The Dress (41 page)

The lights went down and while the food was served each table voted on their favourite dress. Honor looked across at young Lily. Even though she was putting on a brave face for Zac, Honor could see how much winning this competition meant. This show was to Lily what Joy's party had been to Honor: her defining moment. Fail or succeed, win or lose. In her youth such concepts had seemed so simple, so black and white. Yet life turns everything into the grey stew of reality. Honor had won and lost all on that night, and she felt a tightening in her stomach as she hoped the same would not happen to her young friend.

The dinner ended. The lights went down. The compere with the dazzling teeth made a huge fuss about opening the envelope which contained the result. Five seconds. Ten. A lifetime of ageing. Honor saw Lily's hands restlessly clench and unclench as she tried to control her nerves.

‘And the winner is...' Honor found she could hardly breathe. ‘And the winner is...' How will she cope, thought Honor, if she does not win? She deserves to. She must. She surely will. My dress will win. ‘And the winner is... Lucy Houston for PopShop!'

Honor felt all the energy which had sustained her till this moment drain away. The disappointment felt like the savage opening of an old wound. Even Jack's loud wolf whistling as he publically pretended there was no hard feelings could not distract her. She dared not look at poor Lily, utterly crushed by the verdict. They all sat for a few moments, subdued by defeat, until Honor broke the silence.

‘How could we
not
have won?' Honor said.

Sally snapped back straight away, ‘Simple. Because our dress was
too
good. The usual problem, they're looking at the girls not the clothes. Sharon is outsize. Its pure fashion-hag prejudice. Plain and simple. They didn't like the girl.'

‘She could be right,' Honor said. ‘Joy looked so beautiful in The Dress. But then, it was made for her – it was like an extension of her body.'

‘So,' Sally said, ‘it was like Joy was
literally
wearing her dream.'

‘In a way,' Honor said. ‘Her dream was love, and she wanted a dress that would make Frank love her. She wanted to be loved and that's what made her commission The Dress...'

‘...and love is what motivated her when she wore it,' Sally added.

‘And did it work?' Lily asked.

Honor was about to tell them that no, it did not work. In fact the opposite had happened because it was on that very night Joy's beloved husband had declared his love for Honor, but before she had the chance to speak, Zac's face lit up.

‘Granny once told me that she was wearing The Dress the night she first met my grandfather. She said it was just a chance meeting and they didn't get together until a long time after that. Grandad was having a coffee in the Waldorf really late one night, and there was a party on. This woman walked into the bar in this “astonishingly magnificent” dress and Grandad said she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. They only had a quick exchange. She rejected him, actually, but then he met her again, in another bar, a few months later. They fell in love and got married!'

Honor reached out and took the boy's hand.

‘So,' she said, ‘your grandmother found love in my dress after all.' Everything had come full circle at last.

As if that were not enough, the curator of the fashion museum now came across after the show to tell Lily that despite losing the competition her dress would be going on display. Thanks to the superb craftsmanship and its historical provenance The Dress warranted a place in their permanent collection. He then asked to be introduced to Honor. After kissing her hand deferentially, he sat and quizzed her about the time she had spent working with her old boss Sybil Connolly whom ‘he had once had the pleasure of meeting', and her mentor, the lesser known but nonetheless highly-respected couturier, Breton.

Honor was puzzled to be of such interest and surprised to find how easily and comfortably she talked about her past.

Sally launched herself at the dance floor with Zac as soon as the meal was over, and Lily partied alongside them. Honor could see that despite the dancing, despite her dress being bought by the museum, despite all she had achieved that night, the feeling of having ‘lost' the competition had not let her young friend Lily go. Sure enough, at 11 p.m. she offered to take Honor home. The old lady pretended she was feeling tired and the two of them went out to Scott's waiting limo.

At the top of the red-carpet steps Lily and Honor stood side by side looking across at the New York night sky, while a scattering of paparazzi waited at the bottom.

‘I wish we had won,' Lily said, ‘for you. I wish we had won for your sake.'

