RACHEL HAD THE CLOTHES FROM SUSIE’S HOUSE cleaned and hanging in the shop two days after picking them up, just in time for the weekend trade. She hoped they would mark a change in her fortunes. Richard had emailed that the Van der Heyden purchases would be with her on 11 November, so she noted that in her Filofax, at the same time marking when the first repayments for the new credit card would be due. There was no remaining leeway; if sales hadn’t picked up by the end of November, she would have to close the shop.
Next she started flicking through the last few Fridays. Alex always came home late after his weeks away, and she’d thought he was hurrying straight from the train, but instead it seemed he had been meeting Nicola. Was he with her in London today? What were they doing?
She tried to remember when she and Alex had last made love, and worked out it was three weeks ago. And then she thought of something else: she hadn’t had a period since then. Could she be pregnant? She cupped a hand over her belly. It would be so wonderful if it were true. She crossed her fingers and made a wish. Please, she asked. Please.
Alex came home around 9 p.m. that Friday and she handed him a beer, trying to keep her tone light as she asked: ‘Did you bump into Nicola today?’
He gave her a quizzical look. ‘London’s a big place. I’ve been stuck in the office.’
That wasn’t a ‘no’, Rachel noted. ‘Did you find out what she was doing there?’ she persisted.
‘No idea,’ he said, then changed the subject. ‘I’ve spent the day watching the footage we’ve got so far and the narrative is all over the place. There are loads of questions about the crash we haven’t been able to answer.’ He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Where is the white car and who was driving it? Why did Henri Paul have such abnormally high levels of carbon monoxide in his blood? Why was there a delay of two hours and ten minutes between the accident and Diana arriving at hospital? Why was her body embalmed and who gave permission for it?’
Rachel hadn’t heard about the carbon monoxide – or had she? She wondered if Alex had told her and she hadn’t been listening properly. She did know about the embalming: the conspiracy theorists reckoned it was done to prevent news of Diana’s pregnancy leaking out, but Rachel didn’t buy that. What difference did it make whether Diana was pregnant or not? No baby would have survived the crash. Besides, the friend she was with in Greece two weeks earlier had told the press she couldn’t possibly have been expecting because she’d had her period there.
Rachel had calculated that it was five weeks since she herself had last had a period. She wondered whether to tell Alex she was late. In the old days it would have been nice to share the excitement, but now she wasn’t sure how he would react. If he was a classic commitment-phobe, as Nicola suggested, it could make him panic even more. She would wait for a moment when he seemed receptive because she desperately wanted him to greet the news with enthusiasm rather than alarm.
‘We don’t even know what Diana and Dodi were doing in Paris,’ Alex continued, and she realised she hadn’t been listening to what he’d been saying. ‘There was no compelling reason for them to go there and they must have known the paparazzi would be out in force. Why didn’t they head straight back to London and the security of Kensington Palace?’
‘Paris is the city of romance!’ Rachel offered. ‘Dodi wanted to propose to her there, just as you did with me.’
‘I’m sure there was some other reason . . .’ Alex mused, with one eye on the television screen.
‘Do you ever dream about Diana?’ Rachel asked. ‘I keep having dreams in which I’m trying to pull her out of the wrecked car.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t remember my dreams, if I have any. Which I doubt. My head is too full of things I have to remember. I make to-do lists in my sleep.’
Rachel went to the kitchen to start dinner, thinking how sad it was that he didn’t remember his dreams. It seemed symbolic somehow.
The weekend passed without a major argument, just a tetchy moment when she questioned him about some friends who hadn’t RSVP’d to the wedding invitation.
‘Either call and ask or strike them from the list,’ he snapped.
Rachel tried to be conciliatory. ‘I know you’re busy, but I’m pretty fraught myself, and we can’t ask Mum to ring your friends for you. It’ll be a waste of money if we assume they’re coming and they don’t turn up.’
‘I still don’t understand why it’s costing twenty-five quid a head,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m sure I could have negotiated a better deal.’
