The Midnight Dress(66)

She kneels down beside the bed.

Rose sleeps on.

‘I just wanted to say sorry. I really want to say sorry. I should never have done what I did, I mean take him to our place, I mean what was I thinking? I can’t believe I did. You know me, Rose, you know me. Hey, sometimes I don’t think. He’s so vile, anyway. I told him. I gave the last book back. I didn’t write a poem. I told him exactly in my words. No more. It was a mistake. It’s over. My mum always says you need an exit strategy. I said, “You’re way too old for me.” I’m sorry, Rose. Then he saw me in the park and he came right up to me and said, “What do you think, you’re just finished with your little game? Just like that, game over.” He freaked me out. But then he just laughed and went away. I mean of all the places to take him. I can’t believe how much I must have hurt you. Do you understand, are you listening?

‘You have to accept my apology.

‘I’ve never had a friend like you. Geez, Rose, now I’ll have to say all this when you wake up as well. Anyway. Jonah Pedersen asked me to be with him on parade night. He’s got a little surprise for me. He said he’s willing to forgive me dumping him, he said he likes me that much. I mean he didn’t say it, of course, he sent one of the others to say it. I don’t know what the surprise will be. I think he’s getting a car or something, that’s what the rumour is, that’s probably all it is. What do you think? I think it’s good. I think it’s meant to be. You know how in all those books you always end up loving the one you didn’t like in the beginning?

‘Rose? I hope you wake up soon. You’re freaking me out. Please say you’ll forgive me when you wake up. Maybe you’re dreaming this, maybe I’m reaching you in there. I’m sorry.’

Pearl laughs again, wipes away her tears. She leans forward and brushes the flaming curls back from Rose’s forehead, kisses her there. Edie returns as Pearl stands up. She suspects that Edie has been eavesdropping, but the old lady only smiles.

‘No good?’

‘She’s out to it,’ says Pearl, ‘but I said sorry to her anyway. Can you tell her again when she wakes up? That I’m sorry and that I love her?’

‘Yes,’ says Edie. ‘Yes, I will.’

When Rose finally wakes her hair spills over her shoulders. Ringlets, perfectly coiled, have formed while she has slept. She runs her fingers through them, feels their caress on her cheeks. She gingerly puts her feet on the floorboards, smiles.

‘I feel like I’ve been asleep for a year,’ she says.

‘I was beginning to worry,’ says Edie. ‘I thought I’d have to call the doctor.’

Rose stretches, yawns, shakes out her ringlet hair, stands before the midnight dress.

‘You finished it?’ she gasps.

‘I needed something to do,’ says Edie. ‘While I waited.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ says Rose.

She touches it, the glass beads, the black rose lace, the silk taffeta skirt.

‘Tonight is the night,’ says Edie.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Tonight is the Harvest Parade.’

‘What?’ says Rose. ‘How long have I slept?’

Edie smiles her small wry smile; her eyes glitter.

‘Pearl came,’ she says. ‘Begging your forgiveness.’

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

‘She tried. She watched over you a while. I don’t think you should be angry with her. She left a kiss, right here, on your forehead.’

‘But that’s three whole days?’

‘Yes,’ says Edie. ‘That’d be about right. Enough time for me to finish the hems and sleeves and check all the seams.’

Rose looks out the back door; night is coming already. It takes her a moment to realise the sensation, the whirring butterflies.

Rose Lovell is beautiful, thinks Edie.

‘There’s no doubt about it,’ she says. ‘Go and wash your hair beneath the tank stand. There’s nothing like rainwater.’

She gives Rose shampoo, a bottle in the shape of a doll.

Rose washes her hair and sits on the steps to let it dry. She looks up at the mountain, which is turning to a solid dark mass with the night. It’s growing indistinct, cloaking itself, holding in all its streams and secret places. Years later, when she is older, she will still dream of the places she discovered there: the gully, the secret rose gums, the hut beside the waterfall. These places will appear clearly in her dreams; the perfume of rotting leaves, of moss, will fill her nose. She will wake swallowing air as though they are her first breaths.

There is an uproar of frog song as the night descends.

Edie disappears down the hallway and returns with an ancient powder puff in her hand. Rose dabs at her freckles, and with an old lipstick she paints her lips the colour of rubies.

‘Do you think I should leave my hair out?’

‘Of course you should.’

A halo of curls. Murray Falconer will not fall in love with her tonight, he will plunge; she knows it, when she looks into the strange cloudy mirror in the bathroom, half-overgrown with vine.

The dress. The dress. The glass beads twinkle by the light of the hurricane lamps. All the windows have been flung open to the night. It breathes against Rose’s bare skin as she steps into the dress.