The Listmaker

by Robin Klein

  Parchment Hills had only two clothing shops, and the first had nothing at all in my size. The other, more showy one, was where Aunty Nat had ordered her outfit for the wedding. In fact, it seemed to specialise in clothes that people like Aunty Nat would buy for a wedding, I thought, sleuthing through racks of dresses that all seemed to tie at the neckline with a large floppy bow. The assistant tried to be helpful, though the details I gave her were useless. I didn’t even know myself what I was searching for.

  ‘You’d be better off trying the little place across the street, Sarah,’ she said. ‘That always has clothes for young people.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was another …’ I began, then realised she’d called me by my name, probably remembering it from when I’d been there with Aunty Nat.

  Stupidly, the fact that she had remembered my name brought a lump to my throat. It stayed there while I followed directions and crossed the street, to a little shop I’d never even noticed before, near the railway station.

  The girl behind the counter looked even more dreamy than Aunt Dorothy. She glanced up from a magazine, smiled vaguely, then went on reading as though maybe it was my shop and I could do whatever I liked in it. I didn’t really mind that there wasn’t someone saying, ‘May I help you, madam?’ as they did at the Moreton Centre. It wasn’t likely that I’d be in there for very long, because most of the stuff looked like rubbish. It wasn’t arranged in any particular order of junk, either. Everything was just bundled together, handbags and sequinned shoes jostling each other for floor space, scarves fluttering from the ceiling, assorted clothing slung any old way on a big creaky circular rack. There were even winter clothes mixed up with all the summery things.

  I took down a skirt, looked at it, but shoved it right back. (No one in their right mind would wear what seemed to be three different coloured umbrellas sewn together.) Then came baggy patchwork trousers, a dress with a hemline cut into castle turret shapes, a jacket striped like a canvas deckchair, purple leggings with ladybirds all over them, and a waistcoat fastened with little mirrors instead of buttons. I began to feel less down in the dumps. The clothes might be junk, but they were all so merry. You couldn’t, for instance, drape yourself in an enormous sentry-red scarf fringed with gold coins and still feel glum. The girl behind the counter yawned lazily and turned the pages of her magazine. I put the scarf back and spun the rack, scooping through bright satin shirts, a yellow polka-dot raincoat, something that looked as though it belonged on a skating rink, something with feathers, a velvet dress …

  It was green, almost the same colour as the plants Corrie Ryder had given me. Like everything else in the shop, it didn’t really make any attempt to be serious. The sleeves were tight to the elbows, then opened out like bells, lined with material printed in an acorn pattern. There were more acorns, little bronze ones, jingling around the neckline. Those acorns would probably come off and get lost, I thought automatically. Velvet couldn’t be washed, so you’d have to keep sending it to the drycleaners. It was an impractical dress, and the person who’d designed it obviously didn’t follow Piriel’s rules about classic styles that could be mixed and matched. Whoever bought it would have to be crazy. But even while I was lecturing myself about all that, I found I’d somehow stepped behind the changing-room curtain to try it on.

  On the way back up the hill to Avian Cottage, I kept stopping to peer into the dress-shop bag. If I wore that dress in Sydney, where they were having even hotter summer weather, I’d probably melt. Piriel would no doubt think it was a stupid choice, and she’d be right. There wouldn’t be any way of explaining that I’d bought it because all the other clothes I’d ever owned made me blend into the background, but this one seemed to snatch me right out of it. Also, that I just simply liked it.

  The hill didn’t seem quite so steep today. Usually, after running messages for the aunts, I’d stomp up that long slope wondering crossly why they couldn’t have found somewhere flatter to live. It wasn’t too bad, though, if you took your time. The dog behind the wire fence at Number Eleven didn’t yip hysterically as it normally did, perhaps because I was just ambling by in no hurry. It just barked once, then shut up, as though I’d been recognised now as a legitimate resident in the street. (Next time, I thought, I might even get a tail-wag.) Past the red cedar cottage where a bad-tempered old man lived (though he had helped us restart the car once when it conked out on the slope); past the Country Women’s Association president’s house (Aunty Nat had already joined and was well on the way to getting herself put on their committee), and the young couple’s place (they were expecting a baby in May; Aunty Nat had already ordered one of Eileen Holloway’s Peter Pan and Wendy mugs for the poor little thing).

  I stopped and glanced back down at Parchment Hills shopping centre. There wasn’t very much of it. From the top of the hill it resembled a finger painting; you almost expected the sun to have a cosy face drawn on it. Even the train at the railway station looked as though it might puff out a balloon of poster-colour smoke at any moment. On the far side of the station was a belt of trees, a sports oval, then the district secondary college, where Corrie Ryder went. To get there, you didn’t even have to go down the hill and through the shopping centre. There was a short cut over the other side of the creek. Corrie had told me about it. She always picked up a friend of hers on the way, and they walked together, then came home together when school finished. It must be nice, I thought, to be able to do something like that day after day.

