Wearing Paper Dresses

by Anne Brinsden

  ‘She’s alright,’ said Marjorie to her bread-and-butter plate.

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘She won’t get out of bed.’

  Marjorie glanced quickly at Pa, trying to gauge what she was supposed to do next. Pa’s face was no help, though. It looked uncertain of the terrain ahead. His eyes stared at hers – peering over the parapets of the white stubble.

  ‘She probably just needs a kip. Women are weak and she’s been digging that damn fool garden day and bloody night. She’s a city girl. Out there in all that heat. She’ll come good in time.’ Pa nodded at Marjorie.

  ‘Mum said we are not going to finish the rose garden. She said, What in damnation ever made you think we would have a rose garden? Don’t be ridiculous. This house can’t have roses,’ said Marjorie. But the relating of the conversation was too difficult. She looked at her bread-and-butter plate. So Pa couldn’t see the water charging to invade her eyes.

  Pa decided to stare at his plate after that. They finished the rest of their cold meat and chutney sandwiches in silence. Then Pa left, and Marjorie went again to sit by herself in the dust and the dirt and the blazing sun in the rose garden. The lump stayed in bed.

  That afternoon, the Mallee got wind of the collapse of the rose garden and the discovery of the lump in the bed. As it always does get wind of such things. It sent a scout to reconnoitre. A willy-willy arrived. It skirled around and around the outside of the lumbering house yard fence, taking a look. Then it leapt the fence, jubilant at the evident truth of the story, and headed for the rose garden. It pivoted in the middle of the garden and tossed dust and dirt all over itself in triumph. It hopped from bed to bed, leaning and spinning and hurling. It noted Marjorie, scrunched in the dirt, and tried to lift her into its victory dance. But she was too much for it so it just shrugged and dumped dust and dirt on her. It expanded its dance into a series of connecting circles as it orbited the garden. It spiralled that garden to the sky before heading for the beehive to enlist support for its finale.

  The willy-willy plucked at the bees and sucked at the bees until it had adorned the multiple layers of its spiralling dust and dirt with zealous bees. A beautiful, semitransparent vortex of sepia spangles and black-and-yellow jewels. Dancing and shimmering in the afternoon sunlight as it spun and swayed and buzzed and destroyed. As it wrecked and waltzed and droned. Around and around and around Marjorie.

  *

  It was after dark before anyone found her. Marjorie could never remember how long she cowered inside the dairy. The bees continued to drone and dance outside the dairy door long after the willy-willy had gone, while Marjorie hid. They only gave up and retreated to their space station when the light went out of the sky. And it was Ruby who found her. ‘It’s alright now, Marjorie,’ she murmured. ‘The bees are gone.’

  ‘I knew you would come for me,’ whispered Marjorie.

  ‘I know,’ said Ruby as she took her sister by the hand and led her out of the dairy, sheltering her from the possibility of any stray and still-excited bees.

  And it was Ruby who held her sister’s hand tight as she stopped in the moonlight so Marjorie could see the damage the willy-willy had done to the rose garden. And it was Ruby who ran a hot bath for Marjorie – even at that late hour – and made sure she had some soap to wash her hair. And found her some clean pyjamas to put on.

  ‘Where is Mum?’ asked Marjorie.

  ‘She’s still in bed,’ said Ruby.

  The lump in the bed did not emerge. Apparently it was too disappointed in Marjorie and her preposterous notions of a rose garden to tolerate her silly fears.

  *

  ‘Bees are no good,’ said Marjorie the next day.

  ‘The world needs bees,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Bees wrecked our rose garden,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘What are you scared of?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘Bees. Mum couldn’t get out of bed because of bees.’

  ‘Is that really why? Because of bees?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your mother couldn’t get out of bed before the bees turned up,’ said Jimmy.

  Marjorie just looked at him.

  ‘What are you frightened of, Marjorie?’ asked Jimmy.

  Marjorie stopped looking at Jimmy and looked at the fire instead.

