The Dress at Breakfast

At five to ten on Sunday morning, Signe walked into the hotel breakfast room wearing the rose-coloured dress, silver shoes and the expression of a woman daring anybody to mention last night's coat.

Ingrid looked up from her coffee.

“Good morning.”

“Thank you.”

“I haven't said anything yet.”

“I'm accepting it in advance.”

Nora stood to hug her. In daylight, the silk was softer than it had looked beneath the Glasshouse lamps, its colour shifting as Signe turned. The sleeves sat exactly where she had wanted them.

Liv took the seat beside her.

“You look lovely.”

“I slept for seven hours.”

“Also that.”

Signe put her bag on the spare chair, looked around the room and sighed with pleasure.

“Nobody needs hemming. This is wonderful.”

***

They ordered breakfast.

Signe wanted eggs, toast, coffee and confirmation that Nora and Liv had genuinely enjoyed the play rather than merely the costumes.

“I was extremely concerned about the marriage,” Liv said.

“Which one?”

“By the end? All of them.”

Signe laughed. Nora described the scene that had made the audience go quiet. Ingrid asked a question about the final change of clothes, and Signe answered it without looking at either of the other two for reassurance.

Nora noticed that. She liked noticing it.

When the food arrived, Signe moved her glass and pulled the plate towards her with an enthusiasm that suggested Liv's biscuits had not constituted a balanced supper.

“The team loved them,” she said.

“Were there enough?”

“We divided them with great fairness and a large pair of scissors.”

Ingrid set down her cup.

“Not the good ones.”

Signe smiled at her.

“I'm going to let you worry about that.”

Liv reached for the marmalade.

“Can we leave here by eleven?”

Nora glanced at her.

“The train isn't until later.”

“I know.”

“Have you booked something?”

Liv spread marmalade carefully to the edge of her toast.

“Possibly.”

Signe leaned back.

“Oh, I like this.”

***

The reservation was for a painting.

For a moment, none of them spoke.

“Not a class,” Liv explained. “An actual painting. To buy.”

“I understood the category,” Nora said. “I'm enjoying the surprise.”

Liv took out her phone and found a photograph.

A woman stood beside the sea in a yellow coat. You couldn't see her face. She had one hand in her pocket and the other lifted to hold her hair against the wind. Behind her, the water was grey-green beneath a wide, restless sky.

Signe drew the phone closer.

“Oh.”

“I've been following the artist for months,” Liv said. “She has a studio here. When we booked the theatre, I asked whether I could come and look at it.”

“For The Morning Room?” Nora asked.

“For my bedroom.”

Nora looked at the picture again.

She could imagine the blue walls of Liv's room, glimpsed once through an open door when she'd been invited in for coffee. A small brass lamp beside the bed. A stack of books. She hadn't stayed long enough to notice what was on the walls.

“Yes,” she said. “I can see that.”

Liv turned the phone back towards herself.

“I haven't bought it yet. I wanted to see it properly.”

“May we come?” Signe asked.

“That's why I'm telling you.”

“I thought you might simply be showing off your excellent secret life.”

Liv smiled and finished her toast.

***

They left the hotel together.

Ingrid had a train to catch and hugged them goodbye at the corner. She told Signe to call when she had a free evening, told Nora she wanted a photograph of the finished scarf, then turned to Liv.

“Send me the painting.”

“If I buy it.”

“Even if you don't.”

She went off towards the station, one hand raised behind her.

Signe looked down at her shoes.

“How far?”

“Ten minutes,” Liv said.

“I can be magnificent for ten minutes.”

They walked along a quiet street where the shops were only beginning to open. Someone was putting flowers outside a doorway. A man on a bicycle passed with a small child sitting upright behind him, both of them wearing identical expressions of concentration.

Nora caught their reflection in a window: Signe in silk, Liv walking ahead with the address open on her phone, herself with the blue scarf tucked into her jacket.

She had packed for a theatre trip. Apparently there were further uses for the clothes.

***

The studio occupied two rooms above a small shop.

The artist met them at the door, introduced herself as Ada and led them upstairs. There were paintings leaning against the walls, brushes soaking in jars and a wide window overlooking the roofs.

