Celebrity Shopper

by Carmen Reid

  Glancing out of the window, she did a double take. There was Lana, she was sure of it, striding along, her dark hair pulled into a loose ponytail and her pale, pretty face wrapped up in thought.

  ‘Oh! Can we pull over?’ she asked the driver with a polite tap on the window.

  ‘Your wish is my command, ma’am,’ he replied, smoothly manoeuvring the large estate car to the side of the road.

  Annie flung open her door and called out: ‘Lana! Want a lift, babes?’

  Lana looked up, her face full of surprise. ‘Hello, darlin’,’ Annie greeted her, treating her to a hug and a kiss.

  ‘Hi, this is nice!’ Lana settled herself and her bags down on to the plush black leather seats.

  ‘Let’s travel home in style and you can tell me all about your day,’ Annie instructed.

  So Lana did. She began with the school news, grumbling about all the work and the homework assignments.

  ‘Oh, you’re studying so hard!’ Annie sympathized. ‘I do wonder if it has anything to do with a certain charming, handsome boy who is now at Cambridge?’

  This caused a confused blush to spread up over Lana’s face. ‘I… erm… well,’ Lana began awkwardly, ‘he’s emailed a bit … but I haven’t seen him for a while.’

  ‘You should,’ Annie encouraged her.

  ‘You weren’t exactly very nice about him when we were going out,’ Lana reminded her mother.

  ‘Well, no, I know that. But you were much younger then,’ Annie defended herself, ‘and maybe I was wrong. No, I was wrong … but there was the Ed-and-the-under-the-bed incident.’

  Annie turned to look at Lana; Lana turned to look back. They caught sight of the expression on each other’s faces and suddenly burst out laughing. It was still the most embarrassing thing Lana had ever done: being caught by Ed under Annie and Ed’s bed with Andrei in a state of … well, semi-undress.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Lana reminded her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Annie had to agree, ‘but, Lana, you do know that you might not make it to Cambridge …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, of course, don’t be silly,’ Lana said quickly as her fingers went up to fiddle with her hair.

  ‘And it’ll be fine, not getting into Cambridge, not even applying for Cambridge,’ Annie added. ‘Andrei’s great, but you’re not allowed to make any big decisions based on him. In fact, it’s probably time to play very hard to get. That always works, I promise you.’

  Lana gave her mother a non-committal smile. She didn’t look convinced. Still, it was nice to be in the back seat of the car, having her mum all to herself. She couldn’t think when they’d last spent even ten minutes alone together just talking.

  But then Annie’s mobile burst into life.

  A glance at the number told Annie that her sister Dinah was calling; she must have picked up Annie’s long apologetic message.

  ‘Annie—’ Dinah began.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Annie interrupted her, ‘I should have phoned you back much sooner, I’m so sorry about your job and I’m a cow who should not be dropping on her own family from a great height. I’ll come round and see you tonight, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, save it, I know you’re not really a heartless bitch who wouldn’t phone her about-to-be-unemployed sister back, not really,’ Dinah said, brushing the apology aside. ‘I’ve just had a call from this journalist wanting to know stuff about you and our family. It was weird.’

  ‘Who?’ Annie asked in surprise.

  ‘Some woman called Vickie … ermmm … Plummer or something? She was asking what I knew about Dad.’

  ‘Dad?’ Annie repeated, horrified. ‘Why on earth does anyone want to know anything about him?’

  ‘Well, it’s a family secret – family scandal, isn’t it? To a journalist anyway.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well, I tried to say nothing,’ Dinah said with a touch of reluctance.

  ‘What do you mean you tried?’

  Lana glanced over at Annie, wondering what was wrong.

  ‘I kept trying to put the phone down, but she’s a very persistent woman.’

  ‘Dinah, did you give her his name?’

  ‘Annie, she already knew that, plus his date of birth, plus the address his most recent credit card was registered to.’

