The Dress Shop of Dreams

by Menna Van Praag

  Ten years ago my husband died. I stopped going outside. I stopped speaking to people. Six months ago I turned on the radio. You were reading The Great Gatsby. After that you read The Awakening, then A Passage to India. Now, as I write this, you’re reading a book about a woman hitchhiking across America.

  I’m turning 40 in December and I’ve only now started to see the world again, to see color and light. And everything is sharper, brighter, more alive than I ever remember it being before. You’ve opened my eyes and my heart. You’ve saved my life.

  With love and thanks,

  Milly Bradley

  After Walt has read the letter three times he does something he’s never done before in his life. He picks up his phone and, not thinking of the late hour or what on earth he’s going to say if she answers, he dials the stranger’s number.

  On Wednesday Cora calls in sick and cancels all her tutorials. In the four years she’s been working with Dr. Baxter it’s the first time she’s taken a single day off (for ill health or holiday) and, though he’s surprised, he tells her not to worry, that she’s welcome to a week off if she needs it. Cora is assisting the eminent Dr. Baxter in his research for the Emergency Nutrition Network to develop alternative food sources to combat acute malnutrition. Last year he’d been awarded the Nobel Prize in Biochemistry, for the world-changing creation he’d made decades before: genetically modified wheat that grew without water. So the work they do together is extremely important, and Cora is a little loath to miss a single day of it. She assures him she’ll be back as soon as she feels better. Strictly speaking she isn’t actually sick, though she has a strange ache in her chest she’s never felt before, but Cora needs time to investigate another potentially life-changing subject.

  At lunchtime Etta brings Cora a tray with a bowl of homemade garlic and truffle pasta and a plate of lamb, new potatoes and braised broccoli. After setting it down on the bedside table, Etta pulls open the curtains and the room lights up with a flood of midday sunshine.

  “I didn’t make dessert,” Etta says. “I thought you could go to Blue Water Books and get some of that cherry pie you love so much. I made these for you.” She sets a pair of new trousers on the wooden chair next to Cora’s bedside. Etta pats down the duvet then, one by one, plumps up the cushions on each of the chairs in her bedroom.

  Cora eyes the trousers suspiciously: dark blue cotton, 28.4 inches at the waist, 36.7 inches long: a perfect fit. “What’ll happen if I put those on?”

  Etta swallows a smile. “Nothing. I haven’t touched them. If you don’t want to go to the bookshop, I’m going to Fitzbillies for a coffee and Chelsea bun, maybe two. You’re welcome to join me.”

  Cora sits up in bed. “You know, those things will kill you, the rate you eat them.”

  “That may be true.” Etta smiles. “But I can’t imagine a better way to go.”

  Cora raises her eyebrows and pulls the tray of food into her lap. It’s too rich for her taste but, in the absence of a good old sandwich, she’ll eat it anyway.

  “I’m going to Oxford,” Cora says, twirling her fork around in the pasta. “I’ve decided to see if there’s any truth to your suspicions.” She eyes her grandmother. “So you should tell me now if there’s anything else you’re keeping from me. Okay?”

  “No,” Etta says, glancing out of the window. “No, of course not.”

  “Hum.” Cora gives a suspicious sniff. Then she swallows a mouthful of pasta. “Delicious.”

  Etta smiles. “Thank you.”

  As she watches her granddaughter gobble up the pasta as if she hasn’t eaten in a month, Etta is already almost regretting what she’s done. She might have known that Cora would want to investigate the facts for herself, though she didn’t think she’d do it so quickly. Etta doesn’t want Cora diving into the past, walking a painful path paved with sorrow, blood and broken glass, getting lost in the pain of events she can’t change. She wants Cora to wake up to the opportunities of hope and love in the present. Unfortunately, having awoken Cora’s heart, and given how strong-willed her granddaughter is, Etta has no hope of controlling events now, so she may as well not bother.

