by Carmen Reid
‘Be seeing him again?’ he asked, his dark face and shiny leather jacket gleaming in the oncoming headlights, his tree-shaped air freshener swinging madly, sending blasts of throat-tightening fake pine as the car jolted on creaky suspension over the speed humps in the road. Each one threatened the exhaust with a death blow.
‘No, somehow I don’t think so.’ She managed a smile. ‘I don’t think he was really in my Dream Date Top Ten . . . Busy night?’ she asked, needing a change of subject.
‘It will be, my friend.’ He smiled and cranked up the tinny music coming from the radio.
Traffic, football and the weather filled the remaining minutes of the journey, then once Annie had paid and tipped him, despite his protests, and was getting out of the car, Mr Nwocha leaned over and patted her arm reassuringly: ‘If you’ve no date for next week you can always give me a call.’ A throaty giggle followed this, along with a wink.
‘Thank you,’ she smiled, ‘I’m sure you’d be a very nice date.’ She winked back. ‘Have a good night.’
‘I’m a great cook,’ he offered as she closed the cab door.
‘Then you won’t be alone for long,’ she told him.
As she walked to her front door, her phone beeped with a text from Dinah.
DID I WIN THE BET? it read.
Annie wondered if Mr Nwocha’s offer would count.
As she opened the door, she could hear the very, very welcome sound of Connor McCabe – the six-foot-three, dark-haired, devastatingly handsome actor that every woman deserved to have as a best friend – calling to her from the sitting room.
‘Hello, sex bomb!’ he greeted her as she stepped into the room. ‘How did it go?’
Connor was sprawled right across her sofa, effortlessly gorgeous as always: hair in a messy Elvis-ish quiff – that was new – wearing rumpled jeans and a cuddly rollneck. Two empty beer cans and a family pack of cheese and onion crisps were on the table beside him. He had the remote in one hand, a late night chat show on low volume on the telly.
‘Snog!’ he said, holding out his arms.
Annie leaned over and kissed him on the lips, feeling his arms hug her in tightly. He pulled her down onto the sofa on top of him.
‘With or without tongues?’ he joked, pecking at her lips again.
‘I think without . . . what with the cheese and onion, but thanks for the offer,’ Annie said, coming up for air. ‘Nice to see you.’
She tucked her head against his chest and smelled, beneath the pungent crisp breath, comforting manly scents of shaving cream, beer and well-worn jumper.
‘So, how did it go?’ he wanted to know. ‘Did you meet Mr Perfect?’
‘Yeah right.’ She rolled off and budged Connor over a bit so she was snugly sandwiched between the back of the sofa and his warm body. Ah, the comfort of a gay man. You could use their body for all the huggy, snugly stuff without risking any misunderstanding.
Then she gave him the story of the evening, blow by blow, leaving in as many stupid details and silly moments as she could.
When she’d finished, Connor wriggled a comforting arm around her.
‘I do need to find someone,’ she confided. ‘I’m in danger of getting dodgy. I’ve realized I’m paying men to touch me.’
‘What do you mean?!’
‘My hairdresser’s a man, my chiropractor, my dentist, my doctor . . . it’s when I realized I was really quite enjoying my breast examination, that’s when I suspected I’d turned into a dirty old woman.’
‘Don’t mess about, baby, book yourself in for a full gynae exam right now,’ was Connor’s advice.
She dug an elbow into his ribs.
‘You need a hunky male personal trainer,’ Connor suggested, ‘or the suburban housewife’s tried and tested: a tennis coach.’
‘Oh, I would . . . but not in the current economic climate.’
‘Aha.’
‘Anyway, how were the children?’ she asked.
‘They were fabulous,’ he assured her. ‘Lana’s still awake in her room I think, listening to her iPod, Owen is probably playing the guitar under his covers to impress his music guru.’
‘You met Ed?’
‘Oh yes, I’m nearly as impressed with Edible Ed as your children are.’
‘Ha. Edible Ed?’ She wondered how anyone could find Ed remotely edible, unless they were a dust mite.
‘C’mon,’ Connor insisted. ‘You’ve got to admit, he exudes a certain old school charm . . . but the “gaydar” says he’s not one for the boys.’
‘No . . . school rumour is he’s something of a ladies’ man, but I find it hard to believe. How’s your love life anyway?’
