The Shoestring Club (13 page)

‘Sorry, Auntie Jules.’

I sigh. I give up on the whole ‘just Jules’ thing. Pandora has her brainwashed and it will never stick.

By the end of the episode I’m drained from answering and deflecting questions, so I send Iris straight to bed.

‘No story?’ she says. ‘Mum always reads me a story.’

‘Iris, it’s ten past nine. And I honestly don’t have the energy. You can put yourself to bed, you’re a big girl.’

‘OK, Auntie Jules. But don’t forget the pet farm on Saturday.’

‘What?’

‘The pet farm. You promised weeks ago you’d take me to Glenroe Pet Farm. But it kept raining, remember? I want to play with their rabbits and guinea pigs. I need to decide what to get.’

I look at her. Pandora has been promising her a pet for years, but it’s never going to happen. She’s just procrastinating until Iris loses interest, says she has enough on her plate as it is. I used to have rabbits – Loopy Lou and Ginger – in the old house, before Mum got sick. Dad made this amazing two-storey hutch. But Pandora refused to so much as touch them, and if she did – mainly because I’d dared her – she insisted on washing her hands immediately afterwards, saying she’d get worms.

Iris has an impressive insect collection in the shed and it’s as close as she’s going to get to owning a pet, poor moo.

‘If it’s dry on Saturday, I’ll think about it. But now bed, young lady.’

She gives me a huge grin. ‘Thanks, Auntie Jules. I’ll get my clothes ready for Saturday and then go straight to bed.’ With that she skips away.

At least I’ve made someone happy. I flick through the channels until I find a rerun of
Come Dine with Me
. That will do. I watch the contestants slating someone’s potato and leek soup starter (‘common’, ‘boring’, ‘a child could make it’), one flush-faced woman pouring red wine down her gullet in the kitchen when she thinks no one is looking. I get an itching for a glass myself, so I fetch a bottle from Dad’s boxes, and settle in to watch telly for the night. With my feet on the coffee table and a full glass in my hand, I start to feel calm and almost together. At least, after a few glasses, I just might be able to sleep tonight without Noel’s face leering at me in my nightmares.

On Friday morning my alarm rings at 9 a.m.; I ignore it and roll over. But Bird has other ideas. She walks in and flicks on the lights.

‘Bird,’ I groan. ‘Must you? I’ve been getting up every morning for the last few weeks and tramping around all the shops like you told me to. But it’s hopeless. I may as well stay in bed for the rest of my life.’

‘Don’t be silly, Julia. I left you alone all day yesterday and you spent the morning asleep and the entire afternoon and evening lying on the sofa in front of the goggle-box. I know you’ve done your best to find a job, my darling, but enough. I’ve spoken to Pandora and she’s agreed to let you go full-time at Shoestring, on a trial basis. Lenka wants to concentrate on the café, so we’ll need an extra pair of hands. The timing is perfect. But what did Pandora say?’ She pauses and taps her finger against her lip. ‘Ah yes, one false move and you’re out on your butt.’

I frown. ‘Sounds like Pandora all right. But she wasn’t keen, Bird. Did you threaten her?’

‘Don’t worry about that, my darling.’ She pats my arm. ‘You just get yourself up.’

I whimper. ‘Tell me I’m not starting today. I’m wrecked.’

‘No, Monday. You’re minding Iris this weekend, remember? But I thought we could put a new window in this morning while it’s quiet. No time like the present. The Monkstown Book Festival starts next week and they dropped in posters and asked if we’d do a display. I told them we’d be delighted. Always good to show a bit of community spirit and all that. And in return they’ll let us put Shoestring flyers in all their programmes.’

I smile. Bird’s no fool. And I know when she says ‘we’ she means ‘me’. She’s not keen on ladders and last time she ‘helped’, she pulled all the clear display line off the spool and it got into a right tangle, making her swear like a sailor.

‘You can supervise,’ I tell her. ‘With a cup of coffee in your mitt.’

She beams. ‘Sounds perfect, my darling. Chop, chop.’

