The Memory Dress

Chapter Twenty

TWENTY

“Hello, Meredith, how are you this morning? It’s Jayne from upstairs,” I chirp.

“Is it time to go to London? I’m not quite packed yet.”

I’m relieved that she has remembered our plan from last night.

“Not quite, but I was thinking we could write down our itinerary this morning. Would you mind if I take another look in your memory room so I can be sure I’m getting it all right?”

She nods but doesn’t move, so I lead the way.

Everything is exactly as it was the last time I was here. Completely untouched, like a shrine to the missing, the departed, and the almost forgotten. How long might it be before none of this makes any sense to Meredith? I wonder when she will take her own place on the wall, one of the lost. Less of an observer, more one of the silent figures, her edges frayed, her stories incomplete. Fading to nothing.

My eyes travel over the photographs again, these snapshots of time that were once so strongly felt, that might now instantly conjure an occasion, a person, a feeling, fully formed, as if it were being lived out in the present. Vividly documenting a life, a romance, a family, a career, but also the mundane and the everyday. A favorite jumper. A freshly painted front door. Wind-lashed faces and silly poses. Another time, another life. Everything that has been lived and passed and cannot come again. Images she can hold in her hand and travel to again at a speed of her choosing. Perhaps now they float at the very outskirts of her memory, less defined, their colors no longer as sharp, their stories less reliable. Will there be a time soon when she can’t name the man, or the little girl sitting on his lap smiling back at us? When these scenes live no deeper than the cork they are pressed into?

Fiona, the little girl, is very present in this room, preserved as the smiling ball of energy she once was, playing on a black keyboard, whizzing by on a bike, streamers trailing from its handlebars. The teenager slightly less so, the young woman barely. Fiona’s story, with the exception of the graduation photo, seems to shear off abruptly. She was here—and now she’s not. It all makes me wonder what might appear on my own wall in my own memory room. Would it show such happiness? Such a breadth of experience? A family? A life lived? The thought is uncomfortable, and suddenly it feels like I’m the one missing from my own life.

“Why such a large sigh?” asks Meredith.

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t aware I had.” I’m so absorbed in Meredith’s life that I’m not registering what’s going on in my own.

“It’s your third, in fact, since you got here. Why don’t you have a seat and you can tell me what’s on your mind?”

Normally I would run a mile, but today, in the company of someone so open to absorbing my problems, I yield easily, flopping down into one of the winged armchairs, ready to unload.

“How do I know if he’s the right one for me? If I can trust him with my heart? I mean, when I’ve got it so wrong before, why would this time be any different?” I release the questions like they’ve been lodged painfully between my ribs for years.

“Well, okay, we’re getting straight to it.” Meredith laughs in a way that suggests she’s summoning all her best life experience for this one. She settles into the seat beside mine, her eyes gliding across the walls surrounding us, pleased, I think, with the responsibility to provide an answer. She stays that way for a good few minutes, not uttering a word until I start to worry that she’s forgotten what I asked her. Then finally she adds, “It’s actually surprisingly simple when you really think about it.”

“Can you explain it to me then? Because I’m not sure I want to keep spending every night on my own.” I immediately wince at my insensitivity. Solitary evenings are a forced habit Meredith and I have in common.

“I think it’s the wrong question to be asking yourself. I think it’s more about how he makes you feel when you’re with him. Is it easy? Is he thoughtful? Is he prepared to show you more of him, to encourage you to do the same?”

I think of the day I left Alex’s apartment for the last time. How he never even rose from the chair to help carry the few boxes I had packed. How the awkwardness was eventually just too much to bear so he left, with hurried instructions to push the keys back through the letter box when I was done. None of this was done with my feelings in mind.

Meredith leans in a little closer to me.

“I think you owe it to yourself to let people show you the best of them, and a little of the worst.” She nods. “No one is perfect, not even William, but he does things for me that he doesn’t want to do. Big things. Things he said he never would. That’s when you work out how you really feel, when the imperfections are in plain sight and you can really see them.”

