Dresses of Red and Gold

by Robin Klein

  ‘Well, we don’t really have to play this game, you know. We could just…just go downtown and look in the shop windows instead,’ Cathy said quickly, but to her surprise, Barbara and Gillian had edged away into the side alley. Cathy hesitated and went after them.

  ‘Some of those roofing nails look a bit loose,’ Gillian said, climbing the fence to examine the lock-up, which was a small brick shed with a barred window. ‘They’d most likely come out with one tug—that’s if anyone was silly enough to even…’

  ‘I guess I could zip over and get one.’

  ‘Cathy Melling, don’t you dare, you’ll get us all arrested!’ Barbara cried behind them. ‘And you’ve got your best dress on, Gillian, what will your mum say if you…’

  ‘If you don’t pipe down, you’ll have Sergeant Jobey out here,’ Cathy hissed. ‘Shut up and let me concentrate. It shouldn’t be all that hard getting one of those nails, and I wouldn’t have to climb right down, either. You could just about reach over from the top of the fence…’

  ‘It’s very rude to grab the first turn at your own birthday party. I don’t see why I can’t have a go,’ Gillian said unexpectedly, and pushed Cathy aside. She stepped over the nettle-filled gap and braced one foot on the window ledge, but as she began to prise at the nearest nail, someone suddenly reached out and grabbed her ankle.

  ‘Give us a cuppa tea, love, and tell old Roy I’m his best mate and never meant to punch him…’ a voice croaked from behind the little barred window.

  ‘Oh help!’ Gillian squeaked. ‘Quick, someone—poke the creepy old thing off with a stick!’

  There was no stick handy, but Cathy said in her best threatening voice, ‘Let go her foot! If the Sergeant comes out he’ll think you’re trying to escape—and you’ll be stuck in there another night!’

  The skinny claw and white stubble of whiskers vanished from the window, and Gillian scrambled back across the gap and down into the alley.

  ‘Not even dropping the roofing nail—that’s what I call brave!’ Barbara said admiringly.

  ‘I was brave, wasn’t I? Oooh, it was so horrible, that hand shooting out and grabbing my ankle—I nearly died!’

  ‘And I nearly died when his voice came croaking out the window—I was thinking he could be a murderer!’

  ‘Every other birthday party I’ve been to we played proper games like Pin-the-Tail and Sardines,’ Gillian said, shuddering. ‘I don’t know what my mum’s going to say when she finds out I’ve had an awful old murderer’s hand all scaly like an emu’s clutching my ankle!’

  ‘It wasn’t a murderer, it was only poor old Mr Wetherell from Conifer Crossing,’ Cathy said. ‘He comes into town once a week to get drunk and pick fights with people and Sergeant Jobey puts him in the lock-up to sleep it off. Look, Gillian, maybe you’d better chuck that dirty old nail away before you get rust all over your good dress…’

  ‘Throw it away?’ Gillian demanded incredulously. ‘After all I went through to get it? I’ve never ever pinched anything from a police station lock-up before, and after we’ve shown it to your dad to prove we got it, I’m going to keep it for a souvenir…What’s it say on the next bit of paper, Cathy?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care! Listen, we don’t really have to do any of the other things. We could…well, go down to the park and see if there’s anyone else we know there,’ Cathy said, but Gillian had already snatched the next slip of paper and was reading it aloud.

  ‘ “Scoot round to Tavistell Street and swipe a peg from the nuns’ clothesline”?’ Barbara repeated, shocked. ‘I certainly don’t think we should be doing any such thing!’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Cathy said swiftly, thinking of school on Monday and how Barbara would blab to everyone that Cathy Melling’s birthday party consisted of a disgraceful game all over town stealing items from the police station and the Convent. ‘If you don’t want to go to the park, how about a nice walk down by the river instead? Honest, we really don’t have to chase about collecting all these stupid…’

  ‘The Convent’s not all that far away,’ Gillian said. ‘We could just sort of stroll around the back and—you know, have a bit of a look over the fence…’

  ‘They haven’t got a back fence you can look over, it’s too tall,’ Barbara said. ‘It’s made like that on purpose so people won’t find out what goes on behind it.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’d kind of like to see inside,’ Gillian admitted, and Cathy eyed her in secret amazement, for that sleek, well-brushed head looked as though it would never contain such thoughts. The Convent fence, however, when they reached it, was not only too high to see over, but was topped with sharp little arrow spikes that cancelled any attempts at climbing.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Barbara said. ‘I read somewhere you can’t ever quit once you become a nun, even if you don’t like it. Once they’ve got you in their clutches you never see the light of day ever again!’

