‘What’s a princess cut?’ It felt like Sophy knew nothing about anything. A couple of months ago, her life was settled, safe, absolutely surprise-free. She knew her Oxford Street store better than she knew her own face. She knew where every single item of clothing was, either on display or in the stockroom. And if she didn’t, there’d be a schematic from Merchandising appearing on the Webex imminently.
She also knew everything there was to know about Egan, good and bad. And if it seemed that often the bad outweighed the good, then that was just the way it was when you’d been in a relationship for so long. They might not have been love’s young dream any more but they rubbed along all right. So it had been quite the revelation when Sophy had realised Egan regarded her more as a lodger with benefits than the person he wanted to share the rest of his life with.
Now, she was floating on uncharted waters in a dinghy that listed to one side. Or that was how it felt. The future hadn’t been exciting and full of possibilities; it had felt uncertain and unknown. Even the house where she’d spent her teen years, after Caroline and Mike had married, didn’t seem like a safe place to lick her wounds and plan her next move. Especially when her bedroom now had a sunbed, foot spa and Caroline’s back-stock beauty products in it.
Maybe that was why Sophy had decided that instead of floating aimlessly, she was going to take a deep dive. The dive didn’t get much deeper than emigratingto Australia, half a world away.
It was all right to feel uncertain in a new place, a different country on a different continent. Scary but the good kind of scary. Every day would feel like an adventure: full of new sights and experiences. It would be weird if Sophy didn’t feel unsettled being in a new place, but that was better than feeling unsettled in the place she’d grown up. That felt like a failure.
‘My description of a princess cut must be sadly boring, because I can tell you haven’t been listening to a single word I’ve said.’
Sophy’s unhappy train of thought was derailed by Charles’s words puncturing her cloud of self-pity. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry…’
‘Nothing to apologise for. I am quite dull when I get on the subject of princess versus emerald cut,’ Charles insisted. He didn’t look cross. If anything he looked rather concerned. ‘Are you all right? You seemed deep in thought and as if not all of them were happy ones.’
‘I’m fine,’ Sophy said automatically because that was what she always said. ‘Just… what with the new job and well, my living situation has changed and this year has turned out very differently to how I thought it would. I’m not sure I do well with changes but then I’m moving to Australia and changes don’t get much bigger than that, do they?’
‘But you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ Charles said. ‘At least that’s what I tell myself.’
‘I do like omelettes,’ Sophy mused. ‘Omelettes aren’t scary. They’re actually quite comforting.’
‘Depends on the filling though. Look, are you sure that you’re…’
‘It’s the gin,’ Sophy said, because there had to be something she could blame her mood on rather than her current life situation. ‘I shouldn’t have drunk gin tonight.They say that gin makes you maudlin, right? Gin tears, mother’s ruin and all that.’
‘I could get you something else,’ Charles suggested because he really was the sweetest man. So kind and perceptive. Maybe a littletooperceptive. ‘Though maybe you shouldn’t start mixing your drinks so late in the evening.’
‘Yeah, things could get ugly.’ Sophy picked up her glass of gin and tonic and gently tapped it against Charles’s lager. ‘Cheers.’
‘Now I have to cheers you back or else we’ll really be in trouble,’ he said as Sophy finished what was in her glass and decided that it was time to call it a night. Johnno had disappeared, no doubt to see yet another man about yet another dog, and if she continued drinking gin and Charles continued to be kind and perceptive she’d probably end up crying on his shoulder.
‘Right, I’m cutting myself off and ordering an Uber. Otherwise I’ll ruin your suit by getting tear stains and mascara all over it,’ she said.
‘Nothing that my dry-cleaner couldn’t sort out,’ Charles assured her, but Sophy shook her head. She didn’t want him to think that she was one of those sad, clichéd women who automatically assumed that every gay man she met was her new best friend.
That was the other thing about drinking too much. Instead of getting the tube home in an economical fashion, it always seemed like a good idea to get a car door to door just as late-night price surging kicked in. Between this and Phoebe forcing her to buy expensive second-hand dresses, it would be this time next year before she saved up her airfare.
‘Oh no, you’re looking all sad again,’ Charles said, lifting his hand so he could brush his thumb against the downturned corner of Sophy’s mouth. It was a gentle, friendly touch (though Sophy couldn’t remember the last time that any ofher friends had felt the need to touch her face), but it seemed to ignite a thousand delicious tingles not just on Sophy’s face but all the way through her body and right down to her toes. She had to concentrate very hard on not quivering.
‘I’m not sad,’ she said, though certainly she wasn’t happy. ‘I think I must have Resting Sad Face like some people have Resting Bitch Face’. One of those people being Phoebe.
‘Even though you’re not sad, I’m going to treat you to lunch next week,’ Charles said as Sophy gathered up her bag and coat. Sophy felt a small but delicious frisson at his words. Clearly, Charles had decided that they were going to be friends, and it wasn’t as if she was going to be having him in any other way.
‘Lunch would be nice, but we’ll go halves.’ Her phone said that her driver was three minutes away, so she stood up. Charles stood up with her.
‘No, I insist. My treat. Do you get a day off in the week?’ He held the heavy pub door open for her and now Sophy allowed herself to shiver as she was greeted by a rush of cold, damp air.
‘Wednesdays.’ Sophy had started to dread her days off. Previously she’d loved having a lie-in, then maybe heading out for a yoga class with a friend or a swim at the gym round the corner, but now most of her friends still lived on the other side of London, she’d cancelled her gym membership and Mike referred to their local pool as ‘a verruca soup’. This week on her day off, Caroline had asked her to clean out the kitchen cupboards, so lunch with Charles had to be more fun than that. In fact, it would be approximately a thousand times more fun than that because she’d be spending an hour or so with Charles. An unpleasant thought occurred. ‘Not anywhere too fancy. I’m not really a fancy kind of person.’
‘Oh, I think you could be any kind of person that you wanted to be,’ Charles said obliquely. He was looking hard at Sophy and, though his face was clearly illuminated by the lights from the pub, it was impossible to know what he was thinking. ‘Why don’t you come to the office first and I’ll let you try on a tiara and then we’ll go for lunch. How does that sound?’
‘Really? A real tiara?’ Sophy had never been one of those girls who liked to pretend that she was a princess, but apparently she was one of those women who had been harbouring a secret wish to try on a tiara.
Ten minutes ago she’d been teetering on the edge of the pit of despair and now she was laughing as Iban in a Toyota Prius came slowly down the road. Sophy waved manically so he wouldn’t drive past her.
‘So, I’ll see you Wednesday then,’ Charles said.
Sophy nodded. ‘You will. I’ll be thinking about how to wear my hair so it really suits a tiara.’
