by Robbi Neal
Only now, when she was completely ready, could Edie bring herself to look in the mirror. She gasped at how short her skirt really was. She hadn’t quite expected to remove that much material. For a moment she wondered if she had the courage to go through with it. But she was desperate. Without a husband she’d never have a home of her own. She’d always be a child in her father’s house. She’d always be the Too Girl. She would have nothing to do, her father wouldn’t ever let her work and her mother looked after their house and didn’t need her help. As much as she loved her father, she had to escape, she had to have her own home and her own life. She stood back a little and pretended she was Missus Theo Hooley.
Missus Blackmarsh always tugged her hair, black like her name, so tightly into a bun like a doorknob on the back of her head that her eyebrows were pulled up and her skin was stretched over the harsh pointy bones of her face. Her eyes became tiny dark slits through which she peered disapprovingly at the world. She had seen Edie through her slit eyes gazing at Theo one Sunday and said to herself, ‘Well, well, well, fancy that.’ And then she had turned to Missus Whitlock and said, ‘Too Girl is far too loud to ever catch quiet Mister Hooley.’
‘He’d never say another word,’ added Missus Whitlock. And laughed as they looked at Edie, who knew they were laughing at her and blushed. Since her interest in Theo had been noticed, the other girls, who might not have thought of him before, thought that if Edie was interested in Theo he must have something worth being interested in and were now considering him a viable option. Edie had seen them flitting and fluttering around him. She’d seen Vera Gamble fluttering just last Sunday, giggling like a schoolgirl at every word he said, which, given Theo, wasn’t many. Edie couldn’t flutter or flitter or flirt. She gazed at the mirror to see what sort of an impact she could make on him, if it would be enough to whet his appetite.
Edie waited behind her door until it was time to leave for church. That way she could put off the inevitable hullabaloo over her skirt. Her heart pounded against the bones of her corset. Her fingers began to sweat as they gripped her umbrella too tightly. It wasn’t the possibility of her father being angry that made her nerves jangle, it was knowing that this was her very last chance. She had thought through all the available men in the district and there were no other possibilities. There was no one else for her if she didn’t get Theo.
Two
The Cure
In church, where the air sits still and lazy around people’s heads, making the women faint and the men sleepy.
Now Theodore Hooley wasn’t a boy in his twenties whose chest was puffed with arrogance and newly discovered clout. Oh no. Theo had been to the African war and come back. He’d had the clout well and truly knocked out of him. At least he’d come back in one piece, and Edie thought that made him worth loving alone. Besides being physically whole, which was undoubtedly a huge plus, Theo Hooley had also come back quieter, hollowed out and embracing the ordinariness of life. He seemed content living with his mother and playing the church’s newly imported organ on Sundays. The men occasionally commented that Theo hadn’t decided on a career since getting back from the war. Many returned soldiers opened a shop or went to the mines, but Theo hadn’t done anything except eat his mother’s cooking and play hymns.
Missus Blackmarsh told everyone Theo didn’t need to work because he had brought back gold from Africa hidden in the seams of his greatcoat, and the quantity grew each time she told the story.
When Edie had mentioned Missus Blackmarsh’s theory to her father, Paul had laughed and said, ‘Well, as I manage the estate for Missus Hooley I think I would know if there was golden treasure involved.’
It didn’t bother Edie that Theo seemed content with an uncomplicated life. It was precisely why she knew that, even though she was now nineteen, she might have a real chance with him. She could just slip into his life almost unnoticed; she could fill a hollow space and the two of them would be comfortable.
She took one last look in the mirror and a deep breath for courage.
‘Edith — we’re leaving.’ Her father’s voice called out again and suddenly, full of the possibility of Theodore Hooley, Edie did feel brave and ‘so what’ if everyone was going to be outraged by her short skirt. She flung open the door and it banged against the doorstop and shuddered like a washboard. The jasmine filled her lungs with hope, she stepped into the entrance hall with its glistening tiles and frowning portraits. She smiled broadly, trying desperately to keep everyone’s attention on her face and not on the shortness of her skirt. By jiminy her father would go berserk seeing his only daughter — his only child — scantily clad. Her father was always so intent on setting a standard in the community and expected Edie and her mother to follow suit.
