Red Blouse in a Vintage Shop

During the early 1990s, when I was renting a room for twenty dollars a week in Annerley, I coveted a low-cut velvet blouse from a local vintage shop. It was amongst this beautiful mess, aisles of fake fur, sequined jumpsuits, and frippery, where I met Elvira.

First, to do this story justice, I must explain about the blouse. The red unlike any other I’d seen, perched on the colour wheel halfway between puce and scarlet. The tint reminded me of blood. Layers of deep ruching, intricately woven, and the pièce de résistance – an oversized, fake ruby brooch, fixed between the breasts. In the end, it was the touch of velvet that tipped me over. Oh Lord, I wanted to lay myself inside the folds and never come out. I’ve always had a thing for velvet and all the better if it were vintage. The smell of old polyester microfiber wrapped in mothballs sent my heart racing. Even as I write it, my hands shake with the memory.

The style was flattering for a flat-chested girl and I imagined how sophisticated I would look in it, matched with a pair of black, skinny-legged jeans. Buying it was out of the question. A ridiculous extravagance. The dole barely covered rent and bus fare. Even with scrimping, I ended up surviving on instant noodles at the end of each fortnight.

The shop was a treasure trove. Every corner filled with antiquated lushness. A sea of colour and delight in an otherwise nondescript, drab suburban shopping strip, squeezed between the pawnshop and the TAB. The owners had style. The woman behind the counter wore real corsets. Her ample white breasts spilled over the top, begging to be freed. The only women who dressed like that in Brisbane stood on street corners in the Valley.

She’d totter about in that rib-breaking device on a towering set of stilettos. Tiny red hearts danced across her pencil skirt. The look wasn’t cute, it was fierce. Jet-black hair piled in a high ponytail or the style of a sixties’ beehive. Her dark eyes were framed by black kohl. The shop was her stage and she, like a young Sofia Loren, walked those boards to the delight of her audience. Nothing about her screamed Brisbane and everything about her sang, ‘I’ll make this dump shine if you let me.’

How much I wanted to let her.

I was intimidated every time I set foot inside the joint but was drawn to it just the same. I had seen her watching me lurk about for a couple of weeks, covert glances from her place behind the counter, until one day, she struck up a conversation. I was holding my position at the rack near the front, smoothing over the velvet edges of the red blouse with itchy fingers.

‘Why don’t you try it on?’ she said in a broad Aussie accent. I had imagined her voice to be laced with rounded European vowels but what came out was more Blacktown than Bordeaux.

‘You won’t regret it.’

I acquiesced and behind the curtained change area in the packed storeroom, I was transformed from plain to bodacious.

‘I can put it on lay-by for you,’ she offered.

Sold.

Over the weeks of paying it off in ten-dollar instalments, I uncovered her story. Her name was Elvira. She swore it was her birth name.

‘It matches your hair,’ I said.

Elvira and her boyfriend Chester had moved to Brisbane from Sydney. Born and raised in Parramatta, she had gravitated to a more urbane lifestyle. Ended up living in Surry Hills, Glebe, and finally, Kings Cross. She’d started out working in fashion but ended up stripping in nightclubs.

‘Didn’t like the stripping much although the tips were fantastic. Got sick of customers treating me like a prozzy, offering me extra to blow them. Not my scene.’

It was in one of those clubs that she met Chester. He was working the bar and their love story began one night after he chased down a drunk who was harassing her.

‘Threatened to carve his eyes out with a corkscrew,’ she laughed. ‘I knew he was the one for me.’

Chester wore black jeans and snakeskin cowboy boots and his hair was bleached white. Some days he styled it in a quiff, on others he wore it in a spiked mohawk. Elvira ironed it for him. Apparently, that was the easiest way to do a mohawk.

‘Just pop in the gel, lay your head flat on the ironing board with a tea towel over the top and give it a once over,’ she said, demonstrating her handiwork.

I learned valuable life skills during these visits.

Chester didn’t do front of house. His job was dealing with the merchandise. The bulk of his day was spent in the storeroom, crouched in front of a big industrial fan. He complained bitterly about it. The fan created utter havoc with his mohawk, but it was too hot in the windowless room without it.

One day, I poked my nose in and discovered a baby sleeping peacefully in a vibrating rocker. I couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d stumbled across a baby dinosaur. Elvira didn’t look like the mothers I knew. The family had moved to Brisbane so she could open the shop. Build a better life for their little girl.

