The Tailor's Girl (13 page)

Perhaps it was optimism for the future that had made him find new daring as he now urged Sol to take him deeper into the city than originally agreed.

‘We can go all the way together . . . come with me to the Row,’ Sol tried yet again.

Tom had no idea where they were or how close they were to Sol’s destination but he shook his head. ‘No, I want you to leave me somewhere where I can see buses but also where I can easily find a gift for Edie, not for the nursery or the baby. Something just for her. Perfume, perhaps?’

‘Piccadilly Circus is your best bet, but it’s the busiest possible spot in London, Tom. There’s traffic and noise and people and constant activity. I’d feel bad leaving you there.’

It felt like a challenge . . . a gauntlet. Yes, he wanted to see Savile Row but that would mean being babysat by Sol and he was determined to be alone. Edie would then never worry about him again. He could do it. Since waking up on the ship, he’d never felt more in control or more positive than he did in this moment.

‘I lost my memory but I know I didn’t lose my courage back on the battlefield.’

‘No, son, but —’

‘Drop me at Piccadilly Circus,’ he insisted.

_______________

Edie was seated in her parlour with a towel wrapped around her shoulders. Flanking her was Delia and a tall, golden, sylph-like creature named Madeleine, who was brandishing a small but potentially lethal pair of scissors.

The room was filled with a reassuring scent of baking pastry that had fruit juice bubbling through cracks in the sugared lid. As Edie sat listening to her new companions, she wondered how Tom was getting on. Was he already on the bus home? Or had he decided to stay with her father overnight? Her mind raced on a wave of thoughts about how the sale went. Tom’s pledge to her was extraordinary and so unexpected she could still feel the tingling thrill his words caused. Edie had never drunk champagne but she’d seen movie stars drinking it on the big screen and she was sure the bubbly fizz would be as intoxicating as Tom’s determination to give her a salon of her own.

‘You’ve never tasted champagne?’

‘Pardon me?’ Edie said, coming out of her thoughts.

Madeleine was staring with a languorous sapphire gaze, scissors still clicking ominously in her right hand. She wore rouge and lipstick even though it was the middle of the day, on the fringe of Epping Village. To Edie she seemed exotic and dangerous. ‘Did I hear you right?’

‘Did I say that aloud?’

Her friends laughed and Madeleine shifted her weight onto one hip. It was such an effortless pose, oozing confidence, arrogance even, and definitely sex.

‘Champagne, Eden, is the nectar of the gods,’ Madeleine crooned in her seductive accent. ‘Of the French gods,’ she added with a wink. ‘Now, about these tresses of yours.’

‘I just want —’

‘Eden,’ Madeleine interrupted, dragging her name out lazily but the clacking scissors attested to her irritation. ‘You have a most beautiful name and yet you allow everyone to reduce it to something that makes you sound like Delia’s grandmother’s best friend’s aunty.’

Delia blinked but Edie followed and laughed. ‘I’ve always been called Edie,’ she admitted.

‘But Eden is so exotic. It’s all woman, my girl.’ She leaned close to Edie. ‘It’s sex.’

Delia coughed.

‘Check the pie, Delia,’ Edie suggested, uncertain of where Madeleine was headed with her curious conversation.

The Frenchwoman was not to be deterred. She was perhaps a decade older than Edie and she wore her hair cut not much longer than a man’s. It looked like a helmet to Edie but she didn’t dare say so. It shone, silky and blunt-edged, with a curiously short fringe. It would be severe on most women but on Madeleine it looked right – no, sensational. Her lips were painted a cherry-red pout. She wore black, despite the season, and while Madeleine shook her head at Edie’s hair, all Edie could think about was how amazing Madeleine would look modelling clothes. Her clothes.

‘Eden would do “elfin” so well,’ Madeleine finally drawled, pushing away from the sink and snipping at the air.

Delia closed the oven door. ‘Not quite ready.’

‘Elfin?’ Edie repeated.

Madeleine nodded. ‘Shorter than mine.’

‘Oh no! Absolutely not!’ Edie said, standing.

‘I know what will work for you, Eden,’ Madeleine said sternly.

‘My husband will die of shock . . . if he doesn’t die of heartbreak first. No, no, no! I agree my hair needs styling but I am not allowing you near me with those scissors until we agree on what I want.’

The women waited.

