On the telephone he’d been quite sure of what he wanted. Loose-fitting dresses, elasticated waists, silky fabrics and bright colours – size 14, he thought, or maybe a little bigger. I’d chosen six for his wife that I thought she might like, based on the image I’d built of her, but in the dressing room I realised I’d got it wrong because he looked at my selection anxiously, as if he’d already bought them all on impulse and realised he’d made a terrible mistake.
My colleague Mario carried the tray of drinks in and put it on a gilt, glass-topped table next to the cream velvet and gilt chair.
I handed Mr Aston his glass. There was nothing like a glass of fizz to boost the confidence of a wary shopper.
He held it at eye level and stared through the bubbles as if he were in a dream.
‘You said your wife likes bright colours,’ I said, ‘but if you’d prefer a more muted palette, I do have some things in mind that fulfil your criteria. What do you think of this? It’s silk jersey, very comfortable to wear and not restrictive,’ I said, showing him a red-and-blue Diane von Furstenberg wrap-around dress.
He smiled faintly as if amused. ‘We’ve been married forty-five years,’ he said. ‘It goes by very quickly.’ He looked at me closely. ‘You’re too young to know that yet. It’s all ahead of you, all that potential. For my wife, she’s reached the finish line and she’s having her bottle of water and her banana.’
I laughed, because it was a nice way of putting it.
‘She’s still interested in fashion,’ I said, ‘which is lovely.’
He sighed. ‘I’m not sure that she is interested in fashion. She’s not fashionable,’ he said thoughtfully, sipping his champagne, ‘she wouldn’t enjoy being called that at all. She’s a very practical woman. She’s always had short hair.’ He looked at me as if expecting me to comment favourably on this example of her practicality.
‘It’s often best to stick with a hairstyle that you know suits you,’ I pointed out. ‘Some women have the face for it.’
‘And it dries quickly,’ he said. ‘She has it trimmed every six weeks.’
‘Good! So it keeps its shape.’
He put his drink down and took the dress from me. His face softened. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I like this one,’ he said, worried he’d offended me, holding it up high as if his wife were a tall woman, a woman he was used to looking up to. ‘But no. This isn’t it. It’s rather plain, you see.’
I smiled. I wasn’t done yet. ‘I’ll put it over here,’ I said and then I showed him a shocking-pink shift dress with fluted sleeves that was very pretty.
He studied it for a long time, his face expressionless, and finally he gazed at me doubtfully. ‘Do you try these on yourself?’
‘No. I mean, not unless I’m looking for something personally.’ I let the dress hang. ‘This fabric is very flattering.’
‘You have to wear black, I suppose. All the staff seem to be wearing black. That’s the uniform, is it? Black?’
‘It is, yes.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve noticed that. The trouble with this is the sleeves. See? These sleeves, they don’t seem very practical. They dangle.’ Again, he looked at me quickly. ‘I was thinking in terms of housework, loading the dishwasher, cooking.’
Once again, I adjusted my image of his wife. She obviously wasn’t too ill to do housework. ‘This is more of a going-out dress,’ I said. ‘Does she get to go out much, your wife?’
‘She does when she can. She’s got two friends about the same age as herself, Mercia and Betty, and they like their classes. University of the Third Age, have you heard of that? No? A lifetime of knowledge and a wealth of experience. Tai chi, watercolours. They had an exhibition in the library.’
‘This floral dress is by Chloé. It’s a bit looser in style; it’s a relaxed fit. It’s great that she gets out. Do you paint, too?’
Mr Aston laughed appreciatively. ‘No, I don’t. I haven’t got an artist’s eye. The women don’t want us hanging around with them; although Betty plays golf sometimes when the weather’s fine. Golf is my hobby; although I haven’t much of a golfer’s eye, either. They’ve been good friends to Enid. What other frocks have you got there?’
‘This is a beautiful silk jersey by DKNY.’
‘Animal print,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I don’t know how Enid would feel about animal print. She might find it a little common.’ He sat on the cream velvet chair, looked at the dresses and took a deep breath. ‘Have you got something a bit more special, with some kind of embellishment? Feathers, ostrich feathers?’ he asked hopefully.
He’d taken me by surprise. ‘You mean a cocktail dress?’ He hadn’t mentioned it in his brief, but this is how it was sometimes, clients had to find out first of all what they didn’t want before they decided what they did want. ‘You don’t think that any of these are suitable for your wife?’
He shook his head. ‘I keep thinking of a frock that feels special,’ he said, his face creased with the difficulty of trying to explain. ‘The kind of frock that’ll give a person a lift. A dress to make the eyes sparkle.’
I liked him. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I’ll put these away for now and bring something more suitable for evening. More champagne?’
Mr Aston held up his glass. He was beginning to relax at last, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether the practical, short-haired Mrs Aston would appreciate a feathery cocktail dress as much as he seemed to think. It was difficult to judge without meeting her personally. I’d never had anyone shop by proxy before.
I carried the dresses out and asked Mario to refresh Mr Aston’s drink while I searched our stock for cocktail dresses and feathers. We had a black feather cape and an ivory ostrich feather bolero and I chose a couple of little chiffon dresses to go with them then headed back to the dressing room.
Mr Aston looked up hopefully, but his face immediately fell.
‘They’re not quite what I had in mind,’ he said, stroking the ostrich feathers wistfully. ‘But they are beautiful, there’s no denying it.’ He sighed deeply.
I felt I’d let him down. ‘From all the things you’ve seen, Mr Aston, is there anything you’d like to look at again?’
‘No … I don’t think so,’ he said wistfully, ‘but I’m very pleased that I came.’
‘Your wife will be disappointed,’ I said. She wasn’t the only one. I was disappointed myself.
‘I’ll relate the experience to her in detail,’ he said, finishing his wine and cold tea and looking around him as though he was memorising it for her.
I didn’t want him to leave yet. I wasn’t used to failing with a client. I always had a sense of what they wanted but, more importantly, under normal circumstances I usually knew fairly quickly what would suit them. And, suddenly, it came to me. And after one hundred minutes together, I suddenly felt in tune with Mr Aston’s wife’s taste.
Don’t get me wrong; I was scrupulously fair about it. It was only when I’d absolutely exhausted all other in-store possibilities that I’d suggested the under-the-counter deal.
I’d recently bought a satin sky-blue dress with a feather trim and a scalloped hem from a charity shop and it was his wife’s size, a 14. It was a playful dress and as I’d passed the window, the beautiful blue had made me smile. I guessed it was from the Sixties and I wondered if Mr Aston was nostalgic for the days of his youth, and whether the dress was a message, a compliment to his wife, Enid. The dress was to say to her: this is how I see you.
I showed him a photograph of it on my phone.
‘Oh,