How Not to Shop (21 page)

And they weren't here.

Annie made a cursory search of the room, but it was so small, there just wasn't anywhere else they could be. She opened the wardrobe but it was crammed full, there was no way the bags were in there. She went back to the bedroom and made a search. Not under the bed, not in the cupboards, not on top of the cupboards.

From the top of the stairs, she called down to Ed.

'Ed, where are my bags? From my office? The big laundry bags full of my spare clothes?'

There was a silence.

Oh this was so childish, was he going to do that whole sulking and not talking to her thing?

'ED!' she repeated, more loudly this time. 'Where are my laundry bags? From the office?'

Ed came out of the sitting room and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

'Laundry bags?' he asked, putting one hand on top of his head, as if this would somehow help him to think more clearly.

'Big blue and white chequered ones,' she explained.

'Owen had bags like that. He bought a whole load of them at the market to help him with his charity clearout.'

The words were falling from Ed's lips as both Annie and Ed realized what this could mean.

'He used laundry bags for the clearout?' Annie asked with horror. 'I'll have to wake him up!' she exclaimed. 'I've got to find out if he went into my office.'

'No,' Ed insisted, 'it can wait until the morning.' Annie's head was reeling as she tried to make an inventory of all that could have been lost.

The charity clearout?!

'Where's everything been taken?' she asked Ed with a wail.

Maria in service:

Blue cotton dress (Harveys workwear)
White apron (same)
Supportive white lace underwear (Rigby & Peller via Svetlana)
White leather clogs (Ward Walker)
Support tights (Elbeo)
Total est. cost: £120

'Oh, Mr Harry!'

It was a bright, blue-skied morning in Mayfair. The housekeepers had already washed the windows, swept and mopped down the marble entrance halls and steps. Handymen had vacuumed lawns, trimmed topiary to millimetre perfection and watered the window-boxes and bay trees at the doors.

A black cab pulled up outside number 7 and Harry stepped out, dressed in a colourful brown and red tweed jacket and red cord trousers, bearing an enormous bunch of flowers. The bouquet was so laden with exquisite and luxurious blooms that Harry needed two hands to hold it up. When he got to the shiny door, he struggled for a moment to balance the flowers in one hand so that he could ring the bell.

He announced his name to the intercom and after several long, fraught minutes, during which he worried and paced back and forth across the top step, the door was opened by Svetlana's neatly turned out maid.

'Hello, Mr Harry,' the maid smiled. 'Miss Wisneski says to you, please to come in.'

'That is so very kind of you,' Harry told her.

'I take the flowers?' the maid offered.

'They are awfully heavy,' Harry warned, 'I think I should carry them to her myself.'

'If you like. Beautiful flowers!' she added.

'Maria, I will bring an even bigger bouquet for you the next time.'

'Oh, Mr Harry!' she laughed.

As she'd been instructed, Maria showed Harry into the downstairs sitting room where he paced the antique parquet floor – salvaged from a crumbling French château and imported at vast and astronomical cost to W1.

He breathed in the intoxicatingly spicy scent of Svetlana's home and wished he could be transported back in time to yesterday morning, when everything had been absolutely fine. When he'd been just weeks away from making this fascinating creature his wife.

He still had no idea what he'd done or what had gone wrong. He was still none the wiser as to why she had suddenly phoned him up on Friday morning to tell him that she needed to 'press pause' not just on the wedding but on their entire relationship. No use trying to talk her out of it, she'd insisted, she'd given this a lot of thought and she'd made her decision.

Because of an inescapable work commitment, he'd been unable to come here to try and change her mind last night, but that hadn't stopped him trying to call her every twenty minutes. Now that it was Saturday morning, he'd come as soon as he thought she'd be up.

He didn't care what he had to do, or how long it was going to take, there wasn't the slightest doubt in Harry's mind that he had to win Svetlana back.

In the vast mirror with the ornate golden frame above the mantelpiece, Harry looked at his reflection. There was a gleam of sweat on his large, white forehead, so balancing the bouquet awkwardly on his raised knee, he took a clean, ironed white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the dampness away.

Looking in the mirror again, he now caught the reflection of the painting hanging on the wall behind him.

Ye gods!
he couldn't help thinking,
that's a Warhol! Maybe this woman is completely out of my league.

'Bye-bye my darlings!'

He could hear that Svetlana was now downstairs in the hall kissing her two boys – Petrov, aged nine, and Michael, seven – goodbye.

Such well-behaved, solemn little boys, Svetlana thought as she ruffled Michael's dark hair and pinched his chubby cheek gently with her thumb and forefinger.

Maria immediately approached with a brush in her hand and smoothed the boy's hair back into place, shooting Svetlana a look.

'I miss you on Saturdays,' Svetlana told her children. 'Be good darlings and I see you at suppertime, ya? Maybe I come eat with you?'

