Mrs Posthlewaite’s garments, meticulously stitched, hung in the dark space in the sewing-room cupboard. She no longer proudly showed her husband her sewing. He used to glance at the neat navy pleated skirt or the finely embroidered blouse with his eyebrows raised. Then his eyes lifted to her face and he mocked her with silence. His surgical stitches saved lives. His needles pierced living flesh. His skills and status attracted gushing buxom nurses, who fussed and danced in circles around him.
Sometimes, when the doctor attended conferences interstate, Mrs Posthlewaite dragged the heavy surgical books from the shelf to stare at the diagrams long into the night. The human form was put together like a complex garment. Diagrams of flesh transposed themselves into sewing patterns in Mrs Posthlewaite’s mind. As she gently fell into the pages, she dozed off, mouth open, bedside light shadowing her wrinkled skin. She dreamt of her childhood, when she had helped her father skin rabbits, possums and wallabies. Young girl’s fingers wrapped around the smooth wood of a well-worked hammer. Girl’s hands tapping tacks into skin. Stretching moist pink hides on boards to dry. The dream would shift to her tidy kitchen where she pounded meat with the hammer. Dinner for the doctor.
Occasionally, they ate out at social occasions. Chest puffed out, the doctor took her on his arm. She was introduced as ‘the doctor’s wife’. Her empty space was momentarily filled with this important fact. Other women patted her husband’s arms and squeezed his important hands with delight. They cast amused glances at Mrs Posthlewaite’s neat grey bun, ankle-length tweed skirts and stick-like limbs. In the crook of her arm hung a very safe navy handbag, which matched her shoes. Handing her a twenty-dollar note, the doctor would send her home early in a taxi.
After one such social occasion, Mrs Posthlewaite discovered a handbag under the Volvo’s passenger seat. The bag was of a curious pale-blue silk in which purple roamed when she moved it in the light. Light also danced through little opaque cornflower-blue beads, which were sewn over the silk giving it a curious texture. Irresistible to stroke. Her fingertips, seduced, couldn’t help but travel over cool silk then bump up and over smooth pert beads. Although the bag was small it was stuffed full. There were dazzling red, racy lipsticks, glittering nail polishes and golden tubes of jet-black mascara. Light danced in diamantes as Mrs Posthlewaite pulled from the bag a silver comb. Entwined between the grinning teeth were wisps of blonde hair. Black silk lined the private space inside the bag. Her fingertips slid to the silky corners of the bag’s dark little universe and met with smooth glass. Golden French perfume was held in a bottle shaped like the torso of a curvaceous woman. Mrs Posthlewaite clasped the torso around its waist. She reached for the gold star gift tag that swung from its neck. Looped handwriting read, From the good doctor.
She drove the Volvo and the silken handbag to the supermarket and there she emptied her soul some more as she filled up her shopping trolley. The day after she calmly passed the handbag back to the gaping doctor, he came home with a squirming, whimpering ball of white fluff in his clean pink surgeon’s hands.
‘For you, dear,’ he said, handing it to her awkwardly. ‘It’s a Maltese terrier … with a pedigree, of course. Name it what you like.’ Then he took his place in his leather upright chair to watch the TV news. The puppy, she supposed, was meant to keep her there. To show her that he cared. As she mopped up its puddles on the plush coffee-coloured carpet and pulled on pink rubber gloves to pick up its little brown cigar-shaped messes, she cursed it, but like her husband, she endured it. She named the dog Gigi, after the French perfume she had found in the bag. Every day, when the dog demanded food, or brushing, or playing or walking, Mrs Posthlewaite obeyed, but quietly seethed inside her empty space. Since the doctor had died the dog had taken to sleeping on the bed where Dr Posthlewaite once had lain snoring. When Mrs Posthlewaite tried to move her, Gigi would curl up her lip and growl. In the mornings, when Mrs Posthlewaite stepped from the door to take Gigi for a walk, the dreadful Mrs Smithers was there cooing and clucking over the dog. The dog snuffled, wuffled and piddled in excitement – often on Mrs Posthlewaite’s neat navy shoes.
One day, instead of walking the dog to the city park, Mrs Posthlewaite marched to the nearest haberdashery store. She tied Gigi to a pole outside the shop, left her there yapping and went in. She bought elegant pearl buttons, exclusive white silk, strong white cotton and a length of lace. Returning home she placed the goods by the sewing machine and turned her attention to Gigi. She ran a tepid bath for the dog and lay the dog’s brushes out on a towel.
