Dresses of Red and Gold

by Robin Klein

  When school finished she gloomed home and climbed in through the bedroom window to change, an act of furtiveness that wasn’t even necessary, for Mum wasn’t in. There was a note on the kitchen table which said, ‘Never rains but it pours! As well as Vi still away, one of the other girls sprained her ankle, so now yours truly has an extra afternoon shift. What a life—never mind, maybe I’ll meet a rich travelling salesman. Irish stew in pot on stove, I’ll be home about tennish, love, Mum. P.S. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about my pink fuzzy wuzzy sweater, would you, madam?’

  Isobel felt too miserable for Irish stew. Paulette, she thought, would probably be having roast beef and the River Hotel’s luscious Tuesday night dessert, pear and ginger tart, for dinner. Paulette…she contemplated a future so grim it made her eyes water. The best thing about the small pond of Wilgawa was that she, Isobel Dion, had always been the most noticeable frog in it, but now she’d been reduced to tadpole size—and she didn’t see how she could possibly bear it! From now on great big glamorous Paulette Makepiece would be stealing every ray of limelight in every part of town—the picture theatre, Main Street, church, everywhere!

  Isobel dolefully fetched her school tunic in from the line and pressed it, then ironed the brim of her school hat back into the regulation shape. There seemed little point in trying to look fascinatingly different tomorrow or any other day, Paulette would always be there upstaging her. And it would be even worse when her father opened that milk bar and hamburger shop—she’d radiate even more glory! Perhaps there was a solution: if the Mellings moved further out of town to Baroongal Flats or somewhere like that, she could persuade Mum to let her go and live with them. It was a dismal prospect, but at least up there she could go to that little bush school where there was absolutely no competition at all! One thing was certain, she couldn’t endure living in the same town as Paulette Makepiece and face each day being a…nobody!

  She was still sitting in the kitchen brooding when her mother came home at ten. Mum tutted about the uneaten Irish stew still in its saucepan. She’d brought home three wedges of leftover pear and ginger tart, but Isobel turned her nose up at that, too. Mum inspected her closely and said, ‘I hope you’re not coming down with the flu, you’ve been looking a bit peaky since yesterday, come to think of it. Here, I’ve got something in my purse might cheer you up. Some of those guests are so blooming careless, they leave all sorts of trinkets behind and never bother to write back for them, either…’

  Isobel, without much interest, watched her search through the handbag, remembering other so-called treasures left behind by hotel guests. None of those other things had turned out to be anything special—cosmetic bags with permanently jammed zips, a silver belt that disintegrated in a heat wave, a watch with the hands stuck permanently at either noon or midnight. Nothing could cheer her up, anyhow, ever again. Her whole world was as effectively shattered as though a huge tornado had roared through Wilgawa…

  ‘These people left unexpectedly and I had to clean out their rooms,’ Mum was saying. ‘The boss was in a stinking mood, he thought they were booked for another week at the very least, but they changed their minds and left before tea. This little brooch was on the floor, and the other girls are inclined to be a bit grabby about lost property, so I got in first for a change. There—maybe now you’ll leave my Empire State Building dress-clips alone!’

  ‘You’re supposed to hand stuff people leave behind over to the manager,’ Isobel said primly, staring down at the little poodle brooch with its sparkling collar.

  ‘Get out, that only applies to money and proper jewellery. No one’s going to give a tinker’s cuss about a brooch with the clasp busted. Probably they chucked it out on purpose because it’s broken, but if you glue a little gold safety-pin on the back it’ll be good as new.’

  ‘Who…who was booked into the room where you found it?’

  ‘A couple with a kid, they had the big veranda room and the single next to it. I never had much chance to natter to them, though, we’ve been that rushed off our feet. The boss reckoned they were thinking about taking over that empty shop next to the post office, but they decided to buy a general store way down the coast instead. Vacant possession or something, with a house out the back, so they’ve gone haring off down there and good luck to them. I’m off to bed now, and you can do likewise—but here’s something else might perk you up. I earned a bit extra from all that overtime, so you can pop into Osborne’s after school tomorrow and buy one of those red shorty jackets. Not that you deserve it, kiddo, but it might stop you pinching my clothes!’

