‘When I was sixteen, I was working in a greengrocer’s.’ She pushed away a little stack of post and looked straight at me. ‘I wanted to stay on at school but my dad had buggered off with a woman half his age and there were six of us at home. I was the eldest so it was up to me to pull my weight.’
I frowned. The woman sitting across from me was a million miles away from a greengrocer’s in South Shields, although as she’d talked I could hear a little Geordie creep into her voice. ‘But how did you… I mean, like, what happened? ’Cause you work for him, for Martin Sanderson, now, right?’
Jamie nodded. ‘Right. I’m his Creative Director. I oversee MS by Martin Sanderson.’ MS by Martin Sanderson was Martin Sanderson’s diffusion line. A diffusion line was a fashion designer’s younger, edgier label, not quite as eye-wateringly expensive as their main label. Prada had Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs had Marc by Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen had McQ and Martin Sanderson had MS by Martin Sanderson, which was run by a woman who’d been selling spuds when she was my age. ‘I really wanted it, Franny. Did my BTEC at evening classes. Pored over Vogue every spare minute of the day. Do you know how hard it was to get a copy of Vogue Italia in South Shields?’
‘Yeah, about as hard as it is to get a copy in Merrycliffe.’
‘You know what it’s like then,’ Jamie said, as if I was the same as her. Like we were kindred spirits. ‘Then I entered a new fashion talent competition in Vogue, made the shortlist, got given a train ticket down to London so I could have lunch with a whole bunch of important fashion people, editors and designers and the like, and I never went home again. Got a job as the lowest of the low at a designer who made dresses for posh old ladies and here I am, twelve years later.’
It was a lot to take in. ‘So, I don’t even need a degree?’
Jamie didn’t reply but gave me a long, hard stare. ‘Did you make that dress?’
My leather dress was now as limp as a week-old lettuce, despite the lining I’d sewn in. ‘Yeah,’ I admitted. ‘I saw the leather dresses that Martin did last autumn/winter but I think my leather was a bit too thin.’
‘You’ve buggered up one of the arms too.’ She peered critically at my armpit. ‘There’s a lot of puckering going on.’
‘I’m finding armholes and sleeves really difficult. I can’t get the hang of easing in the sleeve. Even crotches are easier than armholes and sleeves.’
Jamie climbed down from her stool and started walking out of the kitchen, which was a bit cold. I wasn’t expecting her to offer me a job as the lowest of the low but she could at least have said goodbye. ‘Come on, then,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I’ll give you the guided tour.’
The guided tour involved climbing up a metal slatted staircase to a workroom. It was a long, low room flooded with light from the roof windows. One wall was completely taken up with a collection of international Vogues. There were even Vogues from the 1960s. I nearly started hyperventilating when Jamie pulled out a box for me to peek inside.
Another wall was simply a huge moodboard of photos, pictures ripped out of magazines, swatches of fabric, even a packet of Japanese noodles.
There was a table for cutting and a table for sewing, though Jamie said that Martin’s assistants mostly did the cutting and sewing but that he liked to keep his hand in. ‘I’m the same. I get itchy when I haven’t made something,’ she said.
There were dress forms and rails of clothing all shrouded in garment bags and then Jamie ushered me through a little door. I should have been worried that actually Martin Sanderson might be a successful serial killer as well as an internationally renowned fashion designer and Jamie was his accomplice, and the two of them would chop me into little pieces with a pair of pinking shears, but I wouldn’t have cared, because Jamie had just ushered me into heaven.
‘Oh my,’ I said weakly. ‘Oh my days.’
‘Only a few bits and bobs,’ Jamie said, but it was the first time I’d seen her smile so I think she was pleased with my reaction.
My eyes weren’t big enough to take it all in because on floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked bolts upon bolts of fabric in every colour imaginable. And in colours I could never have imagined. Prints I wouldn’t have thought possible. There was wool, silk and taffeta. Chiffon and organza in delicate sherbet shades. Sparkling swathes of gold and silver and bronze.
‘Wow.’ I did a slow turn, hands on my face. There was a very real possibility I might start crying again. ‘I’d quite like to live in this room. Most of the fabric shops back home sell mainly to people making dance costumes so it’s all spandex and Lycra and lots of glitter. I was going to go to Berwick Street while I was here.’
‘Not so many fabric shops on Berwick Street these days,’ Jamie said and I wanted to ask her where the good fabric shops hung out but she was pulling down a bolt of… ‘Watered silk. We were experimenting with a digital print but it took a few practice runs before Martin was happy.’
I looked reverently at the sludgy green and blue broken lines on the white silk. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘It is, but those lines are a bitch to match up. Bit out of your league, no offence.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t on the scrounge.’ This was my most painful blush yet. It felt like the top layer of my skin had burned right off. ‘I really wasn’t.’
Jamie wasn’t even paying any attention to me, but staring up at all the gorgeous fabrics. ‘See, the thing is no one has the right to call themselves a designer until they’ve draped with silk jersey. You’re probably better off with black, right?’
‘Huh?’ I’d gone all slack-jawed and gormless but who could blame me? ‘Really? No! I couldn’t.’
