Owen was ten and seemed shy, sweet and sunny-natured by comparison. He was musical, easy-going and very happy that the new man in his mother's life was also his music teacher at school.
Ed Leon – who Annie and her children had lived with for about a year now – had arrived on the scene with several very important assets, cunningly disguised.
A curly tangle of unruly hair concealed surprisingly warm blue eyes. The worst tweedy and baggy charity shop wardrobe Annie had ever encountered covered an unexpectedly fit and muscular body. And Ed's dingy, damp basement flat had turned out to be just one floor of the beautiful Georgian townhouse in oh-so-desirable north London that he had part-inherited.
Oh and of course, Ed was also a lovely man – funny, slightly younger, and utterly devoted to Annie . . . and he'd disguised that very well too, until she'd finally found him out.
As a woman who could never resist a project, Annie had spent considerable time renovating both Ed and the townhouse. She had sold up her own beautiful home, raised an enormous mortgage and bought a share of the house, so that they could all live there together.
The house was slightly easier to renovate than Ed, who was strangely attached to his old clothes and outraged at the price tags on the things Annie wanted him to wear. The house had offered less resistance. It hadn't complained. It hadn't blurted out things like, 'You want to spend
how
much on re-flooring my bathroom in solid walnut? But I know where I could get a nice bit of lino for buttons!' The house even seemed grateful for Annie's devotion to it. Whenever she returned, she felt it twinkle back at her and welcome her in. The glossy wooden floorboards shone, the pale walls and satiny woodwork stood to attention; the repaired windows, new bathrooms and gleaming kitchen all seemed to sparkle for her.
'Ms Annie Valentine!' called the voice from the bedroom. 'This is your last and final call for boarding!'
'Five minutes, babes!' Then, because she knew just why he was so keen to have her there beside him, she added cheekily, 'Start without me! I'll jump right in. Honest!'
Her bids had been timed to close just a few minutes apart from each other all the way up till midnight, when the shop would finally shut for the night after the sale of this evening's three prized items: a beautiful tan Mulberry handbag, thigh-high designer leather boots and a slinky floor-length mink fur coat.
Fur wasn't a thing you saw out much in London. She'd never wear it. (Well . . . maybe a beautiful wool coat trimmed with mink: a soft shawl collar, generous cuffs . . . if she was forced to.) But amongst some of the ladies she dressed, head-to-toe mink was still deeply in, despite the protesters and red paint.
But then these were ladies of the highest luxury.
These were the women who could wear priceless jewels and towering glass heels and swathe themselves in fur because they went from door to door in limousines. They didn't even need to worry about door handles – their doors were opened for them, air conditioning was adjusted, tinted windows were whizzed up and down. They wore real diamond-studded sunglasses at night just to be private.
One of Annie's clients wanted to sell on this particular fur coat so she could quietly stash a little money away in a bank account. Because when your finances were so totally controlled by your husband, it was good to feel there were some emergency funds in a nameless Swiss bank account. And Annie was trusted enough to look after transactions like this because she often got surprisingly close to the women she dressed. They took her into their confidence and shared all sorts of secrets with her.
She scrolled down the list of items she'd sold online today. It was very eclectic: from high-end boots and shoes to bags and dresses, tops and high street labels.
'ANNIE!!!'
Ed was probably naked, soft and fragrant from showering, hair damp, lying on top of the duvet and waiting for her with his very welcoming body: squarish and muscular but just the right side of fleshy, not at all hard and buff. Ed was strong but soft and Annie loved to tangle up with him. Shower fresh and hungry and so, very, very into her. It made her smile just thinking of his warm body and the things they liked to do with it, but . . .
Ping
! A bid was upped.
Late August was the last available chance to sell summer clothes for a decent price. Already everyone, everywhere with the slightest interest in fashion was eyeing up cashmere coats, chunky knitwear, dark leather bags, boots and big ticket items.
Looking round the spare room which she used as an office, Annie acknowledged that she still had stacks of summer things to sell from the back of her clients' wardrobes. Things that hadn't been worn for years: pristine linen Jigsaw suits, skirts with killer waistbands which had been too tight the day they were bought, let alone two babies later. Ghost dresses, thin and insubstantial, haunting the back of the cupboards for season after season. Unworn and unloved, but held on to because they cost a lot.
'You'll get over it, I promise!' Annie would insist firmly but with a smile, taking the items from her clients' uncertain hands, 'The money's gone, you aren't getting it back by keeping a reminder of it hanging in there. And anyway, it's only money! They print more of it every day.'
The clock hit twelve and the fur coat went for an astonishing £3,420. A lot of very wealthy, well-connected females knew about this virtual boutique.
And, 15 per cent of £3,420 made it worth sitting at the screen, typing up blurb, and spending entire mornings at the post office, busy as a mail order company.
'You should have your own business,' the women who visited her in her suite were constantly telling her. 'You're really good. You could be the next Miuccia Prada. Or even better: Johnnie Boden! Go for it, girl.'
Just before she closed up, Annie flicked over to the other website open on her browser: the one with all the excellent advice about setting up your own company.
She'd read many times through the helpful hints, rules and encouragement. But much as she dreamed of going into business properly, Annie wasn't quite ready yet.
