All Shopped Out

Dawdling In Oxford Street at the weekend, not quite sure what to do with myself, I recognised an actor I have for a long time admired. Without a moment’s hesitation I accosted him in the mildest way I know, with an apologetic shrug and a sort of half curtsey: ‘Are you the gentleman (I always tell Mary to
say ‘gentleman’ as my mother told me) who used to appear at the Player’s Music Hall I asked. He nodded.

The song that you used to do which I loved was called ‘The Night I appeared as Macbeth’, I added. ‘You know, I acted so tragic the House rose like magic/ Dum dee dee dum dee dum/ They made me a present of Mornington Crescent/ They threw it a brick at a time.’
He nodded again, but not unkindly.
‘I’m in no way insane but it would make me so happy if you’d allow me to buy you a cup of coffee.’ I said.
‘All right then,’ he said. We sat at some wobbly tables outside a cafe and he answered all my questions about backstage shenanigans and personality clashes. We talked opera cloaks and eye lashes and Hattie Jaques. He was charm and intelligence personified: his manners impeccable, his understanding acute.
When we parted I was walking on air.

Since I have given up buying things for myself for Lent (and giving the corresponding amount of money to a good cause), incidents like this have become life savers. Without the little safety net of a Trip Round the Shops for low moments I’ve had to be so much more inventive about making my own fun. This has been a difficult journey for me. At first the only consoling thing I could think of doing when the chips were down which felt as good as shopping was skulking about at home in bad clothes, eating like Elvis. Next I tried listing all the things I might purchase after easter when Ordinary Time returns (the Marni brown linen personal organiser, the lemon Chloe sundress with the parsley coloured hearts I might wear to my book launch), but that didn't feel like entering into the spirit of the thing. The truth is I feel home sick away from the stores I regularly haunt. It isnt the acquisition of things, it’s knowing what’s on offer that means so much to me: seeing the new lines displayed watching the madcap promoted alongside the mundane, the random prizing of previously unpopular merchandise (think very high waisted jeans), the sharp gasps that a crazy shoe can provoke.

Yet gradually, not even looking in the shops has come to feel like a bit of a holiday. I’ve not been into a department store for five weeks now and in a funny way it is a huge relief, the opting out, the battening down the hatches against retail. I feel like I’ve moved to the country.

For all I know whole make-up ranges may have been launched during this time, mayhave flourished and sunk even, without my ever knowing. New perfumes have been conceived, marketed, risen up the fragrance charts and my favourite YSL bag, my sister informs me, has been copied and reproduced for a twentieth of the price at Miss Selfridges. But who cares? At this very moment it is quite possible that the most desirable, life transforming, piece of clothing I could ever hope for in my size and best colours (pearl grey, pea green) is selling out never again to reappear in the shops, but it barely grieves me. For a
few weeks I am turning my back on all that. In my private time you’ll find me on a bench underneath some branches that are heavy with blossom reading Chekov short stories. My daughter and I have almost completed our seasonal raffia basket and bonnet collection and are already plotting the clues for our Grand Egg Hunt. There may only be another 7 days, nine hours and 48 minutes non-shopping time until Easter, but I’m not counting.

Susie Boyt’s latest book is The Last Hope of Girls published by Headline Review

susie@susieboyt.com