‘Good dog, Gigi! Bath time,’ she called.
That night, while Gigi slept in her basket, Mrs Posthlewaite went to her husband’s cupboard and pulled out a solid wooden box. Laying it on the kitchen bench she undid its brass clasp and took from it the cold steel surgical instruments that had once been held in the doctor’s smooth hands. She spread the perfect, gleaming scalpels and scissors onto the bench. From the kitchen cupboard she took a large bag of salt.
‘Gigi! Come here,’ she called.
For several weeks Mrs Posthlewaite barely left the flat. But tonight she knew it was time. In her sewing room, stooped over, her bony foot pressed down on the pedal, her sewing machine whirred into the night. She wore a faint smile as scissors glided through silk and the needle pierced the willing hole of the pearl buttons. She hoped Mrs Smithers wouldn’t hear the grinding sound of the sewing machine in the dead of night, but she knew the Valium would not allow the cloud in Mrs Smithers’ head to lift.
After a grey morning shower of rain the sun burst through the kitchen window.
‘Time to go shopping!’ announced Mrs Posthlewaite airily. ‘Some new clothes, some less sensible shoes … even, perhaps, some French perfume.’ She made sure she timed her departure with Mrs Smithers’ morning journey to the mailbox, solely for the purpose of showing off her brand-new home-crafted handbag. She grabbed her keys and enjoyed trying the new clasp on the bag. Rather than toss the keys in she let her fingertips slide in and out so she could feel the lining of cool white silk. Instead of placing the handbag on the crook of her arm she hung the long, lace-trimmed straps from her shoulder. Her hand ran down the straps to the touch the bag’s most striking feature, the exterior. It was white and fluffy and her fingertips delighted in the feel of it. Her strokes paused when her fingers met with perfect pearl beads, stitched on with precision.
As she caressed the furry handbag Mrs Posthlewaite smiled and said, ‘Come on, Gigi – we may even call into the pet shop and buy a kitten. After all, I’ve always liked cats.’
Eliza’s Cards
‘Ah,’ sighed Eliza. It was so good to be in the country again. She took in the hawthorn-lined roadway, lush green grass, and the pretty white chooks clucking out of the way as her zippy red car whizzed past. She hadn’t realised she’d hit one until she turned into the farm’s pine-flanked drive and pulled up outside Sophie and Jeremy’s farmhouse.
‘Oh my God!’ she said, putting her hand to her mouth as she looked at the meaty mush of feathers stuck to her glossy black bumper bar. ‘I can’t believe it! I’ve killed a chook! The poor thing! Oh, how awful. I thought I’d just hit a pothole!’
Her friend Sophie surveyed the scene, cradling her three-week-old baby.
‘You’ve turned into such a townie! It’s not a chook, you dork. It’s a bantam rooster. Annoying little bastard, too.’ With her free hand Sophie stooped, grabbed a scaly leg and peeled the flattened rooster off the car. ‘I’ll chuck it in the compost. Hose is over there if you want to squirt the blood off.’
Eliza swallowed and winced as she watched Sophie disappear behind the garden shed with babe on hip and dead rooster swinging from her hand. Eliza suddenly realised she had spent too long in the city. Driving to work on clean bitumen, sitting in the air-conditioned boxes of the bank. She had gone soft. She thought of her farming childhood: the feeling of gravel pressing into the soles of her feet and the smell of sheep manure rising up from the grating of the shearing shed. There was
no playing in the creek in cut-off jeans these days, no sifting of waterweed through grubby fingers or the murky smell of frog’s spawn rising up from the pin rushes by the dam. She was all designer clothes and regular foils at the hairdresser’s to keep her blonde hair looking just right.
Eliza sighed and looked up beyond the farmhouse to the craggy mountain, where a summer storm was dragging dark clouds across an indigo sky. Beneath her on the river flats, the sun lit up Jeremy’s big square hay bales like giant bullions of gold. If only she’d wanted a country bloke. Instead, Eliza had spent the past ten years chasing suits in the city. Weekend trips from Tasmania to Sydney to disrobe young stockbrokers in swish hotel rooms. Lazy weekends spent painting her toenails on yachts belonging to various swanky business beaus. A ritzy-ditzy, flashy life. A neat, clean, tidy life. A lonely, boring, souless life, she concluded, as she watched Sophie walking towards her. The sun glistened in Sophie’s messy, shiny black hair as she stooped and kissed the crown of her third child. What different paths they’d chosen. Different lives.
