The Personal Shopper (Annie Valentine)

by Carmen Reid

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Annie sympathized.

  ‘Obviously we miss her . . . miss her a lot.’

  Annie heard the involuntary swallow that this caused him.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘I’m trying to focus on how great it is to be back out here again. Back teaching, getting out again . . . meeting new people.’ He nodded, as if in her direction. ‘It’s very nice to be taking part in life again.’

  ‘How old was she?’ Annie wondered.

  Owen’s head popped round the corner of the kitchen door and he asked, ‘Can Ed come to my room for a minute? There’s something I want to show him.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Owen,’ Annie told him. The head disappeared.

  She turned her attention back to Ed and he replied, ‘Mum was fifty-nine, four weeks from her sixtieth birthday. It was such a pity.’ He let out a sigh and turned his attention to his coffee cup.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ Annie said once again.

  ‘Anyway’ – he looked up at her and gave a smile, hoping to draw a line under this conversation and start afresh in a new direction – ‘I have a favour I want to ask you. It is a bit bizarre, though.’

  It was her turn to smile: ‘Now that’s funny,’ she told him, ‘because I have a favour I want to ask you . . . and it’s really bizarre.’

  ‘You first then,’ he said.

  ‘No, no, definitely you.’

  ‘Well, I was just wondering, if you’d consider . . . I mean, if it’s not too much . . .’ The request was turning him slightly pink. ‘I just thought since it was the kind of thing—’

  Owen’s head popped up at the door again: ‘Ed? Could you come and see—’

  ‘Just a minute!’ Annie cut him off and he skulked back out again.

  ‘Ed,’ she reassured the teacher, ‘it’s OK, we’re all friends here, just spit it out.’

  She wondered what on earth was coming next.

  ‘Boston, USA. Job interview. Well, not job, exactly . . . a term’s paid research into the roots of rhythm and blues.’

  Her eyebrows knitted: what was he talking about?

  ‘I’m desperate to go. I was supposed to go last year, but because of poor old Mum . . . well . . . but so, there . . . you see?’

  No, she did not see at all. Boston? His mother? What?!

  ‘I need a suit,’ he clarified. ‘A proper, decent suit that will stand up to inspection by sophisticated American academics.’

  Ah! The fog was clearing.

  ‘I need not just the suit, I need the whole outfit, you know, quite the thing. I think Americans take all that pretty seriously, don’t they? And anyway, I have no clue. But you, you’re always so wonderfully’ – he waved his hand in her direction, taking in the happy pairing of red lipstick, red Topshop jacket, black ankle boots and Dries Van Noten skirt – ‘wonderful. And you work in that scary place. So I thought, you’ll know all about this. You’ll be just the right person to help me. There.’ He looked really very embarrassed about it. ‘Bizarre request. What’s yours?’

  Wonderfully wonderful? He was a case this man, no doubt about it.

  ‘I’d be happy to help you find a suit, Ed,’ she assured him. ‘It would be no problem at all, it would be a pleasure. You tell me when and I’ll book you in an appointment. Now . . .’ she hesitated, feeling slight embarrassment of her own creeping up, ‘I know you like to camp . . . have you heard of the Man and Boy Orienteering weekend by any chance?’

  ‘Heard of it? My friend Clyde runs it! It’s brilliant,’ came Ed’s answer. ‘I’m desperate to take my nephew Sid, but he’s only six. Does Owen want to go?’ Ed guessed straight away. ‘Are you looking for someone to go with him? Because I am definitely your man. You know, so long as you’re OK with that . . .’ He backed down quickly. ‘And obviously so long as Owen . . .’

  She waved away his reservations and told him that she would of course check Owen was happy with the idea.

  Such was Ed’s enthusiasm for the project, she began to think he wasn’t just a case; he was, in fact, bonkers.

  ‘What tog rating is his sleeping bag?’ Ed asked, along with other incomprehensible questions. ‘It’s just, if he has a thick one, we could bivouac. We could do without the tent altogether. Spend the night under the stars. Really bivvy down with nature. Provided it’s dry of course, although the modern bag can cope with a stiff shower or two.’