  *

  Bill put Elise in the car and they drove the long miles to the nearest town with a doctor. It wasn’t the next day that he drove Elise to the doctor, though; it was after any number of those days that it took Elise to finally manage to come back from being a lump in the bed staring at the louvre windows. The sad smile had come back from wherever it went and taken over her face by the time she finally managed to get out of bed. There was not one bit of the glittery smile left. And the beans she had been full of had gone as well. So the sad smile accompanied Bill to the doctor those many days after the collapse of the rose garden. Not the glitter. Or the beans.

  Ruby and Marjorie didn’t go with them. They stayed at the house with Pa. They had never stayed alone with Pa before.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here with Pa,’ said Marjorie to Ruby.

  ‘It’ll be alright.’

  ‘I would rather stay with Jimmy Waghorn.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Why can’t we just fend for ourselves if we can’t stay with Jimmy Waghorn?’

  ‘You don’t have to worry, Marjorie. I am not going anywhere,’ Ruby said.

  As it was, the three of them – Pa, Ruby, Marjorie – all lined up on the front verandah and they all waved there in their line as the car drove off. Bill waved back. Elise didn’t. She was too busy staring at the surrounding scrub.

  Then they all went into Pa’s lounge room and sat around, Ruby with her arm around Marjorie. Pa chopped his tobacco with the tobacco slicer and smoked his pipe and tapped his fingers on the table. And glanced at the two girls when he thought they weren’t watching. But they were always watching. Especially Ruby.

  Bill and Elise came back that afternoon. Ruby and Marjorie and Pa heard the car coming for miles. By the time the car was pulling up at the house the three of them were standing in line on the front verandah again. Like they had waited there all day. Bill waved as the car pulled up. Elise glanced at them standing there before shifting her gaze to stare again at the Mallee encircling her.

  ‘Step aside,’ said Bill. ‘I can’t help your mother up the steps with you lot gawking there.’

  The three verandah occupiers stepped aside as Bill guided Elise down the hallway towards the kitchen. The three of them traipsed after them to find Elise sitting in her chair beside the kitchen stove. Near her coffee percolator. Studying a packet of cigarettes.

  Marjorie was surrounded by smokers. Her father smoked smokes he made himself from bits of tobacco in a tin and tiny pieces of paper. So did Jimmy Waghorn. Marjorie was fascinated by their careful construction of the fragile fires. She would watch them: Havelock Flake Cut tobacco rubbed – heel of one hand into the palm of the other – while that tiny, delicate piece of paper sat poised on the edge of a mouth. The smokes were lit and puffed on once or twice, then left to cling precariously to the outer edge of the lower lip until they died from neglect.

  Pa smoked a pipe jammed with tobacco hacked belligerently with a tiny cleaver. She liked to watch Pa. Scraping out the bowl of the pipe, banging it upside down, clamping the pipe stem between his teeth, holding the pipe bowl with one hand, the lighted match in the other.

  Marjorie didn’t know about ladies smoking, though. She wasn’t too sure about that.

  ‘The doctor said Elise should take up smoking. Help to steady her nerves. She’ll be right as rain soon,’ said Bill.

  Pa opened his mouth but nothing came out so he shut it again. Marjorie opened her mouth and left it open. In case something might emerge later on.

  ‘Smoking is not ladylike,’ said Ruby
.

  ‘The doctor says cigarettes are alright. If a woman’s nerves are gone,’ said Bill.

  Elise moved her eyes from the cigarette crouching between the first and second fingers of her right hand to Ruby’s face. She looked pleased with Ruby. She smiled and nodded at her. Before moving her eyes to Marjorie.

  Marjorie decided that now was the right time to shut her still-open mouth. Nothing had come out of it yet, so she concluded nothing was likely to come out in the immediate future. And because Marjorie was pre-empting Elise’s reprimand to shut her mouth because it’s unladylike and young ladies don’t go around with their mouths hanging open and what are they trying to do? Catch flies?

