Miracle on Regent Street (31 page)

Things were awkward between Delilah and me at first. We circled each other silently round the kitchen as I made dinner. Will was apparently ‘working late’ again. But we didn’t
talk about it. To be honest, I didn’t know what to say to her.

I pedal furiously down the road, grunting with the exertion as I head towards the park, still thinking about our relationship. I’ve always hung around my big sister like a little adoring
puppy, ready to do her every bidding as soon as she asked. Maybe it’s because there’s such a big age gap between us that the power balance is off, or maybe it’s because Delilah
has always seemed so much more than anything I could ever be. We’re so different,
I
can barely believe we were blood related most of the time and neither can a lot of other people.

Mum would always try to back me up when people compared us. ‘Evie’s the quiet, creative one,’ she’d say, squeezing my shoulders and telling them in detail about my latest
art project, or scrapbook I was working on. But I could see their eyes glazing over.

Felix is arching his back and stretching his arms when I walk through the staff entrance. It’s just gone five o’clock again, but this time, he doesn’t ask why I’m
early.

‘Evie!’ he exclaims. He looks perky this morning, which is lucky as it was too early to pick up his usual Americano. I’ve been worried about him recently; the long nights alone
in this poky little office seem to be grinding him down. It’s no place for a lonely widower in his sixties. Today he is sporting one of his many colourful bow ties. He says Maisie always used
to say he looked very smart in them. He has different colours to reflect his moods, but for the past couple of weeks he hasn’t been wearing one at all.

‘So,’ he says, clapping his hands, ‘you looking forward to tonight?’

I feel a momentary flash of confusion, then panic. Shit. It’s Thursday. The drinks I organized with Sam, and that I invited Lily and Felix to, are meant to be tonight. But Delilah is going
to kill me if I’m not home to baby-sit later.

‘Oh! Yes! Of course! Can’t wait!’ I say, smiling widely, nodding to disguise my forgetfulness. Felix beams at me and adjusts his tie. He’s obviously looking forward to it
and I can’t let him down. Delilah will understand. So what if I’ve had a few nights out this week? I’m just making up for lost time, right? ‘Right!’ I say, my mind
made up. Felix raises an eyebrow. ‘Er, I mean, right, must get on. Things to do, stock to unpack. Er, see you later, though, Felix!’

And I dash off, trying to push down the feeling of discomfort that is trickling through me at the thought of letting Delilah down again. I pick up my phone, then, realizing it’s too early
to phone, I send a quick text instead explaining the situation. She’ll see it when she wakes up and I hope she’ll be fine about me having the night off.

By the time I’ve got to Jane’s department on the first floor and flicked on the lights I have completely forgotten about Delilah, Felix and anything other than the job in hand. And
it is a pretty overwhelming task, that’s for sure. In front of me the department spreads out like a sea of beige stretching towards an ecru horizon. The walls are decorated with a few ageing
posters of middle-aged ladies smiling suggestively in soft focus whilst wearing what appears to be underwear as armour; everything starts at their neck and stops at their knees. On the walls rails
of uninspiring, oversized slips, pants and bras hang limply, as if even they think they’re not worth looking at. There is
some
colour in the department, just not any shade that would
be considered remotely stylish or sexy. The half a dozen or so free-standing rails, which crowd the middle of the department, are full to bursting with an endless selection of flannel nightgowns in
varying shades of soft pastel, and, for a real burst of the rainbow, there are also quilted dressing gowns in quite startlingly garish colours: Cookie Monster blue, Groucho green, Elmo red and Big
Bird yellow. If I close my eyes I could be on Sesame Street, not just off Regent Street. I clearly have a lot of work to do.

I am mid-makeover, doing battle with some basques and trying to simultaneously work out if my display of feathers and pearls is too much, when I hear noise down below. I go to peer over the rail
of the staircase and see some of the cleaners gathered in the middle of the handbag department, clearly having some sort of meeting.

‘Hiya!’ I wave down at them and Justyna looks up and then scowls as Jan Baptysta shouts his greeting.

‘Morning, Evie-English-Wife! You are early,
nie
? You vork too hard.’

‘Ah, you know how it is, Jan,’ I yell back. ‘When you have The Lord carrying you, there is no such thing as hard work!’

His laugh at our shared joke reverberates around the store. ‘You are so funnys! Isn’t she funnys?’