  Annie had been thinking camp-site, with hot showers, a restaurant, possibly even Tourist Board stars. She was now feeling nervous.

  ‘Owen’s got all the details. Maps, plans and projects. He’ll love talking to someone else about it who can make out one end of a compass from another. What is Owen up to anyway? Owen!’ Annie called sharply in the direction of the hall.

  ‘How’s your dentist?’ Ed asked all of a sudden, taking her by surprise. In response to her raised eyebrows, he explained: ‘Owen told me about him.’

  ‘Oh! Well, he’s not “my” dentist. It’s early days. Very early. I’d forgotten how stressful the whole dating, getting-to-know-someone thing is . . . trying to say and do the right thing all the time. God, it’s exhausting! Tonight has been great fun. So relaxing.’

  Ed held up his coffee mug to her in a toast-salute: ‘To relaxing fun,’ he said.

  Lana slouched into the kitchen and crumpled melodramatically into a chair, head slumping to the table.

  ‘You can only get voicemail?’ Annie guessed.

  ‘Why won’t he answer his phone?’ Lana wailed, obviously so stricken that she wasn’t embarrassed to mention this in front of a teacher.

  ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason,’ Annie soothed. ‘The battery’s probably flat. Please, stop worrying about it.’

  Although secretly, she suspected Seth was not phoning as often as he had before. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved about this, or worried.

  Gray, on the other hand, was phoning very regularly and had already lined up several intriguing meetings.

  ‘Er . . . I think there’s a slight problem in here!’ came the sound of Owen’s voice.

  With a lurch, Annie thought she detected a note of fear in those words. As she got up from her chair, there was a bang. Not a loud, startling bang, but a whoosh that climaxed in a surprising pop.

  She rushed for Owen’s room, Ed on her heels.

  Pulling his door ajar, she registered the smell: smoky, of bitter burnt toast. ‘Owen!’ she called out. ‘Are you OK!?’

  ‘Well, erm, I had a little problem,’ he said shakily, coming to the doorway to meet her, ‘I mean it’s fine now . . . fine . . . but . . . a bit messy.’

  Annie stepped inside, where the sight took her by surprise. Owen had a desk propped against the back wall of his room. It was usually stacked with half-read books, scribbled and scrunched papers, blunt pencils, empty CD cases, the bits and pieces of Owen’s busy, messy life. But tonight, it looked as if he had lit a bonfire there and the desk-top was strewn with the charcoaled remnants.

  Even more alarming was the big sooty black scorch mark that covered the white wall from desk to ceiling, three feet wide at the bottom, tapering to a tip at the top.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ was Annie’s first reaction. ‘What on earth?!’

  But then she saw the science kit box upturned, contents scattered about on the floor of the room.

  ‘Owen! You’re not supposed to get that out when Connor’s not around,’ she snapped.

  ‘I know. But I was a bit bored . . . and I wanted to show . . .’ He tailed off, but it was obvious he’d wanted to show Ed some experiment from the kit.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘I can’t imagine this was supposed to be the end result. What were you trying to do? Build the indoor atomic bomb?’

  ‘I went a little bit off plan,’ Owen shrugged, looking annoyingly unapologetic.

  ‘Off plan? Off the planet more like,’ was Annie’s snappy answer. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t take out an eye, Owen, or burn down the house.’

 
; ‘It was quite scary when it went off.’ He let out a nervous giggle.

  There was a big glass of water, full to the brim, standing in the middle of the floor. Annie pointed at it questioningly.

  ‘Yeah, I thought I should have that on stand-by. But then I worried I’d make it worse.’

  Knowing the chemical mixture would be wasted on his mother, he explained it to Ed, who had come to the door too and was looking on wordlessly.

  It was lost on Annie, but Ed gave a whistle: ‘You took a risk there, Owen,’ he said. ‘That could have been very nasty. And water! Water would have . . . OK. . . luckily you didn’t do that.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The funky paramedic:

  Green boiler suit, but worn top off, arms tied round the waist (NHS)

  Skimpy white vest top (Primark)

  Deep tan (surfing in Fuerteventura)

  Leather and shell choker (stall in Fuerteventura)

  Hiking boots (Tiso)

  Blond hair in plaits

  Est. cost: £28

  ‘A romantic moment gone wrong here, then.’

