AN: This was an extract written for an assessment for school. It is centred towards the start of the novel as Tilly arrives in Dungatar.
Tilly looked out the window as the landscape rolled by, the hills undulating past each other, the grasses brown and long, weeds entangled in their midst. She thought back to the day when she had attempted to phone her mother in Dungatar, the harsh and uncaring voice at the other end telling her roughly that Mad Molly didn't have a connected line. Tilly could almost see the disdain on the person's face as she asked about the letter that she had sent. After receiving no real reply she had decided to come back, to see her old mother once more.
Over the long bus trip Tilly had found herself wondering more and more about the town that she had been outcast from so many ling years ago. She did not truly want to admit it to herself, but she was scared. She was frightened about what the townspeople would do to her, say to her after all they thought she had done, what they had done to her mother, alone on the top of The Hill near the tip where the McSwiney's must still live, if they had not tossed them out as well.
She felt rather than saw the bus slow down as it came inside the small country town and steadily come to a halt outside the post office in the near darkness, the only light coming from the half-moon. She waited a minute or two while the bus driver went down the stairs to fetch her belongings from the side of the bus, collecting her thoughts and steeling herself for the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of the town that she had not been back to since she was a small girl, uncomprehending the enormity of what she had done in the villager's eyes. She pushed the trampling thoughts out of her head, stood up and walked out of the bus.
Idling in the shadows, she noticed the outline of one of the few cars in Dungatar. Hoping that no one was inside to watch her arrival she ignored it, instead going to the driver as he unloaded her precious sewing machine. She noted with pride the word 'Singer' on the outside of the bag, trying to fill her head with memories of all she had achieved since that fateful day.
After thanking the bus driver she looked towards the post office and the rest of her bags. Fog tiptoed around her, gathering around gateposts and walls, standing like gossamer marquees between trees. She heard a car door slam so turned on her heel and headed away, west up to The Hill. As she trod, the footsteps behind her quickened. She in turn sped up her pace until her pursuer lunged for the Singer, catching Tilly off balance. She turned around and stared at the sergeant's pale, aged face. He looked away, embarrassed.
"Myrtle, let me help you."
He took the bags from her unrelenting fingers and guided them over to the lurking police car. Tilly gathered her wits about her and managed to keep a solemn and straight face, while inside her thoughts were running over one another in order to be heard. It had been so long that she had heard that name, that the jolt to her system required that she must summon up a reserve of strength that she knew she would need to be able to survive in this town with the simmering townspeople ready to boil her at any moment. Even though she had hoped and wished that everyone would have forgiven her after all these years, she knew it would not be so. They carried hatred too close to their hearts for them to let it go.
She hopped into the car next to Sergeant Farrat and he started the engine up. As it roared into life he turned the wheel and suggested to Tilly while looking out the window, "We'll take the long way around." The knot in the pit of Tilly's stomach hardened as she endured the painful memories of the town where she had lived, but really been raised as she smelled the library's waxed lino floor, heard the rush of schoolchildren coming out of the school after a day's work, and saw a flash of wet blood on the dry grass outside.
As the memories ripped into her mind and she gazed sightlessly at the landscape and buildings around her, The Hill loomed closer until the car sat at the foot of it, before curving its way up the slope, giving Tilly her first sight of her childhood home.
The ramshackle house stood on an angle, the vines and weeds wandering up the sides the only noticeable means of support, the wood looking as though a slight breeze would turn it into dust, the nonexistent windows, the stench of the tip close by, the dead grass, the possum on the roof, the tatty curtains all gave voice to a single thought. Her mother was dead.
Her suitcases and lone sewing machine were placed on the veranda along with the junk that had made it outside of the house.
She walked alongside the sergeant back to his car to grab something from the backseat as he clambered into his vehicle.
"Do you want me to tell everyone you're here, Myrtle?"
Tilly bristled at the name and set her face so it resembled adamantine.
"My name is Tilly. They'll know I'm here soon enough."
He pointed towards the Singer with a puzzled expression on his pudgy face. She glanced at the object that had enabled her to pull her life together.
"I'm a dressmaker."
She closed the back door and headed up to her mother's house once again.