How Not to Shop (24 page)

For a moment, she was almost grateful for the lost clothes. Because of that trauma, Ed was not going to be able to feel as if he could say no to the guest.

'Someone's going to come and stay with us for a week or two,' Annie began.

'Really?' was Ed's surprised reply, 'who?'

'Well, this is really very top secret. I can tell you, but you can't tell anyone else and you can't tell the children.'

'What?' Ed sounded baffled. 'Who? In fact, should you tell me the gritty details if this is such a big secret? I might tell someone by mistake.'

'True. It's something to do with Svetlana . . .'

'Oh good grief,' was Ed's reaction, 'it's always something to do with Svetlana.'

'A relative of hers has to come and stay for a bit.'

'Why?' Ed demanded. 'She's richer than anyone we know, why can't she put them up in a hotel?'

'This is a top secret relative,' Annie said darkly.

'It's the Russian mafia, isn't it? We're going to have some drug lord hiding out in our house. I think you should just say no, Annie. Just nip this in the bud now before we have to change our names and go on the run.'

'Ed!' Annie told him off with a giggle, 'it's nothing like that. Nothing at all.'

When the conversation was over, Annie's mind turned back to Svetlana.

'
What do you mean, your daughter?!
' was the question she must have asked Svetlana four or five times at least.

It just did not compute. A daughter? Svetlana had two boys. She didn't talk about them much, but she was devoted to them. Her greatest fear had been that Igor would take them away from her during the divorce. But a daughter? There had never, ever been mention of a daughter. And Annie had a teenage daughter, not so different in age from Svetlana's surely? So would that not have sparked some sort of hint from Svetlana?

'You had her adopted as a baby?' Annie had asked her friend in astonishment.

'No. She went to distant relatives,' Svetlana explained. 'I was a model, I had money to pay them. I didn't want to give her avay completely. I thought this vay I could come back to her one day. But . . .' Svetlana had hesitated, before guiltily admitting, 'there was never good time.'

Of course Annie would take the girl in, but she was bewildered as to why Svetlana wouldn't take her in. Svetlana was the one with the Mayfair mansion.

'No-one can know about her until I'm married to Harry!' Svetlana had hissed. 'Otherwise Igor say I bring scandal to his name. I'm not supposed to have any secrets, Annah! This part of my contract . . . and Harry asked me before I sign, is there anything, anything Igor should know? Is there anything which he could use to spoil this deal? And I not tell him about Elena!'

'Harry loves you,' Annie had assured her, 'he knows you've been married three times, he knows you've been left penniless twice, he knows your sons will inherit one of the world's biggest gas fields, he knows you were Miss Ukraine . . . he knows everything that you've told him so far and he still loves you. So, tell him about your daughter!' Annie urged. 'He'll still love you and he'll help you.'

'No. I think, this . . . this too much,' Svetlana had insisted. 'She stay with you until I ready to tell him.'

Annie had only just arrived back home and broken the news of a house guest to Lana when they heard the rumble of a black cab's diesel engine in the street.

'That must be her!' Annie jumped up. 'C'mon, let's go and welcome her in.'

'Where's she going to sleep?' Lana wondered as they headed for the front door.

'Down in one of the basement rooms, maybe,' Annie suggested. 'It's about time we cleared them out.'

But she knew that was going to be a big job, not exactly the work of an afternoon. This was the problem with living in a big house, the spaces seemed to fill up without anyone even trying to fill them.

Annie opened the front door and set her most welcoming smile in place.

Then with their jaws dropping lower and lower, she and Lana watched Elena emerge from the taxi, stalk over to the driver's window, wiggle a wallet from the back pocket of her skinny jeans to pay him and then sashay towards the garden gate with her bags in tow, like two obedient puppies.

She's at least twenty!
was the first thought to cross Annie's mind, followed by:
she's absolutely gorgeous, but she looks like trouble.

Lana's polite smile had widened into something much more genuinely excited.

Ohmigod! Here she is!
Lana was telling herself,
My. New. Best. Friend!

Elena paused at the garden gate to look up at Annie and Lana perched on the front door steps.

'Hello, I am Elena,' she said cheerily in an accent just like her mother's. 'Thank you for inviting me to stay.'

'Come in!' Annie said, heading down the steps to help her with her bags, 'it's lovely to meet you. It's a surprise, but it's a very nice surprise. You're much more grown up than I expected.'

'Yes, I'm twenty-two,' Elena confirmed, 'my mother not tell you that because she alvays lying about her age, no?'

'How old is she?'

It was sneaky, but Annie felt she had to ask. This girl must know and it might be Annie's one and only chance to find out. In another day or so, Svetlana might have bribed Elena never to tell.

'Forty-five,' Elena confirmed.

Annie gave a little gasp. This wasn't much older than she'd expected, but boy, Svetlana must be on first name terms with a team of cosmetologists.

