‘I can’t, Pen. It’s going to be hard enough seeing him at the launch and having to be professional. Mum insists that everything is going to be OK and that he’s just stressed and didn’t mean what he said, but I need to get the launch out of the way before I can talk to him.’
‘OK but make sure you do. You’ll only regret it if you don’t.’
I’ve listened to her giving me my own advice for long enough. I don’t really want to talk about this. I’ve been focusing almost completely on designing and making clothes, buying materials and decorating the sewing room and making sure the Art Salon looks perfect for its launch. I’m trying very hard not to think about Edwin.
I finally manage to get Pen off the phone and take the last of the stuff for the sewing room downstairs where Johnny helps me load it into the waiting cab. The cab driver doesn’t help at all and just tells us over and over that the meter has been on for over ten minutes and I needn’t think I’m not paying. I ignore him.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Johnny asks.
I shake my head. ‘I need to do this on my own,’ I say as I kiss him on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you later.’
I sit in the back of the cab alongside rolls of material, dress bags full of clothes and an inordinate number of coat hangers that my mother insisted I bring. As we drive east across London and I let myself zone out from the cab driver’s monotonous monologue, I let my mind drift. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved over the summer but I’m particularly proud of what I’ve achieved over the last couple of weeks. I feel like I could really make a go of this dressmaking business and I’ve already had a few enquiries through the website, although I’m sure some of them are just interested because I’m Bruce Baldwin’s daughter.
Working on the Art Salon has reignited a creativity and a productivity that I never knew I had. In one of my father’s letters he wrote about how, when he stopped drinking, he found he couldn’t stop painting. I feel like that about the clothes I’m making. Once I’d walked away from my job and from Alec, once I’d started working on the Art Salon, I couldn’t stop designing new clothes.
The first few days after my accident were tough. My head was still hurting so much that I didn’t think I could sew in a straight line, but the doctor told me that as long as I got plenty of rest and I didn’t feel any dizziness or nausea it would be fine. Two weeks later and the bruising has pretty much settled down and when I’ve got make-up on you can hardly see it at all.
Making the clothes, and working on my website and coming up with new ideas, has given me a sense of excitement that I haven’t felt in years. I wish I’d known my father when he was alive but I’m so grateful for his letters. They’ve helped me so much.
None of this has made me stop thinking about Edwin though. It hasn’t made me stop hoping he’ll change his mind, or that Mum was right and he didn’t mean what he said. For most of the taxi ride there is a frisson of hope inside me that he’ll be at the studio when I get there.
He isn’t.
‘Hi, Frank,’ I say sticking my head through the door of the studio. ‘Can you give me a hand unloading the taxi?’ The driver is being as helpful as he was at the other end. Unsurprisingly his meter is still running.
Frank puts down the paintings that he’s hanging up and comes out to help me.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, as I pay the taxi driver and we start to take everything upstairs to the sewing room.
‘Of course, why wouldn’t I be?’ I reply. Even I can feel the fake enthusiasm in my voice.
‘If you say so.’ He shrugs and makes off back down the stairs again.
I want to stop him and ask what’s wrong, but at the same time I don’t want to have a conversation about either Edwin or Bruce Baldwin right now and I suspect it’s one or the other of them that has Frank looking so glum.
A couple of hours later I’ve got everything in the sewing room looking exactly how I want it. The dressmaker’s mannequins are all dressed up in my favourite outfits; the other clothes are hanging on the custom-built rails all around the room. I’ve hung the framed pictures of some of my designs on the walls and created a changing area out of an old art deco screen Mum found at Portobello market. She made the stallholder bring it home for her. She would probably have been able to get the cab driver to unload the car today too. I must find out how she does it.
I’ve hung twinkle lights all around the tops of the walls and stacked the rolls of materials for people to choose from if they want to order something for me to make.
I have one final finishing touch for the room before it’s done, but I want Frank to be here for that.
‘Hey,’ I call over the mezzanine rail. ‘Can you come up for a minute?’
He nods and comes up the staircase towards me.
‘Do you need a hand?’ he asks.
‘No, I just wanted you to see,’ I reply, leading him into the room.
He smiles as he walks in. ‘It looks wonderful,’ he says, gazing about him. ‘Your father would have been so proud.’
‘There’s just one last thing,’ I say, pointing at a space on the wall. ‘I’ve got something I’d like you to hang up here if that’s OK.’
I reach underneath one of the desks and produce the painting that Frank gave to me when I saw my father’s studio for the first time. The painting of my father and me on my third birthday.
‘I thought it should have pride of place here,’ I say.
Frank gently takes the painting from me and carefully hangs it on the hook I’ve already put on the wall. ‘Perfect,’ he says.
As he steps back to check it’s straight I notice tears in his eyes.
‘Uncle Frank, are you OK?’
‘Yes, dear,’ he says, wiping his hand across his face. ‘And I’m sorry if I was short with you earlier. Hanging all these paintings of your father’s is just bringing back some memories that’s all.’ He pauses. ‘Come down and have a look at them.’
