by Jules Wake
‘Morning,’ he muttered, his eyes bleary. Not knowing how to respond, she turned and busied herself pouring him a coffee.
‘Here you go.’ She handed it to him.
‘Thanks.’ He gave her a dopey smile. ‘You’re up early. Going somewhere?’ His face creased in puzzled confusion, which was really rather endearing. Not a morning person at all.
‘Going shopping with Lisa.’ She tried to inject enthusiasm balanced with matter of fact statement. ‘Then I’m going back to hers for a girly film and takeaway pizza.’
‘The pizza part sounds great, the rest of it…’ He made the sort of face a toddler would be at home with.
She smiled, the awkwardness vanishing. ‘Good job you’re not invited then.’
‘Hmm,’ he took a sip from the cup. ‘Oh, that is good.’
Trying not to look at the V of chest revealed by his robe, Siena tidied away her plate and cup. Last night’s kisses were suddenly imprinted on her brain. Like a magnet, his lower lip drew her gaze.
The toot of the horn outside heralded Lisa’s arrival and merciful release.
‘Enjoy yourself, I think,’ he mumbled.
‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked suddenly shy.
‘Going back to bed. I only got up because I could smell coffee. You wicked caffeine temptress.’
Their eyes met and he smiled. A kick to the heart, a spike in her pulse.
The car horn tooted again.
‘Gotta go.’ She felt hot and wobbly. Grabbing her leather jacket, she started towards the kitchen door knowing she had to walk right by him. ‘Ciao.’ Like a woodpecker, she planted the barest, briefest kiss on his check and scuttled away. The front door slammed behind her and she let out a long pent up breath still unsure as to whether she’d done the right thing or not.
Lisa waited in the driver seat, her tiny Mini parked on the kerbside.
As Jason had predicted, the snow had all gone. She’d hoped the few inches would stay a bit longer. It was still very cold as the bite of morning air hit her. She could have done with a warmer coat. In Paris she rarely walked anywhere. They had a driver or she travelled by taxi.
Grasping the handle of the door, she hopped in quickly.
‘Morning, how are you?’ Lisa’s beam lit up the inside of the car.
Siena wondered what she’d say if she told her what had happened last night.
‘I’m so glad you could make it. We’re going to have such a great day. I was worried you might be dead on your feet after a week with the slave driver.’
Siena laughed. ‘Hi. I really enjoyed it. Although my feet are sore, so please don’t make me walk too far today.’
‘Not sure I can guarantee that.’ Lisa tossed her long hair and narrowed a stern look at Siena as she swung the Mini around a corner. ‘Shop till you drop. That’s the mantra. I thought you were the woman for the job. I am relying on you to complete our mission.’
‘Aha! A mission, you say. I can resist everything but a mission.’
‘Wasn’t that temptation?’
‘That too.’
‘Yes, a mission to the death.’ Lisa whipped out into the middle of the road to overtake another car. ‘We leave no shop unturned until I have found a dress for this ball. Today we scour the charity shops of Harpenden, tomorrow or next week or next year we take Manhattan. You up for it?’
Siena nodded and tried to snuggle into her leather jacket. The heating in the car seemed to be taking it’s time to get into gear.
‘There are at least six charity shops over there. Hopefully I can find something for this charity ball.’ Lisa rammed on the brakes as they screeched to a halt at a set of traffic lights. Siena swore she could smell burning rubber. ‘Otherwise it’ll have to be Primark and then I run the risk of ten others having the same dress.’
Siena gave a wistful thought to the row upon row of designer dresses hanging in her dressing room at the apartment in Paris. The boxes of shoes and the matching handbags, neatly organised for optimum co-ordination. Not that she had any place to wear any of them at the moment but it would have been lovely to let Lisa choose one of the dresses and the footwear to go with it. The scarlet Givenchy from two seasons ago would look fabulous with Lisa’s colouring.
‘You can come back to mine afterwards. Meet Katie and,’ Lisa pulled a face, ‘my gran.’
‘Your gran? Does she live there?’
‘On and off, yes.’ Lisa gave a sudden mischievous grin. ‘False teeth and incontinence pads everywhere. I think I’d rather have Jason to look at in the mornings. He is rather yum, yum.’
