Celebrity Shopper

by Carmen Reid

  Al the builder:

  Very low-slung jeans (Lee)

  Grey T-shirt (Asda)

  Boots (DeWalt)

  Hard hat (DeWalt)

  Total est. cost: £65

  ‘The magic touch, mate.’

  ‘You’re not having a good day, are you, mate?’ was Al’s verdict as he came in through the front door to find Ed holding two crying babies.

  ‘No, not exactly,’ Ed replied unusually irritably. The fact that Al was about six hours late because of some ‘errands’ he’d had to run and ‘materials’ he’d had to collect wasn’t exactly improving his mood.

  ‘Here, give us a baby,’ Al offered cheerfully.

  Ed looked at Al. His grey T-shirt was completely encrusted with dirt, dust, chunks of plaster and blobs of paint. He really didn’t want to hand Al a baby because it would just give Ed another mess to clean up later. But it seemed rude to say no now that Al had asked directly.

  ‘There, there, there,’ Al soothed as Micky was handed over to him, ‘what’s all the fuss about? What’s all this noise for?’

  Maybe because he was so surprised to be in the arms of a total stranger, Micky stopped crying immediately.

  ‘The magic touch, mate,’ Al said, beaming at Ed, ‘haven’t lost it, even though mine are teenagers now. The magic touch.’

  Now Ed had an overwhelming urge to punch him. But instead, he carried on scouring the hallway for the twins’ beakers which seemed to have vanished into thin air although they were urgently required.

  ‘Minnie, please shush,’ he said sharply, which had no effect on the wailing at all.

  What was the matter with him? He never used to be like this. He used to have all the time, patience and understanding in the world for children. Wasn’t it just ironic that now Ed finally had his own children, the children he’d so longed for, so twisted Annie’s arm to have, he’d turned into the kind of grumpy, short-tempered harassed parent he’d always disapproved of in the past?

  ‘So this cupola then,’ Al began. ‘Think we’re going to get started on that today.’

  Ed was desperate to stall on the cupola front, but before he even began that debate, there were a few other issues he was going to have to air with Al.

  ‘Al, where are the kitchen windows?’ he began firmly over the din of Minnie’s wails.

  Al shrugged, sucked his teeth and then let out a long sigh.

  ‘We are really, really missing the kitchen, Al. I’ve got two babies to look after; I need the kitchen back.’

  It wasn’t as if Al hadn’t heard the kitchen speech before. He’d heard it many times. Each time it got increasingly desperate.

  ‘Well, those windows, mate,’ he said with another deep sigh, ‘what on earth you were doing ordering windows from Sweden, mate? You should have let me sort them out, I’d have had them here weeks ago. Your supplier keeps telling me that there’s this delay and that delay, I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Al stopped there, not offering any solution or further suggestion.

  ‘Do you want me to phone them?’ Ed asked.

  Al shook his head. ‘Don’t think that will help.’

  ‘Do you want me to cancel the order and let you order new windows?’

  ‘Well, I’ve made the hole too big now … extra big for your Swedish windows. If I order something in now, we’re going to be rebuilding that wall around ’em.’

  ‘Well, what are we going to do?’

  Another shrug from Al. ‘We’ll just have to wait.’

  ‘And what about the shower? Any sign of that?’ There was a definite trace of pleading in Ed’s voice now.

  The ‘family’ bathroom currently had a toilet and a sink part-connected. The shower was a jangle of pipe ends protruding from a wall of jagged plaster and broken tile. An ominous dark hole in the floor, which whiffed, marked the spot where once there had been a drain.

  Yes, there was another bathroom, but it only contained an old, small bath, which – now that Owen, Lana, the babies and Ed all had to use it – wasn’t the cleanest or most relaxing tub in the world.

  Ed had no idea when he’d last washed his hair. He missed the shower. He needed that shower.

  ‘Shower? End of next week,’ Al announced brightly, as if this was great news.

  ‘End of next week!’ Ed repeated, horrified. ‘So you won’t be able to fit it until …’

  ‘Beginning of the week after,’ Al confirmed. ‘Might not be coming in that Monday. Got a long weekend planned at the—’

  ‘Villa in Spain?’ Ed guessed.

