by Lindsey Kelk
‘Do you still have family over here?’
Roughly translated as the world’s worst version of ‘do you come here often?’
‘Loving the pictures of your dog. I think about getting one all the time. Anyway, must dash, busy day – speak soon!’
And round off the message with three out-and-out lies. Perfect.
After five more minutes of Facebook stalking, I rolled across the bed to locate my handbag and pulled out my notebook and pen. The single girl’s to-do list was coming along a treat, but today it was time for a more common-or-garden variety of list. It was bizarre; I hadn’t gone a day without making a to-do list since 1998. I’d even made one every day on holiday, even if all it said was go to beach, drink lurid-coloured cocktails and pass out. In fact, they were some of my favourites, even if Em tried to piss on my chips by complaining that diarizing a hangover didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Figuring it would help my brain stop thinking mad thoughts about moving to Toronto and having beautiful children who played ice hockey and pronounced about ‘aboot’, I started on a new list. Matthew’s birthday was on Saturday and I was contractually obliged to throw him some sort of party. Usually this took place in the pub, due to my general lack of hostess skills and Simon’s general grumpiness at finding king prawns from the Iceland party platter down the back of the sofa a week later.
But not this year. This year I was throwing him the party to end all parties and there wouldn’t be an Iceland platter in sight. Oh no, this year we were M&S catering all the way. M&S catering and enough booze to put Mel Gibson on his arse. Or that one from Girls Aloud who liked a drink. I never could remember her name.
First things first: online invite. It really was true, nothing actually happened now until it happened on bloody Facebook. So what if it was only two days to the party, it wasn’t like anyone had anything better to do, was it? We were 28: Saturdays weren’t for having fun. They were for X Factor and family events you were obligated to attend. Once I’d sent a desperate plea to everyone Matthew had ever met, I went to work on the real list. I’d basically been falsely imprisoned the night before; after all, I deserved a treat. And oh what a treat. Food shopping list, booze shopping list, present shopping list. And I still had to buy a dress for my dad’s wedding. The purple silk Warehouse sale number that I trotted out to everything just wasn’t going to cut it any more. If only I had a lucrative and high-profile job in Sydney to look forward to …
For the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, I actually had to put some thought into getting dressed. All my new ensembles were hung up along the curtain rail, out where I could see them and where they could block the bloody sun out of my bedroom. It looked like some kind of very glamorous branch of Oxfam. What to wear today? Now, was Thursday more of a stripy sundress day or a floral Fifties option? I opted for the floral number and tiptoed into the living room to check myself out in the mirror. Being a short-arse, I had to climb on the sofa to get the full effect. And it wasn’t horrible. My new bob skirted around my shoulders and the pretty patterned dress squared up my skinny shoulders with adorable cap sleeves. The biggest miracle was that, somehow, the dress had created a waist where there was No Waist. On anyone else, it would have been criminally short, but my midget proportions worked in my favour on this occasion. It looked good. I, on the other hand, did not. Unless waxy corpse was the ‘in’ look of the season. And, as a professional, I was pretty sure it wasn’t. Ever.
Settling on the sofa, I opened my make-up kit and started to play. A little foundation, a lot of blusher, some mascara, maybe a flick of blue eyeliner? I didn’t know if it was just because the girl in the mirror was gradually beginning to look human, or because I hadn’t had to do this professionally for all of three days, but making myself up was fun. I looked lovingly at the colourful pots of MAC eye shadow, stroked the rubberized casing of my Nars blusher, smiled sweetly at my Lancôme lip gloss. I had to stop thinking of make-up as drudgery, just like everything else. Maybe if I was a better ad for my own work, I’d get more editorial stuff. I didn’t need Dan to take me to Sydney; I was bloody good at my job. Veronica should just put me forward and the editors could make a call based on my book. Redhead Rachel had spoken.
