Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [105]
The only problem with something like Pilates was that, as it didn’t actually raise your metabolism, best results were achieved when combined with a starvation diet. Which was where devices like the letter–’A’ diet came in. Surprisingly few foods started with the letter ‘A’. If it had been ‘B’, things would have been very different. Bacon, Bounties, Bacardi, brie, bread, biscuits… And if she ever really needed to streamline down to the bone, she’d spend a week doing ‘Y’. Yams, that was about it. And yellow peppers, at a stretch. Oh, and Yorkies, she’d forgotten about them. Perhaps ‘Z’ would be safer.
After breakfasting on an apple, an apricot and a glass of Aqua Libra, she managed to make it to ten o’clock. But when she feared she might attempt to strike up a conversation with the walls, she made a decision. She was going to go shopping. And it wasn’t just free-form retail therapy, either – she had a purpose. Sort of, in any case… She planned to organize floor-to-ceiling wooden blinds for an entire wall in her bedroom, to counteract the country-cottage feel and endow it with a more cubey, urban air. Then she’d run a piece on it in the magazine and let them pick up some of the bill.
But when she reached Grafton Street she was shocked to find that none of the shops were open yet and the only other people around were bewildered-looking tourists.
This fucking country, she thought, for the hundredth time. Where was everyone? Probably at church, she decided contemptuously.
One o’clock, the man in the newsagent’s told her. The shops opened at one o’clock. So she sat in a café, her legs crossed, drinking almond lattes and reading a newspaper. Only the frenzied bouncing of her foot as she tried to chivvy along time gave any indication of her inner hysteria.
And what was with the freak meteorological conditions, she wondered. There was a total absence of torrential rain or gale-force winds – surely a first for a bank holiday? Instead there was brave, jaunty sunlight against the hopeful blue of the sky and for some reason this reminded her of other times, which in turn made her sad, and she couldn’t be doing with that. Oh no!
Quickly she reminded herself of her theory – she wasn’t sad, her life had just dipped below the required Fabulous level. There was no negative emotion that couldn’t be cured by the application of a little fabulousness and it was very important that she remembered it during these turbulent times. She’d admit that she’d forgotten it recently – last Sunday, for example, when she’d spent the day isolated and in despair.
Eventually the blinds emporia flung wide their doors, and then Lisa felt that they needn’t have bothered. None of the pathetic interiors shops could handle a request for such a large blind. They recommended that she try a department store. And even though Lisa wasn’t a department-store kind of girl, she decided that beggars couldn’t be choosers.
On the fourth floor, in the curtain department, she bagged a busy little man hurrying past with a tape-measure around his neck.
‘I need custom-made blinds.’
‘I’m your man,’ he confidently assured her.
But when she gave him the dimensions, then pointed out the wooden slats she wanted, he changed colour. Becoming a much paler one.
‘Nine foot long?’ he hooted. ‘And fourteen foot wide?’
That’s right,’ Lisa agreed.
‘But missus,’ he protested, ‘that’ll cost a fortune!’
‘That’s all right,’ Lisa said.
‘But have you any idea how much it’ll cost?’
‘Tell me.’
He did a series of speedy calculations on some brown wrapping paper, then shook his head in anxiety.
‘How much?’
But he wouldn’t tell her. Whatever it was, it was too much, he’d decided.
‘Hold on, hold on, I’m thinking. How about