Late Night Shopping

by Carmen Reid

  Big, shiny gold buttons, sticking pompously proud of the material. Kelly-Anne's hair was tugged and tangled, snarled and snaggled right across all eight buttons.

  It would take Annie hours to sort this out. She began to try and unwind the muddle.

  'Oh for goodness sake!' Connor was starting to fidget, 'it can't be that bad, there must be a way of just fishing it out from under the buttons.'

  More long minutes went by as Annie fiddled away at the mess of snarled hair and hard, unyielding brass.

  'Yeeeeouwch,' was the only sound Kelly-Anne made every now and again.

  'No, it's not going to work, babes, we'll have to either cut off some hair or cut off the buttons,' came Annie's verdict.

  'Well, we can sew the buttons on again, can't we?' Connor was trying to sound calm and pleasant, when he was in fact deeply regretting ever having stepped into this room and interfering with this crazy woman with the hair.

  'Where do I get scissors?' Svetlana asked in her deep, dark voice.

  Annie knew the suite only had tiny nail scissors for snipping stray threads and cuticles and a great big pair of dressmaking shears for cutting off whole trouser hems . . . and on occasion, rescuing women trapped in dresses. Once she'd had to free a leg bound so tightly by a pair of skinny jeans it had started to swell. Yes, if Annie ever hosted a TV series, it would be called: 'When Clothes Can Kill'.

  She directed Svetlana to the drawer, sure that plenty of progress could be made snipping off the brass buttons with the nail scissors. A little hair might be sacrificed, and if it wasn't working out they could always go down to the salon. Although Annie wasn't sure she wanted to lead Kelly-Anne all the way through The Store with a TV star stuck to her head.

  Kelly-Anne seemed to be suffering. She'd gone very quiet, her shoulders were shaking a little and her breathing was shallow.

  'You're going to be fine,' Annie assured her, 'this is just a little hiccup, it will all be over really soon.'

  'I haven't cut my hair since I was seventeen,' Kelly-Anne whimpered, 'I don't want to cut my hair. Donnie loves my hair. I love my hair. I don't even want any scissors around . . . I don't want to see any scissors . . .' The anxiety in her voice was obvious; clearly some sort of hairdressing phobia was kicking off.

  'It's OK, don't worry,' Annie soothed, 'we're just going to snip Connor's buttons off and the problem will be solved. Honestly, you'll probably lose a strand or two at the most. Do you want me to do it? Or we could get one of the hairdressers up . . .'

  Because Annie was kneeling down at Kelly-Anne's side, patting her hands and trying to reassure her, she saw Svetlana return, but did not see what she had in her hands.

  'Arms up,' Svetlana instructed Connor.

  'Are you sure?' Connor asked. Then, before Annie could say a word, two sounds came all at once.

  A dramatic: 'Aaaargh!' from Kelly-Anne as her hair was yanked up high with Connor's arms and then a very firm, very final, metallic 'clunk'.

  'There!' Svetlana said, brandishing the dressmaking shears.

  'Phew!' Connor freed his arms as an astonishingly large clump of purple-black hair slid to the ground.

  Kelly-Anne's bloodcurdling scream brought every member of staff currently on floor two rushing to the scene.

  Annie bustled everyone out of the suite just as fast as they'd come in. 'We're fine thanks, just a little anxious moment. Don't worry, don't worry we'll be fine! Paula,' she instructed her assistant, 'a glass of champagne, love, just as quickly as you possibly can and get Marco from the salon up – right now! I don't care if he's blow-drying Madonna's fringe, he needs to come here now.'

  She dispatched Connor and Svetlana as well with a brisk: 'I think I can manage this better without your help, thank you!'

  'I phone you Annah!' Svetlana promised.

  Yes, well, maybe Svetlana wasn't going to be the dream business partner Annie had hoped. What else was she capable of when armed with a pair of shears?

  But back to the poor trembling, gibbering, weeping woman in the far corner of the room, who had not even been able to open her eyes since she'd first seen the scissors and the clump of hair hit the ground.

  'Kelly-Anne,' Annie began, kneeling down again beside the woman's chair, 'you are going to be fine. Honestly, please, please, please trust me here. I've worked with hundreds of women who haven't wanted to change a thing about their appearance and when it had to happen, it was OK. They coped.' Annie put her arm round Kelly-Anne's shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.

  'I've had clients who've gone bald with chemotherapy and one of my ladies has gone from double-D to double mastectomy. Now that is a big change, babes. Your beautiful hair will grow back, Kelly-Anne. No doubt about it.'

  Paula came into the suite with an elegant glass of champagne balanced on a small silver tray.

  As soon as Kelly-Anne saw it, she waved it away, but Annie took the glass, handed it to her and insisted kindly: 'Go on . . . I think you deserve it and absolutely no one is looking.'

