The Retail Therapist

by Colette Kebell

  “VAT ZE HELL? ZHERE IZ A MISTAKE HERE! Vhy can you not type properly? Vhy all the idiotz come to vork for me?”

  Usually the tirade lasted for about thirty minutes, and answering back was of no use. Just mentioning that in that half an hour I could have corrected all the letters and been on my way home was of no use. His face often became red; then typically he started throwing files on the floor and pacing back and forth between his desk and the window.

  As soon as he had finished, his wife would come out of her slumber-room, asking what had happened. And just when I’d become busy trying to correct the bloody letters, then she started, explaining to me: “We have to be precise, and those papers are going to be used in court, and if they are not correct it would be a major issue” – and blah-di-blah-di-blah.

  I looked at Eliza and she shrugged, as if to say, nothing new on the western front.

  My boyfriend was not sympathetic either; he kept repeating that life was hard and we should be glad that at least we had a job. Whenever I complained, he answered back that it didn’t look good to have too many jobs on your CV.

  The problem was that the more old man Lowe put me under pressure, the more mistakes I made. If he had just marked the errors I would have had them corrected in no time, but where was the fun in that? Eventually, one day, he caught me in a bad mood. When he called me into his office for the usual “corrections”, I emptied my cup of tea on his desk and calmly and politely told him to f… off. Just to be sure, I repeated that concept to his beloved wife. When I left, Eliza was looking at me as if I were her personal hero.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two years earlier

  Following Lowe and Partners I found another job as a legal secretary at Hutchinson and Rake. The first impression I got of the place was the sense of how cold it was. Sure, it was winter, but inside the office I felt almost as if I could see the condensation coming out of my mouth. I shrugged and thought that maybe I was getting a cold, or perhaps the office was inhabited by ghosts. I’d seen it in a film once or twice – that when a ghost passes nearby, you get a chill. That place must have been bloody haunted then; maybe in its early years it was a ghost assembly point for the afterlife.

  Rebecca and Leonard were the partners and they were sympathetic, knowing I had spent all that time working for Lowe and Partners. Perhaps they had the same feeling you get when you go to the Battersea Dogs’ Home and rescue a dog. If I had been able to stick it out at that old place for that long, it certainly showed tenacity and perhaps they saw potential in me; besides, the fact is that I was hired on the spot.

  I was to work with Penny (and no connection to Miss Moneypenny from the Bond films), who was also the Practice Manager, in a small room too cramped to have two chairs and two desks in it. Well, actually the workstations would fit in the room, but with all the folders dispersed around as well, the small size of the area meant that it was more like working inside a shipping container filled to the brim than being in an office.

  In addition, Penny was not – how should I say? – the friendliest person on the planet. I entered the office that very first day and soon that cold, haunted feeling surrounded me. A quick inspection of the history of the building and a trip to the cupboard revealed the story behind that weird sensation. The boiler’s thermostat was set to thirteen degrees. I reckon it was frozen solid in that state, perhaps since the last glaciation period; icicles were still there. I turned the dial up to twenty-two degrees (I thought it was a legal requirement for it to be above a certain temperature to work in; I remember reading something like that in a Solzhenitsyn book once).

  It became evident that what I had thought was a simple oversight was in fact part of a carefully planned savings strategy. Rebecca insisted on working “a couple of degrees” below the “normal” temperature, because at the end of the year it would result in a massive saving. Not that my sneaky attempts to turn that bloody dial up a couple of degrees served any purpose: my colleague Penny was in that period of life where she felt hot (despite the fact that we were already working as though we were in an Inuit igloo) and she insisted on keeping the window wide open. Or a “tad” open, as she put it.

  If you think about it, there were only two options: either you ask your colleague to come to work in a bikini (attire not compliant with the practice book), or you go to the office using a multilayer approach, like an onion. Despite my reluctance, I had to wear long johns under my trousers, thermal underwear, a jumper, body warmer and fingerless woollen gloves. The gloves took a while to get used to, though; at first it was as if I were permanently attempting to do the Spock thing with my fingers, or something like that. I’m sure you get the picture. I could have been in an advertisement as a Michelin Woman and I looked as if I was twenty pounds overweight at least.

  I also soon realised that Penny had a second name: Grumpy. If she wasn’t complaining about the weather – it was always too hot no matter what the season – she would find something to complain about in everything else. The way I was taking the messages, how I was paginating the letters and so forth. The fact that she’d worked for the firm for almost twenty years apparently made her think she was a de facto partner, and that gave her the right to make my life miserable. In that little room there was no escape from her constant bitching, and initially I thought I’d just escaped from the frying pan to land in the fire.

