by Carmen Reid
‘No. I’ve got some time in the diary though, to go trying … and I’ve been doing just a little bit of research.’
‘I bet you have.’ Dinah turned and went out of the room to fetch the bridesmaid’s dress that she’d been working on.
Annie had given her bridal party a simple brief: they could wear whatever they wanted to wear, as long as it was pink. Any style of outfit; any shade of pink. She wasn’t going to make everyone line up in identical dresses looking like a bad assortment of shop dummies.
Dinah walked into the room holding a pale pink froth of chiffon in her hands; she shook it out so Annie could see the delicate little bell sleeves, the careful rows of beading and all the lovely little details Dinah was so busy making for her darling little girl.
‘Oh my goodness, that is absolutely beautiful, you’re doing such an amazing job. Isn’t your mummy so clever?’ Annie directed at Billie.
Billie nodded and smiled. ‘I chose the material and the beads,’ she pointed out.
‘I know you did, you are so, so good at fashion, Billie. You’re going to come and work for Auntie Annie one day, aren’t you?’
Billie nodded proudly.
‘Will you make Lana a dress?’ was Annie’s next question. ‘She’s in a total tizz, doesn’t know what she wants. She definitely doesn’t want to wear pink, in any shade at all … which I’m trying to be OK with. Instead, she wants to wear black. Black? I’ve told her everyone will think she disapproves if she turns up in black.’
‘Oh dear,’ Dinah sympathized, ‘that is a little tricky.’
‘She asked Ed if he would mind and he’s told her as long as she’s there, she can turn up in tartan pyjamas if she wants to.’
‘Well, that’s nice …’
‘But not very helpful.’
‘Maybe if I take her to a fabric shop,’ Dinah suggested, ‘she might see something she likes that isn’t too heavy.’
‘Even a steely grey or a blue,’ Annie suggested. ‘She always looks brilliant in blue.’
‘Roddy’s eyes,’ Dinah pointed out.
‘Penny’s going to come. Have I told you that?’ Annie said in response to this comment.
‘Is she?’ Dinah understood the mixed emotions at once.
Penny was Roddy’s mother. When Roddy was alive, she had been close to Annie and her children. But after his death, she’d decided to move to France, so now they only saw her once or twice a year. Each and every visit was very emotional.
‘Have you spoken to her?’ Dinah asked.
‘Yes – on the phone,’ Annie replied. ‘She sounds good. She’s really pleased to be invited and be part of it. Missing her grandchildren.’
‘Your wedding’s going to be a big thing,’ Dinah sympathized. ‘C’mon, Billie, bedtime.’
‘Awwww!’ came the complaint.
‘Sit!’ Annie patted the cushion beside her when Dinah came back into the room after putting Billie to bed. ‘I take it Bryan’s working late?’
Dinah shook her head. ‘Thursday night is now squash night. He plays with a friend and they treat themselves to one beer afterwards. Welcome to middle age.’
Annie gave a little grimace. ‘How’s your whole gym and personal trainer thing coming on?’ Dinah asked, trying to suppress the smile that the thought of Annie in any sort of gym situation brought on.
‘Just shut up,’ was Annie’s response. ‘My viewers like me real. They don’t want another aerobicized babe preaching to them from the small screen. Tamsin agrees.’
Dinah leaned back in her chair. ‘Quite right.’
‘But what with wedding dress angst, I’ve done a bit and the gut is receding.’
‘Good,’ Dinah encouraged.
For a moment there was a comfortable silence between them; then they both started talking again at once.
‘Have—’ Annie began.
‘The—’ Dinah started. ‘You first,’ she insisted.
‘Well, I was just wondering if you’d thought about making bridesmaids’ dresses – you know, for a living,’ Annie said. ‘You’re brilliant and there must be so many brides in north London who’d love a really chi-chi, specialized service.’
‘Oh no.’ Dinah dismissed the idea. ‘I really miss going to work, being somewhere else and having the company.’
‘But when you’re well known for bespoke bridesmaids’ dresses, you hire a little premises, you employ some lovely other people and all those problems are solved,’ Annie was quick to point out.