Siena raised an eyebrow and ignored the odd sensation in her chest, as she had a sudden fleeting memory of the feeling of Jason’s solid arms around her.
‘Much as I love her, bumping into Nanna’s prune-face in the kitchen, having her first fag of the day is not the best wake up call. That woman has smoked forty a day for the last fifty years and has the lines to prove it. She’s like a tree, count the rings and you know how old, with her it’s count the lines and you can work out how many a day.’
Siena couldn’t tell if Lisa was joking or not. ‘Can’t you tell her not to? Do you have live with her?’
Lisa’s cheerful face fell briefly. ‘It’s more a case of she lives with me … part time. Her boiler’s packed up, so she’s got no hot water. She comes round to mine to warm up and have a bath, bless her. Oh you berk.’ Lisa gave the hapless driver ahead a furious toot of her horn. ‘Families eh?’
Siena wrinkled her nose at the slightly musty smell and wondered at the wisdom of Lisa’s tactics. The shop had a strange and eclectic mix of clothes, some of which she wasn’t sure a tramp would choose to wear if he’d been given them.
‘You have to rummage,’ whispered Lisa, catching sight of her wary face.
‘Right.’ Gingerly fingering garments, wishing she’d brought some hand sanitizer, Siena rifled through a rack of decidedly synthetic fabrics, holding her grimace at bay. Truly hideous. Even more hideous. Nasty. Hideous. No, no, no. What had someone been thinking of? Oh. Wait a minute.
Siena pulled the hanger out. A dress, almost pristine, nice cut, lovely fabric.
‘What make is it?’ whispered Lisa materialising beside her, like an undercover spy.
‘Desmoines.’
‘Never heard of it,’ Lisa pulled a disappointed face.
‘That doesn’t matter. Look at the cut and this fabric, lovely and heavy and it’s a gorgeous style apart from the frill, but that could go.’ Siena could see lots of possibilities for the dress. Only seven pounds fifty – that was insane. Didn’t the people working here have any idea? A dress like this would cost twenty times that in a Paris boutique.
Lisa still looked unconvinced.
‘See here. The cut. Excellent design. It won’t pull across the shoulders, the sleeves are set in. And the fabric is good quality, it won’t go shiny, or bobble, or crease.’
‘Not wanting to sound ungrateful, I get that it’s all those things but it’s not really what I had in mind and it’s also a size sixteen.’
‘So have you got an idea of what you’d like?’ Siena asked as flicked through the rest of the rail. No, nothing. Shame.
‘No, sorry, but I’ll know when I see it.
After rifling through a rail of skirts and finding a few very nice pieces, which were absolute bargains, Lisa came over with two dresses.
‘What do you think?’
She held them up one by one.
Siena pulled a face. ‘They all look a bit cheap.’
‘They are cheap,’ said Lisa poking out her tongue cheekily. ‘That’s the whole point of coming to charity shops.’
‘Yes, but I thought the whole point was that they were originally more expensive. If you wanted to buy cheap, couldn’t you go to a cheap shop?’
‘This is Primark,’ said Lisa looking doleful at one of the dresses she held. ‘What about this one?’
Siena looked at her and then back at the dress. ‘No, you’d look
like you’d died. And probably a bit dumpy.’
‘Thanks.’ Lisa poked her in the ribs in mock outrage.
Siena shot her a mischievous grin. ‘Thought you wanted fashion advice.’
‘Yes, what I should be looking for. Not what would make me look hideous.’ Lisa turned and half-heartedly pulled the hangers along rails.
They left the shop empty-handed but Siena’s head buzzed with ideas. There’d been plenty she could have bought, if she’d needed anything. Conscious of what she had to live on until pay day, she was loath to waste a penny. The beige houndstooth Jaeger pencil skirt would have looked fabulous but when would she wear it? Same with the dark green Karl Lagerfield jacket which was definitely vintage, it had to date back to the eighties but would look great with jeans. Oooh, tempting. She could wear that. Only twenty-five pounds, which Lisa thought was still overpriced. Even so she kept going back to the jacket. No, you could buy a lot of groceries with that money.
Neither the first nor the second shop delivered Lisa’s dream dress. The third offered definite promise, with a whole rail dedicated to evening wear. It was funny, thought Siena, obviously a certain charity or shop attracted a better clientele. How did the people making the donations decide?
