The Personal Shopper (Annie Valentine)

by Carmen Reid

  ‘But that was . . .’ she began, not sure what she was going to say next. A special case? An eccentric individual who could find nothing right here? It was a slightly lunatic defence, even she could see that.

  But Donna wasn’t even stopping to listen. ‘Although you’re in possession of a written warning from me, you’re constantly advising people to shop elsewhere. I heard you telling one woman to get her dresses at Topshop and buy her Chloé bag on eBay!’

  Like this was the worst crime in the world. Like Donna had never, ever snapped up a little bargain here or there; as if she’d only ever bought every single item including her toilet paper at The Store.

  ‘You can’t sack me for any of these things,’ Annie told her, still standing, hackles up, more than ready to fight.

  ‘No,’ Donna said, leaning forward in her chair now, eyes locking on to Annie’s. ‘But I can sack you for theft.’

  ‘Theft?’ Annie almost laughed. ‘I’d like to see you try. I’ve never stolen anything in my entire life. Not even an unpaid grape from the greengrocer’s.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  There was something so ominously catty about this that Annie could only suspect Donna had something on her. But what? She did honestly believe that she’d never, ever stolen anything . . . not knowingly.

  Donna picked a sheet of paper up from her desk. Annie had a bad feeling as it was handed over to her.

  ‘Recognize this?’ Donna asked.

  It was a printout of a computer page. The image was faint but Annie could still make out a digital photograph of a handbag, a Marc Jacobs handbag, BNWT and serial number. It was the one she’d bought from Lana’s website and had sold on the Trading Station for £490 last week.

  Annie felt a lurching sensation in her stomach.

  ‘Thanks to the serial number you’ve displayed so nicely here . . .’ the note of triumph in Donna’s voice was unbearable, ‘I can tell you that this bag was stolen from our accessories department on the eighteenth of February. Maybe you’d like to explain how you ended up selling it?’

  ‘I did not steal it, Donna.’

  That much Annie could say, but her mind raced as she tried to work out what explanation she could offer. The bag had come from Lana and Lana’s friends, the Syrup Six, who were in quite enough trouble at school. Running the charity website had been their last chance to make good. If it came out they’d been fencing stolen goods – or actually stealing them . . . Had one of the Syrup Six dared to come into The Store and walk off with a top designer handbag? That would mean police involvement and instant expulsion. Although Annie was certain Lana would not have stolen the bag, maybe she’d be expelled too for playing a part in the sales team.

  The thing that was just so utterly infuriating was that usually Annie checked everything she sold as scrupulously as she could. She could count on one hand the number of fakes she’d flogged on by mistake. But this bag . . . of course she’d seen straight away it was genuine, and she’d assumed (Argh! Assume and be damned) that some incredibly rich pupil or their incredibly rich parent had made a little retail mistake and decided to be generous and offload it on the website.

  It hadn’t crossed her mind for a moment that the bag could be stolen . . . and from her own shop. There was nothing she could tell Donna without landing Lana and her friends in huge trouble. And even then, couldn’t Donna imply that she’d somehow put the girls up to it? Then she considered the rumours that would flare up at St Vincent’s if The Store investigated: Lana’s mother involved with a stolen expensive handbag on the charity website . . . It was all horrible.

  ‘I had no idea the bag was stolen. I never, ever knowingly sell stolen items,’ Annie told Donna. ‘I can’t explain to you how I got that bag because someone, who couldn’t have known about it, would get into trouble,’ she continued. ‘I did not steal it, Donna. At least show me you believe that?’

  Donna just kept her gaze trained on Annie’s face.

  There was a Roman expression, wasn’t there? To fall on your sword. Annie saw that her moment of sword-falling had arrived: completely out of the blue. She was going to have to leave. Right now. Without a fuss. Cave in to Donna completely. Even though Donna’s sales figures for the next few months would be on the floor, she wouldn’t care because she’d be rid of the one person who consistently dared to stand up to her.

