Mini Shopaholic (16 page)

‘Ooh, chocolate bourbons!’ I say, spotting some. ‘Get some of those, Mum. And Toblerones!’

Hey. There’s a rack of cotton-wool balls over there. It would be crazy not to stock up on them. I mean, it wouldn’t make economic sense. And there are make-up applicators and even eyelash curlers! For a pound! I grab a basket and start filling it.

‘Jane!’ A breathless voice greets us and I see Janice, clutching a load of packets labelled ‘solar garden lights’. ‘Have you seen these? They
can’t
cost a pound, surely.’

‘I think everything’s a pound—’ I begin, but she’s already tapping the shoulder of a salesgirl.

‘Excuse me,’ she says politely. ‘How much is this item?’

The sales girl shoots her a look of ineffable contempt. ‘Pahnd.’

‘And this?’ She gestures at a garden hose.

‘Pahnd. Everyfink’s a pahnd.
Pahnd
shop, innit?’

‘But … but …’ Janice seems about to expire with excitement. ‘This is incredible! Do you realize how much these would cost in John Lewis?’

There’s a gasp from the next aisle along and I look up to see Mum brandishing a load of plastic storage boxes. Her martyred air has vanished and her eyes are bright. ‘Janice! Tupperware!’

I’m about to follow them when I notice a rack of glittery snakeskin belts. This is unbelievable. I mean, a belt for a pound! It would be criminal not to. And there’s a whole load of hair extensions and wigs … God, this place is
brilliant
. Why have I never come here before?

I put five belts and a selection of wigs into my basket, and throw in a few bits of ‘famous brands’ make-up (even though I haven’t heard of any of the brands), then wander down to find myself in front of a rack labelled ‘Second-hand supplies –catering returns, sold as seen’.

Wow. Look at this. There are loads of place cards and table confetti and stuff. Perfect for a party.

I stare at them silently for a few moments, my mind circling round and round. Obviously I can’t buy the stuff for Luke’s party at the pound shop. It would be really cheapskate and stingy.

But they only cost a pound. And they’re proper catering supplies. And would he mind?

Put it this way: the less I spend on place cards and party poppers, the more I can spend on champagne. And everything’s a pound. A
pound!

Oh God, I can’t pass this up. It’s too good an opportunity. Hastily I start shoving packets of place cards, party poppers, table confetti and napkin holders into my basket. I won’t tell anyone I got them at the pound shop. I’ll say I got them bespoke from a specialist entertainment company.

‘Do you need another basket?’ Jess appears by my side.

‘Oh, thanks.’ I take it and add some pop-up candelabra decorations, which I’ve just noticed. They look a bit manky, but no one’ll notice if the lights are dim enough.

‘Is this for Luke’s party?’ She nods at my basket with interest. ‘How are the preparations going?’

Oh bloody hell. I can’t have Jess telling everyone the decorations came from the pound shop.

‘No!’ I say quickly. ‘Of course this isn’t for Luke! I’m just … getting inspiration. Aren’t you buying anything?’ I add, noticing she doesn’t have a basket. ‘Aren’t you going to stock up on Jiffy bags or something?’

I would have thought this place would be right up Jess’s street. She’s the one always giving me lectures about spending too much and why don’t I buy in bulk and live off potato peelings?

‘No, I don’t buy things any more,’ says Jess matter-of-factly.

Did I mishear that?

‘What do you mean, you don’t buy things?’ I say, still loading up my basket. ‘You must buy things. Everyone buys things.’

‘Not me.’ She shakes her head. ‘Since living in Chile, Tom and I have taken the decision to be zero-consumers, or as near as possible. We barter instead.’

‘You
barter?’
I turn and stare at her. ‘What, with beads and stuff?’

Jess gives a snort of laughter. ‘No, Becky. Everything. Food, clothing, heating. If I can’t barter for it, I don’t do it.’

‘But … who with?’ I say incredulously. ‘No one barters any more. That’s, like, the Middle Ages.’

‘You’d be surprised. There’s a lot of like-minded people out there. There are networks, websites …’ She shrugs. ‘Last week I bartered six hours of gardening for a British Rail voucher. That got me up to Scully. It cost me nothing.’

I stare at her, gobsmacked. In fact, to be honest I feel a teeny bit affronted. Here we all are, feeling really virtuous because we’re shopping in the pound shop. And Jess has to trump everyone by not shopping at all, ever. That’s
so
typical of her. Next she’ll probably invent some form of anti-shopping. Like anti-matter, or anti-gravity.

