Late Night Shopping

by Carmen Reid

  Before she was able to say much more about it, Annie was in the changing room admiring herself in a floaty, chiffonish creation, all reds and oranges and vibrant pink. When she ventured to suggest that it might be just a little over the top for day wear, Patrizia clapped her hands and insisted: 'No! You are not thinking like Italian woman yet.'

  Then, seized with the sort of enthusiasm Annie usually had for her clients, Patrizia asked permission to loosen Annie's hair from its tight ponytail. Before she knew it, Patrizia had snapped open her small leather bag, brought out a comb (in what else but coordinating tortoiseshell) and within a few quick moments, she had bouffed Annie's just below the shoulder blonde bob up to about four times its normal size.

  'Now, put on the new shoes, then we go to my special shop to buy necklace. Then, you truly stunning Italian-style woman . . . this the kind Mr B-M do business with.'

  Truly Italian-style tarty woman, was Annie's thought as she tried to smooth down the bouffant hair surreptitiously. But when in Rome and all that . . .

  In a tiny shop, slightly bigger than a booth, a dark-haired, darkly tanned man with a winking gold front tooth sold necklaces with price tags only half as much as Annie had expected. In imitation amber, topaz, or multi-coloured Murano glass, they were all jaw-droppingly beautiful, every single one of them.

  Annie took her time looking carefully through them. She wanted to buy everything, but having to narrow the selection down, she decided that she liked the chunky glass pendants best. Fashioned from amazing whirls of colour, each was like an oversized jewel strung along strands of shiny glass beads. Every colour combination was as intricate as a miniature constellation, absolutely unique and beautiful.

  'So tell me more about Mr B,' Annie said as she and Patrizia tried to make a choice from all the amazing things on sale: 'is he a good businessman?'

  'Yes, I think so,' Patrizia told her. 'I've only been working with him for four months. He has good connections and he has just opened the shop. But now he does not have enough customers. This is why he so interested in you. You are the way to customers. He has the very nice things to sell. You are the one with customers.

  'I think he was impressed with your eBay shop,' she added. 'He has spoken of something like this. But I don't think he want to be posting handbags by himself every day. Anyway, post here, not so good.'

  'Yeah, well, we have that problem too,' Annie confided picking up a small pendant of many shades of blue swirled with gold dust. This was for Lana, no doubt about it. One of the blues spiralling in the mix was exactly the colour of Lana's vibrant eyes. And her daddy's, Annie remembered with just the tiniest of shivers.

  'But do you think he will be a good business partner?' Annie asked Patrizia a little anxiously. She'd only just met the man, but felt she was going to have to make a decision. If she was to take this chance, she had to decide as soon as possible, before someone much more impressive than her walked into his shop and took the bull by the horns. 'Is he honest?' Annie asked.

  'Everything I see of the business, fine,' Patrizia said firmly, 'Buona. But you should know,' her voice lowered, 'he has a lot of girlfriends. He big lady man.'

  This made Annie laugh, although she understood that it meant Mr B was big into ladies, not – judging by his shoe comment – into big ladies.

  Patrizia held up an emerald green pendant decorated with rich brown and yellow whorls, then lighter green inside. It was strung on a multi-strand of tiny brown and gold pearls, and when she held it against her neck, her brown eyes glittered gold.

  'Oh, you have to have that. Have to,' Annie commented, 'that is just perfetto for you. So Mr B is a ladies' man . . .'

  'Si, but I think this is not a bad thing for his business, no?'

  'And between you and Mr B . . . ?' Annie thought it might be rude to spell it out exactly, but she was curious to know if there was anything at all going on between the two of them.

  'What?' Patrizia didn't seem to catch Annie's meaning at first but then . . .'Oh!' she smiled, 'you mean a romance between him and me? Oh no, no, no,' she laughed as if this was a completely ridiculous idea, 'I have fiancé,' she said and to prove the point she raised her right hand and held out the chunky smokey-coloured topaz ring on her fourth finger.

  'That is lovely,' Annie told her, but felt some confusion. Topaz? For an engagement ring?

  'Much more beautiful than diamond, no?' Patrizia asked. 'This is the ring I choose.'

  'Oh yes,' Annie agreed, but really she was lying. When it came to engagement rings, she'd have to love someone very, very much to let them get away with anything less than a truly stonking diamond.

  'But he try, of course, ' Patrizia added, fastening on the green necklace and looking at herself in the mirror with concentration, 'he lean over and say "something on your face Patrizia, let me move it away", this sort of thing. But for me is nothing,' she added, 'I wave him away,' she batted her hand vigorously to demonstrate, 'like mosca.'

  Annie got the idea.

  * * *

  In the flamboyant pink and orange dress and new Italian heels, with the still scarily bouffant hair, Annie got out of the mighty people-carrier as elegantly as she could and headed towards Mr B's factory shop.

