The Dress (2 page)

Gareth stuck his head up from behind the counter where he was continuously cataloguing his vast vinyl collection.

Lily ambushed him.

‘I'm after the radio,' she said.

‘It's not for sale.' He came straight back at her.

‘Good, because I can't afford it. I just want the loan of it for a shoot.'

Lily was pure glamour, always done up to the nines with full retro hair and make-up. She was pretty but not full of herself. Gareth had assumed she was just a regular rockabilly-girl until one weekend he had opened his Sunday paper and found she was number forty-three in the Top Fifty Most Influential Fashion Voices 2014. Lily Fitzpatrick had a quarter of a million Twitter followers and even more blog subscribers. You'd never think it to talk to her though. She was really down to earth. Sharp too. Funny. Lily was always haggling with him but the truth was he fancied her so much he'd give her most of the old tat she picked up for free.

‘Oh, I don't know. It's really valuable...'

‘BS. It's worth about half of my Kelly handbag.'

‘It'll ruin my window display.'

Lily raised her eyebrows at him.

‘OK, my window-dressing skills aren't great.'

She raised them higher.

‘All right. They are atrocious.'

‘Tell you what,' she said, ‘you loan me the radio for the shoot, and I'll come in later this week and transform your window for you.'

‘I don't know...'

‘Old Joe won't like you upsetting his little girl.' Lily's ninety-year-old grandfather was a regular customer. ‘I know you've got your eye on his Jim Reeves collection... I have pull; I can help you get a good price off him.'

Gareth smiled, then put his head back and groaned. He wasn't bad looking, Lily thought, but he had one of those horrid unkempt hipster beards and he rarely wore anything but geek-logo T-shirts. Lily preferred it when men went to a bit of trouble with themselves.

‘Argh, you got me,' he said. ‘Actually, I'm half expecting Joe in this morning...'

‘...and think how happy he'll be if he knows you've helped out his darling granddaughter?' Lily batted her eyelids theatrically at him.

Gareth registered the curve of her hips in the tight grey day-dress, the high heels, the perfect red lips, the coiffed auburn curls and the eyes that lit up with sunshine every time she smiled. For a moment he allowed himself to dream something might be possible...'

‘Go on, Gareth, help me out here, be a mate.'

...then it was gone.

‘And in return, I am just running out for coffee, would you keep an eye on this place for a minute?'

‘Sure,' she said, although she was already on the other side of the shop with her arms elbow deep in a basket of scarves.

‘Oh, and get me a chai latte, would you please?'

‘For you, Lily? Anything.' He said it quietly so she didn't hear him, not that it would have made any difference if she had.

Lily rooted, digging for treasures in the basket like a child in a lucky dip before pulling out a square of silk with a scene of Rome on it. It wasn't that old but it was stunning, with its muted, dusty shades of pink and blue, depicting the Trevi Fountain in delicate line drawings. She was sorely tempted, even wrapping it briefly over her head and under her chin in ‘The Queen Style', before telling herself she already had dozens of scarves just like it at the flat. She passed over the shelves of familiar bric-a-brac that had been there for months; the brass deer figurine which she still might get as a Christmas decoration for her mum and the cute, 1930s ceramic serving dish with gold and white daisies. Folded on a table was a 1960s candlewick bedspread. With rows of soft scallop-shaped tufts in old chenille and crisp white cotton, Lily could barely leave it behind. However, she sensibly reminded herself she had nowhere to put it. Then she saw her find of the day. Over on a shelf under the till counter, lying on her back in a neat blue minidress was Midge, Barbie's best friend in the 1960s. She had the same body as Barbie but she wasn't as pretty. Midge was in good shape, eyeliner intact, with a full head of hair, and sitting next to her was Alan, her boyfriend. He was topless and had been attacked with a biro, but Lily didn't mind. She had been hunting down an Alan doll to complete her Barbie set for years. Lily could not believe her luck, but as she picked up the boy doll and started to rub the pen marks off his chest, she was distracted by an urgent shout from outside that could have been her name. She turned towards the door, then again she heard, ‘Lily!'

It was Gareth shouting for her.

