Shopping With the Enemy (17 page)

‘Hey girls, I hope you’re talking about work!’

They both turned in the direction of the familiar voice and saw Elena strolling along the sidewalk hand in hand with her very handsome boyfriend, Seth.

All four said hello to one another.

‘Do you want to stop and have coffee with us?’ Lana asked.

Seth ran a hand through his dark blond hair and gave them a big grin. ‘I would, but she won’t let me,’ he joked: ‘work, work, work. We’re walking to this little park I know because I thought it might make a good place to shoot the new dresses.’ He pointed to the camera bag slung over his shoulder.

‘But you always carry that,’ Lana said. ‘Didn’t you tell me a photographer has to be prepared?’

‘Yup. A dress designer always has to be prepared too; inspiration could strike at any time.’

‘Yeah, I already saw your blog post with the coffee cup dress idea, Lana, and I liked it,’ Elena added.

‘Thanks.’

‘We’ve all got so many fantastic ideas—’

‘That you’re going to be a huge success,’ Seth finished Elena’s sentence and landed a proud kiss on her cheek.

‘OK, enjoy some time off, because I am going to be working you so hard tomorrow and for the rest of the week, month – year!’ Elena joked.

As the two strode off down the pavement, Gracie and Lana couldn’t help watching with a touch of jealousy.

‘He is so nice and so good-looking,’ Gracie said.

‘I know … and he is so in love with her,’ Lana added. ‘You can just tell; he’s always so nice about her.’

‘Oh sigh for a lovely boyfriend just like Seth.’

‘Yeah well, but you have a lovely boyfriend.’

‘Yes, but … well,’ Gracie seemed to stumble a little. ‘We’re not Seth and Elena though,’ she said.

‘No? But I thought …’ Lana fished for more information, but Gracie headed her off with a change of subject.

‘Oh, you must see this,’ she said, picking up her phone. ‘Is this not just perfect? Genius, in fact?’

The screen was filled with a print, vibrant swirling pink, green and yellow designs against a dark blue background.

‘Apparently it’s a modern homage to paisley.’

‘Wow,’ was Lana’s reaction. ‘Did Parker do this?’

‘Yeah. It’s going to be on some of the next NY Perfect Dresses to come in.
His
fabric on
our
dresses. Isn’t that going to be amazing?’

‘Wow,’ Lana repeated, trying hard not to let Gracie know how annoyed she was that Parker had texted this to her friend and not to her.

An urgent buzz let Lana know that there was a new message on her phone. She picked it up, puzzled. The most frequent texter was her mum, but communication between Lana and her mum had not exactly been regular since she’d stormed back to New York after the row.

Bsssssssst, her mobile buzzed insistently.

Lana reached down to her handbag, slid the phone out and clicked through to the message. She had to read the text several times before she could fully take in its meaning. But finally it made some sort of sense.

‘Still sad u left early. Meet me tmrw? Pls say yes. Parker
’

‘What’s up?’ Gracie asked, ‘You look like you’ve had big news.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Italy

Passenger Svetlana:

Multi-coloured wrap dress (Missoni)

Suede and linen summer shoe boots (Manolo)

Python clutch bag (Lanvin)

‘
Low key’ diamonds on fingers and wrists (Cartier)

Total est. cost: £37,000

ANNIE STEERED THE
Bentley with concentration through the service station car park. She was looking for an enormous parking space, because ‘easy to manoeuvre’ was obviously not one of the boxes ticked when the Beast had been designed.

The Bentley was a car built for splendour, built for valet parking and peak-capped chauffeurs who
pulled
up right outside a grand entrance. It was not a car for squeezing into spaces designed for Fiat 500s in an Italian service station car park.

Had the Bentley – or indeed Svetlana – ever had to endure the horrors of a service station before?

Annie finally found a double space, pulled in, cut the engine and turned to her passenger.

‘Here we are then: a refuel, a toilet break, a quick coffee and maybe a croissant to keep us going.’

