A Vintage Affair (26 page)

It’s £275. That was the price
.

This morning I called Mrs Bell.

‘I would love to see you, Phoebe,’ she said, ‘but it will not be possible this week.’

‘Is your niece still staying with you?’

‘No, but my husband’s nephew has invited me to stay with him and his family in Dorset. He is collecting me tomorrow and bringing me back on Friday. I need to go now, while I am still well enough to trave l…’

‘Then can I see you after that?’

‘Of course. I will not be going anywhere else,’ Mrs Bell said. ‘So I would be particularly glad of your company if you have a little time.’

I thought of the Red Cross form still in my bag. ‘Could I come on Sunday afternoon?’

‘I look forward to it: come at four.’

As I put the phone down I looked at Dan’s invitation for his party on Saturday. It gave nothing away, being just an
At Home
card with his address and the time. It didn’t even mention his shed, which was obviously
something much grander, I reflected; perhaps a summer house or one of those offices in the garden. Maybe it was a games room with a massive billiards table or some fruit machines – or an observatory, with a telescope and a sliding roof. Simple curiosity compelled me to go – combined with the fact that I’d come to enjoy Dan’s conversation and his
joie de vivre
and his warmth. I also hoped to be able to ask him about the Phoenix Land story. I still wondered why Brown’s girlfriend had done what she’d done.

On Monday there was more about it in the press. Kelly Marks had admitted to the
Independent
that she was the source but, when quizzed about her motive, had refused to comment.

‘It was the dress,’ Annie said as she looked at the
Black & Green
’s latest piece about it on Tuesday morning. She lowered the paper. ‘I told you – vintage clothes can be transforming; I reckon the dress made her do it.’

‘What? You mean the dress possessed her and “told” her to shop him?’

‘No … but I think her intense
desire
for it gave her the strength to dump the man – in spectacular fashion.’

On Thursday the
Mail
ran a piece headed
TOP MARKS
applauding Kelly for exposing Brown, and citing other women who’d shopped their ‘dodgy’ boyfriends. The
Express
had a piece about arson-linked fraud, pegged to ‘Keith Brown’s alleged torching of his own warehouse in 2002’.

‘How can the newspapers print all this?’ I said to Miles that afternoon. He’d popped into the shop on his way back to Camberwell: as there were no customers
he’d stayed for a chat. ‘Isn’t it prejudicial?’ I asked him as he sat on the sofa.

‘As criminal proceedings haven’t started yet, no.’ He got out his BlackBerry, put on his spectacles and began thumbing it. ‘For the time being, the papers can repeat the allegations about Brown and print anything else they can justify – like the girlfriend’s role in revealing his alleged crime. Once he’s been charged, they’ll have to watch what they say.’

‘And why hasn’t he been charged yet?’

Miles looked at me over his glasses. ‘Because the insurers and the police are probably arguing about who’s going to bring the prosecution – a costly business, obviously. Now, can we please talk about more uplifting matters? On Saturday I’d like to go to the Opera House. They’re doing
La Bohème
and there are still a few seats in the stalls, but I’ll need to book them today. In fact I could call them right now… I’ve just got the number.’ Miles began to dial it then looked at me again, perplexed. ‘But you don’t seem keen.’

‘I am – or rather I would be; it sounds wonderful. But … I can’t.’

Miles’ face had fallen. ‘Why not?’

‘I’m already doing something.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m going to a party – just locally. It’s very low key.’

‘I see … And whose party is it?’

‘This friend of mine – Dan.’

Miles was staring at me. ‘You’ve mentioned him before.’

‘He works for the local paper. It’s a long-standing invitation.’

‘You’d rather go to that than to
La Bohème
at the Opera House?’

‘It’s not that, it’s simply that I said I
would
go, and I like to keep my word.’

Miles was looking at me searchingly. ‘I hope that he’s … not more than a friend, is he, Phoebe? I know we haven’t been together for very long, but I’d rather know if you have any other …’

I shook my head. ‘Dan’s simply a friend.’ I smiled. ‘A rather eccentric one, actually.’

Miles stood up. ‘Well … I’m a bit disappointed.’

‘I’m sorry – but it’s not as though we’d planned anything for Saturday.’

‘That’s true. But I just assumed …’ He sighed. ‘It’s okay.’ He picked up his bag. ‘I’ll get Roxy to come.

