The Dressmaker Part 2

4.

The next Sat.u.r.day brought the match between Itheca and Winyerp. The winner would play Dungatar in the grand final the following week.

Tilly Dunnage had maintained her industrious battle until the house was scrubbed and s.h.i.+ny and the cupboards bare, all the tinned food eaten, and now Molly sat in the dappled sunlight at the end of the veranda in her wheelchair, the wisteria behind her just beginning to bud. Tilly tucked a tartan Onkaparinga rug over her mother's knees.

'I know your sort,' said Molly, nodding and steepling her translucent fingers. As food had nourished her body and therefore her mind, some sense had returned to her. She realised she'd have to be crafty, employ stubborn resistance and subtle violence against this stronger woman who was determined to stay. Tilly smoothed Molly's wayward grey hair and slung her dillybag over her shoulder, pushed a large-brimmed straw hat down on her head, put on dark gla.s.ses and pushed the chair off the veranda and over the buffalo tufts and yellow dandelions.

At the gateposts they paused and looked down. In the main street the Sat.u.r.day shoppers came and went or stood about in groups. Tilly drew breath and pushed on. Molly held the wicker armrests and bellowed all the way to the bottom of The Hill. 'So you are going to kill me,' she cried.

'No,' said Tilly and wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers. 'The others were happy to let you die, I saved you. It's me they'll try to kill now.'

When they rounded the corner to the main street they stopped again. Lois Pickett, fat and pimply, and Beula Harridene, skinny and mean, were manning the Sat.u.r.day morning street stall.

'What is it?' asked Lois.

'It's a wheelchair!' said Beula.

'Someone pus.h.i.+ng ...'

Next door, Nancy stopped sweeping her footpath to peer at the figures rolling through the shadows and s.h.i.+ne.

'It's her. It's that Myrtle Dunnage the nerve,' said Beula.

'Well!'

'Well well well '

'And Mad Molly!'

'Does Marigold know?'

'NO!' said Beula, 'Marigold doesn't know anything!'

'I'd almost forgotten.'

'How could you!'

'The nerve of that girl.'

'This'll be a treat.'

'The hair ...'

'Not natural ...'

'They're coming ...'

'The clothes!'

'Oooaaa ...'

'Shssss ...'

As the outcasts rolled towards them, Lois reached for her knitting and Beula straightened the homemade jams. Tilly came to a stop with her knees pressed together to stop them shaking, and smiled at the ladies in their elastic stockings and cardigans. 'h.e.l.lo.'

'Oh, you gave us a start,' said Lois.

'If it isn't Molly and this must be young Myrtle back from ... where was it you went to Myrtle?' said Beula, peering hard at Tilly's dark gla.s.ses.

'Away.'

'How are you these days, Molly?' asked Lois.

'No point complaining,' said Molly.

Molly studied the cakes and Tilly looked at the contents of the hamper: tinned ham, spam, pineapple, peaches, a packet of Tic Tocs, a Christmas pudding, Milo, Vegemite and Rawleighs Salve were all arranged in a wicker basket under red cellophane. The women studied Tilly.

'That's the raffle prize,' said Lois, 'from Mr Pratt for the Football Club. Tickets are sixpence.'

'I'll just have a cake thank you, the chocolate sponge with coconut,' said Tilly.

'No fear not that one, we'll get septicaemia,' said Molly.

Lois folded her arms, 'Well!'

Beula puckered her lips and raised her eyebrows.

'What about this one?' asked Tilly and bit her top lip to stop herself from smiling.

Molly looked up at the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, boring like hot steel rods through the holes in the corrugated iron veranda roof, 'The cream will be rancid, the jam roll's safest.'

'How much?' said Tilly.

'Two '

'Three s.h.i.+llings!' said Lois, who had made the chocolate sponge, and cast Molly a look that'd start a brushfire. Tilly handed over three s.h.i.+llings and Lois shoved the cake towards Molly, then recoiled. Tilly pushed her mother inside Pratts. 'Daylight robbery,' said Molly. 'That Lois Pickett scratches her scabs and blackheads then eats it from under her nails and she only puts coconut on her cake because of her dandruff, calls herself a cleaner, does Irma Almanac's house and you just wouldn't buy anything Beula Harridene made on principle, the type she is ...'

