The Dressmaker (26 page)

‘Christ.’ The director closed her eyes and curled a large chunk of her hair around and around in her fingers. The cast backed away, tiptoeing sideways towards the wings or dressing room, eyeing the exits wildly.

‘Right. Everybody back here – we’re doing it again.’

They had to sweat it out again on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and every week night. At last it was time for costume inspection. Tilly noted that Trudy had lost a lot of weight. She’d bitten her nails down to the quick and there were big, white patches of scalp on her head where she had tugged chunks of hair out. She also muttered lines from
Macbeth
and shouted obscenities in her sleep. She stood before her cast in a soiled dress and odd shoes. Tilly sat behind her, a tape measure around her neck and a serene expression on her face.

‘Right,’ said Trudy, ‘Lady Macduff?’

Purl floated onto the stage in a voluminous satin skirt with a huge bustle. Her face was white-powdered and red-rouged and her hair arranged in storeys of curls, piled high, with a tall, ribboned fontange perched on top. Her pretty face was framed by a wide, wire-framed collar that swung from the top of her fontange to her armpits and was trimmed with bead-tipped ruffles. The sleeves were enormously pumpkin-shaped and the neckline of her gown was straight and low, cutting across her lovely breasts so that they burst out of her very tight, corsetted bodice. The men leered and the witches sneered.

‘This costume is very heavy,’ gasped Purl.

‘I designed it like that, you fool – that’s the type of thing they wore in the seventeenth century. Isn’t that so, costume maker?’

‘Yes. That’s definitely what aristocrats wore in the late seventeenth century, at court,’ said Tilly.

‘I can’t breathe very well,’ said Purl.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Trudy. The men nodded.

‘Next – Duncan!’

William stepped from the wings. Burning red ringlets framed his face which was white-powdered, red-rouged and crimson-lipped, with a beauty spot on each cheek. The curls fell from a fat emerald-encrusted gold crown, like the top of the Taj Mahal. Around his neck he wore a lace bow that plummeted to his waist over a lace bodice. Over that was the fur-trimmed knee-length yellow coat. The enormous deep-folded cuffs of his coat hung all the way to his fur-trimmed hemline. He wore sheer white silk stockings and jackboots with cuffs that turned down and flopped about his ankles. He struck a gallant pose and beamed at his wife, but all she said was, ‘Won’t that crown topple off?’

‘It’s attached to his wig,’ said Tilly.

‘Let’s see what you’ve done to Macbeth then.’

Lesley swept onto the stage wearing a tall sugarloaf hat that supported a forest of standing and sweeping feathers. Lace and ruffles bunched and danced around his earlobes from the collar of a voluminous white silk shirt which had tails that hung about his knees, swinging with the artificial flowers stitched to the trim of several skirts and petticoats. He had a red velvet waistcoat and matching red stockings, and his high-heeled shoes featured satin laces so large it was impossible to tell what colour the shoes were.

‘Perfect,’ said Trudy.

The soldiers behind her mimicked her, ‘
PERFEC
T
’, and flapped their wrists.

Trudy circled them, her seventeenth-century baroque cast of the evil sixteenth-century Shakespeare play about murder and ambition. They queued on the tiny stage like extras from a Hollywood film waiting for their lunch at the studio canteen, a line of colourful slashes and frothy frocks, farthingaled frills and aiglets pointing to the heavens, bandoliers and lobster-tailed helmets with love-locks hanging, feathers sprouting from hats and headdresses that reached the rafters, their red-lipped, pancake faces resting in white plough-disc collars and arched white-wall-collars like portraits.

‘Perfect,’ said Trudy again.

Tilly nodded, smiling.

T
illy’s back and shoulders were stiff and hurt sharply. Her arms ached and her fingertips were red raw, her eyes stung and had bags that reached her perfect cheekbones, but she was happy, almost. Her fingers were slippery with sweat, so she awarded herself a concession – she used Paris stitch for the lace-trim of the soldiers’ red and white Jacquard jersey pumpkin pants when she knew she should use whip stitch. She tied-off the very last stitch and when she leaned to bite the cotton thread she heard Madame Vionnet say, ‘Do you eat with scissors?’

Sergeant Farrat was telling her about rehearsals. ‘And Lesley! Well if he doesn’t think he’s important, keeps butting in, telling everyone their lines – which of course upsets Miss Dimm because it’s her job to prompt. The inspector over-acts but Mona’s very good, she fills in when people don’t show up. We’ve all got summer flu, sore throats and blocked sinus, no one’s seen Elsbeth, everyone hates Trudy – I’d be a better director than her, at least I’ve
been
to the theatre.’

