Fabbia felt her cheeks get even hotter. ‘I don’t think I can claim…’
‘Certainly you can, my dear. Like I said, a breath of fresh air. Just what we all needed.’ She looked down at her own dress. ‘Look at me, for example. You’ve got me in red. Red, for goodness’ sake. And I’ve had so many compliments.’
Fabbia smiled. ‘You look wonderful. Really, you do. I love your hair. And your shoes…’
Audrey extended a foot in front of her, turning it this way and that, admiring again the elegant gold kitten heels.
‘So, my dear, I just wanted to say that you mustn’t bother about him.’ She gestured to where Pike was standing stiffly at Jean Cushworth’s elbow, fidgeting with the sleeve of his shiny grey suit jacket. ‘He’s not well liked, you know, despite what he’d have you believe. My betting is that he won’t get re-elected. Some of his policies…’ she gave a little shudder, ’well, they’re much too right-wing for this town. Goodness knows what Jean’s doing getting mixed-up with him.’ She looked Fabbia directly in the eye. ‘And I’ve said that to her face too, you know.’
Fabbia felt the tension return to her shoulders. She angled her body away from Jean Cushworth so that she wouldn’t guess that she was being discussed.
‘Oh, don’t mind me, dear. I don’t want to embarrass you. I just desperately wanted you to know…’ She laid a hand on Fabbia’s arm. ‘Well, I think you know what I’m trying to say… And Jean. Just look at her. She looks amazing too. A-mazing. I’m guessing the dress is one of yours?’
Fabbia nodded, grateful to find herself on safer ground. ‘I made it for her especially. Inspired by a dress I found in an old Cinemascope magazine…’
‘Well, she certainly looks the part.’ Audrey winked. ‘She must be very pleased…’
With his usual perfect sense of timing, David appeared at Fabbia’s side.
‘Mrs Cossington,’ he said, his eyes twinking mischievously, ‘May I just say that you’re looking positively ravishing?’
Audrey poked him playfully in the ribs. ‘Oh, go on, you old smoothie,’ she laughed. ‘And it’s all down to Fabbia, here. Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it.’
And with that she turned, waving her champagne glass at them, a gold bangle glittering on her wrist.
‘Wonderful old bird,’ David said, grinning. ‘Speaks her mind. Tells things how they are. Always has done…’
*
The party continued. A marquee had been erected on the lawn and now it glimmered softly in the fading evening, lit from within by strings of lanterns.
The guests drifted over the lawn. From the conservatory, Ella watched them grouping and regrouping like filmy clouds of moths.
‘What’s the matter with you, then?’ said Katrina, ‘Missing Lover-Boy?’
Ella scowled and trailed after her over the wet lawn. The canvas marquee had begun to steam gently. It seemed as if it was floating a few inches above the grass.
She found Mamma and David at one of the circular tables flanked by gold-painted chairs and sat down next to them, fanning herself with a napkin.
Mother’s face was flushed. She gripped Ella’s hand in hers and turned it over, examining the shapes of her fingers.
‘Your father’s hands,’ she said. ‘You look so like him tonight, tesora.’
Ella pulled her hand away in annoyance. Mamma had drunk too much wine.
‘She’s certainly turning out to be a beauty,’ said David, beaming at her across the tablecloth. ‘That young man over there hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her all evening.’
He nodded towards the bar. A boy she’d seen before from the fifth-form at school who was obviously working for the catering company, stood dabbing at a glass with a limp teatowel. As Ella met his eyes, he looked away quickly.
‘Yes, I can see we’re going to have to keep a closer eye on her,’ David said, winking. ‘She’s going to be breaking hearts all over the place before too long. But,’ he said, lifting Mamma’s hand and kissing it, ‘I think she takes after her mother in that regard.’
Nice, kind-hearted, handsome David, his blue eyes shining, his neck tie loosened, his hair flopping over his forehead like a schoolboy’s.
Ella felt sulky, rude. She was sick of herself. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she be happy?
