The Wedding Dress Maker

The Wedding Dress Maker

Also by Leah Fleming

The Olive Garden Choir

The Wedding Dress Maker

The Daughter of the Tide

The Wedding Dress Maker

LEAH FLEMING

www.headofzeus.com

First published in the UK in 1999 by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd

This paperback edition published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright © Leah Fleming, 2019

The moral right of Leah Fleming to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (PBO): 9781789543254

ISBN (E): 9781789543360

Author photograph © MKI Photo

Cover images: Shutterstock

Head of Zeus Ltd

First Floor East

5–8 Hardwick Street

London

ec1r 4rg

www.headofzeus.com

In memory of my sister, Audrey

1935–1977

‘Life is a rainbow which also includes black’

—

yevgeny yevtushenko

‘My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So it was when my life began

So it is now I am a man:

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is father of the man’

—

william wordsworth

, ‘My Heart Leaps Up’

Contents

Also by Leah Fleming

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

1 Freya’s Necklace

A Wednesday Afternoon in May 1949

Early on Friday Morning

September 1937

May 1949, Friday

September 1939

May 1949, Friday

Dressing Miss Forsyth, June 1942

May 1949, Friday

2 Stepping Stones Garnet

Rae, 1944

Summer 1944

May 1949, Friday

August 1944

May 1949, Friday

Ten Days in March 1945

On The Tenth Day, 1945

May 1949, Friday at Noon

Park Royal, Spring 1945

May 1949, Saturday Morning

3 Amber

Snapshots from The Royal, 1945

May 1949, Saturday Morning

Hogmanay, 1945

A Secret Outing

Saturday, Midday on Shap Fell, 1949

4 Jet

February 1946

Nothing To Write Home About, March 1946

Homeward Bound, July 1946

Saturday Afternoon in Kendal, 1949

5 Citrine

In the Winter of 1947

The Texas Rangers, Autumn 1947

Spring 1948

Saturday Teatime in Kendal, 1949

6 Jade

Dancing on the Green, Summer 1948

Showdown

Christmas 1948

Window Shopping in Kendal, May 1949

7 Turquoise

Into 1949

Forks in the Path, March 1949

Late Afternoon in Kendal, May 1949

8 Lapis Lazuli

The Same Saturday Afternoon at Brigg Farm

Staying On, June 1949

9 Amethyst

Back to Griseley, June 1949

On Carrick Sands, September 1949

Acknowledgements

About the author

An Invitation from the Publisher

1

Freya’s Necklace

‘A golden yoke

Forged with pride

Worn with sorrow.

Circlet of chains

And stones polished

Like glass tears.’

A Wednesday Afternoon in May 1949

It was like cycling straight into an oil painting: into a canvas of sea and mountains, islands and shore, into a rainbow of colours as far as the eye could see. A brassy sun hung in an enamel blue sky; the turquoise sea shimmered underneath, lapping on to dark rocky outcrops and islands overlooking Fleet Bay, two sides of this canvas framed by brown-mauve hills to the north. The foreground glinted with dots of shorebirds fishing on the edge of the tide: gulls, wagtails, waders, and black and white flashes of oyster catchers kleep-kleeping in alarm at the sight of a small boy careering towards the sand, shouting, ‘Come on, Auntie Netta! Race you to the beach!’

The young woman skidded to a halt, her fingers pumping the brakes of her sit up and beg bicycle, the wind whipping strands of red-gold hair across her eyes, blinding them from the seascape for a second. She paused to drink deep the precious scene for it had been carried with her into exile so many times, tucked safe at the back of her mind in reserve for dreich Yorkshire evenings.

The picnic to Castlehaven and Carrick Sands was always the high point of her holiday back home in Stratharvar; a precious ritual. Who would be first to catch sight of the shoreline and the barrack-like towers of the huge ‘cow palace’ at Corseyard, or run around the walls of the Viking fortress? It was always Gus who was first to scatter the brown Ayrshires from their grazing as he tore across the green machars.

Netta wheeled her pushbike slowly over the humps, scouring the coastline to see what had changed since their last picnic a year ago. Thankfully there were no jagged stumps of wartime coastal defences to spoil the beach, no barbed wire and fences with KEEP OUT signs thrown up on other coasts when fear of invasion was real.

‘Come on, Auntie Netta, you’re such a slowcoach!’ yelled Gus as he turned impatiently. His aunt was not in her usual hurrying mode but plonked herself down on a grey boulder while he skimmed pebbles over the surface as she had taught him on her last visit. There’s no rush, she thought to herself, we have this day all to ourselves to explore together. This is our time.

