Miracle on Regent Street Read Free Page A

dad always looked dapper in a smart suit, cashmere scarf and overcoat.
    We would get the train from Norwich into Liverpool Street and then a black taxi to Regent Street. Full of wonderment, I’d peer out of the window as the famous London sights whipped by,
dreaming of the day when I could live there myself. We always ended up standing with our arms around each other in front of Hardy’s doors, which were framed with greenery and fairy lights,
the windows sparkling with Christmas delights, watching the customers weaving through into the brightly lit store as if they were explorers returning from their long travels to the place they would
always call home. My mum and dad would share a lingering movie-style kiss outside the store as I looked up at them, bursting with happiness that these were my parents and that they were so in love.
Then we’d walk in and I’d be swept up in the sounds of old-fashioned tills ringing, the staff beaming in Santa hats.
    Unlike at snootier department stores, at Hardy’s no one minded a little girl exploring the higgledy-piggledy departments on her own whilst her parents reminisced over a champagne tea in
the basement tearoom. I felt as at home as I did in our house in Norfolk. Except here I didn’t have to jostle for attention or fight to be heard. I was just welcomed with open arms by the
friendly staff, taken behind counters, shown how to use the tills, dressed up in too-big-for-me hats and too-old-for-me make-up, and made to feel like I was the most special little girl in the
world. The store became my own personal dressing-up box. After an hour I would emerge decked from head to toe in vintage garb, pretty mother-of-pearl brooches pinned to my coat, flamboyant scarves
wrapped around my little shoulders, wearing a fur muffler and a matching hat, my face covered in iridescent shades of lipstick and blusher. Then I’d go downstairs to the basement to find my
mum and dad, who would be holding hands, oblivious to everyone around them – including Lily, the glamorous old lady who ran the tearoom. But she’d always spot me hovering in the doorway
and beckon me over to her, tie a little white frilly apron on me and send me over to my parents’ table with some cakes that had been especially iced with their initials beautifully woven
together.
    Mum would get all teary and Dad would tell me once again the story of how they met in Hardy’s, how he proposed and how he knew, as soon as he set eyes on my mother, who had been working as
a hairdresser and beauty therapist on the third floor, that she was the only girl for him. Then Mum would dreamily recall how she’d been struck speechless as my dad had entered the salon, all
dashing with his thick, demi-waved hair and strong Roman nose. They’d stared at each other for what felt like hours as the clients and staff all stopped and watched them both. Then my dad had
walked slowly over to my mother, tilted her back in his arms and kissed her on the lips as the crowd that had gathered around them applauded ecstatically. Walter Hardy, junior, the owner of the
store at that time, had even come up to the salon to see what all the fuss was about, at which point my dad had walked over to him, his arm still clasped tightly around my bewildered but utterly
bewitched mother, and informed Walter that she no longer needed her job because she was going to be his wife. Walter had laughed and shaken his hand – luckily they were acquainted as Dad had
been close friends with Walter’s son, Sebastian, since their school days – and Dad had then whisked Mum off into his waiting car outside and to Claridge’s, where they had had
dinner and danced. They got married three months later at Chelsea Register office and Delilah arrived nine months later.
    That was thirty-five years ago now. They don’t make enduring romances like that any more. And I should know; I’ve been fruitlessly searching for one for as long as I can
remember.
    Their