The Midnight Dress(51)

Out on the street Mrs Fanelli has seen Paul taken in. The Albert brothers saw him too. The council gardener, pruning. Everyone who works or is shopping at Hommel’s Convenience Store, right next to the station.

Mrs Rendell sits behind her newsagency counter, fanning herself furiously, her face burning.

It takes off, the news; there is nothing she can do to stop it. While her son is questioned, the story is whipped up into eddies along Main Street. It accelerates, steamrolling into shops, careening through the schoolyard, ploughing through the mill yards and out into the fields.





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.’