Honor laughed but didn't contradict her. ‘You're a perfectionist,' she said to the young designer, ‘like me.'

Lily laughed a little, then confessed, ‘Yes I am,' before tucking Honor's arm into hers to start their descent. But the old woman held her back.

‘The problem with being a perfectionist,' Honor said, ‘is that life isn't perfect. Dresses can be perfect, because we can make them exactly how we want them. The perfect fit, the perfect finish, we can fashion couture to a standard that would satisfy the gods, but we can't do the same with life. The problem with those of us who make perfect things is that, sometimes, we think we can. The most imperfect things of all are people and love.'

She paused and Lily waited then said, ‘I think I understand, but I find it hard when things don't go my way.'

‘No way is your way and every way is your way, Lily. It takes talent and tenacity to make beautiful things but it takes courage to let them go. It takes courage to fail at love, not to be perfect. Beauty is only a temporary joy and it has tight boundaries. Love and friendship are the only things that can set people like us free from our perfectionist prisons but it's not easy. If I had understood that when I was your age, I would have had a much happier life.'

Then she paused again and, as if looking at a picture of her past on the skyline, she said, ‘Joy understood what it was to fail and in the end, she had a much better life than me.'

‘Not tonight,' Lily said. ‘Tonight was your night.'

Honor smiled. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘it was.'

The old lady squeezed her hand and Lily now saw something of the Irish warmth she had seen in her parents' wedding picture, the Irish warmth of her grandfather Joe.

Honor's grip loosened to indicate she was ready to walk down the steps.

Lily gently helped Honor into the car and was about to get in beside her when the old woman stopped her. ‘I'll be fine on my own,' she said. ‘The driver knows where to take me.'

‘I'll come with you,' Lily said. ‘I'm done here anyway.'

‘Not quite,' Honor said. ‘I think there is someone waiting for you.'

Lily turned and there, standing alone on the steps of the Met, was Gareth. Lily's stomach did a somersault, part delight and part fear. She saw he was wearing a tuxedo, a very nice, slightly shabby vintage one. It was exactly what she would have chosen for him herself, but she knew that Gareth would have gone into a shop and simply picked out the first one that fitted him. That made it all the sexier.

‘You scrub up nice,' she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. ‘So what are you doing here?'

She didn't want to assume.

He looked nervous for a moment, coughed, and then said, ‘Well, your friend Sally called me,' he said, ‘from the airport, I think? She said I was to stop being such a wuss waiting for an invitation like some maiden aunt and that I was to man up and come and get you.'

Lily laughed. ‘So this is you being a man?'

‘I don't know about that...'

‘Well, you came.'

‘She sent me flight details and Fergus was free to mind the shop so...'

He paused.

‘So?' she said, smiling. ‘You're here. And?'

‘Ah, right, here we go then.' Gareth took a deep breath and said, ‘I really like you, Lily Fitzpatrick.'

‘Is that it then?' she said. ‘You flew halfway around the world to tell me that you like me?'

‘Ah, right, no actually, it isn't...'

Then Gareth took Lily in his arms and kissed her with a thoroughness and passion that Rhett Butler would have been proud of.

When she managed to catch her breath, Lily said, ‘That was... unexpected.'

‘I don't know if that's a bad or a good thing,' Gareth said, ‘but I've wanted to do that since we first met.'

Lily was smiling. ‘Well,' she said, ‘you took your time.'

‘All the best things,' he said, ‘are worth waiting for.'

And the best treasures, Lily thought, are hidden at the bottom of the basket where you have to rummage to find them.

Gareth looked deep into her eyes then smiled back at her and said, ‘By the way, do you know where Bleecker Street is? There's a vinyl store there with a Bill Haley album I've been after for ages.'

‘No,' she said, laughing, ‘but I'm sure we can find it.'

Then Lily took Gareth's hand and the two of them headed off, to start a brand new adventure among treasured old things.