  When I reached Avian Cottage, Aunty Nat was on the porch, fussing about with the ornamental urns Mr Ryder had lent her. Last week she’d filled them with white pot-plant flowers – getting ready for the wedding. My feet seemed to stall. She’d have to be told that those flowers wouldn’t be needed, and I should do it right now.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Sarah,’ Aunty Nat called over her shoulder, and I went slowly down to the porch and saw that she was actually removing the white plants, then stacking the empty urns into a carton. ‘You might have mentioned you were nicking off somewhere, dear. I thought we had all that out when you took off into town the other day without letting us know first.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Aunty Nat, there’s something …’

  ‘It’s just as well the postie was running late today and saw you down at the shops, otherwise I might have been worried. We’ve had lunch, but yours is keeping warm in the oven. Soon as you’ve finished eating, you could take these urns back next-door. We won’t be needing them now they’ve picked Sydney instead.’

  I craned around one of the barley-sugar porch posts, trying to catch a glimpse of her face, to see how upset she was. It was hard to guess from her back view, which was just a busy whirr of plastic gloves wiping out the urns, and refugee plants being given a new home in the flowerbed next to the steps.

  ‘You already know?’ I faltered. ‘I was supposed to tell you about that. Dad asked me to, when I rang him this morning. But I just didn’t know how to …’

  Aunty Nat got up from her knees and peeled off the gloves, flapping them about to get rid of loose dirt. When she turned around, I saw with relief that she didn’t look upset at all. She was annoyed, which was much easier to cope with.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t even your job to tell me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m cranky as a snake with your dad for being so offhand about the whole thing. And having the cheek to start blustering when he found out you hadn’t passed on the message yet! Oh well, at least it means I can clear these urn thingummybobs out of the way. It was a pain trying to fit the key in the lock and not knock any of them over.’

  ‘Is he really mad with me? I should have told you. It’s all my fault …’

  ‘Nonsense! Piriel could have easily let us know, anyway, before she left. I’m cheesed off with both of them, and I don’t mind saying so. That phone was just about blistering by the time I finished with your dad, I can tell you!’

  ‘Did he ring here again?’

  ‘No, I was the one who put the
call through, though it was just by chance. Lunchtime, while you were off gallivanting. All of a sudden I realised we didn’t have a clue what to order in the way of drinks for the wedding, so I thought I’d better ring Brett and check. You know what a big song and dance he always makes about wine. So that’s how I found out, and I can’t help feeling as though I deserved a bit more consideration from him and Piriel. Never mind, lovie, there’s no need for you to look frazzled. It’s certainly not you I’m cross with. Except don’t ever nick off anywhere again without telling me first, madam, particularly not round about meal times! The very idea …’

  ‘I’m sorry … about Sydney,’ I said miserably.

  Aunty Nat left off scolding and peered at me.

  ‘You made them a cake. And it’s not going to be any use taking it up to them. I don’t mean because it might get squashed, either. They won’t even be around to eat it, they’re just leaving straight after … straight after the registry office …’

  Aunty Nat shooed me in through the front door with her rubber gloves.

  ‘Your beautiful cake! And the summerhouse, all painted and ready for –’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said evenly. ‘That summerhouse is for us, anyhow, when all’s said and done. We wanted it looking nice. Besides, Dosh might want to use it for her wedding, though I bet you anything she’ll trip on the steps or do something else just as daft. Come and eat your lunch, and I’ll have a cup of tea, to keep you company.’

  I stared blurrily down at the plate she set on the kitchen table. It held two baked potatoes stuffed with salmon in cheese sauce, and there was a salad to go with it. Aunty Nat had made me a special one, a kind of joke between us which dated back to preschool days. To coax me to eat salad then, she’d make a little person from a pear half, with punk carrot hair, lettuce-leaf skirt, and shoes cut from tomato quarters. Looking at it now somehow made me want to blub. I ate a celery sock and the beetroot handbag, then had to stop rather quickly and fumble for the tissues which were kept on the bench. The tissue-box cover, I noticed, was new. Aunty Nat had made it from scraps of the cloud curtain material. She’d stitched a double lace frill around the opening, and embroidered a little blue bird on one side. It wasn’t, I thought tearfully, the sort of object you’d find in Piriel’s kitchen. Half a dozen tissues later, I blew my nose and said, ‘They don’t even want us there, you know.’