Oh, I’d said that I wasn’t on the scrounge but Jamie wouldn’t listen to my feeble protests. She selected a black silk jersey, added a few metres of soft black leather because she wanted me to have another try at making a leather dress, and crisp white cotton because she said that making a simple but perfectly executed white dress would be great practice.
She took the bolts to the cutting table to measure them out while I watched, mesmerised, as the fabric flowed between her hands like it had suddenly become liquid.
‘It’s too much,’ I said, when they were neatly packed away, along with zippers and buttons and other notions in a huge, stiff cardboard bag with sludgy-pink ribbon handles and Martin Sanderson’s name embossed on it. ‘Won’t he… Martin Sanderson… be furious?’
‘I think he’ll probably agree with me that we can spare a few metres of fabric and some notions,’ Jamie assured me. I still couldn’t believe that this was happening. Part of me was still leaning towards the theory that Alice had killed me, but if she had, then heaven was absolutely lush. ‘Can’t have you forced to make frocks out of spandex now, can we?’
Clutching the bag to me, I followed Jamie down the stairs and back into what she called with a knowing smile ‘the flat above the shop’. This time she led me into a lounge, though it was probably called something like a parlour or a drawing room. Two spotless white couches flanked a huge silver fireplace. There was a painting hanging above the mantelpiece. I thought it might be a Mondrian and I also thought it might have inspired the colour-blocked dresses that Martin had sent down the runway three years before and when I shyly asked Jamie, she beamed.
She had a huge gap between her front teeth, even that was cool. Like eighties Madonna before she had her teeth fixed. ‘Clever girl,’ she said. ‘Glad they’ve heard of Mondrian back in Merrycliffe.’
‘I was planning to do Art A level,’ I explained and that reminder of all those hopes and dreams dashed and left for dead made me shudder. ‘But you’re right. Nobody cares about anything in Merrycliffe except container shipping. That’s why I had to leave.’
Even I knew that was just my bluster talking. There were people in Merrycliffe who cared about more than container shipping. Lexy and Thee Desperadettes were always talking about where they wanted to go to university, and even though they sounded awful Thee Desperadoes a
t least had had enough drive to start a band. And Francis cared about so many things that it would take hours for me to tell Jamie all about them, and then there was Alice…
‘I know some people say that if you go back, then you’re not going forward,’ Jamie said as she sat down on one couch and gestured at the space next to her so I sat down too.
‘That’s so right,’ I said feelingly. Although I was down and out in London, I had fabric and findings and now I knew someone in London and I might not have a place to stay or a job but it would be all right. I was sure of it.
‘Except, Franny, you’re only sixteen and you have to go back to Merrycliffe,’ Jamie told me very gently. I sat there on the pristine white couch, terrified I’d leave a stain just from perching uncomfortably on it, and Jamie took my hand and patted it just as gently. ‘You need to get your BTEC so when you do come to London to find fame and fortune, it’s because you’ve got a place at Central St Martin’s.’
‘But I might not get in!’ I protested. ‘And my dad said that —’
‘You can’t expect people to believe in you if you won’t believe in yourself.’ She took her hand away and sounded genuinely cross. ‘If you want to get to London on your own terms, it doesn’t matter what your dad says. You go to college every day, you pass your retakes and you don’t put up with any nonsense from that Barbara because to this day Martin bitches about how she used to cry because she couldn’t get her head around seam allowances.’
I’d been on the verge of tears again, but now I giggled. ‘It’s just the thought of going back there…’
‘Look, darling, I’ve been exactly where you are right now. There were lots and lots of times when I thought I’d be bagging up Brussels sprouts for the rest of my life. And when I did get to London, I was alone and depressed and didn’t have enough money for food. Cried myself to sleep a few times but I got through it and you’ll get through your bad times too. You need to soldier on for the next eighteen months to get to the good stuff. You’re going to have lots of good stuff in your life.’
I opened my mouth but Jamie patted my hand again, sharply this time, like she wasn’t done speaking. ‘You are not your mother’s keeper. You can’t be responsible for her.’
It was easy enough for Jamie to say, but when I went home Dad would leave soon enough and then it would just be the two of us once more. And she’d go off on one again, though sometimes the fear of her going off on one was worse, and I’d be the one person between her and the darkness that infected her. Eighteen months was a life sentence.
Then I was nudged and I looked down to see Jamie holding out a business card. ‘You take this and every time you design a new piece, you take a picture of it and email it to me,’ she commanded. Seriously. She made it sound like a papal decree. ‘Now, I’m not promising a thing, you understand, but every now and again Martin doles out a grant so a worthy young soul gets funding for their degree. Sometimes he even gives them a job. But they have to deserve it. And they have to have conquered their fear of armholes.’
That made me giggle again and I took the card and tried to thank Jamie for the fabric and the stirring pep talk and just for existing really. ‘You’ve been so kind and all I’ve done is moan and cry and take up all your Saturday afternoon.’
Jamie nodded like she was in complete agreement. ‘Well, it killed the time while I was waiting for Martin to finish being interviewed by a Japanese film crew.’