New Jersey, 1970

It was a beautiful sunny day in New Jersey and Joy was out in her front garden, pruning the roses. They really were magnificent this year. Since she and Dan had moved to this neighbourhood, seven years ago, just after Imogen's birth, Joy's rose collection had become something of a talking point. She had no fewer than fifteen varieties and some of them were such hardy breeds that the respectable street was more or less treated to a show of colour all year around. In the harshest winter last year, a magnificent scarlet Chrysler Imperial had bloomed on Christmas Day and Imogen and she had cut it, for their table centre-piece. They always had a full house at Christmas. There were so many lonely people in the world, especially at that time of year, alcoholics who had either lost their families, or who would struggle to get through the holiday season without a drink – they were all welcome at the Podmores' holiday table.

Joy loved the exquisite soft beauty of her flowers, but she also enjoyed the process of making things grow. The way the dirtiest, ugliest kitchen debris, eggshells and potato peelings fed the soil and made her flowers even more beautiful and vibrant. There was a justice in beauty born out of dirt that appealed to her.

Although the garden was where Joy got much of her creative satisfaction, these days her house too was immaculate. While she did most of the work herself, Dan's business was successful enough for her to afford a woman to come in, twice a week, to help her out. They were comfortable. Once a year, the three of them went to the Catskill Mountains on holiday; Dan had taught her to drive and they both had cars. Their mortgage was small, Dan was a hard worker and they were never short of money, for food or bills. Joy had lost her taste for couture and had taken very few of her old pieces with her into her new life. A couple of Chanel suits, her Nina Ricci gown and some beloved Balenciaga pieces, all of which she planned to pass onto Imogen. Those treasures aside, Joy still cut a smart figure. Her neighbours were vaguely envious of her, not least because of her reliable husband, Dan, who never got drunk or propositioned them at neighbourhood barbecues, who was always charming, but clearly, still madly in love with his wife and she with him. The couple had their work with Alcoholics Anonymous which kept them grounded and a circle of good friends, but mostly they had Imogen.

Joy had been astonished when she had found herself pregnant in her mid-thirties. She was worried at first, telling the doctor about her earlier struggles to conceive. He had assured her that, although her fertility might have been affected in the past by her alcohol consumption, when it came to making babies, the science was inexact to say the least. ‘It's as much to do with the will of God as anything else,' he said, and Joy knew that to be true for most things in her life. He said the fact that she had stopped drinking might have helped.

Motherhood had been a revelation for Joy, from the pregnancy experience of carrying another human being inside her body, to her brave endurance of childbirth and the all-encompassing love she felt for her child. The complexities of her addiction were once and for all washed away in the great tide of emotion she had for the baby. Her craving for love was utterly sated; she loved every glorious moment of being a mother and it had confirmed her loyalty and respect for her husband, Dan.

The hunger for approval, the unstable feeling, the wanting in her stomach that she had mistaken for love during her time with Frank, had gone from her.

Until the day when, ten years after he had left her and thrown her out of his life, Frank Fitzgerald turned up on her front lawn.

He looked his age, fifty now. His hair was greying at the temples and he was slightly unkempt, but still handsome. Joy's heart gave a small jolt, out of some gone, but not forgotten, habit.

‘Hullo, Joy,' he said.

Why do you look so sad?

‘Hullo, Frank,' Joy said and smiled, but he didn't smile back. He looked worried and she had an old familiar flash of feeling responsible for his unhappiness.

Dan was out at work, Imogen was at school, so she said, ‘Won't you come inside and have some coffee, Frank?'

He seemed to consider it, then looked at the house and shook his head, as if deciding the commitment to enter her new life would be too much. Joy tried to meet his eyes, but he kept his gaze trained on the horizon behind her, as if expecting something to fall out of the sky. There was something amiss. Was he was still angry with her? Had he not let go?

‘I was wondering if you had heard from Honor, at all?'

Ah, Honor. Joy had read in the gossip columns, years ago, that she had left him. Although it was silly, Joy could not help but feel slightly disappointed that he had not come to see her.