‘Annie the plannie!’ Dinah laughed. ‘Did you know that’s what Nic and I call you? You’ve always got a plan.’
‘Well, I want everyone to enjoy life, live life, grab it by the balls. I don’t like the thought of you sitting about at home feeling sad and not having enough cash. And what about trying for babies again?’ Annie asked gently. ‘You’ve not said anything for a while. You know that you are supposed to come to me and off-load any time. Sound me out about anything.’
Dinah took hold of Annie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘except when you’re so busy you put me on hold, cut me off and then can’t find the time to call me back for days.’
‘Sorry,’ Annie told her.
‘Actually I do have a plan,’ Dinah began. ‘I’m not doing any more IVF. I can’t take it. Not physically or emotionally …’
Annie squeezed Dinah’s hand hard.
‘But,’ Dinah went on, feeling her voice choke a little, ‘I have a plan which involves employment, filling the baby shaped hole in my life … and you.’
Annie gazed at her with a puzzled look on her face.
‘You know Ed’s going back to work …?’ Dinah said, hoping Annie would catch on.
‘Yes?’ Annie was still in the dark.
‘You’ll need childcare and I think you should hire me.’
Annie’s eyebrows shot up into her hair: ‘Would you like to do it?’ she asked, thrilled at the idea.
‘Yeah, I’d totally, totally love to. You’ll have to pay me the going rate, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ Annie agreed.
‘But I think I’d be excellent.’
‘So do I. You’re a much better mother than me.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Dinah protested. ‘Your kids are all fantastic and they think the world of you.’
‘And Billie is brilliant,’ Annie added quickly.
It was always so lovely to have someone tell you how fantastic your children were and what a good job you were doing. It was what sisters were for. Well, one of the many, many things sisters were for.
Once they had excitedly talked the nanny plan through, Dinah braced herself for a change of subject.
‘Have you invited Mick to your wedding?’ she asked her sister bravely, knowing perfectly well this was a difficult subject for Annie.
A sort of garrumphing harrumphing noise came from Annie’s direction.
‘Maybe you should speak to Mum about it,’ Dinah added. ‘If she wants him there …’
There was more garrumphing and harrumphing. ‘I really do think he wants to get to know us again,’ Dinah said gently.
‘Get to know us at all,’ Annie corrected her. ‘Did he ever really know us before? All I know about him, I read in Pssst!’
‘Luckily, he didn’t say much to them. He did sound quite sorry about it all, though. Well, you’re up at Mum’s this weekend,’ Dinah added. ‘I bet he’ll come round, it sounds as if he likes to pop round once a day to check up on her. And you have to admit that is a good thing.’
‘She has Stefano,’ Annie pointed out, ‘and her neighbours, and one of us every weekend. It’s not as if she needs Mick.’
‘I think she likes Mick pottering about. He helps her in the garden; they drink vast buckets of tea and have a little reminisce about the time they spent travelling together. I think that was their happy time. Before any of us turned up.’
‘Yeah. He was a rubbish dad.’
‘He was,’ Dinah agreed. ‘Maybe we’l
l hear more about why one day.’
‘D’you think he’s got a Thai bride somewhere? I keep expecting some teeny little oriental woman to pop out of the woodwork. He looks the type: Captain Mick. I mean he was so completely, unrelentingly unfaithful to Mum … you remember all the things we only found out about once we were teenagers. After a dad like that in our lives it’s a blooming miracle we all ended up with such good men,’ Annie pointed out.
‘Well, Mum’s never found anyone else and Nic married a stinker first time round,’ Dinah pointed out. ‘Plus, for some reason I can never understand, you still don’t like Bryan.’
‘Oh …’ Annie felt caught out, like a rabbit in the headlights. ‘I used to not like him. But … I’m mellowing, I’m actually really quite liking him now.’ She wanted Dinah to know this was the truth. ‘I’m seeing his many qualities. In another fifteen years or so I’ll love him. It’s just jealousy,’ she added. ‘You’re my best friend and I don’t like to share.’
‘That’s nice,’ Dinah told her.
