Lost (Arielle Lockley Series Book 2) (15 page)

My heart is melting at the cuteness. After finally getting through the awful London traffic, we’re greeted with the sight of Piers playing with Atlas on the living room floor. The rug has been unrolled, and there’s no questioning look from Piers. Mr Wyatt did an excellent job.

Atlas seems to have acquired several new cat toys, and I can only assume Tabitha bought them for him. Piers is chuckling to himself as Atlas goes into raptures over a mouse dangling from a piece of string. You would think Piers was teasing him with a real-life mouse judging by the way he’s reacting, or maybe it’s just the catnip that is working him into a frenzy. 

‘He’s a feisty thing little thing!’ Piers remarks as he gets up off the floor and walks towards us, Atlas chasing after him.

I don’t care whether it looks like a slightly over-the-top greeting to my parents as I fling myself on Piers, nearly causing him to topple over.

‘Steady on, Pony,’ he whispers to me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my forehead. ‘I’m OK.’

I step back, giving him the once over, and he does look OK. Not fantastic, mind, or brimming with health, but definitely a lot better than I was expecting.

Atlas, keen to bring the attention back to him, starts purring around my parents’ legs, and as Piers says hello to Mum and Dad, I pick him up for a quick cuddle. For a cat who has been neglected and forced to sleep on a compost heap, he’s full of love and not at all wary of us. He wasn’t micro-chipped, which suggests he might have just been a Hampshire stray, but I have the awful suspicion that he was abandoned. He seems too calm around people to be a full-on stray, poor thing, but it’s a new chapter for him now he has Piers and I to look after him. Judging by how Piers was playing with him, we’re keeping him.

As Piers and my parents catch up, I stick on the kettle and fire off a quick text message to Tabitha to thank her for the cat toys, and to see if it is still OK for Mum and I to go round tomorrow to deal with the stock that should, hopefully, be sitting in Ramone’s studio. I’m pleased that my parents are staying over, and I suspect Piers is too as it will stop me from incessantly grilling him about his trip to the hospital last weekend, but he’ll get it once they’ve gone home on Tuesday. 

When I head back into the living room with a tray of teas and coffees, I’m greeted with the sight of all three of them on the floor with Atlas. Crikey, if this is how my parents are with my cat, imagine how they’ll be when grandchildren are on the scene!

Putting the tray down on the coffee table, which I notice has claw marks on the legs – eek, better buy a scratching post – I do the only thing I can in these circumstances: I join in playing with my parents, Piers and Atlas. It’s a happy memory that will stick with me for a very long time.

‘Mum, this is Tabitha. Tabitha, this is my mum, Gillian.’

After a fun evening in with my parents and Piers – we stayed in with a takeaway to keep Atlas company... OK, and Piers was flagging with jet-lag; I’ve not become a crazy cat lady
just yet
– Mum and I have headed over to Tabi’s, bright and early, to get cracking with the pop-up.

As Tasmin and Chelsey were the ones to pack up the stock and look after the shop since I’ve been in London, I’ve no idea what I have to sell. It could be hideous crushed velvet dresses, circa 2004, or it could be this season’s awesome bird print dresses by Erin Fetherston. The likelihood is it will be both, which means we’ll need to get creative to shift the crap that will be lurking amongst the gems.

‘Mrs Lockley, lovely to meet you. You’ve raised a wonderful daughter, and I can see where she gets her gorgeous looks from!’

I have to give Tabitha credit: coming from other people those compliments may have sounded smarmy and fake, but Tabitha’s voice rings with sincerity and warmth. And, of course, it goes without saying: Mum is a stunner for her age. She’s still got a trim figure, and I’m pretty certain I spied a rather distinguished-looking gent, albeit a slightly pervy one, checking her out in her faded Wrangler jeans and fashionable bright red pea coat when we were walking over here.

I shoot a look at Mum, keen to see if she takes that as a compliment and changes her mind about Tabitha, or whether Tabitha is doomed.

‘You’re too kind, dear,’ she dismisses. ‘Now, shall we get cracking?’

