Chapter 1 — Permission

Mina wanted the sleeves off. Her mother had brought the photograph again.

It stood against her bag on the little table in the fitting room: Evelyn in 1992, on the steps of a church Ada didn’t recognize, holding the hand of a man whose other hand displayed both their rings. The sleeves rose from her shoulders in crisp gathered heaps. In the picture they looked deliberate and joyful. On Mina, under the lamp that showed every pin and loose thread, they looked as though somebody else was standing very close behind her.

“Would the rest stay up?” Mina asked.

“Not without changing the support. But we can do that.”

“And the neck?”

“We can lower it.”

“How much?”

“Let’s look.”

Ada waited for Mina’s nod before lifting the temporary strap. The bodice moved to where it belonged, and Evelyn made a small, involuntary noise of approval.

“There,” she said. “That’s much better.”

Mina studied herself. Ada had learned not to answer that look too quickly. Sometimes it meant a client wanted a different shape; sometimes it meant she’d finally seen the shape she’d ordered and wasn’t sure who she was supposed to be inside it.

“Is it pulling?” Ada asked.

“No.”

“Can you raise your arms?”

Mina lifted them to shoulder height. The sleeves pushed back. Evelyn shifted her bag out of the way, although her daughter hadn’t moved towards her.

“For the dancing,” Mina said.

“You didn’t dance at your first wedding.”

“I know.”

Ada took the narrow grey pencil out of the work-sheet clip. There were three versions of the neckline on the page, each accompanied by a note about what could be kept. The first appointment had been a pleasure until Evelyn said how nice it was to be doing everything properly this time. Mina had laughed. Ada had laughed too, a little too late, and afterward wished she’d asked a question instead.

“We can fold one sleeve in so you can compare,” she said. “Nothing cut. Just to see.”

Mina nodded. Evelyn leaned forward.

The silk was still good. At the lower edge, where it had lain inside a box for years, there were tiny flattened ridges she would need to examine before pressing. The bodice seams had generous enough allowances, and the maker had secured the inside with more care than anyone looking at the photographs would have noticed. Ada liked finding work like that. It made her curious about the person who’d done it, not enough to search for her but enough to follow her decisions with her hands.

“Who made it?” she asked Evelyn.

“A woman in my mother’s street. Mrs. Dobson. She did all three of us.”

“She did a good job.”

Evelyn smiled at the photograph. Ada had meant the stitching, but it was all right for the compliment to travel a little further.

She folded the right sleeve inside, pinned the altered line, and stepped back. Mina put her arms down. Her shoulders dropped as well.

“Yes,” she said. “That.”

Evelyn looked from one side to the other.

“It’s quite bare.”

“There would be the new edge here,” Ada said.

“I mean the shoulder.”

“I could wear the jacket outside,” Mina said.

“You’ll have the pictures outside.”

“Mum.”

“I’m only saying what you’re going to be cold in.”

The wedding was on May first. It could be cold; Evelyn wasn’t inventing that. Ada had a fine wool wrap she could suggest. She could also lift the neckline again, keep a hint of sleeve, give the mother something to recognize. Any of those adjustments would be possible. She kept her hands by her sides.

“Would you like a moment?” she asked Mina.

“No. I want it like that.”

Evelyn sat back. “Well, it is your dress.”

Ada knew from the intake sheet that Evelyn had given the gown to Mina. They’d discussed it at the first appointment, in part because Ada didn’t want to be caught between somebody who’d paid for a garment and somebody wearing it. She repeated the question now, gently enough that neither woman should have to feel challenged.

“You’re both comfortable with Mina approving the changes?”

“Of course,” Evelyn said.

Mina looked at Ada, then at her mother.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll draw this version properly. We won’t cut until you’ve signed the design sheet.”

Mina smiled again, more cautiously this time. She turned to look over her shoulder at the back. Ada could have done that turn for her, pivoting the block or moving the second mirror, but she liked to let people discover how they would move if no one were instructing them.

Outside the fitting room, a courier was explaining something to Celia. His voice rose each time he said he hadn’t loaded the van. Celia’s didn’t. Ada could hear her ask whether he could wait while she photographed the label, and then whether the missing roll might still be at the depot. By the time Mina stepped off the block, the courier had offered to call somebody.

“Will you save the sleeves?” Evelyn asked.

“Certainly.”

“And the train.”

“We’ll save all the sound pieces.”

Evelyn touched the bag. “I brought fresh tissue.”

“That’s helpful.”

“I thought you might laugh.”

“About tissue?”

“About keeping everything.”

Ada didn’t answer too quickly. There were enough people willing to tell a woman she was sentimental. She took the clean tissue and laid it beside the work sheet.

“We’ll give the pieces back to you.”

