The Personal Shopper (29 page)

‘Lana! Give Dinah a call, please. I have to use the phone now. Please, Lana, please! Don’t leave Owen at home on his own, he might play with the science kit and blow the entire place up,’ she pleaded.

A huge, martyred teenage sigh came back down the line at her. Then Lana hung up.

Annie could not worry about Lana and Owen. Right now she had to dial 999.

She was
put
ting
her folded gown underneath Gray’s head, when he came round. He jerked his head up too quickly and almost passed out again. Annie was trying to explain what had happened, but it was taking some time to sink in.

‘What do you mean, hit my head?’ he asked in a voice that sounded a little slurred.

‘You’ve had a fall . . . please, just stay still, there’s an ambulance on its way.’

‘An ambulance!!’

There was no ignoring the Bone. It was still there, long and pink, poking well clear of his dressing gown. She shifted position a little to get away from it.

‘Gray, you’ve been unconscious, you’ve got pieces of glass in your head, you need to go to hospital.’

He lay still, absorbing this information.

‘Oh God,’ he groaned. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’

‘I know, I know,’ she soothed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Annie had just spotted her towel and was about to throw it over his middle to stop
him from noticing the
embarrassing little situation going on down there, but then came a much deeper groan and the pulling up of his knees and rearranging of his dressing gown as he noticed.

‘Oh Jesus!’ he exclaimed and curled himself foetally around the unforgiving, undisguisable Bone.

‘Hey, don’t worry about that . . . I’m flattered,’ Annie joked, trying to put him at ease. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’

He just closed his eyes and groaned again.

‘Look, Gray, if it makes you feel any better, I’ve got chicken fillets in my swimsuit.’

He open his eyes and looked at her in bewilderment.

She reached down the front of her costume and matter-of-factly pulled out one of her silicone breast enhancers, wibbling it in front of his face. ‘Viagra for
 
girls,’ she assured him. ‘At our age,’ she added, chummily, ‘we need all the help we can get.’

He just groaned again.

The ambulance crew of three arrived and included Brenda, a visual feast from Tasmania. Deeply tanned, tomboyish and gorgeous, she at least perked Gray up slightly.

‘A romantic moment gone wrong here, then,’ she summed up, surveying the bubbling jacuzzi, Annie still in glamourpuss swimsuit and pole-axed, tent-pole Gray.

One crew member spoke into his radio: ‘Middle-aged male: champagne glass injuries to the scalp, injury by a spherical marble ornament to the left foot, suspected concussion and a possible Viagra reaction. Yes, I am in Upper Ploxley . . . How did you guess?’ He did at least try to keep the chuckle from his voice.

‘Could you pack a bag for your boyfriend?’ they asked Annie.

‘Erm . . . Gray? What do you want me to get for you – and where will I find it?’ she had to ask, causing more stifled sniggering from the ambulance crew.

Gray was finally carried out on a stretcher with the weight of three towels over his middle in an attempt to keep the Bone at bay.

Once they’d all left, Annie switched off the jacuzzi, swept the broken glass from the decking, drank down the mouthful or so of champagne left in the bottle, locked the terrace doors, changed out of her swimsuit and exited the house, pulling the front door shut behind her.

Back in her Jeep, she sat in the driver’s seat for a few moments to consider the ev
ents of the afternoon.
She wondered if she should have accompanied Gray to hospital, but he’d told her not to. She wondered if she would ever hear from him again . . . She’d get in touch first, make sure that somehow they pick up again from here.

It was an accident . . . these things happen . . .
but why today?!
Finally Annie had to give in and allowed herself to do the one thing she hadn’t been able to do ever since the marble boulder had
 
slipped from Gray’s grip: she began to rock with laughter.

‘That’s the best story I’ve heard all week,’ was Connor’s verdict, when she rang to share it with him later: ‘The man with
the
marble balls and a rod of iron.’

Chapter Nineteen

New, improved Martha:

Orange, red and white dress (Issa)

Slouchy brown boots (Miu Miu)

Caramel tote (Chloé)

Est. cost: £1,400

‘Don’t you think I’m transvestite tall?’

Paula, now back on the shop floor, was the assistant who led Martha Cooper into the Personal Shopping suite for her second visit with the words: ‘Wow! I can’t believe it’s really you!’

Annie, who was trying to fit in several quick computer bids and her stone-cold Starbucks latte, not to mention arrange a delivery of flowers to Gray at his hospital bed, took her feet off her desk and began to clap
her hands
.

‘Oh, very good!’ she told Martha, who was smiling from ear to ear.

The mum who’d turned up in old jeans and a parka now stood before them in the sharp trousers and swing jacket she’d bought on her first visit, nicely grunged down with a pair of green gymmies. But the biggest change was the healthy, make-up-assisted glow on her face and the hair. The lank overgrown mop was now a tousled, tonged, caramel-coloured mane.

‘Grrrrrrr,’ Annie purred. ‘Look at you. Good enough to eat. And are you back at work now?’

Martha nodded.

‘So you’ve returned to spend lots of your new lolly?’

