Late Night Shopping: (15 page)

Dinah had needed some persuading, especially as she was going to have to take Billie out of primary school, but as soon as she'd come round to the idea, she'd grown enthusiastic and had promised to try and persuade Bryan to come with them.

Although she had marvelled at the bargain price, Dinah still had to ask Annie in today's phone call, 'What about the money you owe the taxman? You have sorted that out, haven't you?'

'Yeah, yeah,' Annie had breezed.

'You didn't borrow it, did you?'

'I've found some great things to sell so it's all going to be all right,' Annie had told her, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to worry her.

'Is Ed pleased about the holiday?' was Dinah's next awkward question.

'Totally!' Annie had insisted. This, unfortunately, was not true . . . well not yet, because she still hadn't found just the right moment to tell him about the holiday, even though the flight was departing from Stansted in less than twenty-four hours.

But Ed was due to come home for lunch today, so because she was still off work, she was planning to make a bacon and avocado salad with care and attention and warm garlic bread in the oven, in the hope of softening him up for the big news.

Just as Ed stepped into the house at lunchtime, Annie's mobile rang and she found herself trying to have a conversation with a woman from the mortgage company, about which account to deposit her £30,000 into. Something she definitely didn't want to remind Ed about. He still didn't know that she'd decided to go ahead with the loan because once again the ideal moment for the conversation about it just hadn't really presented itself. Well, not ideally.

'My personal account? Hmmm yes, that would be great,' she said, trying to turn away from him and speak as quietly as possible. 'Do I have the number? Ermm . . . let me just go upstairs . . . if you could just hold on for a moment.' Annie took her chance to get somewhere private as quickly as she could.

When she came back into the kitchen, she found Ed had already served himself and was eating quickly, telling her that he had to get back to school sooner than he'd expected.

'Was that your bank?' was his next question.

'Yeah . . . some cheque I paid in, they were just wanting to check . . . the cheque . . .' she trailed off, hoping he wouldn't ask any more.

After he'd swallowed several mouthfuls of garlic bread, Ed suddenly struck up a new and worrying conversation. 'My dad was always doing things that my Mum would only find out about later.'

'Oh?' was all Annie said to this, although she tried to look as sympathetic as she could.

'I don't mean really big, bad things, like he had a mistress and she only found out about it later,' Ed continued, 'but still, significant things, like he would sell the car and buy a new one without even mentioning it to her.'

'Really?' Annie had to act surprised now, although she was starting to feel agitated. If Ed knew about the holiday, why didn't he just say so? Why beat about the bush like this?

'Yeah,' Ed went on, 'I remember Mum hunting all round the house for the car key and then Dad piping up with, "oh, I traded the old banger in, there's a new one parked outside."'

Looking up at Annie, Ed added, with worrying seriousness: 'I don't want us to be like that. OK? Mum found it hurtful. She wanted to be involved with decisions like that, and she should have been.'

As both of Ed's parents had died before Annie had met him, she couldn't know if this story was true or if he was making it up for a reason.

'Maybe your dad liked surprises!' she said defensively, 'Maybe he was just trying to make life more interesting.'

But there was no getting out of it. This time tomorrow, they were booked on a flight from Stansted to Ancona, and she was going to have to tell him.

'Ed, I'm sorry,' she began, ' but I've organized a surprise. I'm sorry, I didn't know that you didn't like surprises . . . but . . .'

The doorbell rang.

Annie jumped up and insisted that she would get it, relieved that the difficult conversation was going to be put off for just a few more minutes. But when she opened the front door her mind was not exactly set at rest by the scene outside.

Most of the entire width of narrow Hawthorne Street was taken up with a mighty articulated lorry. On her doorstep stood a man in a boiler suit bearing a clipboard.

'This is for you to sign, love, eight boxes of Chinese import via Dover.'

Oh. Good. Grief. The shoes! The Timi Woo shoes! While Annie couldn't help thinking that it was fantastic that they'd arrived, and so soon, this was exactly the wrong moment. Where was she supposed to put a hundred pairs of shoes while Ed was in the kitchen fuming about couples keeping secrets? In fact, she reminded herself, there were two hundred pairs of shoes, because she and Mr Woo had come to a very good deal: two hundred pairs for $15,000. A hundred were arriving this month and another hundred were following in October. Starting a business with $15,000 worth of stock was just nothing, she had reassured herself. People borrowed much, much bigger amounts with far less chance of success. The shoes were genius. She just knew it.

The driver on the doorstep was waving the clipboard at her now. 'You've got to sign here, love. Obviously there's import duty to pay, so Revenue & Customs will be on to you.'

'Annie? Is everything OK?' Ed called from the kitchen.

'Yes, yes!' she yelled back, but really this wasn't OK at all.

'You can't bring them in just yet,' she told the driver in a low voice. 'You'll have to give me fifteen minutes.'

Ed would have headed back to school by then and she could save the shoe/mortgage extension/holiday in Italy discussion for this evening. Couldn't she?

