The Shoestring Club

by Sarah Webb

  She strokes my head and for once I don’t pull away. ‘Just think it through properly, Boolie, that’s all I’m saying.’ I look at her. She hasn’t used Mum’s pet name for me – Boolie, short for Julia Boolia – for a long time. We lock eyes for a second and then I pull mine away.

  ‘I’ll put it on the rail in the office in case you think of something, OK?’

  I smile at her. ‘Thanks, Pandora.’

  While she takes the dress to the office, I sit down on the velvet-covered chair in the changing room and put my head in my hands. Seven days to come up with twelve hundred euro. Pandora’s right, I do need to think. Think, Jules, think!

  When I get back from lunch Pandora is twirling in front of one of the shop’s mirrors, in the Faith Farenze.

  ‘What are you doing in my dress?’ I demand. ‘I have it on hold, remember?’

  She sighs. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Jules, I’m just trying it on.’

  Lenka is slouched over the desk, gazing at Pandora admiringly. ‘You look a million dollars,’ Lenka says. ‘The colour really suits you.’ She walks towards Pandora and pulls at the front of the dress. ‘But maybe a padded bra, yes? Or chicken fillets?’ Lenka thinks you’re not properly dressed unless you’re showing a cleavage worthy of Dolly Parton. As soon as she’s saved up the money, or can cajole her latest boyfriend into paying for it, she’s straight off for a boob job.

  ‘It’s irrelevant,’ Pandora says glumly, slapping Lenka’s hand away. ‘Someone like Sissy will end up owning it. Besides, I’d have nothing to wear it to.’ She runs her fingers over the chiffon. ‘But it is stunning,’ she adds wistfully.

  ‘When Jules buys the dress, you can borrow it, Pandora,’ Lenka says brightly. ‘Is good idea, yes?’

  Pandora smiles in an annoyingly condescending way. ‘Like that’s going to happen. I’m just humouring her, Lenka. There’s no way she’ll come up with the money in a week.’

  I scowl at my sister. Great to see she has so much faith in me. After a brief show of sisterly support, I guess it’s back to business as usual in the Schuster household.

  Chapter 3

  Six o’clock, closing time can’t come quickly enough. Because the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I have to have the Faith Farenze. It’s not rational or logical, I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that if the dress is mine not only will I be able to attend the wedding with my head held high, but my whole life will change, will be magically transformed overnight, like Cinderella’s. The dress will hang in my wardrobe, no, on the wall, like a valuable Impressionist painting, so I can gaze at it all the time; and the very same day I’ll win the lotto, meaning I’ll never have to get up early for work ever again. Then I’ll meet Prince Charming, or else I’ll manage to convince Ed that Lainey is all wrong for him and that he should marry me instead.

  As soon as the final customers have left – there are always one or two stragglers – I leave Pandora and Bird to close up, grab my bike and cycle home slowly, feeling completely out of energy. Once inside the house, I dump my bag on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. It’s strangely quiet. Then I remember that Dad’s away working in Kilkenny, and Iris is staying overnight with one of her little friends. Iris is Pandora’s eight-year-old daughter, very bright and a right little chatterbox. And as Pandora and Bird are off to some sort of boring choral thing tonight, I have the place to myself for a change – perfect. Once Jamie arrives I’ll crack open a bottle of wine, grab some beers for him and we can settle down on the sofa in the living room. After a few drinks we’ll be able to talk about the past without any recrimination or regrets, clear the air properly. I feel warm just thinking about it. Now that Jamie’s back everything will be different, I just know it.

  I wander into the living room and slump down on the sofa to wait for him. I switch on the telly and flick through the programmes I’ve saved on the Sky box. America’s Next Top Model, that will do, nice and mindless, and the idiocy of some of the girls always makes me laugh. They make walking up and down a room without falling over your own two feet sound as difficult as brain surgery sometimes. I sit back and start watching.

