Читать книгу Tales of the Gypsy Dressmaker - Thelma Madine - Страница 5

The Pineapple and the Palm Tree

‘I want you to make me a wedding dress like no one’s ever seen before.’

‘OK,’ I said, looking at the slim, blonde gypsy girl standing in front of me. ‘Have you got any ideas of the kind of dress you’d like?’

She’d made an appointment to come into my shop, Nico, in the centre of Liverpool, so I was expecting her. I was also expecting her request – all my traveller girls want to stand out, determined that their dress will be the biggest and the best, or both.

‘I want to be a palm tree,’ she said.

‘And I’m going to be a pineapple,’ piped up the girl who was with her and who I realised straight away was her younger sister, and one of the most enthusiastic bridesmaids I’d ever met. They were both pretty kids and I knew just by looking at them that they were from Rathkeale, the very wealthy gypsy community in Ireland. In Rathkeale the night-before outfits are just as important as the wedding dress. And these two were going all out.

‘A palm tree for the bride and a pineapple for the bridesmaid,’ I said, looking from one to the other. They were looking at me as though they had just asked me to make a wedding gown like Kate Middleton’s, their faces were dead straight, like any anxious bride and bridesmaid, determined that they had to look just right on the Big Day. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘we can do that, no problem.’

‘Will anyone else have a dress like that?’ asked the young girl. ‘She’s really worried that there will be another bride who wants the same thing as her,’ she said, touching her sister’s arm, before turning to look at me again.

‘Oh, I think she’ll be safe with that one,’ I said, smiling at them.

I looked down at my sketchbook and started drawing.