Page 32 of The Rebel of Seventh Avenue

She took a breath in obvious objection but I put up my hand. ‘No, I insist. I’m not having my sister freezing to death out there. And it’s on me. I’ve made you come out to this cold place, so I’ll buy your new clothes.’

Three hours later we stepped into the heart of Maison McIntyre. When I’d bought the building on West 38th Street in 1924, I’d had it fitted out to mirror some of the smartest couture houses in Paris. Unlike my original salon, where I’d filled it with a riot of colour, here the walls and curtains were a discreet cream with a more subtle use of colour in the other soft furnishings.

, in her new knitted, calf-length dress, matching coat and dark cloche hat, was silent, her mouth slightly open as we walked through the grand columned entrance and then into the high-ceilinged salon, the showy front to the business, the place where customers came to indulge their desires with the clothes that they wished to be dressed in.

‘I thought I could get the mannequins to show you our latest designs,’ I said, heaving myself onto one of the sofas, trying not to think of the bottle of bourbon in my desk drawer.

‘I dinnae wanna see your fancy models. Cannae you take me into the workrooms? I want to see how those dresses are made,’ grumbled. ‘An’ I’m gasping for a cuppa tea.’

‘I’ll show you the workrooms, but you’ll have to wait for your tea. No food or drink goes anywhere near the fabrics. House rule,’ I said more firmly than I felt.

She grunted but said nothing.

‘Why don’t I get Oti to show you around. I need to go and check in at my office.’

The baby was kicking me as we walked up one flight of stairs to where the work was done: vast workrooms for hand sewing, machine sewing, cutting and finishing, as well as the small canteen and kitchen, rooms for the staff and mannequins to retire to and have a cigarette, a stockroom and a packing room, and, of course, my own design studio and office. Our first stop was the main workroom with its rows and rows of tables, up to seventy women, sewing at a table, or fitting one of the many tailor’s dummies. There was a low hum of concentration.

stood stock-still as she surveyed the room, then looked up at the ceiling, at the zigzag of the glass roof, letting in as much natural light as possible. ‘Is all this yours?’ she asked, awe in her voice.

‘Yes.’ I watched as realisation dawned on her face.

‘All of it?’

I smiled. ‘There’s more. Come on, I think Oti is in the other workroom.’ I tugged at her sleeve, walking her to the other end of the room and through a door into an almost identical room – more tables and chairs, more busy working women, more sewing machines, more tailor’s dummies. But stopped at a table to look at a dress that was being made, picking up the fabric.

‘Please don’t do that,’ I asked. ‘You need to wash your hands before you handle the fabric, and you might need some gloves too.’

’s face turned a bright red. ‘Ma hands are clean,’ she said loudly, showing me her splayed-out hands, stubby fingers, calloused and dry. ‘You saying ma hands are too ruined to work here?’ she huffed.

‘No,’ I said patiently, as if talking to a child. ‘I’m not saying that. If you look around you’ll see that some of us here also wear gloves. Sometimes we wear gloves when we’re handling a particularly delicate fabric, or someone might have cut their finger at home the night before. We need to make sure that the fabrics don’t get damaged or marked. After all, we’re working with expensive fabrics every day. We can’t afford to waste any of it.’

There was fury and humiliation on her face, but I wasn’t backing down. This was my business and she’d have to conform and do as I asked.

But before either of us could decide how to continue this conversation Oti called to us from the other side of the room.

‘Maisie. Thank goodness you’re here. We need to discuss… Oh, I’m sorry, this must be your sister.’

She leaned forward and put out her hand. ‘I’m Oti. I’m your sister’s Premier. It’s so good to meet you, we’ve heard a lot about you.’

didn’t move, simply stared at Oti. ‘But… but, you’re bl—’ She didn’t finish her sentence as Oti continued it for her.

