Chapter Eight
‘Are you going to sit inside all day?’ Lavinia says to Margot with a slightly chastising tone.
Lately Lavinia’s been getting irritated, and more than once she’s asked Margot if she’s looked in the classifieds for a job. Margot has looked. Her problem is that she doesn’t know what she’s looking for – there is still the matter of her not being qualified to do anything.
Which won’t be solved, she knows, by spending the day in the sitting room hoping that will change. It would just be so much more convenient if it could change that way.
‘I hadn’t decided,’ she tells Lavinia, because she doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being right.
It’s the sort of churlish game played often by people who are very close, who know that no matter how irritating they are, the other person won’t leave them. Good for siblings, and for aunts and nieces who live with each other.
‘The temperature is mild,’ Lavinia says, gesturing toward the open windows. ‘You could go for a walk.’
A walk would be nice, although it won’t fill the whole day. Margot could make it a long walk, up to the shops at Mosman Junction – all the way up the hill, a good hike. Lately she’s been going to the frock shop just to look at the clothes in case one day she can afford to buy some more.
Her mother used to go to the frock shop for her dresses and hats and scarves.
Margot loved going with her. She used to watch as Daphne suggested things to Perry that looked just right even though they might not be something her mother would choose on her own – which Margot knew because Perry would say something along those lines.
It’s comforting for Margot that Daphne is still there. Looking as creaky as Lavinia, but still with an eye for what will work on a woman’s body. Yes, she’ll go and see Daphne.
The last couple of times Margot was in the frock shop Daphne wasn’t there, but Margot asked the lass behind the counter when she would be back and she said Wednesday. And today is Wednesday. She thinks.
She glances down at the newspaper on the coffee table. Their neighbour, Bob, always brings the paper to them in the mornings. And this paper says Wednesday.
‘All right,’ Margot says. ‘I’ll go for a walk.’
Lavinia smiles at her and Margot smiles back, then they sip their tea in silence. After so many years of living in the same house and knowing each other so well, conversation isn’t required for them to maintain their bond. It comes when it needs to, or wants to.
Margot is grateful that Lavinia understands her. She doesn’t know if Lavinia feels understood herself; she hopes she does. It’s the least Margot can offer the woman who has been her mother ever since Perry died. And Margot needs mothering. She knows this about herself.
‘I’ll miss you while you’re gone,’ Lavinia says eventually, and they smile at each other again.
‘I know,’ Margot says. ‘And I you.’
Once she’s made the long walk up Avenue Road to the frock shop, Margot stops out the front to look at what’s in the window.
There’s a stand showing some chunky bangles and a hat stand bearing some headwear that wouldn’t look out of place at Royal Randwick, next to a salmon-pink dress that, by her estimation, was made in the 1950s.
Margot doesn’t remember much about the fifties given she was born in the middle of the decade, but she remembers the clothes her mother had from that time.
Dresses not unlike this one, although Margot can’t remember that any of them were this shade, her mother preferring the blue and purple and green end of the colour spectrum.
Pinks and oranges and reds were for those who wanted to be noticed, and while Perry had a strong personality she believed ladies should dress conservatively.
Sometimes Margot can lose herself like this.
She starts remembering or imagining, and whole stories are confected.
Whole conversations that never happened.
Whole lives never lived. She can lose track of time, and find herself standing in front of a shop window or in a park or at a bus stop, completely oblivious to the world passing her by.
Occasionally a kindly person will ask her if she’s all right.
It’s hard to know what the definition of ‘all right’ is, so she tends not to reply.
‘It’s been a while, Margot,’ Daphne says as she enters the frock shop, setting the little bell over the door tinkling.
‘Has it?’
As Margot’s sense of time is so fluid, she really has no idea how long ago she last visited.
Was it around the time Lavinia cut her arm when she tripped and fell against the doorjamb?
Margot had to go next door and ask Mrs Porter for help.
Mrs Porter is one of those practical women who come armed with bandages and calamine lotion for all emergencies.
Yes, maybe it was the same day. Because Margot was out when Lavinia cut herself, and she came back to find her sitting, dazed, on the couch with blood in various places.
The cut didn’t heal properly – as Lavinia said: ‘That happens to old people’s limbs’ – so they had to go to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotic cream. The expedition was costly because Margot didn’t really have enough to cover it.
She doesn’t really have enough to cover anything, and she thinks the neighbours have noticed because Mrs Porter brings scones, Mr Davitt on the other side brings fruit, and there have been random parcels of jam and bread left anonymously on the doorstep. So Lavinia is right: she needs to get a job.
Now she’s here at the frock shop to find some clothes that will make her feel fortified to go out into a world that has never felt right for her. And she means it this time. Lavinia needs Margot’s help and support.
