by Carmen Reid
'Everything OK?' he called up.
When there was still no response, Ed told Owen to go and put the toast on in the kitchen and he'd be down in a minute.
Once he was on the first floor, he told himself that he was just being silly and anxious and maybe even too nosy. He was not going to go up to the attic room and knock on Lana's door. Whatever she was doing up there, she was fine and it was her business . . . and certainly not his.
So he swung a left into the sunny bedroom he shared with Annie. If Ed were to be ruthlessly honest, he'd admit that Annie had made this room just a bit girlie.
There was white and pink paper with a bold pattern on the wall, a white and crystal chandelier and an ornate white mirror above the fireplace.
A whole wall was taken up with the bank of white wardrobes she'd insisted they would need. And it turned out she was right. She had enough things to fill them almost single-handedly.
Planning to hang up his jacket, change his shirt for a T-shirt, then go down to join Owen, Ed had just pulled the shirt over his head and was heading over to drop it into the laundry basket, when he saw them.
Lana and Andrei were lying almost completely naked underneath the leather-upholstered bed: Annie's Christmas present to him, bought for some small fortune on who knows what credit card. Something he didn't like to think about.
'OK,' he said firmly. 'Game over.'
This was met with little gasps of horror from under the bed.
'I don't want to know,' Ed added, 'I really don't. But you have a room of your own upstairs, Lana. I'm going to go down to the kitchen now and maybe you two should . . . tidy up, then come and join us there.'
Ed and Owen ate peanut butter and plum jam toast steadily, working methodically through the loaf. Owen, now happily changed into his favourite combat trousers and fluorescent orange and white T-shirt (in case he wanted to disguise himself as a traffic cone lost in a wood) ate with much more enthusiasm than Ed, because Ed knew he was about to have to have a really awkward conversation with Lana.
Finally the romantic duo appeared at the foot of the stairs, where Andrei pulled his rucksack onto his back in the lobby and scarpered out of the front door. Clearly he didn't want to hang about to see what Ed, who was also his teacher, thought of the situation.
'Goodbye, Andrei,' Ed called after him, then couldn't resist adding, 'hope we'll be seeing more of you.'
Ed, who'd been at a boys' boarding school from the age of seven till eighteen, had no recollection of ever being caught doing something like this. But, as he'd taught in co-ed boarding schools all over Britain for the first seven years of his career, he'd certainly come across a few teenagers in slightly comical states of undress.
'Owen, would you mind going out to the trampoline for a few minutes? Just don't bounce too hard because . . .'
Owen, cramming the remains of his third sandwich into his mouth, nodded with understanding and headed out of the room as Lana came in slowly and slouchily.
Even Ed could appreciate that Lana was very pretty in a sort of pale and gothy kind of way. Her long hair was dyed a shade or two darker than the original colour, her pretty freckles had been blanked out with foundation and she was wearing a black top, black leggings, bare feet and dark-green nail polish on all twenty nails.
'Are you going to tell my mum?' was Lana's first question as she sidled into the room, slinking along the wall.
'Come in and sit down,' Ed tried to reassure her. 'Do you want some tea? Some toast?'
'Yeah, please,' she agreed.
As Ed boiled the kettle, put bread in the toaster and fetched mugs, Lana chewed nervously at the skin around her nails.
'We were just . . .' she began.
'It's OK,' Ed told her, 'I don't need to know – I really don't.' Although he might actually quite have enjoyed listening to whatever excuse Lana had been about to give him . . .
'Andrei had a wasp in his trouser leg and he had to take them off and then the wasp went up my skirt . . . I was just coming out of the shower when . . . we were playing strip poker, I don't know why . . . but my contact lens rolled under the bed.'
'Ed, do you think I'm old enough to have sex?'
Lana didn't even look round at him, just continued with the skin-chewing as soon as the words were out. For a moment or two only the sound of the kettle coming to the boil could be heard in the room.
Maybe because the silence was too intense for her, Lana quickly blurted out, 'It's not a big deal, I just wanted another opinion. I mean, I know what I think. I know what Andrei thinks. I know what my friends think. I just was kind of interested to know what you think.'
This was the really difficult thing, because all the time, Lana made things sound so cool and flippant and as if she didn't care. But all sorts of feelings and major emotional issues were just beneath the surface and Ed was sure that he and Annie could mess it all up at any time. Just with one single wrong word.
He felt as if he was walking around the most precious, fragile china shop in the world whenever he spoke to Lana about anything. She was confident and assured in so many ways, but still such a baby in others.
Coming back to the table with two mugs of tea, he set one in front of her, then went to get her plate of toast.
