The Gown

by Jennifer Robson

  “Even though it’s Saturday?”

  “I did not have time to stop in Shoreditch yesterday. There is a French grocer there. He sells things I could not find in Barking.”

  “Such as?”

  “Olives. Prunes. Fennel seeds. And also some dried orange peel. I looked for fresh oranges but they are not in season.”

  “No, they wouldn’t be. Even if they were, you wouldn’t be able to buy one. They’re reserved for children. For the vitamins, I suppose.”

  The waiter returned with the bill, which Mr. Kaczmarek barely glanced at before handing the man several bank notes and shaking his hand. And then he was helping to pull back her chair, his hand grazing the small of her back for the briefest instant, and she couldn’t be sure if she welcomed or feared his touch.

  It was warm outside, and far brighter than in the restaurant, and she had to shield her eyes in order to properly see his face. Noticing, he pivoted so the sun fell on his back.

  “Which way are you going?” he asked.

  “I need a District line train. To Barking.”

  “Then it couldn’t be easier. The entrance to Mansion House station is just over there.”

  “Thank you for lunch. I had a very good time.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said, and he held out his hand so she might shake it in farewell. She did so, but then, her fingers still wrapped around his, she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed his right cheek, then his left.

  “I beg your pardon,” she whispered, taken aback by her boldness. “I only—”

  “Thought to give me a proper good-bye? I certainly don’t object. Do you have a telephone number where I might reach you?”

  “Alas, no. We do not have a telephone at the house.”

  “I understand, but I do want to see you again. Will you promise to ring me up before long?”

  “I will.”

  “I shall await your call, then. If only to hear how your grandmother’s Friday-night chicken turned out.”

  “I have never cooked it before,” she confessed, “and I have no recipe. Only my memories. Let me first see what my friend thinks of it. If she survives, I will make it for you. Good-bye, Mr. Kaczmarek.”

  “Kaz. I’m Kaz to all my friends.”

  She wasn’t certain she wanted to call him by that name, for it didn’t suit him at all, this gentle and kind and ever so intelligent man. “May I instead call you Walter? Do you mind?”

  Her question brought a shy smile to his face. “Not at all. In fact, I should like it very much.”

  “Then au revoir, Walter. À la prochaine.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heather

  August 29, 2016

  Two and a half weeks later Heather was on her way to England. She hadn’t flown all that much, and she’d been worried she’d get antsy on the way over, but it was actually okay in the end. Only seven hours from start to finish, and by some miracle she ended up with a window seat near the front of the plane, and after a really horrible supper of some kind of ersatz stir-fry she even managed to fall asleep for a few hours.

  Going through customs was easy, and with only a single carry-on suitcase she was able to head into London right away. Although it was almost a million stops from the airport into the city center, she took the Underground, since she didn’t like the idea of messing about with shuttles or buses or anything that meant she had to figure out connections. From Piccadilly Circus, assuming she’d calculated correctly, it was about a ten-minute walk to her hotel, and although she got turned around when she first made it up to street level, she soon found her bearings.

  London was exactly as she’d imagined. Loud and busy and there really were big black cabs and red double-decker buses zooming along the streets, and although the shops all seemed to have modern façades she only had to look up to see the older buildings hiding beneath.

  After passing at least a half-dozen theaters, since her route along Shaftesbury Avenue seemed to be taking her through London’s equivalent of Broadway, she turned onto Frith Street and headed north. It was much narrower, with far fewer shops, and apart from one or two cafés, most of the restaurants and nightclubs that lined the street were still shuttered.

  She almost missed the hotel, since the sign was just a small brass plate next to the door. She rang the bell and someone buzzed her in, and she knew right away that Tanya had sent her to the right place.

  The man at the desk, who introduced himself as Dermot, could have fallen out of the pages of Great Expectations, what with his little round glasses, hair growing out of his ears, and purple silk waistcoat, although when he came around the desk to show Heather to her room the illusion was ruined by his ripped jeans and running shoes. He was very friendly, though, and promised to return with some tea and refreshments as soon as she’d settled in.

