Page 18 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘I’m starting to think your work is more important to you thanIam,’ he said, like a sulky adolescent.
‘That’s rich, when you’re so obsessed with your own work I’m only surprised you occasionally remember I exist! Look how long it took you last night to notice I wasn’t at the party!’
‘Darling!’ he said reprovingly, in a hurt voice, taking my hand across the table. ‘I know you think it’s an old cliché, but you really are beautiful when you’re angry and flashing those green eyes at me!’
That didn’t soften my mood in the least, but luckily for him I had a mouthful of sandwich.
Before I could speak, he gave my hand a squeeze and said, in a wheedling tone, ‘Come on, Garland! I admit I neglected you at the party and I was lucky Wilfric didn’t try and snatch you away from under my nose! But I’m really sorry.’
I looked back at him, all melting smile and ruffled dark Byronic hair, but somehow the charm wasn’t having the usual effect, probably because the dark glasses kind of made me feel he’d blanked me out. If eyes are the windows to the soul, he’d drawn down the blinds.
‘OfcourseI think your job is important – and you are brilliant at it! I can’t wait to see the finished Titania costume.’
‘You’d have had it already, except we had to wait for more of the pearl trimming and the lilac gauze for the neck ruff,’ I said,slightly mollified to the point where I might have begun to thaw slightly.
But then he blew it by saying, ‘Mirrie kept on and on about that replica of the evening dress you’ve made – she’s dying to see it.’
‘You’d better invite her to our wedding, then, if we ever finally set a date for it, because I’m not showing it to anyone before then,’ I said firmly. ‘And speaking of our wedding, there are a few important things we still need to settle first, Marco. I’d hoped we could have a quiet evening in together tonight and make some decisions.’
‘Darling, we’ll have lots of time to talk things through and decide on a date,’ he promised, giving my hand another squeeze and then letting it go. ‘It’s hard to think of anything else with opening night so close. The success of this play is important to both of us, isn’t it? If itisa success,’ he added, in one of the sudden descents into self-doubt that usually endeared him to me.
‘It will be,’ I assured him automatically, because my mind was elsewhere. I’d checked my watch and was already gathering up my bag, ready to go.
‘I’ll have to leave you now, Marco, or I’ll overrun my hour and Madame Bertille will kill me. Have a nice weekend in the country,’ I added insincerely, and then dashed off.
I didn’t wait for a kiss, which would have been bristly, since he didn’t appear to have got round to shaving that morning … and the vogue for designer stubble has long since passed.
Our meeting had made me feel even more jangled and out of sympathy with him than before, so it was a relief to get back to my workroom, with the strangely comforting smell of a costumier’s: a mix of fabric, warm machine oil, and wooden cutting tables and benches. It brought back memories of Mum’ssewing room and my happy childhood … and Thom, though I pushed that thought firmly away.
*
I didn’t sleep well that night, because the moment I laid down, all the disquieting thoughts and doubts about my future with Marco came rushing up to the surface.
Marco had looked so ghastly earlier that it even occurred to me that he might have slipped back into his old ways and, while I was sure some of his old friends still snorted fairy dust as if it was no more harmful than alcohol, he had sworn to me before I agreed to go out with him that all that was long behind him.
Ivo hadn’t believed that, of course – it was mainly what we argued about when I told him I was seeing Marco – but then his views of him were for ever coloured by Marco’s having been one of that group of Leo’s friends that he blamed for first leading him astray.
I may never have been part of that scene, but I wasn’t a fool and knew what went on – and probably still does – when so often a nose job seems to mean turning a mono-snout into two nostrils again.
Then I felt a bit ashamed of myself because Marco, apart from over-indulging in drink occasionally, has never given me any reason to doubt his assurances that he had changed his ways.
Finally I drifted off into an uneasy sleep, but I woke early on Sunday morning and, after breakfast, tried to distract myself with work.
I’d just started cutting out the satin overdress for my miniature mannequin when Honey rang me, sounding a lot fresher, brighter and cheerier than I felt.
‘Garland, are you at home? Just say if you’re at Marco’s and it’s not convenient, and I can catch you later.’
‘No, I am at home, it’s fine,’ I assured her, putting down my smallest pair of dressmaking shears with a dull clunk on the worktable.
I glanced at the clock and said, surprised, ‘It’s only eight o’clock, Honey! I didn’t have you down as a morning person.’
‘I’m usually not, but I finished the final draft ofBloody Young Menin the early hours and emailed it off to my editor, and then I was too wired to sleep. I’m still buzzing, but I expect I’ll slump later, though it doesn’t matter because I’m taking the rest of the day off. I’ll start a new one tomorrow – thatArmed with Poisonidea, which I had when I was talking to you over tea in Claridge’s. Do you remember? The poison dust is coating the inside of the suit of stage armour.’
‘Yes, I do remember! It’s a really ingenious idea.’
‘It’s a bitsubtlefor me, really, but I expect I can get a bit more gore into it as I go on. Maybe there could be an iron maiden that turns out to be lethal, not a stage prop, too?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, I didn’t ring to talk about my books but because I want to know all about this drinks party you were going to on Friday after work. It might be useful, since the new book will be set around actors and the theatre. So – tell me all!’
I told Honey about the disastrous party, and how Marco had gone for dinner without me.
