by Fiore, Rosie
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Quercus
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London W1U 8EW
Copyright © 2013 Rosie Fiore
The moral right of Rosie Fiore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
PB ISBN 978 0 85738 960 2
EBOOK ISBN 978 0 85738 961 9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Rosie Fiore was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has worked as a writer for theatre, television, magazines, advertising, comedy and the corporate market. She lives in North London with her husband and two children.
For Tom.
Also by Rosie Fiore
Babies in Waiting
PART ONE
1
JO AND LEE NOW
In the darkest hours, at around 2 a.m., the idea came to Jo in a dream. She had often had dream ideas that woke her with their brilliance, but inevitably, in the cold light of the morning, they were both insane and unworkable. But this … this was different. She lay awake for hours thinking about it, and whether it could work. She wanted to get up to write it all down, but Lee was sleeping peacefully beside her, his hand in the curve of her waist, and she didn’t want to disturb him. Eventually, as the sky turned grey outside, she fell deeply asleep again.
In the morning, she was distracted and clumsy. Her toast popped and was too pale so she pushed it in again and forgot about it until the smoke detector went off. Zach came in and asked for help with his jumper and she absent-mindedly handed him a dish towel. Then, as she reached up to put the battery back in the alarm once the kitchen was cleared of smoke, she knocked over the warm milk for Imogene’s cereal. Lee came into the kitchen buttoning his cuffs to find her cursing and using Zach’s jumper to mop up, while Zach kneeled on a chair, feeding jelly beans to Imogene, who was smearing yoghurt across the tray of her high chair and in Zach’s hair.
Lee scooped Zach up under one arm while he grabbed a handful of baby wipes and cursorily rubbed the worst of the mess off both children and the high chair. He handed Zach a bagel to chew on while he warmed more milk and made Imogene’s cereal. He fed her with one hand while he switched on the kettle and flung teabags into mugs. By the time Jo had cleaned up the milk and tossed the jumper and sundry dish towels into the machine, he had a cup of tea ready for her and a fresh piece of buttered toast. Neither of them had spoken a word. Jo dropped a kiss on the top of his head and thanked the Lord, not for the first time, that Lee was as even-tempered as he was.
‘Bad night?’ he asked.
‘Not really, just a weird dream. No, not weird exactly. Possibly a brilliant dream.’
‘Was it the one with Hugh Jackman paragliding in through the bathroom window again?’
‘Sadly not. No … I had a dream about a shop.’
‘A shop where you could buy Hugh Jackman dipped in chocolate and rolled in diamonds?’
‘No, a clothes shop. A clothes shop for kids. I dreamed I was out shopping with Zach. You know what it’s like, trying to hang on to his hand and push the pushchair at the same time.’
Lee nodded. Zach hated shopping and never stopped looking for opportunities to escape. They’d been barred from several shops in their area because of his scorched-earth policy where clothing racks were concerned.
Jo continued. ‘Anyway, he was screaming and wriggling and trying to get his hand free, and then he made a dash for it – but he was flummoxed, because in this shop all the clothes rails were at adult head-height, and from the waist down, it was a kids’ soft-play area, with things to climb and rock on, and big puzzles built into the walls with pieces that he could spin and bash. But nothing he could break.’
Again Lee said nothing. She wasn’t sure if he’d really got it. ‘So I could look at the kids’ clothes in peace – stuff for him and Imogene, and he could play at my feet without destroying anything. Imi was happy because there was stuff for her to look at …’ Lee had his preoccupied frown on now. She was sure he had stopped listening to her and was thinking about work. She finished triumphantly – ‘And the best bit was that he couldn’t get out because the door was guarded by a seven-foot bouncer with a walkie-talkie and a pit bull.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Lee smiled. ‘It couldn’t be a pit bull. They’re banned as dangerous dogs. A Rottweiler or a Dobermann, maybe.’
‘Okay, so maybe that last bit isn’t entirely practical,’ Jo said insistently. ‘But the idea of a kids’ clothes shop that’s fun for kids, child-proof and stress-free for mums, well, that’s bloody genius, isn’t it?’
Lee nodded but didn’t answer. He shovelled the last mouthful of gloop into Imogene. Then he glanced at his watch, rinsed his hands at the sink, grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, kissed Jo and the kids and left. As she launched into the morning flurry of teeth brushing, filling Zach’s book bag, wrestling Imogene into her coat and strapping her into the pushchair, Jo realised with disappointment that Lee hadn’t actually responded to the idea at all. Maybe it was just a silly, irrational dream.
But later, once Zach was at nursery and Imogene had gone down for her nap, she found herself sitting at the computer and writing notes. It would obviously have to meet all kinds of safety standards, and it shouldn’t be one of those chi-chi children’s boutiques that mums like her would never walk into, where a miniature leather jacket costs more than a pair of adult winter boots. The stuff would have to be cool, hard-wearing, different, but affordable. Come to think of it, she would quite like to redress the imbalance most shops had between boys’ and girls’ clothing. There always seemed to be heaps of cute and funky outfits for girls, but toddler boy clothing came in blue, stripes, cartoon characters/monsters or was of the tiresome ‘I’m a cheeky monkey’-slogan variety. So maybe it would be a shop for boys, or mainly boys. Sorry, Imogene. Her wardrobe was way better than Jo’s anyway. She realised her thinking had somehow passed from ‘should be’ to ‘would be’, as if the shop was in some way a reality.