The pictures look incredible. Frank has created a sort of timeline out of them. Not a timeline in date order, but more a timeline of each individual painting. He’s framed all the preliminary sketches to each finished piece, those he could find anyway, so that you can get an insight into how each painting was created, its stages of development. To those who know more about art than I do it might even give an insight into the workings of a great artist’s mind.
I look around me. The whole place looks exactly how I imagined and at the same time exactly how my father described what he wanted in the letters. The oak floor, which was finished yesterday apparently, looks great, even if I do say so myself. Good decisions are worth taking your time over, I think.
‘I wish Edwin were here,’ I say quietly.
‘He’s not avoiding you, you know,’ Frank replies as if reading my thoughts.
‘He’s not?’
‘No, you just keep missing each other. He’s not been here as much over the last week anyway – he’s got a big case on at work, someone or other contesting a will. I sent him home to get some rest before tomorrow night. He’s exhausted.’
I forget sometimes that Edwin has a full-time and incredibly stressful job. I forget that my weird family aren’t his only clients and that a lot of the help he’s been giving us is out of the goodness of his own heart and that he’s done this despite the stresses of his home life as well. I take a deep breath, exhaling with a sigh.
‘You’re exhausted too, aren’t you?’ Frank says, looking at me.
‘Why has he helped us so much?’ I ask. ‘His job is stressful, his home life is stressful, so why put himself through this? He could have got someone else at his firm to help us.’
‘Because for some reason he would have done pretty much anything for my brother. And I think he’ll do pretty much anything for you.’
Frank stands there, looking at me. The air between us hangs heavy with the weight of words unsaid.
‘But he said…’ I begin, already know
ing now how insignificant Edwin’s words were in the grand scheme of things.
‘What Edwin says and what Edwin really thinks are often two very different things,’ Frank replies firmly. ‘He’s still grieving, Julia. He’s still grieving Bruce. We all are. Edwin, me, your mother, even Johnny. So be gentle with him. Be gentle with us all.’
I sit down on the edge of one of the cases that had the paintings in it. Frank comes over and puts an arm around my shoulder. I feel like the odd one out.
‘It’s impossible to grieve somebody you never knew,’ I say.
‘Is it?’ Frank asks. As he looks at me it suddenly hits me; I’ve been grieving my father my whole life. The reason I never felt I fitted in anywhere, the reason I never came back from Cambridge and tried to squeeze myself into a life I thought I wanted but could never fit into, was because I never knew my father. I was grieving someone I’d never known, and because I had a romantic, idealised notion of what my life could have been like if I had known him, when in truth it probably wouldn’t have been that much different to what it is right now. I had to come home to find what I’d always be missing. I had to be with the people who knew and loved my father to find the place where I fitted in.
‘There is one other thing,’ he says.
I look up at him.
‘Edwin and I both thought it would be nice if you said a few words tomorrow night, to sort of formally open things. Edwin will do it if you don’t want to but…’
‘No,’ I say firmly, ‘I’ll do it.’
I already know what I’m going to say.
6th June 1995
My dearest daughter,
Do you have a memory that you’re sure is your earliest? A hazy feeling of something important that changed everything but you can’t quite work out if it’s real or if it’s based on family anecdotes?
My earliest memory is when my brother first came home from the hospital. He was very red in the face and wrinkled and made a lot of noise for something so small. I was about the age you were when we first danced to the Beatles and I was less than impressed by this small, angry presence in my kingdom!
Luckily for me he calmed down as he got older and we grew close, united in our desire to get out of the little mining town we felt so trapped in.
After Mum died we looked after each other and although I’d never admit this to him it broke my heart to leave him there with Dad. Not that Dad was a bad person – far from it. He always looked after us and did what was best by us, but because Frank must have been so bored and lonely. I know I would have been without him.
It was one of the best days of my life when I found out he’d got into St Martin’s too. I sometimes wonder if we’d spent a bit more time working and a lot less time raising merry hell on the streets of London we could both have got our careers off the ground earlier. But then, as Frank always pointed out, I’d never have been working on that stall in Kensington Market and I’d never have met your mother and you would never have been born. Everything happens for a reason.
Frank has always managed to look on the bright side of any situation. His glass is always half-full, whereas mine is always half-empty (figuratively and actually, as it turned out). I guess that’s why his Achilles heel was the horses. He was always convinced the next race was the one that would win him his fortune.
We’ve always looked out for each other over the years, making sure we both stay in recovery, that we both keep going to our respective twelve-step meetings. And Frank has always looked out for you, in a way I never could. One day he’ll be able to tell you who he really is.
Happy Birthday, Princess. May your glass always be half-full.
Your Father
Chapter 32
On my way home from the Art Salon my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognise. I’m slowly learning to answer my phone, even to unknown numbers. I’ve had a few calls about my new business over the last week or so and a few about the opening of the Art Salon. If I’m going to make a go of all this, I have to learn to answer unknown numbers.
‘Julia Simmonds.’
‘Hey, Julia, it’s Rob. Rob Jones.’
I’ve never really spoken to Robert, except briefly at Mum’s wedding. I’ve been wanting to get to know him better but there has never been a chance. Especially as I seem to have spent most of the time since the wedding avoiding his older brother.
