Playing Her Cards Right. Rosa Temple
Anthony coming back to my Holland Park flat evoked too many memories of the times I spent there with my ex, Hugo. We were having dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the King’s Road when our number one topic, the house hunt, came up again.
‘Why not find a place around here?’ I asked Anthony. ‘It’s pretty cool in this area and I think we could just about afford somewhere nice.’
And just like that we decided – south-west London it was.
As I said, Anthony popped back to London from Italy whenever he could while working on the commission: a series of landscapes in his signature bold colours for a filthy-rich, Italian film producer. I missed Anthony like mad when he was out of the country but I had a lot to keep me occupied at home.
Once or twice I managed a trip to Italy and whenever we were together we couldn’t get enough of each other. It was like a first date every time I saw Anthony. We had non-stop sex. I mean non-stop to the point of needing a vagina transplant kind of sex. I can’t tell you the number of times Anthony almost missed his flight back to Italy.
But, as luck would have it, we found the perfect place for us. Our two-bedroom house in Chelsea, whose outer walls were painted dusky pink, sat halfway up a lazy, terraced mews. We woke to the sound of traffic on the busy King’s Road, even though the mews itself was extremely quiet and two streets away from the main road. Each cottage-style house in the mews was painted in a dusky shade of blue, yellow, pink, or red. It was like moving into a posh rainbow.
Despite a bid to shake off our past, as in our exes, there was one thing I brought with me when I moved out of my Holland Park flat – my gorgeous red sofa. I couldn’t imagine life without it. I had once pledged to wear it into the ground. Anthony was happy for it to move in, too. My one regret about the new house was not having a walk-in wardrobe any more. But there were two bedrooms in the new place. All I needed to do was get some clothes rails and, voilà, a walk-in wardrobe was born.
‘What if we have a guest?’ Anthony asked.
‘Well they either sleep hanging from a clothes rail or we pay for their taxi home.’
‘So no guests, then?’ he said. I didn’t answer; at the time I was too busy staring into my new wardrobe and marvelling at how much more space there was, thinking: Maybe I could put up a hat shelf. There was certainly room for a few more than I already had.
It was almost winter once we’d settled into our new house.
One Saturday, with an icy breeze that had turned the tips of our noses pink, Anthony and I insisted on a long, early morning walk to take in the area. We set out in thick jackets and beanie hats. I had my arm wrapped around Anthony’s waist and his hugged my shoulder.
‘This looks like a nice place.’
‘Looks good to me,’ Anthony said. ‘And I’m starving.’
We were on the King’s Road – a few streets away from the house – and the café bar we’d stumbled across was called Rhythm ’n’ Brews. There were oversized vinyl records in the window, the exterior was painted dark green, and a smart-looking crowd was occupying the tables in what looked like a pretty casual and relaxing place.
The smell of coffee was more than welcome and so was the music. Jazz and breakfast. A great combination in my opinion. I’d grown up listening to my father’s soul and jazz collection so walking into Rhythm ’n’ Brews felt like walking into the massive kitchen diner of my childhood home.
Anthony and I sat at a table by the window and started salivating over the endless menu.
‘What should we have?’ I said. ‘A Bird in the Bap? A Thelonious Hunk of Oatmeal? A Chet Baked Bagel?’
We thought it was so genius to name the whole menu after jazz and R&B heroes that we decided to work our way through the entire list of breakfast and brunch goodies on a weekly basis. It became our Saturday ritual.
Whereas I used to spend Saturday mornings with my personal trainer, running laps of Holland Park, once we’d discovered this divine little café on a corner of the King’s Road, Anthony and I would sit and stuff our faces there Saturday after Saturday, reading a newspaper or book and catching up on everything we didn’t manage to say to each other during the week.
When the nice weather came back around there were tables and chairs outside. But during the cold transition from autumn to winter in those early months of moving to Chelsea we’d huddle around a little table by the window, always the same one if we could, hands around a hot cup of coffee to keep them warm.
Back then I’d noticed, on the corner opposite Rhythm ’n’ Brews, a shoe shop, which also sold handbags and leather gloves, called Veronique’s. I wasn’t sure if that was the owner’s name but the delicate woman with black hair and white streaks like a zebra looked like a Veronique. Veronique’s was sophisticated: a made to measure type of place. Very few people went there and the styles were quite classic, nothing trendy but stylish and extremely top end.
I loved looking at the wooden exterior of Veronique’s from our table at Rhythm ’n’ Brews. There was something quaint about it. A little bell above the door would alert the owner who appeared as if from nowhere to greet her customers.
‘What are you staring at?’ Anthony asked me once. ‘You’re not after more shoes are you?’
I laughed. I had a healthy appetite for clothes and shoe shopping but I hadn’t had much time for it with work and everything.
‘No, I just love the look of that shop,’ I said. ‘The brickwork on that part of the street is different. I don’t know – there’s just something about it. I was just admiring the handbags. I think when I’m older, and hopefully more sophisticated, I’ll shop in there.’
‘Do you think it will last?’ asked Anthony. ‘Shops like that tend to be the first to close. It reminds me of the shop my dad had when Shearman used to be A Shearman Leather Designs. That had to close down in the recession.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But sometimes a business like that can be lucky. I hope she is.’
Veronique, as I chose to call the owner, was always dusting the shelves and she fell over herself if any sophisticated ladies happened to walk in.
‘Maybe what she needs,’ said Anthony, touching my hand and stirring me from my reverie, ‘is a bright and breezy, business-minded person with an eye for leather goods to infuse some new ideas into it.’
‘No, I hope she lasts just the way she is,’ I said, resting my chin on my hand. ‘What do you think of the idea of me diversifying and selling handbags along with the man bags at Shearman?’
‘What – and blow Veronique out of the water?’
‘No, I’d be after a different target group so I wouldn’t be direct competition – not really. The man bags are doing great and Harrods have given me more shelf space so … I don’t know, maybe expanding isn’t the best idea.’ I shook my head and giggled. ‘But you know how I love my handbags.’
‘Any more “must haves” and we’ll need a third bedroom.’
We left shortly after, arm in arm as usual. I crossed over to Veronique’s and peered into the window. I stopped there often on my way back from work just to see how Veronique had arranged the shop but this time I dragged Anthony along. He was all fidgety and wanted to go home but just then I noticed the handbag of my dreams. Anthony noticed me notice it, too.
‘No you don’t,’ he said, pulling me off towards our mews. ‘You told me to stop you spending on clothes and accessories until we could afford to have the downstairs redecorated.’
‘I’ll paint the downstairs myself. I must have that bag.’ I tried to drag him back to the window but Anthony scooped me up in a fireman’s lift and carried me towards home.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said, feeling my Ella Fitzburger brunch threatening to resurface. ‘I think you