‘Oh, same old, same old,’ Connor assured her. ‘Absolutely nothing to report. Why does no-one want me?’ He pulled a tragically sad face which earned him another dig in the ribs.
‘So The Manor’s policeman remains “the most eligible bachelor in showbiz” then?’ she teased. ‘I dunno, Connor. You’re gorgeous, you’re on TV, you’re loaded – maybe people are frightened by the curse of Hello! Maybe they don’t want to wake up and find themselves being interviewed by Heat magazine?’
‘Oh very funny.’
She looked at his handsome chin. She’d inherited Connor. He’d been Roddy’s best friend, but when Roddy exited stage left, he’d come over to her side.
Connor and Roddy had met on some low-budget film set in Romania. They’d been there for weeks, even though they were bit parts, first and second prince on the right or something. They’d hatched a plan to leave their noble, badly paid film and theatre careers, which didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and break into soaps: Roddy as a sexy baddie and Connor as handsome, hunky boy-next-door.
After extensive restyling by Annie, Roddy had emerged as crew-cut, leather-jacketed, slightly stubbly and wicked and had progressed from thug in The Bill to a bad, newly returned brother of somebody in EastEnders. Meanwhile, a scrubbed-clean, rosy-cheeked, knitwear-clad Connor had landed the starring role in the Sunday teatime-slot nostalgic series The Manor. On the back of this, stage roles in the West End came rolling in.
‘How’s work?’ Annie asked.
‘Oh daaaling, it’s wonderful,’ Connor said at first, then added grumpily: ‘I’m never agreeing to go on stage again, it’s bloody drudgery.’
‘Ha! Bloody well paid drudgery,’ she said and stroked his jumper knowingly. ‘Eight-ply cashmere doesn’t come cheap.’
‘Give me telly any day. When are you coming to see me on stage anyway?’
‘Oh, well . . . very soon,’ she assured him, secretly thinking that musicals, even those by Noël Coward, weren’t really her thing.
‘Now . . . Connor,’ she began, since favours were being traded, ‘my gorgeous one?’ She linked fingers with him.
‘Uh-oh,’ he replied. ‘This sounds as if it’s going to be dangerous – expensive – or possibly both.’
‘I’ve got a favour to ask. Actually, two favours.’
‘You’ll definitely have to grovel. Preferably on your knees.’
‘How do you feel about camping? The tent kind?’ she added quickly.
Connor pulled a face: ‘I know everything about camping and nothing about tents.’
‘There’s this male-bonding, man-and-boy, orienteering event – men and their sons, or their nephews, or their friends’ sons even.’ She caught his eye, to make sure he understood. ‘And Owen has showed me a leaflet for it, has been saying, about fifteen times a day: “Wouldn’t that be really good fun? Doesn’t that sound like a great place?” and so on. You know how much camping he used to do with Roddy . . . and I can’t think of anyone else who could take him. And it’s around the time of his birthday and—’
‘I don’t know anything about camping, Annie,’ Connor moaned. ‘And you can’t camp, so even if you were male . . . you’ll have to do something different. How about a spa weekend? I’d come on that.’
‘I hope you’re joking. Owen is going to be ten,’ she reminded him.<
br />
‘You’re never too young to groom.’
Annie gave a sigh: ‘OK, OK, I’ll let you off camping. But now you have to say yes to my next request.’
‘Hit me.’
‘You know it’s my mum’s retirement party next month?’
‘No! I don’t think your mother’s retirement was flagged up on my event horizon . . . but . . . so . . . would I be correct in thinking you’re about to utter the oh-so-flattering words: “plus one”?’
‘Connor?’ Annie snuggled up against him. ‘You could ask for favours in return for this.’
‘Favours?’ he wondered. ‘You can’t offer me sexual—’
‘Material,’ she clarified. ‘It’s worth at least two, maybe even three extra discount purchases from the Annie V Trading Station.’
‘Oh, thanks a lot!’ he said huffily, ‘I want free designer knickers or I don’t co-operate.’
‘I may be able to arrange that,’ she said, recalling a pyramid of Calvin Kleins on three for two at TK Maxx. Hopefully there wouldn’t just be XXLs and XXSs left.
‘Big family gathering for the retirement?’ he wondered.
