by Isabel Wolff
Saturday started badly and got worse. Firstly the shop was very busy and, although I was happy about this, it was as much as I could do to keep an eye on the stock. Then someone came in eating a sandwich so I had to ask them to leave, which I disliked having to do, especially in front of other customers. Then Mum phoned up and needed a bit of a cheer-up as she’s often down at weekends.
‘I’ve decided not to have Botox,’ she said.
‘That’s great, Mum. You don’t need it.’
‘That’s not the point – the clinic I went to said I’ve left it too late for Botox to make any difference.’
‘Then … never mind.’
‘So I’m going to have gold threads in my face instead.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Basically they insert these gold threads under your skin, and on the ends of them are these tiny hooks which they catch up so that the thread pulls taut – and up comes your face with it! The trouble is, it costs £4,000. But then it is 24 carat,’ she mused.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. ‘You’re still very attractive, Mum.’
‘Am I?’ she said mournfully. ‘Ever since your father left me, I’ve felt like a gargoyle.’
‘Nothing could be further from the truth.’ In fact, like many dumped wives, Mum had never looked better. She’d lost weight, bought some new clothes and was now far better groomed than when she was with Dad.
Then at lunchtime the woman who’d bought Guy’s dress came back with it.
At first I didn’t know who she was.
‘I’m so sorry,’ this woman began as she lifted a Village Vintage carrier on to the counter. I looked inside it and my spirits sank. ‘I don’t think the dress is right after all.’ How could she ever have thought that it was? As Annie had said, the woman was completely the wrong shape, being short and broad – like a milk loaf. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated as I took the dress out of the bag.
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a problem,’ I lied. As I refunded her the money, I wished I hadn’t been quite so quick in sending the £500 to Unicef. It was now a donation that I couldn’t afford.
‘I guess I got carried away with the romance of it,’ the woman explained as I waited to tear off the receipt. ‘But this morning I put on the dress, looked at myself in the mirror and realised that I’d been, well…’ She turned up her palms as if to say, I’m not exactly Keira Knightley, am I! ‘I don’t have the height,’ she went on. ‘But do you know what?’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘I can’t help thinking that it would suit you.’
After the woman had left, a succession of customers came in, including one fifty-something man who showed an unhealthy interest in the corsets: he even wanted to try one on, but I wouldn’t let him. Then this woman phoned up offering me some furs that had belonged to her aunt, including – and this was meant to be the clincher – a hat made out of a leopard cub. I explained that I don’t sell fur, but the woman insisted that as these particular furs were vintage there shouldn’t be a problem. So I told her that I can’t bring myself to touch let alone deal in bits of dead baby leopard, however long it might have been since the poor creature had been murdered. Then a little later my patience was tested again when a woman came in with a Dior coat that she wanted to sell me. I could see at a glance that it was fake.
‘It is by Dior,’ she protested after I’d pointed this out to her. ‘And I’d call £100 a very reasonable price for a genuine Christian Dior coat of this quality.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’ve worked in vintage fashion for twelve years and I can assure you that this coat is not by Dior.’
‘But the label –’
‘The label is original. But it’s been sewn into a non-Dior garment. The interior construction of the coat is all wrong, the seams aren’t finished properly, and the lining, if you look a little more closely, is by Burberry.’ I pointed to the logo.
The woman went the colour of a Victoria plum. ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ she sniffed. ‘You’re trying to get it at a knock-down price, so that you can sell it for £500 like that one you’ve got over there.’ She nodded at a mannequin on which I’d put a Dior dove grey grosgrain New Look winter coat from 1955 in pristine condition.
‘I’m not trying to “get” it at all,’ I explained pleasantly. ‘I don’t want it.’
The woman folded the coat back into the carrier bag, radioactive with affected indignation. ‘Then I shall have to take it elsewhere.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I replied calmly, resisting the temptation to suggest Oxfam.
The woman turned on her heel, and as she stomped out, another customer, on his way in, politely held the door open for her. He was elegantly dressed in pale chinos and a navy blazer and was in his mid forties. I felt my heart lurch.