  This, astonishingly for Elise and her very impractical ways, was a very practical piece of advice in the Mallee. Because if you went around in the Mallee with your mouth open you would for sure swallow a fly. Everyone could testify to that. And it was only marginally (and subjectively and open to debate) less disgusting than accidentally snorting a fly up your nose. So Marjorie snapped her mouth shut.

  Elise nodded and smiled. And proceeded to take her medicine. To smoke out any remaining, lurking glitter. Everyone stood around and watched. Even Pa was glued. Waiting to witness the health benefits of cigarette smoke on bad nerves.

  Smoking did work for a bit – just like the doctor said. Elise’s nerves relaxed in the drowsiness of the cigarette smoke and the tremor of the high strings slowed down to a soothing hum. The hum was a bit like the beehive – you could be lulled by it. And everyone was lulled. But somewhere along the line Elise stopped her treatment. She decided smoking would ruin her voice, and a magical voice was more important to her than cigarette smoke and good nerves.

  Not too long after Elise did that, Marjorie also did a couple of things: she went back to high school, and she started – in private – smoking. Marjorie took up smoking for a number of reasons:

  —Because Marjorie was conscientious and wanted to provide her own private and anonymous support to the local Mallee medical opinion.

  —As a preventive measure, to get a jump start on any nerves that might manifest later in herself.

  —Because both her father and her mother would not want her to.

  —Because it would be a secret.

  —And because – like swearing – she could. Let’s face it. Bill would never miss the odd bits of tobacco from the tin or the few tiny slips of paper from the packet. And who was counting the matches?

  Smoking was good. Marjorie liked it. Unlike Elise, she made a commitment to smoking. And smoking, combined with swearing, could certainly make you laugh.

  The only thing she wasn’t sure of, though, was whether smoking could have cured Elise’s nerves if Elise had taken the prescribed medication for the long haul. Whether things might have been different in the end if Elise had decided good nerves might be worth more than a magical voice.

  *

  One of the other things that was never the same after the rose garden and the bees was the tea cosy. It wasn’t too long after swearing and smoking arrived in her life that Marjorie realised tea cosies could have more than one purpose. Marjorie discovered a tea cosy didn’t have to restrict itself to just protecting a good pot of tea because Elise had decided that if a tea cosy had tired of hot tea preservation it could become a hat.

  ‘You’ve grown out of all your things,’ said Elise one night as they ate their tea. ‘That dress is far too short.’

  Marjorie looked down in surprise and wondered where these extra-length legs had come from. Maybe high school was responsible?

  Bill glanced up from the reverie of his potatoes and squinted at Marjorie. He wasn’t worried about the legs. He was more concerned about the face. ‘What’re you doing with those pimples all over your face? You need to get rid of those.’

  Marjorie switched from wondering where the legs had come from to worrying about the spots on her face. Her face helped. It went red to try to hide the pimples. The legs weren’t offering any help, though, so she just stuck them out of the way under the table.

  But the longer legs and the pimply skin were not entirely useless. They gave Marjorie something. As recompense for the trouble they caused. They gave Marjorie a different optical perspective. And they also sharpened her hearing.

  ‘It is important to dress properly,’ Elise had always said to Ruby and Marjorie – usually as she was dragging a comb through a complaining Marjorie’s resistant, sticking-out hair. ‘A woman who is lazy with her dress will drift towards all sorts of slovenly behaviour.’

  So Elise never went into town wearing her farmhouse dress. And never would she allow Ruby and Marjorie to go into town wearing their round-the-house clothes. They, too, must wear dresses and have ribbons in their hair. Regardless of whether the hair wanted ribbons.

  ‘Here comes that Elise,’ whispered Shirlene Doherty, peering through the tins of powdered milk and packets of salt lined up in the window of the town’s general store. ‘Hat and gloves, lipstick and high heels. Who does she think she is?’

