The Personal Shopper (Annie Valentine)

by Carmen Reid

  During the performance Annie kept catching sight of Ed’s face appearing over the top of teen boobs hoicked up in a padded bra underneath a boob tube. They were listening to a song about a teenager being in love with an art teacher. Another time Annie might have loved this song, all haunting and melodic, moody drumming piano in the background, but instead, she felt her world view shift a little uncomfortably.

  Was Lana attracted to Ed? Despite her cool disdain, maybe she had a little crush? That wouldn’t be so surprising, any teacher slightly more attractive than Frankenstein could usually be guaranteed a decent pupil fan base.

  But . . . she looked over at the two of them again closely. Did Ed have any sort of thing for Lana?! Just the thought of this made little prickles of anxiety stand up on the back of her neck. Lana was at that tricky teen age: she looked older than she was and tonight she looked lovely, sexy even, but hopefully she didn’t have much of a clue about the admiring glances she was attracting. But not from Ed, surely?

  Annie turned her head and watched the two of them to see if there was any sort of . . . well . . . what? A look? Nudge? Communication between them?

  Ed was leaning forward, totally wrapped up in the performance. Lana was scratching at her bare arm in a slightly distracted way.

  There was nothing obvious. She’d give it a few minutes then try again.

  The next time she looked, Ed turned his head and looked not at Lana and her overexposed teen boobies, but at Annie.

  She felt caught out and gave an automatic little smile which he returned with something much broader and kinder. He tilted his head in the direction of the music and raised his eyebrows as if to ask her: Is this OK? Are you enjoying it? And she nodded enthusiastically back.

  ‘You’ve got to come to the café with me,’ he insisted when the performance was over. ‘It’s fantastic! Honestly. And I bet you’ve not had time to eat.’

  This was true.

  Then he gave one of his spectacular sneezes and took a big cotton handkerchief from a pocket to blow his nose.

  ‘Still not over your cold?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Doh, dot really,’ came from the depths of the hankie. ‘Think I’m allergic to London,’ he added when the hankie was out of the way.

  It was a self-service café, so they got their plastic trays and stood in line. Despite Ed’s rave review, Annie didn’t feel tempted by any of the main courses on offer, so decided to go for lentil soup with a roll. She watched Lana make the same choice, while Owen plumped for an open sandwich with prawns, lettuce and pink mayonnaise sprinkled with cayenne pepper. Annie decided not to intervene, just offered up a silent prayer that there was nothing nasty lurking in the dish.

  While Ed got caught up in the ordering process for a hot meal, Annie paid for her family’s food and drinks and went to find a table for four.

  As they sat down, she wondered if, like her, the children were registering the empty fourth seat. The fourth chair was usually something she would quickly move away to another table, so that it wasn’t staring at them, glaring with emptiness as they ate. But tonight there would be a fourth person. The fourth chair would be filled.

  When Ed joined them, his tray was laden. He had a steaming plate of steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes, a separate dish of vegetables, an orange juice, a glass of red wine, a side dish of bread and butter.

  ‘I love the food here,’ he announced settling himself into the seat, ‘I’m absolutely starving. Music always gives me an appetite! Don’t you agree, Owen?’

  Owen, midway through a prawny mouthful, nodded in smiley agreement.

  If Ed had noticed that no-one else had such a big meal in front of them, he didn’t draw attention to it and he certainly didn’t feel shy about it. He was tucking in with an enthusiasm bordering on the alarming.

  Annie, on his left, felt a touch on her hand and realized it was a splash of Ed’s gravy: ‘Steady on!’ she warned him.

  ‘Mmm . . . mm . . . mmmm . . .’ Heaped fork poised, he made the sound of a contented man.

  When his plate was a little emptier and he could turn his attention to the business of conversation he focused on the children, very interested to know what they thought of the music. Owen gave it a rave review and Ed even managed to coax some words of enthusiasm from Lana. Annie could see he was a natural at his job.

  ‘Yes, that was very clever,’ he was telling Lana, ‘and you know, I don’t think it was based on any more than three different piano chords. You could probably teach yourself that in ten minutes.’

  ‘Really?!’ Lana was close to sounding impressed.

