The Dress (35 page)

Frank smiled at her and told her she looked beautiful. She was happy he was pleased with her and, for a moment, it seemed possible she could feel love again.

They had only driven a few blocks when Frank got out and said, ‘We can walk from here.'

They were near Breton's studio and, as they came to the building where she used to work, Frank stopped.

‘Here we are.' He was pointing to a window where her name was emblazoned across the shop-front:
Honor Fitzpatrick, Couturier
. Then, in smaller letters, underneath, as a reminder:
House of Breton
.

Honor gasped. It was her dream come true; except it was an old dream, from a life she barely recognized.

‘Come in,' Frank urged. ‘It's all ready for you.'

Inside, Breton, Colette and all the staff from the atelier were waiting with champagne. The shiny new rails were hung sparsely, with some of Honor's samples and her framed drawings lining the walls. The floor was fitted with plush cream carpet and, in the right hand corner, was an area curtained off, with elaborate pink velvet festoon blinds – presumably a fitting area. In the middle of all this was a glass cabinet, like the kind one would find in a museum and inside it, on a full size dressmaker's mannequin, with a spotlight trained on it, was the dress she had made for Joy.

Honor's immediate reaction was shock. Where had The Dress come from? Had Joy thrown it back to them, as a rejection of her? Had Frank and Breton
stolen
it from her? Everyone was smiling at her, Colette, the girls from the atelier. Frank was beaming and Breton even started a small round of applause. Honor caught sight of her own startled face in the mirrored wall behind the ornate counter, and saw how at odds she was with everyone else. Was this how her life was now, being out of step with the world around her? With her husband, her work – feeling estranged from her own life? In the past few months, everything had changed; she had gone from being a single woman, to a married one, pregnant to not pregnant, but she had also gone from being a good person, who had never harmed anyone in her life, to being the sort of person who betrayed a friend, in the worst possible way. Joy had commissioned that beautiful dress to please Frank, and now Honor had both. She had stolen not only her friend's husband, but her dream as well.

Honor smiled and said nothing, to Frank, to anybody. There was nothing she could say. The Dress was here now, whether Joy had wanted to throw her work back in her face, as useless trash, or if Frank had somehow stolen it back from his ex-wife, in some plot with Breton, to launch her design career – Honor felt both those options as having grown from a poisonous seed that she herself had planted, through selfish actions. Throughout her small party, Honor smiled and pretended to everyone that she was pleased with her new shop.

She was standing with Frank when Breton joined them. ‘So, we have begun our new venture, Honor,' he said, looking very pleased with himself. ‘You and I, young lady, we will dress the women of New York, in such style, in this magnificent little shop.'

‘
Our
magnificent little shop,' Frank good-humouredly reminded him, ‘and only when Honor is ready,' he added, closing his arm tightly around her shoulder. ‘We don't want to wear out our most precious commodity, now, do we?'

They were talking about her as if she was their child, their possession, but then, this is what men did. It was why she had never wanted to get married. She had never wanted to be owned by a man, to be talked down to; men were in charge of the world. Honor did not hate Frank for his patronizing tone. She knew she was not simply a part of his world; she
was
his world. Just as he had been to Joy, she was now to him.

After the party, Honor told Frank and Breton she wanted to stay behind in the shop, by herself.

‘Will you be OK here, on your own?' Frank asked, his face full of concern.

‘Of course,' she said, ‘I just need some time here, alone.'

Frank looked worried. ‘You do like the place?' he said. ‘You're happy, aren't you? I just want you to be happy.'

Honor's heart nearly broke for him. She wasn't happy and Frank knew it. She didn't even know if she loved him anymore; how could she, after they had both caused so much pain to Joy that God had punished them by taking their baby? How could she be happy in a marriage that had been created out of betrayal and hurt? The worry that Frank had felt about Honor's change in feelings, her coolness towards him, in these past few weeks, must have been how it had been for Joy. Frank's ex-wife had misguidedly commissioned a dress so beautiful that she thought it would make him happy, and now he had, bizarrely, tried to make Honor happy, by giving her back that very same bad talisman.

