A Random Act of Kindness

by Sophie Jenkins

  In a way, it makes it better. ‘Dinah, think about it. He copied them for you, piece by piece. Think of the time he took, the attention to detail.’

  ‘Bof! He cheated me,’ she says, her voice hard. ‘Don’t tell me it’s the same – it’s not the same. Me in my home-made clothes, thinking I was someone! All these years he let me think I was worth something and I trusted him, I believed it,’ she says with growing comprehension. She settles her intense tawny gaze on me and she starts to laugh, self-mocking and shrill. ‘Look at me! I’ve been so proud of myself,’ she says, ‘and all this time I’ve been wearing fakes, and you know what? I am a fake! And Moss is a fake, too.’

  ‘Dinah, let’s just get out of here,’ I beg.

  A couple of old ladies carrying clothes in Selfridges bags edge past us disapprovingly to get to their table and she turns to confront them.

  ‘Take a look at a fake!’ she shouts at them, jutting out her chin, and they avert their eyes and pretend not to hear.

  ‘Come on, please? Let’s go.’

  ‘He made a fool of you as well,’ she says, turning on me, her voice high-pitched with denigration, her eyes feverish with tears. ‘Curator of fashion!’ she mocks.

  In the force of her anger I feel my core self disconnecting, shutting down. I should never have taken her there. I’ve ruined everything.

  As she gestures wildly, Dinah’s hand catches in her necklace, snapping the thread, and the beads scatter to the floor. ‘Oh!’ she says in dismay and she grabs her red quilted bag, pushing past the people coming through the door.

  I’m numbed by these developments and I feel frustrated and impotent in the face of Dinah’s rage. I give orders to myself in a voice as stern as my mother’s, feeling six years old again. Put your coat on. Put the suits back in the garment bags. Zip up the bags. Put the garment bags in the suit carrier.

  This way, I leave the auction house. The air is fresh and I gulp it in gratefully. At the other end of the street, I catch the brightness of Dinah’s red jacket, the gleam of her dark hair. She’s not that far away and yet she’s so distant that I convince myself I can never catch her up.

  I don’t even try.

  LOT 20

  Pale blue dolly-bird dress with elbow-length choirboy sleeves, viscose, round neck, medium. Unlabelled.

  I repeatedly try calling Dinah but she doesn’t reply. Back at the market on Wednesday morning I fill David in on what’s happened.

  ‘Fakes?’ he says. ‘Bloody hell! Don’t look so worried, Fern. They’ll probably turn up today as if nothing’s happened.’

  ‘You think?’ I ask hopefully.

  He’s completely wrong about this.

  When Moss comes in he takes off his trilby and throws it down on the table. ‘You’ve destroyed our lives,’ he says furiously.

  I feel sick. ‘I’m sorry. It was for a good reason; did Dinah tell you that? She wanted to surprise you.’

  He ignores me and I follow him to the back of the shop, where he looks at the rail of dresses waiting to be altered. He takes off his jacket, unhooks one, uncovers his sewing machine and stoically sits down to start work.

  ‘Look, how were we to know they were fakes?’

  Moss looks hurt. ‘They weren’t fakes. They were the original fabric, the original pattern, everything Chanel quality, apart from the label. At that time there were four thousand of us working for her and we worked for low wages and long hours until she shut the couture house in 1939, lying to us that it was because of the war. What were we to do? We kept the patterns. How else would we know how to copy? I wanted to give these gifts to my wife, gifts she’d value. Since when is that a crime? This is your fault! She was happy, but you tried to sell her happiness and now she wants to leave me. There’s nothing left for me if she goes.’

  ‘Come on, Moss, sit down, buddy,’ David says. He pushes his fingers through the hair at his temples. ‘I don’t understand. What difference does it make who made them, whether it’s Chanel or you? Neither Dinah nor Fern could tell the difference and she looks wonderful in them. You made them for her because you love her. Surely that’s what counts?’

  I rub the heel of my hand against my forehead. ‘That’s not really how it works in fashion.’ Although, for the first time, I wonder if it should be.

