Department Stores

At moments of uncertainty or transition in my life I have often spent an astonishing amount of time in department stores. When exams loomed viciously or there was a sense of disappointment on the horizon; when I felt stranded in the long weeks leading up to my baby's birth; when I returned from my honeymoon to find work and rain waiting for me a little unsure of what had changed and what remained the same, at these strange junctures and many, many others besides I have felt, overwhelmingly, the lure of the store.

I am not talking about ordinary retail therapy because at these odd times I never actually bought things . I didn't even hanker after goods beyond my means. Nor was I in search of the violent nauseous thrill that comes from making an irresponsible purchase, that throttling sensation that instantly sees off any more pressing worry for at least an hour or two. No when I find myself feeling a bit unraveled or a bit at sea I look to department stores for -well- answers.

Since childhood I have nursed a string of relationships with an assortment of stores that have led me to regard them as safe havens and homes from home. I have made regular visits just to note the ebb and flo of products and remark to myself on new lines and innovative display techniques. Countless times I've stood in glossy buzzing atria drinking in the plenty, reveling in the wealth of products all around feeling my own resources swell with every breath.

My initiation into the world of the large cool store began with Jones Brothers in Holloway Road, a now defunct mecca for North London ladies which was a brisk ten minute walk from our house. As a girl I used to linger round the sewing machine area after school, reckoning up the elaborate embroidery functions and the coloured silken twine. Sometimes I used to cruise the bed and bath section on the first floor, surreptitiously fingering household linens. I used to watch portly ladies emerging from The Buttery with scone crumbs stuck with jam to their upper lips. I examined the wide range of coat hanger and moth deterrents on sale and sniffed at boxes of Roger and Gallet carnation soap and all the while what I used to ponder were not so much questions of life style but all the ways that there are.

For a start Jones Brothers stocked all the accoutrements required for a safe passage through life. Regardless of the forks in the road you might choose, whatever fate might bring, this store really catered for every eventuality. I used to feel a vast sense of choice just walking through the door, even though there was only an old 2p piece in my pocket and buying anything just wasn't an option. On the ground floor there were pink silk flowers but there were also golf clubs and sailing clothes. There were cute romper suits and cuddly toys but close by smart backgammon sets in handsome leather boxes beckoned. I had no idea what the future would hold. Would I some day be in the position to purchase a cot or would tapestry and knitting needles more accurately characterise my adult life? Yet whatever I might need later on, here it all was, ready and waiting. And this seemed like a sort of guarantee. It felt life affirming.

As I grew up feeling awkward and ungainly, valuing neatness and normality above almost anything in the universe I was instantly drawn to the order and routine that department stores represented. Matching plates! Lidded flasks! Folded jerseys! Jones Bros. didn't sell anything strange or outlandish. It was all so soothing.

Of course, in the absence of any satisfying examples of how to conform, department stores really come into their own. The classic trajectory of human existence can be read off the charts on the elevator walls: lingerie, bridal, china and glass, nursery furniture. A friend of mine told me recently, 'When I first got my school uniform it was to John Lewis I went , when I left home John Lewis was there for me again. When I married, it had a part to play and when my children were born there it was again.' For this friend John Lewis took such a key role in the rites of passage of her life, it almost seemed to have facilitated them.

For some people department stores have an appeal that is almost parental. Sometimes when I am inside a store I am filled with huge feelings of health as though I have suddenly discovered two valiantly square parents living together in a big house in the country with an attic full of everything I might ever need.

This idea of actual care isn't as fanciful as it sounds. Rest assured that department stores are good places to be when the going gets tough. The best ones make you feel quite safe from harm, like a cross between a well run hospital and an efficient hotel. It's a certainty that if you had any sort of collapse in John Lewis someone would come along and offer you a chair and a bun. This pastoral role even extends to the most glamorous of stores. Once, shopping in Knightsbridge, a friend of mine started slurring his words and then slumped in my arms, his face white, his limbs leaden. Did you know that Harvey Nichols has a doctor who guessed that this man was a diabetic (I didn't know) and brought him back to life with a huge bar of gourmet Belgian chocolate, on the house?

I may be pitifully naive, but I often find the sheer effort that Selfridges (my current favourite) puts into everything it does actually touching. The festivity with which Oxford Street's finest store embraces high days and holidays never fails to impress. Looking at the confectionary hall arrayed with six hundred different varieties of chocolates chicks and bunnies and eggs at Easter, sourced from all over the world, something for every pocket- always gives me a huge lift. The hundreds and thousands of pink and red chocolate hearts that appear in the extravagant Valentine's display, the glut of orange sugar ghouls that come out at Halloween- it feels like nothing's too much trouble . When I am in the store I often think of a friend's mother whose Christmas decorations even extended to the cereal boxes . Gazing at the lobsters dressed with quivering green and pink mousse and the crimson fruits of the forest jellied terrine in the food hall, I feel as though everything is there to add to the spectacle. The effect it has on me is like the sensation I get when I enter someone's house and see a table laden with gorgeous treats. 'You shouldn't have I say, but what I mean is 'I'm so glad you did.'

Two years ago when the novel I was writing was going from bad to worse (I had literally lost the plot) I used to escape to Selfridges in my lunch hour to find solace and inspiration. I'd eye up gleaming stainless steel sauce pans in descending sizes and wonder if I ought to break up the chapters to make them a bit more manageable. I'd gaze at the rows of prawn delices in the chilled cabinets in the food halls and wonder why throughout the novel my heroine, Martha Brazil, only ever eats sweet food. The funny thing is, Selfridges started playing such a big part in my life that it actually penetrated the plot of the book. When Martha flees a vicious flat sharing scenario to become a caretaker of a dilapidated building on Oxford Street , part of the allure for her is the local department store:-

Unable to resist a quick tour, a sort of personal stock taking, Martha dashes up the escalators, breathless and excitable, just absorbing the array of goods, familiarising herself with the fine items she surveys. Like news of the best kind it dawns on her that with just one concentrated lunge from her front door she can be at the heart of plenty whenever she likes: evening dresses, white ceramic souffle dishes in descending sizes, board games in brightly coloured boxes, sets of soap in hinged wooden cases that are shaped like lemons, flower patterned tins of crisp Italian biscuits. She fingers the soft powdery white pile of some jumbo bath towels on the fourth floor, thinking of the future.

Of course I am not averse to using department stores as a more conventional sort of pick- me- up. When my baby was three months old I took her in the sling to Harrods. That day she was got up in crisp pale blue overalls with white piping and a very pale pink shirt, a state of dress very closely resembling if not exceeding, the nines. As we examined the spoils together in the International Designer Room, an elegant assistant with a soft French accent seemed to appear from nowhere. He beckoned me over to the Christian Dior concession and told me I must, simply must, try on a floor length, silk satin one-shouldered camouflage John Galliano for Dior gown, 'because it could have been made for me.' This was quite a feat of imagination on his part. I was not looking my best due to weeks of intense sleep deprivation and I'm afraid to say my hair and the shampoo bottle had in all honesty become strangers. The garment in question would have made the perfect wedding dress for the kind of bride who likes to arrive at the church in an armoured tank. 'I'll hold the baby for you', he added and started singing Mary all sorts of moody French lullabies. I didn't try the dress on 'I cant tell you how much I wouldn't wear it', I said, slipping into a denim two piece with diamante belt detail instead. It didn't work on me but the whole episode made me so happy that I nearly wrote a thank you letter to Mohammed Al Fayed.