The Poka Dot Shop

by Laurel Remington

  ‘What was it like there?’ I say.

  ‘It was a different world,’ he says. ‘I owned a café in Saint Germain-des-Prés on the Left Bank. And Hélène was more than just a model – she was a muse. For some of the greatest designers of her time. Christian Lacroix, Guy Paulin, Thierry Mugler, Angelo Tarlazzi, Jean Paul Gaultier . . . they called her “La Belle Hélène”.’

  ‘The Beautiful Hélène,’ I say.

  ‘But she started to become ill, and then her brother’s death – it all came very suddenly. I knew we had to get away – start again. A new life. We found the old theatre, and she had an idea to start a fashion school. A place to foster the next generation of designers. She had bad days – days when she had trouble believing in her dream. But mostly the theatre gave her hope. Hope for the future.’

  ‘Thomas told me about the school,’ I say. ‘I mean, it sounds great and all. But it would be really difficult to open a school.’

  He nods. ‘You are right. It would have been very difficult. But I was not afraid of that. I would have done anything to make the vision real for her. Unfortunately, the cancer had other plans.’

  He takes out a handkerchief and dabs a tear from his eye. Instead of turning away embarrassed, I put my hand on his arm to comfort him.

  ‘She sounds like a very special person,’ I say.

  ‘Special, yes.’ His eyes glitter. He puts his hand on mine and squeezes it. Then he takes a step away, still looking around him with awe.

  ‘But you never went through with the plan.’

  ‘No. I couldn’t. In that way she was right. I couldn’t do it – after she was gone. And yet, Andrea, so many times, I wish I had done so. It would have been a testament to her – to her memory. I suppose that’s why I kept it all these years – I was being sentimental. But Thomas is right. I have thought from time to time about moving back to Paris. Maybe it would have been for the best.’

  ‘I understand.’

  And I do understand, in a way, at least. But now that he’s here, I feel like there’s an elephant in the room sitting on my chest and squashing me. What now? What next?

  He turns back to me and I realize that I’ve voiced my questions aloud.

  ‘Andrea,’ he says, ‘I do not know what the future holds. For me, there are reasons to leave, but perhaps’ – he pauses for a long time, then suddenly looks in the direction of Mum’s shop – ‘there are also reasons to stay. But what I do know is that you and Thomas have transformed this place. It is exactly what I once pictured in my mind.’

  ‘It is? You mean . . .’ I let out a pent-up breath. ‘You’re not mad at us?’

  He smiles sadly. ‘You and Thomas are young, as Hélène and I were once. Tell me more about this “vision” of yours.’

  So I do.

  It’s weird, I think, as I stand alone in the centre of the theatre an hour later. Weird how the universe has a way of making what’s supposed to happen happen, even if it seems impossible. Stevie would probably have some kind of scientific explanation for it – string theory or the Higgs Boson or wrinkles in the time-space continuum or something – but right now, it’s just kind of doing my head in. In a good way . . . for once.

  Mr LeBoeff listened. He didn’t talk, he just let me talk. That was pretty weird – also in a good way. I didn’t feel like I was thirteen, just like I was a person with an idea, and the energy to make it work. I found myself telling him about my newest idea – one that I haven’t even shared with my friends or Thomas.

  The idea is that we could turn the dressing rooms into studios that design students from the college could use. They could sell their designs in the shop rather than on a market stall – it would all be very cutting edge. The shop would have consignment, vintage, new designer fashion, and I even voice aloud another thought I had – about turning Mum’s shop back into a café and fashion bookstore. The shop would become a place where people would want to come from all over to visit. We don’t need a gym and a yoga studio to transform this end of the high street. We can do it ourselves.

  Mr LeBoeff had wandered around the vast space, not speaking. But when he’d turned back to me, his eyes were bright.

  ‘Come with me.’ He’d gestured for me to follow him.

  And once again I’d found myself following a member of the LeBoeff family backstage in the old theatre. He unlatched a small door that I hadn’t noticed before. Instead of leading to a dressing room, it led to a set of stairs going down into blackness.

