The Memory Dress

Chapter Thirty-Five

THIRTY-FIVE

William

1994

Meredith is away and I am looking after Fiona. But she’s restless, has been all day. I know what lies ahead and the thought of it is making the stress bridge tightly across my shoulder blades. I didn’t think it was possible to feel any more admiration for my wife, but on nights like this, I know she is unquestionably the better half of us both. The pureed food that Meredith left out for Fiona is already on the kitchen floor. She refuses everything, getting increasingly red in the face. Angry with herself and with me, I think. And now hungry too. If I can’t get her to eat anything, she’ll wake in the night again, then my last hope is some warmed milk and mashed banana. If she rejects that, then we’ll see every hour together until dawn. And I have to finish drawing a new pattern for the Althorp dress tomorrow. There is no more time. It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it has, and we are up against the wire. Any more delay from me and it will place the extra burden on Meredith and I just can’t have that.

At midnight, in desperation, I bring Fiona into bed with me. I place her across my chest, hoping the warmth of my skin, the familiarity of my smell, will lull her to sleep. It doesn’t. She naps for minutes, perhaps twenty at the most. Then the crying starts again. I am out of ideas, incapable of logical reason now, my thoughts crashing between a desperate longing to sleep and a fear of rolling on her and hurting her. At around two a.m. she finally gives in to exhaustion, falling asleep with one arm and one leg pressed against me. I cannot move. I’m willing myself not to need the toilet. Trying to force the thought from my head. The harder I try not to think about it, the more I need it. I move her as slowly as I can, feeling my bladder will explode if I don’t get there soon. I make it. The relief surges through my entire body. I sit, my head in my hands, I could fall asleep right here. If I close my eyes for one minute, I think it will happen. Then I force myself up, back across the landing. I am almost to the bedroom door, my body craving the luxury of being horizontal, when the crying starts, and I want to throw open the windows and rage out into the dark night. Instead, I pick her up and she immediately calms. We go into the lounge. She wins again. I place her on her play mat, make some strong coffee, and pick up my pencil, turn my focus to a private commission that is due back with the client next week. Perhaps I can achieve something tonight, when I can count the sleep I’ve had in minutes, not hours.

You can’t be a good pattern cutter sitting down, you just can’t. It’s like asking an orchestral conductor to do his job without standing. His work would suffer for it, and I know mine is too. How long can Meredith keep hiding the fact for me? It’s the raw, bone-deep tiredness. I try so hard not to feel resentful but the feelings seep into me and I can’t deny them.

The Althorp dress should be straightforward. We are simply using all her latest measurements to alter a favorite dress that she has worn before. As she’s not available to come into the workroom for a fitting, I am drawing the pattern again, ensuring it’s perfect. It sounds so easy. But this dress is all about straight lines. The only way to keep them straight is to get above them. But I don’t seem able to do that anymore. Not for as long as I need to.

I wonder if people are starting to notice. They must be. That I need to rest so often. Are they aware that I am constantly marking and remarking the lines? Rubbing them out, starting again, shaving off fractions of measurements to correct my own mistakes. I no longer trust my own eyes.