Late Night Shopping: (38 page)

Blimey!

Not only that, but every one of the losers emailed her within the next ten minutes to ask if she had more and in different sizes and colours.

Yes, yes, yes, were her replies.

Just ninety-nine pairs to go.

And the Celestron Firstscope, she'd looked that up too. It was a telescope 'suitable for beginner astronomers', priced £120.99. Good present, she couldn't help thinking, a little resentfully.

Accessories purchasing manager:

Light grey trouser suit (Chloé)
Ruffled cream silk blouse (Dior)
Plum wedges (Hobbs)
Vicious snarl (model's own)
Total est. cost: £980

'Nice lining.'

Operation Harrods started with a hiccup or two. The children slept in, so Annie had to chivvy them to the kitchen table and force cornflakes down their throats, even though she was too nervous to eat herself.

'I have a meeting at 10 a.m.!' she kept wailing at them, 'you have to be out of here, gone! We all have to be on our way. I have to get my head together.'

She raced around the house in a flurry, trying to decide which of the bags to take. Three . . . she'd decided three was a good number. Or four? Was four better? Five?

All the cab numbers she tried were busy, or promising a car in 'about forty minutes, maybe sooner'.

'Just go by tube,' Lana told her. 'It'll be much quicker.'

'Tube! I'm a business mogul.'

'Mum, you're a lady selling bags . . .' Lana contradicted her scornfully, 'a bag lady.'

On her most sober high heels, Annie trotted at speed to the tube station. It was a good fifteen-minute walk down a steep hill, hot enough for the little grey jacket over her painstakingly chosen cream and black dress to have to come off.

Inside the carriage, the teeming throng of the rush hour Northern Line was upon her. Two cheeky-looking black twin schoolgirls were giggling together on the seats Annie would have killed for.

They looked about ten or eleven. Hair tamed in careful rows of braids, white school polo shirts setting off their bright smiles as they drank from little juice cartons and did more mischievous giggling.

Annie looked away from them and into the sea of humanity crammed at wonky angles into the belly of the tube train.

'Excuse me,' one of the twins suddenly seemed to be saying to her, 'we're getting off here, d'you want a seat?'

'Oh! That's very kind!'

What a sweet little face this girl had, with dimples in her cheeks when she smiled.

Annie swung round so that her legs were pressed against the seat they had vacated, guarding it from any other weary passenger. She watched the two girls approach the door, then just as she sat down, she saw them hop merrily out of the train. It took a moment or two for the Ribena on the carefully sabotaged chair to soak through Annie's dress. She looked frantically out of the window after the girls and saw their grins spread. As they saw her glaring at them, they began to laugh.

Annie stood up immediately, but it was already too late. She couldn't see, but she could feel the large blackcurrant stain. Drat. Damn. Bollocks. Crap. What was she supposed to do now? She looked at her watch. There was no way she could phone and tell them she'd been delayed. That would just be so unprofessional. It would take ages to go home and change.

No, she'd just have to brazen it out . . . keep her back to the wall, always walk behind them . . . and if worst came to worst, tell them she'd sat on a Ribena stain on the tube. Hey, it could have happened to anyone.

Even the Harrods accessories purchaser must occasionally sit on a dodgy chair, rub against a bit of chewing gum, spill a coffee, miss a step. They were only human, after all.

Coming up to the surface in Knightsbridge, Annie felt much better. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the shoppers were gorgeous, their expensive bags and jewellery glinting in the sunshine. Manes of below-the-shoulder hair swishing and every single one – man, woman, even delicious OshKosh B'Gosh baby in Bugaboo Frog – wearing sunglasses.

Annie took hers (Chanel, but via eBay . . . possibly very, very good fakes, hard to tell) out of her bag and strode forward, head high, knowing that this was the way you walked in Knightsbridge.

She was buzzed through the Harrods office intercom and shown into a pleasant waiting room.

'Tom Dickinson has been called away . . . very last minute . . . accessories purchasing manager . . . her office, waiting to meet you . . . show you straight through,' were the words Annie, suddenly overcome with nerves, was able to pick up from the receptionist.

Annie clutched her three, no four, handbags.

'No, after you,' she insisted when the receptionist held open the door. 'No, no really. I insist.'

'No, after you.'

'After you.'

Finally the woman gave in.

'And what's her name?' Annie asked as they approached a smart wooden door. There was a nameplate on it, but the receptionist pushed open the door before Annie could read it and then she was standing at the threshold of the office, looking directly into the face of the one woman she'd hoped never to see again.

Oh no. No, no, no! Not here. It just couldn't be!

Annie almost dropped every one of her bags straight onto the floor.

There, standing in front of her, was Donna Nicholson, her former floor manager at The Store. The woman who'd once made a part of every day miserable. The woman who'd had Annie dismissed on completely spurious and unfair grounds, the woman she'd danced a little victory dance about when she'd heard of her resignation. Annie had only returned to The Store when 'ding dong, Donna the wicked witch was dead'.

