The Dress (37 page)

For the part you played in the drama that led me to this place, I thank you and wish you all the love, joy and happiness you deserve.

Warmest regards,

Joy

Honor stood for a few moments, trying to take the contents of Joy's letter in. Joy was forgiving her. Joy was saying sorry to her.

Joy had done nothing, compared with what she had done to Joy: taken her husband, stolen her dress, betrayed their friendship, reneged on their agreement to start a couture house together, destroyed her confidence and sent her life spiralling into a drunken mess. And yet here Joy was, apologizing to her? Begging her forgiveness for that one lousy outburst at the Plaza and saying bad things about her on the phone to Breton, while out of her mind in drunken grief. Was she being sarcastic? Talking about ‘the part you played in the drama' and offering Honor and Frank her blessing – was Joy mocking her? If so, what an extraordinary act of cattiness, but then Honor read the letter again. ‘Slowly, I am learning how to be a better person'. It rang true, all of the letter rang true. Once Honor realized that Joy was being sincere, she also realized that her paltry attempt to return the small pile of beads she carried in her pocket was a meaningless, shallow gesture. Frank's insistence that Joy was an unreasonable alcoholic seemed like a ploy, and believing him, a callous justification for their shallow marriage.

Honor was overcome with such a powerful feeling of anger that she did not know what to do with herself. Rage propelled her towards The Dress in a kind of slow motion and, as adrenaline pumped through her body, she began to rip at the seams of The Dress, tearing at the fabric with a heightened strength, ripping the silk with her bare hands, sending beads and sequins flying, as she screamed and roared her way into it, baying with fury like a wild animal, destroying her greatest work. It was as if, instead of a child, a terrible fury had been born out of all the bad things she had done. She was not destroying The Dress, she was destroying herself – turning the beauty she had created into the savage mess that was her own destiny. No matter how hard she tore at it, the beauty was still there in the corpse of The Dress – in the chunks of appliqué, the shards of lace, the scraps of fine silk. Screeching with frustration, she bundled the whole lot back into the glass cabinet and, with her hands shaking, took a box of matches out of her bag.

By the time Breton found her, Honor had set fire to The Dress. The women, who followed him down from the studio, wept when they saw the scene, some at the loss of such a beautiful dress, others simply with shock and fear at the transformation of their old workmate, but Honor's fury was not yet quenched.

It took the Frenchman, and his entire team of twelve women, to pull Honor away and keep her in a corner of the shop, until Frank could be called back to collect her. They managed to quench the fire and save the shop, but its centrepiece, The Dress, was nothing more than a smouldering pile of ashes.

Breton called an ambulance and Honor was taken to hospital, where she was sedated. As her mind wandered in and out of a drugged haze, Honor remembered her life before The Dress, before Joy and Frank, before her dreams of being a great designer became an ambition-fuelled reality.

Honor had always believed herself to be, fundamentally, her parents' daughter, a good, honourable person. She knew she was no nun; she had never especially pursued goodness, but she had taken for granted that it was there.

Honor now saw that her pursuit of beauty had altered that. Fashion pandered to women's vanity and wealth; her community-minded father had always viewed it as a shallow, meaningless pastime. She had thought that the goodness he and her mother had planted in her would always be there but now it seemed it wasn't. She had tried to make it right, but her efforts had been small and pathetic.

Joy, for all her alcoholic madness and her spoilt rich-girl upbringing, had proven to be a better person than she could ever be.

Honor hated herself, she hated Frank for loving her and, most of all, she hated Joy, for bringing this terrible flaw to light.

Anyone who had seen her destroy her finest work would say that Honor Fitzpatrick had lost her mind, but in actual fact the talented designer believed she had lost something much more important than that. After reading Joy's letter Honor felt that she had lost her soul. Without her soul, she was nothing; without her soul, she knew she would never design again.

After a week Honor was released home into Frank's care, under the supervision of a consultant psychiatrist.