  ‘But obviously not at all appropriate for me to teach you a song about falling in love with your teacher!’ he pointed out.

  When Lana made a groaning sound, both Ed and Owen laughed and Annie felt herself relax. If he was just going to come out and joke about it like this, then there couldn’t be anything to worry about, could there? She could put her mind to rest.

  He was chewing vigorously again, loading up the next forkful, trying to balance two green beans on top of it.

  ‘Do you go to many concerts?’ Annie asked him, then wished she’d left it a few moments. Ed’s mouth was full and he was doing the ‘mmm . . . mmm’ sound of someone about to answer, just as soon as they’d swallowed down enough to be able to talk coherently.

  Annie wondered where he put it all. He had a squarish build with broad shoulders, long body and stocky legs, but he didn’t give the impression of being at all chubby, although under the monumentally baggy khaki trousers and hairy tweed jacket chosen for tonight, it was hard to tell. And why had green tweed been paired with a double layer of red and yellow polo shirts? Annie wondered. Was he in some sort of competition for worst-dressed man in London? There was no consistency to his look: it was skinny cords one week, over-baggy trews the next. He probably shopped at Oxfam but not in the caring and considered style of Dinah.

  ‘I try and do two a week,’ came Ed’s answer finally. There was a fleck of gravy on his chin and Annie wiped her own chin in the hope that maybe he’d be inspired to do the same.

  ‘No preference, all types of things.’ He waved his knife and fork expansively and she saw Lana dodge slightly to avoid being sprayed. ‘The cheap seats at the big operas, folk and classical here and at the Barbican, jazz nights, dodgy gigs in pubs. I just like to see the action, hear what’s going on. What about you people? What kind of things do you like to go to?’

  Before Annie could even consider her answer, Owen shook his head and said sadly, ‘We never go to anything like this. It’s the first time I’ve been out in ages.’

  ‘That’s not true, Owen!’ Annie was quick to deny, but she couldn’t help smiling because she’d never seen Owen so at home with someone from outside the immediate family and friends circle. Her son had been seven when his dad had left and the debilitating shyness had set in almost immediately. Despite all sorts of expert advice and opinion, there had been little real improvement until Ed had become his teacher. Now, Owen seemed to be coming on in leaps and bounds, flourishing. She would have to take Ed aside and thank him for his help.

  ‘Yes it is!’ Owen retorted.

  ‘We go out!’ Annie insisted, but the more she tried to think of an example to prove Owen wrong, the more she couldn’t. Plenty of memorable family outings with Roddy were filling her mind, but her and the children . . . at a concert . . . at a play or something . . .

  ‘Help me out, Lana!’ she said.

  ‘We go to the cinema a lot,’ Lana reminded Owen. ‘We go to Dinah’s, Connor’s, we visit friends and relatives . . . so we go out. But we don’t do the concert, theatre, art gallery thing hardly at all.’

  ‘Well, you have to,’ Ed told them. ‘You have to get out there.’ He looked at them all in turn, so Annie didn’t feel as if she was being singled out for criticism: ‘Rub shoulders with the world, find out what’s goin’ down.’

  This was met with smiles from both Lana and Owen, even though they always shuddere
d and rolled their eyes if Annie dared to use this phrase.

  ‘So you’re more a cinema person?’ He directed this at Annie, as he used a thickly buttered roll to mop up the last of the gravy from his plate.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Annie replied.

  ‘And what kind of films do you like?’

  ‘Oh . . . stylish films,’ she told him, ‘with lovely clothes, beautiful people and beautiful settings, a touch of romance and there always, always has to be something to make me laugh. I like a great story with a happy ending, but, you know, I don’t mind a bit of art house, high-minded stuff as well.’

  Ed was nodding vigorously.

  ‘Just no horror,’ Annie told him, ‘I don’t do horror. And I tend to give heavy, tragic subjects a bit of a miss as well.’

  ‘I love comedies,’ he confided. ‘Love them! And I love good music in films . . . but films of musicals, well, unless they were made before 1960, forget it. Although there was a Tina Turner biopic. That wasn’t bad at all.’

  ‘Oh I remember that. That was very good! Totally over the top,’ Annie added.

