This discussion was going nowhere and I was becoming more and more flustered by this interrogation by the ancient. More to the point, I came to believe that the dressmaker was never going to believe that I was really a Muslim – of any kind or from anywhere. I was just too ignorant of anything at all Islamic (apart from knowing that Burqas covered girls from head to toe). My ad hoc lies and fabrications were simply becoming ridiculously implausible for any practising Muslim to believe.
So, I changed the terms of the discourse:
“Madam, may I say just three things: I need a medium-sized burqa, I need it today and I will pay $1000 in cash for it. Can you assist me?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone. Her command of English obviously wasn’t all that bad, after all. And, as it turned out, my money was as good as anyone else’s.
She confirmed her address and told me to come in half an hour – it seemed there would be no more awkward questions. (My religious devotions had suddenly taken a back seat to commerce.)
I went to the bank and withdrew the necessary cash. (In fact, I withdrew everything I had – and more. Still further plans were now forming in my mind – and I hoped they would prove better than my friggin’ stupid idea about getting a burqa!)
o0o
The dressmaker’s workshop was at the rear of a rundown terrace house. I entered a gate which opened onto a filthy and litter-strewn alleyway, still paved by colonial-era bluestone cobbles.
The gate had not been oiled since …? Probably ever. Its deep metallic groan summoned the dressmaker from her workshop.
The dressmaker was indeed elderly. I guessed she was over eighty as she was quite wizened and bent over. Her face was heavily lined and her mouth lacked any sign of teeth or dentures. It soon became clear, however, that she was still very sharp of mind – very sharp.
“Do you have the money?” she hissed – as if this were some sort of clandestine drug deal.
She leaned forward and poked her aged head through the gateway. She squinted and, very deliberately, looked up and down the putrid alley way – but for whom or what was she looking? Maybe, in her mind, I had brought some ‘heavies’ with me to ‘lean’ on her – just in case she had decided not to supply ‘the item’. Maybe she thought the police were hot on my trail?
Who knows? (Strewth, maybe the police were after me!)
I needed to calm the lady’s concerns. I removed a bundle of twenty fifty dollar bills from my shirt pocket. I held them in front of my chest - so that she could see them clearly.
At the sight of so much money in one spot, her aged eyes visibly widened, making her wrinkles momentarily disappear. Once again, she cast a suspicious glance up and down the alleyway - before catching me at the elbow and ushering me inside the gate.
Her workroom was separated from the terrace house. I think it must once have been a stable – but, if so, it had not housed a horse and cart for many decades. Alternatively, maybe it had been a servant’s quarters in times gone by. The house did not look grand enough for a servant but evidence of these past social arrangements was then still not uncommon in Melbourne’s oldest suburbs
Anyway, I ducked beneath a low doorway and stepped down into the workroom. It was filled, somewhat chaotically, with half-completed garments and fabric of all sorts but the main sewing machine and workbench areas had been kept clear enough. The spools of thread and other equipment immediately around (many of which were mysterious to me) were reasonably well ordered. This dressmaker obviously still ran a passable production-line on an out-of-date ‘Singer’ sewing machine. (Black enamel with gold, cursive writing on it – very pretty.)
Wordlessly, she pointed to a voluminous garment of dull grey fabric that was hanging in the corner – and probably had been hanging there for some years. It was covered in a fine layer of dust. Unremarkable and unattractive – it would be perfect for Deb.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said slyly. “This is an exceptional garment. I’ve been holding it for the right customer for quite some time. I don’t think I can sell it for less than $1500.”
She fixed me with a steely stare. Yes, this wizened old woman was indeed still very sharp of mind. However, I knew a shakedown when I heard one. I promptly placed the cash back in my short pocket, smiled with a definitely forced smile and stood slowly:
“I will need to buy one elsewhere, then,” I said simply, still holding her gaze.
I bowed slightly to her, turned and left the workshop. I was walking along the alleyway before she reached me and, breathless, called me back, claiming that I had misunderstood her words. (Sure!)
(On the one hand, she knew I would struggle to get a burqa elsewhere at that time but, on the other hand, she also knew that $1000 was then an exceptional price for such a modest – and clearly unloved – garment. Greed had eventually won out – as I had always known it would.)
Without a word, I slowly followed the elderly dressmaker back to her workshop.
This time, upon entry, I was ‘greeted’ by an old acquaintance of mine, “Gween”, the zombies’ cat.
o0o
I didn’t immediately recognise the tortoiseshell zombie-cat – but she certainly remembered me.
The greeting she gave me was a throaty growl, a prolonged and heartfelt hiss - closely followed by a flying leap onto my right thigh – into which she dug her teeth and claws very deeply. Her fur was standing on end but her ears were flattened against her skull. Her eyes wide like saucers, she looked up at me whilst continuing to growl threateningly through a mouthful of my thigh and trousers.