  ‘Wouldn’t be seen dead in your clothes, people might think I was you,’ Isobel said, bouncing up to give her mother a hug. ‘I’ll go to bed in a jiffy, Mum, but I’ve just got some homework to finish off first.’

  She tore a clean page from an exercise book and after much thought wrote in a fancy script totally unlike her own…

  Dear Isobel,

  It’s a shame we never got much chance to talk while I was stuck at the Convent those two days. Those stupid gabby little girls were a real pain hanging round like a bad smell and we couldn’t get rid of them. Still, at least you and me went out last night together—that was a nice farewell dinner we had at the River Hotel, specially the pear and ginger tart and cocktails. Wouldn’t that girl with the cross eyes—Josephine Whatsername—be jealous! And the other one with the rubbery lips, Dorrie, not to mention that fatso Esme. (What clodhopper names everyone has in Wilgawa except you!) Anyhow, as we’re moving down the coast and I won’t be living here after all, you’ll just have to come and stay with us soon as we get settled in. Dad reckons you can serve behind the hamburger counter any time you like. I’d never ask any of those other twerps to stay—you’re the only one in Wilgawa who’s got any real glamour or chick. This poodle brooch is for you as a keepsake, too bad if those drips get jealous when you wear it to school!

  Ta ta and love from Paulette.

  P.S. Give my regards to your Aunty Ginger and Fred—you’re so lucky being related to Ginger Rogers!

  ‘Isobel, I thought I told you to go to bed,’ Mum called from the front room. ‘You’ve got school tomorrow, don’t forget.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Isobel said smugly. ‘I can hardly wait.’

  Lilith’s Curse

  ‘I don’t know why Aunty Con bothers to keep any of it when it’s really just a load of old junk,’ Isobel said.

  ‘They’re Mum’s souvenirs,’ Cathy said touchily, opening an envelope that held four locks of reddish-blonde baby hair individually wrapped in tissue paper.

  Isobel certainly wasn’t interested in those. She pried her way through ancient hats, a cylinder that rattled but contained nothing more fascinating than mah-jong tiles, rolls of childish crayon drawings, and a bundle of yellowing letters tied with ribbon.

  ‘It’s all pretty boring, even these love letters your dad wrote to her from the war,’ she said. ‘Take this one—it’s just one long skite about how many shells he’s dodged and how many people he’s clouted…Oh, my mistake, here’s a part that’s not about fighting…’

  ‘What does it say? Is it kind of romantic?’

  ‘Ooh, yes, real moonlight and roses stuff!’

  ‘Go on—read out a bit!’

  ‘ “Connie love, if by any chance I don’t make it back…” ’ Isobel read in a poignant voice.

  ‘Oh, that is romantic,’ Cathy marvelled. ‘You’d never think Dad…’

  ‘ “…I reckon you could finish clearing that block and take it over on your own. Don’t let Trip diddle you out of it just because you and me aren’t spliced yet. No sense wasting all the bloody hard yakka I already put in grubbing out those big gums. They were a fair cow, not to mention all that bloody fencing. Next time you’re up that way, old girl, better check all the posts for white ants and…” ’

  ‘It’s not nice to snoop through people’s old letters,’ Cathy said coldly, putting them back amongst albums of faded photographs, postca
rds, and a satin corselet that had once girdled a much slimmer, much younger Mum. ‘There’s a fur thing down here in the corner we missed,’ she said and pulled out something that looked like a run-over fox but was actually a neck-stole. The fox-head had amber glass eyes and was lined with rich brown silk. ‘Wow, I never knew Mum had this!’ Cathy cried. ‘It’s smashing—look at the lovely brushy tail and dear little feet!’

  ‘It’s not all that smashing. They’re so out of date only old ladies like Aunt Ivy still wear them.’

  ‘Yes, but think what you could do with it! You could drape it over your bed for a decoration…or maybe turn it into a nice furry handbag.’

  ‘You with a handbag?’

