“But I really don’t need eleven rolls of wrapping paper,” said Dennis.
“OK, OK,” said Raj. “Let me just put these through the till for you.”
Dennis followed Raj to the till. He glanced briefly at the sweets on the counter.
“Vogue magazine, Shoot magazine, card, and now you’re eyeing up my Yorkie bars, aren’t you?” said Raj, laughing.
“Well, I was just…”
“Take one.”
“No, thanks.”
“Take one,” insisted Raj.
“It’s OK.”
“Please, Dennis, I want you to have a Yorkie bar.”
“I don’t really like Yorkie bars…”
“Everyone likes Yorkie bars! Please take one.”
Dennis smiled and picked up a Yorkie.
“One Yorkie bar, sixty pence,” said Raj.
Dennis’s face dropped.
“So that’s five pounds in total please,” continued the shopkeeper.
Dennis rummaged in his pocket and pulled out some coins.
“As my favourite customer,” said Raj, “I give you a discount.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Dennis.
“Four pounds and ninety-nine pence, please.”
Dennis had walked halfway up the street before he heard a voice shout, “Sellotape!”
He looked round. Raj was holding a large box of Sellotape. “You need Sellotape to wrap the present!”
“No, thanks,” said Dennis politely. “We’ve got some at home.”
“Fifteen rolls for the price of thirteen!” Raj shouted.
Dennis smiled and carried on walking. He felt a sudden surge of excitement. He couldn’t wait to get home and open the magazine, and gaze at its hundreds of glossy, colourful pages. He walked faster, then started jogging, and when he really couldn’t contain his excitement any more he started running.
When he got home, Dennis bounded upstairs. He closed the bedroom door, lay down on his bed and turned the first page.
Like a treasure box from an old film, the magazine seemed to shine a golden light on his face. The first hundred pages were all adverts, but in a way they were the best bit–pages and pages of glorious photographs of beautiful women in beautiful clothes and make-up and jewellery and shoes and bags and sunglasses. Names like Yves Saint-Laurent, Christian Dior, Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, and Stella McCartney ran underneath the images. Dennis didn’t know who any of them were, but he loved the way their names looked on the page.
The adverts were followed by a few pages of writing–they looked boring so he didn’t read them–then pages and pages of fashion shoots. These were not very different from the adverts, featuring more beautiful women in photographs that were moody and fabulous. The magazine even smelled exotic, as it had special pages where you pulled open a flap to have a sniff of the newest perfume. Dennis pored over every page, mesmerised by the dresses–their colour, their length, their cut. He could lose himself in the pages forever.
The glamour.
The beauty.
The perfection.
Suddenly he heard a key in the door. “Dennis? Oi, bro? Where are you?”
It was John.
Dennis quickly hid the magazine under his mattress. He knew somehow that he didn’t want his brother to see it.
He opened the bedroom door and called down as innocently as he could from the top of the stairs. “I’m just up here.”
“What are you doing?” asked John as he leaped up the stairs, a Jaffa cake in his mouth.
“Nothing. Just got home.”
“Do you wanna have a kick about in the garden?”
“Yeah, OK.”
But all the time they played, Dennis couldn’t help thinking about the magazine. It was as if it was glowing like gold from under the mattress. That night when his brother was in the bath he quietly lifted the copy of Vogue from under the mattress and silently turned the pages, studying every hem, every stitch, every fabric.
Every moment he could, Dennis returned to this glorious world. It was his Narnia, only without the talking lion that’s supposed to be Jesus.
But Dennis’s escape to that magical world of glamour ended the day his dad discovered the magazine.
“I can see it’s Vogue. What I want to know is why a son of mine wants to look at a fashion magazine?”
It sounded like a question, but there was such anger and force in Dad’s voice Dennis wasn’t sure if he really wanted an answer. Not that Dennis could think of one anyway.
“I just like it. It’s only pictures and things about dresses and that.”
“I can see that,” said Dad, looking at the magazine.
And that was when he paused and a funny look crossed his face. He studied the cover for a moment–the girl in the flowery frock. “That dress. It’s like the one your m—”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Nothing, Dennis. Nothing.”
Dad looked for a moment like he was going to cry.
“It’s OK, Dad,” said Dennis softly, and he slowly moved his hand and placed it over his dad’s. He remembered doing the same with his mum once when Dad had made her cry. He remembered how strange it felt too, a little boy comforting a grown-up.
Dad let Dennis hold his hand for a moment, before moving it away, embarrassed. He raised his voice again. “No, son, it’s just not right. Dresses. It’s weird.”
“Well, Dad, what are you doing looking under my mattress in the first place?”
In truth Dennis knew exactly why his dad was looking under his mattress. Dad owned a copy of a rude magazine like the ones on the top shelf at Raj’s shop. Sometimes John would sneak into their dad’s room and smuggle it out and look at it. Dennis looked at it too, sometimes, but didn’t find it all that exciting. He was disappointed when the ladies took their clothes off–he preferred looking at what they were wearing.
Anyway, when John “borrowed” his father’s magazine,
