‘My mum says that houses can go for as much as four million,’ said Izzie.
‘You’d have to win the Lottery to live here, then,’ said Lucy.
After roads of terraced houses, we passed some amazing antique shops, full of enormous gold frames and mirrors big enough to fill a whole wall.
‘Bit different from Homebase,’ said Izzie, gazing in at one window crammed with chandeliers made from moulded glass flames and wrought iron.
‘And – wow – look at these shoes,’ I said as we came across a shop called Emma Hope on the corner of one street. ‘They’re so pretty, like made for fairytale princesses.’
‘Portobello Princesses,’ said Izzie, looking at a shop further down. ‘You need to be royalty to afford the prices.’
‘Portobello Princesses,’ I laughed. ‘I like that. That describes Cressida and Tanya exactly.’
We spent the first ten minutes window shopping, looking in a shop called Joseph and another called Rikki, then at the end of the row, a window display caught my eye. ‘Now this looks interesting.’
‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t want to go in.’
‘Why not?’
‘Doesn’t look friendly. And there’s no one else in there.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ I said and dragged her up the steps to the shop. I pushed the door but it was closed. Inside a stick-thin assistant looked up and indicated we should ring the bell.
I rang the bell and the door bleeped open.
‘I’m going to wander down towards the market,’ said Lucy, pulling away. ‘I’ll meet you later.’
‘Lucy,’ I whispered to her as I shoved her into the shop, ‘what was it you were saying to me about people only being able to make you feel inferior if you give them permission? You belong here as much as the next person. In fact, you’ll probably run a place like this when you’re up and running as a designer.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Lucy, looking around. ‘I’m going to make my customers feel welcome.’
Inside, it was all concrete and chrome with lilac tube lighting, sort of minimal so it did look a bit cold. And the assistant was eyeing us suspiciously. But the clothes on the rails looked the biz boz. We had a rummage around and there were loads of things I liked. I really wanted to get something special to wear on my next date with Simon. So far, he’d only seen me in jeans and trainers. Next time, I was determined to make an impression.
‘Oh, chulo chulo. Look at this,’ I said, pulling out an amazing orange chain-mail sleeveless tank top. ‘Got to have it.’
I quickly glanced at the price. Twenty three pounds fifty. I could afford it and have some money left over.
I went into the changing room and tried it on. It did look fantastic. The fabric was stunning: little silky cubes all sewn together.
‘Let’s see,’ said Lucy, sticking her head in the cubicle. ‘Très sexy.’
‘Must have,’ I said.
‘Musto must have,’ agreed Lucy.
I got changed into my own clothes and took the top over to the cash desk.
The assistant took it from me and looked at the label.
‘Cash or card?’
‘Cash,’ I said, getting out my money and handing her three ten-pound notes.
She took them but seemed to be waiting for something.
‘What?’ I said.
‘I need another two hundred and five pounds,’ she said, as she showed me the label. It said two hundred and thirty-five pounds. Not twenty-three pounds fifty.
I wanted to die.
‘Er, bit more than I thought,’ I stuttered and quickly put the top back on the rails, before joining Izzie at the other end of the shop.
‘What a rip-off,’ said Izzie, picking out a skirt. ‘This is only a bit of cotton and it’s a hundred and eighty-five pounds.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to look at our sale rail,’ said the assistant, coming up behind us.
We trooped over to the sale rail where Izzie proceeded to embarrass me further.
‘Blimey. Come and look at this, Lucy,’ she exclaimed as she held up a strapless pink dress. ‘You could make one better than this. This is eighty-five quid and that’s in the sale!’
Honestly. Izzie goes on about me and my big mouth but she can be worse than me if she wants to be.
I wandered to the back of the shop to look at the shoes and boots. There was a pair there just like the ones WC had on the night before. I picked them up and gulped. Four hundred and ninety-five pounds! That’s like, almost a year’s pocket money! And that was only WC’s boots. Lord knows what the rest of her outfit cost.