Maybe because, although she suspected her future was in handbags or shoes, she hadn't yet found exactly the right opportunity. But she was looking hard and she just knew that it was going to come up. Soon.
Make that very soon, she thought, glancing down at the jumble of mail tucked into her top desk drawer, where she knew there lurked a worrying brown envelope.
Because she was a busy eBay trader and because she'd been self-employed for a few months last year, Annie had a 'tax situation' to sort out. She knew about it, she just hadn't focused on it, and this brown envelope was almost certainly something to do with it.
It wasn't that she'd been
ignoring
the envelope, it was just that she knew she'd have to be in a certain kind of strong mood to open it. Now, with a £3,420 coat sold on eBay, she thought she could cope with whatever lay inside.
Before she could change her mind, she reached down and grabbed it. Her fingers quickly tore through the brown paper, then she smoothed out the single sheet and scanned over the words.
'Final demand', '£10,199.28' and 'within thirty days' stood out in bold.
It took a moment or two for the shock of this news to register properly.
She was going to have to raise £10,000 in thirty days?
Ten thousand pounds?!
That was about twice as much as she'd expected.
Could she earn it in thirty days? No way! Her eBay trading made £600 in a good week . . . make that an outstanding week. Maybe she could borrow it? No again. Her three credit cards were all too dangerously close to their limits for her to do that. Anyway, did HM Revenue & Customs even take Visa?
Obviously she couldn't steal it. Even if she'd known who to steal it from, Annie was cursed with very high scruples: she'd never stolen so much as a sweet from the Woolworths pick and mix.
One thing was clear: Ed wasn't to know
anything
about this. He had such an old-fashioned view of money, debts and borrowing. 'If you haven't got it, don't spend it' was one of his completely irritating sayings. Annie's attitude couldn't have been more different with her 'win some, lose some', 'got to speculate to accumulate' ideas.
But there was no way round it, raising £10,000 in thirty days was going to be a . . . she batted away the words 'nightmare' and 'impossible' as they reared up in her mind, and made herself think, 'challenge'.
It was time to power down the laptop and head for the bedroom.
As Annie approached the door, she saw the light was dim. Just the little string of flower lights over the mantelpiece was on. They cast a low, romantic light, perfect for going to bed. Perfect for looking at one another appreciatively before the touching and the stroking and the kissing began.
'Ed?' she said in a low voice as she came into the room.
'Here I am.'
He was lying on his side with his back towards her. Oh, the tease. Broad, soft white shoulders sloped down to a narrow waist, then a quite spectacularly attractive, peachy bum and muscular fuzzy legs.
'I'll just take off my clothes,' she purred at him, quickly unzipping her dress and letting it drop to the floor so that she was standing in front of the bed in underwear, holdups and her black ankle boots. Sensational ankle boots, she couldn't help thinking, taking another admiring little glance at them, even if they were a pointy, three-inch-high, toe-massacre to walk in.
Ed wasn't moving. Oh well, if he was in a huff with her now, she felt sure that the boots and underwear combination would help him get over it really quickly.
'Baby,' she said, kneeling on the edge of the bed. Slowly she began to trace a finger over the outline of his shoulder and down his side.
'Babes?'
She leaned over his damp hair and looked down at his face. There was no mistaking the closed eyes and heavy breathing.
Ed had fallen asleep.
Annie unhooked her bra and tossed it over a chair, then unzipped her boots and peeled off her stockings. Finally, she loosened her long blonde bob from her trademark tight ponytail. She might as well get to sleep too. Tomorrow was Wednesday, the first of her busy, busy four days in The Store and there were some very interesting clients booked in over the next few days.
She turned off the flower lights and got into bed, pulling the covers over the two of them and moving in as close as she could to his warm naked body. Years of boarding-school dormitories had trained Ed to sleep very deeply, and he didn't even stir.
Closing her eyes and settling down into the darkness, Annie found her mind wandering almost at once towards The Handbag. The one sitting in prime position in the ground floor accessories department. The one with the four-figure price tag and the come-hither smile. The violet patent tote with subtle golden hardware that winked at and wooed her whenever she happened to pass by.
She already knew exactly how big and how scrunchily soft it was. How well it sat on her shoulder. How comfortably capacious it was inside. How tender the black suede lining felt and how many clever compartments it had. She even knew how many hours had gone into stitching it all together. It was fashionable and glamorous and current without screaming 'it' bag. It was chic and French and Yves Saint Laurent.
But she also knew that it could not be hers, because it cost far, far too much. She'd made a promise. She'd told Ed that from now on she would consult him on all purchases over £200. Anyway, she had enough handbags, and this bag cost nearly a
month
in school fees. There were so many reasons why she had to say no, absolutely not and tune that arm candy right out of her head. But tomorrow it would surely still be there, wouldn't it? On its shiny glass plinth, calling out to her.
She sighed quietly to herself. There just wasn't enough glamour in her life, she thought, not for the first time. Although she worked around all the lovely things The Store had to offer, even with the staff discount she could only afford to buy a few choice items there. She still had M&S undies, tops from Oasis, skirts from Jigsaw, and she was still a regular visitor to the Topshop rails.