It’s raining. Lashing down. It’s also pitch-black and I’m standing outside Jemma’s flat, which is above her shop. The flat is also pitch-black, which is not generally considered a good sign if you’re looking for a warm welcome. No one is keeping my sister’s home fire burning.
In my temper, I have walked out without my handbag. In my handbag is my spare key to Jemma’s front door. And I have only just realized the enormity of this slight technical omission. In my coat pocket, I had exactly two pounds and seventy-five pence, which was change from the sandwiches that Christian and I bought for lunch at Kew. (And doesn’t that seem like a different lifetime?) I spent two pounds and fifty pence on my Tube ticket to get here because my car keys are also in my handbag, and I dropped twenty pence on the floor while I was searching for my money, which was picked up by a tramp whom I hadn’t the nerve to challenge for its return. So now I have the princely sum of five pence, no checkbook, no credit card, no mobile phone, no keys. In a fit of pique, I hurl my five-pence piece down the street, rendering myself totally penniless. Great job, Alicia.
Jemma’s shop is in Ladbroke Road, in quite a villagey bit just away from the main bustle of Notting Hill Gate. You Must Remember This…(great name, I know!) is in the middle of a small, select row. There are a couple of café bistro places, one looking distinctly more salubrious than the other, a Majestic wine outlet and two antique galleries, one selling gorgeous Chinese artifacts, which I daren’t go into because I’d come out several hundred pounds poorer. The parade also has one of those quaint old-fashioned cab ranks complete with a British racing green hut and a queue of shiny idle cabs parked outside, and I can’t begin to imagine what might go on inside. The only thing that spoils the vista is a huge concrete tower block of flats looming over the top of it.
Jemma’s is one of a rash of nostalgic and retro clothes shops in the area. It’s a strange place, full of stuff that my mother still has in her wardrobe. Oxfam tat with Harvey Nichols price tags as far as I’m concerned. So what if they’re 1960s designer labels? They’re horrible! And why, oh why, would anyone want to wear cast-offs from the 1970s? Even if it does bear a Halston or an Ossie Clark moniker? For me, that was the time that taste forgot and it’s best that we forget it too. My daughter has just bought her first pair of hot pants, which, twenty-five years later, are back in fashion for the third, or probably the fourth, time, and I shudder to think that I ever went out dressed like that. Jemma says I have no soul, but clearly her customers do, because she makes a small fortune despite her astronomical rent. To give Jemma her due, the bulk of her stock is pure vintage—there are very few wide lapels and flared trousers on view. Her chic, crowded rooms groan with rails of elegant beaded gowns from the 1930s and 1940s, which, in terms of style, I’m much happier to relate to. She says her customers want to look individual and creative in their dress, but that sounds suspiciously like sales-speak to me. Who would know, apart from another hip and enlightened “classic” clothing fan, that you weren’t just wearing something you’d dragged out of a charity shop for a fiver? I would rather look new, but perhaps it’s me that’s missing the point. And there’s no doubting my sister’s commitment, as she devotes every waking moment into making it a success. If only she were as attentive to her relationships. But then, standing here in the pissing-down rain because my husband’s thrown me out, I’m a fine one to talk.
I rap at Jemma’s door once more, and the thought that I’m getting nowhere fast flashes through my brain again. I huddle into her strip of doorway so that I’m getting merely drenched rather than totally drowned. I thought Ed said my sister had come back from Prague, but maybe she was phoning from there? There isn’t a single sign of life. This place definitely has the look of its owner being terminally out.
I consider breaking in, but due to the value of the stock the shop has more alarms than a nuclear-power plant and, no doubt, half of the Metropolitan Police force would descend upon me, because policemen are never around when you want one and arrive in droves when you don’t.
I can feel my hair tightening into ringlets, and I’m probably sporting the same hairstyle as Lenny Kravitz by now. I have to do something! I could go to my parents’ house. They live miles away in Harpenden, but I could hail a cab and get them to fork out for it and then ask Ed to pay them back. It would cost a small fortune and serve him right! But they would worry terribly if I turned up in the middle of the night, as they’ll have had their Horlicks hours ago and will be well into the land of Nod by now. They’re that sort of people. Also, turning up there would make this whole stupid disagreement seem so much worse than it is. My mother would then spend the rest of her life thinking that we have a shaky marriage. My heart sinks to my sodden shoes. Perhaps we do.
I search my pockets again for any sign of cash, noting ruefully that my emergency ten-pound note is safely secreted in the little pocket of my handbag, which is also safely in my kitchen at home. Perhaps I need to put an emergency ten-pound note underneath the inner soles of all my shoes if I plan on being stupid on a regular basis. I would agree with you, at this juncture, that my emergency situation procedures could do with an extensive review.
I cannot in any event return home. That would be just too humiliating for words. I would rather huddle down in Jemma’s doorway for the night. Lots of people sleep rough these days, and it’s only for one night. I could head toward…er…somewhere that has arches and look for a spare cardboard box. I look at the torrential rain and wonder how on earth these poor unfortunate people manage. I feel on the verge of tears. I have a beautiful home and a soft, comfy bed. Ed cannot be so cruel as to leave me out on the streets. I won’t let him do this to me, however much I have to beg.
Just as I am about to give up hope and slink back to the marital home, penitent, my icy fingers fold around a business card. La Place Velma. It has Christian’s address on the back, and it shines in my hand like a beacon under the streetlight. God, he lives just around the corner. If I had a stone, I could throw it there. I could be there in five minutes. Less. I wish I had my phone, then I could ring him. I know, I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking it too. He’s the last person in the world I should contact. But what else am I to do? At the very least, he might give me a corner of his floor, or a cup of tea, or be able to lend me some money so that I can get a room for the night. And didn’t he say that I should drop in any time I was in the area? I sigh as a big splat of rain splashes onto the address and smears the ink. I just don’t expect he thought that it would be at one o’clock in the morning.