Chapter 26
Action Paula:
Fuchsia pink blouse
Lashings of gold chains
Turquoise blue wide-legged trousers
Gold trainers
Interesting glass, Perspex and semi-precious stoned rings
So, then it was time to say goodbye to Connor, shoulder her bags, brace herself and get into the gallery and get on with the many tasks of the day: clothes, sort lights, perk up Paula, soothe Svetlana, rein in fashion pack, make no comment and cross fingers, music…
scour websites and reviews, ring round to check on availability, chairs, order more, find more, bring in all the chairs in the surrounding area, VIP guests, talk at length to Svetlana about what else could be done to make the VIP guests feel as VIP as possible…
without making all the other guests feel second-class, of course.
Then there were those very persistent Instagram messages and now emails from the New York museum curator.
Carina Delroy was very, very interested in the lobster dress.
She was very insistent about having a call, exploring options, getting a consortium together to make an offer that would take the dress off the table and sweep it to New York.
Annie
We’re not ready to talk about the dress yet.
Annie messaged her once again:
Annie
As soon as we are, you will be the first person to get my call.
Carina
Make it so.
I’ve already bought my ticket to the show and I’m about to book my flight.
Oh my good grief… this woman was keen.
* * *
It was a long day at the fashion show coalface.
As soon as Annie had dealt with one problem, another would crop up.
There wasn’t enough coffee in the building to deal with all the headaches and there wasn’t enough time to go out and get more.
When she looked at the time, somehow the day had galloped away and it was approaching 7 p.m.!
! For a moment, she suffered the terrible thought that she’d completely forgotten to collect the twins.
But then she got her bearings, remembered that it was Ed’s early finish and the twins would no doubt be home now, full of nice food and fun and hoping to get some time with her before bed.
‘Go, go, Paula, you’ve been here even longer than me,’ Annie urged her friend. ‘Yes, I’ll get this last lot down to the basement.’
See, that’s how lovely the Gallery of Textiles people were, they had given the show its own little section of basement storage space, so Annie and Paula could wrangle all their boxes and rails into order.
Annie loaded up with the two boxes and one large carrier bag that she could manage and headed for the lift.
The Gallery of Textiles had closed its doors hours ago, so it was all locked up and the main lights were off.
But there was a fire door at the back of the building that they were allowed to leave by when working late and there were several security guards in a little back office, who kept an eye on the building overnight.
Some of the room must be alarmed, she guessed, but there hadn’t been any issues with walking along corridors or going up and down to the basement after hours.
So, she cheerfully shouldered her load and took the lift down to the basement.
Once she was there, it was a right turn down the corridor to their storage room.
Annie set down her boxes and bags and took out her key.
She slipped the Yale key into the lock, opened the door and carefully pushed in the timer light button all the way to give her as long a blast of light as possible.
These old-fashioned timer lights were a pain, always popping out and leaving you rushing back out to push them in again.
But, in a building of this size, she could understand why they didn’t want to risk lights being left on in a basement storage room for hours on end.
* * *
Annie moved the cardboard boxes into the basement storeroom and wedged her tote bag in the doorway. Then she lifted the boxes one by one onto their places on the shelf and, now that she was down here, decided to look for the box labelled:
Handbag stall, Box 7
Just a little peek in there wouldn’t hurt anyone, she reasoned.
She just wanted to check, she told herself, that all was well.
Spotting the box, she took it down and opened the flaps – and there it was.
The immaculate Devon bag, so impeccably made by The Row.
Tan, shiny as a conker, with a heavy gold zip that screamed quality.
She ran her hands over the satiny calf-skin surface.
She knew she had fallen in handbag love.
It was too late – she was already mentally pairing the bag with her camel coat and her brown boots.
New, the Devon would cost four thousand pounds. Four. Thousand. Pounds. She stroked the flawless leather. ‘You’d be wasted on anyone else,’ she said, fully aware she was now talking to a handbag.
She’d been so virtuous earlier, pricing the bag at ￡2,400 and putting it into this box, instead of sticking through a much smaller personal donation and rushing the bag home with her. Maybe just one tiny try-on… before saying a mental goodbye and trying to forget about it forever.
So, the bag was out, over her shoulder, and –
Click.
Darkness.
The light was off. Then the door sort of sighed with the pressure of an internal draft and pushing her tote bag out of the room, shut with the definite click of a Yale lock. Oh, for crying out loud!
She was in pitch blackness, without the slightest glimpse of light, complete blackness with boxes on the floor, bags on the floor, quite the obstacle course between her and the door.
She held the handbag to her chest. ‘They’re going to find me like this,’ she whispered, ‘in the dark, hugging a ￡2,400 handbag – from a charity sale!’
She had to calm the heck down and get out of this room before anyone appeared and jumped to any wrong conclusions.
The light was just on the other side of the door, she reasoned.
Yes, the door was locked, but the lock’s release knob was on her side.
She just had to find the door. She turned and slowly, gingerly, stepped forward, trying not to trip.
There were boxes everywhere and something metal scraped underfoot.
‘Completely fine,’ she told herself. ‘Just logically following the shelving to the door.’ Except she had lost her bearings and was already picturing that scene from Silence of the Lambs.
If Paula hadn’t gone home, Annie would probably already have been rescued instead of being down here auditioning for a true-crime re-enactment.
Annie!!
She put her hand out and touched a shelf. ‘OK, I can follow the shelf and get out of here… eventually. I can,’ she told herself, mentally promising that she was never, ever falling for another handbag again.