A Vintage Christmas (11 page)

C
HAPTER
2

H
ardy’s sits elegantly on the corner of two streets just north (or, as many people say, ‘the wrong side’) of Regent Street. Over the other side is Soho, home to numerous famous theatres, legendary restaurants and cool, destination bars. But here, in ‘Noho’, we’re like Soho’s less famous but much prettier sibling. Officially classed as in Fitzrovia, Hardy’s is too far from the big shops on Regent and Oxford Street for the crowds who flock there every day. Tourists don’t know we’re here, and Londoners would far rather visit salubrious Selfridges, quaint Liberty or just-plain-useful John Lewis than schlep all the way over to us.

The small but perfectly formed store seems to rise up before me now like a pop-up picture in a children’s Christmas book. I sit back on my saddle and glance up at it fondly, panting a little from my uncharacteristic race to the store. I’m not usually this desperate to get to work but today is different: the Big Announcement is happening at 9 a.m. My manager, Sharon, came into the stockroom last week and told me that they’re looking to promote someone to be assistant manager of the shop floor. She said that they had their eye on someone who’d been with the company for a long time (hello! Two years!), who knew the stock inside out (I’m only the
stock
room manager) as well as the customers (I can name all of our regular customers off the cuff). Then she’d said they wanted someone who was passionate about the store. And if
that
wasn’t the biggest ever hint in the universe, then I don’t know what is. There isn’t anything I don’t know about Hardy’s. And Sharon knows how much I’d love to be out there on the shop floor, talking to customers, selling, being part of it all.

The store itself has seen better days, it has barely any customers and the stock wouldn’t look out of place in a museum, but I still love the old place. That’s why I was so excited to get a job here two years ago – even if it was only in the stockroom. I thought I’d only be working there for a short while, until they saw my potential and moved me on to the shop floor. But that still hasn’t happened. At least it hasn’t until today . . .

I glance up at the clock on the front of the store. It’s still only six thirty. I chain up my bike in the parking bay and find I can’t tear my eyes away from the store façade. Hardy’s is a beautiful four-storey Edwardian building with warm sandstone bricks that sit above the modern glass-fronted ground floor. Beautiful arched baroque windows line the entire first floor like a dozen eyes peering down on the street. Above them, thin rectangular windows are poised like eyelashes to flutter at passers-by. The rooftop silhouette is dominated by ornate columned balconies and a central domed tower, which is now lightly covered in a layer of snow. At the front of this tower is a clock that has been telling the time to passing Londoners for a hundred years. But looking at it now, the hands seem to stay perfectly still, like they’re frozen in time. Even the windows seem to stare blankly back at me. It’s as if the store is in a deep sleep.

It might be the 1 December but you wouldn’t know it here at Hardy’s. It’s supposed to be the busiest shopping period of the year, but each day the store is like a ghost town. And to make matters worse, the board of directors has decided to go minimal on the decorations this year. So they’ve got rid of Hardy’s traditional, crowd-pleasing fifty-foot-high Norwegian spruce, which has stood next to the central staircase, dripping with decorations and proudly guarding its bounty of beautifully wrapped gift boxes each December for decades. Instead, in a fit of frugality, Rupert Hardy, the fourth generation Hardy family member to manage the store, suggested that we make use of the two dozen tacky silver artificial Christmas trees that his father, Sebastian, had bought back in the 1980s but never used. Rupert said that they are a nod to the new, trendy ‘Christmas minimalism’, but we all know that it’s just a money-saving measure. But at what cost? I feel like asking. No one wants to shop at a place that is devoid of Christmas spirit. And customers only have to see the sorrowful-looking windows to conclude that Hardy’s is severely lacking in yuletide cheer.

I sigh as I look at the spray-on snow framing the dozen small, sad trees, which are apparently meant to symbolize the Twelve Days of Christmas, three in each of the four big store windows. They look pathetic. And now the real snow that has settled on the pavements this morning is illuminating the sorry state of our halfhearted Christmas windows even more.

I walk into the staff entrance at the side of the building, swiping my card and smiling at Felix, the security guard, who is, as ever, utterly occupied by his Sudoku. Along the corridor, I pass the staff noticeboards featuring details of the latest ‘Employee of the Month’. This month it’s my good friend Carly. I’m really happy for her; she deserves it. She does a great job in the personal shopping department, with her gift for finding the right style for anyone, no matter what their size, shape, personality – or even proclivity. (She once had a pre-op transgender client who, after two hours with Carly, walked out of Hardy’s looking like he no longer needed an operation. Amazing.) She says she’s like a matchmaker, except with customers and clothes.

I can’t pretend, though, that I’m not disappointed that it wasn’t my turn to be given the accolade. I’ve never been awarded Employee of the Month, whereas Carly’s received it twice in the six months she’s worked here. But it’s OK, I tell myself as I stand in front of her picture – noting how everything about her seems to sparkle with life: her eyes, teeth, skin, hair; she’s practically iridescent – today it’s my turn. Carly may have got the job in Personal Shopping, but a managerial role for someone who knows Hardy’s inside out? That’s
much
more me.

