The Personal Shopper (16 page)

‘What on earth were you two playing at?’ Dinah wanted to know when Spencer and his date had left.

‘Oh Dinah! You are just so sweet!’ Annie teased her. ‘Luckily Connor understands. It’s just the same with handbags.’

‘What is?’

‘You only want a handbag if somebody else has it or if it’s hard to get hold of, a limited edition, or collector’s item preferably with a waiting list. If we have twenty-five handbags sitting in a pile with seventy per cent off emblazoned across them, we can’t shift a one. I promise you.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’m expecting a message from Spencer on the Personal Shopping suite’s answering machine tomorrow morning, guaranteed,’ Annie told her.

‘Hmmm.’ Dinah couldn’t help feeling this was a tad optimistic.

Chapter Nine

Fern’s dazzling retirement outfit:

Salmon pink and white lace jacket (John Lewis)

White silk camisole (John Lewis)

Long salmon pink taffeta skirt (John Lewis)

Unspeakably awful beige, sensible-heeled slingback sandals (John Lewis)

Pale pink nail varnish (Chanel)

Total estimated cost: £290

‘I’ve invited someone very interesting, just for you . . .’

‘Woooo hooo! We’re so hot, we’re smokin’! Every single one of us is going to pull tonight . . . Especially Owen,’ was Connor’s verdict as the party of four got out of the car and launched themselves – arm in arm, as he’d insisted – across the dark gravelled courtyard towards the country house hotel Annie’s mother had chosen for her retirement party.

Annie smiled proudly at her children. Lana, negotiating heels, bag, fluffy bolero, way too much purple eye shadow and the lace dress (in navy), returned the smile a little nervously, but Owen grinned. He’d gone for a hired mini dinner suit with wing collar and red satin bow-tie. Connor had helped him gel his hair into the kind of perpendicular quiff belonging to junior Hollywood royalty and he was strutting his stuff.

Connor in black leather kilt, ruffled shirt and black leather waistcoat looked unforgettable: 100 per cent Highland hu
nk. He may have originally come
from Lancashire but he was dressed for the ceilidh.

‘Now remember, Owen, the fact that you are a man of few words is going to stand you in great stead tonight,’ Connor was confiding in his youngest friend. ‘The ladies love a bit of mystery. I could really take some tips from you. I am always saying far too much, shooting my mouth off, getting into all kinds of trouble and that’s why I am sooo single.’

Owen giggled at this.

‘Lana, you are a knockout,’ Connor assured her. ‘Obviously I’ll have to be your bodyguard for the evening to keep the swarms of suitors at bay.’

‘Oh ha ha,’ she told him, but a smile was breaking at the corners of her mouth and threatening to run away across her face.

The sweetheart,
Annie thought.

With her hair piled up glamorously, bright lipstick and highest heels, Annie felt the soft pink velvet of her
 
breathtaking dress stroke comfortingly against her.
 
There were going to be many people at this party that
 
she hadn’t seen for several years, that she hadn’t seen since her sudden, devastating transformation from happily married to single, and she wanted to show them how together she was now, how happy, how successful and how well she was coping. The dress was her suit of shining armour, although she would be selling it on . . . tonight, hopefully.

And anyway, while Annie awaited Spencer’s phone call – two weeks had passed and still nothing! – and her next Discerning Dinner, what harm could there be in checking out the party talent? Not that she suspected there’d be much, despite her mother’s best intentions.

‘I’ve invited someone very interesting, just for you,’ Fern had told her, when they’d met up three days ago for a pre-party nerve-calming afternoon. Fern had had to put
her outfit on yet again just to make sure she was totally happy with it. Annie had been on hand to soothe and recommend make-up.

‘Uh-oh!’ was Annie’s reaction to ‘someone very interesting’. ‘I’ve told you, Mum, our tastes in men are a
 
little different. Me: under fifty, all own hair, teeth and
 
seriously solvent. You: under eighty, good sense of humour, not yet incontinent. Is your fancy boy coming?’ she’d asked, which had caused her mother to hoot with laughter.

‘Is he?’ Annie prodded. ‘Mr Lubkin and his zimmer frame?’

‘Walking stick, Annie!’ Fern had corrected. ‘He broke his leg hang-gliding and now walks with a stick. And he’s a
friend
.’

‘Ooooh, fancy. Mum . . .’ Annie had asked her next, ‘do you ever mind that you’re still on your own? I mean you must have minded so much when we were younger – but do you still mind?’

‘No, no,’ Fern had insisted with a smile. ‘We’re all on our own at some point, sweetheart.’

‘But I never wanted to be on my own,’ Annie had confided. ‘This is not the way I thought my life would be. I always thought there would be someone else to share it all with.’

‘Men always let you down . . . one way or another,’ Fern had replied.

‘Do they?’ Annie had countered.

Fern had fixed her eyes on Annie’s and insisted: ‘Yes, they do – even when they don’t mean to. Anyway,’ she’d gone on, ‘I was far too busy to find someone else when you were growing up, and then I was too bossy and now I’m too old. Past it.’

‘Sixty is not the same as dead, Mum,’ Annie had told her.

‘To most men it is,’ Fern had replied.

Annie had considered telling her mother: ‘I think you’ve missed out. You never got all the really good stuff about being a couple.’ She was even tempted to blurt out: ‘I’m not fine like this, I’m not fine at all and I don’t want to be fine. Some days I feel like I’m missing an arm . . . like I’m hardly even alive!’ Instead, she’d kept quiet, but Fern had seemed to read her feelings and had soothed:

‘You’ve had a very hard time, sweetheart. It’ll take a long time to begin to feel normal again. But you’ll get there. I know you will.’