‘What were you going to say?’ Annie asked next.
When Dinah looked confused, Annie tried to jog her memory: ‘When we both started talking at once. What were you about to say?’
‘Oh … oh!’ Suddenly a very mischievous look crossed Dinah’s face. ‘The bag!’ she blurted out. ‘I’ve seen the Annie Bag!’
Chapter Forty-Five
Personal Shopper Paula:
Multi-print silk blouse (DVF, store discount)
Blue wide-leg trousers (Chloé, store discount)
Blue patent ballet flats (French Sole)
Mustard-yellow nails with diamanté (Blaxx Salon)
Total est. cost: £390
‘Give yourself time.’
Annie squeezed Paula tightly in her arms for a long time, even though hugging Paula always made Annie feel like a big, squidgy oink oink. Paula was so long and so lean and so lithe. To add insult to injury, she existed on chocolate brownies, hot chocolate with cream on the top and never lifted one perfectly manicured talon to do the slightest bit of exercise. She didn’t even do stairs! She always took the escalators! It was so stinkingly unfair.
‘It’s my genes,’ Paula would say casually.
Annie would kill, would actually hunt, stab or garrotte, for genes like that. Instead, she was stuck with genes which thickened her middle a little bit more every day, despite the sit-ups and all the other humiliations of the gym.
Annie was back at The Store for only the fifth or sixth time since her leaving party over two years ago now. It felt both strange and ridiculously familiar. Maybe what was strange was that it felt so familiar.
She’d come in through the beauty department, noticing how many counters and faces behind them were still the same.
‘Oh Annie! I watch your show every single week. It’s brilliant!’ Sandra in handbags shouted over to her.
Annie immediately had to go over and have a little discussion about how good this season’s Celines were looking before Nina at Bobbi Brown stole her away for a brisk mini-makeover.
‘I have to go upstairs,’ Annie had insisted, once Nina’s dabs and touches were nearing an end. ‘I have an appointment with Paula, because … she’s been looking out wedding dresses for me!’
This started up a whole hum of excitement on the ground floor.
‘When’s the wedding?’
‘Where is it?’
‘Will it be on TV?’
‘What’re you wearing?’
To which Annie had answered in turn: ‘In six weeks’ time. Register office. No, definitely not on TV, are you mad? And I don’t know yet. That’s why I need to go up and see Paula now.’
Once their greetings were over, Annie asked Paula: ‘Have you got in the one that I’m really thinking about?’
‘Oh yeah, girl, and in a twelve.’
Annie sucked in her stomach. ‘Do you really think I can squeeze back into a twelve?’
‘You’ll have to, they don’t make it any bigger,’ Paula warned, ‘but I’ve lined up a whole rack of other possibilities, plus you can go out there and search the rails, see what else you like.’
‘Yeah,’ Annie agreed, fingers almost itching to go out on to the second floor and look around the clothes rails she once used to lord it over, ‘but let’s go and take a little peek’ – her voice dropped almost to a reverential whisper – ‘at the Williamson.’
Together they walked through the Personal Shopping suite where Annie had once reigned. The carpet had been replaced since she was last here; it was now a rich, royal purple, but still lusciously deep pile and spoiling. The fuchsia velvet curtains hanging in front of each changing room were still the same though, along with the pink velvet sofa in the middle of the space.
The huge white-framed mirror, where she’d stood for year after year admiring her transforming handiwork with her clients, was also still there.
But now she was going to be the client standing in front of it. This was such a strange, strange new thing.
‘This is so exciting,’ Paula began, ‘the TV show and now the wedding – and how are the babies?’ she asked.
‘The babies are fantastic,’ Annie told her. ‘Oh my holy sainted hallelujah …’ she gasped. There it was, the dress, hanging on the rail in the central changing room, waiting for her.
It was absolutely breathtaking. Unbelievably beautiful. Much lovelier in the flesh than it had looked on the internet.
Deepest, loveliest fuchsia satin, hanging in ripples from just below the bust to ankle. Well, she didn’t want to go long, otherwise how would anyone see the knockout shoes she planned to be wearing?
