The Dress

11.

Day or cocktail dress. Unusual design with detachable sleeves in mustard mohair mix. 1949.



It had taken several weeks for Fabbia to go through Eustacia’s clothes, selecting the items that she felt she could sell, packing them carefully in layers of tissue, copying the relevant entries – dates, names, details – from Eustacia’s notebook and labelling each garment carefully.

In the evenings, when the shop was closed, David had patiently driven her back and forth between York and Doddington Hall, the back seat of his car stacked with boxes.

Now she stood in the shop, the dresses and shoes and coats spread out all around her, draped on the backs of chairs and over the counter.

She still couldn’t quite believe it.

‘How will I ever part with any of them?’ she’d said to Sylvia. ‘They’re all so precious.’

‘Well, you must keep whatever you want for yourself, of course,’ Sylvia had laughed. ‘They’re yours now.’

So Fabbia began the process of trying on everything she could. There was the cream lace tea gown, of course, the one that had first seemed to leap from the rail in Eustacia’s dressing room and into her hands.

It was made in two pieces: the silk underslip, cut on the bias, and then the exquisite lace – ‘handmade by nuns in the South of France,’ Eustacia had recorded carefully – draped from the shoulder and gathered into a diamond-shaped panel at the waist, the back cut into a deep ‘V.’ As she stepped into it, she felt the silk whisper around her shoulders. It smelled very faintly of something vaguely familiar – roses, perhaps or was it jasmine? the sweet powdery scent of a summer’s evening – and, as the silk fell over her head and upstretched arms and settled into place, there was a deep sighing sound. It fitted her perfectly.

Them there was the taffeta evening gown in bold chevron stripes of black and beige; and a stylish trouser suit in lightweight black wool, the high-waisted trousers finished sailor-style with double rows of large black buttons.

As she stepped into them, she felt little ripples in the air, the Signals shimmering at the nape of her neck and the insides of her elbows.

These are yours, they whispered, yours, yours…

Fabbia had never really been a trousers person before, but she was surprised to find that these elegant 1950s styles, which Eustacia had clearly favoured, elongated her hips and swished around her ankles when she tried them with wedges or platform heels. They made her walk differently somehow, hold herself straighter, taller.

Then there were the pieces she instantly coveted but that didn’t suit her at all. The Balenciaga double-breasted day coat, for instance, its textured white cotton cut in a wide A-line and lined with navy wool. Fabbia put her hands into the large patch pockets and turned in front of the mirror to admire the back. The sleeves were much too long, even when she turned back the cuffs, and the cut just made her look dumpy. Eustacia, Fabbia began to realise, had been a touch on the flat-chested side. These made-to-measure couture pieces could have been worn by a prima ballerina, whilst Fabbia had softly rounded curves.

She sighed and laid the coat carefully to one side.

And here was the mustard mohair day dress, described in Eustacia’s entry for 1949: ‘Bought in Selfridges, London, for lunch with R.‘

Fabbia imagined Eustacia poised elegantly in a high-backed chair among gigantic potted ferns, peering over a silver cake stand arranged with tiny sandwiches and petits fours, perhaps in the salon of The Ritz or The Savoy.

Because it was that kind of dress. A dress designed for sipping tea from bone china cups. It had a high-necked bodice designed to skim the figure, a broad belt in contrasting black wool and a surprisingly full skirt for the time. No austerity measures here, thought Fabbia. The sleeves could be detached from the bodice to create a cocktail silhouette through an ingenious arrangement of concealed buttons. But mustard was definitely not Fabbia’s colour. She stood in front of the mirror, grimacing.

There was an Ossie Clark `Lamborghini’ trouser suit in black embroidered satin that looked a little like a Japanese lacquer print. ‘Celia Birtwell fabric,’ Eustacia had noted in her journal and alongside it she’d pasted a magazine cutting of Twiggy wearing the exact same suit, labelling it: ‘Vogue, 1968.’

Fabbia ran the fabric through her fingers. It reminded her a little of the mural that Eustacia had painted above her bed at Doddington – hummingbirds and delicate bamboo trellises intertwined with crysanthemum blossoms and butterflies.

Fabbia knew that the suit wouldn’t fit her. The slender cut of the jacket, the slim-hipped trousers. She didn’t even try them on. She wondered, though, where she could source similar fabrics to reproduce this piece for her vintage-inspired line. She could think of several customers already who would love this look in their size.

She imagined Eustacia standing in her dressing room, a tumble of scares and shoes spilling around her, slipping her arms into the silk sleeves of this jacket, fastening up her hair.