Again, for three weeks, Frank and Jones found themselves nursing Honor – who was kept on a cocktail of soothing drugs – aside from the days when she was seeing Dr Rensch. Honor had no interest in talking to the rather cold German doctor but nonetheless, Dr Rensch reported their sessions, in florid detail, back to Frank. He explained that his wife was still suffering from shock after the miscarriage.

‘In some women, the need for a child is so deep that they never recover. Be patient, another child will cure her. Bide your time.'

On the day she destroyed the shop, Frank found the letter Joy had written to her and knew it was at the root of Honor's fury. He had received one himself, the day before at work, and barely bothered reading it before throwing it in his wastepaper bin. Honor was different. She would have taken all Joy's manipulative ways to heart. He showed the letter to Rensch, but he said it was of no importance. It seemed that Joy had joined this cult of Alcoholics Anonymous – a ridiculous organization, in his opinion, with all its unscientific talk of God and such. She was being coy, she would drink again soon, and die. What a shame Frank had not known about him before, he himself ran a programme in a clinic in Switzerland that would surely have cured her. Still, she was in the clutches of these AA people now, so it was too late.

‘You must concentrate on your second wife, Mr Fitzpatrick,' he assured Frank. ‘She is the one we must deal with now, yes?'

Frank was, nonetheless, furious with Joy. He went to his lawyer and told him to cut her off entirely.

‘Not a penny. Take the apartment back, too. Let her rot on the streets of New York, for all I care.'

Daniel Cohen, who had been so sympathetic when he came to him first with Honor, told him what he was trying to do was both illegal and immoral and said he could not help him.

‘You have to let go, Frank,' he said. ‘Wish poor Joy well, move on.'

As Frank's anger and animosity towards Joy deepened, so did his love for and patience with Honor. Although he was exhausted by her instability, he took only pleasure in looking after her, carrying in meals prepared by Jones on a tray, sitting at the side of the bed and feeding her, while she gazed out into space, in a silent, distant trance.

Rensch said the drug-calming therapy would end soon, that she was responding to the ‘talking' therapy and would be well again. Dr Rensch was at the top of his field and very expensive. He assured Frank that his wife's insanity was temporary, although all women were delicate creatures and often need to be treated with care. He said it was wrong of Frank not to have protected his wife better, from Joy's outbursts. They had undoubtedly contributed to her current condition.

Rensch did not report back to Frank on the session when he asked Honor directly, ‘Do you love your husband?'

There was a pause, then she said, ‘No.'

It was the first and only time, the eminent psychiatrist noted, that he saw the sad, rather plain young woman cry.

London, 2014

Sally and Lily were packing up The Dress for New York when the Skype call came in on Lily's iPad.

Lily was unpicking some packing tape so Sally answered the call. All she saw was this kid with a bleached-blond quiff shouting. ‘She's alive! She's alive! Honor's alive!'

‘Hey, Lily, there's a crazy person Skyping you...'

Lily ran over.

‘Zac! What happened?'

‘So,' he said, dramatically spreading his hands in the air (Sally raised her eyes to heaven. She hated it when people were more dramatic than she was), ‘that place I went to
was
Honor Conlon's house but she had sold it to some rich family from Europe. Because it's their holiday home, it's locked up for nine months of the year. They just got there for their annual vacation and they found my note to her. They contacted her first and sent my details on. It seems Honor is living in a nursing home and does all of her talking through a nurse called Emily. And get this – Emily the nurse emailed me just now with her Skype address and said to call her. I am
so
excited. It's like Honor was dead and now she isn't! How great it that?'

‘Did you contact her yet?' Lily asked.

She saw an uncharacteristic shadow fall over Zac's face.

‘No,' he said.

‘Why not?' Lily asked.

Sally was standing in front of her making ‘yada yada' and ‘hurry up' signals.

‘Truth is, I'm a bit scared.' He turned his eyes slightly from the screen. Sally grimaced and made another ‘hurry up' sign as Lily waved her away.

‘Firstly, they were both married to the same man, your Great Uncle which is
weird
and she might still be mad about that ....'

‘Zac, that was years ago,' Lily said, ‘and your grandmother went on to be happily married. I'm sure it would be water under the bridge by now.'