Both boys smiled at this unusual prospect.

'OK, you go now,' Svetlana instructed and watched as they went down the steps and towards the back door of their father's car which the driver was already holding open.

As soon as the boys were in the car, Svetlana turned to the drawing-room door and burst into the room in a swirl of fragrance and fuchsia chiffon: 'Harrrrrrrrry!' she announced with one of her broadest smiles, 'vat vonderful flowers!'

She plucked the bouquet from him, placed it on the coffee table then threw herself into his arms instead.

'I've missed you!' she declared and pressed her lips against his, giving him a hit of Chanel lipstick.

'You've missed me?' he spluttered, when the welcome kiss was finally over, 'but I'm here, I've been here . . . I've been trying to phone you all night. You just needed to say and I would have rushed over!'

The surprise in his voice was obvious. He hadn't expected to be welcomed back so eagerly. Was this just some little game she'd been playing?

'I know,' Svetlana said, taking hold of his hand, 'I've been a verrry silly, silly girl.'

With these words, she led him out of the downstairs drawing room and towards the stairs, to her more cosy, less formal sitting room.

'We talk . . .' she told him, 'we make up . . .' she purred.

Harry trotted obediently in her wake, blissfully unaware that it was Uri's unexplained, last-minute date cancellation which had helped Svetlana to change her mind.

As Svetlana and Harry made their way to the privacy of the upstairs sitting room, a second taxi was pulling up at the far end of the street. It wasn't a black cab this time, but a battered old minicab: a silver Nissan with rust spots and a dangerously low-slung exhaust. There was no fare to pay as the driver was doing the passenger a favour, because they had a mutual friend.

The side door opened and the passenger stepped out. Her red stiletto heel struck the tarmac with a crack. A very long, very slim leg tightly encased in skinny jeans followed. Finally narrow hips, a slim waist and willowy arms, showcased in a tight scoop-necked jumper. The long waterfall of blonde hair, the creamy face and glassy grey eyes, were stunning. But there was a determination to this girl. She was not just a pretty face. She looked as if she was a girl with a cause. A girl on a mission.

She'd popped the boot open and was hauling out her two substantial bags before the driver had even made it round to the back of the car to help her, but she assured him that she was fine. With strong arms and shoulders, she lifted the bags onto the pavement, then pulled out the handles so she could wheel them along.

With her head held high, she began to march purposefully towards number 7, heels rapping loudly on the pavement.

* * *

In the cosy upstairs sitting room, Svetlana was keeping Harry happy. Whether or not there was going to be anything on the cards with Uri, Svetlana had decided that she still needed Harry in the meantime, until it was a little more definite.

Harry was kissing her neck tenderly. 'What do you want me to do?' he asked as his hands untied the belt of her dress, loosening the fabric so it fell away from her body. 'What would you like?' he breathed against the skin at the nape of her neck as she slid down against the soft velvet of the sofa. He opened the front of her dress and stroked the pink satin of her bra in a way that made her nipples tingle with excitement.

Harry was without doubt the most considerate lover she had ever had. Well, for decades, anyway. Not since she was young and foolish had there been a man as kind as this in her life.

She was, even she had to admit it, going to make love to him for her sake. Not just for his. For her sake, because she really wanted to, because her body was now moving towards him and his touch.

Unlike any other lover she'd had before, nothing seemed to satisfy him as much as knowing she had come. Nothing made him happier than feeling her come strongly inside, right with him. Right against him. Pulsing with him. Whenever she'd faked it with him, in their early days, he'd shaken his head and told her lovingly, 'Please don't do that. I can tell nothing is happening down there. We'll just have to try something else until you come too.'

This had been a surprise to her. And she'd been so sure that she would be the one teaching him everything that she had learned.

Just as Harry had put his face against her navel and begun to bite lightly, just the way she wanted him to . . . Svetlana heard the strident blast of the doorbell.

'What now?' she snapped, moving Harry's head away and sitting upright.

She certainly wasn't expecting anyone to call. Her boys had gone to their Chinese lesson (their father's idea) this morning, then they were having lunch with Igor.

Svetlana heard the front door being opened and a brief conversation taking place. Then the door was closed and Maria began to walk up the stairs towards the door of the sitting room.

Svetlana adjusted her dress and tied the belt back on firmly. She smoothed down her hair and tucked the loose strands in behind her ears. Not that she cared what her maid thought . . . but maybe there was someone at the door who might have to be shown in.

Maria came into the room. 'Miss Wisneski, sorry I disturb. But there is a girl downstairs who say she need to talk with you.'

'Who is she?' Svetlana asked.

'I not know. She say only she need talk with you. Urgent.'

'What does she look like?'

'She young and foreign,' was all that Maria volunteered.