Late Night Shopping

by Carmen Reid

  In the sitting room, the sofa bed had been neatly made and folded away. The jumble of clothes which had been exploding from Ed's open suitcase when she'd gone out this morning had now gone and only her own open suitcase with her clothes neatly stacked inside was left on the floor.

  Annie sat down on the armchair opposite the sofa and stared at it glumly. She cast her eyes about the room looking for anything that Ed might have left behind for her. A note? A scribble of explanation?

  Her eyes fell on the villa's telephone – a heavy, old-fashioned cream-coloured one with a dial – resting solidly and silently on the side table beside her chair.

  Next to it was a slim pad of paper and a navy and gold ballpoint pen.

  Annie bent over to take a closer look at the pad of paper and there, although the page was blank, she could see the imprint of a name and a number which had been left when someone had written on the sheet above.

  She snatched the pad up and looked at it closely. Apart from a capital G and some fours, she couldn't read it. But she'd read Owen enough mystery stories to know that what she needed was a pencil.

  She searched the room as quickly as she could and finally found a stub of pencil in one of her suitcase pockets, tucked in there for emergency airport lounge games of hangman. With care, she gently shaded over the markings until clearly legible was the name 'Giovanna' in Ed's scribbly handwriting followed by a telephone number.

  Giovanna? Giovanna?

  Annie was absolutely certain that Giovanna was the name of Ed's Italian ex-girlfriend.

  She leaned back in the sofa and stared at the piece of paper. Ed had gone in a taxi with his luggage, an elderly aunt and the telephone number of his ex-girlfriend in his pocket. Whatever problems she and Ed were having, they were definitely not going to be helped by the reappearance of a Giovanna in his life, that much Annie did know.

  She scrunched up the paper and threw it hard against the wall. Punching Ed's number into her mobile again, she told his voicemail: 'You really better phone me, Ed. Before someone else makes our problems even worse.'

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lana in a gloom:

  Black knitted tunic (mother's wardrobe)

  Black leggings (Asda)

  Black baseball boots (Converse)

  Black mood (homemade)

  Total est. cost: £45

  'We should never have gone!'

  As the taxi from the train station pulled up outside their home at close to 9 p.m. on Monday evening, Annie craned her head out of the window to get a better look. The house was ominously dark. Only the porch light was on, and she knew that was on a timer.

  There had still not been one word from Ed. She'd tried his mobile regularly, leaving various messages ranging from sulky, contrite and pleading, to just plain angry.

  But not a single call had been returned. Finally, just before they took off from Ancona airport, she'd texted: 'U r a jrk,' which she regretted almost as soon as she'd pressed send.

  She'd tried to make the last day and a half of the holiday as enjoyable as she could for everyone, especially the three children. There had been dinner out, late night swimming, more sunshine and even an excursion to some very decrepit Roman ruins for Owen's sake.

  But on Sunday night, when Owen had nestled up against Annie and asked her if Ed had left because he'd fallen in the well with Billie, Annie could just about have cried.

  'No,' she'd told her son emphatically, squeezing her arm tightly around him, 'Don't think that. You didn't do exactly the right thing, but we all make mistakes, babes,' she'd reassured him. 'It turned out all right and no one's even thinking about it any more. No, Ed's had a fight with me. But when we get home, I'll sort it out with him and everything will be OK again.'

  'But Ed shouted at me before he went,' Owen confided. 'It wasn't very nice. He told me not to be so rough with Billie in the pool, but we were just play fighting and she was laughing.'

  'Don't worry, please,' Annie had soothed him. 'I'm sure we'll sort everything out.'

  But in her heart she was furious that Ed had upset not just her, but her son as well. And Lana too, Annie was sure, although Lana was too guarded to say anything yet.

  At Stansted, Annie had waved goodbye to an exhausted Billie, pimply Dinah, plus Connor and his plastered nose because they were taking a cab home together. All Annie's extra shopping luggage meant that she and her children needed a taxi to themselves.

  'Chin up,' Connor had instructed, 'I'm sure you and that nice man will work it out. You have to,' he'd added, 'we'd all miss his cooking too much.'

  But when Annie and her children hauled their luggage in through the front door, it was obvious that no one else was home.

  'Where's he gone?' Owen asked, not needing to name Ed because they were all thinking exactly the same thing.

  'Oh, he must be out doing something, I'm sure he'll be back soon to see us,' Annie told them, but she had really expected him to be there to meet them.

  'Maybe he'll make us supper,' Owen said hopefully.

  'Where are the cats, though? They were supposed to be dropped off this morning. He must have taken the cats.' Lana pointed out, because Hoover and Dyson, the big, black, fluffy furballs, usually stalked out into the corridor purring whenever anyone came in through the front door.

