The Retail Therapist Read online

  “Why,” I asked, “because you aren’t the tough girl anymore? Your personality didn’t change, just your attire. Inside you are still the old Nala, although nowadays you look more confident.”

  She kept quiet for a moment, as if to evaluate my words and then added, “He has suddenly become quite romantic. I love that. Hey did I tell you we won again last weekend?” She was so full of stories about how the football team were progressing, how school was and that she had started to form a plan in respect of her future…what she might like to do when she left school, that I gave her the time and sat and listened to her, interjected when I felt it was relevant to do so , and encouraged her.

  I didn’t need the news, as I’d spotted him myself when he regularly showed up at the Bray Saints’ matches. Nala also showed much more determination, both during the football matches and outside, and she soon became a catalyst for the rest of the team – a true leader. She started bonding with them; she had a witty sense of humour that somehow she’d kept hidden until then and, most of all, to the joy and happiness of my brother, the team started winning.

  We also paid a visit to an old friend of mine, a hair stylist who owed me a favour and who gave Nala a new look.

  I received a thank-you card from her mother and, sure enough, I made it onto their Christmas-card list too. I was glad for her, because the first time I’d seen her she didn’t really strike me as a happy bunny – she was lost in trying to build or find a personality that she didn’t know was already in her. I wouldn’t say I did anything much, but I think I helped her to see her inner self, to become more confident and open. That was an achievement I’d carry with me for the rest of my life.

  On the work side, the other clients were also happy.

  In particular, Julian. Eventually I was able to show him a couple of samples from Cousin Lucas, and he was amazed. I found him a new wardrobe of things to wear during his show, and he was ecstatic. However, it was clear enough to me that Cousin Lucas had struck a chord in him. Those designs were fabulous, sexy, intriguing and, from that point onwards, that was it: Lucas would be the master designer, the one and only to dress Julian.

  The results were impressive; after the show many people asked him who was the source of that fantastic change and Julian, not willing to spill the beans about Cousin Lucas, directed them to me. That gave me a few additional clients.

  I could just imagine my mother’s face if I told her about my new set of customers, and had to laugh. “Hello, Mum – I’m the official fashion consultant for the drag queens in London; do you fancy coming and seeing a show next Saturday?”

  That would have raised a few eyebrows, but business was business and that was a challenge I honestly couldn’t give up. On the other hand; what was worrying me was Ritchie.

  A few weeks had passed since the last message with Johnny and he was starting to get twitchy. At first he went into drama mode, imagining all sorts of accident and even fearing the worst, which kept him awake for a few nights.

  Then he went into a different mood, thinking that maybe Johnny had dumped him and didn’t want to face him. That was complete rubbish, and I let him know he was being a horse’s arse about that.

  “Come on, Ritchie; from what I know of Johnny he’s not the type to shy away from a relationship. He’s better than that and if he’d wanted to break up, he would have said something.”

  “Yeah, but it’s been a few weeks; I don’t know what else to think.”

  “Did you try to call him?”

  “Yes, I’m online nearly all the time, even at night, but he’s not showing up on Skype. And his mobile doesn’t work down there. I even tried sending emails, but haven’t received any answers.”

  “Maybe he’s involved in some sort of mission? We don’t really know what’s going on there and surely they might have some difficult times. Enough not to be back at camp or able to sit at the computer.”

  “I also tried some friends we have in common,” he added, “but they haven’t heard anything either.”

  I didn’t know what to think and Ritchie was useless in that state, so I said, “Take the day off. I’ll go and work from my apartment. And relax – I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Thanks, GiGi.”

  And so I went home; after all, I needed a break from work as well – but something was nagging me. I opened Facebook and started searching; I knew Johnny wasn’t there; he wasn’t the Facebook type, but maybe I could find a way to get to some close friends? I started from his regiment, but there was nothing; then I remembered he had a sister called Jennifer. With a surname like his, Jones, that was a losing battle though.

  Maybe there was a way of calling his battalion in the UK to see if I could get through that way? I started searching the internet and my heart sank. A few links were showing an association between his battalion and a Johnny Jones, killed in action.

  It couldn’t have been!

  The more I read, the more I was convinced that the worst had actually happened and Johnny was dead. In particular, there was an article from the local paper showing a picture of the deceased soldier and mentioning his bravery. Damn! The article was a week old and none of us had spotted it. I was engrossed in my job and dear Ritchie … well, he wasn’t exactly a news person. I kept reading and later they showed a picture of the parents; Johnny had been their only son. They lived not far from Camberley and I was wondering if they knew their son was gay.

  I searched the directory and found the address straight away. Maybe I should pay them a visit and see what they said before breaking the news to Ritchie, I thought. Oh gosh, how many doubts that brought. What if they didn’t know about Ritchie? Maybe he should have been the one to talk to them first but, if he was going to burst into tears, would he be able to keep his composure?

  That decided it: I would have to meet the parents and give them my condolences. I wrote down the address and I started sobbing. I knew that guy; he was funny and lovely. He had lost his life fighting for our country and now he was no more. What would the pain be like that his family would have to endure, and Ritchie as well, if I already felt that empty?

