A Vintage Affair (36 page)

‘Well there you are then!’ I slammed shut the dishwasher. ‘You
stopped
me from going to see Emma.’

Guy was shaking his head. ‘No. Because I
then
said that you should therefore go round to her house in a taxi and that I’d go outside and hail one for you. And I was about to do that, if you remember – I’d even opened the front door …’ Now I was no longer sliding, but falling, hurtling into a chasm. ‘… when you sud denly said that you weren’t going to go after all. You said you’d decided not to.’ Guy was staring at me. I tried to swallow but my mouth had dried. ‘You said that you thought Emma would be okay until the morning.’ At that my legs gave way. I sank on to a chair. ‘You said that she’d sounded so tired, and that it would probably be best for her just to have a long sleep.’ As I stared at the table, I felt my eyes fill. ‘Phoebe,’ I heard Guy say quietly, ‘I’m sorry to bring all this up again. But having something so grave flung at me, without any chance to rebut it, has disturbed my peace of mind all these months. I’ve been unable to let it go. So I just
want – no,
need
you to acknowledge that what you said just wasn’t true.’

I looked at Guy – his features had blurred. In my mind’s eye I could see the forecourt of the Bluebird Café, and Guy’s flat, then the narrow staircase at Emma’s house and finally her bedroom door as I pushed on it. I drew in my breath. ‘All right then,’ I croaked. ‘All right,’ I reiterated quietly. ‘Perhaps …’ I stared out of the window. ‘Perhaps I …’ I bit my lip.

‘Perhaps you didn’t remember it quite right,’ I heard Guy say softly.

I nodded. ‘Perhaps I didn’t. You see … I was very upset.’

‘Yes – so it’s understandable that you … forgot what really happened.’

I stared at Guy. ‘No – it was more than that.’ I looked down at the table. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of having to blame only
myself
.’

Guy reached for my hand and enclosed it in both his. ‘Phoebe – I don’t think you
were
to blame. You couldn’t have known how ill Emma was. You were simply doing what seemed to be right for your friend. And the doctor told you that it was very unlikely that Emma would have survived even if she had come into hospital the previous night …’

I looked at Guy. ‘But it’s not knowing for
sure
. It’s the terrible, tantalising possibility that she
might
have survived if I’d only done things differently.’ I covered my face with my hands. ‘And how I wish, wish,
wish
that I
had
.’

My head sank to my chest. Then I heard Guy’s chair being scraped back and he came and sat next to me. ‘Phoebe – you and I were in love,’ he whispered.

I nodded.

‘But what happened just – smashed everything up. When you phoned me that morning to say that Emma had died I knew then that our relationship wouldn’t survive it.’

‘No.’ I swallowed. ‘How could we have been happy after that?’

‘I don’t think we could. It would always have cast a shadow over our lives. But I couldn’t bear to have parted from you on such awful terms.’ Guy shrugged. ‘But how I wish that it had never happened …’

‘How I wish that too.’ I stared bleakly ahead. ‘I wish with all my heart.’ The phone was ringing, forcing me to surface from the fantasy of what might have been. I grabbed a piece of kitchen towel, pressed it to my eyes, then answered.

‘Hey – where
are
you?’ said Dan. ‘The film’s about to start and they get shirty with latecomers here.’

‘Oh. I will be coming, Dan.’ I coughed to cover my tears. ‘But a little later, if that’s okay.’ I sniffed. ‘No … I’m fine, I think I’m just getting a cold. Yes, I’ll definitely be there.’ I glanced at Guy. ‘But I don’t think I can face Godzilla and King Kong.’

‘We won’t watch it then,’ I heard Dan say. ‘We don’t have to watch anything. We can just listen to music, or play cards or Scrabble. It doesn’t matter – just come whenever you can.’

I put the phone back in its cradle.

‘Are you with someone now?’ Guy asked gently. ‘I hope you are,’ he added. ‘I want you to be happy.’

‘Well …’ I wiped my eyes again. ‘I have this… friend. That’s all he is for now – just a friend, but I like being with him. He’s a good person, Guy. Like you.’