‘Good God!’ Mr Pin-Stripe’s face had lit up. ‘If it isn’t my bidding rival – Phoebe!’ So he’d remembered my name. ‘Don’t tell me – is this your shop?’
‘Yes.’ The euphoria I’d felt on seeing him suddenly evaporated as the door opened again and in came Mrs Pin-Stripe on a cloud of perfume. As I’d imagined she was tall and blonde – but so young that I had to fight the urge to call the police. She couldn’t be his wife I decided as she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. She was his twenty-five-year-old mistress and he was her sugar daddy – the man was brazen. Her scent – J’adore – made me feel sick.
‘I’m Miles,’ he reminded me. ‘Miles Archant.’
‘I remember,’ I said pleasantly. ‘And what brings you here?’ I added, trying not to look askance at his companion, who was now riffling through the evening wear. He nodded at the girl. ‘Roxy …’ Of course. A suitably sexy name for a mistress. Foxy Roxy. ‘My daughter.’
‘Ah.’ The wave of relief I felt took me aback.
‘Roxanne’s looking for a special dress to wear for a teenagers’ charity ball at the National History Museum, aren’t you, Rox?’ She nodded. ‘This is Phoebe,’ he added. As the girl gave me a tepid smile I could now see how young she was. ‘We met at Christie’s,’ her father explained. ‘Phoebe bought that white dress you liked.’
‘Oh,’ she said resentfully.
I looked at Miles. ‘You were bidding for the Madame Grès for …?’ I indicated Roxy.
‘Yes. She saw it on the Christie’s website and fell in love with it – didn’t you, darling? She couldn’t come to the auction because she was at school.’
‘What a shame.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roxy. ‘It clashed with double English.’
So it was Roxy who’d been giving Miles such a hard time at the auction. And now I marvelled why anyone would be prepared to spend nearly £4,000 on a dress for a teenager.
‘Roxanne wants to work in fashion,’ he said. ‘She’s very interested in vintage clothing – aren’t you, darling?’
Roxanne nodded again. As she carried on looking through the rails I wondered where her mother was and what she looked like. The same, I imagined, but in her mid forties.
‘Anyway, we’re still looking,’ Miles said. ‘That’s why we’ve come here. The ball isn’t until November, but we happened to be in Blackheath, and we saw this shop had opened …’ I saw Roxy give her father a quizzical glance. ‘So we thought we’d take a look and we find – you! An unexpected bonus,’ he added.
‘Thank you,’ I said, wondering what his wife would think if she could see him chatting to me in such a blatantly friendly fashion.
‘An amazing coincidence,’ he concluded.
I turned to Roxanne. ‘So what sort of things do you like?’ I asked, trying to keep things professional.
‘Well …’ She pushed her Ray-Bans a little higher on her head. ‘I thought something a bit Atonementy or – what was that other film? – Gosford Parky.’
‘I see … So that’s mid to late thirties then. Bias cut. In the style of Madeleine Vionnet …’ I mused as I went up to the evening-wear rail.
Roxy shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘S
’pose …’ It cynically occurred to me that there might be an opportunity here to get rid of Guy’s dress. Then I realised that Roxy was too slim for it – it would hang off her.
‘See anything you like, darling?’ her father asked.
She shook her head, and her hair, a hank of blonde silk, swished around her slim shoulders. Suddenly her mobile phone rang – what was that ringtone? Oh yes. It was ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’.
‘Hi there,’ Roxy drawled. ‘No. With my dad. In some vintage dress shop … Last night? Yeah … Mahiki’s. It was cool. Yeah. Cool … Then it got hot … Really hot. Yeah. Cool …’ I felt like checking the thermostat.
‘Do take that call outside, darling,’ her father said. Roxy shouldered her Prada bag and pushed on the door, then she stood outside, leaning against the glass, one coltish leg crossed in front of the other. Her ‘conversation’ was clearly not going to be brief.
Miles rolled his eyes in mock despair. ‘Teenagers …’ He smiled indulgently then he began to look round the shop. ‘What lovely things you have here.’
