Blue and Green Should Never be Seen! (Or so Mother says) Read online

  Blue and Green Should Never be Seen!

  (or so Mother says)

  COLETTE KEBELL

  BLUE AND GREEN SHOULD NEVER BE SEEN (Or so Mother Says)

  A SKITTISH ENDEAVOURS BOOK:

  Originally published in Great Britain by Skittish Endeavours 2014

  Copyright © Colette Kebell 2014

  First Edition

  The right of Colette Kebell to be identified as the author of this

  work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Conditions of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Skittish Endeavours Books are supplied and printed by Amazon/Createspace

  Addresses for Amazon can be found at www.amazon.com

  Printed and bound by Createspace www.createspace.com

  Thanks to:-

  Design © www.Lizziegardiner.co.uk; illustrations © Shutterstock.com.

  Proof-reader and Copy Editor: Patrick Roberts

  For more information on Colette Kebell see her website at

  www.colettekebell.com

  DEDICATION

  Here is where I have to thank my husband. For being my rock, for collaborating, being supportive and for allowing me to bounce around ideas, no matter where they lead to. I would not have been able to get where I am without him

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 1

  Norwegian jumpers for Christmas? Oh, come off it! I do have some ethics, after all.

  This guy is driving me nuts.

  You might think the decline started in 2008, when the recession hit us all, but actually no. The BIG problem started when I decided I could improve the world by expanding my business. Adding a male section to my personal shopping website seemed the right thing to do at that time. After all, why limit my expertise to only half of the world? I was wrong – no, I was deeply wrong, on so many levels.

  At first people thought, unbelievably and for whatever reason, that it was a dating website and spammed me. “Hey, is it you in that picture?” or, even worse, “What size are you?” Among those, there was the odd genuine person who would have benefited from some style advice. But let’s be frank: they were only a few. Despite my polite answers (after all, I am a Personal Shopper) I soon realised there was no hope.

  The latest request, received today, was from a Jasper Barnes, allegedly working as an entrepreneur in London, asking me to find him a Norwegian jumper. Size was included in the email. Personally, I don’t have anything against Norwegian jumpers. Some of them are beautiful. My best friends wear them. The problem is how to explain to a grown-up man that those sweaters make you look like Pippi Longstocking’s Norwegian uncle. May I offer you some reindeer jerky while you’re waiting?

  Being a personal shopper is a dark art, with few tangible rewards. With the business spread by word of mouth, my clients would never admit they needed my assistance. Not even if they were put under torture. Let’s be honest: who would admit to being in need of a style consultant?

  People need advice, and, often a fresh point of view helps in rejuvenating a wardrobe that, with time, has become boring. But would they admit it? Not a chance!

  It’s like being an alcoholic: the first step is to admit you need help, and acknowledge that that pair of leggings, now you’re in your mid-fifties, don’t suit you any more. When you have recognised that, you’re on the road to recovery, and my services will help you.

  I started by chance, when I was in my late twenties. I’m a compulsive shopper, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. The right to shop should be up there in the constitution (if I still lived in America, that is), just below the “free exercise of religion” and the “freedom of speech”, and above the “right to keep and bear arms” (unless they come in different colours).

  A sort of Amendment 1B: Congress shall make no law in respect of the free exercise of shopping; or abridging the freedom of a shopping spree; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble (except during the sales period), and spend on clothes and shoes. Banks shall invest in the people’s right to their pursuit of happiness, by means of fashion design.

  So the big question is, do I satisfy a potential customer – someone who might have thousands of pounds to spend – and forget my beliefs? Is it worth bending my ethics to please a client, just because we are in a post-recession period (and I actually need the money)?

  The simple answer is, “NO. Never. Not a chance in hell. Zilch.”

  Dear Jasper,

  Thank you for contacting me at GiGi-Personal Shopper. I reviewed your request for helping you to find a Norwegian jumper for this Christmas but, unfortunately, I have to decline the request.

  As a Personal Shopper, I should inform you that we do not shop for specific items upon request. We prefer a more personal approach, where we spend time understanding our customer needs and have a full review of their current style in order to then propose suitable alternatives. It’s a slow process, I suppose, that would not fit your requirements.

  I appreciate the difficulties you might have encountered in finding the above-mentioned item. To be honest, I recollect my grandfather having one, a long time ago, but since then they seem to have entirely disappeared from the face of the earth.

  I definitely have in my memory a scene from the Norwegian film “Troll i Ord”, 1954, where they wear one. Since “The Eiger Sanction” (starring Clint Eastwood, 1975), where the main character moved on to wearing a neck jumper, fashion seems to have evolved, somewhat, inexplicably.

