The Memory Dress

Chapter Twenty-Three

TWENTY-THREE

Jake’s house looks beautiful for our arrival. There are vases of forget-me-nots dotted around and the beds are freshly made with clean linen. The fridge is stocked with everything we need and a fruit loaf is sitting underneath a white muslin cloth on the kitchen counter accompanied by a handwritten note.

Something lovely for your breakfast tomorrow morning.

—Jake

I feel my heart expand a little. Jake must have come over the weekend to get the house ready for Meredith—and for me.

His place is halfway along a narrow cobbled mews, on the left-hand side, painted a bright white with three identical sash windows on the first floor. Each has a Juliet balcony, too small to stand on but filled with boxes of trailing red begonias. There is a wooden picnic table outside surrounded by pots overflowing with multicolored cosmos.

“I feel like I’m in the countryside,” says Meredith.

She’s right. We are a five-minute walk from Hyde Park, bordered by Park Lane and Knightsbridge, and yet it feels like we have landed in a peaceful, secret pocket of London. It’s the perfect retreat. It feels very Jake. Beautiful but not shouting about it.

“Let’s get unpacked,” I say, “because we have a date at the Dorchester that we can’t be late for.”

I finish long before Meredith and sit in the small kitchen cradling a cup of tea, gloriously reliving the scenes at Jake’s coach house, surprised by the intensity of my own feelings, how much I have missed seeing him since then. But I’ve got to stay focused on what we’re here for. Something that Davina said about her last visit to Meredith’s apartment has been niggling away at me. Apparently, Meredith was humming along to a piece of classical music, one she seemed to know well. I remember it because Davina found it upsetting—Meredith had kept stopping, burying her head in her hands before she’d start humming again. “There was clearly a memory attached to it,” explained Davina, “but I don’t think it was a pleasant one.”

I think about the stack of CDs I’ve seen in Meredith’s apartment, the concert invitations, the sheet music. She hasn’t said a single thing to make me believe she is personally connected to the world of music. But what about Fiona? There is the photograph of her at the keyboard, Meredith’s recollection that she was “always practicing” and “always playing the piano.” What if this is more than a childish hobby? What if Fiona was good—really good? I throw the idea out to the WhatsApp group, hoping more than anything that Jake will respond.

JAYNE: Where might you study if you were a gifted musician? Anyone have any thoughts?

I can hear Meredith moving around upstairs, making herself comfortable, so I brew a fresh cup of tea and wait for a response. Carina is the first to reply.

CARINA: My niece studied music. I’m pretty sure all the big schools were on her long list: Bristol, the Royal College of Music, Manchester, maybe a couple of others. She ended up at Royal Holloway and loved it. Does that help? What are you thinking?

JAYNE: Brilliant, thank you. I’m just trying to piece together some of the items in Meredith’s apartment with the occasional reference she has made to Fiona. I’m wondering if she might be a musician, a pianist.

DAVINA: I think there’s also a Royal Academy of Music in London too?

JAYNE: Carina, can you focus the graduation gown search around those universities and let’s see if it gets us anywhere? A long shot probably but you never know.

CARINA: I’m on it!

There’s no response from Jake despite the blue ticks that tell me he’s seen and read the messages.

It’s like stepping into a giant jewelry box. The entire room glows gold. The air is thick with the scent of roses.

“Welcome to the drawing room of Mayfair, ladies.” We are greeted at the entrance to the Promenade and shown to our table, which is unlike any table I have taken tea at before. We both sit on a high-backed sofa that’s covered in a plush floral olive green fabric.

“Brocatelle!” announces Meredith.

“Sorry?”

“The fabric, how exquisite.” Meredith runs her fingers along it. “And goose down cushions too. This really is very fancy.”

And I have to admit, it’s a civilized way to spend an afternoon. Every table in the place is full. Everyone is dressed up. No one has dared risk denim. Meredith is wearing a neat skirt that sits tight on her waist and then flows out gently at her hips. It has a matching jacket in pale pink that’s flared slightly at the bottom with a white collar that brightens her face, making her look younger.

