Chapters (34)
Dan had been walking back to his flat when he passed the shop, situated at the unfashionable end of King’s Road. It was the name on the sign above the small display window that had at first caught his eye. Rebecca Talworth. He had read about her in some newspaper or magazine. A young dress designer, fresh out of St. Martin’s, who they said was destined to make the grade. Dan peered through the window into the shop’s crowded interior and almost immediately caught sight of a blonde girl, her face lit with animated humour as she served a customer. Maybe it was the intensity of his stare that had caused a slight tingling on the flawless skin of her cheek, because, for no apparent reason, she turned her head through ninety degrees and looked directly at him, and he was sure, if it was at all possible, that her smile broadened even more. It was on sheer impulse, but he decided not to go any further until he had asked her for a date. He entered the shop and reappeared on the street half an hour later with a grin on his face and a pain in his wallet. The price of the date had been the purchase of a £200 original Rebecca Talworth dress. Of course, Jackie had no idea that it was destined for her. He had said that it was for a friend, but he knew the moment that she held it up against herself to show off the style, that it would be sacrilege for anyone else to own it.
He had given it to her for her twenty-first birthday. Actually, it was four days after her birthday, because she had had to go up north for a big black-tie “do” that her parents were holding in her honour at their golf club near Chester. But Dan had also organized a little celebration of his own. Back to his place, give Jackie the dress, get her to change into it, and then out to dinner at Quaglino’s. Trouble was that Jackie never wore the dress and they never made dinner. The truth was that neither of them had worn very much that night.
And that was why they had come to be sitting making plans about their future over a bottle of Chardonnay in the Central Park Diner in Kensington High Street.