Justyna glares at him, and then at me, her monobrow lowered dangerously over her dark eyes. Oh God, that’s all I need. I dash down the stairs to them on the ground floor. For some reason
their workforce is at least halved this morning; only Jan, Justyna and Velna are here.

‘Where is everyone?’ I say, slightly puzzled as I look at Jan’s serious face. ‘Surely they haven’t all called in sick on the same day?’

Jan shakes his head glumly. ‘This is vat we vere just havingk a meeting abouts. They have been laid.’

I try not to blush. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with Jan divulging the intimate secrets of his staff quite so publicly. I mean, we’re all friends here, but even so . .
.

‘Offsk.’ Justyna tuts, lifting her beaky nose skyward with displeasure. ‘He means laid offsk.’

Ahh. That makes more sense. ‘You mean they’ve been sacked?’ I ask. Looking at all their unhappy faces I can tell that’s exactly what’s happened. Even Velna, who is
usually so perky, has clearly been badly affected by this news. Her little pink plaits have sagged and her earphones are hanging limply around her neck.

‘It isk so sad for them,’ she says, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘They works so hard for so long, and now this!’ Justyna pats her on the shoulder maternally and then
folds her arms and glares at me as if it is my fault.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

Jan’s pitbull features look weary as he tells me how half of his staff were laid off by the cleaning company, who received a call yesterday from Rupert, telling them he could no longer
afford to pay so many cleaners. ‘Then my boss called me and I had to decide who stayed and who . . .’ Jan’s voice breaks. ‘It vos very hardsk. Everyone works hardsk. But I
had to choose.’ Justyna strokes his arm lovingly and the thick hair on his forearm bends under her touch like grass in the wind, or maybe it’s more like tree branches.

‘But that’s terrible!’ I say. ‘So Rupert didn’t even tell you himself?’

‘We are not vorth his times,’ Justyna says bitterly. ‘We vork hard here for years to make the shop nice and it is like ve are vorth nothing! You people make me sick,’ she
spits.

‘Justyna!’ Jan scolds and then continues to speak to her but in Polish. She hangs her head, clearly ashamed at being reprimanded.

‘My apologiesk,’ she says gruffly.

I smile at her and shake my head. ‘It’s fine, you’re angry. I would be too. Your colleagues deserved more than that and so do you. I know how hard you have to work, even with a
full team. I see it, even if no one else does.’ I glance at them all, at their downcast, despondent faces. ‘Listen,’ I say as a thought occurs to me. I kick myself for not
thinking of it before. ‘I’ve arranged to go for some drinks tonight with some people from the store . . .’ Justyna looks ready to spit at me so I finish quickly, ‘None of
them works on the shop floor. There’s Lily from the tearoom – she’s just fabulous – then there’s Felix who you probably know from Security,’ Jan nods vigorously,
‘and a friend of mine, a delivery guy called Sam. We’re going to a pub tonight. Would you all like to come? It would be so nice for us all to have a chat out of work hours. And I think
you’d really like everyone.’

Jan beams at me. ‘Thanksk you, Evie-English-Wife, that would be very good. We shall all come, no?’

I swear I hear Justyna growl but just then Velna sings something unrecognisable, before spinning on one foot, doing a clap, then finishing with some jazz hands. We are all looking puzzled when
she announces, ‘It was the winning entry for my country, Latvia. In 2002? ‘I Wanna’ Yes?’ Justyna rolls her eyes and turns on the industrial vacuum cleaner, and we all laugh
as Velna proceeds to shout-sing the rest of the song as Justyna cleans around her.

The stockroom feels dark and lonely after the last couple of hours I spent busily transforming Jane’s department whilst singing British Eurovision songs with Velna, whom
Jan had assigned to clean my floor. And she was delighted that I knew so many. I’d even been able to teach her a pointy-hand dance move to Michael Ball’s 1992 entry, ‘One Step Out
of Time’, which I somehow knew all the words to. Unfortunately this meant I have spent the last half-hour listening to her singing it over and over again.

Luckily as soon as I flick the lights on there is a knock at the back door.

I fling open the door and Sam grins sleepily at me. He looks even more tousled and crumpled than ever this morning. He’s wearing an old, navy duffel coat with the hood flung over his head.
His eyes are red-rimmed with tiredness and he still has sleep creases on his freckled cheeks. He waves a bulging Starbucks bag at me and goes and collapses on the sofa.