  If he heard one more thing about Al and his trips to his villa in Spain, well it would be another reason to consider giving Al a punch.

  ‘So this roof,’ Al began, heading up the stairs, still with Micky in his arms, ‘I can get that done today with Janucek. I’ve brought in my extra tall ladder and a sledgehammer.’

  Ed looked up at the sloping white ceiling, pristine, only recently repainted. He and Annie had spent a fortune sorting out the roof of this house. The idea of Al taking a sledgehammer to it was making Ed feel slightly sick.

  He didn’t want the bloody cupola. The cupola was pure, one hundred per cent Annie. Think how much light it will let in upstairs and into the hallway … think how pretty it will look on top of the house …

  As usual he’d gone along with it, maybe because she was the one with the huge salary and he didn’t feel he could argue. Maybe because he was just too damn exhausted to argue.

  ‘You’re going to sledgehammer up through the plaster?’ Ed asked uncertainly.

  ‘Yup, easy as pie,’ Al assured him, ‘then when the dust has settled, remove a nice big layer of tiling and make the hole big enough for the cupola.’

  ‘And you’ve got the cupola? That can be fitted on quite quickly?’ Ed wanted to establish.

  ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got it,’ Al told him, but looked away a little uneasily.

  ‘Where? Outside?’ Ed was keen for some exact detail here.

  ‘Well, not here,’ Al had to admit.

  ‘Not here?’

  ‘Nah. It’s a bit complicated. It got delivered to my other yard—’

  ‘Your other yard?’ Ed’s credulity was stretched to breaking point now.

  ‘Yeah, but we’ll put the hole in today and I should have it here tomorrow, should only take a day or two to fit in,’ Al assured him cheerily. ‘It’s going to look smashing.’

  ‘Smashing,’ Ed repeated. The only thing that was going to be smashing round here was Al, smashing round this beautiful, lovingly restored Georgian house with a bloody great sledgehammer, fitting a cupola that should be here by tomorrow. But who knew for certain? Certainly not Al.

  ‘Don’t do anything,’ Ed decided, ‘I’m going to phone Annie.’

  He was going to talk her out of this whole mad idea. This was ridiculous. It was still threatening snow outside, what on earth was he doing letting this madman put a hole in their immaculate roof?

  Risking leaving Micky in Al’s grubby arms, Ed turned away and went in search of the house phone, or his mobile, or any sort of method of telephonic communication at all.

  After a frantic search, he managed to unearth his mobile, but the battery was dead. A thorough search of three rooms later and he finally located the home cordless phone; it beeped with low battery too because, as usual, it hadn’t been returned to its base once in the hours since Lana or Owen, or possibly one of their countless visiting friends, had last used it.

  Nevertheless, he punched in Annie’s mobile number and then listened to the continental ring tone on the line reminding him how far away she was.

  ‘Ed?’ Annie answered and immediately sounded anxious. ‘Is everyone OK?’

  ‘Yeah … well, slightly better than this morning,’ he grumbled, ‘I think it’s a virus, they’re just so unsettled.’

  ‘Have you given them anything?’

  ‘They’re up to their ears in Calpol,’ Ed confided, ‘any more would be an overdose.’

&
nbsp; ‘OK. Babes, unless it’s really urgent, I have to go. This is a difficult time,’ Annie told him, which was putting it mildly.

  ‘Annie, I don’t think we should do the cupola,’ Ed began with urgency. ‘Al’s here to put a hole in the roof and I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  Annie gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Ed, we’ve had this conversation,’ she reminded him. ’We’ve had it many times, and each time we get to the end, you agree with me that it’s going to be great. So can we just fast-forward to that bit?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  ‘I don’t want to do this,’ Ed repeated.

  ‘Ed, he’s a great builder; it’s going to be fine. Babes,’ she tried to put as much warmth and love into that word as she could, ‘I’m sorry I’m not there, I’m sorry I can’t talk to you for half an hour, but there’s a disaster going on here and I have to go.’

