Late Night Shopping Read online

  'Oh shut up!' Lana snapped.

  'OK! No need to be so tetchy, baby-cheeks. Now look . . .' Connor leaned in to confide his words of dating wisdom to his favourite moody teenage girl, 'don't text him. D'you hear me? Not another word, OK? Not till Monday morning at the earliest. Nothing will drive him more wild and crazy about you than the thought of you not thinking about him every minute of the day. I promise you! This is how men are. So simple to understand.'

  Before he could hear what Lana had to say about this, a tall, blondish surf dude kind of guy in an oversized T-shirt slouched up from the pavement and pulled up a chair at the table next to theirs.

  'You English?' he asked with a heavy Italian accent.

  'Yes,' Connor told him with his lazy lion grin.

  'Cool,' was the guy's response. He turned his chair to face them, leaned forward and seemed to be ready for a nice long chat.

  Although to Connor's dismay, this surfer dude was pretty obviously more interested in Lana than in him.

  'Oh my God, I have died and gone to heaven!'

  There was no containing Annie's enthusiasm when she hit the first of the factory outlet shops. This was it! This was unbelievable bargain central. She decided immediately that what she had to do was dig deeply into the borrowed money sitting in her bank account, buy a load of stuff here and somehow get it back to London to flog at a handsome mark-up to her eBay buyers.

  'I am officially dead! No doubt about it,' she told Billie and Dinah as she tried not to skip with excitement around the shelves. 'Do you know what these are?!' She pointed to the rows and rows of leather moccasins in every colour lined up along one of the walls. 'These are Tod's driving shoes! Actual, genuine Tods. I'd recognize them anywhere, and in London they cost nearly three hundred pounds a pair. Here they are – a hundred euros?' Annie stared hard at the price tag, to convince herself that she was not in fact hallucinating.

  Dinah picked up a shoe and scrutinized it carefully.

  'It's nice,' she agreed, 'really nice leather. But Annie, they're seconds,' she reminded her over-enthusiastic sister, 'and you don't wear flats. You never, ever have done and you never, ever will.'

  'I know!' Annie agreed, unfazed. 'But the faults are tiny and I know loads of people who wear flatties. Loads who will snap up a pair of these beauties for . . . let's say, a hundred and fifty pounds?'

  Annie seemed to speed up, she began to flit about the shop spotting something even better than the last, desperately trying to hide her astonishment at the amazingly good prices from the shop owner.

  The woman in charge managed to explain in a jumble of English and Italian that if Annie had her own business she could buy as much as she liked, but if she was a private client, there was a limit.

  Never had Annie wanted to have her own business more.

  'Then I could come over here all the time!' she told Dinah. 'Stock up with all this brilliant stuff and import it straight back to London.'

  After ordering the maximum twenty pairs of Tods allowed for a private client and arranging for them to be shipped directly to her London address, Annie led them out of the first shop and straight into the second, then on to the third and fourth.

  Each one they went to had its own special supply of goods and unique treasures. Annie racked up carrier bag after carrier bag of goodies and Dinah gave up trying to restrain her. Instead, she chose carefully for herself and her little family.

  In honour of the tenth wedding anniversary, she bought Bryan a supple, luxurious, leather single buckled messenger bag. 'He's going to love this! Isn't Daddy going to love this bag?' she asked Billie, who fiddled with the fat brass buckle approvingly.

  Billie snagged herself a pink cashmere wrap cardigan. Rose pink.

  'Baby's first cashmere,' Dinah couldn't help smiling.

  'No,' Annie disagreed, 'I think if you cast your mind back to when she was born, I gave her a cashmere cardigan, hat, gloves and matching bootees.' There was just the slightest hint of huffiness to this.

  'Oh yes! How could I forget?' Dinah said quickly and bit her tongue as she wondered again how on earth Annie had imagined that a new mum would have time to hand-wash cashmere baby bits? The lovely pink things had been worn twice then languished in the hand-wash bag until tragically, they were totally outgrown.

  For herself, Dinah had already bought a soft leather purse, a bright red tote bag and several of the velvet quilted headbands which Annie thought were hideously Italian Sloane but Dinah, being Dinah, having the eclectic, quirky fashion girl look that Topshop stylists would kill for, was obviously going to get away with.

  Mario's car boot was filling up too quickly, Billie was looking dangerously pale and sleepy and although Dinah probably didn't want to say 'Let's not go into the last place', Annie knew she was thinking it.

  'C'mon, I'll be really quick, honest,' Annie wheedled. 'I could even give Billie a carry if you like.'

  She couldn't bear the thought of missing out on another treasure trove. Yes, she'd already spent about £2,000 on the Tods, some belts and some bags but she was so confident she'd be able to sell all these lovely things on with her eBay site in about ten minutes flat, that she wasn't even slightly nervous.