On the pavement outside, he was crouching over something. A body on the ground.

‘He just collapsed,' Gareth said. ‘I was coming back with the coffee and he was waving at me when...'

Lily knelt down, numb and disbelieving.

‘You stay with him,' Gareth said. ‘I'll call an ambulance.'

Lily gently lifted her grandfather's head and put her arm under it. One of the old man's arms was splayed to the side where he had fallen, his hand still wrapped around a supermarket bag filled with Jim Reeves records. Lily leaned in and put her face right up close to his. She kissed his familiar papery skin saying, ‘Hey, Grandad, you'll be all right, come on now, the ambulance is coming, you've just had a fall, you'll be grand...'

His body felt limp and lifeless in her arms. Panic rose up through her chest and she screamed, ‘He's not breathing! He's not breathing!'

Then Gareth was there again, trying to resuscitate the old man, pumping his chest, and breathing into his mouth, while Lily looked helplessly on. She put her shaking hands up to her face to disguise her fear. Where was the ambulance? He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't be. Gareth's foot knocked the coffee holder and the liquid spilled across the pavement in a creamy puddle, flowing along the gutter. Lily leaned across and grabbed the bag of records so they wouldn't get spoiled. Grandad Joe would want them when he came around.

But he did not come around, and the paramedics shook their heads as soon as they saw him. One of them put his arm around Lily and she collapsed against the heavy plastic of his jacket, sobbing. Gareth picked up the bag of Jim Reeves records and said, ‘Do you want me to come with you?'

She wanted to say yes, but she didn't know how, so she shook her head.

The paramedic closed her grandad's eyes and kept him uncovered in the ambulance so that Lily could sit beside him and say goodbye. Lily rubbed his hands and talked to him. Even though he was gone, she wanted to let him know that he wasn't alone.

‘You've had a shock,' said the paramedic, and seeing Lily was shivering, he put a blanket around her shoulders.

‘How will I tell my parents?' Lily said. ‘I don't think...' I don't know how...'

‘Give me their number and I'll do it for you, if you like.'

‘Can you do that?'

‘Of course,' he said, ‘it's my job.'

Lily wrapped the blanket tightly around herself and put her hand on her grandfather's cheek. He felt cold now and Lily knew there was no point in talking to him. His spirit was elsewhere. He was truly gone.

Lily's mum, dad and grandmother picked her up from the hospital and took her home with them. It was the first time Lily had experienced grief and she was surprised at how overwhelming it was. Her grandfather had been very old, and she knew he couldn't live forever (although sometimes, with the twinkly eyed old imp, it seemed as if he just might), but even so, the next forty-eight hours passed in a haze of shock. Lily felt as if somebody had scooped her insides out. She kept bursting into involuntary sobs. ‘It has to be gone through,' her mother said. ‘Cry yourself out, there's a good girl.' Yet Lily could not believe how many tears she had inside her.

*

Sally Thomas was art directing a catalogue shoot across town when she got the call. She was Lily's best friend and had been getting texts from her all day asking advice about the shoot. The last one was a picture of an old radio and it said,
Urgent opinion! Found this in Old Times. Wotcha think?

Sally sent one back saying
Perfect!
and when Lily didn't reply straight away she assumed her disorganized friend had just let her battery run low. Now she picked up her iPhone and, as soon as she heard the voice of Lily's mum, she knew something was wrong.

‘Holy shite!' was her first reaction to the news of Old Joe's passing. ‘Jesus, I mean, sorry, Mary.'

Subtlety was not her strong point, but Mary Fitzpatrick had known her only daughter's best friend since they were children. Sally had a bit of a mouth on her but she also had a good heart.

Sally was there within half an hour. Mary opened the door and brought her into the sitting room, where Lily was curled up on her parents' sofa, with her feet up under her chest. She looked about ten years old. Sally put her arms around her, and said, ‘Right, what needs to be done?'

‘There's the shoot tomorrow, I can't cancel...'

‘You won't have to. I'll take care of it.'

Sally got straight on the phone to
Style
magazine and arranged to take over the shoot for Lily. Then she drove up Kilburn High Road and pulled her car up onto the pavement outside Old Times. She had never met Gareth before, but Lily had mentioned him often enough. Once she had introduced herself, Gareth said, ‘How is she?'