  I bashed a fist on the table, cursing the government for letting him go to Afghanistan and die like that, but that wasn’t the point, I said to myself. Johnny had made a choice, to serve his country and help to protect all of us here at home, so we could carry on living our lives and enjoying our freedom. I felt useless and all my little efforts to make the world “a better place” seemed at that point so empty, without any value in comparison to his ultimate sacrifice.

  Poor Johnny.

  But I had to visit his parents, without further ado, and pay my respects. I didn’t know what I was going to say and I was afraid I’d burst into tears again; but it was the right thing to do. So I went to my car and, after a few minutes spent drying my eyes, I started the engine.

  The house was a semi-detached, like many others around. There was a small garden with a red Japanese maple in the middle. At the front was an empty driveway, which made me wonder if the Joneses were at home, but I parked nonetheless and, after a long sigh, I rang the doorbell.

  A lady in her mid-fifties came to open the door. I tried to see if I could identify the pain she was enduring, but I could see only a pair of sad eyes looking at me.

  “Yes?” she asked me.

  “Mrs Jones, I’m sorry to bother you, but I recently learned the news about Johnny. I wanted to extend my condolences to you and your husband.”

  She suddenly looked ten years older at the mention of his name, and then she whispered, “Thank you.”

  I stayed there, with nothing else to say, for a few seconds, afraid I would start crying. Almost as an afterthought, Mrs Jones said, “Do you want to come in?”

  “Thank you.”

  The lounge was fairly large and sitting in an armchair was the husband, reading a newspaper. He rose and shook my hand.

  “So you knew Johnny?”

  “Yes, I did. He was a brave man.
”

  “We miss him so much. Had you known him for long?”

  “No, not really: just for the past six or seven months, but he’d made a big impression. He was so jovial, and as far I knew he seemed a happy person.”

  “He was, although it hadn’t always been like that,” said his mother; then she went to a table where a few photos were standing, and gestured to me to come closer. She showed me pictures of Johnny in his childhood, and where they were taken, and then other, later ones after he’d joined the Army.

  “You know, we still kept his room as it was. Occasionally he came to visit and spend the night here. It was as though our family was together again, even for a little while.”

  We spent a few more minutes talking about him and I thanked God I hadn’t started crying, although I’d had to make a huge effort not to. I knew that if I had tears in my eyes the parents would start crying as well and I wanted to avoid that. In that tragic situation I wanted to pass on the message that Johnny had been loved, that I wanted to remember him when he’d been happy. It was soon time to depart and Mrs Jones accompanied me to the door. I kissed her on the cheek and when I started walking towards my car, as an afterthought she said, “Do you know, by any chance, a guy called Ritchie Garrett?”

  My blood froze in my veins. “I … as a matter of fact, yes I do.”

  “We know Johnny was very fond of him; he always talked about Ritchie when he was around.”

  “So, you knew …”

  “Of course we knew, but we didn’t know how to contact Ritchie.”

  I had to tell her that Ritchie didn’t know the news yet – that I had just found out that day and had come there straight away.

  “We really would like to meet him, and if he could say a few words at the funeral, we‘d be so grateful.”

  We exchanged numbers, with the promise to get in touch. Now I had to deliver some very bad news to my dearest friend.

  CHAPTER 18

  It was a disaster.

  How do you break the news to someone that his beloved one has just died? At first came the denial, the reluctance to understand that what I’d told him was true, and the hope that maybe there had been a mistake and the news, somehow, was wrong. Then it started to sink in and it felt as if his life, all of a sudden, had become empty.

  And then, only then, did he start to feel the pain and the loss.

  Ritchie went through all these phases, and I with him. We cried together, we hugged and then cried a bit more. Eventually I told him about my visit to Johnny’s parents and that shook him a bit. He was in no condition to go and see them straight away, but he promised me he would do that the following day.

  I went home that night feeling as empty as a shell.

  I had never faced death before. I mean, I’d had some long-distant relatives who had died previously, but I was somehow detached from them. They were people I’d barely known, who were mentioned once in a while by my parents, but I’d never suffered the loss of one so close to me, someone who’d been a part of my life, although indirectly; someone who “I knew”.

  How do you cope with that? I couldn’t; I didn’t know what to do or think, and I felt completely useless. Eventually, Ritchie went to visit the Joneses and gained some relief from that meeting. We never spoke about the occasion or what they’d said to each other; the only thing I knew was my old friend let slip “that he had acquired a new set of parents”. We left it at that.

  For a few weeks I didn’t show up at his apartment for work, but spent most of my time in my own place and making the occasional visit to clients.

  It came as a surprise when he decided that he didn’t want to live in his place any longer; we met a few times at the pub and eventually he spilled the beans. Every time he was at home he was thinking of Johnny and he couldn’t find a way of getting out of that loop, so eventually he went back to live with his parents.