Before I left the house, I put a couple of minutes’ thought into Matthew’s birthday present. Usually, buying for old friends was an easy job, but he was impossible. He despised shopping for himself but he hated when people bought him clothes. If you gave him skincare products, you were calling him old. He was a foodie but he had a nut allergy. He loved sweets but if you got him chocolate, you were trying to make him fat. And even though he loved music, he was a terrible, terrible muso snob and so CDs were out of the equation. Possibly some vintage vinyl but, even then, it had to be mint. And not ironic. So vinyl was an option. There was only one thing I could be certain he would love and that was a clone of himself. If all else failed, there was his annually requested gift, a bottle of whiskey and gay porn. The gift that kept on giving.
Vinyl.
Simon’s vinyl.
I shot up off the sofa and catapulted over to the music stand in the corner of the room. Simon had insisted on buying a turntable a couple of years ago and ever since had been collecting rare vinyl to show off whenever my brother or any of his muso friends came over. As far as they were concerned he specialized in the Sixties. In reality, I knew the only music that ever got any play on his iPod was Lady Gaga’s first album and Coldplay’s last record. Not even Parachutes. There it was. His treasured ultra-rare Beatles record. The one he’d held to his chest and whined like a baby until his mum had given it to him. Hmm. Couldn’t hurt to get it valued, could it? I’d probably be doing him a favour. And if I had something very valuable on the premises, I could be robbed. He’d feel awful if I was robbed and murdered in the night because he’d left me here alone with a rare Beatles record. I should get it valued. I was going to Soho anyway. Popping it into a protective sheath fashioned out of two issues of Heat, I slipped the record in my bag and left the house, feeling strangely elated.
Soho always seemed like a strange part of London to me. Close enough to Oxford Street for tourists to wander in accidentally, mingling with the middle class ‘meedja’ types who weren’t cutting edge enough to have moved their business out east, and of course gay man upon gay man upon gay man. Not literally upon each other obviously. At least not in daylight hours. Most of my time on its cobbled streets was spent either in one of the classy hotels on shoots or hanging out in the Friendly Society with Matthew and Stephen in happier times. In unhappier times, it was the O Bar for an hour until he’d pulled, at which point I’d go and repeat the process with Emelie at Floridita before meeting Simon for a Wagamama’s round the corner. Maybe I was a bit boring. But today Soho only meant one thing: birthday shopping. Determined to redeem myself for last year’s boxer shorts and beer combo (I’d been very busy. And very lazy), I headed into Vinyl Junkies, looking for something special.
Record shops aren’t made for girls. This was a fact. Just like comic shops, Dungeons & Dragons tournaments and reading the newspaper on the toilet, record shops, especially specialist vinyl stores, were property of the Y-chromosome. I felt uncomfortable the second I walked through the door, just wishing I’d gone for jeans and trainers instead of a dress and eyeliner. The two middle-aged men, one bald, one overly hirsute, both misogynists, had me pegged as a novice before I’d even opened my mouth.
‘Hi.’ I gave them my best please-don’t-laugh-in-my-face-or-rip-me-off smile.
They gave me their best you’re-shit-out-of-luck-darlin’ nods in return.
‘I’m looking for a record,’ I squeaked. ‘For a birthday present.’
They exchanged a look.
‘Course you are,’ Bald Music Shop Man replied. ‘We’ve got lots of records, though. Anything in particular?’
Great. They had confirmed that I was a moron. Why hadn’t I asked my brother Paul to come with me? He was probably best friends with these arseholes.
>
‘My friend’s a bit of a muso,’ I elaborated, scanning the glass display cases behind the counter. ‘He really likes …’
Oh dear god, my mind was completely blank. Why? Why? Don’t say it Rachel, don’t you dare say it.
‘He really likes music.’
Neither Bald Music Shop Man nor Hairy Music Shop Man had an answer to that. OK, there was only one way to save this. Delving into my bag, I pulled out my Heat sheath.
‘Don’t think we’ve got anything they’re reviewing in that, darlin’,’ said Hairy Music Shop Man. This was the funniest thing Bald Music Shop Man had ever heard.
With a tilt of the head and a small smile, I peeled away the Cheryl Cole cover and revealed my bounty. Oh, would you look at that? Suddenly I had the attention of both muso men.
‘While I’m here, I was wondering if you could have a look at this for me.’ I laid the record on the counter very carefully. John, Paul, George and Ringo looked up and gave me a smile.
Obviously, these were men who weren’t able to communicate in a non-sarcastic fashion and so I took their silence as approval.
