Celebrity Shopper (35 page)

‘It’s OK,’ Lana soothed, ‘it’s OK, really. It’s fine.’

Halfway down the stairs she suddenly remembered about nappies. Wasn’t she supposed to change their nappies before they ate? Or would it be after they ate?

She tried to crane a look at Minnie’s behind. There wasn’t any terrible smell coming from either of the babies but those bottoms looked big, as if the nappies were swollen with wetness.

Yes. She would do nappies first, and then maybe, by the time she’d done that, everyone would be back to rescue her from the terror of trying to give the twins a meal.

Back in the bedroom, Lana mentally ran through a nappy-changing plan. OK, she would put Minnie back in her cot and change Micky first.

No, she would put both babies in the cot and arrange the
changing mat, wipes, nappies and cream all together on the floor before she got the first baby out.

As soon as she put the babies into their beds they began to wail, so now she was working in a stressed and panicky way, wanting everything to be sorted out as quickly as possible so she could get this over with.

Changing mat down, wipes, nappies, cream … OK. She hadn’t actually done a nappy herself yet, but if Owen could do it, how hard could it be?

Lana brought Micky out first, because he seemed to be crying the loudest, but as soon as she did that, Minnie set up an outraged, ear-bursting protest which almost made Lana change her mind.

‘C’mon, it’s OK,’ she tried to soothe them both. ‘I’m just going to do Micky’s nappy and then I’ll do yours, Minnie.’

She laid Micky down on his back. He promptly rolled over on to his front. She tried to roll him back, but he resisted with surprising force.

‘C’mon, Micky, where’s your nappy?’ she said, handing it to him as she wrestled with the poppers on his sleep suit.

His great big soaking nappy was finally off. She wiped him clean, applied cream and then tried to wrestle the nappy out of his hands. He wouldn’t give it up.

‘Lana needs the nappy,’ she told him. ‘Yes she does.’ She leaned her face a little closer and felt a jet of warm wetness hit her in the face.

No!

Her baby brother had
not
just peed in her face. NO!

But there was the little willy waving from side to side like a miniature hose, soaking not just Lana but the changing mat, the new nappy and his outfit.

‘Micky! Oh Micky,’ she complained.

She picked him up and grabbed at the towel hanging over the end of the bed.

‘Stop crying, Minnie, please,’ she begged the distraught twin imprisoned in the cot.

With the towel, Lana dabbed at her face, the mat and everything else caught in Micky’s range.

Then she took off Micky’s sleep suit and looked about for something else to change him into. Only one of Min’s little pink Babygros was within reach. Oh, it would hardly matter, would it? Lana thought to herself as she hamfistedly bundled Micky into his nappy and then, limb by protesting limb, into the little pink suit.

There.

She put him into the cot, where he promptly burst into tears, and she took Minnie out.

This nappy change went a little more smoothly. Well, Minnie somehow got hold of the nappy cream and had it on her fingers, her hair, the mat and Lana’s top before Lana had even noticed, but apart from that …

Once both babies were back in her arms, Lana was astonished to see that it was 6.30 p.m., it was almost dark outside and, since no one had bothered to come back and help her yet, she was going to have to attempt to feed the babies by herself.

Ed didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried when he saw the blue Land-Rover sitting in the car park at the start of the route he guessed Annie had been taken on.

‘Isn’t that the guide’s car?’ Owen asked. ‘They must still be on the hill.’

‘Well, I think so,’ Ed began carefully, ‘but we don’t know for sure. Someone else might have given them a lift. I keep thinking that your mum is probably in a pub somewhere, drinking a second glass of wine to ease the pain of her blisters.’

Owen gave a tense smile in reply to this.

They got out and went over to look in the car window. Ed could see a few belongings on the back seat: cords, an orange fleece and a pair of shoes. At a guess, these were the clothes the guide had left behind after changing into her Everest outfit. So, probably, they were all still out on their walk … maybe.

Owen and Ed looked at the great brooding hill in front of them. The gloomy grey light was fading fast, a chilly wind was blowing and, although it had stopped raining, there was a cold, damp feeling to the air. Annie was in a raincoat, dress and thin tights. If she was still out here, she would be soaked and completely freezing.

Ed looked at the map he had brought with him. There was a clear 10-mile walk marked around this hill. It was steep in the middle, he noticed.

If they had been out this long, they must surely have passed the mid-point and be heading back by now? But would they have done the loop and be walking home on the north face? Maybe they had decided to give the steep bit a miss and had doubled back, returning once again on the south path?

The thought that something might have happened out there on the steep part, 3 or 4 miles away from here, he didn’t want to dwell on. But it kept pushing its way to the forefront of his mind.

‘What if they’ve had an accident?’ Owen asked. He was clearly not pushing the thought away at all.

‘Owen, we’re going to switch on our torches, take our map and go and have a look for them. OK? Try not to worry,’ Ed added, giving Owen a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. ‘This is your mum we’re talking about. She is the toughest old boot on the planet. I promise.’

Owen didn’t laugh, he just gave Ed another of his tense little smiles.

‘North face,’ Ed decided, mainly because this would take him and Owen to the tricky bit of the walk as quickly as possible. If something had happened, Ed was almost certain it might have happened there.

It was 3 miles or so away. He looked at his watch. If they went at a really brisk pace, they could be there in about forty minutes.

‘Quick march,’ he instructed Owen.

‘Yessir,’ Owen replied.

For about fifteen minutes, they walked quickly, saying very little. Well, Owen said very little; Ed tried to make cheery, light-hearted conversation.

The ground beneath their feet was wet and squelchy and Ed wondered how Annie, in heels, had coped. Every step must have been an effort.

‘No camping or hillwalking since the babies were born, now two walks in one day,’ Ed said to Owen jokily.

