At nine in the morning on the third Monday in December the great glass and mahogany doors of Goode’s Department Store were opened to a large bevy of early-rising housewives all determined upon the prosecution of their Christmas shopping campaigns. From the wooded slopes of the salubrious North Shore to the stuccoed charm of the Eastern Suburbs, from the passé gentility of the Western ditto to the terra incognita of the Southern, had they travelled by train, bus, tram and even taxi cab to this scene of final frantic activity. There remained presents to be bought for sundry difficult relations, there remained clothes to be purchased for their gigantically growing children, there remained even frocks to be found for themselves, and then shoes to match these frocks: there remained almost everything to play for, and they were resolved to win.
Miss Jacobs stood at her post, ready for anything whatsoever, her tape-measure draped around her neck and her pins beside her. Let them come: she would be as a rock in the great storm.
Mr. Ryder walked past.
“Everything shipshape, Miss Jacobs?” he called. “Ready for the fracas?”
“I don’t know about any fracas,” said Miss Jacobs to Lisa. “We’re bound to be very busy in the last week before Christmas, aren’t we now? I don’t know about any fracas.”
Christmas this year fell on the Tuesday of the following week.
“And mind you tell them, Lisa,” continued Miss Jacobs, “that if they want alterations doing before Christmas, we can only do hems by then, not seams, and we can’t do hems either after Wednesday, whatever they say. After Wednesday, with the holiday and everything, they can’t have their alterations until the New Year.”
“Yes, I’ll tell them,” said Lisa.
“And I’ll just remind Miss Baines and Mrs. Williams likewise,” said Miss Jacobs.
These were occupied with the display, Patty chattering to Fay about the deficiencies of her last-year’s-model swimming costume as they had been revealed the day before on Coogee Beach.
“It’s got elastic around here,” she said, drawing a line across part of her anatomy, “but the elastic’s going, and anyway it’s faded. So I think I’ll get a new one. Anyway, you need two cossies, really. I need another one. I think I might get one of those satin Lastex ones. I’ll see. I’ll spend my Christmas bonus on myself, for a change.”
As if anyone had ever suggested she should do anything else. The coming Thursday was pay-day: she would have her fortnight’s wages plus the bonus, and she would pay for her nightdress, and she might get a new swimming costume as well, and never mind the Bank of New South Wales. She had already bought all her Christmas presents.
“We’re going to Mum for Christmas Day, all of us,” she told Fay, “as per usual. What will you do?”
Ah, that was a sore point, even a sad one. There wasn’t time to go down to Melbourne to her brother’s, even if she wanted to. If Fay didn’t accept Myra’s invitation to go with her to Myra’s parents, who had retired to the Blue Mountains where they lived in a little fibro cottage at Blackheath, then she would be quite alone, and this being unthinkable, she realised, but did not want to admit, that she was bound for Blackheath.
“It will be a nice break,” said Myra. “We can stay till the Thursday morning and come back down on The Fish; you’ll be back in plenty of time to start work.”
It was the thought of The Fish which made the whole prospect tolerable to Fay’s imagination: that legendary train, The Fish.
“I’m going to the Blue Mountains, with my girlfriend Myra,” she told Patty. “I’ll stay till Thursday morning and come back on The Fish.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” said Patty, “you’ll be nice and cool.” And you could do with a break, she thought; you’ve been looking an absolute misery. So much for all those men you’re always talking about. Perhaps she really is in trouble, she thought: hmm, oh well, it’s none of my business.
Magda gave her black-clad sisters a further day to themselves, and then she struck. Early on Tuesday morning she emerged from her rosy cavern and sailed across the carpet to Ladies’ Cocktail.
“Good morning, my ladies,” she cried happily. “I hope you are not too busy this week, for I am going to steal your little schoolgirl away for a while now and then. I have spoken to Miss Cartright and she says I may borrow your Lisa for a few mornings, a few afternoons; you will hardly notice.”
Not much, you will, she thought, except that you will have to go to the stockroom yourselves and it will do you good too, instead of sending little Lisa every single time, and for every other errand requiring a pair of legs.
“Well,” said Miss Jacobs, “if that’s what Miss Cartright says, I’m not going to argue with you.”
Patty looked offended, as she usually did in Magda’s presence, and Fay looked askance.
“Shall I come now?” asked Lisa.
“That will be very kind,” said Magda. “I will show you the way we do things in Model Gowns, there will be much for you to learn, and then we shall see.”
Lisa slipped out from behind the counter which belonged to the Ladies’ Cocktail section and, glancing and half-shrugging as if in apology to her colleagues, followed Magda across the carpet and under the archway which marked the entrance to the shrine, and Miss Jacobs, Mrs. Williams and Miss Baines saw her no more, until the sun had crossed the meridian, and twelve cocktail frocks had been sold, and three trips made to the stockroom, two by Miss Baines, and one by a much-complaining Mrs. Williams.