by Zoë Folbigg
Daniel and Olivia sat on the bed, her half under the sheet, him on top of it, holding hands, not saying a word, looking into each other’s eyes in desperation, until a jolly beep sounded from the washing machine downstairs.
‘I’ll make the pasta bake when I get back, I’d better get that washing on the line first.’
A dejected Daniel kissed Olivia on the forehead, got up, and sloped towards the bedroom door, where he stopped, turned back, and leaned against the thin width of it, almost hugging it.
‘Cheque for Mr Spicer,’ he said to himself quietly.
‘So sexy.’
‘Me? Or Mr Spicer?’
‘You. Look at you. So sexy, looking all mean and moody in the doorway.’
Daniel tried to smoulder, but still looked a little harangued.
‘I love you, Daniel Bleeker.’
‘I love you too.’
Fifty
February 2015
London
‘Go!’ whispered a voice in her ear. It was forthright and commanding, like Vaani’s, except it was laced with a comfort and reassurance that tended to evade her partner’s stringent tones. This voice was genderless, its urge gentle. Like Zephyr holding Aura so she could send Venus to shore on a gentle breeze. A Botticelli. A blow. Encouraging Olivia to step out from the shadows.
Olivia stood behind a grand column, peeping through a gap between a doorframe and its large door to a grand marble-floored museum entrance, where an audience applauded, gasping and buzzing and tweeting about the most talked about show of Fashion Week. Olivia Messina London’s A/W 2015 collection, her first showing at London Fashion Week, or anywhere, after a steady rise from independent upstart to coveted couture.
It can’t be Vaani.
Vaani had already taken her seat in the front row alongside Anna Wintour and Alexa Chung. She dashed there just as the last sheer sequin was being stitched onto a Puerto Rican model’s ruched shoulder.
Olivia looked back to the chamber behind her. The aftermath of chaos. Rails of clothes. Boards pinned with style sheets and call sheets and beauty notes. Makeup artists with their brushes in their belts like weapons, chatting among themselves now their job was done. Puzzled, Olivia looked back through the gap in the door, waiting for the raised hand of her artistic director, a figure in black at the back of the room, to call her out for her final bow.
‘Go!’
There it was again. Perhaps it was the unidentifiable voice of one of the many production coordinators, dressed in black jumpers and trousers, with headsets around their ears. These invisible women and men had helped turn Olivia’s vision into a show.
And what a show it was.
Twenty-five models wearing 108 pieces, floated down the steps and into the grand museum entrance like a dream. Darkly romantic and deliciously decadent, dresses, skirts and tops sailed in synchronicity, the cream, dusky pink and dove-grey hues blurring into a whirl. Some of the models had pre-Raphaelite hair like Olivia – Vaani always thought she was the best poster girl for the brand – others had short crops and severe cheekbones. A model from South Sudan wore the only white dress of the collection – a flirtation with bridalwear from a label inspired by a wedding dress – with a haughty beauty, the white fabric billowing against her beautiful black skin. The last of the dresses streamed down the catwalk, almost in slow motion.
‘It is time,’ the voice echoed calmly.
I know that voice!
Olivia felt an encouraging hand press on her shoulder blade and turned around to see the face of her father, wearing one of his smart suits, his smile warm and charming. Her nerves dissipated. All she felt was reassurance. That she was ready.
Go!
Olivia emerged through the arched doorway and walked down the stone steps to great applause. A crowd on its feet. As the claps echoed, she looked up to the ceiling, cathedral like all the way to the sky, and felt startled by the space. Swamped by the expanse. Her size seven feet suddenly seemed tiny, as each stiletto echoed on the stone step she descended.
In front of her, the models were standing in formation, the shape of a V from the back of the room fanning out. Elegant hands clapping the creator as she strode the mosaic and marble floor.
Olivia looked to her right and saw faces, every one of which she recognised. Her staff, her contemporaries, her peers. Some faces from fashion school; others from Milan. Some were style influencers and tastemakers, other people she had encountered in a distant time in her past.