Ouch, that’s not the best response Tabitha could have got but, then again, it’s not the worst. Mum should have continued with some small talk, but she’s straight down to business.

I shoot Tabitha a “what can you do, parents huh” look, and she responds with a look that suggests she’s used to prejudiced and narrow-minded people, which Mum is totally being right now.

As the hours fly by though, I can tell Mum is changing her mind about Tabitha who has got stuck in and is helping us sort out the stock and the space upstairs. We’ve cleared out Ramone’s things, and have used his mannequins and some materials that were lying around to create a few make-shift changing rooms in one of the corners.

It would be better if people could try on their new purchases at home, but I appreciate that the nature of the pop-up means that it may be over by the time they get the opportunity to come back and return things. We’ve decided to make things easier for us: all stock is sold as seen, and once they’ve parted with their cash, they can’t return their purchases.

‘Think of a pop-up as a car boot or jumble sale, but classier,’ Tabitha says. ‘If they don’t try things on here, then they’ve missed their chance.’

It will certainly make my life easier, so I agree with her.

We’ve set up the tables and till that came from the shop, and organised most of the clothes onto the rails and shelves. Two of the ornate full-length mirrors have gone in the changing rooms, whilst another has strategically been placed so I can glance in it from the till and pretty much see all of the room and what everyone is up to. The other mirrors from the shop, and some of the furniture, will have to be taken to my house as there’s no room for it, and no need for it. Ditto for surplus stock.

Piers and Dad are on standby at home, and a quick call to them gets all that sorted. I’m glad that Piers has taken a few days off; he’s doing far too much, and he needs to rest. I’m convinced his passing out incident in Virginia was stress-related.

We’ve created a loose theme for each day the pop-up will run, which Tabitha thinks will help us to market it better. Saturday will be modern times, whereas Sunday has a retro theme, a clever way to gloss over the fact that we’ll be mostly trying to shift stock a few seasons out of fashion. But, I think if we blend some of the new stock in with the old and package up outfits rather than items of clothing, then we might be able to shift a lot of it.
Maybe
.

Tabitha has been encouraging me to tweet certain things throughout the day and share photos. Amazingly, I’ve had seven retweets in the past hour, and a dozen fashion bloggers have tweeted me to say that they’ll be paying the pop-up a visit. If all the people who have tweeted me come along, this might just be a success!

We’ve got one more box to sort through, and then it’s time to call it a day. I’ll need to come back and price the clothes up, if they don’t have tags on already, plus I’m going to get crafty and make the space a bit more cool; it currently looks like a room with some clothes in it. From what I understand about pop-ups, they should be quirky.

‘Would you look at this?’ Tabitha exclaims, holding up a large black velvet coat.

‘My goodness!’ Mum says, putting down the pile of Paige jeans she’s sorting through. ‘That’s an opera coat.’

‘A what?’ I ask.

‘An opera coat.’ She takes the coat from Tabitha. ‘I had this friend, Anne Gledhill,’ she says fondly. ‘She used to wear one of these. I’ve not seen something like this in years! Are you sure this is meant to be here? It’s in gorgeous condition, and this is definitely a vintage piece. It’s not like anything else we’ve come across today.’

I shrug. ‘I suppose it could be one of Felicity’s personal coats that she left in the shop because, you’re right, we’ve never stocked vintage clothing. I’ll double-check.’

‘I can do that,’ Mum says, handing the coat back to Tabitha, who starts examining it more carefully. ‘I need to let her know I can’t make bridge tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Look!’ Tabitha interrupts. She’s revealed a pocket in the salmon pink silk lining of the coat; in it is an old ticket stub. ‘It has actually been worn to an opera – that’s so cool.’

‘Which one?’ That’s the warmest Mum has reacted to Tabitha all day.

‘It’s faded. Arielle, can you make it out?’

I take the stub from Tabitha, and squint at it. ‘
Così Fan Tutte
.’ I’ve totally butchered how you pronounce that.

‘I love that opera!’

