Page 38 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
Simon suddenly looked at me with a strangely hopeful expression dawning on his face. ‘My grandmother used to make the marionette costumes for Bruno and I’ve been doing it since, but it’s not really my thing. But if you are a costume maker, Garland, perhaps—’
‘Simon, let the poor girl settle in, before trying to load any more work on to her,’ Pearl said, and he looked abashed.
‘Sorry!’
‘Thom has the cottage in the corner between Bruno’s workshop and Simon – and apart from the museum and your cottage, Garland, that’s it, as far as residents go,’ said Honey.
‘Yours is solely a workshop, isn’t it, Simon?’ I asked. ‘You don’t sell hats directly to the public?’
‘No, it’s just wholesale at the moment. My grandmother Hetty was the original Mad Hatter of the family and then it skipped a generation and landed on me. Gran’s retired toBrighton now and I’ve taken over. I have wondered about trying to sell direct through my website at some point.’
‘I’ve been trying to persuade Bruno to do that for ages,’ put in Thom. ‘He didn’t even have a website until I got Pearl to set up a basic one for the business.’
‘You designed and set up the website?’ Honey asked Pearl, with interest.
‘And mine,’ Simon put in. ‘She’s ace at that kind of thing.’
‘It’s a sideline, but I enjoy it,’ Pearl said. ‘You don’t make a huge living from second-hand books.’
‘That’s interesting, and could be really useful to me,’ Honey said.
‘But surely you have a website already?’ Pearl asked.
‘Oh, yes, an author one – my publisher set it up and runs it. But I really want an all-singing, all-dancing one for the museum, when it opens, perhaps with virtual tours and an online shop. If you think you’d like to take it on, we could get together and discuss it.’
‘Love to,’ agreed Pearl.
‘I made my own little website, though it’s more like an online CV,’ I said. ‘But I was thinking of starting to sell online too, once I’ve settled and the museum has opened.’
‘Garland makes the most wonderful miniature costume mannequins!’ enthused Honey. ‘I bought one from the V&A shop and I’m hoping she’ll sell them in our museum shop, too. She’ll have plenty of time for her own work, once the costumes in the museum have been catalogued and set up on display.’
‘Well, if you need any advice about online selling through your website, Garland, just pop round and pick my brains,’ Pearl offered. ‘Free coffee thrown in. I keep a coffee machine and a comfy sofa in the back room to lure people in.’
‘I missed the bookshop on the way here – I didn’t look that way. But Fallen Idle is an irresistible name!’
I remembered she’d said that the name was her late husband’s choice and thought how young she was to be a widow and that it probably accounted for the reserve and slightly remote air.
‘Pearl runs a book group on Tuesday evenings,’ Simon said. ‘It’s at the bookshop this time and you could come if you wanted, Garland.’
‘It’s just a small group,’ said Pearl. ‘Me, Simon, Thom, Baz from the art shop, the Rev. Jo-Jo, who’s from the church I attend, and Baz’s partner, Derek.’
‘You’ve seen Derek already, Garland, letting out the members of the Genealogy Society, when you were arriving.’
‘And I forgot to include Ginny from Spindrift, the New Age shop on the other side of the square,’ finished Pearl. ‘We don’t always read the same book and then discuss it, like other groups. Sometimes we just each talk about what we’re reading at the moment.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ I said, ‘although, apart from Shakespeare, I mostly reread old Victorian favourites and children’s classics. I spent my teenage years growing up in a house where those were the only books, apart from the Bible, and I sort of got addicted.’
‘I have a big section of Victorian novels in the shop – you must come and browse,’ Pearl suggested hopefully.
‘I will,’ I promised.
‘Perhaps we should have regular Pelican Mews Residents’ Association meetings now, too,’ suggested Honey. ‘I’d been meaning to invite you all round for ages, but I’ve been so busy, what with my book deadlines, organizing the house renovations and then all the museum plans. But we could make it a regular Sunday night thing, over a takeaway?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Simon, and the others agreed. They seemed already to be good friends, but prepared to welcome in the newcomer, and I could see it might prove quite impossible to cold-shoulder Thom as I’d like to.
‘Let’s clear the table ready for the dessert and then I’ll tell you all about my plans for the museum!’ Honey said.
And, over a delicious treacle tart, served with thick cream, she did.