  After the Tower Bridge date, Gray had taken Annie out for lunch again and then came a big, swanky dinner. A dazzling, high-end, intimate restaurant with attentive waiters and truly superb food and wine.

  That night, she had found Gray quite irresistibly attractive. Ordering the wine, making menu suggestions for her, sweeping up the bill with his platinum card – debit not credit, she’d noticed – he’d been the suave, witty grown-up she was absolutely certain she wanted.

  Strolling along the streets of Knightsbridge afterwards with his arm tucked around her, Annie had felt a wave of happiness wash over her. This felt like togetherness, real closeness. At last, she was beginning to allow herself to think that she had found a person she could share her life with once again.

  They’d looked in furniture shop windows and he’d wanted to know her opinion about everything: ‘Now, I like that white chair, the big leather one over there . . . But what do you think? Too showy for a home?’

  Each time they agreed on something, she’d felt a little internal ‘yes!’ and in her mind the domestic fantasy of being Gray’s stay-at-home wife had cranked up again.

  La-la-la, she would wear dresses all the time, because he’d complimented her on her legs. (And of course they’d always be freshly waxed, because she would have so much time to pamper herself.) She would learn to cook, beautifully, from scratch every day and be able to lavish her undivided attention on Gray and her children.

  When her family was out, she would housekeep to perfection: ironing sheets with lavender water, folding fluffy towels, baking bread and keeping the kind of kitchen where matching tea towels, tablecloths and oven gloves are all fresh and fragrant and changed every day. La-la-la. There would be no more house renovating, no more moving, no more dealing with Donna the total bitch. Life would just be so peachy and perfect . . . wouldn’t it?

  Having just agreed with her that the sofa in the window of the Conran Shop was far superior to anything else they’d seen the length of the street, Gray had wrapped both arms around her and said, ‘Annie, I think I’m going to have to kiss you. I hope that’s OK?’

  The formality of the request had caused her to tease, ‘Well . . . depends what your kissing’s like. Shall we see?’

  He’d moved in with a dry, lip-on-lip kiss before, on her cue, mouths had opened and begun a hesitant exploration. Very minty breath, moist, but the moves needed a little practice, was Annie’s first thought.

  The kiss didn’t go on for long and she was aware of the carefulness of it. For instance, a full six inches apart at the hip had been maintained at all times.

  Maybe Gray, being fourteen years older than her, was going to be very formal and measured about wooing her. There would be no getting swept away with your passions here. He was too grown-up. They were both testing the waters and cautious about the decisions ahead.

  She liked his old-fashioned charm anyway. Gray was like a suitor from a 1940s movie: he was courteous, always in a suit and cufflinks, always close shaven, smelling just the right side of citrusy. He was the serious man she was sure she wanted and she was beginning to think she could fall in love with him.

  ‘So what are you doing tomorrow?’ he’d asked after a second, slightly more intimate kiss.

  ‘Nothing I can’t get out of – if it’s for a very good reason,’ she’d decided to answer.

  ‘Why don’t you come and have lunch at my house?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she told him, wondering how to bribe Lana to look after Owen . . . and Dinah to supervise Lana.

  They kissed again, and this time Annie wrapped her arms around Gray’s waist and pulled him in close. They would finally be alone and undisturbed in a private place tomorrow. She hoped he had a lot more than lunch on his mind, because she certainly did.

  When they broke off from the kiss, she looked at his face closely. He still had great bone structure but must have been gorgeous when he was younger. Maybe it was hard for him to grow middle-aged and lose that power over people that extremely good-looking people have.

  That might explain the green contact lenses, perfect teeth and just slightly odd-looking hair; it was a little too coppery and too smooth. But she had run her hands through it several times and was certain that Owen and Lana were wrong. He didn’t deserve the nickname ‘rug boy’.

  Just before noon the next day, Sunday, Annie climbed into her Jeep, fully briefed with directions from Gray, and set off to find his home in a bijou Essex village.

