Page 85 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘I nearly did, seeing you standing there after all that time not knowing what had happened to you. Perhaps I need anger management counselling?’
‘You seem pretty chilled to me,’ Simon said, puzzled. ‘And why would you want to attack poor Thom?’
‘Because poor Thom left London six years ago without a word to me and I hadn’t any idea where he was, or what he was doing. He cut me off because I was seeing Marco and he always mistrusted him – he thought he was the most to blame for introducing his stepbrother, Leo, to drugs – but he never told me at the time that he knew Marco and Mirrie had had an affair a few years before.’
‘I should have done and I can see now how cruel it was of me to leave you not knowing what had happened to me, but at the time, I thought I was acting for your own good. It was just after Leo overdosed, though, so I don’t expect I was thinking very straight.’
Our eyes met again and held. The old connection would always be there, whatever happened, and I could forgive him with my head … it was just feeling the forgiveness right to the bottom of my heart I was still having trouble with.
Honey broke into the ensuing short silence.
‘Well, it’s all out in the open now and everyone knows everything,’ she said expansively, and I saw Thom gave her a quick, suspicious glance, as if he suspected she might have known about our past history all along, which, of course, she had.
‘I’m so glad you felt you were among friends and could share your story with us,’ Pearl said. ‘It’s so easy to put your foot in it and say the wrong thing to people when you don’t know their pasts. I could tell there had been something between you and Thom.’
‘I couldn’t!’ Simon said, opening his eyes very wide.
‘No, well, detecting subtle emotional undercurrents isn’t exactly your strong point, Simon!’
‘We’ve strayed a long way from discussing when the museum will open!’ I said, remembering, with a feeling of panic, Honey’s proposal that it should be on 15 October.
‘Yes, we were talking about how much of your own story you wanted to reveal to the public – and I might expand on my own, because there’s a little more to it than appeared in the papers at the time,’ Honey said.
‘I suppose the first dress I should concentrate on getting ready to display is Amy Weston’s,’ I said, when it became clear Honey wasn’t going to expand on this now. ‘You said she would be the focus of the opening display and you wanted to get maximum publicity for her story.’
‘Who is Amy Weston?’ Pearl asked.
‘The Bloody Bride,’ said Honey with relish, and explained all about Amy’s disappearance and her mother’s understandable hope that by putting her dress on display, she would finally find out what had happened to her daughter.
‘Gosh!’ said Simon. ‘I never realized a wedding dress museum could be this exciting!’
‘Oh, some of the dresses have even more bizarre or mysterious stories to tell,’ Honey told him. ‘Stranger even than Garland’s series of unfortunate coincidences!’
‘I don’t think my story’s strange so much as tragic,’ I said. ‘But at least I found out what Marco was really like before I actually married him!’
‘He may eventually work out that you’re here,’ suggested Honey.
I shrugged. ‘He seems to have the hide of a rhino and keeps trying to contact me, but since I’m not replying I expect he’ll quickly lose interest. Will – Wilfric Wolfram – said in his lastemail that he thinks what Marco misses most is my advice on making his plays more accessible to wider audiences!’
‘You don’t seem to be ignoringWill’semails,’ Thom said, and I looked at him, surprised by his tone.
‘No, but you know how kind he was after that horrible scene at the theatre and heisamusing, in a sardonic kind of way. But I’m hoping he’ll fade out now too, because my life is firmly fixed in Great Mumming and I don’t really want constant reminders of the past.’
‘They’re not that easy to escape,’ Thom said rather broodingly, and his expression must have unnerved poor Viv, who had been sitting quietly in Honey’s shadow, because she got up and scuttled out of the room.
It had been quite an evening but I was glad I’d told Pearl and Simon everything, because it felt quite cathartic.
Perhaps now Thom and I really could start to build this new, different relationship he’d suggested …
Rosa-May
I resolved, while I had health and voice enough, to work as hard as I could and continue with Mr Blake’s good advice to build up a sum sufficient to support me should I have to retire from the stage.
But you must not think that life was all work, for I had a circle of friends, both in the acting profession and in society, and London held amusement enough to satisfy anyone.
So it was that in early May of that year I went one evening with a small party of friends to Vauxhall Gardens, where we supped in a booth and then promenaded the various walks, which were lit like fairyland itself, with so many lanterns that my friends joked that, as Titania personified, I should feel quite at home there!
This was all the more apposite because I was for the first time wearing an evening gown modelled on the new stage costume Mr Blake had had made for my reprise in the role the previous autumn. It was extremely pretty and became me very well, so that I knew I was looking my best. Indeed, I received several admiring comments and our booth during supper had been the focus of many eyes.
