Epilogue — Inside the Hem
Two years later, Ottilie found Kit asleep at the kitchen table with one hand curled around a museum programme.
He had returned from Manchester after midnight.
His work bag stood by the door, rain darkening the leather.
The programme came from the Birmingham opening of Every Maker Named, now travelling with new interviews from Midlands textile workers.
Kit had marked the train times but none of the pages about her.
Ottilie set down her keys. He woke at the sound and blinked towards the clock.
“You missed dinner,” she said.
“I missed the train before dinner.”
“There is soup.”
He looked at the programme beneath his hand. “I can still make Saturday.”
The Birmingham museum expected both of them at the closing event. Ottilie would speak with Devika, Rafi and two factory makers. Kit had been invited as her husband, not as a former Harcourt executive or a sponsor. He had accepted only after she asked whether he wanted to come.
His dark suit hung upstairs. It fitted the man who had owned it three years earlier and the office he no longer occupied. The shoulders were too severe now. Ottilie had watched him wear it to Marianne’s birthday and disliked the way the old cut entered the room before he did.
“Stand up,” she said.
Kit pushed back the chair. “Why?”
Ottilie fetched her tape from the drawer where household string, batteries and one screwdriver had defeated every attempt at organisation.
“I want to make you something.”
He became fully awake. “For Birmingham?”
“If I finish. If I don’t, you wear the blue suit.”
“Is this a present?”
“It is cloth and work. Try not to turn it into a legal category.”
His mouth shifted. “I was going to ask whether you were sure.”
“You can ask.”
“Are you?”
Ottilie looped the tape around his chest. “Yes. Breathe normally.”
The jacket began with British wool left from a studio development length.
It wasn’t client stock, archive material or cloth Kit had obtained.
Ottilie chose a softer shoulder than his old tailoring and a narrow line through the waist. Inside, she used a hand-painted facing in brown and blue.
The colours met imperfectly beneath the lapel, visible only when he moved.
She worked on it after studio hours because she wanted her employees’ contracted time to remain their own. Asha glanced at the toile over lunch and told Ottilie the collar looked frightened of his neck. Ottilie laughed, then unpicked and remade it herself.
Kit attended one fitting in their sitting room wearing an old shirt and no shoes. He stood on yesterday’s newspaper while Ottilie pinned the back.
“May I say something?” he asked.
“About comfort, yes. About design, at your peril.”
“The left sleeve catches.”
She made him lift both arms. He was right. Ottilie had shortened the lining too aggressively and blamed his watch before she checked the seam.
“It is the lining,” she said.
Kit waited.
“You can look pleased.”
“I am trying to survive the fitting.”
She stuck a pin through the newspaper close to his heel. He laughed, moved and made three other pins fall out.
The studio had grown to six employees without becoming a version of Harcourt Kit followed while she held him close.
Afterwards, he fetched water and returned before his side of the bed cooled.
In the morning, the jacket was still on the chair. Kit had left the inner facing turned towards the light. Ottilie could see the line she had painted, the collar she had remade, and one small irregularity where she had redone the sleeve.
Inside the hem, the label carried only what the garment needed.
Designed and made by Ottilie Vane.
For Kit.
This time, her name stayed where she had put it—and the man beside her knew better than to stand in front of it.