Page 42 of The Rebel of Seventh Avenue

1958

I wish I could wear the trouser suit that I wore to Tori’s funeral. I feel it’s as relevant now as it was then. But even I know that it wouldn’t be fair on and that I should wear something that won’t call attention to me, that will let me be stylish but discreet; I have learned my lesson.

My black suit is hanging on the wardrobe at the other side of the room. My silk slip, underwear and stockings have been laid out on the sofa beside it. But that part of the room seems a long way off just now and, as I stand, I look around for my stick. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer days when I can make it across the room without it, a beautiful bone-handled ebony stick that will match the mood of the day. Stick in hand I shuffle to the other side of the room, my legs feeling heavy and sluggish, and I eventually make it to the sofa where I let myself fall onto the cushion, taking a few deep breaths to recover. Getting dressed has become a daily chore. Gone are the days when I could just throw on a dress, slide into a pair of heels and run out of the door, at my desk by six a.m., happily designing and ready to face the day, as long as I had a black coffee to accompany me.

I’m craving that black coffee.

Today is ’s funeral and the weight of our misaligned relationship sits heavily on me. His decline began eighteen months ago, and finally, inevitably, when he slipped away last week, it felt as if part of a weathered cliff had fallen away, a shocking gash in the landscape left behind. Despite a fifteen-year correspondence, ignited by that first letter received after saying goodbye to my father, we never fully made our peace, both of us too proud to face our inabilities, too ashamed of our inadequacies. Now I must close the door on Jackson, knowing I can no longer mend the tears in our differing fabrics.

‘Good morning, Miss McIntyre,’ I’m greeted by the always cheerful Mandy.

‘Do you stand at the other side of the door and wait for the noise of my movement, so that you can make sure you come into the room just at the time I need you?’ I ask, trying to keep any trace of annoyance out of my voice. Despite the intrusion that I often find so frustrating, because I don’t like talking to anyone first thing in the morning, and because I quite like my own company and don’t find the need to constantly have people around me, I have become fond of this woman who has the uncanny ability to appear exactly when required and disappear just when I feel the need to be alone. It’s as if she can read my thoughts. She’s unlike so many of those other helpers, who would talk at me as if I was deaf or stupid, often shouting, often talking in the third person. Their soft, sensible shoes irrationally infuriate me, simply because they remind me of their patronising way of speaking. I’m old, not stupid. Just because I can’t walk as well as I’d like to, doesn’t mean I’ve lost the ability to think or reason; I’m still able to have an opinion and decide what’s best for me.

But it’s that grumpy old woman talk that I’ve had to learn to keep in my head, the crinkling of my brow that I must smooth out and simply take a breath instead, count to ten. I’ve realised that life without Mandy would be dull and uninteresting. She’s become my legs on the days when they don’t want to work properly, and those days are becoming more frequent.

She ignores my question probably because she understands I don’t want to know the answer. ‘Here’s your coffee.’ She hands me the cup and sits beside me on the sofa. She knows she won’t get me to do anything until I’ve drunk at least half of it.

‘Looks like it’s gonna be a beautiful day. I always think a funeral goes off much better when the weather’s good. Seems like God has decided that he wants that person to have a good send-off, wants everyone who’s made the effort to come along to have as smooth a day as possible and won’t have to worry about getting wet.’

I take a long sip of my coffee, thankful that she’s learned how to make a decent cup. ‘Maybe I should order a good thunderstorm for my funeral. Seems like I’ve managed to upset a lot of people on the way, might as well make one last hurdle for them, remind them that I was a cantankerous old woman to the last.’

She snorts. ‘I’d like to see that.’ And she bursts out laughing, her laugh so infectious that my whole body starts shaking.

‘Oh, now, honey, don’t you go ruining those beautiful silk pyjamas.’ She leans over and takes the cup off me as I throw my head back and roar with laughter, tears filling my eyes.

‘There’d be some soggy skirts, bedraggled hats and ruined silk. What a revenge that would be!’ And just as quickly as the laughter arrived, it disappears, and I realise that I’m being an old fool.

‘Don’t suppose Oti would appreciate it that much,’ I say soberly. ‘The older she gets, the fussier she’s become about her appearance. I wouldn’t like to be Audrey today; she and her sister never did get on that well.’

