The Personal Shopper (49 page)

‘You were right, I was spending far too much money on the kids’ clothes.’

‘Annie? Hello, it’s Ed.’

‘Oh . . . Ed? Hi.’ Annie was slightly taken aback to hear from him, especially after his abrupt goodbye yesterday. ‘You must be busy packing.’

‘Yes . . . yeah . . . look . . . There’s something I wanted to ask you.’

Annie put a hand over her left ear, blocking out the noise of traffic on Oxford Street.

‘Yup, fire away,’ she said, wondering if this was going to be a ‘which tie goes with which shirt?’ query. She made a quick check on her watch, 9.50 a.m., just ten minutes before she was due t
o hook up with a
l
ong-term client
in Selfridge’s. She quickened her pace along the pavement.

‘Well, it’s just . . .’ Ed began, ‘I was thinking . . . you and the children could do with a temporary home. Well, so I understand . . . Lana’s explained you’ve moved back to London. Anyway . . . I really need to get my place redecorated because I’m planning to sell it, so while I’m away in the States I just wondered . . . I mean obviously, totally up to you . . . it would be a hassle for you, but you’d obviously not pay any rent and I’d pay for all the decorating . . . well, I need help with it and I just thought maybe it would tide you over . . .’

She understood exactly what he was suggesting and immediately thought it was a perfect short-term solution: ‘Brilliant idea, Ed! Brilliant!’ she exclaimed. ‘We probably won’t even be there long, just enough time to sort it all out for you and find a place of our own. Fantastic!’

Recently, Annie had begun to think that even a few more nights of the heavy drinking, fun and games of living on top of Connor and Hector was going to kill her.
 
But she was still some time away from being able to
 
stump up the deposit on a new place. Here was this
 
fantastic, unexpected solution coming at her out of the blue, proof that one should always wear lipstick, perfume, nice heels and stay positive.

‘I’d need to see you before I go,’ Ed was saying. ‘Give you keys, show you round, ask what you think should be done, see what kind of budget is needed.’

Yes, of course Ed should have thought of this earlier, so they could have looked through brochures together, picked out kitchen cupboards, talked colour schemes, all that kind of thing. But never mind, she liked a plan that fell together at the last moment. Her mind was already racing ahead to redesigning the layout . . . to where Lana and Owen would sleep in the flat when the damp course was being put in . . .

She told Ed she would come round to his just after 1
 
p.m.,
so she would have an hour or s
o to talk to him before the children broke off from school for the summer holidays.

‘How come you’re not at school today, anyway?’ she wondered.

‘They gave me the day off to get organized. Maybe they had some idea how long it would take me.’

‘Aha.’

Then Annie almost dropped her phone at the sight of the woman walking – no, make that sashaying – towards her. Was that . . . ? Could that be . . . ?

‘I have to go,’ she told Ed. ‘See you later.’

‘Hey! Nit girl!’ Annie shouted once she’d hung up. She gave a vigorous wave. ‘Get you!’

Martha Cooper’s head turned and when she spotted Annie, she began to laugh. She’d lost weight, her hair was even lighter than the last time Annie had seen her. She looked great.

‘Look at you!’ Annie said coming up to her. ‘You look fabulous. And it’s only . . .’ she gave Martha a quick up and down, ‘only the shoes I can take credit for! Wow, good work! I hope you’re going to recommend me to all your friends.’

‘They are clamouring for your number!’ Martha told her.

After a quick chat about Martha’s children, Martha’s work, Martha’s new exercise regime, Martha thanked Annie sincerely for her advice.

‘You were right,’ she told her, ‘I was spending far too much money on the kids’ clothes. God! I was spending far too much time obsessing over the kids, full stop. Me and all the other haggard mothers hanging out at Baby Gymnastics. Those days are over . . . well, not entirely, obviously . . .’ she added quickly, ‘but at least I no longer look like their scruffy au pair.’

Ed answered his battered door and showed Annie into
 
the kitchen. He was wearing trousers and a shirt from the clothes they’d chosen together, his hair had been trimmed rather than hacked off and she couldn’t help thinking how well he looked. He was obviously preparing for his big US adventure and she was proud of her handiwork.

Fleetingly she wondered if he might land himself an
 
American girlfriend and maybe not come back to St
 
Vincent’s again. That would be so nice for him, she
 
told herself. She wasn’t sure what Owen would do but . . .

‘What time’s your flight tomorrow?’ she asked him, stepping we
ll away from the cats’ dishes
.

‘Four p.m.,’ he replied.

There was something of a restlessness to him she hadn’t seen before, because usually he was so calm. His hair-rummaging had increased, he spilled water on the kettle’s journey from the sink to the hob and couldn’t seem to locate a cloth to wipe the puddle away.

