by Ruth Thomas
And she is about to say something about sequins, something, anything, to stop them staring at her, when there is a sudden, abrupt, tap on her shoulder. How rude! She turns.
‘Well hello there, Sally Tuttle!,’ a woman booms. A middle-aged woman, glamorous in cashmere, her brown hair expensively styled and coloured. There is a scent emanating from her, a warm, rather wistful scent akin to Chanel No. 5. Instantly Sally recognises her – her eyes and her voice and her stance – but she cannot comprehend why.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ the woman asks, delighted.
‘I do,’ Sally says, ‘but I’m sorry, I can’t quite –’
‘Mary Button!’ the woman beams. ‘Although, of course, you used to know me as Miss Button. Actually, I’m not a Miss or a Button any more …’ And now she is turning, smiling, at the little group of Embroiderers’ Guild members, assuming her teacher’s role.
‘I was the famous Sally Tuttle’s Needlework teacher,’ she says.
Sally stands, transfixed. Miss Button.
‘Hardly famous …’ she begins, her heart blanching.
But Miss Button interrupts. ‘I was wondering if you might be here actually, Sally. Having read about you in the papers.’
Sally feels herself blushing. She feels she might as well be standing there in her school uniform. The best part of three decades stretches and breaks, like a dividing cell.
Miss Button says, ‘Sally used to be my star pupil.’
‘Really?’ someone replies.
‘Yes. There was this sort of Damascene conversion, wasn’t there, Sally? That winter. Do you remember? You’d been making a pig’s breakfast of that blouse all autumn, and then you suddenly took off!’
‘Hmm,’ Sally replies, hot-faced, thinking of that blouson (very easy / très facile) and watching Miss Button’s lipsticked mouth. She is still pretty, she is thinking. Lines on her forehead and around her eyes now, of course, but still she has that neat nose and lipsticked mouth …
Miss Button still favours shades of caramel: a caramel roll-neck sweater and a caramel checked skirt. And her clothes still seem to resist evidence of normal life: cat hairs, creases, small marks on the cuffs. Some people have that ability. There always did seem to be an impenetrable shield around her, protecting her from grottiness …
‘… and of course I was only twenty-four myself at the time,’ Miss Button is saying, ‘and embroiled in this terribly earnest relationship with a quite inappropriate young copy-writer …’
And she pauses slightly, to glance at Sally. Sally looks back at her. Miss Button smiles. And Sally is aware of something, some intangible thing, some transgression made years ago – insubstantial, untouchable, like a fine fabric floating just out of reach.
‘Oh yes, I was quite the floozy – isn’t it funny how teenage girls always think their teachers are desperately ancient and respectable?’ Miss Button beams. She holds Sally’s gaze for a moment, infinitesimally pleased.
‘And, anyway,’ she continues, ‘just as I was really beginning to despair that Sally would ever finish this awful blouson …’
Sally stands and listens, time suddenly truncated, like a folding telescope. A ‘quite inappropriate young copy-writer.’ Miss Button’s eyes are still a deep, treacherous brown.
‘But those blousons I made you all sew!’ she is saying now. ‘Those blousons, Sally! Weren’t they just awful?’
Sally opens her mouth but no word emerges. She thinks of that blouson (very easy / très facile), that ridiculous blouson of Rowena’s at the foot of Colin Rafferty’s bed.
Miss Button is standing very close. ‘Do you know,’ she half-whispers, ‘I actually used to take some of them home with me in the evenings to unpick! When I first started at that awful school. I used to try and sort out the ones that had gone completely pear-shaped. Wasn’t that self-sacrificing of me!’
The other embroiderers have gone quiet, watching Sally and Miss Button. They stand, clutching their bags and empty coffee cups.
‘I used to macramé things,’ one woman says eventually into the silence. ‘I had all these macraméd owls …’
Sally thinks of her best friend Rowena Cresswell, twenty-eight years ago, sitting in the Me-n-U café with her mother and the new, pink, crying baby. And something pulls tight in her heart. Something pulls and hurts.
Wave
What would the collective noun be for embroiderers? A skein? A reel? A knot?
‘A hassock?’ suggests Kenneth.
