David’s arranging the light boxes on the new shelves. He seems deep in thought, but that could just be because he’s busy.
By the time I’ve finished putting them together and unpacked the clothes, a couple of hours have gone by.
It’s finally stopped raining and I can see the lunchtime crowd gathering in Stables Yard: people eating fish and chips with vinegar, or trays of fragrant noodles. The street food vendors are veiled in steam and I feel some sudden trepidation. There were no food stalls near the alleyway.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the other vintage stalls are strewn with signs telling people not to touch the garments. Don’t make me laugh, I thought when I read them. The first thing a woman wants to do when she sees something she likes is to touch it; only through your fingers can you appreciate the crackle of viscose and the comfort of wool.
But now those signs make perfect sense. What if passers-by wipe their hands on my dresses? All those people are coming through with their polystyrene trays and bags of doughnuts, licking their fingers and – oh look! Convenient!
Maybe I should hand out wet wipes. Would that be rude?
I reposition Dolly so that the blush pink dress is glittering in the weak sunlight and stand guard over her.
David glances at me with a faint half-smile and puts his tools back in a toolbox, wiping each one as he does. He clips the box shut and straightens. I can’t help noticing that his white overalls are miraculously untouched by dirt or sweat. How does he manage that? He faces Dolly thoughtfully. ‘Fern, isn’t this the dress that could be a wedding dress?’
WAH-WAH-WAH! The warning klaxon sounds in my head. ‘Ye-es,’ I reply hesitantly.
‘Don’t tell me! It’s not pink,’ he says, clicking his fingers. ‘It’s flesh, right?’
‘Blush,’ I correct him, blushing. ‘Why?’ I ask nonchalantly. ‘Do you want to buy it?’
‘This is the thing,’ he says. ‘I’m looking for a way to make it up to Gigi for this weekend. As you know, it didn’t exactly work out as she planned.’
I feel a flicker of trepidation – I think I can see the way this is going. Honestly, what’s he like? ‘David, you can’t buy this for her and tell her it’s her wedding dress.’
‘Hear me out! It’s better than that. First, she loves vintage and secondly, I’m going to book Camden Town Hall and arrange to get married to her, as a surprise.’
Arghh! I blame Moss for this; him and his marital advice. ‘No-no-no-no-no! Don’t do that! Gigi won’t like that at all, trust me.’
He looks at me doubtfully. ‘How do you know? No offence, but you told me she’d love the chopping board and we both know how that went.’
‘Yes, okay, I was looking at it from my own perspective, because the chopping board is a thing of startling beauty.’
‘You think?’ he asks, his blue eyes penetrating mine.
‘Of course! But the whole wedding business – Gigi’s going to want to plan that herself. She’ll probably want it in a cathedral, with choirs and bishops and bridesmaids all matching and looking gorgeous. It’s not something she’ll want you to surprise her with in Camden Town Hall. She’ll want to plan it herself. Planning a wedding is the fun part! I’m telling you this as a friend.’ I say it hand on heart, without an iota of self-interest.
He frowns and chews his lower lip while he ponders my good advice and I watch him hungrily, wishing I were the one chewing it.
‘A cathedral?’ he says at last. ‘Really? It all sounds a bit conventional, for Gigi.’
‘What do you think an engagement is?’ I point out in my role as ‘good old Fern’. ‘She wanted a ring so give her a ring, not a wedding.’
‘A ring,’ he says. ‘What kind?’
‘One with a diamond,’ I say wearily. ‘And take her with you to choose it.’
His face breaks into a smile and Lucy’s right, when he smiles he shows just the perfect amount of teeth.
‘Thanks, Fern.’
‘Ah,’ I say, flapping my hand as if it’s cost me no heartache at all, ‘you’re totally welcome. What are friends for?’
KIM
Dinah’s turban is a delight to wear because catching sight of myself in the mirror, the blackness of it reminds me of the thick, dark hair I had when I was young, before age faded me and it started to turn to grey in my forties, silver in my fifties and white in my eighties. Wearing it, I see myself with new eyes, as someone rather dashing.