  Every few minutes I check the time, wondering when Jamie will appear. I miss having someone to confide in so much at times it physically stings. Before the whole Ed and Lainey debacle, I talked to Lainey several times a day, especially when I was feeling a bit low. She understood me better than anyone, always knew exactly what to say to make me feel better. In turn I was able to cheer her up when one of her sisters – Karen usually – had been teasing her or picking on her. Lainey is the quietest of the sisters and the most easy-going, but sometimes this means they take advantage of her good nature. I used to pull them up on this, but she has nobody to stick up for her now. I hope they aren’t bossing her around too much. I shouldn’t care, not after everything that’s happened, but she was part of my life for so many years it’s hard not to worry about her, even now.

  It’s amazing we ever became close. She’s the polar opposite of me – calm, patient, always sees things through. At school she always handed in her essays and projects on time and made sure I remembered too. While I was off travelling, Lainey was plodding through her accountancy exams, steady as she goes.

  She was brilliant at keeping in touch – always dropping me newsy emails about her course and what all her sisters were up to. There’s five of them in total and they’re all pretty close. There’s Karen of course, at thirty she’s the eldest, with a ‘going places’ barrister husband and two straight-out-of-a-Ralph Lauren-catalogue children; Tilly, twenty-nine, who runs her own company, Hot Cakes, making bespoke cakes and cupcakes with logos on them for things like launches and festivals. Tilly’s married to a banker but doesn’t have children as yet; she’s too busy building up her company. Then there’s Kia, who’s twenty-seven, single and great fun, a physio and probably my favourite of the clan apart from Lainey, who at twenty-four like me slots in next; and finally, Chloe, who at twenty-one is the baby of the family and is about to start her first job as a primary school teacher. If I ever felt lonely or sad, sitting in the Andersons’ kitchen with the bread maker almost permanently on the go and the daily cries of ‘who nicked my black tights/earphones/charger?’ always managed to banish my woes and make me feel part of something bigger than myself.

  Lainey and I met on the very first day of senior school and bonded over our mutual passion for Robbie Williams and Keanu Reeves – but only in black leather in the Matrix films. Over the years she weathered many storms with me, including the many Ed Powers hurricanes and tornadoes. I never once considered her lack of boyfriends strange – she always said she was waiting for the perfect man and, knowing what Lainey was like and how much patience she had, I believed her. It never occurred to me that Ed was her very own Robbie/Keanu.

  I’ve never admitted how kicked in the head, crucified and utterly stupid and blind I feel about the whole damn Ed and Lainey thing to anyone, not to Pandora and certainly not to Bird – and believe me, they’ve tried to drag it out of me. It’s all too overwhelming. I’m afraid if I start digging around, letting every-thing come bubbling up to the surface, I’ll start crying and I won’t be able to stop, ever. Or I’ll work myself into such a state, I’ll slip up and say something I’ll regret, let the past slither out and spread around my feet like an ugly oil slick.

  I’m hoping talking to Jamie will be different. He’ll understand when to push and when to just listen. He’ll understand because he knows – everything. He knows what it’s like to blame yourself when things go belly up. Because he’s been there too. But right now it looks as if he’s stood me up.

  I sit there for a few minutes, staring into space, feeling itchy with anger and disappointment, before pushing myself off the sofa and marching through the kitchen and into the pantry. I grab one of Dad’s bottles of wine and a glass, stomp back into the living room, pour myself a large drink, and settle back in front of the telly, grumpy to my bones. As one
of the models talks about her brush with breast cancer, I try to zone out, to think about something else, anything, but my mind is determined to rake up old memories today.

  I was eight, and Pandora was fourteen when Mum and Dad sat us down in the living room and told us the news. Our beautiful, vibrant, clever Mum had breast cancer, Dad said, but we weren’t to be worrying, the doctors had caught it nice and early and there was every chance that with treatment she’d be absolutely fine.

  ‘Of course I will,’ Mum had said brightly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. ‘I’m not going anywhere. And that’s a promise, girls.’ But there was sadness behind her big china-blue eyes. Mum looked like a model but had a razor-sharp mind, which confused people no end. When she opened her rosebud mouth, they always expected her to witter on about shopping or shoes, but she was more interested in the details of the latest budget. As Economics Editor at RTÉ, she was on the telly and radio almost every day, presenting her carefully researched news pieces on the current state of the nation. Mum was invincible, or so I thought.