‘Thanks.’ I noticed again how attractive his voice was – it had this slight break in it which I found somehow touching. ‘Do you know, I might buy a pair of those braces.’
I opened the counter and took out the tray. ‘They’re from the 1950s,’ I explained. ‘They’re unsold stock, so they’ve never been worn. They’re by Albert Thurston, who made top-quality English braces.’ I pointed to the straps. ‘You can see that the leather is hand stitched.’
Miles peered at them. ‘I’ll have these ones,’ he said, picking out a green-and-white striped pair. ‘How much are they?’
‘Fifteen pounds.’
He looked at me. ‘I’ll give you twenty.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Twenty-five then.’
I laughed. ‘You what?’
‘Okay, I’m prepared to go up to thirty pounds, if you’re going to be hard-nosed about it, but that’s it.’
I smiled. ‘It’s not an auction – I’m afraid you’ll just have to pay the asking price.’
‘You drive a hard bargain,’ Miles muttered. ‘In that case, I’ll have the navy pair too.’ As I put them both in a bag I was aware that Miles was scrutinising me and I felt my face go warm. I was surprised to find myself wishing that he wasn’t married. ‘I enjoyed bidding against you the other day,’ I heard him say as I opened the till. ‘I don’t suppose you felt the same, though.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘In fact, I was rather furious. But as you were prepared to pay so much for the dress I assumed that you were trying to get it for your wife.’
Miles shook his head. ‘I don’t have one.’ Ah. So he lived with someone – or maybe he was an unmarried father or a divorced dad. ‘My wife died.’
‘Oh.’ My euphoria returned, to my shame. ‘I’m sorry.’
Miles shrugged. ‘It’s all right – in the sense that it happened ten years ago,’ he added quickly. ‘So I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it.’
‘Ten years?’ I echoed wonderingly. Here was a man who hadn’t married again in a whole decade? Let alone the week after his wife’s funeral, as so many widowers do. I felt my frostiness thaw.
‘At home it’s just Roxy and me. She’s just started at Bellingham College in Portland Place.’ I’d heard of it – an upmarket crammer. ‘Can I ask you something?’ Miles added.
I handed him his receipt. ‘Of course.’
‘I just wondered …’ He cast an anxious glance at Roxanne, but she was still chatting away, winding a white-blonde tendril around her finger as she did so. ‘I just wondered whether you’d … have dinner with me sometime …’
‘Oh …’
‘I’m sure you think I’m too old,’ he went on quickly. ‘But I’d love to see you again, Phoebe. In fact – can I confess something?’
‘What?’ I said, intrigued.
‘It isn’t entirely due to coincidence that I’m here. In fact, to be perfectly honest, coincidence has nothing to do with it.’
I stared at him. ‘But … how did you know where I was?’
‘Because as you were paying for the dress at Christie’s I heard you say “Village Vintage”. So I Googled you there and then, and up came your website.’ So that’s what he was looking at so intently on his BlackBerry as he sat next to me! ‘As I don’t live far away – in Camberwell – I thought I’d just drop in and say … “Hi”.’ So his honesty had triumphed over his cunning. I smiled to myself. ‘Now …’ He shrugged in a good-natured way. ‘You didn’t want to have lunch with me the other day – or even a coffee. You probably thought I was married.’
‘I did think that. Yes.’
‘But now that you know that I’m not, I wonder whether you might like to have dinner with me?’
‘I … don’t know.’ I felt my face flush.
Miles glanced at his daughter, still talking on her mobile. ‘You don’t have to say now. Here …’ He opened his wallet and took out his business card. I glanced at it. Miles Archant LLB, Senior Partner, Archant, Brewer & Clark, Solicitors. ‘Just let me know if you’re tempted.’
I suddenly realised that I was. Miles was very attractive, and he had this lovely husky voice – and he was a real grown-up, I reflected, unlike so many men of my own age. Like Dan, I suddenly found myself thinking, with his unruly hair and his ill-matching clothes, and his pencil sharpener and his … shed. Why would I want to go and see Dan’s shed? I looked at Miles. He was a man, not an overgrown boy. But on the other hand, I now reflected as reality took hold, he was a virtual stranger and, yes, he was much older than me – forty-three or -four.
