Late Night Shopping

by Carmen Reid

  Her hands were wrapped round his neck, then running through his hair, his hands were stroking the small of her back, rubbing up and down her sides, while their tongues rolled over and over and over together as if this was the best thing they'd ever tasted.

  Annie, lying in bed beside Ed, knew why the front door hadn't yet closed on Andrei.

  'First love,' she whispered, turning to Ed. 'Do you remember that far back? The sex is probably the worst you're going to have but the foreplay is unforgettable . . . I can still remember what it feels like to kiss like that.'

  'Can you?' Ed leaned over her face and seemed to be offering to remind her.

  'Oh yeah,' she said, but just kissed him lightly on the lips.

  'I don't remember my first sex being bad,' Ed said, leaning back on the pillow and running his hands over his face.

  'No, but that's because you're male,' Annie reminded him, 'and sex is never bad for men. Ever. Is it?'

  'Ermmm . . .' Ed cast his mind back over a not extremely long and varied sex life and came to the conclusion that, 'No. Hardly ever. Not unless you're feeling really, really guilty.'

  'Yeah . . . as in you came over to chuck her and thought you'd just have sex first,' Annie teased.

  'Oh God,' Ed groaned, 'chucking people is a nightmare. I've only done it once. Since then, I've always been the chuckee. So there you go, you never, ever have to worry about me chucking you. If this is ever going to end, you'll have to do it.'

  She turned onto her side and put an arm across his stomach before asking with a teasing smile: 'But it's never, ever going to end, is it?'

  'No-oh,' he assured her, with something of a laugh and then rubbed her nose with his very fondly, looking deep into her eyes.

  'I have to go to the bathroom,' she said abruptly, 'and remind Lana to come up for air and send that poor boy home to rest.'

  'Annie?' Ed asked. 'Do you think maybe Lana should move her bedroom?'

  'Huh?'

  'Well, her bedroom is right above ours and right beside Owen's. It's not exactly private.'

  Annie rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling as she considered what Ed was suggesting.

  'Are you thinking Lana should have a room of her own downstairs in the basement? Next to my office?'

  Ed looked at her and nodded.

  'A room she can take Andrei to and be undisturbed?'

  Ed nodded again.

  Suddenly Annie felt irritated: 'Don't you think that's just a little bit irresponsible?' she asked. 'Don't you think it's a good thing that she's kissing him in the doorway rather than rolling all over the sofa with him? Don't you think it's quite healthy that if she were to take him upstairs to her bedroom, she would have to worry about what we thought and what we heard? I think being newly sixteen with your GCSEs ahead of you is too young for undisturbed rooms on your own with your boyfriend.'

  'OK,' Ed quickly agreed, 'OK, that's fine. It was just an idea. But . . . totally up to you. Just keep talking to her, though. She'll want some guidance from you.'

  'Ha!' Annie laughed, 'what on earth gave you that idea?'

  'She does! She's just being teenage and pretending to hate you.'

  Annie really wasn't so sure about that. Sometimes when Lana was in one of her blackest moods, she could shoot her mother a look so vicious and hateful it made Annie gasp. But then, like stormy weather, the moods would pass, leaving Annie wondering what she had done to make Lana so angry with her.

  'Just for my information, Annie,' Ed began, 'how old were you when you first . . .'

  'Nearly eighteen,' she broke in just a little sternly. 'What about you?'

  'Er . . . twenty-two,' Ed admitted a little sheepishly, which made both of them laugh.

  'It was worth the wait,' Ed added.

  'I bet it was. But this does mean that you've only been having sex for ten years, which makes you a total beginner,' Annie teased.

  'Better show me something new then . . .'

  Chapter Five

  Svetlana at The Store:

  Ruched white shirt dress (Burberry Prorsum)

  Black and white striped heels (Christian Louboutin)

  White woven leather tote bag (Bottega Veneta)

  Bright blond blow-dry (Nicky Clarke – personally)

  Signature red lipstick (Chanel)

  Diamonds (husbands 1 and 2)

  Total est. cost: £45,000

  'But isn't my one a darrrrrling?'

  'Ahhhhnnah!'

  Annie's favourite Russian burst thought the personal shopping suite's velvet curtains with her arms outstretched.

  Svetlana Wisneski. Not that she was going to be Wisneski for much longer. The former Miss Ukraine was now in possession of a decree nisi from her third husband, the billionaire gas baron, or 'Igor Potato-face the Third', as they'd christened him in the suite.

  You'd think a generous settlement, your own four-storey house in Mayfair and everything-paid-for-the-children-forever would be enough. But for Svetlana, nothing was ever, ever enough. Currently she was planning her fourth wedding to Harry Roscoff, her divorce lawyer.

  'I know, I know, it even happen in Sex and the City. No? The hairy bald man, he called Harry too, no? But isn't my one a darrrrrrrling?'

