‘It seems to just keep on growing,’ said Lilly. ‘I don’t think it’s stopped yet.’
Edie bent down and gently took a lower branch and cut a stem from it. Lilly was pleased she cut swiftly and clean; she didn’t want the rose bush to suffer.
Maud Blackmarsh came out, pulling her scarf down from over her nose, and said, ‘Ooh, are you getting a cutting? Can I have one, too? You have to tell me where you got that rose bush, Lilly. I have never seen a bush grow so quickly, it just sprang out of nowhere.’
Lilly looked at Edie and they both knew that the bush hadn’t sprung from nowhere, it had sprung from love. She couldn’t give a cutting to Maud, and looked to Edie for help.
Edie remembered Missus Blackmarsh once saying she was plainer than a bowl of porridge, and as she looked at Lilly she saw Lilly shake her head just enough, so that Edie knew what she had to do.
‘We don’t know how this bush grew, Missus Blackmarsh. It was a miracle. It was grown of love and so we are very sorry but if we gave you a cutting it would only die.’
Missus Blackmarsh pulled her scarf back over her nose and huffed off, slipping and sliding on the snowy ground.
Edie giggled. ‘I didn’t know I had it in me,’ she said and Lilly giggled with her. Edie stood and carefully cut into either side of the clipping, not deep, but enough to let roots grow from there, then she gently wrapped it in the damp newspaper. The snow kept falling and the children who weren’t at school had run squealing out into the street and were already throwing snowballs. The ones who were in school were pleading with their teachers to let them run outside and before the teachers could answer they were already outside, their faces to the heavens as the snow fell on their noses and eyes.
‘Come on,’ said Edie, and she put her arm through Lilly’s, put up her umbrella and walked with Lilly to Webster Street, carrying the clipping as though she was cradling a baby. Lilly waited on the verandah, out of the snow, while Edie ran inside and found one of the preserving jars and took Gracie’s knitting needle from her wool bag. Edie came and stood on the verandah next to Lilly and finally chose a spot in the middle of the front garden. Lilly stood over her with the umbrella as Edie pushed the needle into the soft wet earth, then she turned on the garden tap, but it was frozen up and nothing came out except a whining, gurgling complaint, so she went to the kitchen and filled the jar with water from the kettle and then filled the hole with water. She removed the lower leaves of the cutting and placed it into the hole and packed the earth back around it. Then she got the preserving jar and placed it over the cutting to protect it from the frost and snow. She stood up, holding out her cold dirty hands and looked at the clipping for a while. Then she said, ‘Stay for dinner,’ and realised she really wanted Lilly to stay. They were bound to each other by their love for Theo.
‘Well, I guess I have no one to go home to,’ said Lilly and Edie saw her eyes shine a little as they lost a fragment of their loneliness.
In the kitchen Lilly made an impossible pie and Gracie ran back and forth getting the ingredients she asked for and dipping her finger into the mixture when she thought Edie wasn’t looking. Each time she did it Lilly winked at her. Edie cooked ox tail broth and they all sang together badly — except Gracie, whose voice was true and rang out over theirs hiding all their mistakes. Paul came home from work at six and stood in the kitchen doorway. Edie looked up at him and shrugged and smiled. They’d made a fine mess in the kitchen and dishes, vegetable scraps and cooking utensils were scattered everywhere.
‘My gosh,’ he said, ‘I could hear the voices of angels singing from the street.’
‘We have a visitor staying for dinner,’ said Gracie, her mouth covered in coconut shreds.
‘Ah Missus Hooley hello — welcome,’ Paul said and Edie thought Lilly actually blushed like a girl and she said, ‘Please, you must call me Lilly. Or Lil — my husband used to call me Lil or Lillian but he only called me that when he proposed — Oh, but I shouldn’t have said that.’ Edie had never heard so many words from Lilly at once.
‘Lilly,’ said Paul and walked over to her and took her hands in his, not even seeming to notice they were covered in flour. Edie wondered what was wrong with him as he held Lilly’s hands just a little too long to be polite and she coughed to remind him and said, ‘Lilly has made impossible pie for dessert.’
They ate in the kitchen that was filled with steam and comfort from the smells of the cooking and warmth from the stove and Edie found herself listening as Paul and Lilly chatted on and on about everything and nothing at all. Paul told Lilly all about his latest political interest and how he was trying to get Beth to bring her new friends Vida and Adela back to Ballarat and how the conscriptionists must not win and how they planned to launch their campaign next month on