‘It’s my mother’s,’ I lied unnecessarily. ‘I want to get it valued for her. Obviously I’ve looked online.’
I hadn’t looked online.
‘Um, well.’ Bald Muso Man went to pick it up but paused, looking to me for approval. I gave him a nod and quietly enjoyed the power trip. ‘I don’t know, it’s rare.’
‘Sleeves in good condition,’ Hairy Muso Man began giving it an automatic once-over. ‘Mirror vinyl, Canadian import. Very nice.’
Maybe it’s a sign, I thought to myself, while they ummed and ahhed: all roads lead to Canada. Maybe I was supposed to sell this and use the money to fly to Ethan where we would fall in love and immediately get married. That made sense, didn’t it?
‘I reckon we could do you about five hundred quid,’ he said, not letting go of the record.
Until that second, the proudest moment of my life had been when I’d picked up the keys to my flat. Or the time I did not dry-hump James Franco in the make-up chair. As of that moment, it was not snatching the money out of Hairy Muso Man’s hand and running for the hills. Five hundred quid? Really?
‘Oh,’ I shrugged and held my hand out for the record. ‘I can probably get more than that on eBay. Thanks though.’
‘Eight hundred,’ Bald Music Shop Man said quickly.
‘Hmm.’
‘Eight-fifty. Best I can do.’
I tried very hard to look unconvinced while I weighed up my options. On one hand, there was a chance that this was sort of technically stealing. But at the same time, Simon was an evil scumbag who had callously abandoned me with the record, which sort of somehow suggested that he wanted me to sell it. Didn’t it? And I would very much like eight hundred and fifty pounds.
Hairy and Baldy were literally on the edges of their seats. Pursing my lips, brushing off the skirt of my stripy sundress and hitching my handbag back up on my shoulder, I shrugged.
‘Done.’
Walking back out into the sunshine, I felt a little dazed. I had nearly nine hundred quid in my handbag. I pulled out my notebook, checking my shopping list to try and ground myself, but instead of seeing a list of tasks, I just saw £850, written about seventeen times. The worst thing was, I didn’t even feel bad. Not a jot of remorse. He hadn’t picked that record up since bringing it home two years ago; he would never even know it was missing. I hoped.
Dodging a fruit and veg stall set up in the middle of the street, I headed back up Berwick Street, narrowly avoiding walking face first into a stupidly hot man. We danced around each other for a moment until he laughed and hopped into the street.
‘Sorry,’ I said. I hated the left-right swerve game – why couldn’t we just agree everyone would walk on the left, like on Tube escalators?
‘No worries, angel,’ he smiled back. Why couldn’t everyone be as friendly as a gay man wandering around Soho in the middle of a Thursday morning, I wondered, almost immediately encountering an identical situation with an angry looking man in a suit. Gays were lovely.
Unless you forgot to buy their birthday present. Oh bugger. There was no way on god’s green earth I was going back into the record shop, not now I was winning. Which left only one option. Looking up, I spotted exactly where shorts guy had come from. Prowler. Lovely Soho and its gay sex supermarkets …
Ten minutes later, I was back on the street, clutching a gay porn parody of Jersey Shore and a selection box of Trojans just to be a bit fancy. Matthew would love it. Done with Soho for the day, I prepped myself and my eight hundred and fifty pounds to brave the sprint to the Northern Line at Tottenham Court Road. And I really was just about to leave when I spotted a glass-fronted shop off to my left. In the windows were two dummies, decked out in nothing more than nipple tassels and top hats. It was hardly a shocking sight in Soho but this shop made me stop in my tracks. Because this wasn’t just any shop. This was Agent Provocateur.