‘Sorry, darling, would you rather change it to the Wimpy? We could probably get burger and chips for a pound.’
He took a deep breath and blew it out. ‘OK, I’ll call and find out what the stragglers are up to.’
There was no affection, no loving kindness, just a vast ocean of space between them. She noticed he still hadn’t asked anything about her life: how the shop was doing, when her stock from New York was arriving, how she was feeling about the wedding. Nothing.
They curled up on the sofa on Saturday evening and watched an Indiana Jones movie. It was not the film she would have chosen but it was unchallenging and she relished the physical closeness. She hoped it might lead to sex later, only to be disappointed when he fell asleep before the closing credits and could not be roused.
They had Sunday dinner with her family – a stodgy roast she could only pick at – then first thing on Monday morning Alex rushed for a train to London, giving her a perfunctory kiss and calling, ‘See you Friday,’ on his way out of the door.
She stared after him for several minutes. They were due to get married in eight weeks and he felt like a flatmate rather than a lover – and not a very considerate flatmate at that.
On her way to the shop on Monday morning, Rachel stopped at a chemist and bought a pregnancy test. As soon as she had switched off the alarm and hung up her coat, she went to the toilet and peed on the plastic stick, her heart beating hard. Oh please, she begged, crossing her fingers as she laid it on the sink. The instructions said to wait three minutes, but just at that moment she heard the bell ring as an early customer entered.
It was a man who wanted something for his wife’s birthday but didn’t know what. Rachel questioned him about her age, her tastes, her size and colouring, and recommended a 1930s silk slip trimmed with lace, which could be worn as a nightdress or even a party dress for the daring. She would be pleased to receive it herself, she assured him. Next he couldn’t decide between dove grey and buttermilk, and Rachel steered him towards the latter. He paid cash, obviously relieved to have found a speedy solution to the gift problem. She wrapped the slip in multiple sheets of fine tissue and decorated the parcel with silk ribbons so he could simply hand it over.
As soon as he left, she rushed back to check her test: there was no pink line in the window, not even a faint one. Did that mean she wasn’t pregnant, or that it had faded because she’d left it too long? There was another test in the kit but she decided to wait till she got home that evening, when she wouldn’t be interrupted.
Later that afternoon a regular customer, a woman in her forties, popped in and produced a carrier bag, which she laid on the counter.
‘I wondered if you might be interested in a Schiaparelli jacket? It was love at first sight when I bought it about ten years ago, but I have to face the fact that my size-eight years are over.’
It was bold pink silk, with blue circus horses dancing all over, and four buttons in the shape of acrobats bending backwards. Rachel recognised it straight away. ‘That’s from her 1938 “Circus” collection. I absolutely love it.’
Nipped at the waist, it had a peplum and bracelet sleeves. She looked at the label and could tell it was genuine. No one could have imitated that print or those extraordinary buttons.
She began to check inside and out for imperfections that would decrease the value. Just at that moment she felt a sharp cramp in her womb and a warmth between her legs. She shifted her weight slightly and another cramp came. Her eyes filled with tears and she screwed them shut and turned away, knowing instantly what it meant.
‘Are you all right?’ the customer asked.
‘Yes, fine.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m happy to display your jacket in the shop, at a price we agree, then I’ll give you fifty per cent of whatever it sells for.’
‘I was hoping you would buy it from me today, for cash,’ the woman said, not meeting her eye. She clearly needed the money.
Rachel was torn. The jacket was a historic piece, exactly the kind of item she loved to stock. ‘How much did you have in mind?’
‘I thought about five hundred pounds? I checked on the Internet and one sold in America for almost a thousand dollars last year.’
Rachel was sure she was right, but she simply couldn’t raise that kind of cash. It broke her heart to miss the chance, but paying bills had to be her priority. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you,’ she said.
As soon as the customer left, Rachel turned the sign on the door to Closed and rushed into the bathroom. No need for another pregnancy test. She sat on the toilet, leant her head in her hands and stayed still for a long time.