by Imogen Clark
‘Beth!’ I say, feigning indignation. ‘I am your best friend. I know all your secrets.’
She looks around her as if there might actually be someone spying on our conversation and then she lowers her voice to a whisper.
‘I think he’s planning to propose. I mean, he hasn’t dropped any hints or anything but it just kind of feels right, you know?’
Of course I don’t know. I have no idea what it feels like to be in love but I nod supportively.
‘And what will you say? If he asks, I mean.’
Underneath the table and out of Beth’s sight I cross my fingers firmly.
Beth just stares at me, wide-eyed.
‘Well, yes! Of course!’
CHAPTER FIVE
Annie, 1976
Annie meets Joe Ferensby when she is seventeen and he is twenty-five. He lands in her life like a box of firecrackers. He makes her heart race and her palms sweat and from the very beginning she is never entirely sure what is going to happen next. In many ways, Annie thinks later, this just mirrored the way her life had always been but with Joe, instead of being frightened of the explosions, she positively relishes them. His unpredictability is exciting and snatches her breath from her lungs and, while she is never entirely sure where he is taking her, it has to be better than where she’s been so she buckles up and follows him.
They meet on a bus. She’s on her way to her job selling ladies’ gloves in Selfridges. It’s a nice little job that is never going to be a challenge but that suits her just fine. Katrina, her friend from the Men’s Shirts department, is sitting next to her.
‘Don’t look now,’ Katrina whispers to her from behind her hand. ‘But that bloke down there is eyeing us up.’
Of course, Annie has to look and Katrina is quite right. She spots him at once through the sea of office girls and schoolchildren. His head and shoulders emerge like Poseidon. He has unruly dark hair, cut long to sit on his collar, and a five o’clock shadow even though it is eight thirty in the morning. There’s an air of confidence about him, like he knows secrets that nobody else has worked out. Annie’s eyes catch his and he winks at her – one of those cocky winks, set off by a slight turn of the head. Annie drops her eyes again, angry at the schoolgirl blush that she can feel creeping up her neck. The bus draws to a halt, he jumps down to the pavement, waving his thanks to the driver, and then he turns back to look at her as the bus pulls away.
‘That’s him hooked!’ says Katrina with a smirk.
Annie doesn’t reply, just shrugs her shoulders. Easy come easy go, she thinks, but she replays that wink in her head until the memory gets wobbly. The following week, he’s there again, sitting this time and focused entirely on a copy of the Racing Post, a stubby pencil clamped between his teeth. He doesn’t look up as Annie walks past and sits down a little further back, but when Katrina spots him she makes such a commotion of being discreet that he raises his eyes from his paper to see what all the fuss is about. He sees Annie just as she turns away to sit down and throws her such a delicious smile that, for a moment, she thinks she might keel over. This time, though, she’s more prepared for his charm. She nods at him coolly, as if he were someone she once met at a party but whose name she can’t now recall.
He stands and sways his way down the bus towards her, the newspaper tucked under his arm. Coming to a rolling stop next to Annie, he perches on the edge of the seat opposite, blocking the aisle for anyone else, his knees touching Katrina’s thigh. Annie registers that her friend does not move her legs away and feels a stab of irritation, but he shows no interest in Katrina and focuses his gaze entirely on her. She sees, now that he is closer, that his eyes are a pale blue that sits a little unnaturally against the darkness of his hair. There is something of George Best about him.
‘We meet again, ladies,’ he says. ‘Joseph Ferensby.’
He holds out his hand, cocksure. Annie is reticent, not sure what to make of this overt display, but at the same time she can feel herself being sucked into his orbit almost against her will. As she tries to pull back and regain control, Katrina dives straight in.
‘I’m Katrina and this is Annie,’ she says.
She offers her hand to the stranger. He takes it and kisses her knuckles lightly. Annie’s nose wrinkles. He might be handsome and considerably older than the boys that she knows from school but even to her this seems a touch nauseating.