  “It’s a service we offer for all our arriving guests. I’ll bring it by in ten minutes or so.”

  The room was even better than she’d imagined. It had a high brass bed piled with pillows and a foofy duvet, a fireplace that she was dying to switch on even though it was boiling hot outside, and an en suite bathroom with a big clawfoot tub and no shower, just an attachment that looked like an old-fashioned phone.

  Dermot brought her the tea tray, and wouldn’t let her give him a tip, and said she just had to ring down once she was done and someone would fetch it. There was a small teapot with a silver strainer, which meant there was loose-leaf tea inside, a cup and saucer and spoon, and besides that milk and sugar, a little jar of honey, and a second saucer piled with round shortbread cookies that tasted of ginger. Biscuits, she reminded herself. Not cookies.

  After her tea and biscuits she had a bath and washed her hair without too much trouble, and then, dressed in her nightie, her hair still wrapped in a towel, she decided a short nap would be helpful. She’d only sleep for an hour or so, just until the early afternoon, then she’d set off for a wander through the nearby streets. She’d find a quiet place to eat some dinner, come back to the hotel early, and see if anything interesting was on the TV. Then she’d make herself go to sleep early, because she had a full day of sightseeing planned.

  Only it wasn’t sightseeing, not really. It was detective work.

  Her first stop would be Nan’s old house in Barking, and if she was feeling really brave she might even knock on a door or two and ask if anyone remembered a woman named Ann Hughes who had moved away more than sixty years ago. It was a long shot, but there was no way she was leaving England without trying to find out more. After that, she’d go to Bruton Street, where the Hartnell offices had once been, and if she was lucky someone might agree to let her inside and look around. Last of all she would visit the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Miriam Dassin’s Vél d’Hiv was on display.

  The only disappointment was Buckingham Palace, since every last entrance ticket was sold out for the days she was in England. She’d checked online the same day she’d bought her plane tickets, and when that hadn’t worked she’d even called the number on the website. The woman on the phone had been apologetic but unyielding. There simply were no tickets to be had.

  “Normally it isn’t this bad. I think everyone is eager to see Her Majesty’s wedding and coronation gowns. I do apologize for any inconvenience.”

  But all was not lost. She could still stand outside the palace and watch the changing of the guard, and the gift shop was open to everyone. She’d promised to bring her mom a tea caddy with a picture of the queen on it, and also a Christmas ornament shaped like a corgi if they had any.

  It was more than a little crazy, her coming here, since London was ridiculously expensive and there was no guarantee she’d find out anything about Nan, and she’d probably come home to an eye-watering credit-card bill and be no closer, on top of everything else, to finding a new job. It was impractical and self-indulgent and she still was a little bit nervous that Nan would be upset that Heather was prying into secrets she’d kept for almost seventy years.

  Y
et the box had said For Heather. Nan had wanted her to have the embroideries. She had kept them all those years so Heather might one day find them, and wonder, and understand there was more to her grandmother than she had ever imagined or known.

  A SHARP KNOCK on the door woke her. Had Seymour knocked something off her desk again?

  Another knock. “Housekeeping!”

  No . . . she wasn’t at home. Her bed wasn’t nearly so big or comfortable. She was at the hotel, and she had slept in, and—yikes. It was past ten o’clock already. “Sorry! I’m not quite up.”

  “No worries! I’ll come back later.”

  Up. Definitely time to get up. She could sleep when she was back in Toronto.

  She stumbled to the bathroom, used the toilet, splashed cold water over her face, brushed the fur from her teeth. Dragged her hair into a twisty kind of bun, dug fresh undies from her suitcase, and put on the least creased of her cotton sundresses.

  There. Nearly ready. She eyed the room-service menu; they probably weren’t serving breakfast this late. And she did need to get moving.