Sophie had Jeremy, her tall farming fella, and a homestead full of babies, blowflies and home-cooked food. Eliza compared this to her own bland minimalist flat, which she shared with her overweight, overwrought cat.
‘I’ll hose it later,’ Eliza shrugged, looking at the car. ‘It’s only blood.’
‘Could be a bad omen,’ Sophie said. ‘Bring you bad luck. Better do it now.’
‘You’ve always been so superstitious!’
But Sophie simply smiled back. Up high, in the limbs of a dark old pine, a cockatoo screeched.
‘Ah,’ Eliza went on, pointing to the bird. ‘Could that be another omen? A sign that I’ll get a cock-or-two tonight? On my hot date?’
‘I thought we were having a girls’ night in?’ Sophie protested. ‘Jeremy’s got a big contracting job down the valley. He’ll be out till dawn, going round and round on the tractor, so I thought we’d have a few drinks and —’
‘I know,’ Eliza said guiltily. ‘But there’s this guy … he phoned earlier. He’s getting off the plane at nine and we’re having a midnight feast at a swanky hotel, if you get my drift. Cock-or-two for sure.’
‘Maybe all you’ll be getting is a flattened cock,’ Sophie said a little crossly. This was typical of Eliza. ‘Like the one you just splattered. It’s an omen for sure.’
‘Good or bad?’
‘Who knows,’ said Sophie, and her words were carried away on the wind.
Poking the slice of lemon that floated in her gin and tonic, Eliza looked around the cosy kitchen. A pendulum clock ticked above an unlit wood heater. Toys were stacked up in the corner. Absently Eliza positioned a pert-breasted Barbie on top of a naked Ken doll. Barbie’s long flexible legs creaked at the knees as she straddled Ken.
‘Pity he’s only got a plastic mound instead of the real tackle,’ Sophie said as she plonked herself onto the couch, hoisted up her T-shirt and put the baby to her breast. Then she reached for her gin and took a gulp, figuring the alcohol couldn’t go immediately to her milk. ‘What’s this bloke you’re seeing tonight like, anyway?’
‘Well, he’s certainly not like poor Ken here. Far from it,’ Eliza said, inspecting the region between Ken’s muscular plastic legs. She told herself it was worth driving two hours out of the city to glimpse Sophie’s new baby before driving two hours back again just to see this man.
‘So where are the kids?’ she asked, wanting to change the subject, feeling guilty again for putting men before the needs of her oldest friend.
‘Over at Mum’s. Just for tonight. Thought we could make a night of it, but if you’re busy, you’re busy.’
‘I’m sorry I’m not staying. Really.’
Sophie shrugged. She was used to Eliza and her men-frenzies. ‘Well? Who is he?’
Eliza set down her drink.
‘You know. The usual story. Met him at a conference. He’s based in Sydney. Describes himself as an entrepreneur so he can swindle trips to see me fairly often. He’s flown down three times already.’
‘Sounds nice,’ said Sophie flatly as her baby belched and white breast milk landed with a plop on the wooden floor.
On their second gin, with the baby in bed, the girls headed out to the verandah to relax in the warmth of the summer evening. As they sank into wicker chairs, Sophie offered Eliza some Barbecue Shapes.
‘Sorry there’s no cheese platter for you. I haven’t had time to go shopping. I thought we’d ring the general store and order a pizza for tea. Noggin, the guy who runs the shop, will drop it off on his way home. Sort of like an informal delivery service. Even if you’re not staying I’ll still order a big one. Breastfeeding mother and all that. I can treat myself to cold pizza for breakfast.’
‘Stop it! You’re making me feel guilty again for not staying!’
‘No! Don’t think like that. Not at all. I’m used to being a tractor-widow. But when Jez is home, he’s a legend with the kids.’
‘And he’s the love of your life.’
‘Hate to be one of those smug married types … but yeah, we’re happy. How about you? Is this Sydney fella the one for you?’
Eliza shrugged and Sophie looked at her probingly.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Sophie said lightly.
‘What?’ insisted Eliza.
