by Robin Klein
‘I don’t know how you can come out with big fibs like that, Isobel Dion, specially when you’re cross-stitching a missal bookmark!’ Dorrie said, shocked. ‘No one in Wilgawa’s related to any film stars.’
‘Fat lot you know,’ Isobel said, producing a glossy black and white print.
‘Anyone can get photos of the stars—you just write to that Odeon Theatre fan club thing. I’ve got one of Margaret O’Brien. Oh, she was so cute in Meet Me in St Louis—I’ve seen that three whole times.’
‘You would,’ Isobel said pityingly. ‘Take a look on the back.’
Dorrie turned the photo over and read aloud, ‘Izzy honey-bunch, I sure miss you a lot, can hardly wait for when you come over here to Hollywood for a visit—we’ll have us a swell time! Hugs and kisses from your loving Aunty Ginger. P.S. Fred sends his regards.’
‘Fred Astaire, that is,’ Isobel said, snatching the photograph back before anyone could notice the writing was in green ink, just like her history essay.
That had been a very successful venture, everyone crawling to her like mad, and today she had something else with a great deal of potential. She set off for school down Tavistell Street, in the opposite direction to all the kids heading up the hill to the high school. That was a sore point. She longed to go there with Heather and Cathy Melling—not to mention all those gorgeous boys—but Mum hadn’t budged an inch. Isobel often wondered glumly how she was going to manage being stuck at the Convent till she turned fifteen and could leave school for ever. The only consolation was that she was the sole person there with any glamour and everyone knew it, including Sister Benedicta. She stopped to grab a handful of late-flowering roses from someone’s front garden, because it was always wise to start the week on the right side of Sister B.
At the Convent gate the usual cluster of girls waited to see how she’d be wearing her hat this morning. They weren’t disappointed; today she’d coaxed the brim into a tricorn, and as she went through the gate she hoisted her skirt, too, allowing everyone a glimpse of the blue satin garter, her item of interest for today. She’d sat up half the night making it.
‘Oooh, Isobel!’ they cried. ‘Where’d you get that—it’s marvellous!’
‘Elastic garters might be okay for the rest of you, but I’m fussy about my lingerie,’ Isobel said loftily. ‘It’s from Paris.’
‘You mean Paris in France?’
‘Where else? I know a lady who dances the cancan in the Folies Bergère and she sent it to me specially. And if Sister decides to make sure everyone’s wearing navy knickers today, I’ll just tell her I cut my leg and it’s a tourniquet…Oh, good morning, Sister! These flowers are for you, I know how much you like white roses. They’re my favourite, too—so pure and holy looking.’
Sister Benedicta, coming out to take Assembly, eyed her cynically, but said, ‘Thank you, child, that’s a very nice thought.’
News of the garter spread rapidly. Straight after Assembly Kathleen Dunkling from Fifth Year offered her half a Violet Crumble bar and asked if she could borrow the Paris garter next Saturday night. Isobel nodded obligingly. It was always advisable to curry favour with anyone in Fifth Year, even without Violet Crumble bars. She bounced gaily into 1C’s class-room, risking a few casual foxtrot steps so everyone would think to themselves, ‘That’s because of having Ginger Rogers for an aunt and knowing someone who’s in the Folies Bergère—dancing’s in her blood.’
Sister Benedicta asked crisply if she had a nail in her shoe, and told her to sit down and take out her geometry text book. Geometry was a subject Isobel couldn’t see the slightest point in whatsoever. It was a complete waste of time for anyone glamorous. She knew that when she moved to Hollywood the only mathematics in her life would be checking fat numbers in film contracts, and she’d probably have an agent to do that for her, anyhow. Besides, Esme Tyler in the desk across the aisle could be relied upon to supply geometry answers. She’d seen every Ginger Rogers film ever made, and since the photograph, had practically licked Isobel’s shoes every time they met in the corridor.
There was a flurry of noise out in the corridor now, of someone walking past the door, opening the one into the cloakroom, coming back to knock loudly at theirs and opening it before Sister even had the chance to say, ‘Come in’.
‘Am I in the right place, is this 1C?’ someone asked. ‘They told me at the office to come straight over. I’m new—my name’s Paulette Makepiece.’
