Late Night Shopping: (46 page)

She hadn't looked this good since the second year after the death of her husband, the worst and most grinding days of her life.

Her lipstick was now brighter, her eyeshadow more colourful: iridescent greens and purples had replaced the usual smoky brown. Hell, she even painted her nails; well she had time now, of an evening. Amazing how much more time there was, once you were properly single again.

There were strategies for maintaining morale against the odds. She didn't know how many times she'd sat frazzled women down in The Store and explained the strategies to them. Number one was to keep it simple. Develop a uniform which could be put on in the morning without too much thought. But not a jeans and sweatshirt uniform; a pressed trousers, pressed shirt and natty jacket uniform or a skirt and flattering blouse uniform, or in Annie's case, a great day dress with boots or shoes, with a jacket or matching coat, depending on the weather.

Number two was not to forget the details: necklace or earrings for sparkle, beautiful rings or watches for uplift. Hair had to be not just brushed, but curled with a hot air brush and no matter how bad the day ahead was looking, there was never,
never
any excuse not to wash face, apply tinted moisturizer, lipstick and even perfume, yes perfume.
Your
favourite. Not your ex-husband's, or your ex-boyfriend's or the one your aunty gave you for Christmas, but your very own favourite perfume. That had no associations. That you could carry about in a little bottle and revive yourself with during the day.

If it got too hard and too stressful to do this in the mornings, Annie recommended laying out clothes the night before, so that some effort and thought could be put into it ahead of the morning gloom. Anyway, it was another morale boost to wake up and see clothes carefully set out, necklace and earrings too. It was like having a ladies' maid, someone to take care of you while you slept.

That's really what this was about anyway, taking care of yourself through the rough times, when no one else was able to. When the natural tendency was to take it out on yourself, punish yourself and beat yourself up.

She would even tell clients with far too much stress and worry on their minds to care about the frivolities of wardrobe, to make a clothing chart.

'I know, I know,' she would insist, 'it sounds so dorky. But I promise you, you'll thank me. Write down four or five good outfits and stick the list on the back of the wardrobe door. Then, when you're standing there like a zombie, hands hovering over the comfy jeans and fleece, you will thank me, you will turn to the good outfit recipe and be able to come out looking like a woman who is surviving instead.'

Having followed her own advice, Annie was now in Operation Visit The School, striding on high patent, black shoes in a beautiful, not to mention brand new, black, white and orange dress, black raincoat and gorgeous, long, drapey burnt orange scarf (the exact colour of her nail varnish, by the way). Her hair was done, her lipstick was on and she was wafting something very spoiling by Diptyque towards her children's hoitytoity private school, St Vincent's.

For once, she was not late. She had arranged evening cover at The Store for the whole week, for ever. It meant she would miss out on hundreds of pounds of commission every month, it meant she could kiss goodbye to her almost guaranteed position of saleswoman with the highest monthly commission bonus. But never mind. She was back to single parenting, and her kids had to come first.

Maybe when she was living with Ed, she'd relied on him too much. She'd let her position slip, she'd delegated just a little bit more than she should have. But now she was making up for all of that.

There was an event on at school tonight, a big showy concert. Owen was playing, Lana was announcing two of the acts and it was a big deal for them both. So Annie was going to be there, beautifully turned out, calm and coping and, above all, their loving and supportive mum.

The chances of bumping into Ed at this thing were horrendously high. He was the head of the school's music department, after all. But she was going to cope with that just fine as well. She was a totally grown-up grown-up for God's sake. She was going to be perfectly civil.

Through the school's main entrance she went; its elaborate Victorian archway with massive wrought-iron gates. She still felt a rush of pride that her children went here, to one of the oldest and best schools in London. And if Timi Woos kept flying out of the boxes like they had been doing, long would her children continue to enjoy the gilded education with guaranteed stellar exam results which St Vincent's provided.

'Annie!' She heard her name being called over the cobbled courtyard. But it was OK, she'd already decided how she was going to answer the questions she could expect from parents she'd known since their children were little together.

'How are you? Looking wonderful, as always.' Suzie Wollstonecroft breezed over to her and kissed her on both cheeks.

'I'm really well, how are you?'

Suzie linked arms with her, filled her in on all the latest family Wollstonecroft news and then turned with the inevitable, 'And the lovely Mr Leon? How is he doing? I've not had the chance to speak to him since parents' night last term. I'm so glad you got him, by the way. He's great and he was definitely going to seed all on his own.'

'He's fine, very well,' Annie began, then as lightly as possible she added, 'but it's kind of run its course Suzie, no big deal. All very amicable . . . but you know how it goes sometimes.'

'Oh no!' Suzie gushed, pulling a face. Annie braced herself. 'No! That's terrible. He's a lovely man. I thought you two made a great couple. What happened?'

'Nothing dramatic,' Annie insisted. 'We've just decided to call it a day.'

Thankfully, they were approaching the entrance to the main hall where the headmaster was standing at the doorway to meet and greet, so Annie was spared from having to give any further details.

Suzie quickly peeled off from her side and Annie understood the move perfectly: she was rushing off to accost all the mothers she could find and relay this sensational new piece of parent/teacher gossip.

