Page 37 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
‘Very badly. Why do you ask?’ He arched his eyebrow in the manner that Sophy always found quite delicious. It was such a quintessentially Charles mannerism. ‘No, don’t tell me. You’re actually a very successful ballroom dancer, twice national champion, but your partner Pablo, real name Paul, has slipped on a tube of greasepaint and you need someone to tango with as a matter of urgency.’
Charles’s vivid imagination was something else that Sophy found quite irresistible. And she could play along. Especially as Charles was nearer to the truth than he could ever know. ‘If I can’t find someone to dance a tango with at nationals, my dreams, my ambition to be an international champion, will be crushed.’
‘Like Pablo’s ankle?’
‘Exactly.’
They wandered through the exhibition, which finished up in a little side gallery full of black and white portraits of debutantes taken by Cecil Beaton, and continued to discuss how Pablo and Sophy’s rumba in Blackpool had taken the dance world by storm.
Occasionally Charles would throw out a snippet of information about one of the dresses they were meant to be studying (‘Look, Sophy! These two dresses are made from Liberty prints. I adore a Liberty print’) but mostly they were silly. Sophy missed being silly.
At her old job, she might have reached the giddy heights of assistant manager but she was too fond of mucking about and having a laugh, so she’d remained senior sales associate. She could be silly with Cress, of course, but Sophy hardly saw her, even though they were working together. Cress would disappear up to her skylit eyrie each morning and had to be coaxed down for lunch break. Egan, despite his faults, had had some good qualities but a sense of humour hadn’t really been one of them. So many of Sophy’s other friends were married, with kids, which meant that they’d moved out of London because it was too expensive and too polluted and too crime-y once babies entered the picture. The ones that were still around were in Deptford. So, technically in the same city, but it would be easier and quicker to go from London to Manchester than from Hendon in north London to the wilds of south London.
No wonder Australia seemed like a good idea.
But for now there was London, and Charles. When they finally left the museum after a rummage around the gift shop, Sophy realised that they were just round the corner from Borough Market: a foodie mecca of stalls selling everything from gourmet cookies and locally produced honey to exotic meats and organic vegetables.
‘I promised you cake and I promised that I was buying,’ Sophy said as they headed in the direction of the Thames.
It wasn’t a part of town that Sophy knew well but it was steeped in history. There was Tower Bridge of course and Guy’s Hospital, still retaining some of its original buildings from when it was first built in the 1720s, and the Gothic splendour of Southwark Cathedral, which had stood on the banks of the River Thames,in one incarnation or another, for over a thousand years.
Butting right up to the cathedral was the modern monolith of the Shard, its glass tiles gleaming in the April sunshine.
London was such a mixture of the old and the new. It was something that Sophy had always taken for granted. Where she’d lived in Deptford, there’d been chicken shops and betting shops and all the detritus of modern life on a high street where buildings from the late seventeenth century still proudly stood. Even in Hendon, which wasn’t the most happening of London suburbs, Sophy always thrilled to the sight of the blue plaque on a block of flats commemorating Amy Johnson, the famous aviatrix. Famous, in part, for being the first woman to fly alone to Australia. That had to be a good omen.
‘Penny for them,’ Charles said as they crossed over Borough High Street towards the market. ‘You were deep in thought there.’
‘I was just thinking about Amy Johnson.’ Sophy smiled sheepishly. ‘Random, I know.’
‘Well, you will be following in her illustrious footsteps,’ Charles reminded her.
‘Hopefully I won’t have to fly the plane myself.’ Sophy shook her head as a way of physically shaking off any doubts she might momentarily be having of leaving all that London had to offer. Australia was new and exciting; it was Sophy’s shiny, bright future, and, in her present, there was cake. So much cake.
‘I’m very serious when it comes to purchasing cake,’ she told Charles, which was really a warning that she’d want to do a complete circuit of the market, all three of its sites, before she made any decisions about pastries.
‘Can I confess something?’ Charles asked in such a grim voice that it made Sophy pause in her admiration of a delicious display of German cakes positively oozing creamy custard, honey and flaked almonds.
‘Is it something awful?’ Immediately her mind was racing with possibilities of what Charles was about to unload on her. But mostly it was the same variation on a theme: that he’d noticed that she had a crush on him and, while he thought she was a lovely girl, he just wasn’t into her that way.
God! She’d made it so obvious.
‘It’s just that…’
‘I’m so sorry, Charles…’
They both came to an awkward halt and gestured for the other one to continue.
‘Sorry,’ Sophy said again. ‘You were saying…’
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’ Charles took hold of Sophy’s arm to pull her to one side because they were creating a bottleneck next to the very popular aforementioned German cake stall.
‘No, you go first,’ Sophy insisted, because maybe the hard truth coming from Charles’s lips – that she wasn’t sophisticated enough or pretty enough or worldly enough to tempt him – would be what she needed to stop with this ridiculous, one-sided crush. It wouldn’t be pleasant but it would be good for her. ‘Please…’
‘I was just about to admit that… well, don’t take this the wrong way, because I know you have very strong feelings but I don’t feel the same.’
‘Oh God, I’mmortified…’Sophy put her hands on her burning cheeks.
‘It’s not your fault. One could say that I lead you on…’