It was as though a large bright parrot had fluttered lazily into 1C, for Paulette Makepiece, astoundingly, wasn’t in school uniform. She wore an emerald skirt and a red blouse fastened with a poodle brooch. The poodle had a little collar set with sparkling green stones. Isobel stared at it covetously, then noticed something else and almost swallowed her pencil eraser in indignation. Apart from herself, there was going to be another person in 1C now who had a…figure!
‘Yes, I was told to expect you,’ Sister Benedicta said. ‘But surely it’s been explained that uniform is compulsory? If you haven’t been able to buy ours yet, you must wear the one from your last school until you do.’
‘Oh yes, Sister, I know! I’m really sorry to turn up dressed like this, but we only just arrived in town and most of our stuff’s still packed away in storage.’
Paulette Makepiece had a beguiling smile, with teeth as white and even as piano keys. Isobel noticed crossly that Sister Benedicta was smiling creakily back, something that had never been known to happen before where new girls were concerned. Paulette was given the spare desk next to Esme, and all through Geometry and French, the whole class kept turning around to stare at her. There was something about her personality which dominated the room, and Isobel, peeping with the others, simmered with jealousy. Paulette achieved that dominance with little effort, for she certainly wasn’t brainy. She didn’t seem to know anything about anything, let alone the future tense of avoir, but being dumb didn’t faze her in the slightest. She just sat there blinking her enormous golden eyes under her tawny fringe, as regal and compelling as a lioness on a rock.
When the bell rang for recess Isobel leant across the aisle and said quickly, ‘You wouldn’t want to hang about with any of the others, they’re just a lot of boring little twerps. I’ll show you around if you like. I’m related to Ginger Rogers, you know…’
But the new girl didn’t hear, she was being assailed by Josephine clamouring to show her where the toilets were, Dorrie offering her a lamington and the others shoving in where they could. Paulette smiled amiably at them all and allowed herself to be escorted outside where she was given the best seat at the base of Saint Joseph’s statue. Isobel followed, stiff with resentment. That stone bench was rightfully hers, the place where she always sat to dole out expert advice on eyebrow-shaping and how to make your bust look bigger! But now this…interloper was enthroned there, with Josephine, Dorrie, Esme and half a dozen others gobbling up her every word as though they were peppermint creams!
‘We’re staying at that big hotel near the river till we find a house,’ Paulette was saying, and the girls gazed at her, enthralled. They’d never known anyone who’d actually stayed in a hotel, specially not the impressive River Hotel with its arched double-storeyed veranda and the two trees at its entrance trimmed into the shapes of a kangaroo and emu. Isobel started to boast that she’d personally been inside that hotel tons of times because her mum worked there, but changed her mind. There could be, she reflected abruptly, a sizeable gulf between someone who made up beds and waited on tables, and the people who paid for such services.
‘Dad’s going to be buying a shop here, probably a milk bar,’ Paulette said. ‘Maybe I’ll let you all come in and get free lime spiders after school sometimes.’
The girls drew closer, adoring, never having met anyone whose father owned a milk bar.
‘And he’s got plans about turning one end into a hamburger counter.’
Hamburgers—Wilgawa had never known anything so exotic!
‘Have a fairy cake,’ Jo
sephine gushed. ‘It’s a bit squashy, but it’s got lots of jam in it. Where’s your father’s shop going to be, is it that empty one next to the post office?’
‘He hasn’t decided yet. They’re still looking around, and I wanted to go and look with them, but Mum didn’t want me missing any more school. So that’s why I’ve started already even though I haven’t got the uniform yet. We didn’t think it would matter in a little hick town like this.’
Such was her allure that no one even minded Wilgawa being referred to as a little hick town.
‘I just love your swirly skirt and the cute poodle brooch with the little glittery collar!’ Dorrie said.
‘This old thing, you mean? Why, I’ve had it so long I’m bored with it now. I’ve got an uncle who sells costume jewellery, and he’s always giving me brooches and things. You could say I’m a bit spoiled, really—Dad even had to buy me a jewel box with a whole lot of extra compartments. Soon as we find a house they’re going to get me one of those four-poster beds, too, with a canopy.’
