Page 18 of Love from Pretty Beach

‘It seems such a waste to cut it after it’s survived all these years. It’s vintage and everything. I think there’s pressure on the zip, which is why it’s not coming down. How about you lie down on the floor and try to wriggle yourself out of it?’

Darby pulled a face and did not look convinced. ‘Seriously? What, you think I should lie down?’

Anna nodded and looked around. ‘There’s not a soul about. I think it would work. If you can’t wriggle out of it, I can get my hand up and get the zipper down that way.’

Darby just wanted to be cut out of the thing, but she didn’t like to say. ‘Right.’

Anna shook her head and laughed. ‘Well, this is a first. Darby, it appears that you have taken up permanent residence in a fur coat. Lie down.’

Darby did as instructed, first getting down on all fours and then lying flat on her back on the carpet.

She was not happy and what followed was not pretty.

It may have been the most undignified five minutes of her adult life.

As Anna pulled, tugged and yanked on the zipper, Darby stared at the ceiling, wishing Anna would just give up and cut the blooming thing.

With Anna having no luck, Darby attempted to wriggle her arms out and ease herself out of the neck.

That didn’t work either and as she felt more and more desperate, Darby could feel sweat on her neck and her cheeks getting hotter and hotter.

‘Okay, Plan B, please. You’re going to need to cut me out of this. ’

Just as Anna was kneeling beside her, having one last-ditch attempt, holding the top of the neck in her left hand and yanking with her right, the doorbell jangled and a man walked in.

Both Anna and Darby looked at the door. The man’s face was a picture.

He stood in the doorway for a second, took in the scene before him, squinted and made a face.

Darby, flat on her back on the floor in a vintage fur coat, looked him up and down.

Nice jeans, white shirt, jumper, good hair.

The man who had come in to help her when the fire alarm had been going off.

From her horizontal position, he looked even better than he had before, if that was at all possible.

Anna exclaimed. 'Archie! Perfect timing. We've got a bit of a situation here as you might be able to tell.'

Archie stepped fully into the shop and closed the door behind him, taking in the sight of Darby flat on her back on the floor. 'What in the name of God are you doing? I can’t for the life of me work it out.'

Anna clambered up and put her hands on her hips. 'This is Darby, and she's trapped in a 1960s coat. It looks like we’re going to have to cut her out of it. We might need to call the fire brigade.'

‘We’ve met.’

Darby attempted to prop herself up on her elbows, but couldn’t because her arms were essentially pinned to her sides by the sleeves. One of the enormous ear flaps slid sideways across her face. ‘I am officially stuck.’

Anna shook her head. ‘This isn’t funny now.’

It was more than obvious that Archie thought it was funny. 'Not at all. One of your customers is flat on her back in a Russian hat and trapped in a fur coat. I bet you see this thing every day of the week, do you not?’

'We've tried tugging, pulling, and Darbs has tried to shimmy her way out of it, but the zip's completely jammed and the coat seems determined to keep her. We’ll have to cut her out of it.

It seems a shame after the coat has survived all these years.

' Anna brushed her skirt down. ‘I’ll get some scissors.’

Archie nodded. ‘Darbs, right.’

Darby remained quiet and stared at the ceiling.

'You just need to approach this systematically.' Archie stated.

'Systematically? It's a coat, not an engineering project. I just need to be cut out of it.'

'Everything's an engineering project.' Archie bobbed down and crouched beside Darby. 'I restore old buildings for a living and half the time it involves figuring out how to take apart things that were put together by people who never intended them to come apart again.'

Ooh, nice.

'You restore old buildings,' Darby repeated weakly. 'Right.'

Anna beamed at Archie as if he'd just offered to solve world hunger. 'I knew you'd know what to do. You sorted out that Victorian wardrobe that got stuck in Xian’s hallway, didn't you?'

Archie addressed Darby. ‘Can you feel if the zip is catching anything?'

Darby was acutely aware that Archie’s face was now approximately six inches from hers as he examined the zip mechanism. She may have been on fire. 'No, I don’t think it’s stuck on the lining. It’s just stuck somewhere around my collarbone. It feels like the zip teeth are jammed when it’s pulled.'

Archie took charge. 'Do you have any soap or candle wax? Sometimes you can lubricate a stubborn zip if you know what you're doing.'

‘Can we just cut it off? I’ll pay for it. I’m not enjoying this.’

'There's a lavender candle by the till.'

Remaining pinned to the floor, Darby tried not to think about how she must look from Archie's vantage point. Attempting not to look at his leg muscles through his jeans or any other adjacent muscle, she closed her eyes. ‘Well, this is mortifying.’

Anna returned with a chunky lavender candle. 'Right then, let's see if we can get this sorted. Archie, you're the expert here. Are you okay, Darbs?'

Darby felt as if she might combust. ‘I’m fine. If this doesn’t work, you’ll need to cut it off. I’ll pay for it if it’s a problem.’

Archie took the candle and began carefully rubbing the wax along the visible portion of the zip.

