‘Sometimes the clothes do the work that we can’t,’ she says, holding Margot’s gaze. ‘So we need to pick something that tells a story we may not be ready to tell ourselves.’
Margot blinks, wondering if Daphne read her mind. Or maybe it’s written all over her face.
She pushes her tongue against her upper left teeth as she thinks about what to say next. She’s always done it, since childhood; her mother used to call it her ‘nervous tic’. This time, however, one of the teeth gives way.
‘Oh!’ she says, putting her hand to her cheek as if that will hold the tooth in, when she knows that what she really needs is to go regularly to the dentist. She hasn’t been in years. It’s too expensive.
‘What is it?’ Daphne peers at Margot just as the door opens and another customer walks in.
‘Oh,’ Margot repeats, and turns away from the door toward the rack of clothes. She can feel the tooth now loose in her mouth.
‘Come out the back,’ Daphne half-whispers, and she grasps Margot’s right wrist, pulls her toward a room at the rear of the shop and sits her on a chair next to a long bench that features needles and threads.
They must do repair work back here, Margot thinks. If only Daphne could sew her tooth back in. Maybe she should ask? She spits out the tooth and encloses it in her hand, thinking better of her idea. It’s not practical – the thread would need to be sterilised.
‘Are you in pain?’ Daphne asks, frowning, scanning Margot’s face.
‘I lost a tooth,’ Margot says, not sure if she should show it to Daphne.
‘Right. Have you been having toothache?’
Has she? On her best days Margot is barely present in her body so she’s not really sure.
‘Well …’ She smiles and shrugs, as if this is all just nothing. A trifle. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘When did you last go to the dentist?’
Margot knows the answer to that one. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘I see.’ Daphne’s face relaxes. ‘Can you not afford to go?’
‘Of course I can!’ Margot says it so quickly that she shocks herself with the ease of the lie.
Daphne scribbles something on a piece of paper then hands it to Margot. It’s an address on Military Road, not far from here.
‘Go there now,’ she says. ‘Tell them I sent you. That you’re my friend.’ She gives Margot a meaningful look.
‘Are you?’ Margot asks, and she means it sincerely. She hasn’t had a friend since … That’s something else she can’t remember.
‘I am now.’ Daphne pats her arm. ‘They’ll look after you.’
But Margot will need to pay this dentist and she doesn’t have the money; she doesn’t have any money. She should have taken her mother’s pearl necklace to that jeweller in Neutral Bay when she had the chance. He’s bought some of her other jewellery and paid her well for it.
‘You won’t be given a bill,’ Daphne says, almost too softly for Margot to hear it.
Margot’s cheeks colour. Is her destitution so obvious? That’s something she can’t abide – the shame of it. The shame she’s been trying to stave off and now here it is, in this frock shop, with Daphne whom she hardly knows.
‘We all need a hand sometimes,’ Daphne goes on, still quiet. ‘Don’t be upset.’
Their eyes meet and Margot can see a recognition in Daphne’s that makes her feel incredibly exposed and reassured at the same time.
‘All right,’ she says.
‘Come back when you’re ready and we’ll find you something nice.’ Now Daphne sounds more like her usual businesslike self.
‘Thank you,’ Margot says. As wretched as she feels, her manners must remain intact. Manners are what separate us from Philistines, her mother always said. Margot has no wish to be a Philistine.
She turns to go, clutching her tooth in one hand and the paper in the other, walking past the customer whose gaze she can feel on her. Turning right as she leaves the shop, she keeps her head down and walks as briskly as she can to her small salvation.