A Vintage Christmas (16 page)

‘I know
that
.’ She turns round and rolls her eyes despairingly at me. ‘I’m playing hard to get. Honestly, hon, don’t you know anything about men?’

I consider her question. The truth is I actually only know a lot about one man. Jamie. And he dumped me for being ‘too predictable’. So no, I’ve never mastered the ‘hard-to-get’ game.

‘So what are you going to do?’ I ask her, feigning interest but unable to stop thinking about my tea break. I’m desperate for caffeine, and even more desperate to get out of this stifling stockroom.

‘I’m going to wait here until I know he’s gone. If he wants me that much, he’ll find me,’ Carly says confidently. ‘Put the kettle on, will you, hon?’

‘Um, I was just about to go on my break, actually,’ I say timidly.

‘Oh.’ Her face falls for a moment, then immediately brightens. ‘Can’t you have your break here, with me? Then we can wait here together!’

It’s tempting, but Iris is waiting for me and I don’t want to let her down.

‘Can we chat later?’ I say as I head for the door. ‘I’ve got to deliver this to someone.’ I wave the bar of soap. ‘You can stay in here if you want. Make yourself a cup of tea and wait till he’s gone.’

‘OK.’ Carly looks down, disappointed. She smiles up again. ‘My new job is cool, don’t you think? I never expected to make assistant manager so soon!’

‘You must be really thrilled,’ I say, edging towards the door as a subtle hint.

‘I guess,’ she replies, wanders over to my ‘lounge and listen’ area and throws herself onto the sofa as if preparing to embark on a lengthy conversation. I stare at her and then at the door. I really need to go.

‘Have you heard that Rumors are looking for a central London flagship store?’ she continues. I have my hand on the door but turn politely and look interested. ‘I’d
kill
to work there. I went to the New York store on Fifth Avenue once and it was so cool. All the staff wear couture and the whole shop façade is made of glass – even the changing rooms face on to the street and have frosted glass to cover your body up to your neck but you can see everyone’s faces as they’re getting changed!’

I shrug. I’ve never been to New York but I have heard of Rumors. It sounds like my idea of shopping hell. ‘Hardy’s isn’t so bad,’ I say, feeling defensive. ‘It just needs a bit of love and attention and some . . . direction.’

‘I know, that’s what I think too,’ she says, and crosses her impossibly long legs. I can’t help but look at the gorgeous stacked patent heels she’s wearing, then compare them unfavourably to my own sensible, scuffed brogues. ‘That’s why I spoke to Sharon and suggested we use some new designers. I think that’s what swung me the promotion, you know. I told her, I said: “Sharon, we need to be more modern, appeal to the younger clients, clients like me. They want shops to be more exclusive, more
fashion
forward
.” ’

‘I guess,’ I say tentatively. ‘But they also want somewhere they can relax and feel at home—’

But Carly cuts me off and carries on recounting word for word her promotion monologue.

‘. . . They want glamour and excitement and fabulousness, not some safe, staid boring old shop that just stays the same for, like, a hundred years. I mean ya-aawn. Now,’ she claps her hands, ‘tell me what’s been going on with you. Is there any gossip from the stockroom today? Other than my promotion, of course!’ She throws her head back and laughs so that the tinkling sound reverberates around the room like wind chimes.

I honestly think I’ll suffocate if I don’t get out in the next thirty seconds and somehow I manage to make my excuses and leave. I wander despondently out into the store.

‘God, where
is
everybody today? I am
so
bored.’ I turn to see Becky from Handbags slouched against one of the beauty counters, staring at her face in the mirror. She’s in her early twenties but she says she thinks that she’s starting to look leathery because she spends her days dealing with horrible old bags (I’m presuming she means her stock and not Hardy’s customers, but I can’t be sure).

‘Well, it’s still early, I guess,’ I reply.

Becky puts her hand up to heart. ‘Christ . . . er, Sarah, isn’t it? You made me jump! I didn’t see you there. What are you doing creeping round the store? Shouldn’t you be in the stockroom?’ Having dismissed me she turns and continues examining her pores.

I sigh and look out at the street beyond. Lots of people are milling around but they all walk straight past Hardy’s, utterly oblivious to its presence. I want to jump into the barely dressed windows and wave at them, do star jumps, shout, scream, anything to get their attention.

