Page 69 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘You look fine. I don’t usually bother much about what I wear, but I made the mistake of popping across to Spindrift in my lunch hour, to speak to Ginny,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘She’s very persuasive, in a quiet way – even more than I am tomycustomers! – so I found myself trying on this dress and loose jacket and then I was lost.’
‘It really suits you.’
‘She has some lovely and unusual clothes – you should have a look.’
‘I wouldn’t suit that layered style – I’d just look like a heap of washing with legs. I’m too small and I need clothes that go in at the waist.’
‘There were some nice, clingy tunics in cotton jersey you might like, but I expect you make a lot of your clothes yourself anyway.’
‘I do for smarter outfits, but at Beng & Briggs, where I used to work, we all wore black – trousers and tops, in my case. I don’t know why, because every bit of thread or fluff showed up against it. I mostly live in jeans otherwise, though I expect I’ll have to smarten up a bit when the museum opens, even if I’m not actually manning the reception desk.’
‘Honey seems to almost live in black jeans, so I can’t imagine her caring what you wear.’
‘She’s the Woman in Black,’ I said. ‘Black jeans do look smarter, so perhaps I might go for those, but with brighter tops.’
Mentioning the title of Susan Hill’s wonderfully successful spooky play suddenly reminded me of Marco’s email. I’d told him to go and see it, then think about how he could instilsome of that supernatural, scary element intoA Midsummer Night’s Madness… but if he reverted back now to his old style, it was none of my concern.
While we were talking, we’d walked across the middle of the square, where just a few cars were parked and the only remaining traces of the busy market were a few stray cabbage leaves and the lingering smell of hot, deep-fried doughnuts. I could practically taste them – oily and gritty in the mouth, the doughy texture as you bit into it and then thin, runny, dark red jam in the middle.
Lights illuminated the large pub sign with its smiling round sun circled by rays of gold, like a halo of corkscrew curls.
‘Is it a hotel or just a pub?’ I asked. ‘It looks quite big.’
‘It was a hotel at one time, but now it’s just a pub, though they do have a big function room too. The landlord, his own large family and his wife’s extended family, occupy the upper floors and they all help in the business.’
‘Sounds very cosmopolitan!’
‘The landlord’s local. He met his wife when she came over to visit the Marino family, who own the puppet theatre. They have Italian roots and she was a distant connection. One night they took her to the pub and, hey presto, love at first sight and happy ever after!’
‘I like the idea of happy ever after, even if it didn’t happen for me … or for the poor brides whose dresses will be in the museum! But still, being jilted seems to have done wonders for Honey’s career, and the end of my engagement led to my being free to take this job.’
‘I hope you’ll be very happy here, Garland. My husband and I were, even if we didn’t have long together.’
‘Time enough to have made many treasured memories, I hope,’ I said gently.
‘Oh, yes! He loved books and walking on the moors. Those were his main passions in life. And he loved me, too, of course,’ she added, with a slightly melancholy smile.
I thought if Simonwascherishing hopes in her direction, he’d find her late husband a hard act to follow.
She led the way up two wide, shallow steps under a covered portico to a dark, metal-studded door. As she opened it, a great wave of light, warmth and sound rolled over us, then seemed to recede, pulling us inside with it.
I found myself in a large, crowded, brightly lit bar, with other smaller areas opening out of it, giving glimpses of people sitting at tables, or playing pool and darts. I thought probably the interior had originally been divided into several small rooms, but now they had all been thrown into one.
Pearl, so much taller than me, had been peering about and now she said, ‘There’s Thom and Simon, over in the bay window, with Baz and Derek.’
She waved. ‘I’ll buy you a Welcome to Great Mumming drink, Garland. What would you like?’
‘Just ginger beer, if they have it, please,’ I said. ‘I’m not usually much of a drinker, though since I met Honey I seem to have got through a lot of champagne!’
‘I can’t run to champagne, but they do have ginger beer, the real, peppery stuff. I’ll have the same,’ she said, and when we’d got our drinks we made our way over to join the others, who made room for us. I found myself sitting on the window seat next to Thom, with Pearl opposite, between Simon and Baz.
Simon said hello to me absently, because he was gazing at Pearl in evident admiration.
Then he said to her: ‘You look lovely tonight, Pearl. That shade of blue-grey really suits you.’
‘Well … thank you, Simon!’ she said, going slightly pink, as if she’d forgotten how to respond to a compliment. But then, with a return to her usual cool and reserved manner, she added, ‘Ginny somehow managed to persuade me to buy the dress and jacket earlier today. I’ve warned Garland that though Ginnyseemsvague, you’re lucky to get out of Spindrift without buyingsomething.’
‘That’s true,’ Thom agreed. ‘I never intended starting a collection of brightly painted wooden frogs holding leaf umbrellas, but now I seem to have one in every room of my cottage.’