She looked to her left and saw Vaani, Mimi and Udo, clapping in slow motion, turning to each other and smiling. She saw Jim Beck and Wesley De Boer, leaning into him, style notes in hand as they gave a hearty and rounded applause. She saw her mothers, beaming. Nancy’s neat hair shaking with every proud cheer. Maria the back-room seamstress, never before having attended a show, standing on her Dolce & Gabbana heels and shouting something Olivia couldn’t hear. Maria’s mouth moved slowly, but Olivia knew the pride of those Italian shapes. She wondered if Maria knew her husband was backstage, and looked in puzzlement for a second, wondering if she should tell her.
Further down the row, as Olivia approached the end of her long walk, and the models started to step in to congratulate her, she saw Daniel, a reverence in his adoring smile, peace in his face, as Sofia curled into his chest, tired from her big day out in London. They’d been to Buckingham Palace and the Science Museum en route to Mummy’s show, and Olivia could see fatigue in those flushed cheeks and heavy lids, as Sofia sat up and looked at her mother longingly. On the other side of Daniel, beautiful Flora, looking as she did when she was ten, her soulful eyes studying her mother.
Always a wise and cynical soul.
Olivia looked at Flora and saw the fear in them as she clapped.
It’s OK. It’s OK.
Flora smiled, closing her lids to strangle her tears as she rested her head on her father’s arm.
It’s OK.
At the end of the catwalk, as the swirling fabrics came together around her in a whirl of applause, lights flashed and images were captured. And Olivia Messina’s first catwalk show was filed away in the archives of one woman’s brain for ever.
Part Three
Fifty-One
September 2018
Cambridgeshire, England
‘Go,’ Olivia whispered softly, a peace washing over her pale face. Her freckles had almost been swallowed by her sallow skin; a blur of grey dots receding into the angles around her brow and cheekbones.
Fraser hadn’t heard Olivia speak for days, and he looked at Daniel to see if he had registered it.
Of course he did.
Everyone sat up a little, from their position around the bed, and focused on her. ‘Olivia Messina’, said the red writing on a white board in a fat script above her. They looked at each other, stunned to have heard her speak in the little huddle of the small room. Olivia had a private room now, one of the rooms the St Margaret’s Hospice staff saved for when they knew it was getting close.
Daniel squeezed Olivia’s hand. It had been resting in his, cool and still, for hours.
‘What’s that, my love?’
‘Go. It’s time to go.’ Her whisper was barely audible. Daniel and the women around him poised their heads, sharpened their ears, to ensure they had heard it correctly.
‘No!’ bellowed Flora, slumping onto her mother’s arm. ‘Don’t go!’ she cried.
Fraser quietly let himself out of the room. His final checks and measurements noted. The apothecary’s cart had nothing for Olivia Messina anymore, so he closed the door softly behind him, returned to the nurse’s station and gave his colleagues a nod.
‘Can you hear me, my love?’ Daniel said hopefully, as he leaned in and brushed a wave of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. ‘Flora is here, and Sofia. And your mothers.’
‘Yes, hello darling,’ said Nancy, softly. Maria couldn’t speak.
Sofia yawned, not registering the severity of the situation, of her father desperately clu
tching and scrambling for something.
Nancy pushed her glasses up her nose and Maria cast her knitting aside, stifling a quiet sob, as they repositioned themselves around the head of the bed, Nancy stroking Olivia’s cold, pale forehead while Maria recited prayers under her breath.
‘We’re here,’ confirmed Nancy.
Daniel took Olivia’s hand in his again and squeezed it tight.
‘I’ve written it. I’ve written it up!’
Daniel hoped his enthusiasm, his swell of pride, would buy him a few more minutes. That it would bring comfort to Olivia, who opened her eyes, rolled her head slightly, and looked deep at him. The colour was there, but the fire had gone.
‘I’ve finished it. The story you wanted me to write. For the girls.’
