The Dressmaker (15 page)

While the townsfolk played football Trudy Beau-mont counted the money.

Mona and Lesley rested on hay bales in the gloom of the stables. ‘I suppose I’ll wear my bridesmaid’s dress again,’ said Mona and sighed.

‘What’s it look like?’

‘It’s rust –’

‘Oh that one, the cowl neckline. Why don’t you get that scandalous creature Tilly what’s-her-name to make you some new things? She’s cheap I hear.’

‘Mother says I haven’t had enough wear out of the orange one.’ They picked at bits of straw and swung their riding boots. ‘Are you, um, going to the presentation tonight with anyone special, Maestro?’

‘Why of course!’ squealed Lesley. ‘I’m picking up Lois Pickett at seven.’

‘I see.’

Lesley rolled his eyes. It dawned on Mona that her friend, her Maestro, had made a joke. They fell all over the hay cackling.

• • •

When Mona stepped through the hall door on Les’s arm that evening she was shining. She wore a plain blue rayon dress with a full skirt and a centre-front box pleat which she’d had for years, but she had draped a red floral scarf about her shoulders and pinned a red flower behind her ear. She blended with the other women who still favoured their long black gloves, waistlines and pleated skirts, taffeta, glazed printed cotton, princess-line skirts all in contemporary designs. But they’d been renovated, European-touched, advanced to almost avante-garde by Tilly Dunnage. The tempo in the hall was fast, the tone high and excited. Lesley turned to Mona and said, ‘Now hold your shoulders back and walk like I showed you.’

When Trudy and Elsbeth stepped onto the stage and took their place at the microphone a hush swept across the room. All heads tilted to them. Elsbeth wore an exquisite gown of rubescant shot taffeta. The collar was off-the-shoulder and very deep and wide, and Tilly had created a clever and complicated bodice in the modern wrap-over style.

Pregnancy had added almost three stone to Trudy. Her face had swelled so that her cheeks were spinnakers. Fluid bobbed about her stern like lifebuoys on rough waves, then cascaded down her legs to gather about the ankles. To distract the eye from Trudy’s appearance, Tilly had created a design that was very
Vogue
, all line and finish. It was calf-length navy silk taffeta, with a strapless underbodice, high-boned and gathered to accommodate her swollen midrift, and swept in wide, unpressed pleats to the hem.

Mona moved towards the stage with Lesley following. He leaned to her and said from the corner of his mouth, ‘It’s snowing down south.’

She looked out the door. ‘I’m not cold.’

‘Your slip’s showing.’ He indicated her hemline with his eyebrows then inclined his head to the door. They moved quietly towards it and stepped outside into the darkness. Lesley held Mona’s shawl while she fumbled about with her petticoat strap and a safety pin she kept fastened to her panties.

‘Quickly,’ said Lesley, ‘they’re about to make the welcoming speech.’

Mona removed her dress and shoved it at Lesley, saying, ‘Hold this.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ trilled Elsbeth, ‘welcome to the presentation night of Dungatar’s first-ever Social Club.’ She paused as everyone clapped. ‘Tonight we’ll be presenting the members of the committee and discussing our plans to raise funds for the Dungatar Social Club! Our fund-raising afternoon of tea and croquet has been a very thrilling start and it proved to be a very popular day!’ She smiled broadly but no one clapped, so she carried on. ‘Naturally we could not have raised enough money to assist us towards our big fund-raising ball without the help of the ladies who make up the Social Club Committee. And so, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to present the committee members to you. Firstly, our secretary and treasurer, Mrs Alvin Pratt.’ The guests clapped and Muriel stepped onto the stage, smiled and bobbed.

‘And a special thanks goes to our tireless typist and odd jobs girl, Miss Mona Beaumont …’

But Mona was nowhere to be seen. The crowd murmured, their heads swayed. Nancy was leaning against the doorjamb at the back of the hall so waved at Trudy and ducked outside, ‘Psst, Mona.’

‘What?’

‘You’re on.’ Nancy came inside. ‘They’re coming,’ she yelled and Trudy and Elsbeth smiled at the waiting crowd.

Mona and Lesley stumbled back into the hall and the crowd began to clap. They moved to the stage and Mona stepped up to stand between her mother and her sister-in-law. The clapping dwindled and someone giggled. There was a murmur from the crowd as feet shuffled, ladies covered their mouths and men looked at the ceiling.

It was then that Lesley noticed. Mona’s frock was inside out.

