The Personal Shopper (17 page)

‘Did not!’ Nic protested. ‘But I do like that dress. It’s a Dries, isn’t it? What do you think, Rick? Would I look nice in that, or not?’

Rick looked slightly uncomfortable at having to scrutinize a woman he’d only just met and imagine her dress on his girlfriend.

‘This is not for sale!’ Annie insisted.

‘Of course it is, Annie,’ Nic countered. ‘Everything you own is for sale. Always has been. And we’re exactly the same size . . .’

‘Speak to me later,’ Annie whispered. ‘You might be able to persuade me once I’ve had a drink or two.’

‘Mum!’ Annie took in the pink and white vision which was their mother making a beeline for them. ‘Belle of the ball!’ she added and hugged her, but then she pulled back, looked down and saw not the suede creations she’d parted with £250 of her hard-earned cash to buy, but the bloody beige orthopaedic sandals!

‘Muuuum!’ she scolded.

‘Oh, I can’t drive the Jag in those heels, sweetheart,’ was her mother’s explanation.

‘Drive the Jag?!!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘I thought we’d agreed you were getting a taxi.’

‘I hate taxis. Such a waste of money,’ her mother replied, but before she could be told off further, she was swept away by a tide of new guests.

Owen and Lana were still hovering not far from Annie’s side, Owen very shy in the presence of so many friends and relations.

‘You’re going to be fine,’ Annie reassured him. ‘And most people here know not to expect you to talk to them straight away, Owen . . . unless you want to . . .’ she added quickly, ‘then that would be fine.’

‘Annie Valentine!’

They pulled to a stop in front of Aunty Hilda, the old crone, some mothballed old creation from the 1980s draped about her.

She was so hard of hearing now that she spoke in harsh silence-slicing sentences, punctuated with a top-volume ‘
What’s that?!
’ – her reply to almost anything anybody said.

She was Fern’s aunt, Annie’s great-aunt. She was acidic, rude and wealthy – thanks to her dead husband rather than anything she’d done – so she felt entitled to be judgemental and critical. She was also family, so was tolerated and invited.

‘Aunty Hilda, how are you doing?’ Annie stooped to brush her lips against a powdery cheek.

‘You’re looking nice, dear,’ was Hilda’s verdict after a lengthy up-and-down, but it came with the rider, ‘For a
 
change.’

‘Oh, and Owen here’ – she pulled him in with her meaty arm for a sadistically close hug: ‘You’re so tall and handsome, but still the deaf mute?’

‘No! He’s not that at all—’ Annie began but Hilda chose not to hear and carried on: ‘Lana? Ah, well . . .’

Annie wanted to put her arm up to defend her daughter and issue a stern:
Oh no you don’t, you evil old bag, fragile teenage ego in development. Step back
.

‘Hmmm . . . feathers?’ Hilda remarked of Lana’s bolero, in a way that conveyed her deepest disregard for plumage.

Annie hoped Lana wasn’t going to say anything regrettable.

‘Well now.’ Hilda met Annie’s gaze with cool blue eyes, misting with age: ‘And where’s your husband Roddy? You haven’t gone and got yourself divorced as well, have you, like your mother and your sister? Don’t tell me Dinah is going to be the only married woman left in this family! Ha ha.’

As if this was some kind of witty conversational gambit.

Where’s Roddy?
Annie turned the question over in her mind. She and Aunty Hilda weren’t exactly close. Hilda was in her eighties, her memory was bound to be failing, but still . . .

The booming voice had carried Hilda’s inappropriate question across the room and turned down the volume as people waited to see how she’d answer. From the corner of her eye, Annie – momentarily too stunned to reply – could see Fern powering down the room towards them, cushioned orthopaedic soles assisting her naturally vigorous stride, as she came to rescue them. Suddenly Annie was grateful her mother had chosen not to wear the two-inch suedes.

‘Aunty Hilda!’ Fern pretended to trill with delight, ‘how
lovely
to see you!’ She leaned in to give the old bat a hug, while over Hilda’s shoulder she winked at Annie, then pulled a gruesome face: ‘No-one’s even found you a glass of champagne yet, Aunty. Follow me!’

Chapter Ten

Terrifying tongue boy:

Black skinny trousers (Topshop)

Ruffled white shirt (Camden Market)

Selection of silver pirate earrings (Camden Market)

Nose piercing (his one-before-last girlfriend)

Tongue piercing (someone slightly more professional)

Total estimated cost: £75

‘Whatever.’

‘So, thank you all for coming tonight and making it such a fantastic evening, so far. There’s going to be dancing, the bar’s open till two a.m. . . . so don’t even think about going home early. Not even you, Frankie!’ Fern was closing the little speech she’d made and the relief on her face was obvious. ‘Before I go, I just want to say thank you to my three wonderful, fabulous girls. I’m so . . .’ then came the crack in the voice which gave each of her daughters a big lump in their throats: ‘. . . proud of you all,’ she managed before sitting down abruptly.

There was warm applause and Annie might even have let a tear or two well up in the corner of her eye, except Connor touched her elbow, raised an eyebrow and directed her to look towards a window in the corner of the room.

Tucked in behind a tall green c
hintz curtain was a couple kiss
ing frantically. A white-shirted teen boy was kneading his hand vigorously on a – yikes! – lacy navy breast.

