How Not to Shop (43 page)

Dinah just nodded.

Annie couldn't say anything either; instead she squeezed at Dinah's hand.

'OK, I'm going to leave you to get sorted out,' the nurse said, 'then we'll go to the consultation room and talk about what's going to happen next.'

As the nurse went out of the door, she turned the light back on. Now Annie could see Dinah's face properly. She looked incredibly calm.

'I'm so sorry,' Annie told her, not letting go of her hand.

'I didn't get my hopes up,' Dinah replied, 'we went through this four times before we got Billie.'

'I know . . . but wouldn't it have been wonderful if it had just worked first time this time?' Annie couldn't stop herself from asking. 'You were owed a really lucky break.'

'Billie was our lucky break,' Dinah reminded her gently.

To Annie, the room suddenly felt very small and far too warm. She stood up and felt beads of sweat spring up on her upper lip.

'I think I need a splash of cold water,' she told Dinah, 'I'll just go to the loo.'

She hurried to the adjoining bathroom, shut the door and ran the cold tap over her hands, then patted water onto her face. But it wasn't any use, there was a hard ball of nausea in her stomach. Turning to the toilet, to her astonishment, she threw up violently in the bowl.

'What the bloody hell is wrong with me?' she whispered weakly to herself afterwards. With a wet paper towel she wiped her hands and face and tried to pull herself together again, so she could go out and be with Dinah.

Now that she'd been sick, she felt better and mentally she began to go over all the things she'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours that might have caused a problem. Nothing obvious came to mind, but she would ask Ed what he thought. Maybe it was just worry . . . about her mother and now about Dinah.

Never mind. Never mind feeling sick, the important thing was to get back to Dinah's side. Opening the bathroom door slowly, hoping Dinah hadn't heard anything of what had just gone on in there, Annie stepped back out into the scanning room.

Dinah had moved from the couch onto a chair and sat with her head tucked into her chest. Despite her earlier calm, a low, desperate wailing was breaking out from the very heart of her now.

'Oh Dinah,' Annie cried, hurrying over to her side, 'Dinah,' she soothed putting an arm tightly around her. 'It's going to be fine. I promise you, it is going to be OK. They got you pregnant, that's the main thing. It means it can happen for you.'

The wail only stopped for the second or two it took Dinah to draw breath, then it carried on again. So low and so raw, it made Annie want to cry too.

Four times!
they were thinking. Dinah had gone through four miscarriages before Billie was born. Annie shuddered to think of her sister going through the same ordeal again.

'Come and stay with us tonight,' she said, rubbing Dinah's back, 'we'll distract Billie and I don't want you to be on your own.'

'Have a baby, Annie,' Dinah blurted out, 'please have a baby for all of us.'

The house seemed unusually quiet when Annie, Dinah and Billie arrived back. There was no barking from Dave, no Ed and no Owen. Just one of Ed's cats curled up in a ball on the sofa.

'Dog walk maybe,' was Annie's guess. 'Lana!' she shouted up the stairwell. 'She might know where everyone is. Come in,' she urged her guests, 'take off your coats, dump your bags, get into the kitchen. We'll make some supper, but maybe have a few biscuits first, Billie. Let me just go and tell Lana we're all here.'

Annie set off up the stairs, calling out her daughter's name. By the time she made it up to the attic level, she could see light coming out from under the door. Maybe Lana had her iPod on and couldn't hear Annie calling her. She rapped on the door and when there was still no reply, she opened it gingerly: 'Lana? It's Mum, are you OK?'

There on the bed, was Lana, curled into a ball, iPod in her ears, face wet with tears, sobbing as if she'd just heard the most terrible news ever.

'Lana?'

Annie rushed forwards.

Lana's revision wear:

Big grey cardigan (Ed's)
T-shirt (can't remember)
Jeans (Gap)
Slippers (Christmas)
Pencil in hair (school stationery cupboard)
Total est. cost: £70

'Don't talk to me . . .'

'So what is going on in there?' Connor pointed at the open sitting-room door as he followed Annie into the kitchen.

He'd spotted Lana at a big table set out in the middle of the room. She had her head bent over and was writing so furiously, a heap of school books in front of her, she hadn't even noticed Connor at first. But then had hissed: 'Don't talk to me, Mum will get mad.'

Annie scowled and when she'd closed the kitchen door she hissed, 'She is in so much trouble! She's not going back to school until the exams. I've signed her off sick.'

Annie ushered Connor to a seat.

'She is studying in the sitting room with old-fashioned books, pens and papers. She's banned from going anywhere near a computer. All those hours and hours and hours I thought she was studying away upstairs . . . all the things I thought she was busy researching on the internet. All the essays I thought she was writing. Ha!'

'And? What was she really doing?' Connor was desperate to know. He handed Annie the bottle of wine he'd brought with him, 'Open,' he instructed, 'So . . . running an internet porn empire? Surely at least a dating agency?'

'Shut up!' Annie told him off, 'she was running some whole little set-up on eBay! Selling all her friends' old clothes for them, buying cheap make-up and flogging it at school, trading CDs and DVDs – who knows what else. Pointless! All that time wasted! Then she realizes how little work she's done and has a total meltdown,' Annie ranted.

