Dresses of Red and Gold

by Robin Klein

  Mum was delighted with her gift of a new handbag, and kept it by her all through the meal, with a pleasure monumental enough to make Heather feel even more discontented. She wished she could be the one returning from the city with grand presents, that someone had given her a pretty silver bracelet with a heart charm. The only gift she’d ever received from an admirer was a brass statuette Dennis Stivens had won at the hoopla stall, and she suspected he’d given it to her only because he didn’t want to be seen carting it around all afternoon at the Show. Enviable, citified Grace, with her self-confidence and polished table-manners…

  ‘I notice we’ve still got this dreadful cutlery with the handles gone all yellow,’ Grace said. ‘Cathy, you should put your knife and fork side by side when you finish, it looks uncouth leaving them crossed like that.’

  ‘Ho hum—just like old times, getting picked on at the table,’ Cathy said, and she and Vivienne, the novelty of Grace’s return now having diminished a little, set up a tiresome argument about whether the cutlery handles were ivory or bone.

  Heather didn’t join in their bickering. In the past she’d often been raucous on purpose just to irritate Grace, but now felt oddly subdued in her presence. She remained silent, consoling herself with another helping of steamed pudding and custard.

  ‘I hope hordes of relations aren’t going to be dropping in while I’m home,’ Grace said, not having any of the steamed pudding at all, but finishing the meal with a pear. ‘I mean…it’s not that I don’t want to see them, but I probably won’t be in all that much, Mum. Margaret Edwards and that crowd I used to go out with have arranged a few things and I couldn’t very well say no.’

  ‘Well, Aunt Ivy’s bound to want to see you, and so will Cessie, but it’s only natural you’d like to catch up with your own friends first,’ Mum said. ‘It’s such a pity you can’t stay longer, dear. Only three days—and the last one doesn’t really count, because you’ll be going back in the afternoon. I just hope Dad makes it home in time to see you, he’ll be disappointed if…’

  ‘I explained all that in my letter,’ Grace said patiently. ‘Mr Quiller won’t let anyone take holidays just any old time, you’ve got to wait till you’ve been there a full year. We’ve only got these few days off because the office is getting painted and rewired. No one can move without tripping over things, so that old skinflint asked us all to take time out of our annual holidays now. It’s a nerve, really—you can’t call autumn holiday weather, it’s much too cold to go to the beach or anything. And we’re expected back on Thursday, so that’s all there is to it. That job might not be much, but I can’t afford to be playing ducks and drakes with it.’

  ‘I wish you’d just kept on at the daytime dressmaking course, instead of changing to night classes and juggling a job at the same time.’

  ‘It didn’t work out, Mum, I already told you. I hated having to ask Aunty Elsie for money every time I needed new stockings. Though, mind you, I get sick to death of that warehouse office, too. Everyone there is so stodgy—they’ve all been with R. T. Quiller and Son for about forty years! They’ve all got their own special teacups and have a fit if anyone else dares to touch them. Or even if you accidentally hang your coat up on their pegs in the washroom—though all the pegs are exactly the same. You should see them when young Mr Quiller comes trotting in with a stack of invoices, their necks go pink and mottled—even though he’s about sixty! Oh, those depressing invoices, all I do all day is stuff them in envelopes and put them through a franking machine. Thank goodness I won’t have to be stuck in a job like that for the rest of my life! Soon as I get through that tech. course I’m going to…’

  ‘Grace…’ Mum said diffidently. ‘You know Miss Tully who makes clothes for all the ladies over in East Wilgawa?’

  ‘The old dear who made Hilary’s wedding dress?’

  ‘And Cathy’s bridesmaid one that Vivienne ended up wearing—but we won’t go into that again now…Well, I heard Miss Tully’s thinking of taking on a fulltime assistant. If you were to go and see her while you’re home, I think she’d jump at the chance of getting you.’

  It was impossible to tell from Grace’s face if she were enthusiastic about the idea or not. She pushed the pear seeds into a complicated pattern on her plate and didn’t say anything.