Muriel, Gertrude and Reg froze when Tilly wheeled Molly through the door. They stared as she picked over the sad fruit and vegetable selection and took some cereals from the shelves and handed them to her mother to nurse. When the two women moved to haberdashery, Alvin Pratt rushed from his office. Tilly asked for three yards of the green georgette and Alvin said, 'Certainly,' so Muriel cut and wrapped the cloth and Alvin held the brown paper package to his chest and smiled broadly at Tilly. He had brown teeth. 'Such an unusual green that's why it's discounted. Still, if you're determined enough you'll make something of it. A tablecloth perhaps?'

Tilly opened her purse.

'First you'll be settling your mother's unpaid account.' His smile vanished and he offered one palm.

Molly studied her fingernails. Tilly paid.

Outside, Molly jerked her thumb back and said, 'Trumped up little merchant.'

They headed for the chemist. Purl, barefoot and hosing the path, turned to stare as they pa.s.sed. Fred was down in the cellar and as the hose swept over the open trapdoors he yelled and his head popped up at footpath level. He too watched the women pa.s.s. Nancy stopped sweeping to stare.

Mr Almanac was behind his cash register. 'Good morning,' said Tilly to his round pink head.

'Good day,' he mumbled to the floor.

'I need a serum or a purgative, I'm being poisoned,' cried Molly.

Mr Almanac's bald dome s.h.i.+fted to form corrugations.

'It's Molly Dunnage, I'm still alive. What about that poor wife of yours?'

'Irma is as well as can be expected,' said Mr Almanac. 'How can I help you?'

Nancy Pickett came through the doorway carrying her broom. She was a square-faced woman with broad shoulders and a boyish gait. She used to sit behind Tilly at school, tease her, dip her plait into the inkwell, and follow her home to help the other kids bash her up. Nancy was always a good fighter and would happily flatten anyone who picked on her big brother Bobby. She looked straight at Tilly. 'What are you after?'

'It's in my food,' whispered Molly loudly. Nancy leaned down to her. 'She puts it in my food.'

Nancy nodded knowingly. 'Right.' She took some De Witts antacid from a table nearby and held it under Mr Almanac's face. Mr Almanac raised his veiny hand, patted his fingertips over the cash register keys and pressed down hard. There was a clash, a ring and a thunk and Mr Almanac wheezed, 'That'll be sixpence.'

Tilly paid Mr Almanac and as she pa.s.sed Nancy she said in a low murmur, 'If I do decide to kill her I'll probably break her neck.'

Purl, Fred, Alvin, Muriel, Gertrude, Beula and Lois, and all the Sat.u.r.day morning shoppers and country folk watched the illegitimate girl push her mad mother loose woman and hag across the road and into the park.

'Something's burning my back,' said Molly.

'You should be used to it by now,' said Tilly.

They walked to the creek and stopped to watch some ducklings struggling after their mother against a mild torrent and a flotilla of twigs. They pa.s.sed Irma Almanac, framed by her roses, warming her bones in the sunlight at her front gate, a stiff faded form with a loud knee rug and knuckles like ginger roots. The disease that crippled Mrs Almanac was rheumatoid arthritis. Her face was lined from pain some days even her breathing caused her dry bones to grate and her muscles to fill with fire. She could predict rain coming, sometimes a week ahead, so was a handy barometer for farmers they often confirmed with Irma what the corns on their toes indicated. Her husband did not believe in drugs. Addictive, he said. 'All that's needed is G.o.d's forgiveness, a clean mind and a wholesome diet, plenty of red meat and well-cooked vegetables.'

Irma dreamed of moving through time like oil on water. She longed for a life without pain and the bother of her bent husband, stuck fast in a corner or hounding her about sin, the cause of all disease.

'You've always had lovely roses,' said Molly. 'How come?'

Irma lifted her eyebrows to the petals above but did not open her eyes. 'Molly Dunnage?' she said.

'Yes.' Molly reached over and prodded Irma's bruised and kidney-shaped fist. Irma winced, drew her breath in sharply.

