Threads Read online

  I tell the blonde about the school bazaar and the reading programme. ‘We wanted to help her. My friend Edie's done all the work,’ I say eventually. ‘And Jenny's the one who wears the clothes. I'm not sure what I've done, really.’

  ‘Oh, I am,’ she says with a smile. ‘I'm Amanda, by the way.’ She holds out her hand and I give her mine.

  ‘Nonie.’

  ‘Good to meet you, Nonie. We should probably go back.’

  We head for the marquee together, following the lights and noise. Inside, now that the judging's over the air of nervousness has disappeared completely and there's a party atmosphere, with some serious dancing going on.

  I catch Harry's eye and do my quizzical look. He nods glumly. Across the room, Laslo's table is full of champagne bottles and drunk, happy people.

  I notice that Amanda has gone over to chat to the man with black hair that Granny was talking to earlier. Granny's back at our table.

  ‘Who's he?’ I ask.

  ‘Andy Elat. He's the main sponsor of London Fashion Week. I think that's his daughter he's talking to. He was telling me she runs the Miss Teen shops for him. People think she's a little blonde party girl but she's actually one of the most successful fashion retailers in the country. Worth millions. Very nice girl too. Your godfather Gerry knows her from various charity things she's on. Says she's a poppet.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Why were you talking to him, Granny?’ Harry asks.

  ‘We had a little bet going. I asked him to tell me who my dress was by. If he got it right, I bought the next bottle of champagne. If he was wrong, he paid.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Saint Laurent, of course. In honour of the great man. Wouldn't you?’

  We look at the dress. It's in immaculate black velvet and brilliantly cut, with a black satin ribbon holding the shoulders in place across the back and a slight cowl in the neckline to reveal an emerald satin lining. Pure YSL.

  ‘And who won?’

  ‘I did, obviously,’ Granny says, pouring herself a fresh glass of champagne from the bottle. ‘Crow and I designed this together last week.’

  Andy Elat looks over and Granny raises her glass to him. He raises his in return. Amanda gives me a grin. At least I think she does.

  Then Crow comes over, looking hot and sweaty and panting slightly.

  ‘There you are. You have to come and dance,’ she announces.

  Harry leaps up and salutes her.

  ‘Yes, milady.’

  We all go wild on the dance floor and watch Crow do her moves. It turns out she's a surprisingly talented dancer, but Harry and I provide serious competition. It seems far too soon when Mum and Granny finally drag us home.

  Next day, Amanda Elat calls just as I get in from school.

  ‘I've had a word with my dad,’ she says, ‘and he'd like to make your friend an offer.’

  I wonder if it's possible that Andy Elat might agree to let Crow create her dress alongside Laslo Wiggins's for the catwalk show at London Fashion Week. It doesn't seem likely. Laslo would be pretty miffed to think he'd won the competition, only to have one of the other finalists up there beside him. Maybe Andy's going to let her go behind the scenes, though, to see how it's done. That would be truly amazing. I'd give anything to be there but even Mum, with all her old modelling contacts, has never managed to get me a place.

  ‘It's about London Fashion Week,’ Amanda continues, quite loudly. I realise I've gone totally silent and she's probably wondering if I'm still on the line. I nod, but this doesn't help much, so I gurgle something encouraging.

  ‘He'd like to sponsor Crow to do a show.’

  ‘I'm sorry?’ My brain has seized up. I'm trying hard but I really can't understand what she's talking about. ‘What sort of show?’

  Amanda slows down and raises her voice a bit more, as if she's talking to a great-aunt with a touch of dementia. ‘A collection. Her own show for the autumn/winter season. Nothing huge. Just twelve outfits. He thinks she's got something.’