The assistant was watching us like we were kids on the nick and I suddenly remembered that scene in Pretty Woman. The film where Julia Roberts is shopping in posh dress shops and the assistants give her a hard time and she gets intimidated. Then she goes back looking fabulosa and a half, gives them a hard time then swans out and spends a fortune in another shop.
That’s my film for today, I thought and tossed my hair back.
‘Not really our style, is it?’ I said loudly. ‘Let’s get a cab home and see if Daddy will fly us over to Paris in the helicopter.’
Izzie and Lucy gawped at me. Then Iz caught on.
‘Yah. Super idea, dahling,’ she said. ‘This place is so, so . . .’
And we both wrinkled our noses and said, ‘nineties’.
With that, Izzie and I flounced out of the door, followed by Lucy who looked like she wanted to die. Poor Lucy. She isn’t the coolest cube in the ice tray at the best of times and she’d gone a brighter red than usual.
We ran round the corner and bent over laughing.
‘Did you see the assistant’s face?’ I said.
‘Yes, I did,’ said Lucy, punching me. ‘Honestly, you don’t half show me up sometimes.’
‘We were only having a laugh,’ said Iz. ‘But what a rip-off, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘but the clothes are something else, you have to admit.’
‘They might make you feel good for a moment,’ said Izzie as we set off towards the market, ‘but they don’t give lasting happiness.’
‘What are you on about, Izzie?’ I asked.
‘Buddhism,’ explained Lucy. ‘Izzie’s become a Buddhist like Ben. She told me all about it when you went off to the cinema last night.’
I laughed. ‘You should do a single, you know, like Bob the Builder? You could sing Ben the Buddhist to the same tune only with windchimes and chanting as well and maybe dolphins in the background. It’d probably go straight to number one.’ I started singing, ‘Ben the Buddhist, Ben the Buddhist’, then did my dolphin impersonation, ‘dwoink, bverk, squeak’.
Lucy giggled and even Izzie cracked after a minute’s trying to keep a straight face.
‘OK, then,’ I asked. ‘So why would being a Buddhist mean you can’t wear nice clothes?’
‘It doesn’t,’ said Izzie. ‘You can wear what you like to be a Buddhist. But it does teach that the root of all unhappiness is desire. And, mostly, desire is never-ending. Like, you get one thing, it makes you happy for a moment, then up comes another desire and you’re dissatisfied again until that desire is satisfied and so on.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ I said. ‘But so what?’
Izzie sighed impatiently. ‘Ben says that in the West, we’re all lost in desire, drowning in materialism.’
‘Yeah. Top, isn’t it?’ I said as I spied another interesting boutique and went to look in the window. ‘Drown me in it anytime.’
‘Let’s go and look at the market,’ pleaded Lucy. ‘I don’t think I could face another of those stuck-up shops.’
She pulled me away and we headed off in the direction of Portobello Road. On the way, we passed a health shop and of course Izzie had to stop and look.
Health shops aren’t really my thing but she’d come to my shop and fair’s only fair so we trooped in the door. Once inside, we found there were three floors selling every variety of health food ever made. The place was
so Izzie. She was in heaven, but try as I might, organic turnips just don’t do it for me. There was fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts, a floor with books and aromatherapy oils and soaps and lotions, then another floor with fresh juices and healthy-type meals. I was bored after five minutes. I mean, who wants to look at millet when you can look at make-up?
‘I wish we had a place like this near us,’ said Iz, after we’d had a good look round. ‘It’s wonderful.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘See, places like this are what it’s all about,’ continued Izzie as she picked some organic chocolate off the shelf and took it to the pay counter. ‘Feeds your soul as well as your body.’
‘Seven pounds fifty,’ said the girl at the till.
Izzie’s jaw dropped open in shock as she counted out the coins from her purse.
‘Most of the stuff in there is a bargain,’ she said sheepishly when we got back out on the pavement.
I shook my head sadly. ‘Wot a reep-off,’ I said in my best Indian guru accent. ‘That sweetie thing will only give you temporary happiness. You are lost in chocolatey desire but in an hour, oh deary me, desire will rise again. Probably for a burger. With extra onion. Or a milkshake. With big fat flakey things. Such is the nature of Western man who is drowning in illusion.’
