Celebrity Shopper (17 page)

‘Baptism, yes, but no problem. We all finished
by then? Huh?’ Svetlana directed the question at Elena.

Elena had a look of total concentration on her face. She looked at her watch and, for a few moments, she said nothing as her busy mind went into overdrive.

‘We are going to have to work,’ she began, ‘we are going to have to work so hard …’

‘No problem,’ Annie assured her.

‘No,’ Svetlana agreed.

‘I help too?’ Anoush asked. ‘And my mother,’ she volunteered.

The crease of deep thought that Svetlana so disliked appeared on Elena’s forehead. ‘I need to contact everyone and tell them that the venue has changed. We need someone to do lights—’

‘I can help with that,’ Rich volunteered. ‘There’s a guy I know who runs a photographic agency in Paris; I’ll phone him, borrow some stuff.’

Elena gave him a nod. ‘We need a DJ,’ she added.

‘I’ll ask at the agency,’ Rich offered again.

‘Annie is going to make the veils,’ Elena added.

Annie nodded, even though she was thinking:
Am I? How? What with? And where will I get it?

‘We have to make the church beautiful,’ Elena said next.

Svetlana and Anoush’s mother both nodded at this. Maybe this meant they would take it on.

‘And we have to find more models!’ Only when Elena uttered these words did her voice sound stricken.

This was when Annie decided to voice her idea: ‘I think …’ she began hesitantly, ‘I think
we
should all model the dresses.’ She took in the whole group with her gesture. She meant Elena and Svetlana and Anoush and Latifah and was even offering herself.

‘Huh?’ was Svetlana’s response to this.

‘We should all model because these dresses are designed
to flatter every shape, so Anoush will wear hers long, yours will be above the knee, Latifah and I have boobs, so we’ll have them open to the waist with camis underneath … d’you see?’ Annie was warming to her theme. ‘We want to show how good anyone can look in the dresses. Every designer loves to claim every year that they’re making “real” clothes for “real” people and then what comes stalking down their catwalk? Stick insects dressed as if they’re all set to be fired into outer space!’

Anoush turned shyly to her mother and began a translation. When Anoush finished, her mother pointed at herself and let out a peal of laughter. She shook her head firmly.

Svetlana and Elena were also looking unconvinced.

‘We will wear the dresses, ya, but we have to talk to people,’ Svetlana said.

‘We can’t model,’ Elena agreed, ‘but you and Anoush, yes, and maybe you are right: some more ordinary people.’

‘Do you know anyone else who would like to model?’ Annie asked Anoush.

Anoush smiled broadly and nodded. ‘Friends … and I meet one girl at the Louvre,’ she replied.

‘They’ve got to have pretty faces and like to show off, but they don’t need to have perfect bodies,’ Annie instructed. ‘Go phone them, find them and bring them here. Does your mother maybe have a friend too? It would be great to have someone older, wouldn’t it?’ Annie looked at Elena, who was nodding now but in a slightly dazed kind of way.

‘You do have some other sizes in your bags for the buyers, don’t you?’ Annie remembered, hoping she wasn’t going to have to squeeze women of all different shapes into standard UK size 10s.

Elena nodded again.

‘OK.’ Annie pushed up the sleeves of her blouse. ‘We’ve
all got loads to do now. I need to get netting; Svetlana, flowers! Rich, lights! Go, Anoush! Elena, start phoning! C’mon, let’s go, girls!’

Annie was quite relieved to leave the busy chaos in the church and head off for one of the bustling main streets of Saint-Denis. The day was sunny now and surprisingly warm. She wondered if it was still snowing in London. It was nearly 5 p.m., Owen and Lana would long have finished school and be doing whatever else was on the agenda for today: homework; music practice; visiting friends. The babies would be getting hungry and Ed would be thinking about venturing into the battle-scarred kitchen to rustle up dinner.

For his sake, she hoped the snow had stopped.

She would bring them all a present from Paris, even though she had no idea when the shopping moment would come.

