Page 3 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
I nodded; my throat seemed to have closed up. It still hurt – to have found him again after so many years apart, only to lose him once more.
‘You were friends?’ she asked gently.
I swallowed hard and managed to find my voice again. ‘We more or less grew up like brother and sister until we were nearly eleven. He and his mum and stepfather lived in the flat next to ours in Ealing and he spent a lot of time with us, especially after his mum died and it was just him and his stepfather. Mum worked from home, you see, so she was always there. Ivo and I were both arty and not academic. He loved messing about doing woodwork with my dad best, while I adored working with fabrics.’
I didn’t add that when we’d met up again, years later, he’d still had that love of working with wood and had taken every course he could to learn new skills over the years, just as I had continued with costume courses.
I looked up to find her watching me, dark eyes unfathomable.
‘Yes, you said earlier that you were orphaned at ten – was that when you lost touch with Ivo?’
I nodded again. ‘I was on a half-term holiday abroad with my parents and there was an explosion in the block of flats where we were staying – a faulty boiler, I think. Mum and Dad were killed outright. I survived, badly injured, and by the time I left hospital, my parents’ flat had been packed up and an aunt – my mother’s older sister – whisked me away to Scotland, and that was that. I never went back to our flat, or got the chance to say goodbye to Ivo.’
Or Thom, as he had been to me then, though now it seemed to hurt less if I tried to think of him only by the stage name he’d hidden behind.
‘That must have been a very traumatic time for you,’ Honey said gently.
‘I felt detached from life and everything seemed surreal for a long time. The aunt didn’t really want me – my mum had been her adopted younger sister and they’d never got on. Once I started college, I moved out. There was some money from a life insurance policy and I managed. My aunt had invested that securely for me – she was always fair, even if she couldn’t love me – and she’d also had most of the contents of my parents’ flat put in a lock-up storage unit, so I could furnish a place of my own when I got the job at Beng & Briggs.’
‘And I suppose, once you were working in theatrical costume, you ran into Ivo again?’ she suggested.
‘Yes, the theatre world is a very small one and one day wejust literally bumped into each other, although, of course, he was famous by then. But … it was like the years between hadn’t happened and we just took up our friendship where we left off …’
Or we had, until I’d started seeing Marco, who I’d met through Ivo’s stepbrother Leo. We’d argued about that. Ivo had never liked any of Leo’s raffish London friends and couldn’t accept that Marco hadtotallychanged his way of life.
I came out of my reverie and thought I’d probably revealed more than I’d intended, for Honey looked at me closely and then said, ‘I see!’ as if she really did.
Then, to my surprise, she added, ‘The fact that you knew Ivo Gryffyn makes yet another strange link between us. It’s as if our lives have always been loosely woven together without our realizing it – very odd!’
‘In what way does my having known Ivo link us?’ I asked.
‘BecauseIknow Gus Silvermann, the author of those fantasy novels the films were based on. It’s a small world!’
‘Butno oneknows who he really is!’ I blurted, shaken out of my thoughts of the past by this revelation. ‘I mean, he wrote those booksasthe main character in them and his true identity is a big secret!’
‘Not to me, because we were at Cambridge together. He was one of my crowd. However, I’ve sworn an oath of eternal secrecy!’
She gave another of her twisted but attractive grins and indicated the cake stand. ‘Have another cake.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ I said weakly, but I took a thin slice of Battenburg cake, which melted on my tongue like a sweet snowflake, and she put a tiny chocolate-covered choux bun in her mouth whole, chewed and swallowed it.
‘George says you’re engaged to the playwright Marco Parys?’She glanced at the antique Art Deco emerald and diamond ring on my left hand, which made quite a contrast with my vintage Bakelite necklace and bracelet. ‘I’ve seen a couple of his plays, but they weren’t quite my cup of tea. I’m more of aWoman in Blackkind of girl.’
To be honest, Marco’s previous plays weren’t quitemycup of tea, either, although they were undoubtedly clever, but I said loyally, ‘He’s a bit avant-garde, but I’m sure you’ll love his new play,A Midsummer Night’s Madness. It’s opening in September at the Cockleshell Theatre and he’s directing it, too. And, come to think of it,thatis another strange coincidence, because the Cockleshell Theatre was where Rosa-May began her career and had her greatest success, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Ran off at seventeen from her post as a companion to an old lady in Bath to go on the stage and then found herself quickly catapulted into stardom as Titania.’
‘Rosa-May must have had a lot of natural talent –andluck,’ I suggested.
‘The stars do appear to have aligned in her favour,’ Honey agreed. ‘And now in yours, too, it seems?’
‘Yes, everything does appear to be coming together this year, and Marco and I are hoping to finally set a date for our wedding before Christmas. And you know,’ I added, looking at her with a smile, ‘that’s all really due to you and Rosa-May Garland, because as far as my love life is concerned, the exhibition’s been a real game-changer!’
2
Animal Spirits
‘How intriguing!’ said Honey, as the waiter filled my champagne glass up again. ‘Do tell me more.’