'Still hurt does it?'

'A little,' she said, and opened her eyes. 'How are you Molly?'

'Awful but I'm not allowed to complain. What's wrong with your eyes?'

'Arthritis in them today.' She smiled. 'You're in a wheelchair too, Molly.'

'It suits my captor,' said Molly.

Tilly leaned down to look at her and said, 'Mrs Almanac, my name is '

'I know who you are, Myrtle. Very good of you to come home to your mother. Very brave too.'

'You've been sending food all these years '

'Don't mention it.' Irma cast a warning look towards the chemist shop.

'I wouldn't want it mentioned either, you're a terrible cook,' said Molly. She grinned slyly at Irma. 'Your husband's mighty slow these days. How did you manage that?'

Tilly placed an apologetic hand, lighter than pollen, on Mrs Almanac's cold stony shoulder. Irma smiled. 'Percival says G.o.d is responsible for everything.'

She used to have a lot of falls, which left her with a black eye or a cut lip. Over the years, as her husband ground to a stiff and shuffling old man, her injuries ceased.

Irma glanced over at the shoppers on the other side of the street. They stood in lines, staring over at the three women talking. Tilly bade her farewell and they continued along the creek towards home.

With Molly safely parked at the fireside, Tilly sat on her veranda and rolled herself a cigarette. Down below, the people bobbed together like chooks pecking at vegetable sc.r.a.ps, turning occasionally to glance up at the house on The Hill, before turning hurriedly away.

5.

Miss Prudence Dimm taught the people of Dungatar to read, write and multiply in the schoolhouse across the road from the post office, which her sister Ruth ran. Prudence was also the librarian on Sat.u.r.day mornings and Wednesday evenings. Where she was large, white and short-sighted, Ruth was small, sharp and sunburned, with skin the texture of cracked mud at the bottom of a dried-up puddle. Ruth shared night s.h.i.+ft on the telephone exchange with Beula Harridene but was solely responsible for loading and unloading the Dungatar letters and parcels onto the daily train, as well as sorting and delivering them. She also deposited everyone's savings for them, cashed cheques, and paid their household and life insurance.

On the big, leather couch at the post office, Nancy Pickett lay with her head in the soft curve of Ruth's thin thigh. Beside them the exchange stood quiet, an electric wall of lights and cords and plugs and earphones. Bougainvillea branches sc.r.a.ped hard against the window. Nancy woke, lifted her head and blinked, crinkly goose pimple white and naked, nipples erect like light switches. Ruth stretched and yawned. A branch snapped outside, as Beula crept along the wall of the post office.

'Beula!' hissed Nancy.

Nancy scrambled behind the exchange to dress. Ruth leapt to sit at her post, snapped on the overhead light and called, 'Morning Beula.'

Outside, Beula dropped into a mattress of jagged thorns and broken branches. Nancy skipped the short distance down the lane and popped through loosened palings in a fence, then scrambled through her open window and landed silently on the red-rose linoleum. Her mother Lois lay in her bed scratching at the blackheads lumped over her nose, yesterday's underwear beneath the pillow.

Nancy padded softly to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, grabbed her purse and made for the kitchen where Bobby was mixing powdered Denkovit and warm water to feed his lambs. Nancy had given him a dog for Christmas she thought it might stop him sucking his thumb. But recently, while defending the house and all in it, his dog had been bitten by an attacking brown snake and died. In his spare time Bobby played football and rescued animals, including several tortoises, a goanna, a blue tongue lizard and some silkworms the school kids had tired of.

'Morning sis.'

'I'm late, Mr A will be waitin'.'

Bobby poured warm, liquid Denkovit into empty beer bottles on the sink. 'You haven't had breakfast. You've got to have something, it's not good to start the day without breakfast.' He stretched rubber teats over the mouths of the bottles.

'I'll have milk.' She grabbed a bottle from the Kelvinator door and shook it, then raised the bottle to her lips and drank. She dumped the bottle back in the refrigerator door and inched her way through the hungry pets crowding the back porch three lambs, two cats, a poddy calf and a joey, some pigeons, magpies, chooks and a lame wombat.