Chapter 4
Dinah visiting:
Navy denim shirt
Blue cord blazer
Blue, grey and brown checked midi kilt
Tall lace up brown boots
Brown beret
Flower earrings
Vintage bangles
Khaki green floral quilted velvet tote bag
Annie was not a morning person. She was always the one lolling in the bed for just a few more minutes while Ed got up at the first tweet of the alarm, showered, got the twins up and was down in the kitchen brewing strong coffee while Annie struggled with emerging from under that gorgeous, warm and enveloping duvet.
‘Get up!’ She could hear Ed shouting at her from the kitchen. ‘Annie! Go and have your shower! It’s the morning… And maybe you shouldn’t have spent the entire night researching handbags on your phone!’
Annie just groaned. The late-night handbag googling was getting completely out of hand.
There was no denying that Ed was already convinced she was a crazy woman and maybe he did have a point.
But could any husband truly appreciate the need for exactly the right bag at the right time?
He had one briefcase-meets-messenger bag, which he’d used faithfully for years.
He didn’t seem to ever need anything else apart from maybe a rucksack for hiking trips.
Her current handbag looked just a little shabby and over-loved.
Like a favourite cuddly toy, it was fraying at the edges, worn and just a little tatty.
There was absolutely no buying a new handbag – not with having just bought the gold dress and the Jacquemus evening clutch it needed – and now that she no longer had a staff discount, and not to mention the incredible price inflation of all the luxury bags—
No! So all this scrolling and searching was to find the bag she exactly wanted, but pre-loved and at the price she could – at a pinch – afford.
But buying pre-loved was a minefield. There were so many fakes out there.
And there were so many sad, saggy old bags that had lost all their life and their lustre.
Back in her Ebay-ing prime, she’d had a list of trusted sources, but now, she was out there on handbag safari, hunting high and low, scouring reviews for clues, scrutinising photos for giveaway clues, in her quest to find the exact right bag at the exact right price.
And so far, it couldn’t be found. She dragged herself to the shower, where zingy citrus gels and shampoos were on hand to try and zap her back to life.
A little more awake now, she headed towards the kitchen where the prospect of coffee was reviving her spirits as she began to mentally go through her schedule for the day.
No filming… no TV commitments today, she realised with a little surge of relief.
The new episodes of How to Be Fabulous were almost all ‘in the can’ and for the next couple of months there would be time to do the two things she did between bouts of filming – one, catch up with everything in her life that had been put on hold during the gruelling filming weeks and two, begin to panic about whether the series after this one would get commissioned and would she still be in it, not replaced with a pouty twenty-four-year-old, and would her pay still be at the same healthy rate as before.
Everyone always imagined that now she was on TV, she was fabulously loaded.
But this couldn’t be any further from the truth – TV presenter pay, now that they were on a mainstream channel, was generous in term of the hourly rate, but she only worked for twenty weeks in the year.
So really, she earned a much more ordinary amount over the year as a whole and in the time between filming, wondered what she should be doing with herself to contribute more to the family finances.
And did life not get more expensive by the minute?
Not a day passed without either a child needing something new or replaced, or the house requiring another bill and/or repair – Yes, the new handbag idea, she was going to have to put that right out of her mind and get on with the day.
‘And good morning to my lovely wife,’ Ed said as she arrived in the kitchen, hair still damp, dressing gown still on, as she really could not make decisions about hair styling or outfits until the breakfast coffee had been downed.
‘Mummmmmmmeeeeeee,’ both of her twins chorused in delight, clambering down from their chairs, toast still in hand, to give her a morning hug.
‘Hello, hello, darlings,’ she replied, pulling them both in close, kissing the jammy faces and smelling the warm, morning skin of two delightful little four-year-old humans.
‘Daddy says it’s a nursery day.’ Max looked up her and she could already read the wobbly lower lip. Ed passed her the coffee cup and she took a bolstering mouthful.
‘Yes, it is a nursery day,’ she said calmly. At this, Minnie began to wave her hands in the air and cheer. ‘I love nursery… we are doing painting and I love painting.’
‘That sounds lovely,’ Annie enthused, perching herself on the chair next to her children.