Sitting together in Cotton’s Rhum Shack with Dinah and Fern, the turban didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow – and there were plenty of eyebrows that could have been raised because the place was packed. That acceptance is what’s given me the confidence to wear it to Kentish Town.
I’m making my way to Poundstretcher for essentials, when I realise it’s stopped raining and I fold my umbrella up, feeling joyously young and debonair.
A couple of bulky old ladies are coming out of Better Specs, wearing matching pale blue anoraks and carrying Iceland bags, engrossed in an energetic conversation.
‘Would you look at him!’ one of them says, her expression as avid as if she’s watching a minor car crash. ‘Doesn’t he look an eejit!’
‘Oh, he does all right.’
I feel a moment’s sympathy for the subject of their scorn.
‘You have to ask yourself, if you have to wear a hat, what’s wrong with a flat cap?’
It dawns on me then that I, myself, am the subject of their conversation.
They’re big women, standing in my path, blocking my way, and I clutch my umbrella with a terrible feeling of being caught out, exposed.
‘You’ll not mind us telling you the truth that that’s a terrible hat for you,’ one of them says to me, and the horrible thing is, she’s trying to be helpful.
‘That’s a woman’s hat,’ her friend says disapprovingly, jutting her chin at my turban.
They separate and walked past either side of me. I’m breathless with the nerve of them. ‘I do mind,’ I call after them.
‘Please yourself,’ one of them calls back.
I whip the turban off my head, trying to smooth my hair down while holding the umbrella between my knees, and I briefly catch the eye of a slim, well-dressed woman who’s holding the hand of a little girl in school uniform. The woman discreetly inserts a slender, manicured hand inside her bag and as she passes, she drops a coin into the turban.
I look in my hat. It’s a pound coin.
It’s the most demeaning moment of my life and I hurry home. What I haven’t taken into account is that Kentish Town is very different from Camden. Kentish Town is determinedly conventional.
I’m upset to find that contrary to what my friends have told me, political correctness is not as widespread as I’ve been led to believe. Not in Kentish Town, at least.
Back home, the fridge judders, my shoes thud, my stairs groan as I flee to my room, and for consolation I retrieve the blue feather cocktail dress and hang it up on my wardrobe door.
It’s suffered from being hidden in the golf bag. Some of the blue feathers have broken and it’s creased, but it brings me a familiar, soothing pleasure along with the ache of shame.
Enid found one of the feathers in our bedroom one evening on one of her good days when she came home from art class. She showed it to me, twirling it between her finger and thumb, and asked me where it had come from.
I’m not a slow-witted man, but I stared at the feather as if I’d been struck dumb, one unnaturally beautiful sky-blue feather; hard to imagine it had once been attached to a bird.
I looked at Enid, expecting her to confront me, but she was waiting for my opinion as to the source.
I could think of no explanation for it apart from the truth, and I couldn’t share that with her. But I wish I had. She was my moral compass. Enid and I were as close as a long-married couple can be, and I think of Mercia and Betty, how accepting they are of change, how modern the world is now. I wonder if Enid was like that too, if she had a side to her tha
t I’d never seen, or if she’d expect me to stay strong and keep to the old values.
She was holding the feather by the quill. Her eyes were curious, probing as they met mine. ‘It’s such a pretty blue, isn’t it?’ she said.
I nodded and told her I was going to put the kettle on, then I concentrated on going down the stairs slowly, deliberately, in the manner of a man with a clear conscience. In the kitchen I filled the kettle, switched it on, my mind racing. Enid wasn’t the kind of woman to let things go without an explanation. I could tell her I was having an affair with someone. Who?
A burlesque dancer?
I could tell her that a window was open and the feather flew in.
But when I gave her the cup of tea, Enid didn’t mention it again; I didn’t mention it either and she let the mystery go.
And I think the reason she let it go was that she knew it was mine all along.
I’ve got her ashes here in a mahogany box. Betty says I should scatter them somewhere meaningful, but Enid isn’t the kind of person who’d like to be scattered. She was a very together sort of person and she disapproved of littering.