Both Mum and Tabitha practically squeal this at the same time, and that admission launches them into what other operas they’ve seen and other things that I have no clue about. I leave them to it and crack on with adjusting displays here and there, as well as taking photos to email to Felicity tonight. I hate not having her here getting involved, but she did not look a well woman on Saturday. I forget she’s an old lady, and this reminds me that I am lucky to be spending this time with my mum because, before I know it, she’ll be an old lady, too. On that cheery note, I decide to join in Mum and Tabitha’s conversation and, thankfully, they’ve moved on to musical theatre. Now that I do know well!

By the time Mum and I leave Tabi’s, Mum and Tabitha have bonded. Personally I don’t get the appeal of opera, but I’m glad it broke the ice between them. Well, Tabitha was warm and friendly from the beginning, so I should correct myself: I’m glad that Tabitha’s discovery made Mum realise a thing or two. 

‘I feel a bit silly,’ she admits as we walk home down the King’s Road.

My dress has now gone from the bridal boutique window so I can’t show her it in the flesh, though Tabitha took many photos of it on my phone so she has seen pictures. We both stop and admire a hat they have on display which is very “mother of the bride” – it’s an elegant, pale pink wide-brimmed hat, finished with an extravagant plume of feathers and beading – if they hadn’t tried to rip me off, we may have taken a closer look.

‘I judged that girl based on what I read,’ Mum continues as we walk on. ‘She’s nothing like they portray her.’

‘And you were the one who told your book club off for judging books by their cover,’ I tease.

She pulls an awkward face and then, unexpectedly, pulls me into a hug on the street. A few passers-by swear under their breath as they move around us on the pavement. We’ve committed a cardinal sin in London by stopping like this.

‘What was that for?’

She swallows hard. ‘We’re proud of you,’ Mum finally says, letting go of me. ‘Really proud, so don’t forget that. I know Felicity would tell you that if she was here, and she’d tell you...’ Mum hesitates.

‘She’d tell me what?’

I see Mum gulp again as she starts walking again. What is she hiding?

‘You’ve come a long way this year and Felicity is, well, Felicity is thrilled with what you’re doing,’ Mum finally says as we head off the main road. It feels quieter, though it never truly is in central London. The distant hum of traffic, sirens and planes sounds almost natural to me after living in London for so long.

‘Is everything OK?’ 

‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ she says dismissively. ‘I’m just getting emotional in my old age, that’s all. Now, tell me what you’ve got planned for making the pop-up quirky!’

As I fill her in on my ideas about what I’ll be doing next week to make the pop-up, well, pop, I can’t shake off the feeling that something isn’t quite right. She’s another one hiding something from me.

I don’t know where the time is going to. One minute I’m setting up the pop-up with Mum and Tabitha and going to the doctors with Piers – finally! – and the next minute my pop-up is
this weekend
, and Piers needs to go to the hospital to talk about some of his test results. Of course, his appointment clashes with the only time that Eliza can interview me for
Metro
.

‘Can you not do the afternoon instead?’ I plead. ‘Or even first thing in the morning? I’ll buy you breakfast.’

I will get up at half past four in the morning if I have to, and I am
not
a morning person. I want to be at the hospital with Piers when the consultant speaks to him. I felt reassured when we went to the hospital the other week, and the consultant did suggest that Piers would get the all-clear, but I still need to hear those words for myself. Call me silly, but I have to be there.

‘I’m afraid not, Arielle. I need to be at the airport by one as I’m going to Florence.’

If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of asking to move the interview as I would have been so grateful that a member of the press wanted to talk to me. Because it’s Eliza I feel I can be slightly cheeky, though I’m still incredibly thankful.

Eliza is the journalist who stumbled across the shop in Bournemouth, back when it was called Flick’s and I was desperately trying to transform it into a viable business. She wrote a few nice articles about us, and I’m hoping she’ll do the same again.

By sheer luck Ob, of all people, remembered not only reading her farewell piece in the local Hampshire rag, but he also remembered that she was moving to London. A quick Google search later and I found her on Twitter. The rest, as they say, is history.

‘I could meet you at the airport?’ I suggest, crossing my fingers.

