Boots, I ponder? Orcool-mum-around-town trainers. Like the ones Angie has. With the right footwear and a fabulous jacket/coat/pair of jeans, it doesn’t matter where you bought the rest of it.
‘Boots,’ I say, deep in the throes of it now. Those Acne ones I bought online haven’t come yet. I need boots now. ‘Like those ones by Balenciaga but not them, obviously. Trainers too. Size 37. White. Not the Veja, as they’re too tight. Had to give my last pair away.’
Sometimes my choices are questionable. I nearly once bought a Hermès handbag but when I realised the girl was looking at both my unmanicured nails and the rather battered leather tote that’s perfect for all my files and brochures, I was shocked back to reality. Like most ordinary humans, I could not afford the bag. Not under any circumstances, short of selling the car and my body. I’d shuffled away and then almost ran out of the shop.
Not so today. Boxes of boots and trainers appear, and I rip clothes on and off, admiring myself in the specialchanging-room lighting.
Each piece is perfect but I’m not greedy.
One thing, I tell myself. Just one.
I’m in the car driving back into work when the fever breaks. A rash of hot shame and then the sudden plunge of guilt.
What have I done? Beside me on the seat is a bag holding two items. The black jeans and one of those elusive ‘perfect’ whiteT-shirts.
‘Those jeans look incredible,’ the assistant said.
Clad in my borrowed finery, I step out to look at myself in the big mirror. Transformed.
‘TheT-shirt is flying out of the shop,’ she pointed out gravely. Sensible Me knows this is fabulous upselling. Shopper Me nearly buys two.
Now that the shopping adrenalin rush has left me, the fear and guilt are overwhelming.
I cry as I drive and the precious shopping bag beside me on the passenger seat doesn’t help in the least. Shopping is an urge to fill that great gaping wound inside me. The one from my childhood that tells me I’m not anything special and really, once you get to seven, you don’t need a birthday party, do you? Some people use alcohol or drugs to numb pain. I buy things.
But still, clothes don’t hurt anyone, do they? And all women love to shop. It’s what we do, right?
But I know I’ve gone too far this time. I’ve spent too much. I don’t need to look at the bank statement to know that I won’t be able to afford to pay even a quarter of my credit card bill this month. I shudder to think of the interest ratcheting up. Why do I do this? Why?
When I get in to the office the rest of the day stretches ahead, made longer by knowing that the contraband is in my car.Guilt-inducing contraband. Our bank balance has not been good lately but this will push it over the edge. I bought the stuff out of the housekeeping money and I haven’t dared look at the balance on my phone. Only if I shop in thelow-cost shops for the next month will we be able to manage – which is hardly realistic given Christmas is coming. The guilt ripples through me.
The day is not made any better by a text from April, the oldest of my family and the one whose entire life I have to keep a secret from my mother.
That’s me: secret keeper extraordinaire. All weird families have them and my family of origin certainly is weird.
Jared’s leaving her! Today!!!!! Phone soonest!!!!
April, I mutter to myself as I tidy up my desk.
My sister is one of life’s innocents, so trusting of the world that she sees only what it shows her on the surface. This trait makes her both a genuinely lovely person and a magnet for men attracted to naïve women with shimmering sex appeal.
Essentially, we’re alike: short,chestnut-haired and blue eyed. But that’s it. I have kindness writ large on my face and April’s has a look that says ‘You!I’ve been waiting for you for a lifetime...’
Plus, she’s very slim, more hourglass than I am, which means a tiny waist and boobs men speak to. She has full lips and always wears lip gloss, a combination that has an almost mesmeric effect on men. Between the lips and the boobs, she’s a walkingPlayboygirl, despite being close to fifty. The trick is that April does not behave as someone who is or who believes she is, in her forties. She is excellent at escaping reality.
If I am the fixer in our family, April is the runner. She left home as soon as she could to escape our mother, and she’s still searching for someone to save her, like afairy-tale princess, and even though I have bought her manyself-help books, she does not get that she has to save herself. But then, who am I to talk, shopping myself to happiness?
‘Thank goodness you rang,’ says April, picking up after the first ring. ‘It’s happening, it’s really happening. Today, finally –’
‘April,’ I interrupt her as a blast of icy wind hits me on my walk to the car, ‘we’ve talked about this: don’t get your hopes up.’
‘Please don’t say anything negative,’ she begs. ‘Can’t you believe in me for a moment?’
I don’t answer. I believe in her. I just don’t believe in Jared. Not that I have met him. Jared is either a practised adulterer of enormous skill or can disappear over rooftops like Spiderman. I went through a brief phase of trying to catch him at my sister’s apartment, just to size him up for myself. But he must have superhuman powers of evasion. I never managed to meet him.
This, given that their relationship has been going on for two years, makes me think it’s highly unlikely it’s going to end well for April.
‘Darling,’ I say, trying a different tack, ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt. He’s said this before. Nothing has changed.’ I stop, not wanting to hurt her, but she’s my sister, I owe her honesty. ‘He lives in a very big beautiful house with his wife and adult daughters, and if he leaves her, he’s going to be giving up all of that. So it’s going to be ugly.’
