Blood From Stone

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘How did you start?’

  ‘My mum teaching us to sew, and then her dressing-up box, I suppose. Then I was a dogsbody in a theatre for a while and I liked the costumes more than the plays. I met a man in the wardrobe room who cleaned the clothes they wore on stage. He was the real expert with a little business at home. A specialist cleaner. He owns this house; he set it up for cleaning. He’s retired, now, but he persuaded me into this because he needed help and I hated the job I had. Like I said, the bare bones of this is cleaning rather than making. Restoring rather than creating; I’m not a designer. But cleaning’s the basis. Only it has to be expanded, even Jake agreed on that. Cleaning doesn’t pay the bills, however much fun it is.’

  Ann’s face was puzzled. Cleaning as fun did not figure. She would not last, but it did not matter. She wanted to sew.

  ‘Here,’ Hen said. ‘Unpick this bodice. Doesn’t matter how long it takes.’

  A nice silence, with a cup of tea, while Hen thought about what she had said and went into a dream with the material in her lap. She was trying to tease off the surviving lace from the wrecked, moth-eaten border of the skirt of a bridesmaid’s dress, circa 1950, so that she could use it. It’s gros point de Venise, Jake had said, developed in seventeenth-century Italy, but I reckon this is another, nineteenth-century version. Guipure lace to you, doll. There was a bloke called Doucet who made evening gowns out of ribbons, flowers, braid, beadwork and embroidery, and wedding dresses out of this lace. Fantastic stuff, as delicate-looking as cobwebs from a distance, tough as old boots close to, and heavy. Take off the rotten backing and keep it.

  Oh hell, memory lane. It was the dressing-up box, that trunk in the corridor outside her childhood bedroom that did it. Donations of unwanted stuff for the amateur dramatics society in a small seaside town, way before car boot sales and everything having a price. The dressing-up box, repository of grandmother’s knee-length knickers in pink silk, shawls in lockknit silk, taffeta frocks and petticoats made out of tired net, underskirts, nineteen-fifties gathered skirts in jazzy cotton, faded velvet curtains fit for something else, pre-war homemade dance frocks sewed with sequins, cotton nighties. All fit for make-believe on endless rainy days playing with the relics of difficult-to-keep-clean clothes abandoned as soon as polyester and nylon took the stage. Those heavier, shiny, sparkling materials never otherwise seen acting as a contrast to dull school uniform; a way to become a princess in a minute and act the role for the rest of the day. How to discover what it felt like to dress like a boy and walk like a duchess and wonder, why can’t I be like this all the time? What’s this made of, Mummy? That feels soft, while this stuff prickles. Then the market stall on Saturdays where thrifty Mrs Joyce bought material to make curtains and Hen purloined leftovers for a shift frock with big red poppies all over. The glamour of the dressing-up box fading in the desire for jeans and big shoes just like everyone else, but never disappearing. She always collected buttons; couldn’t throw a thing away without removing the buttons.

  Then the ideal student job in the back rooms of that theatre where they staged opera, ballet, musicals, pantomimes, extravaganzas and where she was nothing as grand as a dresser or seamstress, simply an errand girl for the frightening people in the wardrobe room. Collecting damp costumes worn by ballet dancers and opera singers and pantomime queens; chasing down cramped corridors to dressing rooms to deliver the newly mended and collect the burst and torn, noting how perspiration could rot cloth more than anything else; it was as if they were sweating acid. She had watched the speed with which the ball gown was altered for the understudy, standing in the wings and seeing it was still not right; learned how no performer ever owned what they wore on stage. Costumes belonged to everyone. The prevailing scents in the mad sanctuary of the wardrobe room were body musk, perfume and anxiety, and the wardrobe people were the only ones who cared more about the clothes than the song, the dance or the play. Where cleanliness was akin to godliness, not for hygiene but preservation.

  Wish they wouldn’t wear deodorant, Jake would mutter. At least sweat shows. Sweat plus chemicals is sweat hidden. There’s nothing stops sweat or moths. They love sweat, see? Was it there it began? Or Jake getting old? Hen ignored the lure of the theatre but loved those durable, hard worn, handmade clothes and watched how they transformed those who wore them. She had dressed herself on wardrobe remnants; she was a walking patchwork.

