Page 76 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
He said he was so distracted with worry about you, because you weren’t answering his calls or messages, that he’d gone out to your flat in Ealing and found you’d gone.
I told him you’d said in that note that you’d already accepted a new job out of town and were leaving almost immediately, but I had no idea where. Which is, of course, quite true, Garland darling, though I do think you could trust me with it.
All this concern for you has come a bit late in the day, don’t you think? But I suspect he has an ulterior motive in wanting to find you – he has realized you were his muse. He said the management would only take his new play – which sounds like an arty mix of Swan Lake crossed with Metamorphosis – if he rewrote it in the style of A Midsummer Night’s Madness, which was exactly the advice you had given him and it had been your idea to turn to writing supernatural thrillers in the first place.
So I said you were quite right and if the management thought so, too, that clinched it. Then he looked gloomyand went away – and I must don my wings and flit away with the fairies, too.
Oberon xx
That last bit made me smile, though in fact his costume was black and silver, so he was a very dark and dramatic Fairy King, which suited his devious role in the play.
I looked up to find the others had stopped talking and Thom was regarding me rather broodingly.
‘Sorry,’ I said, then explained to the others: ‘That was an email from Wilfric Wolfram, one of the actors in my ex-fiancé’s new play.’
‘You’ve stayed in touch with him, then?’ Thom asked.
‘He was so kind when I … broke up with Marco, that I emailed to thank him and he’s emailed back a couple of times. He doesn’t know where I’m living now, though, and I’m not going to tell him.’
His expression seemed to lighten a little. ‘Right. I thought it might have been from Marco.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have been laughing at it if it had been!’ I said, astonished. ‘Hehastried to contact me, but I’ve just ignored him.’
Pearl, who was obviously dying of curiosity but too polite to ask any questions, got up and said she had to get back, because she had work to do that evening, and I said I’d settle up our bill and walk back with her.
We left the two men debating whether to go to the pub for a quick pint. Simon must have the digestion of an ox.
*
To Golightly’s disgust, I vanished into the workroom for a bit to set up the new computer and printer. The drawers of the filing cabinet were full of empty folders, so I put fresh labels on them, though had no idea yet what I was going to fill them with.
A rising crescendo of demonic shrieks eventually made me give up and go back to the cottage, where I amused Golightly with the feather toy for a while, before settling down to read more of Rosa-May’s journal. She sounded an enterprising kind of girl …
*
I sent a quick reply to Will over my breakfast, which was porridge the following day as I felt I’d overdosed on toast the previous evening.
Hi Will
It was fine to tell Marco I’d moved out of London to a new job, but I don’t intend having any further contact with him, about his plays or anything else.
I don’t know about being a muse; I was probably just the voice of common sense while he was writing the last play and certainly advised him to follow it up with another in the same vein. Whether he takes that advice or not is entirely up to him. It sounds as if he is at least now thinking about it.
Wishing you continued success in your role as Oberon,
Garland xx
I still wasn’t going to give Will my address, because after the current run of the play finished, I wouldn’t put it past him tosuddenly appear – and although I enjoyed his slightly waspish emails and appreciated his basic kindness after my Ripping Time, I wasn’t interested in any romantic relationship, if that was what he had in mind.
I was probably wrong about that and flattering myself, but even if I weren’t, it seemed likely that he was about to break into major stardom, while I was doing my best to sink into obscurity.
Feeling in need of a bit of fresh air and exercise after that, I set off to explore the rest of the small town, finding the large supermarket on the edge, as well as a good hardware store, a bakery and a small needlework shop, which might be useful for odds and ends.
I found the doctor’s surgery too – I should register there the following week – and then at a small newsagent’s I stocked up on address labels, felt-tip marker pens, highlighters and a few other things. Stationery was so irresistible.
On the way home I found Pearl’s shop open and my feet took me inside it without conscious volition. The book of Venetian masks had vanished from the window, so I was probably fairly safe from expensive impulse purchases.
There were a couple of customers in the shop, so I browsed the shelves of Victorian novels in the backroom and couldn’t resist an illustrated copy ofThe Water Babies… or keep myself from adding to my Enid Blyton hardback Adventure series collection, withThe Valley of Adventure.
