Late Night Shopping Page 9

  'Thank you,' she gushed at Annie, 'you are very good at your job. I hear so much about you. I have been wanting to meet you for a long time.'

  Annie couldn't help feeling there was something a little strange about the way Irena shook her hand and looked so deeply into her face.

  'Have you been in London long?' she asked.

  'Just a few months now,' Irena told her, 'but I visit one time before, about four years ago.

  'You are not married? No?' Irena asked her, out of the blue.

  Annie, whose heavy platinum wedding ring was still one of her most treasured possessions, stored safely in her jewellery box at home, shook her head.

  'I used to be,' she said simply.

  'Ah,' Irena said with her head to the side and a look filled with too much sympathy for Annie to feel comfortable.

  'But . . .' Annie went on quickly, 'luckily for me, I've met someone new.'

  'Not easy,' Irena intoned, 'not easy to meet nice new man. I'm still trying.

  'And you have children?' she wanted to know.

  'Yes,' Annie told her, unwrapping a pair of spike-heeled, wide-topped ankle boots which would be perfect with Irena's new pencil skirt, undo all the Miss Moneypenny connotations, 'two children, Lana who is sixteen and Owen who's ten.'

  And now the feeling of unease was there again. There was something at the back of Annie's mind, something she was supposed to be doing. Maybe it was to do with her eBay site? Maybe there was something she had meant to buy? Or meant to sell?

  By 8.45 p.m. Irena was still in the suite, still trying things on, still looking at her reflection this way and that, still asking lots of irritatingly personal questions: 'Where are you living?', 'What is Lana interested in?', 'Does she look like you?'

  Annie was beginning to twitch. This was the seventh person she'd dressed today and it was a little hard to stay enthusiastic.

  Meanwhile, Irena was scrutinizing her back view and making the tutting, sighing sounds that Annie knew were the self-critical musings of almost every woman on the planet.

  She wanted to shout: 'Oh for God's sake, you're beautiful with a gorgeous ass. Get over yourself. Are you buying or are you not buying?'

  'The tills are going to close down in about five minutes, babes,' was what she did say, as nicely as she possibly could, 'so it's time to make some decisions. Or if you like, I can hold some of these things until tomorrow,' she added, although every one of her natural sales instincts went against this policy. People who put things on hold could never be trusted to come back and buy them.

  'Five minutes!? OK, I choose.' Irena stripped off the outfit she was wearing, stood for a moment in the impressive underwear and ankle boots and then quickly tried on one of the dresses for a third time.

  When Annie had finally bundled Irena and her purchases out of the suite, she rushed around tidying up, powering down the computer, packing up her bags and her booty for the day.

  When all her chores were done, Annie at last clickety-clicked down the escalators in her heels.

  'Sandra!' she called out from the bottom step. 'What's the news then? Is it still there?'

  On the plinth there was now a maroon bag she'd never seen before, so with a heavy heart she turned towards the saleswoman for an explanation.

  'She bought it?'

  Sandra bent down under her counter top and emerged holding The Bag in her hands.

  'No . . . she put it on hold,' Sandra said with a slightly wicked smile.

  'Oh no, then I can't . . .'

  'Oh yes you can, I'm not in tomorrow. So even if she comes back, and I'm not convinced that she will, we'll just make sure Pippa is hugely apologetic but never got the message!'

  'I like it,' Annie cackled, then she slapped her credit card down on the counter top and picked up the bag.

  'Hello baby, how are you doing? Come on, come to Mama.'

  'You're a little bit cracked,' Sandra told her, tapping her head.

  'I'm tired,' Annie confided, rolling her shoulders back to try and ease some of the tension out of them, 'I'm really tired,' but with a smile, she added, 'This will perk me up, though.'

  'Staff discount? You do have some left for this month, do you?' Sandra checked.

  'Oh yeah,' Annie assured her, 'I've been saving it.'

  'Do you want me to wrap it for you?'

  'Well . . . you know what?'

  As Annie typed in her credit card PIN, she remembered a little too vividly her recent promise to Ed that 'big' purchases were to be checked with him. This was so that he could try and talk her out of it. There was no other reason. He'd told her he was worried about her spending and was going to try and help her 'manage' it.

  There was no doubt that he would never, ever allow her to buy this bag. He wouldn't even begin to understand why she would want to spend so much money on a new handbag, especially when she already had 'so many'. Ha! Ed had carried the same leather briefcase around for seventeen years!! What would he know of the need to buy a new handbag every season? Absolutely nothing!

