Page 45 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
‘Happy travels,’ Cress called out with a wave of her hand. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
Sophy rolled her eyes. ‘But you don’t do anything, Cress!’
‘Whatever. See you on the flipside.’
Sophy turned back to Charles, who ushered her into the car with one hand and took her overnight bag with the other.
‘Do you mind having the top down?’ he asked. ‘Will you be too chilly?’
Probably, but Sophy wasn’t going to miss the experience of leaving London on a Saturday evening in a convertible with a handsome man at the wheel, her hair blowing gently in the breeze. Also, she was quite toasty in the black jumpsuit she’d worn for work and a thick cardigan.
‘I’m good,’ she said, running a hand over the petrol blue trim of the dashboard. ‘Nice wheels.’
‘It’s a 1960 Mercedes-Benz,’ Charles said, as he climbed into the car then shut the door. ‘Sadly not mine, but borrowed from a friend. We won’t be doing a hundred in the fast lane but she still goes at a fair old clip.’
‘Doing a hundred in the fast lane is illegal anyway.’ Sophy fastened her seatbelt. ‘So, we’re going on a motorway, then? Any other clues?’
‘’Fraid not. It’s a surprise,’ Charles said maddeningly, as he indicated they were pulling out from the kerb by turning the inner ring of the steering wheel. ‘Do you like surprises?’
‘Love them when I’m organising them for other people, hate them when I’m not in on it,’ Sophy replied, and Charles laughed.
This was what he was born to do; driving a vintage sports car, the soft evening sun making his hair blonder, his cheekbones a little sharper. When he slipped on a pair of vintage Ray-Bans, Sophy thought that she might actually have swooned.
When she was in the car with Mike, Sophy usually hooked up her phone so she could control the playlist – she’d been listening toa lotof Taylor Swift in recent months – but the Mercedes didn’t have a USB port, so they had to make do with the push-button period radio and jazz. It was mellow jazz and not noodly, plinky-plonky jazz so that was something.
But mostly they talked. Charles had finally sold the tiara to a very rich woman in Texas who didn’t seem undaunted that opals were meant to signify bad luck. ‘I did tell her that I couldn’t offer a refund if she got partially eaten by a buzzard but she said that they didn’t have a lot of buzzards in the part of Texas where she lives so she’d probably be all right.’
Then Sophy hit him with the highlights of her week, from the travails of Louise being stuck in the silver wiggle dress to the utter carnage that had unfolded in the atelier. And how annoying it was that Johnno hadn’t replied to any of her texts asking if he’d found his birth certificate or passport yet. Sophy was now averaging a text to Johnno every other day and trying not to panic about how few months there were until her grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary.
Charles was a brilliant talker but he was also a great listener. So many men didn’t know how to do that. Egan had had selective hearing at best. Never hearing Sophy when she was asking him to put a wash on or take his dirty plates to the kitchen. Or, indeed, when she was talking about her feelings. But he could have been in another room in the middle of a thunderstorm and he’d still be able to hear her open the fridge door and would yell, ‘I’ll have a bottle of lager, ta!’
But Charles listened attentively to everything Sophy had to say, nudging her commentary along with appreciative comments, engaged questions and lots of laughing at the funny bits.
By now, they’d left London behind and were on the motorway with all signs pointing to the west.
‘Bristol?’ Sophy asked but Charles shook his head. ‘Further than Bristol, then? Somerset?’
‘Sophy, darling, don’t spoil the surprise,’ he said gently as Sophy’s stomach dipped deliciously at the endearment.
‘What’s after Somerset? Devon? Cornwall?’
‘I’ll never tell.’ Charles shook his head.
It was dark and Charles had put the top back up after they left the motorway and began to follow the signs to…
‘Bath! We’re going to Bath, aren’t we?’ Sophy exclaimed excitedly.
‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm in you knowing as we’re going to reach our destination in about fifteen minutes,’ Charles said. He looked pleased that he’d managed to keep up the subterfuge for as long as he had.
Sophy and Cress and their respective mums had done a mini-break to Bath a few years before. They’d stayed in an Airbnb on an impossibly grand crescent and had spent the two days shopping (Cress had spenthoursin VV Rouleaux, a shop that sold all manner of ribbons and trims and gewgaws) and eating cake and…
‘Oh my God, you brought me all this way to drag me around the Bath Fashion Museum!’ Sophy said like the ingrate she truly was. ‘I mean, hurrah, Bath!’
‘We’re not going to the Fashion Museum, although if you really wanted to go then I guess we could find a spare afternoon…’
‘No, it’s all right. I’ll be good, I promise.’ Sophy pouted a little until Charles shook his head and laughed again.
‘No museums then.’