‘Lana?’ Annie asked out loud.

Connor nodded and shot her a wicked smile.

It was several moments before Annie could tear her gaze from them.
Who is he?
she wondered. It was hard to tell from the back of his head. He still hadn’t come up for air. Was he a relative? A distant cousi
n? Was it legal for Lana to kiss him? Kiss!
? Look at that jaw action: more like eat him alive.

She mouthed the word ‘Help!’ to Connor, but his response was to whisper back: ‘Like you never!’

Annie turned back to Nic, hoping further conversation about the respective delights of Rick and their holiday to Rome would help take her mind off Lana. And, by the way, where was Owen? She hadn’t seen him for ages.

‘We’re going to stay in this gorgeous little hotel not far from the Spanish Steps . . . Do you have any holidays planned, Annie?’ Nic asked.

Annie thought about the school fees, the new property plan, the slow week on the Trading Station, and wanted to snort with laughter at the idea of blowing money on a holiday.

‘Hmm, well, we’ll see,’ was her reply. She turned her
 
attention to the pudding in front of her: chocolate profiteroles. Now these contained everything she’d renounced for the week-long detox she’d done in order to look as fabulous as possible in the pink dress: wheat, dairy, sugar and caffeine. Suddenly a bowlful of toxins had never looked so irresistible. She sunk in her spoon and necked down three big mouthfuls, barely pausing for breath.

Connor, catching sight of the choux pastry demolition, took her firmly by her spoon hand. ‘Duty calls, Annie,’ he said. ‘They’re playing our song.’

‘Since when is “The Dashing White Sergeant” our song?’ Annie wanted to know, bending her head to take one last lick of chocolate sauce before Connor led her onto a dance floor already lined in orderly fashion with several elderly trios.

‘C’mon. The kiltie wants to dance. The kiltie wants to twirl. I’m fully in touch with my inner Highlander tonight and he wants to boogie.’

‘We need a third person for this dance,’ Annie warned him.

‘A threesome? Excellent. Who shall we have? Spotted any handsome single men yet?’

‘Not a one,’ she smiled, greatly cheered at the prospect of swinging it with Connor.

She’d always loved to dance at parties with Roddy. Disco, of course, but properly, with all the moves. Or salsa. The Roddy and Annie floorshow had been semi-practised and crowd-pleasing. A little bit subtle and a little bit cool, just the right side of showy . . . just like Roddy, in fact.

Wrapped up tightly together, snaking across the dance floor, Roddy’s warm hand on her bare back . . . suddenly she was remembering one very hot dance session at a friend’s wedding, when Roddy had twirled her by the hand off the dance floor, out of the party and along the stairs to their room.

With the lights off, and the noise of chatter and laughter outside in the corridor, he’d unzipped the poppy dress and let it fall silkily to the floor.

‘We have to carry on just where we left off,’ he’d whispered into her ear. So she’d put her hands on his buttocks, her lips to his mouth and let him salsa her all the way over to the bed.

At parties nowadays, she had to take her chances along with all the other single mothers. Sometimes, the best you could hope for was that someone not too dodgy or arthritic would ask you onto the danc
e floor and not make a total twit
of themselves.

‘Aha, just the man.’ Connor had spotted Lana’s tongue boy walking past with a glass of water in his hand. ‘Hello there, we need you,’ he said, catching the boy by his wrist and spinning him in towards them, causing an arc of water to curve from the glass: ‘We need a threesome for this dance. This is Annie Valentine, Lana Valentine’s mother. We noticed that you’d met Lana.’

‘Oh, ermmm . . . hi there,’ tongue boy mumbled. He
 
had shoulder-length brown-blond hair and three earrings in one ear, not to mention his nose. He was way too cool for school and looked frighteningly like a 17- or even 18-year-old.

‘I can’t dance to this stuff,’ the boy said dismissively. And that was when Annie noticed the metal stud gleaming on his tongue and shuddered.

‘Hey, c’mon, give us a chance. It’ll be fun. What’s your name anyway?’ Connor persisted.

‘Seth.’

‘
Th
is
is
“The Dashing White Sergeant”. You’ll love it. It’s easy,’ she said and took hold of one of his hands.

‘Whatever,’ he shrugged.

Connor removed the glass of water and took hold of Seth’s other hand, then they dragged him along with them.

It was a memorable dance for Annie, what with Connor on one side whooping, yeehahing, and twirling enough to give alarming flashes of dark hair – yes, under
there
, he’d gone with the traditional Scottish no p
ants thing – while Seth
barely raised a shuffle on her other side.

Annie spotted Lana at the edge of the dance floor: arms crossed, mouth pinched, glaring at the sight of her
 
mother dancing with her latest conquest. Lana was clearly
convinced that a CIA-style interrogation was under way, with Connor on hand to administer torture.

So, Seth, what grades did you get in your last round of exams? Do you have a serious profession in mind? Have you undergone work experience within this profession? Teenage sexuality – your prevailing ethics, attitude, morality and most recent experiences: please, discuss.

Much as Annie might have liked to ask all these questions, she managed to confine herself to a polite: ‘So, how do you know my mum?’ But got only a mumbled: ‘She plays golf with my dad,’ in reply before Seth broke away and headed off in the direction of Lana’s wildly enthusiastic smile.