‘Hello, Katrina and Annie. And where are you two off to?’
‘Work. We work at Selfridges on Oxford Street. She’s in Ladies’ Gloves and I’m in Men’s Shirts.’
Annie nudges Katrina. She feels uncomfortable giving a stranger so much information but Katrina ignores her, totally in her element.
‘Are you indeed?’ says Joseph Ferensby, his eyebrows rising until they disappear into his dark hair.
Even though Katrina is doing the talking, it’s Annie he’s watching. She resists the urge to look away and holds his stare, lifting her chin a little higher.
‘Well, this is me,’ he says without warning, and stands up. Despite her reserve, Annie feels her heart sink a little as she watches him stride back down the bus and bound off. As they pull away, he turns and salutes her.
‘Well, he’s a bit pleased with himself,’ she says to Katrina, trying to sound unimpressed.
‘Tasty though,’ says Katrina. ‘Did you see them eyes? Oh, I could lose myself in them eyes.’
‘Give over. You sound like something out of Jackie,’ says Annie, but she knows exactly what her friend means.
A week later he turns up at Annie’s work. It is a slow day and Annie is dusting the stands, more to pass the time than because the job needs doing. She flicks the feather duster in and out between the gloves, trying not to dislodge anything apart from dust. The minutes tick by so slowly that she checks to see if the clock has actually stopped.
The first time she hears the noise she doesn’t really take it in. It’s only when she hears it a second time that she looks up and tries to work out what it is.
‘Psssst.’
It’s a sound like gas escaping from a tap.
‘Psssst.’
Then she sees him. He’s hiding behind a pillar, his head peeping out.
‘Psssst. Annie.’
He beckons her over with urgent little gestures, as if he’s in real peril. Annie looks back at her supervisor but she’s busy talking to a customer so she takes a couple of steps towards him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks when she is close enough to be able to whisper and still be heard.
‘I’ve come to see you,’ he says.
‘Well, I can’t talk now. If my supervisor catches me I’ll be for it.’
He looks crestfallen.
‘But I’ve come all this way, traversed dangerous rivers and fought bears to . . .’
‘Okay, okay,’ she says.
This man is an idiot but there is something about him that makes her smile despite her determination not to.
‘You’ll have to pretend to be a customer,’ she whispers. ‘Stop skulking behind that pillar.’ And then, in a slightly louder voice, ‘How can I help you, sir?’
For all his usual confidence, he seems unsure of what is required of him in this new role and Annie has to prompt him.
‘So, you’d like some gloves, sir? For your . . . girlfriend?’
‘Er, yes,’ he replies.
‘And what kind of thing does she like?’ Annie asks, trying not to laugh.
‘Well . . .’
He pulls a face that suggests to Annie that he needs more of a steer.
‘Is it leather you’re wanting, sir?’
‘Oh yes. Definitely,’ he says, nodding and starting to warm to the game.
‘And what colour, sir? We have some lovely baby pink that has just come in. Does she like pink, sir? Your girlfriend.’
‘Yes!’ he says, seizing on the idea. ‘Pink is her absolute favourite colour.’
‘And would sir be wanting a lining?’
He looks confused again. Annie is having fun, enjoying having the upper hand for once.
‘In the glove, sir. A silk lining? Or cashmere?’
Joe raises his hands in a gesture of confusion and Annie smirks.
‘If sir would like to step this way . . .’
She leads him across to a bank of drawers a little away from the main display area. Her supervisor doesn’t even look up. She drops her voice as she bends low to open the second drawer from the bottom.
‘What are you doing here?’ she hisses. ‘I’m working.’
Joseph makes no effort to speak more quietly.
‘Like I said, I’m looking for some gloves for my girlfriend.’
He winks at her and her stomach turns over. He was such a charmer in those days. Annie never stood a chance.
‘And what size would sir be needing?’ she asks him.
‘Size? Gloves have sizes?’
‘Of course, sir. How big are your girlfriend’s hands?’