  'I'm going to start using it, right now,' Annie told Sandra. If she just put all her things into it and carried it about blatantly, he was far less likely to notice. Wasn't he? One bag pretty much looked the same to him as the next. She could just say it came from the bag stockpile at the back of her wardrobe. How would he ever know?

  Opening the satisfying brass clasp and then zip, she sniffed at the delicious new suede and carefully unloaded her purse, keys and mobile phone into The Bag.

  Slipping her old bag into her big canvas tote, she slung the tote and her laptop bag onto her shoulders, but carried the new handbag carefully in the crook of her arm. It was close to nine thirty when she finally hurried out of the building.

  Only on the tube platform, waiting for the delayed Northern Line train, did she see a poster with a violin on it and realize, with tears springing to the back of her eyes that she was supposed to have left work early so she could get to school and watch Owen playing in the junior string quartet.

  Chapter Eight

  Lana at home:

  Blue vest top PJs (Topshop)

  Blue sheepskin boots (Ugg)

  Frazzled blue and red dressing gown

  (Her dad's)

  Total est. cost: £95

  'Is that new?!'

  Rushing in through the door of her house, Annie dumped everything but the new bag in the hallway (it wasn't ready to be thrown on the ground in a heap just yet) and ran up two flights of stairs.

  'Owen!' she called out, 'I am so sorry!' She hurried into his bedroom, already dark with the lights turned out, and crouched down at his bedside.

  Owen's eyes were shut, but he opened them drowsily at the sound of her voice.

  'Hi!' she whispered and ran a hand through his messy hair, 'I am so, so sorry I couldn't come. I needed someone to cover for me and they couldn't, so I didn't get out of work until after 9 p.m.'

  'Don't worry,' Owen told her, sleepily but cheerfully, 'it went really well and Ed says there's going to be lots more performances.'

  Annie leaned over and kissed his cheek. 'Will you play it for me on Sunday, when I'm home and we can catch up?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Night-night.' She ran a hand through his hair again: she could never resist it, soft and tumbly, on the longish side, boy hair.

  Then she crossed the landing and knocked on the door of Lana's room.

  Lana was sprawled across her bed with her laptop open. Annie doubted that she was writing an essay or doing homework research on the web. She was probably busy emailing Andrei and all the other people she would see again in only a few hours' time.

  Annie settled herself down on a chair, ready to have a little bit of a chat with her daughter, but Lana seemed grouchy and uncommunicative.

  'Was your day OK?' Annie ventured.

  'Fine,' Lana insisted, although the crossed arms and screwed-up mouth suggested something different.

  'Is everything going OK?' Annie asked.

  'Fine,' L
ana told her again.

  'How's Andrei?'

  'Fine! Mum? Can I come down and see you in a minute? I'm just finishing something off up here.'

  Annie, feeling offended, stood up, picked up her handbag and headed out of the room.

  But then Lana, spotting the bag, had to ask, 'Is that new?!'

  'Shhhhh!' Annie put her finger up to her lips and smiled conspiratorially.

  Lana got up to take a closer look, her eyes widening in surprise. That's my girl, Annie couldn't help thinking proudly.

  'Is that really a YSL?' Lana asked, although she'd already clocked the label.

  'Shhhh!' Annie repeated.

  'You are in so much trouble! It's gorgeous, can I just hold it?'

  'No! No!' Annie warded her off. ' Don't even think about it! You are never, ever borrowing this bag. Get off! Now I have to go down and say hello to Ed.'

  'You better leave that here then, he'll kill you.'

  'He won't even notice.'

  'He's not stupid, you know.'

  'Yeah, but he's a little bit blind to the finer things in life.'

  'Hello baby!' Annie greeted her man enthusiastically. He was in the sitting room on the sofa with his back to her. So she came in behind him, slid her arms over him and was planning to tumble right over the sofa to land beside him.

  But he gripped her arms tightly and pulled them away from his chest as if he wanted her off.

  'I know, Ed, I know. I'm so sorry about the violin thing. I've already been up and apologized to Owen.'

  'Violin thing?' Ed repeated with some heat in his voice. 'Violin thing? Annie, the junior string quartet was giving its first concert. We've been practising really hard, two hundred people turned up to watch. Owen was totally brilliant and you missed all of it! Even worse, I don't think you even begin to get it.'

  Annie was surprised to see Ed so annoyed. She came round and sat carefully down on the sofa beside him.

  'Owen is doing really well, thanks so much to you,' Annie told him, with complete sincerity and gratitude. 'I would have come. I really wanted to come. I just . . . didn't get cover in time.'