The shop doorbell jangled, startling her out of her reverie.

‘Hello. Are you open?’

A young woman – she might be in her early twenties – stood uncertainly in the doorway, looking at the opened boxes on the floor and the layers of dresses and trousers draped over the counter.

‘Of course.’ Fabbia smiled. ‘Come in. Please do excuse the mess. We don’t usually look like this. I’m just finding homes for all these lovely new things.’

The woman stepped forwards, her fingers instinctively reaching for the satin trousers in Fabbia’s hands.

‘Oh, these are beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘Perfect. Just perfect. Just exactly what I was looking for…’

‘Well,’ Fabbia smiled, appraising the young woman’s petite figure. ‘Why don’t you try them both on?’

The woman nodded eagerly.

‘I’ll just hang them here in the fitting room for you while you look around...’

The woman’s eyes were already roving over the shop, sizing up one garment and then another with appreciative gasps. Her hands wandered over the rails, fingering the skirts in bright cottons with full net underskirts, inspecting the soles of a pair of green leather platform sandals, opening and closing the gilt clasp of a velvet evening bag.

Fabbia watched her discreetly from the corner of her eye as she continued to work her way through Eustacia’s treasures, shaking out a crease, smoothing a sleeve, tweaking a collar, slipping each garment onto its padded hanger.

She noticed immediately that her new customer had an eye for the clothes. She bent carefully, almost reverently, to inspect the detail of a pocket or a hem. She was dressed in a mixture of high-street and vintage - the black pencil skirt and leather biker’s jacket were definitely high-street but she’d tied a vintage scarf jauntily at her neck and her red shoes had pointed toes and an unmistakable 1950s heel.

Her long dark hair was swept up in a fabulous beehive effect, which showed off a single dyed streak of shimmering blue.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ Fabbia asked. ‘I have all this new stock too that I’m only just unpacking…’

Her customer turned and smiled.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she laughed and Fabbia noticed the high, breathy lilt to her voice. ‘Don’t make it any harder for me. I can’t choose as it is.’

And then she added, blushing slightly, ‘I absolutely love your dress, though.’

Fabbia glanced down and realised that she was still wearing the mustard wool day dress.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘and it just doesn’t suit me at all. I wish it did. I was just trying it on. But you, however…‘ She put her head to one side, running her eyes up and down the young woman again. ‘Definitely. You must try it.’

A few moments later, Fabbia was helping her customer fasten the dress and pinning a large gilt-plumed brooch at her left shoulder.

‘There.’

She stood back admiringly. ‘It could do with a few little alterations. It’s slightly too large on the hips. But that’s no problem. I could do that for you. And something like this brooch would be just the right finishing touch, don’t you think? It looks wonderful with your shoes.’

The young woman nodded, transfixed by her image in the mirror. She ran her hands over her hips, testing the nap of the fabric.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said. ‘Yes. Please.’

Fabbia began carefully inserting her marker pins at strategic points along the bodice.

‘So do you live in York? I haven’t seen you in the shop before…’ she said, to make conversation.

‘Yes,’ said the young woman. ‘I live here. And I’ve been past lots of times since you opened. I’m a guide, you see. I do those awful ghost tours. Spooky Stories. You might have seen the sign. Most of the time, I’m dressed up like the Bride of Frankenstein in some hideous wig and outfit. This is my day off. I couldn’t wait to come in and have a look around.’

Fabbia nodded.

‘Yes, I think I might have seen you,’ she said. ’What an interesting job…’

‘Well, it is if you don’t mind trying to squeeze a tip out of a load of bored tourists who just want to know where Guy Fawkes lived,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘I’ve been doing it ever since I left uni. It was supposed to be a stop-gap but… you know… ‘

Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

That explained it, Fabbia thought to herself. There was a kind of sadness hanging around this young woman’s shoulders. Despite the brilliant streak in her hair and her bright red shoes, her Signals were pale, washed-out greys and browns.

‘And so what do you really want to do?’ she said, smiling at her in the mirror.

The young woman looked startled.

‘It’s such a long time since anyone asked me that,’ she said, fidgeting with a loose strand of her hair. ‘I don’t know. And that’s the problem. Something… well, this is going to sound so… so adolescent… but I’ve always wanted to do something creative… to make things.’

‘Of course,’ said Fabbia. ‘And to me, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look like a very creative person. When you walked in, I thought that about you immediatemente. Your lovely hair, your shoes, your scarf. All so beautiful. You make me very… very curious about you…’

She smiled again, teasingly.

