Orphans and strangers, p.17
Orphans and Strangers, page 17
Lisa didn’t want to talk. She wanted to bask in the glory of having received a cheque for the very first time in her life. “And for my own creation,” she marvelled.
When the formidable Miss Thomas said she wanted to see her, Lisa’s stomach had fluttered in trepidation. She had been doing remodelling for the designer shop for a while. She wondered if one of the prominent Glasgow middle-class wives of doctors and solicitors had complained about the renovation she had done on one of their outfits.
“Miss Thomas will see you now,” a PA said haughtily. Lisa felt as if she was expected to courtesy when she was ushered into the office. A gaunt woman sat ramrod straight behind a very masculine-looking desk. From the length of her upper, body Lisa guessed she was taller than the average woman. What surprised her most was the woman’s appearance. Greying hair scraped so severely back from her face that the skin looked stretched. She was plain, almost to the point of being ugly. She didn’t acknowledge Lisa’s presence.
Despite being ignored, Lisa felt that she was being scrutinised intensely.
“You are an accomplished seamstress,” Miss Thomas said without raising her eyes from the silk two-piece she held as tenderly in her hands as a newborn baby.
“Thank you.”
“Miss Thomas,” the other woman said. “All my employees address me as Miss Thomas.”
Lisa’s heart thudded against her ribs. “I’m not really in your employment. I just remodel the occasional garment,” she said.
“You will be if you can salvage this contour silk.”
Quaking inside, Lisa reached a shaking hand towards the garment. With a practised eye, she examined where the raw silk had been ravaged as someone had attempted to modify the design.
“If you can redesign it so that it can be sold…”
Lisa picked up her shabby bag. “This is a job for someone who has worked with raw silk in the past. I have never had that opportunity. I don’t think I could do it justice,” she said. “Thank you for thinking I could.”
Cold black eyes swept over her.
“Two things,” Miss Thomas said icily. “Never again cut me off in mid-sentence. And don’t ever tell me what to think,” she said. “I believe you can do it. If you do it well, you will have more work in the same calibre, and you will be paid handsomely for your craft.” As if the matter was now closed, Miss Thomas went back to the paperwork on her desk, and Lisa was left to carefully gather the folds of the silk material into its tissue-filled box and take it with her.
It took the best part of the following week to unpick the silk suit. Lisa’s eyes burred, and her back ached. Finally, it lay on the makeshift workbench.
Lisa delved her hands into its luxurious folds. “Like dipping your fingers in liquid gold,” she murmured, letting the material cascade over her hands. Breathing in its smell, she wondered what it would be like to wear raw silk and expensive perfume. “If Scott had taken me to Texas, I would have known how it felt to be like the well-heeled woman who shops in places Like the Elegant Dresser,” she murmured, rubbing in the new hand cream she had treated herself to soften her hands before she would start working on the raw silk.
She sat back on her heels and scrutinised the pattern of the material—a pair of white love doves imprisoned in a gilded cage. She suspected the suit had been commissioned especially for an engagement or a wedding gift.
For once, Lisa was glad of the many hours her mother had insisted she laboriously pick garments apart stitch by stitch using small pincer scissors. “Mother was a hard taskmaster but a good teacher,” she murmured, remembering how the unpicked material would be carefully washed in soft Persil suds and rinsed out in clean rain water from the water tub. The final rinse always got a measure of rose water and glycerine to give it fragrance and softness.
She could hear Trisha and Isobel arguing about who would peel the potatoes and who would hang out the washing. Maybe if she pays me well, I could buy one of those new twin-tub washing machines and a new cooker, she mused. “In the meantime, I better get BJ dinner,” she muttered resentfully. “If he comes back from work to a half-dead fire, no hot water, and the kitchen full of wet clothes…” Too late, she heard BJ’s voice on the stairs. Reaching for her purse, she decided to send the girls to the chippy.
“Ah could have bought that bloody bit o’ thing meself for all the money it has cost me on fish suppers.” BJ growled. “That’s the third time this week ah hev come home to greasy cod and half-raw tatties fer me dinner.”