Before she knows what is happening, he has taken one of her hands and is examining it, turning it in his own.
‘Tiny,’ he says.
Annie snatches her hand back, worried that someone will see, but no one is interested in her. Except this man.
‘Will you come for a drink with me?’ he asks quickly. ‘Friday after work? I’ll pick you up here. Six o’clock.’
‘Six fifteen,’ she says. ‘And they’re a size seven, in case you ever need to know.’
‘I’m not sure you have quite what I’m looking for,’ he says in a louder voice. ‘Never mind. Thank you anyway,’
He grins at her, pleased with his performance, and then he walks away from the counter, turning back to mouth ‘Friday. Six fifteen’ at her, and then he is gone.
They went for that drink. The next week it was the pictures and after that they just fell into a sort of routine. He was fun to be with and he made her laugh. He gave her something to talk to the girls at work about but he also made her realise that there might be a life for her away from home. Slowly, she began to let herself think that this might be her escape route. She knew he was a charmer from the very first moment she saw him on the bus, but there was nothing wrong with being charming. She liked to be fussed over and he really did make a fuss, pulling her chair out for her before she sat down, always standing when she stood. It was a bit old-fashioned but what was wrong with that? She thought then that she was operating on her own terms. As she lay in bed at night, listening to Ursula snoring gently through the wall, she would make elaborate plans for her future. When the front door slammed just after eleven thirty and her father made his unsteady progress through the hall, clattering his keys not into the wooden bowl on the table but on to the tiled floor, she would lie as still as she could even though there was no way that he could tell that she was still awake, and dream of a life where she did not have to pretend anymore.
CHAPTER SIX
Cara, 2017
By the time Mrs P has been with us for a week, it is as if she has always been here and I can’t remember how I coped without her. She slots neatly into our daily routines and doesn’t try to change anything, which is vital for Dad’s state of mind. Something as simple as a new person in the house could really upset the apple cart but she is so gentle that even he adapts.
A structure for our days soon builds itself around us like scaffolding. The cobwebs that I’ve grown accustomed to are gone, as are the smeary windows. I’m not quite sure when she finds the time to do the housework but I’m very grateful.
One day, in the second or third week, I am in my workroom trying to finish a wedding gown. Outside my window the day is damp and grey. At this time of year, the street is submerged in the shadow of the moor, the sun never getting high enough for its rays to hit the gardens, but I can see glimpses of brightness on the hills. The purple haze of heather, so beautiful in the early autumn, is just starting to die away and soon the moor will be cloaked in a dull brown shroud.
The wedding dress is stunning, even if I do say so myself. It’s a traditional gown in ivory duchess satin that I’m making for a bride who giggles in excitement through every fitting. The boned bodice is to be covered in tiny seed pearls, which all need sewing on by hand. It’s a fiddly, time-consuming job, made more difficult by the lack of flexibility that the taut skin on my right hand creates, but is the sort of detail that makes the difference between a dress bought off the peg and one of mine. I don’t mind the task as long as I’m not having to rush. It’s quite therapeutic and there is something about the monotony of picking up each tiny bead with the needle and letting it slide down the thread to the dress that relaxes me.
As I sit there, pricking the tiny beads on to the needle one by one, the phone starts to ring. The call turns out to be something and nothing, a young person scratching a living in a call centre like a battery hen. I’m polite but firm. When I get back, the door to my workroom is standing ajar. Panic rises in my throat as I approach. I see Dad standing in the middle of the room. He has the dress in one hand, its heavy skirt trailing all over the floor, and the box of seed pearls in the other. The box is empty. The pearls are skittering across the floorboards like so many grains of rice.
Before I can think, I shout at him. I can’t help it. All the skills that I have learned about caring for a person with Alzheimer’s desert me in my anger.
‘Dad!’ I yell. ‘What the hell are you doing? Oh God! Look at the mess. Put that dress down. You’ll ruin it!’