‘I’ve never seen you so happy about going to church before,’ her father commented dryly, seeing her expectant face; then he tapped his fob watch, swung his umbrella in little circles and said, ‘Righteo.’ He was bound tightly into his three-piece suit; it was pulling at his middle, which was slowly expanding with age.
Edie was perplexed. In truth she was a little annoyed. He hadn’t even bothered to look at her skirt. He was so vacant these days. She looked questioningly at her mother, who was leaning against the wall. She had dark rings under her eyes and a large loose cape over her dress. But Edie didn’t notice her mother’s tired appearance and looked back at her father, who was still tapping his watch, timing their departure perfectly, and then she looked at Beth standing a few feet away in her linen skirt, waiting to see if she was family or servant today. She was always fluctuating between the two, sometimes an intimate, at other times an observer; the tide entirely depended on the family’s mood.
Two years ago Beth had been lost and empty, living with her oldest sister Dottie’s family and working for Mister Scully at his bakery. She knew she wanted something different but she didn’t know what that something was. Beth at thirteen was the youngest of four sisters; Dottie was the eldest and was fifteen years older than Beth. Dottie liked to remind the other sisters that she was the practical one, like their mother, but Aggie (who was two years younger than Dottie) said Dottie was just plain bossy and it had nothing to do with being practical or being like their mother. Beth bit her lip when Aggie said this because she couldn’t remember their mother; whenever she was mentioned the other three sisters looked uncomfortably at each other and changed the subject. Florrie was one year younger than Aggie and Dottie called her Aggie’s shadow — not to her face, of course. Florrie and Aggie worked at the Bunch of Grapes where they poured warm beer into cold miners’ stomachs and didn’t come home until four in the morning. Dottie said the two of them were as useless as their father, who had upped and disappeared when their mother died. Beth said nothing because she couldn’t remember their father either. Dottie’s husband was called Laidlaw, but even Beth couldn’t tell you his first name. He worked down the mines and when he got home and collapsed into his chair at the end of the kitchen table the whole house became noisier as his laughing voice boomed its way around the kitchen and up the hall. If Dottie’s two kids had been asleep, they were soon awake. When his voice filled the house, Beth knew there was no room left for her.
Every day Beth came home from Scully’s bakery with her clothes covered in flour, but one night she came home and the flour was imprinted with Mister Scully’s fingerprints fluttering all over her like flies she was forever trying to brush away. Dottie had stopped mashing potatoes and looked at her good and hard but she didn’t say anything. The next night her mother’s friend Nurse Drake had turned up at the door and spent a good half-hour whispering with Dottie in the entranceway. Beth had stood and watched them, leaning against the hallway wall. She knew they were whispering about her because they turned at regular intervals and gave her long meaningful looks, and after much nodding of heads Dottie had turned and said to Beth, ‘Get your things, Bethie, you have a new job. Nurse Drake is going to take you there now. It’s live-in.’
‘You mean
I won’t be living here?’ said Beth, and added pointedly, ‘With my family?’ just to make Dottie feel guilty, even though they both knew there was no room.
‘It’s an opportunity,’ said Nurse Drake. ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, missy.’
Well, it just so happened that Beth liked opportunities. She liked to spot them and jump on them because you never knew where they might lead, and as long as they led somewhere, she didn’t mind taking a risk on the unknown.
So Beth had gathered her other dress, her hairbrush and her stockings and underthings and shoved them into her small tattered suitcase with someone else’s initials inscribed in the worn leather and followed Nurse Drake up the street. Nurse Drake nattered all the way, filling Beth’s head with noise, which was annoying because she wanted to take in where they were going.