Piers’ appointment is at eleven, so if there are no delays then I could get there for half twelve, speak to Eliza for thirty minutes, and then head to our cake tasting appointments whilst Eliza jets off to Florence. I’d almost be jealous, but have you read the reviews Sweet Aroma has? I definitely have the winning afternoon getting to sample their award-winning cakes. They make them in such a majestic way that even tourists happily head over to the non-tourist location of Earlsfield to buy their divine mint chocolate cupcakes and lemon berry cheesecake. They are
that
tasty.

‘I could do that,’ she says. My heart soars. ‘Except our photographer wouldn’t be able to take photos, and I think the photos will really help you to sell this.’
Deflated
.

Yes, and I bet her photographer is secretly hoping that Tabitha will be around and he can snap some shots of her to sell to the tabloids, the poor thing. She’s been romantically linked to her therapist, a guy called Doctor Hamilton, and they are hounding her at the moment. I’ve barely seen her in the past few weeks as she’s lying low. Of course Tabitha hasn’t told me any of this, but I remember her blushing the day her doorman Ryan mentioned a “Doctor Hamilton” in front of me, and it seems the press have got their story right for once.

‘OK, OK,’ I concede. ‘Ten o’clock it is. Thank you,’ I add. I know Eliza is, once again, doing me a huge favour writing a piece on the pop-up. I’m under no illusion though that this is because of me; it’s because it’s in Tabi’s.

I can’t give up this press interview, as much as I want to be with Piers at the hospital tomorrow. He’s already told me several times not to worry about it, but I have been. Lots. That’s love, right? I think I’ve been more nervous about his appointments and results than he has, even though he is looking much better.

Still, he has taken the full day off so we can do the wedding cake tastings tomorrow afternoon. Free cake and champagne from several of London’s top bakeries with the man I love – could there be a better afternoon? 

‘My pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’

‘Sure. Have a good day!’

I hang up, and spend about ten minutes just staring at the pop-up, taking it all in as if I’m Eliza and seeing it through her eyes for the very first time. To me it looks perfect but, then again, I’m a little biased.

As you first walk through the door and into the space upstairs, you’re hit with three mannequins stood in a diagonal line, covered in pop-art print. Each mannequin is wearing an outfit through the ages, so-to-speak, and this weird clash of time works really well. The middle mannequin, for example, is wearing flared peach cords, a metallic silver boob tube, and a furry cream body warmer. The clothes on the mannequins are quite frankly hideous, but they kind of work together as a cool visual piece, and each mannequin wears a garland of soft white fairy lights. The up-lighting effect softens the hideousness.

Behind the mannequins is where I’ve set up the two tills from the shop. I have two of Tabitha’s staff helping me, so one will be on the tills with me depending on how busy we are, whilst the other mans the make-shift changing rooms and helps customers out, if we get any that is! I’m super nervous about this.

By the changing rooms I have put two empty racks. I suspect that we’re not going to get a chance to put stock back to where it originally was, so we’ll have to try and rotate the racks around at some point.

Big weathered brown trunks, the sort I imagine Darrell and Gwendoline Mary from
Malory Towers
would have taken to school, are piled up in the middle of the floor. They are covered in more soft white fairy lights, and they are filled with scarves, belts and clutch bags.

Around the walls are the racks of clothing, each priced up with a hand-written brown luggage tag, tied onto the clothes with a strong, pink, gauze ribbon. I’ve decorated the walls with gorgeous shisha embroidery pieces in strong pink, purple and orange colours. The small fragments of mirror they contain twinkle beautifully with the fairy lights.

Finally, an ancient black Singer sewing machine of Ramone’s that we couldn’t get down the stairs sits next to our till table. We’ve hung bracelets and necklaces from it.

Felicity was thrilled when I sent her photos, and I’m sure she’ll be even more delighted when she sees the coverage. I couldn’t really get her excited about the Twitter mentions and chatter in the blogosphere – I probably didn’t explain it very well as it’s still quite new to me – but she understands newspapers. Seeing the pop-up talked about in a real-life newspaper, hopefully positively, should quash those doubts of hers. She thinks we should have been focusing on finding premises rather than “popping-up” – hopefully the sales figures will be able to convince her that this was the right direction for us.