  She was depilated, exfoliated, moisturized and fragrant from top to toe. All twenty nails were manicured and painted, her underwear was luxuriously fancy, she was wearing stockings and her teeth were flossed. She even had condoms stashed in a zip-up compartment of her handbag and she was as ready for seduction as she was ever going to be.

  She cranked up the car radio and drove, singing along, with the windows down a little to recreate the breezy convertible effect she was getting used to.

  After forty minutes of driving, the scrappy retail parks, mega-bowl complexes and car sales showrooms gave way to something more definitely resembling countryside. The sky was cloudless, the landscape spring’s fresh, bright green and Annie felt her mood lift and soar.

  The traffic on the M25 was good and her car zipped along in the fast lane. As she drew nearer to Gray’s village, she called him up on the in-car mobile.

  ‘Hello, Sexy Suburban Man,’ she greeted him, ‘I’m on the outskirts of your village, so you’ll have to talk me though the final turns.’

  ‘This is not a suburb!’ he insisted. ‘Upper Ploxley is the most expensive village in Essex.’

  ‘Gray, I’m driving through a housing estate!’ she countered. ‘Anyway, I hope you’ve got the wine on ice.’

  ‘Champagne, my dear. Champagne.’

  ‘Ooooh . . . even better.’

  ‘Have you brought your swimsuit?’ he asked. He hadn’t explained why she needed a swimsuit, had only said, ‘Wait and see!’ She suspected a small kidney-, maybe heart-shaped, outdoor pool. But it better be bloody well heated, it was only April. Not exactly skinny-dipping weather.

  ‘That must be you now, coming down the road in your small armoured tank,’ he joked. ‘I’m the white house, third on your left.’

  She indicated, made the left turn and slid the Jeep into a short driveway before an impressive 1970s boxy glass and concrete construction, painted bright white.

  It was so neat, was her first impression. Every piece of gravel was raked into place on a driveway that bordered a smooth, green crew cut of lawn. Crisp, white blinds came halfway down the windows of the house and even the plants inside the windowboxes, two doorway tubs and little strip of border were standing to attention against a background of flawless brown earth.

  Gray was already at the front door.

  ‘What a lovely house,’ she said immediately, as she climbed out of the Jeep. ‘Your garden is so immaculate, yo
u must be at it all the time.’

  ‘I use a weekly gardening service,’ he batted the compliment away. ‘They’re really good.’

  Of course he did.

  ‘Come here.’ He waved her over. ‘I’m so glad you could come.’

  He waited until she’d stepped inside to give her one of his careful kisses. ‘Come on in,’ he said, breaking off, ‘I want to show you round.’

  Much as she wanted to untuck his white shirt from his blue chinos and mess him up a bit, she was desperate to look round too. Desperate to glean all the clues she could, not just about Gray but also, very importantly, about his estranged wife. Annie felt sure that the taste stamped all over this expensive 1970s home would not in fact be Gray’s but, much more intriguingly, Marilyn’s.

  Gray did not like to talk about Marilyn. All Annie had been able to find out had come from her own, fairly blunt questioning.

  The ongoing divorce was not exactly a happy one.

  ‘She made my life extremely miserable by the end,’ Gray had told Annie over their second date lunch. ‘Now we’re fighting over every little detail. My lawyer has prepared a more than generous clean break settlement for her and still she’s refusing to take it,’ Gray had added angrily. ‘She’s upping the stakes all the time, wanting a little slice of this, part of that . . . a share in my business! She’s not prepared to go with any dignity.’

  They’d been married for five years. Marilyn – originally called Tracey, she’d changed it by deed poll, he’d told her just a little cattily – had been with him from the age of 34 until she was 40. Apparently the neurotic dread with which she’d approached her fortieth birthday had been the final straw to tipped their marriage into irretrievable breakdown.

  ‘You know, forty is just a number. Get over it, I’d tell her. But she acted as if she was going to die on the day, not reach her fifth decade. You seem so much more relaxed,’ Gray had told her, ‘about life in general. Marilyn was in a frenzy about everything! From which colour to paint her fingernails to how to arrange the plant pots at the front door. It was totally exhausting!’