THE EXPERT

      “And when you’re on Oxford Street,” Ashley instructed me as we rolled up our yoga mats, “you have to go shopping at Selfridge’s. They have some really good stuff there.”

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

       I being a Londoner born and bred, word had already reached me about Oxford Street’s most celebrated department store, although my intention of shopping there, or indeed anywhere on Oxford Street during my forthcoming trip, was roughly on a par with that of scooping out my eyeballs with a teaspoon. Ashley herself was not a Londoner: she had grown up in a small town outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue some unspecified form of business marketing, in the intervals of which she and I occasionally attended the same Pilates class. But she had a friend who lived in St. Alban’s, just 25 miles outside London, and was thus, I was discovering, an expert on London’s West End.

       “Actually,” I said, “whenever I go shopping in London, I very much prefer Marks & Spencer.”

       While my sole reason for setting foot at all on Oxford Street during my trip would be to catch a bus after a business meeting in Marylebone to a quieter part of town, my memories of the Marks & Spencer outlet there were nevertheless fond. In my twenties I had spent two years sharing a cramped garret with two other young women in a street just off Grosvenor Square: a little bizarrely, the food halls of the adjoining Oxford Street shopping monoliths had been our local grocery stores, Selfridge’s for cheese and Marks & Spencer for wine when we felt celebratory; for vegetables we would go to a greengrocer on the Edgware Road, meat at the time remaining a luxury reserved strictly for romantic dates or visits to parents. Even then, I had rarely ventured into the other departments of Selfridge’s, which also sold upmarket and fashion-conscious clothes, which I then couldn’t afford and now don’t especially care to; Marks & Sparks, on the other hand, had offered an array of more budget-friendly attire, including a line of defiantly dowdy, hedonistically comfortable cotton underwear, to which I remain devoted to this day.

       Ashley beamed. “Well, it’s lucky for you you’ve asked me about it,” she said. “Because I have good news for you: there’s a Mark and Spencer on Oxford Street too! So you can go there right after you go to  Selfridge’s.”

       To be accurate, there are two of the city’s many branches of Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street, the big flagship store by Selfridge’s on one end, and a smaller branch on the other. I avoid shopping in either of them these days because they’re as noisy and crowded as the rest of Oxford Street, which I intended to depart the instant the bus drew up at the stop.

       “I’ll tell you how to get there,” said Ashley. She thought for a moment, and her eyes lit up. “Oh!” she said then. “You know what, it’s really good you asked me this because it’s going to be real convenient for you. Get this – Mark and Spencer is real close to Selfridge’s!”

      “I know it is,” I said. On Saturday mornings in the garret days, I would treat myself by walking across Oxford Street and up Duke Street, the narrow side road which separated the two stores, with one store looming on my left and the other towering on my right, past the leafy relief of Portman Square, and on into a café on Marylebone High Street, where I would order a cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake to celebrate the weekend, a little piece of luxury I would look forward to all week long.

       Ashley perched herself on the stool beside the fire extinguisher and began to look businesslike.

       “So here’s what you need to do,” she said. “First, when you’re done shopping at Selfridge’s, you need to make sure you  come out of the store through the big main exit, not one of the side ones, because that’s the one that will take you directly onto Oxford Street.”

       “Well, yes,” I agreed, because, supposing that one – and, believe me, that one would most assuredly be another one than me – had chosen to enter Selfridge’s in the first place, then leaving it through the main door would be certainly an option.

       “Then you turn right, ” she said. She frowned, carefully. “Now, you have to remember that, you turn right, not left, because if you turn left, you’ll end up at Oxford Circus.”

       “A fate worse than death,” I noted, because Oxford Circus at any time is pure hell.

       “It’s just not the way you want to go,” she explained. “OK, now you’ve turned right – that’s the other direction from Oxford Circus, remember – and you go towards the Marble Arch, which is like a big landmark which you can’t  miss because it’s right at the very end of the street.”

       “You know,” I said, “I used to live …”

       “And from there it’s real easy to get to Mark and Spencer,” she said, “because, get this, you just cross the street and you’re there! Mark and Spencer! It’s real convenient for Selfridge’s and they have great stuff! You’ve got to go there!”

       “I could go to that Marks & Spencer,” I said. “Or, if I’m going to go there at all, there’s a smaller branch in Islington which I …”

       Ashley frowned again.

       “You don’t cross Oxford Street to get there,” she cautioned. “You need to remember not to cross Oxford Street, because that’ll take you to the other side of the street, and Mark and Spencer is on the same side as Selfridge’s. But there’s a kind of little street running along the side of Selfridge’s …”

       “Duke Street,” I said.

       “… and you cross that little street and it’s right there!” she said. “Mark and Spencer! You can’t miss it, it’s real big.”

       “It’s very big,” I agreed.

       Ashley nodded in satisfaction.

       “And after you’ve finished shopping,” she continued, “you have to get lunch.”

       I began to feel a headache coming on.

       “I’m not going to want lunch,” I said. “I’ll be coming from a breakfast meeting, and …”

       “Shopping and lunch!” said Ashley. “Your perfect day in London, right? Now, where should I send you for lunch? Oh! I have the best place for you to go to, you’ll be so glad you asked me this! There’s this great little real authentic British sandwich place I discovered that’s where all the Londoners go, and – oh my God, it’s all working out for you because it’s real close to Selfridge’s too! You have to try it! It’s called Pret A Manger. You have to check it out!”

       “I do know Pret A Manger,” I said, because it is something of a challenge in London these days to swing a cat without hitting one or another of the popular food chain’s windows. “And by the way, if you ever want to try something different, there’s a little Indian dive down an alley nearby called …”

       “OK, here’s how you get there,” she said. “You come out of Mark and Spencer, and you turn right again, and you keep walking towards the Marble Arch, and right nearby the Arch there’s a Tube Station, and right by the Tube Station there’s Pret A Manger! Remember the name, OK? Pret A Manger, it’s a French name so you won’t forget it. All the Londoners go there!  It has terrific British sandwiches! The chipotle chicken wrap is to die for!”

       “I’m sure it is,” I said.

       Ashley slid off her stool and stretched, happily.

       “So there you are!” she said. “ I’ve figured out your morning. Shopping and lunch, your perfect London day! Wasn’t it good luck we ran into each other here, because I know all about London! Think what you’d have done if you hadn’t asked me about this!”

       “I can’t begin to imagine,” I said.