Mandy says nothing.

‘D’you manage to get much sleep last night?’ she eventually asks.

I sigh. ‘Not much. My legs were throbbing like they had a pneumatic drill on them half the night. I know the best thing is to rest them up, but when they’re behaving like that I just want to get up and go for a long walk, which is no good, because I can’t. So, instead, I sat up and did a whole load of sketches. I’ll send them on to Jessica when I’m happy with them. She’ll probably throw them in the waste, but at least I’ll feel as if I’ve done something useful.’

‘Well, don’t forget you’ve got an appointment with the doctor in a couple of days, maybe he can give you something for the sleeping.’

Now that I’ve drunk most of my coffee, I’m feeling a little less cranky, and I let Mandy help me get dressed. The black suit is from a few years ago, the one I always wear to funerals, made from black worsted wool. The jacket has a Peter Pan collar and is nipped in at the waistline. It’s single-breasted but becomes double-breasted just below the waist. Oti wants us all to wear something that honours , so I’ve changed the buttons on the jacket, specially made ceramic buttons that show off the buildings that loved the best: the Dakota, Empire State, Chrysler and nine others. They’re highly stylised, painted white with slim black brushstrokes showing the outline of each structure. You’d have to lean in to really notice what’s on each button, each one the shape of the relevant building, not too big to be brash, but big enough to be obvious. Eight buttons on the front of the jacket, two on each cuff. And, as a nod to ’s brilliance with embroidery, I’ve added a ‘J’ on the front of each cuff, in black and gold metallic thread with jet beading.

As I struggle with the buttons on my jacket and look at myself in the mirror, I feel an unexpected sorrow, a nostalgia for those days in my first studio, for the daffodils brought me, for those walks around Manhattan, as he used to show me the architecture of New York, for the time when he took my cold hands in his and blew on them, for the optimism and certainty. Those were the days when I was fearless, ruthless, ambitious and without much care for anyone else. Part of me wishes I could still be like that, the other part of me knows that cannot be. I learned through Oti and and all the women I worked with that we need to help each other and we are all better off for it.

Using my stick, I walk slowly from my bedroom through to the kitchen. Mandy has made me another cup of coffee and I sit at the table. The latest Vogue magazine is waiting for me, but I don’t have the heart for it today. Mandy sits opposite me.

She’s spent the last year looking after me, working six days a week, living in and only going home to her family on Mondays. I always tell her she needs to spend more time with her children, she always tells me, with a glint in her eye, that I’m just like the pot calling the kettle black and that she’s quite happy here, bossing me about. Mandy has come to understand my every mood; she keeps people away when I haven’t the energy and has come to realise that I don’t like to be fussed over, that I want to keep up the pretence of independence. Her care has made it possible for me to continue my work. If it weren’t for her I would have retreated into my shell, I would have become a hermit, never leaving my apartment, never seeing anyone. Mandy, much like Oti, is not only able to counteract my mood, but has discovered what gets me up in the morning – a decent cup of coffee and the best Italian food in Manhattan.

This morning, Mandy has brought me cannoli, the very best cannoli from the Italian delicatessen a few blocks away. She knows I have a weakness for these. Usually, she brings them when she needs me to do something for her. Today I suspect they’re to give me strength for the day ahead. Normally my breakfast is three cups of black coffee and that’s it, but my love for these pastries is illogical; I don’t like cream or cheese, and I rarely eat sweet things. I take a bite, savouring the crisp crunch of the deep-fried dough perfectly complementing the slight lemon flavour of the whipped ricotta.

I feel tears prick at the back of my eyes. I used to hide this when it happened, but I know that Mandy will not comment, that she’ll understand what’s going on in my head.

This food, this food… made with such love, that has so much resonance with me, brings Rosa right to me, even though it’s forty-seven years since she left us. When I feel her, I stop and close my eyes, picturing her gently chiding me for not putting enough weight on, for working too hard. And she reminds me that there is love to be found in everything that surrounds us.

‘I hope you bought enough so that you could have one or two,’ I say, as I manage to gather myself without my voice breaking.

‘Oh, don’t you worry, I’ve already had plenty.’

There’s a knock at the door and then we hear it open.

‘Mum,’ calls out Jessica. ‘You up?’