  I asked my partner to research the matter, and I understand there are niche markets for the item you requested. Please see the attached list for websites and shops (mostly in Norway) that could fulfil your desire for tradition.

  Warmest (if you find your jumper) regards

  GiGi Griswald.

  You might have wondered about my surname. My dad is Swedish with perhaps a sprinkle of German (hence the surname), while my mother i
s actually Italian. We also have a pinch of Maltese and French somewhere in our ancestry, but that’s another story. I took my passion for clothes and fashion from my mother; otherwise, I would have had my own flat-pack clothes shop by now. What I found funny is that they called me Griselda, which means “Dark Battle” or some such in German. The reason behind that is still a mystery, and the two are not willing to give up the secret anytime soon.

  I grew up in New York until I reached my tenth birthday, and then the family went back to Milan for a couple of years. The latter period was fundamental to my fashion imprinting, before we moved to the UK.

  In my mid-twenties, I had what “they” call a credit-card problem. To me, it wasn’t an issue at all, and although I admit I was late with my payments, I thought I was exercising my rights, as per Amendment 1B above. Unfortunately the Bank Manager, a little sad man with no sense of imagination or social compassion, thought otherwise. He gave me an ultimatum: repay your debts or else!!

  At that time, I was working for a small firm of solicitors in Berkshire and I hated every minute of it. At school I wasn’t great – not bad, but definitely not great. I found that many of the subjects were boring, or at least they were presented as such. No wonder I failed my GCSE in Domestic Economy – except I then become one of the most influential fashion trendsetters (not the dog) in the kingdom. Yeah, there is that little detail that I’m still not super-rich, but hey, the business is thriving, so no complaints there.

  After a family meeting in my teens, we (?) decided that, owing to my non-bright school career, I should settle for a less demanding profession, and eventually the word “secretary” came out of someone’s mouth; I don’t remember whose. I was indeed fast at typing and quite smart, and during those years of teen-laziness, the job suited me well. Earning money was no longer an issue, except for the fact that I like shopping.

  Yeah, you bet: by the tenth of the month I had made many shopkeepers happy. In some cases, I think I even contributed to sending some of their children to university, considering the amount of money I spent. Something needed to be done. In order to be successful in life, you need to have a plan. I had one, although maybe mine wasn’t the smartest one.

  My plan followed the dictate of the major business universities of the world, such as Harvard and Oxford, and was a “best of breed” in the industry. It was simple, clear and concise: I needed more money. As you can imagine, that didn’t take me very far; after all, I was still a simple secretary. But even in the world of secretariat, people can progress and enhance. There are CEOs all over the country who need a bright mind to sort out their mess – what they call a Personal Assistant, which is nothing other than a secretary with a posh name and a hefty salary. You name it, the world was my oyster, and I only needed the right knife and right technique to open that damn mollusc. I needed to find my niche.

  The first objective was really quite simple: find a job, get some experience under my Ferragamo pink belt, and then move on to a higher-paid job. After one year of window-shopping and struggle, I was ready to make my move. And so I did. The new job was paying a substantial three thousand pounds more a year (gross) than my first one. No more rummaging in the TK Maxx sale bargain bucket, like a homeless person in search of that discarded treasure in the bin, which never comes. No more scavenging the Primark department store in search of that shirt that, if well matched with a proper skirt and accessory, will not look cheap. Maybe I could even avoid delaying buying until the sale season. To be honest, I quite liked the word “season” associated with the sale one. That was a perfect description of me – a real bargain hunter, who lets the prey’s population grow until it’s time, and then goes in for the kill.

  The reality hit me in the face two pay packets later, when I realised there was this guy going around called “Mr Inflation”, who took all the fun out of my hard-earned, well-deserved salary. “Mr Inflation”: a kryptonite who sucked all the spending power out of my wage.

  The bastard.

  A revised strategy was soon due, so I started working some evenings and weekends as a nanny. It wasn’t going to earn much, or change my life, but, it gave a bit of oxygen to my finances, although I knew from the start that it would be more like the last breath on a sinking “Titanic” rather than a fresh breeze in the spring. But I landed distinctly well, with a Pakistani family not far from where I lived. At that point, I was still living with my parents in a decent-sized house near Bray. The neighbourhood was wealthy and in need of good, trustworthy nannies who could guard the precious and beloved children while their parents went out for a boozy night. They were family friends, lived across the road, and with a small push from Mum, there you go. I was hired.