Usually her visits followed a familiar route march. First she would arrive in Kirkcudbright by train, but, this time thanks to the loan of some petrol coupons she arrived in style in an old Ford van, parking by the harbour square. Then she usually stopped to steady her nerves with tea and scones upstairs in the Paul Jones Tearoom before catching the bus, looking out over the harbour as if from the prow of a boat, admiring the fishing fleet anchored in the estuary. This time she watched from the window for a glimpse of her stepmother, Peg Nichol, puffing along the street in her faded cotton frock and handknitted cardigan, weighed down with the weekly shopping; her wicker basket stuffed with extras from the High Class grocers in Cuthbert Street. With her was young Gus in shorts and Aertex shirt, itching to go crabbing somewhere on the edge of the harbour.

Netta liked to tiptoe up behind the boy to surprise him with an ice cream cone from Angelini’s Café. She’d watched him gulp it down while Peg sniffed about spoiling his dinner and warned him not to put sticky fingers on the car bonnet. Then they all piled into the van to wend their way westwards around the twisting lanes towards the coast and Brigg Farm.

Gus was already sunburned, having shot up inches since Netta’s last visit. The journey gave them all time to pass pleasantries, to warm to each other again for the sake of the child who bounced up and down in the back with the messages. Gus was dying to know what goodies Auntie Netta had brought from England in her leather case and hatbox.

She watched for the first sights of home: the bumpy track up the hill towards the grey Galloway farmhouse which stood four-square, lintels edged with red sandstone, attic windows jutting out of the roof, glinting in the afternoon sunshine.

Her father, Angus Nichol, would be hovering somewhere in the courtyard of the old whitewashed farm buildings ready with his usual gruff greeting, ruddy face weatherbeaten by fifty summers, sandy hair frizzled by salt and sun. Gus raced up the stairs ahead of her, hovering by the door of her old childhood bedroom with its iron bedstead, pegged rug and wash stand. The summer curtains were thin and barely closed, faded by sunshine from the southern aspect. He hovered excitedly while she unpacked, eyes scanning her luggage just in case…

‘Thank you for my birthday present. I’ve got a farm and tractor and loads of cars now. Jamie Paterson’s got a wee sister called Maisie and I’ve got a new calf. Do you want to see my pageant costume? We made helmets out of silver paper with real horns. The Sunday school teacher said mine was the best, so she did… and I got my photo in the paper, do you want to see it?’

Gus raced off down the passage to bring back a crumpled account of the carnival procession from the Galloway News and his battered Viking helmet. She looked down at his dark pixie face with its shock of black hair and those piercing blue eyes; such a strange mixture, more Irish than Scots.

‘How long did this take you?’ asked Netta, amazed by his achievement. ‘It’s very good. Did Father find you the horns?’ Gus nodded, eyes still fixed on her luggage. One of their rituals on her arrival was for the suitcase to be opened and Gus to finger through the piles of clothing for any lumpy packages. ‘What’s this in your shoe? Is it a shoehorn?’

‘No.’

‘Is it toothpaste?’ Netta shook her head with a smile. ‘Look and see.’ It was a rolled up copy of the Beano. Gus ferreted about until he also found the packet of Liquorice Allsorts and the picture book and crayons. ‘Thanks, Auntie Netta! Come and see my toy farm. Father made it for me.’

His whitewashed bedroom at the back of the farmhouse was changing from an infant’s bedroom to a Boys’ Own den, with battered pre-war toys and half-made models cluttering the floor. He had a homemade wooden garage crammed with Dinky toys; a high bed covered with a candlewick bedspread in airforce blue. A moth-eaten stuffed animal of uncertain breed was tucked by the pillow. Yumpy had gone everywhere with Gus when he was small, on picnics and car rides, now he was relegated to the bed. ‘I spy Yumpy!’ Netta laughed and Gus looked crestfallen. ‘Mammy says I’m too big for a suckie.’

‘I expect Yumpy’s too old to play now so he stays in bed all day to keep it warm for you,’ Netta reassured him. Trust Peg to give the orders. All the Nichols were secret suckie sniffers. Netta’s old rag doll still sat on a wicker basket chair in her Griseley home. It was sad day when a little boy must give up his comforter but she supposed it was for the best.

‘Tea, folks!’ Peg shouted from the banister rail. ‘Wash yer hands afore ye sit down, Gus!’ He dunked his hands in the bathroom wash bowl and they trooped down together into the kitchen. There was a fine spread of ham and eggs, and a custard trifle with hundreds and thousands melting rainbows of colour on to the cream.

