I should add that it is with Gretchen Edel’s full consent that I am conducting this research.

Yours sincerely,

Jean Swinney

Staff Reporter

The North Kent Echo

8

“Relax. Don’t hold yourself in so much or I won’t get a true measurement.”

Jean was standing with her arms straight out from her sides as though crucified while Gretchen whisked around her with a tape measure, jotting down figures on a diagram of the female form crisscrossed by many lines. As well as bust, waist and hips, there were apparently other statistics just as vital to be recorded in pursuit of a well-fitting dress. Nape to knee (back); underarm to elbow; waist to knee (front); shoulder to shoulder (back); armpit to waist (side); upper arm (circumference).

Jean was glad she had taken the precaution of wearing her least ancient slip—the best of a bad lot—and some sturdy underwear, which was now corseting the cushion of soft flesh at her belly while cutting into the tops of her legs.

“It’s hard to relax when it’s so ticklish,” she said, twitching as the tape measure slithered over the silky nylon fabric.

“All done. I think you are a size fourteen in need of some adjustments.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Jean, reaching for her skirt and blouse. Tact was often the first casualty of Gretchen’s imperfect fluency.

They had come upstairs to the room Gretchen used for her needlework. In one corner stood a dressmaker’s mannequin wearing a gray satin evening gown, inside out and held together with tacking stitches and pins. A Singer sewing machine sat at one end of a large cutting table on which an expanse of printed cotton was spread out; tissue-thin pieces of pattern for some unidentifiable garment were pinned in place—strange abstract shapes that seemed to bear no relation to the human form. Jean looked at Gretchen with new respect; there was more artistry and skill than drudgery in this work.

Somehow, without discussion, they had progressed to Christian names now. It was too bizarre to be calling each other Miss This and Mrs. That when in this state of undress and intimacy. Jean wasn’t sorry to see the back of “Miss Svinny.”

The invitation had come while she was at work. Howard, at Gretchen’s urging, had called her at the paper. His voice sounded faraway and hesitant, and Jean could imagine his reluctance in undertaking this particular errand.

“My wife wondered if you would like to join us for tea on Sunday. She said something about dressmaking. It’ll be just us and Margaret—nothing formal.”

Since her last meeting with Gretchen at the hospital she had told herself to maintain a strictly professional distance, avoiding any overtures of friendship in case it clouded her judgment and made a potentially tricky conversation in the future even trickier. But in the face of this stammered invitation, she had caved in and accepted immediately.

The truth was that congenial new acquaintances were too rare a phenomenon to be dismissed. Her colleagues at the paper were pleasant enough company, but only during office hours. They didn’t socialize outside work, apart from those Friday pub nights, from which Jean had already excluded herself. Old school friends were married now and scattered, their weekends taken up with family life. A single woman was an awkward fit. But the Tilburys seemed to like her, to look up to her, even, as someone of influence and importance.