  ‘That can’t be true, I’ve seen the nuns down at the shops on Saturday mornings a whole lot of times. And when Grace went away to the city there were two of them getting on the same train with suitcases. They even offered her a stick of barley sugar…’

  ‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ Barbara said darkly. ‘The ones on the train were probably trying to run away. And I bet they never got as far as the city, either—they would have been snatched off that train by force and brought back. Then they would have been walled up alive…Look! I told you so—there’s a gap where the bricks join up with the paling fence next door. Some poor little desperate nun’s obviously been out here late at night trying to escape, tearing the bricks out with her fingernails!’

  ‘But that’s always been like that,’ Cathy said. ‘That house next door started putting up a paling fence years ago and never finished the job. Lucky for us I suppose—we could squeeze through that gap, if we held our breath. You needn’t come, Barb, if you’d rather not.’

  But Barbara Sylvester, inexplicably, was the first one through the gap and even led the way through a grove of fruit trees on the other side. Beyond the orchard were vegetable beds, a small lawn with a clothesline, garden sheds, and a trellis bearing grapevines. When they reached the vegetable beds, a black-gowned nun suddenly popped out from nowhere with a wheelbarrow. They ducked down behind a huge spreading clump of rhubarb and watched as she began to rake fallen leaves into a heap. While she worked she chatted to someone else out of sight behind the grape trellis. Cathy listened, her mind ablaze with images of people being forced from trains, but the conversation seemed disappointingly ordinary, of the type anyone might have.

  ‘…something’s got to be done soon about lopping back this tree, the spouting’s all choked up again…There I was, dough from the scones all over my hands and that wretched front doorbell kept ringing and ringing…The cupboard on the left, dear, and if it’s not there, look under the…Borax might get it out, or salt…’

  There was a background of other sounds, but they were quite ordinary, too: someone playing piano scales and making mistakes, a mat being flapped from an upstairs window, the thud of balls from the tennis court around the far side of the Convent. Cathy felt quite cheated, but the other two obviously felt as though they were getting their money’s worth. Barbara’s whole face was an exclamation mark, her lower lip sucked fearfully in behind her top teeth, and Gillian looked just as scared. But the nun, to Cathy’s disappointment, did nothing more startling than dump the fallen leaves into the wheelbarrow and take it behind the trellis.

  ‘I heard a door open and shut, so she’s probably gone inside. If we want to get one of those pegs from the line, now’s our chance—but I’m not volunteering. I don’t see why we can’t get a peg from just anywhere and pretend it’s from the Convent. No one would even know the difference,’ Cathy said, for Barbara and Gillian’s jitteriness was infectious. The path to the clothesline somehow gave the illusion of seeming much longer than it actually was.

  ‘Nuns’ pegs probably have crosses or holy pictures ca
rved on them to make them different,’ Barbara said. ‘And I just thought—maybe they’ve got concealed microphones hidden in this rhubarb patch and all over the garden, too!’

  ‘Why on earth would they?’

  ‘To make sure no one gets in here and tries to kidnap their relatives back, that’s why! Someone could be listening in to every single word we say, and I bet they’ll all come dashing out with a big net or something pretty soon. Just don’t expect me to go and get that peg, either!’

  ‘If I can climb the roof of a police lock-up and get grabbed by a murderer, I should think one of you could face up to a nun!’ Gillian said smugly. ‘They couldn’t even run very fast in all those long skirts.’

  ‘Are you by any chance hinting around that I’m a coward?’ Barbara snapped.

  ‘Well, I certainly didn’t notice you volunteering about the roofing nail! But you don’t have to worry—I’ll go and get that peg, then I’ll have two treasure hunt souvenirs…’

  ‘You greedy thing, Gillian Ogden!’ Barbara said angrily, and crept out from behind the rhubarb. She tiptoed across the lawn towards the clothesline, but a voice called sharply from behind the trellis, ‘You bold little article, coming in here to raid our grapes! Get out of there this minute, they’re all finished for the year, anyhow, so—shoo!’

