The Seamstress Read online

  But for Joanna he made small gestures. He bought cans of peaches and tinned cream she had loved as a child but that now made her want to gag.

  ‘You never forget my old favourites,’ she said to him, and dolloped the gluey stuff over the fruit. She wished he had been her father.

  One night she went out with some girlfriends from the office for Chinese tucker and drinks. It was racy, this crowd. They drank schooners of beer and laughed stridently, told crude jokes, but they didn’t sleep around, not the people she went with. It was a particular kind of Australian naivety—immature and gauche—yet despite much groping and panting with the opposite sex, they held back, finally. The pill, barely invented, wasn’t yet quite the go.

  Walking along the street after the girlish revelling, Jo could only focus by keeping her head held very high, because the trees kept blocking her path. She concentrated with every faculty on spotting the right bus to get home to her uncle’s place.

  The bus driver stopped for her on the way home, and she stumbled off the bus. It was late and only a handful of passengers witnessed her indignity. The driver helped her back on board.

  ‘Poor kid, she’s eaten something that didn’t agree with her,’ he muttered, half to the passengers, and he detoured to drop her at the front door of the house. Undeserved kindness is just as random as injustice, she thought, shaken to her bootstraps.

  Safely in Jock’s house she collapsed on to her bed. In the morning she knew remorse she’d only heard about from Eve. But you can’t grasp things like that fully, second-hand. Jock didn’t say much, his wont, but looked at her tenderly and made black tea and toast.

  ‘How sordid, Unk,’ she said, taking it from him with shaky fingers.

  ‘Och, it happens to the best of us, dear,’ he said.

  She stayed for months and while she was there her father’s disappearance became an established fact. He’d been sick, Willa heard, and was up north somewhere. Jo put him to the back of her mind; there was no immediate space for him.

  Looking after the garden companionably with Jock did for talk. They gazed at cabbages together.

  ‘These need a bit of a spray for the moths, Jock.’

  ‘Yeah, dear. I’ll get some tomorrow.’

  Two old farmers, like the old days, with narrowed eyes, nodding knowingly. She took one of his thin arms in both her strong young hands and briefly put her head on his shoulder.

  They laid some chops on the grill and she peeled his vegetables, dishing them on to her dead aunt’s pretty plates. They never used the oven. Talk of Eve was in the remote past, the past definite.

  She went back to her own home to be with Willa for a short while, spreading herself around, because she was going overseas to study; all those evening classes in languages had paid off. Her comings and goings went unquestioned.

  Dear Jo

  Don’t worry about me—things are fine. In fact I like being on my own, though I’m not, as a matter of fact (more in a minute). Your father reinstated himself here for two weeks, then decided to clear out again, without a word. If he ever comes back he won’t come in, because he won’t recognise the place!

  I’ve had the house painted outside and done the whole interior myself—have had plenty of practice, after all. Got rid of my double bed and am now sleeping in the spare room. It looks very smart these days.

  What’s more, I’ve taken in a boarder! He’s a Chinese boy, studying commerce at the university. I told him I’ve got a clever scholarship daughter overseas. A nice young fellow he is, but his English isn’t too hot. We have odd conversations.

  Yesterday I decided to prune the box tree out the back. I put on my oldest slacks and climbed up with my saw. Well! Choo was horrified. Mrs Norton (Mrs Noto, he calls me), Mrs Noto, please come down. I do this for you, please come down. So I let him. Telling him which boughs to take off. But he got carried away and damn near ruined it. In my country, he said, ladies do not cut down trees. I was interested. Why is that, Chooy? I asked. And his face broke into a lovely grin. Because they cannot! he said.

  This is just a quick one, love. Keep well. Vincenzo sounds nice. Don’t eat too much spaghetti—or I won’t recognise you when you come home. Did you receive the skirt I sent? You’re funny about that skirt—till death do you part. Buy yourself some new clothes!

