‘Why don’t you go and try it on, Lucy-Lu?’ Daphne suggests.
Yes, good – trying it on will buy her some time to pull herself together.
She slips into the tiny changing room and puts on the dress. It’s crumpled from being in the bag, so she fluffs it up as best she can and cinches the red sash around her waist. Her school shoes aren’t the best complement to it, but she can’t exactly help that.
‘Oh, Lucy!’ Daphne exclaims as soon as she emerges. ‘It’s lovely!’
‘You made this?’ Christina says.
‘Um … yes. It’s my first dress.’
‘Really?’ Christina steps closer and Lucy can smell expensive perfume.
For the first time she notices what Christina is wearing: a simple black shift dress with a Yves Klein blue necklace and shoes the same shade. The blue necklace sets off her hair, so the combination is clever.
Christina plucks at the sleeves of Lucy’s dress so they stand up a little higher. ‘It’s truly lovely, Lucy. You should be very proud of yourself.’
Blood starts to thud in Lucy’s ears. IsChristina Clarkepaying her a compliment? This can’t be real. Maybe this is what ‘star power’ is – like she’s read about in the magazines. Maybe it’s making someone feel like they’re in the presence of someone special – because Lucy feels that, and she also feels special herself.
‘I agree, Lucy-Lu.’ Daphne beams. ‘You’ve done a great job.’
‘What are you going to make next?’ Christina says.
‘Oh, um, I …’ Lucy has imagined lots of things she could make, but she hasn’t chosen anything specific. ‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘Come and show us when you do, yeah?’ Christina says, still smiling.
Lucy feels like she’s in a dream, then real life intrudes as she remembers that the school bell will probably ring soon and she hasn’t eaten her lunch.
‘I’d better get changed,’ she says. ‘Lunchbreak will be over soon.’
She changes quickly and stuffs the Christmas dress back into its bag.
‘Come back when you have some more time, love,’ Daphne says. ‘I have a frock to show you. It’s a girl’s dress – a little white broderie anglaise number. I think you’ll be able to use the fabric for something.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ Lucy says, still in a daze as she slings her schoolbag over her shoulder. She barely risks another glance at Christina, just in case she doesn’t turn out to be real after all, then runs out the shop door and back toward the school gates.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Working with Daphne at the frock shop has provided Adelaide with a good diversion in one sense – it prevents her thinking about the letter, and her son, every minute of the day – and a dilemma in another. She doesn’t want to tell Daphne what’s going on – she doesn’t want to tell anyone, including her brother – but she also doesn’t want to lie any more. And isn’t the not-telling a lie by omission?
Daphne knows something is wrong – she has remarked on it more than once – and Adelaide isn’t chatting to her the way she used to, worried she’ll say something inadvertently, as one can do with old friends. The rhythms of communication are so established and fluid that a confession can slip out. Which it absolutely cannot do in this case. There is too much at stake: her whole life, and the way she’s constructed it.
Eventually, after yet another sleepless night, she decided there was only one way to resolve it all – by doing something about the letter.
She called the government department and gave her phone number to the case worker there, saying it could be passed on to Desmond so he could ring her.
Desmond. How will she call him that? He has always been George to her. Does he know he was a George? Will she askhim? She doesn’t know. And she doesn’t have long to decide, for he is about to arrive at her home.
There is no word in the English language – or perhaps any other – to describe what it’s like to wait to meet a child you gave up at birth. She feels nerves, yes, but this isn’t nervousness. It is beyond that. Its shape is different.
Excitement may be part of it; except the unbearable sadness of what she did – not just giving him up, but the affair that led up to it all – acts as a weight that means she can’t feel purely excited at the prospect of meeting someone who was part of her flesh for nine months. Because meeting him – the phrase, the idea, the prospect – is ridiculous. They should never have been apart.
Or perhaps, seen in another light, he should never have existed.
He does exist, though. And it is his knock on the front door she can hear now.
As she approaches the door she feels as though her cells are vibrating at a frequency she can’t identify. They feel as though they are shifting in and out of time. She is here and not here. She is giving birth to him and she does not know him. They are connected and they are severed.