  I'm feeling dizzy. ‘Excuse me,’ I pant, while I head for the nearest chair. ‘Her own show? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’ I can hear the smile in Amanda's voice. ‘It's actually that first dress she made for your friend Jenny that decided him, and the fact that I've got some of her stuff and so have two of his favourite models. That dress of Jenny's was copied by all the big retailers this summer. It was commercial gold. Not many designers have that. He loves the fact she can take couture ideas and make them work on the high street. And he liked it that she spent most of the evening hanging out with Laslo. She's not some quivering fashion ego. He thinks she'd be good to work with. Anyway, can you ask her and let me know what she says? And by the way, if she says yes she's going to need a mobile. We have to be able to talk to each other!’

  A few minutes later, Harry sees me sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, looking dazed.

  ‘Anything up?’

  I tell him. He gives me the pitying look of an older brother whose kid sister has obviously lost it.

  ‘Tell me exactly what she said,’ he says kindly, waiting for the opportunity to point out where I got it monumentally wrong.

  So we go over the conversation sentence by sentence and by the end, he looks almost as dazed as me.

  ‘But that's impossible. She's twelve.’

  ‘Thirteen. Her birthday was last month, remember?’

  We tried to have a party for her, but she wasn't interested. Too busy sewing. We had to make do with a cake.

  When Mum gets in from work we take it in turns to tell her. She has to sit down.

  ‘London Fashion Week? A proper show? Are you sure? What does Crow say?’

  I explain that we haven't told her yet. She's supposed to be at Edie's today, doing more reading practice. We've been too busy recovering from the shock to think of calling her.

  ‘So call her,’ Mum says.

  I do. And much to my amazement, Edie and Crow seem to have the same reaction as each other, which is one of polite surprise, without really understanding what all the fuss is about.

  Slowly, I try and explain about London Fashion Week, and the fact that twice a year this is when the top designers show their stuff for the following season, and all the big decision-makers in fashion come to watch.

  ‘All the buyers willAll the buyers will be there,’ I say. ‘And the magazine editors, and some of the biggest clients, especially the stars. And top catwalk models model the clothes. And six months later, that's what's in the shops and on the magazine covers. It's like being asked to be in the final of Pop Idol .’

  I picture Edie and Crow sharing blank looks and try again. ‘It's the fashion equivalent of getting a scholarship to Oxford. Or Harvard.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Edie, at last.

  Crow is still silent. If I could see her, I bet she'd be shrugging. That girl can be infuriating sometimes.

  Anyway, in the days that follow it's a relief that Crow seems to be taking the news in her stride. A couple of culture programmes and some fashion blogs get hold of the story that there's going to be a young teenage designer at the next Fashion Week and suddenly loads of journalists want to talk to her. Mum takes charge and treats Crow like one of her artistic protégés. She decides which journalists Crow will talk to and what type of pictures she will pose for (in the end, only one – Crow hates photos).

  Jenny gives Crow hours of advice on how to handle the attention. For the photo, Granny takes Crow to her hairdresser in Mayfair to have her hair done. This is a bit of a surprise as Crow's hair is not exactly typical of his normal posh clients, but he gives her a fabulous cut that reveals, to my chagrin, that Crow, too, has cheekbones.

  The resulting pieces tend to be complimentary, but short. I don't think Crow has given them much to go on and the shrugging doesn't help. Edie practically goes spare with frustration.

  ‘You could have explained about the other stuff!’ she explodes. ‘You had the perfect opport
unity.’

  ‘Explained what?’

  ‘About why you're here. About night walking. And camps. And child soldiers.’

  Crow shrugs her shrug.

  ‘I come from Kensington now. My clothes aren't about Africa. They're about Paris. And Notting Hill. And the National Gallery.’

  Nevertheless, Mum cuts out the articles and starts creating a scrapbook for Crow, a bit like Jenny's only without the evil father and the house in the Cotswolds.

  The only cloud on the horizon is James Lamogi. The publicity has filtered back to him in Uganda somehow, and he's worried that his daughter is ‘failing to optimise her opportunities’ because she's become ‘dazzled by the distractions of the metropolis’ and ‘disturbingly obsessed by fashion and frivolity’. Thanks to his fondness for words of three syllables and over, Crow usually needs Edie to help decipher his letters, which is how we know. For the first time, I'm actually quite glad he's a long way away.

