The Last Dress from Paris(5)
“I need you to go. There is something I need you to do for me, Lucille.” And whatever it is, I know I am going to say yes. I adore her. I’ll do anything to make her happy in the time we have left together.
“There is a dress, the Maxim’s, it was designed by Dior. I loaned it to a dear old friend many years ago, and now that she has passed away, I would so love it back. Her daughter, Veronique, has it now. I’ve written her address on the back of your card. Apartment 6, 10 Rue Volney 75002.” When she chooses, Granny’s memory can be quite impressive. “She’s expecting you.”
“A Dior dress? As in Christian Dior?” Granny has always been incredibly stylish, carefully sticking to a subtle palette of black, deep navy, soft creams and caramels, never overly accessorized or made-up. But it is very hard to equate a piece of valuable couture with the smart but inexpensive high street suits, dresses, and knitwear that hang in her wardrobe today, a place where something cashmere might feel like an unnecessary extravagance.
“Yes, the very one.” It’s not a boast, more a statement of fact, something perfectly logical.
“But how did you come to own a Dior dress? It must be worth . . .”
“An awful lot of money, yes, but let’s not be crass about this, Lucille. The point is, I want to touch it one more time. It is so much more valuable to me than any price tag you could attach to it. Now, you are booked to stay for two nights, but I shan’t mind in the slightest if you extend your trip—in fact, I’d be delighted if you did.” She verbally draws a line through any further discussion.
And so, just like that, it seems I am going to Paris tomorrow—my smile confirms as much. How hard can it be? Collect the dress, do some minor sightseeing, get a little lost in the City of Love, make myself seem far more adventurous on social media than I actually am, return home. I start mentally tallying up all the untaken holiday I am due from work as I watch Granny lift the cake to her lips and take a satisfying large bite, her eyes sliding sideways to sneak a look at me, celebrating the calculated success she has just achieved.
One thing is for sure. There is more to this than simply returning a dress, one she can’t be planning to wear again all these years later. It’s just a dress, albeit a very well-made one. Couldn’t this Veronique simply courier it? Granny’s up to something. That much I know for sure.
* * *
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And that’s how I ended up in carriage C of the three fifteen Eurostar from St. Pancras to Paris on a Friday afternoon, celebrating my recent birthday with a glass of fizz and an éclair chaser. The newspaper headlines are all a bit smug—Prince Harry’s off the market, Kate and Wills have a third baby on the way—so I ease my chair back for two blissful hours alone with Marian Keyes’s Watermelon before, thirty-six hours too late, Mum’s text lands.
Yes, this text is late, I know, but with very good reason. I have been giving lots of thought to what to get you this year. And as I can’t possibly compete with Paris, I’ve put some money into your account. More than usual. Buy the chicest thing you can find.
Granny must have called her. I can’t help noticing she still hasn’t actually used the words happy birthday.
She’ll be disappointed, but I’m not sure I will buy something chic in Paris. I am someone who dresses, for what little travel I do, with comfort firmly in mind—something Mum has never understood about me. She thinks nothing of boarding a plane in a circulation-challenging pencil skirt and seamed hosiery. For me it’s joggers, loose layers, no bra, but a vest to keep things decent. I seriously doubt Mum has ever uttered the word joggers—the suggestion that she might ever own a pair would be deeply offensive. I recall the last time I met her outside her office after work. Naturally, she was the last to emerge, completely ignoring our agreed meeting time. When she did eventually appear, I realized she was wearing the same corporate uniform as every other woman before her, just more expensive looking, in keeping with her seniority. Everything androgynous, a sea of women stripped of their color and femininity. So much black! Even their handbags weren’t allowed to look pretty. Big serious boxes with metal chains and studs or made from grotesquely dyed animal skin. More of a weapon than an accessory. I would have loved to have seen my mother emerge a butterfly among the hornets, but no. To be one of them, you have to look like them. How depressing. I couldn’t help thinking how these women were supposed to represent success, wealth, and achievement, but I knew that day I didn’t want any part of their conformity. Perhaps I should have felt like the oddball standing there in a billowing cream chiffon skirt that most women would save for Christmas Day. But watching them, teeming from the building like a row of identikit worker ants, I felt nothing but free.
That said, this is Paris, so I have naturally made more effort. A freshly ironed Breton shirt that isn’t sure if it wants to be masculine or feminine, tucked half in and half out of the smartest jeans I own, ones that sit high above my hips. And I felt good on the train. Nothing was slicing into me or cutting me in half at the waist, but as my train pulls into the Gare du Nord and I’m swept up into a sea of smartly dressed early-evening commuters, I could kill for a pair of sunglasses. Not that anyone in Paris knows me, but I need the cloak of immediate anonymity. Just in case anyone does happen to wonder who this is trailing one battered wheelie case and two splitting WHSmith’s carrier bags across the otherwise sleek concourse.