‘Muuum, come on. We know what will sell in New York better than you do!’ Lana insisted.
‘I don’t know,’ Annie admitted.
‘If Annah is not convinced, it will be very hard to convince someone else,’ said Svetlana with an air of finality.
‘Maybe we need to try one more season with the originals and if we really don’t feel it’s working—’ Annie began.
‘Too late. You will be too late!’ Elena exclaimed. ‘Someone else will produce dresses which fill this gap in the market and the opportunity will be gone. This is our one chance to jump in. If I could just make you see it!’
She gave a little shriek of frustration. Snapping her laptop shut, she marched out of the room.
Svetlana called after her in Ukrainian.
Elena shouted something back in their mother tongue, which sounded very angry.
‘Tschaaaaaah!’ Svetlana vented her annoyance.
‘I can’t believe you, Mum!’ Lana exclaimed, ‘How
many
more fashion disasters do you have to have before you realize you’re wrong? I mean that TV event – that was terrible! You’re stale and if you don’t watch out, you’re going to be over!’
‘Lana …’ Annie warned. But she had the feeling she was too late. This was not her little girl any more; a grown-up, self-possessed adult was standing opposite her, demanding the right to be taken seriously and treated equally.
‘No. You don’t get it,’ Lana stormed on, ‘I’m not coming back to London. We’re not just going to let this dress company die. I will not come back to do some stupid course in stupid Dagenham. I’m going home! To Manhattan!’
‘Ah! They will come to see that we are right,’ Svetlana promised. ‘Children always want to run before they can walk. They want to rush out a line for the summer. Impossible! It is already May. If you rush something like this, you always make big mistakes.’
She took a sip from her crystal flute of champagne and insisted that Annie do the same.
‘No running after your daughter, Annah, you are too much a – what-is-it? Mother hen. Even if she runs all the way to New York, stay strong, in the end she will run back to you.’
‘Do you think so?’ Annie asked, totally upset by
the
big row. ‘Elena too? Do you think she will come running back?’
‘I know so.’
There was a discreet tap at the door.
‘Come in Maria,’ Svetlana replied.
Annie couldn’t help giving a tiny sigh of envy. Svetlana had domestic staff. There was Maria, the stalwart Filipino maid who cooked, cleaned and looked after the boys when they weren’t in school. There was also a part-time tutor and a part-time chauffeur and a gardening service.
No rushing round throwing together ready meals at 7 p.m. after a hard day’s work for Svetlana. Annie knew her friend arranged herself elegantly in her drawing room, sipped at a cocktail and waited for Maria to announce the evening’s menu.
‘Miss Wisneski?’ Maria asked, standing in the doorway, smoothing down the front of her blue and white striped work dress anxiously.
‘Yes? Has the tennis coach arrived for the boys?’ Svetlana asked.
‘Yes. But he has forgotten the password.’
Just the tiniest of creases at the side of Svetlana’s eyes gave away the fact that she was frowning.
‘Do you know the tennis coach? Do you recognize him?’
‘Yes,’ Maria replied, ‘I’m sure it is him. But maybe the boys can look out of the window here and check.’
‘Maria, you worry too much,’ Svetlana said, but nodded. Her two young sons, Michael and Petrov, walked into the room immaculately dressed in full tennis whites, carrying their rackets.
‘Hello boys,’ Annie said with a smile as they walked past. They were beautiful children with Svetlana’s fine features, length of limb and their father’s shiny black hair and dark eyes. Always so sombre and well behaved. And how did Maria keep them so neat? Annie wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard either of them so much as giggle.
‘Hello, Miss Anna,’ Petrov, the younger boy replied with a smile which seemed more polite than sunny.
‘Hello, how are you?’
‘Very well thank you,’ he replied with a curt nod of his head.
‘Say hello, Michael,’ Svetlana ordered.
‘Good morning, Miss Anna,’ he said, complying. ‘That is Yann,’ he confirmed as he approached the window, ‘so we’re not about to be kidnapped, Maria, we are in fact going to play tennis. Boring.’
‘Michael, you can be very ungrateful,’ Svetlana complained.
Michael just shrugged, turned and followed Maria and his brother out of the room.