Svetlana pulled a face. ‘Coffee? A croissant?! But I am not ready to break my juice fast. I haven’t lost my 10 kilos. All those enemas, they will have been for nothing.’

‘Svet, my lovely, last night you hoovered up an entire box of fags and a bottle of champagne. I think the juice fast is well and truly over.’

There was a pause. Svetlana’s lips tightened and Annie wondered if she was going to be told off. But then Svetlana shrugged and admitted: ‘Coffee sounds good.’

The service station, although Italian, was not one tiny bit more chic, glamorous or stylish than anything to be found off the M6. There was garish lighting, horrible plastic seating, plastic-looking food and toilets which could have done with a good clean.

Nevertheless, in the Ladies Svetlana clicked open her crocodile clutch at the mirror and made repairs to her face. She was tired and she was deeply upset,
so
today she only looked ten years younger than her real age, rather than the usual incredible twenty.

Annie checked herself over in the mirror too.

She hadn’t thought to bring any make-up with her from the hotel, except for a stub of lipstick; in fact she hadn’t even had time to wash her face after she’d woken up from her doze in Svetlana’s hotel room, so to her horror she saw now that she was all smudged mascara and the very faded remains of creased foundation.

Annie had always believed in the morale-boosting qualities of make-up and now here she was marooned in a bad situation without a smidge of Chanel or Estée Lauder.

Svetlana glanced at her and after a moment or two of obvious hesitation, decided to intervene.

‘Here,’ she said, handing over her Hermès embossed make-up bag.

‘No, no really, I’m fine. I couldn’t use your things,’ Annie insisted.

‘Please,’ Svetlana said, ‘it will make me feel better if you look better too.’

‘Oh.’

Annie looked inside the little bag.

‘First you must cleanse,’ Svetlana suggested.

Annie delved in and brought out a sachet of ultra-high-end ‘jet-set refreshers’. She pulled one from the packet and ran it over her face.

It was creamy, dewy, refreshing and re-moisturizing all at the same time.

‘Very nice,’ she said, looking at her bare features.

‘Now begin again,’ Svetlana suggested.

After several minutes spent applying Svetlana’s luxury cosmetics, Annie looked in the mirror and saw her best self reflected back once more. As a finishing touch, she wound up the deep red lipstick and dabbed it on her lips with a clean pinkie.

‘We’re all set to face the world again and bring your boys back home,’ she said brightly, but it didn’t have a cheering effect on Svetlana.

Instead, despite the heavy Botox use, Svetlana’s eyes crumpled at the corners. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to cry.

‘I can’t let him take the boys away. I have always,
always
stopped him from taking the boys away,’ she whispered.

‘And you’ll stop him again,’ Annie insisted.

‘Annah, I have to get my boys back … My mother made a mess of everything, I make a mess of being Elena’s mother … The boys – the only good thing I do in my life is be a good mother to my boys.’

At this, Svetlana put her hands to the corners of her eyes and pressed hard in an effort to stem the tears.

‘We’ll get them,’ Annie insisted, although she far from believed it. ‘We will get the boys, no matter
what.
And you are a good mother to them all. C’mon –’ she linked her arm through Svetlana’s – ‘let’s grab a coffee and get to the border.’

On the mountain roads, the Bentley was as much hard work as Annie had feared. She had to steer hard at every corner and slow to a pace far too snail-like for the impatient Italian drivers building up behind her. There was horn honking and horribly impatient, risky overtaking.

‘I’m not enjoying this,’ she admitted with gritted teeth, as another tiny red car sped past, the driver turning to glare at her furiously.

‘You will get used to the road and you will be able to drive more quickly soon,’ Svetlana said, trying to be reassuring.

‘Do you think?’ Annie said, hauling the steering wheel round as they went into another terrifying hairpin bend, the mountainside falling away dizzyingly at the side of the road. The tiny metal barrier between them and disaster didn’t stand a chance if the Bentley set a wheel wrong.

