The Wedding Dress Maker by Fleming Leah

Author:Fleming, Leah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2019-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

A Secret Outing

Netta wrapped the baby tightly against the chill wind, packed the base of the bucket pram with his best outfit and a bottle of juice to pacify him and told Peg that they were going for a walk. ‘Don’t go far,’ she yelled as usual. ‘No, not far,’ Netta replied, racing down the track for the coast road, hoping for a lift. She had telephoned ahead for an appointment and waited by the bus halt for the morning coach, leaving the pram at the bottom of the ditch, hood up and canopy hidden from view.

In the bus she sat with Ray on her lap looking outwards, pointing to the rugged cattle in the fields, jiggling him until Kirkcudbright harbour came into view with its castle ruins and fishing fleet. They alighted near the square and made for the photographer’s studio off the High Street. He was set up and ready for they were late.

Ushered into the back, she changed Ray into his smocked romper and put on the jacket of her two-piece wedding suit in lavender crepe with its embossed lapels and collar. It had been waiting in the wardrobe all those months she’d been away, perfumed with mothballs but almost as new as the day it was first put on. It hung on her shrunken frame and when she fixed her hair into a smart Victory roll Netta felt suddenly older and greyer, drained of colour. Once dressed she placed over Ray’s neck Mother’s rainbow necklace which she had found at the back of Peg’s knicker drawer, still in its battered blue cardboard box from Laing’s of Glasgow.

There had been a frantic search for Ray’s birth certificate but it must be locked in Father’s deed box. The necklace hung like a charm over his chest and he played with the stones, chewing on the chain.

Archie Lambert fussed over their poses, placing them this way and that on his brocade settee. He had a black umbrella and waved at Ray from behind the camera. The baby was mesmerised by the lights, blue eyes sparkling like sapphires.

‘Mother, hold the baby… just a little more to the left.’ How Netta relished being called ‘Mother’, smoothing and preening Ray’s dark hair with his baby brush, trying to make a quiff. He soon began to wriggle and squirm so out of a basket came the squeaking toy and Ray burst into giggles of delight. Flash! The explosion of light startled him. Netta could afford only two poses, one of mother and child and one of baby alone. Ray was plonked on a rug and Netta lay down in her finery to catch his eye, dangling toys. The stones of the necklace glinted in the lights. Flash! The photographer snapped them both in this intimate precious moment. Just another young mum having her picture taken to send out to hubby somewhere in the Forces, for an anniversary perhaps. It was the first time she had been truly alone with her son.

‘Do you want it hand tinted, Mrs Hunter?’ Archie had not recognised her as Netta Nichols.

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