Daniel didn’t say that there was one terrible part he hadn’t yet written. He had hoped so hard that he wouldn’t have to. But he knew now, and wanted Olivia to know that he had been writing, night and day, every minute he wasn’t with her, to honour the task she had set him just a few weeks ago.
‘I’ve written it up.’
Olivia studied Daniel as he clung onto her hand. He smiled back sweetly, encouragingly, desperate for her not to see the heartache in his eyes, the fear that was ripping him apart.
‘Are you the torchbearer?’ she asked, her teeth protruding through a parched and hollow mouth.
‘It’s me, Daniel.’ His smile was starting to wane.
‘Dan-i-el?’ Olivia almost puffed on a sliver of air.
‘Your husband. Flora and Sofia are here, and we love you more than you could possibly know.’
‘No!’ Flora sobbed again, clutching her mother’s arm as Maria wrapped herself around her granddaughter. Nancy shook her head and repeated, ‘No no no no no,’ as she gasped.
Sofia looked at her dad, to check whether he were crying or not, but as Olivia closed her eyes for a final time and her fragile face sank a little into the pillow, he couldn’t help it. He so wanted to reassure their baby that this would be all right, but as he broke down and crumpled, and told his wife he loved her for one last time, as he pulled his daughters into his sides, Daniel knew they had only just hit rock bottom.
Epilogue
December 2018
Your mother died on a Thursday. By the time her funeral came around in October, autumn’s russets and reds lit up the whole village and made it glow. Your friends came to the church and cried for you. Mimi sang ‘Ave Maria’; Jim sang ‘Crazy in Love’ at the restaurant.
Lots of fashion types turned up in silly hats. Photos were in the newspapers. I kept all the cuttings in case you ever want them. Annoyingly Mamma would have loved to have been there, raising a toast, surrounded by all the people whose lives she enriched. People who, in turn, enriched your lives. It would have been the best party ever, if only she had been there.
Everyone was so kind to us; people held you tight. I’ve never experienced an outpouring of so much warmth and so much heartache at the same time. It was both uplifting and exhausting.
Sofia, you shone in your party dress – you proudly told everyone it was an Olivia Messina original – you even managed a cartwheel in it in the cemetery. Flora, you made people gasp. We came home and collapsed in a heap on the sofa with a box of popcorn, all falling asleep at different times as we watched The Greatest Showman. Flora, you helped me carry your sister up to bed and decided to make you each a memory jar from two of the Kilner jars Mamma had in her studio, decorating them beautifully with your names on. And although none of us will ever forget such a traumatic day, there are pieces you might want to remember or fit together in future. As you will of her life – but we can help each other with that.
This is why your mother wanted me to write one account of it – and I hope this helps as you grow older. As will the letters she left you in her underwear drawer. Treasure them, even when you’re angry and want to rip them up.
Tomorrow we go to London to collect Mamma’s award. Vaani found out about the nomination the day you cut your head at school Sofia. The British Fashion Council Trailblazer of the Year. She didn’t ever know she won it. But she already felt like a winner – you girls were her true prize creation.
Your nonnas will be at the awards. Aunty Mimi and Udo too. Jim and Wesley. You girls and I will go up on stage and we will collect Mamma’s trophy with Vaani. I will hold your hands tight and you won’t have to say a thing. All you will need to do is remember how Mamma was the trailblazer of our lives, not just for a year. And you are trailblazers too – young women she was so in love with and so enormously proud of – and your characters and colours carry the spirit of your mother and her infinite love with you.
Loved The Night We Met? Then read on for a sneak peak of The Distance…
Every love story has a beginning, it's how you get the end that counts...
Under the midnight sun of Arctic Norway, Cecilie goes online looking for friends, and stumbles across Hector Herrera. They start chatting and soon realise that 'love at first word' might just be possible. But there are two big problems: Hector lives thousands of miles away in Mexico. And he's about to get married.
Cecilie's whole life has been anchored by sticking to what she knows, and her job at the cafe in the town in which she grew up. Can she really change her whole life for someone she's never met? And will Hector escape his turbulent past, not to mention his imminent marriage, and make a leap of faith to change the path he's on?
