The End Of The Affair

Recently, a man I’ve known for a decade and a half phoned me up and asked, rather urgently, if we could meet up for a drink. We sat facing eachother squarely in the Thai themed sports pub at the end of my road. He did not seem much in the mood for talking so I enquired after his children, his wife, his job, his parents, and his brother Seamus whom I’ve never met . From his air of heavy seriousness and the way he squirmed in his chair I could tell he had something important to tell me. I grew anxious and began to fear the worst.

Finally, I took the bull by the horns and asked him if there was anything special he wanted to say.

His expression darkened by three or four tones and he told me that when we were at University, fifteen years earlier I had really lent on him emotionally.

‘It’s true’, I admitted. ‘It was an awful time for me and you really helped keep me going. l’ll never forget how kind you were. Did it feel like a terrible strain ?’ I asked.

‘No’, he said. ‘Well maybe a little bit.’

‘ I’m really sorry about that’, I said. He shrugged and again he grew silent.

‘Do you remember a few years ago when you came round for dinner and you said quite a few negative things about Ian Hislop?’

‘No’, I said, ‘Oh yes I do remember. I felt that he didn't have a very high regard for women.’

‘You went on about it for ages.’

‘Are you a big Ian Hislop fan?’

‘Not specially’, he said. ‘But it was annoying.’

‘I’m sorry. I can go on a bit sometimes. I quite like him now’, I added helpfully.

‘I just don't feel you and I have the same ideas about friendship Susie’ , he suddenly came out with it. ‘I mean I know when we left Oxford you found me a good job and a nice place to live but-’

‘That’s not nothing’, I said.

‘I know. I just feel-’

‘That you don't want to be friends with me any more-’

‘Well, I’m not sure I do.’

I took a deep breath. It was clear now- he had come round to break up with me. The odd thing was we hadn't seen eachother in more than a year.

I myself have had a small but significant shift in allegiances this week.

After an eight year reign as my top London department store Selfridges has been replaced in my affections by that old grande dame Harrods. It may be that I know Selfridges inside out and this familiarity has worn away some of its sheen. I have looked at all the clothes in Selfridges, all the homewares and there just isn't anything particularly that I want. Besides more than half the people I know shop in Selfridges, so anything I see they will have already inspected and rejected before me.

Harrods is so large it’s like a rambling mansion with odd corners which no-one’s been in for years, where brilliant treasures lurk. The staff are so old school they are not afraid to have daft conversations about the life of things. If you come at someone at Selfridges with some blithe and random opening gambit such as ‘What is it about men and watches?’ you’ll get a polite but curt little sympathetic smile. At Harrods they are as fascinated as you are by such topics and more than happy to theorise. ‘Men view watches as women view handbags; they like to have a selection for different occasions’, the wonderful Yvonne told me. Both of us, it transpired, had bought our menfolk expensive watches which they were nervous about wearing and had left to gather dust in drawers. ‘He gets his Raymond Well out about once a year, if we have a really special occasion.’

‘What are they like! we console and cheer eachother.

In Harrods the staff are not only more eccentric, they have more flare.

‘ Remember my name, JC,’ says the man in the International designer Room, ‘Think of Jesus Christ.’

The range of merchandise at Harrods is always a revelation. They come in at a lower level than Selfridges and they go higher too. They sell the things I can afford (over a hundred watches at under a hundred pounds) and the things I dimly hanker after on my virtual shopping trips such as the world’s best cocktail rings: the Boodle green tourmaline spaghetti ring, the Van Cleef daisy ring, the six stone sweetshop inspired Dior suivez-moi. I I discuss the relative merits with their vendors who defend their brand’s rings in brilliant foreboding sound bites: ‘Coloured stones may be fashionable just now but gold and diamonds will never date.’

Selfridges is, by contrast, like good prose. There is nothing extraneous or wasteful, no padding, nothing odd, no relics or wasted space. But these days I want extraneous and contrast. I want the choice of good and bad taste. I actually want different departments. I can buy Arbroath smokies, a set of Sylvanian families, a child’s grey wollen coat and a cheapo watch at Harrods.

Selfridges has none of these things. In Harrods you still get strange juxtapositions. In the tights hall for instance there is a large display of fur wraps, many of which pink. This may seem random but when you think it over it makes perfect sense.

When I travel I don't just take the things I need, I take as much as I can possibly fit because I like to have my wardrobe in miniature, so that I can make my own selection. Well, at Selfridges all the choosing has already been done for you. The merchandise has been edited to within an inch of its life before you even arrive and everything has a similar tone: the luxurious, correct, good taste beloved of urban sophisticates Selfridges is a victim of its own success. Streamlined and immaculate it certainly takes the effort out of shopping. This is a draw for most people but for me it’s the effort, the thrill of the find, the uncovering of the absolutely definite article that is shopping’s best part.

Susie Boyt’s latest novel is ONLY HUMAN (Headline Review).