Free How Not to Shop by Carmen Reid Page B

pointing in their faces. 'Anyway, they're a whole lot nicer than those – ' she pointed down at the sorry, bashed-up black slip-ons Cath had worn for the shopping session. Imitating Svetlana's rich accent, she intoned: 'Bin bag!'
     
'Now my darlin', you obviously have an unexpressed urge for shiny red, so what do we think of these?'
     
Annie carefully opened the lid and unwrapped the tissue paper from a gorgeous little pair of patent red Mary Janes. She knew there would be no persuading comfortable Cath into a pair of mincey high heels, but she hoped that this dressy little pair might stand something of a chance.
     
'Oh! Well . . .' Cath looked at the shoes with surprise as if she couldn't possibly consider something so pretty.
     
'Just try,' Annie wheedled.
     
And before Cath could protest, her black socks were off, pop socks were on and she was showing off her tiny white ankles in the dainty shoes.
     
'Walk,' Annie commanded.
     
Bob knelt down at the side of the shop to capture Cath's uncertain steps.
     
'Don't even try and tell me you don't like them,' Annie said. Cath was walking, pausing and taking long looks in the mirror.
     
'How do they fit?'
     
'Really well.'
     
'They will go with trousers, jeans, skirts, dresses,' Annie wheedled, 'and they're on us, remember. You don't need to think about how you could be saving the money instead.'
     
Cath looked at her feet in the mirror for a good long minute.
     
'Repeat after me,' Annie began, ' I love them .'
     
Bob's camera zoomed in on Cath's face, but she still managed to repeat shyly: 'I love them.'
     
'And once again, with feeling,' Annie teased.
     
'I love them!' Cath said, shooting Annie a smile, then colouring up.
     
'Stop feeling so guilty! Everyone has to wear shoes,' Annie reminded her. 'Might as well wear nice ones and, babes – they only cost forty-five pounds!'
     
Annie did find this sobering. She'd stopped buying shoes on the high street about a year ago and had to confess, 'Do you have any idea how much I blew on these?' She pointed down at her lavish boots: 'a large chunk of my kids' inheritance.'
     
The red loafers and the shiny shoes were wrapped and rung up, Annie paying from the envelope with the £250 in cash she'd been given by Finn this morning.
     
'No company credit card?' she'd asked in surprise.
     
'You think I'd let you loose with a company credit card?' he'd replied. 'We're still paying off the bill my wife racked up when she came to visit you in The Store.'
     
'Ah yes.' Annie remembered very well the day when Kelly-Anne had put herself in the hands of the personal shopping suite and come out several thousand pounds lighter. And then there was her hair. There had been a sort of hair accident and Kelly-Anne had ended up having to cut her hair . . . by two whole feet.
     
Shopping for Cath's dress was never going to be easy. Annie was at the mercy of the high street with an insecure, size 16, highly body conscious client and a grand budget now down to £155. If she'd been back at The Store and had limitless money to spend, she would have known exactly how to solve this problem: with the Italian labels which swathed the more curvaceous mama in carefully cut taffeta with boning, structure and cleverly chosen colours.
     
After the shoe success, there followed a very dispiriting session in the Wallis changing room. Cath, in front of the mirror, was mentally listing her defects, Annie could tell. She had seen that look on so many faces before. It began at the top with: 'I hate my hair, I hate my saggy eyes, I hate my neck, shoulders and cleavage,' and it carried all the way down to: 'I hate my knobbly knees, ankles and hideous toes.'
     
In John Lewis it was worse, and Annie could see Bob deleting their footage. His brief was: happy woman, made-over, breathless with astonishment at how amazing she now looks.
     
Then Finn phoned.
     
'Hi, how's it going?' he asked Annie. 'Have you turned our pumpkin into a princess yet?'
     
Annie