‘Yes, I’m black. But you’ll see that it doesn’t hinder anything that I do.’ Here she winked at me. ‘And, actually, I think you’ll find that I’m better than your sister at embroidery, way better than her.’ Oti had been my main Premier for nearly seventeen years, and she was used to this reaction, but she was never quite as playful as this with our customers.

blinked, her cheeks flushing. ‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ she stuttered, looking down at her feet. ‘I didnae…’

Oti gently slipped her arm through my sister’s and began to walk her towards the finishing room. ‘Don’t you go getting all het up about that. Now, I’ve heard that you might be in need of a cup of tea and some of the best cake in the Garment District. Let me take you to the canteen.’ She turned back to me. ‘I’ll come find you in a bit,’ she called, giving me her most complicit smile as she led a stunned away.

‘I’ve left her in the finishing room, listening to some of the girls telling her wild stories about life in the city, about the parties, the secret drinking dens, the Macy’s parade, the subways and tunnels and bridges. I don’t think she’ll be needing you for a while,’ Oti said as she walked into my studio ten minutes later.

I groaned. ‘She’s already driving me mad. The women in Macy’s couldn’t make head nor tail of her as she refused to be dressed by the personal shopper, shrieking at her to get out of the fitting room.’ The baby again kicked me in the ribs, and I had to take a sharp breath. ‘I’m not sure if this is going to work out. She’s too…’

‘Forceful, opinionated, knows her own mind?’ Oti interrupted with a large grin on her face. ‘I know someone just like that, but it’s what you need when you have a baby, someone to tell you what to do when you’re so tired you can’t even stand, someone to tell you what to wear when you’ve forgotten to get out of your nightclothes for three days.’

‘Oh no, I’ll not be having that.’

Oti laughed. ‘You’ll not have any say in the matter. Audrey’s girl, Laura. She was a screamer. None of us slept for months. It was restful just coming to work. Poor old Joseph, couldn’t ever get away.’

I looked down at my hands, smooth and clean, long red-painted fingernails and one ring of plain twisted gold on my left little finger. Poor old Joseph. Mention of him still hit me in the throat, despite Tori, despite my own child being on the way. We saw little of each other, our relationship strictly professional, no allowance for everyday chatter, no room for once held feelings. If there was no place for Joseph and what could have been, where was I going to find the space for a child?

‘So, I’m thinking your sister wants to work here,’ Oti declared.

My heart sank. ‘No, she’s here to look after the baby.’

Oti raised her eyebrows. ‘You sure about that?’

‘No… Yes,’ I insisted, ‘she’s here to look after the baby.’ My voice rose. ‘She can’t work here. That’s what I’ll be doing.’

With difficulty I got up off the sofa, and slowly made my way out of the studio and into the finishing room. , sitting with a group of girls being shown how to embroider a piece of leftover baby-blue satin using dark-blue beads and seed pearls. , talking as she worked, taking instruction from Yulia, so completely at ease, so different from the at breakfast that morning and in the fitting rooms at Macy’s. , whose face was soft, her eyes twinkling as she spoke, her companions hooked by her breezy chat, her funny stories. A tiny stab of jealousy hit me at her ability to make friends.

I leaned on the doorpost, taking a deep breath, feeling too tired to think about our prickly relationship, wondering why was so harsh with me when she had made no effort to contact me over the years.

‘. It’s time to go. I have booked a table at The Plaza for lunch.’

The shiny smile on her face dropped and the darkened eyes re-appeared. ‘Do we have tae?’ she asked, disappointment in her voice.

‘Aye, there’s work to be finished here and we need to leave everyone here to get on.’ I gave her my best smile.

She quietly put down her sewing, took off the white gloves she’d been given and placed them neatly on the table in front of her. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said before coming over to me.

‘Shall we?’ she asked, through gritted teeth.

As soon as we stepped onto the street, she rounded on me. ‘Why did you have to do that?’ she growled. ‘I was enjoying myself.’

