“Shouldn’t the skirt be just a little shorter?” the client asked.
“I’d leave the hem a bit lower, if I were you,” said the grandmother, glancing knowingly over the woman’s shoulders in the mirror.
“Oh. But I was thinking of something a bit shorter, just for a change.”
“Well,” sighed the grandmother, “of course it’s entirely up to you. If you’re sure. However, the problem is, if you want a short skirt, it’ll have to be really short.”
The client, retreating into silence, studied her reflection.
“Knee-length wouldn’t suit you,” Stella said, taking her cue from the grandmother. “Your knees are too plump.”
“Too plump,” echoed the grandmother, “not really, I wouldn’t call them plump. It’s the fabric, Madame. Look.”
She draped the material around the woman’s hips.
“If it’s a short skirt you want, and you still want pleats, it won’t look very smart.” She crumpled a handful of fabric in her fist.
“See what I mean? I can of course make a few tucks here and there, but still — I’m afraid it’ll look like some sort of school uniform. Now let’s see, if we drop the hem a bit — look! — it’ll all turn out a treat. A short skirt of this material, Madame, would be a dreadful waste. And you must admit the quality is excellent. It would be a shame not to use it to its best advantage.”
“I suppose you’re right …” the client faltered, struggling to reconcile the picture in her head with her plump knees.
Stella held her tongue. So did the grandmother. Cowed into submission, the client was ready for the coup de grâce, which was painless, for it was expertly wrapped in layers of velvet.
“It’ll turn out wonderfully,” the grandmother promised, “I can feel it in my bones.”
*
Late in the evening, when peace was restored, they would let their hair down.
“God forbid that I should give in to everything they wanted, whatever would they look like! Frights! A guardian of good taste, that’s what I am. I can’t go ruining my reputation, can I?”
One day I had the temerity to ask, in the presence of a client, whether the material with splashy flowers was going to be used for kitchen curtains. She had boxed my ears on previous occasions, but this time it hurt.
Mondays were devoted to pattern drawing, design adjustments and the strategic deployment of pins so as to hide unwanted prominences.
“A good garment,” she affirmed with deeply held conviction, “both conceals and reveals.”
There was no one to hear her secret formulas, her mutterings and hummed tunes as she breathed life into one garment after another. The sewing room was transformed into a magical laboratory, and she into an alchemist. She drew lines with a stick of greasy chalk on feather-light sheets of tissue paper laid out on the table. She guided the predatory jaws of her scissors around the contours of a skirt or the lily-like outline of a bridal gown.
“Sheffield Steel,” she purred. “Sheffield Steel is the very best.”
Stella was charged with basting the cut segments. The grandmother spread a fresh length of material on the table and set about plotting new graphs.
*
Miss Veegaete was unlike the other clients. Miss Veegaete, the grandmother said, was what you might call a bijou of a client.
“It’s always plain sailing with her. You can tell right off she’s a lady. She’s got city manners.”
“She taught at a school in Brussels once,” Stella said. “A posh boarding school run by Insuline Nuns.”
“Ursuline, Stella. Ursuline.”
“Whatever. A school for rich folk. They spoke French! D’you know how they say Miss Veegaete in French? Haven’t you heard? They pronounce it Veekàt. They call her Mademoiselle Veekàt. She’s got a piano at home, did you know?”
Miss Veegaete was well aware of her status as honoured visitor and privileged client. When she rang the bell the door flew open at once. Stella, tottering on stiletto heels, would help her out of her coat.
“Do step into the salon,” she would say, “Andrea will be right with you.”
Anything Miss Veegaete said was lapped up by the grandmother as if it were liquid gold.
“How right you are,” was her unvarying reply.
Cake was served, with cherry filling and a generous dollop of whipped cream. The fragile porcelain coffee cups seemed to gain in translucence whenever Miss Veegaete raised hers to her lips. She was a giant honey bird, large and feathered, a hummingbird-turned-woman. As she tasted the cake a high-pitched sound rose up from the underhang of her chin. “Divine,” she churred. “Heavenly.”
*
On such days, when the door was ajar, I would slip into the room like a shadow. I lingered in the half-light to prolong the sensation of being unseen and all-seeing. By the sheer concentration of my gaze, I imagined, I could make Miss Veegaete turn round on the sofa padded with embroidered cushions to face me and say: “Mais voilà. Notre petit prince. Quel surprise, mon ami.”
“Go and shake hands now,” the grandmother instructed.
“Good afternoon Miss Veegaete.”
“Bonjour, mon élève.”
Her hands fluttered briefly around my chin towards my cheeks, as if she were about to lift me up by my ears. For an instant I saw her pout her lips and make to lean forward, but she changed her mind.
“Is he tongue-tied in class too?” the grandmother asked wryly.
“Not really. He can be quite a chatterbox at times, can’t he?” Her fingers hovered over the top of my head. “But we can’t complain.”
“Have a piece of cake, dear,” the grandmother said. “Off you go and eat it in the kitchen, because I know what you’re like. Always spilling things. And mind you wash your hands first. Look at you, your paws are filthy — you’re in no state to shake hands with a lady!”
“Been rummaging in the attic, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Stella. “Odd isn’t it? The way he holes up in the attic all the time.”
“Ah well, he’s a dreamer, isn’t he,” Miss Veegaete said with a wink. “Daydreaming — that’s something he and I have in common.”
Her laugh dropped like a lark from the sky and her shoes gave a little creak as she curled up her toes. She had chubby feet. In the summer she wore sturdy sandals, the kind worn by children. The strap pressed into her plump ankles and her toes lay like a row of bosoms in a black leather corset.
Nothing could be whiter than Miss Veegaete’s thighs, of which I caught an occasional fleeting glimpse in the classroom, from my seat in the front row right under her desk on the blue stone platform. The whiteness veered between milky clouds and marble with pale meandering veins.
On hot afternoons when the awnings were out over the windows, Miss Veegaete would sink onto her chair with a sigh as she abandoned herself to digesting her lunch. She lived in a house overlooking the playground. At midday I would see her sitting with her brother and elder sister Louise at the table by the dining room window, eating soup and munching thick slices of bread. No wonder Miss Veegaete dozed off in the afternoon. She would prop up her chin with her hands and let her eyelids droop. Now and then an ominous glug-glug would escape her, as if in the depths of her stomach, under the flowery skirt, a thick porridge was dripping slowly from one grotto to the next. Miss Veegaete pretended not to notice. She was ladylike.
On other afternoons Miss Veegaete would read, giving little sighs of contentment, as if she were blowing bubbles. When she was completely engrossed in her book she would unthinkingly pass her tongue over her teeth to dislodge bits of bread, making her cheeks bulge in all directions as if she were sucking a large boiled sweet.