I think about Jake. The hand to my shoulder in the coffee shop to let me know I was his priority. The fact he was the first to sign up to help Meredith. His confession that he hates to eat alone and the offer to join him for supper but also the parties, the safety in numbers but the lack of closer friends, at least as far as I have seen. His suggestion that he could cover the cost of Meredith’s groceries. The invitation to stay at his place in London. Yes, a lot of this comes with Meredith in mind, but they all make life easier for me too. Is that the point I’ve been missing?

“What are William’s worst bits?”

Meredith takes a large breath, holding it inside her until she is ready to answer.

“He thinks he’s protecting me, not leaving things to chance, trying to preempt everything. But if you tie everything up neatly, it’s much harder for others to come along and surprise you or help you. It might be more difficult to undo than you imagine.” She pauses, her eyes focusing on a shot of the two of them on the wall in front of us. William has a protective arm around her shoulders, the other draped across the front of her, so she is enveloped by him. “I wish he didn’t have to try so hard. I wish I could stop that…I just don’t know how,” she whispers.

It’s the thought of Jake that makes me wonder if I am asking myself and Meredith the wrong question. Perhaps it should be if it’s ever right to willfully stop yourself from falling for someone, for no better reason than you can’t predict the outcome or how much of a mess you may be at the end of it.

“More than anything”—Meredith clasps her hands together in her lap and tilts her head toward me—“you owe it to yourself not to live a lukewarm life. Where is the fun in that?” She smirks in a way that suggests fun is one thing not lacking from her story. “Feel the intense heat of great passion, let it burn you up inside. Let it rage a little out of control. But be prepared to welcome in the searing, icy cut of rejection too. Only once you have experienced the bitter sense of drowning in your own disappointment can you start to soar again, only this time with the glorious knowledge of what you are aiming for.”

I think she can see the shock on my face, because she adds, “And so what if you get it wrong? We all do at some point. Does it really matter? What’s a little heartbreak in the search for your one great love? No one loves a know-it-all anyway.” Then she chuckles at her own surprisingly brutal conclusion.

It’s the kick I need. That a woman in Meredith’s position, in a brilliant moment of clarity, can still endorse the pursuit of great passion is so inspiring. If she can, then why not me?

I check the time on my phone. We need to get going. I make a note of the four locations we will visit together in London and the order in which we will do them: The Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. The Odeon cinema in Leicester Square. Launceston Place in Kensington. And finally Spencer House in St. James’s. Northamptonshire and Sandringham may come later. For now, if I plan for us to stay two nights, I think that will be long enough. I don’t want to take Meredith away from home any longer than necessary, especially when there is every chance that her time at home is already running out. The clock is ticking, loud enough that I fear even she can sense it through the fog.

I realize she’s not going to be able to cope in London without her memory room. I can’t pack it up and take it with us, that would be too great a job and too unsettling, she may never get it back in the order she has it in now. I pull out my phone and, with her permission, take a short film scanning around the room.

That’s when I see the photograph she told me about the day we took our first walk together, the one she later denied any knowledge of.

“What’s this?” I prompt her.

She lets her eyes take in every detail of the image before she responds. “It arrives already framed and carefully wrapped in navy blue paper, tied with a silk bow. She’s signed it, too, see.”

I lean in toward the image and she is right. In the bottom left-hand corner is a neat signature, the name instantly recognizable. It’s dated May 1997. Diana is seated on the floor, wearing a black suit jacket, her lower half hidden under a huge swath of buttermilk satin. I think it might be the dress we saw at the Fashion Museum. Next to her on the floor is a dark-haired woman I now know is Catherine Walker, also wearing black. Behind them are twelve others, identical in pristine collared white coats that button down the front and fall to midcalf—eleven women and one solitary man.

“William.” She confirms. “And wonderful Catherine, also gone.” Her right hand settles on her heart.