  I couldn’t blame him; I’d probably have done the same if I were in his position. People react to this sort of thing in different ways and Ritchie was withdrawing into himself. From my apartment/walk-in wardrobe I thought many times about what I should have done or said, but every time I thought of something I soon found thousands of arguments that told me otherwise. Eventually I settled for “just being there”, going out for lunch or for a beer and waiting.

  They say that time heals all wounds, but I hadn’t seen any sign of that, and at the end of the day I thought it was just a saying, a big pile of rubbish. I would never forget Johnny and I’d never forget the pain I felt when I heard the news, but that would be only a fraction of what Ritchie had been feeling.

  I kept paying him his salary, hoping that one day he would come to accept, somehow, that life has to go on, even if sometimes – often – it stinks.

  It was Nala who woke me up from that numbness. That year they reached second place in the championship, because of the matches lost at the beginning of the season, however the results they achieved was surprisingly good. I especially saw their determination growing, the team was following Nala who become a true team leader: next year they would win the tournament easily.

  Something happened at the celebration for their results.

  “You said that the first step is to admit when you have a problem.”

  “Yes, Nala, but this is entirely different, it is not a matter of few wrong clothes or new hair style to sort out.”

  She didn’t listen, she didn’t stop talking and I had no chance to retort.

  “Sometimes we need someone else, a third party, to point out our mistakes. It doesn’t work with fashion only, GiGi, this is what I learnt from you. We all have energy inside to carry on, but sometimes it has to be somebody else that reminds us.”

  I could not contradict her, she had just repeated, word by word, what I had told her at our first meeting.

  Perhaps she was right. I decided to make a few phone calls.

  It was the following Saturday when I invited Ritchie to the pub, for lunch. It took a lot of effort just to encourage him to get out of the house.

  Waiting for him there was Allyson Traynor, the lady from Sunningdale, cousin Lucas, Julian and all the other customers he had worked with. He got a standing ovation as soon as he exited the car.

  “What is this all about?” he asked, surprised. “Is that really Allyson Traynor?”

  “Yes. Those are all the people you have helped since we started working together. You are not alone, bear that in mind. All those people are grateful for what you did for them.”

  “But… I didn’t even speak to most of them…”

  “It doesn’t matter, they know you helped them, I told them so, and they came here today to show their gratitude.”

  A couple of tears fell down his face, but then suddenly he sort himself out. I introduced him to all of them, and each of the guests had only good words to say to him.

  “I quit that horrible job,” said cousin Lucas whilst hugging Ritchie, “and the merit is yours!”

  “I didn’t do much,” he said, “I only suggested GiGi…”

  “Bullshit! If it wasn’t for you, I would still be drawing shirts with flowers and suffer. Thank you cousin.”

  Then it was the turn of the lady from Sunningdale, who had a name nobody could pronounce, something like Florkzackinsky. “GiGi told me that most of the work was done by you. You gave me back my self-esteem; you know, I needed it, at my age, I was depressed and I had no chance of finding a way out.”

  “But, I really…”

  And then it was Nala’s turn. She had made a larger version of that portrait depicting Johnny and Ritchie, she had had it framed and now she gave it to my friend as a gift.

  “Your happiness made me think of what was missing in my life, why I could not fit in with the those around me.” Bradley was at her side without saying a word, but it was when the two started holding hands that Ritchie started sobbing.

  “I saw you and Johnny an one of the football matches and I envied you. I said to myself: if someone
could look at me that way, the way you two looked at each other, I would be happy.”

  She hugged Bradley whilst Ritchie looked at the portrait.

  I walked a couple of steps away, I was sure the guests would do the necessary to bring Ritchie back to where he belonged, convince him that his insecurity had no place there. Allyson Traynor was waiting for her turn to speak to him, and to share her next project.

  I only hoped that all that would be enough.

  And then one evening, out of nowhere, when we were having dinner at his parents’ house, he said, “Do you need any research done?”

  That was the first time, in over two months, that he’d mentioned work; I almost jumped out of my chair and ran to hug him. I hoped we could re-establish our working relationship as it had been before, as we were a great team.

  “Sure, I have plenty.”

  “I don’t have my place any more, but Dad said we could use the shed. Unless you prefer working in your tiny apartment, that is.”

  I didn’t have a chance in hell of swinging a cat there, what with all my clothes and stuff lying around; contemplating fitting a couple of desks in as well was out of the question. “In the shed?”

  “Yeah, the big one. We cleaned it up this past weekend and it’s quite big. It even has windows.”

  “In the shed?” I asked again.

  “Well, we could run a cable extension, you know, for the computers, and maybe a heater. I also saw in PC World that there’s a piece of equipment that would give us wireless as well …”

  “Do we have space for a couple of desks?”

  “Plenty. Actually only for one, but it could be a large one, to share. And then you’re often away to visit customers, so we could …”

  “Relax, Ritchie; you’ve sold it to me!” I said.

  He jumped out of his chair and came around the table to hug me “Thank you, GiGi; you’ll love it!”

  “Wait and see the backlog I have, and then I think you may regret your thanks.”

  “I don’t mind. I have so much to catch up on, I’ll work night and day.”