Mrs Dawes brought her shoes in a supermarket bag.
Rachel knew the bag before Mrs Dawes set it down. Last time it had held a pair of silver sandals for a cruise. Mrs Dawes had complained that the ship's dining room was colder than the Norwegian coast, and Tess had said perhaps they were keeping the prawns fresh.
Rachel moved the spare chair out of the fitting space.
“You can put them there.”
Mrs Dawes placed the bag on it without sitting.
The suit was navy, the trousers wide, the jacket ending just above the hip. Rachel had ordered it for the woman before the conviction was quashed. A nephew's wedding, a lunch rather than an evening reception, and a family which apparently looked at photographs for generations afterwards. Mrs Dawes had wanted to look well without appearing to think she was the bride.
“It came Thursday,” Rachel said.
“Yes. I got your message.”
She had called Friday to confirm today. Her voice on the telephone had been brisk. Rachel had been glad there was still a fitting booked.
Now Mrs Dawes looked round the shop.
“Just you?”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
Rachel lifted the suit from the rail.
There were people who still didn't know. The case had been in the news, but Rachel's own account was moving differently, in phone calls and questions and things people saw in other people's faces. She hadn't put a notice in the window. Mae had asked her not to ring everyone on the event's behalf, and she had obeyed, although it was easier to obey when the instruction also let her put off this.
“The trousers first?” she asked.
Mrs Dawes took them.
The curtain closed.
Rachel stood outside it holding the jacket and listened to a zip. On another morning she'd have gone through the orders while the customer changed. Tess would have offered to fetch a size or moved the shoes out of the way. Rachel noticed the silence and began to straighten a hanger which didn't need it.
The curtain opened.
Mrs Dawes wore the navy trousers and her own blouse. The legs pooled over her bare feet.
“I brought the low ones,” she said.
“Good.”
“They'll still hurt. They always do.”
Rachel smiled.
Mrs Dawes didn't.
The sandals were navy leather, a sensible heel with a narrow strap. She took off her glasses to bend, then put them back on because she couldn't find the fastening. Rachel crouched.
“May I?”
“Thank you.”
Mrs Dawes's ankle was warm beneath Rachel's fingers. Rachel fastened one shoe, then the other. It was work she had done for years, ordinary closeness granted without thought.
When she stood up, Mrs Dawes was watching her in the mirror.
“The right's slightly longer,” Rachel said. “Or it will look it when you walk.”
“I thought that.”
“Stand as you normally would.”
“I am.”
“Your shoulders are up.”
Mrs Dawes lowered them at once and looked annoyed at having obeyed.
Rachel knelt again. She put in two pins, checked the fall and moved one. The wool mix was light enough to hold its shape without dragging, a good choice for a lunch that might move onto a lawn.
“Turn a little.”
The woman turned.
Rachel could feel her looking down.
She made a small chalk mark where the hem would go and sat back on her heels.
“That should do it.”
Mrs Dawes said, “Did you?”
Rachel looked up.
There wasn't a way to mistake the question. There was, for one moment, a way to pretend she had.
“Yes.”
The woman took hold of the top edge of her blouse.
“What people are saying?”
“I don't know exactly what you've heard.”
“About Anna Bell.”
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
The fitting space seemed to shrink around the woman's bare handbag, the supermarket bag, the mirror which showed both of them whether they wanted it to or not.
“At the trial?”
“Yes.”
Mrs Dawes looked at the trouser hem.
Rachel hadn't stood up. She was still holding the chalk, and the woman's hand had tightened at her waist.
“You can take the suit elsewhere,” Rachel said.
“I've paid you for it.”
“I can refund the alteration charge.”
“I'm not asking about the charge.”
Rachel put the chalk on the table and got to her feet.
Mrs Dawes faced her. “I said things. When the news came. I said they were letting her out because lawyers had got clever.”
Rachel kept her hands still.
“I told my sister that. In her kitchen.”
“I'm sorry.”
“That's not much help to me.”
“No.”
The woman looked back into the mirror. Her shoulders had lifted again.
“I used to think you were wonderful with that girl.”
