A Summer Fling

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Not one for much elaboration, are you?’ said Christie, with a mischievous grin.

  ‘The filming is starting tomorrow though. That’s when I’ll have “stories” to tell.’

  ‘Are you scared?’ asked Raychel.

  ‘I wasn’t that bad at the beginning of the week but I’m terrified now.’

  ‘It must be so exciting,’ said Dawn, grinning. ‘I looked Vladimir Darq up on the Net. He’s rather dishy, isn’t he?’

  ‘Gay blokes always are,’ sniffed Anna. ‘Look at Gok, he’s gorgeous. You just want him as your best friend, don’t you?’

  ‘You must fancy Vladimir Darq though, surely?’ said Christie.

  ‘What’s the point?’ replied Anna.

  ‘Can’t wait for the next instalment,’ smiled Raychel. ‘What time are you going?’

  ‘He’s sending a car at quarter to seven. He said he doesn’t work during the day.’ Anna shifted forward in her seat and whispered as if he could overhear her, ‘And he’s got fangs.’

  ‘Fangs?’

  ‘Like a vampire. Not great two-foot-long ones at the front, but there are definite fangs there. On his teeth.’

  ‘As opposed to on his ears?’ twinkled Christie.

  ‘No, really, he has,’ Anna insisted.

  ‘He plays on the image of being Romanian then, obviously,’ said Christie. ‘As one would.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Dawn as the others groaned.

  ‘Romania – vampires – Dracula,’ explained Grace.

  ‘Never been one for all that gothic stuff. That’s more my sort of thing,’ said Dawn, pointing to the band who had started playing and were really very good from the off. Especially that tall rhythm guitarist at the back. She’d had the brilliant idea of asking them to play at her wedding as soon as she heard his fingers on the strings. At least that would make the evening karaoke more bearable.

  ‘Grandson’s tooth doing OK?’ Christie asked Grace.

  ‘Thanks to your brother, yes,’ replied Grace.

  ‘I remember you saying once that your brother was a dentist,’ Dawn recalled.

  ‘Yes, and a very good one,’ Grace said.

  ‘He’s a lovely man is my big brother,’ smiled Christie. ‘Why he never found the right woman is totally beyond me. He’s kind, generous, patient, faithful.’ She shook her head. She had never understood why he wasn’t settled with a brood of children. She would have loved to have seen him in a sweet, caring relationship.

  ‘Well, there’s your answer then,’ sighed Anna. ‘If he’d been a total bastard, he’d have pulled a nice bird, wrecked her life and been instantly attractive to loads of other women.’ Wasn’t it unfair how relationships worked? Some lovely people had no one and all the gits had the pick of the crop.

  ‘And are you ready for the big move tomorrow then?’ Christie asked Raychel.

  ‘More or less. I’ve just got a bit of cleaning left to do for the next person in the house.’

  ‘Yeurch. I shan’t be asking to swap you weekends,’ said Anna.

  ‘Me neither. I’d rather get felt up by a gay vampire than scrub out ovens,’ said Dawn.

  They downed their glasses and put their coats on and said their goodbyes and ‘have a nice weekends’. Dawn volunteered to take the glasses back to the bar because she wanted to listen to the band for another five minutes. And as she came near to the stage, she fell instantly in love. She noticed that the tall rhythm guitarist was playing a vintage Fender Stratocaster: the same guitar her dad had. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound and imagined her dad on the stage, his fingers on the strings.

  There was applause as the song ended but Dawn was locked in a bitter-sweet daydream and swayed, and when she toppled, it was the rhythm guitarist whose hands steadied her.

  ‘You OK there, ma’am?’ he drawled in a voice straight off a John Wayne western. It seemed the band had stopped for a break.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry,’ said Dawn, feeling a bit of a twerp then. She hoped he didn’t think she was tottering because she was drunk and so launched into an explanation. ‘I was listening to your guitar. My dad used to have a vintage Stratocaster too. It’s got such a great sound. It’s so nice to see one again.’