  She dropped off her key at the front desk and set off for the café around the corner. Coffee and croissant consumed, she made her way to Tottenham Court Road and its Underground station. If all went well she’d be in Barking in less than an hour.

  The train moved aboveground after a while, which made the ride a little bit more interesting. At least she was getting a sense of what ordinary people had in their backyards. Scrubby grass, rickety sheds, rusty swing sets, and here and there an unruly patch of vegetables.

  In the end it only took forty minutes to get to Barking. Heather followed the other passenger who’d alighted, a young mom with a stroller, out to the road, giving her a hand with the stairs. Then she pulled up the map she’d saved to her phone the night before. Right on Station Road, left on Ripple Road, straight ahead at St. Edward’s Road. For some reason, 109 Morley Road hadn’t shown up on the map when she’d done a search, but the road itself was there. It would be easy enough to count along until she found Nan’s house.

  The streets were quiet and a little dull, in a way that reminded her of parts of Toronto, only the houses were smaller and much closer together. There didn’t seem to be many shops, only the occasional convenience store, and there wasn’t much traffic either. That made a nice change from downtown London.

  And then, at last, Morley Road. Nan’s road. The house on the end was 183, and after that came 185, the numbers steadily climbing. Heather walked until the road ended, two blocks later, but there was no number 109. She retraced her steps and even checked the map again. But that was it: she’d walked along every inch of Morley Road. And she was right about the address, for it was the one Nan had written on the back of those photographs her mom had unearthed.

  She looked around, trying to make sense of things, but Morley Road ended where she stood. Ahead was a group of low-rise apartment buildings and a scrubby stretch of open land. Nothing else.

  Maybe she should email her mom, just to make sure the address really was correct, and if she had taken a wrong turn at some point it would be easy enough to try again. For all she knew there was another Morley Road in Barking, or even another entire town called Barking somewhere else in England. But it was early in Toronto, and she didn’t much feel like standing around, and she was pretty sure, besides, that she hadn’t made a mistake with the address. She might as well head back to the station.

  Turning onto Ripple Road, she noticed there was a supermarket on the corner. A neighborhood-sized place. The sort of store that had regular customers and cashiers who knew the customers’ names. And she found herself crossing the street and walking inside and making a beeline for the woman at the help desk. Or, rather, Customer Courtesy Centre. What was the harm in asking?

  “Good morning,” Heather said to the woman at the desk.

  “Good morning. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is. I’m sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you can help me find an address. One hundred and nine Morley Road. I went there just now but the house numbers start at a hundred and eighty-three. I wonder if I’m doing something wrong.” Heather showed her the map on her phone.

  “That’s Morley Road all right, and as far as I know there’s only the one stretch of it. But then, I live over Dagenham way. Let me think . . . ooh. I’ll ask Shirley. She grew up right around the corner.” She turned away, to the intercom on the wall, and her words echoed throughout the store. “Shirley to Customer Courtesy. Shirley to Customer Courtesy, please.” And then, over her shoulder, “She won’t be a moment. Just has to come over from the fish counter.”

  An older woman came bustling up a minute later, her white coat pristine, a hairnet pulled low over her brow. She had a nice face, round and rather red, and the short walk had left her a bit out of breath.

  “Here I am,” she puffed. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “You are a love. I was thinking you might be able to help this young lady. She’s come looking for an address on Morley Road, only she can’t find it.”

  “Whereabouts on Morley Road?”

  “It’s number one hundred and nine,” Heather said. “My grandmother used to live there. I’m visiting from Canada and I thought I’d try to find the house.” She held out her phone so Shirley might look at the map she’d saved.

  “Oh, right. There’s your problem. See the T-junction there, where Morley ends? It used to continue on another few hundred yards. They knocked down a whole whack of houses back in the fifties, I think, or maybe it was the sixties, and they put up a new council estate. And now they’re saying a block of tower flats is going up, too.”

