The Dressmaker Read Online Free Page A

settle.
    The first wave of football revellers neared, singing down the street then tumbling into the bar trailing chilled air and victory, the room now full and roaring. ‘My boys!’ cried Purl and spread her arms to them, her face alive with smiles. A young man’s profile caught her eye – most did – but this was a face from her past, and Fred had helped her bury her past. She stood, arms spread, watching the young man drink from his beer glass, the footballers singing and jostling about her. He turned to look at her, a smudge of foam sitting on his nose. Purl felt her pelvic floor contract and she steadied herself against the bar, her eyebrows crumpled together and her mouth creased down. ‘Bill?’ she said. Fred was beside her then. ‘William resembles his father rather than his mother – wouldn’t you say Purl?’ He cupped her elbow.
    ‘It’s William,’ said the young man and wiped the foam from his nose, ‘not a ghost.’ He smiled his father’s smile. Teddy McSwiney arrived at the bar beside him. ‘Is there a ghost of a chance we’ll get a beer, Purl?’
    Purl drew in a long unsteady breath. ‘Teddy, our priceless full forward – did you win for us today?’ Teddy launched into the club song. William joined him and the crowd sang again. Purl kept a close eye on young William, who laughed readily and shouted drinks when it wasn’t his turn, trying to fit in. Fred kept a close eye on his Purly.
    From the end of the bar Sergeant Farrat caught Fred’s eye and pointed to his watch. It was well after six pm. Fred gave the sergeant the thumbs-up. Purl caught the sergeant at the door as he paused and put his cap on. ‘That young Myrtle Dunnage is back I see.’
    The sergeant nodded and turned to go.
    ‘Surely she’s not staying?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said. Then he was gone and the footballers were fastening Masonite covers to the glass doors and windows – night air raid covers left over from the war. Purl went back to the bar and poured a fat foamy pot of beer, placed it neatly in front of William and smiled lovingly at him.
    At his car Sergeant Farrat looked back at the pub, standing like an electric wireless in the mist, light peeping around the edges of the black-outs and the sound of sportsmen, winners and drinkers singing inside. The District Inspector was unlikely to pass through. Sergeant Farrat cruised, his wipers smearing dew across the windscreen, first down to the creek to check Scotty’s still for thieves then over the railway line towards the cemetery. Reginald Blood’s Ford Prefect was there, steamy windowed and rocking softly behind the headstones. Inside the car Reginald looked up over Faith O’Brien’s large breasts and said, ‘You’re a fine-grained and tender creature, Faith,’ and he kissed the soft beige areola around her hard nipple while her husband Hamish sat at the bar of the Station Hotel sucking on the beige foam of his pint of Guinness.

3
    T here was a gap in the McSwiney children after Barney, a pause, but they had got used to him and decided there wasn’t much wrong really, and started again fairly quickly. In all there were now eleven McSwiney offspring. Teddy was Mae’s firstborn, her dashing boy – cheeky, quick and canny. He ran a card game at the pub on Thursday nights and two-up on Fridays, organised the Saturday night dances, was the SP bookie, owned all the sweeps on Cup Day and was first to raffle a chook if funds were needed by anyone for anything. They said Teddy McSwiney could sell a sailor sea-water. He was Dungatar’s highly valued full forward, he was charming and nice girls loved him, but he was a McSwiney. Beula Harridene said he was just a bludger and a thief.
    He was sitting on an old bus seat outside his caravan, cutting his toenails, looking up from time to time at the smoke drifting from Mad Molly’s chimney. His sisters were in the middle of the yard bobbing up and down over soap-sud sheets in an old bath tub that also served as