‘We don’t even know how she met her fiancé!’ said Vera. ‘The last time we saw her she was heartbreakingly lonely. Now she’s all set to get married.’
‘It’s certainly a huge change,’ said Madge, ‘but after all the turmoil she’s been through she deserves some happiness.’
‘Oh, she does,’ said Vera. ‘I can’t imagine being so swept off my feet I would marry a man I’d just met, but perhaps she’s known him a while.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Madge, ‘and I reckon it’s time we got going or we’re never going to find anything to wear.’
There were just two weeks until the wedding, but try as they might, the girls couldn’t find what they wanted. After hours of poring over fabrics in hot, stuffy shops, they decided to try one last store, which from the wooden front door looked as if it had once been a little house. The moment they walked in Madge saw a gorgeous heliotrope pink-purple sari hanging on the wall. She noticed Vera looking at it too but, miracle of miracles, at the back of the musty old store there was another. They both tried them on, bought one each and took them back to show Sister Blossom, who offered to arrange an appointment with a seamstress.
‘What would we do without you, Blossom!’ Madge exclaimed.
Vera had her nose buried in a ‘borrowed’ copy of the Coronet magazine that had been left unattended at one of the posh cocktail parties she frequented. She showed Madge various pictures and, after lengthy discussions, the bridesmaids decided to ask if an elegant Ginger Rogers-style gown could be copied.
They made an appointment to see Zynah, the seamstress, and were taken to a dingy little room at the back of a grocery store where she had a small workshop. Vera looked at Madge pointedly, and she could tell they were both wondering if they had done the right thing.
‘Not sure about this place,’ whispered Madge.
‘It’s a bit dusty and I think from the smell there’s a hint of mould,’ said Vera. ‘Not the best place to get dresses made for a wedding.’
The girls were well aware that while the material and the colour of the sari was exactly what they wanted, the cut of it was very different to the design to be copied from Coronet magazine. So they began to feel rather nervous when nothing was measured as they stood in the saris after changing from their khaki uniforms. No chalk marks were made. Everything was ‘nipped and tucked’ with a multitude of pins.
‘Please, memsahibs,’ said Zynah, ‘be very careful removing your dresses in case the pins fall off.’
Two days later Sister Blossom told them that Zynah had sent a message to ask if they would be so kind as to return to her workshop for a fitting. The girls were worried about what would be waiting for them so they went over as soon as their shift came to an end. The first thing Madge noticed when she tried on her new gown was the beautiful, hand-made buttons that ran from the base of the neck down the spine. All thirty-six of them.
‘This is absolutely stunning,’ Madge whispered over the curtain. ‘And have you seen the buttons?’ The cherry-sized buttons, fastened by loops, were covered with the same material as the girls’ dresses. The box of pins came out again, but only minor alterations were necessary before the gowns were ready to take away.
‘Memsahibs,’ said Zynah, ‘you look very beautiful in your gowns, but I have a suggestion that I hope will bring great pleasure.’ Vera looked at Madge and gave an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders as two lengths of yellow silk sashes suddenly appeared as if by magic. ‘Please lift your arms,’ said the seamstress, as she walked behind Madge and proceeded to wrap a hand-stitched sash around her waist.
Madge looked at herself in the dusty full-length mirror. The yellow contrasted perfectly with the heliotrope and the sash was ever so flattering for the figure.
‘Very slimming,’ smiled Madge.
Vera grinned at her and Madge knew she had the seal of approval. I wonder what Basil will think, she thought. That is, if he can get the day off.
Zynah carefully wrapped the gowns in brown paper. They paid the bill, making sure to include a sizeable tip and a big hug for the seamstress who had put in an enormous amount of work to turn the saris into excellent copies of the Ginger Rogers gown.
‘Zynah, you’re a miracle worker,’ Madge said. ‘Perhaps, with enough coconut oil, we won’t look half bad at all!’
As the pair strolled happily back to the hospital complex, they considered their next problem: footwear. Vera was worried that if she wore high heels they might catch the back of the full-length gown. Madge knew she would be shouted down for her suggestion, but said it anyway.
‘There’s going to be a lot of standing around in the church and then at the reception,’ she pointed out. ‘Our dresses are full length so nobody will be able to see what sort of shoes we’ll be wearing. I wonder if our nurses’ lace-ups would be best . . .’
‘Feel free, darling!’ laughed Vera as they finally reached their bashas.
With the three girls on different work patterns there was no wedding rehearsal or indeed any detailed discussion about how the day would go. Even more frustrating for the bridesmaids was that they still didn’t have a clue how the whirlwind romance had got underway.
Reassurance came, however, from Reverend Davies who told Madge and Vera as he passed through the wards on his hospital visits not to worry in the slightest because everything would just flow smoothly once the ceremony got underway. ‘That’s the way it goes with weddings.’
There was one thing, however, that was too awful to even consider: what if another of the demonstrations telling the British to get out and demanding home rule for India took place on the
