Wearing Paper Dresses Read online

  About Wearing Paper Dresses

  You can talk about living in the Mallee. And you can talk about a Mallee tree. And you can talk about the Mallee itself: a land and a place full of red sand and short stubby trees. Silent skies. The undulating scorch of summer plains. Quiet, on the surface of things.

  But Elise wasn’t from the Mallee, and she knew nothing of its ways.

  Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don’t impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.

  As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can’t forget . . .

  PRAISE FOR WEARING PAPER DRESSES

  ‘In the same vein as Rosalie Ham, Brinsden weaves a compelling story of country Australia with all its stigma, controversy and beauty.’

  Fleur McDonald

  For Graham and Carolyn who listened for hours; and for Daniel and Karli, Victoria and Emmeline who have not yet read a word.

  Contents

  About Wearing Paper Dresses

  Title page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Glossary of Terms

  Acknowledgements

  About Anne Brinsden

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  ‘It’s not ever going to be easy for you, Elise,’ life had warned Marjorie’s mother. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t have everything. I have given you things which are so marvellous they could topple you over. My job, therefore, is to make sure you are well balanced with hard things,’ it whispered as it went about gathering for Elise those particular terrors of hers.

  Not that Marjorie really knew anything about that early on, because what could Elise tell of such things to those small, naive daughters of hers? So as far as Marjorie was concerned, there was nothing rickety back then. Those years were jammed full of steadiness. ‘Sing us a going-to-sleep song, please, Mum,’ her big sister Ruby would ask when Elise was tucking them into bed. And Elise would do just that. She hardly ever said no. She would sit herself down on the end of someone’s small bed with its smoothed-down chenille bedspread. Those grey eyes would look at each of the two girls in turn. Elise would smile, and she would drift off as she sang: ‘The Skye Boat Song’, or ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, or ‘Nessun Dorma’, or ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’, or ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’. But those small girls were also drifting off, so they weren’t in any position to notice their drifting mother.

  These were the years when the city was soft and placid, and the three of them were at the kitchen table with the lace curtains moving gently and the door open to the backyard vegetable patch. When Elise had her wooden drawing box on the table. And the pencils and charcoals and pens and papers were spread in the sweet disorder of creation. ‘Sit still, Marjorie,’ Elise would say, her eyes studying Marjorie perched on the other side of the laminex table. ‘I can’t draw you if you keep wriggling. Why can’t you sit still like Ruby?’ There was never any drifting there with the pencils and paper.

  Or when the distant salty haze swaddled their late Sunday mornings, and their house shimmered with the smell of a fresh brew. ‘Elise, your coffee is ready,’ Marjorie’s father would be calling down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom, where Ruby and Marjorie were tiny and contented in that big bed on either side of their mother. Where Marjorie could hear the distant trams, comfortable in their clattering and calling. And the air all around slow and secure from the smell of coffee; and warming asphalt; and clanking, stinking garbage tins holding their carefully rolled, damp newspaper offerings waiting patiently for the pre-dawn Monday morning garbo run. ‘Thank you, Bill,’ her mother would call back, as they smiled and lay there.

  Marjorie loved it all. All that art. All those beautiful songs suspended on the melancholy breath of Elise’s wonderful voice. ‘Nessun Dorma’ was Marjorie’s favourite. Which, if she had been paying proper attention later on, Marjorie would have realised was a problem. Given that it was a tenor’s aria, not a contralto’s. And that those small girls were requesting a lullaby and the song was called ‘None Shall Sleep’. And that Princess Turandot was crystal clear beautiful and very good at killing anyone who tried to love her. Just like a salt lake in the Mallee. But Marjorie didn’t know anything about the Mallee then. So she would not have understood at all if Elise had taken the time to confide her innermost fears of haphazard personal tarnishment. And Marjorie wouldn’t have believed her mother then, anyway.

  Others believed it, though. ‘That Elise is a bit too highly strung, don’t you think?’ neighbours would whisper.

  ‘She is tender. Those nerves of hers take advantage,’ family and friends would say, nodding at each other, when Elise was not about.

  But both neighbours and family knew more about Elise than the threat of nerves being strung too high. They all knew that Elise had talent, and the magnitude of Elise’s talent was never in question. So they were blithe – all those friends, neighbours, family roundabout Elise. Every one of them truly believed those remarkable talents of hers could defeat anything. Even though Elise was never so sure. But what could she do?

  And what of these talents of Elise? Those matters of small human glory that seemed so capable of blotting out to the world the truth of herself? ‘You will study opera, and piano,’ Elise’s father had told her.

  ‘But I prefer painting and drawing,’ Elise said.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘That is for bohemians. With opera you will go far. We can see it in you.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Elise. What can you see in me? she wondered. What if I go too far? she thought.