  ‘I know you’re only half-way through that course, but the rest is only practical, isn’t it, making up set garments and having them marked? Perhaps you could come to some arrangement with the college, send them in by mail and still get your certificate. It seems a shame to pass up the chance of a good steady job, when they’re so hard to come by in Wilgawa…’

  Mum’s not saying what she really means, Heather thought uncomfortably—that if Grace was home again and paying board, we might be able to hang on to this house for a little while longer. Grace will understand, though, without being actually told. She’s the clever one in this family, never has to have things spelled out for her. If she came home again right now and got a job, Mum wouldn’t have to worry so much. Mightn’t be so bad…It’ll mean I’d be stuck out in the back room with Cathy and Viv for ever, but I could learn a lot having Grace around. Watching her, how she talks and manages to get her hair looking like that, all smooth and shiny as moonlight…

  ‘Well…’ Grace said. ‘It’s not exactly what I had in mind, sitting in Miss Tully’s little work-room putting white piping in navy-blue yokes all day long. I remember when she used to come to school sometimes to fill in for the regular sewing teacher, the boring ideas she used to come up with—if you could even call them ideas! I bet Hilary had to give her step-by-step directions to get what she wanted for her bridesmaid dresses. I don’t know, Mum. There are other things I’d much…’

  ‘I’m sure she’d pay you just as much as what you’re getting at that warehouse place. And you wouldn’t even have the expense of bus fares, you could get down there by bike. Your old bike’s still out in the shed. Cathy buckled the wheels a bit riding round the paddocks even though she’s been told not to, but I’m sure Dad will be able to fix them when he comes home.’

  ‘Er…one of the pedals is down the bottom of the brickworks quarry,’ Cathy said guiltily. ‘It was Danny O’Keefe, anyway, shoving a stick in the spokes. I’ll get it back, Grace, soon as I get the chance to nip down there when the caretaker isn’t around.’

  Grace, astonishingly, didn’t make any fuss, even though she’d chained her bike to a post in the shed before she’d left, with ferocious threats for anyone who dared lay a finger on it in her absence. She seemed far more interested in the pattern on her plate. ‘I thought I’d be down at Aunt Elsie’s till November at least,’ she said.

  ‘But…that’s six months away,’ Mum said slowly.

  ‘I know, but as well as finishing off that course, there are…well, other things in the city I’ve got involved with. Friends I’ve made there…’

  ‘You’ve got oodles of friends back here in Wilgawa,’ Mum said. ‘Eleanor Grantby and the two Edwards girls and all those others from when you belonged to the social club. People you went to school with and grew up with. It’s a shame, having to board in the city away from all your old friends and away from…your own family. But if you went to work for Miss Tully…’

  Heather, glancing at Mum, suddenly realised just how deeply Grace had been missed, and that any question of helping out with board money was really beside the point.

  ‘I’ll have a think about it,’ Grace said non-committally. ‘I mean, even if I decided to take it on, I’d still have to go back until Mr Quiller got someone to replace me. That’s if I even…oh, is that cup meant for me? I should have said I don’t drink tea any more.’

  ‘Not want a cup of tea?’ Mum demanded, flabber-gasted.

  ‘Isn’t there any coffee?’

  ‘Only that coffee and chicory syrup Dad has sometimes when he’s home. Coffee’s supposed to be terrible for the complexion, Grace, and you’ve lost enough colour already living down there in the city.’

&nb
sp; ‘I meant proper coffee, not that foul chicory stuff. I always drink it after dinner now instead of tea. Aunt Elsie’s got these tiny coffee cups with gold rims—I nearly brought a set back for you.’

  ‘I’m quite happy with my lovely new handbag,’ Mum said. ‘Only you shouldn’t have spent anything on presents, it’s enough to have you back home again. Oh, I wish the train fare wasn’t so expensive and you could come home at weekends sometimes! Letters just aren’t the same. You always seem to write in such a rush, too, not even saying what you’ve been doing half the time.’

  ‘There never seems to be a spare minute for writing proper letters. I go out a lot, there’s always something on—like the symphony concerts in the Town Hall. They don’t cost much to get in.’

  ‘Symphony—what’s that when it’s at home?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘Oh honestly, Cathy, don’t be so ignorant! It’s orchestra music, people playing different instruments all together, violins and flutes and things. Beethoven’s Fifth, they played.’

