The Tailor's Girl (14 page)

The traffic was like a sea and he was on an island in the middle of it. He tried to focus on one vehicle, an old van, but as it was swallowed into the ocean of vehicles and he lost sight of it, Tom’s confidence fled and he began to feel the familiar sensation of entrapment. A frantically busy road surrounded him and black cars circled, chased by big dark monsters in the shape of buses, squealing and belching fumes. He was being reminded of the dark stuff of war. He couldn’t focus on those memories because they were too misty, but the smell of women’s perfume soured in his headspace to a smell of gas while the roar of traffic became the demonic sounds of bombs and gunfire. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead and his shirt began to feel damp beneath his jacket. He’d felt so hopeful – cocky, even – but the reality was he couldn’t cope . . . not yet.

Tom hung his head between his knees, which he hoped would ease the dizziness, and sucked in air that tasted of fumes. Memories rippled strongly, riding on that smell of petrol, disturbing because they spoke of darkness . . . of being stalked . . . of gaping wounds and broken men . . . of death and, always, of suffocation.

Periodic shouts or gusts of laughter reached through his escalating alarm and at the rim of his mind, where there was still some rationality, he knew it was hopeless. He was slipping into confusion. Tom tried to stand and wondered if he was swaying or whether the world was tipping. He tried to say something but didn’t know if he slurred or perhaps had not uttered anything. He thought of Edie and the baby, tried to regain some measure of control by forcing himself to look up and read the signs around him.

He saw
Bovril
in huge letters on the top of one building. He moved the letters around in his mind and came up with
Boil
. Instantly he experienced a fleeting glimpse of blood bubbling up from someone’s chest that had been blown apart. He blinked in terror and shifted his panicked gaze to the big clock above the large jeweller’s shopfront. The clock cheerfully yelled in big lettering ‘Guinness Time’;
Guest
, he saw immediately, and thought of his presence in the Valentine home. Then he saw
Nest
– what he’d made with Edie in Epping. And he felt a surge of hope that he could find his way back to their cosy cottage, but then he saw the word
Mine
form itself and distantly he heard a bomb as a van backfired and he cringed. The letters rearranged themselves before his eyes: he saw
Stem
and again he had a vague notion of pressing down on a terrible wound but the blood was leaking through his fingers. A young man barely out of his teens cried beneath, begging Tom not to let him die. The letters he stared at reformed into
Mist
and a smell of killing gas wafted across his senses. He experienced a brief, vivid vision of soldiers hurling themselves over the top of a vast trench but being cut down and falling back into the grave immediately, himself amongst them, and that image flared in horrible, sharp colour but disappeared just as quickly to leave him breathing fast and frantically.

Tom felt stone beneath him, realised he was seated again. Had he fallen back? Was that him making that strange whimpering sound?

‘Hey, Mister,’ came a voice through the tunnelled vision that was all he had now. He must have raised his head, saw a boy, but in his hand was a pistol.
Gun!
Tom thought with deep dread. Machine-gun fire echoed in his mind, bullet casings, damage, shrapnel, wounds, blood . . . always blood.

‘Bang!’ the little boy yelled gleefully and he pulled the trigger on his toy gun. The hammer slammed home and in his mind Tom heard a deafening explosion. He launched himself from the shallow steps beneath the statue of the god of love and out into the sea of vehicles that began to honk their horns. He caught horrified expressions from drivers, waving fists and curses at him although he heard no words. He startled a small coach-load of passengers, their mouths suddenly gaping holes of silent screams.

Tom had lost all understanding of where he was and the direction he was headed. He bounced off a lamppost onto a wall, back into a road and perhaps someone helped him back onto the pavement; he didn’t know. If he could have watched himself, he would have seen a man lurching forward, at times holding his head, weaving a zigzag path, banging into the walls of buildings and knocking his knees painfully when he fell down. He clambered his way back to his feet and staggered on, his trousers torn, hands grazed, and all the while aware of bullets whizzing past his ears and a low, animal-like scream that he knew was his.