  ‘What was the song?’ Ed’s brows scrunched up in concentration and the hand with the roll paused midway to his mouth.

  ‘“Nutbush”?’ she asked, certain this was what he was thinking of: actress Angela Bassett shaking her booty in a very tight, very short, fringed dress and great shaggy wig.

  ‘“Nutbush”! Thank you!’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Something very . . .’ He paused, brows scrunching again.

  ‘Sexy?’ she offered.

  ‘Sexy,’ he agreed, ‘very sexy about that song. Pudding!’ He smiled at Owen and Lana in turn, while Annie struggled with the connection between ‘Nutbush’ and pudding.

  ‘The pudding is sensational here,’ Ed enthused, ‘and it’s my treat. No, really’ – he raised a hand against Annie’s objections, both to eating pudding and having Ed pay for it – ‘I won’t take no for an answer.’

  He returned to the table, tray loaded with four bowls. Some sort of crumble dripping with cream: a calorific disaster.

  ‘Ah!’ was Ed’s benediction over the plateful before he sank his spoon in. ‘Like it?’ he asked Owen, who was already wolfing down his third or fourth spoonful.

  ‘Oh yeah!’ came Owen’s answer through a full mouth. ‘This is the best crumble I’ve ever had. What’s in it?’

  The small spoonful Annie had taken was just hitting her taste buds, so she was too late to save Owen.

  ‘Rhubarb,’ came Ed’s reply.

  Annie could only watch, hoping he’d be fine. Hadn’t he just declared this the best crumble he’d ever eaten? Which, yes, had dented her pride slightly, although she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t exactly gifted in the kitchen department.

  Owen stopped chewing and began to change colour. Pink first, then red, then a deep purple-tinged scarlet.

  ‘He’s not allergic?’ Ed asked anxiously, dropping his spoon.

  Annie shook her head and explained: ‘Only in his mind. Owen, you’re going to be fine,’ she soothed, reaching to pat Owen’s hand. ‘It’s delicious, you just said it was delicious.’

  But Lana couldn’t resist: ‘I don’t think so,’ she teased. ‘Rhubarb, Owen, rhoooooo-barb.’

  ‘Lana!’ Annie hissed.

  Scarlet, Owen made choky, gagging noises before a soggy lump of the offending crumble landed unceremoniously back in his plate.

  Now it was Annie’s turn to blush, but Ed, entirely unruffled, sprang into action.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ He got a little closer to the plate so he could scrutinize the remains. ‘No need to panic. I’m so sorry, Owen, I didn’t know anything about your dislike of this fruit . . . or is it in fact a vegetable? Anyway . . .’ He quickly filled Owen’s glass with water from Annie’s bottle: ‘Have a little sip of water and let me take that away.’ He stood up and whisked the offending plateful out of sight as quickly as possible.

  When he got back to the table, Ed was determined to put the abashed Owen back at ease: ‘Did you know there is a great long list of foods that have exactly the same effect on the Queen?’ he asked Owen. ‘Oh yes,’ he added, without waiting for an answer, ‘if she’s eating away from home, or one of her many homes, the list gets sent out in advance. Then all the dishes are personally inspected by her footman before they get to her, just to make sure she doesn’t barf at a state banquet, while she’s sitting between the President of Russia and the King of Swaziland or something.’

  A teacher talking about the Queen barfing was enough to make Owen grin despite the unfortunate rhubarb incident.

  ‘So if you could draw up a list of your hate foods, Owen, and pass it on to me, I’d be most grateful and then maybe I could act as your personal taster, you know, check out your food before it gets to you . . . mmm . . .’ Ed picked up his spoon, once again ready to tackle his bowl of the crumble everyone else had lost their appetite for. ‘I would enjoy being a personal taster. Two dinners . . . three . . . four . . .’

  When Owen had exited to the bathroom, Ed told Annie: ‘I’ve been a teacher for nine years now. If there’s any regurgitating, vomiting, fainting, losing control of bladder or any other bodily functions to be done in public, I’m your man.’

  ‘Well, that’s very reassuring,’ Annie told him. ‘You know, I have to thank you for all your help with Owen. He’s coming on so well . . . and you handled that better than I did.’

