Page 84 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
‘But we did and I’m glad that we did even though I’m pretty annoyed with you right now.’ In case Charles thought she was joking, Sophy folded her arms and huffed like a furious little piggy all ready to blow the house down.
‘I’m flattered that you want to have sex with me that badly,’ Charles drawled and even though that wasn’t what Sophy meant and he was twisting her words, just hearing him say that made her want him to take her to his little garret and do things to her that she’d still remember when she was a little old lady.
‘Oh, and you don’t want to have sex with me, is that it?’
Before he could lie and say that he didn’t, Sophy turned and kissed him.
It was her turn to cup the back of his head, to hold him still, while she plundered his mouth. Charles stayed as still as one of the statues that had witnessed their other kisses, until Sophy pressed herself against him and drove her tongue into his mouth.
Then he groaned and kissed her back with just as much passion.
They were angry kisses, both of them taking, both of them demanding, but then Charles stroked his hand along Sophy’s flushed face and it shifted the mood, changed the tenor of their kisses. Softer, sweeter, full of regret.
Then Charles was gently pushing Sophy away. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘I wish I could but I can’t.’
‘I might not be gone for ever,’ she whispered too. ‘I might come back.’
Charles stood up. He touched her face again tenderly, fleetingly. ‘Then again, you might not,’ he said before he walked away.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eight days.
It was still raining the next day, which matched Sophy’s mood perfectly.
Seven days.
It seemed to Sophy as if time had sped up. The days going by in a flash, though she wanted to cherish every hour, every minute.
The shop was hideously busy. Every woman in London seemed to want a vintage dress for a special occasion and she was run ragged in work hours as much as she was after work on what Caroline referred to as ‘Ozmin’ and a to-do list that never seemed to get any shorter.
Yet she still had time to think about Charles, a messy mix of emotions: sadness, anger and then, on Friday evening, hope.
Their regular Friday drinks at The Hat and Fan had turned into an impromptu leaving party. Sophy was touched that these people she’d only known for a few weeks seemed genuinely upset that she was going. They’d had a whip-round and bought Sophy a bottle of her favourite Chanel No. 19, plus the bath oil and the body cream. ‘To mask the smell of the sheep,’ Chloe said with a serious face like she wasn’t even joking.
Then Phoebe produced a gift-wrapped parcel ‘from me & Coco Chanel’, which could only have been a dress and it was.A 1950s sun dress featuring kangaroos and koalas frolicking over white lawn cotton. ‘The queen toured Australia in 1954 just after her coronation, so everyone went Australia mad,’ Phoebe explained. Sophy would never figure that woman out. How she could flip from loathsome to lovely in the space of a minute.
But however touched she was by the presents and the sentiments, her attention was elsewhere. Every time someone stepped through the open door of the pub, she lifted her head even as her heart lifted, but it was never Charles. There was no Johnno either, but Sophy felt as if she’d already said goodbye to Johnno on that park bench with that carrier bag of gifts. Also, Johnno knew exactly where Sophy was. If he wanted to come, if he was able to come, then he’d be there. And she was fine with that.
But she wasn’t fine if her last sight of Charles was him walking away from her.
‘You could text him,’ Cress suggested, because she’d heard all about Charles’s stinging rejection in great detail. ‘He’s probably had time to get used to the news now. I have. I’ve only cried twice today.’
‘Well, I’ve cried three times so I think I’ve taken your crown,’ Sophy said as she pulled out her phone because Cress was right: there was no reason why she couldn’t message Charles.
It took fifteen minutes to craft two short sentences:‘We’re in the Hat & Fan. Would be great to see you.’
Even though Sophy sat it out until Henry called last orders, there was no reply from Charles, no show.
Six days.
The last Saturday Sophy would work in the shop, though she had to keep hurrying to the back office to have a little cry and field phone calls from Caroline, who wasn’t happy about Sophy’s plans to relocate to‘the middle of the bloody outback’. Still, there was nothing Caroline loved more than a project.
There was another impromptu leaving party that evening for the few old colleagues and friends that Sophy had managed to scrounge up and/or who could get a babysitter. It was just about enough people for one of the big tables at Wagamama and, once Sophy had talked about her impending move and they’d discussed how none of them had heard a dicky bird from the official receivers and her old school friend, Emily, had treated them to a monologue on baby-led weaning, the conversation petered out.
It was a timely reminder of why Sophy had wanted to shake up her life, but all she could think about was that she was in Holborn, just a ten-minute walk away from Charles’s flat. It would be easy enough to head over there instead of catching the tube home. But would he even be in? Would he buzz her to come up when she rang the intercom?
After saying goodbye to her friends, making fervent promises to WhatsApp and FaceTime, Sophy even started heading in that direction. But then she remembered how Charles had turned her away, turned her down, even when she’d kissed him, and she decided that she wasn’t brave enough or strong enough to handle any more rejection.