‘Blimey,’ I say, feeling my throat tighten. He must have had a late night. Probably with Ella. ‘Someone has been burning the candle at both ends. Coffee?’

He nods at the bag. ‘I brought us some gingerbread lattes, fruit toast and – just to get into the Christmas spirit – some mince pies,’ he smiles. ‘I thought we
could have a breakfast picnic!’ He lifts his rucksack onto his knee, opens it and pulls out a rug, which he lays on the floor. Then he gets out two plates, some cutlery, and lays out the food
on the plates and places the takeaway coffee on the rug in front of the sofa. Out of the bag also comes some plastic cups and a bottle of fresh orange juice. Then he scrambles off the couch, sits
cross-legged on the rug and beckons me to join him. He pours some juice and as he’s looking down and concentrating I notice his eyelashes sweep heavily over the generous curve of his cheeks.
He butters our toast, adds a thick layer of jam and then takes a long sip of coffee.

‘Christ, I need caffeine this morning,’ he groans, smiling at me as he stifles a yawn, but then gives into it completely, accompanying it with a full stretch with his arms flung up
over his head, which reveals a tiny patch of a pale but surprisingly taut stomach, his belly button (an innie) and a little thatch of hair crisscrossing its way down past the brown buckle of his
belt. He looks adorable, like a 5-year-old in adult’s clothing.

‘Why are you so tired?’ I ask, kneeling down on the rug next to him.

He rubs his eyes, then looks at me. ‘I’ve got a confession to make.’

‘You’re a male gigolo and have been working nights all week?’ I say teasingly, taking a bite of fruit toast.

He laughs. ‘Close.’

I choke a little on my mouthful. ‘What? But I was kidding! Which bit? The gigolo?’

‘No, you fool.’ Sam taps me playfully on the arm. ‘The working nights bit. You know how I’ve always wanted to be a photographer? I’ve started assisting this really
cool guy who does editorial stuff. I’ve helped him on a couple of night shoots, which is fantastic. But it also means I’ve had no sleep.’

‘That’s fantastic, Sam!’ I say putting down my toast and wrapping my arms around my body to warm it; it’s a little draughty sitting on the stockroom floor. Sam leans over
and pulls a corner of the rug over my legs and I smile in thanks. ‘But you never said you were planning to do something like this?’

He shrugs bashfully and his thick-knit cream cardigan, which is zipped up to his neck, tickles the curly hair at his nape. ‘I didn’t think I was until I did it. I mean, I
didn’t expect anyone to give me a chance. I don’t have any training. Just because I like messing around with a camera doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a realistic career
aspiration.’

‘So what changed your mind?’

‘You did,’ he smiles, rolling his red cup between his hands to warm them.

‘What? How?’

‘It was when you got that promotion . . .’

‘Didn’t get, you mean,’ I interrupt.

Sam looks at me sympathetically. ‘But when we thought you had, it made me realize that you’re here because you’re working towards something. You love this place and want to
work in this industry, even if you don’t want to be in the stockroom forever. This job might not be your dream, but at least you’re on your way. Whereas I’m stuck doing deliveries
at my dad’s company because . . . well, let’s just say you made me realize that it was about time I took control of my life. I may not get anywhere with this whole photography lark, but
at least I’ll have tried.’

‘So how did you start working with this guy?’ I ask, intrigued by Sam’s secret career.

‘After you told me you were leaving the other day, I wrote down the names of a load of photographers whose work I admire, googled them and phoned them up and asked if they would meet me. I
caught this one guy on a good day; his assistant had just moved to New York and he said to come along and meet him. We got on well and he asked me to come to one of his shoots. I’ve been
working with him for the past three nights and he’s asked me to help out next week too. There’s no money in it yet, so I’ll have to keep doing deliveries for a while. But
I’ve learned so much already, it’s amazing! I know for sure this is what I want to do and it’s all thanks to you.’

Sam is sitting up now and his eyes are gleaming. I wish I could share his excitement. But I just feel even more of a loser. The promotion-I-never-got inspired Sam to change his life, when it was
meant to change mine. How ironic.

‘What’s wrong?’ he says, his face falling when he notices my glum expression. ‘Aren’t you pleased for me?’

‘Of COURSE I am,’ I say, chastising myself mentally for letting my emotions show and being so selfish. ‘I think what you’ve done is brilliant. I just can’t help
feeling sad that one day soon there’ll be someone new delivering Hardy’s stock, and I’ll still be here, unpacking boxes . . .’