I’m taking her to buy her ball gown in the afternoon, so accompanying me to the opera can be the quid pro quo.’

I tried to grasp the notion that being taken to the Royal Opera House would be the ‘price’ Roxanne paid for her father buying her an incredibly expensive dress …

‘Perhaps we could do something early next week?’ I said to Miles as he stood up. ‘Would you like to go to the Festival Hall? Say on Tuesday? I’ll get tickets.’

This seemed to reassure him. ‘That would be lovely.’ He kissed me. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Saturday was, as usual, a very busy day, and although I was happy to be doing such a good trade I realised that I could barely manage on my own. After lunch, Katie came in. She saw the Lanvin Castillo dress hanging where the yellow cupcake had been and her face fell. For a moment I thought she was going to cry.

‘It’s okay,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ve put it on the Reserved rail.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ She clapped her hand to her chest. ‘I’ve got
£
160 now, so I’m more than halfway there. I’m on my break from Costcutters so I thought I’d dash up. I don’t know why, but that dress has really
got
to me.’

I was hoping to get away on the dot at five thirty, but at five twenty-five a woman came in and tried on about eight garments, including a trouser suit that I had to get off a mannequin out of the window, before rejecting all of them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she put on her coat. ‘I guess I’m just not in the right mood.’ By now, at five past six, neither was I.

‘No problem,’ I said with as much geniality as I could muster. It doesn’t do to be irritable if you run a shop. Then I locked up and went home to get ready for Dan’s party. He’d written seven thirty on the invitation with a request that we should be there by eight.

It was almost dark when my cab pulled up outside the house – a Victorian villa in a quiet road close to Hither Green station. Dan had made an effort, I reflected as I paid the driver. He’d threaded fairy lights through the trees in the front garden; he’d hired caterers – an aproned waiter opened the door. As I walked in I could hear talking and laughing. It was quite a select gathering, I now realised as I went into the sitting room where there were a dozen or so people. There was Dan, smartly dressed for once in a dark blue silk jacket, chatting to everyone and topping up champagne glasses.

‘Have some of these canapés,’ I heard him say. ‘We won’t be eating until a bit later.’ So it was a dinner party. ‘
Phoebe
,’ he exclaimed warmly as he saw me. He planted
a kiss on my cheek. ‘Come and meet everyone.’ Dan quickly introduced me to his friends, one of whom was Matt, and Matt’s wife Sylvia; there was Ellie, a reporter from the paper, with her boyfriend, Mike; there were a few of Dan’s neighbours and, to my surprise, the rather grumpy woman from the Oxfam shop whose name, I now learned, was Joan.

Joan and I chatted for a bit, and I told her that I’d be getting some handbags from the States that I’d probably be bringing in to her. Then I asked her if she ever got any vintage zips – metal ones – as I was running low on them.

‘I did see a batch the other day,’ she said. ‘And a jar of old buttons, now I think about it.’

‘Would you keep them for me then?’

‘’Course I will.’ She sipped her champagne. ‘Did you enjoy
Anna Karenina
, by the way?’

‘It was wonderful.’ I replied then wondered how she knew that I’d gone.

Joan took a canapé from a passing tray. ‘Dan took me to see
Dr Zhivago
. Beautiful, it was.’

‘Oh.’ I glanced at Dan: he was full of surprises – rather nice ones, I reflected. ‘Well … it’s a fabulous film.’

‘Fabulous,’ Joan echoed. She closed her eyes then opened them again. ‘It was the first time I’d been to the pictures for five years –
and
he bought me dinner afterwards.’

‘Really? How lovely.’ I found myself fighting back tears. ‘Did you go to Café Rouge?’

‘Oh
no
.’ Joan looked shocked. ‘He took me to The Rivington.’

‘Ah.’

I looked at Dan. Now he was chinking the side of his glass and saying that as everyone was here it was time to get down to the main business of the evening, so would we all kindly go outside.

The back garden was a good size – sixty feet or so – and filling the end of it was a large… shed. That’s all it was – a shed; except that there was a red carpet leading to it and across the door a red rope suspended between two metal posts. On the wall was some sort of plaque, awaiting its official unveiling, judging by the pair of little gold curtains that covered it.

‘I don’t know what’s
in
that shed,’ said Ellie as we walked down the carpet towards it, ‘but I
don’t
think it’s a lawn mower.’

