There Should Be More Dancing (4 page)

The morning after her so-called birthday party, Margery was woken by an explosion. She jolted awake thinking the pub had exploded again, expected to see dust billowing out over the park and the grass glinting with sprinkles of shattered glass. But it wasn't the pub. It was a truck backing away from Mrs Bist's precise little house,
beep beep beep
. A jogger bobbed out of the dust cloud rising around a large waste-removal bin settling on the street.

Margery lay back again, her heart lurching. She watched another truck arrive and roll a small excavator off its back. It ground up the kerb, over the melaleuca sapling the council had planted and straight through Mrs Bist's small brick fence. It stopped and waved its arm at the front verandah, scraping the posts from beneath the corrugated iron roof. A second later the front of the small weatherboard cottage shuddered, black dust fell like a curtain from the eaves, then Mrs Bist's short, snub-nosed verandah roof fell with a clang. More dust billowed. The excavator flattened the pile of twisted metal and splintered wood with its tracks, scooped it all up and dumped it in the bin. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.

‘Good grief,' said Margery. She was reaching for her dressing gown when a tidy woman wearing a pink suit and carrying a clipboard picked her way up Margery's short footpath and knocked cheerily on the door. Then she peered through the front window straight at Margery. She smiled, waved and called, ‘Morning,' pointing at the front door. Behind her the excavator swung its arm and the walls of Mrs Bist's front bedroom crashed to the ground.

Her name tag read ‘Charmaine'.

Margery said, ‘I thought you were coming Tuesday, and Cheryl never got here until at least eleven, but since you're here you can start by emptying my pot.'

Charmaine stepped past Margery into the house. ‘How lovely your geranium bush is. I just
love
pink!' She walked down Margery's narrow hall, leaned into the tiny second bedroom and glanced about, smiling at the patchwork quilt and the cross-stitched wall hangings, frowning at the box of wooden embroidery frames, bunches of thread and cloth offcuts. She sidestepped the small telephone stand and stopped dead in the lounge room, overwhelmed by Margery's craftwork. Every wall was hung with cross-stitch proverbs:
I grow old ever learning many things
;
A CROSS-STITCH in time saves lives
;
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful
;
All things good to know are difficult to learn.
The lampshade read,
The unexamined life is not worth living
.

There were cross-stitched landscapes as well: Uluru at sunset, seascapes, snow-capped mountains, horses' heads, rural scenes. Also Tom Roberts'
Shearing the Rams
, Rodin's
The Thinker
, and a huge depiction of Michelangelo's
Pietà
above the fireplace. The flat surfaces were covered with doilies, their edges embroidered with cross-stitched flowers. The antimacassars were trimmed with orderly coloured fabric patterns, as were the curtains, and the floor mat was a cross-stitched depiction of Mount Kosciusko. The cushions
featured a series of bushscapes, and a calendar was illustrated with cross-stitched proverbs for each month.

‘I just
love
embroidery,' she said. ‘It's like being in a craft shop.' Charmaine went to the kitchen.

‘It's not embroidery,' Margery said. ‘It's cross-stitch. There's a difference.'

‘Oh?' She wiped down a kitchen chair with a tissue and settled at the table, chatting very loudly about the weather. ‘Don't you just
love
summer?'

‘Embroidery patterns are a bit limiting, I find. You can't always get a nice landscape pattern, but with cross-stitch I can just count out any old picture I decide I want to do – landscapes, seascapes, proverbs. I'm not one for flowers so much. They're more for the embroiderers, though I've never seen one yet that's been able to get a snapdragon right – you know, the gaping dragon's mouth?'

‘Sit down,' Charmaine said, pointing to Mrs Parsons' Sunday chair.

‘That said, cross-stitch is actually quite a unique skill.'

‘Interesting,' though it was clear Charmaine wasn't interested at all.

Mrs Bist's second bedroom cracked and shattered and fell into a heap next door. Margery put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. She needed one herself and Charmaine didn't look like she'd be leaving any time soon.

‘You can use any old fabric as well,' she continued, ‘as long as it's evenweave. And that, along with the pattern of course, influences the stitch you choose. There are more stitches than you think: marking cross-stitch, long-armed, tied cross, upright, double, even ermine. In fact, you can cross any old stitch if you know how.'

Charmaine nodded absently, noting the gaps under the windows where the frames had dropped, frowning at the wedge of daylight
streaming in under the kitchen door. ‘Drafty,' she said. ‘You must get cold in the winter.'

‘Not really,' Margery said and pointed to the gas heater in the fireplace.

‘These old places don't have insulation. You must get hot in summer.'

‘I've got the ceiling fan.' Margery placed a serviette in front of Charmaine, pointed to the teapots and teacups cross-stitched on its edges and said, ‘Linen, no pattern, see how even it is? And small. I can't do them that small anymore.' She put her thick gasses on the kitchen table, sighing.

Charmaine looked up at the fan in the lounge room and pointed her biro at the hole in the ceiling. ‘I bet the roof leaks.'

‘I catch it in a bucket. Tip it on my geranium bush.'

‘It'll cost at least ten thousand dollars to have the house painted. When was the last time you had it done?'

‘Lance, my husband, said his parents painted it, but that was before I came to live here.'

‘The roof needs replacing and the house needs restumping.' Charmaine opened her clipboard and removed a piece of paper.

‘I'm very comfortable in my home,' Margery said, circling her arm to indicate her cross-stitch cocoon.

‘You'll need to spend a hundred thousand dollars to renovate.'

‘As I say, you can start your duties as soon as you like, but we'll start with how to make a pot of tea properly.'

‘I'm not actually the maid; I'm here to assess the house.' She placed the sheet of paper in front of Margery.

