It was also quite fascinating to watch Phoebe and Chloe with the customers. Only one rail-thin, expensively dressed woman with a Chanel bag slung nonchalantly over her shoulder was granted admittance to the atelier; everyone else was happy to look through the second-tier downstairs dresses.
Sophy would have asked them, if she’d been allowed to even make eye contact, if they were shopping with a special occasion in mind or if they had some idea of what they were looking for, but Anita and Phoebe didn’t do any of that.
Anita was keen to impart fashion facts about any frocks the women (and they were all women) lingered over. ‘Forties rayon with a kick-pleat,’ she’d announce. Or, ‘Sixties minidress heavily influenced by Paco Rabanne.’
Whereas Phoebe might know a lot about vintage fashion but she knew sweet FA about making the customer feel like a queen. ‘Oh, that’s a very petite cut,’ she cooed doubtfully when a young woman took a gorgeous emerald green sheath off the rail. She might just as well have said, ‘It’s never going to fit you, fatso.’
‘Hmmm, that’s really more of a sitting-down sort of dress. You want to wear it to a wedding? And there’ll be a lot of dancing? Well, it’s your decision, but that dress is eighty years old and I always think that when people buy a vintage dress it’s more that they become the caretaker of it rather than the owner,’ Phoebe mused, and another woman, cheeks aflame, hurriedly put the pretty pink fifties wiggle dress she’d been sighing over back on the rail.
Then her cheeks got even redderwhen Phoebe gently tutted and put the dress where it had been originally, between a sherbet pink and a candyfloss pink frock, not at the more shocking pink end of the rail.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman trilled nervously.
‘It’s all right, no harm done,’ Phoebe said with a smile that reminded Sophy of a shark wearing lipstick.
Did the shop even make a profit? Sophy wondered, and then she asked herself again how thehellJohnno’s Junk had transitioned into this fancy, fussy vintage emporium that was even more intimidating than the time Sophy had gone into the Louis Vuitton shop on Bond Street to buy Caroline something really special for her fiftieth birthday. (Which had turned out to be a coin purse, because it was all Sophy could afford.)
The day dragged on, slower than a slug on crutches. It was just gone five and Sophy was staring at the clock on the wall, willing the minute hand to creep closer to the six so that it would be going-home time, when the door was suddenly flung open so violently that it crashed back on its hinges.
A small, old women in a bright red raincoat appeared in the doorway. ‘Can someone get the stuff out the taxi and pay the driver?’ she demanded in a hoarse cockney accent.
‘Oh my God,’ Phoebe muttered, and was out of the door with the petty cash tin in seconds, while the woman collapsed on one of the sofas.
‘Make me a cuppa, Neet, I’m gasping,’ she groaned, listing to one side like a scuppered ship.
‘Milk, two sugars?’ Anita asked timidly.
‘No milk, four sugars,’ the woman snapped with more ferocity than Phoebe would ever be able to muster.
Sophy was pleased, and also fascinated, by this distraction. The woman had full make-up on, though one of her false eyelashes had come adrift and looked like a sooty-legged spider clinging to her lowerlash and her bright red lipstick had bled. Her hair, though, was impeccable: a blue-rinsed helmet that looked as if it would remain intact no matter the elements. In fact, it looked as if it might withstand a nuclear attack.
‘Who’s this when she’s at home?’ the woman asked as she caught sight of Sophy sitting bewitched behind the desk.
‘Oh, don’t worry about her, it’s only Johnno’s daughter,’ Phoebe said as she hurried back in to the shop with her arms full of garment bags. ‘Reenie. Youpromisedyou wouldn’t smoke but these bags positively reek of Benson &Hedges. Oh no, and you’re not lighting up in here. The dresses!’
‘Also, it’s against the law,’ Anita added as she hovered in the no-man’s-land between shop floor and office. ‘Where did you want your tea?’
‘Right here,’ Reenie said implacably, though she’d tucked her cigarettes and lighter back in her voluminous black patent handbag.
Phoebe raised her eyes to the ormolu-adorned ceiling. It looked to Sophy as if she were saying a silent prayer. ‘You try the patience of a saint.’
‘The saints wouldn’t have me, darling,’ Reenie cackled. Sophy was warming to her. ‘Anyhoo, I did all the alterations, but I could only let that charmeuse wedding dress out by a quarter of an inch, if that. She’ll have to lose at least another five pounds. And the seams on that Jaeger were gone, darling. I did my best but it might be time to give it a decent burial.’
Phoebe did cross herself then. ‘Oh God.’
‘Even him upstairs wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it,’ Reenie said.
Phoebe winced as Anita brought the tea in on a tray and Reenie grabbed the mug with no regard for the pink velvet she was sitting on. Then, once Reenie had taken a few enthusiastic slurps of tea, Phoebe handed the garment bags over to Anita, who receivedthem with much reverence. Phoebe took a seat beside Reenie.
‘Now, we’re coming up to wedding season and we’re going to be so busy and there’s a perfectly lovely room upstairs with everything you need—’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do those stairs. They’d be the death of me.’
‘But we really need you on site,’ Phoebe persisted in the softest, sweetest voice. She even fluttered her eyelashes, which, unlike Reenie’s, were firmly in place. ‘It would make life so much easier for fittings.’
‘Life isn’t easy, pet,’ Reenie said and took hold of Phoebe’s hand. ‘And your life’s about to get much harder, I’m afraid.’
Phoebe glanced in Sophy’s direction, almost as if she was looking for sympathy or reassurance. Sophy shrugged helplessly. ‘Hard?’