Elvira’s slender arms displayed a criss-cross of faint marks like little spider bites. There was a story running along those veins of something big and bold. A life that had been escaped from, full of drama and passion. Not like the play-acting I was pretending at. Her scars told of nights in Sydney alleyways, far away from our suburban bolthole. When I spat out my disdain for my boring life in the sunshine state, she chastised me.

‘This place saved me I reckon,’ she said.

She was the first person I ever met who had found salvation in Brisbane.

I kept up the visits long after I paid off the blouse. Elvira had wanted to see me in it so one Friday, I popped by in the early evening on my way out. It was a crisp winter night. Not cold but perfect for velvet. Cool enough for a jacket, but too warm for gloves. I had put a lot of effort into my appearance that night, paired the blouse with black jeans and boots, lined my eyes in dark pencil and slapped on red lippy.

The shop’s door was locked, the blinds closed. They lived in two rooms behind the shop. I’d been out there for tea in their tiny kitchen with the linoleum floors and the bright orange cabinets. I didn’t think she’d mind if I let myself through the side gate. As I walked down the cracked brick path alongside the house, past rose bushes in need of pruning, I heard the shouting. I dropped to my haunches next to a gnarled lemon tree, leaned back against the wall under the bedroom window.

‘I told you, if you started up this shit again, I would leave you.’ Elvira’s voice was clear, steady.

The dirt next to me smelt of urine. There were no lemons on the tree. Too much nitrogen perhaps – poisoned piss.

‘Give me a chance to explain,’ Chester pleaded.

‘Every day, I walk up to that clinic and take my place behind the other train wrecks for my little spoonful. I swallow my pride just like all the other losers. While you Chester, enjoy a nice little hit.’

‘Elvira, I told you I’m not using.’

‘What’s in the fucking box then Chester?’

This exchange was followed by a loud crash, like a glass breaking. I imagined her standing over him, eyes flaming, ready to scratch his face with her red, manicured nails. I calmly placed two fingers against the side of my throat and felt my pulse. A trick I learned in high school to control my breathing before an exam. I knew I shouldn’t be there, but I was frozen, unable to tear myself away.

‘Keep your fucking voice down.’ Chester’s voice was laced with malice.

Another loud crash followed the first. Perhaps a lamp this time? I began to panic, wondered if I should call the police. Then the merciful sound of a baby’s cry, one long continuous howl that seemed to quieten them both. I crawled on my knees past the window and as quietly as possible, crept up the garden path and back out the gate. My hands quivered.

I caught the next bus to the city and walked the distance to Fortitude Valley from there. It gave me enough time to shake off the tension. I ended up sharing the tale for the amusement of my friends at the seedy bar where we drank two-dollar pots. I made light of their domestic but inside, an uneasiness grew.

I didn’t sleep well that night, remembering Elvira’s words. I was too invested. Reflecting on it now, I think I was in love.

I decided to drop by the next day to check on them both. I was ready to reassure Elvira, this was a bump in the road, a glitch, a little hurdle, not a mammoth bridge to climb. She’d already done those hard yards. Chester would come good and if he didn’t, we could find a place together. I could help.

I arrived at the front door on a warm winter Saturday. The closed sign hung in the window. Saturday was their best trading day. I felt the same sense of foreboding as the night before and decided to take a look. I retraced my steps from the night before.

This time, I knocked on the kitchen door. No answer. Telling myself that they were having a well-earned sleep-in, I was about to leave when inexplicably, my eyes were drawn to a spot on the grass outside the back door. A little spot of colour amid the dead lawn. It was a shade somewhere on the scale between puce and scarlet.

I tried the door and found it unlocked. Easily I pushed it open and immediately spotted the trail leading across the linoleum kitchen floor to the hall. A familiar smell in the air. Rust? Metal?  Blood. The blood was not old.

I called out nervously, ‘Elvira?’

No reply. A radio played in the distance. I followed the tracks through the living room. The lamp I so loved, the one with the velvet fringing had fallen over, its bulb had spilled out. From the hallway, I could just make out the storeroom. Boxes upended. Clothes strewn about the floor.