I don’t know what to do with the dress. I pace the bedroom, in need of advice, and I sit on the bed and call Dinah.
‘Hello, who is this?’ she asks piercingly on answering the phone.
Enid always answered the phone by reciting our phone number. I never understood why, because obviously the person calling already knew it.
‘It’s Kim. I’ve had a dreadful experience.’
‘Dahlink!’ she says sympathetically. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to be sensible,’ I tell her hopelessly. ‘I want you to be my moral compass.’
‘I’ll come at once,’ she says. ‘Tell me your address.’
When Dinah arrives, I take her into the parlour. She sits on the sofa in a patch of sunlight, adjusting her dress over her knees, and I tell her about the two women in Kentish Town who made rude comments about my turban.
‘So what?’ she asks mildly.
‘How can you ask that? It was embarrassing.’
She takes a Cadbury’s chocolate finger from the blue willow-pattern plate. ‘These two women, are they people whose opinions you respect?’
‘No, but it was the very idea that they had a right to comment about me, to my face.’ I can feel my indignation rising.
She purses her lips and changes position on the sofa, propping her elbow on the arm of the chair. After some thought, she meets my eyes and says, ‘Kim, I know what it’s like to be reviled.’
Reviled. For a moment the idea of not being alone in this consoles me. ‘They called me an idiot and said I had a terrible hat. It was the Schiaparelli turban,’ I explain, waiting for her to join me in my indignation. ‘And then a woman thought I was begging and put a pound in it.’
The fine dark arches of her eyebrows twitch briefly. She gives a faint smile and says softly, ‘Kim, you’re a very lucky man.’
‘Lucky?’ This isn’t what I want to hear at all. ‘How can you say that? I’m weak! Wait here …’ I dash upstairs to fetch the blue dress and I bring it back down and lay it on her knee. The sheen of the blue satin is dazzling in the sunshine. ‘I’m going to give it all up, this side of me. It’s the only thing to do, isn’t it?’
‘This is the dress that Fern sold you?’ She gently straightens the broken feathers.
‘Yes!’ I try to stop my voice from trembling.
‘This is the blue dress that delighted you so much that you wrote a letter of praise about her to the store?’
‘Oh, Fern told you that?’ I feel enormously pleased that Dinah knows this side of me. It’s important to be grateful. It shows me in a good light.
‘Let me tell you, that letter of praise got Fern fired from her job.’
I’m mortified. ‘What? Why? She’s never mentioned it!’
‘She sold it to you privately from her own collection, didn’t she? So you see, for that reason, you should value it more, not because of what it cost you, but because of what it cost her. Listen to me. You asked me to be your moral compass but you’re a nice man and I’m sure your morals are fine. Sensible? Now that I can help you with. The world is full of other people, and in the same way that you like some of them and you don’t like others, and you judge some and you don’t judge others, you, yourself, are going to be liked and disliked and judged and unjudged. What for? If it’s not your turban, it might be your age, or your religion, or your culture, or your accent. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.’
She says it with great seriousness, veined hands tightly clasped on the dress on her lap, as if this is something she’s dwelt upon in depth and made her peace with.
The silence of the room rings in my ears and I have the strangest sensation I’m shrinking, as if some unconscious realisation of what she’s saying is putting me into perspective, as a small man with small problems. Reviled. ‘Are you a … are you Jewish?’
‘Yes. I was Jewish, and German.’ She puts the blue dress to one side. The corner of her mouth twitches but her eyes are kind. ‘So you see, at least with a turban, you can take it off. Kim, I have to go now. Moss will be home soon.’
She stands up and I stand, too.
I see her out and I go back to sit in her seat, in the sunshine, facing the blue dress, which is lolling against the seat cushion like a seductive lover.
LOT 17
Opulent gold Versace blouse with GV Medusa-head gilt clasps inset with diamante, 1990.
Moss is at the back of the shop on his sewing machine, which is giving off a comforting staccato hum. He’s working through the dresses on his rail. Business has been steady since we moved a couple of weeks ago, partly because we’re easier to find, but also because of the benefits of Moss being right on the spot to measure and pin.