  The months passed and I got to know the other secretaries as well. One was Emma, a woman in her late sixties, who always talked about her retirement plans. That was her pet subject, but despite all the talking, every morning she got up and took a bus and a train to get to work, no matter what the weather. Emma didn’t actually need to work any longer, as her husband was well off, but I think she’d got stuck in that place. It sucked the life out of her and she reminded me of an animal in a zoo – so used to being caged up that, if once her jailer forgot to close the door, she wouldn’t recognise the opportunity to be free again. She was working part-time at that point; she was just part of the furniture – a quiet and reassuring presence that reminded the rest of us what our future could be like. Then there was Martina. She was in her late thirties and perhaps too young to bear the signs, but the life that loomed ahead there was clear to me. In ten years I would become like her, then become a Grumpy colleague myself, only to end up like Emma. One thing I should mention, though, is that it wasn’t all completely doom and gloom. We each had the benefit of annual leave and some made the most of that time. Exotic holidays were the order of the day, and the more exotic the better. As for luxury, they definitely went the whole hog when it came to their time away from the office. From skiing to all-inclusive beach holidays, those were the norm as far as most of my colleagues were concerned.

  Having said that, the miseries in that place were never-ending and every day brought a new surprise, at least to me. The birthdays, for example: we did not celebrate birthdays like anybody else. Under Rebecca’s diktat, celebration of all the birthdays was on the fifteenth of November, no matter if you were born in July. That ensured we didn’t waste too many office hours on frivolities such as preparing or eating cakes but, most importantly, we saved money on gifts. Christmas? We did the secret Santa, as in every other office around the country, but that was also celebrated on November the fifteenth, and therefore we were allowed to give only one present, usually below the ten pounds mark, also set by Rebecca. Rebecca’s passion for saving money was not limited to the above; every occasion could be good for saving, if you have the patience, or in her case the gift, of looking. We used the Post-it notes on both sides, even if the glue was on one side only. The technique was simple and concise. You could write a message on the paper, and when it became obsolete you would cross it out it with a pen and design a big arrow pointing to the right, suggesting you turn over the paper in order to find the newly written message. Then matters got even worse; instead of using Post-It notes, we even started having to use up the paper from junk faxes that we’d received.

  Rebecca was als
o charging customers for secretarial hours. If we had to witness a will; that was ten pounds; if we had to type long letters, we would have to mark the time so she could charge it out. In science-fiction books you come across devices that allow you to alter time in some fashion; Rebecca would have loved having such a device so as to squeeze additional hours into your working day.

  Despite this military precision in managing savings, the same attention was not applied to other matters, such as the typing queue. We had two solicitors and a trainee, and usually the rule was to pile up the case files and tapes and to type them according to their arrival time in the pile – first in, first out. The only exception was for emergencies; in such cases a solicitor could jump the queue.

  The fact was, though, that everything in that place was urgent, and every day there was a constant switching of priorities. The solicitors would dance around the typing queue on a regular basis, usually three or four times a day – except when Rebecca had a real emergency, and then that would be a “priority one” no matter what. Unless, of course, Leonard was in a bad mood; then he would complain to Rebecca and take priority for himself.

  Leonard hated clients. Any occasion was good for escaping the office and doing some court work, or anything at all that didn’t include client meetings. I hadn’t realised, at the beginning, the reason behind his grumpiness, but then a pattern started to emerge. Every time he had a meeting with a client, then his mood would be foul; he would practically scream the place down, sometimes bellowing his orders. If you saw him at that particular time, his face would often be red and blotchy from the anger he obviously felt. There had been times when he even physically shook from the rage he felt. He actually admitted, one day, that a world without clients would make his life easier. With that in mind, he started dumping on me every single task he could that involved talking to people. How he got married in the first place remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Any way you looked at it, he was a bit of a mess.

  Taking sickness days was strictly forbidden, despite working in a freezer in winter, with an open window, and the only way to have them recognise sickness was to bring them a death certificate from the GP.

  And then there was the biggest of all comedies: the end-of-year review. I entered the legal secretariat as a way of earning more money to fund my passion for clothes, but talking about pay rises was like talking about ropes in the house of one who’d been hanged.

  Rebecca was full of resources; she could remember every single word you’d spoken during the year and, so it seemed, how you’d failed to be sufficiently cordial on one occasion. Despite praising your effort, your work was not good enough to earn you a bonus or a pay rise.

  So, when one day I was given the opportunity of working as a freelance personal shopper, because an old family friend threw the job in my direction, I was glad to use all my accrued vacation to do it. When I realised I couldn’t complete what I wanted in that twenty-day period, I simply didn’t show up in the office. Up till now, they still think they fired me.

  CHAPTER 6

  The house was on the outskirts of Windsor and caused me to rethink my job. Blimey, if a minor celebrity could afford a detached like that, at least five bedrooms with an acre of land, then I was definitely in the wrong line of business.

  I rang the bell and the lady of the manor came to open the door, accompanied by the mandatory golden retriever.

  “You must be GiGi,” she said, shaking my hand, and then looked quizzically at what I was carrying. Before she could ask I told her that I had been doing some research. Well, I hadn’t actually, but love him or hate him, Ritchie had given me a mountain to read through; after her phone call it was obvious that, for some reason, he was a big fan. Had I missed the boat completely on this one, not watching much TV and all?