  By the time hairdresser Marco arrived, Kelly-Anne had drunk the whole glass down, wiped her eyes, blown her nose and although she wasn't exactly cheerful, she had at least stopped weeping and shuddering.

  Marco, having heard some of the details of the disaster from Paula, came armed with a second glass of champagne. Then with all the charm of a 27-year-old straight guy who loves all women, he flattered, wheedled and cajoled Kelly-Anne to come down to the salon.

  'I can't do anything up here,' he insisted, taking her hair tenderly in his hands and stroking it, 'I need to wash it, deep condition it, handle it, really get the feel for it before I reshape it for you.'

  As Kelly-Anne reached for her second glass of complimentary champagne, Marco told her, 'I'm going to need some of that too. Apparently I'm the first person who's been allowed to reshape this in twenty years or something.' Then with disarming sincerity, he added: 'does that mean you last cut your hair when you were seven?!'

  As Kelly-Anne finally smiled, Annie could hear the trill of her mobile sounding out from her office.

  'I'll be right back,' she told them before heading over to answer it.

  'Annie!'

  Straight away she recognized the voice of her mother, Fern, sounding slightly stressed.

  'Sorry to call you at work, love,' Fern apologized.

  'No, no no,' Annie insisted, 'you're fine. You couldn't make my day any worse, believe me.'

  'Oh yes Annie,' came Fern's reply, 'I think I probably can.'

  'What is it?' said Annie suddenly worried. 'You're OK, aren't you?'

  'I'm fine, absolutely fine . . . but it's Aunty Hilda.'

  'She hasn't died, has she?'

  'No, dear. And you're not allowed to say "what a shame",' came the snippy response.

  Aunty Hilda was an eighty-something widow aunt of Fern's and therefore Annie's great-aunt. Hilda was opinionated, pompous, generally difficult and increasingly deaf, but as they were her only family, they had to care about her. Also, the poor old dear had just had a hip operation and seemed to be taking a long time to recuperate, so she had been living with Fern for several weeks now.

  Fern was worried because Aunty Hilda didn't seem to be recovering as quickly as she'd expected.

  'I'm going on a little holiday,' Annie's mother told her. 'It's been booked for months and now I don't know if Hilda's going to be well enough to move back into her own home in time.'

  'Black run skiing in the Alps again?' Annie joked. 'Or no, let me guess, Saga bus booze cruise over the Channel to France?'

  'Saga booze cruise!' Fern exclaimed. 'It's a fascinating tour of the Bordeaux wine region.'

  'Mmm . . . good choice, bound to be many, many single septuagenarians on that holiday. GSOH and OCB.'

  'Good sense of humour and – OCB?' Fern was baffled.

  'Own colostomy bag.'

  'Annie!' Fern ticked her off. But as Annie's mother had been single for such a very long time now, dating jokes were not just permissible, they were an expected part
of their conversation.

  'So you want me to put Aunty H up for a week? Is that what I'm picking up?'

  'Oh would you?!' Fern gushed, as if the idea had just occurred to her. 'It's not a whole week dear, it's about five days. She's getting quite mobile and she can manage the best part of the day on her own, so between you and Ed . . . and now that you have that nice big house. Dinah just hasn't got any space at all and I'll bring Hilda down myself, obviously.'

  'Which week are we talking about anyway?' Annie asked, waving a cheery goodbye to Kelly-Anne as Marco ushered her off to the salon.

  And here was Paula, showing in Annie's next client for the afternoon. This woman had very short hair, Annie noted, at least nothing could go horribly wrong on that front.

  'September the 18th,' Fern told her, 'from Thursday until Tuesday. I'm back on Tuesday.'

  'You know, I think Ed and the children are off . . . there's some special Centenary Founder's Day long weekend,' Annie told her. 'One hundred years since the old boy who set up the place popped his clogs or something. I've only just got them back into school and then they're coming out again,' she added with exasperation. 'Well, we've no plans. We'll all be delighted to look after Hilda for you, Mum.'

  'I know, she's not the easiest,' Fern admitted.

  'It's no problem, Mum,' Annie assured her, 'you'll need the break. I have to go, darlin'. Love you.'

  Clicking off the phone, she hurried out to meet her new client, passing the rack of clothes Kelly-Anne hadn't bought and would never, ever buy. Annie doubted whether the poor woman would ever set a stiletto inside The Store again. She might even try and sue them. Maybe Annie should be filing an accident report for The Store's insurance policy right now . . .

  She tried to overlook the lost commission and put all thoughts of owning The Bag Downstairs to the back of her mind.

  'Hi, I'm Elsa,' her next client began. 'I know it's a bit boring, but I'm looking for some new suits.'