  Was that where it all really began? No, it was all earlier than that. It came into focus on that fateful day when she had gone into her parents’ storage business, to help a customer collect the clothes stored in a container for two years and found them eaten to death. A whole wardrobe infested with live moths, chewing into ugly lace and still moving. She never forgot it. Cloth was only food for mice and moth; unwashed clothes, all natural material, carried nourishment for its own verminous predators.

  She unpicked the end bit of lace and laid it aside. It was pleasant to be doing something for which technology had few short cuts. There was no machine substitute for this.

  ‘I’ve got to warn you,’ she told Ann. ‘In this line of work you only ever to get to meet older women and gay men. Shall we go and look at the basement? Cup of tea first.’

  She was dreaming again.

  How absolutely stupid, to go to that inquest, only to see him, sitting there in an old-fashioned coat she had noticed first, then clocked who it was, felt his presence from twelve feet, registered it and ran. Not because she was afraid of Rick Boyd, but because she might have scratched his eyes out. Hen let the moment of remembered panic fade. She favoured redbush tea, iced in summer, to be followed by a pint of wine in the evening. She might live without the wine, but never the tea.

  Peter Friel had phoned in the morning. It was afternoon now and he was due in two hours’ time. She would take him to the basement.

  ‘My mother says you’re too kind for your own good,’ Ann said. ‘She says you really try to make people feel good about themselves. She says you’re the kindest person in the world.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Hen murmured, touched to the point of blushing. ‘She must know the other part of the saying. You have to be cruel to be kind. Let’s skip the basement, for now. Next time, I’d like you to help me sort out buttons and braid. I’ve forgotten what I’ve got.’

  All of a sudden she wanted her out of here. Ann reminded her of Angel, not pretty, not secure, vulnerable. Angel could sew; they had both been taught to sew. Angel was quicker and defter; she had better eyesight; sewing could have redeemed her. She could sew, but she had no eye for colours or shapes, no feeling for texture, no patience. All the same, she could stitch, embroider, embellish and make perfect buttonholes. Hen turned her head away, so she could not see the shadow of Angel sitting there in the dark, dressed in that black corset and stockings, her lips and her nipples painted red, waiting for him, a mad, corrupted Angel.

  Ann said goodbye, and yes, she would come back, but not until the weekend, was that all right? Hen hoped she would and hoped she wouldn’t and said yes, any time. As soon as the door shut, she was going over that conversation with Peter Friel on the phone this morning. How ironic that he should think of her as an expert. Ah well, in the country of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen. Half an expert was better than none.

  It’s Peter Friel. I need your help. I got your website. What do you mean, dry cleaner, you’re an expert.

  No, I’m not, I’m a cleaner. Whenever you like. Five would be fine. I’ll be waiting. Ring the bell. She was intrigued and reluctant at the same time.

  Peter Friel was waiting at the door of the house with a suitcase, looking as if he was coming to stay and for a brief moment she wished he was. Hers was a narrow Pimlico street of tall houses and her door was the small red one between two shops. He had remembered instructions. He was looking into the next shop window as if he was waiting for it to open and he felt a little shifty, as well he might, Hen thought, with a suitcase containing a dead woman’s clothes. Hen had been oddly unsurpri
sed by his call and his request. Nothing surprised her much these days and of course she had been wanting to know what Marianne Shearer had been wearing at the moment of her death ever since she had seen that photograph. She was also relieved that this might be the real and only reason why it wasn’t all over.

  ‘This is very kind of you,’ Peter said. ‘Kinder than I deserve.’

  ‘It isn’t kind,’ she said. ‘You said you had a garment to inspect. You had me interested, that’s all.’

  She led him down the stairs, past the shop and through the door to the basement. The workroom was too personal a space, with too much of herself in it, while down here nothing much happened except overnight. He was allowed to see how she worked, not how work overlapped with how she lived. He did not seem to notice.