‘Lisa.’ Siena called her over, excitement resonating in her voice. This was the perfect dress. She held up a pale pink shift dress, silk dotted with tiny sequins which twinkled refracting the light. The colour would complement Lisa’s English rose complexion and her dark eyes and the style would suit her slender figure.
Lisa bounded over. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. That’s gorgeous,’ and then her face fell. ‘It’s also a size eighteen.’
‘So?’
Lisa put her hands on her hips. ‘Can you see me filling the boob department?’ She cupped her chest and looked down with amusement. ‘On a very good day I’m a 34B not a blinking 38DD.’ She grasped the voluminous skirt and wrapped it around her waist. ‘This will go round me at least twice.’
Siena tugged the fabric out of her hand and held the dress up against her and dragged her over to the mirror.
‘Look. Focus on the colour and style.’
‘I am, it’s gorgeous but it won’t fit.’
‘Pish, that’s not a problem. We can alter it.’
‘That’s going to cost more than the dress.’
‘Have you got a sewing machine?’
‘No.’
‘Damn.’ How funny that her sewing machine should be the one thing that she regretted not bringing with her.
Lisa brightened. ‘My Nanna does.’
‘Would she let us borrow it?’
‘Yes, I’m her favourite grandchild.’
Siena nodded. ‘That’s good then, does that mean she won’t mind?’
Lisa frowned. ‘I was joking.’
‘What, you’re not her favourite?’
‘I’m her only grandchild. That’s the joke; grandparents aren’t supposed to have favourites.’
Bemused and feeling she’d blundered, Siena focused on the dress. She’d never met any of her grandparents. ‘If we cut here and here, and reshaped the neckline proportionally. That would probably work. Taking in the seams wouldn’t work. That would ruin the shape of the dress.’ Yes, she had a pretty good idea what she’d need to do.
‘What … you can do it?’
Siena shrugged. ‘I think so. I’ve altered things before.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back. Not quite, she’d been there and helped while things were being altered. At the Chateau, Agnes’ daughter, Elena, was a seamstress and had spent many evenings altering clothes in the kitchen letting Siena thread her needles, help pin the seams and sew hems.
‘How much is it?’ asked Lisa examining the dress front and back.
‘Six pounds fifty,’ Siena lowered her voice, ‘but it’s a Ben de Lisi.’
‘If you say so.’ Lisa’s smile lit up her face. ‘But if you can make it the right size, it’s gorgeous. And a screaming bargain. I’ll take it. You can do it tonight. Katie’s coming round so you can ask her about that fashion course.’
Despite making the purchase, Lisa was loath to leave until she’d checked out every charity shop in case she might have missed another more perfect dress. By this time, Siena was thoroughly enjoying herself and had picked up two lovely black skirts for work, which she felt she could more than justify when they came to the princely sum of nine pounds fifty and Lisa had found another dress she adored, a taffeta black number with fuchsia pink details which at size twelve would only need minor alterations to make it fit.
In the last shop, all of her good intentions and careful budget considerations were blown to the wind when she caught sight of a red wool coat. Max Mara. Size fourteen. Too big but criminal to walk away from, especially when she really did need a warm coat. Leaving Paris with a single leather jacket had been reckless and now she was in England she regretted not giving more thought to her wardrobe choices. She tried it on. Gorgeous, but too big. Taking it off, she looked at the seams. The whole thing would need a remake, to cut down the size would be an ambitious project as it would be harder to work with this heavy fabric than the lightweight fabrics of Lisa’s dresses but it was a beautiful coat. And seventeen pounds. She touched the fabric again. She’d already spent the money on the skirts. Three weeks ago she would have paid full price for Max Mara without a second thought. Now …
‘I’m desperate for a cup of tea,’ said Lisa shoving her key into the lock of the terraced house. It looked even smaller than Laurie’s house, if that were possible. They stumbled through the front door straight into a minuscule lounge. A tiny bird of a woman jumped up, unmistakably related to Lisa.
‘Nanna, hello.’ Lisa swooped down on her with a hug and a kiss. ‘Got too cold for you again?’
‘Hell yes. Freeze a witch’s tit off. Who’s this?’