'Peanut butter and jam?' he asked her.
'You're avoiding my question,' she hissed at him.
'I'm not avoiding your question at all,' he told her gently, 'I'm giving myself time. I want you to have something to eat and drink and then I'm going to sit down beside you and talk about it properly.'
She looked up at him to see if he was being straight, and when she didn't see any hint of a smile or a joke about him, she said, 'Thanks.'
'But it doesn't matter what I think,' he told her when he'd settled himself down in the wooden kitchen chair beside hers. 'It only matters what you think.'
When she didn't reply, he added, 'If you're having sex, Lana, be very careful and respectful. Of your body and your feelings. If you're not having sex, don't feel you have to rush into it. There's a big difference between snogging someone and sleeping with them. Big difference.'
Lana's head was down over her toast, which she was carefully smearing with peanut butter.
'Is there any way,' Ed wanted to know, 'that I can get you to talk to your mum about this?'
Lana gave a snort, 'I think we all know my mum's POV: Pull up the drawbridge, take aim and fire. No men anywhere near my daughter. Ever.
'Well . . .' Ed had to laugh a little at this, 'you're her daughter. She finds everything about you growing up just a bit scary. She doesn't want to lose you. That's her number one worry, she's only really happy when we're all together in this house and . . .'
'She has a mobile clamped to her head making some kind of deal,' Lana interrupted.
'Hey, that's not very fair—'
But now he'd blown it, and Lana just got up and walked out of the room.
Chapter Seven
Nicole Wilson on a service call:
Pinstriped black trouser suit – too tight and
too short (Next)
Pink wrap top (M&S)
Black pumps (M&S)
Tan knee-highs (M&S)
Black and pink saucy underwear (Agent Provocateur)
Total est. cost: £270
'We could lend you £125,000 against the
current value of your property.'
'Bryan, hello! Yes, it's me, Annie. Hi! I'm really sorry to call you at work, but I wanted this to be private, you know . . . away from Dinah,' she added in a stage whisper. 'I was just thinking . . . isn't the big one-zero coming up for you two? You know, your tenth wedding anniversary?'
Annie pretended to sound as surprised as she possibly could when her brother-in-law confided that he was planning a celebration and he didn't want Dinah to know anything about it.
'That is such a great idea! How romantic! You know what?' she added, trying to sound completely spontaneous, 'I have this friend and he's just brilliant at this kind of thing. He wor
ks as an events manager but I'm sure he'd love to help you out, Bryan. Because I know how busy you are and planning a party like that . . . that's a really big job to take on . . .'
She hoped she was making the point strongly but subtly enough. There was no way Bryan could be left alone in charge of this party. His wedding had been cheap and depressing and anyway, he was an architect now, a very minimal, hyper-pernickety architect. If he was in charge, they'd be eating off white plates in a white room, all trying to share a tiny slice of a minimal white cake. No, what Bryan needed was a gay man. A professional party planner. What Bryan needed was one of Annie's newest friends: Hector.
Yes, unfortunately Hector had been Connor's boyfriend for a brief spell, and it had ended badly and sadly because Connor, allegedly, spent too much time obsessing about his waistline and career trajectory. But Annie didn't see why she and Hector couldn't still be friends. Especially when Hector would be just brilliant at organizing Bryan and Dinah's tenth wedding anniversary party.
'Look, why don't you just let me call Hector and get him to hook up with you? No, no!' she assured Bryan, when he made extremely dubious-sounding noises, 'it won't cost much. Honestly, he'll charge mates' rates and he'll save you loads of money on all sorts of things because of his party contacts. Honestly, trust me.'
Her mobile was beeping with a call waiting, so Annie said goodbye to Bryan, promised Hector would be in touch and that Bryan was going to love him, then switched over to take the other call.
'Mssss Valentine?' came the voice at the other end of the line.
'Yes?'
'This is Nicole Wilson from Simpson mortgage brokers, you wanted to talk to us about releasing some equity on your property.'
'Borrowing more money?' Annie wanted to make sure they were talking about the same thing.
'Freeing some of the capital tied up in your share of Hawthorne Street,' was Nicole's take. Obviously 'borrowing' was a bad word these days.
'Yes, we're thinking about putting in a second bathroom,' Annie began. A second bathroom would be nice, no doubt about it . . . but Annie was fibbing because she thought Nicole would prefer to hear this than talk about tax bills and vague plans to import Chinese shoes from Mr Timi Woo.
'So what sort of figure are we looking to release?' Nicole asked briskly.
