The Dress Read Free Page B

wearing her grandfather’s favourite rose-print vintage tea dress. ‘My little lady,’ he used to call her when she wore it, although he often added, ‘you should be dressing for lads your own age – look at those Kardashians. If you dressed like one of them I’d be a great-grandfather ten times over by now.’
    Lily did not have the heart to tell him that no one had truly taken her fancy since she had split from her school sweetheart at twenty-two. She had tried playing the field and sleeping around a bit, but she found it a depressing and unsatisfying way to live. She was better off on her own.
    Lily was still shocked by Joe’s death. Sometimes it felt as if the past few days hadn’t happened. It was an unreal feeling, as if part of her was still sitting by the kerb on Kilburn High Road, nursing the old man’s head in her lap.
    Sally had helped. With no siblings to fall back on, Lily felt incredibly lucky to have a best friend she felt so close to. Of course, they sometimes fought, misunderstood, or simply got bored with each other. But at heart they believed their friendship was unbreakable.
    â€˜She’s as good as a sister that one,’ Joe had often said. ‘Friends are as good as family and that’s the truth.’
    Both girls agreed it was important they get dressed up to the nines in his honour.
    â€˜There will be no shirking in the wardrobe department,’ Sally said. ‘We’ll go to town for the old bugger.’
    Lily knew that Joe would have wanted her to be looking her very best at his funeral. The old man could never stand to see anyone looking sad, especially not his only granddaughter.
    â€˜Let me see that lovely smile, Lily,’ he was always saying to her. ‘Let me see you’re happy.’ Then he would draw a bag of sweets out from behind his back and make her grin until her cheeks cushioned up into fat balls.
    Lily pulled up a chair and sat in front of the mirror, then painted her lips in a perfect bow. Grief and exhaustion had taken its toll on her eyes but she nonetheless drew herself up and applied two slicks of Benefit eyeliner.
    Then, checking that the seams on her stockings were straight, Lily slid her feet into the original snakeskin stilettos her grandmother had worn on her wedding day. It would make the old lady so happy to see them on her today.
    â€˜I’m ready...’ Lily shouted.
    Sally appeared in the doorway. Her voluptuous curves were poured into a black tube dress with two chunky, full length zips straining down each side.
    â€˜I thought we agreed you were wearing vintage?’ Lily said.
    â€˜This is vintage. Gucci, circa 1999.’
    â€˜That is not vintage.’
    â€˜It so is,’ Sally replied, and grabbing a dictionary from Lily’s desk she quoted, ‘ Vintage ; denotes something from the past of high quality.’ She continued, ‘And let me tell you, any zip that can keep these curves in shape is very high quality indeed.’
    â€˜You’re a disgrace,’ Lily said, jokingly.
    Sally was trying to cheer her up but Lily was dreading the funeral. She had never been to one before and all she knew was that she wanted it to be over.
    St Agnes Catholic Church on Cricklewood Lane was packed with people. The Fitzpatricks were at the heart of the Kilburn–Cricklewood Irish community. Joe had moved here from Ireland as a young man of fifteen, worked on the buildings then apprenticed as a mechanic and had lived and worked in the area ever since. He never missed Sunday mass, and he never missed his Friday pint in The Bridge Tavern. Lily’s grandmother had been a dinner lady in the local primary school, as was Lily’s own mother. The whole Catholic community, including the West Indians and Italians, knew the family, but everybody had a special fondness for easy-going, jovial Joe. At ninety he was still walking down to the high street to get his newspaper every day.
    Sally