  ‘You have got to be joking.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Ed frazzled:

  Torn rugby shirt (St Vincent’s lost property box)

  Baggy joggers (not exactly sure)

  Socks (Hackett via Annie)

  Tartan slippers (Christmas)

  Total est. cost: £0

  ‘No! I don’t think that would be a good idea …’

  ‘Things are a bit messy at home.’ Lana decided she’d better warn her mother as they both got out of the car. ‘It’s not the way it usually is when you come home in the evening. That’s why I went out for a walk. To get away from stuff.’

  ‘Oh!’ Annie could hardly keep the excitement from her voice. ‘So the builders have started, have they?’

  ‘Oh yeah!’ came Lana’s dark warning. ‘They’ve definitely started.’

  ‘With the bathroom?’ Annie asked impatiently. ‘Or with the windows in the kitchen?’

  ‘Let’s just say they’ve decided to do both at the same time,’ Lana replied.

  ‘Great! It will all be over so much quicker like this.’

  ‘Hmmm …’

  They were at the front door of the house by now and as Annie pushed it open, two things struck her at once: the strange smell and the overwhelming mess.

  The entire hallway floor was thick with footprints, which looked as if they’d been created from a mixture of white plaster dust and brown mud. The trail of multiple footprints led from the back of the house to the front and then up and down the carpeted stairs to the bathroom.

  Fine plaster dust was hanging in the air – well, all the dust that hadn’t already settled, coating everything in sight. The stairs, the banisters, the skirting boards, the floor, even the walls seemed a shade greyer because of the dust.

  But Annie’s eyes returned to the footprints. They spread all over the carefully sanded and polished wooden hallway floor and crusted up her beautiful striped stair runner.

  ‘Didn’t they use tarpaulins?’ she heard herself exclaim. ‘Didn’t they think to cover the floors before they removed a bathroom and—’

  ‘Demolished a kitchen wall.’ Lana finished the sentence for her.

  ‘They’ve made a hole in the kitchen wall already?’ Annie looked at her daughter in surprise. ‘But we weren’t ready for that. We hadn’t even packed the kitchen up. Surely …’

  Annie began to hurry towards her kitchen.

  As soon as she opened the kitchen door, her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You are joking! You have got to be joking me!’ she exclaimed.

  A huge hole, surely far too big for the new windows, had been punched into one of the kitchen’s walls. It was a gaping, jagged hole with rough edges and bits of plaster hanging from it. The rest of the room looked almost normal, except the pots and pans, the shelves, the plates, the cutlery and even the dishes drying on the draining board were all covered with a thick layer of plaster dust.

  Ed had obviously not had time to tidy away one single thing before the builders had come in and bulldozed out a chunk of wall. Not even the cereal boxes had been put away, Annie saw with disbelief. They were standing in a row on the kitchen table looking as if they’d been spray-painted grey.

  A chill wind whistled about the room, stirring the dust, because only a blue tarpaulin tied loosely over the outside of the hole was protecting it from the elements.

  ‘ED!’ Annie called at the top of her voice. ‘Where is he?’ she directed at Lana.

  Lana gave a shrug. ‘Maybe upstairs,’ she offered.

  ‘ED!’ Annie repeated, heading out into the filthy hall.

  She took the crusty stairs two at a time, pausing to gasp in surprise at the bathroom. It was a shell
, stripped right back to the brickwork with bits of spindly copper pipework dangling from the walls. One pipe was dripping water on to the floor and a grubby cloth had been put underneath it to try and catch the drops.

  Annie could hear one of the babies crying in the main bedroom, so she headed towards the noise.

  As soon as she opened the door, she could tell that things were not calm.

  The bedroom was in chaos. Mud from the stairs had made its way on to the pale carpet in there. The bed was unmade and littered with baby clothes, bits of cotton wool, two bowls of water, Babygros and vests.

  Micky was standing up in the cot, his face red with the effort of crying. Minnie was lying on the bed having her nappy changed, also in tears.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Annie soothed.

  Ed looked round at her and she saw at a glance how flustered he was too. His hair seemed to be sticking up even more crazily that usual. Good grief! His hair had got so grey …overnight? How had this happened? Why hadn’t she noticed? As she got closer, she realized with relief that Ed’s hair too was covered in a clinging layer of plaster dust.