To be quite frank, Darby didn’t know where to look.

He, however, seemed perfectly at ease. 'The thing about old zips is that they were built to last, but they weren't necessarily built to be user-friendly. Case in point. This zip has been working perfectly well for sixty years, so the issue isn't the mechanism itself, it’s just that it’s old. '

Darby shook her head and the enormous hat wobbled. She didn’t care about the mechanism. ‘This is a nightmare.’

Anna nodded. ‘Do you want me to just cut it?’

Darby shook her head. ‘I’ll live. I just need to be extracted from this thing ASAP.’

'Stay still whilst I work the zip down. The trick is to not force it, I reckon.'

Darby shook her head as Archie dealt with the zip. In actual fact, she might have been enjoying it more than she was letting on. 'The coat seems to have its own ideas about cooperation.'

Archie positioned himself so that he could get a good grip on the zip. Darby swallowed. She could smell his aftershave, clean but smoky, fabulous. The lavender candle, old clothes and charity shop smell seemed to disappear.

Anna nodded. 'It’s starting to come free.'

As Darby felt the zip give, she exhaled as the coat's death grip around her ribcage loosened. 'I was beginning to think I'd have to move in here permanently.'

'We'd have made you very comfortable,' Anna said cheerfully. 'Put a little bed in the back room, maybe charge admission for people to come and see the woman who got permanently stuck in an old fur coat.'

Archie eased the zip down millimetre by millimetre whilst Anna provided a running commentary. Giving the zip one final gentle tug that brought it all the way down to her waist. 'There. You're officially un-trapped.'

Darby sat up slowly. Blinking, she swallowed, not really sure what to think.

She felt as if she’d just recovered from a minor medical procedure and as the coat fell open around her, she inhaled, filled her cheeks with air and then blew out a long blow of breath.

'Thank you.' Struggling to extract her arms from the sleeves, she chuckled.

'I genuinely thought I was going to have to live in that thing forever. '

'Any time,' Archie stood up and offered her a hand. 'Next time you're planning to wrestle with vintage clothing, you might want to bring backup. Or at least warn people in advance so they can bring equipment.'

Darby accepted his hand, felt a strange sizzle in places she thought were long since dead and he pulled her to her feet. Acutely aware that she was flushed, sweating, dishevelled, and totally and utterly embarrassed, Darby gabbled. 'Anna insisted I try it on. I don’t even like fur.'

Anna held her hands up. ‘To be fair, it was all my fault.’

Darby tried to restore some semblance of dignity to her appearance and fluffed the sides of her hair. She gathered her bag. 'Right. I think I might love you and leave you, I've caused enough disruption for one day.'

'Nonsense. You've provided the most excitement we've had all week.'

'Exactly. I don’t like causing excitement.’

‘A morning of problem solving, for me.’ Anna laughed and turned to Archie as she started to put the coat back on the hanger. 'Thanks for the rescue. We would have had to cut her out of it.'

Archie joked. 'Or called the fire brigade.’

‘That would have been around Pretty Beach in a flash.’ Darby shook her head. ‘How embarrassing. Sorry about that.’

‘If it makes you feel any better, I once got stuck in a Victorian dumbwaiter. I had to be extracted by two paramedics and an unhappy building surveyor.'

'Really?'

'I spent three hours wedged in a space designed for carrying tea trays between floors.'

'What happened?'

'They managed to reverse the pulley system and lower me back down to the basement.

It was a very humbling experience. I could tell you stories about building restoration that would make your coat incident look positively mundane.

Old buildings have personalities, which is something I have learnt along the way. '

Anna laughed. ‘You want to try volunteering in this shop. Every day is a school day in here.’

‘I bet.’

‘Anyway, what were you after?’ Anna asked.

‘I was popping in to see if you wanted any donations. I have a lot of boys' clothes, but I know you’re a bit tight on space. I must say I don’t have any fur coats at my disposal.’

‘We’d love them. Thanks. Just drop them at any time.’

‘Great.’

‘What have you been up to?’ Anna asked.

Archie smiled. ‘I’ve got work coming out of my earholes, which means I’ve not been doing much.’

‘Will we be seeing you at Daisy’s author thing this week? Didn’t I see you outside there the other day looking at the shop with a certain man?’

Archie nodded. ‘We will.’

‘You’re into author events?’ Anna joked.

‘I’ve been roped in by Suntanned Pete. We were talking about that old awning outside the shop in case the weather is dodgy.’

Darby’s mind scrambled. Author event? The one she’d bought a ticket for to support local authors and independent bookshops. The one she’d had no intention of going to. The one she needed to find a new outfit for.

Archie raised his eyebrows. 'Right then. One rescued vintage coat. I’ll send you my invoice later.'

'Thanks, Archie, you saved the day.'

Archie laughed. 'My pleasure. Thanks for providing me with the most interesting charity shop visit I've had in years. I don't think I'll ever look at vintage clothing the same way again.'

Darby attempted a sweet, happy smile. He might have been joking, but she had never had such an interesting charity shop visit. Never in her life.