‘Wow!’ Esme said. ‘A four-poster bed with a canopy…’
It was about time, Isobel decided grimly, that a stop was put to all this. She elbowed Josephine aside and said, ‘I’m Isobel Dion, in case you don’t know. I can play the piano accordion and I learn tap-dancing, ballet, character and folk. As a matter of fact I’m related to…’
‘There’s the bell,’ Esme interrupted rudely. ‘It’s Sister Benedicta again and we’re doing the solar system, Paulette, but just sing out if you get stuck.’
Paulette knew nothing about the planets and didn’t seem to care in the least. Sister Benedicta, however, told her that tomorrow she must bring all her work from her previous school so someone could assess just what she did know—as well as getting a uniform from somewhere.
‘Yes, Sister, of course. I’ll get all my books and school stuff out tonight,’ Paulette said respectfully. ‘Mum’s been too busy to unpack, that’s all.’
But at lunch-time she confided to Josephine and whoever else chose to listen, ‘I can’t really be bothered unpacking, specially when we’ll be moving out of that hotel soon as we find a house. I hate school uniforms, anyway. Tomorrow I think I might just wear my midnight-blue velveteen pinafore, and the silly old crow can flap as much as she likes.’
Silly old crow—no one had ever dared call Sister Benedicta that before, even behind her back! The girls, mesmerised, squabbled with each other for the honour of sitting next to Paulette for lunch, and at the end of the day followed her devotedly down Tavistell Street to the bus-stop, even though half of them didn’t usually go home that way. They looked, Isobel decided angrily, like paper-clips attached to a magnet.
She trudged home and didn’t even glance at herself automatically in the kitchen mirror as she went inside, but just slumped at the table. Mum was getting ready for work, ironing the ruffled muslin apron which had ‘River Hotel’ embroidered on the bosom, and her tight black dress. Isobel had always considered that uniform rather stylish, but now had second thoughts. Perhaps Paulette Makepiece would sit arrogantly in the dining-room of the River Hotel and see it only as a symbol of inferiority.
‘The old pub’s just about bursting at the seams this week,’ Mum said, smoothing the band of her starched white cap. ‘I mightn’t get home till all hours if they need help in the kitchen later. Make sure you get your homework done—and don’t go making a beeline to my dressing-table the minute I’m half-way out the door, either.’
‘Got to have something to do, haven’t I?’ Isobel said moodily. ‘Seeing I’m stuck here all alone just about every evening with you tearing off to work.’
‘Oh, love, don’t be like that,’ Mum said with sudden concern. ‘Look, I know it’s tough on you, but I’ve got to do the extra time with Vi being away. She always fills in for me when I ask her, and besides—where else can I get a job? I’m a bit long in the tooth to be an usherette again. You’ve always been such a good kid, not whingeing when I have to do extra shifts. I suppose if you’re bored you could go up and stay the night at Aunty Connie’s—though maybe it’s better not to for the time being.’
‘They never mind me going up there. Viv and Cathy said so.’
‘They’re too young to understand how crook things are. Poor old Connie’s got enough on her plate with himself being out of work, plus maybe having to shift out of Sawmill Road after June. Goodness only knows where else the poor things can go…’
‘I’ll be all right staying home by myself,’ Isobel muttered. ‘I’ll survive. It’s just that some people my age live really different lives. Some people have naturally curly hair and velveteen pinafores and rich dads who own milk bars and uncles who keep giving them jewellery every five minutes…’
‘If all that’s a build-up to asking if I’ll shout you one of those new season shorty coats in Osborne’s, you can just forget it,’ Mum said. ‘I’m off now—don’t let me catch you still up when I get home.’
Isobel was too depressed to contemplate anything but an early night. She lit the chip heater and ran a bath, throwing in a handful of Lux flakes to make bubbles. Paulette, she thought bitterly, wouldn’t be feeding an antiquated bath heater with woodchips, she’d be splashing around in one of the ferry-sized tubs at the River Hotel, where the mirrors were etched with dolphins and the fluffy towels were as soft as clover. But she didn’t want to think about Paulette Makepiece any more today.