Unfortunately, Max was already gearing up for a heartfelt sob about nursery, so Annie took another slug of coffee and prepared to comfort him.
‘Oh, Maxie, buddy, it’s just for a few hours…
and I’m not at work today, so I’ll be there to pick you up and we can go to the park and even the café on the way home. ’
Max looked up at her through eyes threatening tears. ‘Can you pick us up before lunch?’ he asked, voice full of tragedy.
‘No!’ Minnie shrieked immediately. ‘I love lunch!’
‘Let me have a think about that, Maxie…’ She didn’t want to overpromise, she didn’t want Minnie to think that Max had ‘won’, she didn’t want it the other way around either.
Oh, everything would be a lot easier if Max loved nursery too…
everything would be a lot easier if the twins could just agree on something, anything.
But that wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.
‘OK, my lovely family, I need to get going,’ Ed announced as he put dishes into the dishwasher, gave the counter a quick wipe down and pocketed his phone.
‘Can I just say, you are looking very hot…’ Annie told him, as he bent down to kiss her and then the children.
He was sharply dressed for school in blue shirt, tan chinos and tie. The face was clean shaven, the steely, curly hair was well cut and he smelled just the right level of fresh and ferny. He was also fit and muscular, and really Annie needed to put ‘pay attention to Ed’ on her to-do list.
He wished her good luck with the nursery run.
‘I’ll need it,’ she replied with a glance at Max’s welling eyes.
She struggled with the Mummy guilt – when at work, she worried if the children were OK and if they were missing her.
When at home with them for long periods, she worried if her career and future earning potential were passing by and could never be regained.
‘Has everyone had enough toast?’ Annie asked. ‘OK, let’s go and get dressed then,’ she added brightly.
The tears that had been threatening began to burst out of Max. This will pass… he’ll settle in… Annie told herself, determined to remain positive and cheerful about nursery, even if her little boy crying broke her own heart.
* * *
Annie was just exiting the Tube station on the way back from the traumatic nursery run when her sister, Dinah, called.
She barely broke her stride to pull out, answer and clamp phone to ear, but she did in the process notice the woman walking in the other direction.
This woman was so beautifully put together and Annie always had a moment to appreciate someone who had spent care and attention on their look.
The woman had a smooth steely grey bob, dramatic dark glasses, possibly Chanel, and she was wearing long black suede boots and the kind of sculptural black dress you didn’t see very often – a high neck, architectural sleeves, complicated, teeny pleats, intricate cutting and Japanese fabric, Annie guessed.
Then there were angular silver earrings, a slash of plum lipstick and a chic black bag accessorising this look.
Very good. This was a woman who knew her stuff.
‘—Annie? Are you there? Are you listening to me?’ her Dinah asked.
‘Yes, of course, course I’m listening. But I just passed a masterclass in sixty-something sophistication and had to admire it. I’m walking back from the Tube station and she walked past in, possibly, Yamamoto.’
‘Lovely,’ Dinah said without sounding too interested. ‘How is everyone? I’m not quite sure what to do with myself now that I don’t look after the M&Ms very much. Can I come round and see you?’
‘Only for an hour,’ Annie warned, ‘I’m putting the timer on. I have a lot to do… filming has finished and now there’s a fashion show to plan. Do you want to help with a fashion show? We have tasks for everyone.’
‘No and you’re insane,’ Dinah warned her. ‘Anyone who knows anything about fashion shows knows they’re a nightmare because you’re dealing with wall-to-wall divas, egos, flakes, creative types, and basically everyone who you would never want to help you with organising anything.’
Annie sighed. There was a little too much truth in what Dinah was saying there. ‘You have a point, but that’s not going to stop me trying,’ she told her sister. ‘If it goes well, I think it will be amazing for my fashion CV.’
‘And if it goes badly?’ Dinah asked.
‘This is me and Svetlana,’ Annie insisted. ‘We will make it brilliant.’ That was the aim, that was definitely the aim. She and Svetlana could pull this off. Would pull this off. One million pounds Svetlana had said with her usual determination.
‘Come round.’ Annie added, ‘I’ll get the coffee on for me and the saintly herbal teabag brewing for you.’