A Vintage Affair: A page-turning romance full of mystery and secrets from the bestselling author

‘It’s a lovely face, Mum.’

She sighed. ‘More furrows than Gordon Ramsay in a fury. None of those new creams seem to have made the slightest difference.’

I thought of Mum’s dressing table. It used to have a single bottle of Oil of Olay on it – now it resembles the unguents counter of a department store with its tubes of Retin A and Vitamin C, its pots of Derma Genesis and Moisture Boost, its pseudo-scientific capsules of slow-release Ceramides and Hyaluronic Acid with Cellular-Nurturing, Epoxy-Restoring this, that and the other.

‘Just dreams in a jar, Mum.’

She prodded her cheeks. ‘Perhaps a little Botox might help … I’ve been toying with the idea.’ She stretched up her brow with the index and middle fingers of her left hand. ‘Sod’s law, it would go wrong and I’d end up with my eyelids round my nostrils. But I do so loathe all these lines.’

‘Then learn to love them. It’s normal to have lines when you’re fifty-nine.’

Mum flinched, as though I’d slapped her. ‘Don’t. I’m dreading getting the bus pass. Why can’t they give us a “taxi pass” when we hit sixty? Then I wouldn’t mind so much.’

‘Anyway, lines don’t make beautiful women less beautiful,’ I went on as I put a stack of Village Vintage carriers behind the till. ‘Just more interesting.’

‘Not to your father.’ I didn’t reply. ‘Mind you, I thought he liked old ruins,’ Mum added dryly. ‘He is an archaeologist, after all. But now here he is with a girl barely older than you are. It’s grotesque,’ she muttered bitterly.

‘It was certainly surprising.’

Mum brushed an imaginary speck off her skirt. ‘You didn’t invite him tonight? Did you?’ In her hazel eyes I saw a heart-rending combination of panic and hope.

‘No I didn’t,’ I replied softly. Not least because she might have come. I wouldn’t have put it past Ruth. Or rather Ruthless.

‘Thirty-six,’ Mum said bitterly, as though it was the ‘six’ that offended her.

‘She must be thirty-eight now,’ I pointed out.

‘Yes – and he’s sixty-two! I wish he’d never done that wretched TV series,’ she wailed.

I took a forest green Hermès Kelly out of its dust bag and put it in a glass display case. ‘You couldn’t have known what would happen, Mum.’

‘And to think I persuaded him – at her behest!’ She picked up a glass of champagne and her wedding ring, which she continues to wear in defiance of my father’s desertion, gleamed in a beam of sunlight. ‘I thought it would help his career,’ she went on miserably. She sipped her fizz. ‘I thought that it would lift his profile and that he’d make more money which would come in handy in our retirement. Then off he goes to film The Big Dig – but the main thing he seems to have been digging’ – Mum grimaced – ‘was her.’ She sipped her champagne again. ‘It was just … ghastly.’

I had to agree. It was one thing for my father to have his first affair in thirty-eight years of marriage; it was quite another for my mother to find out about it in the diary section of the Daily Express. I shuddered as I remembered reading the caption beneath the photo of my father, looking uncharacteristically shifty, with Ruth, outside her Notting Hill flat:

TELLY PROF DUMPS WIFE AMIDST BABY RUMOURS.

‘Do you see much of him, darling?’ I heard Mum ask with forced casualness. ‘Of course, I can’t stop you,’ she went on. ‘And I wouldn’t want to – he’s your father; but, to be honest, the thought of you spending time with him, and her … and … and …’ Mum can’t bring herself to mention the baby.

‘I haven’t seen Dad for ages,’ I said truthfully.

Mum knocked back her champagne then carried the glass out to the kitchen. ‘I’d better not drink any more. It’ll only make me cry. Right,’ she said briskly as she came back, ‘let’s change the subject.’

‘Okay – tell me what you think of the shop. You haven’t seen it for weeks.’