  ‘I don’t mean anything sissy, more like a dillybag you sling over one shoulder. It would come in handy for sports days, I could carry all my gear in it. No one’s got a sports dillybag made out of a dead fox! When Mum gets home I’m going to ask if I can have this fur to keep.’

  ‘Why should you get it?’

  ‘Because I’m the one found it tucked away down there, that’s why. I’ll have to think up some clever way I can ask, because she might be mad we went through her box while she’s out. But I bet you she’ll let me, seeing it’s just lying there going to waste. The silk lining’s nice, too, just like that material men have lining their best hats. That’ll be useful, that will—I could make a sling out of it in case I ever break an arm at softball.’

  ‘It sounds absolutely ridiculous! Cutting up fur and silk just for a stupid bag to hold your sweaty old sandshoes and gym tunic…’

  ‘You’re only jealous you didn’t spot it first,’ Cathy said smugly.

  ‘Oh!’ Isobel whispered. ‘Oh, my goodness!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Cathy, put it right back this minute! Don’t even touch it—I just remembered what that thing is! It was…it was Aunt Lilith’s!’

  ‘Who? We haven’t got an Aunt Lilith…’

  ‘Well, she was your dad’s great-great-aunt, really, years and years ago before any of us were even born. Cathy, I’m telling you, put it away and don’t ever touch it again, not even with the fire tongs! Geeze, if you knew what I know you wouldn’t be thinking about making it up into a purse or anything—you’d be rushing off to soak your hands in Lysol!’

  ‘Why? It’s perfectly clean, just a bit dusty, that’s all…’

  ‘I’m not talking about germs. That fox-stole’s got—a curse on it!’

  Cathy looked uncertainly at the fur, which seemed quite ordinary, even to the lining having a faint wedge-shaped scorch mark where someone must have used an overheated iron.

  ‘It’s been kind of hushed up in the family, and the only reason I know is from that secret hole I drilled under the house through our lounge-room floor,’ Isobel said. ‘I’ve picked up all sorts of interesting information listening to Mum rattling on to visitors…oh look, here’s that scrap-book of Royal Family pictures Grace collected when she was little…’

  ‘Never mind that now—tell me about Lilith.’

  ‘I don’t really like talking about it. It gives me the creeps. Listen, why don’t we go out for a walk or something? We won’t get many more sunny days like this…’

  ‘It was your idea to go through Mum’s box in the first place—I wanted to fix up the roof on my tree-house before winter sets in. Just tell us the rest about Lilith…’

  ‘Well…she was supposed to be a beauty, with lovely long jet-black hair, only she was sort of peculiar. She used to wander about by the river singing at the top of her voice.’

  ‘There’s nothing peculiar about that. Heather and Vivienne do it all the time.’

  ‘But Lilith went in for grand opera, she was totally convinced she had a voice even better than Nellie Melba’s. And one day—here’s where it gets interesting, some famous opera singer was staying overnight in Wilgawa on his way to somewhere else. So…look at this belt buckle shaped like a swan! I wonder if your mum would let me keep it…’

  ‘Isobel!’

  ‘All right, don’t get impatient, I was just about to tell what happened next. Lilith rode down to town and hung about in front of the River Hotel—that’s where the famous opera singer was staying. She couldn’t just go in and ask to see him, ladies didn’t go into pubs in those days or even talk to strange men unless they’d been introduced. So she waited and waited, and finally she had a bit of luck—he came out for a stroll and his hat blew off. Lilith ran after it and grabbed it just before it landed in the water, but she wouldn’t let him have it back until he listened to her sing!’

  ‘So what happened—did he take her away with him to join the opera?’

  ‘What happened was he listened for about ten seconds, then told her she had the rottenest singing voice he’d ever heard in his whole life! And what’s more, he told her to beetle off back home or he’d have her arrested for disturbing the peace.’

  ‘Poor Lilith!’