  Annie would have to leave her white-walled, pink-sofa-ed suite, her daily dose of rubbing shoulders with Yves St Laurent workmanship, Paul Smith tailoring and multi Missoni colours. Even worse, she would have to leave The Store’s staff: Avril, Delia, Paula, all the others. There would be no more weekly happy hour sessions, no more staff discount, no more sale rail bargains, no more Tupperware boxes from the staff canteen.

  ‘I’ll get my things.’ Annie’s voice was so husky, she barely recognized it.

  Donna just nodded.

  It was only sinking in for Annie that if she were to leave in disgrace, there’d be no pay-off, no severance pay. She might not even be paid for the rest of the month.

  ‘You have to give me references!’ Annie exclaimed, feeling a wave of panic. ‘You can’t put me down as leaving for theft. I’ll never get another job and you know, Donna, you know that I would never, ever do something like this. Everything I get from The Store I pay for, fair and square. Does HR know about this?’ she asked anxiously.

  There was almost a smile playing about Donna’s lips. Annie would love to have smacked her, right there and then.

  ‘I suppose I could tell HR you left for personal reasons . . . a personality clash, maybe?’

  ‘Well, that wouldn’t be a lie, would it?’ Annie retorted. Then as something of the enormity of losing her job of six years, when she was the sole provider for her children, began to dawn on her, she suddenly found herself appealing: ‘You can’t do this, Donna. Are you really going to sack me? I’m your best sales assistant. Couldn’t you at least give me time to find something somewhere else? I’ve got my children’s—’

  ‘School fees to pay . . . oh yes, yes, Annie, my heart bleeds,’ Donna snapped. ‘No. I’ve had enough of you. Flouncing round here like you own the place, like The Store owes you a living, like everyone should be constantly doing you a favour, giving you a discount, letting you claim all the damaged goods and sell them right under our noses because we should all feel so, so sorry for you . . . just because your husband . . .’ She broke off abruptly and the rest of her words hung in the air.

  ‘Donna,’ Annie said, pulling herself up straight, feeling her fight and her fire return, ‘I might be many things and wrong in many ways, but at least I’m not a heartless, ruthless bitch like you.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Gray at home:

  Pink V-neck golfing sweater (Pringle)

  Beige chinos (Gant)

  White T-shirt (Gap)

  Crested velvet slippers (Jermyn Street)

  Est. cost: £270

  ‘But they’re comfortable!’

  Gray’s immaculate house was not looking quite so good these days. His hotel-tidy master bedroom was lined with the racks and stacks of clothes, accessories and items currently for sale on the new and improved Annie V Trading Station. His once super-orderly walk-in wardrobe was crammed as Annie’s many, many belongings fought with his for shelf and rail space.

  The guest bedrooms had become home to Owen and all his paraphernalia – most of it still in cardboard boxes – and Lana and her endless clothes, make-up, CDs, DVDs and currently atrocious teen tantrums.

  Several things had gone wrong at once for Lana: Seth had finally snipped off their budding romance, plus her allowance had been severely docked for her part in fencing the stolen bag which had cost Annie her job at The Store: ‘Suzie’s boyfriend!? The bag came from Suzie’s dodgy boyfriend?!’ Annie had shrieked at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t it cross your mind that there might be something not right about it? Boyfriends don’t just show up with six-hundred-pound bags! I thought it was from some load
ed St Vincent’s mum.’

  It was obvious from Lana’s long face and even longer sulks that she missed Highgate, especially the regular after-school visits with friends. Having a friend over was now a weekend-only event involving an overnight stay.

  ‘Give it a chance here,’ Annie kept urging her. ‘You’ll meet some people. Maybe you should join the tennis club? You love tennis.’

  But suggestions like this were met with slammed doors and shouts of ‘It’s OK for you, but what about us?’

  At least Owen seemed fine, but then he’d always liked the company of his family and himself best. He was playing the guitar a lot, listening to music and could sometimes be found at the very top of the apple tree in Gray’s garden.