She spent some time trawling the Net for websites for children’s boutiques, looking for pictures of their interiors, and then ran a search for children’s clothing shops within the immediate area. Without planning to, she started shaping the rough notes she was making into a formal proposal. By the time Imogene woke up, she had a three-page document, complete with web links and images. She had no idea who she would ever show it to, but now she knew for certain that there was something there.
That afternoon, she took the kids to the park. She put Imogene into one of the baby swings and stood beside her, gently rocking her to and fro while Zach ran through his standard playground routine … swinging from the monkey bars, then climbing up the slide and down the stairs, finding a stick to drag along the railings, then climbing on to the little metal rocking horse and singing ‘Horsey, horsey’ at the top of his voice as he flung himself back and forth. He always did the same things in the same order. Jo knew that within a few minutes he’d come over and demand to go for a walk to the kiosk to get an ice lolly
. It didn’t matter how cold the weather was, he always wanted one. Then they’d walk a slow circuit of the park, with Imogene chewing on a biscuit in the pushchair while Zach skipped ahead or dawdled behind, keeping up an endless rambling monologue, usually an extended fantasy about one or other cartoon character smashing something. Jo sighed as she swung Imogene. It wasn’t that she didn’t love spending the time with the kids … and who wouldn’t love being in the park on a sunshiny spring day? It was just, a little variety would be nice, a little … oh dear God. Here comes that woman.
Jo didn’t know the woman’s name. She should know it, because her daughter was at nursery with Zach and they had been introduced by the mother of one of Zach’s friends at the beginning of the school year, but Jo had promptly forgotten it, and now it was way too late to ask. She often saw the woman in the park with her little girl and a fat, bald baby who was a month or so younger than Imogene. The woman always came over and talked and talked at her in a breathy voice about child development and baby-led weaning and babywearing and sleep training, and never, ever about any topic that was not directly linked to child-rearing in some way. Once or twice Jo had mentioned a current news story or ventured a comment about a book she’d read or a film, only to be met with a blank stare.
‘Hiya!’ said the woman, her face shining as she barrelled over. ‘How ARE you?’ Without waiting for an answer, she launched straight into an account of the nit outbreak at the nursery, and her views on which children had brought the lice in. Then the woman started telling her how she’d spent hours combing conditioner through her daughter’s hair and how the nit shampoos didn’t work any more because the creatures had mutated, and Jo had to fight an almost irresistible urge to scratch her head all over. She wanted to kiss Zach when he came running over to say he wanted his ice lolly now.
At the kiosk, she treated Zach to a choc-ice and got one herself. They strolled around the park, and Zach hopped on and off the little retaining wall along the flower beds, holding on to Jo’s shoulder as she pushed the pushchair alongside him.
‘Zachy,’ she said, ‘you know when we go to buy clothes for you?’
‘Yucky. I don’t need clothes. Are we going today? Let’s not.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s boring. And you always say, “Don’t touch!” and then I have to try on horrible scratchy new things and not get them dirty.’
‘What if—’
‘And then you want to go and get a coffee and Imogene and me have to sit all still and be good.’
‘You get cake though.’
‘I like the cake part. But not the shopping. Yuck.’
‘What if shopping was fun?’
‘How could it be fun?’
She explained her ideas for the shop to him.
‘So I could play and jump around and not get into trouble?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What would it look like?’
‘Not sure yet. What do you think would be cool?’
‘Tigers,’ said Zach firmly. ‘It needs tigers. And a giant Tyrannosaurus-rex. And vines to swing on, like Tarzan.’
‘That does sound cool,’ said Jo, laughing, and wishing she had a pen to write this all down. ‘Sounds like a jungle.’
‘It would be,’ said Zach. ‘Just like a jungle, but in town. Jungle town.’
Jungle town, thought Jo. Jungletown. Yes. She wanted to hug Zach and kiss him for his brilliance, but he had got bored of the conversation and had run off to hit a tree with a stick.
That evening, after the kids were in bed, she sat at the kitchen counter with a glass of wine as Lee concocted his famous chilli, the only dish he knew how to cook. ‘I’ve been thinking about my shop idea all day,’ she said. Lee frowned and nodded as he scooped up a big spoonful of cocoa to add to the bubbling saucepan. It was one of the secret ingredients that he said made all the difference to the bottled sauce mixture. Jo took a sip of her wine. He clearly wasn’t going to say anything, so she told him about her conversation with Zach, and Zach’s ‘Jungletown’ comment. Lee laughed at that, but still didn’t pick up her conversational ball. She took an even bigger sip of wine. She was starting to feel quite narked at him.
‘So you think it’s a stupid idea?’ she said persistently. ‘I mean, I know I don’t know the first thing about owning or running a shop or the fashion business, but I do still think that there’s something there.’
‘Are you serious about it?’ Lee asked. ‘I mean, would you actually think about starting it? Really?’ He looked up at her, and to Jo his expression seemed full of scepticism and doubt.