‘They’re a good family; you’ve really landed on your feet, missy. I’m doing this for your poor mother because I said I’d watch out for you. Don’t waste this opportunity, young lady.’
Beth had no intention of wasting the opportunity to get away from Mister Scully’s fat clammy fingers and Dottie’s full house, where Beth had to share her bed with Aggie and Florrie who woke her as they clambered in tipsy, giggling, and loudly sshh-ing every night.
And the Cottinghams were good to her. Miss Cottingham told her she would be treated like one of the family and they were true to their word — most of the time. Missus Cottingham taught her how to iron Mister Cottingham’s shirts the way he liked and how to use the hot meat fat to make sure the potatoes crisped. She was a patient teacher and now Beth could do it herself. She ate the same food as the Cottingham’s at the same table at the same time, but she prepared all the food and served it and cleaned up afterwards. She had her own bedroom and her own bed, but hers was a wooden bed in a tiny room at the back of the house, whereas Edie had a brass bed in the front room with bay windows and velvet curtains. The Cottinghams provided her with everything she needed so she didn’t need the wage they paid her of a sovereign each week. She always changed the coin into two half sovereigns when she did the grocery shopping and took one half to Dottie and stashed the other half in a washed golden syrup tin, and when she counted how many sovereigns she had at the end of each month she always had to wash her hands afterwards because the coins were sticky. But all in all Nurse Drake had been right. Mister Cottingham never tried to flutter his hands over her as though he was grasping for gold dust, and Missus Cottingham was kind and quiet and like the mother she never had. Edie gave her all her old dresses and sometimes it was almost like they were sisters. The risk had paid off.
Edie stood in the hallway, gave a little nervous laugh at absolutely nothing, and fidgeted with her hat. Then she saw her mother frowning at the bottom of her skirt.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Mama,’ Edie leaned forward and whispered, ‘I haven’t killed a Chinaman.’
She watched her mother’s face closely. She was expecting a lecture but Lucy only sighed and leant back against the wall. A shiver ran down Edie’s spine, a sense of foreboding. Nothing was happening as it normally would. Her mother should have said something to alert her father, she should have said, ‘Father, see what our Edith has done to her Sunday best,’ not just sighed as though her mind was elsewhere altogether, concentrating on things more important than Edie. And her father should have noticed and demanded she go and change. Edie had always been the focus of their attention. But suddenly it seemed that her mother and father weren’t interested in her any more and she felt immensely put out. She looked at her father again, demanding his attention with her gaze, but he was still tapping away at his watch as though enough taps would give him control of time. His brow was furrowed and his thoughts were far away.
Edie sulked; she didn’t care now what they said about her skirt. They could say what they jolly well liked if they were going to treat her like a piece of glass. She looked from one to the other and what was really only a minute or two seemed to stretch into the future. But her father stayed focused on his watch and her mother’s eyes gave nothing away.
‘What are you hiding under that cape, Mama?’ Edie fingered the fur trim and wondered why her mother insisted on wearing it when the morning had become quite warm. It was past ten and they would be back from church well before the afternoon chill set in at four. Lucy didn’t answer; she just looked at Edie with watery eyes. Edie failed to see how drawn and pale her mother was, as if talcum powder had been smeared over her cheeks.
Edie turned her attention to Beth and said, ‘Lovely skirt, Beth,’ even though it was the same skirt Beth wore every Sunday.
‘You’d be a hit at the Bunch of Grapes in your skirt,’ said Beth, thinking of the miners who her sisters said could be filled up with beer but could never get enough loving to sate their appetites.
‘Really?’ asked Edie.
‘Oh yes,’ said Beth, thinking of the miners.
‘Righteo,’ said Paul. He had given up tapping his watch and instead swung his black umbrella, which doubled as a walking stick, in a figure eight and tapped it on the ground three times. Then he went back to his watch, like a boy that couldn’t leave something alone for one minute. ‘Righteo then, we better be off,’ he said finally. And without looking back he led the way out the front door that was framed by the reds and greens of the flying rosellas in the leadlight windows.