  Our house fills with flowers from new admirers in the fashion business (nobody knows Crow's address, so they use mine, and Crow's mostly here anyway). One of the bigger bouquets is from Laslo Wiggins, with a note saying, ‘You rock, Princess,’ which in one go turns Laslo into my third fashion hero, after Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier. Skye drops by with an enormous cake, iced to look like the pink party dress Crow made for Svetlana.

  ‘How did you know about that dress?’ I ask her, in the middle of all the chaos of deliveries and phone calls.

  ‘Svetlana's an old friend of mine. Known her for years. Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say. ‘Long story.’ I hesitate. ‘She hasn't said anything about Harry, has she?’

  ‘Should she have?’ Skye asks, sounding surprised. That answers my question. We're interrupted while I take delivery of yet another bouquet.

  ‘How are you coping?’ Skye asks when I come back, arms laden.

  ‘Me? I'm fine,’ I say.

  She gives me a searching look, then shrugs and smiles.

  ‘You've done a great job,’ she tells me. ‘You should be proud of yourself. Call me if you need me.’

  I'm not sure what she means, nor why, when she goes, I suddenly want to cry. I'm thrilled for Crow, of course, and proud of what we've all done to help her. I really am. Maybe I'm just tired.

  ‘She shouldn't be called Crow,’ Jenny says. ‘She should be Cuckoo.’

  We're in my bedroom. I'm customising a nightie to make it into a party dress. Jenny's flicking through my magazines.

  ‘She's not crazy.’

  ‘No, dummy. Cuckoo in the nest. When was the last time your mother took you out or did the whole quality time thing?’

  ‘There was my birthday last half term.’

  My birthday was great. Mum took me to Paris on Eurostar for the day to meet up with Dad and spent the whole day being nice, which for her is a major effort. Dad tends to bring out the snarky in Mum.

  ‘Birthdays don't count,’ Jenny says dismissively. ‘Apart from that.’

  I try and think. Actually, I can't picture a time. But it's not as if Mum is one of those bake-a-cake mummies anyway.

  ‘And how many times has she been out with Crow?’

  Jenny has a point here. Loads of times. Every time there's a new exhibition or an artist Mum wants Crow to meet. They often take Granny along with them. But I point out that I couldn't go every time. I have homework. I do after all have VERY STRESSFUL EXAMS to prepare for, and even if I want to make the tea for a big designer some day, I'm going to need the odd qualification to prove I'm not totally useless. Those designer tea-making jobs are brutally competitive. Besides, I have to keep up. I have one friend who's suddenly developing a career in movies and another one who's a paid-up genius.

  Jenny still isn't convinced, though. She's so blissfully content herself – with her little email thing going with Joe Drool – that she wants everyone else to be blissfully content too. So she spends loads of time pointing out why we're actually miserable and trying to make us do something about it.

  The only way out is to change the subject. Recently, she's gone from not wanting to talk about Joe at all, to not really wanting to talk about anyone else. With me, anyway.

  ‘What's he said?’

  She's easily diverted. She drops her voice conspiratorially.

  ‘He thinks Lila might be going out with someone in Canada. He says it's hard because if he even borrows a Diet Coke off a girl everyone assumes he's about to marry her. It's the same for Lila. She swears she's being good, but he doesn't seem sure.’

  ‘And Joe? Is he being good?’

  She giggles.

  ‘Well, if he's being bad, he can't be doing much of it. He spends an awful lot of time on email.’

  ‘I thought you said it was dangerous.’

  ‘It is. But he trusts me.’

  Fruits of the forest again.

  ‘Look,’ I point out. I hate to burst her bubble, but it's been bothering me for ages. ‘He's mostly in the West Coast of America, right? And you're mostly in London. Even if he . . . you know. How would it work? You couldn't do the whole thing by email.’

  ‘No. You're right.’ Jenny tries to look serious. ‘But my agent's been in touch. He's had four scripts recently that might be good for me. Including one for another action movie that would be shooting in California and Hawaii.’ Her eyes are alight. ‘For four months next spring.’