  Heather’s heart sank into her shoes. “So you think my nan’s house was over there?”

  “Sorry to say it, but I think it probably was. Are you all right?”

  Heather nodded, blinking back tears. “Yes. Sorry for taking up your time.”

  “Not at all. Well, I’d best be back to the counter. Lovely to meet you.”

  Heather thanked the women and wandered out of the supermarket. There was nothing left of Nan in Barking, and those fantasies she’d had, of walking up to a neighbor’s house and ringing the bell and meeting someone who had known her grandmother, were just that. Fantasies. Nan’s house had vanished into dust before Heather had even been born.

  She got on the next train heading back into London, hauled out her pocket-sized Rough Guide to London, a bon voyage gift from Suni and Michelle, and considered where to go next. She’d planned to stop by Bruton Street, where the Hartnell premises had once been, but some online digging before she’d left had told her that only the façade with his name was left; the actual business had closed in the 1970s. And she wasn’t sure if she could face going there, knocking on the door of whatever business now occupied the building, and being turned away.

  That left the Victoria and Albert Museum and Miriam Dassin’s Vél d’Hiv embroideries. Fortunately the train she was on went all the way to south Kensington, and then it was just a short walk down the road to the museum, a gigantic pile of brick that looked more like the Kremlin than a treasure house of art and design.

  She’d only taken a few steps inside when her attention was caught by the spectacular glass sculpture, or perhaps it was a chandelier, that was suspended from the middle of the domed rotunda. She joined the end of the nearest queue, her gaze still fixed on the mass of glowing green and yellow tendrils, and shuffled forward unthinkingly as the line advanced.

  “Hello! Hello there!”

  She’d reached the front. “Whoops. Was too busy looking up,” she admitted to the woman at the desk. Zahra, according to her name tag.

  “You and everyone else,” Zahra confirmed with a grin. “It’s one of the biggest Chihuly sculptures in the world. Is this your first visit to the V and A?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, a warm welcome to you, and here’s a map. Are you interested in any of our special exhibitions? There’s a fee for them, bu
t otherwise entrance to the museum is free of charge.”

  “Thank you. I actually came to see the Vél d’Hiv embroideries by Miriam Dassin. Can you point me in the right direction?”

  A regretful frown replaced Zahra’s smile. “I’m terribly sorry, but they were taken off exhibit last week so they could be sent over to the Tate Modern for the upcoming retrospective of her work.”

  No. It couldn’t be possible. “I did know about the retrospective, but it doesn’t start until September fifth.”

  “You’re right, but they built in a window. Just in case the curators here or at the Tate have any concerns about the condition of the embroideries.”

  “Oh, right. I guess that makes sense.”

  “Is there anything else you might like to see?” Zahra asked. “We have a bit of everything here.” With that she unfolded an illustrated map of the museum on the desktop. A list of highlights was printed along one side of the map, and one immediately caught her eye. Explore centuries of fashion at the V&A.

  “Do you have any dresses by Norman Hartnell?” Heather asked.

  “We do. I’m not sure how many are being exhibited at the moment. We rotate them off and on display for conservation reasons. Would you like me to check?”

  “That’s okay. I’m here already, so I might as well try to see some of the museum. Thanks again.”

  “No worries. Here’s a copy of the map.”

  Heather didn’t know much about the history of fashion, but the V&A’s selection of clothing and footwear was an excellent introduction. She lingered for a long while in front of a case containing several examples of Christian Dior’s New Look designs from the late 1940s. Compared to the clothes women had worn for most of the 1940s, all spare and squared off and looking like uniforms even when they weren’t, the Dior dresses were . . . she couldn’t find the words to describe how they made her feel, and she hadn’t lived through a long and terrifying war. They were impractical and ridiculous and must have been uncomfortable as hell with their enormous skirts and built-in corsets, but they were undeniably beautiful.