I unfold my chair and come to sit with David in the doorway of the unit. He looks preoccupied. The coloured bunting is slapping gaily against the brick wall of the antique shop. I’m about to ask him whether he’s thought any more about the engagement ring, when his phone chimes.
He looks at the caller’s name and jumps to his feet. ‘Watch my stall for a minute, will you?’ he asks and he hurries out through the exit onto Gilbeys Yard.
I’m confused – what’s the rush?
‘Where is he?’ asks a familiar voice from behind me.
She says it so sharply that I jump. ‘Oh! Hi, Gigi! He’s just popped out for a minute. He won’t be long.’
She’s wearing ripped jeans, turquoise Converse trainers and a bra top with a black lace cover-up. She’s also got the shaggy little dog with her, so I get up and stand behind my chair, fully prepared to use it as a defence if I need to.
‘Really? Just popped out?’ She’s in a horrible mood and she looks at me with contempt, as if I’ve done something awful to her, as if she’d never jumped off the farewell stone in the Cotswolds to hug me before I left. ‘Bloody coward,’ she mutters. ‘Here, hold this, will you,’ she says, handing me the lead.
‘Hold it yourself,’ I say. ‘I hate dogs.’ My heart is thumping with anxiety, and I hold my breath and try not to break out in a sweat, because as dog lovers point out, dogs can smell fear – in my opinion, it’s an insurance policy, so that if their dog attacks then they’ll tell you you’ve only got yourself to blame.
She laughs suddenly and her bad mood dissolves. ‘Fern, you’re so funny! How come you hate dogs?’
‘It’s easy, trust me,’ I say darkly.
‘Go on, give him a stroke. He’s lovely!’ Her voice goes all mushy. ‘Who’s a lovely boy then? Who’s a lovely boy?’
The shaggy brown creature on the end of the lead sweeps the dust with his tail and looks up at her with an expression of pure and loving innocence.
Me, I’m steering well clear.
She smirks at me, making it obvious she’s totally on the dog’s side.
That’s the trouble with dog lovers – they’ve got no empathy o
r understanding for those who don’t share their feelings. ‘Personally, Gigi, I think it’s weird that people hate spiders. If you pick one up it’s like having a tickle in your hand – what’s not to like? I know they bite – all spiders bite – but the fangs are too small to break the skin …’
‘I’m not scared of spiders,’ she says.
‘Okay. Maybe it’s not a very good example. Take something like a fear of buttons. Buttons don’t bite. Obviously, I respect the fear of anyone who’s scared of buttons, but I’d never brandish one in their face or chase after them with one, or force them to stroke one, Gigi. It’s the same as pushing someone off a cliff if they’re scared of heights and saying, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”’
‘Fern, I honestly haven’t got a clue what you’re on about. Nobody hates buttons.’
‘It’s a thing!’ I stop right there because the dog starts coming towards me, its nails clicking on the ground. I back away nervously, feeling the fear take hold. ‘Can you tie him to the chair? Please?’
Gigi gives me a look of exasperation and loops the lead through the slats of David’s chair. ‘Happy now?’ she asks, folding her arms.
‘Ecstatic,’ I reply with the same amount of sarcasm, watching a polystyrene cup roll in the breeze and come to rest on a drain cover.
Gigi kicks it away with the toe of her trainers.
As I go to pick it up, curiosity gets the better of me. I asked innocently, ‘Anything exciting going on with you and David?’
‘Other than I’ve dumped him, you mean?’
I’m stunned. I can’t believe it. ‘What? How come?’
‘He’s got it in his head that we ought to get married. Too little, too late is what that is. Anyway, that whole weekend away opened my eyes, Fern. If he wants to marry someone who’s going to chop up vegetables on his bloody chopping board, then he’s had it. After a year together he still hasn’t noticed that I buy my vegetables ready-chopped.’
‘But doesn’t he want you to choose an engagement ring?’
‘I’m not choosing my own ring!’ She snorts her contempt. ‘It’s meant to be a surprise!’
A Random Act of Kindness Page 21