  “I’m a big fan,” I added (a little white lie wasn’t going to hurt anyone, was it?). I could see that Allyson Traynor hadn’t decided yet if she wanted to go full Rihanna or mix in a bit of Daisy Duke. In any case, the result was unbelievable; in the wrong sense of the word.

  I imagined you could have used stamps instead of clothes and covered your body more appropriately, or for that matter the straps worn by the character Leeloo in the film The Fifth Element; either would have covered her body with better effect. Allyson turned out to be very down to earth despite having been brought up amongst the Berkshire Elite, as it were. She led me to the kitchen – not the lounge as you might have expected – and offered me a glass of coconut water. I had never even heard of that previously, but it turned out to be quite delicious with only a mild coconut flavour, unlike the milk or flesh itself. I was then told of all the amazing qualities that drinking coconut water had to offer, and I have to say, she was a born saleswoman as she certainly had me convinced. She did explain, however, that her attire was due to having just completed her daily exercise routine, upon hearing which I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I may not have heard of the Berks Girls, but I had a vague recollection of catching a clip of The Only Way is Essex at some point, and I had envisaged that Allyson must have been in both, and picked up all the wrong habits from the latter! She told me of her up-and-coming interview and what it was she needed from me. She was so excited, as this was going to be a serious role for her, not some kind of reality TV thing. We talked for a while longer, about the role she was hoping to play, what time period it would be set in (which thankfully for me was the present, or almost, as I was hopeless when it came to period clothes, other than vintage 60s stuff, that is) and what she hoped to achieve following that. It was always good to plan ahead, but she seemed to be planning as far as her retirement already! She was a couple of years younger than me! Had I missed something during my upbringing? Why did she make so many plans? I wanted to ask her, but felt it would be rude at this point. She hadn’t even decided whether to employ me or not yet, after all.

  And so I was shown to her dressing room. I have to say, other than in films like Overboard – starring Goldie Hawn – I’ve never seen quite such a beautiful room, filled with the most gorgeous outfits. It wasn’t until I looked a little closer that I saw her dilemma. All her outfits were either for keeping fit or for evening wear. She was obviously quite the party-goer, as at a guess there must have been hundreds of evening dresses. At last I was starting to get the picture of what she needed.

  “I see,” I said, after a long pause. “I think you need something conservative, yet flattering. Something that you might use at home, or for tea with friends. The ‘non-special’ occasion.”

  “You got it!” she exclaimed, as if she’d just won the lottery “I didn’t explain myself well, but I was sure I couldn’t go to an interview in an evening dress.”

  “… and you don’t know where to start, because finding something that matches your personality takes time,” I added.

  “That’s it, GiGi. They told me you were good. You clearly understand the conundrum here.”

  I asked her which colours she preferred and what type of style, and then we sat down at her computer so I could show her a few examples of what would suit her for her interview. She was enthralled, to the point of complete silence, the whole time during this process. Once I was done, she took one look at me and stated quite clearly, “You are most definitely hired.”

  The hard work began next – the negotiation – but as it turned out Allyson was indeed desperate to make a good impression and obviously didn’t lack the funds, so my fee was agreed and so was the clothes budget.

  “GiGi, may I ask you something?” she added as an afterthought, when we were almost ready to depart.

  “Sure, fire away.”

  “Do you think one set of clothes would be enough? I mean, what if they come back because they’ve forgotten to ask me something? What if I have other people visiting?” She was clearly going back into planning mode; I could see her mind spinning.

  “If you need more outfits, we can do it. Easy.”

  “Let’s do that,” she said, regaining her original ent
husiasm. “Let’s take the full week – I mean, if you’re not busy.”

  I wasn’t busy, but at the same time I was doing the part of Mr Wolf in Pulp Fiction: I was saving the day. “Let me check my diary.” I opened the diary where I used to write down ideas and things that I saw in shops, mumbled a bit as if I had to call back Michelle Obama and cancel her appointment, and finally I announced, “Yes, we can do it. I’ll have to shuffle some appointments around, but leave that to me.”

  She also gave me carte blanche to buy anything I thought suitable for her on her behalf and said she would reimburse me. The tricky bit came when I had to ask for a small advance, to cover expenses. I thought at first she was going to refuse, but after a few seconds she readily agreed to give me a thousand pounds to start off with. I was over the moon. I promised to return the following afternoon, which she preferred owing to her rigorous morning-exercise regime (and probably her late rising, with the amount of partying that she did – but who knows?), with my arms laden with outfits. She thanked me with a great big hug, which I hadn’t expected at all, and off I went. I had work to do, or rather, The game was afoot, as Sherlock Holmes might have said.

  It was still relatively early when I left and, as I was in Windsor, I headed straight to my favourite underground samples shop, which was not too far away. I was greeted with a big wave of the hand to follow my friend down the stairs, as the shop was quiet, but he was the only one there! It seemed that things had been a bit slow there recently. I hoped all that was about to change, not only for me but also for my favourite fashion haunt.