The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (10 page)

       
‘I’ll work again,’ I assured Rachel defensively. ‘When Millie’s a little older. Maybe I’ll even do something completely different – something creative.’

       
‘Puh! You’ll need to,’ she said, looking rather frozen. ‘After Simon and his chums finish oiling the rungs on the corporate ladder, you’ve no hope of climbing back on again. How does night-packing shelves at the supermarket sound? Creative enough for you?’

       
Hell, she
does
have a point. I’m such a cliché. A gleaming bloody trophy for my team and every misogynistic boss in town to polish and gloat over: ‘They’re all the same. Once the baby comes along – brains turn to mush. Can’t bear to leave the little sproglets. Seen it a hundred times before. No dedication. No work ethic. Blah de blah de blah.’

       
And I guess that’s how I got to today, sitting at my kitchen table with a fractious five-month-old Millie on my lap, frantically scanning the pages of Alison’s well-thumbed books – her gifts that are proving to be worth their weight in gold.

       
And what a truly pathetic sight I am: holding one book on controlled crying in my left hand, another on weaning in my right hand, and the telephone wedged between my ear and raised shoulder – as I enquire about the day and time for the local new-mothers’ group.

       
After all, there’s only so much sightseeing one can do without dealing with reality: Tim’s been called back to work and I’m adrift in a foreign city, unable to speak the language, and slowly but surely being crippled by my precious new espadrilles.

       
I need help. Fast!

From:        Fi (work)

To:                Jane (home)

Subject:        Shoe School

Hi Jane

       
I’ve decided that the only way to see my two favourite people at weekends is to take matters into my own hands. I’ve booked you and me into Marco’s shoe-making school in 6 weeks’ time – second weekend in March – yeh! (Will also try and rope in Rachel and Liz, as can have up to five in a class.) So consider this prior warning and sort yourself out with Millie – no excuses accepted.

       
Much Love

       
Fi

       
xx

PS. So much for me thinking that spending Christmas with my parents and their respective partners in one big happy dysfunctional family would get me some Brownie points ... have just heard from Dad that I’m to keep a low profile with Annabel (his third wife). Apparently, they’ve just spent the night in Casualty after Hector, their 2-year-old, embedded a shoe in his ear from The Barbie Chic Shoe Store (or La Boutique de Chaussures) that I gave his sister for Christmas. (It’s SO amazing, by the way: comes complete with no less than ten pairs of shoes, shoeboxes, a Barbie-size seat, a working foot-measurer, display cases, shopping bags, four handbags, a cash register and a mirror. What more could a girl want? Have also put one aside for Millie – couldn’t resist.)

       
Anyway, I thought I was rather clever, making sure that the box said it was for ‘3 years and over’ and that it would be perfect for Charlotte. It didn’t even occur to me that Hector would ram the sodding ‘tangerine twist’ mule in his ear AND narrowly miss perforating his eardrum. Like I was born knowing the bizarre antics of the human 2-year-old?!?! Must dash, Fi xx

From:        Liz (work)

To:                Fi (work); Jane (home); Rachel (work)

Subject:        RE: Shoe School

Ooh, count me in! Perfect timing too, as Harry will be away at a health-and-safety conference all weekend. Please tell me I’ve done the right thing ... When Harry saw my VISA bill I got an attack of the guilts about buying 20 (yes!) pairs of shoes at the Selfridges sale (I only went in to buy coffee mugs – promise) and have just sold half of them on eBay. (And even made a small profit!)

       
See you soon

       
Liz

       
xx

From:        Rachel (work)

To:                Fi (work); Jane (home); Liz (work)

Subject:        RE: Shoe School

1. I’m up for it – as long as I don’t ruin my nails.

2. Will there be any men there (apart from Marco, of course)?

3. Shame on you Liz – and you call yourself a shoe princess?!

R x

Oh, how I wish a shoe surplus was a problem of mine. Tim’s recently banned all new shoe purchases. Not through any particular act of meanness, but more because he has slipped rather too comfortably into Mr 1950s mode, now that he is the sole earner and we are still living in London with a ludicrous mortgage.

       
He’s even taken to calling me from Bangalore, ahead of his flights home, and advising me of his food and laundry needs, before asking about Millie.

       
Pre-Millie, it would have been hints of a magnum of duty-free champagne, a bottle of expensive perfume and a sexy little number procured from Agent Provocateur. Followed by veiled suggestions of nocturnal activities with a pair of red patent-leather stilettos and fragranced body oil. Now, it seems, I’ve turned into the catering manager, launderette and chief babysitter.