'On eBay . . . hmmm . . .' Connor couldn't resist smiling, 'remind you of anyone we know? Anyone at all? Anyone who also had a business selling Chinese shoes and secondhand bags and unwanted glad rags? She's following in her trader mum's footsteps!'

'Shut up,' Annie repeated, 'those days are all behind me now.'

'Yes, yes, we'll come on to that,' Connor said, accepting the glass of wine Annie had poured out for him, 'but how has Lana been sorted?'

'No computer,' Annie told him. 'No internet, no eBay, no pocket money and she has to cram. Good, old-fashioned cramming. Nine hours a day with meal breaks for the next fortnight, and I'm supervising.'

'Meal breaks? That's very thoughtful of you,' Connor teased.

'Well, it's too bad. This is how I passed my exams.'

'This is how I failed mine. I couldn't do it. Who can be bothered to have their heads stuck inside boring old books for
nine
hours a day.'

'Shhh!' Annie warned him, 'I don't want her to hear you. You are a totally bad influence.'

She looked at the glass of wine in front of her. It was one of those heavy, treacly, Australian reds that Connor was so fond of. Just thinking about taking a sip was making Annie's stomach feel acidic. She poured herself a glass of water without saying anything to Connor.

'OK, now tell me all about the fabulous you, you, you,' Connor said. He sat back in his kitchen chair. 'So you've snubbed Rafie boy . . .'

'But I have Jenny Belmont!' Annie announced, all wide-eyed with enthusiasm, 'Tamsin told me to try her and she's brilliant. Honestly, she is so tough and so cool and so sussed, I love her. Connor . . .' Annie's voice dropped almost to a whisper, 'I think this really could be it. Jenny and Tamsin are talking about the Big Time. One day in the not so distant future, people really might know about Trinny and Susannah, Gok Wan and . . . me!'

'You better believe it, baby,' was Connor's delighted response. 'So have you signed the big C?'

'This morning. That's why we're celebrating.'

'Is this a party?' he looked round the kitchen sceptically.

'It will be soon,' Annie assured him. 'Ed's picking Owen up from orchestra, which is why I'm meant to start the cooking . . .' she remembered, and headed to the fridge for the onions, 'Dinah and Bryan will be here in about an hour with Billie.'

'How are they doing?' Connor asked.

'OK-ish,' Annie told him carefully, setting up the chopping board and peeling an onion, 'they're having a big think about whether they really want to go through this all again. They have Billie, maybe Billie is going to be enough . . . we'll see. What about you?' she asked next. 'Are you and Hector still thinking about . . .'

'Might get a dog instead,' Connor told her with a wink as Dave padded into the kitchen. 'So how much are you getting then? It better not be more than me.'

'Ha-ha,' Annie responded, but then looked up from her onions with a grin and squealed, 'Jenny's upped it to ten thousand per episode!'

Connor whistled. 'Not bad!'

'And they're making six this year!' Annie added gleefully. 'And if there's another series . . .'

'You and Jenny hold out and haggle hard,' Connor finished her sentence, 'Congratulations. I am very, very proud of you. You are going to be terrific. I just know it.'

'Thank you,' she said.

'Now I must make dinner!' she reminded herself, after a long, happy moment of smiling delightedly at Connor. She took the packets of chicken legs from the fridge. She was to fry them briefly with the onions then put them in a big casserole dish with chopped tomatoes. By then Ed was supposed to be home to finish the dish off – dabble with herbs and stock and all that stuff she couldn't be bothered with.

As she took the pale pink legs out of the packet and heaped them up on the chopping board, she suddenly felt a lurch of sickness, the unexplained, low-level sickness which had been bothering her for some time now. There had been no vomiting since the scanning room but now she wasn't so sure.

She turned back to the table and groped for her glass of water.

'Whoa, what's the matter?' Connor asked with concern.

'Some kind of bug,' Annie mumbled. She gulped thankfully at the cool water. Phew, that was better. She ran a hand over her forehead . . . she was going to be fine.

Dave padded over to her and without any warning lay down right on top of her feet.

'Oh for goodness sake!' she exclaimed, bending over to move him out of the way, which was a mistake: right then, with a violent hiccup, she puked the whole glass of water and the watery remains of her lunch right out onto the floor, splattering Dave in the process.

'Annie!' Connor was at her side, catching hold of her arms and holding her up just as she thought she was going to crumple, 'I know you don't like the dog, but . . .

'Sit tight,' he instructed, moving her onto a chair. 'Dave!' he called sharply to the dog which was shooting across the kitchen floor bound for the sitting room where he was no doubt intending to roll on a sofa and dry off his wet, vomit-soaked fur. Amazingly, Dave spun round and looked at Connor. 'Sit!' Connor commanded.

Dave looked at Connor, then turned and looked at the kitchen door, as if weighing the pros and cons of staying or running. 'Biscuit?' Connor wheedled. At this Dave stuck out his pink tongue and lowered his back haunches into the sitting position. 'Good boy,' Connor praised him as he caught hold of his collar and made sure he couldn't get away.

'Kitchen roll's over there,' Annie said in a muffled voice because she was holding her hands over her face.