  CHAPTER 2

  Despite working extra hours in a rich neighbourhood, don’t get too excited; they don’t pay much. With the extra money, now I could afford Clarks, not leaving a scratch on the huge, thick, bullet-resistant glass of high fashion. However, the job proved to be – how should I say? – rewarding. The girls were good fun to look after, Daddy was often around the world for business or taking Mommy out for a business meal and Mommy … well, Mommy was in need of some serious help. But let’s not digress yet. The two girls were Laila and Uzma, of eight and ten years of age respectively. Two pretty angels with long, dark hair and deep brown eyes that would be easily satisfied with a few games played in the evening and a bowl of ice cream. We usually played in the lounge, a huge space with more sofas than a furniture shop and paintings that should have been, actually, in a museum. The odd piece of sculpture was scattered around the house, and the girls knew well enough that they should avoid dangerous games like football or tennis inside the house. Not that they didn’t do it, but at least they understood they had to be careful. That made my job extremely easy.

  However, most of the time, it was enough to entertain them with a game of cards, Pictionary or hide-and-seek. Considering I was working there in the evening, the girls became tired soon enough to allow me to send them to bed. Quite often I still had time, before the parents’ return, to catch up with “What Not to Wear” on telly with Trinny and Susannah, my personal superheroes on a mission to save the world from bad clothing.

  I remember clearly – it will stay imprinted in my mind for the rest of my life – one evening in the summer when we played hide-and-seek. Laila, the younger girl, decided to hide in Mommy’s wardrobe. They knew the rooms upstairs were off limits, except for their own, but after a long time spent hunting for her in the usual places, I had to give up and expand my search. I had to start searching the master bedroom and at that point I realised the full horror of what I saw, in front of these very eyes, when I opened the wardrobe doors.

  They say that before dying one can see one’s own life passing by, like in a movie, before one’s eyes. What was in front of me was the most horrific scene I had ever experienced: a huge walk-in wardrobe full of the most ghastly set of clothes I could ever imagine. I was speechless, paralysed, and I could hardly breathe. They were the sort of attire my grandmother could wear to a wedding party, if she felt she didn’t like the bride much. Pastel-coloured outfits with gigantic buttons on the top. I thought vinyl was abandoned years ago in favour of CDs and MP3s, but apparently some people still use those old records somewhere; well, it was the same here, transposed into the world of fashion. Those clothes could have been very good for our beloved Queen in her eighties, but come off it; Mommy was barely in her thirties! One in particular horrified me: a blue and yellow sequined dress with humungous pink flowers all over the place. I poked it with a stick from a distance to ensure it wasn’t alive and ready to kill me. You know, sometimes they haunt you. Could these really be her clothes, or were they keepsakes from an old, deceased aunt?

  Well, that gave little Laila the opportunity to sneak away and win the game, but at that point I started questioning the parenting skills of the couple. Seriously, letting a little girl hide inside that eyesore? I thought for a brief moment about calling social services; how could I s
ave the two little girls from a style-less future?

  No, this was something that needed a deeper approach; I would have to protect these poor little creatures by addressing the issue at the source: the mother. Marianne was a fine woman, an affectionate mother and a generous person; she had been born in Denmark and was a good friend of our family, although for whatever reason, she and her husband didn’t often come to our house. I would dare say she was a perfect woman, living a perfect life – that is, except for her taste in clothes matters. If money can’t buy happiness, it certainly can’t buy style, that’s for sure. I assessed that she was in that awkward situation when, after a few years spent caring for the family, she had slowly moved into that phase of life where people enjoy being “comfortable”. The worst fashion crimes in history have been committed in the name of “comfort”. Comfortable is the Jack the Ripper of style, and soon afterwards comes the loss of interest, the divorce and a life of misery spent feeding the pigeons, alone in the park, or worse, sharing your life with 20 cats.

  Don’t get me wrong: she had loads of money and she could buy expensive stuff; she was just purchasing the wrong style. I was ready to explore another cunning plan of mine, on how to approach her, when she gave me a lifeline. “Oh, Griselda,” she said one day when I had just arrived at her place for another evening of babysitting (I didn’t really think about it as “babysitting”, rather like a donation to my shoes fund), “you always dress so smartly; you must have spent a fortune.” Indeed I was dressed smartly, but I guess we had a different concept of what “spending a fortune” consisted of.

  “I wouldn’t say that. The top was just twenty pounds. The leather trousers are Nicole Farhi, but I got them from an outlet. They’re actually a sample, so you won’t see another pair around,” I said.