She looked down and straightened her place setting, lining up the knife with the fork, the spoon at perfect right-angles to the glass.
‘Can I have some wine, please?’ she asked and she watched them, full of the sense of occasion, humouring her, making a ceremony of splashing the rosé into her glass, following it with the plink of an ice cube from the bucket.
It made Ella think of the snow globe that Mamma had given her one Christmas, of watching the snowflakes whirl and all the bright little figures get blurry, sealed tightly in their miniature storm, whilst she watched from the outside and the reflection of her own face loomed at her in the curve of the glass.
*
Shhhhh…. Don’t tell. Shhhh…
This house is full of secrets. It keeps them close, behind the thick white plaster of the walls and in the heavy folds of the curtains.
But when you’re invisible, when you don’t belong anywhere, you’re free to move through the rooms and corridors. The house opens itself to you. You hear everything, see everything.
Ella walked down the hallway to the cloakroom. Mamma had asked her to fetch her handkerchief, which she’d left in her raincoat pocket and Ella had been only too glad of the excuse to leave all the whirl and blur behind her, to have something to do.
Later, she didn’t remember how it happened. She must have opened the wrong door. One minute, she was standing in the hallway, her hand pressing the brass fingerplate with its beaded edge. The next minute, the door swung open and she was standing there, her feet rooted to the spot. She was seeing what she was seeing, but it was as if another part of her, the hidden part inside her, was looking out from her eyes.
Shhhh, this other part of her said. Shhhh. You didn’t see anything. Nothing at all.
That was when, silently, she closed the door. She slipped off her shoes and held them in her hand. Quietly, carefully, she walked away down the corridor.
But on the insides of her eyelids the image still burned. Jean Cushworth lying across an antique writing-desk, the V-shape of her splayed legs and thighs, her bare white feet crossed at the ankles, clasped around the moving back of Councillor Pike.
Ella kept walking. The air bunched up around her, compressing itself into hard ridges. The Signals leapt around her like flames. Run, they whispered. Run. But she felt too hot and faintly sick. She put her hand against the wall and forced herself to breathe deeply.
She found the right door. She slipped the handkerchief from Mamma’s coat pocket and folded it into her palm.
And then she stopped, a crackle of red – of danger – flickering through her body. Someone had followed her into the cloakroom. She could feel their eyes pricking the back of her neck. She turned slowly.
Councillor Pike, his tie loosened, his shirtsleeves pushed up his thin white hairless forearms, stood in the doorway, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and his breath made a hissing sound between his teeth.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, his voice slurred with drink. ‘What do you think you’re doing, sneaking around with no shoes on, spying on people?’
Ella looked at him. She felt the other part of her, the hidden girl inside her, looking and looking. It was as if she was staring down a long tunnel with Councillor Pike at the end of it, his face slick with sweat, those eyes boring their way into her.
‘I said, what are you doing in here, um? Going through people’s pockets? Pinching things?’
He grabbed her wrist and wrenched her hand upwards so that a gasp escaped from her mouth. He forced her fingers open.
‘It’s my m-mother’s.’ She used her free hand to unfold the handkerchief and show him the embro
idered initial: F. ‘From her coat pocket. She asked me to get it.’
He dropped her hand then, as if even the touch of her disgusted him. He shook his head, opening the door just enough to let her pass through.
She angled her body so that she wouldn’t have to brush against him. She could hear his breath coming quick and hot. The sweet stench of alcohol made her want to vomit.
And then his foot came out to trip her. She heard him laughing – a harsh, jagged sound – as she stumbled against him, putting out her hand to save herself. As she fell against his shoulder, he grabbed her arm with one hand, his other hand sliding easily up the skirt of her dress, finding the elastic of her knickers, pinching the soft flesh of her buttock between his finger and thumb.
‘Little tart,’ he said, laughing softly to himself. ‘Not so full of ourselves now, then, are we?’