Annie, with her Stilton-coloured, swollen forehead, was looking a bit ropy to the driver and that was before she'd seen the size of the boxes he was about to try and fit through her front door. But still, he wasn't in the mood to be sympathetic.

'Fifteen minutes will be extra,' he told her firmly.

'How much?' she asked.

'Thirty quid. Cash.'

She had to agree. So he turned and went back to his cab, then switched on the engine and just sat there. Oh that was subtle, that really was.

Annie shut the front door and hurried back into the kitchen.

'What was that about?' Ed wanted to know as he mopped bread around his plate, making sure every last little bit of salad dressing was scooped up.

'Mail order,' Annie said as brightly as she could. 'I bought some new sheets for us. Total . . .'

'Bargain?' Ed finished the sentence for her and decided not to make any comment at all about her spending: 'So was that the surprise?' he asked.

'Yes!' she said cheerfully. She would tell him all about everything else . . . tonight. They'd sit down, they'd relax, it would all be much easier then.

Once he was in the hallway, Ed called out, 'Why is the delivery lorry still here?'

'I dunno,' Annie replied casually, 'maybe he's checking his map or something . . . taking a break?'

Ed shrugged his shoulders and set off through the front door, cord jacket on, battered leather briefcase in hand, tartan scarf flying.

As soon as Annie could be confident Ed was safely round the corner, she went back out to the lorry driver.

'OK.' She tried to sound much more cheery than she felt once she'd taken a look at the four enormous cartons in the back of the truck, 'I'm going to need your help. Because the room these are going into is at the top of a flight of stairs.'

With a great sigh, the driver informed her that that too was 'going to be extra'.

* * *

That evening, supper was early in Annie's household because everyone, apart from her, had plans to go out.

Owen, Lana and Ed were all in very good spirits, because there was no school ahead for five whole days. Already they were buzzing with plans because not one of them knew yet that Annie had already made other arrangements.

Annie was finding it hard to sit still. She kept hopping up and down from the table to get a glass, to find the pepper – anything to put off this conversation. But the plane was leaving at 11.45 a.m. tomorrow morning. Unless she said something very, very soon, only Dinah, Bryan, Billie and Connor would be on it.

Maybe she should just go without them? The thought flashed across her mind. She could leave them a note . . . but then, that wasn't really the point, was it?

The phone began to ring and Ed was up and answering it before she could stop him. He returned to the kitchen with the phone in his hands, and passed it to Annie. 'It's Dinah, she sounds very excited. She wants to talk about tomorrow. Have you invited her over or something?'

Annie took the phone and fled out to the corridor to speak to Dinah in privacy.

Once the conversation was over, she came back into the kitchen, took a deep, steadying breath and blurted out her secret. 'I'm really sorry, Ed and Owen, I'm really, really sorry but you can't go out tonight. Neither can you, Lana.'

'What!?' Lana cried.

'No, because . . .' Annie put a smile on her face, made a big effort to announce this like the huge treat, the amazing surprise she'd really thought it would be.

'You've got to pack. Because tomorrow . . . we're all going to Italy for five days! Da-nah – surprise!'

'What?!' This time it wasn't just Lana who looked completely outraged. Ed seemed to be growing flushed and furious too. Only Owen's face broke into a smile. 'Cool,' he told his mum.

Annie rushed to explain, 'I got us all really cheap flights and this big villa with a pool, but it's a total late deal special and Connor and Dinah are coming with us, so they're going to split the cost . . .'

But Ed didn't stay to listen to any more, he just stood up and left the room.

'I wanted to be with Andrei!' Lana shouted, 'we've already planned to do all kinds of things together. You never let anyone choose to do anything, you're just such a control freak!' then she turned and flounced out of the room after Ed.

Now Annie felt hurt and just a little angry, 'Good grief!' she cried, 'if I left it up to you lot, we'd never do anything good at all. We'd just be stuck inside the house, snogging Andrei or counting our pennies.' Heading out into the hall to make sure no one missed a word, she added loudly, 'You can't take it with you, you know! What's money for if it can't be enjoyed? If it can't buy you a nice life? With nice things?!'

Neither Lana nor Ed made any reply and Annie ticked herself off for shouting again. She wasn't going to shout. She didn't want to turn into one of those ranting mothers. She would be calm and see how the evening panned out. Maybe Lana and Ed wouldn't come . . . maybe she would go with Owen and the others. Would that be so bad?

When she came back into the kitchen, Owen was still sitting at the table. He shot her a grin.

'Cool,' he said again. 'Can we dig for Roman remains, Mum?'

Annie nodded, feeling quite dazed.

'And Mum . . . is there any pudding?'

Ed was sitting on their double bed moodily playing the guitar when Annie decided she felt brave enough to go in. Playing the guitar moodily was Ed's way of having a big huff, she'd discovered over the course of their time together.

'I'm not coming,' he said as soon as he saw her.