A highly unlikely name for a clothes shop, it prompted an unpleasant uncoiling sensation in the pit of Diane’s stomach each time it floated through her head. On the journey down, surrounded by passengers on mobile phones or listening to MP3 players, she’d tried, and failed, to visualise marching in and challenging the origins of the shop’s stock.
Too scary! She needed more time to gather herself and 11.30am didn’t strike her as the best time to confront the manager of a busy shop. She would wait until the other side of the lunch-hour and, meantime, explore this famous area of the capital city.
Soon she was absorbed in testing hand creams in Crabtree & Evelyn and drinking tiny samples of tea in Whittards, entering from The Piazza and accidentally leaving by the other door.
And there, on the other side of The Apple Market, hung the newly familiar words. The Monkee Box.
No! She wasn’t ready! Heart fluttering, she swung back towards The Piazza.
A street entertainer was preparing to walk a tight rope slung between two of the four enormous columns of St. Paul’s Church. Diane joined the crowd craning to see him try. But when, after quarter of an hour, all he’d done wastalk aboutwalking the tight rope, she detached herself from his audience in favour of a tour around the covered market hall, pausing to admire stalls full of glass and silver jewellery.
At the end of The Apple Market – no apples on sale, but prints of watercolours of London scenes and elegant jewellery that she eventually realised with astonishment was made from forks – she was drawn by the aroma of coffee. Her stomach gurgled. She checked her watch.
After queuing for ages, she then found it difficult to choose between creamy pasta dishes and exotically filled baguettes. Finally deciding on a parmesan chicken baguette, she got flustered trying to order cappuccino where she was meant to order food and then waiting for the food when she was supposed to move to where the food would be waiting for her. She somehow managed to order the cappuccino twice, but that, looking at the length of the queue behind her, was fortuitous, and she settled down at a table to enjoy her meal and watch over people’s heads as a man on a unicycle juggled bright blue clubs, coaching his audience to cheer, clap or boo on his cue.
After the meal – very nice – Diane followed her ears into the next hall and downstairs into the lower courtyard where a string quintet was simultaneously creating wonderful rousing music and causing gusts of laughter. Intrigued, Diane bought a glass of red wine and took one of the little green tables – well back, because it was evident that the musicians considered those in the front row to be targets, especially two polished women who giggled and tossed their expensive haircuts as the musicians stole sips of their champagne.
Diane resolved that one day she would buy champagne at Covent Garden – with money that she had earnedherself– and sip away the afternoon, laughing and clapping and tossing her hair.
At three, she could shelve the purpose of her visit no longer.
She ate a mint, used the public toilets and forced her anxious legs to carry her to The Monkee Box.
Although she had the garment Natalia had purchased with The Monkee Box and the astonishing sum printed on the receipt, it still seemed too incredible to Diane that something she’d made could sell here for £209. She half-expected that somehow there would prove to be some plausible explanation that would make her feel foolish, but relieved, and counting the cost of a wasted day.
Forcing her chin up, she made her way to where The Monkee Box was painted in yellow above a royal blue frontage. Inside the door, a young member of staff beamed at her. ‘Hi!’
‘Hi,’ responded Diane, politely.
‘If you need any help at all, please ask any member of staff.’ She had a slight, pretty accent, perhaps Scandinavian.
‘Thank you.’ Diane moved over to the first rail wondering if that poor little girl had to spend her working life parroting the same redundant phrase to everyone who wandered in. She must be nearly fainting from the monotony.
The shop was laid out on two floors, ground and basement. The clothes hung on simple chrome rails and Diane was soon engrossed in the ground-floor garments. The prices! £209 wasn’t unusual for a dress in The Monkee Box– which maybe should be renamed The Monee Box – and there were loads priced higher. And, astonishingly, although silk and linen were immensely popular, sometimes those prices were charged just for polyester. She couldn’t believe it.
The current fashion for unfinished seams and hems had apparently been readily embraced by The Monkee Box clientele, although a requirement for lavish detail did kind of balance that out so far as the work involved was concerned. Diane could see how her own brand of boho would fit right in here, the diaphanous layers, threaded cord, D rings, straps, sequins, lace, rick-rack, ribbon, dull buckles and gleaming eyelets. She drifted among the rails and down to the basement, almost forgetting her original purpose as she stored in her memory bank diagonal waists and big floppy bows.
As she studied a devoré skirt on a rail at the foot of the stairs something caught the corner of her eye. And there it was – a grey linen dress with pink ribbon executing a single twist each time it tacked from side to side of the garment. Snatching it up, she checked for the label and saw the familiar turquoise and yellow. And the price … £229.
Angrily, she flicked through the rails but found only one other garment, a red skirt with a black lacing and flick-up hem. She carried them upstairs and pre-empted an offer from a smiling member of staff to show her to the fitting room by announcing loudly, ‘I need to speak to the manager about the origins of these garments. Immediately.’
Like magic, an elliptical woman with skin of amber and a frizzy bun on the back of her head materialised. ‘Can I help?’
Diane held up the two garments that almost blurred before her eyes, she was shaking so much. ‘You can explain to me how my work makes its way onto your racks – as I don’t sell it to you.’
In seconds she was ushered to another door revealing another staircase, upwards this time, and the woman was settling her into a green leather chair and pouring coffee from a jug kept on a hotplate near the window, saying, ‘I’m Amelia Fountain, the manager. I’m astonished by what you’ve just said. Can you add detail?’
Amelia was short and dumpy and draped in a khaki angora shawl over a long linen dress in shades of mud and a silk scarf belt coloured like a sunset. Her hair looked as though it could be knitted from angora, too, and she had a sweet voice that seemed at odds with her forthright manner.
Still trembling, Diane laid the two garments over the pine table that served as a desk. ‘These are mine – at least, I designed and made them. I sold them to Rowan Chater at Rowan’s in Peterborough for sale in his shop.’
Amelia nodded, her elbows out and her hands laid one on top of the other on the table in front of her. ‘There can be no mistake? Similar garments? Copies?’
‘None. My garments. My labels. My stitching.’
Amelia nodded again, thoughtfully, reaching to finger the pink ribbon as if it might tell her its secrets. Her gaze was direct. ‘Are you accusing this company of shady dealings?’
‘I don’t know. Are they shady?’
