Missus Blackmarsh walked out of the shop with Missus Whitlock and they stood on the doorstep behind Gracie. Missus Blackmarsh groaned loudly making out that Gracie was leaving no room for them to pass her and get down the steps, which there plainly was.
‘Indolent child,’ muttered Missus Blackmarsh, so Gracie, who normally would have leant well out of the way to let people past, sat solid in her spot. She didn’t like Missus Blackmarsh one bit; she always looked like she was about to spit something out of her mouth and her bosom was too big, like an army tank clearing the way before her and her hair was like slick black tar.
Missus Blackmarsh, groaned again but Gracie still stayed put.
Missus Blackmarsh crossed her arms over her big breasts and said to Missus Whitlock, ‘I told you so, I could have told you yonks ago it would never last with Edie Cottingham.’
‘Beth is much more suitable,’ agreed Missus Whitlock.
‘Why do you suppose it’s taken so long?’ said Missus Blackmarsh and they stepped around Gracie and trotted off down the street, their rear ends like the rear ends of two cows waddling off to be milked.
Gracie wasn’t sure what hadn’t lasted with her sister Edie or what had taken so long but she would ask Beth as soon as Beth finished her shopping.
Finally Beth emerged as the clock stuck half-past. ‘Righteo,’ she said, ‘that’s all I need to order there, now off to the flag-maker’s.’
‘What’s taken so long?’ asked Gracie putting her hand in Beth’s.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Missus Blackmarsh said it had taken a long time.’
‘Well — I suppose they meant that the one thing you can say about Theo Hooley is he never hurries into anything,’ said Beth. ‘Oh look, the florist, I completely forgot about a bouquet.’
‘Can’t you do it tomorrow? It’s getting cold,’ said Gracie and she hoisted up her skirt and coat and showed Beth the goose pimples on her legs to prove it and luckily Beth decided to take her home.
When they got home Gracie sat and drank hot milky tea to warm her up. She watched Beth cover the sunroom floor in newspaper and draw shapes on the sheets. The shapes looked nothing like a dress and Gracie would have wondered if Beth knew what she was doing if she hadn’t seen Beth make clothes before. Then Beth carefully cut around the shapes and labelled them and folded them and put them in two shoeboxes. Gracie helped her carry them to her room.
‘Now I have to wait for what I ordered to arrive. Three weeks. That’s not too long, is it? As long as it’s here by the end of October. Now tomorrow, missy, you must go to Dana Street. You have to go to school for at least one hundred and forty days a year and as it’s already the end of August that’s going to be a push.’
Gracie didn’t particularly like school. She definitely preferred home to school, home with her father and her sister and Beth, where she imagined they all lived in a jewelled genie bottle full of soft cushions with tassels and beds for princesses, where she was safe from the cruel winds and the sharp hailstones. But the teachers were kind and the last time she went to school, which she thought was probably last week, the teacher had said she was going to show the girls how to knit socks for the soldiers from scraps of wool, and sometimes if the class had been good she read to them from The Children’s Hour.
Twenty-Three
The Parcel
Which comes on 30 September 1914 in the afternoon post.
Gracie saw the parcel on the porch when she came home from school. She dropped her satchel on the floor and walked as fast as she could to find Beth and tell her it was there. Beth squealed and shook her hands about in the air and did a little jig when she saw it, so Gracie squealed and danced about with her. Beth took the parcel and walked down the hall and Gracie followed her, they were going to open it together, it was exciting. But when Beth got to her room she shut the door behind her and left Gracie outside and disappointed.
‘What are you doing? Can’t I come in?’ Gracie asked through the door. She had really wanted to help unwrap the parcel; it would be as if it was her birthday or Christmas.
‘I’m cutting the material and sewing the panels together one stitch at a time, praying that each stitch will be a day, no, a year, I’ll get to spend with my husband.’
‘Why’s he taken so long to marry you? Papa says a three-year engagement is too long and unnatural,’ said Gracie, mimicking her father. As the question left her lips she realised that was the long thing that Missus Blackmarsh had spoken about outside the shop.
‘Because,’ said Beth, ‘these things take time. Now go away, I’m busy making the dresses.’
‘Can’t I see?’ Gracie pleaded.
‘No one else gets to see the dress. It’s very bad luck,’ said Beth.
A few days later Gracie had to stand for what seemed like hours while Beth measured her and pinned a petticoat. ‘Recite your times tables,’ said Beth. ‘That’ll take your