  Ed still looked really angry, and she wasn't used to it. Yet. He sometimes got a bit grumpy, but this could usually be solved with sex or food. The two were close contenders in his life.

  'So how's your day been then?' he asked her now. 'Any big news? Any big decisions? Anything I should know about?' He sounded unusually snappy.

  'No.' She was a little bewildered, 'No, just an absolutely usual day. I just couldn't get anyone to cover my last appointment, so I had to stay on.'

  'So absolutely nothing to tell me?' he asked again.

  'No . . . don't think so . . .' she looked at him carefully. He was behaving strangely. Was he really not going to get over this concert thing at all? He couldn't possibly know about the bag. He couldn't.

  'So why did I get a courtesy call from Nicole Wilson informing me that my house ownership partner was about to draw down £30,000 worth of equity on our property?' Ed asked her in as steady a voice as he could muster.

  Annie's mouth opened and momentarily stayed open.

  Courtesy call? Courtesy call?! Why had Nicole not told her anything about this? Nicole had gone through the incredibly long and detailed terms and conditions and so on . . . was it possible that Annie might have just tuned it out a tiny bit? But phoning Ed? There was no way Nicole had mentioned phoning Ed. Surely Annie would have heard that?

  'Just one week ago – ' Ed turned to face her. He was threatening to really kick off now – 'you agreed that big purchases would be discussed. With me. Hello! Your partner. The new man in your life. Your other half. The person looking after your children four nights a week and most of the rest of the time as far as I can see. The person having in-depth, life-changing discussions with your teenage daughter because you never seem to be around for her. And when you are, all you want to talk about is nail polish.'

  Well, that was it. Now he had gone too far. Annie could feel her breath rising up in her lungs, she seemed to be blowing air in and out too quickly. She flashed furious eyes at him. 'You know, Ed, I wish you wouldn't tell me how to run my life! Or how to run my family. It's just not any of your business!'

  'Yes, it is!' he shouted straight back. 'And I want it to be. You live with me now, you can't have everything your own way, not all the time. Anyway, this is our house, you can't make a major money decision like that without at least letting me know! That's just insulting.'

  'I don't want your help,' she heard herself shouting back, 'I don't want your advice and I don't want you to interfere!'

  'Well, that's just great, Annie,' came Ed's response. 'Maybe you don't want me here at all? Maybe you'd just like to live on your own again, would you? See how you'd like that!'

  'Fine!' She snatched up her handbag, but Ed immediately caught hold of it, pulled it closer so he could examine it then exclaimed, 'Oh my God! You promised! You said you would check with me before buying anything over two hundred pounds. I know perfectly well this cost much more than that.' He took a deep breath and stung her by adding, 'I really can't trust you.'

  'Shut up!' Annie shouted, just as furious as him now, furious at feeling so humiliated and caught out.

  'It's my money and it's my life. And these are my kids,' she added, deeply upset by his criticism.

  In a blind stumble of tears, she snatched the bag away and stalked out of the front door, slamming it hard for effect.

  Outside, it was surprisingly chilly and dark. But then she'd left without her jacket, which was her second mistake. Her first mistake was leaving the house at all. Now that she was outside, she would have plenty of time to reflect on the fact that it was always a mistake to storm out of your home in a huff. Because eventually you had to go back in with your tail between your legs.

  This was her first big row with Ed. She and Roddy, her first husband, had had countless raging rows, walkouts and arguments and looking back, she'd thought it was something to do with being younger. She'd begun to believe that she and Ed weren't going to do big rows and heated disagreements. So she was surprised at this outburst. She hated shouting. It never got you anywhere anyway, just raised your blood pressure. Made you more likely to die of a heart attack before you were fifty.

  Now that she was out here on the street, she thought she would walk to the nearest pub; there was quite a nice place on the high street, where she could calm down. Maybe she'd phone Connor and he could come and join her for a beer. Or mineral water. God, when was he going to stop with the AA thing?

  She walked on briskly, intending to fish her mobile out of her pocket, not paying any attention at all to the tall man jogging towards her on her side of the pavement when all of a sudden he stuck out his hand, right in front of her face. Before Annie could even grasp what was happening, she felt a terrible pain smack hard into her forehead and she was falling helplessly backwards.

  Chapter Nine

  City banker Manzoor Khan:

  Custom-made dark grey suit (Oswald Boteng)

  Blue shirt with white collar and cuffs (Thomas Pink)

  Blue tie (Gieves & Hawkes)

  Custom-made black brogues (James Taylor & Son)

  Black overcoat (Gieves & Hawkes)

  Black briefcase (Mulberry)