  'He's taken the cats!' Lana repeated, now sounding upset.

  'I don't believe this,' Annie said, more to herself than to the children.

  She turned and shut the front door behind them then, dumping all her things down in the hall, hurried upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Ed. Surely there would be something up there? Some note, or explanation, or clue . . . or something?

  'Take your things to your rooms,' she told the children, over her shoulder, 'I'll try and find out what's going on.'

  It was very tidy in the main bedroom. It was almost exactly as Annie remembered leaving it. But then, looking carefully around, she saw the very significant difference.

  Ed's second, larger suitcase was missing from its place on top of the wardrobe. With a heavy heart, she opened the wardrobe doors and saw that not all, but a large portion, of his clothes were gone.

  'No,' she heard herself say under her breath.

  Scanning the room desperately for any further clue, Annie's eye fell on her bedside table.

  There it was, the dreaded note. Folded neatly in half.

  Annie approached the table with a tight feeling in her chest, her mind whirring frantically. What if Ed had decided he'd had enough of them? What if Aunty Hilda had poisoned him against the three of them for ever? What if he'd phoned up Giovanna and met her in Italy and decided she was the one for him and he'd packed up his clothes and his cats and was moving back to be with her?

  Her hands were shaking with panic by the time she had the note in her fingers, making it difficult to open . . . difficult to read the words inside. But the words didn't solve any part of this puzzle for her, they simply read, 'I've gone to Hannah's.'

  That was it, as if he'd just popped out and would be back any moment now.

  'I've gone to Hannah's' she read again. And again. And once again. He'd gone to stay with his sister? How did that help anything? What use was that? What exactly was his point here?

  Feeling a flash of anger at his refusal to talk to her, see her or deal with her on any level, she scrunched up the note and hurled it at the window. Right, that was it.

  She'd put on her coat, get the car keys and whizz round to Hannah's, right now. She'd had quite enough of this sulky silence. Ed was going to talk to her. Nothing would be solved until they had a decent conversation. And she wasn't going to put it off for one moment longer . . .

  Muuuum!' Owen called from the hall.

  'Yes?'

  'I'm hungry.'

  Right, she would go round to Hannah's just as soon as she'd made something for the three of them to eat.

  Annie poked about in the fridge and the freezer. Ed had obviously spent some time in the house: there was fresh
milk in there, along with eggs and a loaf of bread.

  She put oven chips in to cook and brought out the frying pan for the eggs. This was Ed's frying pan, carbonated steel or something . . . it had to be wiped down with olive oil on a kitchen towel and never washed. Usually she stayed well clear of it, but today she banged it down on the hob, determined to cause it some damage if she could.

  'Get Lana to come down, will you?' she ordered Owen when the food was ready and she'd put the pan in the sink and covered it with soapy water.

  'Isn't Ed coming?' Owen asked.

  'No, not right now,' Annie answered without turning to her son. She didn't want him to ask any further questions.

  'Right,' Owen said, then turned and went out of the room to get his sister.

  When Lana came into the kitchen, Annie could see at once that something else was wrong and it wasn't just because Lana had changed into head to toe black.

  'Have a seat, babes,' Annie said gently, 'you must be hungry.'

  'I'm not,' Lana replied, her voice strained.

  'Please,' Annie urged, 'have a little bit.'

  About three chips and a small corner of egg had gone down before Lana blurted out at her mum, 'Andrei isn't answering any of my calls or messages.'

  'We're having the same problem then,' came Annie's gloomy response.

  'And Greta says,' Lana went on, 'Greta says she saw him snogging Daisy at the party on Saturday night.' Big breaking sobs followed this revelation.

  Something of an astonished smile crossed Owen's face at this news, for he'd lived through Lana mourning a boyfriend for weeks before and he'd found it very entertaining. But the smile quickly disappeared at the sight of Annie's warning frown.

  'Oh, sweetheart,' Annie said with as much sympathy and concern as she could muster, 'is Greta sure?'

  When Lana nodded at this and carried on sobbing miserably, Annie could only say, 'Oh Lana, baby, that's terrible. I am so sorry.'

  'We should never have gone!' Lana wailed. 'If we hadn't gone to Italy none of this would have happened!'

  Annie put her arm round her daughter. A long evening of tears and snotty tissues was in store. They would have to break into the duty-free chocolate, no doubt about that. Annie would have to dust down her talk about unfaithful boyfriends: why they're no good and should never be taken back.

