Daisy Tate - Do You Really Want to Yurt Me?

She didn’t need to know Japanese to absorb the fact that the shop needed rejuvenating. Fresh paint. A new presentation style. Gallery lighting rather than the filament bulbs they’d all been obsessed with back in the day. Lighting she should have installed in the first place because she had always hoped, one day, to ease out the money-spinning T-shirts and start showing her own more high-end designs. Designs she simply didn’t have the resources to make any more. Funny T-shirts that no one seemed to want – or that weren’t funny?

The Japanese squad headed towards the door. ‘The #Impeach hoodies are half price!’ Freya called out.

They left without a second glance.

She should’ve moved to the shop opposite the Amy Winehouse statue when she’d had the chance. The rent was astronomical, but the footfall would’ve had her back in the black in no time.

She stared at her empty shop, then dropped her head into her hands and moaned as another ‘where is …?’ text popped through from Monty.

One week. It was all she was asking for. One week without being responsible for anything other than enjoying her family. Lazing about by the seaside. Eating burnt sausages. Foraging for seafood suppers. Board games in the tent if it poured down with rain. They were, after all, going to Wales.

The empty shop was soul-destroying. Particularly after Charlotte’s text from last week. How, after only two months of ‘dabbling’, Charlotte had managed to turn Lady V’s ‘micro-business’ into the talk of West Sussex … Charlotte was glowing in the Waitrose Weekend article, even if it did look as though Venetia had forced her into posing alongside her. If Freya had any money, she’d ask Charlotte to her shop and get her consultancy advice. Wookies ❤ WonderWomen sleeveless vests weren’t really bringing home the bacon any more. Had she lost sight of her customer base? Had she lost sight of everything?

Blanking the piles of T-shirts that needed stock-taking, the invoices that needed tending to and the lack of customers, ignoring the piles of t-shirts that needed stock taking, the stacks of invoices, the lack of customers, Freya glared at her mobile, willing Monty to make good on something – for both of their sakes. She knew he did a lot of juggling between looking after the kids and her and, of course, the finances, but maybe it was time they had a proper sit-down and talked about moving on from Instagram portraiture. It had yet to reel in a solitary pound coin with which he might then be able to do the ruddy shopping.

Just last night, Freya had pulled Monty down to the bottom of the garden and not so subtly suggested he start pulling his discarded projects out of the loft and putting them on eBay. Regan could benefit from extra violin tuition judging by the last week’s concert, Felix’s school trip kept rearing its ugly head on the ParentPay website. She didn’t want her children to go without because their father might fancy making probiotic yoghurt again. Or because you can’t face up to things either , whispered the little voice in her head.

He’d started to say something about his parents and she’d cut him short. No loans. He was a grown man. It was time to start behaving like one.

Her erstwhile assistant Fallon flounced into the shop in a cloud of tonka bean and myrrh, fresh from a flirting session with the chap who sold upcycled ‘art’ a few shops up the cobbled lane.

‘OMG. Total tomb in here. It’s buzzing everywhere else.’

Freya resisted making a narky comment about hubcap sconces. ‘Just nipping out for a second.’

‘I thought you wanted to stock-take.’

She opened her mouth, about to launch into an oft-rehearsed speech. Freya wanted a lot of things. Financial stability. A job that afforded more creativity than exploiting unicorns and Star Wars characters. A son who didn’t have to worry about whether or not he could have a fun wee trip with his school friends. Peace on earth. She bit her tongue.

‘Back in a mo.’

She wove her way through the crowds, past the four-hundred-odd competing vendors, and made a quick stop at her guilty pleasure, the Himalayan Coffee Man stall. (Guilty, because she’d given Monty a right earful about spending money on ridiculously overpriced coffees the other day.) Her pace slowed as she reached Camden Canal, found a bench and pulled out her phone. They were off camping tomorrow and they would have fun if it killed her.

M – if you can’t find pound, please could you finishing packing? Most stuff in roof box already … These for back of the car. NB: leave room for dog.

Sleeping bags (airing in Regan’s room)

Inflater thingy that plugs into car (shed)

Tent pegs (Think they somehow got mixed up with Christmas decorations, check red box by tree stand)

Ground cloth

Fly sheet (the waterproof thing that goes on top)

Folding camping chairs (not the blue one, it’s broken)

Knives (the one with the brown handle and the one with the jagged edge)

Playing cards

Spatula (the one that gets right under the pancakes)

Cool boxes (air please, and if there’s mould in them make sure you wipe with the non-toxic spray not bleach)

Get children to pack BEFORE they hit Netflix otherwise no bargaining chip.

O ne onesie each – but not the ones Nanna B gave them this last Christmas. xxF

Freya stared at the email before pressing send. It didn’t read quite as jauntily as she’d hoped. Frankly it was downright bossy, but she knew how Monty’s brain worked. Attention span of a gnat when it came to things like packing. Her mind drifted to her feminista tank-top collection. One slogan in particular pinged out. I’m not with him, he’s with me. It hadn’t been selling all that well either. Was she crushing Monty with the weight of her dreams at the expense of his? She looked at the phone again and tacked on a quick:

PS – make sure you take a portrait of yourself! Fxx

‘I don’t want to go to school!’ Luna pushed her bowl of cereal away, her accompanying wail leaving no doubt as to how she felt about the matter.

‘C’mon Booboo. There’s rules about this sort of thing.’ Izzy shifted tack. ‘Can’t have you turning out a surf bum like your old moms, eh? Anyway, I’ve gotta go out and find a new way to keep you in Honey Nut Loops, yeah?’

Luna pulled Bonzer up onto her lap, her little eyebrows scrunching up tight. ‘I liked our old life.’

Izzy had too. Once.

‘I know Looney. But life comes in all different shapes and sizes and we’re trying on a new one. C’mon. Bonzer loves walking to school.’

‘No he doesn’t! He hates it too.’ Izzy’s daughter blinked away her tears, the tightly cuddled, increasingly large Bonzer masking the bulk of her expression. ‘The other kids won’t make friends with me.’

Izzy’s heart contracted. Sugar.

She knew that feeling. Thanks to her own mother’s wandering ways, she’d been in more than her share of new schools. She’d played the chameleon to make things easier, hence the weird accent. It had worked to an extent, but she hadn’t wanted that life for Luna. It was one of the reasons why she’d set up the surf school. Best-laid plans and all that.

She gave her head a scrub, trying to clear away yesteryear so that she could focus on the here and now.

School.

Mrs Jones, the head teacher at Luna’s new school, had seemed lovely; an experienced, Welsh earth-mother who’d welcomed Luna with open arms.

‘You can tell the other pupils all about what Hawaii is like. I don’t think we’ve ever had a child who’s lived on an island in the Pacific before, how exciting!’

Izzy had convinced herself that the wonderful Mrs Jones and Luna’s equally nice teacher would make everything all right, while she went about the increasingly urgent task of finding a job.