  ‘Beethoven’s fifth what?’

  ‘Symphony, you idiot! Mum, it’s utterly disgraceful what these kids don’t know!’

  ‘You always were very musical, Gracie, singing in the church choir and everything,’ Mum said. ‘It’s a great pity we never had the money to have you taught piano.’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘Yes, it is a pity about the piano lessons…’

  ‘You’d probably find you had quite a lot in common with Miss Tully, you know. She’s fond of music, too. She used to sing at people’s weddings when she was younger, all those nice old songs like “Bluebird of Happiness” and “I’ll Walk Beside You”…’

  ‘Oh Mum, for heaven’s sake! You haven’t got the faintest…’

  ‘Why don’t we clear up and have a game of cards like we always used to after tea?’ Heather suggested quickly, not quite sure whose feelings she was protecting.

  Grace said that she hadn’t really played cards for months, felt tired from the train trip, and preferred to go to bed. ‘But we’ll catch up on all the news in the morning,’ she said enthusiastically enough.

  In the morning, however, Anthony Robinson called early to drive her up the river to visit the Grantbys. Heather watched them leave, observing that Anthony, despite his ears, was actually quite handsome, and that Grace smiled at him as though discovering immense improvements. Grace herself looked quite stunning, and Heather felt numb with jealousy at her gift of being able to transform the most ordinary materials into things of beauty. Like her plain leather gloves, a pair discarded long ago by Aunt Ivy—Grace had cut them to wrist-length and added cuffs made from knitted string, fastened with small leather buttons. Her paisley scarf was also old, but the colours were beautiful and glowing, and she’d knotted it in a special way so that the fringed ends trailed artistically over the shoulders of her beige jacket. She’s like the illustration of a heroine in some magazine story, Heather thought enviously, and quite out of kilter with her own mundane plans for the day, she slumped on the veranda and watched Cathy teeter all around the paddock on the top of the rail fence.

  The sobering thought struck her that although she’d done that herself yesterday, madly whirling her arms to balance, such juvenile pastimes should now be discarded. If she wanted to sit in a car next to a personable young man one day and talk knowledgeably about symphony concerts, she’d have to start changing her ways. Yesterday, she thought, with a panicky sensation as though something had been wrenched from her, she’d most likely played her very last game in the paddock with Cathy and Vivienne! But there was no reason to feel melancholy about it, childhood had to come to an end for everyone sooner or later. Grace had made the transition so easily, all she had to do was follow that stylish example, perhaps even catch up and overtake her.

  Heather Melling, she thought dreamily, listening to conversations in her head. The belle of Wilgawa…The eldest girl had such class, it was only natural her sister should turn out the same. Inseparable, they are, those two lovely charming girls strolling around town arm in arm, more like girlfriends than sisters…

  Cathy tumbled heavily off the last rail, pretended it had been a calculated victory leap, and came rollicking up to the veranda steps. Heather said distantly, ‘You’re so rowdy—must you always charge about like a drunken sailor?’

  ‘That reminds me, I’m going to make a little jetty thingamyjig down by the river,’ Cathy said. ‘Want to lend a hand? Maybe we could pinch some of the loose planks out of the shed wall—Dad mightn’t notice if we shoved junk across the gap.’

  ‘You leave everything in the shed alone. Dad’s going to be in a lousy mood when he gets back, trailing all the way up North and still not landing that fencing contract.’

  ‘Mum reckons he’s not coming home straight off.’

  ‘I knew that,’ Heather snapped, even though she didn’t.

  ‘I don’t see how you could have,’ Cathy said smugly. ‘Seeing it was me told to run and fetch Mum because there was a call for her on the brickworks phone. Only fifteen minutes ago, so you couldn’t have known. I don’t know what’s up with you lately, Heather, the way you bite people’s heads off and never want to do anything any more…’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to muck around building stupid little jetties that just get washed away! Go away and stop pestering me, go away and play with Vivienne.’