  An hour later, having exacted a promise from Cora that she’d give herself a day to think about it before doing anything rash, Etta is ensconced in her usual corner in Fitzbillies, famous purveyor of what are supposed to be the stickiest, sweetest Chelsea buns in the world. She remembers going to the café as a girl, it having been a fixture on Trumpington Street since 1922, though she was never allowed an entire Chelsea bun to herself in those days. Now, although she can eat as many as she likes, Etta can never manage more than one. She teases her granddaughter by suggesting otherwise, but the stodgy, sticky concoction of raisin-studded dough drenched in syrup is a challenge to consume. However, delicious though they are, the Chelsea buns are not the reason Etta has been coming to this café three times a week for nearly fifty years.

  The real reason Etta comes to this particular café is because of a man and a promise she made. Before that, when she was barely eighteen, Etta once had a brief affair with a hypnotist, who’d told her he could look into an audience and spot—at a hundred feet—those who would fall under his spell and those who wouldn’t. He used this gift to pick his volunteers. There was a tightness in the ones who would successfully resist him: stiff shoulders, firm jaw, unyielding stare. The people he picked were eager, fluid, restless, those who wanted to step into the alternative reality he was offering them. But, very occasionally, he’d be wrong. There were some, he had explained, who seemed suggestible on the surface: bright eyes, easy smile, sitting forward in their seats, when really their minds were as inaccessible as their bank accounts. Etta, he’d said, was one of them. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that she’s always been immune to her own magic.

  When Etta’s heart had been broken, by the only man who ever held it, she’d tried everything in her box of tricks to help it heal. But nothing had worked. She’d closed the shop for a week, had tried on virtually all the dresses, made little nips and tucks with her needle, stitched stars into them with her special red thread, yet the following Sunday her heart still hung heavy in her chest: a broken pendulum of bruised flesh swinging slowly back and forth.

  Now she sits at the window gazing out onto the street. Her coffee is cold now and her Chelsea bun half finished, though she can’t actually remember eating it. As she picks a raisin out of the dough and squeezes it between her thumb and forefinger Etta is seized by a sudden longing so strong and sharp it makes her gasp. A moment later, when she can breathe again, Etta closes her eyes to think of the man she lost to God almost fifty years ago.

  Milly is not a woman of moderation. She was once. She used to take baby steps through life, always tentative, always second-guessing herself. When her husband died—snatched from her suddenly by a drunk driver—she got even worse, going from baby steps to stopping walking altogether. Because she knew the terrifying truth: no matter how careful you were, how prudent and well-protected, you were never really safe. You could be hit by a car crossing the street, you could walk under a falling chimney, you could get cancer even if you never left your house. No matter what you did, death would get you sooner or later. Which made everything else meaningless. So Milly surrendered, waved her white flag and gave in. Until she heard Walt.

  It was just before midnight. Milly was in bed, staring up at the ceiling, knowing she’d be conscious for hours yet. Halfheartedly she reached for her radio alarm clock and tuned it in. When she heard his voice she froze the dial and sat up. That was the moment she started to come alive again, piece by piece, word by word.

  Walt’s words fell around her like warm rain that settled on her skin, slowly and gently soaking in. Milly closed her eyes and listened. She felt her husband’s hand in her hair, his kiss on her mouth. Her cheeks flushed with a heat that spread through her body, lapping in waves across her chest, flooding to her fingers and toes until she was lit from within by life again. At first she was an oil lamp
—her light flickering and pale. But as weeks passed and The Great Gatsby progressed Milly’s light grew stronger until, by the time Walt finished A Passage to India, it shone like a sunrise. That was when she wrote him a letter.

  And now Milly is about to meet him. The Night Reader. In person. It’s all she can do to stand up straight. Her heart thunders, her head throbs. Now she is no longer a woman of moderation. She is illuminated. She is fire and ice. She is passion, excitement and joy. After being in the desert for so long her appetite for life is unquenchable. Now, when Milly unwraps a box of chocolates she eats every one, when she uncorks a bottle of wine she drinks until the last glass and when she falls in love she gives her whole heart. When she opens the door to the bookshop Milly holds her breath. When she steps inside all she hears is blood rushing in her ears. And, when she sees him behind the counter, her mouth drops open.