  Your loving Mum, Willa

  Dear Jo

  Got your long letter from Elba. Watch out for those gangsters. Or is that Sicily? I had to look it up in the atlas. But your letter made it more real than the map and I shared it with Uncle Jock. What a traveller you’ve become.

  Wanted to save this but I can’t wait: Jock has bought me a new Morris Mini. He keeps all that cash in the house, and last Saturday he just came into his kitchen (I was cooking a roast for him) with a wad of notes and peeled me off hundreds and hundreds of $50 notes. I felt sick. But he said better not to get a second-hand one, dear, you’d be buying trouble there. We’ve already done a country trip down the coast. Since Eve’s death Jock’s been sort of lost, I think. But now I can take him shopping in my new dream machine.

  A funny thing, the other day I decided to vacuum right through, Choo’s room included. I didn’t think he’d mind my going in there. Well, when I went to do under his bed I noticed all these wooden objects, so I stopped—thought I’d ask Jock about it, as he’d spent time in Asia, though as a prisoner, as you know, not a tourist! Oh, I wouldn’t touch them, dear, said Jock, they might be his gods he prays to at night, you could be committing some sort of sacrilege. This was just what I thought, so I let it be.

  But it bothered me, so finally I asked Choo this morning while he was getting his cornflakes, standing in his pyjamas in the kitchen (he’s very modest and clean but he doesn’t wear a dressing-gown). I said I was sorry to intrude but I thought I ought to clean under his bed and I’d noticed the wooden gods. How he laughed! Seems that they are the bases of lamps that a friend of his makes—would I like to buy one? So I bought two.

  Forget about Vincenzo, he’s not worthy of you. The Dante Society sounds like hard work but I know you’re up to it. I saw an Italian film on TV the other night and it seemed that every male character in it was called Louis. Why is that? And what is cupeesh?

  My love always

  Willa

  Dear Willa

  How are you going, doll? Are you all right for money? Not that I’ve got any to send you! The car sounds wonderful. Good old Jock. But you’ve been good to him—I don’t know how you keep up your strength, doing his cleaning at weekends, cooking a meal and holding down a full-time job. They don’t make women like you any more, they make them more like me, on the lazy side.

  I’ll spend a week in Padua with Cinzia before going back to Rome to finish my course. There may be a job. It’s been a relief getting away from Vincenzo but there’s another one on the horizon called Umberto. He’s being very attentive—serious and not as much of a laugh as Vincenzo but more respectful! More thoughtful. So far the blokes I’ve been out with think I’ll be an easy lay because I’m a foreigner. And to tell the truth, chastity has become a bad habit. I believe I’m a member of a rare subspecies. The girls in the flat call me the Reverend Mother. You can buy the pill over the counter here. Maybe Umberto will be the one. He’s a notary. Oh, I dunno. What do you think of this: the Romans have an expression. She’s still a virgin all right, but she’s got a broken bum! (sic!) It took me a while to translate that and understand it.

  Thanks for the skirt. My Italian language is coming along brilliantly. It’s not Louis, doll, it’s lui, meaning he. And cupeesh is capisce, that is, ‘Do you understand?’ Cupeesh?

  Lots of love, always

  Me

  When she came home she wanted to raise beans and tomatoes of her own and she decided she would buy a house when she was able to. On her weekly visits to Jock’s, each with a small glass of beer in front of them in that kitchen, which by now had become spartan, they said the most ordinary things to each other with the ghost of Eve hovering,
even though her presence there had practically faded. The knick-knacks and dainty touches had given way to a bachelor’s house. Furniture once held dear had been stored out the back or given away.

  She asked him where they had met all those years ago, and found out that once Jock and Eve had been youthful and full of fun.

  In the backyard they inspected his ducks, a few yards away from the stacked empties which she barely registered. Everyone is entitled to a drink.

  ‘Feel like a glass of beer, dear, or a brandy?’ he asked, ever agreeable.

  The ritual of the drink was followed by the need for harking back to old times. She found this out almost by default. He wasn’t in tune with the present.