‘Hmmm,’ was all the reply that Owen made.

Owen didn’t like the fact that all he could think about was the first hillwalk Ed had taken him on. That had been a soft, rolling strollable hill, just like this one. A big green chunk of hillside with big views out over the landscape just like this one. On that very first walk together, they’d been looking for the place where Owen’s real dad had fallen.

His dead dad.

‘I wonder how Lana’s getting on,’ Ed said next. ‘I just hope it’s not a complete disaster. Imagine if we come back and she’s fed them all …’ Ed trailed off. The jokes just wouldn’t come. He was suddenly feeling choked with anxiety about not just Annie but the babies too. There was so much that Lana could get wrong. What was he thinking? She wasn’t even a safe person to leave two babies with, let alone a capable one.

He looked round at Owen, who was walking a pace or
two behind him. He was distraught to see, even in the pale light of his torch, that Owen was struggling not to cry – and failing.

A tear was slipping down his cheek and his face was horribly pale.

‘Owen!’ Ed stopped immediately and put an arm around him. ‘Hey, Owen, try not to worry.’

But it was impossible not to worry. It was also impossible for either of them not to think about how Owen’s father had died.

‘You should at least have got married!’ Owen blurted out angrily. ‘What if Mum’s dead too? You’re not even my real stepdad! They might not let me stay with you and the twins! There was this guy at school and when his mum died, he had to go off and live with some aunt he’d never even met before!’

‘Hey, hey,’ Ed soothed, holding his arm tight around Owen’s shoulders. Ed felt his throat squeeze. It was fear, yes, definitely. What the bloody hell had Annie gone and done now? But it was love too. He absolutely loved Owen, just as much as his own children. ‘I’m your legal guardian,’ he reminded Owen, ‘but just as soon as we find your mum, which will be any moment now, you make sure you tell her that she
has
to marry me. OK?’

Svetlana on the hill:

Purple dress, very wet (Perfect Dress)
Soaked beige raincoat (YSL)
Crocodile slippers (DIY Zagliani)
Diamond rings (husband Harry)
Total est. cost: £25,800

‘This is a terrible song.’

‘Morven, wakey, wakey. We need you to tell us which direction we should be going in!’ Annie tried to sound cheery, but Morven had been sick again and was now far too drowsy for Annie’s liking.

Annie hobbled along in the hiking boots. Her red stilettos had been abandoned somewhere on the hillside along with Svetlana’s Louboutins. The boots were too small and crushed her toes almost as badly as the heels, but she did appreciate their infinitely superior gripping power.

Poor Morven was barefoot, apart from her Prada bandage, as Svetlana had had to use her hiking socks to keep the crocodile DIY moccasins on her feet.

The croc had proved its quality by being a very, very tough bugger to cut. Even if Svetlana had been carrying a needle and thread, the leather would have been impossible to sew. So Svetlana had surrounded her feet with the DIY croc sole, then pulled the socks on top to keep it in place.

Morven was finding it hard to hop now and Annie and Svetlana were dragging her down the hill, her weight a heavy load between them.

‘Come on, Morven,’ Annie encouraged. ‘Is this the path? We’re going downwards. Down is good. I’m sure we’ll be back at the car park soon.’

It was Annie’s small, unspoken fear that in the gloom they would miss the car park and be left wandering around this bloody hillside for the whole night.

She kept telling herself that she was a strong person and she could cope, but she was soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone, and totally exhausted with the walk and the weight of Morven on her shoulders. The cold wind blowing on to her wet hair was giving her a headache of monumental proportions and, worst of all, she was frightened for Morven. She needed to be seen right now by a doctor, or preferably a team of highly trained specialists, who could put her through all the tests and make sure she was going to be OK.

Little flashes of Roddy on life support kept appearing in Annie’s mind, making her so frightened that she just wanted to sit down and cry.

‘I have feeling someone will notice very soon and will come and help us,’ Svetlana said with determination.

Svetlana’s wet hair was clinging to her head, but her make-up was unmoved. Clearly she always applied the waterproof kind, and lashings of it. Whenever Annie glanced over at her and saw the determined chin pointing
ahead, the clenched hand with the mega-diamonds powering on, she took courage.

Ed knew hills and hillwalking, Annie told herself, he would know they should have been back ages ago. Surely he would do something?

But then there was no mobile phone signal, he might think she was sitting in a pub somewhere celebrating. Just the thought of this brought tears of frustration to the back of Annie’s eyes.

Good grief!

She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself, she wanted to pull herself together. ‘I think we should sing,’ she suggested out loud.

‘Ya. What songs you know?’ Svetlana asked.

For a moment, Annie’s mind was blank, and then she realized there was a tune which she had been humming in her head all day long, despite her best efforts to forget it.

Taking a deep breath, she began to blurt out: ‘ “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two …”’

When she had finished a verse of it, Svetlana’s verdict was harsh.

‘This is a terrible song,’ she declared. ‘I will sing Ukrainian song for you now. Will be much better.’

She was so competitive, it occurred to Annie. It didn’t matter what the arena was – best outfit, slimmest waist, richest husband, brightest child – Svetlana always wanted to come first. Now here she was on a mountain in the dark in this horrible situation and she wanted to sing the best song.

Svetlana began to belt out some marching anthem in her native tongue. It sounded great; she had a beautiful voice – was there no end to her talents? – and best of all it seemed to rally Morven a little.

‘We must be getting close,’ Annie encouraged the guide. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘My foot is killing me.’

‘I know how you feel,’ Annie couldn’t help agreeing.

Svetlana finished the song. Annie gave a little cheer, then decided to sing a fresh round of ‘Summer Holiday’ again, in the hope of jollying Morven along a little.