• • •

Tilly stood in her cottage, surrounded by colourful debris. The past two weeks had been a period of intense hand-stitching, draping and shaping, and there was the ball to come. Teddy arrived wearing a pair of new blue denim Levi jeans, a brilliant white T-shirt and a leather jacket with lots of zippers and studs. His hair shone with Brylcream and he had developed an insolent, upper body lean and matching pout. It suited him. She looked at him and smiled. ‘You’re going to wear leather and denim to the Social Committee’s first-ever event?’

‘What are you wearing?’

‘I’m not going.’

‘Come on.’ He stepped towards her.

‘I’ve got nothing to wear.’

‘Just whip something up, you’ll look better than any of them anyway.’

She smiled and said, ‘That won’t do me much good, will it?’

‘Let’s just sit in a corner and watch all those beautiful creations swinging about the hall on Miss Dimm and Lois and Muriel.’ He stopped. ‘I see what you mean.’ He slumped into the chair by the fire and put his boots up on the wood box.

Molly looked over to Teddy, lifted her top lip and sent a fine line of spittle into the flames with her tongue. ‘You think you’re good-looking don’t you?’ she said to him.

‘We could go to Winyerp to the pictures,’ said Teddy, ‘or we could sit here with Molly all night.’

‘What’s on?’ asked Tilly, brightly.

‘
Sunset Boulevard
, with Gloria Swanson.’

‘You two go ahead to the pictures and have a lovely time,’ said Molly. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right here … alone, by myself. Again.’

Molly insisted on sitting in the front of Teddy’s Ford for her first-ever ride in a car. ‘If I’m going to die I’d like to see the tree I’m going to splatter against,’ she said, then demanded that they sit right at the front of the picture theatre directly under the screen. She sat between them, hooting and laughing at Tom and Jerry, then made loud, detracting comments about everything else. ‘That’s not really a car they’re in, it’s pretend … He’s not very convincing is he? … She’s just kissed him and her lipstick’s not smudged and her eyes look like armpits … Stand up and get out of the way – I need to get to the lav, quickly!’

At home they offered to help her to bed but she was reluctant. ‘I don’t feel sleepy,’ she said and looked above at the starry sky to stifle a yawn. Teddy went inside and got a glass, poured firewater from his flask and handed it to Molly. She drank it and held her glass out for more. He looked at Tilly, who looked down at the hall lights from where fragments of conversation drifted up, so he gave Molly another splash of watermelon wine. Very shortly they were lifting her onto her bed.

They sat out under the stars again, watching the Dungatar hall flicker to darkness and the socialites disperse.

Teddy turned to her. ‘Where did you go from here?’

‘To Melbourne, to school.’

‘And then where?’

She didn’t reply. He looked impatient and said, ‘Come on – it’s me, not them.’

‘It’s just I’ve never really talked about it until now.’

He kept his eyes on her, willing her. Finally she said, ‘I got a job in a manufacturing factory. I was supposed to work there forever and repay my “benefactor” but it was horrible. At least it was a clothing factory.’

‘Did you know who your benefactor was?’

‘I always knew.’

‘Then?’

‘I ran away. I went to London.’

‘Then Spain.’

‘Then Spain, Milan, Paris.’ She looked away from him.

‘Then? There’s more, isn’t there?’

She stood up. ‘I think I’ll go inside now –’

‘All right, all right.’ He caught her by the ankle, and she didn’t seem to mind, so he stood and slid an arm about her shoulders and she leaned against him, just a little bit.

M
ona eventually stopped crying because Lesley started to giggle about it. By then Trudy and Elsbeth had thought of a solution.

‘You’ll have to marry her …’ said Elsbeth.

The way to solve everything.

Lesley sat down suddenly, ‘But I don’t want to get –’

‘… or leave town,’ said Trudy.

Lesley had Tilly run him up new riding attire – sky blue and pink silks and close fitting, immaculate white jodhpurs. He sent to RM Williams in Adelaide for new knee-high riding boots with Cuban heels. Mona wore her bridesmaid’s dress with a white rose pinned behind her ear. It was a quiet ceremony in the front garden at Windswept Crest. Sergeant Farrat conducted the brief ceremony. William drove Mr and Mrs Lesley Muncan to the railway station. They waved to him as their train moved out, standing there with his pipe in his teeth with Hamish and Beula. The Dungatar Social Committee had donated two railway tickets as a wedding gift, so Mr and Mrs Lesley Muncan were to spend a night in the Grand Suite at the Grand Hotel overlooking the river at Winyerp.

When the newlyweds returned to the reception counter a mere five minutes after the publican had shown them to their suite, he was very surprised.

‘We’re off to see the sights,’ said Lesley. ‘We’ll collect the key about 5:30 and will be down for dinner at 6:00.’

‘Zup to youse,’ said the publican and winked.

