The Midnight Dress (22 page)

Pearl Kelly undoes the top button of her uniform and tucks one side of the skirt into her knickers. She has rubbed coconut oil on her legs so they glisten and then untied her hair. She bends over, runs her hands through it, makes it big. She does all this in the mirror of the takeaway shop window. Pouts. Poses. Laughs.

‘Jesus,’ says Rose.

Pearl looks in her bag for
Ashes in the Wind
.

The problem with Pearl Kelly is that she thinks everyone is good.

When Rose tells her what Vanessa said about Miss Baker, it’s: ‘Vanessa wouldn’t have meant it really. She’s very pretty but very stupid, you know that, Rose.’

On Paul Rendell, it’s: ‘He’s lonely. Can’t you feel it? He’s restless. He’s just like me, stuck here in this stupid town. He wants to go travelling again, but he had to come home when his father died. He’s meant to be exploring the world. He’s been to South America, he’s been to India, he’s seen the Taj Mahal. He’s been to Paris.’

Rose doesn’t see it like that at all. Paul Rendell isn’t lonely. Paul Rendell seems apart from everything. He’s there, right there in his little suffocating shop, but his heart is somewhere else. Rose can’t explain it.

‘He’s dangerous,’ Rose says, although that word doesn’t seem right either. He doesn’t look dangerous. He looks pale and bloated with big words. He looks tired. He looks, under his calm erudite surface . . . angry.

‘Angry about what?’ Pearl says.

‘I don’t know. ’

When Pearl is happy with her reflection they go into the newsagency, where Mrs Rendell stops them and asks about their dresses for the Harvest Parade.

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ says Pearl.

‘Well, you’ve got less than a month, Miss Kelly – you’re leaving it a little late.’

‘I know,’ says Pearl, smiling. ‘I’m going to Cairns this weekend maybe.’

‘And what about you?’ says Mrs Rendell, looking at Rose, at her eyeliner, her deep purple lips, her freckles, her oversized uniform, with disdain.

‘Edie Baker is making my dress,’ says Rose. ‘It’s midnight blue.’

‘Edie Baker?’ Mrs Rendell says. ‘Well, then.’

That’s all she has to say on Edith Emerald Baker.

‘When I was sixteen I wore a green gown,’ says Mrs Rendell, standing up and walking over to the magazines. She leaves a mark on her vinyl chair and a hot musty odour trails her whispering nylons. ‘Chiffon it was, and it was just the most heavenly thing you ever saw, and I danced every single dance with Mr Rendell Senior. We were married the very next year. Many romances have started at the parade.’

‘Green,’ mouths Rose, behind her back; she puts a finger in her mouth and pretends to vomit.

‘Green would have suited you,’ says Pearl.

‘Look at these,’ says Mrs Rendell, holding out a magazine full of dresses. ‘I got it today. It might give you some ideas.’

‘Thanks,’ says Pearl.

‘Actually, Mrs Rendell, I’m more interested in pashing your son,’ says Rose under her breath as they walk toward the book exchange.

‘Shoosh,’ says Pearl.

Paul isn’t behind his desk. This seems to unnerve Pearl. She giggles, whispers, ‘Hello?’ Rose watches her, the way Pearl clutches the book to her chest.

‘Pearlie,’ comes a voice from the far aisle. ‘It’s been days and days.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ says Pearl.

Rose rolls her eyes.

‘Doing exciting things like getting lost up at Weeping Rock, I heard.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Small town,’ he replies.

‘I hate this town,’ says Pearl.

‘Tell me about your adventure?’

Pearl doesn’t go toward his voice. She stands where she is, leans back against the books, closes her eyes: a conversation through a confessional.

Rose sits on the floor and starts to pick through a box filled with ancient magazines.

‘We didn’t get lost,’ says Pearl. ‘It was just we left it too late to come back down. There wasn’t a very good track.’

‘At the Rock?’ he asks.

‘Not exactly,’ says Pearl.

‘Where, then?’