  ‘Where’s Dinah now?’

  ‘In bed.’ There’s a look of great sorrow and suffering in his eyes, which cuts me to my core.

  The morning passes slowly. I’m wrapping up a dress for a customer, when I sense someone looking at me.

  It’s a middle-aged woman, with pale hair the colour of a latte and a solemn expression. She’s wearing a beige polka-dot wrap-around dress and for a moment she’s lost from view as people walk past, but then she emerges again as immovable as a rock in a river.

  Blimey! I realise with a start. It’s my mother!

  As my customer writes her details in my client book, I give my mother a brief wave in the form of a gentle, almost imperceptible waggle of my fingers. Nothing too vulgar or ostentatious, you understand. She hates that.

  My mother glides over, her skirt dancing in the breeze. She looks at our shop with its universe on one side and rainbow array of dresses on the other.

  As my client leaves, I say, ‘Mum!’

  ‘Annabel,’ she corrects me, squeezing my upper arms in greeting and at the same time glancing over my shoulder to look at David. She has a radar for good-looking men.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask warily.

  ‘I’ve come to stay with you for a while. I’ve left my case at the flat. You really are neglecting it; it smells strongly of stale wine.’

  ‘Does it?’ How embarrassing. I avoid catching David’s eye. I can’t hide who I am when she’s with me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have cleaned up.’

  Still looking unsubtly at David, she says, ‘I didn’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  I’m trying to interpret the words ‘for a while’. In visitor language, the scale goes like this: a night, a couple of nights, a few days, a week or so … “A while” means indefinitely. If she’d said a week or so, my heart would still have stopped. As it is, I’m experiencing all the symptoms of shock: rapid pulse, dry mouth. If I had to have one of my parents living with me, I’d prefer my father, who’s much less high-maintenance. ‘Come and sit down,’ I say when I can finally speak.

  She sits next to David and gives him a brave and challenging pout. Her dress gapes gently, showing cleavage, her hair curves around her chin, and she looks poised and very beautiful.

  David introduces himself. ‘David Westwood.’

  ‘Any relation to Vivienne?’ she asks, sandwiching his beautiful tanned hand in her small, elegant ones.

  ‘That’s funny, it’s exactly what Fern said when we first met.’

  My mother doesn’t find it at all funny. She looks at me accusingly, as if I’ve stolen her punchline. ‘And are you?’ she asks him firmly.

  ‘No,’ he replies equally firmly.

  My mother responds to this by tapping him on his bare arm. I’ve seen her do this before – she pets men playfully. Not all men, obviously. Just the lovely ones. I hate her for manhandling my man. Or woman-handling my colleague. ‘Won’t Dad mind being on his own?’ I ask treacherously, just to remind her that she’s got a man of her own at home.

  She avoids the question. ‘Remember whose flat it is, Fern,’ she says sharply. She turns back to David. ‘Fern lives in our flat, you see. Jonathan used to spend the week in London and come to our place in Berkhamsted at weekends. Now he’s retired he finds himself with too little to do. We have staff,’ she adds unnecessarily.

  It’s embarrassing that my mother thinks this kind of talk impresses people.

  ‘Fire them,’ David says logically, folding his arms, ‘and get your husband to do the work. It’ll stop him from getting bored.’

  I brace myself, because it’s touch-and-go how she’ll respond to this verbal sparring, but in the end she g
ives him another playful pat and he light-heartedly retaliates by giving her one back, a little less playfully, at least in my imagination.

  My mother’s very well aware of the effect she has on men. She gets to her feet and starts looking through the dresses, managing to put an extra sway in her step on the assumption we’re watching her. Which we are.

  Actually, I’m wrong. David’s not looking at her; he’s looking at me, eyebrows raised, suppressing a smile as if we’re conspirators, which makes me feel better.

  She’s now looking at the light boxes. ‘What are these?’

  ‘What star sign are you?’

  ‘Scorpio,’ she says.

