Page 36 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)
P hoebe was never late. She was never too early either, which was another kind of rudeness altogether. If you had friends coming round and they turned up thirty minutes before the agreed time while you were still in the shower, well, that was just inconsiderate.
‘Punctuality is the politeness of kings,’ Mildred had been fond of saying, so at exactly five minutes to three, even though the bus from Camden had taken ages, Phoebe rang the bell to Birdy’s basement flat in a quiet tree-lined road in Upper Clapton.
She didn’t know why her stomach felt like it was on the floor and her hands were clammy inside her gloves. Like she was nervous or something.
There was the sound of yapping, which made Coco, who was waiting patiently at her feet, squirm and give a warning bark.
‘Company manners, CC,’ Phoebe said sharply, as she heard footsteps and the sound of a key turning then the door opened and Birdy was standing there with a delighted smile on her elfin face.
‘You came,’ she said as if she hadn’t been sure that Phoebe would.
‘I came,’ Phoebe agreed.
They stood there for a moment, each sizing the other one up. Birdy was clearly one of those people who dressed strictly for comfort at home. She was bare-faced, her hair curling up at the ends and she was wearing a onesie. It was leopard print but it was still a onesie.
Phoebe was in one of her weekend outfits.
Vintage-cut, indigo denim dungarees, a black and white polka dot rayon silk blouse with pussy cat bow, biker boots and her hair caught up in a black and white polka dot silk scarf, only her fringe visible.
And of course full make-up. Phoebe never went anywhere without a red lip.
The sizing up was interrupted as Coco Chanel made an attempt to push past Phoebe probably because she could sense that Peggy Gug was near.
‘Oh, you can just let her off the lead,’ Birdy said. ‘I think she and Peggy are going to be fast friends.’
Phoebe doubted that very much. There was every possibility that Coco might eat Peggy but she released the catch on Coco’s pink leather lead so Coco could shoot through Birdy’s legs.
‘I got you this,’ Phoebe said when she’d straightened up and handed over a stiff cardboard box, which had become a little squashed on the bus. ‘For tea.’
There was a very fancy, very expensive bakery in Primrose Hill, which mostly specialised in cupcakes but cupcakes were so early 2000s and a triumph of frosting over actual cake. Instead Phoebe had brought a Victoria sponge. Classic, timeless, the little black dress of cakes.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ Birdy said, sniffing with a little rapturous sigh. ‘It smells delicious.’
‘I could never turn up to someone’s house empty-handed,’ Phoebe insisted, another useful life lesson from Mildred and now that greetings had been exchanged, she stepped through the door and hoped this wasn’t a big mistake.
Birdy’s flat was on the lower ground floor of a Victorian house. From the outside, the house looked very done up. It’s paintwork grey, its wooden trims and doors black as was fashionable, but the separate little basement flat wasn’t as smart as its exterior.
It was very dimly lit, the weak November sunlight trickling in through tiny windows, and Birdy and Faisal had painted the walls black so the whole effect should have been quite sombre.
Except all the doors, window frames and skirting boards, even the old-fashioned fire in the lounge, had been painted a cheerful deep yolky yellow.
As Phoebe followed Birdy along a narrow hall, the walls were crowded with pictures: paintings of flowers, portraits of sad-eyed Modigliani-esque girls, which had been popular in the 1960s, and postcards of everything from kittens to the Velvet Underground to vintage book covers, all of them in an eclectic variety of different frames.
They came to the kitchen, the walls black, the cupboard doors the same bright yellow, black and white chequerboard lino on the floor, where Coco Chanel got up on her hind legs to scrabble at the back door.
‘I told Faisal to put Peggy in the garden so we could reintroduce them on neutral territory,’ Birdy said. ‘I looked it up on Google. Are you happy for Coco to go outside?’
Coco Chanel wasn’t really an outside sort of dog. She preferred the sheets to the streets, as Freddy used to say.
Also, Coco didn’t play well with others. She regarded them as beneath her.
‘Well, it’s worth a try,’ Phoebe said doubtfully.
Birdy unlocked the back door, Coco wriggling through the gap before it was fully open.
Phoebe realised that she should have put Coco back on her lead and escorted her out but it was too late.
Coco made a beeline for Peggy who was already screaming, bopped her on the snoot with a paw, then the two of them charged around the tiny garden, mouthing at each other.
Occasionally one of them would drop and roll, then get back up to charge the other again.
‘Um, should they be doing that?’ Phoebe asked as she and Birdy stood on the back doorstep, and Faisal did a strange hopping dance on the lawn to avoid being mown down by two small but powerful dogs. ‘It looks a bit like they’re trying to kill each other.’