  ‘Well, I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt and show up for it,’ Aunty Nat said. ‘Can I have my damp shoulder back now, dear, if you’ve finished with it? We won’t travel up by plane, though, thanks very much. That passenger in the film did a pretty nifty job landing a big jet, but I wouldn’t fancy having to rely on Dosho. We’ll go by rail. I’ll ring up later and get his secretary to book train seats and maybe a hotel reservation if we decide to stay overnight. I could easily manage all that myself, of course, but it will give her something to do instead of sitting there buffing away at her nails.’

  ‘They only want each other, nobody else,’ I said, still aboard the train of my own thoughts. ‘I don’t mean just the wedding, either … it’s how things are. They’d honestly rather have that apartment all to themselves, too. I’d only be in their way if I moved in. It’s just that they don’t know how to come right out and say it.’

  Aunty Nat refilled her cup, stirring in sugar with a little spoon she’d bought. It had a kookaburra on the top.

  Her birthday and Christmas presents were going to be a cinch from now on, I thought absently. It would just be a matter of searching around for bird motif teaspoons, so she could end up with a whole appalling collection. The junkshops in Parchment Hills would always be a good place to look.

  ‘If I lived at Avian Cottage all the time …’ I said.

  ‘Is that what you’d like to do, dear?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I’d like to do. Maybe I’ve got a nerve suggesting it, though. It’s putting you on the spot.’

  ‘Rubbish! I’ve never gone along with that boarding-school idea, not when you could have had a perfectly good home with us all these years. I’d love to have you here. So would Dosh.’

  She was beaming, I noticed, as though she might clap her hands at any minute.

  ‘If I lived here, I could go to the same school as Corrie Ryder,’ I said. ‘She knows this short cut over the other side of the creek.’

  ‘As long as you don’t both go larking around and getting your good school shoes wet.’

  ‘I could still go in to visit whenever they asked me. Piriel was going to buy a fold-out couch for the spare room at the apartment. I can sleep on that when I visit them both. It should work out okay, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Aunty Nat said. ‘Maybe when you start that acting course, you could stay overnight at the same time. Saturdays, wasn’t it? Mind you, I’ve got more than a faint suspicion you’re not exactly over the moon about that workshop business.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see how I’ll be able to fit it in, really. Not every Saturday. If I’m living out here, I’ll want to be doing other things with Corrie on the weekends.’

  ‘Fair enough, but you’d better let them know pretty soon. Then the place can go to someone else and Piriel will get a refund. Goodness, all these things to arrange, so many loose ends to tie up …’

  ‘It’s all right, Aunty Nat. You won’t have to do any fighting this time. I’ll ask him. About changing schools and living here with you and everything.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be standing right there beside you when you tackle the asking,’ Aunty Nat said. ‘Backing you up, and so will Dorothy. There are certain things that can’t and shouldn’t be sorted out over the phone, though, Sarah. When we’re in Sydney might be the best time. Maybe you’d better make a list of what you want to actually say …’

  ‘I’m sick to death of lists,’ I said. ‘I don’t need one this time, anyhow. When we get there, I probably won’t have too much trouble working out what to say.’

  ‘We’ll have to pack an overnight bag each for Sydney. And talking clothes, I notice you’ve got a dress-shop bag there … Did you buy something new while you were down the street?’

  ‘Just a minute while I shake it out properly, so you can see how it looks.’

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely, Sarah!’ Aunty Nat said. ‘But isn’t it a funny time of the year to get yourself a winter dress? They don’t usually have them in stock quite this early, either. It’s beautiful, even if it is a bit dizzy. Still, everyone your age should have a dizzy kind of dress once in a while. Did you have Sydney in mind when you bought it, dear? Might be a bit hot, you know, though I daresay there’ll be air-conditioning at that registry office …’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll take it up to Sydney,’ I said. ‘That’s not what I bought it for, really. It’s kind of special, to wear at Aunt Dorothy’s wedding. But right now, I’ll just nip over next-door and show Corrie.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Kempsey, New South Wales, Robin Klein has now had more than forty books published. Many have been shortlisted for the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award, including People Might Hear You (1984), Hating Alison Ashley (1985), Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left (1986) and Seeing Things (1994).

  Came Back to Show You I Could Fly won a Human Rights Award for Literature in 1989. It also won the 1990 Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award for older readers, and was shortlisted for the 1990 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the 1990 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. This outstanding novel was named a White Raven book at the 1990 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

  More recently, Robin’s stories about the Melling sisters have been highly acclaimed: All in the Blue Unclouded Weather, which was followed by Dresses of Red and Gold and The Sky in Silver Lace, was winner of the 1992 NSW Premier’s Award for Literature (Children’s Books).

  In 1991 Robin Klein was awarded the Dromkeen Medal for her significant contribution to the appreciation and development of children’s literature in
Australia.