And suddenly hands were upon him. ‘Hey, drunkard!’ he heard.

‘Help me, please,’ he thought he murmured, but Tom was vaguely aware of whispering and low laughter; fingers rummaging through pockets. He thought he heard ‘Stupid sod’ as he was thrown backwards but the words were lost as he lurched on and away from the battlefield of Piccadilly Circus, machine-gun fire and blood chasing him.

He hurried. Away from guns and explosions.
Find the trench!
Tom carried in his mind. He broke into a run.
Get to the dugout!
The surrounds were definitely quieting – perhaps he had cleared no-man’s-land? His breathing was ragged and he was nauseous and dizzy; was he choking? Was it poison gas? His limbs were so numb now that only the pins and needles in his fingers and around his neck assured him he had any feeling at all. His vision had reduced to a tiny circle and even that was blurring now. At least he couldn’t hear the battlefield any longer. Everything had become quiet, save odd, polite voices punching through his disorientation.

‘I say, old chap, are you all right?’

‘Good heavens, man! Whatever is the matter with you?’

But the words strung together and sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a grave, as though everyone was buried alive, the corpses trying to speak to him, warn him that Edie was waiting. He had to get back to Edie. Their baby was due. Abe wouldn’t forgive. His fears would be confirmed.

Should have married Ben Levi
.

Tom’s body was running with perspiration, his shirt clung damply to him. An afternoon wind gleefully blew her cool breath and he began to shiver helplessly.

He heard one last voice.

‘Hey! Look out!’

He had a final thought – a single word that came to mind.
Eden.
He saw a garden of safety that he lurched towards. Tom felt one final blow as he staggered in the direction of his haven.

The driver of the vehicle that had just entered Savile Row saw the drunk, swerved to miss him but the back of the big, solid Crossley 20/25 clipped him, spinning him and propelling him into a nearby lamppost. The taxi driver looked back in horror to see the man hit his head against the iron and bounce off to collapse alongside the Victorian iron fretwork fence on the pavement outside Poole & Co.

And in that moment, Tom died.

Edie heard the slightly unpleasant scraping sound that accompanied the tugging sensation on her hair, which had been combed out to sit at her shoulderblades. Deep down she wasn’t scared of having her hair cut; the truth was she wanted it desperately because she knew how fashionable it was, but she was anxious at how Tom would react. She had seen that the short bob cut had not only transformed the appearance of American women but she knew it would forever change the clothes they wore.

Short hair was the immediate future and meant so much more than simply a new style. It spoke of a new freedom coming for women and it was not only a release from the long skirt and tight bodices but would also show itself in eye-poppingly daring haircuts that released women from their pins and clips, buns and ponytails, ringlets and rags. Suddenly women could look tomboyish if they chose, but they could style that short hair by night to be dazzlingly elegant with diamante headbands or pearl decorations; they could crimp it, wave it or wear it in a daringly elfin way.

‘You’re sure, aren’t you, Edie?’ Delia asked with a sudden attack of doubt.

‘Too late,
ma cherie
,’ Madeleine chuckled and Edie felt a hank of her hair give. She stole a glance at the offcuts on the floor and saw in them the death of Edie Valentine, and in her soul felt the surge of her hidden self – the more daring, driven and exotic Eden Valentine pushing through.

Madeleine made a few more dramatic cuts before she squeezed Edie’s shoulders. ‘All gone,’ she murmured close to her ear, but not unkindly. ‘I have to tidy it up yet,’ she warned, straightening from where she had been bent, scrutinising the sharp line at Edie’s nape. ‘But here. Take a look at yourself with short hair.’ She gave Edie a hand mirror.

And as Edie saw the stranger appear in the glass to stare back at her, she felt as though her heart stilled. It became momentarily difficult to breathe. This was how Tom would feel when he found the courage to shave. This is what he was afraid of – seeing a new person . . . or, more likely, remembering an old one.

In that moment she felt a pain alarming through her.