Then the piercing pain of this attack jogged my memory: I remembered this tortoise-shell cat all right!
I had met “Gween” (if that was really her name) during the first wave of the zombie apocalypse, ten years previously.
She had taken up residence with the zombies in the basement of Union House at Melbourne University. Whilst cheerfully disembowelling any human that fell into their path, the zombies positively doted on this feline – and “Gween” felt likewise about them. They would routinely pick her up – ever so gently – and stroke her by the hour. Bizarre.
So, when I had turned up to her zombie domain – under the protection of my zombie brother, David – “Gween” had not been well pleased. In fact, I was definitely regarded as an intruder to be repelled with all necessary force – though my brother David still liked her very much. She had made her displeasure at my presence – not David’s - very obvious through a series of violent attacks on me whilst I was obliged to hunker down with the undead in their basement charnel house.
I had always wondered if “Gween’ had been vapourised by the napalm attack which had followed our sojourn in the basement of Union House – and which had incinerated most of her adoring zombie-keepers. (Gween herself had been alive and well – she simply preferred the company of zombies. She was not one herself.)
So, now I knew. She had indeed survived and fled to an adjoining suburb after the napalm attack on the University zombies.
The elderly dressmaker screamed. Was she remonstrating with her vicious cat to stop its assault on a valued customer? No, not a bit of it. She was screaming at me to stop annoying her beloved cat. Ignoring the unfairness of this accusation, I took the cat firmly by the scruff of its neck – just as its mother must once have done. This had the effect of paralysing the wretch cat and of stopping its attack in its tracks. I peeled it from my thigh and its claws and teeth withdrew from my now-bleeding flesh.
As it continued to spit, hiss and growl, I carried it to the door and deftly dropped it to the ground outside - before closing the door neatly behind it.
I dropped the bundle of cash on the table, walked to the corner and collected the dusty burqa from its hook. I left without a further word to the dressmaker.
(The enraged ‘Gween’ was lying in wait, eyes wide, ears still flattened and tail fluffed out. Plainly, she was about to launch a second attack. Pre-emptively, my foot caused her to become a
irborne. Poor thing!)
Chapter 12
Deb the Fairy Princess
So, after negotiating the acquisition of the burqa and repelling an unexpected assault, the rest of the trip was plain sailing.
Food from the supermarket?
Check. (No zombie crisis apparent at Safeway!)
As I was lumbering back to the subie loaded down with the supplies and dodging a bunch of busy shoppers and their screaming kids, I happened to pass another shop.
It stopped me in mid-stride: what I saw in the window had the potential to solve another pressing problem, a problem of existential proportions (i.e. my existence).
o0o
The next morning, in the quiet of the forest, I heard Deb long before I reached the shack.
I cannot say whether she started up the cry of the banshee because she had heard the familiar rumble of my car in the distance or whether she’d been at it all night.
Either way, she was making it very clear that she had become weary of being bound to her bed – very weary.
I parked outside the shack and ascended the steps – the volume and vehemence of Deb’s protests increased dramatically. How far do they say you can hear a lion’s roar on a quiet night? Well, I was sure that’s about how far Deb’s cries were carrying. I needed urgently to stifle them – or risk discovery even in this isolated spot.
I opened the door and was not prepared for what I observed on Deb’s face: pure, murderous hatred. Her eyes were completely blood-shot, vivid red. Her lips were drawn back so that her mouth formed a sharp-toothed snarl, opening and closing and threatening – and searching.
She was thrashing about under her bedding and I observed that her bonds were somewhat looser than I had left them. I wondered how long it would be before she escaped their grip.
When she had had her first ‘tantrum’, of course, I had been able to bring her to heel by reproving her strongly and withdrawing my ‘parental’ affection (while keeping her restrained). I didn’t think that would work on this occasion. Her resentment had obviously been building and building throughout my prolonged (but essential) absence - and this was the state into which she had worked herself. She appeared beyond all reasoning.
I had anticipated that I would meet something like this upon my return – though not quite so extreme and life-threatening. So, I had devised (yet another) plan to overcome the difficulty.
The hypothesis that zombies tended to think like particularly violent two-year-olds had stood up to the first test (i.e. at the time of Deb’s first ‘tantrum’). Now I would test it a second time.
I retreated from the shack and returned to the subie to retrieve certain ‘essential experimental apparatus’ that I had obtained in Sydney Road, Coburg. No, I had not suddenly become a mad scientist merely a keen observer of infant behaviour – or, to be more specific, an observer of how little girls ‘work’.