Bird drives us to Shoestring in her eggshell-blue two-seater Mercedes. It’s ancient and just about holding together, but the classic car insurance costs her next to nothing. She parks in the loading bay outside the shop, and I wait in my seat as she climbs out slowly, ready to give her a push if she needs one as the car is pretty low slung. But today she doesn’t.

‘Come along, darling,’ she says. ‘Do stop dawdling.’

I follow her inside. Pandora is standing behind the long wooden cash desk, studying some items a client has just dropped in. The dark-haired woman leaning over the desk is wearing nicely cut black peg-leg trousers and a neat, cream cropped jacket. Well-dressed clients are always a positive sign, although often some of the best and most unusual clothes are brought in by women who look like bag ladies – silk tea dresses they picked up in a tiny boutique in Nice, vintage Hermès scarves, original 1970s hats; we’ve even had fantastic old naval uniforms and army coats from people’s attics.

‘Here’s your docket, Patty,’ Pandora tells the woman. ‘All your pieces are itemized. I’ll start taking in autumn/winter stock at the end of August, so if you have any jumpers, heavier dresses, boots – especially anything black, grey or brown – do bring them in then.’

‘Excellent, I’ll have a root in my wardrobe. Thanks, Pandora, pleasure doing business with you.’

Pandora smiles. ‘And you, see you soon.’

The woman marches towards the door, nodding at me and Bird as she passes us in a cloud of subtle rose scent. I watch her leave, thinking brogues would work better with the trousers than the loafers she’s currently wearing.

Pandora walks towards us, her face head-teacher stern. She’s been on my case since collecting me from Sandyford Industrial Estate the Friday before last.

‘Any messing and you’re out, Julia, understand?’ she says. ‘I’m only doing this for Dad and Bird’s sake. At least this way they might actually get some of their money back. Have you explained the terms, Bird?’

‘What terms?’ I ask. This doesn’t sound good. Am I about to turn myself into some sort of indentured slave?

Bird looks at Pandora. She’s equally wary of Pandora when my dear sister is in one of her moods. ‘Not yet, darling. Tomorrow’s time enough. I’ll leave you pair to talk windows. Back in a jiffy.’ She waggles her fingers at us and toddles off to the café for her hourly caffeine fix.

Pandora looks at me, her eyes hard. ‘Make sure you actually use some clothes and shoes in the window this time,’ she says. ‘No papier-mâché skyscrapers. Or plastic traffic lights. Or yellow toy taxis. Lots of stock, get it? And for God’s sake don’t scrape off the Shoestring window stickers again.’

‘That New York window was a triumph, admit it,’ I say huffily. I’d put a lot of work into those skyscrapers. ‘They even used a photo of it in the
Irish Times
.’

‘But there were no actual clothes in it. It could have been any old shop. The caption read: ‘Shop celebrates new
Sex and the City
movie.’ And those window stickers cost a fortune to replace.’

‘I’d used copies of the
New York Times
to make the skyscrapers, Pandora. I wanted people to be able to see that.’

Pandora just rolls her eyes. ‘Less of the arty-fartiness. Think sales, right? Shifting stock. Speaking of which, why don’t you use the Faith Farenze dress as the centrepiece?’

I stare at her. ‘But that’s
my
dress. It’s still on hold, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it’s still in the office. I know you adore it, but it’s been there far too long and you have to be sensible. You’re in serious debt and buying an expensive dress would be stupid even for you. Besides, you don’t exactly have anything to wear it to.’

‘Yes, I do. Ed and Lainey’s wedding.’

Pandora’s eyes widen. ‘You’re not still seriously thinking of going? Please tell me you’re joking.’

‘I have to go,’ I say simply.

She shakes her head. ‘I really don’t get you sometimes, Jules. I thought you were devastated by the whole Ed and Lainey thing. Don’t tell me you’re over it already. You have such a hard heart sometimes.’

Before I know what’s happening my eyes fill.

Pandora sighs. ‘I’m sorry. Of course you’re not over it. But why on earth would you want to put yourself through that?’

I blink away my tears.

