to run food up there any more, I’m overworked as it is. You’ll be off to get us a rabbit for tea now, Teddy boy?’

Teddy stood up and hooked his thumbs in his grey twill belt loops, and inclined a little from the waist as if to walk off. He stood that way when he schemed, Mae knew.