  The most surprising thing happened halfway through Elsa's session. The bank executive was in one of the criminally chic grey dresses Annie had brought down for her, examining herself very closely in the mirror, when in breezed Kelly-Anne.

  Well, not that it was immediately obvious.

  The great towering, lacquered beehive construction was gone. Completely away! Instead, a short, silky-soft dark bob framed a sweetheart face, highlighting the most delicate of features.

  Kelly-Anne didn't even make a big deal out of her first haircut in twenty years, she just waved over at Annie and said, 'Please, don't let me disturb you, I've just come down to get the clothes.'

  Before Annie could even ask which clothes? Kelly-Anne went over to the rack that Paula had put to the side but not yet had time to set back out on the shop floor, and scooped up the lot. Then she left, thanking Annie profusely and promising she would be back soon.

  Marco must have slipped her a Valium. This was the only conclusion Annie could come to. No doubt about it.

  Chapter Six

  Owen's comfort clothes:

  Green camouflage combats (Army Surplus Shop)

  Orange and white T-shirt (Quicksilver)

  Khaki sandals (Geox)

  Total est. cost: £70

  'No, not raspberry, I think we have to go with . . . Aunty

  Dinah's homemade plum.'

  'I'm thinking thick white bread toast with butter and honey,' Ed was telling Owen as they walked along the pavement together.

  'Yup, toast,' Owen agreed, 'but not honey. How about peanut butter with jam?'

  'Mmmm,' Ed had to concede, 'I like your style. Peanut butter with raspberry jam?'

  'No . . . not raspberry, I think we have to go with . . .' Owen considered carefully for a minute then threw down the decider, 'Aunty Dinah's homemade plum.'

  'Plum! Yes!' Ed nodded, full of enthusiasm. 'We have a winner. Do we have white bread and peanut butter in the house? Or do we have to stop at the shop?'

  Monday to Friday, Ed, who was head of the music department at Lana and Owen's school, walked home with Owen. Lana, being older, would rather have had hot needles stuck into her eyeballs than be seen walking home with a teacher, obviously. But Owen wasn't quite so fussy.

  Anyway, Ed and Owen would usually talk a little bit about how their day had gone, but as both had hearty appetites, which the twenty-minute walk home always seemed to sharpen, the main focus of the journey was on planning their afternoon snack.

  'We're not going to have time to eat supper before the recital this evening, so we're going to need a lot of jam and peanut butter,' Ed warned.

  'Is Mum coming to see me play?' Owen wondered.

  'I hope so, she said she would,' came Ed's reply. He knew that the school's junior string quartet wasn't Annie's idea of a thrilling night out, but Owen was playing violin and had been practising so hard that Ed had made her promise she would come and watch him as his reward.

  As they turned into Hawthorne Street, Ed ran his eye approvingly over the front gardens still bursting with green and bloom. Well, OK, the garden of number eight was in need of a little attention, particularly in the way of hedge trimming, but there would hopefully be time for that at the weekend.

  However, the house looked amazing. A narrow, four-storey Georgian townhouse, it was quaint, ever so slightly wonky and just utterly charming. The window frames, recently repainted, gleamed bright white. The door was a shiny light blue. Two large blue pots at the front door brimmed with the pink and blue flowers Ed had planted in the summer.

  Annie, although a genius at house renovating and redecorating, turned out to have something of a kiss-of-death effect on everything she touched in the garden.

  'Leave everything inside to me,' she'd insisted, 'but you'll have to go out there and get dirty, babes.'

  As Ed pushed the key into the brass-rimmed keyhole of the solid wooden front door, he thought of his mum. Coming in though the front door still made Ed think of his mother because she'd lived in this house for twenty-seven years, until she'd died just two years ago.

  For several years, Ed had lived in a flat in the basement, and on his mother's death he and his sister should have had to sell up the family home and move on. But then Annie had bustled into his life, Annie with her big plans and snap decisions.

  She'd moved in, she'd redecorated, then she'd sold her place and bought enough of a share in the house for him to be able to afford to own the rest.

  He must be just about the only teacher in London living in a townhouse in north London's lovely Highgate. That was for sure. He would always be grateful that Annie had enabled him to stay here.

  The mortice lock had already been opened, so Ed knew that Lana must be home. He pushed in the Yale key and opened the door.

  There were two schoolbags in the lobby. The brightly patterned number he recognized as Lana's, the dark rucksack he suspected might be Andrei's.

  'Hi, Lana!' Ed called into the stairwell, 'just to let you know we're back!'

  'So you can put your clothes back on,' Owen muttered in a low aside.

  Ed tutted him.

  There was silence. Lana's room was on the attic floor two flights of stairs up from the lobby, but she should still have been able to hear them.