As I walk down the staircase to the basement, I envision myself, as I always do, as a beautiful woman of the1940s, in a two-piece Chanel suit, with red lips and short, pin-curled hair, about to meet my American GI lover.

I increase my pace as I go through Menswear and towards the tearoom, tucked away at the far end. It’s always a welcome retreat when I want some peace from the comings and goings of the stockroom. None of the staff ever comes here; they prefer the buzzy Starbucks opposite the store, or they go to Oxford Street on their breaks.

Lily has worked here ever since I was a child, and then some. She’s a tiny slip of a woman who must be in her late seventies but looks at least ten years younger. She won’t tell me her exact age; she just tells me she’s old enough to know better and young enough not to care. She has dyed black hair, which she wears pulled back into a tight bun with wispy strands that frame her heart-shaped face. Her lips are painted red and her eyes are cobalt blue and dazzle against her pale skin (‘a tan is so ageing, darling’), and she always smells of face powder and Chanel No. 5. She used to be a professional dancer. Among many other things, she was one of the Windmill Girls at the famous theatre in Great Windmill Street, which remained open throughout the war and which was famous for its nude
tableaux vivants.
I’ve never really understood exactly what that means, though. Lily just says it was ‘art’. She always wears black and white (‘you can’t go wrong, darling’) and is never to be seen without a double string of real pearls around her neck. When I look at her I am reminded that real style transcends time. She tells the most wonderful stories of London in the fifties. She’s utterly fabulous and I love spending time with her.

Her customers enter Lily’s tearoom just a few steps down from the basement shop floor where there’s a sign saying ‘Please wait to be seated’. I know Londoners hate to be kept waiting for anything, but you need this moment to take in the wonderful surroundings. The tearoom hasn’t been decorated since the 1930s; somehow it escaped Sebastian’s dire makeover back in the late 1980s. Black and white tiles cover the floor and the little round tables all have claret-coloured vintage table lamps with faded, tasselled shades that glow invitingly. It makes me think of the film
Brief Encounter
, even though there isn’t a railway carriage in sight. It has a warmth and intimacy I adore, and when I’m there I always imagine the hundreds of love affairs that must have played out here over the past century. The old walls are painted a deep, rich burgundy and along each side of the room brass lights glimmer merrily beneath faded gold lampshades. Vintage tea cups are laid at every place and original, framed black-and-white movie stills from the thirties and forties hang on the walls, with signatures from stars like Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Bette Davis, all of whom visited the store at some point.

I grin as I notice that since my last visit Lily has put two real Christmas trees either side of the sign and has adorned them with gorgeous vintage decorations and fairy lights shaped like candles, as well as hanging old-fashioned paper chains around the room. She clearly disapproves of the store’s Christmas decorations as much as I do. She waves at me from behind the counter, which displays a number of china cake stands filled with the most delicious homemade cakes, pastries and desserts. None of them is baked by her, though. Lily won’t mind me saying this, but she can’t cook to save her life. She says it’s because she was too busy having dinner dates every night in her youth to learn. And I don’t doubt it.

‘Darling Evie,’ she calls, ‘I almost didn’t recognize you! You look like you could have been a Windmill Girl!’

I touch my hair and realize I still have the peacock-feather fascinator on from earlier. No wonder Carly looked at me strangely when she came in. I tug it off my head and try not to blush.

‘Come and sit down!’ Lily ushers me into the tearoom, twirling around me with her dancer’s grace. ‘Iris, look who it is!’ she calls merrily. I turn to wave at Iris, who beams at me as she lifts a piece of Victoria sponge to her lips.

‘Sit down, dearheart!’ Iris says, and she dabs the corner of her mouth delicately with her napkin. ‘Lily, dear, stop gabbling at her and get this girl a cup of tea. She looks like she needs it.’

Mrs Jackson is in her late sixties but, like Lily, she looks more like a movie star than an OAP; Jane Fonda springs to mind. Iris’s dyed and highlighted hair is perfectly straightened in a sharp, flicky style around her face, and her eyes shine brightly from within her carefully painted gold and tawny-brown powdered eyelids. Her lips are always covered in a bronze lip gloss. She always wears a polo neck – today it’s cream with a big brooch pinned at her throat – teamed this morning with high-waisted black trousers and a cream seventies-style safari jacket. She has mid-heel black pumps and a large cream leather handbag with a gold clasp. She looks fabulous in a glossy, retro kind of way.