‘A month or so,’ Daphne says. Her smile is warm, but there’s something in her eyes – scrutiny? Not judgement. Daphne isn’t like that. At least, Margot doesn’t think she is.
‘Everything all right at home?’ Daphne goes on.
‘Lavinia had a fall,’ Margot says, turning to look at the racks.
She scans first, waiting for a colour or pattern to catch her eye. No point pulling out a suitable frock if it’s in a colour she’d never wear. Unlike her mother, she’s quite partial to bright shades. Maybe she secretly wants to be noticed.
‘Oh, dear – is she all right now?’ Daphne says.
‘Mm.’ Margot’s attention is firmly on the racks. She touches the odd sleeve, because fabric is important too. She cannot stand synthetics. They feel so awful against the skin.
After a few minutes, she senses Daphne beside her. ‘Looking for something specific?’ she asks.
‘Well …’ Margot isn’t sure how to phrase it. I need clothes that convey an authority and confidence I don’t have. That’s correct, but should she admit to it?
Daphne puts a hand on her arm and Margot turns toward her.
‘Sometimes the clothes do the work that we can’t,’ she says, holding Margot’s gaze. ‘So we need to pick something that tells a story we may not be ready to tell ourselves.’
Margot blinks, wondering if Daphne read her mind. Or maybe it’s written all over her face.
She pushes her tongue against her upper left teeth as she thinks about what to say next. She’s always done it, since childhood; her mother used to call it her ‘nervous tic’. This time, however, one of the teeth gives way.
‘Oh!’ she says, putting her hand to her cheek as if that will hold the tooth in, when she knows that what she really needs is to go regularly to the dentist. She hasn’t been in years. It’s too expensive.
‘What is it?’ Daphne peers at Margot just as the door opens and another customer walks in.
‘Oh,’ Margot repeats, and turns away from the door toward the rack of clothes. She can feel the tooth now loose in her mouth.
‘Come out the back,’ Daphne half-whispers, and she grasps Margot’s right wrist, pulls her toward a room at the rear of the shop and sits her on a chair next to a long bench that features needles and threads.
They must do repair work back here, Margot thinks. If only Daphne could sew her tooth back in. Maybe she should ask? She spits out the tooth and encloses it in her hand, thinking better of her idea. It’s not practical – the thread would need to be sterilised.
‘Are you in pain?’ Daphne asks, frowning, scanning Margot’s face.
‘I lost a tooth,’ Margot says, not sure if she should show it to Daphne.
‘Right. Have you been having toothache?’
Has she? On her best days Margot is barely present in her body so she’s not really sure.
‘Well …’ She smiles and shrugs, as if this is all just nothing. A trifle. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘When did you last go to the dentist?’
Margot knows the answer to that one. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘I see.’ Daphne’s face relaxes. ‘Can you not afford to go?’
‘Of course I can!’ Margot says it so quickly that she shocks herself with the ease of the lie.
Daphne scribbles something on a piece of paper then hands it to Margot. It’s an address on Military Road, not far from here.
‘Go there now,’ she says. ‘Tell them I sent you. That you’re my friend.’ She gives Margot a meaningful look.
‘Are you?’ Margot asks, and she means it sincerely. She hasn’t had a friend since … That’s something else she can’t remember.
‘I am now.’ Daphne pats her arm. ‘They’ll look after you.’
But Margot will need to pay this dentist and she doesn’t have the money; she doesn’t have any money. She should have taken her mother’s pearl necklace to that jeweller in Neutral Bay when she had the chance. He’s bought some of her other jewellery and paid her well for it.
‘You won’t be given a bill,’ Daphne says, almost too softly for Margot to hear it.
Margot’s cheeks colour. Is her destitution so obvious? That’s something she can’t abide – the shame of it. The shame she’s been trying to stave off and now here it is, in this frock shop, with Daphne whom she hardly knows.
‘We all need a hand sometimes,’ Daphne goes on, still quiet. ‘Don’t be upset.’
Their eyes meet and Margot can see a recognition in Daphne’s that makes her feel incredibly exposed and reassured at the same time.
‘All right,’ she says.
‘Come back when you’re ready and we’ll find you something nice.’ Now Daphne sounds more like her usual businesslike self.
‘Thank you,’ Margot says. As wretched as she feels, her manners must remain intact. Manners are what separate us from Philistines, her mother always said. Margot has no wish to be a Philistine.
She turns to go, clutching her tooth in one hand and the paper in the other, walking past the customer whose gaze she can feel on her. Turning right as she leaves the shop, she keeps her head down and walks as briskly as she can to her small salvation.