Mandy and I look at each other and both roll our eyes at the same time.

‘Oh, here you are,’ Jessica says breathlessly. ‘Look at you, up bright and early.’

I resent her positive and too-breezy tone, her ‘Mum’s the patient and I should treat her as such’ voice, but I know it’s just a defence against a sadness that continually follows her.

‘All dressed and ready for action right on time.’ I make myself mirror her merry attitude, wishing I could take away that melancholy.

Mandy looks at me, narrowing her eyes in a warning manner, before she stands up and says, ‘Good morning, Miss Jessica. Would you like one of your mother’s favourite cannoli?’ And without waiting for a reply, she finds another plate and places it on the table, next to the box of pastries.

Jessica, as predicted, says, ‘Oooh, I’d better not. Got to watch what I eat.’

I barely recognise the Jessica that has grown up in this fast and unforgiving city, so different from the girl I brought back from Scotland. That Jessica lived her life with an open heart, with an abandon that used to take my breath away: that girl that revelled in the outdoors, the mud and the grass, the birds and the horses, wanting nothing more than to feel the wind on her cheeks.

Now she moves through life with a carefully constructed precision, her make-up perfect but severe, living her life mechanically, according to the rules of the increasingly impossible standards of the industry she works in. The fashion world both praises her and punishes her, every success taking away a bit of that little girl who showed me where to find beauty in the murk and cloud, removing that Tori Smyth smile that used to halt me in my tracks every time she used it.

I worry that she’s trying too hard to prove herself, to live up to her mother’s reputation. But I never wanted her to take on my legacy. She has my eye for beauty but not my resilience. There are days when she lets her armour drop and I catch glimpses of her exhaustion and my heart aches for what should have been, for the life she should have lived. But I have to find the positives and she’s recently married an architect, of all things, who has begun to bring out the old Jessica, lets me catch flashes of that free spirit.

Before I can ruminate any further there’s another knock at the door and Netta, Eric, Maura and Annina all appear together.

If Rosa Bassino had reached her fifties, she’d have looked just as Annina does now – soft, motherly, with those kind crinkles around her eyes. She’s so changed from the girl who came to Hollywood with me, all brash and ambitious. Motherly she may look, but the worst of Harold Finerman made sure she’d never have children. Instead, the couture business has become her much-loved child, every woman who works there her ward, every dress that leaves the building sent off with the kind of fanfare a mother would give her graduate leaving home. She has made Maison McIntyre into a business full of love and colour.

Netta and Eric, now married for twenty years, have grown rounder and happier in the company of each other. Where Netta once appeared drawn and hassled, at seventy-one she now blooms. It’s rare that a smile leaves her face, she’s still so surprised that the second half of her life has turned out as it has – a grandmother seven times over with a husband who can rarely take his eyes off her, living the life of a wealthy woman.

I’d finally told Netta about our father and about the money, just before I left Scotland. I was so worried about what she would say, what she would do, we’d become close during our time in Hollywood and those days of the war. She gave me that Netta look of twitchy annoyance, didn’t speak for what felt like hours as I held my breath, almost running out of air as I waited for her response. And then she threw back her head and laughed. She laughed so hard she told me she had a stitch. My confusion was absolute. I couldn’t understand her reaction until she said, ‘Your face.’ She wiped her eyes, her other hand on her chest, heaving with mirth. ‘That’s the best present you could ever have given me. Maisie McIntyre fearful of her sister.’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘Oh dear. I can’t wait tae tell Eric.’

‘Aren’t you angry?’

‘No.’ She giggled. ‘How can I be angry? That was so long ago. Maybe if you’d told me after you left. Maybe I should be angry at you. But there’s no point now.’ She came over to me and gave me a big hug. Now I was beyond astonished. Netta, just like our maw, never hugged us. ‘Duncan was a good man and we did all right for ourselves. Perhaps we could have done with a little more coal on the fire, but we didn’t do too badly. Now we live a good life, Maisie McIntyre, and, in a roundabout way, that one hundred and fifty pounds did it for us. If we hadn’t lived that harsh life we wouldnae appreciate what we have now.’

Now I watch my sister, talking quietly to her husband, and I marvel at the changes in both of us.