Lisa clamped her lips together. She wanted to point out she still had to go to work at the Embassy and Stitch in Time, as well as work on the silk suit during the day.
“It’s no’ just the fish an’ chips. It’s sendin’ the washin ‘out to the Co-op. Since when do the likes o’ us send clethes te the laundry? That’s alright for the likes o’ people who can shop in Miss Thomas and waste money on tattle like that,” he grumbled.
“It’s only for now. I’ll make it up to you when I get the extra money,” Lisa promised.
Rushing into her clothes for her work at the cinema, Lisa glanced at the girls attempting to hang the wet clothes on the lines behind the tenements. Trisha’ body had a gracefully movement to it. “Maybe her idea of being a model should be encouraged—for the time being,” she mused. It would be one way of getting her to stand still while I use her to redesign the silk suit, she thought. But first she needed a design.
Taking the early bus into Glasgow the next day, she began her search. Most of the dress shops had the same fashion: shift dresses and hippy-styled floating skirts. But she was looking for something that had that extra touch—something that would show off the exquisite lovebird pattern and the luxurious quality of the fabric.
She almost balked at the entrance to the House of Nazerier, with its gleaming marble entrance guarded by a liveried doorman. And its tall plate-glass windows adorned with glittering mannequins dressed in haute couture dresses.
It breathed, “You need money to shop here.”
“And money is the one thing I don’t have,” Lisa gulped. But there in the window was the creation of her fantasy dreams.
It was perfect for the silk suit remodelling.
I’ll change a few things, she thought. My design won’t have real diamonds sewn into the lapel of the small exquisite bolero. “It doesn’t need it,” she murmured to herself. “The love birds can carry it off without it.”
“It’s not… in your size,” the sales assistant said, looking down her long nose at Lisa as if were was a bad smell.
“I just want to see it.”
The assistant looked away. “It’s not your style. I don’t think you can afford it,” she sniped, casting a haughty look at Lisa.
Lisa was about to argue when she sensed a frizzle of excitement pervade the shop as the doors swept open and two black-suited men wearing sunglasses entered.
“The First Lady,” the assistant breathed.
Lisa’s mouth fell open. It couldn’t be, could it?
Rather abruptly, Lisa found herself concealed in a mirrored changing room presided over by another snooty-nosed shop girl who informed her that the garment she wanted to see would be brought to her directly if she stayed out of sight.
For the next half hour, Lisa enjoyed the luxury of being ignored. Up close, it was too showy but she’d get what she wanted—the basic cut of the garment.
She now knew exactly how she would redesign the silk material.
Carefully, she copied down the cut and the intricate detail of the suit on the back of her shopping list.
“Will ye stop cutting up me paper and wrapping it around the bairn’s arms and legs?” BJ shouted.
“I have to get the pattern right.” Lisa mumbled, her mouth full of pins. Finally, she let Trisha step down from the upturned wooden crate that was used to hold the potatoes and vegetables.
Pulling on her cardigan, she made for the door.
“Where ye goin’ now?” BJ called in frustration as the door closed behind Lisa.
The spotty boy in the chippy looked doubtfully at her. “Ye jist want the brown paper? Ye dinny want it wrapped around a tasty bit o’ fish an’ chips?”
Lisa shook her head. “Could you give me as much you can?”
He scratched himself somewhere below her line of vision. I’m glad I’m not getting chips tonight, Lisa thought.
“A’ll need to check with the boss,” he said doubtfully. “Ochs, bugger it. Yer a steady customer,” he said. Reaching under the counter, he drew out an unopened ream of brown paper. “Tak what ye need—bring it back when the boss no ’abut,” he said, thrusting it into Lisa’s arms.
“Thank you,” Trisha said gratefully.
“You look like a scarecrow,” Isobel giggled as Trisha stood on the vegetable crate, arms extended.
“I’m going to be a model. All you’re going to be is a factory girl,” Trisha said cattily. She let out a yelp as Lisa dabbed her with a pin.
“Don’t be so bitchy. Stay still,” Lisa ordered.