‘Of course I'm happy,' she said. ‘I love it.'

Frank's eyes flicked to the dress in the cabinet. Glittering and ornate, it was like a huge, bejewelled Indian elephant in the room. Nobody had yet referred to it directly and Honor did not want any mention of it now, certainly not from Frank.

So, Honor kept her eyes steadily on her husband and said, ‘Go to the office, darling. I'll be fine, I just want to fix things up a bit more here.'

‘Aha,' said Breton, catching the last of their conversation, ‘the lady wants to put her own touches to the place – Breton's style is not sophisticated enough for the new Mrs Fitzpatrick's elegant Irish tastes?'

Honor laughed even though, inside, she could feel her heart turning to ash.

‘You men go now,' she said, ‘and leave me to my mysterious ways!'

Breton shooed Frank out of the door, joking, ‘Vite! Vite! The women must be left to their tidying up.'

Frank laughed jovially, but as he closed the door behind him, Honor saw her husband glance back at her, his expression full of anxiety again.

‘Thank you,' she mouthed, then gave him a reassuring smile to push him out.

Alone at last, Honor locked the door, pulled down the blinds, then opened the door of the cabinet, unzipped The Dress from the mannequin and laid it out on the new cream carpet.

It felt so familiar, spread out in front of her, less like a garment and more like the corpse of a dear friend. This piece of clothing had changed her life. Honor let her hands run over every inch of it – the tiny pearl buttons, the encrusted bodice, the lace panels, the embroidered skirt – the jigsaw of creativity that had resulted in what was, undoubtedly, a work of art. The hours, months of labour it had taken to create it were all here and yet, for Honor, the most important piece was missing: Joy. The Dress was, after all, the material manifestation of something that was, Honor now realized, far more important than the mere buttons and beads: their friendship.

Honor looked around and realized that the world she inhabited, the world of high fashion and its clients, would see what she had gained, a prestigious husband and a design label, with The Dress as the badge for all that. Honor could see only what she had lost – her friendship with her co-creator – and she knew she had to do something, anything, to try to make things right.

She reached into her bag (force of habit, Honor always carried a small sewing kit with her) and took out her stitch picker. Working quickly and meticulously, she deftly began to pick the pearl buttons from The Dress, laying them in a pile on the floor. Then she began to remove all the rhinestones and beads from the bodice. The very least Honor could do was return some of them to Joy. Honor wasn't naive enough to imagine this would put much salve on the wound, especially knowing how unreasonable Joy was, with her drinking, but it made Honor feel as if she was doing something. It would make her feel as if she was a good person.

As the jewels piled up, Honor put them in her pocket then went over to the shelved counter area to see if she could find something more permanent to put them in. The shelves were empty; however there were a few congratulations cards, from the staff, and among them Honor noticed one small envelope that was lying flat, unopened. Honor lifted it, with the intention of ripping it open and using the empty envelope to store her beads, when she noticed the spidery handwriting scrawled across the front.

The envelope was addressed to her, care of Breton's studio, and the handwriting was unmistakably Joy Fitzpatrick's.

London, 2014

Gareth buttoned the purple, tweed 60s swing coat on his mannequin and tied the lime green silk scarf around her grubby neck. He was less self-conscious about being seen arranging ladies' clothes in his window these days. That was one thing that this whole experience with Lily had done for him, although he would trade it in an instant for a moment in her company again.

The purple coat was the last thing from the bag of clothes Lily had given him. Gareth had sold everything else. The money he owed Lily amounted to a few hundred pounds. He had originally planned to give it to her the next time she came in, but that was turning out to be ‘never'. Lily was a big shot designer now. Gareth didn't follow social media, but his mate Fergus was into it and he said she was all over it with this dress project of hers. Turns out that bloke he saw coming out of her house was her boss, not a boyfriend, just like she had said. Why could he not have just asked her out when he had the chance? There had been so many opportunities he had let slip.

