name for the apparent reasons, would have preferred to have been born a Frenchwoman, suffered fools with grace and a smile, loathed insects.
She had decorated the Victorian terrace in tastefully Swedish DIY, updating as budget and wear dictated. She was resigned to the likelihood that a pied-Ã -terre in the sixth arrondissementmight not be in her future. She was content with that.
She wore the best labels she could afford and knew the mysteries that moved a £500 ensemble to the £50 rack. Red and black and white were her âcolours.â Accessorizing she considered well worth the effort, and her earrings were almost always perfect with that outfit. She owned one pair of stilettoed shoes that hurt just to look at. But Ambrose liked them. Which was enough.
She read everything. Russian epics, French confections, American noir, English tabloids had at one time or another taken their place in a wobbly pile beside the bed. Non-fiction was too much like school, she said. Experimental literature left her cold and annoyed and despairing for the so-called modern craft. She had lost count of how many times she had read Wuthering Heights .
She could walk into a kitchen she had never seen before andâwithout a recipeâplate a meal worthy of a starred review in half the time it took her husband to find an egg to boil. Her kitchen was full of cookery books that had never felt the splash of an errant sauce. She read them, shedisplayed them; they felt good in hand. They completed the room. Like earrings.
Men brought out her best and made her laugh. She liked most beards, hated all moustaches and furrowed her brow at the mention of tattoos. Height and weight and size didnât matter. Manners and nice shoes mattered. Doing the better thing mattered.
Her shoulder was ready when friends felt a cry coming on. She knew where to offer opinion and when to shut up. She could juggle oranges. She lied only a little, and they were always white.
Â
Zappora Ashkenazi was the literary editor for the countryâs third most-read fashion magazine. Her publisher had wanted to introduce the magazineâs reluctant readership to both new and classic literature, and if that literature held a passing link to couture, so much the better. It was a job with challenge: Austen, Woolf and Parker had never, so far as Zappora knew, assembled a spring collection. Yet those who read âOn the Night Standâ every month did so faithfully and first. Her writing was known for its economic style and refreshing avoidance of simile. Herhusband was her first reader. Every word, every draft. You always have an interesting story to tell, he would say.
Zappora started in the fashion trade as a photographerâs dresser. She flipped collars, fanned skirts, hitched pants, buttoned, tied, zipped. By the end of the first hour with her first model on her first day of her first real job she was given her first nickname.
Zipper.
She was very proud.
Â
Zipper was not quite as tall as her husband, not quite as thin and not quite as old. Her hair was dark and fine and trimmed precisely every eight weeks. Coloured, perhaps tied with a ribbon, as required.
Her eyes were creased at the corners. She wore glasses when reading. The glasses were purchased in a small shop in Paris, around the corner from an antiquarian bookshop.
Â
Zipper sat silent beside her husband, thinking how curious it was that her body had stopped working. That the doctor sounded like he was speaking under water.
She wondered what would happen if she got up and left. Better yet, hadnât come in at all. She clung to the sense of it.
I am not in the room.
Ambrose is not unravelling into the sweating, pasty stranger sitting next to me.
We are at home, preparing a meal for friends or deciding which film to see or selecting which book to curl up with or standing on the doorstep watching that annoying cat with those stupid birds.
We are not here.
None of this is
She had decorated the Victorian terrace in tastefully Swedish DIY, updating as budget and wear dictated. She was resigned to the likelihood that a pied-Ã -terre in the sixth arrondissementmight not be in her future. She was content with that.
She wore the best labels she could afford and knew the mysteries that moved a £500 ensemble to the £50 rack. Red and black and white were her âcolours.â Accessorizing she considered well worth the effort, and her earrings were almost always perfect with that outfit. She owned one pair of stilettoed shoes that hurt just to look at. But Ambrose liked them. Which was enough.
She read everything. Russian epics, French confections, American noir, English tabloids had at one time or another taken their place in a wobbly pile beside the bed. Non-fiction was too much like school, she said. Experimental literature left her cold and annoyed and despairing for the so-called modern craft. She had lost count of how many times she had read Wuthering Heights .
She could walk into a kitchen she had never seen before andâwithout a recipeâplate a meal worthy of a starred review in half the time it took her husband to find an egg to boil. Her kitchen was full of cookery books that had never felt the splash of an errant sauce. She read them, shedisplayed them; they felt good in hand. They completed the room. Like earrings.
Men brought out her best and made her laugh. She liked most beards, hated all moustaches and furrowed her brow at the mention of tattoos. Height and weight and size didnât matter. Manners and nice shoes mattered. Doing the better thing mattered.
Her shoulder was ready when friends felt a cry coming on. She knew where to offer opinion and when to shut up. She could juggle oranges. She lied only a little, and they were always white.
Â
Zappora Ashkenazi was the literary editor for the countryâs third most-read fashion magazine. Her publisher had wanted to introduce the magazineâs reluctant readership to both new and classic literature, and if that literature held a passing link to couture, so much the better. It was a job with challenge: Austen, Woolf and Parker had never, so far as Zappora knew, assembled a spring collection. Yet those who read âOn the Night Standâ every month did so faithfully and first. Her writing was known for its economic style and refreshing avoidance of simile. Herhusband was her first reader. Every word, every draft. You always have an interesting story to tell, he would say.
Zappora started in the fashion trade as a photographerâs dresser. She flipped collars, fanned skirts, hitched pants, buttoned, tied, zipped. By the end of the first hour with her first model on her first day of her first real job she was given her first nickname.
Zipper.
She was very proud.
Â
Zipper was not quite as tall as her husband, not quite as thin and not quite as old. Her hair was dark and fine and trimmed precisely every eight weeks. Coloured, perhaps tied with a ribbon, as required.
Her eyes were creased at the corners. She wore glasses when reading. The glasses were purchased in a small shop in Paris, around the corner from an antiquarian bookshop.
Â
Zipper sat silent beside her husband, thinking how curious it was that her body had stopped working. That the doctor sounded like he was speaking under water.
She wondered what would happen if she got up and left. Better yet, hadnât come in at all. She clung to the sense of it.
I am not in the room.
Ambrose is not unravelling into the sweating, pasty stranger sitting next to me.
We are at home, preparing a meal for friends or deciding which film to see or selecting which book to curl up with or standing on the doorstep watching that annoying cat with those stupid birds.
We are not here.
None of this is
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