Chapter Forty-Four
A customer is looking at a hot-pink ballgown when the door opens and Christina sweeps in, all radiance and glamour.
‘Morning, Daph!’ she says, kissing Daphne on the cheek as usual, then heading straight for the back room to stow her handbag.
The room is now almost overflowing with Lucy’s creations. Occasionally Daphne wonders if the girl is living out there, although she’s at school at the moment. When Daphne asked yesterday how her final year is going, Lucy rolled her eyes and said, ‘I just want it over with.’
Daphne understands how she feels. Hector is home from hospital but she and Janet are barely coping. The doctors told her he’d had a mild stroke but there doesn’t seem to be anything mild about it. He can’t move anywhere on his own, and they’ve had to get Noel in to help from time to time.
When Adelaide came around to tell Daphne that her son wanted to meet Hector, Daphne demurred.
Partly because just the thought of Hector and Adelaide having a son makes her feel like a rock has struck her in the chest, but mainly because Hector is so unlike himself these days that she doesn’t know what a meeting would achieve.
‘How are you?’ Christina says breathily as she comes to stand next to Daphne at the counter.
‘Oh, you know, love – seen better days.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m sure things will turn around!’
Christina’s constant positivity is a new stance and occasionally irksome – Daphne sometimes wants to be left to her bad moods. Except she can’t begrudge the younger woman her outlook. Christina has hinted at darkness in her past, and Daphne can only imagine what that movie world is like.
‘I have an idea,’ Christina continues.
‘Oh?’
‘Actually, more than one.’
She beams and Daphne can’t help but smile back – which makes her think that this is how Christina became so successful as an actress. She’s irresistible when she’s upbeat.
‘Your designs,’ Christina says, and Daphne’s gear switches to wary.
‘What about them?’ she asks tentatively. It’s been a while since she and Christina have discussed them; she had half thought the younger woman had forgotten about it.
Christina grins. ‘I think they should be made.’
Of course, Daphne has thought about this herself.
Dreamed of it when she was younger. These days, though, the designs are drawn for her own distraction more than anything, and she doesn’t believe she’s in touch enough with what women want to wear that they should become real clothes. They’re her hobby. Nothing more.
‘I don’t,’ she says.
Christina looks puzzled. ‘Why not?’
‘They’re not very good.’
‘That’s not for you to decide.’ It’s said kindly but firmly.
‘Oh, really?’
‘You’re not the best judge of your talent, Daph, the same way I’m not the best judge of mine. Or Lucy of hers.’ Christina’s smile returns. ‘Speaking of – that’s who I think could make them.’
‘Lucy?’
Christina nods as the customer approaches the counter with the pink dress in hand.
‘Oh, wow!’ Christina says. ‘What a great colour.’
‘Isn’t it?’ the customer says. ‘And I think I’m going to trick it up a little. Make it new again.’
‘Wonderful! What do you think, Daphne?’
‘Yes. A very good idea.’
The customer is now gazing at Christina with an odd look on her face, and Daphne knows what will come next.
‘You look so much like Christina Clarke,’ she says.
Christina laughs. ‘I hear that a lot.’
Daphne likes this answer, because it’s not a denial – it’s simply the truth.
The customer peers more closely. ‘You are Christina Clarke.’
Now Christina grins. ‘I might be.’
‘Oh,’ the woman says, going red in the face. ‘Oh. Wow. Oh.’
‘It’s all right, love,’ Daphne says. ‘She’s a normal person, just like you and me.’
Which isn’t the truth – there’s nothing normal about Christina, Daphne has decided, in the best possible way – but it’s what needs to be said to calm the public down.
‘Shall I put the dress in a bag for you?’ Christina says, unruffled.
Once the customer has departed, Christina turns to Daphne, eyes bright. ‘I have a good reason for asking you if you’d have the designs made.’
‘Oh?’ Daphne can’t imagine what that would be.
‘I’m going to rent this shop.’
Daphne isn’t sure she heard correctly. ‘You’re what?’
‘Going to rent the shop! I’ve spoken to the real estate agent who’s looking after it. There haven’t been other enquiries – no one wants to pay the rent they’re asking.’
‘So why do you?’ What could Christina possibly want with a frock shop?
‘I thought about renting it for the charity, as a donation. But then I thought, no, it was always a frock shop. So I want to turn it back into one. And have your designs stocked in it.’
‘I see.’
‘And I want to call it The Frock Shop.’
At this Daphne’s eyes well. Can Christina know about Ophelia’s shop? She can’t know that she’s picked the one name guaranteed to make Daphne cry as she thinks of those early years and the fun she had, and all the fun she has lost since.
‘Are you all right?’ Christina says, putting an arm around her.
‘I’m not sure.’ Daphne pulls out a handkerchief and dabs at her nose and eyes. ‘I seem to have come over all emotional.’
‘I don’t want to impose anything on you,’ Christina says softly. ‘I just love the idea of seeing your ideas come to life.’
Daphne sniffs. ‘So do I. But what about your acting?’
Christina flaps a hand. ‘I may do some of that. But I can have the shop and come and go from Sydney if I need to.’ She smiles mysteriously.
‘What’s that look for?’
‘Duncan’s encouraging me to go for things I want.’
Daphne smiles. She’s always liked the sound of this Duncan and she likes him even more now.
‘I mentioned the idea of the boutique to him,’ Christina says, ‘and also how I wasn’t sure if I could do it alongside any roles that come up.
He said he’d help keep an eye on things if I need him to.
’ She shrugs and laughs. ‘He has his own shop, so I guess he knows what he’s talking about!
And I’ll have other clothes in here – it wouldn’t be that you’d have to make everything.
I just …’ She shrugs again. ‘I want to see your designs made.’
Daphne thinks of the customer who just bought the pink dress, how she said she wanted to make it new again. Daphne’s long thought it too late for her to do anything new. Newness is for younger women. Women with more time ahead of them than past.
Yet here’s Christina, one of those younger women, offering her the chance to be new again. The chance to do something she’s always wanted to do. No matter how many years she has left – and no one ever knows how many there are – Daphne knows that this time she would regret not trying.
‘All right,’ she says, and she feels her face relax and a big smile emerge.
Christina’s eyes light up. ‘All right?’
‘All right.’
‘Daphne!’ Christina grabs her and practically jumps up and down on the spot. ‘We’re going to have a frock shop!’
‘We’re going to have the frock shop,’ Daphne says, patting Christina’s back almost like a mother would.
She knows it’s because she can’t help feeling proud: of Christina, of herself. They are going to make something. They’re going to put loveliness into the world. What better use of her time on this Earth than that?
‘Thank you,’ Daphne says as she lets Christina go.
‘Thank you,’ Christina says. ‘Now … we have to get to work!’
Daphne doesn’t have the first idea where to start with all of this but she supposes Christina can find out. Or perhaps Lucy can. That girl keeps to herself in the way of people who know a lot more than they wish to let on.
A list. Daphne could start by making a list, then they can work through it all methodically. Yes, a list will help her feel more in control.
Her delight at the prospect of seeing her clothes become real bubbles up as she opens the notebook she keeps on the counter, turns to a new page and writes:
THE FROCK SHOP
1. Talk to Lucy
Then a customer arrives and she decides the rest of the list can wait.