She even promised to give me directions to a bus stop so I could find my way back to Camden. ‘If your friends are worth a jot, they’ll be pleased to see you,’ she said as she took me down more stairs and through a door that led to the stockroom of the shop. Even the stockroom was glamorous, with mood lighting and rails upon rails of clothes. ‘Also, you should make up with your mate, that Alice. Honestly, I’m sure this Louis is a prince among men but no man is that good that he’s worth losing your best friend over.’
‘Try telling her that,’ I muttered, but Jamie had disappeared through a black curtain. I carefully peeked through the gap so I could see into the shop. It was beautiful. So clean, so white, the light so muted like nothing harsh was allowed.
The film crew was packing up and Jamie was talking to Martin Sanderson. She towered over him as she gestured with her hands, even rolled her eyes at one point. He shrugged. Said something that made Jamie laugh. Then they both looked in my direction as if they could see me peeking through the tiny gap in the curtain and I shrank back.
I waited for Jamie but I was half terrified that Martin Sanderson would come bursting through the curtain and snatch back all the lovely things she’d given me and take my dreams while he was at it. Oh God, he would. He’d called me a bloody kid earlier.
The curtain shifted and my stomach double-back-flipped but it was just Jamie. ‘You’re an eight, right?’ She was riffling through the rack of clothes nearest to her.
‘Oh no! Really no this time. I couldn’t.’ I backed away from the red wool coat she held towards me, the beautiful A-line red coat with a princess collar that would totally rock my twenty-first-century mod girl aesthetic. ‘That coat probably costs more than a year’s worth of alterations money.’
‘Martin says he couldn’t live with himself if he let you parade round London without a coat,’ she insisted, giving the coat a little shake. ‘Come on. Chop, chop! We’ve ordered you a car. It will be here in a minute.’
I sank into the coat the way women in movies sank into their lover’s arms. It felt like a very expensive hug and I wanted to find a quiet spot so I could spend an hour simply stroking the cashmere wool, which was so soft that it made me want to cry, though I could have sworn that I didn’t have a drop left in my tear ducts.
There was a discreet shake of the curtain. ‘Car’s here, Jamie.’
‘Back to Camden with you, Franny B,’ Jamie said, pulling back the curtain and guiding me through the shop.
Martin Sanderson was talking to a pretty Japanese girl. I stared down at my feet in my Dunlop Green Flashes, held my breath as I drew level and even though there was music playing and Jamie had paused to say something to the man behind the sales desk, I swear on Coco Chanel’s grave that Martin Sanderson turned and whispered, ‘Ten minutes for chips,’ to me as I scurried past him.
And when I snorted with laughter and turned to look at him in surprise, I also swear that he winked at me. For absolute realz.
Then Jamie opened the door and I was out on the street where a big, sleek black car was waiting for me. The driver was standing there holding the door open.
‘Thank you. Thank you for everything,’ I said and before I lost my nerve, I gave Jamie a very quick, very fierce hug. She smelt expensive and delicious and for a fleeting second she hugged me back. ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘Never mind me. Don’t let yourself down.’ She watched me climb in the back of the car, then leaned over, her hand on the roof. ‘Just between us, Martin has a soft spot for us small-town kids. Says we’re hungrier and we want it more than any of the others.’
I couldn’t believe that anyone had ever wanted it more than me but all I could say was a hurried goodbye before the driver shut the door.
As I was driven back to Camden, I realised that I wasn’t so scared any more at the thought of facing the others. I didn’t think anyone would judge me too badly for running away and never being kissed. I mean, stuff happens or, like, doesn’t happen. And if they believed Alice’s evil bullshit about me and my mum, then they didn’t deserve my friendship.
I wasn’t so scared about my future either. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew that Martin Sanderson wouldn’t toss me one of those grants of his just because I was from Merrycliffe and I’d bonded with his Creative Director, but maybe he and Jamie had seen something in me, some kind of spark, and as well as giving me a freaking beautiful coat and a treasure chest full of fabric, they’d given me hope.
Hope had not been my friend these last few months. It was about time I made up with hope, even if there were so
me people that I was never going to call my friend ever again.
The car pulled in outside the Dublin Castle. I took a deep breath, thanked the driver and stepped out of the car just in time to hear someone shout from across the road, ‘Franny B! You get your arse over here right this bloody second. I’m going to kill you!’
It was Alice.
26
I stiffened immediately. I even went to turn away, but then she darted across the road, accompanied by an angry cacophony of car horns, and hurled herself at me.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you!’ she screamed right in my face. Then Alice was hugging me so hard I almost choked. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t bear this… I just want to be friends again.’
My first reaction was to stiffen again because her words meant nothing to me. So was my second reaction because she was probably creasing my coat, which I loved more than I’d ever loved anything in the world. No contest. And my third reaction was to hug her back because my arms were still used to holding her. ‘Well, I’m sorry for calling you a slutbag,’ I mumbled, but it didn’t feel like I was sorry and Alice let go and from the hurt, still wary expression on her face she didn’t feel like I was sorry too.