Chapter Thirty-Eight
It isn’t until she’s been crotchety with the third customer in a row that Daphne considers she may need to stop and take stock of herself. It wasn’t the lady’s fault – or the first two ladies’ faults either. Daphne is simply out of sorts and was uncharacteristically short with them.
The third customer was a regular, Bernice, who handed over cash for her purchase then said, ‘Wrong side of the bed?’
‘Hm?’ Daphne glanced up from the counter.
‘Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?’ Bernice’s nostrils flare.
‘What do you mean?’ Daphne snapped, then realised she’d snapped and dropped her gaze, abashed.
‘You’re being a little abrupt, Daphne.’ Bernice picked up her purchase. ‘For the first time ever. I thought it was worth saying something.’
‘Sorry, Bernice,’ she mumbled.
‘Forgiven. Toodle-oo.’
Once Bernice was gone, Daphne put her elbows on the counter and sighed loudly.
She’s still there when Christina walks in, all sunshine and moonbeams. The girl’s been a lot happier lately, which is nice.
That whole business with that awful man in Hollywood seems to be behind her and she’s seeing that Duncan fellow.
It’s good for her to have someone grounded.
Not that Daphne knows he’s grounded, but he sounds like it.
‘Morning, love,’ Daphne says, patting Christina’s arm as she passes on her way to the back room to stash her handbag.
‘Hi, Daphne!’ Christina says, and kisses her on the cheek when she returns. Daphne likes how she does that, as if they’re friends rather than colleagues.
Today Christina has her hair up in a bun, she’s wearing a loose-fitting white shirt and soft pink pants and barely a skerrick of make-up – some mascara and lippy – and she still looks like a movie star.
There has to be some special magic to it, Daphne thinks.
Maybe becoming a movie star changes something in your cells.
‘You’re chirpy today,’ Daphne says, and she can hear the edge in her voice. She doesn’t know why she’d be like this with Christina. She’s very fond of her.
Christina’s eyebrows go up. ‘Am I?’
‘Sorry, love.’ Daphne takes a breath. ‘I’m not feeling like myself.’
‘You haven’t been for a little while.’
‘Oh?’ Daphne knows she hasn’t but didn’t realise it was so obvious.
‘The other day you told that gentleman that orange would never be his colour no matter how hard he tried.’ Christina looks amused.
Daphne feels guilt and intensifying shame. ‘Did I?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘I have a lot on my mind.’ She puts a hand over her eyes, whether to hide from herself or the world, she’s not sure.
She feels a hand on her arm.
‘You can tell me, Daphne,’ Christina says. ‘I know we’re not old friends, but we’re here together a lot. And I worry about you.’
There’s something so alluring about the idea of confessing to someone who is a stranger yet not.
Someone who knows her so well in one way but not others.
Daphne sees Christina more than most people in her life but they’ve never traded secrets.
Maybe Christina doesn’t have secrets to tell.
Probably a magazine would have dug them up if she did.
‘That’s kind of you,’ Daphne says. ‘To worry about me.’
‘Well, you’re terrific.’ Christina smiles. ‘You’ve been so friendly to me, for one thing.’
‘You’re easy to be friendly to.’
Christina laughs, and it’s so vigorous that Daphne is taken aback.
‘What?’ she says.
‘I’ve hardly had any friends. When you’re in the movies people pretend to be your friend but they’re not actually friendly.’
‘Really? I would have thought you’d have met all sorts of beaut people.’
‘I’ve met a lot of … interesting people.’ Christina laughs again. ‘Sharks. Users. Fakes. I think that’s what happens when you put yourself out there for everyone to see. You attract the bad with the good. The problem is that the good people tend to hang back.’
‘Or the bad people become accomplished at pretending they’re good,’ Daphne says darkly.
She and Christina hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds.
‘I haven’t seen Adelaide for a while,’ Christina says, and Daphne feels it almost like a dagger to her ribs, the truth piercing her because Christina has perceived it so clearly.
‘Maybe our rosters just haven’t aligned,’ Christina goes on.
Daphne is aware that Christina’s giving her the opportunity to glide past the situation. Except she doesn’t want to.
‘She hasn’t been in,’ she says, then laughs. ‘Maybe you could make this story into a movie one day.’
Christina looks puzzled. Then Daphne tells her. About Hector and Adelaide. About the child, now an adult, whom Hector has not met. About Hector’s state of mind being so bad that he wouldn’t comprehend this even if Daphne confronted him.
A customer comes in and she halts the story, effortlessly switching into ‘shop mode’, then takes it up again once the customer has left. The switch is so seamless she thinks that maybe Christina isn’t the only actress on the premises.
She tells Christina that Adelaide has tried to talk to her, but she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her. That the lie has gone on for so long, and been so immense, that it feels like it will swallow her.
Then she tells her about the phone call from Ian, saying the shop will have to close. She’s been keeping this news to herself, too consumed with the other matter to deal with it properly, but she has to deal with it because it affects Christina and the other volunteers. And Lucy.
‘I shouldn’t have let Lucy work out the back,’ she tells Christina, ‘but she needed a place. There isn’t a new tenant for this shop yet … Maybe it will be all right?’ She can hear the false hope in her voice, but in this moment it’s the only kind of hope she has.
Christina looks thoughtful. ‘Maybe. If the rent’s high enough, they may not find anyone for a while. Do we have to close before then?’
‘Ian says no.’
Christina nods. ‘We can work something out for Lucy, I’m sure. When the time comes.’
Daphne must look shocked because Christina puts a hand on her arm. ‘If the time comes.’
Daphne knows she’s kidding herself, though. Mosman is in demand as a retail precinct – the landlord will find someone. Then Daphne will have to figure out how to be at home all the time, because she won’t go looking for another position after this. She’ll be done.
Christina drums her fingers on the counter. ‘Would you forgive her?’
‘Lucy? Whatever for?’
‘Adelaide,’ Christina says, and Daphne is taken aback.
She’s considered forgiveness, of course. Raised a Christian, it’s been part of her philosophy of life since childhood. It’s just so hard to practise sometimes.
‘If I say no will you think I’m a bad person?’ she replies.
Christina shakes her head. ‘Not at all. I’d think you were a human person.’
‘Thank you,’ Daphne says. It should be a relief to hear this. So why doesn’t she feel like she’s not off the hook?
A woman is standing outside, looking at the shop’s window.
Daphne changed it this morning; it features a midnight-blue skirt suit, and she styled it with silver sandals and a silver Glomesh bag.
She likes it when people notice the windows.
She also likes it when people are sympathetic listeners, as Christina is.
‘How’s your beau?’ she asks, more than ready to change the subject.
Christina grins. ‘Good.’
‘Taking you out on the town a fair bit, is he?’
She keeps grinning. ‘He is. Including tonight.’
‘Oh? Where are you off to?’
‘Some band he likes. They’re playing at the Annandale Hotel. I don’t think I’ve ever been there.’
‘I hope you have a lovely time.’
The woman from outside comes inside and Daphne smiles a greeting.
‘Thanks,’ Christina says. ‘Shall I?’ She nods toward the woman.
Daphne nods in return, then watches as the woman glances at Christina, then processes who she is.
The woman’s face changes from surprise to delight in quick order.
It’s an amazing power, to be able to do that to someone, Daphne thinks.
Christina wears it lightly, but it’s immense.
She makes Daphne’s day better just by being around. To lose that, when the shop closes …
Selfishly, Daphne hopes she never has to find out what that’s like. But she will. Along with all the other things she doesn’t want to face that she’s been hiding from here at the frock shop. Reckonings always come, whether you deserve them or not.
Today, though, there are frocks and friends to enjoy.