‘In fact, I bet you could do whatever you wanted to do.’

The woman’s cheeks coloured again.

‘Well, actually, what I really love is baking,’ she said. ‘Special cakes for celebrations, little cupcakes… and making tea parties with vintage cups and saucers and beautiful linens… That’s what I’d really love to do, if I could choose…’

‘Oh, and you’re sure that you can’t?’ said Fabbia, raising an eyebrow.

The woman paused and turned away from the mirror, meeting Fabbia’s eyes properly for the first time. Fabbia could feel her turning the thought over inside her mind. She laid her hand lightly on the woman’s back.

‘Just slip out of this and leave it on the hanger for me,’ she said, quietly. ‘I can have it ready by next Monday. ‘

When the girl emerged from the fitting room, she put out her hand shyly.

‘I’m Amanda, by the way, ‘ she said. ‘Well, actually, Mandy. And I really want to thank you…’

‘I’ll see you on Monday, Mandy,’ Fabbia smiled, ringing the money through her clunky, old-fashioned till. ‘And why not bring me one of your cupcakes? I’d love to try one.’


It was strange, the way that things worked out, thought Fabbia, at the end of that week, as she stood stirring risotto in the tiny kitchen.

It was as if Eustacia’s clothes were choosing their new owners. She almost didn’t have to do anything. She just listened quietly and let the clothes decide.

‘This is going to sound a bit silly,‘ she said to David and Ella, as they ran hunks of bread over their scraped-clean plates and sat back in their chairs, sighing with satisfaction, ‘but it’s almost as if the spirit of Eustacia lives on in those clothes. I can feel people being inspired, just by putting them on…’

And she told them about Mandy, who had already been back to the shop, presenting her with a beautiful box containing a cupcake topped with a butterfly, the wings crafted from spun sugar.

‘She’s got a new fizz about her,’ she said. ‘She’s full of energy, full of new plans. And I told her that the woman who used to own that dress would have followed her heart’s desire, no matter what,’ she said.

And then Fabbia told them about the other women too. The woman in her sixties who had lost her husband last year to a long illness. She’d stepped into the shop in a drab camel-coloured coat, her shoulders bowed with a weight of grief, but she’d fingered the silk of one of Eustacia’s midnight-blue blouses with such longing that Fabbia had urged her to try it on, even though she’d secretly earmarked it for herself.

And as she’d watched this woman turn in front of the mirror, the blouse tucked into the high waistband of a pair of black wide-legged trousers, she’d known this had been the right thing to do. A slow, soft smile began to creep over the woman’s face and then she put up a hand to stifle a giggle.

‘I look almost glamorous, like Katharine Hepburn. I can’t believe that’s me,’ she’d said, so that Fabbia couldn’t resist asking permission to play a little. She’d rolled back the woman’s fringe, pinning it with a small diamante clip, and placed a long tortoiseshell cigarette holder between her fingers. Her customer couldn’t stop smiling.

And then there was Mrs Stubbs, the owner of the shoe shop across the street. Fabbia had passed it a few times. Its windows were full of brown lace-ups and Mary Janes with cushioned soles and rubber heels. ‘Built for comfort,’ said the slogan across the top of the one of the displays.

’Just like me,’ Mrs Stubbs had joked to Fabbia on her first visit, watching her daughter try on an Yves Saint Laurent 1970s dogs tooth suit with generously cut palazzo pants and fitted cropped jacket. ‘I could never wear something like that. Not me.‘

But the last time she’d dropped in to pick up her daughter’s latest alterations, Fabbia had seized her moment.

‘I was just thinking of you,’ she’d said, holding up one of Eustacia’s gowns, a simple drop-waist shift in plum-coloured crepe with a very plain boat neck. ‘For your family celebration… I thought it was just the thing…’

‘For me?’ Mrs Stubbs had frowned. ‘Really? I normally only ever wear trousers.’

‘I think it’s perfect for you. And so comfortable,’ Fabbia had smiled. ‘With some lovely flats.’ She held up a pair of soft-soled metallic slippers. ‘Or perhaps a very slight kitten heel.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Stubbs, looking at her watch. ‘I’ve got time. I suppose there’s no harm in trying.’

And in front of the mirror, she’d turned and breathed, running her fingers over the fabric of the sleeves, pointing her toes in the sparkling slippers. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’d never have thought… I feel twenty years younger…’

Ella listened, bringing her fingertips to her nose and sniffing delicately, savouring the lingering scent of basil and garlic.

‘So what words have you chosen for them?’ she said, playfully.