The embroidery conference is gathering momentum. People in tasselled waistcoats, in knitted tops with too many bobbles, are putting together their presentation tables. People are appearing with rolls of canvas under their arms, wooden frames, baskets of cotton reels, tapestry sewing bags. Waitresses are bringing in jugs of orange juice and coffee flasks. And an earlier conference is departing, dismantling: something to do with plastics, something entitled We Get There First.
‘Suits and hand-knits,’ Kenneth observes from the doorway.
It is not unlike one of the Jollies we attend, apart from the style of clothing. The academics we usually mingle with favour fawn corduroys, Marks & Spencers’ turtle-necks, suede shoes. Here, the plastics men are wearing pale grey suits. They are taking down huge, unstable-looking boards bearing logos and pictures of plastic tubing. They are winding up pieces of electrical cable. I look around at the arriving embroiderers, darting about like tailors’ mice, in their bright colours.
*
Kenneth is paying our bill at the reception desk when who should stride past but Jeremy Bowes. And I almost applaud. I knew I would bump into him here, just as I always do, in cities all over the world. Spotted you! I knew it! I feel like a birdwatcher, jotting down another sighting in her notebook.
Jeremy has not noticed me. He is striding in a noli me tangere way towards the doors. He appears to be wearing the same bargello waistcoat I first saw him in all those years ago in the Musée de Cluny. He has aged but he is still wearing that waistcoat. And this makes me feel oddly fond of him. Maybe he is not the person he seems to be. Maybe he does not have wardrobes full of clothes. Or perhaps he is more nostalgic about old things than he might seem. I think of the number of times we have endured canapés and small talk over the years, in dingy university suites across Europe. He is, I suppose, one of my oldest acquaintances.
I step forward.
‘Jeremy!’ I exclaim. ‘Hello!’ And he stops, slightly alarmed. He looks blankly at me for a moment. Then he smiles.
‘Rowena! How lovely to see you!’
‘I noticed you were in town! I saw your name on the posters.’
‘Ah, yes. The embroidery conference.’
‘It looks interesting. We nearly saw some of it. What’s it about?’
Jeremy does not look happy. He purses his lips and considers. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘It’s a glorified women’s sewing circle really.’
My fondness for him erodes a little. ‘Well,’ I say. ‘You’ve spent your life being adored by women. I’d have thought a women’s sewing circle would be right up your street.’
Jeremy frowns. ‘But my lecture is about courtly love,’ he says.
‘Surely love and sewing aren’t mutually exclusive?’
‘No, of course not. Far from it. It’s just, it’s not an academic conference. Not quite my usual environment.’
He looks white-faced and tired.
‘Oh well,’ Kenneth says, walking over from the reception desk. ‘Can’t win ’em all, Jeremy.’
Jeremy looks at Kenneth.
‘Apparently not. I think this lot are more interested in the techniques of embroidery.’
‘Well. The techniques of embroidery are important. There’d be nothing to talk about if nobody actually embroidered.’
‘True,’ Jeremy says. ‘But there’s this one woman,’ he begins, frowning – but he seems to think better of it, and stops talking. Some kind of jockeying for position has gone on, I think, and he has lost, like a battle-weary knight.
‘Well, I think it sounds interesting,’ I say.
Jeremy looks wan.
‘Are you going back to Paris afterwards?’
‘Yes. I’ll be at Charles de Gaulle by eight tonight. Hooray!’
And I have a vision of Jeremy in some apartment in the thirteenth arrondissement. I imagine he is the sort of man who lives an unexpectedly cluttered life, full of academic papers and divorce papers and books and shoes. Not enough people; too many journeys, pieces of fluff, small buttons, paper clips, collecting around the skirting boards of his home.
‘Well,’ I say. ‘See you at the next event. Over the finger food.’
‘No doubt. No doubt. Oh well, I’d better go and do this. Bye, Rowena. Bye Kenneth.’ (Sleep! his face says. A glass of warm milk and an early night!) And he turns to face the collective noun of embroiderers.