When the shop was quiet (which was most of the time) Gareth found himself sitting at his Formica table, rolling over in his mind all the times Lily had been sitting there with him, drinking chai, chatting away in the easy way they did. At any time he could have easily leaned over and kissed her, or at least tried to kiss her, but he never had. What he wouldn't give to get one of those ordinary moments back so he could reach over and touch her cheek and tell her how gorgeous she was. Whatever small hope he had had while they were friends was certainly gone now after his last, chronic display of geeky patheticness. He should have asked her straight out, ages ago instead of letting things slide along and hoping, what? That she would make the first move? As if! God, she had been so mad with him that day, her gorgeous cat-green eyes flashing at him. Just thinking about her shouting at him like that made him scarlet with shame but also, he couldn't help himself, desire.

Gareth had saved selling the purple coat until last because, frankly, it was hideous and he was certain nobody would want to buy it. Once he had got rid of all of Lily's stuff, Gareth knew it would be over. He would post a final cheque through her letterbox and there would be no excuse to see her after that.

*

In the six weeks since Gareth had sold all of her clothes, Lily had not been able to face him, although she thought about him every day. This was partly due to the fact that the sturdy, silk corset Gareth had given her had been used as a foundation for The Dress. Every time Lily worked on her creation she was reminded of Gareth's generosity and her own selfishness in not having thanked him properly for it. However, as each day passed, Lily found the idea of approaching him more and more difficult. Sending him a mere thank you note seemed too formal and somehow, not enough. In fact anything less than Lily flinging herself at him might appear like a snub now that he had (sort of) declared his feelings for her. There were times, when she walked past Old Times and saw her old clothes in his window, when Lily did consider rushing up to Gareth's counter and doing just that. Then she would remember that he owed her money and could have easily used that as an excuse to see her. That meant he was still angry or embarrassed, or more likely both.

In any case, Lily didn't have the time to wander up Kilburn High Road anymore for coffee.

The Dress was nearly complete and Lily herself was almost as transformed as her original toile. Life had changed. Firstly, she wasn't blogging any more. After the big Twitter fury she'd pulled herself completely offline.

She called Jack and told him that he needed to get someone in Scott's substantial marketing department to take over all her social media accounts until The Dress was finished. She was polite but firm, assuring him that she did not have time to do her work and tweet about it at the same time. Once that was done, Lily put everything else in her life aside and set about making The Dress happen.

During the day Lily liaised with lacemakers, tambour beaders, jewellers, embroiderers and couture seamstresses. She was uncompromising, a stickler for detail. Lily knew exactly what she wanted and what she wanted was perfection. Every inch of work produced went through her hands and every millimetre of it was meticulously studied. Misplaced crystals and loose threads, barely visible to the human eyes, were nonetheless noticed and sent back. After a month in the Scott's studio, Lily insisted the half-finished garment be transported back to her apartment. Her days were becoming hectic as the PR department started putting out press releases on the completion date and Lily wanted time alone with her masterpiece to concentrate on getting it absolutely right. Lily lived with her dress, often working on it through the night, doing all her finishing by hand.

Late into these nights, Lily thought about the women who had created the original dress, and most especially about Honor. Lily had resigned herself to never finding the old woman. She had given Zac the address she had been given by the woman in the pub in Bangor. He got a ferry across to the exclusive area of the Jersey Shore and tracked down the address. It was a large, rich-person's house, but it was all closed up, shutters down, gates locked and seemingly uninhabited. Zac left a letter in the mailbox addressed to Honor Conlon, with his details, asking that she contact him urgently.

Every few days Lily called to see if he had heard back, but he never did.

Eventually Zac said, ‘The house was really locked up Lily. I think she might probably be dead or something?'

Reluctantly, Lily thought he was probably right.

While working on the embroidered panels of her parents' Bangor grave, Lily tried to channel Honor's spirit, but she could never get any sense of her. Joy and her elegant demeanour in those beautiful woodland pictures were more of an influence.