  ‘Don’t you want to hear the rest about Dad? He’s gone off to look at some cheap land he heard about, and he won’t be back till some time next week. Grace’ll be pleased. I know someone who most likely wouldn’t even be hanging around our place if Dad was home—all Grace’s boyfriends have been petrified of Dad! Isobel and me were talking about Anthony Robinson yesterday—want to hear what she thinks?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ Heather said, examining her outstretched legs critically and deciding to go on a rigorous diet starting from today. Even though Mum was planning to make golden syrup dumplings for tea, she’d just have a pear instead. There were so many things she should do—borrow a book about music from the library, refine her table-manners, never again use vulgar expressions like ‘drongo’, learn how to tie a scarf in that smart way girls who’d lived in the city seemed to know by instinct…

  ‘Grace came home on purpose to get engaged to him, that’s what Isobel reckons!’ Cathy said. ‘And Isobel should know with all those True Romance magazines she’s got in the carton under her bed. Anthony Robinson hasn’t taken any other girl out since Grace left—Isobel said so, and she can always rattle off just who’s going out with who in Wilgawa.’

  ‘Rot. Grace only came home because that place where she works has the painters in, she already told us…’

  ‘You just wait and see. Isobel says Anthony’s the best catch in town, with that furniture store he got when his dad died. And property all over the district, too, so if he and Grace get married, he might let us live in one of those houses and not pay rent! Those Robinsons are posh and he wouldn’t want his in-laws making him feel embarrassed.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Cathy, and don’t talk like that, either! It sounds awful, like you’re making out Grace is chasing him for his money. She doesn’t even like him that much, anyhow, he’s just someone she used to go to dances and tennis and things with. But there was always a whole lot of them together in a crowd…’

  ‘Maybe he’ll give us new furniture for free, too,’ Cathy said, unsquashed. ‘Just think—he might be popping the question right this very minute while they’re out on their drive! Grace Robinson—doesn’t that sound weird?’

  ‘Nick off, you prattling little drongo, you’re just as bad as Isobel spreading gossip around,’ Heather said, but was intrigued enough to take a sudden interest in tidying the front garden. To her disappointment, Grace just got out of Anthony Robinson’s car when she came back and waved a casual goodbye, not looking at all transformed. Heather knew that a person who’d had a romantic question popped at them surely wouldn’t come barging up the front path muttering abou
t the bumpiness of the river road and what a crashing bore Eleanor Grantby was. Feeling cheated, Heather looked bitterly at the huge pile of fallen leaves she’d raked up and the weed-free garden beds, but reminded herself that Grace’s visit home wasn’t over yet.

  Next day, despite Mum’s insistence on a round of visits to all the Wilgawa and district relatives, Grace managed to vanish for quite a long time on business of her own.

  ‘Not really on her own,’ Cathy gloated, coming back from the shops. ‘I spotted her having a peach sundae in the café with you-know-who, and—how about this—she scooped the cherry off the top and popped it into his mouth! I checked up with Isobel on my way home, she reckons that’s a romantic thing to do, even though I think it’s pretty unhygienic myself…’

  ‘Grace doesn’t like cherries. She probably just didn’t want to waste it.’

  ‘Well, there’s that party she’s going to tonight. Grace hates parties, but you notice she’s not making excuses to back out of this one. Anthony and her are most likely going to stand up and make an announcement at it—Isobel said so. Betcha she comes home tonight wearing an engagement ring!’

  ‘That party was arranged ages ago, before anyone even knew Grace was coming home for a few days. And it happens to be for Margaret Edwards’ birthday, so it’s not very likely they’d use it for announcing their engagement,’ Heather jeered, but before going to bed, she secretly snibbed the front door to have an excuse to get up later and let Grace in. Somehow it seemed immensely important that she should be the first to receive any romantic confidences, not Cathy or Vivienne. But Grace, coming home much earlier than expected, just marched in full of indignation about being locked out and having to bang on the door.

  After lunch next day Mum cut a great pile of sandwiches for the train trip, even though Grace said she didn’t want them. Mum prepared them all the same, looking so downcast that Heather waited until Grace went off to pack her suitcase and then said, ‘Grace is being a bit selfish really, though that’s nothing new. It’s a pity she didn’t show more interest in that job with Miss Tully. She knows how things are at home right now, this bad patch we’re going through. She’s the eldest, and she should…’