I sit down and hand her the bar of soap and she claps her hands and puts it straight into her handbag. ‘That’ll keep the wrinkles at bay,’ she says with a wink. ‘Now, darling girl, how’s it going in that dusty old stockroom? Any chance of them putting you on the shopfloor where you belong?’

‘No. The opposite, in fact. I think I’m going to be in the stockroom for a long time to come.’ I tell her briefly about this morning’s disappointment, then smile weakly at Lily as she hands me my tea and pulls out a chair. She’s clearly overheard our conversation.

‘Well, they’re even bigger fools than I took them for,’ Lily tuts, and throws her arms in the air, somehow creating a perfect
port de bras.
(‘Years of ballet training,’ she once answered when I remarked on her expressive arm movements. ‘It never leaves you.’) ‘No wonder this store is falling apart if this is how they use their best staff. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that Sebastian Hardy ripped its heart and soul out. Hardy’s has never been the same since he got his hands on it and that young upstart, Rupert, is no better.’

She shakes her head disapprovingly as she pours me a cup of tea through a silver strainer (‘you’ll get no horrible teabags here, darling’).

‘Have you seen their pathetic excuse of a Christmas window? Minimal schminimal,’ she sniffs haughtily. ‘If I get my hands on that Rupert Hardy I’ll tell him what he should do with this store to make it shine again. His grandfather would be turning in his grave.’

‘What was he like?’ I ask, resting my elbow on the table and cupping my chin with my hand towards her. Iris and Lily both remember the late Walter Hardy, junior, son of the founder, who successfully and passionately steered the store through the postwar years and ran a highly successful empire until he passed away in 1987, which is when Sebastian took over.

‘Walter junior was the reason most of us girls shopped here. He was one of London’s most eligible bachelors; we all held out the hope that if he spotted us shopping in the store he’d fall in love with us instantly. Imagine what a catch he was; a gorgeous man who would one day inherit his own magnificent department store! It was that age-old heady combination,’ Lily adds sagely. ‘Shopping and sex.’

‘Lily!’ I exclaim, and the ladies both giggle naughtily.

‘What?’ Lily says, holding her hands up innocently. ‘You think just because we’re old we don’t think about sex? We’re not dead yet, eh, Iris?’

‘Too right,’ Iris chortles, and raises her tea cup in a toast. ‘Personally I’d love to get stuck in a lift with that Brad Clooney. He reminds me of Clark Gable.’ She nods at a movie still on the wall and sighs. ‘I adored Clark, the old sexpot.’

‘You mean George . . .’ I offer helpfully.

‘Eh?’

‘George Clooney, not Brad.’

‘George, Brad, whatever. Who the hell cares what they’re called when the lights are off?’

‘Iris!’ I splutter through a mouthful of tea. ‘Honestly, you two are worse than teenagers.’

‘Teenagers, hmpfff,’ Lily says derisively. ‘They know nothing about love and romance. None of you young folk do. Speaking of love, young lady, what’s going on with you?’

‘Nothing,’ I say as I shrug off my coat, extracting my mobile phone from my pocket and putting it on the table. It’s reached Sahara temperatures in the tearoom. Lily will never admit it, but she feels the cold.

‘Well, clearly you’re trying to impress someone . . .’

Lily and Iris look at each other knowingly, then back at me. I follow their eyeline and realize they’re looking at my Florence Gainsbourg top. Instantly I feel self-conscious. I shouldn’t be wearing it in public. If Sharon sees me I’ll be in big trouble.

My phone buzzes and I welcome the distraction. ‘Sorry, I’d better just get this,’ I say, and open my message.

‘
How did it go SG?
’

It’s from Sam. He calls me SG, short for ‘Stockroom Girl’, as a joke. He knows my name but he’s aware that none of the shop-floor staff does. In return I call him DG (‘Delivery Guy’). I close the message down; I don’t want to deal with the embarrassment of telling him right now.

‘Sooo?’ Lily says, raising one perfectly pencilled eyebrow at me and nodding at my phone. ‘Was that him?’

‘Who?’ I ask, utterly lost.

‘The one you’re trying to impress?’ She points at my sparkly top then winks at me.

‘What? No,’ I splutter defensively. ‘That was just Sam, and this?’ I look down at the Florence Gainsbourg and feel faintly ridiculous. ‘This is just an . . . experiment.’