Rose shoot her an angry warning glance.

‘A secret place,’ says Pearl.

‘A secret place?’ he says.

Rose hears his footsteps in the shop then; he looms up at the end of the aisle, glances at Rose, swallows up Pearl with his eyes.

‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘I might know it? I used to walk up there a lot when I was a boy.’

‘It wouldn’t be a secret place then, would it?’ says Pearl.

She’s tucking her big hair behind her ears, looking away from him. Rose watches Paul Rendell’s face break open into a smile. His huge white teeth appear.

‘I always liked Weeping Rock; I go there a bit still, just for the walk. Good exercise.’ He gives Pearl a book, says, ‘I found this one for you, I think you’ll like it. Lots of castles and brooding princes, etcetera.’

‘Etcetera?’ says Pearl, this time returning his gaze.

She hands
Ashes in the Wind
to him.

‘Thoughts?’ he asks, holding it up a little.

‘I liked Cole,’ says Pearl. ‘He turned me on.’

Rose turns the pages of a gardening magazine from 1966, Pearl laughs and Paul laughs in return. He has backed away from her. There is sweet relief in the air.

‘You’re a rascal, Pearl Kelly,’ he says, and he is a man again and Pearl is just a girl.

‘See you, then,’ says Pearl.

She’s gone so quickly that Rose, surprised, is left piling the magazines back into the box. Rose doesn’t catch up with her until she’s past fat sweaty old Mrs Rendell, who looks over her glasses, shaking her head. By the time Rose makes it outside, Pearl is already on the footpath in front of Hommel’s, trying to slow her breathing. She has a hand over her heart.

‘What?’ says Rose.

‘I’ve done something,’ says Pearl.

‘What?’

‘Remember you told me that story up at the hut? The one about the secret pocket and the secret letter.’

‘I thought you were asleep,’ says Rose. Then it dawns on her.

‘Oh God, you didn’t, Pearl?’

‘I did.’

The problem with Pearl Kelly is that she thinks the whole world is one big romance novel. She thinks love is the only important thing. She thinks everyone is just waiting for the one big moment when they fall in love. Fall. Why is it
falling in love
? Falling implies an injury or a trap. Splatting, slamming, plummeting. Rose thinks she couldn’t stand to feel like that, all nervous and butterfly fidgety, all pale and swooning.

‘Rose,’ says Pearl on the street, still hardly breathing.

‘What?’

‘Do you think I’ve done the wrong thing?’

‘Of course you have,’ Rose says and leaves her there.

But even when Rose says these things to Pearl, even when she’s as mean as she can be, Pearl just chews a nail and smiles back, says, ‘Oh, Rose.’ Calls after her, ‘Ruby Heart Rose, don’t be like that.’

Blind Hem Stitch

Glass is trying to catch him up. He’s circling him like a shark with his words. ‘So you’re hanging around these two young girls, right? And you go up the hill with them . . . for what, for a bit of exercise? I know you like to keep fit. So is that what you’re trying to tell me, you’re in it only for the bushwalking?’

‘It’s not like that,’ says Paul Rendell.

The two other officers are motionless in the room. One leaning against the wall. Another seated. The seated one has pressed play on the tape recorder with his thick sausage finger.

‘Anyway, then later, dance night – what, you’re feeling a little jilted, are you? Harvest Parade, all the girls sparkling and pretty but not one single one of them for you. So what did you do? Follow her? Is that what you did?’

‘No.’

‘Did you drink? Smoke a few cones? It hurt. It hurt, didn’t it, to be dumped like that? Made you feel terrible. Were you feeling terrible?’

‘Am I meant to have a lawyer or something here?’ Paul asks.

‘We’re just having a little chat, aren’t we? Man to man.’ Glass looks to the other officers for their agreement. They nod. ‘I know what these young girls are like,’ Glass says, conspiratorially. ‘They don’t know their own power. They’re sending out all these signals. They smell, they smell so fresh. They’re giving you the come-on then turning you away. They’re driving you crazy.’

