In Jane Rawson’s new novel, four women in 1930s Adelaide turn to witchcraft to undermine a new authoritarian government determined to enforce their marriage and virtual enslavement. A History of Dreams is a novel that explores female friendship, the power of finding a vocation, and the importance of joy in a time of political darkness.
Read a short extract from A History of Dreams below!
BOOK ONE – AN OVERTURE FOR GIRLS
A new civilisation
Adelaide, Australia, at the beginning of summer and the end of the school year, December 1937.
‘Come on!’ Margaret Beasley grabbed her younger sister Esther’s hand and dragged her up the platform, while their friend Audrey trailed behind. They were late, but the train was so slow it had barely hit walking pace and Margaret and Esther pulled themselves up into the closest carriage and, puffed, cooled themselves in the breeze from the open doorway.
‘I’ll catch you up!’ Audrey called, running back down the platform towards the last carriage.
‘What’s Audrey up to?’ Esther asked.
Margaret fanned herself with a school newsletter, intended for their mother, and peered up the platform. ‘Audrey is a mystery,’ she replied. ‘Come on, let’s find a seat. What’s happened to your shoelaces? Is that twine?’
‘Manila rope. I borrowed it from father’s shed. It has a breaking strain of 500 pounds. Don’t you think it looks more interesting than shoelaces?’
Margaret decided against answering. She had enough to think about, trying to find somewhere nice to sit. She much preferred it when they got to the train early and she and Esther and Audrey could commandeer a dogbox for themselves. Three shrieking, laughing high school girls were enough to ward off all but the most arrogant boys, and Audrey, Margaret’s best friend, could usually be trusted to make quick work of the arrogant ones.
The last of the city was slipping away now and the tracks were curving towards the ocean. They began to make their way up the corridor of the train. ‘Do you think we’ll go to the hills this year?’ Esther asked as they got to the end of the carriage with no sign of Audrey. Margaret had been thinking about her leaving exams, going over the finer points of geography she’d been studying last night. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Es,’ she said. She was still angry when she thought about last year’s trip away. Their infernal cousins had come to meet them at Belair – Harry, Malcolm and Ernest – and had ruined the entire week. Margaret had been looking forward to time alone, time to walk in the bush and make sketches, time to think her thoughts, time to consider her future as she entered the final year of school. But the boys had been insufferable, loud and demanding, expecting Margaret and Esther to make lunches for them, to watch them play cricket, to listen to stories about the stupid school they went to in Glenelg. To top it off, on their second-last day, when Margaret had finally found some time to wander alone, when she’d settled herself by a little forest creek and begun sketching some studies of Guinevere and Arthur, Malcolm had shown up and began ranting at her about some boy in the year above him, and when she’d asked him to please just leave her in peace, he’d grabbed her and kissed her and told her she was an ice princess before tipping her bag of pencils into the creek. This after she’d overheard him telling his brother the day before how dumpy and ugly he thought she was. The worst part had been when they got home, and she’d told father about terrible Malcolm. ‘Try to be kinder to your cousins,’ father had said. ‘It’s unbecoming for a nice girl to be so spiteful.’
Margaret flushed, thinking about her father’s disapproval. ‘Perhaps it would be pleasant to just stay home this year,’ she said.
‘I think Audrey missed the train,’ Esther said. She’d lost interest in the topic of their Christmas holidays. ‘Have you seen anywhere we can sit?’
Margaret peered into the next compartment. ‘Do you mind if we join you?’ she asked the girls sitting there. They didn’t mind, and Margaret and Esther sat.
‘What do you think we’ll have for dinner?’ Esther said, as they pulled in at the next station. They watched as the girls – young women, really, come from offices in town most likely – quietly left the train. Esther started telling Margaret about the book she was reading, but Margaret was hardly listening, thinking about next year at university in Melbourne. Esther had another year of school left, but Margaret knew her sister’s brilliant scores in music and English would be enough to get her into the conservatory once she graduated. Margaret would miss Audrey terribly when she left Adelaide, but perhaps she and Esther could still live together in Melbourne; then again, maybe it would be more exciting to room with a brand-new set of girls. She had just begun imagining her Melbourne friends and the intellectual conversations they would have over tea, when two boys burst in.
‘Oh, the Misses Beasley,’ one of them said, pretending to tip an invisible hat.
‘Beasley, you say?’ said the other. ‘What a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’ He grabbed Esther’s hand and pulled it to his lips. She snatched it away.
‘Do you mind?’ Margaret said. ‘We’re trying to have a civilised conversation here.’
The boy threw himself down beside her. He smelled of stale sweat. ‘Civilised?’ he said. ‘We’re frightfully civilised, aren’t we, Alf?’
‘An ornament to any event,’ the first boy agreed, and squeezed himself in beside Esther. ‘Hello young lady,’ he said. ‘My name is Alf. Pleased to make your acquaintance.’ Margaret knew the boy – he was in her year – but she’d never thought much of him.
Esther raised an eyebrow at him. She’d been practising raising one eyebrow and was delighted to have the chance to use her new skill.
‘Traditionally,’ Alf said, ‘you would provide your name.’
‘I like to think of myself as a radical,’ Esther said. She began humming the ‘Internationale’.
‘Anyway, I know who you are,’ Alf said. ‘You’re Esther Beasley, little sister to Margaret. Isn’t she, Maggie?’ He patted Margaret’s knee.