He pulled her closer towards him and she tried to get free. A wave of nausea rushed into her throat as she realised that his fingers were working their way around inside her knickers.
‘Bet you like that don’t you,’ he sneered, his breath full in her face. ‘Bet you can’t get enough if it. But I really don’t like you very much. You and that stuck-up mother of yours. You think you’re something special, don’t you? Don’t you? Well, you’re nothing. Nothing at all.’
He pushed her away then, wiping his hand on the handkerchief, tossing it to the floor. The door closed softly, quietly, behind him.
She leaned on the wall, her face burning, feeling the cool of the plaster between her shoulder blades. She didn’t know how long she stood there staring, staring at the back of the closed door.
‘Where did you go, tesora?’ Mamma smiled.
‘We were about to send out a search party for you,’ said David, grinning, offering her more wine.
‘I couldn’t find your handkerchief,’ Ella heard herself saying. ‘It wasn’t in your pocket. It wasn’t there…’
*
Afterwards, Ella couldn’t remember very clearly what happened next.
She felt her phone in the petalled clutchbag vibrate against her thigh and checked it under cover of the tablecloth.
It was Billy.
Meet me in 10 min outside K’s house?
She texted back, feeling a wave of relief flood through her.
It was easy to slip away again. This time, she avoided the house, skirting around the side, sticking to the pathways strung with party lanterns. Groups of smokers congregated in little clusters at various points along the terraces. One of them waved to her.
‘Oi, Ella. Want a smoke?’
She caught the faint whiff of a joint hanging in the air above the scents of roses and newly-cut lawn. She didn’t stop, just shook her head and heard the sound of laughter drifting.
Billy was leaning against one of the ridiculous mock-Victorian lamp-posts at the top of the driveway. When she saw his face in the circle of orange light, Ella has to stop herself from running towards him, hurling herself against him.
‘Wow,’ he said, looking her up and down. ‘You look fantastic.’
She could feel herself reaching for the right words, somewhere out on the edge of her awareness.
‘It’s awful…’ she said and heard her voice float into the great expanse of darkness, thin and flat.
‘Really? That bad?’ Billy grinned. ‘Well, madam, your carriage awaits you…’ He gestured at the empty driveway. ‘Where shall we go? The river?’
Ella nodded and shivered.
‘Where’s your coat? Want to go back and get it?’
She shook her head vigorously.
‘OK.’ Billy took off his big black waterproof jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. He pulled her arm all the way through the loop of his and rubbed her hand to warm it.
They walked as far as the Millennium Bridge and sat right out in the middle. The river spread out on either side of them, smooth as glass.
Ella remembered feeling then as if all the life-force had left her body. She was so tired that she thought about just lying down, right there, on the bridge. She ran her hand over the warm wood planks. She looked down at her outstretched fingers and it was as if they weren’t her fingers any more, even when she saw Billy’s bigger hand moving to cover them. She breathed.
‘Hypnotic, isn’t it?’ she could hear him saying. ‘Up here, you feel as if you could just let go, fall backwards into the water and you wouldn’t make a sound. The river would just take you. You could float forever…’
Ella’s dream drifted back to her, the trees reaching down to brush her face, the boat, Mamma, David. She blinked.
She could feel Billy’s eyes on her, his face leaning in close and then his hand coming up to cradle her head, his lips gently brushing against hers.
That’s when the panic started to rise in her. Something crushed against her chest. Her mouth felt as if it was filling with river water.
She stood up, shoving him hard, sending him flying backwards against the curved railings.
‘What did you do that for?’ She was shouting now, the words tumbling over one another, thick and fast. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
Billy’s face was white in all the blackness. ‘I thought… Ella, I’m sorry, I thought…’
‘Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you, you idiot!’ She heard her voice bouncing back at her from the water. Why was she yelling? She didn’t know. Her heart was banging hard enough to burst and she couldn’t even see properly any more, just lines of wavy red that sent the blackness bobbing and rocking around her so that she couldn’t tell where anything began or ended any more, just a feeling that everything was spinning, faster and faster, away from her.