I stood on something soft. A baby’s dummy. In the confines of the hall, the smell was stronger. I felt a rush of cold around my neck and shoulders and shivered. I sniffed, took another step closer. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. There was something behind one of the boxes. ‘Chester?’ I called out, barely audible.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

A set of cowboy boots. A river of blood had run down and stained them a deep brown. The smell was blood, excrement, and fear. Sagging against a pile of boxes, Chester stared straight ahead, his eyes no longer seeing. A kitchen knife embedded in a deep hole in his chest. Only the handle visible. I put both hands across my mouth to stifle the scream. ‘Holy. Fucking. Shit.’

From there I’m ashamed to say I ran. I didn’t check the rest of the house. I gave no thought to the helpless baby. I was out the side door in a flash and sprinting down the garden path. I ran straight to the newsagent on the corner, through their doors and screamed at the man behind the counter, ‘Call the police. There’s been a murder.’

Aeons seemed to pass before he responded. The fellow looked busy with a pensioner’s lotto ticket. Both of them stared at me as though I were a lunatic. I can hardly blame them for that. I must have looked awful because the old man’s eyes narrowed and he asked, ‘are you alright love?’

I remember my breath coming in shallow bursts as the room took on a spinning motion. Then I crumpled to the floor somewhat dramatically in front of the confectionery stand.

From the outside, the Annerley police station looked no different from its neighbouring share houses. A converted Queenslander on Ipswich road, the only giveaway that it was a cop shop was the sign out the front and the bars on the windows. The front room housed the reception area. I was led past a young man wearing shorts, thongs, and a baseball cap talking to an officer behind the counter.

‘I’ve got the thief on CCTV. Got the footage from the camera above the front door. The fucker was fiddling with the driver’s side, trying to break the lock. My pride and joy that Monaro,’ he said, waving a videotape at the officer.

‘What’s the quality like?’ the officer asked.

‘Oh, it’s pretty scratchy and shit.’

A small chuckle escaped my lips. The officer flashed me a look.

‘Can we keep it?’

‘Yeah, got a copy. Reckon you’ll catch the bloke?’

‘We’ll do our best.’

The officer winked at me. No chance.

A row of vinyl chairs lined up against the back wall. A selection of signs above them. The numbers for the domestic violence hotline and kids’ helpline pinned to noticeboards within eye line of any waiting visitor. A facial composite of a man with the words, ‘wanted for stabbing robbery’ written above. The number for Crime stoppers hung beside the front door.

A lanky young police officer led me through, pressed a combination on a door, and after the loud buzz it opened. I was shown into a sparsely furnished interview room and introduced to two plainclothes detectives dressed in matching grey suits and blue ties. I can’t recall either of their names and simply remember them as detective one and two, like the matching bananas on the kids’ TV show, except instead of B1 and B2, they were D1 and D2. There was a recorder on the table and an empty chair which I was ushered into. I was offered a glass of water which I gratefully accepted.  

D1 spoke first. ‘Thank you for coming in. As the person who found the deceased, any information you can provide is crucial.’

‘Aren’t you going to read me my rights?’ I asked.  The detectives exchanged a look. I think one of them may have sniggered.

I nodded gravely. ‘Chester.’

‘I’m sorry?’ D1 said.

‘The deceased’s name was Chester Downing Boss,’ D2 explained to him.  

D1 raised his eyebrows. They were distractingly thick and bushy. I had gathered by this point that he was the one in charge.

‘You aren’t a suspect. You’re a witness,’ D1 said.

‘Don’t you want to record me?’ I asked, pointing to the tape recorder.

‘I don’t think that’s necessary, my colleague here will take a few notes.’

D2 dragged a chair over to the desk and pulled out a notebook from his jacket, pen poised in expectation. I could smell the remnants of lunch on his breath. The distinctive aroma of sauce and onion. Looking at his gut, I suspected burger breaks were a regular occurrence. He was a walking heart attack.

‘We just need some details first. Your full name?’

‘Maeve Anna Johnson.’

‘Address.’

‘16 Columbine Road Annerley.’

‘Like the sweets,’ D2 said as D1 rolled his eyes.

‘Occupation?’

‘Student. I’m taking a break at the moment.’

‘Occupation nil,’ D2 said as he scribbled on his pad.

I glared at him.

‘How did you know the deceased?’ A pause. ‘Chester,’ he added.

