Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [20]
Lest I should think the tailoring business lacked poetry he dazzled me with a recitation of fabrics – bombazine, brocade, calico, dimity, duck, flannelette, fustian, muslin, sateen, velveteen. He was going to America to see Mr Macy and show him an extraordinary dress which would, God willing, go on display in the windows of that famous store and eventually make him his fortune. ‘I will be,’ he declared, ‘no longer a bespoke tailor but a couturier.’
‘Mr Macy,’ I told him, ‘is on board. Or rather the present owner of the store. His name is Isador Straus.’
‘Here? On this ship?’ He fairly gawped at me.
‘He’s an elderly gentleman with a beard, travelling with his wife.’
‘You think I should speak to him?’
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘If you choose your moment. He’s a good man, a philanthropist. Like you, he started with nothing.’
And then, because I was curious, though indeed he had accused me only the night before of not being old enough, I mentioned the tall woman in the South Western Hotel. ‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but I couldn’t help noticing the way you looked at her.’
‘Ah,’ he breathed, and crumbled the toast on his plate. For once, he was at a loss for words.
‘It was my impression,’ I prompted, ‘that you were sweet on her.’
‘I had never set eyes on her before in my life,’ he said, and launched into an explanation concerning the contents of the oblong box I had seen him so zealously guarding, namely a garment which, on account of it being designed for a window display, had been cut larger than life and doomed merely to drape the celluloid contours of a shop dummy. That is, until the woman in the hotel got up to leave.
‘She rose like a tree,’ he cried. ‘An English oak. It could have been made for her.’
I said, ‘I thought it was desire you felt.’
‘And so it was,’ he insisted. ‘The desire to see my dress on a creature of flesh and blood.’
I brought up Scurra’s name. In Rosenfelder’s opinion he was an educated man with a near spiritual grasp of human nature. ‘Do you know what he told me? Listen – one day the world will recognise the tailor as the hierophant and hierarch, even its God. I look in the dictionary, you understand, to make him out.’
‘One would need to,’ I said. ‘I take it you know him well?’
‘Not at all. I observed him talking to the tall goddess and I think to myself, here is a man to confide in.’
‘And did you?’
‘But, of course. He advises me not to approach her until after we have left Queenstown. She was to have met a gentleman friend at Southampton. He did not show up. He is her protector, if you follow me. Nor did he appear at Cherbourg, at which she becomes so distraught she threatens to throw herself overboard. Scurra has persuaded her to wait until we reach Queenstown. Her friend may yet turn up. She has left London with her ticket, the clothes she stands up in, a small suitcase and two pounds in her purse.’
‘How very unfortunate,’ I said.
‘For her, yes. For me, who knows what will be the advantage?’
‘Has Scurra known her long?’
‘That’s for him to say.’
I would quite happily have passed the morning with him if he hadn’t had an appointment with the barber; there was a miracle lotion advertised, guaranteed to straighten ringlets.
I spent two hours in the library, wrestling to compose another letter to my uncle. I had first tried the writing room – it had a stock of paper embossed with the White Star crest – but found it full of women, including Molly Dodge. She said I’d been a disappointment to her last night, sloping off like that. I didn’t have to lie to Molly so I confided I’d felt blue.
‘You missed the fun,’ she said.
‘I’m tired of fun.’
‘If I didn’t know you better,’ she replied, ‘I’d think