‘Bye-bye, Mama,’ Petrov said and blew his mother a kiss from the door.
‘So what’s that all about?’ Annie asked when she was once again alone with Svetlana. ‘Are they really in danger of being kidnapped?
‘Very rich children are always a target, but my number one problem is that Igor wants the boys to go to military academy in Russia,’ Svetlana replied, her voice dark.
‘Oh no.’
Annie knew this meant trouble. Igor, Svetlana’s most recent ex-husband, was by far the richest, most powerful and most terrifying of her exes. Plus Michael and Petrov were the sons and heirs to Igor’s vast fortune. Igor had tried to take the boys out of the country before and if he now wanted them to go to school in Russia, he would do all he could to make this happen.
‘St Petersburg,’ Svetlana added. ‘Igor wants the boys to go to the military academy there like he did. Pah!’ she spat the word out forcefully. ‘Turn them into vicious robots just like him.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I will stop him,’ Svetlana said simply. ‘I am taking Harry’s advice and we are being careful.’
‘Thank goodness for Harry,’ Annie said. She didn’t just know Svetlana’s calm and sensible English husband well; she had introduced them to each other. Svetlana had been in need of London’s best divorce lawyer and via a high-powered client at
The
Store, Annie had managed to get hold of him.
Suddenly Mayfair mansions, Chippendale chairs and maids didn’t look quite so appealing to Annie if it went hand in hand with kidnap threats and tennis coaches who had to use passwords.
‘Anyway, enough about my little problems,’ Svetlana said. ‘Come upstairs, come to my dressing room, I want to show you some of the clothes I am thinking of buying for the new season.’
In the pale blue dressing room, home to snowy white, ornately carved wardrobes and a vast, glittering chandelier, Annie tried to look with knowledge and appreciation through the clothes which had been brought here on approval by the swankiest boutiques in London. But faced with another row of mini tunics and a putty green double-breasted blazer, Annie finally had to blurt out: ‘I don’t understand it any more.’
‘What?’ Svetlana demanded.
‘Fashion!’ Annie blurted out.
Svetlana turned cool eyes on her.
‘But Annah, fashion is your business, fashion is how you make your money. You need to understand fashion every single hour of the day. You need to know. You need to be way ahead of the rest of us.’
‘I know it’s urgent, it’s completely critical, my love,’ Annie exclaimed, ‘but right now … I just don’t get it. I honestly can’t see. I’m looking at
shoulder
pads and lacy inserts and I just feel burnt out, I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Annah you have been working too hard,’ Svetlana warned her. ‘How can you be full of good ideas when you are working so hard for everyone? Filming all day long, looking after your family, helping me with my business – you are working too much.
‘In your week off, you must go away for a proper holiday,’ Svetlana insisted. ‘If you’ve lost your feeling for fashion then it is the most important thing to rest completely, Annah, or you will lose your job. The television people will find another presenter. I will find another advisor for Perfect Dress. If you are not in fashion, if you are not
au courant
then you are not in work.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, I know that!’ Annie snapped. ‘Don’t you think I’m completely stressed out knowing I could lose everything? How can I go away on holiday in that frame of mind? How am I supposed to relax for one second?’
Svetlana shook her head, wagged a finger at Annie and gave a knowing smile. ‘But this is exactly why you need to get away. As soon as you rest, all will come flooding back. Your powers will return. This is how it works.’
Svetlana turned to the full-length Louis XIV mirror at the end of the room, checked her reflection
and
tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
‘How many high-powered, all-important rich men have I been married to?’ she asked.
Annie couldn’t quite remember … Was Harry her fifth husband? Or her sixth?
‘I drag them from their business life, kicking and screaming in protest – then two days in a penthouse suite in Monaco and their perspective returns, four days in penthouse suite in Monaco and they are once again ready to conquer the world. I was very good wife,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘but it was never appreciated. I was always traded in for younger model.’
‘You are a good wife,’ Annie reminded her, ‘and Harry will never trade you in.’
‘No. Harry is a different kind of man. Just good, honest, hard-working millionaire. But I can afford to be married to a nice man now.’
Annie couldn’t help smiling.
