The Dressmaker's War

by Mary Chamberlain

  Ada wondered what it must be like, a different man, every hour. No man would look at her these days, with her flat chest and shapeless waist. No one would desire her, would touch her face with tender fingers, and pull her close, kiss her with the soft promise of love. No one would love her now, not even her family. A rush of loss and sadness let loose inside her, and she swallowed back tears. That vendor man was full of banter, would call every woman beautiful. Ada knew his sort. It didn’t mean a thing. She wasn’t beautiful, not anymore.

  She left the rouged girls behind and stepped into Haymarket. Stucco had broken loose, and scaffolding propped up porticoes. Many of the façades were boarded up and covered with posters. The Theatre Royal was intact. Lady Windermere’s Fan. What sort of a play was that? Left into Trafalgar Square. VICTORY OVER GERMANY, she read, 1945. It was still early in the morning, but the square was crowded with soldiers in uniform, sauntering across with their girls. There were workers in shabby suits, young girls in smart shoes and slim skirts. One or two were sitting on the sides of the fountains eating sandwiches, brushing away the pigeons who hovered for scraps. One woman held a cup of tea in one hand, a thermos in the other. A cup of tea. Ada spotted the Lyons Corner House opposite Charing Cross. They used to make a good cup of tea. She fished in her pocket. She had enough.

  There was a notice in the window. WAITRESSES WANTED. INQUIRE WITHIN. A burst of hope. She could be a waitress, a little nippy, until she got a proper job. Ada pushed open the door. Paneled walls in rich, deep brown wood and lighting hidden behind thick panes of glass. She had forgotten how sumptuous it was in here. There were couples sitting at the wooden tables leaning forward, deep in conversation. Married couples, Ada thought, nice day out, back from the war. There were single women, too, with ankles crossed, staring through the window. One was smoking, a packet of Player’s beside her on the table; another was reading a book. You lucky people, she thought.

  Ada walked to an empty table in the middle, passing a plump, middle-aged woman and her elderly companion. “Stick-thin,” she heard her say as she passed. “Consumption.” The waitress came towards her, smart black uniform, clean white apron and collar, sharp white cap with a black trim.

  “Can I help?”

  “Yes.” Ada didn’t hesitate. “I’m inquiring after a job.”

  The waitress tucked her lips together. “You’ll have to see the manageress,” she said. “Do you want anything else?”

  “A cup of tea, please.”

  —

  THE MANAGERESS WAS behind a desk, and she signaled to Ada to sit, pointing to a high-backed chair, the same kind that they used in the restaurant, hard spokes and a shiny seat.

  “Don’t mind my asking,” she said, leaning forward across the desk, “but you’re awfully thin. Have you been ill?”

  “No,” Ada said.

  “Only if it was a communicable disease, we couldn’t take you on.”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “No nervous trouble?”

  Ada shook her head. I had a bad war, that’s all. What could she say? The manageress couldn’t begin to imagine it. Ada had already sensed that nobody wanted to hear about it.

  “No,” she said, “I just lost my appetite.”

  “Oh dear,” the manageress said. “How unfortunate. I hope you’ve got it back now.”

  Ada nodded. “Eat like a horse.”

  “Glad to hear it. Have you ever done anything like this before?”

  “No. But I learn fast,” she said, adding, “I’m ever so keen.”

  “When can you start?”

  “Straightaway.”

  “Two pound ten a week wages, uniform included. Laundry your responsibility, apart from the cap and apron. Make sure your hair is clean and tied back, fingernails short. What size?”

  “Size?” Ada said.

  “For the uniform. Not sure we’ve got anything small enough for you. Are you handy with the needle?”

  “Yes,” Ada said, “as a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Then you might be able to take it in. Come with me.”

  —

  ADA WRAPPED THE uniforms over her arm. Lucky. The wages weren’t bad and she might have some over at the end of the week. Once she got her coupons sorted, she’d run herself up a few things. She needed new underwear, soap, toothpaste. The necessities. Perhaps she’d make some friends. Lots of girls worked there. She’d have to walk to work and back, at least for the first week. She looked at the clock at Charing Cross. Ten past three.