  Reluctantly, Ed agreed and ended the call.

  ‘Right.’ Al came down the stairs and handed Micky back to Ed. With a grin, he said: ‘Let’s get Janucek, the ladder and the hammers in, shall we?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anoush’s off-duty model look:

  Striped slouchy top (Galeries Lafayette)

  Denim jacket (Levi’s)

  Scarf (market stall)

  Teeny red shorts (Diesel via eBay)

  Black tights (supermarket)

  Flat slouchy boots (best friend’s)

  Total est. cost:€60

  ‘My mother cleans a church …’

  Elena had screamed. She had actually screamed right there in the lobby of Le Carrousel du Louvre with some of the most glamorous image-makers in Europe within earshot.

  Svetlana had refused to accept the information about the faked booking. She had first of all argued with the receptionist and demanded to see a manager; then she’d had the same argument all over again with the manager; finally, she’d punched Patrizio’s number furiously into her phone.

  But – to only Svetlana’s surprise – the number did not ring, because it did not, of course, exist any more.

  ‘Where did he come from?’ Elena was wailing. ‘How did we get involved with him in the first place? How could this happen? Sixteen thousand euros …’ she kept repeating. ‘Sixteen thousand!’

  Svetlana did not have the chance to answer any of Elena’s distraught questions before the Elena torrent of disaster continued.

  ‘Forty-five buyers are going to arrive here tomorrow morning, and twenty-five journalists! This is a disaster. We are finished – before we’ve even begun,’ Elena wailed.

  Because Annie didn’t want Elena to scream again, especially as she’d just seen John Galliano in person (yes, really!) walk past the tent entrance, she put an arm around the girl and hugged her.

  But she couldn’t offer any soothing words or any hint of a solution.

  What about her TV show? Annie couldn’t help wondering. She needed this episode. She needed the barnstormer or she could be out. Still, she didn’t dare to complain in front of anyone, not right at this moment anyway. But the show was already being trailed: ‘Join Annie in Paris for the fashion show of the season!’

  There was no way she could come back from Paris with nothing. No way at all. Her eye caught Svetlana’s unusual expression. Even with the amount of Botox, Restylene and surgery Svetlana had been through, she looked upset. More upset than Annie had ever seen her.

  Svetlana didn’t do upset. She powered on. She powered through.

  Somehow, that was what all three of them were going to have to do today.

  Rich had his camera trained on the faces. He didn’t dare turn, instruct or even breathe because he knew that if anyone noticed he was still filming, they would kill him.

  Anoush looked just as stunned as everyone else.

  She had waited weeks for this opportunity and today she’d been waiting hours for it to happen. She’d already been through the rollercoaster of believing it wasn’t going to happen, then finding out it was … Now, to have it snatched away again like this … she couldn’t believe it.

  ‘We’re finished. Over,’ Elena was gasping against Annie’s shoulder. ‘I can’t believe it. I’ve worked so hard for this.’

  Annie was already frightened about what was going to happen next. She suspected that any moment now Elena was going to round on Svetlana in a fury and a great horrible screaming, shouting scene was going to erupt right here in front of their eyes.

  On the way in, Annie had noticed press photographers circling the square on the lookout for celebrities going to the shows. Svetlana hadn’t been spotted then, but in just a minute or two it could all blow up into a very nasty, public row and, as Elena had warned, Perfect Dress might be over before it had even begun.

  At this moment the disaster was big, but it was still contained and maybe somehow, by some stroke of magic, it could be averted.

  ‘We need another venue,’ Annie said as calmly as she could.

  ‘For tomorrow?’ Elena wailed. ‘Impossible! Totally impossible! This is the trade shows, everything is booked, everything is booked months and months, even years in advance. That’s why I was always suspicious of this space in the Carrousel’ – her eyes flashed at Svetlana accusingly – ‘and where are the other models? Did he only book one? Why did he bother?’

  No one could answer that.

  ‘This is a big city,’ Annie reminded everyone. She was willing her mind to think and come up with an answer. ‘People hold shows in all kinds of wacky venues – on piers, up towers, in all kinds of crazy places, just to attract attention. We’ve got to calm down and we’ve got to think. Everyone, take deep breaths. And think. I’m sure we can book more models.’

