Chapter Forty-Nine
When Christina told Daphne that she was going to a big Hollywood awards night – not as a nominee, but because the cast of the film she’s working on have all been invited – Daphne was thrilled for her.
‘And you’ll design me a dress?’ Christina said.
At first Daphne was inclined to say ‘no’.
Not because she didn’t have ideas. Indeed, as soon as Christina had mentioned the awards show, Daphne had a flash in her mind of a chartreuse evening gown with a fitted bodice of the kind favoured by the Hollywood costume designer Edith Head when she was creating dresses for the likes of Grace Kelly.
Daphne could see that the bodice was ruched, and there was a single-shoulder detail: a plait of fabric running up from the bodice and over.
The skirt had a tulip shape held by stitching, not petticoats.
It fell to the floor and, when worn by someone who knew how to walk in it, created the illusion of water rippling around the wearer.
Dresses came to her like this: in detail, and in movement. They always had.
‘I don’t want anyone else to design it for me,’ Christina had prompted, looking expectant.
‘Oh, all right,’ Daphne had said, as if she was doing Christina a favour, when the truth was that Christina had transformed her life by opening this boutique.
As Daphne sketched the dress she could hear Ophelia in her head. ‘Make it flattering, Daph. The woman has to feel special, different, divine.’
It was Ophelia who had first encouraged Daphne to sketch her ideas when she’d seen her doodling on a piece of paper one day.
‘You must express yourself,’ she’d said. ‘It’s so important, Daph, otherwise things fester inside us and go rotten.’
Daphne now knows how true this can be; and she also knows that it’s never too late for something to be expressed in order to stop the rot going further.
She took the design to Lucy, whose eyes lit up. ‘Oh, cool,’ she said. ‘I know the right fabric for it. I saw it the other day.’
Lucy no longer traipses into town to buy fabric, but picks up the phone to the mercers The Frock Shop has an account with. Daphne has suggested that she may wish to go and work for one of the mercers, or try something else connected with the trade, when she finishes school.
But Lucy is adamant that she’s staying at The Frock Shop if Daphne will have her.
‘Why would I want to go somewhere else?’ she says. ‘You have the best ideas.’
The past year has been the most unexpected of Daphne’s life, in ways she’s mostly not been comfortable with, yet the most surprising part is perhaps this: that the person she spends more time with than anyone is a teenager, and not one she’s related to, and they enjoy each other’s company so immensely that they even see each other when they’re not at work, mainly to talk about clothes.
On the day of the awards – night-time in Los Angeles, the calendar day before – Daphne turns the shop’s sign to Closed and goes upstairs to Lucy’s workspace, where there’s a little television.
They sit together on the couch, waiting for the red-carpet arrivals, Lucy almost vibrating with excitement.
‘There she is!’ Lucy squeals as Christina appears, tall and graceful and walking just as Daphne showed her, to make the dress ripple around her.
‘And here is Aussie star Christina Clarke!’ says the Australian red-carpet correspondent as Christina’s face fills the screen.
Daphne can’t remember the last time she smiled so much. She is proud of Christina, for one thing. Of Lucy, for another. And of herself. For not saying no to either one of them, when it would have been the easiest thing.
‘Who are you wearing, Christina?’ asks the correspondent.
Christina looks straight into the camera. ‘I’m wearing a dress made by Daphne and Lucy at The Frock Shop in Sydney,’ she says, and Daphne knows she’s saying it straight to them.
Then Christina turns back to the correspondent. ‘I have to say that it’s my shop, but the dress is definitely Daphne’s and Lucy’s. They’re amazing!’
‘Daph! Daph! Daph!’ Lucy grabs Daphne’s arm as she bounces on the couch.
Daphne hears the phone ringing downstairs and glances at Lucy.
‘Oh god,’ Lucy says. ‘Do you think people saw that?’
‘I’d better find out,’ Daphne says and hauls herself off the couch, just as the second line starts ringing in Lucy’s workroom.
‘And so had you,’ she adds.
Two hours later Daphne still hasn’t turned the Closed sign back to Open as both phones have been ringing non-stop.
Journalists asking questions, women calling to ask if they can have a dress made for them too – and Janet and Noel congratulating her.
And Adelaide. Daphne has no idea how she found out, but she appreciates the call nonetheless.
There’s a couple of minutes of silence – blessed silence – then the phone rings again.
‘The Frock Shop,’ Daphne says.
There’s a pause.
‘Daph!’ It’s Christina. Daphne knows her voice now.
‘Hello, love! You looked beautiful.’
‘Thanks to you. Did you like how I walked?’ She laughs.
‘Perfect. The phone hasn’t stopped. Women wanting a dress just like yours!’
Another pause – the trans-Pacific phone line taking its time.
‘You’re a marvel,’ Christina says. ‘And so is Lucy. Listen, I won’t talk long but I just wanted to say thank you.’
‘Aren’t the awards still going?’
‘Yes. But I snuck out to use the phone. Can you believe I can call Australia from here?’ She laughs again.
Daphne thinks of her young friend on the other side of the world, wearing a dress that has emerged from a flash in her own mind, and made with love in this shop that has, in so many ways, been her world.
The decades collapse and she is a young woman again, learning from Ophelia about how much power is held in clothes, in beauty, in art, in grace. In women.
‘Never forget who you are, Daph,’ Ophelia said to her once. ‘You’re a woman. Once a woman realises her power, she can rule the world.’
Daphne had never believed it because she’d never felt that she had power. Perhaps because she was looking for other people to tell her she had it, when all the while it was inside her, coiled, waiting to reveal itself.
And it’s in this little shop too. In the women who have found clothes here and made clothes here. Each of those women with her own power. Her own heart. Her own stories.
‘The world is an amazing place,’ she says to Christina.
‘I’ll be home in a month,’ Christina replies. ‘I miss you!’
‘I miss you too. See you, love.’
Daphne hangs up the phone and smiles. Then she walks to the door and turns the sign around so it says Open, and hears the phone ringing again.