  Cora wanders along All Saints’ Passage, absently counting the cracks in the paving stones beneath her feet: twenty-seven by the time she reaches the end of the street. She glances left and right, at the pretty boutiques, at the students and tourists wandering past. She’s not in the mood to mix with people or even be near them. She needs to decide what to do next. Books, Cora thinks. That’s what she needs now, the company of books and their characters: the company of famous female scientists who’ll sweep away her thoughts with their brilliant, beautiful lives. She turns back into All Saints’ Passage and steps into the bookshop. She hurries, head down, past Walt and a woman, about forty and rather frumpy, standing next to the coffee machine. Out of the corner of her eye Cora sees the woman tentatively tasting a slice of cherry pie while Walt watches. She hurries past, pushed forward by the memory of the last time she saw Walt and still embarrassed, though surprisingly not as much as she thought she would be.

  “Oh my goodness, it’s delicious!”

  The words explode behind Cora as she reaches the science section. Cora frowns. The woman’s voice sounds as her own might if she suddenly made a significant scientific discovery. That’s what it would take to elicit such excitement in her, not simply a slice of cherry pie.

  Two hours later Cora’s head is gloriously empty, her own reality washed away by someone else’s. It’s the first time she’s read without checking her watch and she’s surprised how quickly the time passed and how much better she feels. And it’s not the usual lifting of spirits she feels after an immersion into the lives of inspirational women, it’s something more. She can’t quite put her finger on the emotion, but it’s strong and deep. Cora glances down at her T-shirt and trousers, deeply suspecting that Etta’s little red stitches are secreted somewhere in the lining of her clothes.

  Reaching the counter Cora glances up again. Perhaps today, given how long she’s been reading, she’ll have two slices of cherry pie. She stops alongside the coffee machine.

  “A double espresso please,” she says, without looking up.

  “Sure.”

  The machine whirs into action and Cora’s caught by the sound of the word, the lightness of tone, the laughter beneath it. Happiness. He sounds happy, she realizes. Cora has never considered Walt a particularly happy person, not that she’s really given it much conscious thought until now, and she wonders if it’s the effect of this new woman.

  Walt, his back to her, slips the tiny china cup under the stream of coffee. It’s a minute before he turns around and when he does she’s surprised. Not by the fact that he’s smiling, but by the fact that she wants to keep looking at him. Cora never likes to look people in the eye, not if she can possibly help it. She likes to stay back, keep a safe distance. Or she did. But now even that is shifting.

  There is something intriguing about Walt, something new that captures her attention, piques her curiosity. Perhaps because, all of a sudden and without her noticing, he’s transformed from a bookish boy into a handsome man. And not just any man, since she’s seen so many men and never wanted to look twice at any of them. So Walt, statistically speaking, is an anomaly. Simply scientifically there must be something very special about him. She’s just not sure exactly what.

  Walt slides the espresso across the counter, along with a bowl of sugar cubes and a spoon. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” Cora feels herself smile. Strange. She straightens her face. “And I’ll have two slices of cherry pie, please.”

  “Oh.” Now it is Walt’s turn to smile. But his is tucked inward, a reflex, a smile indicating a secret feeling, not one he’s consciously meaning to share. “I’m afraid we’ve got none left. I baked one this morning but …”

  With an apologetic shrug he nods at the empty plate discarded on the counter. Its white expanse is smeared with red cherry juice and scattered with crumbs. Someone else has eaten her pie. With a pang of annoyance Cora thinks of the woman she saw feasting on it a couple of hours before. They have shared it. A pie for two. The woman must be Walt’s girlfriend. A new girlfriend, the reason for all the smiles. So he was drunk the other night under her window. Of course he was, how could she have imagined otherwise. Cora feels a quick twist in her chest. But it’s a different sensation from the first. Odd. New. Unrecognizable. Jealousy? Regret? Disappointment? Cora frowns. What has Etta done to her?