This was the moment when Netta always knew that she was a visitor and no longer a daughter of the house ready to take her family as she found them. Hands were washed, napkins unfolded and the holiday began.

On the first evening she would usually walk around the fields to view the stock with Father, admiring his fine herd of Ayshires and his field full of Belties, the black Galloway cattle with a white band round their middle, famous for providing succulent beef.

There had been Nichols around Stratharvar for two hundred years: Nichols who had supped with Rabbie Burns at the Murray Arms in Gatehouse of Fleet; Nichols who had built up a dairy herd second to none in the district, supplying produce to the huge creameries; Nichols who carved their names on the black oak desks of Stratharvar school and lined the pathways of the parish kirk.

The farm lay nestled in the hollow between two hummocks, sheltered by trees, a good mile from the coastal gusts. Above it were some ancient cairn stones set on a hilltop.

On her second day back Netta would always walk up to the top of the hill for the panoramic view over Wigtown Bay. On the third day she took herself off shopping to Castle Douglas. The fourth, if it was fine, would be a ride to Gatehouse of Fleet and Mossyard beach so Gus could collect the beautiful shells blown off course by the Gulf Stream. Then on the fifth day came their picnic ride to Castlehaven, to the small galleried broch heavily restored but still a magical haunt.

To Gus it was a real fort where pirates were driven off the rocks by warriors and old sea dogs were repulsed from Carrick Shore, but its origins were as old as the ports and townships of the Stewartry itself, part of an ancient Gallovidian defence system. He was too young yet to understand the technicalities but already he had a feel for its history.

Now Gus had abandoned his own tricycle in favour of the slippery rock pools. Netta watched his progress as she sniffed the briars and honeysuckle gorse, the hedgerows full of blossom, the sculpted shapes of thorn bushes carved by the sea winds, that tangle of sea and meadow flowers and salt wind – the smell of home. The cows grazing on the shoreline ignored their intrusion after a while so she unloaded her knapsack, unpacking Peg’s contribution of thick Spam sandwiches, a bottle of still lemonade, ginger buns and slices of fruit loaf. This was the mid-week ritual of Netta’s stay which was always observed, rain or shine; the solemn waving off, the race to be first to see the sea, the picnic and the story.

For as long as she could remember, Netta had loved this special place where the pink marsh orchids glistened in late spring, the wild flowers lined the inner walls of the fort now encrusted with lichen and rocky alpines in the crevices, the squills the grassy promontories. Here they could pretend to be guards on sentry duty, imagining life in Viking times. Gus had caught her excitement about times past and Netta fed him stories of the Norse Gods in Valhalla and Asgard. For each visit she prepared another tale from the lives of Odin, Thor, Baldur and Loki, who had fought terrible battles against evil monsters and goblins.

Once she had found a battered copy of the Lives of the Gods in the Griseley Bookshop. Censoring all its more bloodthirsty details, Netta had prepared her story for this visit. The storytelling usually came after Gus had stuffed down his picnic in order to let his meal settle before they pedalled off on the rest of their day.

‘What’s it today? he asked, munching his apple. He knew their routine by now.

‘Another story of the old Gods and the rainbow bridge, I think. I thought we might look at one of their Goddesses for change… Freya, wife of Odur, who lived with their daughter Hrossa in Asgard. This is the story of Freya and the necklace Brisingamen.’ She told him the story of the young Goddess who, against her husband’s wishes, went off in search of the mountain of the Giant Women, the Goldsmiths of Middlearth, leaving her child with her husband in the palace. Freya was lured by dwarves who kissed and entrapped her. Then, when she found the Goldsmiths and they showed her that golden necklace, Freya clasped it and it seemed to make her more beautiful than ever. On her return to Asgard her husband had gone away in search of her and she was sorely distressed. She searched all over the earth for him but he never returned and she was left heartbroken.

‘What did she do next?’ asked Gus, puzzled.

‘She kept on searching and stood on the Bifrost bridge, the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth. Remember we’ve been there before? Some say she stood there weeping like a fountain until Goddess Frigga came out to comfort her and remind her that she still had a beautiful daughter, Hrossa, to look after. From then on Freya wore that cursed necklace, not out of pride but out of shame. When she weeps, her tears fall as rain on the earth and sometimes we see her rainbow bridge with all the colours of the world in it.’

Gus fidgeted, disappointed with this girlie story. There were no monsters in it… He munched the rest of his apple in silence before racing off again on his trike to lead the way to Carrick Sands, past the big house at Knockbrex which stood back from the rocky inlet like a toy fort. He wanted to see if the tide had washed up any messages in ships’ bottles on the beach opposite Ardwall Island among the seawood and flotsam, driftwood and metal strewn over the grey pebbles and sand. This time he was in luck.