  And any showdown with Ed at his sister's house would have to wait until she finished work tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Dannii's daywear:

  Tightest jeans (Juicy Couture)

  Frilly floral chiffon top (DvF)

  Silver heels (Gucci)

  Silver bag (Gucci)

  Platinum and diamond watch (Gucci)

  Total est. cost £7,000

  'Outplay her. Outflank her every move.'

  The next morning in The Store, Svetlana's verdict on Ed fleeing to his sister's house without a word of explanation was simple: 'Nothing, nothing, nothing! Ahnnah, you don't want nothing to do with this man! What more can I say? I have had two, three husbands who not treat me the way I want to be treated. And I stay and I try and I do this and that and sexy underwear and lovely dresses and everything they ever want . . . and what do I get?'

  She turned and fixed Annie with an expectant look in her glittering green eyes. 'I get cheating on and divorce court and fighting over every penny they owe me! So, no, no, no!' She shook her finger with its long magenta fingernail in the air emphatically.

  'I learn my lesson. At the first sign of trouble, get out! Find someone crrrrazy about you,' she added with an extravagant roll of 'r's.

  Annie thought she had, though, that was the point.

  'Like my Harrrrrry!' Svetlana went on, 'Yes . . . I know, he not as rich as Igor of course.' Well, only a handful of people in Europe were, so no shame there really. 'But Igor never gave me any money anyway, so vot the point?'

  Annie couldn't help feeling a large house in Mayfair counted for something, at least . . . but Svetlana was now asking, 'Am I too old for zis?'

  The statuesque Russian turned to offer Annie a three-quarters view of herself in the red tropical print swimsuit, matching sarong and red platform heels. She looked fabulous. Breathtaking. Like a sumptuous Miss World, ready to stride across the platform and announce her intention to work with children.

  Of course, this may have had something to do with the fact that Svetlana had once been Miss Ukraine. Although Svetlana had not told the judges she wanted to work with children. Instead she'd informed them with a dazzling smile that she 'Vant to marry very rich man', which according to Svetlana was the only reason they awarded the Miss World crown to Miss Thailand. ('She vas midget! You not believe!')

  'The swimsuit looks stunning,' Annie insisted. 'What do you mean, are you too old for it?'

  'No, the purse!' Svetlana raised her leg at a graceful angle – fifteen years of ballet lessons hadn't been wasted on her – to show off the tiny, quilted Chanel ankle bag.

  'I love it,' Annie told her: 'very glam Caribbean.' Because where else would Svetlana be spending the winter holidays?

  'Vill I get my credit card in it?'

  There was no question of Svetlana ever carrying cash.

  'I miss when you worked from home Ahnnah,' Svetlana said mournfully, 'then we had more time, more privacy to talk, to work out all the looks. When are you going back? When you leave here and vork for yourself again? You need to make more money with your business, huh?' she asked in just the sort of cheery, jaunty way of a woman who's never had to worry for one moment about meeting the mortgage payments.

  'Well, I have some new ideas,' Annie told her, but she didn't feel like giving Svetlana the whole business pitch today.

  Today, her heart wasn't really in it. Today, she felt oddly flat and unenergetic. About as drab as the boring old black dress she'd put on for work this morning with only a necklace to accessorize it. No sparkly earrings, no fascinating belt, nothing worn in a different way to add interest. No, this morning Annie had woken up alone, flung on the dress and the necklace without a great deal of thought and got on with the business of starting the day.

  'You need a good man to take care of you,' Svetlana told her sympathetically, 'you are a wonderful woman going to waste. You are looking tired, you are looking vorried. You need someone to take veight from your shoulders, not add to it.'

  'Ha!' Annie managed, but she didn't want to meet Svetlana's eyes all of a sudden, because she thought if she saw too much warmth and sympathy there, she might be tempted to feel really sorry for herself.

  'Come on!' Annie encouraged, as if to her client, but really to herself, 'we have this whole rail to get through before eleven o'clock.'

  And with that her hands went to the next outfit: a shimmering, radiantly multi-coloured, long and lean Missoni evening dress. The kind of thing Svetlana would probably slap on over her bikini – whereas Annie would kill to have this very dress to wear at Bryan and Dinah's party.

  Annie hadn't been able to resist making a quick call to Hector to find out how the 'secret' party preparations were going.

  'He's not really very open to new ideas,' Hector confided, 'but we're getting there. I definitely couldn't persuade him to have doves, though. Doves were a total no-no.'

  'Doves?' Annie repeated. The Hector she thought she knew was an only slightly camp, posh Scot. The kind of guy who wore tartan trousers – seriously – as daywear. She'd thought she could count on him to make Bryan and Dinah's party classy.