  There had been a great misty cold outside, which made the interior of the basement seem warm as well as stark in the neon light and the blue of the insect repellent lamp that stayed on all the year round. It was entirely without the comfort of the sewing room. Upstairs was for creating; downstairs was for cleaning and destruction. There were two large tanks of stainless steel, one long enough to hold a body, the other smaller and deeper. The shallower tank held a piece of lace, soaking in solvent. The tanks had drainage pipes leading below the floor. Hen knew how to filter the used solvent, to examine the dirt it displaced. The whole place smelled cleanly of benign chemicals, acceptable, useful poisons. There were gallons of solvents in plastic barrels, and a stone sink with smaller barrels of liquid detergent. A workbench, also stainless steel, half covered with a dress. A ventilator, a low-wattage heater which kept the room no more than warm, but not warm enough to tempt Peter to take off his coat. The smaller tank reminded him of a deep fat fryer in a fish and chip shop. On top of it, sitting in a basket-like sieve, sat two antique teddy bears, drying out like freshly draining deep-fried chips. They were bedraggled and defiant and they delighted him. He liked the smell and feel of the place: it seemed to clear his head. He put down the suitcase and went towards them, stooping down to speak.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. There was no reply.

  ‘They’ve been dunked,’ Hen said, touching them affectionately. ‘Moth got them. Remarkable survivors, moths. If you soak them in solvent long enough, you deprive the eggs of the oxygen they need, kill them and dislodge them, so their dear little carcases should be dropping into the filter, right now. But moth eggs are pernicious little buggers, they seem to be able to live for years, and some of them might come back. So Gilbert and Bob have to stick around while I see what I collect and what happens next. At least they have one another.’

  Peter Friel fondled the ears of the teddies and looked. He seemed to have forgotten his mission in his curiosity, or maybe he just liked the smell.

  ‘Dry cleaning’s a bit of a misdescription, isn’t it?’ was all he said. ‘Everything seems to have to get wet.’

  He was peering into the tank which held the lace, then looking above him to the wooden three-tiered hanging frame suspended from the ceiling over the sink and the freezer. He grinned at her, inviting explanations, and she warmed to him for actually wanting to know. He remembered Marianne Shearer in court. You’re a dry cleaner, Ms Joyce? No wonder you wanted something else to do, or do you just love meddling in other people’s dirt?

  ‘No, it isn’t dry, not in any sense of the word, but solvents act differently to water. Water swells the fabric, and then shrinks it in the drying. Solvents are less invasive, stay where they touch, dry quicker. Colours remain stable in the right solvent, but you still have to soak the thing in liquid for long enough for it to work. More than once, sometimes, until you get it right. If you can cut out a piece and test, you do that first. Again and again. Sometimes water’s best. Like this . . .’

  She loved to explain and he wanted to listen. She could lose herself in her own excitement, as long as someone would listen. Angel never listened. That was her problem. Hen was by the workbench, pointing at the dress. ‘Water damage,’ she said. ‘I tried everything. Solvents didn’t work. But if I put a towel underneath and drip boiling water on to the stain, it begins to go. Like with like.’

  The enthusiasm began to feel out of place. He stopped looking around and remembered that the errand was more than an excuse to see her again.

  ‘If this is too difficult,’ he began, awkwardly, ‘perhaps you could recommend someone else.’

  ‘It isn’t difficult, although I’m not an expert, yet. I often deal with dead people’s clothes, although I don’t usually know how they died. Museums do the same, don’t they? It doesn’t affect me. Put it here, let’s see.’

  He put the suitcase on the table, opened it and let her do the rest. He had twisted the skirt to contain the buoyant folds of it, watched as she lifted it out, and saw how it expanded as soon as it was freed.

  ‘Oh,’ Hen said. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Could you describe it in words?’ Peter asked. ‘Only I couldn’t begin to do that.’

  The skirt seemed to fill the room, as it had in Thomas’s office. She handled it confidently, the way he had seen a dealer in antiquities handle a precious object. In the bright light, the skirt looked durable and strong and Hen’s pleasure in it was obvious and slightly repellent.