'What's my limit?' Annie wondered. She wasn't going to go there, obviously, but it wouldn't really hurt to know, would it?
'Well . . .' Tapping noises came down the line as Nicole asked the computer. 'We could lend you £125,000 against the current value of your property. Obviously that would bring up your monthly payments by . . .' the tappity-tap sound came again.
£125,000!! Annie had thought she might borrow £20,000 or so just to pay off the Revenue & Customs and get started with the shoes, but with so much available and at such a low cost really . . . well, what was the interest on £30,000 going to be per month?
Nicole tappity-tapped then told her.
Done. Annie agreed to it there and then. Well, she did pause for a moment to think of Ed and how she'd promised to discuss this with him – but then Nicole had reminded her that for this week only there was a special interest rate available: 'Only another two days left on this equity release offer . . . you don't want to let this one go if you're serious about borrowing more. You're not going to get another deal like this anywhere.'
Now, if Annie could just hold on for a few minutes while Nicole went through the terms and conditions and blah, blah, blah with her on the phone . . . yes, there would also be some forms to fill out, but Nicole would send those on to her straightaway.
When the call was over, Annie checked her watch and saw that there were still eight minutes to go before her next client arrived at 7.30 p.m. She was supposed to have rearranged this appointment, but she had no recollection why. Anyway, she'd been too busy to get round to it. And if she couldn't remember why she was supposed to have rearranged it, it surely couldn't have been so important, could it? She told herself this to make the vague feeling of unease go away.
Eight minutes meant there was time to do the one thing that she really needed to do, now that she was going to be the head of her own luxury goods empire, now that all this cash was about to land in her private back account. She'd be able to pay off all her credit cards, take the family on holiday, and . . .
Rushing down the escalators, taking two steps at a time, she made it to the ground floor.
Cutting through the vividly perfumed air, she made straight for Accessories to claim her bag.
The Bag?! She could see straightaway that the bag was not on its plinth. Somebody else had bought it! Oh no!
Hurrying to the concession counter, she spotted Sandra deep in conversation with a woman, and there was The Bag on the counter top between them.
Annie knew quite enough about shopping psychology to know that the last thing to do was rush up and say, 'Hands off, that's mine.' Nothing made any shopper want anything more than a rival.
Instead, as she strained to hear what Sandra and the woman were saying to each other, she picked up a beautiful brown Mulberry bag, supple as a well-worn saddle, and began to fondle it. She slung it over her shoulder and walked this way and that in front of the mirror.
'Hmmm . . .' the customer was telling Sandra, 'I just can't quite decide. I mean, it is beautiful, but it's so expensive.'
'It's a very limited edition. Only twenty of these bags will be sold in London in total.' Sandra was ignoring Annie and leaning in for a serious sales pitch. 'This is the opposite of a fashionable "it bag". This is completely exclusive. There's a letter inside, hand-signed by the designer. Not Saint Laurent himself,' she added quickly, 'he's retired now. But by the bag's creator.'
'For that kind of money,' the customer joked, 'I'd expect the creator to invite me to their house for dinner.'
'But look at the workmanship,' Sandra went on, 'the lining is quilted suede, all the zipped compartments inside are satin lined with a solid brass zip. This bag will last a lifetime. Probably two. You'll be able to hand it down.'
Annie wasn't getting anywhere with the Mulberry: she ditched it and picked up Chloé's new season tote. Now this was a lovely bag, jade blue and creamily soft. It jangled and slouched up against you. Snuggled, even.
She walked just a little more obviously past Sandra and the customer.
'Lovely bag,' she called across to Sandra, 'I might come down to get this in my next break. Can you hold it for me?'
'Yes Annie, I can hold it for you.' Sandra's voice was a touch weary. She knew exactly what Annie was up to.
Ooooh, but the customer had turned. The customer was looking.
Annie glanced at her watch. She had to go! She was going to have to leave it in the lap of the gods. Taking one last, long look at her bag, she set the Chloé back on the shelf and sped back upstairs.
Irena was from Romania, but she'd moved to London for a decent job. She was in her late twenties, much younger than Annie's usual client, but she had made this appointment asking specifically for Annie Valentine.
She wasn't going to be hard for Annie to dress because she was so pretty, with a figure that Annie understood perfectly because it was curvaceous with a nipped in waist, just like hers.
Slipping in and out of Irena's changing room with dresses, skirts, jackets and belts, Annie was impressed with the extravagance of Irena's deep burgundy underwear.
Finally, Irena, who had come for 'just two great outfits,' seemed to be settling on a dress, a skirt and a blouse, then a fantastic swing jacket with wide sleeves which went with all three.
