The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill

Book 0: A Vintage Dress Shop Romance

by Annie Darling

Genres: City Life; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Sophy Stanton is moving to Australia. Turning 30 has found her unexpectedly out of a job, out of a relationship, and just in need of Something Different – and Australia looks like the perfect answer…if she can save up the money for the plane ticket. So when her feckless, absent dad Johnno offers her a job at his vintage clothes shop in Primrose Hill, she can't turn it down. It'll only be for a few months, after all. But the Vintage Dress Shop turns out to be a treasure trove of gorgeous, preloved clothes, from a 1930s cocktail gown to a never-worn 50s wedding dress, and despite the disapproval of the snooty manager, Sophy starts to fall in love with vintage fashion. And then there's Charles Rivenhall, the debonair gemstone specialist with exquisite tailoring and enough charm to throw Sophy's plans wildly off course…

Release date: August 3, 2023

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One

Sophy Stevens was having a bad day.

Correction. A bad week.

Make that a bad month.

Maybe even a bad year. In fact, she might even have been born during a bad moment in the cosmoverse when none of the constellations were aligned, Mercury was well and truly in retrograde and it was a full moon.

It would explain a hell of a lot.

But right now she could only focus on one bad day at a time and, as bad days went, this particular Thursday was fair to middling.

As Sophy came out of Chalk Farm station, the February sky was a perfect blue. Not a cloud in sight, which was odd when she felt so downcast.

It was really too cold to eat ice cream, and Sophy would have much preferred a large white wine, but she’d been meeting Johnno at Marine Ices for years. The tradition was long-running enough that she could remember the ice cream parlour when it was in its original spot, just opposite the tube station. Run by an Italian family, Marine Ices was a London institution, and one that Sophy hoped would never fall out of favour because a large bowl of their hazelnut ice cream would be her Death Row meal.

It was also a tradition that sometimes Johnno would turn up and sometimes he wouldn’t. Sophy took her phone out of her bag to check if there was an apologetic message heavy with emojis. Though sometimes, when he was a no-show, he didn’t even message. Not for a few days.

Just to make sure, though it was a case of hope over experience, Sophy messaged him.

There in five.

But when Sophy reached the ice cream parlour in three, she was amazed to see Johnno already waiting for her with a knickerbocker glory in front of him, two spoons, because he still thought she was eight.

‘Kiddo! I swear you get more beautiful by the day,’ he greeted her, with the broad Australian accent that even thirty years in London couldn’t wither.

‘I have a huge spot on my chin,’ Sophy said as Johnno stood up so he could hug her. He wasn’t much taller than Sophy and she was only five foot four in her socks. But what Johnno lacked in height, he made up for in sheer charisma.

It wasn’t just that he was wearing a pink and white cowboy shirt tucked into leather trousers or that what little hair he had, close-cropped, was the same shade of neon pink as his shirt; it was Johnno’s presence.

He could charm the birds right out of the trees. He could make the starchiest, stiffest people break out into sunny smiles (a skill that came in particularly useful when dealing with traffic wardens). He could walk into a room and within five minutes he was everyone’s best friend. Johnno was a chancer. A ducker and diver. A wheeler-dealer. A cowboy. A wide boy. A bad boy. Or as Sophy’s mum had said gently to six-year-old Sophy when they’d waited in vain for an hour at Marine Ices one Saturday afternoon for Johnno, ‘I know that he can be tremendous fun but the thing is, Soph, you shouldn’t really expect too much from your dad.’

It was a lesson that Sophy had learned the hard way. Though she couldn’t even remember a time when the three of them had been a family because Johnno had left, or rather Caroline had thrown him and all his stuff out onto the street, when Sophy was still a baby.

Sophy was ten when Caroline had got married (Johnno had promised to marry her when she first got pregnant but never got round to it) and she always thought of Mike as her proper dad. A dad who’d done PTA evenings and school plays and ferried her around north London to dance classes and competitions, sleepovers and trips to Brent Cross shopping centre to hang out with her friends.