  ‘The sign with the sting.’ David selects a sheet of Perspex and slots it into a light box. ‘These are the claws and this large star in the abdomen, Alpha Scorpii, it’s red, see? That’s how you can identify it in the southern hemisphere, by its colour. Down here is the tail. The scorpion was sent by the Earth goddess Gaia to kill Orion when he boasted that there was nothing on earth that he wouldn’t hunt.’

  ‘The heavens have got such romantic stories,’ she says softly, holding her face at the best angle to catch the light.

  ‘Not all of them,’ David says. ‘There’s the Chisel. And the Air Pump.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ she says suspiciously.

  He’s unaware that my mother hates being disagreed with.

  ‘Haven’t you?’ He sounds surprised, as if this shows an unexpected level of ignorance.

  I realise that not knowing there’s a constellation called the Chisel isn’t something that would bother most people, but my mother thinks he’s mocking her and takes it as a personal attack. She walks away, scowling.

  I’m meant to go after her, but I feel I owe David an explanation for her behaviour.

  ‘She doesn’t have staff,’ I tell him, mortified. ‘They’ve got an occasional gardener and a weekly cleaning lady, and every month someone comes to clean windows.’

  He laughs and pats me on the head. Honestly, my mother’s whole patting thing has gone viral.

  My mother turns to see if I’m following her. She beckons me crossly.

  ‘She’s going to yell at you, isn’t she?’ David says.

  ‘Yeah.’ Because of you.

  ‘Don’t go. Ignore her.’

  ‘I can’t, she’s my mother.’

  ‘She’s not your mother,’ he grins, looking at me from under his eyebrows. ‘She’s Annabel.’

  ‘Fern!’

  Her voice barks across the yard and I feel a rush of anxiety. ‘I’d better go.’

  I catch up with my mother and she’s predictably furious with me for allowing David to ‘put her down’. I have learnt from experience that it’s no use trying to be rational when she’s in this state. My mother’s feelings take priority, even if those feelings have arisen from nothing more than a misunderstanding or a failure in communication. The only way for me to deal with it is to freeze and wait it out and listen, penitent, to everything that she accuses me of, like my failure to succeed, or my failure to understand her, or my failure to give her the credit she deserves, or my failure to offer her the protection that she needs.

  I’m not wearing the right outfit for this; I need Eighties shoulder pads, power dressing, not this cute pale blue dress with choirboy sleeves which makes me feel more like a doll than a dolly bird.

  ‘Hey! Fern! Fern! Fern Banks!’ David’s bellowing to me. ‘Come back! Customers!’

  ‘Sorry, Mum, I’ve got to go back.’ I pluck at the button on my dress apologetically. ‘We’re short-staffed.’ I hurry back and it’s true, I have got customers.

  Now that I’m back, my heart is pounding. I can’t look at David. I feel as if he’s seeing me naked for the first time.

  I retreat to the back of the shop and call my father urgently. ‘What’s going on with you and Mum?’

  ‘Just let her stay for a few days,’ he says.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Nothing’s happening. We need a break from each other, that’s all, darling.’

  ‘Can’t she go to a spa or something?’ I ask desperately.

  ‘She wants to be with you. She thinks you’ll understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘Understand her, I suppose.’

  ‘I do understand her, but it doesn’t make her any easier to live with.’

  ‘Do your best,’ he says unhelpfully.

  LOT 21

  Burberry Classic trench coat, beige, 1960s, size M.

  When I get back home that evening, my mother has changed into a blue shift dress and she’s still tight-lipped from earlier.

  Determined to do my best to understand, as instructed by my father, I start the conversation. ‘So,’ I say decisively, going straight into the kitchen and opening a bottle of wine. I’m hungry, but she’s eaten all the Marmite thins. ‘What are your plans, exactly?’

  ‘Fern, I need my own space,’ she declares. ‘I’m not used to having your father around twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘To be fair, there’s more space at home than here.’ I can see she’s put her suitcase in my bedroom, so I’ll be sleeping on the sofa for the foreseeable future. The wine is warm and cheap and I can trace its fiery path into my guts.