Mum walked round, her elegant little heels tapping over the wooden floor. ‘I like it. It’s not remotely like being in a second-hand shop – it’s more like being somewhere nice, like Phase Eight.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ I lined up the flutes of champagne gently fizzing on the counter.

‘I like the stylish silver mannequins, and there’s a pleasantly uncluttered feel.’

‘That’s because vintage shops can be chaotic – the rails so crammed that you give yourself an upper-body workout just going through them. Here there’s enough light and air between the garments so that browsing will be a pleasure. If an item doesn’t sell, I’ll simply bring out something else. But aren’t the clothes lovely?’

‘Ye-es,’ Mum replied. ‘In a way.’ She nodded at the cupcake dresses. ‘Those are fun.’

‘I know – I adore them.’ I idly wondered who would buy them. ‘And look at this kimono. It’s from 1912. Have you seen the embroidery?’

‘Very pretty …’

‘Pretty? It’s a work of art. And this Balenciaga opera coat. Look at the cut – it’s made in just two pieces, including the sleeves. The construction is amazing.’

‘Hmm …’

‘And this coatdress – it’s by Jacques Fath. Look at the brocade with its pattern of little palm trees. Where could you find something like that today?’

‘That’s all very well, but –’

‘And this Givenchy suit: now this would look great on you, Mum. You can wear a knee-length skirt because you’ve got great legs.’

She shook her head. ‘I’d never wear vintage clothes.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve always preferred new things.’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘I’ve told you before, darling – it’s because I grew up in the era of rationing. I had nothing but hideous hand-me-downs – scratchy Shetland jumpers and grey serge skirts and coarse woollen pinafores that smelled like a damp dog when it rained. I used to long for things that no one else had owned, Phoebe. I still do – I can’t help it. Added to which I have a distaste for wearing things that other people have worn.’

‘But everything’s been washed and dry-cleaned. This isn’t a charity shop, Mum,’ I added as I gave the counter a quick wipe. ‘These clothes are in pristine condition.’

‘I know. And it all smells delightfully fresh – I detect no mustiness whatsoever.’ She sniffed the air. ‘Not the faintest whiff of a mothball.’

I plumped up the cushions on the sofa where Dan had been sitting. ‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘It’s the thought of wearing something that belonged to someone who’s probably …’ – she gave a little shudder – ‘died. I have a thing about it,’ she added. ‘I always have had. You and I are different in that way. You’re like your father. You both like old things … piecing them together. I suppose what you’re doing is a kind of archaeology, too,’ she went on. ‘Sartorial archaeology. Ooh, look, someone’s arriving.’

I picked up two glasses of champagne, then, with adrenaline coursing through my veins and a welcoming smile on my face, I stepped forward to greet the people walking through the door. Village Vintage was open for business …

TWO (#u2ead5159-4ca4-58b7-8a61-f5cfd585c4ee)

I always wake in the early hours. I don’t need to look at the clock to know what time it is – it’s ten to four. I’ve been waking at ten to four every night for six months. My GP said it’s stress-induced insomnia, but I know it’s not stress. It’s guilt.

I avoid sleeping pills, so sometimes I’ll try to make the time pass by getting up and working. I might put on a wash – the machine’s always on the go; I might iron a few things, or do a repair. But I know it’s better to try and sleep so I usually lie there, attempting to lull myself back to oblivion with the World Service or some late-night phone-in. But last night I didn’t do that – I just lay there thinking about Emma. Whenever I’m not busy she goes round and round my mind, on a loop.

I see her at our little primary school in her stripy green summer dress; I see her diving into the swimming pool like a seal; I see her kissing her lucky Krugerrand before a tennis match. I see her at the Royal College of Art with her milliner’s blocks. I see her at Ascot, photographed in Vogue, beaming beneath one of her fantastic hats.

Then, as my bedroom began to fill with the grey light of dawn I saw Emma as I saw her for the very last time.