Pearl in a Cage (65 page)

What if I ruin it? she thought.

How can you ruin something that was born ruined?

She took her bottles to Amber's kitchen, looked at the clock, added more wood to the stove, considered Amber's biggest saucepan—or maybe her preserving pan. The preserving pan would be better. Got it down from the top of her wardrobe, emptied the boiling water from the kettle into it. Judged it insufficient and added cold water until it looked enough, then stood over it urging that pot to boil while the hands of the clock ticked away fifteen minutes.

At steaming point, she poured in a dash of blue dye, watched it pool then slowly disperse. It wasn't a nice blue so she added a dash of green, which made the water look more green than blue. Emptied in the last of the blue, gave it a stir with Amber's long wooden spoon—and before her eyes that spoon turned bright blue.

‘Oh, hell!'

She emptied in the last of the green, stirred again and watched the spoon darken.

‘Oh, hell's bells in Scotland!' Jessie said that.

Her brew wasn't even boiling, and Jim's appointment was for one thirty, and it was almost that already. They could be home in less than an hour.

Skirt first, she fed the prison brown into the pan, sinking it with the spoon. It sank, apart from a sleeve which blew up and reached for help. She held it under until it stopped blowing bubbles attempting to get out. Noticed she was steaming up Amber's kitchen. Opened the back door, then the west window, allowing cold air to blow through. Her face was wet, be it from steam, fear or heat from that red-hot stove she was uncertain, but she added more wood and opened the north window.

Pink-faced witch's apprentice, stirring her cauldron, gazing through the steam at her uncertain brew, unsure if she was performing magic or conjuring up a monster.

Ten minutes later there was little doubt.

She fished the frock out, flopped it into a bucket, attempted to lift the preserving pan, two-thirds full of lying bubbling liquid, which had promised much but offered her a gruesome grisly grey. And why should it turn grey when the wooden spoon was now a very interesting shade of deep blue-green?

‘Something light would have gone blue,' she told that gruesome grey. ‘Something light.'

Glanced at Amber's tea towel, then ran for the relief bag and for Amber's moth-eaten ballgown. Bodice first, she fed it into the now bubbling brew. And in the blink of an eye it turned, at least in part, the most gorgeous bluey-green she'd ever seen in her life.

Forced it down, stirred it, turned it, splashing blue water. Forgot to watch the clock, mesmerised now by the colour. She'd done this. She shouldn't have done it, but she'd done it now. She'd put water in that pan, added dye and heat and created something that had not been before.

She'd also created a mess Amber's kitchen had not seen before. A glance around, her glance ending at the clock, suggested she had done enough stirring of that dress. She had to get it over to Maisy's and clean up.

Time can limp along on crutches, barely making any ground when you want it to run fast. In all of her life, Jenny had never known a day to fly so fast. The rinsing, the hanging, the running backwards and forwards over the road with her bucket. She
wasted time on Amber's wooden spoon, before giving it a fast funeral underneath the oleander tree. It dug its own grave, and serve it right. She'd copped a whack or two from it when she was smaller. Lost the half-hour between three thirty and four, but Amber's stove was clean, the preserving pan shining and back on her wardrobe. She was closing the windows when she heard the car. Considered taking off out the back door, but saw a splash of blue on the lino . . . then two more drips near the door.

Got them with her hanky as Jim carried the shopping inside. He greeted her with a blinding flash of white china-cup teeth—he'd looked better toothless. She did the right thing, remained a while to admire Amber's pinkish beige, to be amazed by Sissy's rainbow taffeta, then off she ran to admire her own ballgown, if the wind hadn't blown it to shreds.

It hadn't, and Maisy had hung both frocks properly. They were flapping merrily or the bluey-green looked merry; the brown, now grey, still looked gruesome.

The ballgown was moth-eaten, but it had yards and more yards in its skirt that the moths hadn't yet sampled. The dying was not perfect, they found a few streaks where the colour hadn't taken so well, or had taken too well. But the skirt was full enough to hide the faults and the colour even more gorgeous beneath electric light. It was blue, but when the light caught a different angle, it looked almost greenish. And the pintucks had gone a darker shade, which disguised the shadow of stain.