  ‘It’s really rather fantastic.’ She turned the cloth, held it this way and that and her voice was high. ‘Look, it’s made of hundreds of ribbons, stitched together vertically with the tiniest of seams to make the basic material, and then pleated. Four, no five, different colours of ribbon to give this effect, all in these stiff, accordion pleats, so that it flares out, structured and full, if you see what I mean. There must be a thousand seams in this cloth, and there’s metres and metres of fabric compressed into these pleats. It’s made for twirling round, because it moves, and then comes back and falls straight back in shape. No wonder it seems to bounce, no wonder it seems to float. It’s like a pleated rainbow. Description in words? Exhibit A consists of silk grosgrain ribbons, artfully combined for stunning effect. How marvellous that it survived such a fall. It’s delicate, but tough, like the best silk is. Would you like a drink? I would.’

  She put the skirt down, carelessly, over a chair. Delicate but tough, like she was. It shocked him a little that she should be so objective and yet so welcoming, but if clothes were Frockserve’s business, as they were according to her website, he supposed it followed that they were more important than their own, personal associations and whoever the hell had worn them, dead or alive. Didn’t matter whether worn by a dictator, sadist, pope, social butterfly or executioner. They were all pieces of cloth.

  He said, yes, please, and sat, feeling strangely at home in her laboratory, hardly conscious of the suitcase between them. Hen was easy to watch and did not seem to mind being watched as she fetched wine from a shelf and presented him with a glass of deep red. The colour of it reminded him of the predominant colour in the skirt and he looked at it again, sitting there, over the chair, like a second guest. No, red was not the colour that predominated: they all did. Dark crimson, burgundy, purple, maroon, and it made him dizzy. Hen sat too, raised her glass to the skirt, nodding towards it deferentially, entirely without sentiment.

  ‘I’ve seen a cape made out of material like that, once,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you to see it, if you like. I doubt if anyone’s ever patented that use of material. The design of the thing I saw was American, 1940s, real haute couture. You couldn’t put a price on this skirt, you know. It’s precious and unique, might have taken a year to make. It’s built, rather than simply made. It would have cost a bomb. So, was she rich, or did she inherit it?’

  Peter sipped the wine that tasted good. Must not spill: must listen to her closely and must explain.

  ‘The thing is, I told you on the phone, I have to find out what Marianne Shearer was up to, and that’s my job at the moment. All her records are missing: there’s no record of what she might have been thinking, except, perhaps, this. Her executor got hold of the clothes she wa
s wearing in the vain hope there was some message hidden somewhere in them; well, there isn’t, is there?’

  She smiled at him, slowly, propping up her chin with her hands, laughing at him perhaps, he neither knew nor cared.

  ‘Hmmm. Messages hidden in clothes, you mean, like sewn into clothes? What a nice idea, but not, I fear in these tiny, delicate seams. Nice, creative thinking borne out by history. I like it. I mean, it could be true, couldn’t it? Think of the Tsar’s family, fleeing Russia with their jewels sewn into their clothes. Think of royal messengers, with precious documents and written orders sewn into the inside of the cloak so they could walk around empty-handed. The stones from a ring set into a button. Think of a Turkish wedding, where the bride stands in her voluminous finery and the guests pin banknotes to the hem of her dress. Clothes as big, fat, hidden pockets for secrets. It’s been done, but it wouldn’t work with Lycra.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not that it’s far-fetched, not really, but why? I think you might have this the wrong way round. It’s not that the elusive Ms Shearer left clues in her clothes. The clue’s the clothes themselves.’

  He was listening; he could have listened and watched for a long time. She drank that first glass as though it was water; so had he. She fetched the bottle.

  ‘What this woman is telling you by wearing this precious garment to her death is that she had another life. A life with entirely different priorities. If she was a woman who possessed an outrageously extravagant, beautiful garment like this, you can bet your bottom dollar that it wasn’t the only garment like that. You get used to them; you can’t wear lesser things. She’s telling you what she was. It’s a collector’s item, and I’ll bet she was a collector. I bet she had a collection of clothes, beautiful, spectacular clothes. Damn her eyes, damn her, damn her.’