“Can you remember anything else about it, Meredith? Why you were there?”

“There are so many nationalities among our little team,” she giggles. “It’s like a meeting of the United Nations, someone says. Brazil, Jamaica, Thailand, Portugal, Germany, Italy. Somehow, we all make sense,” she says wistfully. “The very happiest of days.” She nods slowly. I see the remembered joy in the faint sparkle in her eyes, the unrushed way she is reconnecting with the younger woman she sees before her, the one with the luxury of not knowing what was to come. “There are terrible nerves, but everyone feels so proud. And all those beautiful dresses. Sixteen years’ worth worn to meet emperors and kings, gowns that floated along red carpets and to private dinners, tours, and galas, some much more difficult than others. And a chance to say goodbye to them all before they are off to America.” She trails off again and a blank detachment glazes over her eyes. “You will bring the flask and egg sandwiches, won’t you?”

“To London? Of course I will, if you’d like me to. But there is somewhere else I would like to take you this morning. Do you fancy a little walk into town in the sunshine, Meredith?”

She nods enthusiastically, which only makes me feel worse for the deception I am allowing to unfold.

It’s such a nondescript building. Probably built in the sixties, it looks bland and functional but tired. White paint is peeling from the window frames. I can see last winter’s leaves still stuffed in the roof guttering. Meredith and I pause on the steps outside. I watch as the flicker of recognition crosses her face—she knows this building—then her annoyance. Does she already understand that I’ve ignored her wishes?

I am rigid with nerves. Torn by the deception it took to get her here and our need to move her story forward—to do everything we can to trace Fiona.

“Why are we here?” Meredith’s words sound cold and uncompromising. She is staring directly at me and I can’t bring myself to look back. “I don’t want to be here.”

“I thought it might help,” I offer weakly. I turn to face her. “Inside this building are all your medical records, possibly right back to when you were a child. I thought you might like to take a look.”

“Help with what?” She’s not smiling and there is a skeptical edge to her voice.

“Your memory. I hoped it might trigger some thoughts that you may not have had for a long time, that maybe it would help to—”

“I said no.” She cuts me off, her voice quiet but firm before the volume builds.

“William doesn’t want me here. I want to leave. What right do you have to…?” Her own outrage prevents her from finishing the sentence.

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry, Meredith, we’ll leave right away.” I try my best to ease the panic she’s feeling before it escalates further, but then she gathers herself. Her annoyance replaced by something far worse. Disappointment.

“I thought we were friends. Why would you do this? I don’t understand why I’m here—and why you need to be here. What is it you want from me?” She’s questioning my motives, how kind I might really be. Whether she feels safe with me or not.

Only now do I privately acknowledge what I could have intruded on, if my plan to get her inside had succeeded. Prescribed medications, surgeries, known allergies, her entire family medical history. Everything that is intrinsically personal to her. Information that should only ever be seen by those absolutely closest to her.

With every word she utters, I regret my decision to come and trample on this woman’s privacy like it doesn’t matter, like the end result justifies the means—and it doesn’t.

“I’m so sorry.” Far too late I acknowledge this invasion of her private life. I take a step backward, conveying my agreement that we should leave. “I thought today might help us, maybe throw up some clues as to where William or Fiona might be. That’s all.”

“She’ll be playing the piano”—she sighs—“that’s what she’s always doing, I can almost guarantee it. You could have just asked me that.”

“Can I take you home please, Meredith? Let’s go and put the kettle on. We’ll grab some of those custard creams you love on the way back.”

“Marvelous!” She is happy again. “We can chat some more about your love life and I’ll show you a picture of my wedding dress!” She winks at me and starts to laugh to herself in the same way I’ve heard Maggie do when she thinks she’s being hilarious.

I’m touched that she’s remembered our earlier conversation, but more than that, I love the look on her face, the invitation to an afternoon filled with gossip, hot tea, and favorite biscuits. What could possibly be better—for both of us.