‘I’m fine for tea,’ she assured him. ‘Shall we make a start on looking round?’

After a pause he said, ‘Yes, yes, no problem,’ but his voice sounded uncertain, almost as if he’d forgotten what she was here for.

They went into the sitting room where Annie wasted no time getting down on her knees to lift the peeling wallpaper and inspect the damp again. ‘This will have to be treated first,’ she told him. ‘We can’t do any decorating in here till that’s been sorted.’

Then she began her knowledgeable damp talk. Did he want to put in a chemical damp-proof course, or did he
 
want to go the conservation route and look into lime plasters and porous paint?

‘Oh, right . . . well, whatever you think,’ was his distracted answer, then he began talking about what time his plane would arrive in Boston and how he’d travel on from there.

‘OK, focus, Ed!’ she reminded him. ‘If you don’t want to finalize the damp issue today, we could at least talk about kitchen units and sub-floor insulation and colour schemes. I need to know your budget . . . whether you want to repaper, replaster or just paint over the old stuff . . . all that kind of thing.’

‘No, no,’ he shook his head, ‘I’m going to leave it up to you. I’m selling anyway, so I’ll write a cheque and then you just make it look as nice as you can. As nice as you will,’ he added. ‘I know your flat, it’s lovely.’

‘Aha, very trusting.’ Annie was wondering why someone who hadn’t been able to clear out even a bookshelf for years was suddenly planning an entire home renovation and move. The imminent American sabbatical was
 
obviously having a motivating effect on him. She wondered also where he planned to go next.

‘OK, I’ve seen your kitchen, your sitting room, your bathroom . . . if it’s not too personal, can I see your bedroom?’ she asked him.

Ed rummaged with his hair, gave a strange sort of half-yawn, then a sneeze. ‘It’s obviously fairly untidy . . . what with all the packing and everything,’ he warned her.

‘You’re really nervous about the trip, aren’t you?’ Annie ventured. She hadn’t seen him look agitated before; usually he was so laid back.

‘Kind of,’ was
all the response he made
.

‘Hey.’ She walked
towards him. ‘You’re going to
be fine.
You’re going
 
to have the time of your life and I promise I’ll take care of everything here, including the storage of all your mother’s things. I’ll look after it all for you.’

‘Right.
My bedroom.
’ He gave her a ti
ght little smile, then turned. She followed him into the corridor, wondering
why she was feeling a flicker of nervousness herself now. Watching how he bent down to avoid the low ceiling light, she did likewise, then he
 
had to angle his broad shoulders from the narrow corridor into the bedroom door.

‘Here we go.’

Then they were both in a
dark green room, standing side by side, arms almost touching. She looked round briefly, taking in the
antique
wooden double bed, the
jumble of clothes and cases on top of it, the framed posters, piles of
 
books, overflowing cupboard and drawers. It was messy, just like Ed, but it w
as also welcoming and authentic and very masculine
. . . just like Ed.

Kissing.

All of a sudden she was having an in
tense flashback to kissing him
on the stairwell.

Flustered, s
he tried to focus on the
narrow French window
which
led out to a dainty garden in
 
as luscious and unkempt a state as Ed’s hair. A rose
 
bush, bent over with heavy yellow-pink heads, was bobbing up and down in the breeze, scattering petals onto the path below.

‘Very nice,’ Annie said,
her voice a little husky,
‘but a much lighter green . . . maybe?’

‘Maybe,’ he replied
, the word sounding as if it had been forced through a dry throat.

‘It’s OK,’ she assured him again. ‘You’re going to have a great time!’ a
nd then
she
found herself
put
ting
her a
rm
around Ed’s waist
.
. . just to be reassuring, really, she told herself.

But t
he result of this was that he turned, moved his arms around
her and, then
, they
were caught up in that very hot kissing all over again
.

Mou
th against mouth, they found each other.

H
e tasted the same as before and
she realized how clearly she remembered him, how often she’d been thinking about him.
His warm body, pushed against her
s
, was now not just new or hesitant and awkward, it was welcomingly familiar. She’d held him before. But this time was better. This time they pulled each other close.

This time they didn’t feel so uncertain.

They both knew they really wanted to do this. Couldn’t stop themselves from doing this.

‘How are you doing?’ she whispered
against his soft, slig
htly downy ear when they paused for a moment
for breath.

‘I’m extremely
n
ervous,’ he whispered back
.

‘Where’s your sense o
f adventure?’ she asked, her lips against his neck,
‘It’s the trip of a lifetime.’

He pulled just slightly away from her to
look at her face properly: ‘It’s not the trip,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s you . . . I’m in a total state about you.’