The Dressmaker Read Online Free PDF Page A

know a lot.’
    ‘Your mother, Mae isn’t it, looked in on Molly from time to time?’ asked Tilly.
    ‘From time to time.’
    ‘Tell her thanks.’ Tilly dug deeper, throwing fruit tins, dolls’ heads and bent bicycle wheels aside.
    ‘You tell her when you collect the wheelchair,’ he called.
    She went on digging.
    ‘So you can come out of there now. That is, if you want to,’ he said.
    She stood and sighed, waving away the flies from her onion sack. Teddy watched her scramble up through the rubbish on the far side of the pit, the side nearest the trench where his father emptied the night cans. He made his way around and was at the top of the bank when she got there. She straightened, looked up into Teddy’s face and overbalanced. He grabbed her, steadied her. They looked down into the bubbling brown pool.
    She pulled free of him. ‘You gave me a fright,’ she said.
    ‘I’m the one should be frightened of you, isn’t that so?’ He winked, turned and whistled away along the bank.
    At home Tilly tore off all her clothes and threw them into the flaming wood stove then soaked in a hot bath for a very long time. She thought about Teddy McSwiney, and wondered if the rest of the town would be as friendly. She was drying her hair by the fire when Molly tottered out from her room and said, ‘You’re back. Want a cup of tea?’
    ‘That’d be nice,’ said Tilly.
    ‘You can make me one too,’ said Molly and sat down. She picked up the poker and prodded the burning kindling, ‘See anyone you know at the tip?’ she sniggered.
    Tilly poured boiling water from the kettle into the teapot and got two mugs from the cupboard.
    ‘You can’t keep anything secret here,’ said the old woman, ‘Everybody knows everything about everyone but no one ever tittle-tattles because then someone else’ll tell on them. But you don’t matter – it’s open slather on outcasts.’
    ‘You’re probably right,’ said Tilly and poured them sweet black tea.
    In the morning an ancient wheelchair of battered cane, cracked leather and clanking steel wheels sat outside Tilly’s back door. It was freshly scrubbed and reeked of Dettol.

4
    T he next Saturday brought the match between Itheca and Winyerp. The winner would play Dungatar in the grand final the following week.
    Tilly Dunnage had maintained her industrious battle until the house was scrubbed and shiny and the cupboards bare, all the tinned food eaten, and now Molly sat in the dappled sunlight at the end of the veranda in her wheelchair, the wisteria behind her just beginning to bud. Tilly tucked a tartan Onkaparinga rug over her mother’s knees.
    ‘I know your sort,’ said Molly, nodding and steepling her translucent fingers. As food had nourished her body and therefore her mind, some sense had returned to her. She realised she’d have to be crafty, employ stubborn resistance and subtle violence against this stronger woman who was determined to stay. Tilly smoothed Molly’s wayward grey hair and slung her dillybag over her shoulder, pushed a large-brimmed straw hat down on her head, put on dark glasses and pushed the chair off the veranda and over the buffalo tufts and yellow dandelions.
    At the gateposts they paused and looked down. In the main street the Saturday shoppers came and went or stood about in groups. Tilly drew breath and pushed on. Molly held the wicker armrests and bellowed all the way to the bottom of The Hill. ‘So you
are
going to kill me,’ she cried.
    ‘No,’ said Tilly and wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers. ‘The others were happy to let you die, I saved you. It’s me they’ll try to kill now.’
    When they rounded the corner to the main street they stopped again. Lois Pickett, fat and pimply, and Beula Harridene, skinny and mean, were manning the Saturday morning street stall.
    ‘What is it?’ asked Lois.
    ‘It’s a wheelchair!’ said Beula.
    ‘Someone pushing …’
    Next door, Nancy stopped sweeping her footpath to peer at the