Shopaholic and Sister

Inside, my mind is working frantically: I’ll deny I’ve ever seen it; we’ll send it back; it’ll all be fine—

“ ‘Shipped by Mrs. Rebecca Brandon,’ ” the guy reads aloud from the label. “Table and ten chairs. From Denmark. Here’s the signature.”

Fuck.

Very slowly, Luke turns toward me.

“Becky, did you buy a table and ten chairs in Denmark?” he says almost pleasantly.

“Er…” I lick my lips nervously. “Er… I–I might have.”

“I see.” Luke closes his eyes for a moment as though weighing up a math problem. “And then you bought another table — and ten more chairs — in Sri Lanka?”

“I forgot about the first one!” I say desperately. “I totally forgot! Look, it was a very long honeymoon… I lost track of a few things… ”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see a guy picking up the bundle of twenty Chinese silk dressing gowns. Shit.

I think I have to get Luke away from these lorries as soon as possible.

“We’ll sort it all out,” I say quickly. “I promise. But now, why don’t you go upstairs and have a nice drink? You just relax! And I’ll stay down here and do the supervising.”

An hour later it’s all finished. The men close up the lorries and I hand them a hefty tip. As they roar away I look over to see Luke coming out the front door of the building.

“Hi!” I say. “Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“Do you want to come upstairs a minute?” Luke says in a strange voice.

As we travel up in the lift I smile at Luke a couple of times, but he doesn’t smile back.

“So… did you put all the stuff in the sitting room?” I say as we approach the front door. “Or in the—”

My voice dies away as the door swings open.

Oh my God.

Luke’s flat is totally unrecognizable.

The beige carpet has disappeared under a sea of parcels, trunks, and pieces of furniture. The hall is crammed with boxes which I recognize from the outlet in Utah, plus the batik paintings from Bali and the two Chinese urns. I edge past them into the sitting room, and gulp as I look around. There are packages everywhere. Rolled-up kilims and dhurries are propped up in one corner. In another, the Indonesian gamelan is jostling for space with a slate coffee table turned on its side and a Native American totem pole.

I’m sensing it’s my turn to speak.

“Gosh!” I give a little laugh. “There are quite a lot of… rugs, aren’t there?”

“Seventeen,” says Luke, still in the same strange voice. “I’ve counted.” He steps over a bamboo coffee table which I got in Thailand and looks at the label of a large wooden chest. “This box apparently contains forty mugs.” He looks up. “Forty mugs?”

“I know it sounds like a lot,” I say quickly. “But they were only about 50p each! It was a bargain! We’ll never need to buy mugs ever again!”

Luke regards me for a moment.

“Becky, I never want to buy anything ever again.”

“Look…” I try to step toward him but bump my knee on a painted wooden statue of Ganesh, the god of wisdom and success. “It’s… it’s not that bad! I know it seems like a lot. But it’s like… an optical illusion. Once it’s all unpacked, and we put it all away… it’ll look great!”

“We have five coffee tables,” says Luke, ignoring me. “Were you aware of that?”

“Er… well.” I clear my throat. “Not exactly. So we might have to… rationalize a bit.”

“Rationalize?” Luke looks around the room incredulously. “Rationalize this lot? It’s a mess!”

“Maybe it looks a bit of a mishmash at the moment,” I say hurriedly. “But I can pull it all together! I can make it work! It’ll be our signature look. If we just do some mood boards—”

“Becky,” Luke interrupts. “Would you like to know what mood I’m in right now?”

“Er…”

I watch nervously as Luke shifts two packages from Guatemala aside and sinks down on the sofa.

“What I want to know is… how did you pay for all this?” he asks, wrinkling his brow. “I had a quick check through our bills, and there’s no record of any Chinese urns. Or giraffes. Or tables from Copenhagen…” He gives me a hard look. “What’s been going on, Becky?”

I’m totally pinned. Even if I did want to run, I’d probably skewer myself on Ganesh’s pointy fingers.