Page 61 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
I think her conscience was pricking her about having dumped her cat on me, as well it might, but I assured her that Golightly seemed to be settling down and that I was going to try letting him out, once I thought he was ready for it.
‘But if he strays beyond the mews I may have to rethink that. I’m getting him microchipped this afternoon, in case he gets lost.’
‘He’s neverbeenout, other than up and down that bit of fire escape, and he couldn’t get off that,’ she said doubtfully, but it clearly wasn’t her problem any more because then she began to tell me how well her sister was doing and that looking after her and the dogs kept her busy.
After the call was finished, I was just about to turn the laptop off when I noticed there was an email in my junk box. When I looked, it was from Marco.
My hand hovered over the delete option while I stared at it.
The subject was: ‘Garland!!!’, which wasn’t informative, but finally I opened it, wondering if Honey had been right and he wanted to apologize to me. Not that anything he could say would make any difference, but perhaps I’d better find out.
It read:
Garland,
I’ve been trying to reach you without success – you don’t even answer your phone.
‘Well,quelle surprise, sweetie,’ I muttered.
While I admit it was totally out of order of me to let Mirrie borrow your wedding dress, no harm was done to it and you’d never even have known had you not been in the theatre that day and overheard her conversation with Wilfric. This also seemed to give you the totally wrong idea about my relationship with Mirrie, which was strictly professional – and I certainly never told her I intended to end our engagement!
‘Oh, pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!’ I said impatiently.
I may have flirted with Mirrie to keep her sweet, because she’s so temperamental – a nightmare to work with – but that was all.
But even had you thought there was something more between us, your action in destroying the costume on the eve of the dress rehearsal was way out of order. I know your quick temper, but I still find it hard to believe you could have done such a thing.
‘Well, that makes two of us, Marco!’
Leaving that aside, I had thought you’d want to know how the opening night ofA Midsummer Night’s Madnesswent, especially since it was your eye for the common touch that persuaded me to turn it into supernatural suspense.
Thecommon touch? Thanks a bunch, I thought.
It was a huge success, but of course, that kind of thing isn’t entirely me, and friends have said how much they preferred my previous plays, so I have returned somewhat to my roots with the one I am now writing. The opening night was such a success that I am sure my new audience will follow me, whatever direction I take.
He’d be quite mad if he took their advice and went back to the arty-farty stuff, because the audiences who had appreciatedA Midsummer Night’s Madnesswere going to expect more of the same in his next play.
I started to wonder if he’d been drunk when he wrote this email … and glancing back, saw it had been sent early onTuesday morning, probably in a mood of post-opening-night alcohol-fuelled euphoria.
While I was justifiably furious at finding you had destroyed the costume, once I had heard from Wilfric what you’d overheard, and learned you had lost your job, I felt that was punishment enough and I am now prepared to forgive you.
That was very big of him – not!
Fortunately, Beng & Briggs managed to create something passable for Mirrie to wear until a true replica of the original can be recreated.
I was quite sure they’d have come up with something in time for the opening night, but unless Madame Bertille herself took a hand in making the replica Titania costume, it wouldn’t be anything near as good as the one I’d made.
Apart from his name, that was the end of Marco’s email. There had been no enquiry about how I was going to manage without a job – it had been entirely about him.
I deleted the email, although I didn’t go quite as far as blocking him. I assumed he had no idea I’d even left London yet, and it might be better to know if he finally discovered where I was. I also had a strong suspicion that soon he would come to miss my ‘common touch’ in his writing, even if he didn’t miss anything else about me …
I felt unsettled after that, so I did a little research intoThe Murder in the Red Barn, which was based on a real crime, to check the date it had happened, so the marionette costumes would be historically accurate.
I’d have liked there to have been an alternative ending to the story, with Maria snatching the gun from William Corder’s hand and shooting him instead, before escaping to a happy new life, but of course, there wasn’t.
I suspect some of Honey’s influence was rubbing off on me.
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