‘, they have work to do. I have customers who are expecting the best dresses, finished with the best embroidery. That wasn’t some ladies’ sewing circle; those were precious fabrics and some of those dresses take hundreds of hours to finish. We have women who are waiting on those gowns, who have important events to attend – parties and fundraisers and dinners with the president. They can’t afford to be distracted by your tittle-tattle. Mistakes tend to be expensive.’

‘Ach, just listen to yourself. All puffed up and important.’ She glared at me, breathing hard, much like a charging bull. ‘Did it occur to you that I might like to sew in your studio? I’m sure I could be as good as any of those girls.’

‘But you were never interested in doing the sewing or the embroidery for Maw. You did the housework; I did the sewing.’ She’d always rolled her eyes at Maw and me, when we got excited about a new idea we’d had or a different fabric we’d seen. She’d always retreated to the cooker or turned her attention to washing the clothes.

‘That’s because no one else wid do it!’ she shouted in exasperation. She turned away, as if she needed to gather her patience. Eventually, she continued, her voice quieter. ‘You were too distracted by the cut of a dress or by making a simple shirt more intricate. You were never happy with the ordinary, always trying tae be different. So, whilst you were trying tae be noticed, I got on with keeping us warm, dry and well fed. I did it because I had tae, not because I wanted tae.’

Of course, spoke the truth – I still didn’t worry about my own need for food or warmth, all I ever cared about was colour and design. I broke her stare, looking away, down the street, my eye caught by a woman wearing a simple, slimline, three-quarter-length coat, the sleeves with triangular ‘fin-like’ inserts at the wrists. How was I ever going to be able to bring up a child?

‘Let’s go and have some lunch. I want to take you to The Plaza Hotel, the place where all of this started.’ I put my best smile on, ready to start again, trying to push away my feelings of guilt.

‘What is The Plaza?’ asked.

I blinked, trying not to laugh at her ignorance. ‘It’s one of the biggest, smartest, most expensive hotels in Manhattan and I’m going to take my sister there for lunch,’ I announced proudly, taking her arm and turning her towards Seventh Avenue. But she wouldn’t move.

‘No,’ she said, her jaw set square, her mouth tight. ‘I dinnae care for smart hotels, silver service and ladies in fur coats,’ she continued with disdain. ‘I want tae see the places you worked in when you first came here. I want tae see where you lived, where your friends lived, I want tae see the New York where the real people live.’

More tea and more cake. I was never one for cake, but at eight months pregnant I was happy to eat anything that came my way. Besides, it was a good distraction from looking at the irritated face in front of me.

We were in a loud tearoom, sighing and gulping down her tea. ‘And what about our Aileen? You havenae said about her.’

For a moment I had no idea who was talking about, but then I realised. Slovenly Aileen. I sighed.

‘Once she found out that I ran my own business as a dressmaker, she came to ask for a job. She arrived at the studio in a filthy dress, her fingernails were black, her hair was unwashed, and she smelled. She couldn’t even sew. I wasn’t going to let her anywhere near those beautiful fabrics. I sent her away, told her I wasn’t having her and her slovenly ways in my studio. I haven’t seen her since.’

stared, the frown on her face deepening. ‘But she’s family. You have tae look after your family.’

Before she could start on at me, I interrupted her. ‘That’s why I want you to stay, why I need you to stay. I need my family, I need you, . I need you to stay and help me look after this baby. I don’t know what to do. I know how to sew, how to make a dress, how to make someone look good, but I don’t have a single idea about babies.’

‘You know that I loved all my wee bairns, and I’ve loved Carla’s too, God knows they were a tricky lot. I know that when I see yours I won’t be able to resist helping out, but I’m not sure that I want tae be your nanny. It’ll not be a good idea. Couldn’t you get someone else, and I could come and work in your studio?’

‘But you are so good with babies.’ A horrible prickling feeling came over me, a sudden knowledge that I’d made a terrible omission. Instinctively I stroked my own bump.

‘,’ I whispered, shame flooding through me, ‘when I left you were pregnant. You’ve never told me what you had. Was it a boy or a girl? Does it have a name?’