I also hope she’ll come to London at the weekend to see it for herself, but she’s not great. Mum and I may have to forcefully bundle her into the car and take her to the doctor. I tried to raise my concerns with Etta at the goodbye party, but she snarled at me that she’d deal with
her
godmother, and suggested I shouldn’t even be worrying about Felicity.

Of course I worry about her though. She’s more than just my business partner: she’s a friend and someone I hold dear in my life. I speak to her every day now, as does Mum, and we both think there has been some improvement. She hasn’t been as muddled of late, so maybe she has been to the doctor and they have sorted out her medication. Let’s hope so.

After spending the next hour going over and double-checking everything for Eliza and the photographer’s arrival tomorrow, I head home where I’m greeted by a very noisy Atlas. It’s strange because I can’t picture that little fluffball not being at home waiting for us. He has very quickly become part of our family. I won’t confess this to Ob though; I don’t want to encourage him to dish out stray cats as presents.

The next day everything changes; it’s a day that will always stick in my head, as melodramatic as that might sound. Piers and I get up, we feed Atlas and ourselves, and we leave the house. Piers is heading to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and I’m heading to Tabi’s. Both are relatively close to one another and our home.

We get about two metres from our front door when I realise I’ve forgotten my phone. I need it with me so I can take a few snaps of the photographer taking snaps. I’m starting a blog and I’m keen to take as many photos as possible for it; also, if Eliza needs to get in touch with me, she only has my mobile number. I run back to the house and yell at Piers to call me as soon as he’s spoken to the consultant.

That detail will stay with me for a very long time – that I didn’t say goodbye to Piers properly that morning, that I didn’t kiss him goodbye.

‘Call me later, Pony,’ I yell back at Piers.

‘Will do. Good luck!’

I go in the house, grab my phone, give Atlas a quick cuddle and I’m back out of the door within a few minutes. If I squint I can probably still see Piers, but my eyesight is far from being 20-20 and it’s probably another tall, dark-haired man in a dark jacket in the distance.

I’ve picked my outfit very carefully this morning, conscious of the fact that I might be photographed. I’m wearing a cream ruffled Max Mara blouse, a grey and cream spotty zipped pencil skirt by Alexander McQueen, and a pair of red-soled beauties by Christian Louboutin, of course. I plan on putting on the opera coat Tabitha found if they ask me to be in any of the photos – it will lend a dramatic flair to the pop-up and entice some vintage-lovers to visit – but I never get the chance.

The interview with Eliza goes well. Her fashion sense has definitely improved since our Bournemouth days. OK, she isn’t going to make it onto a list of the top twenty most fashionable journalists in London, but her taste has certainly matured. Gone are the comfy but warm knitted jumpers and simple jeans I remember her wearing, and in their place is a cream blouse and a quilted cobalt blue midi skirt. Her light brown hair is styled and falls loosely above her shoulders.

She’s excited about the pop-up, something her editor hasn’t come across outside of the food scene, which makes me feel optimistic that we’ll get a good write-up, even if it is just for the novelty factor.

‘Greg, this is Arielle, Arielle this is Greg.’

Greg is the photographer who has just arrived late, a tall dark-skinned man with the most distracting green eyes. He must be wearing contact lenses.

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Nice to meet–’

A loud bang interrupts him, and I feel the room shake, or maybe that’s just my hands that are trembling.

‘What on Earth was that?’ Eliza cries, or at least I think that’s what she said because my ears are ringing. Her mouth is moving, but she could be speaking Dutch for all I know.

I run to the window and throw it open to be met with the smell of smoke and something else. It almost smells like a BBQ, which is odd for this time of year. Sticking my head out of the window, all I can see is swirling smoke and the faint glare of blue flashing lights coming closer towards me. It’s eerily silent out there, but that could be because my ears feel blocked.

‘What just happened?’ I say dazed, stepping back from the window so I can shut it. The smoke outside is getting thicker.

The next thing I know, there’s another loud bang, and my body is falling towards the floor.