  It was the ‘every chance’ that got me; I didn’t say anything at the time of course, didn’t want to say it out loud, make my worries real. But even at eight I knew ‘every chance’ meant there was also a possibility that she wouldn’t make it, that she would in fact die.

  Later that night I crept into Pandora’s bed. She was also wide awake. ‘Is Mum really going to be OK?’ I whispered.

  ‘I don’t know, Boolie. But you know Mum, she’s pretty determined.’

  I fell asleep there, warm and comforted beside my big sister.

  And Mum fought it all the way, until eventually, after a gruelling operation, and an intense bout of chemotherapy and radiotherapy she was given the all-clear. And life slowly went back to normal. Until almost a year later when Mum started getting crippling headaches and was rushed into hospital. Eventually, after a lot of tests, the doctors found cancer cells in her spine. This time the diagnosis was not so good.

  Mum insisted on telling us herself. Dad and Bird brought us into her hospital room and then Dad left. I don’t think he could bear to stay.

  ‘My darlings,’ Mum said, then broke off, her eyes welling up. She started sobbing, which set me and Pandora off. After a few minutes, Bird stepped in.

  ‘Kirsten, would you like me to tell them?’

  Mum nodded. ‘I can’t . . . I just can’t.’

  ‘I understand,’ Bird said gently. She turned to me and Pandora. ‘Your mum is very sick, girls. She’ll be coming out of hospital tomorrow, but to Sorrento House, not your own house, where your Dad and I will look after her. We’ll all live there, together, until, until . . .’ Bird stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together.

  ‘Until it’s my time,’ Mum added. ‘And we can spend lots of time together, as a family.’

  I looked at Pandora. She was biting the inside of her cheek, hard, trying not to cry. Our eyes met and I could see she was as scared as I was, which made me even more frightened. She blinked and then gave me a sad smile.

  ‘That sounds like a great idea, Mum,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll help Dad and Pandora pack everything we need. Don’t worry. You need all your energy for getting better.’

  Mum and Bird exchanged a look. Pandora stared out of the window.

  ‘Boolie,’ Mum said gently. ‘I’m not going to get better.’

  I forced out a smile. ‘’Course you are, Mum. Don’t be silly. You’re always saying you won’t let a stupid thing like cancer stop you, you’re Kirsten Schuster. You nearly brought the government down.’

  Mum just sat there, looking at me, tears streaming down her pale, waxy face. ‘Oh, my darling girl,’ she whispered. ‘My poor, darling girl. Come here.’

  She held out her arms and although it must have hurt her, hugged me tightly to her chest.

  Eleven days after being discharged, Mum died. Dad did his best but he was in pieces, overwhelmed by grief. He’d been devoted to Mum, she was his world. He was the only dad I’d ever heard of who had allowed his children to take their mum’s surname. Mum, an only child, was so determined not to be the ‘last’ Schuster in Ireland after Bird died that she made it a condition of their marriage. Ironic that. Fifteen years later, Bird’s still going strong.

  Dad was bad, but I was worse. I went catatonic, couldn’t eat or speak, let alone cry. I was afraid to sleep because of the terrifying nightmares involving being lost in black caves, or finding myself shut in tiny dark rooms. Bird was so worried about me she called Daphne in to try and talk to me. Jamie came along with her and the minute I saw him, I threw my arms around him and started to sob, finally able to let it all out. After that I started talking and eating again, but the nightmares lingered. Bird held us all together, fed us, and, after exactly one week of grieving, made sure Pandora and I went back to school. At the time I thought she was heartless, but now I see that getting us back into some kind of normal routine, surrounded by our friends, who didn’t know quite what to say but were all being very kind to us, sharing their lunches and having us over to play, was vital.

  After six months we were still living with Bird, and Dad seemed reluctant to move back to our empty house in Deansgrange. He said without Kirsten he just couldn’t face it. So with the help of some of his builder friends, he converted Sorrento House into two living spaces, creating a comfy apartment for Bird in the basement. He left his job making posh bespoke D4 kitchens, and with some of the proceeds from the house sale set up his own company – Wooden Monkey – selling and setting up climbing frames and swing sets, imported from Germany. It meant he could work from home and be around when we got in from school and Bird was out running the shop.

