But no one’s saying ‘Ha, ha, silly us.’ It’s all still in the papers and everyone’s still looking worried. This morning Mum very ostentatiously ate her toast without jam, shooting little resentful looks at Dad the whole time. I was sunk in gloom, trying not to look at the Christian Dior ad on the back of Dad’s newspaper, and even Minnie was subdued.
And when I get to work, things are even more depressing. I run the personal-shopping department at The Look, which is a department store on Oxford Street. It didn’t start off too well, but recently it’s been on a roll. We’ve had loads of events, and great coverage in the media, and profits have been up. In fact we all got bonuses!
But today the place is desolate. The women’s fashion floor is totally silent, and nearly all our appointments in the personal-shopping department have been called off. It’s a pretty depressing sight, a whole row of bookings with ‘Cancelled’ beside them.
‘Everyone said they’d got a cold,’ reports Jasmine, my colleague, as I’m leafing through the appointment book in dismay. ‘You’d think they could make up something more original.’
‘Like what?’
Jasmine taps her pale-green nails, which totally clash with her violet leopard-print eyes. (Coloured lenses are her new fashion habit. Her own eyes are one blue, one green, so she says she’s already used to people staring at them and wondering if they’re real.)
‘Like they have to go to rehab,’ she says at last. ‘Or their coke-addict husband beat them up and they’ve had to go to a secret women’s refuge. That’s what I’d say.’
God, Jasmine is warped. We couldn’t be more different, the two of us. Jasmine behaves as though she doesn’t care about anything, including her own clients. She tells people they look shit, they’ve got no style, their clothes should go in the bin … then she’ll toss some garment to them with a shrug and they’ll put it on and look so spectacular, they can’t not buy it. Sometimes they’ll get all gushy, or try to give her a hug and she’ll just roll her eyes and say ‘Jeez’.
‘Or they could be honest.’ Jasmine throws back her long, bleached-blonde hair. ‘They could say, “I haven’t got any money, the bastard bank lost it all.” You do realize this place’ll close down?’ she adds almost cheerily, gesturing around. ‘In fact, this whole country’s over. It’s a fucking mess. I’ll probably move to Morocco.’ She eyes my shirt suspiciously. ‘Isn’t that Chloé, two seasons ago?’
Trust Jasmine to notice. I’m debating whether to say, ‘No, it’s a tiny label you don’t know about,’ or ‘Yes, it’s vintage,’ when a voice says timidly, ‘Becky?’ As I hear my name I turn round and peer in surprise. It’s Davina, one of my regular clients, hovering at the entrance. I barely recognized her, what with her mac, headscarf and sunglasses.
‘Davina! You came! Great to see you!’
Davina is in her thirties and a doctor at Guy’s Hospital. She’s a world expert on eye disease and pretty much a world expert on Prada shoes, too – she’s been collecting them since she was eighteen. Today she had an appointment to find a new evening dress – but according to the appointment book, she’d called it off.
‘I shouldn’t be here.’ She looks around warily. ‘I told my husband I’d cancelled. He’s … worried about things.’
‘Everyone is,’ I say understandingly. ‘Do you want to take your coat off?’
Davina doesn’t move.
‘I don’t know,’ she says at last, sounding tortured. ‘I shouldn’t be here. We had a row about it. He said, what did I need a new dress for? And that it wasn’t the time to be splashing the cash. But I’ve won a Taylor Research Fellowship. My department’s throwing me a reception to celebrate.’ Her voice suddenly throbs with emotion. ‘This is huge, this fellowship. It’s an incredible honour. I worked for it, and I’ll never get one again, and I’ve got the money for a dress. I’ve saved it up and it’s all secure. We don’t even bank with Bank of London!’
She sounds so upset, I feel like giving her a hug. The thing about Davina is, she doesn’t do things lightly. She thinks about every piece she buys and goes for really classic well-made things. She’s probably been looking forward to getting this dress for ages and ages.
What a meanie her husband is. He should be proud of his wife, getting a prize.
‘Do you want to come in?’ I try again. ‘Have a cup of coffee?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says again, her voice tiny. ‘It’s so difficult. I shouldn’t be here.’
‘But you are here,’ I point out gently. ‘When’s the reception?’
‘Friday night.’ She takes off her sunglasses to massage her brow and suddenly focuses past me, on the rail in my fitting room. It’s holding all the dresses I looked out for her last week. I told Jasmine to have them ready this morning.
There are some gorgeous pieces on that rail. Davina would look amazing in any one of them. I can see the lust growing in her eyes.
‘Are those …’
‘Just a few options.’
‘I can’t.’ She shakes her head desperately. ‘I can’t turn up in something new.’
‘But would your husband know it was new?’ I can’t resist saying. I see this thought register in her head.
‘Maybe not,’ she says at last. Her brow is clearing a little … then it wrinkles anxiously again. ‘But I can’t possibly come back home with any shopping bags. Or have anything delivered. Or have anything delivered to work. All the junior staff will chatter and want to see, and it’ll get back to my husband. That’s the downside of both working in the same hospital.’