The Oxfam lady:
Orange suede pinafore (Oxfam, Camden)
Blue blouse (Oxfam, Highgate)
Blue tights (M&S)
Brown cowboy boots (Camden market)
Total est. cost: £74
‘Would you like to take a leaflet about us?’
So far, Annie had spent almost four hours of her precious Saturday morning tearing about in a desperate attempt to locate her missing clothes.
Ed had made numerous phone calls to teachers, to the school building, even to the school janitor in search of the precious items that had accidentally been swept up in the great charity clearout.
Hundreds of bags of unwanted clothes, bedding, books and toys had been collected by the St Vincent’s pupils. Everything had been gathered into the school gym and was now being sorted out and moved on to the relevant charities.
‘Most of the clothes are going to Oxfam,’ Ed had been able to tell Annie. ‘The north London branch has had a delivery of stuff from the school, so that might be a good place to start. I’ll keep phoning and let you know if I hear anything else that’s useful.’
No sooner had Annie heard these words than she’d jumped into her Jeep and headed at speed for the shop before the early-bird, eagle-eyed shoppers started walking out of the place with some of her choicest belongings.
Unfortunately, the woman behind the counter at the shop couldn’t answer any of her questions, but when she saw Annie’s agitation, she decided to phone someone who’d been on duty the day before, to see if they knew more.
Looking round the shop, Annie had started at the sight of one of her flowered Paul Smith skirts dangling on a rail.
She rushed over and checked the size. Yes! This was hers. Definitely.
She’d rushed to put it on the counter.
‘This is mine!’ she’d told the assistant.
Finding the skirt had given her hope, but her relentless rake through the other racks hadn’t turned up anything else.
‘Would you like to see if your bags are still in the back?’ the woman had suggested.
So, Annie had been led through to the back shop, where she could see at once that there was no life-saving stack of bulging laundry bags containing all her treasured belongings.
Pointing to the huge mountain of old clothes, the woman said helpfully, ‘Well, if the bags have been unpacked, the things will have been put in there, ready to be sorted out. Sorry, we’re a bit behind at the moment, we’ve been short-staffed.’
Annie had looked at the mountain. It would take all of the morning to search through this. This was where clothes came to die. Surely nothing of hers could have ended up in this rubbish dump?
‘OK,’ she’d agreed hesitantly, but just as she put her hand onto the first shrunken, bobbly and stained top from Zara, the shop’s phone had rung.
The assistant came back in and informed her: ‘Good news! Janice, who was in yesterday, says only your skirt was unpacked here. When they saw how nice everything was, they took the bags down to Oxfam Style – that’s our premium store in Camden.’
Snatching her skirt from the counter, Annie had headed at speed for the door.
‘But you’ll need to pay for that!’ the woman’s voice had rung out behind her.
So that was that. She’d had to pay £45 to get her own skirt back. Good grief! What if all her other belongings were already hanging out on the racks at Oxfam Style with price tags attached?
‘Can you phone ahead for me?’ she managed to ask as she was leaving the shop. ‘Stop them from putting out anything they haven’t already?’
When Annie had finally made it to Camden she’d only been able to find two summer tops. ‘Almost’ everything else had been set out, according to the assistant.
Now it looked as if almost everything else had gone.
‘But I had Prada sandals in there! You sold my Prada sandals in Oxfam Style?’
‘Erm, yes.’ The assistant looked a little nervous, ‘I think they went for fifty pounds.’
Annie hadn’t been able to say anything, she’d been so astonished.
Fifty pounds! Those shoes had only been worn three times! Someone had scored themselves the bargain of the year!
‘You’ve made us lots of money, even if you didn’t mean to,’ the earnest young girl behind the counter went on. ‘Would you like to take a leaflet about us? At least you can find out where the money’s going to. It might make you feel a bit better.’
The girl had given her sweetest smile and said, ‘They’re only clothes – it’s not a matter of life and death.’
She really didn’t understand.
‘I used to work at The Store,’ Annie tried to explain, ‘I used to have an incredible staff discount and there were so many lovely things I was able to buy. But I don’t work there any more, so I won’t be able to go out and replace all of those things… replace any of those things! They were treasures, all unique, one of a kind, very special… and they were all in my size,’ she said, her voice almost breaking with these words.
‘Why don’t I phone our other branch in Notting Hill?’ the girl offered kindly. ‘Maybe one of the bags went on to them? And there’s always eBay,’ she added, a little hesitantly, ‘good things from our shops are always popping up on eBay with people trying to sell them for more than they bought them.’
‘Yes,’ Annie said, a little snappily now, ‘I know about eBay, I will keep an eye on eBay, but the problem is I don’t have an inventory, a list, I don’t really know what’s gone. I won’t know until I’m getting dressed and wonder where’s my… and it’s all going to dawn on me slowly, bit by bit, just like when people are burgled,’ she said, with emphasis, glaring at the girl.
That was just what it felt like: a burglary.
Only her own son was to blame. If he was standing in front of her right now, she would find it very, very hard to be nice to him, no matter how much she really did love him.
‘Please, do try to think of all the good that’s going to come of this,’ the girl repeated, ‘it might make you feel much better.’
Maybe she was a very selfish and shallow person, but Annie just couldn’t stem the deep, deep upset. It was all she could do to stop herself from bursting into tears. This girl didn’t understand… maybe no one would ever understand, but she’s lost a major part of her very special wardrobe. Lost all those incredible items sourced over the years, bought with her hard-earned discount, staked out in the sales. She’d already had to say goodbye to The Store, goodbye to Personal Shopper Annie, and now she was being forced to part with all of these very previous things. They weren’t just clothes… they were designer clothes – items made with style and care and deep attention to detail. These clothes were part of her, and they connected her to all those years when she had been a major part of The Store.
And now it was all gone… and she felt like weeping. But instead, her phone began to bleep. Taking it out, she saw that she had a new text from Ed.
Urgent. Phone me.