  Elise was not at all like Marjorie’s father. She was not at all like Bill. For one thing, Elise made her debut and Bill didn’t. For another thing, Elise had to be taught how to dance and Bill didn’t. Marjorie knew all about that because she’d asked one day while sitting in the kitchen among the strewn finery of her mother’s decorations for the inaugural debutante ball: ‘Did you do your deb, Mum?’

  ‘No, I did not, Marjorie,’ Elise replied. ‘I made my debut. A lady makes her debut at a debutante ball. She does not do a deb.’

  Marjorie shrugged. ‘Did ya have to learn how to do ballroom dancing to do your deb?’

  ‘Yes. I was given dancing lessons.’

  ‘Dad must have done his deb too then?’

  ‘No. Your father never made his debut. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, Dad dances a whole lot better than you do, so
he must have had lessons.’

  ‘Your father never had dance lessons. No one around here had dance lessons, before now.’

  ‘Well, how come everybody can dance then?’

  ‘They are self-taught, Marjorie.’

  ‘Well, why have a deb then?’

  ‘Because there is much more to making your debut than dancing lessons. There are deportment and speech lessons. There is etiquette to learn. Your grandfather was very strict about it all. A young lady making her debut is undertaking her introduction to society. She is presented to the world at her debutante ball,’ Elise said to that. She paused for a bit. ‘It’s not quite the same thing here,’ she then said.

  But even though, in later years, when Marjorie was made to understand the fundamental difference between a deb and a debut, she didn’t really know of the magnitude of first appearances that a person could undertake. Or of a life such as Elise’s that was lived in the years before. A life that was not at all like Bill’s life. A life lived within the orbits of various debuts. Like when Elise sang her first principal opera role. ‘Your singing was wonderful, Elise. We will celebrate. We will have tea in the botanic gardens,’ said her father of Elise’s prima donna debut. So Elise did. With her mother and father, with their hats and gloves and pearls. There in the cool of the cafe. There in the gardens aflush with their rhododendrons and their gardenias. Sitting poised and still in her cashmere twin set, while her parents drank their tea, and she sipped her coffee. From china you could see through. How could Marjorie know any of that?

  Bill didn’t know of it either. His was a world that expected you to get on with it: to toddle, as soon as you were able, onto the dance floor and figure it out for yourself. He didn’t have any experience with debuts back then. And he knew nothing at all of any prima donnas. Bill first laid eyes on Elise at his factory. Then he heard her. ‘We have invited a young lady here today to sing to you all,’ the boss had announced. ‘In appreciation for all your unstinting efforts over the past couple of years. You can all be proud as we do our bit once more for the Commonwealth.’ Because Bill had been working for ten years in the city now to save the farm back home and that was plenty long enough for the world to appreciate that the War to End All Wars hadn’t sufficiently done its job. And that they were all obliged to think about going back to have another go.

  Bill turned around and there she was. Standing with the boss in the middle of the factory floor. She carried a slight and hesitant beauty and reminded him of his horses left behind on the farm – beautiful and shy, nervy and flighty at once. Elise sang ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘Lili Marlene’, and other songs in a foreign language that he had never heard before. Bill was transfixed, and his essential war effort truck tyres and insulated electrical cables were left unfinished where he stood. ‘I will marry her,’ he declared.

  Bill wasn’t one for worrying about any niceties of life, like where a person’s proper station in society should be, so he barged around to backstage one night and told Elise what he thought. ‘You sang at my factory and I have been to several of your concerts since then. I have never seen or heard the likes. I don’t know much about these operas and these foreign languages. But I know you,’ he said.

  And Elise noticed that Bill’s eyes were blue and green at once, like the sea on one of its soft and wistful days. And like the sea on one of those days, his eyes were translucent. She could look right through to the bottom of him. So she knew that Bill had tallied up everything about her. And still he didn’t seem to mind. He was not like all the other men.

  But even so, and despite the small glories of her talents, Elise was ignorant about many things. She probably couldn’t even boil an egg. She certainly couldn’t kill a chook and pluck it. Bill knew how, though, so he cared for Elise and that settled it. And Bill was from the Mallee, which meant he didn’t muck around either. He asked Elise to marry him – even though she was a non-Catholic. And out of his league.

  Their parents didn’t approve. ‘She’s a flamin’ non-Catholic. And she’s from the city. What does she know about anything?’ Bill’s father roared.

  Bill said nothing.

  ‘He is not educated. He does not understand the finer things of life. So how can he understand you?’ her father asked.

  Elise smiled.

  Bill and Elise had as good a wedding as you can muster when you are bereft of a Catholic priest, education or standing. It is a fact that non-Catholic dignitaries, operatic scholars, artists and others attended. And that a wedding march was played on a quietly magnificent organ, as light streamed through the understated splendour of the stained-glass window behind the pulpit. Speeches were made and the couple was toasted. Bill promised Elise’s father to look after Elise. And Elise’s father nodded. Because despite the dexterity of talent to win out over high stringing, he needed Bill to do just that. Even if he was a Roman Catholic.