Zac paused, looked down and said, ‘I know it sounds silly, but I've never known any old people apart from Grandma Joy and, well, the whole thing of seeing someone that knew her just makes me feel a bit sad.'

He turned his face away and Lily knew he didn't want her to see him cry. Lily felt herself choke up in sympathy. They had both lost their beloved grandparents and those people were connected, somehow, through Honor.

‘Send me her details and I'll take it from here,' Lily said. ‘I'll call and let you know how we get on.'

‘Yes!' said Sally punching the air. ‘We have the old lady! Call the nurse, quickly, it's 10 a.m. in New York, she's just at work – call before she gets too busy.'

Emily the nurse picked up the call right away, as if she had been waiting. She was an attractive African-American woman, tall, slim, around their age. Lily told her she was impressed they had a Skype account in a nursing home.

‘It's a pretty impressive home,' Emily explained. ‘We have an exclusive clientele. Our residents are from all over the world and they like to stay in touch with what's going on. We're kinda out of the way here in Jersey, so we rely on video and Skype a lot, as a way of keeping in touch with the families.'

‘Does Honor have much family?' Lily asked.

‘No,' Emily said, her lips pursing. She seemed distracted.

‘Well actually, it turns out I am Honor's great-niece,' Lily said, ‘which is why I am so keen to get in touch with her. She was married to my great-Uncle Frank.'

‘I see.' Emily had turned ice cold on her but Lily persisted.

‘Also, the guy you contacted? Zac? He is the grandson of one of her oldest friends, Joy. Joy left pictures of a dress Honor made for her in the 1950s and so we thought Honor might want to—'

‘Turn it off, turn the damn thing off...' A voice came from beyond the screen.

‘I'm sorry,' Emily said, standing up. ‘I have to go now...' and the screen suddenly went blank.

‘What was
that
?' Lily said.

‘That, you poor naive fool,' said Sally, ‘was the old woman in the background, checking you out.'

‘Of course it was,' Lily said. ‘Why the hell didn't I think of that?'

Lily felt a pang of loss. She had been, to all intents and purposes, in the room with her great-aunt by marriage, the co-creator of The Dress, the one link to her grandfather's generation and she had blown it.

‘I blew it.'

‘Yes,' said Sally, ‘you certainly did. So now it is down to me, as usual, to sort out this mess.'

‘It's not sort-out-able Sally – there is no way she wants to see us. She's an old lady, leave her in peace.'

Sally sat down opposite her and said, ‘Are you
joking
, Lily?'

Lily smiled. Sally was right. She had put so much of herself into making this wonderful garment but her dream was bigger than that. She had the opportunity to meet the woman who had created the original. Honor might not be willing to see her but she was still alive and...

‘Where there's life there's hope,' said Sally, reading her mind. ‘So let's finish getting this dress packed because we are going to get that old lady and we are going to bring her to the Met Ball!'

When Sally left, Lily walked over to her parents' house. Her grandmother's arthritis had worsened since Joe died and she was housebound. Lily's mother had given up work to look after her full time and her father was away in Sweden on a building job.

‘I am so sorry we won't be in New York supporting you,' Mary said. ‘You know how proud we are of you.'

Lily thought about all the love that was just sitting there, creating a constant cushion in the background of her life. She rarely stopped to appreciate it, yet it was the cornerstone of who she was.

‘I hope Frank's widow is kind to you,' her grandmother, Eileen, said as she kissed her goodbye. Lily remembered the cold, unkempt grave of Frank Fitzpatrick and the standoffish attitude of the lady in the bar when she had mentioned Honor's name. ‘You know not all old ladies are as nice as me.'

‘Would Grandad disapprove of me digging up the past like this?' Lily asked her.

‘Well, honestly Lily? He probably would,' she said. ‘But he's not here is he? And I am just desperate to know what happened to Frank so be sure to bring me back the whole story.'

Lily smiled, but part of her felt her grandmother was just being diplomatic. She just hoped that she could close this family circle without opening any old wounds.