  Now a huge grin has spread across her face. She seems to have forgotten how utterly miserable she was the last time.

  ‘And there's something else. The producers are pretty certain we're going to get nominated for the Golden Globes. They're in LA in January. And everyone's so confident about us winning stuff that they want me to go.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Go to parties. Be nice to people. Maybe even go to the ceremony dinner thing and show off on the red carpet. I'm a bit of a style queen now, you know.’

  ‘But you hate the red carpet!’

  Jenny twirls a red curl around her finger thoughtfully.

  ‘I used to. But, you know, in the right dress . . . ’

  And with the right boy . . .

  This is a definite change. I can't help imagining the cherry tomato, but I realise Jenny's now thinking of the Marilyn dress, and snuggling up to Mr Drool for the photographers, and the free handbags.

  After she's gone, I google Joe and Lila again. Same story. Usual rumours about both of them with other people. Jenny's name is never mentioned. For a change, I also google myself. There are more results than I'd expected, all of them related to Edie's blog, which is becoming increasingly popular.

  Jenny, not surprisingly, isn't mentioning any of the Joe Yule stuff to Edie. It's not that she doesn't trust her, exactly. But if you're trying to have a relationship with a movie star it's advisable not to share it with people who write about you on the internet. As far as Edie's concerned, Jenny's current passions are Jane Eyre, netball and her new kitten called Miu Miu. (My idea. Very funny for the first couple of days but it wears off after a while. We're thinking of rechristening her Stella.)

  In the days after the phone call from Amanda Elat, Mum's scrapbook fills up with pictures of gorgeous party girls in Crow's dresses and, now that it's colder, an increasing number of her cobweb knits. As she gets more confident, and as the money starts pouring in from Rebecca's stand, she can add more sparkle and experiment with more beautiful fabrics.

  The workroom is full of pieces in every stage of production. Crow also hangs out in St Martins with the design students who are still talking to her. Many are too furious about her sudden launch into the big time to acknowledge her existence. The way they see it, some teacher's pet is getting all the attention they've worked years for. They've no idea how long Crow's been doing this. Or how hard she works. Or how good she is.

  I don't see much of her, in fact, but it's hard to forget what's happening. Mum has started reminiscing about her days on the catwalk and Amanda calls or emails several times a week with
ideas about sourcing fabric, or shoes, or things Crow will need to think about for the show.

  Strangely, it's Edie who spots the problem. The rest of us are too caught up in the general excitement to notice.

  It's lunchbreak and I'm trying to catch up on some homework. Edie, naturally, has done all of hers and is in a mood to chat.

  ‘Explain it to me,’ she says. ‘This whole collection thing. I got this comment on my blog from someone in Uzbekistan asking me to describe it. And I suddenly realised. I mean, Crow makes stuff every day. Why is it so complicated?’

  I put my pen down and sigh. Simultaneous equations will have to wait. This is important. How to describe it in Edie-speak?

  ‘You know you've got great ideas about Shakespeare?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Edie is PASSIONATE about Shakespeare this term. She's INSPIRED. In fact, it's quite IMPOSSIBLE that any teenager has ever realised quite how great he is before her. She's read most of his stuff too. Thanks to her, I know more about Hamlet than I ever want or need to.

  ‘Well, if you had to write an essay about Shakespeare, would you just write down all the stuff you've been trying to tell me recently?’

  Edie considers. ‘What? Just like that?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  She laughs. ‘Well, I'd have to organise it all first, of course. And there are things I'd want to emphasise, obviously. And you have to develop it so you kind of take the reader through it, and . . . ’

  She screeches to a stop. She's not stupid.

  ‘You mean it's like a Shakespeare essay?’

  ‘To you. I mean, it's your chance to tell the world about something that's really important to you. And you have half an hour, max. Crow will have much less, because her collection's really small. You have to explain your vision. You have to craft it. It's a story. And the story's about your idea of beauty. It's about the things that have inspired you, and how you've put them together in a new way. You can't just chuck up whatever happens to be lying around in your workroom.’