‘This is Siena, my friend. Siena this is my gran.’
‘That’s a funny sort of name. That where your parents conceived you? Seems to be the fashion these days. Brooklyn. India. Chardonnay.’
‘Chardonnay’s a wine, Nanna.’
‘Is she? Takes all sorts I guess.’
‘Hi,’ said Siena feeling slightly shy.
Nanna gave her a thorough up and down inspection.
‘Bit skinny aren’t you?’
‘Probably,’ replied Siena, completely nonplussed.
‘Nanna, that’s rude.’
‘How is that rude? I made an observation. Did I lie? The girl’s as skinny as a pikestaff.’ She shot a suspicious look at Siena. ‘Do you eat properly? Not on one of these weird Hatkins diets.’
‘It’s Atkins, Nanna,’ replied Lisa rolling her eyes at Siena behind her gran’s back. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
‘Hmph. Far too many girls worrying about their weight.’
Siena smiled, her face stretched in a rictus which said I’m humouring you but I really don’t know how to handle this.
‘Nanna, do you still have your sewing machine?’
‘You lied, you said she had one.’ Siena shot Lisa a horrified look and the other girl smiled blithely back. ‘I thought if Nanna doesn’t have it any more, we’ll get one somewhere. If not you could do it by hand.’
There was no answer to that. Siena had to laugh. It was exactly what she’d have done. Act first, plan and think later.
‘Of course I still have my sewing machine.’ Nanna drew all four foot nine inches of herself up with great hauteur. ‘I’m not in the habit of getting rid of something or throwing it away because there’s a newer, shinier model for sale.’ With a wicked laugh she added, ‘If that were the case, I’d have traded your grandfather in a long time earlier. Got myself one of those Chippendale fellas.’ Nanna’s attempt at a dirty wink, which was more of an owlish blink, had Siena desperately trying to hold back her giggles.
‘You’re not sewing blankets for babies in Africa are you? Because I’ve been crocheting squares for the WI and I’ll be cross if they don’t want my squares anymore.’
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‘Nanna, I think you’re safe. You keep crocheting. Siena is a bit of a whizz at sewing. I got a couple of dresses in the charity shop, she’s going to alter them for me.’
Nanna’s eyes lit up. ‘I’ve got some trousers that need altering, remember, love? Those ones I bought in BHS.’
‘Nanna, that was nearly five years ago. She can make things smaller, not grow them.’
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say, young lady.’ Nanna tried to look down her nose which made Siena laugh as she had to look up to Lisa do it.
Lisa winked. ‘Can I pop round and get it?’
‘Course you can love. Actually while you’re there you wouldn’t collect my slippers would you? I forgot to bring them with me.’
Lisa tried hard not to laugh but then gave up the fight. ‘Nanna, you’ve got them on.’
Nanna looked down at her feet and pursed her wrinkled prune mouth. ‘Bugger me, what must the neighbours have thought?’ She shook her head. ‘They’ll think I’ve lost my fricking marbles.’
‘No comment,’ teased Lisa.
‘You’re not too old to put over my knee, cheeky miss, you.’ Nanna’s wrinkled face split into what seemed like a thousand smiles. With a stab of envy, Siena wondered about her own grandmothers. She didn’t recall either of them and in an uncharacteristically self-pitying moment, she felt cheated.
‘Another glass?’ Lisa topped up Katie’s glass but held out on Siena.
‘Oi, where’s mine?’ mumbled Siena through a mouth full of pins.
Lisa giggled and held the bottle high up out of reach. ‘You need to make sure those seams are straight. I don’t want you drunk in charge of a sewing machine.’
Siena frowned and continued pinning the seam. The pink dress had been a bit more complicated than she’d anticipated. The slippery chiffon and silk was a tricky combination. Now after cutting and pinning, she was starting to feel a little more confident. Lisa had been in and out of the dress fifteen times, as Siena was terrified of making a wrong cut.
The sewing up bit was easy, especially with this Bernina machine; like a vintage Rolls Royce, it had a few years on the clock but ran beautifully. She used the pedal cautiously, the foot trundling along the pinned seams like a steady old cob put out to pasture. Nanna had obviously looked after it well and she’d hovered anxiously over Siena and the machine as the first few seams were run up, even checking that they were smooth and straight.