Annie nodded: ‘I don’t want to go on my own. I mean, obviously Lana and Owen are coming, but I want someone there just for me.’
He stroked her hair, then let a smile break over his impressive features. ‘Will there be ageing aunties?’ he asked.
‘At least three. Maybe four.’
‘Ooh, I do like a tipsy ageing aunty, that’s my core fan base, you know . . . Wild drunken dancing?’
‘Definitely. A live band apparently because it’s a Scottish-themed ceilidh evening. In fact,’ she sat up and grinned at him: she had just had one of her best ideas of the day, ‘I’m going to hire you a kilt.’
‘A kiltie?’ Connor grinned back, revealing perfect – and laser-treated – teeth. ‘Oh yes, Annie, yes! One of those black leather ones?’
‘Whatever turns you on, darlin’.’
‘A black leather kiltie with nothing underneath?’ In a passable Sean Connery purr, he added: ‘Moneypenny, how can I rrrefuse? And what will my delectable date for the evening be wearing?’
‘Now that is a good question,’ Annie replied.
Chapter Six
Paula on parade:
Genuine Asian hair extensions, braided (Blaxx salon)
Spray-on black Gucci dress (The Store’s sale preview)
Fuchsia thong (Brick Lane market, three for £1)
A ‘Hollywood’ wax (Blaxx)
Orange and fuchsia striped false nails (Blaxx)
Orange suede Jimmy Choo stilettos (mates’ rates at Annie V’s Trading Station)
Est. cost: £805
‘What’s on special offer at Asda?’
‘Delia, girl, you’re in early, aren’t you?’ On spotting the bustling, well-upholstered figure of the floor’s cleaning lady, Annie had checked her watch and noted that it was still an hour and a half till closing time.
‘I’m tidying out my cupboard,’ Delia explained. Annie found this hard to understand, as Delia kept the neatest cleaning cupboard in the Western world. The frayed mops were carefully rinsed out, squeezed and hung to dry; the cloths were pegged up on their own little washing line and the bottles of industrial cleansers and polishes were always wiped down and lined up on the shelves with all the labels facing outwards.
‘Then I’m planning a little shop for myself.’ Delia’s gleaming dark face split with a giggle which set her short shiny wig jiggling. ‘No point working here if I can’t spoil myself from time to time.’
Stepping close to Annie, she asked, ‘I take it we’re still OK with our little arrangement?’
‘We certainly are,’ Annie assured her, trying not to imagine what Donna would think of it.
On the very rare occasion when Delia bought something from The Store, Annie put it through the till under her name because she was entitled to a 20 per cent staff discount, whereas Delia, employed by a subcontracted cleaning company, was not. An injustice Annie was delighted to subvert. ‘What are you buying?’ she couldn’t help asking.
‘Oh, I’m going to enjoy myself looking for a while, then I’ll come to you with my extravagances,’ Delia chuckled and gave Annie’s arm a squeeze, her chubby, dark brown hand adorned with five short, but beautifully lacquered plum fingernails.
‘Trying anything on?’
‘Oh no, you know me, Annie, I only shop for clothes at Harvey Nichols!’ came Delia’s reply with a hefty wink. ‘Anyways, I couldn’t get my big butt into anything you sell.’
‘Yes you could,’ Annie protested. ‘Look, look, girl, just over here we have—’
But Delia cut her off: ‘Stop your sales pitch right there, you devil woman,’ she said, waggling a fingertip. ‘I’m not falling for it. I know just what I’m buying and first off, I’m walking my butt to lingerie.’
‘Oooh!’ Annie teased. ‘Something fancy?’
Delia gave her great rattling, throaty, chest-clearing laugh at this. Now her gold hoop earrings were jangling. ‘Oh yeah . . . I’m gonna make some lucky man’s day,’ she chuckled. ‘See you later.’
Annie watched Delia walk off in the direction of the underwear department, still chuckling and swishing her substantial derrière from side to side just for Annie’s benefit.
Delia had three jobs, four children and one cramped council flat on the very outer reaches of Isleworth. She had to take three buses to make it in for her 6 a.m. start every weekday morning. The bags under her eyes were like two broad sweeps of kohl, except they looked irremovable. Delia would have to be knocked out for a month to make any difference to those.