The windows cast rainbow beams that bounced off the walls, lighting the entranceway like children’s wishes. When Edie was a child she had sometimes sat in the coloured beams, letting their magic play over her skin, and as she sat there she would ask God for the things that she wanted. God had always seemed to answer. So as she passed under the beams this morning she quickly asked for a husband and if God was in a good mood could he make it Theo Hooley.
Paul was already walking smartly down the verandah steps and the timber boards bounced under the weight of his determined footsteps and the tapping of the umbrella. The three women scurried to keep up with him. He stepped out onto the driveway and the gravel crunched under his shoes.
The women followed.
‘Men!’ Edie said to Lucy as they walked down the steps after him. He hadn’t even looked at her skirt once. How could he not even notice her hours of hard work?
‘Which man?’ asked Lucy absently, putting her arm through Edie’s and giving a little squeeze.
‘Father of course — look.’ And Edie stuck out one stockinged foot showing the new length of her skirt, as though her mother hadn’t already seen it. Her ankle poked out, sitting right between her boot and the new bottom of her skirt, clothed only in a black woollen stocking.
‘But what about a dust ruffle? Beth will be constantly washing it.’ Lucy was a practical woman.
‘Me and whose army,’ muttered Beth.
‘I don’t need a dust ruffle now that it can’t drag on the ground,’ Edie pointed out.
Her mother raised an eyebrow.
‘Fashions change,’ said Edie.
‘Not if your father has his way,’ said Lucy and they looked ahead to where he strode in front of them, leading the women of his family down Webster Street to Drummond Street and on towards the church in Dawson Street as though he was leading a regiment.
‘Onward Christian soldiers,’ sang Edie.
Edie sat in the hard pew, bored senseless by the monotone preaching of weedy Reverend Whitlock, whose high-pitched voice sounded like a child whining for a treat. His sentences were shrill but he always dipped on the last two words, which he drew out like a Gregorian chant. She shifted her weight from side to side and looked about for a distraction to occupy her mind for the next three-quarters of an hour. A good Baptist sermon has three main points and lasts for twenty minutes exactly, but Reverend Whitlock was a man who liked the sound of his own voice and rambled off his points regularly. As far as Edie could tell his main point was always a warning to the young women to stay away from the miners whose hands were so used to the dark they could find their way to any s
ecret place. Many of the miners had wives and kids back home in Ireland that they forgot to mention to the single young ladies in town.
Theo was sitting up the front of the church at the organ he’d played every Sunday since he returned from Africa. Edie could only see the back of his head, his hair smooth and shiny with oil. She watched him for a while, willing him to look at her, but he didn’t, and soon even the back of Theo’s head lost its appeal and she turned and watched her mother. She studied the wrinkles around her mother’s eyes and began to notice that Lucy was slumped in her seat, whereas normally she sat straight and dignified. Her eyes were puffy and dark and she’d definitely put on weight, and when Edie really thought about it she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her mother singing.
Edie wondered why she hadn’t noticed all this before, why she hadn’t worried more about her mother spending so much time in her room. Edie felt she should have realised sooner and prescribed some remedy. She was a bit of a whiz when it came to medical knowledge, you could learn a lot from reading the advertisements in the local papers. If she hadn’t thought of her plan, and hadn’t written in her notebook that she was going to marry Theo, she might have learnt nursing, though her father would never permit it. Paul thought work was something only the poor did, or rich men like him did for a hobby so they didn’t get bored with life. Edie knew she would make a darn good nurse. She knew a lot about bodily functions. She knew the Swiss-Italians in nearby Hepburn pined for feathers of crisp snow during the Australian summer heat and that sometimes in the middle of January they sweated until they hadn’t an ounce of moisture left in their shrivelled bodies and lay down on their cane divans on their verandahs and died of ‘nostalgia’. She’d read that in the paper: Mister Pedretti, father of fifteen, died on Monday in Hepburn of Nostalgia.