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just your track record. You seem to pick the least likely blokes to settle down with. I mean this bloke you’re meeting tonight. Is he father material?’
‘He most certainly is!’ Eliza said, trying not to let the defensiveness creep into her voice. ‘He’s got two kids. And he loves them dearly.’
‘What? Loves them dearly and is flying down to shag you?’
‘They’re separated. He and his wife.’
‘Huh!’ was all Sophie said as she motioned to refill Eliza’s glass.
‘No. No more, thanks. I’ll have to drive back soon. Anyway, who says I want to settle down?’
‘Come on,’ Sophie said with a gleam in her eye. ‘I can tell. You’re longing for it. Only you don’t know it yet.’
‘Maybe I haven’t met the man for me yet?’
‘You never know, he could be right next door. Tell you what, how about you feed the dogs for me while I order the pizza? Wallaby’s hanging in the meat shed. Then … I’ll get my tarot cards! We’ll see how far off this man of yours is.’
‘Oh, no,’ groaned Eliza. ‘You and your bloody witchy ways!’ Eliza walked beyond the green homestead garden into the gold of summer grass. A sudden hot wind lifted dust from the driveway and the seed heads whispered to Eliza as she passed. Fate, she thought, as she gingerly picked up the wallaby’s sinewy carcass and walked towards the dogs. She recognised Soph’s older collie, Lucy, but all the others were new to her. She’d become so out of touch with her best friend’s life. She should come out here more often. It was so beautiful. The sun was now low over the mountain and the dark storm clouds were towering above her. Thunder rumbled and she felt it drumming deeply within her body.
‘Awesome,’ she said to the landscape. She turned and walked back to the house. She should at least indulge Sophie and her stupid fortune-telling before she headed off.
‘You call them tarot cards?’ Eliza sceptically flicked through the pack.
‘They were free with a copy of Cosmo magazine. But they still work,’ Sophie protested.
‘Work? How can someone as practical as you be so … so … “out there” when it comes to this crap?’
‘Ah, ye of little faith. Look around you. Mother Nature speaks to us all the time.’ Sophie waved her hand gracefully towards the mountains that towered over the valley. Thunder rumbled forth again just as Sophie gestured.
‘See? She speaks!’
‘Sounds more like Mother Nature’s got gastro to me.’
Sophie shuffled the deck and laid the cards out before her friend.
‘Pick four cards,’ she said. Eliza pulled a face and rolled her eyes before tugg
ing out the cards. Despite her bravado, she felt nervous as Sophie arranged them face down on the table before her.
After Sophie’s reading Eliza sat back in her chair and grumbled.
‘I will be in a quiet place surrounded by water and dogs? Huh! Ridiculous. That’s your life, Soph, not mine. The cards have got confused. If my promotion comes through it doesn’t sound like Melbourne at all. And where in there does it say untold fortunes?’ She stabbed her index finger accusingly at a card.
‘Richness will come in other ways. Through the landscape.’
‘Great,’ Eliza said flatly. ‘And the children thing? How do you explain the children? Maybe it’s because I’m going to end up in Melbourne with his children visiting every second weekend. We can do nice exciting kiddy things.’
‘Maybe you’ll meet someone else.’
A gust of hot wind picked up the cards and scattered them over the green lawn beneath the verandah. With the wind came fat drops of rain that smelt better than melted chocolate as they landed on the warm garden. Sophie and Eliza could only watch in awe as the summer storm unleashed itself above the tin roof of the homestead. The sound was deafening. The clouds obliterated the sun and darkness shrouded them. Soon, with water splashing up on their bare legs and the wind turning cold, the girls moved inside.
‘It’s an omen, Eliza. It’s an omen,’ Sophie said as she ran to shut the windows. ‘Mother Nature speaks to us.’
A little later, under the shelter of the verandah, they shouted their goodbyes over the din of the storm in an eerie, early darkness. A hug and a kiss and Eliza darted out and leapt into the car, gasping at the stinging coldness of the rain. The engine turned over and she flicked her lights on, capturing the luminous red eyes of a possum nestled in the rafters of the old garage next to the house. But she didn’t see them. The rain was so thick on her windscreen, all she could see was a watery blur. She flicked on her windscreen wipers. Nothing. She turned the switch on and off again. Still nothing. She looked out to Sophie who was still standing with her arms wrapped about herself.
Girl & the Ghost-Grey Mare Page 6