  Well . . . yes, she was maybe slightly nervous of explaining this to Ed. Annie had still not had the big business talk with him; she still hadn't told him that she had gone ahead and borrowed the money . . . and she wasn't sure when or how she was going to be able to raise it. At the moment, she was forging ahead in the hope that it would all go really well, really quickly, and she could break good news to him a bit further down the line, without worrying him. He worried far too much about her anyway.

  As soon as Annie pushed open the door of the last factory outlet shop, she could see that this was a very special shop.

  Beneath her feet was the gleam of polished limestone flooring and at first glance she could tell that the lighting in here was bright and flattering, nothing like the glaring strip lights of all the other stores they'd visited. Already Annie's eyes had lighted on the handbags.

  Shiny bags and matt bags; jewel greens, purples and reds; traditional tans and blacks; quilted bags and slouchy bags; the dainty, the chunky and everything in between; buckled bags, tasselled bags, bags trimmed with bronze, bags trimmed with chrome . . . every kind of bag anyone could ever want was here on these dark, wooden custom-built shelves.

  But before Annie could rush over and begin a detailed inspection, she was greeted warmly by a man and woman who were standing, as if waiting for them, at the front counter.

  'Buona sera, signoras,' the man spoke first.

  'Sera?' Dinah looked at Annie,

  Annie flashed a glance at her wristwatch and saw with astonishment that it was 6.30 p.m. already.

  'No wonder Billie's flagging,' Dinah said.

  'I'll be quick, honestly. I'll shop like the wind,' Annie assured her.

  Then, turning her attention to the couple behind the counter, Annie smiled brightly and told them: 'Buona sera, I'm Annie Valentine, from London.' Then: 'This is the most beautiful shop I've been into today, with the loveliest things,' was what Annie hoped she told them.

  In fact, what came out was closer to 'This is a beautiful négligé, with good principles.'

  The couple at the counter looked momentarily confused, but recovered and the man asked her, as if to confirm the important points, 'You from London? Shopping here? Today? We are speaking English.'

  'Yes!' Annie assured him. 'Multo, multo shopping.'

  'Signor Berlusponti-Milliau.' He smiled at her and offered his hand for her to shake. Annie took the hand and gathered herself together enough to focus on him properly.

  He had a handsome, tanned face. He was in his early forties maybe, with brown hair held back by the tortoiseshell sunglasses perched casually on top of his head. His open-necked shirt was of creamy linen, beautifully pressed, and revealed a smooth brown chest. He exuded the subtle but delicious, Italian smell of sun oil and beach air, orange peel and basil.r />
  For a split second, Annie was stopped in her tracks and had a strange déjà vu kind of feeling. She knew exactly what it was. She'd been married for six years, been partnered up since the age of 20. She knew that this was the flash of something in between disappointment and panic that you had when you met someone attractive and fascinating, who you could possibly have started something very interesting with, if only you weren't already . . .

  She let go of his hand a little too abruptly and told him, 'I'm never going to remember your name, I'll call you Mr Bellissimo.'

  Mr Bellissimo gave a hearty laugh at this, as did the woman by his side, an equally attractive, immaculately groomed and beautifully dressed Italian, Annie assumed must be his wife.

  Mr Bellissimo introduced himself to Dinah and Billie and shook their hands as well. The couple then made the obligatory fuss over Billie, which all Italians seemed programmed to do at the sight of small children.

  'You live in London?' he turned his attention to Annie again. 'You work in London?'

  Peeking beyond the front counter to the bags arrayed behind him, Annie could barely concentrate enough to answer him.

  'Yes, I work at The Store, it's a beautiful shop, full of clothes, shoes, bags. You must have heard of it, if you sell such lovely bags. Such simultaneous sacking,' she added in Italian.

  'No, no, I not exporter yet.' There was a little gleam of humour to his eye as he said this. 'I have things here from three wonderful factories who make and I very interested in selling in London.'

  He stepped out from behind the counter and Annie was surprised to see he was over six feet tall; she'd assumed he was on a slight platform.

  'Here,' he began, walking towards the nearest set of shelves and waving his arm at the bags, 'here you find things the factory make for me . . . and some handbag made for famous designer, but not perfetto, you understand.'

  Yes, she understood perfectly: the designer seconds. The bargain hunter's zeal broke out in Annie: 'Show me those things first!' she instructed him.

  'You go and look,' Mr Bellissimo challenged her with a smile, 'see if you find them.'

  He walked back to the counter and from underneath, brought out a cool green bottle and set out one, two then three delicate glasses. 'Pro-secco' he declared, 'because I come from Venice.'

  'You're from Venice?' Dinah had to ask, because it seemed slightly unreal that someone should actually come from Venice.