‘Then you won’t be wanting any, will you, Barmy Swami?’ said Izzie, handing Lucy a piece of the chocolate, then running off down the road.
We spent the next couple of hours cruising Portobello Road and having the most brilliant time. The street was literally jammed with people eagerly looking at what was on sale at the many colourful stalls there. Here, there really were bargains. Pashminas, jewellery, picture frames, antiques, clothes, CDs, everything.
Lucy bought a fab 1940s dress from a stall selling vintage clothes. It was a soft cream voile and she said she could use the material for an idea she had. Lucy wants to be a dress designer when she leaves school. She’s mega-talented. She gets old clothes and sews them together with bits of new to make really original things. Already you can see her individual style and I’m sure in years to come, people will know exactly what a Lucy Lovering creation looks like.
Izzie bought some pink flip-flops with beads and sequins from a hippie-dippie Indian stall and I bought an amazing little transparent handbag with a pink feather trim – fluffy and girlie and only four pounds ninety-nine.
‘It’s the way you wear ’em,’ I said as I posed down the street with my new bag, doing my Marilyn Monroe wiggle.
By four o’clock we’d pretty well done the market so we decided to walk down to look at the big shops on Kensington High Street. After an hour there even I, Queen Shopaholic, was starting to feel exhausted.
‘One more stop before home,’ I said, leading the girls down a side street behind the tube. ‘There’s a shop that sells riding gear down here somewhere. Simon told me about it.’
‘Well, don’t get jodhpurs,’ said Izzie. ‘I found that pair of Claudia’s. I’ll bring them over to you later.’
We found the shop behind a square with super-posh houses built round a park-type garden blooming with magnolia trees.
‘Bet it costs a packet to live here,’ said Izzie, staring in the window of one of the houses next to the riding shop. The room looked like a film set with oak-panelled walls, old paintings and heavy red curtains.
The smell of leather hit us as soon as we entered the shop. It was crammed from floor to ceiling with everything you could imagine to do with horses – riding gear, boots, hats, stirrups, saddles, reins, books, magazines.
What I really wanted was one of the tweedy riding jackets but as I scanned the rails, I soon discovered that they were way out of my price range at over two hundred pounds. I was about to try one on to see what it looked like, when the door chimed open and I heard a voice I recognised. Luckily, we were at the back of the shop and hidden by rails full of clothes so she didn’t see us.
‘Hi,’ said Cressida. ‘I’ve come to pick up my outfit for next week’s competition.’
‘Miss Dudley-Smythe,’ gushed the shop owner. ‘How are you? And Lady Dudley-Smythe? Not with you today?’
I wasn’t in the mood for bumping into WC. After having had such a nice day with the girls, I didn’t want to ruin it.
‘That’s WC,’ I whispered. ‘I’m not up for saying hello. Let’s try and get out without her seeing us.’
Of course Izzie wanted to have a peek at her, so she sauntered up to the front of one the aisles and pretended to have a look at some riding boots. She came back after a second.
‘What’s she doing?’ I whispered.
‘Chatting to the owners.’
‘Can we sneak past?’
‘Well, not all three of us,’ said Izzie. ‘But she doesn’t know me and Lucy, so we could walk out easily. But what about you?’
She had another quick look at what was happening at the front of the shop. ‘OK,’ she said, coming back. ‘This is the plan. They’re on the right and look quite busy with clothes and stuff. So, Nesta, you walk to the left of us with your head turned away. Me and Lucy will be like a shield. Come on.’
We set off down the aisle nearest to the door with Lucy and Izzie on the right and me walking kind of sideways behind them. I had to bend my knees as I’m taller than both of them.
‘Just go slow,’ urged Izzie, ‘kind of casual.’
As I half bounced, half slid along, I felt like John Cleese in the Monty Python programmes when he was doing the Ministry of Silly Walks. We’d almost made it to the door when Lucy got the giggles. She tried to hold it in but her shoulders began shaking up and down in silent laughter. That started Izzie off. Then, of course, me. Then Lucy couldn’t hold it in a moment longer.