‘You’re right – it isn’t,’ said Dan. He clapped his hands. ‘Well, thanks to every one for coming here tonight,’ he said as we stood outside it. ‘I’m now going to ask Joan to do the honours…’

Joan stepped forward and took hold of the curtain cord. As Dan gave her the nod, she turned to us. ‘It is my great pleasure to open Dan’s shed, which I am delighted to re-name …’ She pulled on the cord.

The Robinson Rio
.

‘The Robinson Rio,’ said Joan, peering at the plaque. She was clearly as mystified as the rest of us.

Dan opened the door then pressed a light switch. ‘Come on in.’

‘Amazing,’ Sylvia murmured as she stepped inside.

‘Blimey,’ I heard someone say.

A glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling, above twelve red velvet seats arranged in four rows of three on a swirly patterned red-and-gold carpet. A curtained
screen filled the end wall; positioned in front of the near wall was a large, old-fashioned projector. On the right-hand wall was a royal blue board with white plastic letters, announcing
THIS WEEK’S PROGRAMME
:
Camille
and
COMING ATTRACTIONS
:
A Matter of Life and
Death
. On the left-hand wall was a framed vintage cinema poster for
The Third Man
.

‘Sit wherever you like,’ Dan said as he fiddled with the projector. ‘There’s underfloor heating, so it’s not cold.
Camille
’s only seventy minutes long, but if you’d rather not see it, then just go back to the house and have another drink. We’ll be having dinner when the film finishes just after nine.’

We took our seats – I sat with Joan and Ellie. Dan closed the door and dimmed the lights, then we heard the projector whirr into life, then came the hypnotic clicking of the film as it passed over the sprockets. Now the motorised curtains swished aside to reveal the MGM lion, roaring away, then music, and opening credits, and suddenly we were in nineteenth-century Paris.

‘That was
wonderful
,’ said Joan as the lights went up again. ‘It was like being in the
proper
cinema – I used to love that smell of the projector lamp.’

‘It was just like old times,’ Matt said from behind us.

Joan turned in her seat and looked at him. ‘You’re much too young to be saying that.’

‘I mean that at school Dan ran the film society,’ Matt explained. ‘Every Tuesday lunchtime he used to show Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Tom and Jerry. I’m glad to say his focusing’s improved since then.’

‘That was on my old Universal,’ Dan said. ‘This
projector’s a Bell and Howell, but I’ve rigged up some modern amplification – and put in air conditioning. And I had the shed sound-proofed so that the neighbours don’t complain.’

‘We’re not complaining,’ said one of his neighbours. ‘We’re here!’

‘But what are you planning to do with the cinema?’ I asked Dan as we all walked back to the house.

‘I want to run it as a classic film club,’ he replied as we stepped up into the big square kitchen-diner where a long pine table had been laid for twelve. ‘I’ll do a screening every week and people can turn up on a first-come first-served basis, with a discussion afterwards over a drink for anyone who’s interested.’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ said Mike. ‘And where are the films?’

‘Stored upstairs in a humidity-controlled room. I’ve collected a couple of hundred over the years from libraries that were closing down and at auction. I’d always wanted to have my own cinema. In fact, the big shed was one of the main attractions of this house when I bought it two years ago.’

‘Where did you get the seats?’ Joan asked him as Dan pulled out her chair for her.

‘I got them five years ago from an Odeon in Essex that was being pulled down. I’ve been keeping them in storage. Now … Ellie, why don’t you sit there? Phoebe, you come here, next to Matt and Sylvia.’

As I sat down Matt poured me a glass of wine. ‘I recognised you, of course,’ he said, ‘from the feature we did about you.’

‘That was a very helpful piece,’ I said as the caterer
set a plate of delicious-looking risotto in front of me. ‘Dan did a wonderful job.’

‘He seems a bit chaotic but he’s a … good man. You’re a good man, Dan,’ Matt declared with a chuckle.

‘Thanks, mate!’

‘He is a good man,’ Sylvia echoed. ‘And do you know who you look like, Dan?’ she added. ‘I’ve suddenly realised – Michelangelo’s David.’

As Dan blew Sylvia a grateful kiss I saw that it was true.
That
was the ‘famous person’ I’d been struggling to think of.

‘You’re a dead ringer for him,’ Sylvia went on. She cocked her head to one side. ‘A cuddly version anyway,’ she added with a laugh.