Page 17 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
This was true enough, for I did think he looked fun, in a possibly malicious kind of way, though he really wasn’t my type … and I was starting to wonder if Marco wasn’t either!
Love makes you believe you can paper over the cracks in a relationship, but the chasms are still there, ever widening, just under the surface.
‘I suppose Wilfric asked you for your phone number?’ Marco demanded huffily.
‘Of course he didn’t. Don’t be an idiot! He’s acting in your play and you’re directing it, so he’s hardly likely to make a pass at your fiancée, is he? And I wouldn’t have given him my number even if hehadasked – what do you take me for?’
‘No, of course you wouldn’t, darling, sorry,’ Marco said hastily. He went on, in a slightly more conciliatory tone, ‘Look, sweetheart, I’ll have to go now because I’m following the crowd on for dinner. So unless you want to jump into a taxi and join us—’
‘Yeah, right – even if I wanted to do that, it would cost me half my week’s wages,’ I said, probably unfairly because he usually offered to send a taxi from the firm Mummy patronized to collect me. ‘And you’ve forgotten that I have to go to work tomorrow and I quite like to sleep occasionally.’
‘Oh … yes, I had forgotten, because it’s ridiculous that you have to work at weekends.’
‘We’re busy – I’ll probably have to carry on after lunch, too – though I’ll still come over to your place when I’ve finished and stay. I think we really need a quiet evening in, because there are lots of things we ought to discuss—’
‘Ah, tomorrow night …’ he broke in. ‘Well, that’s another thing I was going to tell you, if you hadn’t dashed off earlier:I’m driving down to Suffolk after lunch tomorrow, to stay with Roy Digby at his country place. We have some business to discuss.’
‘Morebusiness? Really?’ I said coldly, because Roy is the manager of the Cockleshell Theatre and what could they possibly have to discuss that was so urgent it couldn’t wait till Monday? The price of tickets and what colour the programmes should be?
Marco’s voice dropped a couple of octaves into the mellow, more intimate tone that usually melted my heart, and sometimes my knees. ‘Don’t be cross, darling … and it’s wasted when I can’t see you, because you look beautiful when you’re angry.’
‘That is such a total cliché, I don’t know how you can trot it out!’ I snapped.
‘Sweetheart, you know I love you, but our future really does hang on the success of my new play. I’m doing these things forbothof us. And as for Mirrie, I have to keep my leading lady sweet, don’t I?’
‘I don’t think she needs sweetening; she already reminds me of one of those Venus flytrap plants,’ I said. ‘All honey to lure you in, before snapping you up.’
He laughed and said lightly: ‘It’s just her way! Look,’ he added, ‘I’ve had a thought: why don’t I pick you up from Beng & Briggs at twelve tomorrow for lunch? I can go down to Roy’s any time that afternoon.’
‘I can’t! I’m sure we’ll be working all day, so they’ll probably get in sandwiches.’
‘You’re entitled to a lunch break, so they’ll just have to do without you for an hour, so I’ll see you at twelve,’ he said. ‘Must dash now – love you!’
And with that, he was gone, leaving me feeling as unsure and unsettled as I’d been when I first got back from the party.
*
Lunch next day didn’t help matters much. For a start, I was in the middle of something really intricate, and my department head, Madame Bertille, clearly thought badly of my dashing out for an hour when everyone else was working on.
Not good, especially since I was hoping to become head of department when she retired – if she ever did, because she was so ancient that I expected her to wither to dust one day, like that She character from a Rider Haggard novel that was made into a film.
Then, to make matters worse, Marco was fifteen minutes late, so we had a fast and scrappy – in every sense of the word – lunch in a Pret a Manger, before I rushed back again.
Marco had looked more than a bit rough, especially when he took off the dark glasses he was wearing for a moment and revealed bloodshot eyes with dark lavender shadows underneath.
‘Heavy night?’ I suggested sarcastically, over my sandwich and coffee, and he winced and asked me to speak more quietly.
‘I’ve got a bit of a headache, darling.’
‘You mean a hangover?’
‘Well, a bit,’ he confessed. ‘We went on to Wilfric’s flat after dinner and he was making absinthe cocktails.’
‘I thought as much. Insisting on wearing your dark glasses indoors is a bit of a giveaway.’
‘Ifyou’dbeen there, Garland, I don’t suppose I’d have drunk so much.’
‘I’m not your keeper, Marco, or your mummy. You’re fully adult and in charge of your own actions. Besides, you know very well I can’t do late nights before a working day, and my work is very important to me – just as important as yours is to you,’ I said pointedly.