‘Are you from the ACAT team?'

‘No.' Then Charmaine became very crisp. ‘In its current state it's an eyesore, especially now they're rebuilding next door. You could ask the builders for a quote for repairs, which will be substantial,
or
, you won't have to worry about anything like that if you sign this piece of paper.' She handed Margery a biro and pointed with her glossy fingernail to the dotted line. ‘Just sign here, Mrs Blandon.'

Margery tried to pull the paper closer, but Charmaine held it fast with her spearhead finger. Her hair was very short, Margery thought, far too short for someone with such hard features.

‘I'll keep it to read then post it to you,' Margery said.

‘It's very straightforward,' Charmaine said, standing over her.

‘I'd just feel better if I read it closely,' Margery said, and sipped her tea.

Charmaine sat down again and looked at her watch. ‘I'll wait.'

Margery reached for her reading glasses but they were missing. ‘I put them on the table,' she said. ‘You haven't picked them up by mistake, have you?

Charmaine said, ‘There's the dotted line there, see?'

‘I need my glasses.'

‘Just sign it.'

‘I have to speak to Walter first.'

‘No you don't.'

‘Yes I do.'

‘Do not.'

‘Do so.' Margery sat on her hands. She'd had enough of smiling, fragrant estate agents telling her they'd do her a favour by selling her home from under her.

‘The new maid will be here soon,' she said.

Charmaine held a biro up to Margery's face. Next door, the excavator roared and timber clattered, glass shattered and the ceiling above the women vibrated. Charmaine rolled her eyes towards the demolition sounds, ‘Out with the old and in with the new.' Fine black ceiling dust fell, powdering her pink cotton shoulders.

Margery said, ‘I'm happy to sit here until I die.'

Charmaine put the biro on the piece of paper next to the dotted line and said, ‘Well, I might not have to sit here for very long then.' She crossed her arms and legs.

Next door, Mrs Bist's walls groaned and folded in on each other. The roof collapsed on top, then the chimney imploded and bricks crashed down onto the metal heap.

‘That'll send the rats scurrying,' Margery said, lifting her feet and searching the floor for small furry creatures. Charmaine leapt up, snatched the piece of paper from the table and ran out of the house.

Margery remained where she was, calmly finishing her cup of tea, running her tongue across her teeth to remove the dust.

Judith was powdering her sliced grapefruit with artificial sweetener when Pudding strolled into the kitchen, tall and glossy in her school uniform, a backpack over her shoulder. Her mother was dressed in a plain, black shift, her hair loose and wavy. Pudding pressed her earplugs into her ears, picked up a banana, tub of yoghurt and a slice of toast with Vegemite waiting for her on the bench, kissed her mother's cheeks, ‘You look very stylish today, mother,' and wandered out the back door, eating her toast.

Judith said, ‘Love you, Pudding,' and sat to eat her grapefruit. She spread a paper napkin on her lap, pushed back her sleeves, washed two Fatbuster diet tablets down with sweetened black coffee and said, ‘Day one, Judith. You can do this, just last three weeks without eating anything fattening and then you're off and running.
Just get obsessed!
You are
fat
, Judith. You
must
get rid of the flab.' She jabbed a wedge of grapefruit with her fork and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly, making every bitter mouthful last.

Then she curled and teased her hair, spraying it into a firm round helmet over her head. She spread thick, creamy make-up over her
face, glued on her eyelashes and ringed her eyes with black kohl, then she pinned a gold brooch to her frock, strung three gold chains around her neck, put three gold rings on three separate fingers and clipped on a pair of gold-mounted, cutglass earrings. Then she sat down at her computer, two rice crackers and two diet mints beside the desk. She logged on. The computer screen read, ‘Welcome to the Diploma of Counselling. Please select your subject.'

Barry arrived bringing currents of cologne, jangling his keys. ‘So, as we discussed –'

‘Yes, Barry, as always, I'll do my best for you but you know Marge. She's not the most approachable or cooperative person on the planet, never has been.'

She clicked ‘Parenting and Family Care'.

The front door opened. Barry called, ‘See ya.'

‘Will you be home for tea?' But Barry was gone and the screen had captured her interest. She studied the words, pondering what they meant. ‘Aspects of child temperament and parenting style most likely to be associated with observed behavioural problems caused by possible combinations, including negative reactions with low parental warmth, low inductive reasoning, can cause low inhibition. Behavioural problems include evidence of the child hurting others, damaging objects, disobeying instructions and having temper tantrums . . .'

She highlighted the words and moved the cursor to ‘Copy' then pasted it in the document titled ‘Judith's Diary, A Lifetime of Negative Enrichment' then read the words aloud: ‘
Negative reactions with low parental warmth and low inductive reasoning, and low inhibition, behavioural problem measures include evidence of the child hurting others, damaging objects, disobeying instructions . . .
' ‘My God,' she cried. ‘This is my life!'

Sitting with her hands loose in her lap, the flurry travelling around the screen, the memories came. She was standing behind her mother,
her shoulders high above in a blue cardigan. ‘Mum,' she said, but the shoulders didn't turn, her mother just kept washing dishes, stacking plates neatly on the draining board. Then there was her mother's lap, a wooden frame holding her at bay, a haven that was out-of-bounds, an exclusive place only for cloth and thread, needles and scissors, yet Judith's scalp crawled deliciously as she remembered the feel of a brush pulling through her hair, the bristles scraping across her scalp. She felt a comb slice down the back of her head, the tug of her mother's firm hands parting and plaiting. ‘Now go and tie your ribbons for school.'

Judith moved the cursor to iPhoto and looked at images of Pudding's happy, loving and carefully photographed life. As she sat back to eat her rice crackers, she felt reassured.