  Mr Bellisimo was in for a surprise, she thought as she caught a glimpse of herself in the car window.

  'Signorina Valentina!' he gushed as soon as she had pushed open the glass door. There he was, just as tall and smooth and handsome as he'd been yesterday, sunglasses still perched on his head. Today he wore a flattering pink shirt but still sported the cashmere sweater over his shoulders.

  And yes, he was calling her Miss. Yesterday, just as she was leaving the shop, he'd caught hold of her hands, inspected them for rings and said, in a tone of astonishment, 'You are not married?'

  She'd begun her explanation, about how she used to have a husband and now she had a partner, but he'd merely waved his hand and shaken his head at her.

  'You Signorina Valentina to me,' he'd told her. 'Come in, come in,' he now ushered her into his shop, 'I open the pro-secco and we sit down and we talk beeeesinezzz.'

  'I have the car,' she began, a little startled by the two kisses he was bestowing on each of her cheeks and not sure she wanted a numbing glass of fizz. She wanted to be totally sober for this meeting, thinking as clearly as she possibly could.

  But, 'Si, si, si, vene,' Mr B was insisting, already bringing out his tray and his glasses and his chilled green bottle.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dinah poolside:

  White micro shorts (old Levis, cut down)

  Yellow and white bikini top (Primark)

  Flip-flops (Brick Lane market)

  'Sisley' suncream (Annie)

  Vintage white sunglasses (Oxfam)

  Total est. cost: £35

  'Allergic reaction?!'

  'But will she actually be able to make contact with the water?' Ed asked Dinah as Billie prepared for the pool in a swimsuit with inbuilt floats, bright yellow inflatable armbands and an inflatable ring. The little girl looked like a mini Michelin man and was almost as white, with a layer of factor 300 all over her. 'Isn't she just going to float on top like a little hovercraft?' Ed continued.

  'Better safe than sorry,' was Dinah's response to this. 'If I'm going to lie down on this lounger and leave you and Owen in charge, I need to know she'll be totally safe.'

  Ed understood that Dinah had anxieties about her one and only precious child, so he didn't say anything else, just pulled his battered fisherman's hat further down over his eyes and nose against the fierce glare of the sun and sat watching the two children play together in the pool for a long time, until a glance at his watch told him that it was 3.30 p.m.

  The siesta was nearly over and it was time to be thinking about dinner . . . and where the hell was Annie?

  Ed was now well and truly wound up about this. If he'd had his phone within reach, he'd have tried giving her a call to find out. She'd promised she would spend just a couple of hour
s in town, and would then pay a quick visit to her brand new best friend 'Mr B'.

  Ed had not expected to come to Italy to be Annie's full-time babysitter and chef while she tore around every available retail outlet in the area. She was always so frustratingly unavailable. Not to mention annoying. And she took him for granted. There was absolutely no doubt about that.

  'I think I'm going to walk down to the village,' he announced, getting up from his deckchair, deciding action was better than sitting about mentally whingeing about Annie. 'Who wants to come with me?'

  Neither Aunty Hilda, dozing lightly in the shade of the terrace, nor Dinah lying flat out in the sun showed much sign of interest. Connor and Lana had gone off for a short walk together, so Ed's only chance of company was from Owen and Billie.

  Owen swam over to the side of the pool, pulling Billie in her rubber ring and rubber wings and polystyrene weighted swimming suit along behind him like a little dingy.

  'Shall we go for a walk, Billie?' Owen asked his cousin, who was bobbing in the water beside him.

  'Yes!' she answered. Clearly a full hour of splashing about in the pool had finally been enough.

  'What do you think, Dinah?' Ed called over. 'Can Billie come to the shops with us?'

  Dinah came over. She had to dry Billie thoroughly, apply another basting of factor 300 grease, put her into a dress, matching sunhat, socks and shoes and then finally, making Billie promise she would be 'very, very good and do everything Ed says', she agreed that her daughter could go with them.

  'You will watch her on the roads, won't you?' Dinah added anxiously, to which Ed answered 'Of course', and Billie crossed her arms and gave a great long withering sigh before adding, 'Just chill, Mummy.'

  They were almost a full ten minutes or so down the road. The gnarled olive trees ahead shimmered in the full force of the afternoon's heat. Dust swirled up from their steps, stones rattling along loosely, the grass at the side the colour and texture of straw after the long hot summer.

  Owen and Billie walked ahead of Ed, holding hands, which must have been a bit sticky, Ed couldn't help thinking, but clearly they were enjoying each other's company. And that's when the awkward thing happened.

  Billie turned to Ed and said, 'Oh dear, there's something I've forgotten.'

  'Oh? What's that?' he wondered.

  'I've forgotten to go for a wee.'

  'Oh!'