  It took her thirty-five minutes to walk. In her cubicle, she laid out the uniform on the bed. It had a good hem, and the seams were generous. The white collar was detachable, so she could wash that out overnight, if needs be. She unbuttoned her blouse and slipped off her skirt. Her slip felt damp. She twisted it round to the front.

  Blood. Blood. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a period. She yelped, and laughed. She wanted to fling open the window and bawl out. It’s all right. It’ll be all right. Here she was, Ada Vaughan, a woman again. She was coming back to life. Fit to call herself a mother. A few more pounds, she’d have her figure back. It’d take a month or two, but she was on her way. She’d be all right. She was going to live. On her way. She opened her purse. She’d need to go to Boots, get the necessities.

  THAT FIRST CHRISTMAS was the worst. But there were other girls, from the north, who were staying in London without their families. The warden gave them a good dinner, chicken with all the trimmings, sage and onion stuffing, gravy, even a Christmas pudding. They pulled crackers, read out silly jokes, crammed the paper hats on their heads. They gave each other little presents wrapped in crepe paper left over from the paper chains they’d made for decoration. A bath cube. A hair comb. Ten Woodbines.

  Ada wondered if her mother had told the others she’d come back, wondered what her family were doing right now. Dad and Fred, God rest their souls. Ada. What happened to her? Unlike her mother not to vent her spleen. Don’t talk to me about her. Ada had tried, had gone round one Sunday in late November, caught Mum after Mass. Her mother looked through her as if she wasn’t there. Ada waited till she had turned a corner before she leant against the wall and sobbed. God knows, she’d tried.

  —

  SHE CAME ON regular as clockwork now, had fleshed out, still slender like a mannequin but with a figure again. She needed glasses, too, couldn’t see distance, the doctor said, writing out his prescription. Could barely catch the number of the bus until it was on top of her, had to squint to read her own writing. You’ll get wrinkles, screwing your eyes like that, the manageress had said. Ada couldn’t tell her why her eyes were bad. She saved up for specs, a nice, modish pair she’d seen in an old copy of Everywoman. “You can be pretty and wear glasses,” it said. “Glamour with glasses.”

  Ada couldn’t afford a perm, but she bought a bottle of peroxide to bleach her hair, and ragged it each night so it fell out crimped in the morning, rolled it back and up and pinned into a curl, front, sides, back. Perhaps she’d catch a young man’s fancy one of these days, even though she was twenty-five, and a bit old. But wiser. She wouldn’t fall for someone like Stanislaus again.

  She was doing all right, what with the basic and the tips. She divvied up the money each week. So much for board, so much for necessities, so much for shoes and stockings, so much for clothes, so much for et ceteras. She tried to put some aside for a rainy day, and for Tommy, but it was tricky. She’d had to save her coupons for months to make a winter jacket and buy a pair of decent shoes, and the glasses had eaten into her necessities budget. But she’d never had to borrow, or ask the manageress for an advance. Now that Christmas was well over, and she had the essentials, maybe she could try to make the money stretch just a little further. She only had the one skirt that the Red Cross had given her, so she needed another. And a dress. But that was eleven coupons. Blouses. She was lucky she had a uniform for work.

  Berwick Street market. That was the place. She could get there and b
ack in her lunch hour.

  It hadn’t changed from before the war—Best caulis, two a penny—same stalls, same stallholders. Only her man didn’t recognize her, not at first.

  “Cor, love a duck, Ada.” He narrowed his eyes, as if to reassure himself. “You look different. Specs. Dyed your hair and all. Suits you, that does, blond. Mind you”—he leant over the stall—“what you done to yourself ? You’re all skin and bone. You could do with some feeding up.”

  She ended up with some good offcuts of fabric and a little bit of makeweight, too, along with some parachute silk, now the war was over, for a new slip and undies.

  —

  THERE WAS A sewing room at the hostel, and Ada was allowed to leave her machine there. She ran up a couple of skirts, pencil-thin, kick pleat. A blouse, spread out on the table, particular with her measuring and cutting, finishing and hemming. It attracted an audience.

  “Can you make one for me, Ada?”