She painted her toenails as brilliantly as orchids, which made her feel slightly better, and propped her feet up against the tap while the varnish dried. The sight of her school tunic on a nearby chair brought fresh discouragement. It was sheer cruelty making kids (especially ones with chic) wear clothes like that every day. There was no reason why school tunics had to be so unflattering, and someone should write a letter about it to the Prime Minister. Paulette Watch-Me-Everyone-Makepiece had the right idea. Probably she’d get away with not wearing a uniform for weeks, just by using the excuse that her mother hadn’t got around to unpacking her old one yet. Tomorrow she’d turn up in a midnight-blue velveteen pinafore and for the second day running look like the greatest show on earth.
Isobel eyed her school tunic with frustrated loathing, knowing she couldn’t improve it in any way, even shortening it radically before tomorrow. Sister Benedicta quite often had tunic blitzes and was quite capable of ripping too-short hemline stitching undone on the spot. The victim had to slink around school all day in a tunic that flapped half-way down her shins and walk home like that, too. Tomorrow, Isobel thought dolefully, she’d have no choice but to be one of the paperclips clinging to Paulette Makepiece’s magnet, unless…
She reached out and pulled the tunic into the bathtub with her.
In the morning she was specially considerate about not waking her mother, who had arrived home very late. She dressed carefully and set off down Tavistell Street, but her pace slowed as she approached the Convent gates. There was the usual crowd going in, girls with hats at the correct prissy angle, their skinny legs in black stockings like sticks of liquorice. Isobel raised her chin pugnaciously, telling herself that Sister Benedicta probably only yelled at people so loudly and so often to keep her voice in trim for the choir. And besides, she wouldn’t be the only one out of school uniform today—she and Paulette Makepiece would be the stars of the day together, the only two people with glamour. Sister couldn’t very well go mad at one and not the other, but in spite of thinking all that, it required great reserves of bravery to get herself in through the Convent gates.
‘Crikey!’ Josephine and Dorrie whispered, staring at Isobel’s mother’s tight black skirt with the slit, the crocodile-skin shoes and V-necked electric-pink angora sweater adorned with large dress-clips.
‘If you’re wondering where I got these dress-clips, Ginger Rogers—my Aunt Ginger, that is, sent them to me from New York…’ Isobel said, but her voice choked to a stop.
Paulette Makepiece had just come in through the gate, and Paulette wasn’t wearing a midni
ght-blue velveteen pinafore at all. She was in school uniform, and not the stodgy Convent one, either, but an elegant tan pleated skirt, a matching blazer with a magnificent crested pocket, and a smart little beret.
‘Oh, do you really like it?’ she cooed at all the people who immediately deserted Isobel and thronged about her in admiration. ‘It’s just what we wore at this boarding-school I went to before we moved. Mum wanted me to stay on there but I didn’t like it much, they were too strict…’
‘Boarding-school!’ cried Josephine, Dorrie and Esme, who were smitten with boarding-school stories that term. ‘Oh, you lucky, lucky, lucky thing!’
‘Isobel Dion!’ called Sister Benedicta from the office window. ‘You come here right this minute, young lady!’
‘My tunic accidentally fell in the bath and I had nothing else to wear,’ Isobel gabbled, trying to stand her ground unflinchingly but not succeeding. Sister Benedicta’s stringent lecture about what was suitable and what was not to wear to school in an emergency like stupidly letting your tunic fall into a bath was enough to wilt even the tallest poppy. The Empire State Building dress-clips were confiscated and so were the crocodile-skin shoes. Sister Benedicta produced a pair of hideous sandshoes from the lost property cupboard, also a large handkerchief which she made Isobel pin into the V-neckline of the angora sweater.
No comfort was to be found afterwards, either, the others were too busy listening breathlessly to Paulette Makepiece’s glittering anecdotes about boarding-school life. For the second day in a row Isobel suffered the cataclysmic experience of being practically ignored. Hardly anyone spoke to her at all except to say insulting things like, ‘You look kind of stupid dressed up like a dog’s dinner for school. And how come you’re wearing your mum’s clothes—I’ve seen her down the street in those things!’ The maimed hours limped by. Several people complained that fluff from the angora sweater was making them sneeze and Sister Benedicta made Isobel put on a weird black cape borrowed from a postulant at the Convent. Everyone giggled when she went out into the playground like that, so she hid behind the statue of Saint Joseph and watched Paulette Makepiece swanning around in her wonderful boarding-school uniform like someone out of an Angela Brazil book.