Paul Rendell, he’s putting his head in his hands.

‘You’ve got it all wrong, mate,’ he says, ‘you’ve got it all wrong.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ says Glass.

He’s heard it all a thousand times before. He’s close. Glass can feel the fracture line beneath his fingers; he’s nearly got him, nearly broken him. It won’t be long now.

You were gone again last night,’ says Rose’s father, when she gets home. He’s gutting a fish, his hands trembling

slightly. ‘That’s twice in a week – I’m getting worried.’

‘Yeah, right,’ says Rose.

‘No, really, I’m serious. I’m thinking this dressmaking caper might just be some kind of cover for a boyfriend.’

‘It’s not.’

He looks at her. She hates it when he looks at her like that, as though he cares a fig. It’ll be such a relief when he starts drinking again. Why is it taking so long? It’ll be like taking a step back from a cliff edge. She will relax. He won’t be wound so tight.

‘What I’m trying to say is, if it’s a boyfriend there’s stuff we should talk about, that’s all.’

‘I know what you’re saying, and I don’t need any of those talks.’

‘Rose.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing, I just like saying your name sometimes.’

‘Well, don’t.’

They’re treading water. That’s what it feels like.

Inside, she opens his sketchbook and moves through the pages. There are no more drawings of Pearl. There’s a fish, a caravan with dragon wings, the drawing of a hand.

‘Not drawing Pearl any more?’ she says by the camp fire.

‘I couldn’t get her right,’ he says.

He shouldn’t have been trying. Rose doesn’t say it; she sits in her canvas chair and begins to reapply black polish to her nails.

‘I think it’s the heat,’ he says after a while, ‘and the rain that drives you a bit balmy here.’

She wants to keep needling him except there’s the sound of high heels on gravel, and Mrs Lamond is coming toward them in her best lycra, her face painted up like a clown. Mrs Lamond comes almost every night now. She brings a thermos and two coffee cups. Her mouth puckers like a drawstring around her smokes. She looks as pleased as punch.

‘How’s that dress of yours going?’ she asks.

‘Good,’ says Rose, standing up; she picks up her backpack, climbs onto her bike.

She keeps her face as motionless as a mask.

‘I’ll stay at Miss Baker’s tonight,’ she says.

‘Suit yourself,’ he says.

‘They’ve started burning the cane,’ says Rose.

From the rusty bike she saw a whole field of it ablaze. The evening air was alive with the chatter of parrots, black ash fell like snow.

‘I saw it,’ says Edie. ‘It’s the McDonalds, they’re fools, go too early each year. We’ve got more rain to come.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Ants,’ says Edie.

‘Okay,’ says Rose. ‘If you say so.’

She opens the windows for Edie then takes her chair at the table.

‘Will the dress be ready in time?’ Rose asks.

Only four skirt panels have been sewn, the rest is in pieces.

‘If we work hard, yes.’

Rose threads her needle to begin on the skirt panels, while Edie takes up the bodice again. She’s making bones from wire coathangers, which she cuts with tinsnips: the wires are hidden inside secret pockets, cotton wool at either end. Rose watches Edie work and is amazed at the deftness of her fingers, which are old and liver spotted and swollen.

‘Did it take long to get over that boy?’ Rose asks. ‘The one you were going to run away with.’

The house creaks, groans, strains. Listens.

‘Yes,’ says Edie. ‘It took a while.’

It seems an unnaturally short answer for Edie, whose stories usually unravelled into the kitchen hour after hour.

‘And?’ says Rose.

‘My mother, she fed me, helped me wash, made me do small jobs, little things like hems and buttonholes. When you’re in love you think nothing will ever be the same, but then the tide rushes out and there it is, everything, just as it was. I didn’t go back to school; my schooling was finished. I’d never felt very good there. I wasn’t really like the other girls. I never was and now I certainly wasn’t. Somehow they all knew, all of them, they whispered it: Edie thought she was going to marry Luke Grace.’