‘So … could
I
barter?’ I say, as a sudden thought hits me.

‘Of course you could,’ says Jess. ‘In fact, you
should
. You can get anything and everything. Clothes, food, toys … I’ll send you links to the websites I use most.’

‘Thanks!’

Yes! I resume filling my basket, full of exhilaration. This is the answer. I’ll
barter
for everything I need for Luke’s party. It’ll be easy. And those posh, zillion-pound party organizers can sod off. Who needs them when you have a pound shop and a bartering website?

Ooh.
Star Wars
fairy lights, two strings for a pound! And some Yoda shot glasses.

I pause thoughtfully. Maybe the party could have a
Star Wars
theme. I mean, I’m not sure Luke’s
exactly
into
Star Wars …
but I could get him into it, couldn’t I? I could rent out the DVDs and suggest we join the fan club and I expect he’d be a total enthusiast by 7 April.

Except there are also some really fab disco-ball garlands. And some jewelled pewter-effect platters reading ‘King Arthur’s Court’, with matching goblets. Oh God, now I’m torn.

Maybe it could be a Seventies-disco-
Star-Wars
-King-Arthur fusion themed party?

‘You could barter for those, too,’ Jess says, watching me disapprovingly as I pick up a disco-ball garland. ‘Or even better, make decorations with recycled materials. It’s far more environmentally friendly.’

‘I know,’ I say patiently. ‘I should have dreary old paper-chains made of newspaper.’

‘I’m not talking about paperchains made out of newspaper!’ She looks offended. ‘There are lots of creative decorating ideas on the web. You can re-use silver foil, decorate plastic bottles …’

Silver foil? Plastic bottles? What am I, six years old?

‘Look, Jess!’ Janice’s bright voice interrupts us and I look up to see her rounding the corner, clutching a small packet. ‘I’ve found some vitamins! Folic acid! That’s supposed to be good for you young girls, isn’t it?’

I exchange looks with Jess.

‘Only if they’re planning to become pregnant,’ says Jess icily.

‘Well, I’ll just pop it in my basket, anyway.’ Janice’s casual air is fooling no one. ‘And look at this! It’s a baby-name book! A thousand names for only a pound! Girls
and
boys.’

‘I don’t
believe
this,’ mutters Jess, hunching her arms around herself defensively.

‘What do you need a baby-name book for, Janice?’ I ask.

‘Well!’ Janice’s cheeks grow pinker and she looks from me to Jess. ‘You never know …’

‘I
do
know!’ Jess suddenly erupts. ‘Listen, Janice. I’m not pregnant. And I’m not
going
to be pregnant. Tom and I have decided that when we have a family, we’ll be adopting a disadvantaged child from South America. And it won’t be a baby, and it’ll have a South American name. So you can keep your bloody folic acid and your baby-names book!’

She stalks off, out of the shop, leaving me and Janice both absolutely gobsmacked.

A South American child! That is so
cool
.

‘Did she just say … they’re
adopting?’
says Janice at last, her voice quivering.

‘I think it’s a fab idea!’ I say firmly. ‘Hey, Mum!’ I call over to Mum, who’s filling a basket with dried flowers. ‘Jess is going to adopt a South American child!’

‘Ooh!’ Mum’s eyes light up. ‘How lovely!’

‘But what about all my knitting?’ Janice looks ready to burst into tears. ‘I’ve made a whole newborn layette! Yellow and white, for a girl or a boy, and little Christmas outfits up to age six!’

OK, Janice is officially insane.

‘Well, no one asked you to, did they?’ I point out. ‘Maybe you could give them all to charity.’

I think I’m turning into Jess. I’ve even got her hardness in my voice. But honestly! Why on earth was Janice knitting baby clothes before Jess and Tom were even
engaged?

‘I’ll talk to Tom.’ Janice seems to come to a sudden decision. ‘He’s only going along with this silly plan to please Jess. He’ll want a child of his own, I know he will. He’ll want to carry on our gene pool. Martin’s family dates back to Cromwell, you know. He’s had a family tree done.’

‘Janice,’ I begin, ‘I
really
wouldn’t get involved—’

‘Look!’ Her gaze suddenly focuses on the shelf in front of her. ‘A pair of gardening gloves! Padded! For a
pound
!’

As we head back from our outing, everyone’s in an upbeat mood. We had to splash out on a taxi home because we had too many shopping bags to carry – but we’ve saved so much money, what’s a taxi fare?

Janice hasn’t mentioned babies or gene pools again, but keeps pulling items out of her bags and showing them to us.

