How Not to Shop (28 page)

'It's a nice name,' Owen insisted, crouching right down in front of the dog. As soon as it saw him on his knees, the hairy little mutt bounced right into his lap, knocking him onto his back. Then, while Owen giggled hilariously, the dog began to lick all over his face and mouth.

'Eeeeeugh! Owen, not on your face! No, Owen!' was Annie's horrified reaction, though she still had to smile at the obvious enthusiasm dog and boy had for each other.

'Annie.' Ed was in the hallway now, 'hello!'

He held out his arms and folded her up in them.

'I have a headache,' she said, resting her forehead on his woolly shoulder.

'Yeah,' he said, patting her gently on the head. 'So you've met Dave then?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'So, what do you think about him?'

'He's totally disgusting, but Owen seems to like him,' was her reply.

Ed put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her gently back so he could look her in the face. With concern, he began: 'Are you really OK about it? I thought you'd be much more . . .'

'Am I OK about it?' she repeated with surprise. 'I've been sacked, I'm completely hungover, I've been on a train living off salt and vinegar crisps for six hours. I'm not in the mood to be OK about anything!' she exclaimed. 'But I'm trying to get used to the idea.'

'Oh, poor Annie,' he sympathized, pulling her in to his shoulder again, 'I think it's going to be fine . . . I think it's all going to work out somehow.'

'Annie!' Fern called out from the sitting room, 'come and see me!'

'I didn't know Mum was coming to visit us,' Annie whispered to Ed.

'She arrived an hour ago. She thought it was my birthday today and she said that she wanted to give us all a surprise.'

'Really? She just turned up without phoning or anything?' Annie asked. This was unusual. Fern wasn't really a surprise kind of person, she liked to plan and organize in advance.

'Yes,' Ed confirmed.

'Well, that is a bit strange. Can she stay the night? So we can keep an eye on her.'

'Yes, I think she'll be fine with that. She's OK, Annie,' Ed added, 'she just seems a bit forgetful.'

'Annie!' Fern shouted again.

'I'm coming, Mum!'

'Where are the girls?' Annie asked Ed, assuming that Lana and Elena were out.

'They've gone to the shops together to get some things.'

'Together?'

'Well, I've let Lana go out and meet Elena in a café, but she's promised to be home by seven for supper,' Ed said with a sigh. 'Lana is besotted. There is no other word.'

'Oh boy.'

Annie set her bag down in the hall and went into the sitting room to see her mum.

'Hey you!' she said, greeting her with a big hug, 'what's up, then? Ed says you've gone round the bend.'

'I have, darlin', there's no other word for it,' Fern replied but with a smile.

'You look all right,' Annie told her and this was true. Fern had dressed smartly for the surprise visit in a pastel pink skirt suit with her hair freshly blow-dried and her make-up carefully applied.

'I look fine,' Fern assured her.

'What's the matter then?' Annie asked, sitting down beside her on the sofa.

'There are just these blanks in my day when I know I've been somewhere, or done something, or I know I should have done something . . . but I have absolutely no idea what it was,' Fern explained, her brow creasing with concern.

'Isn't that normal, Mum?' Annie asked, patting her reassuringly on the arm. 'Aren't those just senior moments? They're coming to us all. I'm always running up the stairs to get something and by the time I'm at the top, I've completely forgotten what the hell it was.'

'I don't know . . .' Fern began.

'Have you told your doctor?' Annie wondered. 'Have you talked it over with him? Maybe it's something to do with the pills you're taking for the high blood pressure.'

'He's away,' Fern said thoughtfully. 'I thought I'd better go and see him when he gets back next week.'

'Yeah,' Annie agreed, 'I can come with you, if you like. Or maybe Dinah.'

'Is Dinah going to come over tonight?' Fern asked brightly.

'I don't know. I'm seeing her tomorrow, so why don't we get her to come round then if she can't make it tonight. You'll stay, won't you? Stay for a few days? Just so that we can keep an eye on you, make sure you're OK.'

'Yes,' Fern smiled, 'I'll stay.'

Just then Ed came into the room with a glass of orange juice in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other.

'I presumed you'd be detoxing,' he said to Annie with a smile as he handed Fern the gin and tonic.

'You know me so well,' she smiled back, gratefully accepting the orange juice.

Owen followed Ed in, carrying the little dog. It had calmed down now and seemed to be accepting the lift quite peacefully. Annie looked at it with distaste again. It was one of those wiry-coated, fuzzy brown things. A border terrier? But its legs seemed too long. Well, what had Owen said? It was a rescue dog, it was probably some cross of several different breeds. A right little mutt.

When had her mum
ever
said anything about wanting a dog? And why would she want a scrubby little dog like that?

'What on earth made you get the dog, Mum?' Annie asked, with a roll of her eyes. 'Now that really was flipping madness!'

'What dog?' Fern asked, looking at her with round eyes.

Annie nearly gasped with shock. Her mum had forgotten the dog? She must be bad! Really bad. What was the term? Dementing?