  He flipped a switch and a bare bulb lit up at the bottom of the stairs. I followed him down the narrow, rickety staircase. And when I reached the bottom, it was my turn to gasp . . .

  At first I imagined that I’d stumbled on some kind of weird Madame Tussauds chamber of horrors or something. But upon a second look, I saw that the vast space was full of mannequins – headless white torsos without arms or legs, each with a number stamped on it to indicate the size.

  The rest of the room was full of chrome racks, long tables, chairs, stage lights, and bits of old scenery and props. One corner of the room held a muddled mass of cables and electrical wires, looking like coiled snakes in the dim, flickering light.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  ‘Under the stage,’ Mr LeBoeff said. ‘As you can see, Hélène and I had done some work to put our plan into action. A friend of a friend was closing down an atelier in London. We bought everything and had it shipped here. Carrying it down the stairs was extra,’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘It’s – amazing.’

  ‘We bought it with the school in mind. But it should work perfectly well for you to expand the shop.’ He pointed to the clothing racks and mannequins. ‘And if you can put them to use, then please do so.’

  I’d stared at him in disbelief. ‘But you could sell them. Get money for them. Shop fittings are expensive. I . . . I couldn’t pay you.’

  He shook his head. ‘For me, Andrea, it is not about the money. Use them to help your mother. Make your dream happen. And God bless you.’ The tears were back in his eyes. ‘It is what Hélène would have wanted. I couldn’t do it. But you can.’

  It seemed like some kind of bizarre dream where I’d woken up and become Cinderella, with a fairy godfather – a Frenchman who owns a chippie. I climbed the stairs and started babbling again about my ideas.

  ‘We can make it just like a real . . . what do you call it – a-tell-i-er?’ I said.

  ‘Atelier,’ he corrected me.

  ‘Clients can come into the studios and see their clothing being made. And in the main shop, each designer will have their little space – like in the Great British Bake Off tent. There will also be a place for the vintage consignment stuff – that’s Mum’s territory.’

  ‘Yes,’ he enthused. ‘You must not overlook the wonderful innovation of the past. The great designers that are the foundation of everything that came after – what we call modern.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ I said. ‘Like Hélène’s things—’

  I broke off, worried that I’d put my foot in it again. Because in all my blathering, there was one little thing I’d held back. One little important thing. The fact that I had sold the polka-dot dress that belonged to Hélène, and that Thomas was giving me some of her handbags and shoes to sell to get money for the paint and renovations.

  I looked over at Mr LeBoeff. His smile didn’t falter, and for a second I thought I’d got away with it.

  ‘Ah yes, Hélène’s things.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Some of them are very valuable – one-of-a-kind pieces.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I squawked.

  ‘It is another thing that I have not been able to face in all these years. It was a comfort, I suppose, to hold on to them.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘It is a waste to have it as it is now. She would not have wanted it that way. Her things should be seen, worn – loved, as they once were.’

  ‘Well, the shop would be perfect for that,’ I say in a small voice. ‘I mean
, you’d get the money and everything.’ I think about the conversation I had with Thomas about the ‘split’. If I were to sell Hélène’s things at the shop, I’d do it for nothing. I’d do it as a labour of love.

  He laughed. ‘You will need money to go ahead with your plans. You may have a vision, but without more it will never come to anything. I will keep a few of her things. Things that are special to me. But you must sell the rest and take a percentage. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Um, I think so.’ I forced a note of doubt into my voice. ‘If you’re sure . . .’

  ‘I think the time has come,’ he said. ‘So, yes . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘I am sure.’

  ‘That’s great – I mean, thank you so much,’ I said, feeling overcome by his generosity. But he didn’t seem to hear me. He stared across the expanse of the theatre but his eyes were far away. Was he picturing his wife here, as they’d planned all along? A last glimpse of the woman he had married, in her beautiful clothes, before things went all wrong?

  Or was he thinking about the future and what we could create here?

  ‘Um, there is one thing . . .’ I said quietly, not sure if I was disturbing him. ‘Mum will want to know about the business arrangements. I mean, you own all this and she has just a little corner.’