The colour drained from her face and that hardness left her eyes to be replaced with a terrible desolation. I leaned towards her, touching her wrist. ‘What happened?’ My mouth had become dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.

‘He died three weeks after he was born, that poor wee bairn.’ She swallowed loudly, her eyes bright as she pulled a handkerchief from the inside of her sleeve, wiping her nose. ‘We named him Donald. He was a wee sickly thing, didnae want tae feed much. So quiet, never quite right. Oh, but he had his father’s eyes.’ Here she gave me a helpless, twisted smile, her crow’s feet wrinkling as she tried to hold back the tears. ‘He’d have been a bonnie wee boy.’ She turned her gaze towards the large window of the tea shop, looking to the other side of the road, staring, as if the grown-up Donald was there watching her.

‘Just when I’d got used tae having him around.’ Her voice broke. ‘Just when I’d learned tae love him.’ She looked back at me. ‘You’ll find, when you’ve had your own, that even when you’re so tired and want nothing else but tae go to sleep, the thing that makes you feel better is a good long cuddle, when they wriggle on your chest, when they sigh with contentment, when they smell all clean and milky and innocent.’ She wiped her eyes, mouth turned down, her shoulders drooping. But then, suddenly, she sat up, took a deep intake of breath and looked at me, the hardness back in her eyes. ‘After that I wouldnae let Duncan anywhere near me. No more babies, no more tears.’

In response, my own baby seemed to stretch, kicking me with impatience in the ribs, whilst its head clashed with my bladder, causing me to wince and shift in my seat, rubbing at my ribs.

‘Nine months of anticipation only tae be given three weeks of joy. Not a great payoff in my books.’

I rubbed my stomach, trying to subdue the kicking, unable to meet my sister’s eye. ‘I can’t imagine how that would feel.’

She sighed. ‘I hope you never know.’ She looked down at her hands, picking at her bitten fingernails. But all of a sudden, she looked up. ‘You never told me about the baby’s father. What happened?’

‘He died,’ I said. It was much easier to give this simple statement than run off with some spiel about who and why and when. ‘I had an affair and he was killed by the Mafia.’ The more blunt the statement, the less likely people were to ask details.

gaped. ‘Do others know about the father?’

I snorted. ‘The whole country knows who I had an affair with and most have been able to put two and two together and work out who the father is. I haven’t kept it a secret.’

gaped again. ‘I didnae know,’ she whispered, fiddling with the knife on her plate. ‘What about your customers? Surely those high-class ladies weren’t too pleased to be associated with a woman of “low morals”?’ Here she put on her best Morningside accent and looked down her nose at me, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

I laughed, thankful for the heavy atmosphere to have been broken. ‘We have lost a few customers, but, surprisingly, most, especially the ones who were hit hardest by this Depression, have been very supportive. They haven’t forgotten that I was the supplier of a shoulder to cry on and hot coffee and cake when they were amongst the disgraced and fallen.’

Suddenly blurted out, ‘I’m sorry I never contacted you.’ She kept her eyes firmly down, the colour rising in her face. ‘I was so ashamed.’

Her unexpected words sideswiped me.

‘There were you living your dream, doing what you’d always said you’d do and there was me, stuck. I’d failed, whereas you were winning. We stayed living in the same tenement, always short of money, Duncan finding it more and more difficult to work ’cos of his lungs, the girls increasingly wild. I had to go back to the laundry at the North British to makes ends meet.’ She looked up. ‘Maisie, I was too embarrassed. What could I say to my baby sister who has a chauffeur and owns her own home?’

I picked at the crumbs on my tea plate. ‘I sent money home to help but you never replied so I wasn’t sure if you still lived at Richmond Place. I didn’t want to keep sending my money to another family by mistake, so I stopped…’ My voice petered out as we both sat in an embarrassed silence.