‘Look! Come and see, Auntie Netta! I’ve found a helmet.’ Gus was waving an object excitedly. He watched his young aunt in her pleated shorts and plimsolls, picking her way through the boulders and shingle to the line of seaweed where he lifted up a leather helmet like a dead animal, slimy and with barnacles clinging underneath. He’d noticed that when he walked with her in town she always got wolf whistles from the seamen on the harbour. She pretended not to notice but he saw her freckles go pink.

Now she shuddered as he offered the mask for her to inspect. The face that must once have donned this pilot’s mask was probably sunk fifty fathoms deep in some lonely grave at the bottom of the Irish Sea like Long John Silver.

‘Put it down, it might have fleas!’ His aunt shook her head, not wanting to touch the slimy object.

‘Mammy’d say that.’ Why did grown-ups hate getting dirty and muddy and greased up? ‘Do you think it was a Spitfire pilot’s or a Jerry’s?’ Gus and his friend Jamie would play war all day long if allowed to.

‘I don’t know, dear.’

‘Did you know any soldiers who were killed in the war?’ Gus asked in his matter-of-fact voice, hoping she would tell him another adventure story like the ones in his comic. She nodded but said nothing. Why did everyone always clam up when he asked about the thing called war? He knew it was a great big adventure he had missed out on. The big boys played Japs and Jerries in the playground, knocking the littler ones over, but Mammy said nice boys didn’t fight. Gus was secretly a pirate so he always fought back. Netta was family and she didn’t usually mind. Now his auntie was staring out to sea and looked sad, like the woman in her soppy story.

He looked down, poking among the seaweed. ‘Have you got a golden necklace?’

‘No, but my mother had a lovely one made from polished pebbles all the colours of the rainbow: amethyst, amber, quartz, turquoise, all linked together with a golden chain. Father bought it for her on their wedding day.’

‘Do you wear it?’

‘No, Peg has it.’

‘Why? I’ve never seen it but I’ll ask her to show it to us,’ said Gus, burying the helmet in the sand.

‘No, Gus, I’d rather you didn’t.’ He could tell by her pursed lips that he was not going to be told why but it was worth another question.

‘Jamie Paterson telt me that you’re no my real auntie. Are you ma big sister then?’

Netta shrugged her shoulders. ‘Something like that but I like being called Auntie

Sometimes it was hard to understand who anyone was. This auntie kept coming back to Galloway, taking him on trips, telling him all about people in the brown photographs until he fell asleep with her chunnering. Mam sniffed a lot when she arrived and plumped up the cushions just as she did when the Minister called after church and she had to hide the Sunday Post out of sight quickly. But Carrick Shore was their special picnic spot and Gus liked his auntie’s company sometimes. No one else would play French cricket with a piece of driftwood or spot oyster catchers, rock pipits, seagulls and bobbing sand birds for his I Spy Club.

As the afternoon wore on the sky darkened and an anvil of heavy cloud over the bay threatened an outburst. It was time to turn back eastwards again to Brigg Farm, home for evening milking. He wished he had a proper bicycle not a trike. Trikes were for babies and the wheels kept sticking in the gritty tracks, making his legs tired.

*

This picnic outing marked the turning point of each visit. The days would run quickly downhill after that. Netta watched Gus bending over his collection of shells and thought of herself at that age on the same shoreline, watching her mother painting, her wispy red hair fading outwards at the sides, hunched over her sketching or looking up to capture the brightness of the beautiful scene.

Griseley seemed so far away, with its dark stone dykes and tall chimneys, sooty mills amongst grey fells where time dragged. While in Yorkshire she yearned for this place. Now, her time here was ebbing fast, this rationed time. Netta remembered that she was here for a purpose.

It was time to make demands again. She must not go back to Yorkshire empty-handed this time. Don’t forget your New Year’s resolution. You can do it! was the vow she had made to herself a week ago. Now there were only a few days left to execute the mission but courage was failing her as it always did.

*

The next day it poured down, heavy driving rain blown in from the sea lashing the grey walls of the farmhouse. Netta made herself useful mending Gus’s torn trews and fixing buttons to his shirts. She could relax if there was a thimble on her finger and a needle in her hand. Peg was baking in the kitchen, listening to the wireless, not in a talking mood. Counting the days, no doubt, until this visit ended. Gus had gone to play at his friend’s farm, out of their hair.