Margaret ignored him. Standing in the doorway was Matthew Sands, two years older than her and the son of an old family friend. He looked strikingly tall and narrow, slouched in the entrance to the compartment with the sun glinting off his dark brown hair. He nodded to her, and she returned the nod, feeling particularly small and square. She pulled her skirt down over her knees, trying to hide the ink smudges she’d acquired during the day, then realised she’d made her legs look even shorter. She frowned in frustration. She and Matt had been friends, of a sort, when they were children and had often been thrown together; they had both liked digging in the dirt, imagining lost cities, drawing plans for castles. That had all been put aside when he’d moved on to high school and she’d been left behind at the local primary. And though they’d often chatted in the corridors once she’d started at the Tech, she’d noticed a kind of cool disgust creeping into his manner during his last few years of school and had been ashamed to trouble him any more with her friendship.
‘This birdie looks alright,’ said Alf’s friend. ‘Esme, did you say?’
‘Esther,’ said Alf. ‘Esther, Esther, Esther,’ he sang-chanted her name. ‘Yes, she seems just the sort. Not too pretty, not too bright, but just right.’ He winked at her. ‘I like your cute little nose,’ he said, ‘though your hair’s a bit of a mess.’
Esther sighed and stood up to retrieve her satchel from the shelf above her seat.
‘Oh, let me get that for you, m’lady,’ Alf said, and leapt up to grab for it, his too-small shirt pulling up and revealing a rash of pimples across his lower back.
‘Thank you, no; I can manage quite well by myself,’ Esther said.
‘Quite the little suffragette, aren’t you,’ he said.
‘Must you?’ Margaret asked, tearing her eyes away from Matt. ‘You’re adding nothing of merit to our ride home.’
Esther placed the case on her seat, opened it, and took out the novel she’d been telling Margaret about. As she was closing the case, Alf grabbed it from her. ‘Then at least let me lift your heavy burden to its resting place,’ he said.
Esther tried to pull the case from him, but he was stronger and was victorious. She took her seat, opened the book and pretended to be absorbed.
‘What are you reading?’ Matthew asked from the doorway. Esther didn’t answer. ‘Pardon me,’ he tried again, ‘but I said, “what’s that you’re reading?”.’
She held the book up so it obscured her face and allowed him to read the cover.
‘Georgette Heyer, hey?’ said Alf. ‘Any good?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she muttered from between its pages.
‘I don’t think she wants to talk to us, Sands,’ Alf said. ‘But perhaps we can learn a little about her, and crack that steely carapace, by taking a look through her bag.’
He took a seat and opened the case on his knee. ‘Now what do we have here,’ he said. ‘Pens, pens, pens, pencils, pencils – a very scholarly young lady.’
‘Put that back!’ Esther said.
‘Alfred!’ Margaret said. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘I think you dropped your novel, Miss,’ Matt said. ‘Keep going, Alf. What more is there to learn?’
‘Very neat copybooks,’ Alf said. ‘No blotting, very nice. Oh, but what have we here?’
He pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from the port and held it up for the boys to observe. ‘Some feminine mystery, perhaps?’ he said. ‘The source of her powers to bewitch and beguile? Shall we unravel it? Shall we break the spell she has us under?’
Matthew, still leaning in the doorway, laughed. ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘Unmask the enchantress.’
‘I would kindly thank you to put that down!’ Esther said. A blush had stained her cheeks and Margaret could see she was genuinely angry and perhaps even afraid.
‘Stop!’ Margaret said. ‘Matthew, tell them to put Esther’s things away!’
But Matt did nothing of the sort. ‘I’m not their sergeant major,’ he said. Instead he applauded as Alf began, slowly, to unravel the package.
Margaret realised what it was just as Esther grabbed for the boy’s arm.
‘Put it away!’ Margaret cried, stern now, but it was too late. The cloth unravelled and the bloodied pad tumbled to the floor of the compartment, landing between the boy’s feet. He pulled them away as though the pad were on fire.
‘Well, well,’ said Alf. ‘Perhaps she is a witch. What do we do with witches?’
‘Burn them, of course,’ replied Matthew.
Esther made a sound like an angry cat and pounced over his feet to grab the pad away. Matthew started laughing and Alf was pronouncing, over and over, ‘There it is, gents: the source of her charms, the sauce of her charms.’
‘Alfred Manning, what on earth are you doing?’ cried a voice from the corridor, commanding. Margaret dragged her eyes away from her sister, who was trying to pull the pad from under the boy’s foot.
‘Who were you accusing of witchcraft?’ Audrey said as she stepped into the compartment. Her black hair hung down her back like a flag, as though all it would take was a slight breeze and she would be flying into battle. Her school uniform managed, somehow, to look like the robes a Sultan’s wife would have worn as she prepared herself for war against the infidel.
Margaret wondered, as she so often did, why a girl as startling, glamorous and unique as Audrey would be best friends with someone like her.
—A History of Dreams by Jane Rawson (Brio Books) is out now.
A History of Dreams
In the 1930s in Adelaide, sisters Margaret and Esther Beasley and their friend Phyllis O’Donnell are learning to be witches. Their guide is Audrey Macquarie, a glamorous, Communist schoolmate who was taught the art of changing dreams by her suffragette great-aunt, Delia Maddingley. This subtle magic, known only to spinsters, has been passed from aunt to niece for generations. Now this group of young women are using it to power their own small revolution, undermining a system that wants them married, uneducated and at home.
As Europe begins falling to fascism, these women – the Semaphore Supper Club – stumble on a nest of Nazi sympathisers in the poetry salons of Adelaide...
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