The Yellow Dress

watch my husband and this strange faceless woman meander up the steps in no hurry at all

It is Tuesday. Nothing good ever happens on a Tuesday, but I remain ever hopeful that this one will be different. I tread lightly across the landing because I can hear my husband whispering furtively with some deliveryman at the front. He forgot my birthday again last week. I chose not to say anything. Every morning I wake up to see no acknowledgement, no wish, no cake. I didn’t say anything to see how long it would take for him to remember. A wasted silence. But not today. It looks like today is the day. Maybe today has always been the day. Perhaps this is what he’s been looking so harried and yet happy about. A surprise.

I decide to hide behind the column and watch as he brings in my gift. He looks over his shoulder, before hiding the box somewhere in the drawing-room. How clever of him. Somewhere he knows I don’t spend much time in. It looks like a large box, penance I suppose, for being two weeks late and always working late for the past year. He scuttles off to the breakfast room, fussing with his collar.

I sneak past the doorway, enter the drawing room and pull out the box from under the table. I undo the pale yellow silk bow and cradle it against my skin. I open the box and what’s inside takes my breath away.

…

I wake late, the cold sun streaming in through the windows where my husband has opened the curtains haphazardly. I wrap myself in my silk dressing gown and pad softly through the house. The dream has unnerved me, and I head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

My husband bursts out of the breakfast room looking shocked, a stain of pale egg yolk on his collar.

‘Why aren’t you dressed? Aren’t you going to bridge? It’s Tuesday, you know.’

‘I — I know that. I have time. Shouldn’t you be at work?’

‘Ah, I had to wait for a delivery. Damn thing never showed up, don’t you worry about it. It’s probably been sent to the office anyhow, just a new part for the car or something. Nothing you need to worry about darling. I’ll finish up here and drive into town to pick it up. Would you like a lift to bridge club?’

…

I walk along the balcony, pacing to and fro, back and forth, waiting for my husband to return from the office. The balcony is six steps long by three steps wide. I have walked it, well over 600 times at least. Maybe 700. I don’t know how long I’ve been waiting here anymore. I wear the dress I found for my birthday. It was for me, so I wore it, even if he wasn’t there to see me open it.

I hope he likes the way I look in it. I can’t tie up the back by myself and the strings flow along behind me as I pace back and forth. Eventually I see yellow headlights light up the drive in two cold beams. I stop dead, and lean over the railing to see who is in the passenger seat beside him.

There’s a sudden tightness around me, and I look down. The butter yellow ties have knotted themselves into the railings from my pacing. Leaning over has tightened them, and created a deadly knot. I can’t free myself from it. I can’t scream. I can’t breathe. All I can do is watch my husband and this strange faceless woman meander up the steps in no hurry at all.

They cannot see me. It is dark.

I can’t breathe.

…

Cook finishes preparing the casserole and slams the lid on the pot, startling me. I realise I’ve fallen asleep sitting up. ‘Nightmares again?’ she asks, kindly.

‘What time is it? Surely it’s not dinner time yet.’

‘No, ma’am. I’m leaving this behind for your supper because I’m leaving now. You can just warm it up. I’m going to see my mother today, it’s Tuesday, remember? Just you and the master alone in the house today. Until you go to bridge, anyway.’

‘I might not go.’

‘Are you not feeling well? You seem short of breath again.’

‘There’s been a delivery. I don’t think it’s a car part. I don’t think he would have bought me a car part for my birthday, anyway. I want to see what it is.’

‘Is that wise, ma’am? I don’t want you to be disappointed. Maybe he hasn’t remembered your birthday at all.’ She butters a piece of bread for her own lunch. It’s cold in here and it stubbornly refuses to melt.

….

I used to have a music box as a child. It was my grandmother’s. The little ballerina inside was yellowed with age, but I loved it all the same. I would wind up and watch her dance. I would scream if anyone shut the lid on her. I cried for hours when mother did it before we left for the beach for a weekend, wondering if she’d still be there inside that box under the table when we came back.

She was. Still wearing her yellow dress. But she wasn’t breathing any more.

…

My husband kisses me on the cheek. ‘I won’t be back until after seven. But the casserole cook made will last until then, right?’

‘Why does it take so long to pick up a part for the car?’

‘Oh. Uh, well, I may as well take it to the mechanic there and then. Who knows how long that will take.’

‘It will take five hours?’

‘Maybe so. How much do you know about cars? How much do you know about anything?’ he sneers. ‘How much do you really remember?’

‘I know lots of things. Such as, such as how to cook a casserole.’

‘You just watched Cook make that.’

‘Still counts. I know about dresses. I like dresses. And daisies and sunflowers and eggs. The sun. Yellow is my favourite colour.’

He looks at me like I’ve changed into a different woman.

‘I didn’t know that.’

….

I like it when Cook tells me scary stories, and she obliges me as she chops up vegetables for tonight’s casserole. I ask her if she thinks that I’m too childish, like my husband says so often. She tells me I’ll never grow older, and then sweeps into her story. I’ve heard it before, but each telling rends me like it’s the first time. There is a happy couple who have a beautiful wedding, but the rain presses down and forces the gathering inside the large house. Without much else to do, the couple and the guests decide to play hide and seek. And the bride chooses to hide in a heavy wooden chest. It’s a good hiding place. It takes them ages to find the box stashed away underneath the table.

They never find it at all, and the bride suffocates.

‘How can nobody find her?’ I ask. ‘If the box is big enough to fit a grown woman and a large silk dress, it should be obvious that’s where she is. How does he not find it in time?’

‘He must have been busy,’ says Cook. ‘Gotten bored of the game and wandered back to dance with somebody else.’

‘How did the rest of the guests not find her? Wouldn’t there be a very obvious dress missing when they looked around the room?’

‘Folk aren’t very observant, especially when it comes to other people’s dresses.’

….

The sun is soft like yellow silk, and it spills onto the bedsheets. It looks as if it should feel like a warm river of gold, but as I reach out a hand to touch it I find it cold. The curl of the hem of the pillow case seems like a warning, and I turn back to my husband. ‘You’re very small, you know,’ he says, lifting up one of my arms by the wrist. ‘You’d easily fit inside the blanket box, I’m sure.’

‘What a silly thing to say, darling. Shall we get up and get some coffee? It’s cold in here.’

But he just wraps his arms around me, throws the sheets over me to warm me up. And wraps his arms around me and throws the sheets over me to wraps his arms and throws the sheet wraps and throws

I can’t breathe

…

‘Elizabeth?’ says my husband from behind me. I smooth my hands down the yellow silk skirt, toss my hair over my shoulder knowing it would fall between my shoulder blades and show off how the back is still open. It’s the most perfect dress I’ve ever seen. I love it so much. It’s perfect for me.

He still loves me. The dress just needs a little taking in, that’s all. You can’t expect even the most loving husband to remember your measurements. Particularly if it’s been a long time since he’s held you.

‘No, it’s me,’ I say. ‘Who’s Elizabeth, honey?’

‘Oh, the new serving girl… Where did you find that?’

‘In the box, under the table. You finally remembered.’

‘Remembered what?’

‘My birthday, of course.’ I tighten my hands in the cord that I have tried to fasten through the dress. I tug it out with a snap. The dress loosens further on me until I’m barely wearing it at all.

‘I love this dress. I love the colour.’

‘I remembered that. I got it for you to uh, to make up for forgetting your birthday.

‘It doesn’t fit me though. Who’s Elizabeth? I didn’t know we had a new serving girl.’

‘What do you mean it doesn’t fit? Maybe it will fit when I tighten it for you. Give me that cord sweetheart.’