Annie settled in a seat beside two sets of parents she knew and although, once the lights were dimmed, she'd sneaked a look around to see if she could spot Ed, she was now going to concentrate very hard on watching Owen and Lana's performances.

After the nerve-racking, maternal pride-riddled minutes of Owen's tune and Lana's announcement, Annie finally felt she could enjoy the rest of the performance and the parent wine and cheese reception afterwards. Oh, why not? Everyone was going to be talking about her anyway, she might as well show up.

Annie tried to keep the conversations focused away from her. Instead, she asked lots of questions: 'How is Greta getting on?' 'What do you think of this year's form teacher?' 'Haven't you guys just moved house, how's that going?'

And to questions about how she was doing she just replied, 'Really well, thanks. I'm so proud of Owen and Lana, they did brilliantly tonight.'

When she was momentarily caught without anyone to talk to, and not knowing the people directly around her, she set off slowly through the crowd in search of a top-up for her wine glass and another familiar face. That was when she caught her first glimpse of Ed and turned abruptly, almost knocking straight into another woman.

'Oh I'm so sorry!' Annie exclaimed.

'No, no, totally my fault, I'm not used to my size yet,' the woman said gesturing to her stomach, the hard, swollen balloon of a pregnancy round about month six or seven. 'Oh! You're Annie Valentine, aren't you?' the woman said.

Annie nodded and smiled, trying to remember where she had seen her before. She was very pretty, with a dainty face and a sleek black bob. Nicely styled, high at the back and narrowing to two points level with her pointed chin. The bump was beautifully clothed in a long, subtly coloured knit dress with a flowing black crotcheted cardigan on top.

'I was going to contact you properly tomorrow but I hoped we might run into each other tonight. I'm Denise.' She stretched out her hand to shake Annie's, then head a little to the side, she asked, 'Ed's probably told you all about me?'

That's when Annie realized who this woman was. The one Ed had been sitting beside in the café in Camden. The one he'd been laughing and sipping coffee with, the one Annie had thought (ridiculously) must be his Italian girlfriend.

'My daughter's in the choir and we went on the school trip to Bavaria together and I got to know him really well,' Denise added with a happy smile.

'Right,' Annie smiled back.

'I'm one of the buyers for House of Fraser: shoes and leather accessories,' Denise went on. 'A few weeks ago Ed showed me a pair of the shoes you're importing. I've taken them into various meetings, you know how it is nowadays, no one person is ever allowed to make a decision. We have to get all the suits and creatives and one man and his dog to agree, but the bottom line is, we love the shoes and we'd like to talk to you about stocking them in some of our stores. That's why I was going to contact you tomorrow. I hoped we could meet up and discuss this further.'

If Annie was surprised, then Ed – now within earshot and seeing the two women together and guessing what they must be talking about – was very surprised and seriously flustered.

Annie, spying his approach from the corner of her eye could have rounded on him in total confusion. Could have demanded what the hell he was doing arranging meetings about her shoes? Sneaking around behind her back? Taking shoes from her boxes without asking? What on earth had he been thinking?

Instead, Annie remembered her promise to herself to be a totally civilized grown-up, even if it killed her. So before Ed could say anything, she quickly told Denise, 'What fantastic news! That's the best news I've had for weeks! Yes, well . . . when's a good time to come in and talk to you?'

As Denise got out her BlackBerry to make the necessary arrangements, Annie turned and offered Ed a very grown up and absolutely perfectly civilized smile.

As she left St Vincent's that evening with Owen and Lana in tow, Annie's mobile began to ring. She didn't recognize the number, but she knew it was Italian. Aha! Finally Mr B was phoning her back about the zipless bags. She'd only left about eight voicemail messages for him.

But to her surprise, the voice at the other end of the line informed her: 'Annah? It is Patrizia here.'

'Oh hello, Patrizia! How are you doing?'

'Very, very bad,' came the surprising reply, 'I have bad news.'

'Right.' Annie braced herself. Mr B was not going to cave on the zipless bags front. He wasn't going to give her the money back . . . Well, never mind, she would sell her stock, slowly but surely on the internet. It had been a lesson.

'Mr Berlusponti-Milliau is being investigated by the police,' Patrizia told her. 'The bags he sell you are copies. All the new bags, nearly everything he sell you, all copies of new bags coming out next year. It is very, very big trouble. Police. Fraud squad.'

'WHAT?!'

Paula at The Store:

Silver lurex vest top (Zara)
Pink satin bra (La Senza)
Very tight pinstriped black trousers
(Joseph sale – staff discount)
High black wedges (Miu Miu sale –
staff discount)
Total est. cost: £180

'Your next client's waiting.'

The bag from Mr B had already sold on eBay for £145. But there was still time to contact the purchaser, say there had been a mistake and refund the payment. So technically, Annie had not sold a fake bag. So technically, Annie would not be drummed out of eBay and she was not wanted by the Italian fraud squad – both good things.

But she had a bad feeling about getting her money back on the great stockpile of bags she had already bought from Mr B and now had stacked incriminatingly in her spare room.

She needed a lawyer and she didn't think it should be the crusty old dear who had handled the conveyancing on the many properties she'd bought and sold over the years, and who had looked after Roddy's will.