The memory must still be very painful, because Lana’s eyes glisten with tears. She bends her head and stares at the tablecloth.
‘They shined my shoes for me, Julie! And the men, they arranged everything. The coffin—it had a brass nameplate and a satin and lace interior, the funeral in a sunny chapel, the Christian cemetery plot across town. Everything was done properly, with the greatest respect. They even laid one of Sorab’s toys inside the coffin.’
She shakes her head in admiration for the people that I had been persuaded to believe should have glass and sand pancakes for breakfast.
‘In the days after the funeral the women brought food three times a day, they took care of Sorab, they found a nurse to breast-feed him because my milk had dried up, they cleaned the house, they shopped, they cooked. They are the kindest, most beautiful people I have ever met and if ever you have the chance, you must go there and decide for you for yourself if they are terrorists or they are simply like you and me.’
The food arrives. There is too much, but nobody else seems to think so. Billie and Lana both know how to eat with chopsticks. I ask for a fork and spoon. I watch Billie dip her dim sum into soy sauce and put it whole into her mouth. I pick up a shiny white dumpling. Under its transparent skin I can see…stuff, well pork, prawns and crab to be precise, and I put it into my bowl. I am so hungry my mouth is running with saliva, but I cut a tiny piece and slip it between my lips. It is so delicious my eyes actually widen.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ Lana asks.
I nod and cut another tiny piece.
I chew slowly and watch Lana reach for the small plastic container and spoon she had taken out of her bag earlier.
‘Shall we have some lunch?’ she says, in that high sing-song voice that people put on when they are talking to babies and animals and ties a bib around her baby’s neck. He smiles up at her and she begins to spoon food into his face. ‘If you finish all your food you can have some of Auntie Billie’s fried ice cream.’
The rest of the lunch is a stressful, exhausting ordeal with me pretending to eat the same amount as them. Believe me, it is a feat considering the little baskets of dim sum arrive with exactly three pieces in them. Two I palm and they end up inside my handbag. Despite all their attempts to include and pull me into the conversation I feel excluded and jealous of their obviously tight bond. When the fried ice cream arrives I sigh with relief. From my seat I smell it, though. Freshly fried batter and vanilla. A tantalizing combination that makes me twitch in my seat. The baby gets some too. He seems to love it. As soon as it is all gone, Billie stands up.
‘I’m off to suck a fag,’ she says, picking up her box of cigarettes.
I kind of panic at the thought of being left alone with Lana. ‘Smoking will give you cancer.’
‘Great, that’ll save me from dying of boredom,’ she quips and then she is gone.
I look at Lana and she is pulling a wet-wipe out of its box and cleaning her baby’s hands. Terrified that an uncomfortable silence will descend upon us I blurt out the first thing that comes into my mind.
‘How old is he now?’ As if I’m interested.
‘Fourteen months tomorrow.’
‘He’s a very quiet baby, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is like his father. Blake’s first language is silence.’ She glances at me with a smile. ‘When he was young his capacity for silence was such that his parents thought there was something wrong with him.’
‘Do you think you will have more kids?’
Lana glows. ‘For sure. At least two, but most probably three.’
‘Oh.’ Does she not care that having so many kids will ruin her body? I suppose now she has the money she can go and remodel her body in any way she wants.
‘There you go. All done,’ she tells her son and turning to me says, ‘He hates it when any part of him gets dirty.’ She puts the soiled wipe on the table. ‘I got a little gift for you to say thank you for being my bridesmaid, but I was in such a rush this morning, thanks to him,’ she rolls her eyes in the direction of the child, ‘I forgot to bring it. If you don’t have anything planned for this evening perhaps you’d like to come home with me after the fitting? We can have tea together.’
I can barely believe it. I am dying to see where Lana lives now. I school my voice so I don’t sound too eager. ‘That would be nice, thanks.’
Lana pays the bill and we are thankfully out of the restaurant. I take a deep breath of the cool air. That is the last time I go to a restaurant with them.
The Bentley arrives and we all climb into it. Inside it is the byword in comfort. I settle in and we are borne towards that girlie ceremony called a dress fitting.
Five
I am the thief of secrets. For I have learned the ritual of being quiet. I can become so still, it is as if I become invisible, and people forget I am there and begin to take me into their labyrinth of secrets.
—Julie Sugar
Lana disappears behind the curtain with a seamstress called Rosie and her assistant, whose name I didn’t catch. Strange, but I must admit I feel a surge of excitement. What is it about wedding dresses? Most of them are like meringues and yet… Perhaps it is the idea of a bride. I try to imagine what Lana’s dress might be like. Obviously floor length. But I have never seen a custom-made dress that has been flown across half the world twice and requires four fittings. As Lana explained in the car the first fitting was for when the dress was skeletal, the second when it was half complete, the third when it was almost compete, and this fourth and last fitting when it needs only to be zipped up.
Five minutes pass.
Sorab has fallen asleep in his pushchair and Billie is lounging on one of the long sofas playing with her phone. I walk around the large space. It belongs to some other designer, but Lana’s designers, two Australian men, have rented it for the afternoon. The late afternoon sun is low in the sky and soft silver light is filtering through. I go to the window and look at the street below.
I have only the view of the back of another gray building, but I love London. Every time I come to London I start to feel alive. On the street below two men are standing by a lamp post casually looking around them. I recognize them. They were at the restaurant too. From behind me comes the soft rustle of Billie’s trouser legs brushing against each other as she crosses and uncrosses her legs.
I turn back and glance at her. She is still messing about with her phone. I leave the window and go to the long table pushed up against one end of the room and glance at the stuff on it. Dressmaker’s chalk, sketches, fabric samples, a curved ruler, a pair of scissors, a length of lace.
And I think of the two men outside.
‘Out she comes,’ Rosie calls in her strong Australian accent and starts pulling the curtain aside.
Billie springs up and comically starts singing, ‘Here comes the bride.’ But she stops mid-sentence, gasping, her hands flying to her cheeks when all of Lana, head dipped to avoid the hanging material, comes out from behind the curtain. Even my mouth falls open. The dress is breathtakingly exquisite—couture at its best—and Lana—Lana is unimaginably, impossibly beautiful.
I have literally never seen anything so lovely in my life.
Rosie describes the dress. I hear snatches. French lace, Italian silk, antique seed pearls, Swarovski crystals, mounted on Italian silk.
So let me describe it to you. It has a halter neck. The bodice is made from French lace that has been intricately embroidered and embellished with antique seed pearls and Swarovski crystals, and mounted onto Italian silk. The way the material molds to her body so seamlessly without even the tiniest puckering, sagging or bulging anywhere is truly amazing. Somewhere about the tops of her thighs it trumpets out into a ball gown—all tulle and layers and layers of organza, probably hundreds. The craftsmanship is astonishing. No wonder they needed four fittings.