‘I’ve brought you a present.’ Annie had surprised Fern, handing over a wrapped, pink-ribboned box. ‘I’m treating you . . . and I want you to know I paid full price, you old moo, because you’re worth it.’ Then, in a much more serious voice she’d added: ‘Thank you, you know, for everything. You’ve been such a help to me . . .’ and they’d both had to hug very tightly and squeeze back their tears.

Her mother’s reaction to the pale cappuccino-coloured suede heels inside the box seemed to be very positive. She’d tried them on underneath her pink skirt, she’d looked at herself this way and that, oooohed and aaaahed, had said many, many thank-yous and had given Annie a kiss. But Annie still wasn’t convinced her mother
really
liked them.

Fern had always been a grade A dresser. Since her twenties, she’d followed the fashion rules usually ascribed to Parisians: sensible, slightly stuffy, but always, always supremely elegant.

She lived in wool trousers, silk blouses and little cashmere cardigans, occasionally donning a mid-calf skirt. A fabulous coat or jacket completed the classic look. Oh,
and not forgetting the mock croc bag, Gucci watch, string of pearls and weighty gold bracelet.

Now that the days of scraping together school fees were long behind her, Fern, whose mission in life had once been to economize, now had a little more money to herself. She lived in a modest bungalow but bought top quality clothes, drove a classic Jag and had never, ever been seen with her legs in need of a wax or with one single grey millimetre of root emerging from her blond bob.

Even when she was gardening, it was in well-cut jeans with a spanking white Joseph top, her blue Hunter wellies and a trug.

‘If I’m not wearing lipstick, you’ll know I’m dead,’ she’d once told her daughters. Such was her dedicated work ethic, she never took a day off from looking good. This was a woman whose pyjamas, dressing gown, slippers and washbag all co-ordinated.

But Fern did have one fatal dressing flaw, which Annie was constantly trying to correct. Because Fern was a podiatrist, a healer of cracked heels, balm to bunions, carer of corns, she dealt with so much footwear-inflicted misery that she would never, ever wear pretty shoes. Even her most delicate of outfits was finished off with duck feet: sensible pumps, low squared heels, or worst of all, those white comfy slingbacks, the ones which came in an extra-wide fitting, and were a great favourite with HM The Queen, a woman Fern greatly admired, by the way.

Annie, shocked by the beige, orthopaedic-looking things her mother was intending to wear with her party outfit, had decided the only way to persuade her otherwise was to buy the alternative footwear herself.

Now, w
ith Connor on one arm and Owen linked to Lana on the other, Annie went through the foyer of the swanky hotel and into the tasteful drawing room, already swarming with guests.

Dinah spotted them before anyone else: ‘Hey, Annie and the gang are here!’

‘Oh, Billie, look at you,’ Annie cooed.

Billie in pink ballet slippers and a tutu obliged with a
 
twirl while Dinah rolled her eyes and explained: ‘Yes,
 
you have a party dress, don’t you, Billie? That we bought specially for Granny’s party, but you changed your mind, didn’t you? About ten times! As for you, Annie Valentine, you are wearing a sensational
new
dress . . . you bad girl!’ Dinah wasn’t so much teasing as disapproving.

‘Yeah, but I’m going to sell it tonight, so it’s OK,’ Annie informed her.

‘You are not!’

‘Watch and learn,’ Annie said with a wink. ‘Is that Nic, our lawyer, over there? She looks . . . not bad, considering she picked that dress herself!’

Nic was their middle sister, the lawyer, who they hardly ever saw because she lived in Cornwall and was extremely busy, being a lawyer. Oh and by the way, had she mentioned Nic was a lawyer?

‘C’mon, I’ll take you over.’ Dinah offered Annie a bare arm with only the merest kiss of fake tan.

‘She’s brought her new man, Rick,’ Dinah whispered. ‘And guess what, he’s a lawyer.’

‘No! Nic and Rick?! That’s amazing, because you’ll never guess? Nic’s a lawyer too!’

As soon as Nic caught sight of Annie, she screeched a hello, holding out her arms towards her.

They did their hugs, hellos, how are yous, how are the children . . . then Annie was properly introduced to Nic’s new man and immediately asked how they’d met.

‘Oh, through work,’ came the reply.

‘Aha . . . maybe I should retrain. Do you think I’d make a good lawyer?’ Annie joked.

‘No,’ Nic told her, ‘but you’re a wonderful shopper. Tell me about this dress. I love it. Love it! Much better than this disaster.’ She gestured at her long-sleeved navy and silver matronly frock – there wasn’t a better word to describe it. Good grief, unless Annie was actually in the shop with Nic, telling her what to buy, she got it wrong every time.

‘Feel.’ Annie held out her arm. ‘Feel the sleeve, go
 
on. Silk velvet. Mmmmm. And isn’t this just the perfect shade of salmon pink for our skin colouring, babes?’

Nic’s fingers were rubbing against the material: ‘That is gorgeous. Where is it from? It looks like one of our favourite labels.’

‘No, no, no, you don’t, Nicky. Look at her.’ Annie winked at Nic’s really very impressive Rick. ‘She’d have the clothes off my back. She was always like this. Stealing stuff out of my cupboard.’