‘Say something,’ Delia pleaded, her expression filled with worry.

‘Something’s happened,’ Edie whispered in shock, reaching for her belly. She couldn’t explain it. But it had felt as though the world at that moment had, in that desperately painful heartbeat, fallen out of kilter for her. She was aware of her companions frowning at her but she couldn’t find the right words. After waiting, they both began speaking at once, while she struggled to draw a frightening breath.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Is it the baby?’

Edie shook her head. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I feel strange.’ She clutched her hand to her chest.

‘Are you ill, Eden?’ Madeleine asked, crouching before her. Suddenly Madeleine’s cool blue gaze felt calming; no longer gently mocking but solid and dependable.

Delia had hurried to pour Edie a glass of water. ‘Drink, Edie. You look like a ghost walked over your grave.’

‘I think it did,’ Edie admitted, gulping down the water to moisten her throat that felt suddenly dry and choked.

‘You can grow it out,’ Madeleine offered, her expression softening with concern.

She shook her head. ‘It’s not my hair. I can’t explain it. It just felt as though my heart skipped a beat or stopped . . . it hurt.’

The women exchanged a glance.

‘Heart? Have you been ill recently?’ Delia wondered.

She was returning to normal, could think more clearly. ‘No. Something’s happened . . .’

‘Your baby —’ Madeleine began, sounding scared for her. ‘Is it perhaps a first sign of labour? What do they call those warning cramps?’

Edie suddenly froze in fear. ‘He’s . . .’

Her friends shared another worried look. Madeleine put the scissors on the floor and they both waited. ‘Eden?’ she murmured, her expression tense.

‘He’s all right,’ she suddenly breathed out in a shaking voice. ‘He’s kicking. It’s not labour. My waters haven’t broken. There’s no pain.’

Delia’s hand flew to her chest to cover her own tripping heart.

‘Your child is fine,’ Madeleine said calmly. ‘Your hair is lovely. Your pie is beautiful,’ she continued and Edie half laughed, half wept. ‘All is well,’ Madeleine steadied. ‘You just panicked, perhaps in your dismay, to see your hair gone, but it suits you more than you can imagine.’ She grinned.

‘That’s right,’ Delia soothed.

‘Don’t you just look so amazing?’ Madeleine said, holding up Edie’s mirror again. ‘Look!’

Edie blinked back the worry. She didn’t want to go with her thoughts, which desperately wanted to lead her to Tom in London . . . alone. ‘I do love it, Madeleine,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘And everyone will have to get used to it.’

‘Well, they have no choice now, do they?’ Delia remarked, sweeping away Edie’s hair.

Edie found a small but genuine laugh. ‘Put the kettle on, Del. I’ll make some tea.’

Madeleine tutted. ‘Delia can make the tea. I haven’t finished with you yet. I want you looking ravishing tonight for that handsome man of yours.’

_______________

People hurried to the fallen man.

‘He staggered into my path,’ the taxi driver bleated, his complexion grey, voice unsteady.

‘I saw it,’ someone reassured. ‘It was not your fault.’

There were only two women in the huddle and they both looked distraught, one dabbing at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief.

‘Oh, Geoffrey, he’s dead.’

‘Now, now, dear. We can’t be sure.’

‘Make way, please. I am a doctor,’ came a voice from the back. A man pushed through. His fiercely white thatch of hair, precisely trimmed, distinguished him from the rest of the fine folk straining for a peek at the dead man.

‘Oh, I say, Sir, you’re half dressed,’ said Geoffrey.

‘I’m with my tailor having a suit fitted at Poole’s, if you don’t mind,’ he countered, sounding indignant. ‘I’m Dr John Cavendish of Harley Street. Now, please, if you good people would not mind giving this man and me some air.’

‘Is he dead?’ someone asked.

‘It’s what I’m trying to establish,’ Cavendish snipped.

