‘And shatter all your illusions about the nefarious side of the vintage business?’
‘This is one of those rare occasions when I’m really happy for all my illusions to be shattered,’ Sophy said with a plaintive look at Charles, who was crouched at her feet. He even looked elegant on his haunches. And amused. Still very very amused.
‘Deadstock just means dead inventory; items that were never sold,’ Charles explained. ‘You must have encountered deadstock in your last job. Johnno mentioned that you’d worked for Belle Girl.’
It seemed as if Johnno and Charles had had quite the chat about Sophy, taking in not just the last chapter of her illustrious career but her plans for the future, lizards, snakes and spiders notwithstanding.
‘We didn’t have deadstock. We sold everything. Even returns that, quite frankly, weren’t fit for anything other than burning. Shop policy was that if you marked it down enough, then someone would always end up buying it,’ Sophy recalled as she peered down at the contents of this mystery box. There were about fifty or so small boxes in there, which Charles was rifling through with his long fingers that looked like he should be playing fiddly piano concertos or performing delicate, life-saving surgery on someone’s heart. ‘What have you got in there, then?’
‘Seventy 1950s Bakelite brooches.’ Charles took out one of the boxes and prised off the lid to reveal a small black cat, its back arched, tail twitched, its eyes picked out in green. ‘Quite fun, no?’
‘It’s very cute,’ Sophy agreed as Charles placed the brooch on her upturned palm, the tips of his fingers brushing her skin, which for some strange reason made her want to shiver. But in a good way. A very good way. She tried to ignore it, push it away with whatever shecould think of to say next. ‘And you also source all those posh frocks upstairs? ’
‘That’s just the side-hustle.’ Charles opened another box. Inside was nestled a brooch in the shape of a little white Westie. ‘The day job is vintage jewellery. If you were in the market for a tiara, then I’m your man.’
‘It’s funny you should mention it, I was thinking only the other day that I didn’t have enough tiaras.’ It was one of only three occasions in her life when Sophy could actually think of the right thing to say at exactly the right moment.
Charles gifted her another of those smiles that made Sophy feel like she wasn’t just funny but clever and beautiful and even sexy, because it was a warm, appreciative smile and his eyes were fixed on her face, like Sophy’s face was very pleasing to him.
She had to stop it. Stopthis. Stop developing a massive crush on a man who so obviously didn’t fancy women, and would have been completely out of her league anyway. She just wished that he wasn’t so handsome or so tactile or so beautifully dressed and that he would stop looking at her like that, because it made her feel all hot and bothered in a way that she couldn’t remember ever feeling with Egan. Not even in the heady, early days when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Sophy realised that she was staring at Charles and he was looking right back at her, the smile gone but the warm look in his eyes still there.
Were they having a moment? It felt like they were having a moment—
‘Sophy, what are you doing touching the merchandise? I hope you’ve washed your hands!’ The moment was abruptly gone, murdered by Phoebe, who must have crept down the stairs because Sophy had never heard her approach.
She turned her head away from Charles and blinked uncertainly and, when she opened her eyes, there was Cress, beaming from ear to ear.
‘It’s all decided,’ she said happily. ‘Friday is the end of the month, when my salary gets paid in, so I’m going to start here on Monday.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ Sophy said, levering herself off the sofa so she could give Cress a celebratory hug. ‘I knew you’d be perfect for the job.’
‘It is brilliant,’ Cress agreed. When Cress was happy, she gave the best hugs. But then she was freeing herself from Sophy’s arms to throw her stepsister an anguished look, brow furrowed, lips quivering. ‘So, will you phone up the museum for me on Monday and say that I’ve suddenly had to leave the country and you don’t know when I’ll be back?’
Chapter Six
It was much better to be in Phoebe’s good books than it was to feel like she was shooting tiny daggers into you whenever she glanced your way.
Phoebe was delighted about Cress, though Sophy did hear her murmur to Beatrice, ‘So weird that they’re friends. I mean, Sophy doesn’t even know who Mary Quant is.’
Sophy did actually know who Mary Quant was but, even if she hadn’t, Phoebe would have filled her in, because she’d clearly decided that Sophy had passed some kind of arbitrary probation period. Or else Phoebe had realised that Sophy was going to keep turning up every day, whether she liked it or not, so they might just as well make the most of it.
The next morning, after washing her hands – and not even the sternest hospital matron was as exacting on the subject of hand hygiene as Phoebe – Sophy was allowed on the shop floor.
‘I’m going to train you up,’ Phoebe promised ominously. Sophy was all ready to bristle because she’d forgotten more about customer service than Phoebe even knew, but it turned out that Phoebe wanted to impart the mysteries of selling vintage fashion.
By lunchtime, Sophy was reeling from all the new knowledge that had been stuffed into her head. The dropped hems of the twenties. Nineteen thirties bias cut. The utility clothing of the forties and the New Look silhouette and wiggle dresses of the fifties before they moved on to the minidresses and Pop Art of the sixties.
Phoebe had all sorts of fascinating facts at her fingertips. That clothes rationing hadn’t ended as soon as the Second World War was over but carried on until 1949. British women had been rightly furious that there were French ladies swishing about in their ginormous New Look skirts while they were still having to replace the gussets of their knickers with stockinette. ‘When the queen got married in 1947, she bought the material for her dress with her ration coupons. Lots of people tried to donate their coupons to her, but the Palace sent them all back.’
‘I would have absolutely kept my clothing coupons for myself,’ Sophy said and Phoebe nodded.
‘I know, me too!’
It was a beautiful moment of solidarity. It didn’t last but also it didn’t dissipate into the open hostility that had been the theme up until then.
‘So, pricing? How does that work?’ Sophy asked, which was a reasonable question so there was no need for Phoebe to close her eyes and pinch the bridge of her nose like she had a headache coming on.