‘Oh, they’re just doing bitey face,’ Birdy said airily. ‘It looks aggressive but it’s only playing.’ She turned to Phoebe with a smile and misty eyes. ‘It’s so rare for Peggy to really connect with another dog.’
Phoebe didn’t say anything at first. She was transfixed by Coco tearing around the garden like an actual real dog. It was the first time she’d ever seen Coco get the zoomies.
‘Coco too. She never interacts with other dogs. It’s not her fault,’ she added defensively though Birdy hadn’t said anything condemning. ‘She’s a rescue. I don’t even know all the terrible things that had happened to her before I found her.’
Both coming from brachycephalic breeds, the zoomies and the bitey face didn’t last long before Coco and Peggy splooted out on the grass, panting heavily.
Once they were inside, they drank from the same water bowl then curled up together in a plush dog bed under a radiator in the kitchen. Faisal greeted Phoebe then said he was meeting a friend to lay down some tracks.
‘He’s a composer,’ Birdy explained once Faisal had left. ‘Do you want tea? Coffee? I only have oat milk though. Or I have some kombucha if that’s more your thing.’
It really wasn’t. Phoebe requested black coffee and leaned against the worktop as Birdy got down mugs then started opening a lot of big Tupperware containers.
‘I knew you were coming so I baked a cake,’ she said with a grin. ‘Cookies, brownies and some scones too.’
Phoebe was about to protest that she didn’t eat any of those things but, then again, she did love a brownie. ‘So, what does Faisal compose?’ she asked. ‘Anything I’d have heard of?’
‘He’s composed two symphonies and he’s working on an opera about Peggy Guggenheim with a friend, but in the meantime we have to pay the bills so he also does music for adverts and video games,’ Birdy said, as she arranged her home-baked treats on a vintage cake stand. ‘Shall we go into the front room?’
Once they were settled on a comfy little sofa covered in a Welsh blanket and a variety of cushions, with coffee and cake, Phoebe dreaded the conversation grinding to a halt.
It never happened. They talked about Peggy Guggenheim , the opera; Peggy Guggenheim, the heiress; and Peggy Gug the Pug, which led to a series of confessions about how hard it was to be the owner of a dog who didn’t like other dogs.
‘Although it’s more like other dogs don’t like Peggy. What with the screaming and she’s very bad at reading the room. It’s like she doesn’t understand Dog,’ Birdy said and Phoebe could empathise.
‘Oh, Coco hates most other dogs,’ she said and went on to tell Birdy about the time she’d taken Coco to a Frenchie meet-up as a way of socialising her and Coco had peed on another dog’s head.
‘The organiser asked us to leave and never come back,’ Phoebe recounted as Birdy shook with silent laughter.
‘I mean, Coco is very judgemental. She judges everyone. Sometimes, I catch her giving even me side-eye and I’m the one who keeps her in the bougie lifestyle to which she’s become accustomed. ’
It wasn’t very often that Phoebe met someone and felt any kind of kinship with them unless they instantly bonded over vintage dresses.
That was how she had met and become friends with Marianne and Claude.
Her social circle mainly comprised people she’d met at vintage fairs and vintage clothing swaps, which reminded her . . .
‘Oh, I brought you something,’ Phoebe said after an hour when there had been no uncomfortable silences and she’d eaten more cake than she had done in years.
‘The Victoria sponge was enough. More than enough,’ Birdy protested as Phoebe reached into her vintage straw bag, which some intrepid traveller had brought back from the Bahamas many decades ago. It had the country’s name embroidered on it in red along with a bunch of bright pink hibiscus flowers.
‘I was having a sort-through and I found this dress, which just isn’t my style.
’ Phoebe produced a package, which she’d wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a thin strip of pale green ribbon that she’d had knocking about.
As Mildred used to say, it was better to reuse than to recycle.
‘I don’t know why I bought it originally.
Probably because it looked so pretty and I couldn’t bear to leave it in the shop, but I think it would look great on you. ’
‘Well, that’s very kind. Absolutely unnecessary,’ Birdy said as she carefully unwrapped the paper to reveal a 1960s crimplene sleeveless minidress with a swirling psychedelic pattern in white, green, blue and yellow. ‘Oh, this is really cool!’
‘I thought you could wear a black turtleneck under it like you wore the other day,’ Phoebe explained. ‘Although it might get a bit sweaty. I went clubbing in crimplene once and I really don’t recommend it.’