Painstakingly, she adjusted the brown paper pattern. Getting it right now had become much more than the opportunity to earn money. Somehow, the silk dove material had become the project that would help her escape from the tenements.
She cast a glance at BJ: shirt sleeves rolled up, paper spread at his feet. He’s content with his lot in life and nothing I say or do is going to change that, she thought. Her mind flashed back to the conversation she’d had with him last night in bed.
“Life is passing us by,” she’d said.
BJ had shifted and lit a roll-up. “Ye want to move to them new houses they’re building out in the country?” he asked incredulously.
“The close is different now that some of the families have moved out,” Lisa argued. “The police were here again this week asking Madge and the older neighbours if they were having any bother with the squatters in some of the empty flats.”
“The polis!” BJ snorted. “Upstarts, the bloody lot o’ them. Ye forget I was brought up here. Ah remember when it was rough.”
“It’s worse now, BJ,” Lisa argued. “The people who live in the flats are different. In Granny Mac’s day, everybody knew everybody else and helped each other out. Now, the people come from the city, and they move in and out…”
BJ turned his back and thumped his pillow, signalling the end of the conversation.
“What about the couple and that crowd that has taken over the flat at the end of the next close?” Lisa persisted.
“They’re just hippies,” BJ yawned.
“Isobel and Trisha are at an age where they could be easily impressed with that kind of living,” Lisa retorted.
“They’re jist bairns.”
Lisa felt her frustration rising. “They’re both teenagers… they’re young and impressionable. And the flats themselves are becoming more and more rundown. The stairs are dirty, and somebody has started to empty rubbish on some of the landings.”
BJ lay down but got up almost immediately again as he took a fit of coughing. “Did ye get me that bottle from the chemist?” he asked when he could get his breath.
“It’s in the cabinet in the kitchen. I’ll get it,” she said resignedly. “Doctor says he’s not giving you any more until you come down and see him. He’s says he told you to get a chest X-ray.”
BJ snorted. “I haveny time te sit about half of the day while they poke and prod at me. A’d heve to work twice as hard if we moved to a them new hooses on that fancy Orchard Road ye heve your mind set on,” he coughed.
“I bring money into this house too, remember,” Lisa huffed.
“Aye, ye do, and most o’ it goes on Andrew and that notion he has o’ being a RAF pilot,” BJ muttered.
“People have to have dreams, BJ,” Lisa murmured, shifting to the other side of the bed.
Lisa eyes gleamed with satisfaction. The silk material clung to Trisha’s body like a caress. The skirt floated over her slim hips and ended in a fluted edge just above her knees. The tiny bolero skimmed her soft breasts. The broad cummerbund of the shirt hugged her waist into a small band of shimmering blue.
Trisha turned as she heard BJ draw in his breath. “You’re beautiful, lass” he said. Then, feeling Isobel’s sullen eyes on him, he hastily went back to his paper.
Miss Thomas tapped her foot impatiently as Lisa withdrew the creation from its bed of tissue paper. The light caught the flutter of the white dove wings against the gold bars of the cage. Miss Thomas drew it towards her like a long-lost lover.
“Trisha will model it,” Lisa said.
Miss Thomas ignored her. “Bring me a mannequin,” she instructed her assistant.
“A lifeless stand will not do it justice,” Lisa heard herself saying. Her heart throbbed in her throat. This woman, who Lisa suspected had never unpicked a garment or worn remodelled clothes in her life, was not going to get away with simply putting her creation on an inflexible piece of plastic and wire.
Something in Lisa’s stance must have penetrated, because with a curt nod, Miss Thomas granted her request.
Trisha was dressed, stripped, and dressed again as a range of foundation undergarments were used and discarded, only to be replaced by something else. Finally, Miss Thomas stood back and smiled her tight smile. “Shoes, stockings, suspenders,” she commanded. “Hat, gloves, bag,” she instructed.
Lisa sat down weakly. She wished BJ was here to see this waif of a child he had been dead set about not having in his home turn into this vision of elegance and beauty. It wasn’t simply the clothes or the accessories. There was something ethanol about Trisha that Lisa knew instinctively hadn’t come from either Margaret or William.
