‘Yes?’ Margot says as she enters the kitchen.
‘It’s Mr Williams,’ Lavinia whispers.
‘Mr Williams?’
‘Mm.’ She holds out the receiver and smiles.
‘Hello?’ Margot says.
‘Miss King.’
‘Mr Williams?’ It’s a question – of course it is. She doesn’t know why he’d want to call her.
‘Please, call me Stephen.’
Is she meant to invite him to call her Margot? She’s not sure she wants that – yet.
‘Thank you, Stephen,’ she says, and she thinks she hears him chuckle. ‘Is everything in order with the furniture?’
‘Absolutely. Yes, all fine. I’ve already had interested buyers.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘I’m calling because I’d like to invite you to have dinner with me.’
Margot’s eyes go wide and she looks at Lavinia, who can’t possibly know what has been said but Margot feels compelled to share her surprise.
Lavinia smiles and shrugs in response.
‘Oh,’ Margot says after a few seconds.
‘I imagine this is unexpected,’ Mr Williams – Stephen – says.
‘Yes!’
Lavinia is by now gesturing but Margot can’t understand her.
‘If you’re free on Friday evening, may I pick you up at six o’clock?’
As Margot is permanently free in the evenings she doesn’t have to check her diary. Indeed, she doesn’t have a diary because she doesn’t need one. But she has to think about this. An invitation to dinner could lead to another, and another. She’s not sure she knows how to go out to dinner. Nor does she have the clothes to wear.
Still, she can’t sit at home every night hoping something in her life will change and taking no steps to change it. Plus her taste of the broader world when she and Lavinia went to the city has left her wanting more.
‘All right,’ she says.
Another chuckle. ‘I’ll take “all right”,’ he says. ‘Six o’clock on Friday, then.’
‘Yes, thank you. Goodbye, Mr … Stephen.’
‘Goodbye, Miss King.’
She hangs up the phone and recounts the invitation to Lavinia, who seems greatly pleased and starts suggesting what Margot should wear.
Margot knows, however, that she will need to spend some of the furniture money at the frock shop.
The next day she takes the bus up the hill – it’s too hot to walk – and finds not Daphne but the other lass who’s beenworking there. Christina, she says her name is. Pretty girl. Margot wonders if she’s ever been a model.
Christina picks out a salmon-pink dress which she says is from the 1950s. Margot is almost sure it’s the same one she saw in the window weeks ago. Obviously no one wanted it then – however, it’s not uncommon for some of the frocks to be here for months. They’re not to everyone’s taste, but that’s only because some people only like new things. Margot isn’t one of those people.