Mina’s original estimate covered removal of the sleeves, changes to support and neckline, shortening of the skirt, and three fittings. Ada had written it herself. It left very little room for the finish she now wanted: tiny hand stitches at the new edge, with an inside facing cut from the spare cloth so it would never show.

“The finish here will be done by hand,” she said. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Is that extra?” Mina asked.

“No.”

It came out before she had calculated the hours. She knew the price of the estimate and the time they had already spent. She also knew she didn’t want Mina to think she was paying separately for having made a difficult decision.

“Thank you,” Mina said.

Ada looked down at the pinned edge, pleased.

Celia appeared in the doorway with a parcel under one arm. She waited until Ada had handed Mina the sketch.

“Can we have our talk at twelve?”

Ada glanced at the clock above the mirror. Twenty past ten. They had nearly an hour left in the appointment, if she used all the time she’d offered.

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“I did say twelve.”

Celia nodded. She put the parcel on the shelf and went back to the front desk.

Mina was reading the work sheet. “Could I take a picture?”

“Of the design? Of course.”

“Of me like this.”

“Certainly.”

Evelyn stood immediately to take the phone, and Mina let her. Ada moved the hanging jacket out of the background. In the photograph on the little table, Evelyn’s wedding shoes were hidden by the skirt. Mina had brought flat gold sandals with ankle straps and two buckles Ada had already checked for catching the hem. She watched the mother kneel awkwardly to get them in the frame.

They stayed until eleven ten. Mina signed the design approval after reading the changes aloud, and Evelyn added a note at the bottom asking for the offcuts to be wrapped in the tissue she’d brought. Ada gave them their copies. Evelyn had weak tea in the front salon while Mina changed. Afterwards Mina joined her and drank the water left from the fitting.

Ada saw them out, pleased. The approved design was clipped to the work ticket; she could start tomorrow.

She carried the cups to the staff sink. Celia was writing beside the booking screen.

“Did the fabric arrive?” Ada asked.

“One roll. The other one is coming this afternoon.”

“Good.”

“Did you put the hand finish on Mina’s change sheet?”

“It was included.”

“In the first estimate?”

Ada rinsed the first cup.

“It needs it.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“A couple of hours.”

“Is it a couple?”

She could have said she would check. Instead she put the cup on the rack with more force than was needed and started washing the second. The silence behind her lasted long enough that she knew Celia hadn’t accepted the answer.

“I’ll put the hours in,” she said.

“Thank you.”

There was nothing offensive in thank you. Celia might have meant it exactly as it sounded. Ada disliked being thanked for something that, in this room, meant she’d been corrected.

Tessa came in carrying an ivory sleeve and a sandwich wrapped in foil.

“Would you look at the balance before I close it?”

“Yes. Leave it on the table.”

“Before lunch, or after?”

“After.”

“Okay.”

She set down the sleeve, then went to the machine wall. The sandwich remained on top of the foil, uneaten. Ada was about to tell her to go and eat when she noticed the time. Eleven fifty-two.

Celia had cleared the middle of the cutting table. Usually that took some negotiation. Ada worked outwards from the middle, spreading pattern pieces until the clean space was whatever remained between them. Today the tissue patterns had been stacked on the far end, the shears beside them, and Tessa’s sleeve moved onto a clean sheet.

Ada dried her hands and lifted Mina’s gown onto its padded hanger. She clipped the approved design sheet to the work ticket, then wheeled the stand into the rack. There were seven large commissions in the room, including Jules’s suit, and an alterations rail at the front where every garment had a collection date. Celia had put a red dot beside three of them. Ada could ask about those after their talk.

At noon Celia placed two sets of paper on the table.

The first thing Ada saw was the company name.

She had thought they would discuss the summer schedule again. Celia wanted to reduce bespoke bookings until they had paid cutting help. Ada thought they could hold the good dates if she worked through the spring. They’d tried to talk on Friday; a client had arrived early. On Saturday Ada had been too far behind to finish the conversation, though Celia stayed after closing and waited while she pinned.

“What is this?”

“Notice under our buy-or-sell clause.”

Ada looked at her.

Celia wasn’t using the voice she used for an anxious customer. She was quiet and quite clear.

“I’m serving it today.”

The sum sat in the middle of the first page, in figures and words. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Ada read the number twice before she understood that it was a price, not something the company owed.

“For your half?”

“Or yours.”

Ada had signed the agreement twelve years ago. They’d had different lawyers then too; the solicitor who advised her had gone through the buy-or-sell provision slowly, explaining that the person naming the price wouldn’t know which way the other person would choose. It prevented one of them from offering a price she wouldn’t be prepared to accept herself. Celia had compared it to cutting a cake and letting somebody else pick a slice. Ada had drawn a cake in the margin.