  Chapter Seven

  The next day, having kissed her grandmother good-bye, placating her worries and promising to be back before too long, Cora sits on a bus bound for Oxford, rumbling past endless fields of flat yellow dotted with trees, interrupted by an occasional village. An unopened biography of Dorothy Hodgkin lies in her lap. She gazes, glassy-eyed, at the dirty window but doesn’t see the countryside beyond. Cora has taken this trip with her grandmother once a year for the last twenty years. Every year on the first of June, her parents’ wedding anniversary, they board the bus at dawn and return at midnight: an eight-hour journey to a hidden graveyard. They leave a bunch of white roses on each of the two graves. Cora has never done it alone.

  Etta had offered to shut the shop and accompany her granddaughter to the Oxfordshire Police Station. In fact, she’d almost insisted. But Cora had been firm. It was something she had to do by herself, she’d said, though she isn’t entirely sure why. Perhaps so she can back out at the last minute if seized too sharply by the fear circling her now—silently waiting, like a shark in shallow waters. What will she say when she arrives? What does one say to the police in order to find out the particulars of a twenty-year-old case? What procedures will she have to go through? Will any evidence even have survived? Is Etta right in her suspicions, or not?

  As the scenery slips past, Cora, wanting a distraction from more distressing thoughts, allows her mind to rest on Walt. She’s surprised at just how many memories she has that contain him. Has she really seen him so often? How odd that he’s never stood out before now. Or perhaps the fact that he’s been such a fixture in her life, like oxygen in water and air, is exactly why she’s always taken him for granted.

  Her thirteenth birthday fell on a Wednesday. Etta had wanted to organize a party but Cora begged her not to do so. After sitting around the shop that morning, squirming about in the silk skirt—cream sprinkled with lavender lilies—her grandmother had sewn, Cora had left at lunchtime, claiming she had plans with a friend. A few hours after that Walt found her squeezed into a corner in the back of the bookshop, face buried in a biography of Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

  “Happy birthday,” Walt said softly.

  Cora glanced up with a frown. “How do you know it’s my birthday?”

  Walt blushed and shrugged.

  “When’s your birthday?” Cora snapped.

  “Thirty-first of October,” Walt said, softer still.

  “Halloween.” Cora considered this. “Same day as Adolf von Baeyer and Sir Joseph Swan.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Scientists,” Cora said. “You must have heard of Sir Swan?”

  “Sure.” Walt lied. “I don’t know who else is born on your birthday, but I bet—”

  “Albert Einstein.” Cora let
slip a smile of pride and closed her book. “Sorry I snapped at you. I don’t like birthdays very much.”

  “Why not?”

  Cora glanced down at the book again, tracing her forefinger over a woman’s face. While he waited, Walt sat down a few feet away, took off his backpack and set it down on the floor next to his knees.

  “My parents died on my birthday.” Cora spoke without looking up. Her finger stopped on the B of Burnell. “So birthdays always make me sad.”

  “Oh,” Walt said. “I’m sorry.”

  Cora shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I just, if my dad died, too … being an orphan, I can’t imagine it. I’m sorry I brought it up.” Then Walt brightened. “I’ve got something that might cheer you up.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a bit of a secret. My dad gave it to me last year, on my tenth birthday. I’m not supposed to show it to anyone else.”

  “Really?” Cora leaned forward, fingers twitching.

  Walt unzipped his backpack and very carefully pulled out a book. It was quite small, just bigger than a deck of cards, bound in dark red leather with an inscription embossed in gold on the front that Cora couldn’t quite make out.

  “My dad had my name engraved on the front.” Walt held it tight between both hands. “It’s—”

  “Walt! Where are you?”

  At his name, Walt sat up, eyes wide with shock, his mouth straightaway shut with a guilty grimace.

  “Oops,” he whispered. “That’s Dad. I’d better go.”

  Cora nodded, glancing once more at the book as Walt slipped it back into his bag. As he started to scurry away, Cora stood up.

  “Wait.”

  Walt turned back.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and smiled.