'She have me vhen she twenty-three.'

'She's never told me about you,' Annie said, her voice still full of surprise.

'Today first day I meet her,' Elena said. She was at the front door now, and held out her hand for Lana to shake.

'Hi there,' Lana managed shyly before adding in a burst, 'Elena can share my room . . . really it's not a problem. There's plenty of space. She doesn't have to go down to the basement. It's cold down there and kind of dark.

'No, I'm sure Elena . . .' Annie began her protest, absolutely sure that Elena and Lana should not share a room. This twenty-two-year-old looked altogether too slinky and calculating to inflict on a 16-year-old teenager with exams ahead of her.

'That vould be very kind,' Elena smiled, accepting Lana's offer straight away, 'sharing room no problem for me. I always share room, vhen growing up and at university.'

'You're at university?' Lana asked, ushering her into the hallway. 'What do you study?'

'Engineering at Kiev University,' Elena replied. 'I get scholarship.'

'Wow!' came Lana's impressed response.

'Do you like tea or coffee?' Annie asked as soon as Elena had been shown round the house and set her bags down in Lana's room.

'Coffee, please. Your house is so big and so beautiful!' she marvelled. 'No-one has money for such a big house in Ukraine.'

'No-one has the money here either,' Annie had to confide, 'but we just borrow more.'

'Ah yes. Crrredit crrrunch,' Elena said, settling down at the kitchen table, 've have in my country too. Is hard to get good job as engineer, but I hope maybe I can come back to London vhen I finished and get good job here. Maybe my mother help me to stay here.'

Annie marvelled at how easily Elena used the term 'mother' although she'd only met Svetlana for the very first time today.

'You must have thought about your mother a lot? Did anyone tell you anything about her?'

Elena gave a shrug of her slim shoulders.

'Only that she very beautiful and she leave country once I am born,' Elena replied.

'So she had you when she was twenty-three and then . . .' Annie had her back to Elena and was busying herself with the cafetière and the coffee grounds, partly so that Elena couldn't tell how very, very interested she was in this story.

'. . . you were brought up by relatives of hers?'

'Ya,' came Elena's reply, a little too short for Annie's liking.

'Do you know much about your father?' she prompted.

After giving a contemptuous snort, Elena replied, 'My father is politician. He was forty-eight vhen I was born, married, three sons, a very important man. This is vhy I am secret.'

'Oh . . .'

Annie brought the coffee over.

'Are you having some, Lanie?' she asked her daughter, trying for a moment to imagine not even setting eyes on her beloved girl for twenty-two whole years.

'Yes please,' Lana confirmed, eyes fixed on Elena. She didn't want to miss a word. Elena was definitely the most interesting thing to have happened in this house for some time.

'Were the people who looked after you kind?' Annie asked.

'Ya, but I alvays feel angry about this. I alvays want to know: who my mother? Vhy she leave me?' Elena said, managing in her halting English to convey some of her feeling.

'Maybe it was hard for her . . .' Annie began but Elena just snorted again.

'I think my father pay her big, big money to hide baby and go away. Problem solved. So,' Elena took a sip of coffee, 'she is on television now? And my father is big, important politician in Ukraine. I could make lots of trouble.' She gave a mischievous little smile.

Now Annie understood why she had been handed the Elena-bomb. Because it could go off at any moment, and Svetlana had immediately understood that Elena had to be housed with someone of diplomatic skill.

If you could tactfully advise long-haired polo-necked women who had been doing long hair and polo necks for thirty-odd years when the last things on earth which truly suited them were long hair and polo necks, then really what was a 22-year-old with a devastating, international pressworthy family secret?

'Svetlana told me today that your father never paid any money for you,' Annie ventured carefully. Instinctively she wanted to bridge the gap between Elena and her mother, 'she was the one who paid for your care. She had three rich and important husbands . . . maybe she would have liked to meet you, but she didn't want these important men to find out about you.'

'Ha!' Elena gave another shrug and snort.

'So, engineering . . .' Annie decided to change the subject to something less controversial, 'I don't know anything about engineering, unless you're talking about bras and corsets.'

'Mum!' Lana shrieked, embarrassed by her mother as usual.

'Yes! Bra!' Elena pointed at her own, to indicate that she'd understood this properly, 'much engineering in good bra. Especially big one,' she cupped her hands under her dainty little bosom to demonstrate.

As Annie and Lana laughed at this, there came the sound of the front door opening, then Owen's voice rang out into the hallway.

'Mu-uuuum!' he yelled, 'We've got
two
bags! We've got two of your bags and they've not been touched. Nobody's even looked inside them. Everything's folded and even smells just like the inside of your cupboard!'

He was in the kitchen doorway now, beaming at her happily.

Then he caught sight of Elena and dropped his gaze with shyness.