Chapter 18
Cammy
The ping of the doorbell at CAMDEN set off yet another twang of nostalgia.
It was the same bell that had been there when the shop was La Femme, L’Homme and he, Josie and Mel had worked there.
Every morning, it would start his day, and every evening, it would mark the end of another shift in the company of the woman he’d loved… and lost.
He shook the thought off. What the hell was going on today?
He’d realised long ago that he couldn’t change what happened with Mel, couldn’t do anything about the fact she didn’t love him, couldn’t alter the reality that she was now happily married to someone else, so he’d put her out of his mind.
Closed chapter. Done deal. Yet today she was round every corner and in the ping of every bloody door. Enough.
‘Hey man, how’s it going?’ Digby’s laid-back drawl greeted him.
‘So the place didn’t collapse without me then?’ Cammy asked, feigning disbelief.
Digby did a theatrical scan of the room. ‘Nope, still standing. Guess you’re dispensable after all.’
Cammy laughed. ‘I never doubted it for a moment.’
Digby nodded to Josie and Val as they spoke. ‘Have these two beat your romantic intentions out of you yet?’
‘Nope, but I’m a shell of the man that I was when I woke up this morning.’ It was meant to be a joke but there was definitely an element of truth in there.
Digby nodded conspiratorially to the two women. ‘Disappointed in you two. Thought for sure you’d have persuaded him against all that oppressive marriage stuff. You’ve let me down.’
‘Day isn’t over yet, son,’ Josie said, defiantly. ‘I’ve still to deploy firm persuasion, and if that fails I’m just going to take him hostage and keep him in my hut.’
Cammy had stopped listening. While Josie and Val parked themselves on the two leather chairs outside the changing rooms, he headed into the back office, reappearing a few moments later. ‘Digby, did my suit arrive from the tailor?’
Digby stopped polishing the counter top and thought for a moment. ‘It did not. He called. Said there had been some issue and it wouldn’t be back until Monday.’
He started polishing again, then froze, as he realised that three astonished faces were looking back at him.
‘What? What did I say?’
Josie and Val now swivelled their heads, in perfect synchronisation, to face Cammy, their expressions incredulous.
Josie was the first to speak. ‘Val, did you or did you not say this morning, and again this afternoon, that you could feel it in your water that everything was going to come good today?’
‘I did,’ she admitted solemnly. ‘But I was lying through my teeth to make Romeo feel better.’ Josie switched her gaze to Cammy. ‘Starting to feel like someone’s trying to tell you something yet?’
Cammy began to resist the notion, then just slumped against the door frame.
‘What’s up?’ Digby asked. ‘It’s only a suit. And I hate to point out the obvious,’ he said, his hand sweeping the room, ‘but you own a clothes store. You have options.’
Cammy knew he was right but still… He’d picked that suit especially, had it tailored, and yes, he could wear something else but that wasn’t the point.
He wanted everything about the night to be special.
And – for fuck’s sake – so far he had a substitute ring, an audience of French football players, nothing lined up to wear and Josie and Val were looking more self-righteous by the minute.
Nothing was going right.
The door dinged again and Lila walked in. What the hell…?
Actually, maybe something was going right after all. He had no idea why she was here, but whatever it was, it was lucky timing. He’d told her he’d be at the shop all day, so if he hadn’t popped in to pick up the invisible suit, he’d have been rumbled.
He did his best to act natural. Nothing to see here. Just an ordinary day. Nothing special at all.
‘Why are you wearing a jacket? Are you going out?’ she asked.
Bollocks.
‘No, I er, just popped out for… milk. Yeah, we were running low. Because, you know, er, Josie and Val came in for a coffee.’
‘We did,’ Val told him with a wink. ‘Only, I don’t know what happened to the coffee, because my hands are still empty. How are yours, Josie?’
Josie looked at her lap. ‘It would seem that mine are empty too, since you ask.’
Digby chuckled and took pity on Cammy. ‘Two coffees coming up,’ he said, finishing off whatever he was doing at the till.
Lila, meanwhile, gave Cammy a kiss and then pretended to be pleased to see Josie and Val, who were watching his panic with barely disguised amusement.
Life would be so much easier if Lila’s relationship with everyone else was a bit more amenable.
Cammy knew they’d grow on her eventually, and vice versa.