I told my story. From the first meeting, bonding over vintage clothes, getting to know them. Of their move from Sydney, dreams of a better life. The particulars of Elvira’s style, her kindness towards me.

‘She took a proper interest in people,’ I explained.

Both detectives studied me closely. Had I said too much?

‘Did you know that the couple in question were drug dealers?’

I sat up straight, mouth agape, genuinely shocked by this revelation.

‘No, they weren’t. Elvira had been clean for months.’

‘I didn’t say she was using, although we found evidence of that. We also discovered heroin on the premises. A commercial quantity of it. Unless we are talking about a monster habit, they were dealing.’

‘No.’ I was insistent. ‘Chester perhaps, he was in charge of the merchandise.’

D1 sighed. Rested his elbows on the table.

‘What merchandise Maeve?’

‘The clothes. Chester’s job was to order and sort the stock.’

I fessed up about the night before, sneaking into their yard and overhearing the argument.  

‘I heard Elvira say, what is in the boxes?’ I spluttered out. ‘I’m sure she didn’t know anything.’

‘Did you notice anything unusual about Elvira?’

‘Apart from the fact she was beautiful, classy?’

‘Meaning?’

‘She was like a visitor from another era.’

‘So, the two of you were just friends?’ D2 said. ‘You seem to know a lot about their business.’

A pink little tongue poked out, lizard-like, to lick a remnant of sauce from the side of his lip. My stomach turned. By instinct, I reached my fingers to my neck. D1 watched me, bushy eyebrows drew together. I took a sip of water from the Styrofoam cup, gathered myself.  

‘Just friends,’ I confirmed.

‘Do you have any contacts for her in Sydney? Any idea where she might go?’

‘No.’ Pause for effect.  ‘You don’t think she murdered Chester?’

D2 smiled then. ‘I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d put money on her fingerprints being on the knife.’

He was lying. He had the exact look about him of a betting man. Like someone who dropped by the TAB to put money on the quaddie straight after wiping the blood off his shoes.

‘It was their kitchen knife. Of course, her prints will be all over it.’

I was starting to get on their nerves I could tell, but these detectives were barking up the wrong tree and this would be my only chance to set them straight.

‘You recognised the kitchen knife?’

‘I’ve had tea in their kitchen. It looked the same as the one they had.’

‘You realise how serious this is Maeve?’

D2 let out a burp. I projected as much disdain in his direction as I could muster.

‘Maybe Chester had started using again. Elvira loved that baby, maybe she was just trying to protect her. Or, Chester had probably got into debt, owed money to someone like a dealer, and then that person killed him,’ I explained.  

I believed all my theories were plausible, but they let me go after that. Said I wasn’t needed anymore. Unwilling to entertain any of my ideas. I walked out blinking into the afternoon sunlight, head like cotton wool. I breathed in the diesel fumes from the trucks on Ipswich road and imagined myself in the passenger seat of an open-topped convertible with the radio playing loud, headed south. Next to me, the driver in aviation glasses, jet black hair covered by a silk scarf, red nails drumming in time against the steering wheel.

I staggered home, fell into bed. Didn’t come out of my room for a week.

I only stayed in Annerley for another month after that. Although the room was cheap, it had no windows and I couldn’t live without seeing the sky at night. I walked by the shop every day. The blinds remained closed, eventually replaced by a “For Lease” sign.

Two weeks after the event, as my friends referred to it, a package arrived for me. I examined the plain brown wrapping, the neat handwriting on the front. There was no return address. Inside, was a faux fur, leopard print jacket. I buried my face in it and howled. Inhaled the scent of her perfume. Buried deep in one pocket, a tiny, handwritten note.

Maeve, every woman should have a leopard print coat. I won’t forget you.

A few months after I’d moved, I went back to visit the shop. A café had opened up in its place. The owners had used the building’s chequered history to attract patrons. Even had an item on the menu called the “blood-lust burger (not for the faint of heart).” I ordered a coffee and sat in a corner table staring at the spot where the counter had once been.

I think of Elvira often. Whenever I see something that reminds me of her, a ruby brooch, a pair of red stilettos, a high ponytail on a dark-haired woman. I like to think she is living in Paris. Working in a boutique in the Marais. Her daughter older now, sitting at a table out the back of the shop, studying her French lessons.

I don’t think Brisbane was ready for that kind of class and the climate wasn’t right for corsetry.