Considering her personal circumstances, she was allowed to be the most grouchy, bitchy, irritable person in the world – like many other members of the cleaning, not to mention sales staff – but Delia remained stubbornly happy and upbeat. Maybe there was inextinguishable Caribbean sunshine in her soul or maybe it was her devout Jehovah’s Witness religion and the Power of Prayer.
Delia was always busy on Annie’s behalf: ‘I’m praying for you and yours, baby. Don’t even try telling me not to.’
Annie, almost as much as Delia, understood that when life handed you a bum deal you either had to get up, put on your face, pull back your shoulders and make the best of it, or else go under.
The phone in the Personal Shopping area began to ring, so Annie answered.
‘Annie? Hi, it’s Dale. You busy?’
‘No-one in at the moment,’ she told him.
‘I’m going to send someone up to you, then. Check yourself over in the mirror, girlfriend.’
Click.
He hung up. No further information – although she suspected this might have something to do with her coffee break chit-chat about how she was on the lookout for a very wealthy husband and couldn’t you boys down there in the menswear department do something to help me out, when you’re not too busy chatting up the clients yourself, obviously.
Annie didn’t trust Dale’s judgement on a tie, let alone potential husband material, but nevertheless she redid her ponytail, applied a fresh dab of lip gloss, spritz of perfume and waited. Paula was busy on the shop floor, so for the moment she had the Personal Shopping suite to herself.
No sooner did she clap eyes on Mr Spencer Moore, as he was grandly introduced by Dale – weighed down by a selection of suits, shirts, jackets and ties – than her suspicions about the menswear assistant’s judgement were confirmed.
Spencer was gay. Definitely. Why hadn’t Dale been able to tell? Weren’t the round red-rimmed glasses perched in the middle of his face clue enough?
‘Mr Moore, hello, I’m Annie,’ she gushed in the direction of the new arrival. ‘Come in, come on in. I’m here to help, so . . . Take the lovely big changing room on the right here. We’ll hang everything up for you.
‘He’s gay!’ she hissed at Dale as soon as she got the chance.
‘Na-ah.’ Dale shook his close-cropped head and raised his eyebrows a
t her teasingly: ‘He’s a divorced, straight man who dresses gay. I know. It’s weird, he’s an urban sub-species . . . a mutation possibly caused by his “designer” career. I thought he needed a woman’s touch, plus, you might get a date out of it. He’s loaded,’ he added in a whisper, then: ‘We split the commission, by the way.’
‘Babes, if I get a date out of this, you can have all the commission,’ she told him.
Dale, an only child, who’d wasted all Mummy’s money on drama lessons, sashayed to the main door and blew her a goodbye kiss.
It turned out Spencer, late forties, fit and freshly divorced, obviously took the fashion section of the Sunday supplements far too seriously for a man of his age and status. Hence the confusing signals.
‘Are you dating again, or is it too soon?’ Annie asked, quickly defusing the rather bald question with: ‘I’m just wondering if you’ll need some more casual outfits.’
‘Oh, definitely ready to date again,’ Spencer confided as she paired a pale grey pinstriped suit with a pastel-coloured shirt and tie and urged him to try them on. Strangely, there was nothing more hetero than the right shade of pink.
‘So we have to make a babe magnet of you,’ she smiled.
‘Er, well . . .’
She had to tone it down, she told herself. Clearly, he was a reserved kind of guy.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked him from the other side of the drawn curtain as he tried on the outfit she’d suggested.
‘Kensington,’ he told her. And didn’t return the question, she noticed. Some customers always assumed that shop staff were so beneath them. It was up to her to put herself in a very different light.
‘Oh lovely,’ she told him, ‘I was at school there. Francis Holland.’ There, that would put him straight. Everyone had heard of Francis Holland, one of the smartest all-girl schools in London.
‘Really?!’ It was a little too surprised.
‘Yes. I loved it. I discovered art there.’ She didn’t like the way that came out, now she was sounding posher than the Queen. ‘Yeah, then did art school afterwards: theatre costume and design. I worked in films for a bit and now I’m a consultant here.’ Consultant sounded great. Like she didn’t work here all the time. Like she had another high-flying career elsewhere, away from The Store, which of course technically she did. There was Annie V’s . . . the property business, on the verge of taking off . . . the home makeovers.