Guy inhaled, then slowly let out his breath. ‘I’m going to go now, Phoebe. I’m so glad I’ve seen you.’

I nodded.

I walked him to the front door. ‘I wish you a happy Christmas, Phoebe,’ said Guy. ‘And I hope this year will be a good one.’

‘For you too,’ I whispered as he hugged me.

Guy held me for another moment, then left.

I spent Christmas Day with Mum, who had at last, I noticed, taken off her wedding ring. She had a copy of the January edition of
Woman & Home
with its ‘Ring in the Old’ fashion spread, featuring my clothes with a prominent credit, I was glad to see. A few pages further on I saw a photo of Reese Witherspoon at the Emmy awards wearing the midnight blue Balenciaga gown that I’d got at Christie’s. So this was the A-Lister who Cindi had bought the dress for. Seeing such a big star in a dress I’d sourced gave me a buzz.

After lunch Dad phoned to say how thrilled Louis was with the Lights’n’Sounds baby walker Mum had given him the day before and with my Thomas the Tank Engine starter set. Dad said he hoped we’d both come and see Louis again soon, and as we watched the
Dr
Who
Christmas special Mum did some more to the blue pram coat she’s been knitting Louis and which I’ve given her the aeroplane buttons for.

‘Thank God they’re getting a nanny for Louis,’ she said as she looped the yarn over the needle.

‘Yes – and Dad said he’s going to do some teaching at the Open University so that’s given him a boost.’ Mum nodded sympathetically.

On the 27th the sale began and the shop was heaving, and I was able to tell everyone about the vintage fashion show and to ask those customers I had in mind whether they’d be willing to model the clothes. Carla, who’d bought the turquoise cupcake, said she’d love to – she added that it would be the week before her wedding but that it would be fine. Katie said she’d happily model her yellow prom dress. Through Dan I got in touch with Kelly Marks and she said she’d be delighted to wear her ‘Tinker Bell’ dress, as she called it. Then the woman who’d bought the pink prom dress came in. So I explained that I was putting on a vintage fashion show for charity and asked her if she’d model her pink cupcake dress for it.

Her face lit up. ‘I’d love to – what fun. When is it?’ I told her. She got out her diary and wrote it down. ‘Model … happy … dress,’ she murmured. ‘The only thing
is
… no, it’s okay.’ Whatever she had been about to say, she’d clearly thought better of it. ‘February 1st will be fine.’

On January 5th I took the morning off to go to Mrs Bell’s funeral at the crematorium in Verdant Lane. It was a very small affair: there were two friends of hers from Blackheath, her home-help, Paola, and Mrs Bell’s nephew, James, and his wife, Yvonne, both in their late forties.

‘Thérèse was quite ready to go,’ Yvonne said as we looked at the flowers afterwards by the side of the chapel. She drew her charcoal wrap more closely round her shoulders in the thin wind.

‘She did seem contented,’ said James. ‘When I saw her the last time she told me that she felt quite calm and … happy. She used the word “happy”.’

Yvonne was examining a spray of irises. ‘The card on this one says
With love from Lena
.’ She turned to
James. ‘I never heard Thérèse mention anyone called Lena – did you, darling?’ He shrugged then shook his head.

‘
I
heard her mention that name,’ I said. ‘But I think it was a connection from a long time ago.’

‘Phoebe, I’ve got something for you from my aunt,’ said James. He opened his briefcase then handed me a small bag. ‘She asked me to give this to you – to remember her by.’

‘Thank you.’ I took it. ‘Not that I’ll ever forget her.’ I couldn’t explain why.

When I got home I opened the bag. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, I found the silver carriage clock and a letter, dated December 10th, written in Mrs Bell’s by then very shaky hand.

  I re-set the clock, gently wound it with the little key, then put it in the centre of my sitting-room mantelpiece.
‘I will look forward,’ I said as it began to tick. ‘I will look forward.’

And I did – first of all to my mother’s birthday.

She held her party in an upstairs room at Chapters wine bar – a sit-down supper for twenty people. In her short speech Mum said she felt that she’d come of ‘age’. All her bridge friends were there, and her boss, John, and a couple of other people from work. Mum had also invited a pleasant man called Hamish whom she said she’d met at Betty and Jim’s Christmas party.