The driving was so physical now that Annie was beginning to sweat with effort: ‘Let’s hear it for power steering,’ she panted: ‘your chauffeur must have arms of steel.’

‘I not make him drive in mountains often.’

‘No. Is it … do we have …?’ Annie hesitated. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know how much
further
she had to twist and turn the Beast up and down these hair-raising roads.

‘There is still some way to go,’ Svetlana answered but then folded her arms and carried on gazing straight ahead.

Probably best not to know exactly. Just slow into the bend, steer, steer, steer, straighten out and enjoy the little bit of straight road before the next one.

‘Do you think you should try emailing Michael again?’ Annie asked once another ten bends were under the bonnet.

Svetlana looked for a long time at the phone and then suddenly began to tap out a message at speed.

‘Now we wait,’ she said as soon as she’d hit send.

‘Are you sure? Are you
sure
this is right?’

For the past twenty minutes they’d been travelling along a tiny road; a road so small it had potholes, loose gravel and even the odd goat. They were high up in the mountains with bare rocky terrain all around and a panoramic view of … more mountains, making Annie wonder just how many they would have to cross.

‘We’ve seen no one else – not one other car since we got on to it,’ Annie said anxiously.

‘This is the right road,’ Svetlana insisted. ‘I read the map. This will take us into Austria.’

If we don’t ground the Bentley on one of those craters first
, Annie couldn’t help thinking.

There was another pressing problem.

The coffee stop at the service station had been hours ago. Annie double-checked the clock face on the dashboard. Could that be right? Could it really be nearly one o’clock? Weren’t they supposed to be near Vienna by now?

In short, Annie needed to pee. Badly. Badly, badly, badly. So badly that just thinking about how much she needed to pee was causing cramp.

‘What are our chances of finding a toilet out here?’ she said out loud.

Svetlana turned her head: ‘If you need to go, you must go. Is bad for the kidneys to hold on too long.’

‘Well, what about you? You’ve been holding on as long as me.’

Svetlana considered.

Annie whacked into another pothole and the Bentley groaned.

‘You are right we must go,’ Svetlana replied.

‘But where?’

‘Au naturel.’

For a multimillionairess with a Mayfair mansion, bespoke Hermès luggage and several hundred thousand pounds of diamonds scattered across her fingers, Svetlana could be practical and surprisingly earthy. Maybe it was her army nurse training.

Annie didn’t really want to bare her bottom on the top of an Italian mountain, but the growing pain in the pit of her stomach told her that she must. She slowed the car down to a stop. The road was so small and so deserted she didn’t see any point in steering the Bentley to the side.

Then she was squatting between two opened Bentley doors, while a shaggy grey goat watched from a safe distance.

‘
Come to Milano
,’ she whispered to herself, imitating Svetlana’s accent. ‘
A luxury break, totally pampering, all expenses paid. This is what you need to recharge the batteries
.’

Ha! And now where was she? She was squatting with a goat audience, on the remote and deserted peak of an Italian mountain, trying not to let a puddle of wee creep into her sandals while she wondered how to manhandle a vintage Bentley beast safely down to the other side.

‘Annah! Annah! Get back into the car. Quickly!’

Annie did not like the note of urgency in Svetlana’s voice.

‘What’s the matter?’ she called over to the other side of the car where Svetlana was relieving herself.

‘Quick!’

Annie finished, snapped her knickers back into place and jumped into the driving seat. Svetlana
was
already in the passenger’s seat with the door closed and locked, her face upset.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Drive! Just drive –
hurry
!’

Annie fired up the engine and set the car going over the lethal potholes once again.

‘What is it? Have you had news?’ she asked.

‘You have to go faster, I think they are coming.’

‘Who?!’

Annie, anxious herself now, risked a move up to third gear.

‘I see these men; a group of men – in the distance still, but when they see car, they start jogging towards us.’