But biologically Johnno was still her dad. He might have been a somewhat absent, unreliable presence in Sophy’s life but, when they did manage to meet up, he was very good at imparting useful life advice. (‘Never trust a bloke who doesn’t tip well.’ ‘Anyone you meet after midnight is up to no good.’ ‘Always make sure that you’ve got a spare pair of pants and a tenner on you.’) He was also quite handy when Sophy needed backup. Like the time she’d been working as a waitress in a French restaurant in Soho and her boss had put his hand up her skirt, then sacked her when she’d objected. Johnno had rolled up, fixed her ex-boss (who was a good head taller than him) with a flint-eyed look and then threatened to break every bone in his body and pluck out his internal organs for the pigeons in Leicester Square to feast on. Even Sophy had believed him. Her lecherous ex-boss had taken three hundred quid out of the till, given it to Sophy and begged her forgiveness.

You had to take the rough with the smooth when it came to Johnno, so Sophy sat down, picked up her spoon and asked him how he’d been.

‘Can’t complain, Soph,’ Johnno said, because he wasn’t a moaner and couldn’t stand whingers. Especially whinging Poms. ‘The sun’s shining, birds are singing, I’m eating ice cream with my beautiful daughter, what more could a bloke ask for?’

‘Right, yeah, when you put it like that.’ Sophy took another mouthful of ice cream and wondered how best to lead in to her news. ‘You don’t miss Australia at all? It’s been ages since you visited.’

Johnno steepled his hands, so Sophy could see the words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on his knuckles. Johnno’s life motto was that it was better to regret something that you had done rather than something you hadn’t done, but he’d once told Sophy that the only thing that he really regretted was having the word ‘hate’ tattooed on his body. ‘I went back for Mum’s sixtieth,’ he calculated. ‘That was what? A couple of years ago?’

‘She’s going to be seventy-three this year,’ Sophy said gently.

‘That so? Bloody hell.’ Johnno widened his faded-­denim-blue eyes in disbelief. ‘So, you’re in regular contact then with your grandparents? I know your other lot want me ­horsewhipped.’

Not horsewhipped, but it was true that Caroline’s parents didn’t have a good word to say about Johnno, and as for his own parents, Bob and Jean just sighed a lot when his name came up during the regular FaceTime chats Sophy had with them.

‘I speak to them, occasionally,’ she explained now. ‘Well, once a month. Sometimes twice a month.’

‘Well, why shouldn’t you? I must give them a ring,’ Johnno said vaguely, which meant that he might remember this urge at some point in the future but who could even guess if he’d act on it.

‘In fact, I’ll be talking to them a lot more quite soon,’ Sophy said, because now she had the perfect lead-in to her news. She smiled brightly at Johnno, who stared back at her unmoved (another piece of his life advice: ‘Never trust someone who smiles with all their teeth’). ‘You see, I’ve decided, it’s just as well you’re sitting down, I’ve decided that … I’m …’

‘Spit it out, Soph. Neither of us are getting any younger.’

Sophy put down her spoon, so she could clasp her hands together. ‘I’m emigrating. To Australia.’

‘Say bloody what now?’ Johnno was usually so laid-back that it was a wonder he didn’t fall over but now he reared back in his seat, face turned to the heavens so that, for one horrible moment, Sophy feared that he was having a stroke. ‘Are you out of your bloody mind?’

No, not a stroke. Just processing her big news.

‘I’ve never explored the Australian part of my heritage …’

‘That’s because the Australian part of your heritage is a sheep station in the middle of bloody nowhere.’

‘It’s practically on the coast and Grandad says that I can borrow the truck whenever I want to.’

‘So you’re going to live with them?’

‘To start with. It’s their golden wedding anniversary at the end of August, which you should know about because they’re your par—’

‘And can you even drive?’

‘Technically I can. Mike and Mum gave me lessons for my eighteenth and I passed my test on the fourth go, but who drives in London? I mean, there’s nowhere to park and it’s super-expensive and—’

‘You’re going off-topic, love,’ Johnno advised, leaning forward now so he could stare at Sophy like he was seeing her for the first time. ‘What does your mum say about this?’

‘She’s getting used to the idea.’ Sophy decided to gloss over Caroline’s reaction, which had mostly involved shouting, ‘Have you taken complete leave of your senses?’ very loudly. ‘I know that it all seems like this has come out of the blue but it hasn’t. Not really. I need this. I’ve been wanting to change things up for ages. I just needed a push…’

Her voice was wobbling like washing on the line on a windy day and she could feel the tears begin to stream down her face and plop into the half-melted ice cream.

‘What gave you the push, kiddo?’ Johnno asked. Sophy knew that Johnno didn’t like whingers and that really their relationship, such as it was, was all surface. Neither of them went too deep. So she’d planned to be very positive about her news; but now she was crying and it all came spilling out.