‘Here,’ Edie said, marking the length she’d allow.

Both looked dismayed.

‘Neither here nor there, as you English say,’ Madeleine replied.

‘Well, it’s here or nothing,’ Edie shrugged. ‘I want the bob but the wavy version. Short will make me look like a boy.’

‘She has a point,’ Delia said. ‘Start slow, Mads.’

Madeleine sighed a soft curse in French. ‘Let’s get started, then.’

_______________

London began to crowd around Tom and the bubble of invincibility that had wrapped itself around him all morning began to deflate as the sounds of people, traffic and the press of the city began to mock his fragility. With a sinking heart, he tapped Sol’s arm.

‘Set me down here, please.’

‘This is Green Park. Piccadilly is just down —’

Tom took a deep breath that he knew his friend noted. ‘Here’s best, Sol. I’d like to sit in the park for a while.’

Sol slowed the wagonette and looked at Tom. ‘There’s no shame in calling it quits, mate. You’ve already achieved so much in one day.’

‘One more test. I need to find my way home.’ As Sol opened his mouth, Tom added. ‘Alone.’

A pause stretched between them until finally Sol nodded. ‘The bus stop you want is there,’ he pointed. ‘I’ll write down the number . . . just in case.’

Tom knew he didn’t want to say,
Just in case you forget
, or
Just in case you go and lose your mind again
.

‘I’m going to sit in this park for a few minutes, then take this number bus home. You sell my cloth and make us all a handsome profit. And remember, Sol, it’s for Edie. I want her to have this money, so don’t let them bully you.’

Tom shook Sol’s hand before lifting a hand in farewell as he stepped nimbly down to the pavement. The vast expanse of verdant parkland was a balm for him. He sat down on a bench to take stock and to calm his anxiety. He reassured himself that he’d done it. He was in the big smoke and, while he had lost his nerve to go further, he felt his breathing slowing and the previous sense of happy adventure returning.

A dapper old fellow who’d been approaching sat on the other end of the bench and lifted his hat to him.

‘Hope you don’t mind if I join you?’

‘Not at all. I was enjoying the peace for a few minutes before I was on my way,’ he admitted.

‘I come here daily,’ the man said, pulling out a scrap of newspaper he’d fashioned into a bag. ‘Like to feed the birds and watch all you youngsters hurrying along in your busy lives.’

Tom smiled. ‘Do you live nearby?’

The man nodded. ‘Mayfair. I live alone, though, so this way I get to see some folk, talk to people like you.’

‘I live in Epping.’

‘From the country. Marvellous! Although with the way our city is growing and housing going up all over the place, I doubt it will remain that sleepy hamlet for long. Always lived out that way?’

‘I can’t remember.’ He tapped his head. ‘The war stole something from me. I’m Tom.’ He deliberately shared no surname.

‘Edgar. Pleased to meet you, Tom. I’m glad the war didn’t steal your life. What it took may yet return or at worst you can replace. Look at it this way . . . you have a clean slate, which is more than I can say for your chin.’

Tom laughed. ‘No good?’

‘Makes you look shifty, son. As though you’re hiding something. Doesn’t your lovely wife complain at its roughness?’

‘Not once,’ he admitted. But Edgar’s notion got him thinking. ‘Really? Shifty?’

Edgar gave a small chuckle. ‘I used to be a lawyer. Retired years ago. But I never fully trusted a man with a beard, unless he wore it to cover a scar, or it was his religion.’

Tom pondered this and Edgar continued feeding the birds.

‘Is there a barber around here?’

With no surprise in his voice, Edgar gave directions. ‘It will take you three minutes . . . go out of that gate, turn left, first right, and you’ll find it.’

‘Thanks, Edgar,’ Tom said, standing and offering his hand.

Edgar shook it. ‘Don’t mention it. I’m sure your wife will thank me. Best present you ever took home from the city, eh?’ He tapped his nose and chuckled again. ‘Goodbye, Tom. Nice meeting you. Oh, and don’t say too much to him if you cherish your privacy – and I suspect you do. He’s a nosy fellow.’

After leaving the gate with a final wave to Edgar and following the directions, he caught sight of a red-and-white striped sign in the distance.