  Gray was finding family life something of a change. He had never experienced noise or mess on a scale like this. Because it was a school holiday, the children were always around, underfoot, when he came back from work. He stumbled about his home, tripping over new piles of stuff in unexpected places. He found his sofa already occupied, his plasma TV screen blaring out endless reruns of Friends, his jacuzzi filled with three embarrassingly nubile teen girls, his kitchen utterly void of anything edible, although it was now stacked with Annie’s cash and carry treasures: industrial sized boxes of clingfilm and tinfoil, 80 rolls of kitchen towel, 1,000 bin bags. His new live-in lover was surprisingly unavailable: either on her mobile, at her computer or out again, making another round of house calls, consultations, drop-offs or pick-ups.

  Ever since she’d left The Store, Annie had woken up every morning ready to hustle. Within four days, her flat had been stripped of everything personal, redecorated with the vigorous application of Dulux Once, and she and the children had moved to Gray’s while tenants paying top dollar had moved in.

  With her mortgage payments covered, Annie had turned her attention to earning enough money to keep the children at St Vincent’s and her with the monthly income she was accustomed to. This meant a rapid expansion of the Trading Station and her own Dress to Express makeover and personal shopping service.

  Things weren’t looking too bad; she was learning that Gray’s corner of Essex was ripe with well-heeled women who hadn’t the slightest clue how to accessorize and weren’t shy about recommending her services to all their friends. The only downside to drumming up all this business was that Gray didn’t seem to like it very much.

  ‘You know, Annie, I don’t really want you to work so hard,’ he was telling her again, one evening over a glass of red wine as they sought sanctuary out on the garden terrace from the noisy goings-on in the sitting room.

  Several days ago, he’d suggested she become his PA; now he was bringing the subject up again.

  ‘You could help me with my admin, keep track of all my meetings, appointments . . .’ he said. ‘It won’t keep you as busy as you are now, so you’ll be around a lot more, for me and your children. Obviously, I’ll keep on my secretary at work . . . and I’ll pay you.’

  Of course the idea of not working so hard was appealing, but did she want to work for Gray? Would that be a good plan? There were quite enough teething problems: arguments about food on the sofa (last night’s) and not using a spoon for the jam (this morning’s) without Annie risking a move into Gray’s work life and being told off for not doing things quite the way he wanted there as well.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said. ‘What would you pay me anyway? . . . What!?’ was her undisguised surprise at the figure. ‘How do you expect me and mine to survive on that?’

  ‘Well’ Gray was flustered, taken aback by her reaction. ‘Now that you live with me there are lots of things you don’t have to pay for. I don’t expect you to pay anything towards the house, I’m happy to pay the bills, groceries, this is money just for you.’

  ‘My pin money?’ she’d asked with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  ‘Well, that’s a bit old-fashioned,’ he replied. ‘What I mean is . . . Marilyn was my PA, she spent her wages on herself and I paid for everything else—’

  ‘Gray . . .’ Annie cut him off, ‘don’t misunderstand me, it’s lovely that you’re well-off and that you want to help us out, but Marilyn did not have two children of her own to keep in school. I have always, always supported myself and the children and often Roddy too when his parts were few and far between and his shitty employers took months to pay. Relying on you to pay for us and to give me a tax-deductible little allowance is out of the question.’ She drained her glass, set it down on the table between them and gave him the stern look which he was learning meant: no further discussion.

  In slight need of a change of subject, he decided to ask: ‘Are you doing much tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve got a home consultation in the morning, but I’m not too busy after that. I’ll just be at my day job, buying and selling.’ With a smile she added: ‘I’m a stockbroker of used commodities. Like my job description? Anyway, why? Have you got something planned for tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve invited my parents round. I mean, I said I’d check with you first, obviously . . .’

  ‘For drinks?’

  ‘Well, no. I think I might have said dinner . . .’

  Annie had not yet met Gray’s parents, although she’d heard plenty about them. They were in their early eighties, but apparently this had not dimmed their sharp opinions, pointed criticism of and interminable stream of advice to their precious one and only son.

  ‘They were very fond of Marilyn,’ he had warned her earlier. ‘I’m afraid moving you three in has put them in a huff. It’s going to take weeks to talk them round.’