A band of multi-coloured beading, reds, oranges, greens and golds, circled the empire line, then the deep pink flowed up into a halter neck anchored with another collar of the amazing beads.
‘Oh, it’s so beautiful,’ Annie gasped.
‘You are going to look like a total peach in that, I just know it,’ Paula assured her.
There was nothing else on the rail Paula had set out that would do for Annie at all. Everything else was white or pastel pink, peachy or mint green, nothing had the jaw-dropping verve of the Williamson.
‘That’s the one that I want!’ Annie exclaimed, pointing at the gown. ‘Let’s get it on. So this is definitely the biggest size?’ she asked, looking at the narrow empire line with some concern. ‘Do you think I’ll get in?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ Paula told her. ‘Do you want me in or out?’
‘Stay in,’ Annie instructed, ‘and we can laugh at my tummy disaster together. I’m going to New York in a couple of months,’ she added, taking off her shoes and unbuttoning her blouse. ‘Have you heard about Svetlana’s new label, Perfect Dress? Of course you have, you’re going to be selling some very soon.’
‘Oh yeah, I’m liking the Perfect Dress,’ Paula replied. ‘I think I’m going to get one in orange.’
‘Do that,’ Annie told her. ‘I’m now making … ummm .03 per cent of every Perfect Dress sold because I invested early.’
‘So what are you doing in New York?’ Paula asked, busying herself with taking the Williamson off the hanger, unzipping it and getting it ready for the try-on.
‘I’m going to be the Perfect Dress roving consultant,’ Annie said with a smile of glee, but trying to sound casual. ‘So I’m just flying over to New York in between shooting schedules to go to a fabric fair with Elena. We’re looking at material for the new range. Get me!’ she exclaimed, casualness forgotten. ‘My life has suddenly got so glamorous it’s unreal … but I still look like this!’
Both Annie and Paula considered Annie’s reflection in the mirror. She was down to her bra and support knickers now.
‘It’s not right,’ Annie added.
The arms and legs were fine, the boobs more luscious than they’d ever been in Annie’s entire life, bar pregnancy. But the stomach …
‘I think you need to up your crunches, girl,’ was Paula’s matter-of-fact advice.
‘Yeah,’ Annie agreed, thinking: Oh God, it’s hopeless. How many crunches would you need to do to shift a mountain of marshmallow like this? Ten thousand a day, probably.
‘C’mon,’ Paula soothed, ‘give yourself some time. You’ll get there. I see it all the time. You’ve been in my job, you know mummies take a lot longer than a year to get their groove back.’
‘Some of them never do,’ Annie warned.
‘And we dress them beautifully, just the same,’ Paula reminded her. ‘Come on, get this baby over your head.’
Annie held up her arms and Paula slid the dress over her head. They smoothed it down into place and Annie breathed in as the zip was pulled up.
Then they both looked in the mirror to study the result. It was beautiful. It looked just as fabulous as Annie, in her wildest dreams, had hoped.
‘Here comes the bride,’ Paula said.
‘Oh my,’ Annie sighed, ‘that is stunning. Just stunning.’
She turned to the left, and then to the right, taking in all the angles in the changing room’s clever mirrors.
The dress draped over the troublesome tum. It stopped just below her calves, making her legs look as slim and shapely as possible. It did something very clever and flattering with her boobs and the beading round her neck was just delicious.
She thought of all the shoe possibilities. Red? No, gold? Even orange? Or green?
There was just this tiny little twinge … something was threatening to rain on her parade.
‘It’s perfect,’ Paula told her.
‘Annie! Are you in here?’
Annie recognized the male voice straightaway: it was Dale, from Menswear.
‘Hi!’ she called out. ‘Open the curtain, Paula, we’ll get a second opinion.’
When Dale saw her, he fell down on to his knees and pretended to cry. ‘Oh my gosh,’ he blubbed, ‘it’s too much. It really is her and she looks divine!’
Then Sandra and two other assistants from the second floor were in the room as well. No one seemed to be able to resist coming to have a look at Annie’s new dress.