Emelie had been a devotee of luxury lingerie since she’d opened the floodgates in La Senza in the second year. Since then she’d graduated through Elle Macpherson Intimates, Cosabella and Calvin Klein and now she was onto the hard stuff. La Perla, Coco de Mer and of course, Agent Provocateur. It wasn’t that I didn’t like pretty things; I did, but Em earned an awful lot more money than I did. Two hundred quid on a bra? I just couldn’t do it. She’d spent several years trying to convert me, insisting that spending that much on something created exclusively to make you feel like a sex kitten could only be good for you, but I could always think of at least five other ways to spend that money. But now, newly single Rachel was going to have to Do It with someone new for the first time in years. And I wasn’t twenty-three this time. Sure, new Rachel had already proved she was confident and potentially certifiable – but sexy? It just wasn’t a word that sat well with me. A confidence boost couldn’t hurt, could it? And I didn’t have to spend two hundred quid. I could just look. Probably.
‘Hi, can I help you with anything?’ asked a painfully beautiful pin-up-a-like as I walked through the door. Clad in a short pale pink dress and black stockings, she gave me a smile with deep red lips. Speaking as a professional, it was a great make-up job. Speaking as a normal girl it was wildly intimidating.
‘I’m just browsing, thanks.’ My plan was to make a polite lap of the store, pick up two things, check the prices and then go for a tactical exit. Until I saw it. Pink silk, black lace overlay and oh my but it was beautiful. Just seeing the bra hanging there made me want to have sex; I couldn’t even begin to imagine the power it might wield on an actual person.
‘The Françoise. My favourite.’ The pin-up spoke in a quiet voice. Her reverence was entirely appropriate. ‘Would you like to try it on?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘Yes please.’
Looking at myself in the dressing-room mirror was an extraordinary experience. My boobs hadn’t got any bigger, my thighs hadn’t got any slimmer, and I hadn’t suddenly developed Jessica Rabbit curves, but suddenly I was sexy. I was wearing nearly five hundred quid’s worth of lace and elastic and I’d never felt more incredible. Not that I’d be able to get into the stockings and suspenders ever again without the shop assistant’s help. But when was I going to wear it? I asked myself, turning around, holding up my hair and checking out the back view. It was entirely pointless. I could get just as nice stuff from M&S. Probably. Just because I’d sort of stolen nearly a grand from my ex-boyfriend didn’t mean I was made of money, this was ridiculous, this was … I stopped striking ridiculous poses in the mirror for one second and carefully removed the single girl’s to-do list from my handbag. Buy something. And unless I was very much mistaken, the addendum to that decree was ‘something obscenely expensive and selfish.’ Like designer lingerie. Like five hundred pounds’ worth of designer lingerie. With the money you just made from selling your ex-boyfriend’s ultra-rare Beatles record. Well, his mum’s Beatles record but she had it coming as well. The cow never
had given me her chocolate cheesecake recipe and I had asked for it time and time again. Maybe she kept it from me because she knew we were never getting married and she wanted it to stay in the family. Cow.
‘Everything OK?’ Pin-Up Gal asked outside the changing room. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘Do you have any more of the knickers in stock?’ I said, letting redhead Rachel take over. It was just easier if she dealt with these decisions.
‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed through the door. ‘Just the briefs?’
‘All of it,’ Redhead Rachel confirmed. ‘I’ll take all of it.’
And from that moment on, with Dita von Teese as my witness, I vowed I would never wear a greying bra with no elastic and a little bit of plastic underwiring poking out, ever again.
Having spent the morning buying designer underwear, hanging out in gay sex shops and selling expensive records that didn’t belong to me, I felt like the afternoon belonged to tasks my mother would have approved of. Stashing my ill-gotten gains in the bedroom, I changed out of my dress, into a T-shirt and started painting. More people than I’d anticipated had responded to my Facebook invite to the party on Saturday, presumably pity acceptances given that they’d all seen my newly single status on FB. Not that I cared. Pity popularity was still popularity. Of course that meant I couldn’t really leave the living room in its current state – masking tape around the light switches wasn’t avant-garde, it just looked stupid. As Em had pointed out. Yes, oddly enough, neither she nor Matthew were available to help me out when I’d called to see what they were up to. In Emelie’s defence, she was working. Dead-Dad rich Matthew however, had no such excuse. He was just AWOL. As he had been a lot over the last couple of days. If he wasn’t with me, he wasn’t giving up where he was. Pushing away my concerns that there was no estranged dead dad and that he was turning tricks somewhere in South London, I got back to the job at hand. Hands on hips, I stared down the tins of paint in the corner of the room.