‘I got made redundant,’ she choked out. ‘Not even redundant. I turned up for work, like I have done every day for the last ten years, and the shop was boarded up and there was a note on the door from the official receivers that the company had gone into administration. So, no redundancy pay; in fact, I’m still owed for December’s wages, all my Christmas overtime, which I’m probably never going to get.’

‘Soph, sweetheart, I can give you the money…’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Sophy protested. ‘I can find another job. I have ten years’ retail experience. I’ve been an exemplary employee. Except now I can’t even get the area manager to answer my messages on LinkedIn and give me a reference.’

‘They’d better give you a reference,’ Johnno growled, but this wasn’t something he could fix by turning up at the company’s shuttered headquarters and threatening violence.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. ‘Then when I got home, I was pretty upset and, when I told Egan, he didn’t even say he was sorry. He just asked me how I was going to pay the rent.’

‘I never liked him,’ Johnno said of Sophy’s boyfriend of the last five years, though they’d only met once. Johnno had all but crushed Egan’s fingers to pulp when they’d shaken hands. ‘Anyway, doesn’t he own that flat?’

‘How do you remember that?’ He didn’t even know how old his actual mother was and yet Johnno had squirreled away the information that Egan owned his own flat. Or rather his parents had bought it for him. ‘I didn’t want to leech off him, so we split the bills and I paid rent—’

‘You were paying him rent and bills. OK, me and that Egan are going to be having words…’

‘You won’t be having words because me and that Egan have broken up and so now I’m thirty, thirty, and I’m unemployed and I’m single and I’m homeless,’ Sophy summed up, then she couldn’t speak any more but sat there hiccupping and sobbing and trying to dry her eyes with a napkin, which scoured her face raw because it was better suited to mopping up ice cream spills.

Johnno let out a shaky breath. ‘Homeless? Caroline and Mike won’t let you move back in?’

‘Well, not technically homeless. They’re happy to have me but I have to sleep on the sofa because Mum’s turned my old bedroom into a home spa.’ Sophy finished on a wail.

‘So, hate to rag on you when you’re down, but is this why you’re set on moving to Oz? Because it’s a bloody stupid idea.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a great idea.’ But Sophy didn’t even have a chance to list the reasons why it was a great idea because Johnno had launched into the story she’d already heard many times about how he couldn’t wait to leave Australia and had followed his mates over, who were in a punk band called The Birthday Party. ‘Nick Cave, you heard of him? He’s done all right for himself. And so have I, because I’m not up to my elbows in sheep dung. You’re not going, Soph. I forbid it.’

Sophy stopped crying in favour of laughing. ‘You forbid it? Right! I’m an actual adult person. You can’t forbid me to do anything and you’re the person who always tells me that I should try everything at least once. Well. I’m trying Australia and you can’t stop me!’

‘But emigrating…’ Johnno spluttered.

‘Yes, emigrating, because have I mentioned that I’m thirty and I’m stuck and I lost my job of ten years that I didn’t even like that much and London is the most expensive city in the world after Tokyo and there isn’t a single eligible man on the dating apps, it’s dick pics as far as the eye can see, and I just need something to be different.’ Sophy banged her fist on the table. ‘I need to be different.’

‘You can be different without haring off halfway across the bloody world—’

‘Not another word,’ Sophy snapped, and she knew she must be channelling her mother because Johnno mimed zipping his lips shut and sat back with arms folded and a cowed expression.

They sat in silence. It wasn’t at all how Sophy had thought this conversation would go. She and Johnno never argued. They kept things light. It was what they did. It was how they functioned.

Of course Johnno, being Johnno, couldn’t keep quiet for longer than one minute and fifteen seconds, though that had to be a personal best. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘You can’t just go to Australia. They’re fussy about who they let in. You’ll need a visa and they don’t come cheap either…’

‘I don’t need a visa,’ Sophy said but Johnno shook his head.

‘You will, Soph. A mate of mine fell in love with a girl from Canberra and flew out to marry her and they still wouldn’t let him in without a visa and a few thousand quid in savings—’

‘I don’t need a visa,’ Sophy repeated, and if she’d inherited a certain tone of voice from her mother, the way that she was currently lifting her chin all ready for an argument was pure Johnno. ‘I don’t need savings either, though of course I’m not going to turn up empty-handed.’