‘I’m forty-eight,’ he said. ‘Don’t look so shocked!’
‘Oh, sorry, I’m not, it’s just that … you don’t look that …’
‘Old?’ he finished wryly.
‘That’s not what I meant. It’s really nice of you to ask me, but to be honest I am pretty busy at the moment.’ I began rearranging the scarves. ‘And I have to focus on my business,’ I floundered on. Nearly fifty … ‘And the thing is – oh.’ The phone was ringing. ‘Excuse me.’ I picked up the handset, grateful for the interruption. ‘Village Vintage.’
‘Phoebe?’ My heart was suddenly pounding in my chest. ‘Please speak to me, Phoebe,’ said Guy. ‘I must speak to you,’ I heard him insist. ‘You’ve ignored all my letters and –’
‘That’s … right,’ I said quietly, struggling to control my emotions in front of Miles, who was now sitting on the sofa, gazing out at the Blackheath cloudscape. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
‘I need to talk to you,’ I heard Guy say. ‘I refuse to let things be left like this, and I’m not going to give up until I’ve got you to –’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ I said with a calmness I did not feel. ‘But thank you for calling.’ I put down the phone without a scintilla of guilt. Guy knew what he’d done.
You know how Emma exaggerates, Phoebe.
I switched the phone over to ‘answer’ mode. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Miles. ‘What were you saying?’
‘Well …’ He stood up. ‘I was just telling you that I’m … forty-eight, and that, if you were prepared to overlook that handicap, I’d be delighted if you’d have dinner with me sometime. But it doesn’t sound as though you’d want to.’ He gave me an anxious smile.
‘Actually, Miles …I would.’
FIVE
On Sunday afternoon I made my way over to Dad’s – or, more accurately, to Ruth’s. Although I’d met her – once – for about ten seconds – it would be the first time I’d set foot in her flat. I’d asked Dad if we could meet on neutral territory, but he said that because of Louis it would be easier if I could come and see him ‘at home’.
‘At home …’ I reflected wonderingly as I walked down Portobello. All my life ‘home’ had been the Edwardian villa in which I’d grown up and in which my mother, for the time being, still lives. The idea that ‘
home’, for Dad, was now a smart duplex in Notting Hill with the hatchet-faced Ruth and their baby son was still impossible to grasp. Going there would make it all depressingly real.
Dad simply wasn’t a Notting Hill kind of person, I thought as I passed the fashionable boutiques of Westbourne Grove. What did L.K. Bennett or Ralph Lauren mean to my father? He belonged in friendly, old-fashioned Blackheath.
Ever since the separation, Dad’s had this slightly stunned expression on his face, as though he’s just been slapped by a stranger. That was how he looked now, as he opened the door of number 88 Lancaster Road.
‘Phoebe!’ Dad bent to hug me, but it was hard to do with Louis in his arms and the baby got squished between us and squawked. ‘It’s so lovely to see you.’ Dad ushered me inside. ‘Oh, would you mind taking your shoes off – it’s the rule here.’ No doubt one of many, I thought as I removed my sling-backs and tucked them under a chair. ‘I’ve missed you, Phoebe,’ Dad said as I followed him down the limestone-tiled hallway into the kitchen.
‘I’ve missed you too, Dad.’ I stroked Louis’ blond head as he sat in Dad’s arms at the brushed stainless-steel table. ‘You’ve changed, sweetie.’
Louis had morphed from a wrinkled, liver-coloured scrap of flesh into the sweet-faced infant who was waving his bendy little limbs at me like a baby octopus.
I glanced at all the gleaming metal surfaces. Ruth’s kitchen struck me as far too hygienic an environment for a man who’d spent most of his professional life grubbing around in the dirt. It didn’t even look like a kitchen – it resembled a morgue. I thought of the old scrubbed pine table at real home, and the stacks of Portmeirion ‘Botanical Garden’ crockery. What the hell was my dad doing here?
I smiled at him. ‘Louis looks like you.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Dad happily.