  ‘No problem, honestly . . .’ Ed was threatening to blush. ‘Now’ – he went quickly for a change of subject – ‘shall I get the tube back to Highgate with you charming people? See you safely to your door?’

  Then, just as Annie had thought she was beginning to warm to Ed, he plucked a vibrant yellow cagoule from his backpack, pulled it over his head and – although they were still indoors – put the hood up and pulled the toggles tight so that his face was framed with scrunched yellow nylon.

  This gave Annie something close to a rhubarb moment of her own.

  She quickly looked away. Owen’s admiration for Ed had given her an idea. She’d ask the teacher in and sound him out over coffee.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Science kit Owen:

  Grey T-shirt (Asda)

  Enormous jeans (Gap sale)

  Belt (St Vincent’s uniform shop)

  Socks (Asda)

  Very well-equipped science kit (Connor)

  Total est. cost: £60

  ‘Er . . . I think there’s a slight problem.’

  Ed lived in Highgate too (‘I must show you my grimy little abode . . . maybe next time, when I’ve arranged for the industrial cleaners to come round’) so he insisted on walking them home and Annie, in turn, insisted he come in for a coffee.

  Even if she hadn’t had something she wanted to ask him, she wouldn’t have liked the thought of sending him straight back to a grimy little abode without something in the way of thanks, so she guided him into the kitchen, while her children splintered off to their rooms.

  ‘I need to make a call,’ Lana explained.

  ‘Yes, I know, darlin’, you’ve not spoken to Seth for at least two hours now, obviously you’ll want to snuggle down for a long chat and fill him in on everything that’s happened,’ was what Annie wanted to say, but didn’t.

  ‘There’s something I want to show you, just give me a minute,’ Owen told Ed.

  Annie put the kettle on and made a quick check on her emails and her eBays at the kitchen table while she chatted to Ed.

  As she poured hot water over the instant coffee plonked into the bottom of two large mugs, her mobile rang.

  It was an emergency call of the wardrobe variety. ‘Ruby, darlin’, of course I can come tomorrow evening,’ she assured her panicked client, ‘Not tonight. No, it’s a bit late. Yeah . . . we’ll look through the cupboards and we will find something . . . No . . . Of course not . . . What about the black and red one that we bought together last month? No? Well . . . Yes . . . I’ll see you tomorrow
and please, my darlin’, don’t panic!’

  As she talked, Annie brandished a small bottle of brandy and made tipping gestures to ask if Ed wanted some in his coffee.

  He gave her the thumbs up so she slugged a little into both mugs.

  ‘OK, nighty night then, Rubes. Bye,’ she said and put down the phone.

  ‘I didn’t realize you were on call,’ he teased as she placed the mugs on the table and pulled up a chair.

  ‘Oh yeah, twenty-four seven,’ she told him. ‘A wardrobe emergency can strike at any time,’ she said and took her first sip of coffee, curling her hands round the mug. ‘Aah!’ The brandy takes the edge off the caffeine – you’ll sleep better,’ she explained.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, how long have you lived round here then?’ Annie asked, able to meet his eyes again now that the cagoule was off.

  ‘Oh, ages,’ Ed replied. ‘But on and off. My mum bought her place here years and years ago and I used it as a base whenever I needed to. I’ve only been here full-time for a year and a half. Mum got ill. I took the job at St Vincent’s so I could move in and look after her.’

  ‘Oh . . . and how’s she getting on?’ was Annie’s next question.

  With a sad little smile, Ed told her: ‘I’m afraid she died. Six months ago now.’

  ‘Oh! I’m ever so sorry, Ed. I’m sorry,’ she repeated, trying for one moment to imagine life without Fern, and having to push the horrible thought away, ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, honestly . . .’ Ed tailed off and took a mouthful of coffee.

  ‘And how are you coping?’ Annie asked, full of concern for him now.

  ‘Well, I’m . . . you know . . . just getting on with things.’

  He leaned back in his chair and ruffled his hair before continuing. ‘Hannah, that’s my sister, and I . . . we were looking after Mum full-time at the end, which was fine, it was what we all wanted, but it was pretty hard going . . . My Italian girlfriend left me and went back to Italy . . . my rubbish car got nicked . . . the usual triple whammy stuff.’