plump blonde girl with messy hair.
‘Sally. Don’t you remember…we worked together at the hairdresser’s on the High Street years ago. You used to live above it.’ She takes off her glasses and I find myself momentarily transported back in time to a simpler world—when brushing hair and sneaking out for a cigarette were the only things that concerned me.
‘You look fantastic,’ says Sally, and I suddenly realise that this chubby, unremarkable woman is how I would look without Dean’s money and the wisdom of Wagdom on my side. She’s roughly the same height as me, but I’m wearing four-inch heels so look considerably taller. She’s a good three stone heavier, her hair’s all over the place and she doesn’t have a scrap of make-up on.
‘Don’t you get cold in that skirt, though?’ She’s pointing at my thighs as she speaks.
‘It’s a tulip skirt,’ I say stupidly.‘Dolce and Gabbana.’
She smiles. ‘Must get cold, though.’
‘Not really.’ I’m wondering what cold’s got to do with anything when you’re wearing £500 of the very latest clothing to come off the catwalks of Milan.
Sally is wearing jeans beneath her blood-splattered white coat and she has on these clumpy trainers that remind me of Cornish pasties. Still, she looks happy.
‘It all turned out all right for you, didn’t it?’ she says, eyes wide. She looks genuinely pleased to see me, which is quite touching. ‘Yes—you landed right on your feet, didn’t you? You know—after that trouble at Romeo’s—marrying Dean Martin. Great! I followed it all in the magazines and papers. It was so grand—the wedding and that. I was so pleased for you, mate. So pleased and proud. I was telling everyone that I knew you.’
I hadn’t invited Sally to the wedding, just as I hadn’t invited any of my old friends. I had brand-new, gleaming, exciting, beautiful friends by then. Mum told me who to invite. She said it had to be a new start for me, and a whole load of wedding designers, lifestyle coaches and style advisers descended on me to make sure everything was done with the necessary Wag-like aplomb. Dean told me to invite my old mates and have some fun, but I was so obsessed with becoming a great Wag that I just did what Mum and the design team advised. I never saw Sally again from the moment I’d walked out of the hairdresser’s that day.
‘What are you doing round here?’ she asks, and I mumble something about seeing friends. I can’t meet her eye because I keep thinking of all the fun we had together and how I just never called her again, never checked she was okay. I’m worried that she thinks I can’t meet her eye because I’m embarrassed about knowing a common butcher, but I don’t know what to say to make it all right. She’s desperate for me to say something friendly and I’m desperate not to say anything offensive.
I keep thinking of all the stupid things we used to get up to, like when we did highlights for the first time—using a plastic cap. We pulled the hair through the tiny holes with those little crochet needles, lathered on the bleach and left the lady for twenty minutes. Trouble is, we forgot all about her. The two of us had gone out to the pub for a lunch of crisps and cider when Romeo’s daft assistant from Czechoslovakia came galloping in.
‘Quick!’ he cried. ‘Mrs Johnstone agony is in.’
‘Who’s Mrs Johnstone?’ we asked.
‘Lady bleach head. Funny hat wear.’
‘Oh shit!’ We raced back over the road to be greeted by the sight of a lady parading round the salon with a scalp the colour of sun-dried tomatoes. Patches of beetroot-coloured skin were appearing on the top of her forehead and the sides of her face where the bleach had leaked through the cap. She was in considerable distress, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Sally pulled off the cap with an almighty tug and half the bleached hair came off with it. We had to tell Mrs Johnstone that she only had three blonde highlights and considerably less hair than when she had come into the salon because she’d made us take the cap off too soon.
‘Can I have some bacon, please, Sally?’ I finally ask.
‘Sure. How much?’
Sally starts slicing and I stop her when there’s a small pile. She wraps it all up, I pay her, tell her how nice it was to see her again and leave. I’m out on the street before I realise that I never once asked her how she was, where she lives or who with. I didn’t make any effort to try to see her again, take her number or leave mine. Shit. Shit. I run back into the butcher’s, throw my carefully crafted card at her and say, ‘Stay in touch, Sal.’
Sally strokes the lipstick-pink embossed writing and looks at me as if I’ve just given her my kidney. ‘I will,’ she whispers.
I run out of the shop and look around. There they are—V & G…wandering down the street arm-in-arm giggling and chatting like teenagers. Right, concentrate—back in pursuit again.
My targets have wandered into a shop calling itself Faux Fur. It looks predominantly like a fur shop, fake of course, but there are bags, shoes, jewellery and all sorts of other stuff in there. It looks gorgeous through the window. I’ll wait until their backs are turned before I go in.
There are gales of laughter as four assistants descend on V & G and I find myself bursting with envy—how can it take four assistants to help them? Three of the assistants appear to be just standing around laughing at their jokes, while the other is pulling clothes off the rails and hanging them up in a small changing room. Once V & G wander into the changing room (together—in the same small changing room—bizarre. I’m making a note of all this über-Wag behaviour. It takes going to the toilets at the same time to a whole new level…),I enter the shop, help myself to a couple of items (note—there are no assistants to help me!) and push my way through the heavy curtain into the changing room next to theirs.
There’s something really strange about coming so close to your role model. I find myself wanting to know all about her: what bag is she carrying (Chloé), what shoes is she wearing (Gucci), what size is she? She looks tiny, but it’s hard to guess whether she’s a size zero, or whether she’s made it down to that all-important double zero. On the floor of her changing room lies a camisole top. If I could just look at the label on it, I’d know what size she is. On hands and knees, I lean under the thick curtain that separates us and stretch out as far as I can. It’s no good, I can’t reach it. What can I use? The only thing I have with me is a large packet of streaky bacon. With the pig produce in my hand I can just about touch it, so I push the bacon out as far as I can, then drag it back along the floor towards me, pulling the camisole top with it. Things are going perfectly—the top is just within grasp, then—quite suddenly—there’s an almighty yapping sound and one of Geri’s dogs leaps from its basket and charges towards me, biting into the meat with his silly little gnashers. I realise, in that moment, how much I dislike Geri Halliwell—I think her solo songs are hopeless and her dress sense ridiculous. Now her dog’s attacking me just when I was about to see what size Posh Spice is. I yank the bacon back before anyone realises what’s going on, but I don’t realise just how attached the dog is and I pull the stupid, curly-haired pooch, too. He comes zooming under the curtain, attached to the bacon, causing me to stagger back, go tumbling out of the changing cubicle and straight into an elaborate display of clothes, shoes and bags. There’s a loud crunching sound beneath me.
‘Vic,’ screeches Geri.‘Look who it is! It’s that woman who was following us earlier. I think she’s killed my dog.’
‘Right,’ says the manageress, locking the door. ‘I’m calling the police.’