  ‘But unlike your father, you’re not around in the daytime, are you? You’re in the market, selling second-hand clothes,’ she points out logically.

  I sit on the stool and clasp my hands behind my head to stretch the tension out. In a couple of hours I can legitimately say goodnight and go to bed, and that’s the thought I’m hanging on to.

  But my mother hasn’t finished yet. She gives a shrill, brief laugh. ‘Second-hand clothes!’ she repeats and takes a mouthful of her drink. ‘You’ve never been able to stick at anything, have you? You decide not to be a fashion designer. You get fired from your job. You set fire to the flat. You lose your boyfriends. You have no sense of responsibility. You’ve squandered every privilege you’ve been given. What have you achieved in life?’

  I try to answer, swallowing the panic rising in me. ‘I’m good at – I’m good at finding clothes that suit people.’

  ‘Then go back to being a sales assistant and bring in a regular income so that you can afford a room of your own. Think about the future. What about a husband? Children?’ my mother asks. ‘This is hardly a secure basis for a good family life.’

  I finish my drink in one. After the initial shudder the injustice rises up in me.

  Alcohol. The insidious false bravado, the loss of mental restraint. At the same time there’s a small sober part of me begging me to keep quiet for my own good because I’ve never faced up to her before. ‘Family life?’ I say scornfully. ‘Like ours, you mean? We were never a family.’

  ‘Of course we were!’ She turns furiously to face me. ‘We were!’

  This is what my childhood was like: I was dressed up and paraded around by my mother while my father kept away from us both in this very flat, even though our house was only commuting distance. I was more like a doll for her to play with than a person in my own right, with my own thoughts and feelings. A good family life?

  I hook my hair behind my ear. ‘And when I started getting the attention from men instead of you getting it – attention I didn’t want, because I knew it was going to make you angry with me – that was it for you, wasn’t it? So it’s easier for me to keep men at a distance and let you steal the limelight. When you talk about me having a husband and children, I haven’t got much chance of that happening, have I?’

  There’s a fearful pause, and I brace myself and count the seconds, waiting with self-loathing for that ominous gap between lightning and thunder.

  ‘You want to take a good look at yourself,’ my mother says in a voice that’s dangerously low. ‘You’ve never had the male attention that I’ve had. I make sure I always fulfil my potential, unlike you. So don’t blame me for the way your life’s turned out.’

 
; And there it is, her truth versus my truth.

  What did I expect? I’d expected her to apologise and hug me and beg forgiveness, but for that to happen she’d have to see it from my point of view.

  My throat’s tight from the tension and my heart’s pounding with anxiety, but my tears recede before they can spill and I’m bitterly grateful for that.

  ‘And the reason that I dressed you up was that you were such a shy, insecure little thing, I wanted to make you more confident,’ she says as she gets to her feet. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  It’s been a pretty shit day all round. I can’t breathe properly. I bend over and hug my knees until the blood comes back into my head.

  What have I done with my life? I’ve tried to cure people with fashion. Alexa’s comment comes back to me and in my mother’s voice I can hear her saying: Have you any idea how trivial you sound?

  My mother slams the bedroom door. I lie on the sofa and wrap myself in my Burberry trench coat, designed for soldiers fighting in the Great War, and try to sleep.

  LOT 22

  A Givenchy midnight-blue, full-length evening coat, ¾ sleeves, frog-fasteners, couture-labelled, sold as seen.

  My mother and I are living like flatmates who steal each other’s yoghurts: we’re icily polite.

  I’m about to get settled on the sofa for the night, when I get a frantic phone call from Moss telling me that Dinah’s very upset and he doesn’t know what to do. He sounds so desperate that I get dressed again, pulling on a midnight-blue evening coat that has the voluminous warmth of a comfort blanket, and catch an Uber taxi to Hampstead.

  It’s a dark, cloudy night. As I walk up their path I can smell a fire burning.

  Moss meets me anxiously at the door in a navy silk dressing gown.

  ‘She’s out the back,’ he says, ‘destroying everything I made her. Come this way.’ And he lets me down the side of the house and opens the side gate for me.