Tête de Boeuf
The keynote speaker is a few minutes late but this is probably to be expected. Just as the volume of murmured conversations begins to rise he appears in the doorway, walks across the room and hops on to the small chipboard stage. There is a hush. People end their conversations and fold their programmes in their laps. Jeremy Bowes smiles a rather tight smile and snaps on the overhead projector. It makes a humming noise and projects a too-light image on to the wall behind him.
Medieval man offering medieval woman a rose.
Jeremy Bowes turns to his audience and begins. ‘Medieval tapestries,’ he states, and then he pauses.
‘Works of elegance,’ he continues. ‘Works of fidelity. Works … of love.’
He is one of those people who can speak in short, ungrammatical bursts and still sound impressive. His confidence is almost too much for Sally to bear. She can feel her palms begin to sweat.
Jeremy smiles down at his audience and his audience smiles up at him. ‘Family tapestries,’ he goes on, ‘were symbols as much as things of practicality …’
The woman sitting beside Sally fans her face with her programme. Sally feels as if she might be sick. Now a kind of singing has set up in her head. She looks up at the tapestry projected on to the screen – the lord offering his lady a rose – and it makes her think of all the mistakes she has made. All her assumptions, misconceptions, wrong conclusions. The next image – a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry – is not particularly comforting. It reminds her of the first time she saw it, in France, on canvas.
The audience peers up at poor Harold trying to pull the arrow out of his eye; at the casualties of war amongst the pretty flowers. Jeremy tells them there are over 626 human figures in the tapestry, 190 horses, 35 dogs, 506 other birds and animals, 33 buildings, 37 ships and 37 trees or groups of trees. Sally thinks of all the women who embroidered it, their hearts full of love and fear.
‘The imagery in this particular scene …’ Jeremy is saying, pointing out a piece of crewelwork with something that looks like a magician’s wand. And quickly, Sally glances across at Miss Button. She is sitting diagonally across the aisle from her. She has sheer tights on. Her varnished-nailed hands rest elegantly in her lap.
*
Jeremy Bowes is now handing round courtly love printouts detailing points of interest. Sally looks down at her copy.
France, around 1340. Linen with gold silk embroidery.
This is an ‘aumoniere’ or alms bag. These were popular presents from lords to the ladies they courted, which explains why scenes of courtly love were the most common decorative motif. A young couple flirts here, while on the reverse a more mature couple are exchanging love tokens.
Oh, nothing has changed. Nearly seven hundred years later, people are still flirting and giving each other love tokens. People are still attempting to entrance with fashion: a scarf, a bag, a dress. It means no more than it ever has done.
Her pulse is thudding like a horse. She looks at her watch. It is ten thirty-eight. She wants to be anywhere but here. She wants to be with Pearl, with her mother, with Sue, with John. Her hands are cold and she thinks she really may be sick. But she can’t run away now: it is too late. Jeremy Bowes is finishing with a last, professional flourish – some joke about the pretty tote bags carried by women at today’s parties – and, oh God, he is walking off the stage. He is walking down the steps to the accompaniment of laughter and applause. And here she is, Sally Tuttle, getting to her feet! Here she is, standing up, an amateur in home-made clothes, a non-academic, about to give a talk on what she does in her spare time.
Jeremy Bowes looks a little flushed as Sally walks past. But he manages a small nod as they cross in the aisle. Sally cranks a kind of smile on her face. She can smell his aftershave, like an animal picking up the scent of fear. And she continues, continues towards the stage. She looks down at her feet as they move her along the rows. Plod, plod, plod. Here are the steps. Here is the microphone. Here is the overhead projector which she is not sure how to operate. Plod, plod, plod. And now she has gone into a different state. Suddenly there is nothing at all in her head. No fear, no words, no thoughts. Something has taken over. She moves across to the stand where Mary and Martha are waiting for her. They look as terrified as Sally. She opens her mouth.
‘Well,’ says a voice – and extraordinarily it is quite a clear voice, with comprehensible speech coming from it. ‘When I first began to embroider I never thought I’d be standing here nearly three decades later …’
It doesn’t even sound like her voice – it sounds like another woman’s – Needlewoman’s voice! – composed, measured. Needlewoman starts to talk about her reasons for embroidering: appalling marks at school in everything except Needlework (ha ha ha, responds the audience); time on her hands; a general lack of anything else to do. ‘And,’ says Needlewoman, ‘now look at me! Look what it has led to! Fame! Riches! Awards!’