Fabbia’s hand stopped in mid-air on its way to gathering up a plate. She let it fall to her lap.

‘I haven’t yet,’ she said, frowning, giving Ella a hard look. ‘And don’t sniff at your fingers. It’s disgusting.’

‘What do you mean? What words?’ David said, smiling at the glance that he’d seen pass between them. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘Oh, it’s just a little thing I do,’ said Fabbia, annoyed now, beginning to noisily gather up the plates and cutlery. ‘A little sales thing. You know…’

‘No,’ said David, his eyes twinkling. ‘I don’t know. I’m not following…’

Ella grinned.

‘Mum thinks of a word for each customer. She holds the person in her mind like this…’

Ella drew herself up in her chair and demonstrated gazing off regally into the distance, humming an ‘Om’ sound and bringing the tips of her fingers and thumbs together.

‘Then abracadabra!’

She clicked her fingers.

‘She gets it. The totem word. The little bit of magic. And she sews it into their clothes.’

‘Really,’ said David. ‘A totem. How intriguing…’

‘Yes, and she sews it in a hidden place. One they’ll never see… a seam or a hem or…’

‘Sssh now, Ella,’ Fabbia cut in. ‘You’re making me look silly. I’m sure David doesn’t want to hear about this…’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘It’s just a bit of silly nonsense… from when Ella was a little girl.’

She pushed her chair back and began piling the plates in the sink, spinning the hot tap, releasing a fierce jet of water and steam. As she turned back to the table, wiping her hands on a teatowel, Ella could see that she looked genuinely rattled.

‘You see, it’s a game Ella and I used to play. She’d try to think of a word that would describe a particular person. Then we’d embroider it onto a dress…’

‘Always nice words, of course,’ said Ella, helpfully.

‘Yes,’ said Fabbia, regaining her composure. ‘Always beautiful words. And – it sounds so silly, really – but when Ella was very young, I’d tell her that the words were a kind of spell, a magic charm. Voila. A bit of magic for a little girl…’

She looked into Ella’s eyes and saw them flicker for a moment. She was sure that her daughter must feel The Signals she was sending.

Red. Stop. Danger. A single tongue of flame.

The air crackled with it.

And then finally she saw Ella catch it, the rising heat, the faint smell of smoke in the room.

Fabbia turned away, opening the fridge, letting its cool white hum cool her.

‘Now, who’d like some of this torta?’


Fabbia flexed her toes against the warm enamel of the bath. She noticed with displeasure that her nail varnish was chipped and that a reddish lump had appeared on the side of her big toe – a bunion?

She took the block of orange Marseille soap and rubbed rich streaks of lather over her arms and shoulders, pausing at her collarbone, taking a deep breath of the scent. The truth was that she was getting old. Tonight, she felt old. There was a new aching in her bones, a longing that even the warm water couldn’t dissolve.

She looked down at the soft fold of her belly, took a pinch of pink flesh between her finger and thumb and let out a sigh. In fact, she’d never before been afraid of getting older. As a girl, Madaar-Bozorg had always told her that it was a good thing to acquire your years. She’d spoken of her own age as something she wore with pride on her body, tracing the tiny silver scars on her thighs, the delicate network of stretchmarks on her stomach, the wrinkles around her eyes.

But it was different here, Fabbia thought. Day after day, she saw her customers turn in front of the mirror, holding their stomachs in, poking at the cushioning over their hips or the loose skin of their upper arms with annoyance, even anger. She had to work especially hard to convince them of their beauty, smoothing a seam, inserting a dart or pinning a brooch – and then choosing the right totem words, of course, to stitch into a waist or a pocket so that the wearer would be infused with new confidence.

She arched her back and let her eyes close and her head sink backwards until her face was just below the surface of the water. She listened to the filtered roar of water in her ears, the drip-drip of the tap and a clanking and shuddering in the old pipework far below her.

An image swam up to her then. Something she hadn’t remembered in a long time. A group of women waiting in the courtyard of the Jobrani sisters’ house in Tehran, their scarves pushed back from their heads, their hair uncovered, chattering eagerly among themselves.

Every Tuesday, the women would come, standing and waiting under the white linen awning that Mahdokht, the youngest of Madaar-Bozorg’s sisters, would string from two poles. And inside, in the large cool living room, the three sisters would spread their cloth across the tiled floor, rolls of silk and cotton and brocade spilling over the geometric patterns of the tiles, and their customers - one by one - would enter and stand before the long mirrored wall, cooing with delight as three pairs of hands snipped and pinned the fabric around them, tweaking it here, draping it there, until it hung just right.