‘A full dental kit with mirror! For a pound!’ She looks around the taxi to make sure everyone is as incredulous as her. ‘A miniature table-top snooker set! For a
pound
!’

Mum seems to have bought the entire stock of Tupperware, loads of kitchen utensils and big casseroles, several bottles of L’Oréal shampoo with Polish writing, some artificial flowers, a big box of birthday cards and a really cool mop with a pink stripy handle which Minnie will love.

And right at the end, I found a whole load of posh wooden hangers. Three for a pound, which is a
total
bargain. They’d cost at least two quid each, anywhere else. So I bought a hundred.

With the help of the taxi driver we stagger into the house with our bags and drop them in the hall.

‘Well!’ Mum says. ‘I’m exhausted after all that hard work! Do you want a cup of tea, love? And one of those bourbon biscuits …’ She starts rooting around in one of the pound-shop bags, just as Dad comes out of his study. For a moment he stares at us, his jaw slack.

I suppose seventeen carrier bags does look like quite a lot. You know, if you’re not expecting them.

‘What’s this?’ he says at last. ‘What’s all this?’

‘We’ve been to the pound shop,’ I say brightly. ‘We did really well!’

‘Jane …’ Dad is looking incredulously from bag to bag. ‘We’re supposed to be
saving
money, if you remember.’

Mum raises her head from the bag full of food, her cheeks red. ‘I
have
been saving money. Didn’t you hear? I’ve been shopping at the pound shop!’

‘Did you buy the whole bloody
place?’
Dad’s looking at the sea of plastic bags. ‘Is there anything left?’

Uh-oh. Mum’s inhaling with one of her I’ve-never-been-so-insulted-in-all-my-life breaths.

‘If you want to know, Graham, I’ve been buying us tinned shepherd’s pie and bargain biscuits, since we can’t afford Ocado any more!’ She brandishes the bourbons at him. ‘Do you know how much these cost? Five packets for a pound! Is that wasting money?’

‘Jane, I never said we couldn’t afford Ocado,’ begins Dad testily. ‘I merely said—’

‘But next time I’ll go to the 99p shop, shall I?’ Her voice rises shrilly. ‘Or the ten-pence shop! Will that satisfy you, Graham? Or maybe
you’d
like to do the household shopping. Maybe you’d like to struggle on a budget to keep this family fed and clothed.’

‘Fed and clothed?’ retorts Dad scoffingly ‘And how is this keeping them fed and clothed?’ He reaches for the pink stripy mop.

‘So now we can’t afford basic hygiene, is that it?’ Mum is pink with outrage. ‘Now we can’t afford to mop our floors?’

‘We can mop them with the cupboardful of mops we’ve
already got!’
Dad erupts. ‘If I see one more useless cleaning gadget in this house …’

Oookay. I think I might just quietly edge away before I get drawn into this and they each start saying, ‘Becky agrees with me, don’t you, Becky?’

Anyway, I’m
dying
to see how Kyla and Minnie are getting on.

They’ve been together for two solid hours. Kyla’s bound to have had a positive effect on Minnie already. Maybe she’s started her on Mandarin or French. Or embroidery!

I tiptoe up to the kitchen door, hoping to hear the sound of Minnie singing a madrigal or saying
‘Un, deux, trois’
in a perfect accent, or maybe doing a bit of quick Pythagoras. But instead, all I can hear is Kyla saying, ‘Minnie, come on. Come
on
, now!’

She sounds a bit weary, which is weird. I had her down as one of those endless-energy, broccoli-juice type people.

‘Hi!’ I call out and push the door open. ‘I’m back!’

Blimey. What’s up? Kyla’s completely lost her sparkle. Her hair is dishevelled, her cheeks are flushed and there’s a smear of mashed potato on her shirt.

Minnie, on the other hand, is sitting in her high chair with a plate of food in front of her, looking like she’s having a whale of a time.

‘So!’ I say brightly. ‘Did you have a good morning?’

‘Great!’ Kyla smiles – but it’s one of those automatic smiles that doesn’t reach her eyes. In fact, if truth be told, her eyes are saying, ‘Get me out of here, now.’

I think I’ll just ignore them. I’ll pretend I don’t understand Eye. Or Clenched Hands Round the Chairback.

‘So, have you started on any languages yet?’ I say encouragingly.

‘Not yet.’ Kyla flashes her teeth again. ‘In fact, I’d like to have a little chat if that’s OK?’

I’m tempted to say, ‘No, get going on the Mandarin,’ close the door and run. But that wouldn’t be the act of a responsible mother, would it?