As I returned to the shack, I observed that Deb’s redoubled fury had, in fact, caused her bounds to become dangerously loose. There was no time to lose – to avoid being destroyed, I needed to deploy the experimental apparatus without delay.
I removed it gently from its packaging and placed it on the floor next to the bed (briefly covering Deb’s battered toy wombat) – where my sister could plainly see it. At first, the blindness of her fury prevented any reasonable observation – or identification – of what I had placed near her. The cry of the banshee (and accompanying thrashing about) continued unabated for several minutes until Deb was all but free of her bonds.
Time to run?
Nope. I held my nerve and stood smiling benignly and my beloved sister and would-be murderer. (I confess that I was not quite so calm on the inside.)
Deb’s diminished vision and neural connections finally fixed on their target sufficiently well to identify it – and the banshee cry ceased abruptly. The straining bonds fell slack.
“Ooooh!” said Deb. “Deb-deb want.”
The ballerina’s outfit, complete with ample tutu, tights and soft shoes was, of course, all in bright pink – just as any self-respecting two-year-old girl would demand.
But wait, there was more! This particular ballerina was to be a fairy princess. She was to have large, white fairy wings, a sparkling tiara, a shiny, silver wand (with the compulsory star at the tip) and a large container of fairy dust to sprinkle about with her magic.
What little girl could resist? (All thoughts of grisly mayhem would just have to wait, it seemed.)
“Deb-deb want! Deb-deb want!...” (This frenzied chant went on for some time before I could make myself heard.)
Finally, when the chanting and pleading and whining had dropped below its crescendo:
“Has Deb-deb been a good girl while I’ve been away?”
Deb nodded vigorously in a wide-eyed (and unbelievable) sort of way.
“Is Deb-deb sure that she’s been a good girl?”
Deb nodded again, this time with less conviction and looking decidedly sheepish – like a child caught with its paw in the mixing bowl.
“Hmmm,” I said, non-committally.
The chant recommenced: “Deb-deb want! Deb-deb want! …”
But there was no anger in this renewed chant, merely childish desire.
I was winning the battle.
“Should Pete let Deb-deb out of bed – to be a fairy princess?”
Her (still bloodshot) eyes widened further – she didn’t dare believe her luck that such an amazing thing might happen to her. She started whimpering.
(What a difference a pink tutu can make!)
I judged that I was now safe and that this particular murderous interlude had passed:
“Yes, I’m sure Deb-deb is a good girl, a very good girl indeed,” I said.
And, with that, I knelt down, kissed her on the forehead and released her from her bonds. She immediately fell upon the fairy princess outfit with glee but, try as she might, she was unable to dress herself in it.
She stood there, half-naked in her sadly grey skin. She looked to me desperately for help.
“Come on, Sister,” I said. “Bring the clothes here and I will make you the most beautiful fairy queen the world has ever seen.”
Soon, the pink fairy princess stood there in all her finery, waving her be-starred magic wand and spreading her glittering fairy dust all about the shack.
It was, quite simply, magic.
“Outside?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go to the special magic wishing pool, shall we?”
I took her – and the toy wombat, of course – to the spring.
Soon the surface of the spring was covered in fairy dust and all sorts of two-year-old ‘spells’ had been cast on anything that stayed still long enough (and some things that didn’t as well). She spun and danced clumsily about. She even hummed a bit. (It may, of course, have been zombie-singing. I can’t be sure.)
I lay in the morning sun marvelling at the transformation that had taken place in my zombie sister. Was this the way to solve the second wave of the zombie apocalypse, I wondered. Fairy dust is, after all, a lot cheaper than bullets.
Chapter 13
Visitors
Why was Ben there? Why had Ben come?
These questions have haunted me for years.
I was fairly sure that Ben had reported me and Deb to the police when the quarantine had first been imposed – the Fitzroy police had as good as confirmed it.
But we had evaded capture before the net had finally closed. We were now out of the way – and bothering no-one.
So, why pursue us into the depths of the forest? Surely there were many more pressing tasks for the police to be attending to. Certainly, the daily news reports on the radio suggested so.
Ben had had a tiff with Deb just before Deb had succumbed to the plague and, whilst I thought him a little uncaring in his attitude to her, I did not sense any vindictiveness in his attitude to her – and, if he were secretly vindictive towards her, why?
No, I
couldn’t put it down to that.
Perhaps the Fitzroy police had felt foolish when we had narrowly evaded them. Perhaps that had put Deb on top of the ‘Most Wanted’ list of escaped zombies.
Perhaps.
Even so, I return to the question of why Ben had led them to us - here, in the middle of nowhere. Had the police forced him to?
Mine (Book 2): Sister Mine, Zombie Page 6