  It was an absolute fact that Elise had a magical and marvellous wedding dress full of lace and crystal beads, because Ruby and Marjorie found it many years later, and Elise confirmed it. It was a fact, too, noted by the Catholics and the non-Catholics alike, that Bill and Elise were good for each other. And despite this feeble non-Catholic start to things, they were happy. But Marjorie didn’t know any of that.

  One day Elise came home from the doctor’s and told Bill she was going to have a baby. Their first child was born one warm January morning. She was bonny and beautiful and knowing. She had auburn curls and confident eyes. Bill and Elise called her Ruby because she was a precious gem. And, like a precious gem, they got Ruby out and polished her up. They dressed her and showed her off. And their friends and family smiled because Ruby was indeed beautiful.

  A second daughter was born a year later. This time in March fly season and in Lent and right before a second go at a world war. And it was not so much like the magical birth of Ruby because her parents knew what was in store – and because this baby resisted life from the outset and wouldn’t be born. She eventually arrived, screaming in anger and protest at the forced entry to life outside the comfort and safety of a womb. The doctor was not impressed with Elise or the baby. ‘This,’ he said to Elise, ‘has been a very difficult delivery and your insides are now ruined and you are not to have any more children.’

  This child was not like Ruby. She was not pretty. She was vague and absent-minded – even before she needed to be. She had no hair. ‘This looks like a stubborn one,’ said Bill, staring into the hospital bassinette. Elise didn’t say anything, probably on account of being exhausted from nearly dying in the giving-of-life process, and probably on account of worrying. They called this daughter Marjorie just because it was a name they liked.

  Marjorie could see Ruby knew things, so she attached herself to Ruby, quietly and sneakily. She stuck close. Like mistletoe on a Mallee tree. And despite Marjorie’s alignment with March flies and Lent and a world war that bettered its predecessor, life was good. It was soft and kind and had its own rhythm. Until one day Bill got a call from Aunty Agnes. ‘Your mother is slipping away. She won’t last,’ Aunty Agnes told him. ‘Your father called me on the telephone,’ she said by way of explanation and with no explanation at all for why Bill’s father had not thought to call Bill himself. So Bill, with his suitcase and a thermos of hot black tea, headed back to the Mallee.

  *

  The sun was low when Bill stopped to open the farm gate. Dust kicked up by the car insisted on hanging in the air around him. You could see it, too, stubborn and rusty in a line above the road for miles back, watching from a distance the closer dust jostling around the car. Bill ignored it. A bunch of galahs startled at the sound, erupting into the air from a paddock over the road. Bill tipped his face to the sky and watched the pink and grey flying overhead. He turned to drag the wire fence gate, with its line of barbed wire and bit of a Mallee stick prop, through its arc across the track. Then he got back in the car to head for the
house.

  But his mother slipped away faster than he could drive and died before he arrived. His father was on the front verandah and Bill could tell straight away that loneliness had already marched into the house with its own fat suitcase, and he was too late. ‘Your mother’s gone,’ Pa said. Bill nodded. He did what he could in the face of that loneliness and grief. He leant forward and shook his father’s hand.

  So Bill found himself once again in that little wooden Catholic Church of his childhood in the Mallee. With his sisters and brothers-in-law, aunties and uncles, and all the other Catholics from roundabout. And with his father. Still tall and stern, but with his chin up. Now gaunt and afraid as well.

  Low, sad Latin was said but Bill could not remember any of it. Instead Bill remembered the dust that came to pay its respects – drifting past the light of the amber church windows, moving softly through the gloom of the small church towards the heavy, seductive incense smoke. The candles putting in their bit with their melting and burning beeswax. The clink of the ecclesiastical chains as the priest swung the censer back and forth and across and back over the coffin. And afterwards, outside, the caress of the warm dry perfect autumn day. It was a good and honourable funeral when all was said and done. It paid due and Catholic respect. Before all the cars drove single file and slowly out to the cemetery, with its scrolled metal-and-wire gate and peppercorn trees, and stopped at the Catholic section.

  It was time then, there at the bare and stony graveside, to pay due and proper respect to Pa and the family. The women hugged each other and patted hands and cried a bit and gathered in groups, clutching hankies, and talked about Bill’s mum. The men, with hats on heads, faced each other and maintained a time-honoured four-foot distance. They shook hands and nodded. A slight twist of the right side of the head. A lowering of the chin towards the left shoulder. ‘Pa’ or ‘Bill’ would be said. Which was acknowledged with a returning nod and name.

  The paying of respect moved on to the local hall, for the eating of sandwiches and scones and lamingtons and the drinking of very hot tea. In solicitous and practical custom, prepared by the non-Catholic women for their Catholic friends in need. And by the Catholic women for their non-Catholic friends. Before finally, the paying of respect concluded with a wake at the local pub.