As a girl, Fabbia loved to stand in the doorway and listen to the women in the courtyard. She felt the crackle of excitement that leapt between them as they anticipated their new garments – a dress or a shawl or whatever it might be that the sisters would decide to make for them. And it was there, peering into the dim cavern of that living room, that Fabbia first learned of the power in the cloth, and the magic in the words that Talayeh, Mahdokht and especially her beloved Madaar, whose given name was Zohreh, would select for each woman.

She’d watch as the sisters took it in turns to close their eyes, breath deeply and let the words come. In those days, one of them might whisper a phrase in a customer’s ear as she stood in front of the mirror. And at such times, Fabbia would see the woman’s face light up, or crumple in puzzlement so that Madaar, the eldest of the sisters, would lay a hand on her arm saying, ‘It will all become clear to you, habibeh. Don’t worry. Hold these words close to you and their meaning will make itself known. Perhaps tonight when you’re sleeping, perhaps tomorrow – perhaps even next month. But you will know soon. You will know.’

And Fabbia would watch each woman leave the house, carrying herself a little taller, reciting a word under her breath or fingering the sleeve or the neckline of a finished garment. And she would know that the the three sisters had somehow reached inside each woman and drawn out a single fragile thread, something that, over days and weeks, would become stronger, more resonant, unravelling into the future.

But then there was the day when a man had strode through the courtyard, sending the women scattering, hastily covering their heads. Mahdokht, the youngest aunt, who was always the most nervous, dropped the glass into which she was pouring coffee and watched helpless, unable to move as the liquid spread its stain over a length of blue silk and over the red and yellow patterns on the floor.

But Madaar-Bozorg had stood her ground. She’d faced the man squarely, her hands with their jewelled fingers pressed firmly to her hips, as he made his complaint about how they’d filled his wife’s head with nonsense, how she was no longer satisifed and would not keep his house, how she had ideas, crazy ideas, that he could never allow to happen, how they’d wrecked his marriage, made him a laughing stock.

Fabbia watched from her place in the shadows as Madaar-Bozorg listened, her head on one side, her lips in their crimson lipstick pressed firmly together. Then she heard her say, slowly:

‘Oh, pull yourself together, man. You ought to be ashamed of yourself - coming here, causing a scene, frightening these poor women, suggesting such ridiculous things. I thought you were an intelligant man, a rational man, a man of science… What do you think we are, my sisters and I? A bunch of witches?’

And she gestured behind her at the rolls of cloth, the table heaped with spools of silk and magazine cuttings. ‘We make clothes, beautiful clothes, that’s all. Clothes that women want to wear. This is 1966, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

The man had gone away, ashamed. He had even, Fabbia seemed to remember, begged Madaar-Bozorg’s forgiveness. He’d got carried away, he said, by silly talk of magic words and totems.

But things had changed a little after that. There were fewer women waiting in the courtyard on the next Tuesday morning and Madaar had focused more on her university work, her teaching and the writing of her academic book, a study of the role of women in Iranian folklore.

Now Fabbia opened her eyes and reached up, loosening the hair from its coil at the nape of her neck, letting it fan out around her, tickling her shoulders. She thought of Ella’s outburst earlier that evening – how it was all a bit of a game to her, something secret and forbidden and therefore endlessly interesting – and how powerful it must make her feel to hint at things that she knew Fabbia didn’t want David know.

Because Ella, this girl who had grown up in a very different place, far away from that courtyard full of waiting women, could never understand the places in Fabbia’s heart where fear curled cold and gelid. And David, a logical man, a real English gentleman, could never be expected to understand these things either. Magic words, charms, the whisper of silk against skin, a hand caressed by the lining of a pocket, the secret weight of a hem.

She thrust herself up through the water, reaching for her towel. No, there really were some things better kept to herself. She couldn’t believe now that she’d risked so much when Ella was younger. She hadn’t thought ahead about the questions Ella might ask, the conclusions she might jump to, here in such a different time and place.

Fabbia stood and opened the tiny bathroom window, letting the cool night air slap her cheeks and the fragrant steam escape. She rubbed at her legs with the rough towel, feeling the strength return to her calves and ankles, enjoying the cool of the lino floor. Yes, some things were hers to keep close, for Ella’s own good. To keep Ella safe.

She wiped at the mist-covered mirror and looked at her face reflected there. A woman smiled back at her, a woman who had lived. And yes, she thought, she liked the new lines around her eyes, the creases at the corner of her mouth.

She cupped the warm skin of her belly in both hands and smiled.