The noticeboard features a photograph of every staff member. I’m proud to say I know each one of them; I know their partners’ names, their kids’ names, ages and their (infinite) talents. I know where they live, what their worries are, their hopes, their dreams. There’s Gwen, the beauty department manager; a bright, incredibly polished woman, who is hiding a terrible secret behind that beaming, painted-on smile: mountains of credit card debts. Then there’s Jenny, Gwen’s faithful assistant. She’s thirty-five and has been trying for a baby without success. In the two years that I’ve worked here I’ve watched her go from a hopeful honeymooner to someone who believes she may never be a mother. She and her husband want to have IVF treatment and she is desperate to make sales in the store so she can earn more commission to pay for this. It’s awful seeing her so despondent now the store is so quiet.

Then my gaze settles on the photo of Guy, who works in Menswear. I suspect he had his teeth whitened especially for the picture; I almost need sunglasses to look at it. He’s fabulously camp but recently he’s lost his sparkle. His long-term boyfriend, Paul, dumped him for a younger man and, with his fortieth fast approaching, Guy has been swathed in uncharacteristic melancholy for weeks. Everyone’s rather worried about him.

Another staff member heading for forty and unhappy about it is my manager, Sharon. She lives with her elderly mother. I suspect that the only thing she has in her life is her job. I certainly know that she’s besotted with Rupert Hardy, not because she’s told me but because I’ve seen the way she looks at him as they do the rounds of the store together. Her brittle edges seem softer when she’s with him; her body relaxes, her tongue isn’t so sharp, her expression is warmer. I think she would soften even more if only he would show some reciprocal interest. But he doesn’t, and so Sharon prowls round the store like a frustrated lioness, snarling at anyone who crosses her path and, as a result, is hugely unpopular.

I know all this because, while I’m unpacking stock, I listen to each and every one of the staff when they come into the stockroom, which they often do just to get away from the shop floor. I mean, it’s not like they have many customers to keep them busy. So they come and talk to me about everything: their lives, loves, problems and their successes. They talk and I listen. It makes me feel special, rather than just an unpacker of boxes, I’m the in-store counsellor, the secret problem solver of Hardy’s. But not for much longer, I remind myself as I bounce down the corridor. My time in the stockroom is nearly up.

I make my way purposefully through the fire exit doors that lead from the staff corridor directly into the impressive ground-floor atrium, with its dark, wood-panelled walls and grand central staircase (no new-fangled technology such as escalators at Hardy’s), connecting every floor, including the basement. The store is laid out in a traditional way. Well, that’s putting it kindly. It currently looks like a fusty old department store you’d find in the dreary back end of a small market town. Its beautiful original features – impressive art deco chandeliers and old mahogany counters – were ripped out during Sebastian Hardy’s tenure and replaced with neon strip lighting, horrible white plastic-coated units and shelf displays. It’s now stuck in a 1980s time warp.

In terms of layout, on the ground floor are the beauty, handbags and jewellery departments. On the first floor is Designers (a misleading department name; there’s nothing remotely fashionable or desirable there) as well as Lingerie and Shoes. On the second floor are the children’s department, Haberdashery and Hats. The third floor used to have a beauty salon (where my mum worked back in the day) but that’s now empty and there’s just Rupert Hardy’s office up there. Downstairs in the basement is Menswear, which includes the sportswear department and is mostly made up of dreary hunting, fishing, golf and shooting gear – oh, and the lovely little original tearoom. Because of the open-plan nature of the store, from here I can see all the way up to the domed roof. The beauty department is at the centre of this floor where I’m currently standing and I take a deep breath as I look around at the old-fashioned displays. I love the smell of Hardy’s, a homely, fusty smell that takes me back to my childhood. I get lots of different scents: top notes of old leather and wood, base notes of musk and spices, resin and vanilla. But the most overpowering sense I have here is of the many stories and lives that have played out under this roof. Including mine.

Despite the early hour, the place is a hive of activity. The cleaners are buzzing around like worker bees, shining floors and polishing shelves. On the other side of Beauty I spot Jan Baptysta, the Polish head cleaner, who has worked here longer than I have.

‘Ahhh, Evie-English-Wife!’ He waves enthusiastically at me from behind his industrial floor cleaner and smiles his big, gap-toothed smile as I wave back.

This has been his nickname for me ever since we spoke about the fact that his parents named him after John the Baptist, and my mum mistakenly picked up the Bible instead of the baby name book when she had my big sister, Delilah, and loved the variety of names in it so much that she used it again when Noah, Jonah and I came along. Jan said his mother would think me the perfect match for him because of it.

Anyway, Jan Baptysta doesn’t really want me to be his wife. At least, I don’t think he does. He’s at least fifteen years older and fifty pounds heavier than I am. He’s built like a tank, with a shaved head, thick arms that are covered in tattoos, and has heavy-set, penetrating dark eyes. But despite his intimidating appearance he leads the other cleaners with a gentle authority. And they reward him with a cheerful, dedicated work ethic. None of them apart from Jan is actually employed by Hardy’s; they’re all contract workers for a cleaning company and many of them have been working all night at various establishments around the city. Yet they always have this incredible energy and pride in their work, despite this being their last job at the end of a twelve-hour shift. Like Jan, several of them have worked here for years, but their pictures don’t appear on the staff noticeboards. In fact, most of Hardy’s employees wouldn’t recognize them if they walked past them on the street, which is a shame as they’re such lovely people.