They arrived at rehearsal, their arms piled with pumpkin trousers and ostrich-edged velvet coats, the hot northerly outside wailing through power lines. Inside, the cast were still and afraid. They were bailed up by the director at the rear of the stage, surrounded by several splintered wooden chairs. Trudy had glazed eyes with large bluish circles around them and her cardigan was buttoned in the wrong holes.

‘Do it again,’ she whispered menacingly.

Lady Macduff, holding a doll wrapped in a bunny rug, looked at her son. Fred Bundle breathed deeply and began:

Son: ‘And must they all be hang’d that swear and lie?’

Lady Macduff: ‘Every one.’

Son: ‘Who must hang them?’

Lady Macduff: ‘Why, the honest men.’

Son: ‘Then the liars and swearers are fools; for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.’

‘NO! NONONONONONONONONONONO, YOU’RE HOPELESS …’ Trudy screamed.

‘That was right,’ said Miss Dimm, ‘he said it right this time.’

‘He didn’t.’

‘He did,’ chorused the cast.

Trudy walked slowly to the front of the stage and fixed the cast with a demonic gaze. ‘You dare to contradict me?’ Her voice jumped an octave. ‘I hope you develop dysentery and I hope you all get the pox and die of dehydration because enormous scabs all over your body ooze so much, I hope all your dicks turn shiny-black and rot off and I hope all you women melt inside and smell like a hot rotted fishing boat, I hope you –’

William moved to his wife, took a big backswing and slapped Trudy’s face so hard that she spun 360 degrees. The curtains across the stage shifted in the whirling air. He spoke softly into Trudy’s blotchy, sweaty face. ‘I happen to know the doctor is at the Station Hotel this very minute. If you make one more sound tonight we’ll tie you to this chair with fishing line, fetch him and all swear on Bibles that you’re mad.’ He turned to the cast and in a wavery but confident voice said, ‘Won’t we?’

The cast nodded.

‘Yes,’ said Mona and stepped towards her sister-in-law. ‘You’re an unfit mother – William’ll get custody of this poor baby and you’ll go to the asylum,’ she said and handed the baby to William. The cast nodded again. Felicity-Joy lay back in her father’s arms and put the end of his lace bow in her mouth, then reached up with her hand and placed her fat little middle finger gently in his nostril.

‘I think,’ said Mona, ‘we should take the night off, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said William. ‘Let’s go to the pub. We’ll postpone dress rehearsal until tomorrow.’ The cast left, talking and laughing, traipsing off down the dark main street, feathers bobbing and lace kicking about their wrists and knees.

Trudy turned to Tilly calmly sitting across the aisle and viewed her with fixed and dilated orbs. Tilly raised an eyebrow, shrugged, then followed the others.

Later the cast ambled home and lay rigid in their beds, their eyes fixed to dim shapes in the blackness, doubtful, worried and stewing. They rummaged through the play in their minds, enacting entrances and exits, hoping the audience would not notice that they were playing three characters. No one slept a wink.

E
isteddfod day arrived unusually hot and windy. Irma Almanac’s bones ached so she ate an extra cake with her morning cup of Devil’s Claw tea. Sergeant Farrat took an especially long bath laced with oil of lavender and valerian root. Purl cooked breakfast for her guests – the doctor and Scotty – then went to do her hair and nails. Fred hosed the footpath and tidied the bar and cellar. Lois, Nancy and Bobby joined Ruth and Miss Dimm for a hearty cooked breakfast. Reginald dropped in to see Faith and shared Hamish’s lamb’s fry and bacon. Septimus went for a long walk in the hot wind and marvelled at how lovely the dust looked whipping across the flat yellow plains. Mona and Lesley did breathing and stretching exercises after a light breakfast of cereal and grapefruit. William found Trudy curled under the blankets, trembling and muttering and sucking her knuckles. ‘Trudy,’ he said, ‘you are our director and Lady Macbeth, now act like her!’ He went to Elsbeth in the nursery. Elsbeth stood by the cot holding Felicity-Joy. ‘How is she?’

‘Worse,’ said William and they nodded to each other, resigned. Elsbeth pulled the baby closer.

Tilly leapt out of bed and went straight outside. She stood knee deep in her garden, watching the town empty as the convoy of spectators drove towards Winyerp.

Bobby was running late. He’d had trouble starting the bus. It revved and leapt along the main street towards the hall, and as it ground to the kerb the director, Lady Macbeth herself, shot from the front doors – ejected like an empty shell from a gun chamber. She fell backwards in the bright sunlight onto the footpath and bounced twice, then with the energy of someone possessed, sprang to her feet like a circus acrobat. She clenched her fists and raised them against the hall doors, screeching and pounding.

