Part 16 (2/2)
For the opening of Le Salon, Una had provided a sample of her work. A mannequin stood in the corner wearing a b.u.t.ton-through seersucker peasant floral frock with a flounce-collared neckline and small puffed sleeves. The mannequin wore vinyl Mexican moccasins to match and a small straw bonnet. It was an outfit straight from Rockmans of Bourke Street catering for the 'not-so-slim figure'.
When Purl arrived she dumped a concave sponge on the table and said, 'Lovely day,' then turned to Una and looked her up and down. 'Get sick of Evan or Marigold, you just come and camp at the pub.' She lit a Turf filter tip and, looking about her for an ashtray, spotted the mannequin in the corner. 'That one of the first things you made back at sewing school, is it?' she asked with interest.
Beula turned to the Beaumonts standing together by the window like a grim wedding photograph from 1893, and said loudly, 'My you're big Ger, I mean Trudy. When exactly are you due?' Mona offered the cake plate around again. Soon everyone's saucer was crammed with thick bricks of lemon slice, hedgehog, cinnamon tea cake and pink cream lamingtons, and they were picking the crumbs and coconut flakes from their bosoms.
When Marigold stepped red-faced and shaking back into the crowded room, Mona handed her a cup of tea with a cream scone on the saucer. Nancy marched through the door behind her, b.u.mping Marigold and sending her cup and saucer splas.h.i.+ng onto the carpet. Marigold collapsed, her face resting in the tea and cream puddle, the two fluffy pods of scone dough resting at her ears. The clucking, floral women a.s.sisted her to bed, and when finally they returned, Elsbeth stepped to the table, clapped loudly and began the formal proceedings. 'We welcome Una to Dungatar and wish to say '
At that moment Trudy bellowed like a distressed cow and doubled over. There was a noise like a water bag bursting. Pink, steamy fluid flowed from her skirts and a circle of carpet around her feet darkened. Her belly was lurching as if the devil himself was ripping at her womb with his hot poker. She folded down on all fours, yelling. Purl finshed her tea in one swallow, grabbed her sponge and left hastily. Lesley fainted and Lois grabbed his ankles and dragged him outside. Mona watched her sister-in-law labouring at her feet. She put her hand over her mouth and ran outside, retching.
Elsbeth turned crimson and cried, 'Get the doctor!'
'We haven't got a doctor,' said Beula.
'Get someone!' She knelt beside Trudy. 'Stop making a scene,' she said. Trudy bellowed again.
Elsbeth yelled, 'SHUT UP, you stupid grocer's girl. It's just the baby.'
Lesley lay on the lawn, flat on his back with Lois hosing him down. His toupee had washed off and lay like a discarded s.c.r.o.t.u.m on the gra.s.s by his bald head. Mona stalled the Triumph Gloria three times before lurching up onto the nature strip, shattering Marigold's front fence and roaring away with the hand brake burning, the front fender left behind, swinging from a denuded fence post. Just then Purl jogged back around the corner calling, 'He's coming, he's coming.'
Lois called to Una. 'He's coming,' and Una called to Elsbeth, 'He's coming.'
Trudy yelled and howled.
Elsbeth shrieked, 'Stop screaming.'
Through clenched teeth between contractions Trudy growled, 'This is all your son's fault, you old witch. Now get away from me or I'll tell everyone what you're really like!'
Twenty minutes into the labour Felicity-Joy Elsbeth Beaumont shot from her mother's slimy hirsute thighs into the bright afternoon and landed just beside Marigold's sterilised towels with Mr Almanac standing in distant attendance.
Beula Harridene leaned close to Lois. 'She's only been married eight months.'
When Evan got home that evening he found his nature strip ploughed, his front fence demolished, all the doors and windows open and an odd smell permeating the house. There was a large stain on the carpet and, in the middle of it, a pile of soiled towels. On top of the towels was a fly-blown lump of afterbirth, like liver in aspic. Marigold, fully clothed, was unconscious in bed.
23.
Three women from Winyerp stood at Tilly's gateposts, tiny flakes of ash from the burning tip settling on their hats and shoulders. They were admiring the garden. The wisteria was in full bloom, the house dripping with pendulous, violet flower sprays. Thick threads of myrtle crept around the corner, through the wisteria and across the veranda, netting the boards with s.h.i.+ny green leaves and bright white flowers. Red, white and blue rhododendron trumpets sprang up against the walls and ma.s.sive oleanders cerise and crimson stood at each corner of the house. Pink daphne bushes were dotted about and foxgloves waved like people saying farewell from a boat deck. Hydrangea, jasmine and delphinium clouded together around the tank stand and a tall carpet of lily of the valley marched out from the shade. French marigold bushes, squatting like sentries, marked the boundary where a fence once stood. The air was heavy, the garden's sweet perfume mingling with the acrid smoke and the stink of burning rubbish. A vegetable garden faced south: s.h.i.+ny green and white spinach leaves creaked against each other in the breeze while fuzzy carrot-tops sided against straight, pale garlic stalks and onions, and bunches of rhubarb burst and tumbled against the privet hedge, which contained the garden entirely. Bunches of herb bushes lined the outside edge of the hedge.
Molly opened the door and called, 'There's a bunch of old stools from out at fart hill trespa.s.sing out here.'
Tilly arrived behind her, 'Can I help you?'
'Your garden ...' said an older woman. 'Why, Spring isn't even here.'
'Almost,' said Tilly. 'The ash is very good and we get the sun up here.'
A pretty woman with a baby on her hip turned to look down at the Tip. 'Why doesn't the council do something about the fire?'
'They're trying to smoke us out,' said Molly. 'They won't though, we're used to being badly treated.'
'What can I do for you?' asked Tilly.
'We were wondering if you were still seamstressing?'
'We are,' said Molly, 'but it'll cost you.'
Tilly smiled and put her hand over her mother's mouth. 'What would you like?'
'Well, a christening gown ...'
'Some day wear ...'
'... and a new ball gown would be nice, if you're ... if it's at all possible.'
Molly shoved Tilly's hand away, pulling a measuring tape from within her blankets, and said, 'Yes now take your clothes off.'
Again Molly woke to the sound of pinking-shears crunching through material on the wooden table, and when she got to the kitchen she found no porridge waiting, only Tilly bent over her sewing machine. On the floor about her feet lay sc.r.a.ps and off-cuts from satin velour au sabre, wool crepe and boucle, silk faille, shot pink and green silk taffeta, all perfect to decorate her chair with. The small house buzzed with the dull whirr and thudding of the Singer and the scissors rattled on the table when Tilly let them go.
Late one afternoon Molly sat on the veranda watching the sun draw in its last rays. A mere breath after the last tentacle of light had been pulled below the horizon, a skinny woman marched up The Hill towards her hauling two suitcases. Molly scrutinised the severe woman's widow's peak, the mole above her dark lipstick. Ash settled on the tips of the pin-point nipples pressing against her sweater and the pencil-line skirt she wore stretched over her hip bones. Finally she spoke. 'Is Tilly here?'
'Know Tilly do you?'
'Not really.'
'Heard about her though?'
'You could say that.'
'Figures.' Molly turned her wheelchair to the screen door. 'Tilly Gloria Swanson has come to stay,' she called.
Una's hand went to her throat and she looked afraid. The veranda light flicked on.
'We saw Sunset Boulevard earlier this year,' said Tilly from behind the screen door. She had a tea towel flung over her shoulder and a vegetable masher in her hands.
'I'm Una Pleasance,' said the woman.
Tilly said nothing.
'I'm the '
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