Page 56 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
‘Just kissing,’ she repeated airily, her eyes boring into Caroline, whose eyes bored right back. ‘Can’t be anything else because yes, of course I’m still going to Australia. Australia is happening! Australia is a done deal! I wish people would stop asking me about it.’
Chapter Twenty-One
To show that she was fully committed to Australia, Sophy decided to look the devil in the face and check out what flights currently cost. Not even on her phone on the tube going home, but on the big computer at home. She was even toying with the idea of a spreadsheet. Though she could have done without Mike’s naysaying about the cookies on the family computer and that once they knew that Sophy was set on flying to Australia (‘Yes! For the millionth time, I’m set on going to Australia’), the algorithm would never ever show her a cheap flight again.
‘You’ll need to clear out the cache,’ he said, hovering behind Sophy and sucking in a breath every time she so much as touched the space bar. ‘I wouldn’t hit the keys so hard. It’s a very delicate instrument, Soph.’
‘Go away, boomer! I’m a digital native,’ Sophy gritted but Mike wouldn’t leave her alone until she promised that she’d let him clear the cache once she made a comprehensive list of the cheapest flights to Adelaide.
Caroline was hovering too, not out of concern for Sophy’s unnaturally hard fingertips damaging the keyboard but because she still couldn’t believe that her baby bird was planning on leaving the nest.
‘It’s not actually that expensive,’ Sophy reported in surprise. ‘I mean, it’s expensive. It’s over a thousand pounds for an economy seat but if I only get a one-way ticket, then it’s five hundred quid orso. By the time I’ve added in taxes and baggage allowance then it’s about…’
‘One way! You can’t get a one-way ticket,’ Caroline all but shrieked. ‘What if you hate it? What if you need to come home suddenly? What…?’
‘Mum, please, not with the hundred questions again.’ Sophy turned to see Caroline actually wringing her hands. ‘If I need to come back in a hurry, I can get another cheapo one-way ticket. It will be fine. I’ll only ever be a day away.’
‘It’s not as simple as you being a day away and you know it…’
They both sighed. ‘I can’t stay here, stuck in this rut while everyone I know moves on with their lives. Gets married, has babies, settles down outside London.’ Sophy felt like she’d pointed out these facts time and time again. ‘And I want to spend proper time with Bob and Jean and that side of my family. Not a snatched couple of months.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Mum!’ Sophy turned a full one-eighty in the swivel chair, which made Mike suck in his teeth again, so she could take Caroline’s hand. ‘I love you. You are my absolute favourite and no one will ever take your place. I’m not going to Australia so I can lose you; I’m going so I can find myself. Please will you be OK with this?’
Caroline patted her on the shoulder. ‘Well, I’lltry,’ she said but, before Sophy could even finish sighing in relief, she was off again. ‘But look at what happened with your friend Radha. She was only going out for a gap year and that was five years ago! What if you meet someone out there and you get married and then have children and I won’t even know them apart from FaceTime and you know we can never get the screen in the right position so we can see all of someone’s head—’
‘I told you that we need to check the resolution on the monitor…’ Mike interrupted.
‘Well, why haven’t you?’ Caroline demanded and Sophy had been also planning to check, once again, how long it would take to process her citizenship once she had the documentations from Johnno, but she decided to quit while she was ahead. She carefully slid out of the chair and tiptoed out of the room while Caroline and Mike had a very fierce argument about the computer, which Sophy couldn’t help but feel she was responsible for.
Still, five hundred quid and change for a ticket wasn’t a lot of money. Despite her extravagant lifestyle, Sophy had saved up that much already. All she needed now was enough funds in her bank account to keep her going for a while. And when she did need a top-up, it couldn’t be too hard to find work, even if she had to waitress or barmaid again, until she found her feet.
If only her citizenship were sorted, then potentially, theoretically, Sophy could be in Australia in a month. It was just as well though that she’d set herself a deadline of mid-August, because there were still a lot of moving parts that needed to be, er, moved about. Would she need any vaccinations? Should she sell some of her stuff? And what if, even with all the correct documentation, her citizenship was declined because the Australian Powers That Be thought Sophy was a wrong ’un?
It took a lot of deep breathing and a bag of Maltesers before Sophy calmed down and reminded herself that it was only the second week of April and she had almost four months to get things in order for her new Antipodean life.
Once she had decided that almost four months was a good, not very panicky timeframe, she felt sure she’d be able to tie up any loose ends. Especially as some of those loose ends did involve kissing Charles a lot.
A week passed with no sign of him since that Monday afternoon when he’d driven off after kissing her senseless, but he’d sent her a text to say thathe’d see her soon and finished the message with xxx, instead of his usual x.
It was the first time that the sight of an ‘xxx’ had made Sophy a little misty-eyed. Of all the things she’d miss most about London, even though she’d known him only a short amount of time, Charles would be one of them.
And as spring finally sprang after a soggy start to April, London was also determined to show Sophy what she’d be missing. The days were longer. The sky was bluer. The sun was brighter.
At work, they all took their tea breaks outside on the terrace to soak up all the glorious vitamin D and gaze out at the boats floating past on the canal, as the trees dipped their green leaves in greeting.
Sophy was even able to coax Cress out for a proper lunch hour, so they could stroll up Primrose Hill and be in nature. They were both certified cat people, but they couldn’t help but admire the many dogs of Primrose Hill, which almost outnumbered their human counterparts. Their favourite was a sturdy Staffy called Blossom. As soon as anyone made eye contact with her, she’d come scampering over, immediately roll onto her back and demand a belly rub.
‘Much more friendly than Coco Chanel,’ Sophy said every time, and Cress agreed.
‘The only reason Phoebe burns those expensive scented candles up in the atelier is to mask the stench of Coco Chanel’s farts,’ she’d recently confessed because the honeymoon was over. She and Phoebe were still on very cordial terms, but Cress no longer started every other sentence with ‘Phoebe says…’ or ‘Phoebe thinks…’
On rare occasions, Phoebe actually allowed them to take Coco Chanel herself for a lunchtime perambulation. Not that either of them wanted to, but it was very hard to say no to Phoebe.
Not surprisingly, Coco Chanel was very much her own hound and didn’t take kindly to other dogs smelling her bottom or play-bowing. She preferred to keep herself to herself, occasionally barking at a small child wobbling past on a balance bike.
But mostly they would find a bench where they could eat their sandwiches (Sophy was on a major economy drive now – no more ten-pound baguettes from the swank Primrose Hill deli) and tip their SPF-ed faces back to worship the sun. They didn’t even talk that much. When you worked in retail or, in Cress’s case, were naturally reticent, it was quite lovely to have an hour off from talking. Cress was the best person Sophy knew to be quiet with.