'Ms Valentine to see you,' the receptionist announced.

Donna didn't look quite as surprised to see Annie as Annie was to see her. Tom Dickinson must have mentioned her name, of course.

'Thank you, Celia,' Donna said, raising an eyebrow at Annie and saying with totally mock politeness, 'Come in, Ms Valentine and take a seat.'

'Shall I bring in some tea or coffee?'

'I think we'll be fine, thanks,' Donna answered and Annie was sure she could see the woman's eyes glitter.

As soon as the door closed on Celia, Annie knew Donna's gloves would come off and the nastiness would begin. How could she have been so naïve? Why didn't she check with Tom Dickinson? Why hadn't she asked who else she was going to meet? It wasn't so unlikely, was it? Donna had held a high-powered position at The Store, where else in London would she go? Harrods, Selfridges or Harvey Nichols had to be the top choices. The chances of Annie opening the door to find Donna in the Harrods accessories buyer's chair had in fact been:
too high!!

'So, Annie Valentine . . . still moonlighting from The Store, are we? Or have you told your new boss about this?' Donna couldn't help snarling as she stalked across her little room, ultra-stylish light grey trouser suit swishing about her as she went. 'Maybe I should give her a call? I used to work with Raquel.'

Annie didn't even want to show Donna the bags. She just wanted to get out from under her poisonous glare as soon as she possibly could.

Putting on a horrible baby voice, Donna asked, 'Shall I have a look at Annie's special little handbaggies?'

'I don't suppose there's any hope of you being professional, just for once?' Annie asked as calmly as she could when she'd found her voice again.

'No!' Donna snapped, 'I don't think so. Not when I've got you here at such a pathetic disadvantage.'

Annie could suddenly remember, in far too much detail, her final conversation with this woman on the day Donna had sacked her. Annie had definitely called her a bitch and it had been very ugly. Donna certainly wasn't going to be rushing to sign up a deal with Annie and Mr B's handbags, Annie could swear to that.

'I think I should just go,' Annie told her.

'No, no, I want to take a look. It's only fair, after you've brought them all the way here.'

Donna's hand went out for the bags, which Annie still had clasped to her side. For a moment, there was almost a slight tug-of-war, until Annie decided to let go.

Let Donna see them, she reasoned, let her see what fantastic stuff Annie was proud to be representing.

She handed the bags over, pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. She had no reason to quail under Donna's vicious gaze.

'Nice,' Donna said, running her hands over the leather and holding them up one by one to admire the shape and the colours, 'very nice.'

For a moment Annie felt a whiff of triumph. Even her one and only enemy had to admit that the bags were good.

Donna had the burnt orange one in her hands now and she was opening it, popping the satisfyingly large magnetic metal button.

'Nice lining,' she said, stroking over the pink quilted satin.

'Yeah,' Annie tried to sound just the faintest bit enthusiastic. She might as well play along, she thought.

'And the price?'

'Negotiable – but extremely reasonable for the quality.'

'Shame no zip, though,' Donna added with the happy glint back in her eye and the very beginning of a smile on her face. 'I mean selling handbags in central London, you can't sell them without zips. No one would buy them. Thieves everywhere, pickpockets. A handbag without a zip is a bit of a liability.'

'No zip?' Annie repeated. 'Yes, there's a zip!' She stood up to look closely at the top of the bag.

Where the bloody hell was the zip? There had been a zip in the factory bags, she had checked. She had double-checked, because what Donna had just said about pickpockets was totally true.

'No zip,' Donna assured her with a wicked smile and a look of pure evil.

Annie, the bag clutched between her hands, searched frantically for the zip. But there was no sign of one.

'There must be some mistake,' she said.

'Yes,' said Donna, 'there certainly is. The mistake is
you
coming in
here
trying to persuade me that you know something about handbags when in fact you don't.'

Annie could not believe that, once again, she was going to be shot down in flames by Donna. This could not be happening. Please, please no. The fate of Mr B's handbags at Harrods surely could not rest in the hands of this most horrible of harpies.

'I know about handbags,' Annie's voice was low but clear, 'believe me Donna, I know about handbags. The first women to start carrying handbags were the ancient Egyptians. In medieval Europe, the quality of a bag's embroidery and leather revealed your social status – so not much has changed there, then. The handbag proper began life in eighteenth-century France where it was called a reticule.'

'How very entertaining,' Donna sneered. 'Bye-bye, Annie Valentine.'

But Annie didn't move. 'Louis Vuitton opened his first shop in Paris in 1854. In 1856, Thomas Burberry set up shop in Basingstoke. Together they are responsible for the most copied luxury goods in the world.

'Coach of Manhattan: established in 1941. Hermès of Paris began to produce the handbag now known as the Kelly back in the 1930s, a good twenty years before Princess Grace ever carried it. Jackie O preferred the Hermès Constance, and in 1981 the iconic Birkin was designed for actress Jane Birkin, who blames its weight for her tendonitis.