The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Women in Black reminds me a little of The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham, not so much in plot but in quirky style. This quirkiness was particularly reflected in the movie. It, too, reminded me of The Dressmaker movie. Both have a distinct Aussie cinematic style that’s a refinement of The Castle and Muriel’s Wedding.
At it’s heart, The Women in Black is a coming of age tale. Young Lesley (who wants to be known as Lisa, a womanly name) goes to work as a temp in the rarified bubble of the Cocktail Frocks section of 1950s Goodes Department Store during the Christmas rush. She’s just finished her Leaving Certificate and is hoping her marks and her father will allow her to attend Sydney Uni.
She gets to know Pat and Fay, fellow sales girls in Cocktail Frocks. Pat is married and Fay is single, but both are unhappy with their lot. Pat’s husband is distant and all the men Fay meets are handsy oafs.
Lisa is also befriended by Magda, the Slavic ‘refo’ (refugee) – also referred to as ‘Continentals’, ‘new Australians’ – who reigns over Goodes’ elite Model Gowns department full of haute couture. Magda works her style magic on Lisa, who blossoms before us.
Relations between Australians and Continentals in the novel are amusingly and fondly depicted. Romanticised. It’s not how I remember the later wave of immigration in the 70s, back before the Greeks and Italians reclaimed the offensive word ‘wogs’ and turned it into something as Aussie as meat pie. It’s like St John has portrayed how she wished the clash of cultures could have been in an ideal world.
One moment for me epitomises this romantic view of refugees in Australia. Lisa’s dad tastes salami for the first time and loves it, wants more. My own dad in the 70s would toss a fit if I dared to try to introduce him to tasty exotic morsels prepared by my best friend’s Lebanese mother and demand he get his overcooked meat and three veg.
Fay falls for refo Rudi because he’s cultivated and everything Australian men were not, and he polishes her cultural heart that’s been retarded by Australian anti-elitism and a life of hardship. Rudi, who has seen much suffering before landing in Australia, is surprised:
“… you Australians are mysterious people, no one would guess that this is a place where people can suffer. It is the constant sunshine, it hides everything but itself.”
The moral of the novel seems to be that if we just get to know each other, we’ll all get along famously. That’s true, but reality sadly isn’t quite that simple.
Lisa’s development also foreshadows the imminent rise of feminism. It’s like the world of Goodes’ Cocktail Frocks and Model Gowns is a last hoorah of female repression.
***** SPOILER ALERT *****
Miss Jacobs, the elder and enigmatic woman in black selling frocks, finally opens up when Lisa’s exam results are posted with this advice:
“You’re a clever girl, I could see that. It’s a pleasure to work with you and I’ll be sorry when you leave us. You’ll be going to the university, won’t you, of course you will. A clever girl is the most wonderful thing in all Creation you know; you must never forget that. People expect men to be clever. They expect girls to be stupid or at least silly, which very few girls really are, but most girls oblige them by acting like it. So you just go away and be as clever as you can; put their noses out of joint for them. It’s the best thing you could possibly do, you and all the clever girls in this city and the world.”
Oh how I wanted to say those words to many young women during my brief time as a teacher in high school.