His face was creased with worry. A crush? Of course. Everyone fell in love with Lily.

‘Fine. Awful. Oh God, I don't know! Her grandad's dead, how do you think she is? Can I take the radio with me now for the shoot tomorrow?'

Gareth looked at her aghast.

‘I'm doing it for her,' Sally said, ‘and I'm double parked so can we hurry this along, please?'

Reluctantly Gareth carried the radio out and put it in the boot of her two-seater MG while Sally got in and started the engine.

‘Send Lily my...' He paused. ‘...best, um...'

Sally raised her eyes to heaven then nodded goodbye and said, ‘Sure, will do,' before speeding off.

That afternoon, Sally moved into Lily's cramped apartment. She slept on a pull-out bed behind a rack of vintage evening wear in the living room and, for the next forty-eight hours, kept Lily sane.

Lily usually blogged daily, and posted her outfit on Instagram each morning, but now she could not face going online.

‘You really need to put something up on your blog,' Sally said, with her head full of rollers, on the morning of Joe's funeral, ‘just to let people know that you're not dead yourself!'

Lily went to her computer desk and clicked the mouse. Her stomach tightened as she saw it was still open on the page she'd been researching on that terrible day. It showed an old
Vogue
article about a 1950s evening gown. Lily bookmarked the link, then opened her own blog and posted,
I'll be offline for a few more days. Back when my heart heals. #LilyLovesHerGrandad
, before shutting down her computer and walking over to the enormous gold-framed antique mirror that dominated her tiny apartment, to put the finishing touches to her funeral ensemble.

Lily adjusted the flat feather fascinator to the left of her parting and placed her long, auburn hair, styled into broad Lana Turner waves, neatly across the shoulder of her 1940s fur cape. Then she searched through her collection of red lipsticks for the perfect shade: Dior Dolce Vita. She never left the house without her trademark matte red lipstick. Red hair, red lips – it was against all the rules but when it came to fashion, Lily never followed the rules.

Trends came and went but Lily remained steadfast in her passion for old-school dressing. As her blog said, Lily just loved vintage. She loved that the clothes were made so much better then. Every skirt, every dress had a lining, every jacket had folded seams and double-stitched cuffs. The embroidery and embellishments were all done by hand and not in a sweatshop. Lily loved rummaging for bargains in the vintage market – she even loved the slightly bitter, musty smell because it reminded her that among the un-cleaned clothes could be a priceless piece of old couture waiting to be discovered. She loved imagining the history of each piece; was this tiny white satin shrug part of a wedding trousseau? The woman who owned this scuffed 1950s leather handbag must have only owned one bag because she had worn it down to the bone. That's how things were back then. Women had one bag, one pair of shoes, one ‘good' dress, so they had to make them last, they had to make them special. Every bag, every dress, even down to the cheap beads or embroidered handkerchief she picked up from a 50p basket at a charity shop till was cherished by Lily because she knew it had been owned and, at one time, loved by another woman. Fashion wasn't disposable in the past, like it was now. Clothes were important, something to be treasured.

Today Lily was wearing her grandfather's favourite rose-print vintage tea dress. ‘My little lady,' he used to call her when she wore it, although he often added, ‘you should be dressing for lads your own age – look at those Kardashians. If you dressed like one of them I'd be a great-grandfather ten times over by now.'

Lily did not have the heart to tell him that no one had truly taken her fancy since she had split from her school sweetheart at twenty-two. She had tried playing the field and sleeping around a bit, but she found it a depressing and unsatisfying way to live. She was better off on her own.

Lily was still shocked by Joe's death. Sometimes it felt as if the past few days hadn't happened. It was an unreal feeling, as if part of her was still sitting by the kerb on Kilburn High Road, nursing the old man's head in her lap.

Sally had helped. With no siblings to fall back on, Lily felt incredibly lucky to have a best friend she felt so close to. Of course, they sometimes fought, misunderstood, or simply got bored with each other. But at heart they believed their friendship was unbreakable.