The Many Colours of Us Read online

  I shake my head. ‘How did you know though?’ I ask. ‘How did you know about the light, about where to put the sewing machine?’

  ‘Oh I had help.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask.

  ‘Your mother.’

  ‘Wow! So this is the matter that she had to be consulted on.’

  ‘Is that what she said?’ He laughs. ‘She turned up here, begging to help. She wanted to make this room perfect as much as I did.’

  I stand in the middle of my sewing room and feel my eyes filling up again. Why can I not stop crying at the moment? This is the most perfect room in the world. This is where I’ll run my business from. I’ll be running my creative business from the same place that my father did his creative work. It’s as though everything has come full circle.

  ‘Can we talk?’ Edwin says suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

  He sits down on the desk by the sewing machine and I sit on the chair next to him. His bare leg is so close to mine and I catch the familiar scent of his aftershave. Despite how unwell I feel, I sense that flutter in my stomach at his proximity.

  ‘Can I get you anything? Cup of tea or something?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, really.’

  I wait. After a moment, he reaches towards me and takes my hand, gently massaging the palm with his thumb. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I love it when he does that.

  ‘I wanted to apologise, properly,’ he says eventually. ‘I’m sorry I had to go after your mum’s wedding and I’m sorry about what happened afterwards. None of that was how I wanted it to be. I hoped…’ He stops.

  ‘Edwin, we don’t need to go through this again. It’s OK. I told you last night.’

  ‘I’ve been a complete idiot,’ he continues, ignoring me. ‘I should have phoned you as soon as you walked out of my office. I should have checked you were OK and that you hadn’t been bothered by more journalists.’

  ‘There were more,’ I say. ‘Pen got rid of them. She can be like a bulldog when she wants to be, little but fierce.’ I smile but his face falls. I know he thinks it should have been him who looked after me. I want to tell him he doesn’t always have to be looking after people; sometimes he just needs to let go.

  ‘I’m so glad someone was with you,’ he says. ‘I was so embarrassed by my behaviour and I couldn’t face you being angry with me. And then you ended up in hospital and I had to see you.’

  ‘I wasn’t angry,’ I say. ‘At least, I wasn’t angry with you. You had so much else to deal with; you were so worried about your brother.’

  ‘Rob was surprisingly all right about it actually. I overreacted as usual.’ He smiles, but doesn’t look at me. ‘It’s probably time I started to realise that Rob doesn’t need wrapping in cotton wool any more.’

  Neither do I, I think, but I don’t say anything.

  ‘The journalists haven’t bothered you any more, have they?’ he asks.

  ‘No, not since Pen saw them off.’

  ‘Good, then my plan worked.’

  ‘What plan?’

  He tells me about how he got all the journalists who rang on that Sunday after my mother’s wedding to call him at the office the following week. When they did, he told them about the Art Salon, and about my business and he invited them all to the launch where they could have an exclusive preview of the Salon and my first clothing collection on the proviso that they left me alone for now.

  ‘Oh my God, Edwin! That’s wonderful! You really can turn any crisis around can’t you?’

  ‘And your mum has been contacting all sorts of fashion bloggers to come to the launch. She’s going to talk to you about that I think. She needs you to send out some samples or something. Sorry, it’s not really my forte.’

  I don’t know what to say. Mum has been suspiciously quiet since she got back from her honeymoon and hasn’t really spoken to me about the newspaper revelations other than to say: ‘Well it’s all well and truly out in the open now,’ and ‘Perhaps you realise why we didn’t tell you sooner.’ I had no idea she was contacting fashion bloggers.

  ‘I don’t know much about these things,’ Edwin goes on. ‘But I would imagine if you were a fashion blogger and Philadelphia Simmonds emailed you it would be quite a big deal.’

  ‘I can’t believe she kept so quiet about it,’ I say, genuinely shocked about everything.

  ‘We all want this to work, Julia,’ he says quietly. ‘And I am sorry about everything that’s happened.’

  I look down and see our hands still entwined together. I feel gentle electricity where his hand touches mine, where his knee brushes against me. I want to tell him how much I’ve missed him, how none of this matters, how we just need to make the best of right now. I want to feel his arms around me again, the warmth of his skin, the rise and fall of his breath. I’m trying to find a way to articulate all this but he speaks first.

  ‘Perhaps it was all for the best in the end though,’ he says.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘My phone ringing, my brother needing me. You know.’

  I stare at him, feeling as though I’ve been punched in the gut. I realise for the first time that he doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about him.

  ‘It just would have been so complicated,’ he goes on, oblivious to how he’s making me feel. ‘I promised your father I’d look after you, but I’m not sure that was what he had in mind. I just think…’

  I pull my hand out of his and stand up. Suddenly I’m furious again. All that apologising and we end up back here. How dare he? How could he belittle something that I’d been kidding myself was special? I have no idea what he wants any more, and I’m not hanging around to find out. My head still hurts far too much to deal with this.

  ‘I think I need to go home now,’ I say, trying to sound as calm as possible. If I let myself get angry it’s not going to do my head any good.

  ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he says. For a moment I think he’s going to change his mind. ‘You must still be feeling really woozy after the accident.’ No such luck.

  I start to walk away.

  ‘Julia, I know this might not be the right time but we do need to talk about the launch. It’s only a fortnight away. I was hoping we could open up this room as a kind of pop-up shop to launch your business. Do you think you could…?’

  ‘I assume I can invite people to this launch?’ I say to interrupt his incessant nagging.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Good, because I’ve invited Pen.’ I start to walk away from him and down the stairs.

  ‘Julia,’ he calls after me. ‘Please call me. I need to talk to you about the launch; I need you.’

  ‘Can you tell Mum to meet me by the car, please,’ I snap back, ignoring him. I look back once before I leave the building. He’s leaning against the door frame with his eyes closed. I blink back tears; I’m not going to let myself cry.

  Chapter 30

  I lean against the old Fiat and wait for Mum. It’s no surprise to me that there’s a parking ticket stuck to the windscreen. I knew you couldn’t park here. I’ll have to remember that for the launch. I’ll have to find out where people can park.

  Mum is taking for ever so I send Pen a quick text.

  I’ve kept my side of the bargain and it went terribly. Call me. Jx

  It’s starting to rain again by the time Mum comes out of the studio.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I snap at her.

  ‘Frank was giving me the tour; did you see the sewing room? It came out exactly as I imagined. Did Edwin tell you that…’

  ‘Mum, it’s raining. Can you open the car, please.’

  She shuts up and looks at me.

  ‘Oh and you got this.’ I wave the parking ticket at her. She snatches it from me.

  ‘Never mind that, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I want to go home. Now.’

  She unlocks the car and we get in. We don’t speak as she starts the engine and
drives away from the studio. She manages to stay quiet for eight whole minutes.

  ‘It’s unrecognisable,’ she says eventually.

  ‘What is?’ I stare out of the window as the damp streets of east London sail past.

  ‘Bruce’s old studio of course. Honestly, when you first mentioned this project I never thought you’d pull it off.’ She stops, suddenly aware of what she’s said. ‘Not because I don’t think you’re capable of it, just because I never thought it could look nice. I’m impressed.’

  I don’t answer her. I’m as impressed as she is by the way the old warehouse has been transformed but I can’t think about it without thinking of Edwin, holding my hand and telling me he’s glad his phone rang that night and stopped him making the terrible mistake of kissing me.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ my mother continues.

  ‘Mum, just concentrate on driving, will you?’

  ‘Well I think it’s going to be wonderful, a huge success. And a wonderful legacy for your father.’

  The tears that have been prickling behind my eyes since I was with Edwin suddenly start to fall. I rub my face with the back of my hand and wince as I catch the bruising around my eye.

  I sniff loudly and Mum sighs, pulling the car over to the side of the road. ‘What happened with Edwin, Julia?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just tired.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘The last few months are just taking their toll and I’m tired and my head hurts. I spent last night in hospital and I want to get home to my own bed and sleep.’

  ‘When I left the studio Edwin was banging doors and swearing. You two haven’t sorted anything out at all, have you?’ My mother is persistent.

  ‘It was going really well. The studio looks amazing and that sewing room is perfect. Thank you for helping him with that by the way.’

  Mum nods, for once not trying to get as much credit as possible.

  ‘And then we started to talk about your wedding, and about the argument that we had the day afterwards and I wanted to tell him that none of it matters, that I just want to be with him, that I just want to start again. But he said that it was for the best.’

  ‘That what was for the best?’

  ‘His brother needing him that night. Edwin said it was for the best, that when Bruce told him to look after me he didn’t mean that we should hook up.’

  ‘Edwin said that?’

  ‘Words to that effect.’

  ‘Your father was an idiot,’ my mother says, unexpectedly.

  I stare at her. Nobody ever seems to have a bad word to say about Bruce Baldwin. Mum is the last person I’d expected to finally tell me the truth.

  ‘I mean he was hugely talented, charming and good-looking and God knows I was in love with him for years,’ she goes on. ‘But sometimes, especially later in his life, he could be a complete idiot.’

  ‘Don’t hold back, Mum.’

  ‘Sometimes I think he believed his own hype.’ She shakes her head gently. ‘And for someone who’d been working the twelve steps for so long he sure could be controlling.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Step One: We admit we are powerless,’ she says, pointing her index finger in the air and staring out of the windscreen at nothing in particular. ‘My God, how many times did he tell me about how powerless we all are over the years. Yet all he wanted was to control everything: control who knew what, who could see who. And here he is trying to control things from beyond the damn grave!’

  I suddenly realise that she’s furious. She puts her hands back on the steering wheel to steady them, thinking I haven’t seen how much they’re shaking.

  ‘I’m sorry, Julia,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s quite wrong of me to speak ill of the dead, of the father you never knew; and I still take full responsibility for your not knowing him – but I couldn’t have borne it if he’d taken you away. He was a good man in many ways, but he had this way of always taking over. Even now he’s dictating who has his money, who has his house – my house – and now he’s making Edwin think that the way he feels about you is wrong.’