‘You need a proper holiday,’ Svetlana repeated, ‘so this Friday we fly to Milano, fashion capital of the world, and we make a five-day visit to a spa hotel so expensive even I can only go there once a year. OK? So you need to go home and pack.’
Chapter Seven
London
Night-time Annie:
Men’s striped nightshirt (Bonsoir – bought for Ed years ago)
Thick layer of anti-ageing serum (Estée Lauder)
Towel on head (M&S)
Chipped pink toenail polish (Mac)
Total est. cost: £130
‘NEW MOVES … I
think I was promised some new moves.’
Annie stopped towelling her damp hair and looked over at her husband who was lying in bed with a smile that could only be described as expectant.
‘Let me see,’ she began, ‘I’ve been ordered off the set by my boss, I’ve driven my daughter back to
New
York in a fury and you happen to think now is a good time to mention new moves? You must be completely barking mad. The only new move you’re about to get, my sweetheart, is a karate chop to the nadgers.’
‘Annie …’ Ed smiled and held out an arm, ‘come over here and cuddle up. Your boss has ordered a holiday because she thinks you’ll get over it. Despite her big, flouncy tantrum, I can absolutely promise you that Lana will get over it and in the meantime, you need cuddling, you need massaging and I think I could work with you.’
He patted the bed encouragingly.
‘I miss Lana … we used to phone every single day. I’ve had two texts since she’s gone back.’
‘I know you do and I’m sure she misses you too. But she’ll come round. You’re both good people and you will get over this. Just give it a little time. C’mon, over here.’
‘You really think you could work with me?’ Annie asked. She couldn’t help smiling at him.
‘Yeah, I know you’re trying very hard to put me off with that shapeless flannel nightshirt thing, but I can see past it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really, so why don’t you just take it off and come over here and see me?’
With that Annie pulled the nightshirt up over her head and let it fall to the floor.
‘Now that is much better. That is 100 per cent better.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really, now get over here.’
As she approached the bed, she wondered if now would be a good time to mention Svetlana’s offer.
‘I might like to ask you for a very big favour …’ she began.
‘That sounds good,’ he said, putting his warm arms around her and pulling her in towards his fuzzy naked chest, ‘sounds very, very good because if you have a favour to ask me, then I’m definitely …’ he paused to kiss her mouth, ‘going to ask for one in return.’
Slowly, they began to kiss with intent, with concentration and with roaming hands, focusing on how to make this as enjoyable as possible for each other.
‘It’s been too long,’ Annie murmured as Ed kissed the base of her neck, ‘liking that, definitely liking …’
More very good moves were played and Annie was on her back, being licked, being touched and explored. Her foot was dangling from the bed, the sensations from her toes, travelling up her legs, adding to the complete, all-over body pleasure.
‘Oh yeah …’
But … but … how was her foot being licked while Ed was very busy elsewhere?
Annie ignored the question for another moment or two, but then raised her head from the pillow.
‘Wait a minute!’ she blurted out.
‘What?’
‘It’s the dog!’ she complained.
‘What?’
They both sat up now and looked over the side of the bed.
There was Dave. The dog promptly sat down and looked up at them a little guiltily.
‘He was licking my foot!’ Annie explained, freaked out. ‘I thought it was you.’
‘But I was—’
‘I know where you were … it was completely weird! I do not want a dog licking my foot while I’m trying to concentrate on you … and new moves and trying to have a good time.’
‘Fair enough, I wouldn’t want the dog licking my foot either … Well, I don’t know – was he good? Was he better than me?’
Annie gave Ed a playful smack on the shoulder.
‘Dave! Out!’ she ordered.
The dog just cocked his head to the side.
‘Out!’ she yelled and hurled a pillow in his direction.
Dave saw the pillow coming and high-tailed it towards the open door.
‘Annie, he’s a nice old boy,’ Ed complained, ‘don’t frighten him.’
‘Go to the door and wiggle the knackered handle until it closes. Please,’ Annie asked.
‘OK, OK …’ Ed ran his arm over her shoulders and tried to soothe her.
‘Stupid blooming dog. Now I’m all distracted.’
‘Honestly, lie down, focus, I can take you back … just give me a chance here.’
Annie glanced at the door.
‘He’s still there!’ she complained. A grey muzzle and two beady eyes were poking round the edge of the door.