The woman in the yellow coat stood on an easel near the light.

Liv stopped several feet away.

It was smaller than Nora had expected. More private, somehow. The grey in the sky was warm in places, the water rougher up close. A little stroke of pale paint marked the woman's bare wrist.

“I'll let you look,” Ada said.

Signe drifted towards the other window. Nora joined her, leaving Liv in front of the easel.

“Why are we whispering?” Signe whispered.

“I don't know.”

They stopped.

Liv stepped closer, then back again. She held her bag against herself with both hands.

“It's different,” she said.

Nora turned.

“From the photograph?”

Liv nodded.

Ada came over.

“The light changes it. Would you like me to move it?”

“Please.”

She lifted the painting off the easel and set it against a pale wall. Away from the direct light, the yellow coat deepened. The sky seemed larger.

Liv went quiet.

Nora had been ready with an opinion. She put it away.

After a while, Liv looked at Ada.

“What's she doing?”

“What do you think?”

Liv considered the woman.

“Enjoying the weather. Even though nobody would call it good.”

Ada smiled.

“I like that.”

***

While Ada went downstairs to fetch packing materials, Liv sat on a low stool beside the window.

“Too much?” she asked.

Nora was reaching automatically for the answer when Signe spoke.

“Money or yellow?”

Liv laughed.

“Neither, actually.”

“Then what?”

She looked back at the painting.

“I've never bought anything like it.”

“You don't have to,” Nora said.

“I know. I've put money aside. I've measured the wall. I've even moved the little mirror that was hanging there.”

“So we aren't carrying it onto the train?”

“She's arranging delivery if I decide.”

Signe put a hand against her chest.

“You've thought of everything.”

Liv smiled, then pressed the handles of her bag together.

“I thought I'd come in and know at once.”

“Are you disappointed?” Nora asked.

Liv shook her head.

“No. I think I like it more. That's the difficulty.”

There was a small silence.

Then Signe crossed to the painting and stood beside it, careful not to touch the frame.

“In your room,” she said, “where would you see it?”

“From the bed. On the opposite wall.”

“Morning?”

“Morning. And before I turn out the light.”

Liv looked at it again.

This time, when Ada came upstairs, she stood.

“I'd like it,” she said.

***

They celebrated with coffee in a little square.

Signe insisted on paying. Liv said she didn't need to. Signe told her she had been eating her buns for years and considered this an instalment.

Nora found a table in the shade and put her bag on a chair.

Liv was still smiling.

“Will you show me when it arrives?” Signe asked.

“You can come and see it when you're home.”

“And before then?”

“I'll send you a photograph.”

“With you in it.”

Liv pulled a face.

“It's the painting you want to see.”

“I've seen the painting.”

Nora laughed and lifted her coffee.

Signe leaned back in the chair. The silk lay across her knees; one silver shoe slipped halfway off her heel.

“This is a very good Sunday,” she said.

“We should probably stop before somebody buys a chandelier,” Nora replied.

Liv glanced towards a shop across the square.

“No,” Nora said.

“I was looking at the clock.”

“Of course.”

***

They said goodbye outside the hotel.

Signe had left herself time to go home, change and reach the theatre before the afternoon fitting she had arranged. Nora and Liv needed their bags and, according to Nora, a responsible interval in which to find the right platform.

“I'm coming home for a few days after this run,” Signe said.

“Tell us when,” Liv replied.

“I will.”

“You can bring the dress,” Nora said.

Signe looked down at it.

“You haven't had enough of it?”

“We've only seen it indoors and beside coffee. It deserves a garden.”

“The Glasshouse?”

“Provided you don't mind a little compost.”

Signe hugged her, then Liv. This time nobody held on quite so tightly. They knew what the next visit would look like, even without a date.

As she walked away, she lifted her skirt a little to avoid a puddle.

Liv watched until she turned the corner.

Then she looked at Nora.

“I'll have to tidy my bedroom.”

“For the painting?”

“For Signe. She'll want to inspect the whole arrangement.”

Nora smiled.

Upstairs, while they collected their bags, Liv's phone rang.

The dog sitter.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

There was a pause. Then Liv began to laugh.

“Yes. That's his chair. You can sit somewhere else.”