  ‘I bet your day’s been interesting,’ Annie began.

  Ed shook his head, releasing a fine cloud of dust into the air. ‘Don’t ask,’ he replied, before adding: ‘They’ve both got diarrhoea and Micky’s bum: one great big, burning, red disaster area.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Annie sympathized and went to pick Micky up, although Minnie was bawling for her too.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Annie said, leaning over Minnie once Micky was in her arms, ‘I’ll cuddle you too, just let Daddy finish your nappy. The house is …’

  ‘I know,’ Ed said, shaking his head again, ‘you don’t need to say anything.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do,’ Annie told him, ‘I think I need to phone Al’s mobile number right now and shout at him. A lot. I don’t think I’ll really be able to calm down until I’ve done that.’

  ‘The bulldozer arrived a day early apparently,’ Ed began. ‘Al said if he’d sent it away, to come back tomorrow, that would have been an extra four hundred pounds.’

  ‘To him!’ Annie retorted. ‘He’s the one who booked the bulldozer on the wrong day.’

  ‘Yeah, but you know how it is, that four hundred would have mysteriously found its way on to our final bill one way or another, so I said yes, go ahead, we would deal with the mess. I didn’t expect it to look quite as bad as it does. I mean—’

  ‘It looks like there’s been a bloody earthquake!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘We aren’t going to be able to eat in the kitchen for a month. Stop shaking your head,’ she snapped, ‘you’re making Minnie dusty. And what about the floors?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ed had to agree, ‘I was a bit shocked about that myself.’

  ‘Did you say anything?’

  Ed looked at her apologetically. ‘It’s awkward. He’s a nice guy, Annie, I wasn’t sure how to tell him he’d made a total mess.’

  ‘Awkward?’ she repeated. ‘Have you seen my stair carpet? I don’t know if that will ever, ever come clean again.’

  Ed hung his head.

  ‘I’m going to phone him right now,’ Annie added furiously.

  ‘No,’ Ed advised, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea. I think he switches his work phone off in the evening anyway … you’ll just end up leaving a message that you’ll regret.’

  ‘Regret? Regret! The only thing I bloody regret is not having taped up every inch of flooring in the whole house before I let the wally in! If you want one single thing done properly, you have to do it yourself!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Annie’ – Ed handed Minnie over and took Micky back – ‘Annie, let’s order in some pizza, open a bottle of wine and maybe we’ll all feel better.’

  The loud brrring of the front-door bell interrupted this thought. Annie headed down the stairs, still holding Minnie in one arm. If this was Al, she couldn’t help thinking to herself, she would give him a piece of her mind.

  Through the frosted glass of the front door, she could make out a shape clad in blue builder’s overalls. It was him. She felt her heart thud a little more quickly at the thought of having to say her piece. She would though. Look at that carpet!

  She opened the door wide and was immediately stopped in her tracks by the most beautiful-looking man she had seen in ages – possibly ever.

  He was in blue dungarees and the short sleeves of his white T-shirt stopped halfway down smooth, bulging brown biceps. He turned a squared jaw and chin with dimple towards her, revealing perfect white teeth as he smiled and said hello.

  Brown eyes with heavy black brows were fixed on her face, apparently waiting for an answer. Had he asked a question? Annie, just like Minnie, found she had been reduced to complete silence. In fact, she hadn’t even taken in what he’d said, the accent had been so chunky and unexpected.

  ‘I Janucek, vorrrrrk with Al, I leave my tools. Is possible to collect them from yourrrrr house?’ Janucek repeated.

  All thoughts of a mess lecture, a demonstration of what plaster dust and mud did to polished floors and woollen carpets, was completely forgotten as Annie heard strains from the Diet Coke ad break out in her head.

  ‘Yeah … course,’ she mumbled, ‘come in.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Harry dressed (down) for dinner:

  Pink shirt (Turnbull & Asser)

  Pink and grey Argyle V-neck (Pringle)

  Grey flannel trousers (Gieves & Hawkes)

  Monogrammed velvet slippers (Shipton & Heneage)

  Total est. cost: £620

  ‘To the day I met you …’

  Whenever Svetlana arrived home, she called from the car. She didn’t do keys. Keys were for women who didn’t have staff.

