Page 23 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘I don’t know … but he also said he’d be ringing my employers immediately to tell them what had happened. I can see now that I should have taken the costume straight back to Beng & Briggs and told them myself. Only … by then I wasn’t hanging together very well.’
‘Of course you weren’t. I’m only surprised you managed to get yourself home.’
‘Oh, that was Wilfric! He was so kind, and sort of steered me out of there and put me in a taxi, and he gave the driver some money, which was just as well, really, because I didn’thave enough on me for the fare all the way out. I’ll have to find a way of paying him back.’
‘I’m definitely liking the sound of Wilfric more and more,’ Honey said.
‘He gave me his card and said to ring him if I got in a lot of trouble over this, although, of course, we both knew he wouldn’t be able to help because I’ve done the unforgivable and Beng & Briggs will fire me.’
‘Is there time to repair the costume, or replace the parts you slashed?’ she asked. ‘Obviously, not for the dress rehearsal, but for opening night?’
‘The bodice and sleeves are all right, but the whole skirt is in shreds and will have to be replaced. Something could be put together in the time, but not an exact copy of the original, or with the same quality of fabric and embellishments, which had to be ordered in specially. They’d have to work day and night, even so.’
They– not me. After this, I’d have no future in the job I loved.
My landline rang, which it did so infrequently it made me jump.
‘The other phone’s ringing – could you hang on a minute?’
‘OK.’
I think I knew what the call would be about, even before I picked up the receiver and the clipped voice of Mrs Beng’s secretary said that she and Mr Briggs would like to see me at eight a.m. next day.
‘And she told me to bring something to put any personal belongings in, so I could take them home with me. Which means I’ll be fired and out of there before the rest of the staff arrives, with no job, no fiancé and no future,’ I told Honey.
‘Well, I don’t think Marco is much of a loss, to be frank.’
‘You’re right,’ I said bitterly. And so, it appeared, had Ivo been: right about him all along.
I looked across the room at the sheeted shape of my wedding dress on the dressmaker’s dummy.
‘I feel I’d like to destroy my wedding dress now, too,’ I confessed. ‘It’s … despoiled. That’s the only word for it.’
‘No, don’t!’ Honey said urgently. ‘I’ll put it in the museum and it will be a link between the other wedding dresses and the Rosa-May exhibition! Just pack it away in a box out of sight, for the moment.’
‘All right,’ I agreed heavily. ‘I’ll do that in a minute.’
We talked a little longer and then she told me to try not to worry about the future too much, but to ring her in the morning as soon as I got back home again.
And after packing away my hopes and dreams in a nest of acid-free tissue paper, I found the bottle of emergency whisky, downed a couple of stiff shots and then fell into an uneasy sleep until the alarm woke me in the early hours of next morning.
*
In the briefest of interviews, I was fired, given five minutes to collect my belongings and then escorted out of the building.
‘So, my career just went down the pan,’ I said to Honey, after ringing her when I returned. ‘And once what I did to the costume gets out – and my bosses made it clear they were going to warn the other big theatrical costumiers – no one is going to want to employ me, are they?’
‘Theymight not, butIcertainly do!’ Honey stated. ‘I can’t say I exactlyhopedfor this, but it had begun to sound as if Marco had gone off the boil as far as getting married was concerned, and also, a few things you’d said made me wonder ifyou were getting cold feet, too. It’s why I’ve held back from advertising the museum job. So, how about it? A fresh start here, in Great Mumming, a little cottage all of your own, with a lovely workroom waiting for you?’
‘But would you still want me, knowing what kind of thing I’m capable of doing when I lose my temper?’
‘Of course! What you did was a totally understandable one-off. I felt much the same when I was jilted and can’t even remember the drive to the cottage where my fiancé was staying, so it’s just lucky for him he wasn’t there when I arrived … though, of course, all the blood on the doorstep and up the hall brought me to my senses.’
‘Blood on the doorstep?’ I echoed.
‘It’s a long story. And, of course, when he turned up much later to apologize, Ididassault him, but he didn’t press charges. The Fairford women are clearly dangerous when provoked.’
I felt just a little better after that. And, after all, if it hadn’t been for my promotional prospects and Marco, I’d have been tempted when Honey first told me about the job, when we were at Claridge’s.