‘I know it probably sounds mad, but I want to walk into the church with my head held high, looking amazing. I want everyone to see me there, Pandora. Everyone. Ed and Lainey, and all our so-called friends. Since I got back from New Zealand not one person has rung to see if I’m all right. They’ve all taken Ed and Lainey’s side.’

‘It’s not that simple, Jules You’ve been away a lot, and you’ve never been the best at keeping in contact.’

‘I spoke to Ed and Lainey every week. Fat lot of good that did me.’

‘Look, I don’t think you’re strong enough to go to the wedding. I’m just being honest, Jules. And I don’t think being there would do you any good.’

‘I think it would,’ I say stubbornly.

She sighs again. ‘I guess we’ll just have to agree to differ. But I’m sorry, the Farenze will have to go back into stock.’

‘Just give me one more day, please? Humour me.’

Pandora sighs. ‘One more day, Jules, OK? Tomorrow it goes back on sale. Now I have to get back to work. And you have a window to dress. And I mean
dress
, Jules. With clothes this time.’

I work on the window all day. By four o’clock I’m ready to put the grey-blue elephants I’ve created from the book festival posters in place. I’m pretty proud of them to be honest. I used origami techniques to fold the paper into seven different elephant shapes – the largest one is the size of a beach ball, the smallest is as small as an egg. I made the ears from cut-out paper triangles, and added black beads for eyes, and tiny plastic toothpick tusks. The trunks are paper wrapped around curled spirals of florist’s wire. Bird suggested nipping home to collect some of Iris’s toys to sit on their backs – Barbies and Bratz dolls – but it’s a horrible idea and I managed to dissuade her.

The elephants are in honour of the key-note speaker at the festival, a Booker prize winning Indian author called Asha Bhandari. The festival posters feature one of her book covers – a family of elephants marching over a misty range of hills – and I’ve brought this image to life in the Shoestring window.

At lunchtime Pandora came over to see what I was up to. ‘Elephants?’ she said, looking at me sideways. ‘Jules—’

‘I know you said to put lots of clothes in,’ I got in quickly, cutting her off. ‘And I’m going to add loads in the background. The hills and fields will be made from coloured tops and dresses, draped over these special chicken-wire frames I’ve made. Then I’m going to add a blue satin shirt lake, with ballet pumps to represent ‘boats’ bobbing on the water.’ I grinned at my own master plan.

To my surprise she smiled back. ‘What am I going to do with you? It’s not quite what I had in mind but it’ll certainly attract attention. Good work.’

‘Thanks. And Pandora?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks for the job.’

She leaned in towards me to say something, then decided against it. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said instead.

I had a funny feeling she was about to say, ‘Don’t screw it up’ or words to that effect. But she didn’t. And at least that was something.

I place the elephants in the landscape and walk outside to check they’re marching in a straight line, when I hear a voice behind me.

‘What breed of elephants are they supposed to be?’ There’s a girl standing there, staring down at my models. She’s wearing a practical but shapeless navy jacket with lots of pockets over jeans, and she’s tall, at least six foot. I have to tilt my head up slightly to talk to her.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

‘African or Indian?’

‘I don’t actually know. I just copied them from a book cover.’

She crouches down and peers in at the paper animals. ‘From the size of their ears and curve of their back, I’d say Asian.’ She frowns slightly. ‘But their tusks are wrong.’

‘That may be my fault. I couldn’t get the toothpicks to sit quite right.’

‘They shouldn’t have tusks at all,’ the girl says, slightly accusingly. ‘There are baby elephants in the group, which means the adults are female. And Asian cows don’t normally have tusks. Family groups are always female, bull elephants have nothing to do with their offspring once they’re born.’ She says it in a matter of fact way, as if this is the kind of conversation she has every day.

I pull a crumpled book festival flyer from my back pocket and hand it over. ‘I copied this,’ I explain.

‘See,’ she says, stabbing the picture with her finger. ‘No babies. They’re bulls, not cows. It’s a bachelor herd.’

I look at the picture. She’s right. The ‘babies’ aren’t babies at all, they’re just smaller elephants. I shrug. ‘I thought babies would look cuter.’

‘But it’s not accurate.’

Now I’m starting to get a little annoyed.