‘Oh yes. I want a raincoat . . . and a dress . . . and maybe some boots . . . and
possibly
a bag.’

‘Oh, you are so in the right place, babes. And it’s me looking after you this afternoon, hope that’s OK? Right .
 
. . follow me, we’ll do a little tour of the shop floor and bring back a bundle of things for you to try.’

After a speed search of the collections Annie thought would work for Martha, they were back in the suite. A vibrant orange and red Issa dress with high-heeled boots and a fab bag were the choices Annie was nudging Martha towards.

The dress was beautiful on. Although it was patterned, it wasn’t floral because, as Martha had warned Annie: ‘A tall girl in big flowers . . .’

‘Is a sofa,’ Annie had agreed straight away.

Unfortunately the high-heeled brown slouchy boots which went so brilliantly with the dress seemed to be the problem for Martha.

‘I know everything looks better with heels,’ she began, ‘but don’t you think I’m now transvestite tall?’

‘No,’ Annie assured her, but, well . . . she was about six foot four in those boots, which was a
little scary.

‘There’s no use telling me how tall Cindy, Lindy, Elle etc. are, I just don’t want to be the tallest thing in a room
 
bar the column holding up the ceiling. And . . .’ she gave the slightly confused hand gestures which Annie had seen in so many clients before, ‘I just don’t think this—’

‘Is really you?’ Annie jumped in. ‘Too smart, too dressy . . . too much, too soon! Sorry, I’m rushing you in there. OK. We like the dress? Agreed? So maybe we need to style it down. And we need to bring you down too, don’t we?’

She disappeared off into the store and came back with several accessories.

The dress was tried on again, but this time with a white vest underneath, brown footless tights and flat gold pumps.

‘Oh yes! Yes. So much better!’ was Martha’s verdict.

Then Annie handed over the killer accessory. The power bag which would ensure that even if Martha turned up at her office in the unspeakable parka, she would still have a shred of cred: a Chloé tote bag – big, astronomically expensive in a go-with-everything tan leather.

‘No, no!’ Martha
backed away and
didn’t even want to hold it.

‘It comes in six different colours,’ Annie wheedled. ‘Just try it, girl, get it onto your arm . . . it won’t bite.’

Annie handed it over and was too fascinated to see what Martha would think of herself with a bit of almost four-figured kit in the crook of her elbow to notice Donna stalking into the suite.

Martha was holding the bag, this way and that, staring back at her reflection. ‘I have a handbag morality,’ she explained. ‘I draw the line at two hundred pounds. You should be able to get a fantastic bag for no more than two
 
hundred pounds. When I see price tags above that, I just think: this is madness! I can’t
 
walk about with a month’s salary slung from my shoulder, inviting muggers from far and wide to have a go. I certainly can’t carry my packed lunch in it, or baby wipes, or beakers.’

‘OK . . . well, then you know where you have to shop?’

‘Where?’ Martha wondered.

‘EBay! You could probably get this bag for two hundred pounds on eBay, but you have to accept that it’s a fake. Hopefully the kind of really, really clever fake
 
that even Ms Chloé herself might be pushed to spot. Worth thinking about. Or then again, downstairs we have wipedown
 
PVC Orla Kiely bags, very, very popular with the Yummy Mummy. But I love you in that bag!’ she added.

Annie also did not see Donna stalking out of the suite with an expression on her face that was hard to read: part sour, part satisfied.

‘The bag is absolutely stunning, baby.’ Annie took it back from Martha and held it up to her: ‘A real investment . . . But no pressure. I’ve got three lovely raincoats here for you to try on while you think about the bag. Orange? Great with that dress. Or classic light beige? Or maybe both?’

‘Annie,
stop
! You are so good, you are very, very bad. I’m going for a strong, sobering coffee before I decide about the bag. Maybe I’ll buy a fake like you said.’

‘It’s just not the same though, babes,
you’ll
always know . . .’

‘Yeah, but if I buy the real one, my husband will always know – and kill me.’

‘But you’re back at work,’ Annie wheedled. ‘There have to be some compensations . . .’

‘Coffee,’ Martha insisted. ‘I’ll buy the dress, the tights, the flats, probably a raincoat too . . . but I need coffee for the bag decision!’

‘OK, OK.’ Annie smiled at her. ‘You know where we are!’ She heard the swish of the metal bead curtains at the entrance to the suite parting, then Ed Leon was standing there, looking sheepish. ‘Sorry, am I a bit . . . erm . . . early?’ He looked as if he was about to walk out again.

‘No, no. Take a seat,’ Annie instructed. ‘I just have to sell this nice lady here a raincoat, then I’m all yours,’ she told him.

When Martha had paid for the purchases she was certain about and gone for her bag-decider coffee, Annie was able to turn her attention to the dweeby teacher, perched, a little nervously, in skinny cords on the suite sofa.

‘So,’ she said, settling onto the sofa beside him, ‘tell me all about your tailoring requirements.’

‘Top-to-toe overhaul,’ was Ed’s verdict. He’d chosen a
 
worn navy blue jacket today, instead of his typical tweed, as if in the spirit of dressing up and making an effort. But it looked cheap and didn’t fit.