This was a busy, lively street. There were ethnic takeaway shops vying with ironmongers and grocers, boxes piled with exotic overripe fruit spilling out on to the pavements, noisy clatter and the smell of sizzling oil and onions everywhere. Somewhere there was going to be a fabric shop, she just knew it.

All around streets like this there would be homes full of clever, frugal women who sewed to make the family budget stretch further. She walked on, looking hard until she spotted rolls of fabric propped against a doorway, hopefully a sign that she’d found the shop she was looking for. She ducked in through the entrance and came into a tiny room packed from floor to ceiling with rolls and rolls of fabric.

‘
Bonjour, madame!
’

A man with the darkest, shiniest skin dressed in a vibrant
pink and yellow T-shirt smiled at her from the counter.

‘
Je puis vous aider
?’ he asked, making the ‘s’ buzz like a bee with his accent.

Annie looked at him. Annie smiled. Annie racked her brain for what on earth the French word for ‘netting’ could possibly be.

‘I look,’ she said, pointing to her eyes and then around the shop.

‘Yes, you look, welcome!’ the man behind the counter enthused.

Annie began to rummage in amongst the rolls of fabric, cheerfully certain that inspiration could be found. Inspiration could always be found, even in the unlikeliest of places.

In fact, the shop turned out to be a netting treasure trove. There were all kinds of nylon laces and nylon nettings in all sorts of colours: pink, white, a neon green that she particularly liked and gaudy gold. Now that would look great made into a tiny little veil coming down from the crown of someone’s head.

With English words and sign language, she managed to order several metres of all the material she thought would be useful.

When the man rang up the total, Annie drew her euros from the TV petty cash envelope. She would phone Tamsin as she walked back to the church and explain what was going on. She had a feeling Tamsin was going to love this. It should make for great television … Annie hoped.

The Tamsin phone call over and as positive as she’d expected, Annie arrived back at the church in an excellent mood to find hustle, bustle, more people and a growing sense of energy.

A fat black dude in a bowler hat and – despite the gloom
of the church – sunglasses was setting up a music deck not far from the pulpit. Annie hoped that wasn’t in contravention of any religious taboos. She was a bit hazy about religion. Certain Sundays in the year had been spent in nondescript C of E churches when she was young, but her mother had never been much of a fan of church-going and Annie had followed in her footsteps. Religion was something she associated only with school, like learning Latin. For Annie, vicars were like hospital doctors, people you seemed to have to deal with only in emergencies.

Anoush’s mother had a mop in her hand and was busy washing the floor between the rows of pews; Svetlana was on her phone; Elena was on her phone. Rich was nowhere to be seen; maybe because he’d gone to collect the lighting he’d promised to find.

Svetlana spotted Annie and ended her call, tucking the mobile into the tiny handbag dangling from her wrist. She approached Annie with her arms held out and once she had her friend in the embrace, she told her: ‘I think maybe this could work. I think maybe we will pull this off. Everything will be saved and I think in very big part is because of you.’

Annie smiled at her. ‘No,’ she said gently, pulling out of the hug, ‘I might have had some good ideas, but I only suggested them because I know you and Elena and, hopefully, Anoush are the kind of girls who can make them work. That’s the difference. Anyway,’ she reminded Svetlana, ‘we’re not there yet. Thank me at the end of the show.’ She winked.

‘I wonder who Anoush is going to bring for models? On the catwalk it is going to be you and everyone Anoush can find.’

Only now did Annie begin to feel nervous at the prospect of this. None of them would be professionals, but would have to perform in front of press and buyers. People who
had seen so many fashion shows, they were totally jaded; people who knew what a fashion show was supposed to look like; who knew what a model was supposed to do!

Whatever Annie might have said next, whatever Annie might even have thought next was blasted right out of her head by the dude behind the music system.

‘DJ Paul,’ Svetlana shouted out at her by way of explanation.

Annie and Svetlana couldn’t help smiling at each other over the noise. Suddenly the church rocked and this didn’t seem quite so mad or impossible after all …

‘Turn down!’ Elena screamed above the sound. ‘Or windows fall out!’