'The dog,' Annie repeated, then pointed at the little mutt in Owen's arms, 'What made you decide to get him?'

Now everyone in the room was looking astonished. Owen's mouth made a little O of surprise.

'That is a dog, isn't it?' Annie asked, 'I'm not seeing things?'

'Dave isn't Granny's. He's ours!' Owen said, his arms fiercely protective around the creature.

For a long moment there was silence. Annie was too shocked to even form the word
What
?!

'Dave's our dog,' Owen repeated, 'Aren't cha, boy?' he rubbed the dog's head vigorously and the dog responded by licking his hand.

'Ed!' Annie exclaimed, glaring over at him, 'why didn't you? . . . Why didn't we? . . . You've not said one, single word . . .'

'I thought you just said you were OK with it,' Ed said in his defence.

'OK with it?!' Annie repeated, 'I thought he was Mum's!'

'I've been trying to mention the idea . . .' Ed began.

'Well you can't have tried very hard,' she hissed, desperately wanting to shout but feeling restrained by the presence of both her mum and her clearly dog-devoted son. 'An ugly, deaf, rescue dog?' she exclaimed. 'Is this your idea of a joke? Or maybe this is your idea of a substitute? Your substitute for a you-know-what?'

'Oh dear,' Owen said into the expectant pause that followed this remark.

'I'm sorry . . . sorry. I shouldn't be saying any of this in front of you,' Annie muttered.

'No. Oh dear – I've just stood in a puddle,' Owen admitted and held out his wet, dog-wee-soaked sock for everyone to see.

Dinah's wine bar look:

Brown and blue long-sleeved minidress (T-Bags, via Annie)
Brown belt (Topshop)
Blue beads (jewellery box)
Bright blue tights (Topshop)
Funky brown boots (Camper sale)
Total est. cost: £90

'Stay away from the hairdresser's until
you're feeling better.'

'And so, to recap,' Dinah began as she snuggled in a little closer to her sister, happy that they'd managed to snag their favourite booth seat in their favourite wine bar, 'you've been unceremoniously sacked from your TV star job. You're going to be edited out of the programme. You've got no money. You've got to drum up your own business from scratch all over again. Your partner is in a baby frenzy and you're not going there. Our mum is possibly beginning to lose it. Your daughter's hanging out with a Russian supermodel/hooker in waiting—'

'Ten p.m.!' Annie broke in, 'They finally came home at ten o'clock last night, only after we phoned them four times. And they smelled of smoke. If Elena starts Lana smoking, I will kill her. I'll kill both of them!'

'Then we have your son,' Dinah went on, 'who is totally in love with a hideous dog you'd like to destroy.' Dinah raised her eyebrows, rolled her eyes and couldn't resist a smile. 'Hey, I'm only doing IVF. And I am feeling so much better about it, already,' she added.

At least this made Annie laugh briefly.

'And I hate my hair,' Annie added.

'Your hair?' Dinah turned to take a look at the offending ponytail. 'The colour looks fine. What's to hate about it?'

Annie ran her hands grumpily over the ponytail: 'This!' she said, 'Do you know how many years I've been wearing my hair like this?'

'No,' Dinah had to admit.

'Twelve years!'

'Well, it's a trademark hairstyle. Everyone knows you're the one with the bouncy blonde ponytail.'

'Trademark? No, I think you mean rut.'

'Well some people just have trademark hair: Anna Wintour's bob, Jerry Hall's blonde mane, Annie Valentine's ponytail.'

'Do you know what I would do to a client who'd been wearing the same hairstyle for twelve years? I would take her by the arm and frog-march her to a new hairdresser.'

'Well . . .' Dinah sipped at the glass of sparkling mineral water in front of her. Obviously she wasn't drinking, she was in the state of pre-pregnancy purity recommended by the clinic. 'Could it be that with so much going on and so much to stress about you're transferring all that angst onto your hair?'

'Oooooh,' Annie elbowed her gently in the ribs, 'get you, Dr Dinah. Yeah, you're probably right.'

'I would stay away from the hairdresser's until you're feeling better. Remember when you got that mullet, when we were still at school?'

Both of them snorted at the memory.

'And it took sooo long to grow out,' Annie lamented.

'Seriously,' Dinah picked up her water as Annie drank another mouthful of wine, 'Mum first. Is she OK?'

'Well, you saw her. Tonight she seemed totally fine, yesterday she seemed fine. Well, apart from turning up out of the blue. I said I'd go to the doctor's with her when he gets back from his Caribbean cruise or whatever.'

'I can go if you can't,' Dinah added.

'Yeah, I know. Maybe we should both go. See what he thinks.'

'So what are you going to do for cash?' was Dinah's next question.

'Same old, same old,' came Annie's reply: 'phone up all my trusty old girls, tell them to take me shopping with them for a "seasonal refresh", phone up my friend Mr Timi Woo, see if he'll sell me some of his fancy shoes to flog on eBay – all that kind of thing. Been there, done that, scraped by on it before . . .'