Page 137 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
I’d finished the final touches to the marionettes’ costumes the evening before, so on impulse I decide to take them over to Thom. At least they would no longer be quietly hanging around!
Afterwards I was going to treat myself to lunch at the Pink Elephant and thought he might like to join me – maybe Pearl and Simon too, so I sent them a text. Then, if they weren’t doing anything else on their half-day, I could take them round the museum to show them how it was all looking now.
I had some goodies from Viv to share with Thom: almond finger biscuits. I put those in my shoulder bag, then unhooked the two marionettes and set off, finding them quite heavy to hold high enough to keep them clear of the cobbles.
When Thom had admired the costumes, I handed him the box with his share of the biscuits.
‘Viv suggested I share them with you, like she did the last time.’
‘I don’t know why she’s suddenly started sending me goodies when she appears to be scared to death of me,’ he said. ‘Do you think it’s like offering up a sacrifice to a monster, to keep it sweet?’
‘Maybe … She seems a lot more scared of you than Simon, although actually, it would be hard to be scared of Simon, because he’s like an overgrown schoolboy, full of goodwill, enthusiasm and kindness.’
‘I don’t think I’m frightening, am I?’ he asked.
‘You can be, a bit … sort of reserved and intense,’ I said. ‘And you reallywerequietly frightening in the Silvermann films, though I shouldn’t think Viv has seen them.’
‘In the films, I was supposed to emerge as the actual manipulator of events behind the scenes, even though Leo’s character was the handsome, brave, monster-slaying hero.’
‘But it was you who ultimately saved the world – or one of them, because there seemed to be several overlapping realities. I can’t say I ever really got the hang of it,’ I confessed.
‘I think the books were cleverly written, but hard to get over on film,’ he said, and then added, slightly bitterly, ‘Mirrie played her devious, double-dealing character to perfection. It must have come naturally to her, given what happened later with Leo.’
‘It doesn’t do to dwell on the past,’ I said. ‘Not the bad parts of it, anyway.’
‘No, you’re right, Garland, we should only remember the happy times, like when we were children,’ he agreed. ‘And those few years we had after we met again in London, when we were best friends – those were good.’
He was looking down at me very seriously so I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little, ‘And now, here we are, together again! I can see now that you were right when you said that although we can never go back to the relationship we had before, wecanbuild something good and new on the foundations.’
‘Something permanent this time,’ he agreed. ‘We both hadour lives ripped apart when your parents died, and I can see now I caused you great hurt when I left London and cut off contact, even though I thought I was doing it in your best interests.’
He gave a rather wry smile. ‘I’d come back from a long stay here with the intention of finally telling you where I kept vanishing to, but there you were, confessing you were madly in love with Marco Parys!’
‘You were actually going to tell me about your cottage here and what you were doing?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, because I’d made up my mind to move here permanently after my part in that last play finished. In fact,’ he added, ‘I’d only kept my house on and taken the occasional role because of you. You were doing so well in your job and seemed permanently fixed in London.’
‘You had been spending more and more time up here and I missed you when you were away. I think that’s partly why I fell for Marco so hard: I was lonely and he was just …there.’
‘These things just happen, but I knew Marco wasn’t worthy of you … and we both lost our tempers in that last argument, didn’t we?’
‘Mine’s easily lost,’ I said ruefully, ‘but I’m sure we would have made it up again if I hadn’t had to go up to Scotland at the crucial moment when Leo overdosed. I should have been there for you, but I didn’t even hear about it until days after it happened, and by the time I could get back, you’d vanished.’
‘Like I said, it did seem the best thing for you … but I had a long talk with the Rev. Jo-Jo the other day and she made me see how cruel it had been to cut you off dead like that.’
‘I’ve talked to her, too,’ I admitted, thinking we all seemed to have been baring our souls to the vicar!
‘At first I thought you just needed time and I kept waitingfor you to get back in touch with me. But you didn’t, and I had no idea if you were alive or dead, happy or—’ I broke off and swallowed hard. ‘You were always in my mind.’
‘I see that now, and of course it was different for me, because Mal and Demelza let me know any news of you, so I knew you were engaged to Marco and doing well at Beng & Briggs.’
‘I was in line to be head of the historical costume department, once Madame Bertille finally retired.’
‘Jo-Jo said I should have trusted you not to tell anyone, even Marco, where I was.’
‘She was quite right! Just being able to email you would have been something. There were so many times when I wanted to talk to you, or share something funny that had happened. We always had the same sense of the ridiculous. Marco never shared that or understood why sometimes I needed to get away from everything and be alone, in that old caravan I used to rent.’
‘The one on a farm, with no mod cons?’ he said with a grin. ‘You described it to me, but, like me with this place, you never said where it was. But I understood why: you needed that privacy.’
