Madensky Square

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I woke in such a good mood this morning.

There was a dress floating about in my head; almost ready, almost there. Cream silk, the skirt trimmed with tiers and tiers of rough cream lace and the bodice tuckered, but unadorned except for a single rose. When I went to sleep I wasn’t sure about the colour of the rose, but when I woke I knew it had to be cream also: a self-coloured rose, a little passé, almost blowsy.

‘Dresses come to you like songs come to Schubert, Frau Susanna,’ a customer said to me once and I was so pleased, idiot that I was, that I undercharged her quite badly for the evening cape I was fitting.

But it wasn’t just the dress that made me happy. Even before I opened the shutters I knew that the bitter wind from the east had dropped at last and spring had come.

I got out of bed and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the chest of drawers, and it was all right still… even in the strong light of early morning it was all right. I’m thirty-six but I could have worn it, the rich cream dress with the bell sleeves cut on the cross and the silken rose. It wasn’t for me, of course, it was for the shop, but I could have carried it off.

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