       
Give me strength
. One of the less empowering aspects of my new job, I have to say.

From:                Jane (home)

To:                Fi (work); Rachel (work); Liz (work)

Subject:        RE: Shoe School

Consider it a date! Tim’s back from India that weekend and will delight in minding Millie. Will have to work out how to organise the feeding – but leave it with me, will sort out something. Am really looking forward to it – cabin fever well and truly setting in. Am DESPERATE to get out.

       
Am actually off to join the local new-mothers’ group today – wish me luck. Ha! Am SO nervous – what if it’s full of earth-mother fascists and competitive supermums? Anyway, enough of my paranoid ramblings.

       
Much Love

       
Jane

       
xx

PS. Fi, at least Hector chose the funkiest shoes in Barbie’s shoe store to embed in his ear!

At the end of yet another day in domestic paradise, I huffily decide that the bulging laundry pile can wait, and make myself a cup of tea and curl up on the sofa to watch some crappy TV, while flicking through my latest trash mag (a small reward I’ve been saving all day). But an unsightly headline reaches up and grabs me by the throat before I even get the chance to relax: ‘Cat Got the Cream’.

       
It seems that The Cat’s not just a pretty face:

Motherhood has unleashed Catriona’s creative energies and bold business acumen, and she has great pleasure in announcing her very own organic gourmet cat-food label, Mange Chat. Naturally, her feline clientele will be at the top end of the market. Orders are already streaming in from Europe, the US, Japan and Australia. She sincerely hopes that she can be a role model to all working mothers, as someone who balances brains, beauty and the nurturing of her baby, for the betterment of herself and the world around her.

I think I am going to puke, and I leg it straight to the computer to see what the Trash Queenz have to say about this.

       
Damn. They confirm it’s a done deal. In fact, it’s apparently one of the highest single celebrity endorsements
ever
signed, due largely to The Cat’s unique household-brand power. It seems the supermodel-supermum has just added superbusinesswoman to her name.

       
I read on ... Aha:

Whispers abound, from credible sources within Mange Chat, that The Cat had absolutely nothing to do with product development and has simply signed her name for a truckload of money.

Now, that’s more like it.

       
I calmly make my way back to the sofa and take up from where I was rudely interrupted: ‘1960s Soap Star Marries Toy-boy Lover in Lavish Star-studded Balinese Ceremony – Exclusive Photos.’
Aahhh, bliss
.

www.ShoePrincess.com
 
SP Survey Results
 
Q:        Why do heterosexual men think that women’s shoes should cost £10, and that any more than one pair in a wardrobe is a heinous crime?
 
It was extremely tough picking a winner, given that most of you came up with the same answer: something along the lines of the hunter-gatherer conundrum, with men just not ‘getting’ shoes.
 
So, I’ve decided to give the L.K. Bennett gift voucher to SP of Edinburgh who offered a very clever solution to this age-old problem (shoe-shop owners take note!):
 
A:        ‘If I owned a shoe shop, I’d call it Fruit ’n’ Veg, so that when it came up on VISA statements, my loyal customers’ penny-pinching partners would not realise it was shoes.’
 
A deserving winner, I’m sure you’ll agree!
 
Shoe SOS
 
I feel it is my civic duty to pass on to the powers that be at L.K. Bennett:
 
The ex-pat Aussie SPs need you. Desperately!

10. Sole Mate

22, 20, 18, 16 ... 14. No. It can’t be. I double-check the address Mary (the health visitor) gave me, which I’ve scribbled on a scrap of paper, before noticing the sign in the window advertising today’s cooking demonstration and talk on weaning. This looks like it.

       
It strikes me that I must have walked past this building a million times in my pre-Millie morning sprints to the tube. Purposefully clip-clopping along, cappuccino in hand. Funny, I always thought it was a squat. I’m still not convinced, and spend the next few minutes loitering around outside, pretending to fix Millie’s hat and blankets.

       
I spy a likely suspect: a mum with a pushchair slows a little and then stops right next to me, giving me a kindly no-teeth smile. She then puts the brakes on, yanks on her nappy-bag backpack, takes her baby out of the pushchair, folds the pushchair with one arm and one foot, and then gamely carries the whole lot down the steep little moss-covered steps to the basement of the Victorian terraced house.