  ‘How does Edwin feel?’ I know that this isn’t, perhaps, what I should be asking but, not for the first time, I’m unable to think of anything but Edwin.

  My mother looks at me and smiles. ‘I think that’s obvious,’ she says. ‘He adores you.’

  I wish I was as sure about that as she seems to be.

  ‘What should I do?’ I ask.

  ‘Honestly, I think you need to wait until after this Art Salon is launched. You have both put a huge amount of work into this studio and you’re both tired and stressed and overwrought. Talk to him when it’s over. But really talk to him.’

  ‘What about though? What can I possibly say?’

  ‘You both need to start letting go of the past. I know that’s rich coming from me, but when I married Johnny I felt I’d been given a second chance. I think this could be your second chance. Edwin’s second chance.’

  ‘Just before the wedding you called him the love of my life.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You know you did, Mum. I thought you were being typically over the top but afterwards I wondered if you were right.’

  ‘Well there’s a turn-up. Me being right.’

  ‘But Bruce was the love of your life,’ I say. ‘And look how that turned out.’

  She turns to me and reaches over, tucking my hair behind my ears. ‘Maybe he’s not your Bruce,’ she says. ‘Maybe he’s your Johnny. Bruce and I were young and idiotic and we wanted different things out of life. We ended up being toxic to each other, except neither of us saw that until it was too late. All I’m saying is don’t wait until you’re sixty to discover the man who keeps your feet on the ground has been under your nose the whole time.’

  I turn to look out of the window.

  ‘And if you want my advice,’ she goes on, ‘you’ll take your mind off it all by keeping busy. That sewing room needs to be made beautiful, you need to make dresses, put up some of your designs, have all sorts of different materials on display so people can choose their custom-made clothes. If you want this business to boom, launch night is your night.’

  ‘Edwin said I should turn it into a pop-up shop for the night.’

  ‘As usual he’s right. I know we haven’t got long before the opening but I can help if you want me to. I can still sew a hem you know.’

  ‘I’ve decided to give you and Johnny the house,’ I say, turning to look at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re right; it’s your house. When all this is over I’m going to ask Edwin to transfer the house into your name.’

  ‘Julia, you don’t have to do that. Yes, I’m angry with your father but it’s not your fault.’

  ‘No, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to live in the Notting Hill flat eventually, when I’ve done it up a bit.’

  ‘But the house is too big for me and Johnny. It’s a family home, somewhere to bring up kids.’ She looks at me strangely.

  ‘Well if that day ever comes we can do a house swap,’ I say. ‘Now can we please go home? I need to go to bed.’

  She starts the car and lurches back out into the traffic.

  Chapter 31

  I spend the next ten days doing exactly what my mother told me to: keeping busy. I sew, I run, I eat, I sleep, I repeat. I’ve created four new dress designs, five tops, two skirts and a coat that can be cut as an autumn jacket or made from heavier material for winter. Between us, Mum and I have managed to knock up enough of each design to sell a few at the opening. I’ve left the side seams and hems loosely sewn so I can adjust them to fit whoever buys them. The whole point of this venture after all is to create beautiful one-off, made-to-measure clothes, so I must start as I mean to go on.

  It’s been a lot of fun working on this with Mum, a lot more fun than I thought it would be, but I’m sad that I’ve missed helping with the finishing touches on the
Art Salon. I’ve been kidding myself that I can do everything but I think we all know that I’m avoiding Edwin again. My mother is right, the conversation I need to have with him is for after the launch. Which, by the way, is tomorrow.

  Today I’m off to the Art Salon to put the finishing touches to the sewing room and turn it into a pop-up shop. All I have to do now is get Pen off the phone. She’s been calling me with almost daily updates on her and Graeme’s new relationship. Her side of the bargain went a lot better than mine. It turned out that Graeme had been quietly holding a torch for Pen all this time as well. In hindsight I realise I should have seen it coming. Pen’s dear friend Blind Freddie could have seen it coming. I’m happy for them.

  ‘And since I’m going to York with him,’ she tells me, ‘I’ve put the house on the market. I’ve got three viewings today.’

  ‘Really?’ I’m surprised. Pen has an almost unhealthy attachment to the house she grew up in and I know for a fact that the attic is still full of many of her childhood possessions.

  ‘Four hundred thousand pounds. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Cambridge house prices are insane.’ I’m astonished. If you ask me, the house has been in an ever-increasing state of disrepair. An estate agent would call it a project.

  ‘It’s going to be a nightmare clearing this place out though,’ she goes on. ‘There’s about thirty years of junk in here.’

  ‘I know, Pen, and some of it is mine and I will come down and help you sort it all out as soon as this bloody launch is over.’

  ‘How’s that going?’ she asks.

  I make a non-committal noise.

  ‘That good eh?’

  ‘Well I’ve made enough clothes to go along with the pop-up shop idea but to be honest I’m so nervous I don’t know if I’ll sell anything. Mum’s been telling me about some of the bloggers who are coming and they’re big names. Then there’s all these journalists.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Pen replies. ‘You just have to imagine them naked or something. Anyway, have you spoken to Edwin?’