Dad looks at me, totally bewildered. He doesn’t know where to put the dress or what he has done wrong. Normally I would soften at this point, his confusion blunting the edges of my anger, but I’m so incensed by what might have happened that I can’t.
‘Here!’ I snap. ‘Give it to me. Oh, for God’s sake!’ I try to snatch the dress out of his hands. Dad starts to shuffle forwards, kicking the scattered beads in all directions. His slippers catch on the train of the dress and I think that he’s going to tear the fabric. ‘Watch what you’re doing!’ I shout again. ‘Bloody hell, Dad! You’re kicking them everywhere.’
He looks so hurt but I can’t feel any compassion for him. All I can see is the danger to the dress and the devastation that he’s caused in a few short moments alone. Right now, I could cheerfully murder him.
I untangle him from the dress, placing it out of harm’s way on the work table. Then I drop to my knees and start trying to rescue all the beads while Dad just stands there. I am still shouting at him when Mrs P bursts in.
‘What on earth is going on?’ she asks before she has even crossed the threshold. She casts her eyes around the room, quickly takes in what has happened and then gently slips her arm through Dad’s and starts to lead him towards the door, the beads crunching under their feet as they go. He is mumbling something. I catch the odd word but ‘sorry’ isn’t among them. I let them go and carry on picking up the beads, licking my index finger so they will stick to it and then dropping them, one by painstaking one, back into the box with shaking hands. There is no real damage done. The dress is bit crumpled but it’s still clean and in one piece.
I am under the table finding yet more pearls when Mrs P comes back. I don’t hear her but when I look up there is a pair of sensible shoes attached to legs just next to the table.
‘Is he okay?’ I ask, without emerging.
‘He’s fine,’ she says. ‘He’s just taking a nap. Do you want some help with that?’
Without waiting for a reply, she drops to her hands and knees and starts picking up the beads and dropping them one by one into the scoop of her hand.
‘I dealt with that really badly, didn’t I?’ I say to her broad back.
‘It was a tricky situation,’ she replies quietly. ‘Perhaps you should keep the door locked when you’re not in here?’
I feel chastened.
‘I do normally,’ I say, sounding like a child who is making some feeble excuse for an avoidable misdemeanour. ‘I only popped out for a second. I s
hould have known.’
Mrs P stands up, pushing her arms into the small of her back and stretching.
‘I’m too old for grovelling around on the floor,’ she says.
‘I think we’ve nearly got them all,’ I reply. ‘They’re so tiny. They get everywhere.’
Mrs P moves over to the dress, reaches out and tentatively strokes the creamy satin.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she says so quietly that I barely hear her. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Thanks,’ I say and a little electric current of pride sparks around my veins.
‘And this one?’ she asks, pointing to a calico mock-up on the tailor’s dummy.
‘That’s for next summer. It’s going to be in shell pink. Hang on,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘I’ve a fabric sample somewhere.’
I open a drawer and pull out a square of raw silk, the pink so pale that it almost looks like a trick of the light. I hold it out to Mrs P and she takes it from me like it is a butterfly that she might damage. She runs her fingers over the fabric and they falter over the burrs.
‘You’re so talented, Cara,’ she says and I swell a little more under her praise. ‘Your father must be so proud of you.’
My bubble bursts.
‘Well . . .’ I begin.
I suddenly feel the need to be honest, to tell her something of how things have been in this house over the years. I want to share how Dad has driven away my friends with his tongue and belittled my work to the point that it took every inch of determination that I had to keep going. I want to tell her how his getting ill has made my life easier and not more difficult. Then I change my mind and revert to the safe and standard answers that I might give to anyone who shows an interest.
‘Dad’s always thought my work is kind of frivolous and a bit of a waste of time, to be honest,’ I say with half a smile. ‘He could never understand why women would pay hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds for a dress that they only wear once when most marriages end in divorce anyway. When I went to art school, he told me I was wasting the opportunities he’d given me and that I should go and do something useful instead.’