  He shook his head, still half in his own world. ‘Of course, when she returns, I will speak to Eliza.’ For a second, a light went into his eyes and I wondered . . . but no. There couldn’t be anything between him and Mum. I mean . . . could there? They’re both about the same age, and as he’d said before, they’re shop neighbours. I wonder if Thomas has noticed anything . . .

  ‘But in the meantime,’ he continued, ‘this project belongs to you and Thomas. I will trust you both to do what is fair.’

  We’d left it at that – shaking hands, and me promising to give him a copy of the business plan I’d written for school, and let him know if I needed anything. He’d gone out through the velvet curtain, still muttering to himself. I stayed in the theatre for a while longer, standing in the centre of the room, visualizing exactly what I wanted to do. Then I walked through the archway to Mum’s shop to see if Stevie and Carrie were still there. They weren’t – they must have left when I was down looking at the mannequins. I checked my watch – I really needed to go as well so I wouldn’t be late to dinner at Stevie’s. As I was walking back across the theatre, I heard a noise in the corridor at the back.

  Footsteps.

  My heart beats faster. Even though I’ve made things right with Mr LeBoeff – something we should have done weeks ago – I just know that Thomas is going to be mad. I’ve betrayed his ‘secret’ to his uncle. It seemed to go well, but he may not see it that way.

  The curtain parts. The person who comes through is tall with streaked orange and blonde hair. Not Thomas.

  Jolanta.

  The one person I wasn’t expecting, and yet, the one person who might be able to provide the final missing piece.

  ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

  ‘H i, Jolanta, how’s it going?’ I give her a friendly smile.

  She looks surprised to see me – and not in a good way. ‘I was looking for your mum,’ she says. ‘To make sure she is OK. But no one’s at the shop. I saw the door open here. I thought Thomas might be—’ Her eyes move around the room and settle on the knocked-down wall. ‘Oh, Andy, what have you done?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ I mean to continue with an apology, but the next thing out of my mouth is: ‘How do you know Thomas?’

  She laughs – obviously she can tell that I’m jealous. I hold my breath, expecting her to tease me. But to her credit, she doesn’t.

  ‘He came to the shop a while back,’ she says. ‘He asked me to come over and take a look at his aunt’s things. He wanted to know if they were valuable.’ She shakes her head. ‘I had never seen anything like them before. So . . . amazing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘They are.’

  She gives me a sideways glance, and for a second I’m sure she’s on to me and the fact that I took the white bag. If she saw the bag, she might well have recognized the things for what they were.

  ‘But what are you doing here, Andy?’ she says. ‘And what happened to the wall?’

  I decide then and there that I’m going to tell her. My problem with Jolanta before was that I felt jealous of how close she was to Mum. But having her on-side could be a major bonus.

  ‘I’m fixing up Eliza’s Emporium,’ I say. ‘I’m going to turn it into something really special.’

  ‘You?’ she frowns. ‘Where’s Eliza?’

  ‘Mum’s, um . . . away,’ I say. ‘Having a break. She needed to get some perspective on things. The shop was failing before – that’s why she let you go.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Anyway, what I’m doing is a surprise. I’m giving the shop a makeover. Thomas is helping me, and some other friends are helping too. Mr LeBoeff – he knows about it. And actually . . .’ I take a breath. ‘I have a business proposition for you too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I stammer on with telling her my plan. ‘I was wondering if you – and some of the other students at the fashion college – might need studio space. And a place to sell your designs.’ I outline my idea. Her expression goes from one of thought, to disbelief, to interest.

  ‘And you think this could work – this idea you have?’ Doubt seems to be the force that wins out.

  ‘I don’t see why not. We’d be selling vintage, but also new designs. The best of old and new.’

  She laughs then, but not in a mean way. ‘How old are you, Andy?’ she says.

  ‘Thirteen,’ I say proudly.