She heard her feet in the stupid silver ballet flats slapping the tarmac path, her mouth making gasping noises and Billy panting close behind her. His voice, ‘Ella, ELLA! Wait. I’m sorry. Please, Ella. Ella, WAIT...’
But she kept running until all the breath had been squeezed out of her. She kept going until she couldn’t go any further, bending over the handrail at the top of the steps on the other side of the river, sweating, heaving, waiting for her breathing to slow.
As she began to see properly again, she could just make out a thin shape in the darkness at the foot of the steps.
‘Ella,’ it said. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I got it all wrong. You know I’d never… well, I’d never do anything to make you feel bad. Please, just let me keep you safe. Let me walk you back home.‘
Keep her safe? Safe?
Ella felt the tiny bubbles of red begin to gather at the edge of her vision. She narrowed her eyes.
‘You must be joking.’ Her voice was quiet now, calm, as glassy as the river. ‘Don’t come anywhere near me, ever again, Billy Vickers. I don’t ever even want to look at you.’
Then she pulled herself upright and walked carefully through the quiet streets, holding her body very straight, keeping her arms perfectly still at her sides.
At the corner of Alma Terrace and the Fulford Road she turned right and kept walking until she could see the lights glimmering through the chestnut trees at the top of Katrina’s driveway. She walked on, her feet crunching across the gravel now, smoothing her hair out of her eyes.
Mamma and David were on the front steps. Ella saw that Mamma had her coat folded over one arm. She gave Ella a little wave.
‘Carina, we were just looking for you. Where’ve you been?’
16.
Full-length slip dress. Oyster-coloured silk. Bespoke Chanel. Date unknown.
What was Jean Cushworth thinking?
Fabbia turned the question over in her mind as her needle dipped in and out of the beaded panel. She liked the feel of the silk in her fingers and the way that her mind stilled to the rhythm of the needle. In and out, in and out.
Since the party, everyone had been so kind. So many nice words. So many new customers.
Perhaps she’d been wrong about Jean Cushworth. She certainly knew how to throw a party. And it seemed that,
if she decided that she liked you, that was that. You were in.
‘A monstrous woman, ‘ David had said. ‘That poor husband of hers. I don’t know how he puts up with it.‘
But Fabbia didn’t like to be cynical about people. She could see Jean Cushworth now in her mind’s eye, silhouetted against her enormous French windows, her hair perfectly coloured and coiffed, her perfect nails, her perfect make-up. Everything always so perfect on the outside. Who knows what she felt on the inside?
Loneliness, maybe? Wanting to be good enough? Wanting to be loved? Fabbia know how all those things could change a person.
But now there was the problem of this dress.
Yesterday evening, after school, the girl Katrina, such a strange young girl, always looking so unhappy, had arrived at the shop door with a parcel.
‘My mum’s been going through a few old things and thought you might be able to use these,’ she said.
She’d turned away then, sweeping out of the shop as quickly as she’d come in. Hardly time to thank her.
‘Give your mother my regards,’ she’d called, but the girl was already across the courtyard, turning the corner, that funny half-smile on her face. So rude, thought Fabbia, but then her eyes never seem to smile. My heart feels heavy for her.
When she cut carefully through the brown paper and separated the layers of tissue, she couldn’t help exclaiming to herself.
Dio mio. A headpiece, such a thing, confection of white feathers, diamante and crystal-studded veil. So theatrical, so dramatic. So Jean Cushworth, really.
A silk clutch sewn with what must be thousands of crystals. Swarowski, thought Fabbia, nodding her head, approvingly.
A silk kaftan-style sundress in palest toffee-coloured silk. Fabbia didn’t even need to check the label to know that this was Donna Karan, circa 1995.
And, finally, the dress.
As she lifted the layers of tissue, it slithered into her hands and spread itself across the counter.
The Dress (Everyday Magic Trilogy: Book 1) Page 17