Netta took the mending basket into the cool parlour with its dark treacle-coloured paintwork, black oak furniture and heavy moss green velvet drapes at the window. The china cabinet gleamed with china cups and saucers, souvenirs from Musselburgh and Largo Bay. On the walls were sepia portraits of the Nichols family in suits and black bombazine dresses with white mutches – stern, forbidding ancestors who had frightened her as a child. There was the smell of old soot and damp and disapproval in this room. She spotted two of Grandpa John Kirkpatrick’s watercolours of Kirkcudbright harbour and the Toll Booth. The two fishing boat sketches that had always hung close by were gone but she could see faint marks on the distemper where they’d left their mark. His paintings were becoming sought after. He’d been a colleague of Hornel and Jessie King and the other famous Kirkcudbright painters.

Stepping back into the parlour was like stepping back a hundred years. Nothing much had changed but the drawers of the cupboard were neatly tidied out, lined with fresh copies of the Galloway News. As she rooted round to find the old photograph albums she fished out sepia postcard scenes, rosette prizes from cattle shows, Sunday school attendance tokens. Nothing of interest to her here. Her world had turned and left this Stratharvar way of life far behind many years ago.

The first album was in the bottom cupboard: a heavy leather-bound book with a stiff gold clasp, full of yet more ancient Nichols posed in their finery, sturdy Galloway farmers with handsome faces. A smaller album was full of Peg’s old family photos: Peg MacBain, her stepmother, as a young girl in uniform, stiff and starchy even then. She was after all one of Mother’s distant cousins who’d come to nurse the invalid and stayed on to wed the widower. There was one unframed photograph of Peg and Angus on their wedding day outside the parish kirk porch, looking awkward in the sunlight. The photo was pristine, still in its cream folder with tissue paper lining. There was a blue leather album of Gus in his toddler days and Netta closed that quickly. Where was her picture taken with Mother at Ayr? Where were her own baby days kept? There was only one picture of her, grinning in pigtails; a line-up on the bench outside Stratharvar School when she was nine before Peg came and her world changed forever.

All that sixth day indignation rankled in Netta’s mind. Eventually she sought out Angus with a mug of tea as he was tidying up in the byre.

‘I was looking for a snapshot of myself when I was a bairn to show Gus and yon one of Mother to take back to Griseley with me. Where would I be finding them?’ Angus paused, looking at her square on with his blue eyes.

‘Don’t be asking me then, it’s Mother’s stuff. What’s brought this on, Netta?’ he replied.

‘Nothing, only it’s about time I took some more snaps back with me to put on my own mantelpiece. Tell me where to look?’

‘That’s Peg’s department, she had a clear out a while back. She did say the drawers needed sifting through. She’s awful sensitive on that score. Best not to bother her with it. I’m sure they’re put away safe somewhere.’ Angus slurped his tea quickly and returned to his job, not looking at his daughter.

Why did she always have to tiptoe around her own home on eggshells in case she cracked the fragile veneer of welcome? Why did she have to behave like a visitor or a prisoner on parole? All she was asking for was some blessed snapshots, but Netta could feel her heart thudding at the thought of facing Peg with the real demands of her mission. It felt like asking for the Crown Jewels. Why did her courage always fail her at the last? Was it because all her past was shut away in some press, out of sight in a neat box labelled: DO NOT OPEN?

Early on Friday Morning

Netta woke with a start from a dream. Mother was still drifting away from her, far out to sea on a boat, bobbing on the waves while she was left alone on the shore, trying to keep the misty figure in sight. Netta stumbled out of bed half asleep, fumbling for the light, crying out as she stubbed her toe. Why were there always these same dreams, yearnings for the sound of beloved voices and shapes? This dawn half-light promised only shadows and echoes, silhouettes on the wall made by lamplight. She felt as small as in that school snapshot, a child again in a Fair Isle jumper and tartan kilt.

One morning Netta had gone to school in sunshine, rushed out of the door to catch the school charabanc which stopped for her at the end of the track and returned home to only tears, silence and darkness. Mother was asleep on the bed, cold and different. ‘Say goodbye to your mammy, hen,’ urged Peg MacBain gently, but Netta turned away in disgust. ‘That’s no my mammy!’ she cried, rushing down the stairs and into the darkness. The sky was flushed with autumn constellations and she had searched in vain for a shooting star to wish her mother back home again.

The world was painted in such different colours then, when Mother was alive, Netta thought as she sat on the bed. Mother was the smell of treacle scones and honeycomb, warm butter and currant spices; the smell of all the colours of the rainbow in her artist’s palette. Yet how quickly all those familiar