  To my surprise, Jolanta nods. ‘That is how old I was when I came to this country,’ she says. ‘I know that thirteen is old enough to do many things. Transform a shop?’ She shrugs. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d really like to have you on board, Jolanta,’ I say. ‘I know you liked working here – liked working for Mum.’

  ‘Your mum is a very good person. She is also talented, and knows very much. It made me angry before – that you didn’t seem to appreciate that.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ I realize that she’s right. I’ve never consciously thought of Mum as ‘talented’. Just another thing I overlooked because it was right under my nose. ‘And you’re right, I should have done. But hopefully, it’s not too late.’

  Jolanta doesn’t answer but she nods her head. To me, that’s enough.

  As I walk back to Stevie’s house, my mind feels like a cauldron about to bubble over. I’m glad Jolanta didn’t say my idea was rubbish – and it would be good to have her help. But the worries are there too, waiting in the shadows. What about Mum? What about Thomas? What is fair? Am I going to fail? Will Thomas ever forgive me? Will Mum?

  When I reach Stevie’s house, I hear laughter coming from inside. Someone – Carrie? – says: ‘Come on, one more go – you can do it!’ Clapping in rhythm. An almighty groaning sound.

  I’m almost afraid to go inside, but I live here for now, so I don’t have much choice. I get the key from under the mat and let myself in. I open the door. In the front room, the coffee table and sofa have been pushed to one side and there’s a contraption there like the parallel bars that men do flips on in the Olympics. Stevie’s wheelchair is positioned between the bars. Carrie is bent down on the floor by Stevie’s feet, and behind her, helping to keep her lifted out of the chair – is Thomas. I watch as Carrie helps her move her left foot forward. Stevie’s skinny arms wobble as she tries to keep herself upright. Thomas grips her by the waist. It’s painful to watch as Stevie moves her left foot a few centimetres, and drags her other foot forward. Thomas lets go for a second. ‘You can do it!’ Carrie says.

  ‘Arrugh!’ Stevie cries out.

  ‘You’re doing great!’ I yell.

  Thomas turns round and sees me. Stevie yelps and falls back on her bottom into the chair.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, as everyone glares
at me. ‘Sorry for interrupting.’

  ‘Andy!’ Stevie says. ‘I’m doing it. I’ve taken three steps! All by myself.’ She glances at Thomas and her face turns tomato red. ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ I say. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Get down and guide her right foot,’ Thomas says.

  ‘But I’m knackered,’ Stevie says.

  ‘You wanted to take five steps,’ Thomas says firmly. ‘So that’s two more, Einstein. Now let’s get cracking.’

  ‘One foot in front of the other,’ Carrie cheers. ‘That’s all you have to do!’

  ‘That’s all?!’ Stevie gasps as she tries to lift herself out of the chair. I crouch down as Thomas helps steady her as best he can. Her left leg is shaking as she tries to put weight on it. I grip her right ankle. ‘One, two, three . . .’ I give a tug and she judders forward.

  ‘OK, now left,’ Thomas directs.

  Stevie takes another step and this time, remains standing for almost a whole second by herself before teetering backwards. The three of us help her into her chair.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ I say, giving her a hug. I turn to Thomas. ‘Thank you.’

  For a second he stares at me, his smile brief. ‘My pleasure, Andy.’ His eyes are almost black as they hold mine. In that one tiny moment, the whole world seems to shimmer and spin except for him – solid and real – right in front of me.

  ‘Now,’ Carrie says, ‘who’d like something to eat?’

  The moment passes. I go to the kitchen and help Carrie finish making dinner – a big pot of spaghetti, tomato sauce and salad. When the food is ready, we all sit down around the table to brainstorm ideas for the shop.

  ‘I think we need a new name,’ I say. ‘Eliza’s Emporium is just so . . . tired.’

  ‘But what about your mum?’ Carrie says. ‘Won’t she be upset if you change it?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Her pointing it out gives me a little flash of guilt.

  ‘You’ve knocked out a whole wall and got rid of half of her precious stock,’ Stevie says. ‘I think the name is the least of her worries.’

  ‘I agree,’ Thomas says. ‘New start – new name. You’ll also need a really hip logo.’