The Last Dress from Paris - Softcover

Beer, Jade

 
9780593436813: The Last Dress from Paris
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593436814 ISBN 13: 9780593436813
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

The secret is hidden within a collection of Dior dresses...

London, 2017. There’s no one Lucille adores more than her grandmother. So when her beloved Granny Sylvie asks for Lucille’s assistance with a small matter, she’s happy to help. The next thing she knows, Lucille is on a train to Paris, tasked with retrieving a priceless Dior dress. But not everything is as it seems, and what Lucille finds in a small Parisian apartment will have her scouring the city for answers to a question that could change her entire life.

Paris, 1952. Postwar France is full of glamour and privilege, and Alice Ainsley is in the middle of it all. As the wife to the British ambassador to France, Alice’s job is to see and be seen—even if that wasn’t quite what she signed up for. Her husband showers her with jewels, banquets, and couture Dior dresses, but his affection has become distressingly elusive. As the strain on her marriage grows, Alice’s only comfort is her bond with her trusted lady’s maid, Marianne. But when a new face appears in her drawing room, Alice finds herself yearning to follow her heart...no matter the consequences.

The City of Light comes alive in this lush, evocative tale that explores the ties that bind us together, the truths we hold that make us who we are, and the true meaning of what makes someone family.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jade Beer is an award-winning editor, journalist, and novelist who has worked across the UK national press for more than twenty years. Most recently, she was the editor-in-chief of Condé Nast's Brides. She also writes for other leading titles including The Sunday Times Style, The Mail on Sunday's YOU magazine, The Telegraph, the Tatler Weddings Guide, Glamour, Stella magazine, and is one of The Mail on Sunday’s regular fiction and nonfiction book reviewers. Jade splits her time between London and the Cotswolds, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1
Lucille
Thursday
October 2017, London

I could resent being here. A lot of women my age would. This job, as they'd see it, would sit on their to-do list, toward the bottom, just below order food online and clean bathroom. Everything else would get a line satisfyingly struck through it, but this entry would be pushed into next week, maybe even the week after that. A fresh list would be made, and still it would be at the bottom.

But visiting my grandmother is honestly the highlight of my week, every week. I look forward to it the way other women look forward to a cocktail or an hour in the bath alone. I love her more than any other person on this planet. Granny Sylvie has outlived Concorde and Woolworths. In two hours of chitchat, we can hop from the first episode of The Archers to the moon landing, via the death of Elvis and the Queen's coronation.

Even now she'll surprise me. Like the time a couple of months back when she suggested we play a game of chess. I was aware of the board, tucked in the corner of her sitting room, on an elegant antique table with gently curving legs, but to my shame I'd always assumed it was my grandfather's and she couldn't bear to part with it.

It took her about twelve minutes to beat me, her mind three moves in the future, mine still warming up. So, she might look old-and I say look because I certainly don't think she feels it-but she's razor sharp. Unlikely as it sounds, I have to raise my game for a trip to Granny's.

I stand undetected, studying her for a few moments, wondering what scene is playing out behind her resting eyes. She sits, as usual, in her favorite wingback chair, close to the open fire, its flames dancing in the sparkle of the dragonfly brooch she never gets dressed without. I wonder if instead of staring I should be rushing to move her backward before the crocheted blanket draped across her lap catches an ember and goes up. Her slim hands, nails beautifully manicured as always, are gripping the wooden arms, but her head is relaxed backward and there is the faintest smile painted across her lips. I wonder where her subconscious has taken her today. Back to the fleeting weeks in postwar Paris when she first met my grandfather? Or perhaps to that hot midsummer afternoon when she married him in a tiny English countryside church? There is a black-and-white photograph that sits on her mantel of the two of them locked in a kiss. I used to think it was a strange choice to frame. My grandfather's back is to the camera, and he is leaning over her slightly. But he always insisted it was his favorite shot of them from the day. Her eyes are peeled wide open, full of sparkle; she is laughing through the kiss, as if she can't quite believe her luck.