  'Si, the home of all beautiful. Tutto belli,' he added, the way Italians did, because they didn't trust English to sound lovely enough. And they were right, it didn't.

  'Patrizia, una pasticcino por la bambina,' he instructed the woman, who disappeared through a side door.

  A moment or two later she re-emerged holding a plate with the most incredible fruit tart on top. Peaches, little blueberries and redcurrants all shimmered under a glaze of the palest pink.

  Mr B took the plate and leaned down, smiling indulgently at Billie. 'You like?' he asked.

  'Am I apposed to eat this?' Billie asked her mummy, because the tart did look almost too perfect to be edible. When Dinah gave her the nod of approval, Billie carefully took the plate, said 'grazie' politely and fell on the cake with an audible 'Ummm!'

  'Forgive me, this is Patrizia.' Mr Bellissimo introduced the woman properly and Annie shook her hand, taking in the long, dark, curly hair, strong Italian nose and eyebrows, wide mouth defined with a sweep of pale brown lipstick and her stunning dress.

  It was a chiffony creation, but in muted creams, browns and oranges, with ruffled sleeves which ended well above the wrist to show off slim arms and long olive brown hands.

  Best of all Annie liked the woman's necklaces: ropes and ropes of chunky glass beads, which glowed orangey brown and gold, just like her eyes. Because Mr B had given her no clue, Annie quickly scanned Patrizia's hands for wedding or engagement rings. There was a stunning hunk of smoky topaz on one of her fourth fingers, but nothing else.

  'I love your necklace,' Annie told her.

  'Oh thank you,' Patrizia replied, then in much more fluent English than Mr B's, she added, 'it is from a special shop I know. If you like, I tell you where to find it.'

  'Thank you!'

  'But first you must look here, see what you like—' Patrizia waved a slender arm around the shop.

  Annie did not need to be asked twice. With a slim glass of fizz in her hand she began to tour slowly around.

  Everything she set eyes on was wonderful. She picked up the handbags and examined them carefully: the leather was soft and supple, the workmanship was as good as any she'd seen and the designs and colours were just perfect.

  'Many bags made with one thread.' Mr B was at her side again: 'just like Hermès. If the thread break,' he made a chopping motion with his hand, 'start again.'

  He picked a random bag from the shelf and told her with emphasis, 'Made in Italy. Everything . . . Patrizia!' he called over and they shot out a volley of Italian.

  'He want me to tell you,' Patrizia began, 'EU rule mean bag made in China, but handles sewn on in Italy can say "Made in Italy" on bag, you understand?'

  Mr B pulled a face, raised his hands to the sky and shrugged to express his disgust at this state of affairs.

  'Terrible!' he told Annie.

  'I didn't realize,' she assured him, suitably horrified, then with her own unique grasp of Italian added, 'this is a malignant truffle!'

  Here on Mr B's shelves, there was nothing, not one bag, that was too fussy, or just slightly off like so many of the things she'd seen today. Here everything was simple, elegant and right on the money.

  The big questions running through Annie's mind were: how much can I buy? And how can I get it back to London?

  And then she saw it . . . she saw her bag. Up there, on a shelf all of its own, basking in the respect it deserved, was her violet blue YSL tote bag.

  'Oh my God!' she exclaimed at the bag, 'how did you get here?'

  'Aha!' Mr B followed her gaze, 'you know this bag?'

  'Of course!' Annie told him. 'I owned this bag, I bought it, but the first time I took it out, someone stole it from me . . .' She pointed to her forehead which was still slightly bruised.

  'Terrible!' Mr B sympathized, 'they do this to you for the bag?'

  'Yes, with a brick,' Annie confirmed, 'but how do you have one of these in here?' she asked, astonished. 'They are very, very rare.'

  'Patrizia, per favore . . .' Mr B asked again, because obviously it was complicated to explain.

  According to Patrizia there was a top quality factory near Ancona which made some bags for YSL. Mr B and several other outlet stores were allowed to sell off the items rejected by quality control. These bags did not have the YSL logos or letters of authentication, but they were less than half the price of the authentic items.

  'You are joking!' was Annie's response as she removed the bag from its shelf and began to inspect it. Apart from the missing logo, she could not see the slightest difference between this bag and the one she had so briefly owned. Mentally, she was tussling between buying this bag and keeping it for herself, or buying it and re-selling it on her eBay website to make some serious pocket money.

  'Well, I'm having this!' she told Mr B.

  'Annie!' Dinah warned. 'Can I just remind you what else you've bought today?'

  'I was hoping you wouldn't,' Annie told her, 'but I'm selling almost all of it on.'

  'You have a business?' Mr B asked with some surprise. 'Then we do trade discount,' he said and headed off to his counter where he brought out an official-looking invoice pad.