After dinner, they went upstairs. At the door of the Grand Suite – the big corner room with the arched window situated nearest the bathroom – Lesley turned to his new wife and said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’

‘Me too.’ Tilly had run up two items for Mona’s trousseau, one of which was a rather ‘fast’ negligee – Tilly’s design.

Lesley flung open the door to the Grand Suite. On a pot plant stand next to the bed sat an enamel jug packed with ice-cubes and a bottle of sparkling wine. Two seven-ounce beer glasses sat beside it and between the glasses a card was propped. Embossed gold wedding bells and streamers spelled ‘Congratulations’. Inside the card the publican’s wife had written,

‘Congrats + Good Luck from all us X X X’.

‘Oh Maestro,’ said Mona, ‘I’ll be back in one moment.’ She grabbed her suitcase and disappeared next door into the bathroom. Lesley ran to the men’s, leaned over the toilet bowl and started dry retching. He returned eventually, sweaty-palmed and ashen to the Grand Suite where Mona reclined nervously on the chenille bedspread in her new negligee.

Lesley was overcome. ‘Ohmygod, Mona.’ He took her hands and pulled her up then stood back and walked around her twice. Then he rustled into her fine silk peignoir up to his elbows and said, ‘Mona it’s just GOR-gess!’ He opened the wine, filled their glasses and they twined arms and sipped. Mona flushed.

‘I don’t think I’ll have too much wine … darling.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Les and pecked her cheek. ‘You’ll do as you’re told you naughty wife or I’ll make you whip me with your riding crop.’ They squealed and clinked their glasses.

Halfway through the first bottle Lesley produced another from his suitcase and plunged it into the ice. Halfway through the second bottle Mona passed out so Lesley finished the last of the champagne, wrapped folds of his wife’s peignoir about his neck and shoulders, popped his thumb in his mouth and slept, nuzzling deep in silk folds which were tinted with fragrance of lily-of-the-valley.

Mona woke feeling headachy. The first thing she saw was her new husband posing in the window – dressed, spruced and ready to catch the train home. Mona’s heart was sluggish, saturated with hurt, her chin quivered and a sad lump as big as a quince stuck at her tonsils. She could hardly swallow. Not even so much as a cuddle.

‘Come now wife,’ smiled Les, ‘there’s a nice hot cuppa waiting for us downstairs.’

Back at Windswept Crest Trudy showed her her old room – it was a nursery now – then her mother handed her a cheque.

‘Mother …’ Mona’s face lifted.

‘It’s not a gift, it’s your inheritance. I’ve been to a great deal of trouble for it. As you can see it’s made out to Alvin Pratt Real Estate, a deposit for that vacant cottage in town.’ She turned on her heel and as she passed through the stable doorway she called behind her, ‘You’re Lesley’s responsibility now.’

That afternoon Mr and Mrs Lesley Muncan moved to the workman’s cottage between Evan and Marigold Pettyman’s orderly house and Alvin and Muriel Pratt’s comfortable weatherboard.

• • •

Faith cut out letters from a
Women’s Weekly
and painstakingly pasted them together on pink cardboard to make up the words, then she drew balloons and streamers weaving through the letters and sprinkled glitter on Clag. She cut out a bell from a Christmas card and pasted it on an angle next to the word ‘Bell’.

Come one come all

start the football season dancing

Dungatar Social Club Ball

Featuring the new music of the new

‘Faithful O’Briens’,

AND

BELL OF THE BALL

Bookings – Bobby or Faith.

Hamish was waving the afternoon train in as Faith glanced over on her way to Pratts. When the train had stopped he assisted a strange woman to step down from the carriage onto the platform. She looked around anxiously before asking, ‘When is the next train out?’

‘Day after tomorrow, 9:30 sharp, it’ll be a D Class Steamer –’

‘Is there a bus?’

Hamish put his hands behind his back and crossed his fingers. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said and stepped away.

Hamish pointed at Edward McSwiney waiting at the doorway with his cart, ‘Ye can catch a ride to the hotel with our cab there,’ he said. The woman placed a gloved finger under her nose and pointed to her pigskin suitcases standing on the platform between the mailbags and the crated chickens. Hamish handed them up to Edward and the stranger picked up her attache case and walked cautiously around Graham, giving him a very wide berth. She picked her way along the broken cement footpaths in her alligator skin court shoes, and at last stood in the foyer of the Station Hotel, removing her sunglasses and gloves, and clearing her throat. Fred looked up from his paper and searched the bar. She cleared her throat again and Fred wandered through to the residential entrance. He considered her over the rim of his bifocals: the dusty slippers, skinny but shapely calves, the pencil line skirt and tent jacket which she removed to reveal a white shirt tailored entirely of broderie anglaise. He could see her underwear.