Johnno was on his phone. He lifted up a warning hand at Sophy for daring to interrupt his scrolling time. ‘Yeah, see? You need a visa,’ he said, showing her his phone screen and the website of the Australian Home Affairs department. A website that Sophy knew very well. ‘You might be on the skilled occupation list.’

‘I’m not because I don’t have any extraordinary skills, apart from cashing up and dealing with customers that are getting arsey,’ Sophy said. Her lack of extraordinary skills did sting but that was one of the reasons why she wanted to emigrate: to learn new skills, extraordinary or not.

‘No need to look so fed up, kiddo,’ Johnno said brightly, stabbing at his phone with his index finger. ‘There’s this sponsored family stream lark and that only costs $145 and you can stay up to twelve months. Much better than ­emigrating.’

‘But I want to emigrate.’ It was quite hard to get the words out through gritted teeth. ‘My best friend, we were at school together, Radha, lives out there now. I was going to go with her back then but Egan asked me to move in with him and I thought that was the better option.’ Sophy sighed. She really was the poster girl for the road not taken. ‘Anyway, she’s getting married in October, I’m one of her bridesmaids, so with that and Bob and Jean’s golden wedding … they both feel like signs, you know?’

‘Signs that you stay there for a few months and then come home,’ Johnno insisted.

Sophy shook her head. ‘Radha was only going out for a gap year but she fell in love with Australia.’ And also a software designer called Patrick. ‘She says that she finishes work and then she’s straight onto Bondi Beach ten minutes later. She’s even learned to surf.’

‘Well, you’re not going to learn to surf in Queensville,’ Johnno said flatly. ‘Might be near the coast but there are no decent waves.’

‘Surfing was just a for-instance …’

‘And you’ll still need a visa and thousands of pounds…’

‘But I won’t.’ The only way to get Johnno to listen was to raise her voice so that the two girls on the next table, clearly bunking off because they had their school blazers on, turned to look at her. ‘I can claim Australian citizenship by descent. Because I have dual nationality.’

Johnno frowned. He wasn’t usually so slow on the uptake. ‘Come again?’

‘You were Australian at the time of my birth—’

‘Still am, love,’ he said proudly, even though apparently the last time he’d been back to his motherland was thirteen years ago.

‘So, I just have to fill in some forms, provide written references that I’m of good character, pay around three hundred dollars and I’m good to go,’ Sophy explained. She opened her bag and pulled out the plastic folder where she kept her ever-increasing collection of documentation. ‘I just need a couple of bits and bobs from you. I made a list.’

Johnno didn’t even hold out his hand for the piece of paper that Sophy offered. ‘It looks like a long list.’

‘It has three things I need you to do: give me a copy of your passport, a copy of your birth certificate, and first have them verified by a solicitor…’ Sophy felt inevitable doom descending on her. ‘You do have a copy of your birth certificate, don’t you?’

‘Well, not to hand.’ Johnno shrugged in a way that ­absolutely did not inspire confidence. ‘It’ll probably turn up. Anyway, when are you planning to go?’

Sophy fixed Johnno with another look, even steelier than the last one. ‘It’s Bob and Jean’s fiftieth anniversary on August fifteenth and I want to be there by then. To surprise them. It’s the end of February now and I need that ­paperwork from you within the next month to get my application processed ASAP.’

‘A month isn’t a lot of time,’ Johnno said, somewhat ­predictably, though most people knew exactly where their birth certificates and passports were. Then again, Johnno’s unpredictability was the most predictable thing about him.

‘One month,’ Sophy repeated and hoped that the ­message had sunk in. ‘Also, the airfares go shooting up after June because of the school holidays. In the meantime I’m going to find a job, any lousy job, so I can save for my airfare and some spending money, then I’m out of here. I just need you to sort out the stuff on that list as soon as—’

‘A job,’ Johnno echoed. ‘You need a job. Well, I can help you with that. Though I still think this is a crazy idea.’

That was rich coming from Johnno, the king of crazy ideas, but Sophy did really need a job so she decided that now wasn’t the time to point that out.

‘You know someone who’s looking for staff?’ she asked hopefully, though she was sure that whatever job it might be, it wouldn’t be a regular nine to five. One of his mates worked in the reptile house at London Zoo.

‘Me, I’ll give you a job. At the shop,’ Johnno said. He waved a stubby hand. ‘I’ll talk to Freddy. He sorts out all that stuff for me. Yeah, you can come and work for me in the old family business. How does that sound?’