Eventually, I took a deep breath, sat up straight and said, ‘What you need is a Bassino family meal.’ Gingerly, I got up from my chair and picked up a paper bag filled with a large cake from the nearby delicatessen, a cut of ham and some focaccia bread. ‘Everything always used to seem better after I’d eaten with them.’ But, of course, this was no longer the case.

I still had an unsettled relationship with the Bassinos. My guilt and Matteo’s accusations had never left me. Annina had often pleaded to work for me, but I wouldn’t go against Matteo’s wishes. He insisted I was bad luck and he wouldn’t let his girl near my studio. Nothing I could do would persuade him. And once the business had moved from MacDougal Street to the Garment District and I’d moved further uptown, I’d found it easier to not see them, my visits becoming more and more infrequent, my presence becoming less and less appreciated.

But after telling about the fire, about Rosa and her family, she’d insisted that we go. ‘You shouldn’t forget all about them.’

I told her of the shawls that Rosa used to make, of the food she cooked, her enveloping hug, the way she’d teased me about being so skinny, about how she was going to work with me in the studio at MacDougal Street, how she had been my friend, a sister, a mother, all of those things I’d left behind in Edinburgh. And as I talked, as I told her of all the things that Rosa had done for me, said, ‘She was your family. You look after your family.’

The door was opened by Annina, now a young woman in her mid-twenties, tall and too skinny, with muddy blonde, exceptionally straight hair, deep-set grey-green eyes and a snub nose. She had a haughty look, eyeing us with a contempt that filled me, again, with shame.

‘Come in.’ It wasn’t the overwhelming greeting that I’d received when Rosa was alive, it was more measured, as if she was wary of two strangers on her doorstep.

We walked into the same tenement apartment that they’d been living in since I’d known them, but it was shabbier, slightly grubbier, paint peeling, a smell of muskiness, of disillusionment. But this time there was a hint of that life before the loss of Rosa, that constant family discussion: raised voices, wild gesticulations, fast speaking always tempered by smiles and laughter, good food and hugs and kisses and the general sensation of goodwill. Now that Roberto was married, his wife, Francesca, had brought back some of that warmth and there was a smell of good food, that smell that had been missing from this family for so long.

I sat on an upturned crate, on a wobbly stool, both of us leaning on the same old kitchen table, now worn and pitted. We were introduced to Francesca, round and dark haired, so like Rosa that I almost caught my breath. She had that homely aura that made you want to touch her, made you feel that you were amongst family and would be well looked after. As she began to cook, the smells and the bangs and crashes she made around the kitchen as she worked brought Rosa right to me. The feeling that she was in the room so strong, as if she was standing just behind me, telling me that I couldn’t possibly be warm enough, that I wasn’t wearing enough clothes and questioning why I hadn’t got my feet up because I needed to give that baby a rest. At that moment my need to see, to feel, to smell Rosa was unbearable, becoming a physical pain in my back and brought tears to my eyes. I stood up, the crate being too uncomfortable to sit on.

‘Annina, tell me what you are doing now. Where are you working?’ I shifted my weight from foot to foot, rubbing the small of my back, trying to ease that persistent ache.

‘I’ve moved to a new factory. Same work, different place.’ She said this with an indifference that I’d become used to when I worked in the factory, that resigned acceptance, that tone that said you knew it was awful but what else was there to do.

I glanced at Matteo, sitting in the corner on their battered and tattered sofa, hunched and silent.

‘It’s not far from your studio. I often walk past it on my way to work. Do all the women who work for you get a uniform? They look very smart.’ Annina spoke with a raw New York accent with no hint of the Italian she’d grown up with.

‘Yes,’ I said, trying to ignore her underlying bitterness, ‘anyone who works at Maison McIntyre gets given a uniform that fits the position they’re working in, a uniform that’s comfortable but smart. If they’re producing some of the best outfits in New York they need to feel good about what they’re wearing.’

Annina looked at me blankly. ‘Why would you care what they think? Aren’t they just there to get the work done? Don’t you just want them to sew and get the garments out the door?’