I start to silently remove my wool hat and gloves, placing them on a small round trestle table near the sitting room door I've entered through. Despite my best efforts, the jangle of my keys twitches her right eyelid open. It's the only part of her that moves. She's like a poised guard dog, deciding if it needs to bare teeth. Her mouth relaxes into a smile when she sees it's me. It gets deeper, warmer, so by the time I'm at her side, it's like I'm staring into the sun.

"Lucille, my darling. Come and sit with me. Happy birthday!" She starts to pull herself up in the chair and I step forward to help. As soon as I take hold of her, I'm reminded how there is barely any flesh on her. She's all layers of warm clothes, and I feel my grip reduce as my fingers search for something solid beneath the wool. I try not to think of the one battle this incredible, strong-minded woman will never win: her spirit versus the force of time her body will one day soon succumb to.

I bend over and plant a kiss on her smooth forehead, which despite the heat from the fire feels cool beneath my lips, and I smirk at the lipstick imprint I leave there. She smells of woodsmoke and the more delicate scent of bluebells, the fragrance she has worn for as long as I can remember.

"How are you doing, Granny? Are you warm enough? Has Natasha been in again this morning?"

Natasha is the local lady who comes and helps Granny. What started as a bit of cleaning has grown over the years, and Granny is reliant on her now to help her wash, dress, and prepare all her meals for the day ahead before Natasha returns in the evening to get her ready for bed. Mum picks up the bill, but I like to make sure I visit at least three times a week.

"Oh, never mind all that. How does it feel to be, gosh, thirty-two?" The words shudder out of her, her intonation rising and falling with little control. Her small hazel eyes are watering, and she reaches for a tissue to wipe them.

Despite the generous size of the room, Granny has arranged everything she needs within an easy two-meter radius of herself, effectively shrinking it to the small semicircle that surrounds the fire. Books, glasses, a small bone china plate full of telltale biscuit crumbs, the TV remote, the phone, a pad and pen.

"Well, I can't say I feel a whole lot different from yesterday, but . . ." I remove some magazines from a low square ottoman at her feet and take a seat on it, holding her hand. "Look, I brought you some birthday cake." I hold a napkin-wrapped slice aloft so she can see it.

"She got you a birthday cake?" She stiffens to attention in anticipation of my answer.

"I made it, Granny." My smile is exaggerated, hoping she'll focus on my baking efforts and not . . .

"You made your own birthday cake? Did she remember this year?" Her smile is receding now.

"She's very busy, we know that. I wasn't expecting anything. Honestly, it's fine." I'm unwrapping the cake and adding it to the biscuit plate. Mum, it has to be said, has never forgotten a hair appointment. Her balayage looks just as fresh from one week to the next. She's never not up to speed with the morning news. The kind of woman who has strategized her day before her feet touch down in the sheepskin slippers that she leaves carefully positioned by the side of her bed every night.

"A card?" Granny isn't giving up.

"Ummm, no."

"A call?" Oh, this doesn't look good.

"Not yet." I try to sound cheerful about it. "She will eventually, Granny, you know she will, when she gets a spare moment."

"Oh, Genevieve." An irritated sigh huffs out of her as she bows her head and diverts her gaze back to the fire, like this is somehow partially her fault. That my own mother has, in all probability, forgotten my birthday for the fifth year running.

"It really doesn't matter, you know." I sound more upbeat than I honestly feel. "She's been traveling for work again, she never quite knows what time zone she's supposed to be in, does she?"

She looks at me, her face loaded with disappointment. "You deserve so much more, Lucille."

Do I? I can't think of a single thing that marks me out as special or more deserving of love and attention than anyone else. There was a fleeting moment, right at the beginning with my last boyfriend, Billy, when I wondered if perhaps it might happen. I might feel like the center of someone's world for a while. I might wake up to a warm hand on my thigh, a freshly made cup of tea on the bedside table, a smile that said, I want whatever you want from this life. But the reality was so much more mundane than that, and I decided to manage my own expectations by drastically lowering them. I wouldn't hope for romantic gestures. I would stroke my own ego, something I have never been terribly good at.

Sensing the moment needs an injection of excitement, Granny claps her hands together.

"The envelope. On the mantelpiece, darling." She points to a card with my name scrawled across the front. "It's for you." Here comes the book token she knows I always appreciate.

But inside is a...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593436814
ISBN 13 
9780593436813
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

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