‘He seemed nice,’ I said to her over the phone the next day.

‘He’s very nice,’ Mum agreed. ‘He’s fifty-eight, divorced with two grown-up sons. The funny thing is that Jim and Betty’s party was very crowded, but Hamish started talking to me because of what I was wearing. He said he liked the pattern of little palm trees on my outfit. I told him that it was from my daughter’s vintage dress shop. That then led to a longer conversation about fabric because his father worked in the textile industry in Paisley. Then he phoned me the next day to ask me out – we went to a concert at the Barbican. We’re going to the Colliseum next week,’ she added happily.

In the meantime Katie, her friend Sarah, Annie and I were working flat out on the fashion show. Dan was going to do the lights and sound and had assembled a montage of music that would take us seamlessly from Scott Joplin through to the Sex Pistols. A friend of his was going to build the catwalk.

On the Tuesday afternoon we went to the Great Hall to do the run-through, and Dan brought with him a
copy of that day’s
Black & Green
in which Ellie had written a preview piece about the show.

 During the rehearsal I went backstage to the dressing room where the models were getting ready for the fifties sequence and were all in New Look suits, circle skirts and ‘wiggle’ dresses. Mum was wearing her coatdress, Katie, Kelly Marks and Carla were in their cupcakes, but Lucy, the owner of the pink one, was beckoning to me. ‘I’ve got a bit of a problem,’ she whispered. She turned round and I saw that the top of her dress gaped by a good two inches.

‘I’ll give you a stole,’ I said. ‘It’s funny,’ I added as I looked at her, ‘but it fitted you perfectly when you bought it.’

‘I know.’ Lucy smiled. ‘But you see I wasn’t pregnant then.’

I looked at her. ‘You’re …?’

She nodded. ‘Four months.’

‘Oh!’ I hugged her. ‘That is so …
brilliant
.’

Lucy’s eyes were shining with tears. ‘I can still hardly believe it myself. I couldn’t mention it when you first asked me to be a model because I wasn’t at the telling stage; but now I’ve had my first scan, I can talk about it.’

‘So it was the happy dress that did it!’ I said delightedly.

Lucy laughed. ‘I’m not sure – but I’ll tell you what I do attribute it to though.’ She lowered her voice. ‘At the beginning of October my husband went into your shop. He wanted to buy me something to cheer me up, and he saw some lovely lingerie – beautiful slips and cami-knickers and what have you from the 1940s.’

‘I remember him buying those,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know who he was. So they were for you?’

Lucy nodded. ‘And not long afterwards …’ She patted her tummy then giggled.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s … wonderful.’

So Aunt Lydia’s lingerie had been making up for lost time.

Katie was going to wear the Madame Grès dress that I’d bought at Christie’s for the 1930s section; Annie, with her slim boyish figure, would be modelling clothes from the twenties and sixties. Four of my regular customers would be wearing the 1940s and 1980s garments. Joan was helping backstage with the changing and accessories and was now hanging the clothes on their respective rails.

After the run-through Annie and Mum put out the glasses for the drinks. As they opened the boxes I overheard Annie telling Mum about her play, which she’s almost finished and which is provisionally entitled
The
Blue Coat
.

‘I hope it ends happily,’ I heard Mum say anxiously.

‘Don’t worry,’ Annie replied. ‘It does. I’m going to put it on as a lunchtime show at the Age Exchange in May. There’s a little fifty-seater theatre there which will be perfect for it.’

‘It sounds terrific,’ Mum said. ‘Perhaps after that you might get it put on at a bigger venue.’

Annie opened a case of wine. ‘I’ll certainly try, I’m going to invite managers and agents to see it. Chloë Sevigny was in the shop again the other day – she said she’d come along if she’s in London then.’

Now Dan and I began to arrange the seating, setting out two hundred red velvet chairs on either side of the catwalk that extended twenty-five feet from the centre of the stage. Then, satisfied that everything was ready, I went and changed into Mrs Bell’s damson-coloured suit, which looks as though it was made for me. As I put it on I caught the faint scent of Ma Griffe.