  “And me, if I give you the material?”

  She charged them, too. Just that little bit extra, but it made all the difference. She had to start somewhere. The girls here weren’t the clients she’d prefer, and she didn’t want to do it on the black market. But rationing couldn’t go on forever. She’d save. Put a deposit on premises somewhere. Give herself a few years. All good practice in the meantime. Start a business. House of Vaughan. Get a home. If she ever met Stanislaus again, she’d show him. Bounced back, like a rubber ball. You couldn’t get rid of me. She’d like that. Meet him again. You thought I was done for. I’ve got news for you. Yes.

  —

  IT WAS EARLY summer in 1946 when the man in the Berwick Street market beckoned her aside and pulled a bolt of cobalt moiré from underneath his stall. She’d been back in London now for almost a year.

  “Look a treat on you,” he said. “Suits a blonde and all.”

  Ada hadn’t seen anything like this since before the war. The watermarks danced arabesques in the sun, promising light and mystery and elegance.

  “Pricey, mind,” the coster said. Ada ran her fingers over the fabric. Silk was stubborn, would resist. You had to be firm with silk.

  She gave him what coupons she had, and some extra in cash. Ada knew he’d slipped in a generous length. It was worth it, whatever it cost. On the black. Everyone did it now. She pored over pages of Everywoman and Woman’s Weekly for inspiration on the latest fashions, checked out Vogue in the library. Cobalt moiré was not for everyday. She closed the magazines and shut her eyes. Slim fit, no fuss, a single diagonal shoulder strap. It would flatter her bosom, show off the slenderness of her neck, her now flawless skin, the sharp of her shoulders and the jut of her collarbone. Invisible zip. The design needed care, one false move and it would be ruined. She doubted she’d get more moiré, not this side of a decade, the way the government were talking.

  It fitted like a smooth film of water flowing with her body, eddying round her breasts and pouring over the angles of her hips like a wave on the rocks. Ada hung it in her cupboard, slipped it on each night, ran her hands over it. Once silk was brought to heel, it obeyed like a faithful servant. She wasn’t sure when she’d ever wear it, but it was good to dream. Life was no fun. Nothing but work, work, work. She didn’t have the money to go out, not unless she dipped into her savings. The other nippies only wanted to hang round Leicester Square and drink tea, and where was the fun in that? Besides, she was older than they were. They’d been kids in the war.

  Tommy wouldn’t want a stick-in-the-mud for a mother, or a bitter, frustrated woman. And Ada didn’t want to turn into her mother, angry and ill-tempered. It wouldn’t hurt to go out once in a while. She had enough in her savings and ration book for a pair of sandals to match the dress. Tommy would understand. He would be getting to be a big boy now. Five years old. Losing his baby teeth. He’d want his mother to be happy. She’d put the money back next week.

  She took the dress with her in to work, and the sandals, hung it up in her locker and changed at the end of the day.

  “Going somewhere nice?” one of the other nippies said. “You don’t half look gorgeous. Got a man?”

  Ada was leaning towards the mirror, putting on her lipstick, a new one she’d bought in Woolworth’s, Poppy Red.

  “I’m not saying.”

  “Where are you going then?”

  “I’m not saying,” she said, enjoying the mystery.

  —

  SHE SAUNTERED UP the Strand, swinging her handbag. Men were looking at her. It had been so long since she’d felt that gaze. She smiled as she walked. This was like the old days. Ada Vaughan. Mannequin. Modiste. She still had the magic, a tap of her wand and the drab became dramatic, the body a landscape of dreams and desire. She turned right, off the Strand, to the doors of Smith’s Hotel. The flunkies tilted their heads and led her inside. Ada glided into the foyer, a slender blue butterfly drinking nectar.

  Nothing had changed. They still had the crystal chandeliers and beveled mirrors, the checkered floor and sweep of stairs, the paneled hall and leather chesterfields. The Manhattan Bar, she remembered, was to the left. She walked up the staircase.

  The maître d’ stood at the top behind a slim lectern. He nodded as she approached, head to one side. Smarmy, Dad would have said, lackey of the bourgeoisie. But Ada understood. They were in this together. Two toughs against the toffs. Class warfare.

