The Ascendant

Chapter Fifty-Two

I had managed to put my shopping trip off until I’d been paid a second time. An insecurity about future income and a phobia about the type of shops which Dawn was so insistent I should frequent had, so far, proved strong enough to keep her at bay, but now I had to deliver on my promise, and so the journey had to be made.

We ventured first of all to Covent Garden. No prior budget had been discussed but I had a figure of two or three hundred pounds in mind: enough for a noticeable makeover without parting with an utterly obscene amount of money. My current selection of clothing was presentable and functional; a point even Dawn was mostly agreeable upon, and an improvement rather than a complete overhaul was what was called for (admittedly not an opinion shared by Dawn).

We cruised over the cobble stoned streets, popping in and out of boutiques, holding up shirts, trying on trousers, co-ordinating colours and discussing appropriate footwear. By the time we had sat down for a late morning snack in a tiny, chrome encrusted café, Dawn had demolished her credit rating on half a dozen outfits of varying degrees of garishness.

‘Ben, you must be the least productive shopper in history. I thought you were coming here to spend some of your hard earned cash but all you’ve done is watch me part with mine.’

‘I haven’t seen anything that I’ve really liked yet.’

‘You are in one of the most fashionable corners of London. How can you possibly say you haven’t seen anything that you really like?’

Dawn was incredulous, so I stopped short of saying they simply didn’t seem to cater for my tastes round here. It was also true that I had seen a couple of things that I did like but the idea of spending about a hundred pounds on a shirt or pair of jeans, however well-seemed or bountiful they were, still grated. The first thing to learn upon earning large sums of money, it seemed, was how to spend it. Saving was uncool, hoarding unthinkable. Melt the plastic, splash the cash, give it some large! Spend! Spend! Spend!

We divided Dawn’s bags between us and I agreed to be taken back to Paul Smith, the scene of that shirt, and an adjoining store where I’d spotted the jeans with rusty looking stitching. With Dawn temporarily appeased, we set off to Regent Street, for some ‘much needed formal wear’, though I wasn’t aware that either of us had any such 'need' in the near future.

We arrived at Regent Street, where I would be required to buy a new suit, two pairs of shoes (‘gentlemen always have a selection of quality shoes’), shirts, ties, cuff links … it was quite a list, and reminded me of going shopping with my mum before a new school term, only this time I was the one doing the buying, and the prices had increased ten or twenty fold: not much of which was related to inflation.

I cut a deal with Dawn: I’d buy the shirts, ties and cuff links now but the suit and shoes would have to wait until my permanency with Vanguard London had been confirmed. Having reluctantly agreed to compromise, Dawn was adamant there should be no half measure in terms of the quality of purchases that would be made, and marched me over to Chancery Lane, where I would buy some of the most luxurious ‘formal wear’ available to Western civilisation.

Once the final totting up had been completed I realised I had spent just over seven hundred pounds, a princely sum, considering my bags contained just eight items. Dawn had not fared much better, spending the best part of two grand although she been paid a bonus this month.

We stopped for another bite to eat, “congratulating” ourselves on having achieved so much more than we had expected, before jumping into a cab, the vanquished and the victorious. I spent the short journey home staring confusedly out at the wind-swept pedestrians while Dawn hammered on about the forthcoming sales and more exciting bargains that simply had to be had ...