  Svetlana had taken out her digital camera to show Annie his picture when she'd first got involved with Harry. Annie had seen a small, pudgy guy in his late fifties. But then looks had never been a particular concern of Svetlana's; she was only interested in the size of a man's bank balance.

  The next photo had been introduced with the words, 'But look at him in his gowns.'

  It showed one of London's most respected divorce lawyers in a dark gown with a white barrister's wig on his head sitting on a huge, unmade bed.

  'I make him wear his gowns in the bedroom,' Svetlana had confided in a low tone, 'much, much more exciting. Poor man, he has had English wife for thirty-five years. He has forgotten what penis is for! So, I remind him!' She'd let out an infectiously throaty laugh at this.

  Today, Annie gave the allegedly thirty-nine-year-old specimen of Russian physical perfection a welcoming hug. Svetlana, statuesquely tall, boasted muscular, athletic curves, a hard, flat stomach and fabulous buttocks and breasts which were a little enhanced, but only with the softest, most expensive and flexible stuff.

  Around her taut face, holding back the years with the help of the most expert cosmetic surgeon in London, blonde hair tumbled elegantly to her shoulders. Today's tight white dress showed off thighs strong enough to kill a man in true Russian fantasy woman style.

  A blinking, winking, fat pendant of diamonds pointed directly down into her two magnificent assets. Grown men like Harry Roscoff were prepared to lose wives, homes, properties, companies, investment portfolios, even respectability in order to dive down into those assets and venture further with a woman like Svetlana.

  'He is millionaire, not billionaire,' Svetlana had had to admit of Harry, 'I am now nearly as rich as him. But after Igor, I wanted a very kind man. A man who loves me, makes no trouble for me. A quiet, expensive life, that's all I want to lead now. Anyway, I am too old for a billionaire under eighty now,' she'd stated matter-of-factly, as if there were official billionaire marrying rules, 'and where is the fun in that? A defibrillator in the bedroom and then fighting and fighting with the family for money after the death. Poor, poor girls,' she'd said, with real feeling.

  'No, I make good lawyer's wife, don't you think?' She'd given Annie a wink. 'And I make Harry very, very happy.'

  Released from the soft and delicious-smelling warmth of Svetlana's embrace, it was the English wife of thirty-five years Annie felt sorry for now. The poor woman wouldn't have stood a chance. Not when Svetlana aimed her two missiles in Harry's direction and gave it to him with both barrels.

  'Why are you here?' Annie finally had the chance to ask. 'It's always lovely to see you, babes, but you're not on my list.'

  'I know, I bring friend, she's out on the shop floor looking.' Svetlana sat down on the brigh
t pink sofa, flashing sheerest stockings and a leg so exactly the right consistency between toned and soft that even Annie caught herself looking. That's how sexy Svetlana was.

  But here was the thing: Svetlana was in fact a very good wife. Once she was hitched, she was loyal to a fault, supportive and devoted, and had seemed to genuinely love each of her husbands. But every one of them had ditched her for someone younger. Or died.

  Annie hoped that Harry was going to be for good – just as soon as his very expensive divorce came through. Annie was also hoping that one day soon Svetlana might be a very good person to turn to when she needed a business investor.

  'My friend Kelly-Anne is booked in with you. She needs makeunder,' Svetlana's voice dropped, maybe because she expected the friend to walk in at any moment. 'She turned forty and pfuuuuh!' this came with vigorous hand flicks in the air towards her face: 'injecting everything that move, filling up cheeks from her ass, all that thing! Botox: horrible! You can never get angry, you have to walk around like a robot.' Svetlana pulled a totally straight face and said in monotone: 'I am extremely angry with you, extremely upset, you mad, potato-faced Pol Pot.

  'Mid-section facelift, much better,' she added. 'Anyway, her children, they nice boys at school with my boys, and all the kids there call her the high-class hooker. That is what she look like! I keep telling her, husband not going to leave because you now forty and have little tiny frown line and don't wear miniskirt all the time . . . but how do I know? This what happen to me.' She gave an enormous existentialist shrug.

  Annie suspected that Svetlana had turned forty herself. She'd been thirty-nine for just a little bit too long now. And she definitely did things to her face . . . but it was all a question of degree and clearly this friend needed a little retuning.

  'It's not nice,' Svetlana added, 'not for the school gates, ha?'

  Before Annie could make any reply, the friend in question tottered into the suite, prompting Annie to give her warmest smile and welcome as she took a long, hard look at the woman.

  She was carefully balanced on three-inch-high stilettos and squeezed into a black, short-sleeved wrap dress so tight it was almost a bandage.

  Yes, the face on top of the cleavage looked younger than both the slightly creased breasts and the neck, but Annie could barely make the face out underneath the monstrous hair.