This is a story of two people, living two very different lives, and whether they can cross a gulf, ocean, sea and fjord to give their love a chance.
One
March 2018, Tromsø, Norway
So, ro, lilleman, nå er dagen over… Sleep tight, little one, now the day is over… Cecilie can’t stop the blasted lullaby from spinning around her head, twinkling like a hanging mobile doing revolutions above a sleeping baby. Alle mus i alle land, ligger nå og sover… The song is rotating calmly and methodically in Cecilie’s brain, distracting her from the couple sitting in front of her as they wait for her to take their order. It is also distancing her from The Thing That’s Happening Today that she’s been dreading for weeks, hoping someone will put a stop to it or change their mind.
The lullaby must have been swirling in Cecilie’s head since she sang it in a quiet corner of the library this morning; to mothers with grey crescent moons clinging to their lower lashlines; to fathers, over the moon to be enjoying their parental leave in a much more relaxed way than they think their partners did. Mothers and fathers and gurglers, all joined in with Cecilie to sing nursery rhymes in the basement of the library, but now those songs and the sweet and happy voices are taunting her.
So, ro, lilleman…
Cecilie thinks of the large print above the fireplace in the living room at home. The room is an elegant haven of greys, browns and whites, dominated by a long, wooden dining table that stands out against the modern touches of the alternate grey and sable plastic Vitra chairs around it. It’s a table where everyone is welcome for heart-to-hearts and hygge at Christmas, although most of the time Cecilie eats breakfast there alone. She likes the grey chairs best and always chooses to sit on one of those while she eats her soda bread smeared with honey and stares out of the window, to the vast and sparse garden beyond. On the white wall above the fireplace hangs a print of a static Alexander Calder mobile that her mother Karin picked up on a trip to London.
‘Isn’t it wonderful, Cecilie?’ she exclaimed, her blue eyes lighting up against the silver of her bobbed hair, as Cecilie’s brother and his boyfriend lifted the black matt frame onto the mantelpiece with a heave.
‘Wonderful,’ concurred Morten, the partner of Cecilie’s twin brother Espen, as he pushed his glasses up his little snub nose. ‘The beauty and intelligence is astounding,’ he added. ‘I just wish I could see it in motion.’
Karin nodded with vigour; Espen had already left the room.
Cecilie looked at the print dreamily, her pale green eyes gazing up at the
black Vertical Fern, while it didn’t oscillate as it had in the gallery, or might have done in a breeze. Still, Cecilie imagined herself, fluttering up to the largest of its black fronds to see what it would look like to gaze down at her mother and Morten’s faces from above. Cecilie had a knack for drifting out of position on a whim or a daydream, and seeing the world from above.
Karin, a pragmatist and a politician, found it hard to understand her otherworldly daughter.
‘Cecilie?’ Karin had urged.
Cecilie crinkled her nose and snapped back into the room with a blink.
‘It’s wonderful, Mamma,’ she agreed, although she couldn’t fathom why her mother had bought an inanimate print of something that ought to be in gentle movement. It seemed so unlike her. Karin Wiig was the least static person Cecilie knew.
‘Well yes,’ confirmed Karin with authority. ‘They were just so stunning, you really ought to go to London and see them in motion before the exhibition ends,’ she said with a wave of her hand, although everyone knew she was really only talking to Morten. Even if Espen had still been in the room to hear, he was too wrapped up in his life at the i-Scand hotel on the harbour to bother with the inconvenience of a weekend break, and Cecilie had never travelled to a latitude below Oslo, which was something a diplomat and an adventurer like Karin couldn’t understand.
‘Why is your sister so happy to stay in one place?’ she once asked Espen in despair.
‘Perhaps Cecilie’s daydreams take her to better places than a flight ever could, Mamma,’ Espen had replied.
So, ro, lilleman…
The flash of the frond in her mind awakens Cecilie and she wriggles her inert feet inside her black Dr Martens boots. The lullaby evaporates and disappears, and Cecilie is back with the couple sitting in front of her, at their usual table.