  Svetlana called before arriving at her own glossy black front door so, within moments, her maid Maria was holding it open, welcoming her in and taking her coat and bags.

  ‘Has everyone else started?’ Svetlana asked, knowing that the rest of her family would already be in the dining room.

  ‘No, they just sit down,’ Maria assured her, ‘they wait for you.’

  Svetlana stepped into the nearest bathroom to freshen up. There, she washed her hands, combed through her luscious blond mane, applied a fresh coat of lipstick to newly plumped lips and a fresh spritz of perfume. Only then did she emerge, ready to face her family.

  As she opened the door of the dining room, she paused to appreciate this lovely little scene. It wasn’t often that all of them could eat together and she wanted to enjoy every moment of the meal.

  Her sons, Petrov and Michael, usually ate early in the kitchen with Maria, but here they were, looking all neat, combed and washed, their serious little faces turned in her direction.

  Harry, Svetlana’s latest husband, had made it back from work earlier than usual. He’d showered, changed and was seated at the head of the table.

  Even Elena looked as if she’d lightened up for the evening. She was sitting beside Petrov in a thoroughly unbusinesslike pink flowered top with a broad smile on her face.

  ‘Hooray!’ Harry said, standing up as soon as he caught sight of her. ‘We’re all just waiting for you, darling. Congratulations!’ and he pointed to the bottle of champagne which he’d had Maria put on ice as soon as he’d heard Svetlana’s news.

  ‘Fantastic!’ Elena grinned. ‘You have been fantastic, Mama, I knew you could do it.’

  Svetlana had rung them at home as soon as she’d finished her late-afternoon business meeting.

  She’d raised every last penny required. The full £75,000 was going to be in the Perfect Dress bank account by the end of the week. The champagne cork was about to pop because now, really and truly, Svetlana and Elena were in business.

  Svetlana swooped down on every member of her family, kissing and squeezing them tightly.

  ‘W-onderful!’ she said, making a huge effort to pronounce the ‘w’ properly. ‘It is just w-onderful.’

  ‘Does this mean you’re going to be as rich as
Daddy?’ Michael wondered.

  This question made all the adults round the table laugh. Because Daddy Igor, even post-stock-market crash, was still a mega-millionaire.

  ‘Of course, my darling,’ Svetlana answered without hesitation, ‘and I make you very proud, no?’

  Harry reached over to lift the champagne bottle from its bucket of ice. Carefully, he eased off the cork, then filled the three crystal flutes on the table.

  Holding up his glass, he looked at Svetlana and made his familiar toast: ‘To the day I met you, my beautiful girl.’

  Maria entered carrying a silver tray laden with the first course just as Svetlana clinked her glass first with Harry, then Elena. She held the champagne under her nostrils for a moment, breathing in the fresh, prickly scent. Champagne, drink of champions. No?

  ‘So,’ Elena began, needing to get back to business just as soon as the duck terrine had been served, ‘we need to speak to Patrizio and begin to put together the show, huh? He thinks if we move quickly, we can still put something on in the next fortnight and catch the very end of the fashion show season.’

  ‘Ya,’ Svetlana agreed. ‘I call him already, he come here tomorrow to meet with us.’

  ‘So who is this chap?’ Harry asked with interest. His new wife was still a source of constant fascination to him.

  ‘He’s very important event organizer,’ Svetlana began, picking up her heavy silver-plated knife and moving in on the sliver of food on her plate. ‘He put on many, many important fashion shows.’

  ‘He will find us a venue, models and do all the organization for us,’ Elena went on. ‘We just have to turn up in Paris with the clothes.’

  ‘Yes, he says he take care of everything. He want to share our vision,’ Svetlana added.

  ‘Is he French?’ Harry wondered.

  ‘No, I think he’s Italian. Do you know, Elena?’

  ‘I’ve not spoken to him, you have done all the talking with him,’ came Elena’s reply.