Tailors began spilling out of the salons with measuring tapes strung around their necks; one carried a long ruler, another still had pins in his mouth. All were dressed in either dark grey or black and the cut of their clothes was unmistakably fine, even though they had arrived in shirtsleeves.

‘Dr Cavendish, Sir?’ one man said now. His moustache, which looked as though it had been drawn over his top lip by a stroke of charcoal, twitched in worry to see his client kneeling on the pavement in his yet-to-be-finished evening suit.

Cavendish had his fingers to the victim’s neck, straining for the silence he needed. Finally he nodded. ‘The fellow’s not dead. He’s been knocked unconscious.’

There were sighs of relief all round.

‘Who saw what happened?’

Several people began explaining at once and Cavendish looked pained as he tried to make sense of it. ‘On the lamppost, you say?’ he repeated.

A man nodded. ‘Charles Rainsford,’ he offered. ‘I work in the city. I was just leaving Gieves & Hawkes when this man, clearly drunk, staggered around the corner, bumping into me. I called out to him, wanted to give him a piece of my mind. The cabbie swerved to miss the blaggard but unfortunately it caught him on the shoulder and he spun as described, hitting his head on the post. I couldn’t see whether it was chin or forehead, to be honest.’

‘Thank you,’ Cavendish said. ‘But this man is not intoxicated. I smell no liquor on him.’

A murmur rippled through the onlookers.

‘What the hell was he doing lurching around like that, then?’ Rainsford demanded.

‘Well, that’s what I aim to establish,’ Cavendish said in a clipped tone. ‘George, do you have any smelling salts in the shop, please?’

A youngish man in shirtsleeves and waistcoat nodded. ‘Yes, of course, Doctor. Back in a jiff.’ He hurried away and up the small stairs into one of the tailoring doorways.

A distinguished-looking man with a fashionably thin moustache had shouldered his way to the front of the small crowd. He had a military bearing with precisely cut dark hair lightening to silver, like steel wool. He opened his mouth to speak, when George returned with a squat dark-brown bottle of Mackenzies salts.

‘Here, Dr Cavendish,’ he said, eagerly.

Cavendish unscrewed the lid, pulling a tight face as he tentatively smelled from the open bottle. ‘Yes,’ he coughed. ‘They’re fresh.’ He waved the open bottle just beneath the prone man’s nose. ‘Come on now, my good fellow. Inhale.’

Everyone waited.

‘Excuse me, Doctor,’ a new voice punctuated the tense silence.

Cavendish looked up at the man with silvered hair and thin moustache.

‘I was just passing, Sir, but I am Percival Fitch.’ When the doctor blinked, the man continued. ‘Er, from Anderson & Sheppard,’ he said, pointing vaguely over his shoulder. ‘I recognise this gentleman.’ He nodded towards the fallen man, who at that moment groaned, coughed and twisted his head away from the offending vapours.

The onlookers uttered small gasps of relief.

‘Steady now,’ Cavendish soothed. ‘You’ve been knocked out. We’re trying to help.’

The man’s eyes opened and his expression was wild at first, then grew frightened. His look turned quickly to dismay as he took in his surrounds.

‘What the hell happened?’ he croaked.

The doctor repeated what they knew briefly. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Embarrassed,’ he said, looking around, pushing himself up on his elbows. ‘Hello, Fitch. Help me up. There’s a good sport.’

‘I think you should —’ Cavendish began.

‘Nonsense. I took enough hits in the trenches to be able to bounce back from tripping over in Savile Row. How bloody ridiculous I must look. I’m sorry for the nuisance, everyone. I’m fine, just a bit bruised,’ he assured, rubbing his shoulder before touching a spot beneath his chin. ‘Please, no more fuss.’

‘As you wish. I’m Dr John Cavendish,’ he said, pushing himself up to stand, grimacing at the crack from his knees as he watched the man brush himself down as people began to lift their hats in farewell and drift away now that the drama was over. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ Cavendish said.

‘Four,’ the man replied, sounding bored.

‘Both hands, please,’ Cavendish prompted.