‘It’s mine, mine, none of you would be here without my direction, my planning and guidance, none of you. I HAVE to be in the eisteddfod, you can’t sack me, I made this play …’

Inside, the cast barricaded the doors with chairs and the sand bucket the Christmas tree once stood in. Trudy pushed at the doors. They did not budge. She turned and eyed the bus. Bobby pulled the handle and the door slapped shut, then he grabbed the keys and sprang to fall flat on the floor. Trudy started kicking the bus door, but it wouldn’t open so she climbed onto the bonnet and pounded the windscreen with her fists.

The painted faces of the scared Macduffs and soldiers peered from the hall windows. William waved up at the doctor, watching from the balcony. He drained his whisky and put the empty glass on the rail, picked up his bag and was soon sauntering up behind the energetic lunatic, dancing at the bus. He tapped her on the shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

Trudy was foaming and gnashing. ‘Them,’ she screamed, ‘that bunch of talentless hams want to sack me!’ She swung and pointed at Mona, ‘She wants my part, she’s just like her mother.’

Then she ran at the locked hall doors, shoulder first, bouncing back and throwing herself bodily against them again. ‘Mona Muncan is
not
playing Lady Macbeth. I am!’

The doctor beckoned Bobby, peeping up over the dash. He shook his head. The doctor beckoned again.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ called Nancy.

‘That’s my bus too!’ screamed Trudy. Bobby ran at her and grabbed her and the cast applauded. He held her wrists with his strong footballers’ hands. Trudy screamed. ‘I’m Lady Macbeth, I am!’

The doctor held up a large syringe, flicked it with his middle finger, aimed, grinned malevolently, then jabbed it into Trudy’s big bottom. He stepped back while she dropped to the footpath to lie like a discarded cardigan, then looked down at her.

‘
Full of scorpions is her mind.
’ They carried her to his car and lifted her in.

The cast formed a firemen’s line, loaded the set onto the top of the bus and tied it down securely. As they got on the bus, Mona stood by the door with a clipboard in the crook of her velvet arm marking them off, Lady Macbeth’s frock creasing on the ground about her lacy shoes and Macbeth at her side. Everyone found a seat and sat flapping lace hankies in the heat. Lesley stood at the top of the aisle and clapped his hands twice. The cast fell silent. ‘Attention please, our acting director and producer needs to speak.’

Mona cleared her throat. ‘We’re missing Banquo –’

‘I’ll be Banquo!’ cried Lesley and shot his hand in the air, ‘Me me me.’

‘We’re picking him up at the station,’ said Bobby. He tried to start the bus, which coughed and spluttered. There was a long silence. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘everybody out.’

Tilly looked down at the dull buildings and the slow, brown creek. The roof of the silo shimmered under the sun and dust whipped along the dry, dirt track to the oval. The trees leaned with the hot wind. She went inside. She stood in front of her tailor’s mirror and studied her reflection. She was wreathed in a brilliant halo, like a back-lit actor, dust from tailor’s chalk and flock floating in shafts of light about her. The skeletal backdrop was cluttered with the stuff of mending and dress-making – scraps and off-cuts, remnants of fashion statements that spanned from the sixteenth century onwards. Stacked to the roof, shoved into every orifice in the small tumbling house were bags and bags of material bits spewing ribbon ends, frayed threads and fluff. Cloth spilled from dark corners and beneath chairs and clouds of wool lay about, jumbled with satin corners. Striped rags, velvet off-cuts, strips of velour, lamé, checks, spots, paisley and school uniform mixed with feather boas and sequin-spattered cotton, shearer’s singlets and bridal lace. Coloured bolts stood propped against window sills and balanced across the armchair. Bits of drafted pattern and drawings – svelte designs for women who believed themselves to be size ten – were secured to dusty curtains with pins and clothes pegs. There were pictures torn from magazines and costume designs scribbled on butchers’ paper dumped in clumps on the floor, along with piles of frail battered patterns. Tape measures dripped from nails on studs and the necks of naked mannequin dummies, while scissors stood in empty Milo tins beside old jars brimming with buttons and press studs, like smarties at a party. Zippers tumbled from a brown paper sack and snaked over the floor and onto the hearth. Her sewing machine waited erect on its housing table, an overlocker sitting forlornly at the bottom of the doorless entrance. Calico toiles for baroque fineries filled a whole corner.