The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (22 page)

       
‘After all, it’s such an important occasion for them.’

       
I could kill Tim. I
really
could kill him.

       
But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose any of their precious points.

       
A mad dash to the inhouse shop reveals that it’s closed Sunday afternoons. And no amount of pleading and bribing seems to be able to sway the sinewy little lentil-eating manager to open up. So that leaves only one option  ...

       
Cue me getting back in the car and breaking the land-speed record to my parents’ house. Making a hasty choice between my mother’s post-mastectomy orange, purple and lime-green floral swimsuit, and a chlorine-eaten bikini I last wore when I was fourteen. The floral wins hands down. Dry-shaving my bikini line with Dad’s razor, throwing a homespun beaded kaftan (one of Mum’s latest sewing projects) on top of the swimsuit. Caking my excruciatingly itchy and sore bikini line with Millie’s zinc nappy cream (which I find in my handbag) while stopped at the traffic lights en route back to the hellhole. And arriving back in time for the diving session. With seconds to spare.

       
But it gets worse.

       
At long last, I come face to face with Alex.

       
The ‘Alex’ that Tim spends most of his living hours with at work in Bangalore and London. The ‘Alex’ that he and the boys went out with for a riotous New Year’s Eve ball, while I stayed at home with a feverish Millie. The ‘Alex’ that calls him into work at all times of the day and night to fix system-test failures. ‘Alex’ bloody ‘Alexandra’, the most exquisitely beautiful, articulate, intelligent woman I have
ever
met. An Indian bloody beauty queen in a black halter-neck swimsuit with an impossibly small cinched waist.

       
Why had Tim failed to mention that Alex was not a bloke? It’s always, ‘Alex and the guys this ... Alex and the guys that  ...’

       
‘Jane, it’s
so
lovely to meet you,’ she says with a plummy accent and offers her perfectly manicured hand. ‘Tim’s told me
so
much about you and Millie. He talks about you
all
the time.’ How much time do they get to talk, exactly? I don’t know if I want her knowing about me and Millie. At all.

       
I feel stupidly uneasy.

       
But most of all, I feel
stupid
.

The instructor pronounces Alex a natural at diving. She emerges from the pool like Ursula Andress from the sea in
Dr No
and slinks straight over to Tim’s side. I note that her waterproof make-up has remained immaculate, along with her chestnut-brown ponytail. It’s downright criminal to look so good without shoes on.

       
Alex credits her flexibility and calmness up on the three-metre springboard to the yoga that she teaches at the staff wellness centre in Bangalore.

       
‘It’s my own form of yoga, which has been passed down from my great-great-grandmother – sort of yoga-meets-Kama Sutra. I can do most of the positions from the comfort of my bed,’ she purrs.

       
Blimey, she makes Rachel look like the international leader of the Christian Youth Chastity Foundation.

       
I lock a piercing gaze on Tim, who has conveniently yet to meet me in the eye, and wonder if his startling new bedroom skills are more to do with Alex than the yoga per se.

       
Please, no
.

       
And naturally, when it’s my turn to stand atop of the three-metre springboard, I remove my kaftan to reveal visibly trembling legs and GIANT globules of nappy cream. My only option is to dive into the pool as quickly as possible.

       
But alas, dive is too dignified a word. I leap – the most awkward, ungracious kamikaze leap humanly possible. Crashing into the water in a lopsided jumble of arms and legs. While underwater, I pray desperately that the lost city of Atlantis will suddenly appear and whisk me away from this living nightmare. But to no avail.

       
I emerge from the pool with a thumping headache and a nasty red mark down the entire right side of my body.

       
But at least Tim and his team got their bloody points.

       
And oh, did I face my fears!

Tim and I don’t talk much before dinner. Or during dinner, for that matter. With the no-shoe rule waived, the seating is arranged so that Alex and her pythonskin platform stilettos are at the head of the table, with her two managers, Tim and Charlie, on either side of her. Alex’s partner is conveniently at a conference in Belgium this weekend.

       
‘No children,’ Hannah whispers cautiously, when I ask her. I should have guessed Alex is one half of a ‘power couple’.

       
Hannah and I have been banished to the lower end of the table alongside the junior computer programmers and their partners. I’m
really
peeved. Hannah, though a little more distracted than usual, is perfectly fine with this. But then she would be, because she is one of the nicest, most self-effacing people I know.