‘Seven,’ came the reply in a slightly more irritated tone.

‘And you can remember your name?’ Cavendish asked, as though moving through a stock series of questions.

The man glared at him, straightening his tie. ‘Yes. I don’t think that’s beyond me, Dr Cavendish. I’m Alexander Wynter.’ He nodded at Fitch. ‘Whatever are these clothes I’m wearing, Fitch? I never wear navy.’

‘No, Sir. But I did not make that suit for you, Mr Wynter.’

‘Really?’

Fitch gave a small, apologetic shrug. ‘No, Mr Wynter, although even from a distance it looks finely made, perhaps a bit snug, if you don’t mind my saying so?’

Wynter nodded. ‘But you make all my suits, Fitch.’ He frowned.

Fitch gave a polite shrug. ‘We haven’t seen you in years, Sir.’

The man stared at him, perplexed, as though Fitch had just said that it no longer rained in England.

‘The war changed business for us, Mr Wynter.’ Fitch sighed. ‘So many of our clients never returned. I thought you might have been one of the lost.’ He blinked rapidly and cleared his throat in apology. ‘Forgive me.’

‘No, no, don’t mention it. Er . . . what date is it?’

‘September 30, Sir.’

‘Ah. Good. Er . . . and the year?’

Both men stared at him with astonishment.

Cavendish spoke first. ‘It’s 1920. Why don’t you know this?’

Wynter grinned but not before the doctor saw shock dance through his expression. ‘Feeling a bit befuddled, I suppose, from the knock,’ Wynter admitted. ‘Maybe I should get myself checked.’

‘Come with me now, Mr Wynter. I’m on my way to Harley Street directly. I was going to take a taxi.’

‘I have my own doctor, Sir. Lloyd Rathbone usually looks after our family.’

‘I know Lloyd,’ Cavendish nodded. ‘He’s away on a tour of Europe, as I understand it. Let me satisfy myself by giving you a proper examination in my rooms, or I will not feel comfortable letting you leave my care.’

Wynter sighed dramatically. ‘All right, if it would make you sleep easier tonight.’

‘It would.’

‘Fitch, this suit is rather untidy now and I’ve just noticed a small tear at the knee.’

‘I noticed it too,’ Fitch said carefully.

‘I don’t suppose you’d have —’

‘Well, Sir, in a curious coincidence, I do happen to have a suit for you. You had one measured up in 1915 just before you left and told me to have it ready for your return. I won’t be long, you said to me,’ Fitch quoted sadly.

‘Five years,’ Wynter murmured.

‘It will fit you, Mr Wynter, of that I have no doubt. I don’t believe you’ve put on an ounce in the time you’ve been gone; if anything, you look a bit leaner.’

‘Only you would know, Fitch. You have a suit. How marvellous.’ Wynter sounded delighted.

‘On your account and still hanging in its suit bag; I always hoped you would collect it, Sir,’ Fitch said, and then cleared his throat lest he sound emotional. ‘Er, forgive me. Too few have returned.’

Alexander Wynter defied his name and beamed Fitch a summery smile before turning to Cavendish. ‘Indulge me, Cavendish. Let me change out of this stained and damaged suit.’

‘Of course. I’ll hail a taxi and meet you in Old Burlington Street.’

Wynter nodded his thanks and followed Mr Fitch to the tailoring haven of Anderson & Sheppard, which had clearly once been a grand home in a previous century, and probably doctors’ rooms before being infiltrated by the tailoring community. All the surgeons had fled from the crush of clothiers into Harley Street and now this whole neighbourhood of London was given over to the wardrobing of gentlemen and royalty.

As they approached the store, Wynter appreciated the warren of tailoring shops and salons that had clustered into the tiny region of London, all with their specialties. Some started out as helmet and hat makers – like Thomas Hawkes, who formed the partnership of Gieves & Hawkes at Number One Savile Row. Others began as providers of hunting silks and pinks or ceremonial dress for royals and other dignitaries.