The Midnight Dress(18)

‘It’s so boring there with Jonah,’ Pearl says on Main Street after school. ‘I mean, honestly. Football and more football. I’m trying to act interested.’

‘Why?’ says Rose ‘If it’s boring it’s boring.’

‘You don’t understand,’ says Pearl.

‘Yes, I do,’ says Rose. ‘I understand exactly.’

Her fingers go up to check that no curls have escaped. She looks at Pearl with her perfect skin and her perfect hair, not a single freckle, completely unblemished, not a scrap of make-up. She looks at Pearl, daring her to keep arguing.

‘Don’t go on the bus,’ says Pearl, changing the subject. ‘Come with me to the post office.’

She pulls her B. Orlov letters from her school bag. There are about fifteen of them, Rose guesses. She’s written the addresses in rainbow-coloured highlighter. God knows what the Soviet officials will think of that.

‘They probably have some law,’ says Rose. ‘About colours.’

‘I wanted them to stand out.’

‘Oh, they stand out,’ says Rose.

‘How do I look?’ asks Pearl, outside the newsagency.

Sweaty old Mrs Rendell is waving her mould-speckled Japanese fan when they enter. She looks at Pearl and makes a face.

‘Here’s trouble,’ she says.

‘I want to send these to Moscow, Russia, please,’ Pearl says.

‘Do you just?’ says Mrs Rendell. She leafs through the letters, scowling. ‘What are you doing, anyway, writing all these letters? Penpals?’

‘Kind of,’ says Pearl.

‘Kind of,’ huffs Mrs Rendell, and she takes out her stamp book and starts breaking off stamps. ‘Can’t guarantee they’ll get there. The Soviet Union is a damned difficult place. And they can’t stand anything fancy.’

‘Told you,’ whispers Rose.

When they’ve finished fixing the stamps Pearl announces that she has to return her book. She says it in a loud voice, as though she nearly forgot; Mrs Rendell pays her no attention.

‘Come on,’ says Pearl.

‘You go,’ says Rose. ‘I’ll wait outside.’

‘Oh please,’ says Pearl. ‘Please, Ruby Heart Rose.’

Passion’s Fury, Love’s Tender Fury, Savage Surrender, Bold Breathless Love. Wayward Hearts, Sweet Savage Love. Love’s Avenging Heart, Breathless Love, Captive Passions, Desire Me, Burned Fingers, The Men in Her Life, Rehearsal for Love.

‘Why is love always savage?’ whispers Rose. Pearl giggles. ‘Why is love always breathless?’

It’s so quiet in that room, Rose thinks she can almost hear Paul Rendell breathing. Pearl undoes her hair; she studies the titles in front of her as though her life depends upon it.

‘So, Pearlie,’ comes Paul’s voice, ‘how was A Virgin in Paris?’

‘I was up all night reading it,’ says Pearl, a little too quickly, Rose thinks.

‘Of course,’ he says.

Pearl is standing in the safety of an aisle but she’s dipping her school shoe into the tiny spit of linoleum that separates her from him. Rose moves away, looking for something else.

There are some old books at the very top of one shelf, brown spines crumbling, their fibrous innards escaping. She slips one from the shelf and is surprised to find it’s called The Art of Dressmaking. She holds it up to her nose and inhales its tart vinegary scent. She thinks of her little green notebook then. What it will look like in a hundred years’ time. All her words there, her single words and groups of words that were meant to be sentences but that led nowhere.

Pain. Chandelier. Black. Dark. Dying. Cooling. Crying. Ugliness.

What will I do? she has written.

Pearl, she has written.

She’s been going to describe Pearl, but even writing her name seems wrong. Like tacking down a live butterfly. She has crossed out the name, first with a pencil and then with an ink pen. Blacker and blacker and blacker until none of it remained.

Rose turns the pages of The Art of Dressmaking.

Large girls should never wear orange or stripes.

Tall, thin girls should not wear patterns.

‘And what was the story,’ Paul asks, ‘that kept you up all night?’

Pearl doesn’t answer at first; she’s gathering her thoughts.

‘Well, there’s this girl called Gardenia who goes to live with her aunt in Paris because her mother has died. Her aunt has really wild parties. And there’s this baron, who’s the aunt’s lover, and he’s really bad and there’s Lord Harcourt, who’s really haughty and arrogant, and she really doesn’t like either of them but she especially doesn’t like Lord Harcourt because he’s so, you know, arrogant. But in the end she falls in love with him.’

‘Ah, the arrogant man,’ says Paul.

‘Gardenia was a good-enough heroine, although I don’t really know what she saw in Lord Harcourt. I think I liked the baron better. He was kind of funny and sexy. And French.’

Redheads should never wear warm colours.

There is nothing to fear when making a pocket.

Anyone can make a dress given time and patience.

A long pause. Paul laughs softly into the silence.

‘Pearlie,’ he says. It’s not a question. He’s just saying her name. Rose is surprised at the tenderness in his voice.