Sophy didn’t want to be churlish, but the thought of working in Johnno’s shop didn’t fill her heart with gladness. On the contrary, it made her heart sink like a ship’s anchor.

Johnno’s Junk. Ugh!

She’d only been there once when she was little but Sophy could still remember the fusty, dusty smell that had caught at the back of her throat. The old, limp clothes. Yellowing paperbacks with garish covers. The stuffed fox head, its fangs bared, in a glass display case.

‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea me working for you. You shouldn’t mix business and pleasure and all that,’ Sophy said, gently, because she really did appreciate the offer but already she was itching at the mere thought of all that creepy old tat in Johnno’s Junk.

It was a source of much mystery to Sophy and her mother as to why Johnno had never been declared bankrupt. Or how he always managed to be flush with cash. Like now, as he opened his wallet and started thumbing through a sizeable wad of notes.

‘Let me give you some cash to help you out until you’re back on your feet,’ he said, because he was generous to a fault.

‘Oh no, you mustn’t,’ Sophy protested, holding up her hands to ward off the bundle of twenties that Johnno was trying to thrust at her. ‘I have a bit saved up.’

‘Now come on, love. Let your old man spoil you a bit.’

‘No, your money’s no good round here,’ Sophy said firmly.

‘If you won’t let me give you money, then at least let me give you a job,’ Johnno wheedled, fluttering his lashes at her, which looked ridiculous but somehow she was smiling. He was impossible. ‘Come on! You and me working together. It will be fun.’

Despite ten years’ retail experience, finding another job was proving to be very difficult. Sophy had no references, as the HR department at her old job had also been locked out of the company HQ. And she hadn’t really climbed up the career ladder either, shunning any opportunities for promotion or advancement as too much responsibility for not that much more money. Also, despite what she’d just told Johnno, she had hardly any savings left.

She would have to fumigate herself at the end of each day, but she did need a job and it would be nice, or a distraction at least, to spend some time with Johnno. ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘But only until I find something be— I mean something else.’

‘Something better?’ Johnno asked with a grin because he knew exactly what she’d been going to say. ‘What could be better than working in my shop?’

Quite a lot of things, but by the time Sophy was on the tube heading back to her mum’s house in Hendon, she was feeling nostalgic for all the good times she’d had with Johnno. When he’d actually turned up for them, that was.

She was also feeling better about the future. That was the other thing that she always forgot about Johnno: he’d missed his true calling. He could make a fortune as a motivational speaker.

‘You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re a straight talker and, luckily, you take after your mother when it comes to looks,’ he’d said as he’d walked her back to the station. ‘There’s nothing you can’t do, Soph. I reckon you’ll be all right. ­Better than all right. You’re going to do wonders, kiddo, but there ain’t any wonders to be had on a flaming sheep station. Now, I’ll be in touch about the job soon.’

And that was that. It might even be the last time that Sophy ever saw him before she left for Australia, but at least she’d be able to tell Bob and Jean that their wayward son had a heart of gold.

Chapter Two

A week later, on a Tuesday morning, Sophy was back at Chalk Farm station. No one, not even her mum, had been more surprised than Sophy when she got a message from Johnno to say that he’d sorted out a job for her and would meet her at the station to ‘get you started. Introduce you to everyone and all that jazz.’

Sophy wasn’t sure why they were meeting in Chalk Farm again when the shop was in Holloway. But she’d learned a long time ago that it was best not to wonder too hard why Johnno did anything.

Even though it was a grotty junk shop next to a chicken shop and she was used to working in a large fashion store on Oxford Street, Sophy still had first-day nerves. She didn’t know how many staff Johnno had – though it couldn’t be very many – and whether they’d resent her for coming in and think that she meant to lord it over them. She also hadn’t known what to wear. She didn’t want to wear anything too nice. In her old job they’d worn all black, bought at a staff discount from the latest drop, but you couldn’t wear all black in a junk shop. It would show up all the dust and cobwebs and, oh God, mildew. There was bound to be mildew.

Sophy had settled for a navy blue and white polka dot jumpsuit and her second nicest trainers because she was going to be on her feet all day. Not her Vejas but her Veja dupes. As she waited for Johnno, she pulled out her pocket mirror and scrutinised her face. Her eyes were the same blue as Johnno’s but her poker-straight red hair and pale skin came from her mother’s side of the family, who all hailed from County Cork in Ireland. Sophy wiped away a smudge of mascara and was just thinking about reapplying her lipgloss when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

She whirled round. ‘Oh my God, this is twice now that you’ve actually turned up when you said you would! Is this an all-time record?’