  ‘Well, actually it was what everyone else had been thinking for years. Her voice was so gruesome it used to upset the cows around Baroongal Flats, they had the lowest milk yield in the whole river district. But after that famous opera singer came right out and said it, she went back home to the farm and turned even more dotty. She stopped singing altogether, but she hardly spoke to anyone, either. She just sat around moping and staring into space, and then one evening…oh look, here’s a nice silver earring. Maybe there might be another one and I could have them to keep…’

  ‘It’s not an earring, it’s only the lid off a mustard cruet and you just leave Mum’s souvenirs alone! Go on, tell about Lilith…’

  ‘Well, one evening she was sitting droopily around saying life wasn’t worth living now all her hopes of being an opera singer were dashed. But everyone was just about fed up listening to her by then, and they insisted she’d better buck up and start getting over it. They plonked down this fox-pelt in front of her and said she could make herself useful by putting in a lining…’

  ‘Isobel—don’t think I didn’t see you sneak that fan up your sleeve!’

  ‘Oh, did I really? How absent-minded of me, and I don’t even want it, anyhow, peacock feathers are bad luck—just like Lilith’s fox-fur stole. Where was I…oh yes, Lilith said she wouldn’t live long enough to even wear that fox-stole, but they said tough luck and get cracking. I guess they were all bossing her around so much she just gave in finally, because she cut out the lining and began to sew it in. And you’ll never guess what she used…’

  ‘Was it this same material that’s there now?’

  ‘Yes—but remember how the man’s hat blew off? Well, she’d quickly ripped out the silk lining without him noticing before she gave that hat back. Lilith wasn’t Aunt Ivy’s ancestor for nothing—you know how all the women in that family never throw away a single solitary thing if they think it might come in handy. So there she sat that night, stitching away muttering to herself, but no one could understand a word, because it sounded like gibberish. Then all of a sudden she yelled, ‘There—now it’s finished and I hope you’re all happy!’ and rushed outside. They were used to her acting emotional like that, but she was gone for ages so they finally started looking for her. And then…here’s your mum’s wedding veil, what a peculiar thing for her to keep! You’d think she’d have chucked it on a bonfire years ago with a whole bottle of kerosene…’

  ‘Isobel Dion!’

  ‘Okay, hold your horses, I was just about to tell you the rest. They had to search a long time, and it must have been a nasty shock when they found poor old Lilith. What she’d done was put some rocks in her apron pockets, then walked out into the deep part of the river and drowned herself.’

  ‘That’s…awful!’ Cathy said, visited unnervingly by an image of long black hair fanning for an instant on moonlit water, then vanishing.

  ‘That’s why her fox-stole’s been kept as a family heirloom,’ Isobel explained. ‘No one liked to turf it out, because it was the very last thing in the house Lilith ever t
ouched before she died.’

  ‘You can even see the little double stitch where she finished off the seam,’ Cathy said. ‘It’s creepy, thinking of her just walking out into the night like that and…’

  ‘There’s more to come, the bit about the curse. Lilith was supposed to have placed a curse on the fox-stole while she was putting in the lining. Probably she meant it for the opera singer, because of that silk material being out of his hat, but something must have gone wrong. Everyone else has copped it instead. That fur’s been handed on down through the family, but anyone who has it in their house ends up with the most shocking bad luck! Just look at the Baroongal Flats Mellings—poor old Riley dying when the tractor rolled on him, and their place getting wiped out in the big flood…’

  ‘So did a lot of other people’s houses up that way.’

  ‘Yes, but that was different, they didn’t have Lilith’s fox-stole under their roof, did they? You only have to look at what happened to the East Wilgawa Mellings, too—Lindsay stuck in that horrible P.O.W. camp all those years, Aunty Cessie’s hands crippled up with arthritis, the bridge archway falling on Uncle Trip’s new car, you name it, they copped it…until they had the sense to pass that fur off on to someone else in the family! I guess that’s how your mum must have wound up with it—Aunty Cessie eventually palmed it off on her.’

  ‘Why didn’t someone just chuck it out?’

  ‘There’s some old will and testament saying that it’s not allowed to be thrown out, because of being Lilith’s last relic. Everyone’s got to take turns having it whether they like it or not. And just think—it’s been lying there in your mum’s box, maybe for years, without us knowing! Just kind of lurking there, with the curse all ready to ooze out…’