A shave suddenly seemed the perfect gift for Edie. As he walked towards it, flitting through his mind came the thought that this was originally the sign for bloodletting, signifying the blood and the bandages, reminding him that barber surgeons had once been so important to the military. He bent his thoughts to this sudden and seemingly momentous decision to shave his beard off after resisting it for so long.

What a joy it would be for Edie, who had never once asked him to remove it, but he knew it was only her patient nature that overcame her natural curiosity to see the man she loved truly emerge from hiding. And he had been in hiding. If today was about change and going forward, then it was time to confront the real Tom.

Tom stepped inside the shop lined with white tiles and nodded at the white-coated barber, who was just finishing with a client in his chair, adding a final slick of pomade through the man’s hair.

‘Good morning, Sir . . . a trim?’

‘Short back and sides and a shave, please,’ Tom replied.

‘Full shave, Sir?’

‘Please.’

The barber smiled and gestured to a waiting chair behind. ‘Take a seat. I'm Eric.’

Beneath the deft and speedy ministrations of the barber the hidden visage of Tom Valentine emerged. Revealed was a face outlined by a square jaw, evenly set features with a forehead a similar width as the distance from brow to the bottom of his straight, Greco-style nose, and again from there to the point of his ever-so-slightly cleft chin.

Keeping Edgar’s warning in mind, Tom distracted the chatty fellow away from all information that he construed as personal and instead directed their conversation towards a general discussion on everything from England’s weather to menswear and the new penchant for three-piece suits with pleated, cuffed trousers and homburg hats. Tom found he could discuss styling easily after life with Edie, and the barber seemed to have an opinion on the trend towards brighter colours.

‘Haven’t you noticed the pastel shirts the gents are wearing?’

Tom nodded, just to keep him talking through the process. His companion was poised to shave above Tom’s lip.

‘Pencil moustaches are becoming fashionable,’ he offered.

‘Thanks, I’ll stick with clean-shaven.’

After the man removed the hot towel Tom stared at himself silently.

He’d had no idea that he had dimples, which now indented as he trialled a smile on his new clean-shaven face.

‘Been a while, Sir?’

Tom nodded, not quite ready to speak; he looked so different and he was now concerned whether Edie would recognise him, let alone approve of this gift he was bringing home from London. He explained to the barber that his wife had never seen him without a beard.

‘I wouldn’t trouble yourself, Sir. Look at the handsome fellow you see in that mirror. No woman could resist you.’

‘There’s only one I care about.’

‘Fair enough. But she’s going to love the new man in her life. Besides, beards are for old men. How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?’ Eric dried off Tom’s face and slapped something that smelled bright and citrusy against his cheek and jaw, which stung like merry hell.

‘Er . . .’

‘You can’t be more than thirty if you’re a day, Sir,’ Eric continued.

Tom smiled, relieved. ‘Today’s my birthday,’ he lied, ignoring the man’s query. It seemed appropriate to call today his birthday. It was like a rebirth of sorts, after all.

‘Truly? Well, happy birthday to you.’

He rubbed at his strangely smooth chin. ‘I should celebrate it while I’m here, shouldn’t I?’

‘Oh, you can’t go straight home now, Sir,’ he said. ‘Take in the sights, even if you just go sit on the steps at Piccadilly. Then you can pick up something for your lovely lady from one of those fine shops. You sound like you can afford to walk into Fortnum & Mason!’ He gave Tom a playful nudge.

Tom felt that his bravado was now intact again, and his confidence rising. It did sound like a fun plan and, besides, he would privately brand himself a coward if he didn’t face his demons and at least test his will against the noise and traffic of one of the busiest spots in London. Perhaps he could also take something home for the baby?

He emerged from the barbershop in Mayfair looking like an entirely new man but disappointingly no clearer about the mystery of his past.

_______________

Sitting on the steps below Eros, Tom wondered again at his naivety, or was it stupidity? He’d felt relatively calm following Eric’s directions into the mad throng that was Piccadilly Circus. But no, he realised now he wasn’t ready for this. The mass of activity – just the blur of colour as people moved around him – set his pulse racing and Tom realised as he tried to focus on the cool stone of the steps that he was not in control.

Immediately he became aware of his breathing and deliberately inhaled and exhaled slowly as Edie had suggested. It worked initially. He felt no immediate panic, although he was certainly alarmed by the intensity of noise, action, colour, smells and sounds. Feeling his pulse pounding as it was, Tom knew that the next stage was indeed a panic attack.