No other choice. He was marrying Lila and that was it.
Cammy cleared his throat, desperate to act nonchalant. ‘Didn’t realise you were coming in,’ he told her, thinking how gorgeous she looked. Her hair was messier than usual, almost the way it was when she woke in the morning and she was, in his opinion, at her most beautiful.
She didn’t need the make-up and all the other stuff – she was beautiful just the way she was.
Lila sighed and pulled herself up to sit on the mahogany counter. ‘I wasn’t but I just went in next door and Suze told me someone had been in there to see me and she’d sent them in here. A woman.’
‘Oh, it er… must have been when I was out for the milk.’
‘You know you have staff to do that, don’t you?’ Lila remarked.
Over in the chairs, Josie had a coughing fit.
Cammy knew exactly what she was doing. ‘Slap her back, Val. If she chokes in here, the crime scene team will be here for a week and we’ll lose a fortune,’ he said dryly.
Josie made an instant recovery, just as Digby reappeared clutching two mugs of milky white coffee from the instant machine in the staffroom.
‘Mate, was someone in here looking for Lila?’
Digby nodded. ‘Yeah, forgot to say. Just before you got here…’ He froze… ‘Eh, got back with the milk.’
Cammy sagged with relief that he hadn’t blown the story.
‘Blonde. Pretty. Said she was a friend and asked for you,’ Digby told Lila, as he handed over the hot drinks to the spectators in the comfy seats. ‘She’ll be on the CCTV if you want to have a look?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Lila said, then added to Cammy, ‘Baby, will you show me?’
‘Right this way,’ Cammy answered, heading back into the office.
Lila followed him in and waited as he rewound the CCTV footage back to just before he arrived. If she wondered why he came in at the same time as Val and Josie, she didn’t ask.
‘You okay?’ he said, pausing the footage and reaching over to hug her.
She returned the gesture, but he could sense something was off.
She’d usually have her arms around him by now, be kissing him, and…
okay, so yes, they’d had a couple of quickies in the staffroom over the months.
There was a lock on the door and they kept the noise down.
It was allowed, wasn’t it? He loved that about her – that free, sexy, adventurous side.
But today and, actually, over the last few weeks, she’d just seemed a bit… flat.
A thought. Did she know? Had she guessed?
That was it. Bugger, he must have left some clue to what was going on and she’d sussed it.
Although, if that was the case it was a definite worry that she didn’t sound too excited about it.
No. She was probably just tired. Yeah, that must be it.
She’d been working way too hard lately and she was just knackered and a bit burnt out.
Hopefully, she’d feel a whole lot better after tonight.
After a few seconds wrapped in his arms, she pulled back. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘Just tired.’
Okay, so he’d got that right. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Then how about I take this weekend off, and we just chill out and spend two whole days in bed, just me and you?’
Was it his imagination, or did she just flinch when he said that? Imagination. Must be. Jesus, all this engagement subterfuge was making him paranoid and oversensitive.
‘Yeah, babe, maybe. Got a few things I need to do though, so we’ll see.’
Like stay in bed, looking at your engagement ring.
Or going out to pick a new one. Or making plans and talking about just how happy they were going to be.
A bubble of excitement caught him off guard and he cleared his throat.
Enough of the doubt. She was going to be thrilled that they were engaged and they were going to live happily ever after. The end.
He pushed a stray lock of her hair off her face and kissed her, then turned back to the screen, before opening the door a few inches and popping his head out.
‘Digby, was she wearing jeans and Converse?’
‘She was indeed.’
Cammy refocussed on the screen. There she was. Blonde. Jeans. White Converse.
Looking at the clock at the top of the screen, he could see she’d been here just a few moments before he’d waltzed in with Val and Josie.
‘That’s her there,’ he told Lila. He played, rewound, played, rewound.
The CCTV covered the till area, although it also caught the rest of the room, but the black and white image was a little grainy.
It was the same system that Mel had fitted when she opened La Femme, L’Homme over ten years ago.
If nothing else, this was a reminder that he should probably update it.
He paused on the best image, and both he and Lila strained forward to see it closer up.
‘Do you know her?’ Cammy asked, studying the image.
Lila shook her head. ‘Don’t recognise her at all. I thought maybe it was someone I’d met through work, but… no, never seen her before,’ she declared, her tone unquestioning. ‘What about you?’