The Midnight Dress(40)

Now I kissed him beside the ditch not far from where the pile of feathers lay. His lips tasted of the grease from his dripping sandwich, and we both kept our eyes open and laughed, I remember, and he counted the seconds with his fingers, which must have taken away even more of the pleasure, and removed his lips when the time was up. He leapt back like he’d been holding his breath underwater, and he was a dusky colour – oh, the colour of him. He shouted, ‘One day I’ll be marrying you,’ and ran down the road between the cane, his younger brothers following.

And to tell you the truth, I began to cry. It might have been the kiss, because suddenly my cheeks burnt, but it was also the way that baby magpie walked right by the pile of feathers on the road and didn’t recognise its own mother any more. Each day after, it would pass that place and never stop again. And that place remained until the rains came, filling up the streams until they roared on the mountain and made Weeping Rock weep. That place remained until the rain washed away the last traces of the mother and wiped the road clean.

But that magpie stayed with me for three whole years.

It’s strange how life turns out. That day is threaded all the way to here and me sitting with you. If I pulled that thread, right now, I would see the places that day has touched my life, gathered up in folds. You won’t understand it now.’

‘Who did this blue dress belong to?’ asks Rose.

‘It belonged to me – I sewed it a long time ago.’

‘Why was it so ripped?’

Edie doesn’t reply, she picks up the jar and looks at her collected beads.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you take one of the bicycles from under the house? You could ride then, and the trip here wouldn’t be so far.’

She’s up before Rose can say anything. Rose follows her, stuffing the pillowcase and thread inside her schoolbag. Under the house Edie feels for a switch and sighs, as though satisfied, when a new and altogether rustier sea of junk is revealed. There are casements in piles and several wooden doors, a perambulator, very old, minus its wheels, saddles resting on wooden saw horses, umbrellas hanging in lines from hooks, bed frames, chair frames, wooden crates containing milk bottles, a guitar hanging enigmatically from a piece of string. There are at least five bike carcasses.

Edie points out a bike without a scrap of its original colour. Despite the rust, its two tyres are pumped up and in working order.

‘I used to ride it until not that long ago,’ Edie says.

Rose bites her bottom lip.

‘It isn’t a gift,’ says Edie. ‘I want it back. I just thought it’d make it easier for you.’

‘Okay,’ Rose says. The bike squeaks as she wheels it out from under the house. ‘But you still never told me what happened to that dress.’

‘I’ve already started to,’ says Edie.

It’s just getting dark when she arrives home.

‘Nice bike,’ says her father by the camp fire.

‘Shut up,’ says Rose.

‘I’m just saying,’ he says.

‘Well, don’t.’

‘Pearl came here today looking for you.’

‘Did she?’

‘She was in a bit of a state.’

‘What kind of state?’

‘Well, she looked like she’d been crying. I offered her a cup of tea.’

‘Did she stay?’

‘We sat for a while out on the deckchairs, but she didn’t want any tea. She’s very upset about this Chernobyl thing.’

‘What’s a Chernobyl thing?’

‘There’s been a nuclear meltdown in Russia somewhere, some place called Chernobyl.’

‘Oh,’ says Rose.

‘She was really upset about it. I said I’d drive her home but she said she’d be all right.’

Rose goes inside to get changed and sees her father’s sketchbook on the kitchenette bench. She opens up the first page. She’s expecting to see his usual fare, a spectacular invasion of flying vacuum cleaners, but instead there’s a pencil drawing of Pearl. Unmistakably Pearl. Pensive Pearl. Beautiful Pearl. Pearl looking down, hair falling across her cheek.

‘Did you do this today?’ she asks him from the caravan door.

‘I did,’ he says.

‘While she was here?’

‘No, after she left; I still had her in my mind.’

She hates the way he says that.

‘Don’t draw my f*cking friends,’ she says, very slowly.

‘I don’t like your f*cking language,’ he replies.

‘I hate you,’ she says.

She does. This new him. The other him is much better. The larrikin him. The drunk him. The drunk him just blusters, breaks, barges; the drunk him just up and leaves. This new him terrifies her. He’s too quiet, too controlled. He’s always thinking.

‘Don’t be like that Rose,’ he’s shouting, but she’s already pushed past him, she’s already halfway across the sand, walking into the night.





Twisted Stitch





Glass is in his motel room. He’s lying flat on the bed, arms outstretched, fully clothed. His legs are still aching from yesterday’s climb. He thinks about mountains, how they’re formed by cataclysmic events. Every single one of them. Earthquakes and volcanos, huge, shuddering, earth-wrenching moments. Tectonic plates, or whatever they’re called, crushing blindly against each other, lifting, splitting, crumbling.