‘Hooo, hoo HOOO,’ she exploded.
The shop owners and Cressida looked around immediately.
‘Nesta, is that you?’ asked Cressida.
I was bent over the book section, heaving with laughter.
‘Sneuck, yeah, bffff,’ I said, trying to stop. ‘Er, Cressida, this is Izzie and Lucy.’
‘Hi, nnya, whey . . .’ spluttered Izzie, who dove for the door quickly followed by Lucy.
‘Do you know these girls?’ said the shop owner, looking mystified by our behaviour.
‘Yeah, sort of,’ said Cressida disdainfully. ‘What’s so funny, Nesta?’
I coughed. ‘Nothing. Er, private joke. Nothing.’ I was just managing to get my face straight when I looked over Cressida’s shoulder and out of the window.
Izzie and Lucy were outside pressing their faces up against the glass so that their features were all squashed. Both of them were doing mad faces and had made their eyes go cross-eyed.
I exploded laughing again.
‘Ummphh. Gotta go, Cressida. See ya laters,’ I stuttered.
As I ran for the door I could hear her saying, ‘Honestly some people are so juvenile.’
Nesta’s Diary
Simon sent me loads of text messages today:
:-< Missed U today.
I sent him back:
* ^_^ * I had a good time with the girls.
He sent me back:
because I wasn’t there with U.
(He wants to meet Lucy and Iz so I hope WC doesn’t fill him in about bumping into us in the riding gear shop as I can just imagine her version.)
I sent him back:
:->>> because I’ll see U in a few days.
Then he sent me this:
(*_*)
I had to text Izzie immediately to check it meant what I thought it did. It did. It does! It means I’m in love!!!!!
Treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen is my brother Tony’s motto, or at least it was until he met Lucy who I still don’t think he’s quite got over. Anyway, I’m not going to be mean to Simon but I’m not going to tell him I love him back. Not yet. Even though I do.
Instead I sent him this: (OvO) It means I am a night owl.
He sent back < ^ O ^ > which means
I am laughing loudly.
Me and the girls had a brill time today. Notting Hill is the biz and I saw loads of things I wanted in the shops there. I felt a bit down about it after though, because our family is financially challenged at the moment. Tony came up with that term: he says it’s a politically correct way of saying poor. He’s mad. He’s doing politics as one of his A levels and is always coming out with rubbish like that. Anyway, after feeling rotten about being financially challenged, I decided I ought to do something about it. Sink or swim time. I decided to swim and made A PLAN.
Chapter 6
The next morning, I got up early – well nine thirty, early for a weekend day – and checked my e-mails. I wanted to see if Lucy and Iz had replied to the invite I’d sent the night before:
Dear Ms Foster and Ms Lovering
Time: Sunday 10 a.m.
Place: Kitchen at Ms Williams’s flat
Event: Power Breakfast.
Be there. Or be square.
Signed: Ms Nesta Williams. Esquire
HRH
Excellent. Both of them had replied that they’d come so I got dressed and went to buy the morning papers and croissants from the corner shop. When I got back, I began my preparations in the kitchen. Pens, writing pads, pencils, juice, fruit, tea, cereal, coffee, milk.
Then it was time to say hi to Mum.
I switched on the TV and flicked to the news station.
‘Morning,’ I said, as her face appeared on screen. Then I changed channels to MTV. My favourite band was on. Most excellent, I thought. I closed the kitchen door as I didn’t want the music to wake Tony who was still in bed.
Lucy arrived first.
‘I brought some blueberry muffins,’ she said, handing over a bag. ‘What’s so important we have to get out of bed for?’
‘I’ll tell you when Iz arrives. Now. Orange juice, tea or coffee?’
‘Juice,’ said Lucy, looking at me suspiciously.
‘What? What?’ I laughed.
‘You’re up to something . . .’
Mates, Dates and Portobello Princesses Page 4