  “Are you meeting someone, madam?”

  Madam. Ada smiled. No longer a miss. A mature woman.

  “Oh no,” Ada said, peering over his shoulder at the glass and chrome of the bar in the distance.

  “I’m sorry,” the maître d’ said, “but we don’t allow single ladies entry.”

  Ada drew her gaze back to his. “What?” She corrected herself. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s our policy,” he said. “Unaccompanied women are not permitted in the bar area.”

  Ada hadn’t reckoned on this. She couldn’t go back now. She’d be a laughingstock.

  “If you were meeting someone,” he went on, “that would be different.”

  He tapped a tattoo with his fingers on the lectern, dum, du-dum, dum, du-dum, stared at the wall behind her.

  “I just remembered,” Ada said, recognizing his meaning. “I am meeting someone.” He turned and faced her, drumming with one hand, while the other delved into his pocket. He made no move, and neither did Ada. He coughed, a polite hem-hem, looked pointedly at his hand still beating a rhythm on the hollow lectern.

  He wanted a tip. Bloody cheek. She had dipped into her savings for this night out, brought enough cash to pay for a cocktail and the bus fare home and a little extra just in case. She didn’t think she’d have to spend it, not on a flunkey. But what else could she do? She opened her handbag and took out her purse. He didn’t look like the sort of man who’d take brown money. She pulled out a silver sixpence and placed it on the lectern. The maître d’ pinned his finger over it and pressed down, splaying his fingertip so it covered the coin. He dragged it to the bottom and slipped the money into his pocket. You’ve done this before, Ada thought.

  He led her to a corner table on the right. There was a mirror in the center of the wall, and Ada caught a glimpse of herself as she walked towards it, her long blond hair falling in coiled tresses on her naked shoulders. Her figure twisted as she walked, in at the waist, out at the hip, the practiced rolling gait of the catwalk. She sidled into the bench, placed her bag beside her, and thanked the maître d’.

  One cocktail. That was all. If she sipped it slowly, she could make it last. She knew what she would have. Not too sweet. Gin. Lemons. Cointreau. The room was shabbier than she remembered, the carpet threadbare in places. The mirrors were the same, bright and angular, and the walls a nicotine-stained custard, darker in the crevices where they joined the ceiling. Ada leant back on the blue velvet bench, ran her palm over the soft velour. Strange rule to have, no single women. She’d always been with Stanislaus when they came before the war, had never noticed that only couples w
ere allowed in.

  The waiter brought her drink over, flipped down a small linen mat, placed the glass on top. A white lady. She waited until he had gone, then lifted it to her lips, smelling the sharp acid of the citrus and the dry juniper of the gin. She’d have to be careful. She hadn’t had a drink for years. Not since that beer in Namur, no more. She leant back and took out ten Senior Services, another birthday present to herself. She laid them on the table, blue sailing ship uppermost, took out a cigarette, held it between her fingers. She didn’t have her matches. The waiter would have a light. She’d ask him when he came by.

  “May I?” She hadn’t seen the man walk over. She looked up. His nose had a cleft at the tip, matched the one on his chin. His hair was red, his lashes fair, his eyes gray. He was smiling at her, flicking a silver lighter. She put the cigarette to her lips, breathed in.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he said. He was in his thirties, at least, wore a blazer and a checked Viyella shirt, a navy blue tie with insignia on it. His regiment, Ada thought. Must have served in the war. An officer, by the look of him. He had a glass in one hand.

  “I don’t think they’re going to come now,” Ada said, sniffing. “They’re very late.”

  “Would you care for some company?”

  “That would be nice,” Ada said. “Just for a little while.”

  He sat down, placed the glass on the table, fished into his pocket for his cigarettes.

  “My name’s William.” He stretched his hand across the table. Ada dipped her fingers inside his. He squeezed them gently; his hand was warm.

  “Whoever you were waiting for is a fool to stand you up,” he said. “They obviously don’t know what they’re missing.”

  Ada smiled. He spoke smooth, like a gentleman, saying the sorts of things they said in films. She didn’t believe him for a minute, but it was good to hear.