       
As it turns out, Hannah seems to be on familiar terms with most of the programmers, and is also ‘in’ on most of their work stories and jokes from Bangalore. As each conversation goes over my head, I can’t help but feel totally out of the loop, and eventually give up on asking Hannah to explain things to me. I simply sit in silence, looking achingly inadequate and boring.

       
And to top things off, Tim’s wearing new shoes that Alex, of course, helped him to buy. (I’ve always bought his shoes – I may as well hand over my wedding ring right now.) Actually, the whole team has new shoes (courtesy of a factory near Bangalore that’s relocated from Norwich) as well as Hollywood-whitened teeth. All perks in their cheap-as-chips staff wellness programme.

       
I wish Trinny and Susannah would come and give
me
a makeover.

       
I spend the evening in a complete fog. With every wild drinking story from Bangalore that Tim and Alex are seemingly at the centre of, I’m increasingly frozen with uncertainty and mistrust.

       
I no longer hear words – just loud noises blurring into one another. The macrobiotic, biodynamic feast is wasted on me too. My mouth is so dry I can hardly chew, let alone swallow. And even if I did manage to eat anything, it would most certainly not get past the enormous lump lodged in my burning throat.

       
Time stands still, and yet goes on for ever.

       
I gather every ounce of dignity I can muster not to burst into tears.

It’s now 5 a.m. The bed is empty beside me. I can just hear, above the morning birdsong, the faint creak of the door being carefully opened. Tim takes off his clothes and shoes, and trips over my stilettos before sliding into bed. All I can smell is the unmistakable scent of Chanel No. 5.

       
I wear Issey Miyake.

       
My stomach turns.

       
We don’t touch.

       
I want to find Alex and tell her to keep away from my husband. But I think back over the car journey and my embarrassing performance at the diving centre. And I wonder if, just maybe, I’m doing a fine enough job of driving him to her myself.

www.ShoePrincess.com
 
Perfect Match
 
I read in a magazine recently that we’re supposedly attracted to life partners with similar facial features to our own. Naturally, I prefer to think that people are far more likely to be compatible if they wear similar shoes! A cursory glance around the airport, en route to the first-class lounge, revealed the following Shoe Couples:
Hikers
– matching mountain boots and Gore-tex backpacks.
Celebs
– stylist-coordinated his ’n’ hers designer shoes in complementary colours.
Funkies
– concerted effort to wear green or purple shoes of individualistic styling.
Conservatives
– high-quality brogues and flat mules or kittens.
Glamazons
– white shiny heels, and LOTS of bling.
Mums ’n’ dads
– sensible loafers and lace-ups, or matching white trainers.
Trendy trainer sneaker freaks
– say no more.
Mirrors
– same shoes, same sex.
Hippies
– flip-flops, ankle ties and bells; felt vegetable-dyed moccasins.
Sasquatches
– big and comfy shoes. The collective style of a sack of potatoes.
Bikers
– black-leather biker boots.
Cowboys ’n’ cowgirls
– matching, well-worn tan leather cowboy boots.
 
London Calling
 
Q: How does a SP know she’s in London and not Manhattan?
A: A gruff cabbie will mutter a stream of expletives under his breath during the whole three blocks you’ve asked him to take you in your skyscraper stilettos. And, if you happen to be in W1, he declines to pick you up altogether, assuming you’re a high-class call girl.

20. Flat Out

From:                Sophie (work)

To:                Jane (home)

Subject:        RE: Woof Woof I am a DOG!

Sophie is out of the office today on holiday, and I am taking care of her emails. Perhaps she could contact you when she returns.

       
Very best

       
Edward

Oh dear. Stupid, stupid me.

       
I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later. Given how much Sophie and I correspond via her work email. But why this email? Why couldn’t we have been discussing the morality of the Iraq invasion? Or the deep and meaningful insights from our latest reading of Proust (in French, of course)? Why her boss? Oh, I hope I haven’t got her into trouble. She’s always telling me how they’re just about tolerating her at work these days. I’ll give her a call when Millie goes down for her sleep today – as I’m positive that ‘holiday’ is code for staying-at-home-to-look-after-Hugh because of Rhiannon’s recurring bronchitis.

       
I blame it all squarely on Trinny. You see, I certainly did get the makeover that I so desperately wanted. It’s just that she shouldn’t have told me (OK, maybe not me
personally
, but a pear-shaped, fat-ankled housewife
exactly like me
) that greasy, lank hair dribbling down each side of one’s face to one’s shoulders resembles a dog’s ears – a spaniel’s to be exact.