  ‘Auntie would’ve liked this record I bought yesterday,’ she said. Though she might not have, either, she thought to herself. He nodded.

  ‘Mind how she sang “Begin the Beguine”?’

  ‘No one ever sang it better, Unk. She was so ardent. Swing it!’

  They sat for a while looking at the swirls of the laminex table Eve had bought all those years ago when green formica was the last word in fifties fashion. Jock belched and said ‘Oops’.

  ‘You might as well take her bookcase, love, and the books.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They’re no good to me with my eyes. You’ll enjoy them.’

  She made an attempt at surprise, for she had long coveted them. His eyes told her that he knew this.

  ‘I’ll treasure them,’ she said finally.

  They both also knew he could have offered them before. Everything has its time.

  He went to his wardrobe and returned with another couple of hundred dollars for her.

  ‘Why do you keep giving me money, Jock. You mustn’t do this,’ she said, genuinely embarrassed. His dark eyes glistened and he swallowed, audibly. His straight black hair was still combed back neatly.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Tell me, Unk.’ Though she knew. He was falling apart. To put her arms around his neck as she had done all her life was out of the question here. She looked at the table and counted the swirls while he grimaced and recovered his composure.

  ‘Beer went down the wrong way,’ he said.

  On the day he was found and taken to hospital, the state of the bare kitchen resembled a slaughterhouse. From outside the window the woman next door, who kept an eye out for him, had seen him on the floor near the stove and had waited for Willa to arrive, to warn her.

  It was a Saturday. Willa came every week after her morning’s work at the fashion store to cook lunch for him and clean his house.

  ‘Why all this blood on the walls?’ Joanna said to her mother, standing by the stove and gripping the nearby bench.

  ‘I think he just didn’t know what he was doing,’ Willa said, sitting down. ‘The ambulance men said he apparently staggered from one room to another, banging his head on the walls.’

  ‘By accident? Because he couldn’t see?’

  Her mother shook her head. Who could say?

  ‘But what…’ Jo kept saying, as if Willa could know.

  She remembered that he did bleed easily, whenever he had any mishap. He’d cut his finger once, slicing up meat. And the spurting of it!

  Mother and daughter looked at each other, and at the walls, viewers at a macabre art show. Willa was the first to get buckets of soapy water.

  Hours went by and they worked together quietly, barely talking, knowing each other’s every need for something to be passed.

  At the hospital Jo sat by his bed. Nurses crackled past and one eventually found a doctor for her.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Jo, waiting to hear the words from someone else’s lips.

  The doctor had a long, smooth countenance, no drama there, but there was a slight hovering between surprise and sympathy.

  ‘Well, it’s alcoholic poisoning, of course. He has drunk two bottles of brandy in the past twenty-four hours. And more.’

  From his bed, Jock had his eyes on them, but surely couldn’t see from that distance. Joanna went to his side and touched the back of his hand, seeing how the veins were engorged. The whites of his eyes were bright yellow.

  ‘I’ll be all right once I’m home, dear,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not all right. I spoke with the social worker…’

  ‘Her. I’m not going into any home.’ Feeble and vehement.

  They tried to stare each other down. His eyes, once beautiful, now hideous, pleaded.

  Jo took a turn around the ward when Willa came in, and returned to the bed. Then she cut herself adrift for all time: ‘Mum and I can’t have you at home, Jock. There’s just no room.’

  ‘I’ll be all right at my own place, dear,’ he said again, releasing her from any responsibility.

  But they all knew the dilemma remained. Willa kept silent. Jock brushed weakly at Jo’s spruce linen skirt.

  ‘You’ve got ants crawling all over you.’ And he leaned back to rest from his demons.

  Back at home she knew she wouldn’t alter her stand, even though old expressions jumbled around in her head: the ones about seeing reason and for his own good. They made her feel worse. But not bad enough to relent.

  ‘He’s become burdensome to you,’ she said to Willa.

  ‘A burden, Jock?’ said Willa, almost angry.

