‘You must be Anna, come on in,’ Leonid said in a strong accent. He helped Anna off with her coat, all the while appraising her like she appraised lumps of cut beef on Baxter’s meat stall in Barnsley market. Then the man himself made an entrance, shook her hand politely and cut straight to the chase.
‘Please, Anna, we need to look at you. Stand up straight and stay still.’
Both men circled her, looking at her unextraordinary body from all angles. Anna felt surprisingly detached. It was all very medical and such intense scrutiny could not have made her feel more hideous than she did already. All she could think was that two homosexual men staring primarily at her chest was bizarrely healthier for her than a night in, alone, watching Casualty and sobbing into a box of tissues.
The two men spoke to each other rapidly in their native language. Anna could only guess at what they said to each other. It didn’t exactly sound as if they were comparing her to Cindy Crawford.
‘Ah, before we commence,’ said Leonid, bringing a small, elaborately painted tin out of his pocket which he opened and proffered to Anna. It was full of small white pills.
‘I don’t take drugs, thank you,’ said Anna stiffly.
‘It’s mint,’ said Leonid, waving and wafting the air between them. ‘To overcome the much garlic.’
‘Oh,’ coughed Anna. ‘Sorry.’
OK, it might have been a bit daft but she had rather overdone the garlic in the small chilli she had made for herself that teatime. She’d actually put enough in there to make her old maths teacher keel over unconscious, and he hadn’t had a sense of smell. She couldn’t decide if it had been wise or silly to take a few precautions. Silly, she decided now.
Vladimir had quickly turned away, but she was sure she’d seen him grin and then immediately stamp on it. Anna felt herself blushing. It must be obvious to them both why she’d eaten so much. She took a couple of mints and said a meek thank you.
Leonid put the tin away in his pocket.
‘She’s perfect,’ Vladimir commented, as if Anna wasn’t there. ‘Her underwear is of course awful, that is obvious, and doing absolutely nothing for her at all.’
‘Can we see, please?’ asked Leonid.
‘What? You want me to strip off?’ said Anna.
‘Just to your underwear,’ Vladimir said.
Anna took a deep breath and started unbuttoning. She didn’t feel as embarrassed as she thought she would. Then again, next week she was going to be standing here with these two and a film crew, including the very gorgeous, slim, cellulite-free Jane Cleve-Jones looking at her. That was a much scarier thought.
‘This bra isn’t a cheap one, I can see that. But it’s rubbish. Why do women buy comfortable rubbish?’ Vladimir despaired.
‘I won’t have to strip off totally, will I?’ asked Anna. ‘I don’t think I could.’
‘Not for the cameras,’ replied Leonid, although Anna wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean.
‘What bra-zire size are you?’ Vladimir asked, stepping back from Anna and studying her chest.
‘Thirty-six C.’
‘Nu!’ he said with a humph. ‘You aren’t.’
‘I am!’ said Anna. ‘I’ll prove it. Have you a tape measure?’
‘I don’t trust tape measures,’ said Vladimir, wearing the expression of a man who had just smelled something foul. ‘And stand up straight, please.’ He rushed behind her and gripped her shoulders, pulling them back. Her boobs seemed to rise twelve feet when he did that.
‘Ah, eez better. Posture is everything,’ said Leonid.
‘Posture and confidence go hand in hand,’ said Vladimir, ‘and she obviously has no confidence, so she has no good posture.’
Vladimir stroked the skin down her neck to her shoulders as if she was made out of clay and he was smoothing it. The gentle reverence with which he was treating her body told her without a doubt that he was 100 per cent homosexual. She couldn’t remember the last time Tony had been as gently attentive. He could roger for England, but stroking and softness didn’t turn up on the menu. She coughed away the thought of Tony for now and amused herself by looking around the room while she was being discussed in fluent Romanian.
It really was a cleverly built house. The walls looked as if they were fashioned from ancient stone. Huge iron torches were bolted to them. A cavernous unlit fire awaited colder months and a huge black dog that was part Great Dane, part Zoltan Hound of Dracula reposed in a basket at the side of it. He’d given Anna a perfunctory glance when she first came in, but didn’t deem her important enough to rise up and investigate her. No change there then. She wasn’t exactly the darling of the animal kingdom, as Butterfly and his unfaithful nature would surely testify.