‘
Quoi?
’ the DJ asked.

It was true; everything in the church seemed to be vibrating, even the cross above the altar. Annie hoped the priest was nowhere within earshot, otherwise he might rush round immediately and turf them out, one thousand euros or not.

As soon as the volume had been lowered, the sound of voices could be heard in the vestry. Then into the church came Anoush and the three others she had rounded up to model the dresses.

The music came to an abrupt halt, possibly for technical reasons, and Svetlana, Elena, Annie and the DJ all found themselves staring with great curiosity at the three ‘models’ Anoush had in tow.

There was a small, very curvaceous white girl, probably about the same age as Anoush, maybe a school friend. She had a big smile on her face and was clearly much more extrovert than Anoush.

Behind them towered an extraordinary-looking 6-foot-tall girl, perhaps Algerian; she was much darker than Anoush, with an amazing shock of long Afro hair, dyed
bright orange; she was as rail thin and slouchy as a professional model.

And behind this girl was maybe the curvy girl’s grandmother: a wonderfully French-looking older lady with a silver-haired bob, sporting a cropped fur jacket.

‘What you think?’ Anoush asked in her shy way. ‘This is Yvette, I meet at the Carrousel,’ she began, pointing to the tall girl, ‘my best friend, Celeste, and Celeste’s grand-mère – she used to model couture. They would all like to be in the show.’

Annie couldn’t help giving a clap of excitement, her mind racing into makeover mode. A beanpole, an hourglass, a glamorous old lady … this was excitingly challenging. She was going to have to go and rifle through Elena’s bags of dresses straightaway.

However, she was aware of the silence from behind. Svetlana, Elena and Rich hadn’t said anything yet. She looked around to see that their faces were set. They did not think this was such a great idea.

‘This will work, I promise,’ Annie whispered at them, not wanting to discourage the party at the door.

‘Is this about fashion, Annah?’ Svetlana asked icily. ‘Or is this about making television?’

‘Good television will be very good for both of us,’ Annie replied.

Annie’s phone began to ring. She picked it up but only answered because it was Ed’s number. If some home disaster had occurred, she needed to know, even if it wasn’t exactly the perfect moment.

‘Ed, is this urgent?’ she hissed into the handset.

‘Al’s just made a great big hole in the roof, brought half the slates down on top of his head, fallen off the ladder and broken his wrist,’ came Ed’s astonishing news.

Annie tried to digest it. There was absolutely nothing she
could do for Ed. Yes, it was a crisis, but she was having a full-blown crisis of her own right now. Elena looked, once again, as if she might cry.

‘Darlin’, I love you, I know you can cope, but I have to go. I’ll phone you as soon as I can.’ With that she hung up. ‘Come right on in,’ she urged the modelling party. ‘Thank you, Anoush! Thank you all for coming. Now follow me and I am going to show you all the wonderful dresses we are going to wear.’

Grand-mère’s own:

Black and white print dress (Sabine Boutique)
Black snakeskin low-heeled shoes (Vintage Céline)
Black alligator bag (her mother’s)
Red lipstick (Chanel)
Perfume (Chanel No 5)
Total est. cost (at today’s prices):
€
1890

‘Affreux.’

An hour later and Annie was in the church hall with all four models … battling. She was battling with dress buttons which wouldn’t stay closed; she was battling with needles, thread and netting which seemed to ping out all over the place no matter how hard or how closely she stitched it. Worst of all, she was battling with a stubborn French female who did not want to be told what to wear.

‘
Non, pas comme ça
,’ Grand-mère had insisted, before taking off the sash Annie had attached to her waist and actually flinging it to the floor!

Did this happen to Jean-Paul Gaultier? No, she bet it bloody did not!

In the church, a frenzy of prep. work was under way. Latifah was still cleaning and wiping, plumping cushions on pews, polishing brass candlesticks and making the entire space dazzle. Elena was on the phone making sure every single guest knew exactly where to come tomorrow. Svetlana, the DJ and Rich were arguing about music, lighting, angles, where the models should stand, where they should walk and where they should twirl.