  Now, obviously, they had been talked round and were to meet over a civilized dinner – which Annie was to provide, presumably, as Gray had a full day’s work ahead of him.

  ‘Why don’t we all go out for dinner?’ she suggested.

  ‘Well, I just thought for Lana and Owen’s sake . . . they can go off and do their own thing . . . won’t have to sit and listen to us talk all evening.’

  He had a point.

  ‘I mean, if it’s a problem . . .’

  Hadn’t Gray noticed that she couldn’t cook? Hadn’t he realized that most of her meals came in a plastic tray with a wrapper ready to be heated in the microwave?

  ‘No, no, it’s not a problem,’ she insisted, wondering in which removals box one of her three barely touched cookbooks might be found – and what kind of simple, but nevertheless impressive, dish could be served up for six.

  ‘I’ll go and phone them then?’ Gray asked. ‘They’re looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘Oh yes. I bet they are. Are you feeling cold?’ she wondered. ‘Why don’t we go inside?’

  Such was Gray’s horror of the mess and mayhem going on in his sitting room that he replied: ‘No, no, I’m fine, but I can bring you out a jacket if you like.’

  Annie didn’t make it back to Gray’s house until after 2 p.m. the next day, later than she’d intended, considering his parents were due at seven. The home consultation had been long and involved: a woman in her fifties who had found it very hard to see beyond navy blue and even harder to see beyond her – admittedly substantial, but hardly disastrous – thighs and hips.

  ‘I don’t have any tricks to disguise hips,’ Annie had informed her. ‘That’s not my thing, darlin’. What we want to do is bring your lovely blue eyes to the fore, your shapely calves and wrists, not to mention your beautiful pale neck and upper chest and when we’ve done all that, you’ll find the hips quieten right down.’

  After the consultation, Annie had rushed over to one of her latest suppliers to secure her trump card for tonight.

  Laid out across the back seat of the Jeep, carefully wrapped in many layers of damp newspaper, was a whopping great fish.

  In her regular trips to the cash and carries of Essex, her endless quest for trade suppliers, discount outlets and bargains, she’d made quite a few new friends. One of them had supplied tonight’s centrepiece at a superb price.

  An eno
rmous line-caught wild Scottish salmon. The beast was so long and so heavy, she’d barely been able to wrestle it into the back seat. The plan was to make new potatoes, a lovely salad, hollandaise sauce – if Dinah was available to talk her through it step by step on the telephone – then strawberries, cream and meringues to follow.

  She would start on the meringues just as soon as she got back. She would keep calm. She had a full four hours ahead of her. It was simple enough, nothing too complicated. There was plenty of time for everything to turn out fine. What could go wrong?

  ‘Owen! Could you have made any more mess? Where’s Lana?’ was Annie’s reaction on surveying the state of the front room, strewn with crisp packets, DVD boxes, socks, sheet music and whatever else. How much longer was half-term going to go on for? she couldn’t help asking herself.

  ‘In her room, crying,’ came Owen’s reply.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Nothing, just the same as usual. Seth, Seth . . . I’ll never love anyone as much as you . . . waaaah,’ he mocked.

  ‘Stop it. That’s mean. Can you please start clearing up in here? Gray’s parents are coming for dinner, remember? I better go and talk to her.’

  It took thirty vital minutes to talk Lana from blotchy-faced misery into some sort of useful state:

  ‘There, there, babes . . . You will start to feel better really soon, I promise. I know everyone says it, but there really are plenty more fish in the sea . . . Young hearts do mend quickly, I promise you . . . In a couple of weeks you’re going to be over him.’

  And in exasperation when that didn’t work: ‘He was far too old for you . . . boys that age are just totally unreliable . . . and anyway, he was covered in acne . . . even on his back.’

  And finally losing all patience: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t care any more! You’ll just have to blow your nose, bring your tissues and come and help me downstairs.’

  At last, Annie had Lana employed in the house along with Owen, hoovering, plumping cushions, cunningly disguising packing boxes with tablecloths and throws.