“You match the roses, Meredith,” I tell her. “Look.”

Carefully positioned urns stuffed with roses are thoughtfully placed around the room to create maximum privacy for each table. Gold-framed mirrors and coral-colored silk drapes make the huge space somehow feel intimate, while the gentle background tinkle of the pianist, the palm leaves, and the low lighting take us all away from the madness of London outside.

The tea is a work of art. A slim china tray of perfectly cut crust-free sandwiches alternating between white and brown bread arrives scattered with colorful fresh pansies and herbs. Scones are identically browned on top, warm juicy raisins pushing their way out through the cracks in the side. A rosebud is carved from a soft white mousse. A perfectly peaked meringue kiss sits on a circular biscuit base. The layers of peach, vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio slices are precision cut, finished in a glossy icing the color of egg yolk and decorated with a single fondant daisy.

“William would appreciate the exactness,” says Meredith as the tray is placed in front of her. “Remind me to take a doggy bag home for him.”

She drinks her Darjeeling tea from a gold-rimmed white bone china cup and saucer but doesn’t touch any of the food. She looks detached. Something is wrong. I let her sit with her feelings for a few minutes before she finally voices her concern.

“There are so many roses in here.” She’s shaking her head. “It’s the wrong flower. She isn’t wearing roses tonight. It’s tulips. Purple, not pink.”

Meredith starts to rise from the table.

I know I won’t be able to stop her now that she has decided she needs to be somewhere else. And neither do I want to. I tell a passing waiter that we will be back and follow Meredith to the main hotel reception.

“We’re at the wrong entrance and I can’t be late,” she says, pushing through the revolving doors. She turns right and walks quickly out onto Park Lane, yanking us both from the calm hotel interior and into the roar of black taxis and red London buses. I speed up to ensure I am alongside her. “We need the ballroom entrance.” She doesn’t look at me, her focus is on her new destination.

I follow her through another set of revolving doors and up a small flight of stairs onto a marble floor, where she pauses. We’re surrounded by a disorientating wall of mirrors and glass double doors that would confuse anyone. Meredith spins, unable to get her bearings, so I take her arm and lead her forward until the space opens out into a circular room with a shiny silver ceiling.

“The caged bird,” says Meredith, looking up to a chandelier that I can see has glass birds perched inside of it. “Horribly ironic.”

Then we move onward into the vast ballroom.

“So many people, all staring at her. I feel so proud of William, but he should be here to see it with me.” She looks to one end of the room. “Every time she moves, the white silk chiffon gently lifts around her. Meters and meters of it in the skirt. But it’s the streamers that fall from her neck down her back I have to keep my eye on, so easy to catch on something. You see, I told you it’s purple tulips and green leaves, can you see them?” She smiles at me, then looks back to the head of the room as if she is seeing Diana there, in front of her. “Hasn’t he made her look beautiful. None of them can tell, can they?” She shifts her gaze around the room now, encouraging me to do the same. She leans in closer to me, not wanting anyone else to hear, oblivious to the fact we are alone. “All those weeks of construction, like an architect with his instruments. All that engineering but none of it visible, which is exactly as it should be. She wears it more than once, which is the greatest honor. To dinner with the Queen and all those prime ministers: Major, Thatcher, Heath, Wilson, and Callaghan. What a lineup!”

“And where are you, Meredith?” I step a little closer to her.

“There are five hundred for dinner tonight. They seat me on a table close to hers, with the security. The food is out of this world. The softest partridge. Buttery potatoes that just melt on my tongue. But I could be eating a stale cheese sandwich. It doesn’t matter. All I can think about is William. My William. The way he holds me. The intensity between us. And I just want so much more of him.” She pauses and I watch the faintest flicker of concern cross her face. “We’re closing in around each other. No one else matters anymore.” She shakes her head and I recognize the sad shade of regret in her eyes.