Chapter 3
3
P lushly carpeted and ambiently lit, the bridal department of Selfridges was feminine, pastel, spacious and hushed. Glass cases showed off jewellery, veils and pearl-encrusted bags. Racks of gowns with intricate lacework and luxurious satin, hung from black velvet hangers. It was a space that demanded reverence, a place for believers. It was not, Helen realised as she looked down at her chest, the place to wear Jack’s gift: a t-shirt bearing the printed words: Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump.
She glanced across the room. The only other customers she could see were a group of three women, sitting on a rose-coloured sofa. They were sipping wine, and the scene was suddenly so reminiscent of another bridal department, in another time, that it produced an image behind her eyes clearer than anything in front of them: her mother, with her Krystal from Dynasty bob, glass in hand, gasping every time Helen had whooshed forth from the changing room. Bursting into tears, every time. Holding her glass out for a refill, every time. What a wonderful day that had been. They’d had tea and sandwiches after. She remembered the notepad lying on the table between them, her mother picking up the pen and writing. You’re going to want presents for the bridesmaids. Sadness pressed her chest. Was it, had it, really been her, neck to toe in statin frills? Whoever it had been, it felt to Helen now like a person she didn’t know.
The last couple of years had seen the scaffolding of her life, dismantled. Her marriage had ended, her children had grown and never had been the change in both her and her scenery, been clearer than in the six weeks of her trip across America. She’d climbed a mountain. Several mountains. She’d hiked through a forest, while blowing a whistle to keep bears at bay. What would her mother say about that? What would she have said to see Helen blood-smeared, as she skinned a hide? Yes, she had helped to skin the hide of a deer and eaten the meat, sitting around a campfire with five fellow Frontier-Wildcraft-Co. adventurers. Turning away, from the women on the sofa, she took a deep and measured breath. She didn’t know what her mother would say, and the sadness that pierced her now took its strength from understanding that she would never know. But wasn’t that the fate of all mothers? And the sad inheritance of all daughters? It took so long for women. When her mother had died, she had still been fenced in by domesticity. And by the time her own daughter, Libby, was free, really free, would she still be around to see, appreciate and guide, as Libby began again? The thought pushed her back her a step, her hand resting on the desk. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she murmured. ‘I wish you could have seen the view from Pikes Peak.’