  An enormous purplish-black beehive with a severe fringe and great long tendrils falling down round the shoulders perched on top of this poor woman's head. It was so styled and so lacquered, even the tendrils looked crunchy.

  Annie checked herself: glam Addams family, yes, but it was a look. Maybe the woman didn't want to change. Maybe her husband adored her like this. Maybe it was just other women, like Svetlana, who were thinking: 'Hello!! Morticia!'

  Annie was never too keen on women being dragged here by their friends. She lived by the psychologist's mantra that you couldn't change anyone unless they wanted to change. But anyway, she was here to suggest some new clothes. The hair was nothing to do with her.

  'So! Kelly-Anne, isn't it?' Annie ushered her in and made her sit down on the sofa next to Svetlana. 'Tell me what I can do for you today. What kind of things are you looking for?'

  'Well . . .' Kelly-Anne looked a little unsure of herself, 'I've never done this before. I have such a good idea of the kind of things I want, usually.'

  'Pschuuuuut,' Svetlana tutted unhelpfully beside her. 'You need Annnah.'

  'That's great,' Annie smiled at Kelly-Anne, hoping to cancel out Svetlana's comment. 'Some new things for the autumn . . . a coat? A bag? I have amazing new day dresses, just in . . . or maybe you want to look at something more casual.'

  'Maybe a haircut too,' Svetlana put in.

  'No, no!' Kelly-Anne said, looking anxious, 'you don't do hair here?'

  'Yes, we do now have a new hair salon in the basement,' Annie told her.

  'Kelly-Anne, you need haircut,' Svetlana told her firmly, 'this hair looked good when you were fifteen. Now you need something more modern.'

  Kelly-Anne looked faintly terrified now.

  'Well, anyway,' Annie gave Svetlana a look which was intended to make her shut up about the hair, 'let's talk about clothes.'

  * * *

  The trying-on session wasn't a great success. Everything tight and black Kelly-Anne wanted. Everything colourful, elegant and stylish, Svetlana and Annie wanted, but Kelly-Anne resisted.

  It was shaping up to be one of Annie's very rare personal shopping deadlocks, when suddenly Connor breezed into the suite unannounced.

  'Whatcha think Annie?' he asked, holding out his arms and wanting her immediate appraisal of his new, all-important outfit, 'I've been shopping with Dale downstairs in the big boys' department. This is what we came up with for the Sam Knight lunch. You like it?' Suddenly he noticed the other women in the room.

  'Svetlana!' he exclaimed, and rushed over to take her hand and kiss it showily.

  Annie gave him the glare, which was supposed to mean: I'm busy, make an appointment, like everyone else.

  But Connor read it as disapproval. 'No? Not the blazer?' he asked her, 'I thought the blazer was a bit much as well. But it's Ralph Lauren, baby and I'm loving the cashmere T-shirt underneath.'

  He posed in front of the full-length angled mirror, knowing full well he looked like sex on a stick and even Annie was going to have to admit it.

  Kelly-Anne was looking at him with the wide-eyed look of surprised recognition. Annie hoped this was a good thing. Maybe if Kelly-Anne knew she dressed the famous Connor McCabe, she might be just a teensy bit more open to some honest advice.

  'Hello there!' Connor schmoozed at Kelly-Anne. 'And I'm not Peter Andre, if that's what you're thinking.'

  'I know!' she squeaked. 'You're Connor McCabe, from The Manor! I love that programme. I think you're great!'

  Kelly-Anne, who was currently wearing slim grey flannel trousers with a cream off-the-shoulder jumper (an outfit she'd just told Annie and Svetlana she'd never be seen dead in) stared at him quite transfixed.

  'You're looking very foxy in that,' Connor told her generously. 'You're even giving me the horn.'

  Kelly-Anne was well enough up on Connor's love life to know why that was funny.

  'But the hair!' Svetlana complained to him, 'the hair should be silky. Moving, no? Connor, tell this woman.'

  'Come to Connor and sit,' he instructed, pulling up a chair and placing it in front of the mirror.

  Kelly-Anne obeyed without a word. She sat in the chair and faced the mirror as Connor, enjoying every moment of the attention, sank his hands deep into the dark tresses and started to shake them about.

  'Stiff as a board,' was Connor's verdict. 'That's not sexy, baby, we want to be stroked with silk, not have our eyes taken out with bits of twig. Go shorter,' he urged, 'look at your lovely neck – ' he ran a finger along its length. 'Show it off!'

  'Eeeek!'

  Clearly, the thought of short hair was making Kelly-Anne squeak with fear.

  'Eeee . . . yeowch . . .' she added. Maybe something was actually hurting.

  'Ooops I seem to have got a little tangled in here,' Connor explained, as his hands remained buried in Kelly-Anne's hair. 'Annie, her hair's caught on my blazer button!'

  Annie bent down and tried to investigate. Caught on a blazer button? Connor had four buttons on each arm.