  To compensate for moving and as our Christmas presents – plus I think money was tight that year; Mum had been the main wage earner in the family – Dad offered to build me and Pandora something special. Pandora, ever practical, chose a walk-in wardrobe for her new bedroom, complete with state of the art lighting, but I had other plans. The main reason I was upset about moving from Deansgrange to Bird’s house in Dalkey, was because it meant leaving my beloved tree house behind. So Dad let me design a new one, even bigger, with real glass windows, a trap door and a fireman’s pole. And boy did he work hard, every evening, in the dark, to make sure it was ready for Christmas.

  On Christmas morning Bird put a big white ribbon on the door and made me cut it with pinking shears. And I spent most of the day up there, happy in my new palace for one.

  Exactly one year later, I climbed up the rope ladder, my arms filled with red damask curtains – Bird’s Christmas present to me that year, made from one of her old ball dresses – dying to hang them on the bamboo curtain rails Dad had rigged up. I found Jamie sitting on the makeshift sofa in the corner, his arms wrapped around his skinny legs, crying his heart out.

  ‘They’re at it again, Jules. Shouting.’

  I dropped the curtains on the floor and stared at him. ‘On Christmas Day?’

  He nodded and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. ‘Do you think they’ll get a divorce?’

  I sat down beside him. ‘No! They’re always arguing. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Suppose.’ He sniffed but the tears had stopped.

  ‘Do you want to see my Christmas presents? I could go and get them. I got a Selection Box. You can have the Crunchie, I know it’s your favourite. And any time they’re shouting you can hide in here, OK? You can even sleep here if you like. I don’t mind.’

  He smiled, his eyes still blurry. ‘Thanks, Jules.’

  And so it began. Jules and Jamie. Jamie and Jules. We shared everything, we had no secrets. I thought we’d be friends for ever, but I guess I was wrong.

  That night I fall quickly into a groggy sleep, helped by the second bottle of wine and a vodka nightcap. There’s always wine in the house. Mum used to be in this wine club that sent her a mixture of different bottles to try every month. Mum always swore by a few glasses of red at dinner, when she was actually home that
is; her job was horribly busy. Dad has never quite got around to cancelling the subscription, even though Bird reminds him the odd time, and the pantry is stacked with wine boxes. I’ve never really liked drinking alone, especially not at home, it’s always seemed wrong somehow, but the way the last few months have gone, I think I’m entitled to enjoy myself a little, even if it is on my own. And at the moment I don’t exactly have any friends to hang out with – Olaf takes up a lot of Rowie’s time and Pandora is a dead loss, she puts far too much energy into Shoestring to have any time for socializing or having fun – so drinking solo is the only option.

  In New Zealand, things were different. I was out pretty much every night. The bars close unreasonably early over there, so afterwards we’d always head to a club or back to someone’s house to continue drinking. I guess it’s different when you’re away, even if you have a full-time, proper nine to five job it’s not like ‘real’ work; you’re in permanent ex-pat party mode, whatever day of the week. And in Auckland, if you knew the right people – musicians, artists, the fashion pack, hairdressers (who love a good party on a Sunday) – you could pretty much party your way through the week, Monday to Sunday. So I did. When I got back to Ireland I guess the habit just stuck. And before all the Ed and Lainey hoo-ha, I had no problem persuading Lainey or one of her younger sisters to join me – Kia in particular loves a good night out. And if they weren’t free, they knew someone who was. But now I’m reduced to dancing with myself.

  In the middle of the night I wake up, my heart pounding and my body slick with sweat. Another nightmare. The image of a baby floats in front of my eyes. It’s lying face down at the bottom of what looks like an empty lift shaft, its tiny body grey and lifeless, blood seeping out of a gaping wound on its back and spreading slowly outwards, like ink on blotting paper. I rub my eyes with the heel of my hands and take a few deep breaths.

  Think of something else, I tell myself. Anything! So I focus on the beautiful Farenze dress, then I think about Jamie catching me in my underwear in the staffroom, Jamie lying about calling in, leaving me sitting there all night on my own. The back of my neck prickles. How dare he? Was he trying to prove a point? Or get back at me?