Maura, now running the ready-to-wear business, bright and in her late fifties has made the journey with Eric and Netta so that she can support Oti. She and Oti became fast friends when Oti travelled to Hawick after the end of the war, during my first episode, when nobody knew what was wrong with me.

The four of them pile into the kitchen, say their ‘hellos’ and kiss everyone in turn, including Mandy. As coffee is poured, we hear Aidan arrive.

Aidan is beside himself at the loss of . They didn’t know each other that well, but he feels the effect it has had on the rest of us.

‘What a terrible day this is,’ he says as he kisses everyone in turn. As always, he is wearing the latest fashionable suit, black, single-breasted with a pale-blue silk handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket, a matching black waistcoat and turn-ups on the trousers. The white shirt and black tie have the perfect sober sheen. The buttons on his suit cuffs have been replaced with covered buttons embroidered with metallic bees, a reference to Schiaparelli’s famous bee dress that worked on. As Aidan leans in to kiss me on the cheek I cannot help but touch the lapel of his jacket, made of the very best wool, I’m comforted by the expensive aftershave.

‘Thank you for coming,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I could manage this without you.’

He squeezes my shoulder and sits beside me. ‘We’re just missing Oti,’ he whispers as he looks around the table at our tightknit group. ‘She’d be making sure we’ve all got our tokens of respect for , ensuring they are dignified but -like.’ He leans in and inspects the buttons on my jacket, giving me an Oti-like look of approval and then winking at me.

The doorbell rings and Mandy goes to find out who it is. On returning she says, ‘The cars are here, we best get going.’

Amidst the usual scuffle of coats, hats and handbags, I haul myself up off the kitchen chair, check my hair in the mirror as Mandy hands me my hat, large and wide-brimmed to ensure as much of my face is hidden as possible.

‘Handkerchief?’ she asks.

I pat my pocket, take her arm, and we slowly make our way to the elevator.

Oti Jackson has always been a woman who holds herself upright, can keep her emotions in check and who can cause those around her to be caught up in the subject she is speaking about.

She’s standing in the pulpit overlooking a full house at the Abyssinian Church in Harlem. She speaks of ’s life, of the architectural apprenticeship that was cut short, of his service during the Great War, of his injuries and then how he discovered embroidery, how he used it to recover, how he became one of the best embroiderers in the industry, how he set up his own company and employed other injured ex-servicemen, how it helped with their physical recovery, and overcame problems with concentration, how their self-esteem was given a boost when they could again earn a decent wage. My mind wanders back to those afternoon walks, that smile, those flowers on that first day in my studio. I’ve been reflecting on that time so much recently, those first few years in the MacDougal Street studio, that beautiful room, the excitement of a new venture, and Oti, Simone, Rebecca, and Flavia. Life was very black and white in those days, decisions seemed easy to make – you either did or you didn’t. But that decision to never fight for his love, to let him push me away because of his fears, because of what might have happened was, I realise now, the greatest mistake I have made. Occasionally I think of what we could have done together, find myself thinking of the children we would have had. But it serves no purpose. He found his calling, he was able to channel his creativity through his disability; that probably would never have happened if we’d stayed together. Oti was the one who gave him that gift. I would have been too impatient, too needy, requiring instant results and quick decisions.

But my age and my illness have begun to teach me about patience, about resilience and about the needs of other people.

Funerals are, by their very nature, events that cause you to reflect. I’ve never been one to look back, to regret, but as I get older it seems so much easier to do. I want to remember the triumphs, the dresses that made a difference, the women who I worked with who stayed with me for all their working lives, my friendships with Rosa, with Oti, Aidan, Annina and Maura, and now with Mandy. But occasionally the regret slips in, the death of Rosa, Annina’s rape, my relationship with always overriding every other regret, the what-if s, the could I have done it any better s.

Aidan touches my arm. ‘Time to go,’ he whispers. ‘You’ve been in a daydream the whole service.’

I take his arm, glad to have him with me, glad to have the support of this still handsome man, unfailingly loyal despite our rocky start. We walk to the end of the church, say our greetings and thanks to the pastor and out onto the street.

‘I’m going to go home now,’ I say. ‘Don’t think I’ve got the heart for the reception.’ I turn to face him and touch his arm. His eyes reflect the heavy sadness in my own. ‘Come for dinner the day after tomorrow. I’ve got much to tell you.’