A great wide staircase ran up the middle of this cavernous room and split into two on its journey upwards, to Vladimir Darq’s four-poster coffin, no doubt. Everything was so large: the table, the sofas, the candlesticks. And apparently her tits as well, because Vladimir seemed to be arguing with Leonid that she was at least a 40D as the dispute dipped in and out of English.
As the conversation between them got even more inflamed, Vladimir Darq flounced off, only to appear minutes later with an armful of corsets and bodyshapers still with long uncut threads. He clicked his fingers impatiently at Anna to hold her arms out and step into the bodyshaper that he was stretching for her. Then, when he had pulled it up over her drawers, much to her surprise he whipped off her bra with the ease of an expert magician snatching a tablecloth from under a stack of crockery. She gasped but he didn’t acknowledge her shock because he was too busy hooking her up at the back. Once that was done, he plunged his hands into the front and positioned Anna’s breasts precisely into the cups as if he was an artist arranging fruit in a bowl and Anna stood and let him because she was too stunned to move. How he managed to avoid giving her impromptu acupuncture treatment while he was pulling the material in and pinning darts in it like a madman was anyone’s guess.
‘See?’ he said to Leonid. ‘I could tell from looking at her she was all wrong. This is much better. Look! Of course you can see the difference already that good-fitting underwear can give her,’ said Vladimir in an animated voice.
‘Can I see?’ asked Anna tentatively.
‘Nu,’ replied Leonid, obviously speaking for Vladimir as well by the looks of it.
‘Anna, the filming will take place over the next five Saturdays and chart your progress. Now I have your shape in my head I can make more for the show. It will be very good. You are the perfect choice to demonstrate to other ladies that you don’t need to be aged twenty and a size zero to be a siren. I will show you how. Any lingerie I make for you, you can keep. The production companies do not pay a wage, only expenses if you incur any. Are those terms acceptable to you?’
Anna nodded. Being able to keep just one piece made for her by Vladimir Darq would be payment enough. He began to unpin the bodyshaper so Anna could slip out of it. Her bra made her feel extra saggy and blobby when she put it on again.
‘Try to stay much the same weight as you are now, Anna, please,’ asked Vladimir. ‘Dress exactly the same next week as you have tonight and bring a bag of your other underwear with you – they may want to see it.’
‘When will the programme be on the TV?’
‘I don’t know, but they are hoping to turn it around very quickly. I will send a car for you at quarter to seven next Saturday evening.’
‘So late?’
‘I don’t work in the daylight,’ he said, as if that were obvious.
‘Oh no, I suppose not,’ said Anna. Blimey, she thought. He couldn’t really be a vampire, could he? They didn’t exist. Then again, she half-believed in the Loch Ness Monster and ghosts. And an after-life, because Derek Acorah was too convincing on that front not to.
‘Would you like some refreshment before you go?’ said Leonid, pouring something very red from a decanter into a long pewter goblet.
‘Er, no, thanks,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll
pass.’
Leonid helped her on with her frumpy jacket. Once again she was back to being a middle-aged, ordinary Barnsley bird who wouldn’t stand out from a crowd if she’d painted her hair green, her face orange and wore six-foot stilts.
The Mercedes dropped her off at home and zoomed off into the night, leaving her feeling slightly tingly all over. Strangely, for once, a Saturday evening did not stretch quite as torturously empty in front of her.
Chapter 31
Anna caught sight of herself in the wardrobe mirror as she roused herself from bed the next morning. She looked like that spooky girl from The Ring. She was overdue a hair dye and some new nightclothes. Her nightie, comfy as it was, had bleach splashes on it and was stretched enough by washing to accommodate another three people and Vladimir Darq’s dog.
And Vladmir Darq was going to give her back her lost pride and turn her into Sophia Loren? All in a few weeks? Yeah, right – ’course he was. Still, at least she could do something about the hair and her night attire.