‘You've got your mother's shape,' Maisy said. ‘Or the shape she had when she was eighteen or nineteen.'

There was no doubting that. The ballgown might have been made to Jenny's measurements. The skirt was a smidgen long, but Amber had worn heels with it, and Maisy had enough daughters to fix that.

‘Get those old sandals Rachael wore to Maureen's wedding, Dawn. They could fit.'

They were black, had inch heels. They lifted the skirt off the floor.

‘Get that petticoat you wore under that green voile, Jessie.'

 

The twins came home on a motorbike, like two hairy bears, one clinging on behind the other; came home on the Thursday before the ball. It could have been worse; they could have come home sooner.

Maisy was always pleased to see them, though not so pleased about their ginger beards. She couldn't see which one had the chickenpox scar on his jaw.

‘Shave yourselves and have a bath before you come into my kitchen,' she said. ‘You smell like a pair of polecats.'

They didn't shave or have a bath, but she fed them in her kitchen. It was the end of paradise, the end of long chats, of peaceful meals. Jessie screamed at them, pitched water at them. Dawn chased one of them with the hair broom and didn't hold back when she cornered him. George threatened to take to their bike with the wood axe.

Jenny got out, went over the road. She could stand Sissy and Amber easier than she could stand the twins.

She sat in Norman's parlour listening to the wireless, until the twins started using their bike as a weapon against the town. It howled up one street and down the next, and every dog in town howled at it, chased it, barked at it, or did all three, but with them on the street, it was safe to go back to Maisy's and have a bath, wash her hair.

They were in bed when she left for school on Friday morning. They were eating breakfast when she came home at three thirty. She escaped to the Palmers' and stayed until it was Dora's turn for the bathroom. A nomad, Jenny, a swaggie without a swag, now the twins were home. She went to the station, but Norman wasn't there so she went to the house. He was bathing, shaving for the ball. Sissy was resting. Amber was ironing.

Jenny stood at the kitchen door, watching that rainbow taffeta skirt spread, watching the iron run up and down the colourful fabric, magical fabric. That gown had cost eighteen pounds.

‘What do they think they're doing?' Amber moaned as the bike screamed by.

‘Acting like maniacs,' Jenny said.

‘Why doesn't Denham do something?'

‘He's told the garage not to sell them any more petrol.'

They were having a normal conversation—or almost.

‘Your father said you were wearing the brown. Bring it out and I'll give it a quick run over,' she said.

She sounded like a mother, looked like a mother, and Jenny felt her face flush with guilt.

‘It's over at Maisy's.'

It was, but it wasn't brown, and if she could ever forget it had once been brown, she might even wear it. They'd cut two inches off the hem and about six off the sleeves. Jessie had found a photograph of a frock in a Myer's catalogue, a black frock trimmed with white, and she'd bought three yards of narrow white braid at Blunt's, which they'd hand-stitched around the collar, on the shoulders and sleeves, doing their best to copy the trim on the frock in the catalogue. Jessie said it looked quite smart.

She stood watching Amber fold up her ironing blanket, dodged as she placed it on the chest of drawers in the junk room, wished she could tell her about that old ballgown, how it fitted her perfectly. Wished . . . just wished.

She ate at Amber's table that night, ate early. Amber needed the kitchen to do Sissy's hair. Norman went back to the station and Jenny went with him. She watched the train coming into town, its one large light like a great all-seeing eye. She stared at the faces of the travellers, faces just wanting to get where they were going, and that train shunting around while the timber trucks were connected. Then off it went, off into the dark, the one-eyed night monster carrying its load away. One day, one fine day, she'd ride it.

Tonight, she followed Norman home, home to Sissy and Amber who had now taken over the main bedroom with its newly repaired winged mirror. Norman dressed in Jenny's discarded room. His suit, his dancing shoes, were in that front bedroom. She wondered why, wondered why he called Amber ‘my dear' instead of ‘Mrs Morrison'.

‘Can you put these confounded collar studs in for me, Jennifer?'

‘Bring that comb from the table, Jennifer.'

‘My spectacles. Did anyone see where I put my spectacles when I came in?'