She feels as if she is in a hot air balloon rising gently skywards. There is a rustle of laughter and she looks down at people in the audience. She tries to focus. Women are smiling at her, acknowledging their own peculiar obsession for needle and thread. And Miss Button, sitting in the second row, is smiling at her too. She has a small, perky, sad smile on her face.
We have loved the same man, Sally thinks, as if she is observing some natural phenomenon. Me and Miss Button. Once. Nearly thirty years ago. And it doesn’t matter any more.
*
Afterwards, she almost runs to the Ladies. She pushes open the heavy door, scuttles past the chrome paper-towel dispensers and the thoughtful display of winter greenery. All the cubicles are occupied. She stands by the wall, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. She stares instead at an advert for hosiery. If you’ve got the legs we’ve got the tights. After a while there is the noise of a bolt being pushed back and – Oh, fantastic! – Nora Wheeler emerges from one of the cubicles.
‘Hi,’ Sally says.
‘Hi.’
There is hardly any room for them to manoeuvre around each other. I will have to say something.
‘Were you at Jeremy’s talk? I didn’t –’
‘No. No. I didn’t make it I’m afraid.’
Nora smiles and tucks her handbag tighter beneath her arm. She is wearing her fabricky suit again. The fabric is noticeable before the cut: the old-fashioned, flecky tweed. And above it, her face is teenager pink. Her eyes are a little bloodshot. Her mascara is blobby and spiderish on the tips of her lashes.
‘Are you OK?’ Sally asks.
‘Oh, fine. Just got contact lens problems.’
‘Oh.’
‘I missed your talk too, I’m afraid.’
‘Did you? Oh, well. I didn’t really know what I was saying anyway,’ Sally replies, her words coming out now in a big, unprofessional rush. ‘It all seemed to go so fast and there I was going on about stranded cottons and I just –’
‘Oh no, I’m sure people were really interested.’
‘Right. Well.’
And Sally makes her way into the nearest cubicle, closes the door and hovers over the toilet. She gazes at a small, framed sunset adve
rtising weekend breaks for the over-fifties and listens to the whoosh of the electric hand-dryer outside.
After a short silence she rearranges herself and unlocks the door. She wants very much to be alone. But Nora is still there. Damn it. She is standing at the basins now, motionless, as if she is playing Statues. Sally smiles vaguely, steps forward and stands beside her, glancing cautiously at her reflection in the mirror. She doesn’t want to look too closely. But she can’t help having a quick glance. She sees a whitish blur, her hair untidy, her eyes ringed by dark circles.
‘Oh dear,’ she says, out loud. She leans her handbag against the counter to take out her hairbrush. Beside her, Nora is attempting to turn on the tap, first pressing it then trying to twist it. Nothing happens.
‘I think it’s one of those automatic ones,’ Sally says. ‘I think it’s got one of those –’
‘Oh yes,’ Nora replies waving her hands in front of the tap. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Have you got much more to do of Martha and Mary?’
‘Mainly the sequins, I suppose.’
‘Mmm. I love sequins. The sparkle.’
‘Me too. I …’
But something curious is happening. Sally watches as Nora Wheeler’s mouth suddenly twists and a sob emerges from it. She puts her wet hands up to her eyes.
Sally stands at the basin, the water running over her hands. She doesn’t know what to do.
‘Sorry,’ Nora says. ‘Sorry. How embarrassing.’
The tap stops running. And Nora bends to look for something in her handbag. Sally watches her pull out a packet of Handy Andies.
I should say something, she thinks. I should do something.
But she is no good at comforting. She has never been sure if other people want to be touched.
‘Can you tell me about it?’ she asks eventually, like Mrs Bonniface, her old counsellor.
‘You must think I’m insane,’ Nora replies. ‘I’m forty-seven, for God’s sake. It’s just Jeremy, you know … How stupid of me! I thought we were getting on so well, and he cut me absolutely dead at breakfast this morning. Didn’t want to know. It’s just so …’