The Dressmaker Read Online Free Page B

a bathroom, a drinking trough for the horse and, in summer when the creek was low and leech-ridden, a swimming pool for the littlies. Mae McSwiney flopped some sodden sheets over the telegraph wire slung between the caravans and spread them out, moving the pet galah sideways. She was a matter-of-fact woman who wore floral mumus and a plastic flower behind her ear, round and neat with a scrubbed, freckled complexion. She took the pegs from her mouth and said to her oldest boy, ‘You remember Myrtle Dunnage? Left town as a youngster when –’
    ‘I remember,’ said Teddy.
    ‘Saw her yesterday, taking wheelbarrows full of junk down to the tip,’ said Mae.
    ‘You speak to her?’
    ‘She doesn’t want to speak to anyone.’ Mae went back to her washing.
    ‘Fair enough.’ Teddy held his gaze to The Hill.
    ‘She’s a nice-looking girl,’ said Mae, ‘but like I said, wants to keep to herself.’
    ‘I hear what you’re saying Mae. She crazy?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘But her mother is?’
    ‘Glad I don’t have to run food up there any more, I’m overworked as it is. You’ll be off to get us a rabbit for tea now, Teddy boy?’
    Teddy stood up and hooked his thumbs in his grey twill belt loops, and inclined a little from the waist as if to walk off. He stood that way when he schemed, Mae knew.
    Elizabeth and Mary wrung a sheet, coiled like fat toffee between them. Margaret took it from them and slapped the wet sheet into the wicker basket. ‘Not fricassee rabbit again Mum!’
    ‘Very well then Princess Margaret, we’ll see if your brother Teddy can find us a pheasant and a couple of truffles out there in the waste – or perhaps you’d like a nice piece of venison?’
    ‘As a matter of fact I would,’ said Margaret.
    Teddy emerged from the caravan with the twenty-two slung over his shoulder. He went to the yard behind the vegie patch and caught two slimy golden ferrets, put them into a cage and set off, three tiny Jack Russells at his heels.
    • • •
    Molly Dunnage woke to the sound of a fire crackling nearby and the possum thumping across the ceiling overhead. She wandered out to the kitchen, balancing against the wall. The thin girl was at the stove again, stirring poison in a pot. She sat in an old chair beside the stove and the girl held a bowl of porridge out to her. She turned her head away.
    ‘It’s not poisoned,’ said the girl, ‘everyone else has had some.’ Molly looked about the room. No one else was there.
    ‘What have you done to all my friends?’
    ‘They ate before they left,’ said Tilly and smiled at Molly. ‘There’s just you and me now, Mum.’
    ‘How long are you staying?’
    ‘Until I decide to go.’
    ‘There’s nothing here,’ said Molly.
    ‘There’s nothing anywhere.’ She put the bowl down in front of her mother.
    Molly scooped a spoonful of porridge and said, ‘Why are you here?’
    ‘For peace and quiet,’ said the girl.
    ‘Fat chance,’ said Molly and flipped the spoonful of porridge at her. It stuck like hot tar to Tilly’s arm, burning and blistering.
    Tilly tied a hanky across her nose and mouth and stretched an empty onion sack over her large straw hat, then gathered it about her neck with a bit of string. She shoved her trouser legs into her socks and pushed the empty barrow down to the tip. She climbed down into the pit and searched through the sodden papers and fetid food scraps, the flies seething about her. She was wrestling with a half submerged wheelchair when she heard a man’s voice.
    ‘We’ve got one of those at home, in full working order. You can have it.’
    Tilly looked up at the young man. Three small brown and white dogs sat beside him, listening. He held a cage of writhing ferrets, and a gun and three dead rabbits dangled about his shoulders. He was a wiry bloke, not big, and wore his hat pushed back on his head.
    ‘I’m Ted McSwiney and you’re Myrtle Dunnage.’ He smiled. He had straight white teeth.
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I