Soft hand clapping made her turn around.
“Very beautiful,” a voice with a slight foreign burr to it said.
Lisa watched the small, sallow-skinned man hold out his hands as he walked towards Miss Thomas. “You have surpassed yourself, my cherie,” he said, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
Turning, he bent over Lisa. Taking her hand he held it to his lips. “And you are the talented artiste who created such a divine creation,” he breathed.
“My signature piece,” Lisa quaked. But he had already turned away and was focusing on Trisha.
Lisa had never held a cheque before. The staggering amount swam before her eyes.
“Sign here,” Miss Thomas said smoothly as she slid an official-looking form across the desk to Lisa. Getting up from his seat on the soft leather sofa, where he had been sitting beside Trisha, the sallow-skinned man stood behind Miss Thomas’ chair, gently massaging her long neck.
“You must bring me the paper design. You understand it is now my property,” Miss Thomas said, smiling her tight smile.
Lisa thought about the brown chip paper with its crossed-out lines and multitude of alternations. She nodded in agreement.
“You can’t,” Trisha’s voice said confidently from the depths of the leather sofa. Three pairs of eyes turned in her direction.
“Uncle Billy lit the fire with it this morning,” she said.
Miss Thomas drew in her breath in shocked disbelief. For a minute, Lisa had the feeling she was about to snatch the cheque back.
“It’s okay. It was a one-off, anyway,” Lisa said hastily, pocketing the cheque.
The sallow-skinned man frowned and then laughed. “You will make a good business associate,” he said. “A one-off—that is it. No one in the fashion world will ever have a creation exactly the same as this one. It’s priceless.”
“And you, my little minx,” he said, turning back to Trisha, “you will come to the London fashion Show with me as a good luck charm.”
The hairs prickled on the back of Lisa’s neck.
Trisha preened.
“She can’t,” Lisa stated, rising to her feet.
“Aunt Lisa,” Trisha wailed. “I want to be a model!”
“And so you shall, my little good luck charm. But first…”
“She can’t go to London.”
“Why not?” the man asked, a petulant pout coming over his mouth.
Lisa said the first thing that came into her head, “Because we’re going to Ireland for the summer.”
Chapter 39
Robbie felt the other traders’ eyes on him as he searched the Farmer’s Market for Faith Hamilton. “Well, how did you get on for your first day as a stallholder?” He asked, locating her near the back.
Faith glowed. “They loved my homemade jams and chutneys. And I have taken orders for more next month,” she beamed. “It was worth my while coming.”
“How do you think you did, profit-wise?” Robbie said.
Faith didn’t answer right away. Everything has to have a balance sheet before it suits Robbie, she mused. To her, having a stall in the Farmer’s Market was as much about seeing old friends and meeting new people. She missed having the Armstrongs as neighbours. It made her lonely to look across the fields and see no smoke coming out of the chimney. “Even after paying the money for the stall, I think I still made a small profit. It’s all about building up your trade,” she said staunchly.
“You tryin’ to show the rest o’ us up?” a voice joked. Robbie felt his jaw tighten. He knew Con was giving him a dig about the cashmere sweater flung casually over his arm and his well-pressed flannel slacks.
“That the finest bit o’ lamb’s wool I’ve seen in here for many a long day,” Con scoffed. Robbie didn’t bother to correct him. I wouldn’t expect someone like him to recognise quality clothing when he sees it, he huffed, taking in Con’s baggy-kneed corduroys and well-worn shirt with its rolled-up sleeves.
“Any letters from William or Lisa these days?” Con asked casually, watching Robbie. He’s making a mint out of that farm and not putting a lot back, judging by the state o’ the yard and the house, Con thought.
“I had a letter from him a while back. He wanted to know if anybody had seen to Margaret’s grave,” Faith said.
“Am sure William would be willin’ to spend a wee bit o’ the profit from the cattle to put the odd bunch o’ flowers on his wife’s grave now and then,” Con said, glancing at Robbie.
