He got the idea for it while we were on a weekend break in Morocco and I was souvenir shopping in one of the souks. Not for myself – or at least notonlyfor myself – but for everyone back home. I have always prided myself on being an excellent buyer of gifts. It’s a knack and I genuinely love it. Even as a teenager, I was the one people phoned when they didn’t have a clue what to buy someone for Christmas.That night in our hotel room, as I happily unpacked teapots, embroidered cushions, slippers and trinkets, Ed said, ‘Youreallyshould do this for a living.’
It was a throwaway comment, but over the next few months the idea took hold. I spent hours every evening writing down ideas in notebooks and scouring other independent shops for inspiration. He looked into securing investors and investigated leasing a unit in Brixton, as well as buying the domain for ‘Jules Loves’. He came up with the name. I found it a bit cringey and self-indulgent myself, but he was insistent. Our gift store would be a cornucopia of the elegant and the quirky, the strange and the beautiful, packed with things that quite simply set my heart alight.
Our plans were thrown into disarray when I fell pregnant with Frankie. Her arrival turned our world upside down in the best possible way and changed Ed in ways I’d never envisaged possible. He’d been a workaholic before then. Now, for all the hours that he spent at his desk, there were more spent teaching his daughter to swim or taking her to karate lessons. We married when Frankie was four years old and stole the show during our first dance to ‘God Only Knows’by the Beach Boys, when she performed ‘Gangnam Style’ instead. In our twenty years together, we had the odd sticky moment, but overwhelmingly, Ed and I justworked. As friends, as parents, as two people who were completely in love.
Till death do us part.
Chapter 6
Reminiscing about the early days with Ed doesn’t do a thing to help my insomnia – quite the opposite. When I fail to feel even slightly drowsy, I drag myself downstairs to lie in front of the TV. After idly flicking around, I stumble upon the entire five seasons ofAlly McBealon Channel 4. I press play and the opening bars of the theme tune take me right back to the late 1990s. Oh, those were the days. I wrap myself in a warm blanket of nostalgia and settle in.
The next thing I know, I am jolting upright at the sound of my phone and look up at the window. It’s morning and I must have drifted off at some point. Rubbing my eyes, I grab my mobile and find a text from Jeff.
‘I AM DYING.’
‘I assume you are referring to a hangover?’
‘I think if I actually had a terminal illness, it would merit more than a three-word message. What are you up to today?’
My first job of the weekend will be to blitz Frankie’s bedroom, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Even as a teenager, I was never as messy and chaotic as she is: my dad used to jokingly call her room The Temple of Doom.
I head upstairs to her attic conversion, bracing myself for what I’ll find. She assured me she’d tidy up before we left, but it’s fair to say that her definition is different from mine. I must stress that it’s not that my daughter isn’tclean. On the contrary, she can stand in the shower for hours before emerging like Bonnie Tyler out of a dry ice machine.
But, as I attempt to open the door it gets wedged on something that turns out to be a sweater. I push again and I stumble into a scene I’ve seen a thousand times before, the sort that suggests an angry bear has been trapped inside, fighting off a swarm of wasps.
There are empty cups, hair products and album sleeves on the floor. The duvet is scrunched up at the end of the bed. I pick up a pair of jeans, with underwear rolled up inside a leg, and throw it in the basket, before closing three drawers. I hadn’t planned to spend the whole of Saturday morning cleaning Frankie’s room, but manage to potter about in it for hours. By the time I’ve finished, the en suite smells like a Tuscan lemon grove, the clothes are neatly away and the bedding stripped. I sit down on the end of the bed and should feel pleased by this, in the same way I get that weird, Kondo-esque endorphin high when I’ve reorganised the fridge.
But all I can think about is how there is no music being played too loudly anymore. No girls sleeping over, squealing with laughter as they learn dance routines. Nobody now needs me to drop everything to give lifts, or help with homework, or rescue a favourite shirt after a ketchup spillage. It is organised, clean, quiet. And I’ve never felt so empty.
My phone beeps and when I pick it up, I discover a message from Frankie.
‘Sorry it’s taken this long to text. Phone battery is rubbish! X’
My relief on hearing from her has an immediate effect on the knots in my gut, even if I am fully aware that the fault here is unlikely to be with her device. Frankie has spent the last few years losing it, forgetting to charge it, or cracking its screen in various inventive ways. Accumulated, I must have devoted weeks of my life to rummaging down the back of sofas, walking the streets like we’re undertakinga police search or negotiating with roller-coaster staff at Alton Towers after it once flew out of her pocket at 160mph (she didn’t see the signs, apparently). She’s not even particularly big on social media – although she’s on TikTok, that’s primarily so she can spend hours scrolling through other people’s videos rather than posting anything interesting herself.
‘I??Paris!’ says another message that arrives before I can respond. ‘I feel like I’m in a movie. Look at this! x’
The picture is a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower in which my daughter is pulling a goofy face, while Milly looks at her sideways with a faintly disapproving smile. I notice the whistle around my daughter’s neck and the tension between my shoulder blades begins to thaw a little more.
‘How was your journey? What’s the hostel like? Do you want me to look online for a phone shop you could go to tomorrow to get the battery checked? What about—’
I pause. And breathe. I delete it all and instead write: ‘Great photo! Glad it’s all going well x’
She responds immediately.
‘I hear you had a late night at Uncle Jeff’s. Did the two of you do your “Walk Like an Egyptian” routine like at Christmas? LOL’
I realise my brother must have been in touch, to nag her into saving me from my next nervous breakdown.Thank you, Jeff.
‘Also, I meant to say in the car – I did start tidying my room but ran out of time and it might not be up to your standards. If you do go in while I’m away . . . don’t hate me.’
‘Don’t worry about it. All sorted x’
‘Thank you Mum. Sorry! xxx’
‘It’s fine. Love you lots. Have a fun night and remember to charge that phone! x’
I lie back on the bed and sink into the pillow, gazing at the ceiling for a few moments before I hear another beep. I pick it up hoping for another text, but instead find a Facebook memories notification.