‘Hi, how are you?’
‘Good. Look, Julia, I’ve got your mum’s wedding photos ready and I wondered if I could get your opinion on them before I show them to her.’
I’d completely forgotten he’d taken Mum’s wedding photos. It seems so long ago. Part of me really wants to see them but part of me can’t cope with everything that’s happened since.
‘Sure,’ I begin. ‘When were you…’
‘You couldn’t come over this afternoon, could you?’ he interrupts with his brother’s familiar arrogance. ‘I know it’s the grand opening tomorrow, and I really wanted to give them to your mum when I see her, but I want to make sure you think she’ll like them first. You know what she’s like.’
‘Um…’ I hesitate.
‘Ed’s at work if that’s what you’re worried about.’ I can hear the smile in his voice.
‘OK,’ I agree knowing I’m not going to get out of it. ‘I can get over to you in about twenty minutes?’
*
I stand outside another Georgian stucco-fronted house in Notting Hill. It’s not dissimilar to the building where my father’s flat is, except this is only three storeys. I look up to the top floor, knowing that it’s Edwin’s apartment and wonder how it is I’ve never been invited over before. I remember Edwin vaguely asking the night he told me about his brother’s accident but I felt he was just being polite at the time and never pushed it. I wonder what it’s like up there?
I ring the doorbell of the lower floor apartment and Robert answers quickly as though he’s been waiting for me. While I imagine Edwin’s flat looking not unlike my father’s, Robert’s is completely different – all the spaces and doors have been opened out and widened to accommodate his wheelchair and everything here is state of the art and specially adapted.
He takes me through to the kitchen where I can smell the delicious smell of sugary baked goods.
‘I’ve made brownies,’ he says. ‘Ed said you had a sweet tooth.’
‘Did he now?’ I reply, wondering what else ‘Ed’ has said about me to his brother.
‘Here,’ he says, handing me the tray of still-warm cakes. ‘I have no idea if they’re any good; it’s a new recipe made with black beans.’
I screw up my face. ‘Black beans?’
‘I don’t know, the recipe said it worked. Try them.’
I bite into the still-warm brownie and it is delicious, just the right combination of chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside and not a flavour of bean about it.
‘Wow, they’re amazing? How did you learn to bake like that?’
He shrugs. ‘Some days I have a lot of time on my hands.’
The brownies aren’t the only amazing thing. Rob opens his laptop and shows me the photos, which are wonderful. He has managed to capture the day perfectly and my favourite shots are those where the subjects are unaware that the photo is being taken.
‘These are fantastic, Robert,’ I say. ‘You’ve got such an eye for little details, moments in time.’
‘I was hoping, if your mum liked them, that she’d let me use some of them as examples for other clients.’ He blushes slightly, in the same way Edwin does whenever he’s talking about himself. ‘I was thinking I might do more weddings.’
‘I’m sure she’d be delighted,’ I say. ‘Could I use one or two to show off Mum’s dress for my business? I’d link it back to your website, if you have one. In fact, why don’t you do the photos for my website? I could do with someone who has this eye for detail helping me out. My phone camera really doesn’t do my clothes justice.’
He grins at me. ‘I’d love to. Check us out with our new business ideas!’
I look at the photos again. ‘That’s my favourite,’ I say, pointing to a photo of Mum and Johnny looking at each other over slices of wedding cake. ‘We should get that one framed.’
‘You think she’ll like them?’
‘I think she’ll love them. They’re perfect.’
‘This one is my favourite,’ he says as he brings up a candid shot of Edwin and me on the screen. I’m laughing about something and Edwin is looking at me, his arm around my waist. We look like a couple that’s been together for years. It makes my stomach fizz.
‘I wasn’t joking when I said he never shuts up about you,’ Robert says quietly.
I don’t know what to say. I want to go back to talking about the photos, to tell Robert how good he is. I don’t want to talk about Edwin.
‘Even after you had that huge row about me and the newspapers, all he really wanted to do was talk about you.’
‘But he said…’
‘I’ve never seen him like this,’ he interrupts. ‘No matter what he might try to tell you or himself.’
‘Not even when he was with his ex, his fiancée?’ I ask, intrigued even though I’m pretending not to be.
‘Rosemary? God no. He dodged a bullet there.’
‘But I thought she was the love of his life?’
Robert laughs. ‘She was after a lifestyle and she thought she’d got it with him. She hadn’t banked on me throwing a spanner in the works.’ He seems strangely proud of this.
I look back at the photograph on Robert’s laptop screen and realise how much I miss Edwin.
‘He was so nervous about you coming back,’ Robert says. ‘About having to tell you who your father was. He thought you’d hate him, thought you’d blame him for everything.’
‘I’ve never blamed him. I’ve said some things I really shouldn’t have said, but I’ve never blamed him.’
‘He was gutted when you couldn’t remember him. If he was a bit quiet and stand-offish at the start that was why. But when he was the first person you turned to when you had the idea about the Art Salon he was over the moon.’
The Many Colours of Us Page 20