But it wasn’t Johnno. Standing there was a tall man in jeans, a black polo shirt and Harrington jacket and with artfully messy hair. He looked like he was a member of one of the indie bands that littered this part of north London. Maybe he was lost and needed directions back to Camden?

‘Are you Sophy?’ he asked in a voice that had clearly had most of its cockney edge smoothed out.

Not a member of a minor indie band then. And also … ‘You’re not Johnno.’ Sophy pointed out the obvious.

‘I’m Freddy,’ he explained, holding out a hand for Sophy to shake. ‘Johnno asked me to meet you.’

Johnno had mentioned something about a Freddy. ‘You sort things out for Johnno?’

‘I’m actually a solicitor by trade but I hate wearing a suit,’ Freddy said with a shrug and a twinkle in his dark eyes. He had olive skin, that riotous mop of curly chocolate-brown hair and a cheeky, conspiratorial grin. Sophy could see why Johnno liked him. She felt automatically disposed to like him too. ‘Johnno sends his apologies. Said he had to go and see a man about a dog.’

When she’d been little, Sophy had always been excited and hopeful on the numerous occasions that Johnno went to see a man about a dog. Until she realised that there wasn’t going to be a dog. It was just Johnno being completely unreliable yet again. ‘Does he really have a job for me?’

Freddy nodded. ‘That’s why I’m here. Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands. Shall we walk and talk?’

There was a lot to talk about. ‘I don’t have my P45 yet. Did Johnno tell you about my last job? That the company went into administration? Everything’s in the hands of some official bankruptcy people, so I’m not sure how it’s all going to work with a temporary job. I’ll probably have to go on an emergency tax code. Can Johnno even afford for me to go on the books or will it be cash in hand? Not that I’m saying I want it to be cash in hand but they take all your money when they put you on an emergency tax code…’

‘Why don’t we go to the shop?’ Freddy suggested. ‘Everyone’s there and they’re dying to meet you.’

Sophy nodded. ‘Are we going to get a bus? We could walk up to Camden and get the 29.’

‘A bus?’

‘To the shop. Or an Uber?’

‘But it’s just round the corner.’

‘Freddy, the Holloway Road is not just round the corner.’

‘The Holloway Road?’ Freddy shook his head. ‘We’re not going to Holloway.’

He took Sophy’s elbow and guided her round the corner so they could walk over the bridge that led to Primrose Hill. Nestling next to the slightly down-at-heel and achingly cool Camden Town, Primrose Hill was one of those villages that London did so well. Full of large stucco white Victorian villas and Regency terraces painted in pretty sherbet colours and a main shopping thoroughfare thronged with chichi boutiques, artisanal eateries and thriving independent shops.

Primrose Hill was for the seriously wealthy; who else would be able to afford its multimillion-pound houses? It was the perfect place to take their designer pooches for a stroll on Primrose Hill itself, with its views stretching over nearby Regent’s Park and, beyond that, the church spires and skyscrapers of London. To jog along the towpath of the Regent’s Canal. Or watch the world go by from the window of a café where there wouldn’t be much change from a ten-pound note after purchasing a Peruvian-blend latte made with Fairtrade newly activated almond milk.

Primrose Hill was not a place where the tat that Johnno sold would go down very well. No wonder Sophy was confused. ‘Has the junk shop moved then?’

It seemed like Freddy was equally confused. ‘The junk shop? What junk shop?’

Sophy frowned. ‘It doesn’t make any sense. Why would Johnno move the shop to Primrose Hill? Primrose Hill is so posh and Johnno’s Junk is not posh. It’s like the absolute opposite of posh.’

‘I don’t know what Johnno’s Junk is and, quite frankly, I don’t want to. Here we are.’

Here was a terrace of shops. The fanciest of merchants. A yoga studio. An interiors shop. A dry-cleaner’s that looked more minimalist than any dry-cleaner’s that Sophy had ever seen.

The last shop in the little terrace had its exterior painted the most perfect Wedgwood blue. In the window was one dress. But what a dress! It was black and strapless, with a tight bodice, sweetheart neckline and a skirt that consisted of layers and layers and layers of tulle shot through with something to make them sparkle. It was one of the most beautiful dresses that Sophy had ever. . .