She remembered the cake and the solicitor waiting while she drew it. She hadn’t asked for a different clause.

“You’re asking me to sell.”

“I’m asking you to make the election.”

“You know I don’t have that much money.”

“I know what you’ve told me about your savings. I don’t know what financing you can arrange.”

It was a prepared answer. Ada could hear the care she’d taken over it and wanted her to say something she hadn’t practiced.

“And you have it.”

“Yes.”

The inheritance had been in Celia’s personal account for two years. Ada had known the amount because Celia had asked her whether it was awful to feel relieved when someone you loved died. They’d talked about the aunt’s house, the awful clearing of its kitchen cupboards, and the practical difference one hundred and eighty thousand dollars made to somebody who’d spent years checking when the rent left her account. Celia had not promised that money to Fable. Ada had never asked.

Now it meant Celia could choose a date.

“The business is worth two hundred and forty thousand?”

“That’s the price I’ve named for our shares.”

“Have you had it valued?”

“You should get your own advice. The notice says that too.”

Ada picked up the letter. There were three pages: the notice, the terms taken from the agreement, and an acknowledgment of receipt. Thirty days for her election. A further thirty days to complete. May twelfth at noon, then June eleventh.

“If I don’t answer?”

“The default is that you sell.”

“I know. I read it.”

Celia kept her hands on her side of the table.

Ada could refuse to acknowledge receipt. She could make Celia find another way to prove it had been delivered. She didn’t know what that would achieve beyond a few uglier minutes in a room they still needed to work in.

“We have seven things in here that aren’t finished.”

“They’ll be finished.”

“By who?”

“By the company. We’re still both in it.”

“And after?”

“That depends on your election.”

Ada put the pages down. Tessa was at the far end of the room, stitching the sleeve. Celia had turned the small radio off before their conversation, but the machine still ran. Ada could not tell how much of the talk would travel over it. She wanted to have the argument somewhere else and wanted Celia to be ashamed of bringing it here. She had refused the other places too. A restaurant after work was always too late; a Sunday morning was supposed to be a morning without the shop. Celia had offered both.

“You could have warned me.”

“I have been asking us to make a decision.”

“This isn’t that.”

“No.”

For a moment Ada was glad she hadn’t pretended.

Celia wore the small gold earrings Ada bought her for her fortieth birthday. She’d said she liked them because she could sleep in them without waking up with her earlobe folded. Ada hadn’t known that was a problem until Celia demonstrated it, absurdly, against her palm. They had laughed about buying jewellery for professional sleepers.

She wished Celia had worn another pair today.

“Are you leaving?” Ada asked.

“The ownership has to change.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Celia looked at the notice.

“I haven’t elected for you, Ada.”

So she might keep it. The company name, the lease, the fittings, the window Ada had dressed with a single cream gown because they couldn’t afford anything else. Ada had imagined, if they couldn’t keep working together, that they would close. Sell the machines, finish the existing orders, take the rail apart. It had not occurred to her that one of them would be permitted to carry on in the room while the other went away.

There was an orange pen beside the papers. Clients used it to sign alteration approvals. Ada picked it up and asked exactly what the acknowledgment meant.

“Only that you received the notice,” Celia said.

“Not that I accept anything.”

“Not an election. Just receipt.”

Ada signed. Celia entered the time beside her signature and gave her the second set. Noon.

She felt better for having done something. It was not the right thing to feel better about, but it let her put down the pen.

“I’ll buy.”

“You don’t have to tell me today.”

“I’m telling you anyway.”

“Please get advice first.”

“I will.”

Celia didn’t say she was relieved. Ada hadn’t expected relief; she realized she had expected fear. She wanted the prospect of leaving to cost Celia visibly, even if it cost her the company in which she had put twelve years of her hands.

The machine at the back stopped. Tessa’s chair moved, and then the tap ran at the sink.

Celia took her copy to the desk. Ada moved the shears to the other end of the table and drew the sleeve towards her. It had been pinned for a question she knew how to answer. She checked the shoulder, measured the balance against the work sheet, and found herself reading the same line three times.

Celia stood beside the calendar.

“What do you need for this afternoon?”

Ada kept her hand on the sleeve so she wouldn’t touch it again before she’d worked out what was wrong.

“A copy of the agreement.”

“I’ve put the whole folder in the office.”

“All the accounts too.”

“You’ve got access.”

“I want them together.”

“Okay.”

Ada let go of the fabric. She left the orange pen beside the letter, took her phone out of her pocket, and searched for the number of a lawyer who did work like this. She would have to pay someone to explain the things she already knew and the things she hadn’t thought to ask.

Behind her, Celia began moving the next client’s pieces into the clear part of the table.