  Well, that was a bit tricky, to say the least.

  Ed ran through the possible solutions in his head. Obviously there weren't any handy public toilets out here, or any obvious private ones for that matter. It was a full ten-minute walk back to the villa . . . but would she be able to last that long? Holding a child over the grass for a wee was the kind of manoeuvre that teacher training encouraged you to steer clear of with children you didn't know extremely well. Make that all children you hadn't actually fathered.

  'Do you want to go behind that tree?' he ventured. 'You could just crouch down and do a little wee and Owen and I will wait on the other side?'

  She looked at him with her head to one side and she might have agreed had Owen not delivered the killer blow at that moment. 'What about snakes? Aren't there snakes in Italy?'

  'Yikes!!' Billie exclaimed and shook her head vigorously. So peeing behind the tree was a no-no.

  'Well, we'll have to walk back to the house then. Do you think you can manage to hold on?' Ed asked kindly.

  Billie nodded.

  'Why don't I take her back?' Owen offered. 'It's just straight up the hill . . . we'll be fine . . . honest.'

  Ed considered Owen's pleading look. He obviously really wanted this little chance to be independent and responsible.

  He paused . . . he never took risks with children. He was far, far more careful with other people's children than he would ever be with his own. But on the other hand, Owen was nearly eleven. All he was asking was to take his very sensible five-year-old cousin up a hill to the villa. When Ed was eleven, he used to spend entire days on his own roaming about on a bicycle. In five minute's time, Owen would only be five minutes away from Dinah. He'd be almost within earshot of an adult for the whole walk.

  'We'll be fine, I promise,' Owen repeated, seeing Ed dithering.

  Surely Ed was just mollycoddling if he didn't let Owen do this? Owen would be fine. He always did exactly as he was told.

  'Please?' Billie joined in with the pleading.

  'OK, but you have to walk very quickly and get back to the house as soon as you can and stay there with Dinah. Billie can't be hanging around. She needs to go fast. OK?'

  A grin split Owen's face. 'Yes, sir!' he said and gave a salute. Then turning on his heel, he issued a commanding 'C'mon Billie!' And the two of them began walking at speed back towards the villa. They would be there in no time.

  Ed watched for the full three minutes it took them to reach the bend in the road, then he turned in the direction of the village again and carried on at a brisk pace, his mind gradually letting go of Owen and Billie and filling up instead with thoughts of what he was going to buy and how he was planning to cook it.

  There was no way Ed could have guessed that just around the corner, as soon as they were out of sight, Owen and Billie were going to run into Maria, carrying a large empty basket in her arms because she was off to pick pears.

  'Ciao!' she greeted them.

  'Ciao!' Owen replied.

  'Ciao, bambina,' Maria cooed at Billie enthusiastically. 'You like pear?' she added.

  Billie nodded, then turned to Owen and said, 'Is this the girl you went pear-picking with?'

  'Yeah,' Owen replied. 'She knows where to get nuts and blackberries as well.'

  Billie gave a grin of excitement. 'Can we go with her?' she asked.

  'But don't you need the toilet?' Owen reminded her.

  Billie shook her head, crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip just slightly. Owen knew Billie well enough to understand that this was a Bad Sign.

  'I want to go pear-picking,' Billie said with great determination.

  'Are you sure you don't need the toilet?' Owen made a last attempt to dissuade her. 'Ed said we had to go straight to the house.'

  'Toletta?' Maria asked, understanding the gist of the problem. 'Come with me' – and she held out her hand to Billie.

  While the girls went into a field and headed for a tree, Owen made the calculation that so long as they were at the villa before Ed got back, no one would be in the slightest bit worried about them, so they had at least an hour, they would definitely be fine for a little bit of tree climbing and fruit-picking with Maria. He turned off the road and began to follow them slowly into the field.

  Maria was much more matter-of-fact than Ed. She took Billie behind the tree, helped her out of her pants and showed her how to squat down, lifting her dress and making sure her sandals were well clear.

  The pants, a touch damp, were hung up on a low branch to dry and the children walked on down the hill towards the cluster of pear and nut trees.

  'Are there snakes?' Billie wanted to know as she waded through grass, which to her was waist high.

  'Yes,' Maria told her. 'Little tiny snakes.' When she saw Billie's horrified expression, she quickly added: 'They very, very frightened of people. They hide.'

  It was close to five o'clock when Ed arrived at the villa laden down with two bagfuls of shopping. Tomatoes, more tomatoes, bread, melons, cold ham, cheeses, wine . . . he'd loaded himself up with slightly more than had been comfortable to carry. It would have been much easier if he could have taken the car, or been able to reach Annie on her mobile and asked her to pick him up. Instead, he'd had to struggle up the steep hill. Although the sky was beginning to darken, it was still close to 30 degrees in the sun.