Dawn went upstairs to rouse Calum at 11 a.m. He’d been drunk again the previous night, even though it was supposed to be her night for drinking and his for driving. He seemed incapable of having one or two, he had to get totally blasted and excuse himself that ‘it was the weekend and he was allowed to let off steam.’ He’d told her to leave the car and they’d get a taxi. It wasn’t just the twenty pounds plus that would cost, it was the principle. She always ended up driving. Then they’d bumped into his mates and sisters and Calum wanted to go on to a club with them. Dawn was too tired by that time and annoyed with him, so she’d driven home and he’d ended up getting a taxi back in the wee small hours anyway.
‘Has that cheque cleared yet?’ were his first words to her.
‘Give me a chance, I haven’t even banked it yet,’ she replied.
‘How about a sub off it?’
‘I can’t, Calum, I haven’t got enough funds. This wedding is costing me a fortune!’
‘Oh, here we go,’ Calum said, burying his head under his pillow. ‘She’s starting to nag already.’
‘No, I’m not nagging,’ said Dawn, a little tearfully. ‘I just wish you’d contribute something.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Now go and get me two paracetamol and a cup of tea, there’s a good girl.’
Dawn’s eye caught her guitar in the corner of the bedroom: the only thing of value she had. Her mum and dad had bought it for her seventeenth birthday. Dee Dee, we have a surprise for you. Close your eyes and open your hands. She asked herself would they mind if she sold it, to pay for the most important day in her life? After all, she never played it these days. The question wasn’t given more than a split-second of head-space though. However broke she was, however desperate for her day as a princess-bride, she could never do that. It held all their dreams within the strings. She’d sell a kidney before she sold her guitar.
They were at Muriel’s half an hour later with a bottle of the sweet white wine she preferred and some perfume for Denise because it was her birthday. She was there with her long-standing boyfriend, Dave, who was like a younger version of Ronnie: quiet and virtually transparent when placed next to the formidable Crooke women. Demi met them at the door, sporting a sulk because she had fallen out with her fella in the club the previous evening. Demi was always sulking about something or other though. Nothing ever seemed to please her. Even when she was happy her mouth never lost its downward swoop of misery. Muriel was busy in the kitchen, juggling a dozen pans and a steamer tower in between pressing at her head. She had a hangover as well, and the lunch, when it was served, was evidence of that.
The veg was limp and boiled to death, the beef was hard on the outside and too pink on the inside for Dawn’s taste by far, plus the Crookes liked fatty meat and this joint hadn’t been cooked slowly enough to tenderize it. The potatoes were lumpy, the gravy was lumpier; only the Yorkshire puddings stood superb, puffing proudly out of the tin moulds.
‘This is a bit shit, Mam,’ said Demi, whose sour little face said she was prepped for taking out some of her hurt on a third party.
‘Now, now! Just ’cos you were dumped, no need to make everyone feel as bad as you do,’ said Calum, rapping her arm with a serving spoon.
‘And you can shut up,’ said Demi, cutting off as Calum hit her harder with the spoon and flashed a warning at her.
‘For fuck’s sake, just eat it or leave it!’ said Muriel. ‘Look at them Yorkshires. Bloody gorgeous they are. Cheers, everyone!’ She raised her glass of plonk. ‘You should have had me doing the catering at your wedding, Dawn.’
‘Well, I’m not coming if you are,’ said Demi. ‘Did you actually put any gravy granules in this hot water, Mam?’
‘That reminds me,’ said Dawn, turning to Calum. ‘We have to go to the Dog and Duck and finalize the menus.’
‘Oh, I did that for you on Friday. More or less, anyway. I just need to know if you want sloppy peas or carrots with the beef. Didn’t you tell her, Cal?’ announced Muriel.
‘I forgot,’ said Calum.
‘He’s chuffing useless,’ said Denise. ‘Are you sure you want him, Dawn? Wouldn’t you prefer something with a spine and a brain?’
‘Sandra – the landlady – wanted to know quick, so me and our Calum picked whilst we were up there,’ said Muriel, flashing her thumb at her son and shaking her head in despair at the same time.
Dawn gulped down her annoyance. ‘What . . . what menu did you pick then?’ she asked Calum, but Muriel answered.
