Sudden Verve
Rita was turning 80 and she didn’t want a party, but her daughters had insisted. On the night of her 80th there were so many people, so many faces and not all of them had names or stories that Rita could recall. She liked the champagne though and all those beautiful dresses that her daughters’ friends were wearing. The teal silk halter-neck, the plum velvet shift, oh and the peach floral chiffon! She would have liked to touch them, to feel those exquisite fabrics between her fingers. All of her working life Rita had been a seamstress, but it had been many years since she’d made anything new. Thinking back now she couldn’t remember exactly why she’d stopped sewing, only that it was after her mother’s funeral. She sat quietly watching the scene with that sense of distance which sometimes felt like longing, and sometimes like indifference, but she did not wish to feel either. She stood up and went to look for her granddaughter Lola.
“Ooh Nonna, you brought me chocolates!” Lola’s long, dark eyes glittered like jet beads. “It’s a very fancy party, isn’t it?”
Rita nodded and told her about the waiters and the champagne, and all the beautiful dresses too.
“Do you want me to read you a story?”
“No. Let’s play ‘Stare Stare’.”
Rita agreed, took off her shoes and climbed into the bed. Lola curled up beside her, warm and soft as a freshly baked brioche. The game was simple enough, but it did require a lot of staring. The nearness of the child, the goodness of her balmy smell, her laughter, her long, narrow, obsidian eyes, all of it was bliss to Rita.
Those eyes! How they reminded Rita of her mother! Her mother who’d died in an airless room, surrounded by pills, ossified by bitterness and spleen. After years of caring for her there was little love left in Rita’s heart for anything.
“Nonna, what do you want for your birthday?” asked Lola.
Rita looked into Lola’s eyes again and saw the past, present and future converging. She thought about her mother’s dresses hanging in a cupboard at home, shrouded in sheets, smothered in mothballs. Diors, Balenciagas, Saint-Laurents, all copies, all made by Rita. They were such perfect replicas that nobody ever knew they weren’t originals. They needed airing, an outing. Or maybe they needed to be taken apart and re-made?
“I really liked the chiffon dress I told you about, but I think the waist should have been cinched and the bust needed darts. Structure and softness aren’t mutually exclusive you know.”
“Huh? So you want a dress?”
“No,” said Rita with sudden verve, “I don’t want a dress, I want to make dresses.”
She lay back, closed her eyes and remembered. Her father had lived a long, strong life. What was it he’d always said? “Someone to love and something to do.” Here was Lola beside her. Tomorrow she’d make her a new dress. ◊
"Sudden Verve" was first published by Tell Magazine, Sydney, March-May 2018