‘Jesus!’ Jo exploded. ‘Could you be any more unsupportive? I might have been at home with the kids for a few years, but I’m not a moron. I’ve got PR and marketing experience; I know how to research, to network … Why couldn’t I do it? Bloody hell, Lee, of all the people in the world I thought would back me up …’ She felt tears prick behind her eyes, and she grabbed her glass and stalked out of the kitchen.
She flung open the French windows and flopped down on the bench on the patio. There was a cold breeze. The spring days might be warmer but the nights were still cool, and she wished she’d grabbed a jumper before she’d stropped off out. Still, nothing would convince her to go back inside. She’d have to stupefy herself with wine and ignore the cold. But as she sat there, she became uncomfortably aware that the bench was slightly damp as well. And her wine glass was empty. And the chilli was nearly ready and she was very hungry. Maybe she’d go in, ignore Lee in a frosty manner, fetch a jumper and a fresh glass of wine and a cushion before bringing her chilli out to the patio. She knew she was being irrational, and she couldn’t quite pinpoint why she was so angry. She and Lee seldom argued, and she wasn’t sure why this idea mattered enough to her to have picked a fight about it.
She walked back into the living room, and found Lee sitting at the dining table. He had his markers out and the table was covered in large sheets of cartridge paper. He was obviously using the time while the chilli cooked to do some work. Typical. She stomped into the kitchen to refill her wine glass and sneak a taste of the chilli. Her cardigan was draped over the back of the chair Lee was sitting in. She couldn’t get at it without talking to him and asking him to move. Sod it. She’d go upstairs and get another jumper. She crossed behind him, and was about to head for the stairs when he said, ‘Right. Now you can see.’
‘See what?’ she said grudgingly. He shuffled the pages on the table and laid them out in a rough order. The first one looked like an architect’s drawing for an empty space … a gallery maybe, or some kind of shop. The next had rails and display racks sketched in, and a brightly coloured jungle design around the lower half of the walls. The third and fourth were full of vibrant colour, with rocking horses (or rocking giraffes, Jo noted) on the floor, along with big soft toy snakes, toucans and other exotic animals. The rails were crammed with brightly coloured children’s clothes. The last drawing showed the exterior of the shop, with a big glass window. Lee’s ink had barely dried on this one. He had just added the name of the shop in funky curly script: ‘Jungletown’.
2
JO AND LEE THEN
Jo first saw Lee at a party at university. She was a few weeks into her first year at Goldsmith’s, and her roommate in halls, Helen, had brought her to this party in a dingy student house a little way from the campus. Other than Helen, she didn’t know anybody to speak to, but the room was full of familiar faces: other students from the arts courses that she’d seen in the corridors and social areas, some she recognised from lectures. She got herself a beer from the kitchen and looked around for Helen, but Helen’s principal interest in attending the party was a guy called Frank who was rumoured to have a limitless supply of recreational pharmaceuticals. She had disappeared into a bathroom with him within minutes of their arrival. Jo knew she was unlikely to see her again, or if she did, Helen would be in no fit state for conversation. She didn’t mind; the party was mainly filled with second-and third-years a
nd she was keen to meet some of the older students and get to know more about the campus and the course. Somehow, however, she ended up wedged in a corner trying to make halting conversation with two geeky girls from the music course. Jo had seen them perform during Freshers’ Week and knew one was a harpist and the other a pianist. They both looked terrified, as if they had spent so much time in the practice room that a party was an alien landscape. One of them, the pianist, was clutching a fourpack and was gulping down the beers one by one with grim determination, as if they were medicine.
‘I’m Harriet, and this is Amelia. We’re not usually big party animals,’ she said, rather unnecessarily, and then giggled. ‘We’re here because Amelia’s got the hots for Renaissance Man and we’ve been stalking him across town.’
‘Ah, of course,’ said Jo knowingly, as if she knew who they meant. Renaissance Man? Who could that be? A lecturer in the arts department who specialised in da Vinci? A superhero she’d never heard of, who buzzed about in a cape dispensing a Golden Age of Enlightenment?
‘Do you know him?’ said Amelia, the light of fanaticism in her eye.
‘Well, I don’t know him exactly,’ said Jo, desperately playing for time, ‘but his work, well … it precedes him, doesn’t it?
‘What exactly do you mean?’ said Amelia, standing too close and staring searchingly into Jo’s face through her thick glasses. ‘You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?’
‘Oh no, I … er … I …’ Jo found herself wishing that she hadn’t ended up with the musical fruitcakes, or that at the very least she’d led with, ‘I loved your rendition of the “Trout” Quintet.’
At that moment, music started to blare, and Amelia swung her speccy gaze desperately towards the door. ‘That’s him!’ she said excitedly. She pushed past them and ran towards the living room. Harriet and Jo followed rather more slowly, and by the time they got there the dance floor was so packed they couldn’t even get into the room. They edged around the door frame and stood pressed up against the wall. It took a while for Jo to spot Amelia, who was dancing wildly just in front of the table where the music was coming from. For a highly competent musician, she didn’t seem to have much rhythm or coordination.