‘Vegetable soup to start, beef dinner, then treacle sponge or fudge cake. Sandra’s given you a right good price an’ all. And she’s putting a karaoke on and a buffet at night.’ She cracked Calum again with the spatula that she’d used to lever the Yorkshires out of their tins as she saw Dawn’s face drop. ‘Don’t tell me dopey lad hasn’t told you that bit either? He said you’d be OK with it.’
Dawn gulped again. At this rate her gulping muscle was going to beat a previous world record. ‘A karaoke?’
‘Ooh, I love karaoke,’ said Denise, who was a bit of a local star behind a mike. In her own eyes at least.
‘The buffet sounded OK,’ said Calum, forking up another Yorkshire pudding. ‘It’ll be cheap an’ all.’
‘Why didn’t you ring me first so I could have had a say in it?’ Dawn said between her teeth.
‘Me mam said it was the best menu,’ shrugged Calum, as if that answered the question sufficiently.
‘We’ll put a bit towards it because we’re inviting some of our friends as well,’ said Muriel, looking proudly over at Ronnie.
‘Aw, thanks, Mam, Dad,’ said Calum, reaching for more meat.
Dawn fell quiet. She didn’t want a load of strangers there or a karaoke. Her worst nightmare was a karaoke after her wedding. She wanted a live band and dancing. And she wanted to pick her own menu.
‘I don’t think I want a karaoke,’ she braved quietly.
It was as if the atom bomb had landed in the middle of the gravy. Everyone stopped chewing and rotated their heads in her direction.
‘Why not?’ said Denise. She was usually smiley but when that smile dropped it altered her whole face to a replica of Demi’s.
‘What’s wrong with a karaoke? Is it not good enough for you?’ said Demi with an unpleasant sneer.
‘No, it’s not that . . .’ Gawd, Dawn found herself wishing she hadn’t opened her mouth. The men had resumed stuffing their faces but she had just witnessed the Crooke women swapping raised eyebrows. Even Denise, who was miles softer than her sister, was looking at her with something akin to bitchy amusement.
Dawn immediately felt herself backing down rather than be ostracized from good family feeling. ‘It’s just that, well, would everyone like a karaoke? I was thinking more of a live band but if more people are happy with a karaoke—’
‘Live band?’ scoffed Calum. ‘Who’d you have in mind? Take That?’
There was a ripple of laughter around the table and it contai
ned unkind tones that chilled Dawn to the core.
‘OK then, a karaoke it is. That’ll be fun,’ said Dawn, forcing a smile. She felt like she’d just escaped a savaging by a pack. It did the trick though. Muriel beamed and the temperature of the room leaped up by several degrees.
‘Oh, and you’ll have to go and see Bette this week about those dresses. She wants to crack on.’
‘We should have a karaoke after this dinner, cheer your miserable face up a bit,’ said Denise to her sister.
‘I don’t need cheering up, he were a knobhead anyway. I’m well shot.’
‘He were king of the knobheads,’ said Calum. ‘It’s not like it’s the first time he’s cheated on you and you’ve only been going out two minutes.’
‘Hark at Mr Faithful!’ said Demi. ‘Ow, you shit. What did you kick me for?’
‘Will you two watch your bleeding language when we’re eating!’ snapped Ronnie.
‘What’s this?’ said Dawn, suddenly picking up on a nasty vibe. There was something zapping between Calum and his sister that she didn’t like the look of.
‘It’s nowt, she’s a stirring little cow,’ said Calum, giving his sister a look that could have quite easily killed her had his eyeballs been loaded with bullets.
‘It’s nothing, really,’ said Denise, adding to the impression Dawn had that everyone around the table knew something she didn’t, and that nothing was, in fact, a very big something. And that something had happened after she drove home last night and Calum went off clubbing.
‘It’s not my fault I’m so damned attractive,’ admitted Calum with an open grin.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Ignore them all,’ said Denise kindly. ‘It’s that cow Mandy Clamp. You know what’s she like around our Calum. A fly around shite.’
That didn’t make Dawn feel any better at all.
A Summer Fling Page 14