The Midnight Dress(12)

Paul Rendell likes peasant shirts. He wears them very white. He favours faded blue jeans. Sometimes, to his mother’s disgust, he doesn’t wear shoes. If he’s feeling particularly bohemian he puts on his ankh charm leather necklace, which means everlasting life. It makes him feel powerful that necklace, but he would never wear it in front of his mother. He has a book open in front of him and one hand resting up on his cheek.

‘Hello, Pearlie,’ he says, without looking up.

‘Hello, Paulie,’ she says, still examining books.

Rose reads the names on the spines in front of her, she reads them fast: Sky Pirates of Callisto, The Space Vampires, By the Light of the Green Star, Children of Tomorrow, The End of the Matter, The Unsleeping Eye, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.

Pearl removes her hair tie and shakes out her hair. The smell of frangipani fills the little room. Paul Rendell closes his book.

‘Blossomy as ever,’ he says.

He’s handsome in a way, although old, as old as her father easily, thinks Rose. He has a pale face and his hair falls in a foppish way. He could be an English explorer, or a visiting missionary, Rose isn’t sure which; whichever, he doesn’t look like he belongs in Leonora. She watches him drum his fingers on the table watching Pearl looking at books.

‘This is my friend Rose,’ says Pearl, not looking at him.

‘Pleased to meet you, Rose,’ says Paul, not looking at Rose.

‘Hi,’ says Rose, looking very closely at the books in front of her. She feels a droplet of sweat escape from the nape of her neck and travel the length of her back. She would like to get out of this cruel little space.

‘What book are you looking for now then, Pearl?’ he asks.

‘I want more . . . romance,’ says Pearl.

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Well, you know you’ve come to the right place.’

Pearl laughs, a little breathy nervous laugh. She pulls a book from the shelf, studies it for an eternity.

‘Can we go now?’ whispers Rose.

Pearl shooshes her.

‘A Virgin in Paris,’ he says, very slowly, when Pearl hands him the book. ‘My, my.’

Pearl runs a hand through her hair. Paul Rendell leans back on his chair, arms behind his head, smiling. Rose thinks he has too many teeth.

‘How much is it?’ Pearl asks.

‘For you, fifty cents,’ he says.

Pearl looks nervous now, once she’s in front of him. She looks only at the book. She takes fifty cents from her uniform pocket and drops it into his outstretched hand without touching him.

‘Well,’ she says, ‘I guess we better be going.’

Paul smiles but doesn’t say anything.

Outside they walk along the street without speaking, Pearl looking at the book, half-smiling, barely breathing.

‘What were you showing me?’ asks Rose.

‘Him,’ whispers Pearl. ‘Him.’





Binding Stitch





Will I show you Vanessa Raine’s face, crumpled up with crying? It isn’t a pretty sight. She’s pulling at her renowned golden hair and forgetting to wipe her nose. Detective Glass is interviewing her.

‘What about this place?’ he’s asked her. ‘This place the two girls went to, Rose Lovell and Pearl Kelly. Do you know about that? A hideout it was. This secret place up in the trees?’

He’s not losing his patience. He lets her cry. He needs a smoke, is what he thinks, he’s sick of crying teenage girls who won’t tell the truth. He’s sick of teenage girls in general, he’s interviewed ten of them this morning. He’s sick of their scrawny little bodies and their oversized heads. He’s sick of trying to get to the bottom of it.

‘It isn’t about that,’ says Vanessa Raine. She’s sobbing when there’s no need to sob. It’s only a question, he thinks. Only a question. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t even think that place was true. They talked about this hidden hut up on the mountain but they were always talking like that, making things up.’

‘It’s just I’ve heard it from a few other people. Parents, you see. It could be important. If you can think of anything you heard Pearl or Rose say about this place—’

Vanessa’s mother, Mrs Raine, the colour psychic, Harvest Queen 1969, interrupts then. She looks like an older version of Vanessa, preserved in formalin. Her hair is bottle-blond and her tanned skin is beginning to crease. She stretches open her painted pink lips and explodes.

‘I think we’ve had just about enough,’ she says, getting up. Her hot pink heels clicking on the gymnasium floor. ‘Vanessa has said what she knows and I think we’ll leave it at that. Come on, Vanessa, stand up. We all know where you should really be looking – you want some answers, you just need to go down Hansen Road and pay a visit to that woman because we all know, and I’m telling you this right now, if you don’t, you’re idiots. She had something to do with this.’

The dress again.

‘Right,’ he says, picking up his pencil. ‘Tell me about this woman.’

‘The house at the end of Hansen Road,’ says Mrs Raine. ‘Very end, old house up against the mountain, looks like a rubbish tip. Her name is Miss Edith Baker.’

‘And how is she related to all this?’