  Mrs Cameron scrubbed hard at the wooden counter top in her little shop and her face went red. Maybe she had pimples too. ‘Hello, Elise,’ she said. And her words rushed as kindly as they were able. Scurrying past Shirlene and her surly face.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Elise with a smile.

  But Elise’s diffident smile was no match for Shirlene. She turned to lean against the counter, arms folded, and watched Elise.

  ‘Why do you bother?’ Shirlene asked, her head moving up and down to take Elise in. ‘It must be because you’re from the city. Country folk don’t get dressed up to the nines just to get the mail and papers.’

  Elise faltered. ‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ she said.

  But Shirlene was in too much of a hurry to wait for an apology. ‘No. We don’t have spare time just lying around so we can go into town in that sort of get-up,’ she said. ‘And how did you come by that dress, anyway? It’s new, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elise. Her smile making a timid re-entry.

  ‘Well, you’re a bit hard up at the moment, aren’t you? Why would you be wasting Bill’s money on getting yourself a new dress?’

  ‘I made it out of an old curtain,’ Elise offered.

  ‘A curtain?’ Shirlene’s teeth smiled.

  There was something in that smile of Shirlene’s that made Elise’s own smile fall right off her face. She turned and her high heels ran out of the shop. The doorbell tinkled in alarm at the groceries left deserted on the counter and the girl left forgotten behind the flour sacks. Marjorie ran to follow Elise.

  ‘Princess,’ muttered Shirlene.

  Marjorie used to love Elise’s dresses made from fabrics strange and whimsical, and her hats and gloves and handbags. She was proud. But that was before the long legs and pimples. Now Marjorie was higher up and looking down. And from that superior height, she could see her mother for who she really was – which was that she was not fit for purpose among proper mothers. That she ignored the customs of women around her and made her own clothes. Out of curtains. Without any regard to local opinion. Or without any thought to what it meant for Marjorie and Ruby to have a mother who wore dresses made out of curtains. And the impact this might have on you once you had longs legs and pimples. And with flagrant disregard for any fashion catalogues. Not even the Woman’s Day. Marjorie and her long legs and pimples burned at the humiliation. ‘Can we buy clothes, like everyone else does?’ she demanded one day.

  ‘What makes you think we have the money to spend on buying clothes? What is wrong with the ones I make for you?’

  ‘I would just like to have clothes that are like my friends’ clothes for once.’

  ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Marjorie,’ Elise said, drawing herself up to her full height and staring down at her daughter. ‘Your father is working his fingers to the bone trying to keep the farm and prov
ide you with a good education. And you have the hide to suggest we buy clothes. You are an ingrate.’

  ‘She didn’t mean it like that,’ said Ruby. ‘Did you, Marjorie?’

  Marjorie wasn’t listening to Ruby’s warning, though. Ordinarily Marjorie would have been intimidated by Elise in full sail. She knew the consequences of antagonising Elise when she was in this frame of mind. But Marjorie was still suffering from the large dose of humiliation Elise and her outfit had caused.

  ‘Why can’t we be like everyone else? Just for once I would like to think we are like everyone else,’ she said, hands on hips.

  ‘Of course we are like everyone else,’ said Elise in her beautiful voice and with her beautiful diction. ‘Whatever would make you think we are not?’ She smiled the smile of someone watching events from the high moral ground. ‘And if you think I intend to lower my standards, you have another think coming, young lady. We cannot afford the luxuries. So for Pete’s sake, Marjorie, get off your high horse.’ Elise had a tremor of a glittery smile as she turned her back and flicked the tea towel to dismiss the subject.

  Sometime after that, and perhaps to demonstrate both her innovation and thriftiness, Elise took to wearing the tea cosy for a hat.

  ‘You’ve got the tea cosy on your head,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Elise. ‘Why would I wear a tea cosy on my head?’

  Ruby glanced up from the mountains of homework she was always doing. ‘Marjorie’s right,’ she said. Her talking was slow and attentive.