Rachel heard the past tense more sharply than the praise.
“You always said she could do things. She'd be sitting there with some absurd great drum bag and you'd make it seem perfectly sensible.”
“It was sensible.”
Mrs Dawes looked at her.
Rachel stopped.
“I don't know how you do that,” Mrs Dawes said.
Rachel didn't ask what she meant.
The customer stood there in the trousers they both needed to finish.
At last she said, “I have to have something for the wedding.”
“I know.”
“I don't have time to start again. And these are right.”
“Yes.”
Mrs Dawes reached for the jacket.
Rachel held it open, then hesitated. The woman took it from her and put it on herself.
They worked without talking for a while. Rachel checked the shoulder and sleeve. Mrs Dawes wanted the cuff a little higher so it didn't rub her watch. When she raised her arms the back pulled.
“That's because you're reaching forward,” Rachel said. “There's no need to take it in any further.”
“I don't like feeling loose.”
“It won't look loose.”
Mrs Dawes studied her reflection.
“Can you pin it so I can see?”
Rachel could. She could also make a neat alteration which would cause the woman to spend the whole lunch unable to reach for anything.
She took two pins from the cushion and brought in the waist.
“Try now.”
Mrs Dawes reached forward. The jacket lifted off her neck.
“Oh.”
Rachel removed the pins.
“This is better. You'll be sitting down. Eating. Hugging people.”
The woman looked at herself for another moment.
“Yes,” she said. “You're right.”
Rachel felt the pleasure of being right, as quick and bodily as relief. She hated the pleasure for arriving in the middle of this and couldn't make it stop.
Mrs Dawes took off the jacket.
“The sleeves, then. And the trousers.”
“Thursday afternoon?”
“The wedding's Friday.”
“I'll have them ready Thursday morning.”
“All right.”
Mrs Dawes changed behind the curtain. Rachel carried the jacket to the worktable and wrote down the measurements. The old cup with Tess's pencils in it was still there. She turned it so the chipped side faced the wall, then turned it back.
Mrs Dawes came out in her own clothes.
She opened her purse.
“You've already paid,” Rachel said.
“The rest of the alteration.”
“On collection.”
“I'd rather do it now.”
Rachel rang it through.
There had been a time when Mrs Dawes would sit for five minutes after a fitting and tell her which family member was making the occasion unnecessarily difficult. Rachel knew the nephew's mother had divorced twice and distrusted flowers. She knew somebody's brother wasn't speaking to somebody's other brother. None of it had seemed valuable until it was no longer being offered.
Mrs Dawes took her receipt.
“Will you be open?”
“Thursday? Yes.”
“And later?”
Rachel looked at the worktable.
“I don't know.”
The woman nodded. That answer appeared to satisfy her more than any of the others.
She took the supermarket bag and left.
Rachel watched her pass the window. Mrs Dawes paused to adjust the handle of her handbag, then walked on without looking in.
The shop was empty for almost an hour.
Rachel cut the excess from the trouser legs only after checking the chalk twice. There was enough fabric to let them down later if needed. She pressed the fold, let it cool and began the hem. At the corner she heard herself about to ask Tess for a different needle.
She opened the drawer and fetched it.
The phone rang while she was sewing the second leg. A woman from the bridal shop in Ashcombe, who sometimes sent alteration work across when her own woman was busy, asked whether Rachel was taking anything new.
“Yes,” Rachel said.
“Oh.”
Rachel waited.
“We've found someone nearer. For the next few.”
“All right.”
“It's easier for people to travel.”
“Yes.”
The caller seemed prepared for Rachel to argue. When she didn't, there was an awkward pause.
“Take care,” the woman said.
Rachel put the phone down.
She sat with Mrs Dawes's trousers in her lap. A line of tiny stitches ran across the inside, invisible from the right side. She had done them well.
Outside, two young women stopped at the window and spoke to each other. One pointed to a green dress. They moved on.
Rachel put the trousers over the rail, finished the note about the sleeve length and went upstairs for lunch. She made one sandwich. For once she didn't bring the plate back down to the worktable.