  ‘Willa, I know you love him. I do, too. And he knows it.’

  ‘This is a funny way of showing it. Letting him down. We’re plotting against him.’

  Joanna thought she’d go and talk with him again tomorrow. She’d spend as much time with him as it would take.

  The hospital rang at midnight. She got there too late. There hadn’t been time to tell him she understood about things being unbearable. No time at all for a maudlin farewell, and thank God for that, he would have said.

  Willa stood in the bath showering, with Joanna hovering at the ready with a flannel and towels. The older woman had gone under a number of guises through her life: the girl who liked a party, the protector, the seamstress—this last the most consistent and lasting role, with head bent, concentrating like a genius craftswoman. But at this moment she had joined the temporarily disabled. While Jo, travelling behind her, had a steady air about her, Willa thought.

  ‘Careful you don’t slip,’ said Jo, her own hands half extended in case the unthinkable happened.

  The white back, clear of freckles or moles, was perfect once, she thought. Joanna’s eyes travelled over the dorsal landscape. Her mother had been cut by the surgeons from naval to the middle of her back, to have a good look at inner vital organs before pronouncing them all right after all, and stitching her up. This contrasted with the old TB scars at the top front and back of her, where ribs had been removed and the lung collapsed. It looked like an outrage, and Joanna said so.

  ‘Oh well, they did save my life,’ answered Willa.

  The air was redolent with trust. Jo sponged around the angry wound, ministering with soap and water. Then took the towels, old and soft. She patted Willa dry and prepared the violated, stitched midriff for the dressing. Dutiful succour with no sense of duty.

  ‘Nearly finished,’ said Jo. ‘They’ve certainly done a number on you.’

  Willa gave a short laugh. ‘Makes me want to ask them which bits they’ll want next.’

  ‘Want to step out now? Put your hands on my shoulders.’

  ‘Thanks, love,’ said Willa, shivering. Her face was pale.

  ‘You could be anaemic,’ continued Jo, dressing the scar. ‘Did they check your blood?’ She felt she should ask these questions, though wasn’t quite sure what such a procedure entailed. But every care had to be taken from now on.

  Like Ben and Willa, Jo loved a party: danced her feet off and sang at any excuse. Drank more than was good for her at times and was prone to break into comic speech. She listened to all the jokes and memorised the best ones to tell her friends, especially to tell her mother, who in turn would chuckle delightedly.

  At the same t
ime she was solitary. She wasn’t ugly, or stupid, but alone. She had once dreamed of having a sister but moved into adulthood by hitching on to another wagon—for a while Fiona’s, later on wherever she could. But knew that she would ultimately be by herself, which was probably the natural way to be. Willa had always warned her not to tie herself to her mother, as if she was talking about someone else. But Jo liked living at home.

  The ritual was straightforward. Willa woke her up with a couple of words, opening the blind a fraction so as not to jar her daughter into the day. Jo gave a slight grunt that meant, Yes, I’ll get up soon. Willa withdrew to start the breakfast regimen. It was just the two of them and it seemed that’s the way it had always been.

  If the morning followed a late night Joanna fell asleep again.

  ‘Come on, sleepyhead. Lazy Mary will you get up?’ Willa sang. It was a soft voice, made for lullabies; not like Eve’s, which had been high, sweet and piercing. No, this was a mother’s voice, and she bent over to kiss her daughter—a dry, smooth set of lips on another’s, endowed with love so that a tremor ran through it. Joanna remained still, registering with a shock, her eyes opening at last. Willa hurried out of the room with a faint blush on her cheek, and when her daughter emerged, minutes later, was abrupt with her.

  To think she was going to University. She always thought of it in upper case. In the evenings she typed out lecture notes from the shorthand. Then got in a couple of hours’ study after the meal Willa prepared. The mother washed up.

  ‘I should help you do this,’ Jo said, agonising.

  ‘It’s nothing for me to do it. Just you get on with your study. I’m going to sit here and have a quiet smoke while I watch the news.’