  Barbara swerved away wildly, but with great daring snatched a peg from the line as she fled. She pelted back through the orchard and caught up with Cathy and Gillian, who, having blatantly left her to her fate, were already squeezing through the gap in the fence. They ran all the way up Tavistell Street, which slumbered gently in the autumn sunlight, raced around into Curtain Street and fell in a disorganised heap behind the corner park bandstand.

  ‘I’ve never been so petrified in my whole life!’ Barbara gasped. ‘It was gruesome! There was one of them sitting behind the trellis knitting—making out she was just like normal people, the sly old thing! There she was with the sun glinting on her specs like…like she had eyes made out of lava! Oh, I never thought I’d get away, I thought I’d be dragged inside that place and they’d make me put on a long black dress and sleep in a cell! But look here, just look what I got—a real nun’s peg from the Convent garden!’

  ‘It’s just like everyone else’s pegs,’ Cathy said. ‘An ordinary old wooden one with no holy markings at all.’

  ‘You’re just jealous! Here’s Gillian with a nail from the police station and me nearly getting walled up alive with my peg—but you haven’t even got a single solitary thing on this treasure hunt yet!’

  Cathy, vastly annoyed, ripped open the last piece of paper and read, ‘Fetch some kitchen lino out of the haunted house in River Road—watch out for banshees!’

  ‘That place!’ Gillian said. ‘You wouldn’t catch me going in there! It really is haunted—Marjorie Powell reckons she’s seen mysterious lights moving about behind the windows at night.’

  ‘It’s just an old house falling to bits because no one lives in it,’ Cathy said scornfully, getting up and brushing grass clippings from the seat of her pants. ‘And as if anyone would believe anything Marjorie Powell says! She’s the biggest liar in town. She told my sister she had a double-storey play-house in her backyard, and Viv went there on a message once, but there wasn’t anything like that at all!’

  ‘There’s lots of other people besides Marjorie who’ve seen those lights after dark. That house is so haunted! I bet you wouldn’t be game enough to go in there and get a piece of kitchen lino!’

  ‘Those lights are only beery old tramps with matches and cigarette butts. I’m certainly not scared of an old house. And for your information I’ll just march right in there and get a whole roll of lino if I feel like it! Naturally, I won’t expect you two to come in with me if you’re both so scared, you can just wait outside.’

  Cathy swaggered confidently all the way down to River Road, but as they approached the old house by the river, her pace slackened. That house had been derelict for as long as she or anyone else could remember, every year settling deeper into the ground and shedding more of its fabric. Waiting on the footpath for the others to catch up, she noticed that the house stirred constantly in various ways. Grass rippled along the gutters, the entire tin roof vibrated gently, ancient ribbons of dried-up paint shivered in the breeze from the river.

  ‘I’m glad it’s you going inside that spooky old haunted house and not us!’ Gillian said. ‘There’s kids at school who even cross over so they won’t have to walk past it.’

  ‘It only looks haunted because everyone acts like it is. Everyone’s so stupid. I’ve been inside there heaps of times and nothing’s happened.’

  ‘You’ve been in there? All the way inside, no kidding?’

  ‘Well…I went up to the front door once and banged the knocker,’ Cathy conceded. ‘But that still counts, because I stayed right there on the veranda and knocked a whole lot of times. No ghosts came out—the only thing was an old bird’s-nest shook loose out of the fanlight and landed down my neck…’ She stopped, remembering suddenly a much smaller Cathy who’d leaped back, fallen off the veranda and then run all the way up the hill without stopping to draw breath. The composite parts of the house, she noticed apprehensively, didn’t just move, but were quite noisy about it, creaking and rasping and murmuring amongst themselves. ‘Actually, if you think about it, it probably isn’t all that safe inside with everything rotting away to bits,’ she added. ‘People could easily fall through the floorboards and break their leg. This treasure hunt’s kind of silly, really. How about we just go for a walk up to the blacksmith’s and watch…’

  ‘Some people seem to be backing out when it’s their turn,’ Barbara said. ‘Specially the ones full of big talk…’

  ‘You rotten liar, Barbara Sylvester! I am not trying to back out of anything!’

