Page 31 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
‘Is that why you wear your suits?’ She pulled a face. ‘I mean, I love your suits, but they’re not the usual grey suits that most men wear.’
‘If you look at nature then the male of the species has always gone full technicolour dreamcoat in order to attract a mate. Think of peacocks or mandrill monkeys or the wattle cup caterpillar.’
‘You just invented that caterpillar, didn’t you?’
‘I did not!’ Charles had already pulled out his phone and within seconds was showing Sophy a photo of a caterpillar that looked like it had been coated in fondant icing. ‘It wasn’t until the end of the eighteenth century, the great masculine renunciation, that men stopped wearing flamboyant clothes that indicated how wealthy they were, and adopted a sartorial style that reflected the new way of thinking of rationality and practicality. I think I was born in the wrong century,’ he added mournfully.
Sophy was very glad that Charles had been born when he was, but she still wasn’t completely happy about being dragged around a museum on her day off. Afterwards there was a trip to the gift shop, then Sophy treated Charles to coffee and cake in the V&A’s main café, which was like sitting in the centre of an ornate, extravagantly decorated Fabergé egg, and where, in between forkfuls of carrot cake, Charles explained that he hadn’t always had the courage to wear a beautifully cut lilac tweed suit.
‘I began my career in a very stuffy, very starchy gentleman’s outfitters on Savile Row that had been there since God was a boy. Some of the staff had been there even longer than that. It was grey wool as far as the eye could see.’ He took a ruminative sip of coffee. ‘Every morning Mr Frobisher, the manager, would check our nails to make sure they were spotless, and woe betide you if your hair was anything other than an inch above your shirt collar.’
‘It sounds horrible. Like something out of Dickens.’ Not that Sophy had ever read any Dickens, but she’d seen an adaptation ofBleak Houseon the telly a few months ago.
‘It was quite grim, although I did get a really good education in gentlemen’s tailoring. Then I left to work at a more contemporary, cutting-edge establishment a few doors down and my old colleagues would cut me if they saw me in the sandwich shop.’ Charles put a hand to his chest, like he’d been mortally wounded. ‘I’m not going to lie, it hurt.’
‘So how did you get from gentlemen’s tailoring to tiaras?’
‘By way of cuff-links, would you believe?’ Charles put down his fork to look at Sophy, who was listening with her chin resting on her palm. ‘Started hunting down vintage cuff-links at car boot sales and junk shops, spiffing them up and selling them on as a sideline, and realised that was much more fun and much more profitable than asking if sir dressed to the left or to the right.’
‘Dressed to the left?’ Sophy echoed with a frown. Charles arched an eyebrow and held her gaze until light dawned and Sophy knew from the sudden heat to her face and Charles’s smirk that she’d gone red.
They parted ways outside the museum, Sophy to battle through the rush hour crowds to go home and Charles saying that he was going to walk along to Knightsbridge to ‘pick up a few bits in Harvey Nichols for dinner’.
Sophy thought she was pushing the boat out if she picked up a few bits in M&S for dinner, usually when it was after hours and she could descend on the heavily reduced, yellow-stickered items. Charles’s life, his world, it was so far removed from her own.
‘So, we’ll do this again next week? Further your fashion education?’ Charles asked, derailing Sophy’s unhappy train of thought. ‘Another museum I’m afraid, but I promise we’ll go out for cake afterwards.’
The very last thing Sophy wanted to do was trudge around another museum looking at old things. But it didn’t seem like such a bad way to spend an afternoon if she was with Charles.
‘I don’t think you’re ever going to turn me into a vintage fashion fangirl,’ she warned him.
‘Stranger things have happened!’ Charles tucked that one strand of Sophy’s hair that would never behave itself behind her ear and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, his fingers were threading through her ponytail so he could gently tug the end of it. ‘So, it’s a date then.’
Chapter Eleven
Despite the rush hour crowds and the hordes of small children with their backpacks and even the fact that she couldn’t get a seat until Golders Green, Sophy floated back to Hendon.
She could still feel the phantom tug of Charles pulling her ponytail as she put her key in the lock. She had tried not to read too much into it – just a friendly gesture from a man who probably thought her hair colour resembled some semi-precious stone that she wouldn’t even be able to pronounce. But she’d entertained quite a rude fantasy about Charles pulling more than her hair the whole time she’d been straphanging from South Kensington to Leicester Square then had to change lines.
‘I’m home,’ she shouted because of the time she’d let herself in unannounced and had caught Caroline and Mike snogging on the sofa. All three of them were still traumatised. ‘What’s for dinner? Shall we get a takeaway? I could really fancy a curry.’
‘Ah, there you are.’ Caroline appeared in the living room doorway, her face tight and tense. ‘I texted you ages ago.’
‘Sorry, I’m trying not to stare at my phone at all hours ever since I read a piece online that too much screentime can give you—’
‘Yes, well, never mind that.’
Sophy paused from hanging up her jacket on the coatstand because Caroline’s voice was tight and tense as well. ‘Is everything all right?’
Caroline jerked her head in the direction from which she’d come. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’
‘To see me? Oh my God, it’s not someone from the official receivers, is it?’ Sophy asked, an ice cube of dread trickling down her spine. Sometimes, only very occasionally, at her old job, the till hadn’t tallied at the end of the day. They’d been allowed a certain amount of discrepancy, but what if since the bankruptcy the administrators wanted to recoup every last pound and penny?
‘No, don’t be silly. It’shim,’ Caroline added on a hiss.
‘Charles?’
‘Who’s Charles?’ Caroline dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘It’s Egan.’