  For a moment or two there was silence.

  Annie’s mind raced. They should ask the receptionist … What about someone at the hotel? … They had to ask people. They should spew out calls and ask anyone they could think of for help.

  ‘Ermmm …’ Anoush made a little sound.

  Everyone immediately turned to her.

  She cast her eyes down and cleared her throat, but suddenly felt too scared to speak.

  ‘What is it?’ Svetlana urged. ‘If you have idea … if you have any idea, you have to let us know.’

  ‘My mother …’ Anoush looked up at them again, eyes wide; she looked so young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, Lana’s age. ‘She cleans a church,’ she said in hesitant English, ‘it’s in Saint-Denis, it have a hall and maybe they borrow you it for show. Maybe?’ she added doubtfully and gave a shrug.

  Elena frowned, failing to see any hope at all in this idea, but Svetlana and Annie pounced on it, desperate to find any sort of solution.

  A church? In a downtown neighbourhood? Why not? Annie was asking herself. Why not launch Perfect Dress in a really unusual, totally out-there way? It would at least give people something to talk about.

  ‘Can you phone your mother?’ Annie asked. ‘Does she have keys? Can we go there? Can she meet us there? Can we go now?’

  The flurry of questions made Anoush smile.

  At this moment, Elena’s eyes turned to Rich. It took another moment for her to realize just what he was doing.

  The camera was on his shoulder and the digital display was lit up.

  Elena sprang like a cat towards him. ‘Are you filming this?’ she demanded. ‘Have you been filming all this time?’

  When he made no reply, she stalked towards him furiously. ‘You have no right!’ she exclaimed. ‘You have no permission!’

  When it was clear what was about to happen, Rich reeled back in surprise, but Elena nevertheless managed to land a resounding slap on his cheek.

  Like any true professional, Rich managed to film that too.

  The party of five – Annie, Svetlana, Elena, Anoush and Rich – along with assorted bags, holdalls and camera, made the journey to the suburb of Saint-Denis in a large taxi.

  It was obvious as they travelled that they were moving from the glossy centre of Paris to the much
scruffier outer reaches. Underpasses were scrawled with graffiti, a hotchpotch of ethnic stores and market stalls lined the streets and there was all the jaunty, noisy vibrancy of a poorer, but lively, neighbourhood.

  Finally, with the help of the GPS navigator, the cab pulled up in a narrow side street outside a small church with a courtyard and a plain, single-storeyed building beside, all enclosed in a high wire fence.

  As they all got out of the cab and unloaded the bags and the equipment, a dainty woman, similar enough to Anoush to be recognizable as her mother, began walking across the courtyard towards them. She opened up a gate in the wire fence and let them through.

  ‘This my mama, Latifah,’ Anoush said by way of introduction. ‘No English,’ she added.

  Elena, Svetlana, Annie and Rich all smiled and said hello. Then Latifah, smoothing down the pink and white cleaner’s tabard she had on over her clothes, shot out a stream of rapidly delivered information in an unrecognizable language and dangled a set of keys in front of Anoush.

  Annie looked at the buildings before her. The church was an ornate, blackened old building with twiddly stone carving and numerous stained-glass windows: very Gothic. The church hall, by contrast, had been built recently. It was a plain, rectangular building with small square windows, utterly devoid of any charm or character. Annie was no longer feeling quite as hopeful as she had been in the taxi.

  The street was OK. It was quiet with several blocks of flats, a few shops and takeaways. It reminded her of parts of east London, the on-the-verge-of-hip areas, the streets and postcodes that hadn’t yet made it.

  Anoush’s mother began to walk towards the door of the church hall and everyone followed her. It took several minutes for Latifah to open the door because of the two double locks and the padlock.

  ‘Is not so safe here,’ Anoush explained. ‘Robbers.’

  Moments later, the party was standing in a stunningly boring room. With its brown lino floor, shabby cream walls and short orange curtains hanging at every window, Annie, Svetlana and Elena knew at once that it was beyond hope.