Jenny found his spectacles. She took Amber's comb to the front bedroom. She fixed Norman's collar studs, held his suit
coat while he slid his arms into the sleeves, dodged Sissy as she swished by in the passage, dodged Amber when she came to the kitchen for a Bex powder.

Maybe she shouldn't go tonight. Maisy wasn't going. The twins weren't going. They had no suits to wear.

‘A glass of water, if you please, Jennifer.'

‘Have you seen that little purse I bought in Melbourne, Mum?'

‘It's in that left-hand side drawer.'

‘Answer the door, please, Jennifer.'

Like Cinderella, homeless, but handy. She opened the door. No prince come to take her to the ball, only Sissy's intended — whether he knew it or not, and his ugly sister.

‘Not going tonight, Jen?' Jim said.

‘My fairy godmother is running late,' she said.

He flashed those blinding teeth and she stepped back from their glare. Maybe he'd grow into them.

‘Ready, folks?' he said.

She watched them cross the road. Sissy's backside broader, or broader in taffeta, but she was clinging possessively to Jim's arm. Poor slim Jim, slim-legged tonight in his new suit. Poor Norman, all pomp and ceremony in tails, holding Amber's arm. Margaret, frilly little hen, fast stepping, head pecking from side to side, trying to keep up.

Mr Cox had hired a five-piece band from Willama and for the past half-hour intermittent bursts of music had been floating over the road. Everyone said it was the best band around. Everyone said this would be the best ball Woody Creek had ever seen, and by the look of the cars in that street, they might be right.

Another carful arrived. It parked outside Norman's gate as the twins howled by on their bike, pursued now by Denham's bike, and two were worse than one. But it was safe to go back to Maisy's house. She closed the door and was crossing the road when she saw Dora walking with her brothers, and Irene and her husband.

‘You're not dressed,' Dora said.

‘I've been waiting for the twins to get out of the house,' Jenny said.

‘They're out,' Joss said as they heard those bikes coming back, and the Palmer party laughed.

 

Maisy had a long mirror in her bedroom, and there was a stranger in that mirror tonight, a stranger in a frock that may have been that Alice Blue Gown all grown up. Jenny hardly dared to touch it.

‘You look beautiful, love,' Maisy said. ‘Now go and enjoy yourself.'

Jenny had believed in fairytales once. Tonight, she tried to believe that Amber and Norman wouldn't mind her wearing that dress, that they'd be interested to see how well it fitted. Fairytales were for kids.

Bobby Vevers and half a dozen boys stood outside the hall smoking. They looked at her.

‘Baby's growing up,' one said.

‘Five foot two, eyes of blue,' another said.

She swished by them, her skirt whispering old secrets to her stockings.

Mrs Cox was at the ticket table. She and Mr Cox were on the ball committee with Norman. She didn't expect Jenny to pay.

‘My, but don't you look the grown-up girl tonight,' she said.

Inside the hall then, inside and lost in a kaleidoscope of coloured gowns and dark suits. She stood just inside the door, seeking Dora, catching a glimpse of Sissy's rainbow as she danced by with Jim. Their height, or his height, made them visible. Keeping close to the wall, she made her way towards the stage end, down to the supper room door.

At most of the town's dances, old Mr Dobson played the piano, Horrie Bull played the accordion and Wally Lewis beat out his crazy rhythms on an old drum. Not many kids here tonight, and the few who had come with their parents were being supervised in the supper room by two women. She'd thought Norman might have been in the supper room. He wasn't, but Mr Cox was.

‘Have you seen Dad?' she said.

‘I believe he's dancing, Jennifer.'

She was standing half-in, half-out of the supper room when Bobby Vevers tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Like to dance?' he said.

He was Sissy's age, too old for her to dance with.

‘I'm looking for Dora,' she said.

‘You'll find her easier if you're dancing.' And he took her hand and led her out to the floor.

He was right. They found Dora dancing with Joss. Everything was better then. Everything was perfect. Dora said her dress was beautiful, and Irene said it matched her eyes. Jenny danced with Joss Palmer later, she danced with Mr Cox because his wife refused to dance with him.