  ‘Well, hurry up and get that lino, then! It’s not very nice waiting around outside like this—anything could pop up behind one of those windows and stare out at us! Of course, if you’re too nervous, we can just go back to your place and look at what you got for your birthday…’

  Cathy, glaring, marched proudly up the overgrown path to the front door and shoved it open. It stopped halfway, teetering drunkenly on one rusty hinge. She set one foot over the threshold into the shadows, then withdrew it. The house seemed even more restless inside, as though some variety of life was active there, a secretive life manifesting itself in furtive rustlings…She jumped as a long stalactite of cobweb swung out and brushed across her face.

  ‘What’s up, what was it?’ Gillian quavered from the gateway. ‘Did you…see something?’

  ‘Course not!’ Cathy said resolutely and threaded her way through fallen plaster and split floorboards to what had once been a kitchen. There was a green twilight in there, for vines had smothered the broken window, curling thin arms over the sill. Cathy glanced at the vines, remembering a Tarzan film she’d once seen about vegetation that possessed an evil intelligence of its own and strangled people. She remembered other things—Stewart Thurlow swearing he’d passed this house and heard a blood-curdling scream choked off in the middle; Isobel claiming a large black leathery thing had come streaking from a window and flapped right past her ear; that old story about the skeleton found under the kitchen floorboards with a knife blade wedged between its ribs…

  Cathy knelt to prise a scrap of lino from the floor. It clung stubbornly to its jute backing, refusing to break. As she worked away at it, a huge spider suddenly scuttled from a crack in the floor, raced across her hand and vanished under a pile of rubbish. Cathy, who had a phobia about spiders, screamed and tumbled backwards, holding the snapped piece of lino. She scrambled up and raced outside, still yelling. Barbara and Gillian screamed, too, and bolted away up the hospital hill, not waiting for her.

  ‘Hang on a minute! There’s no ghosts coming after us, it was only this big spider…’ Cathy called, but they still didn’t stop, and went galloping over the crest of the hill and down the slope towards her h
ouse. Cathy sped after them, groaning, remembering that the worst was yet to come. Now they’d expect to be shown her marvellous secret birthday present which was supposed to be even better than a gold wristwatch! Her mind raced frantically over household items she could perhaps claim to be that present—Heather’s brass statuette she’d got at the Show, Mum’s big cedar chest, the plaster spaniel doorstop, the cow—maybe she could claim that Dad was setting her up with her very own dairy herd…And the present wasn’t her only worry, for Barbara and Gillian were also expecting afternoon tea served on the ferry!

  ‘Listen, wait a minute…there’s something I forgot to mention,’ she called desperately, but they’d already reached the side gate and were rushing over to Dad by the shed, waving their clothespeg and roofing nail. It was all his fault, Cathy thought morosely. He’d just made the whole thing worse than it was, and while she’d had to suffer all the humiliations of the afternoon, he’d been tinkering about peacefully in the shed…She shaded her eyes from the sun and peered at something propped on two kerosene drums, something sparkling with fresh paint.

  ‘Just as well you went out gallivanting all over town with your mates. Gave me a chance to finish this off without you here poking your nose in. All it needed was sandpaper and a lick of paint…’ Dad said as Cathy advanced slowly across the yard, staring at a little blue rowboat, so minute and endearing it looked like something out of The Wind in the Willows.

  ‘I found it cleaning out the shed when Aunt Ivy was here on the rampage. Must have been in there donkey’s years by the look of things, slung up on the rafters under a load of old bags and rubbish,’ Dad explained. ‘You can be boss of it seeing you’re so nuts about the river. Takes all kinds, I suppose—never fancied the navy much myself, cavalry’s better.’

  Cathy couldn’t say anything. She put out a tender hand and traced the boat’s name painted on the side in dashing letters.

  ‘Oh, Cathy—your own little boat named after you!’ Gillian said. ‘You never even told us you were getting a ducky little rowboat for your birthday! Was that what you really meant by having afternoon tea on a ferry?’