  ‘Used to? He had one of those and he let it go?’ questioned the guitarist.

  ‘Not really. He was buried with it. Which is a bit of a conversation stopper, sorry,’ sighed Dawn.

  ‘Oh, jeez, I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been real special to him.’

  ‘Oh, yes it was.’

  ‘And do you play like your daddy, ma’am?’

  His voice was gorgeous. It was like sunshine warming up her ear. It was nearly as gorgeous as the sound of his guitar playing.

  ‘Oh, I’ll never be as good as he was,’ said Dawn bashfully.

  ‘Which guitar do you have?’

  ‘A Gibson Les Paul. Nineteen fifty-seven.’

  He whistled respectfully. ‘Wow. You in a band yourself then, ma’am?’

  ‘No, my father was though,’ said Dawn.

  ‘The Beatles?’ he teased.

  Dawn laughed. ‘Of course. He was George.’

  ‘Then may I buy you a drink, Miss Harrison?’

  Dawn opened up her mouth to say, No, thank you, I’m just going. But what came out was, ‘Yes, please. Just a Diet Coke though because I’m driving.’

  One soft drink wouldn’t do her any harm. It wasn’t as if she was missing a passionate night in with Calum. He’d crawl in beside her in the wee small hours and attempt sex if he didn’t fall asleep first. She was aware that she gave a shudder at the thought of it.

  ‘So, what’s your everyday name then, Miss Harrison?’ said the tall, dark guitarist as the barmaid put two Diet Cokes in front of them.

  ‘Dawny. Dawny Sole.’ She added the ‘Y’ on to make her feel like a different person to the Dawn Sole who had a fiancé and was in the midst of imminent-wedding preparations.

  ‘I’m Al Holly. Miss Dawny Sole, it sure is nice to meet you.’

  The cowboy held out a large, slim-fingered hand and shook her own. Although she could have just held it out and it would have shook by itself. His voice was having the same effect on her that the lead guitar on Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game had. It was bouncing around inside her, twanging her own strings and stirring up all sorts of things inside her that it shouldn’t have.

  ‘I wondered . . . how long you were going to be around for?’ stuttered Dawn. She bit off the part about asking if he’d be available to play for her wedding.

  ‘Well, Kirk – the bass guitarist right there – has come to spend a few weeks with his parents who moved back over here a couple of years ago, so we’re playing a few gigs in the area and we’re hoping to head home at the end of June. Why? You thinking of coming and joining us?’

  ‘I wish!’ said Dawn. The idea of running away from all those wedding bills with just her guitar and a few pairs of knickers in a bag flashed through her head and felt very attractive.

  ‘You could bring your guitar along and show us all how it’s done,’ said Al Holly. ‘Maybe I don’t believe you can play at all and here you are just trying to chat me up.’

  His soft hazel eyes were shining like a naughty little boy’s on April Fool’s morning.

  ‘No, no I’m not, really,’ said Dawn, thrown into a sudden small panic. Was she flirting too much?

  ‘Then you’ll have to bring your Gibson along and prove it before we leave,’ said Al Holly.

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Dawn, grinning back.

  She stayed for that one drink, talking guitars. She hadn’t done that with anyone since her dad. What a square she would seem to outsiders, but it was so interesting to her. Al Holly went back on stage after fifteen minutes and she went back to the car park wondering what the heck had happened in such a short time to make her grin to that degree.

  Chapter 36

  Raychel twirled around in her lovely new flat that afforded views over the whole town. Not exactl
y a New York skyscraper but it was so light and airy up here, and quiet. Everything was so clean; the walls were all snow-white with fresh paint and no one had ever cooked in the kitchen oven or put their dirty clothes in the washing machine.

  Their new bedroom was so cosy. The second bedroom was going to be a kind of all-sorts room with their computer and Raychel’s painting paraphernalia. There was no point in using it for a bedroom; it was unlikely that there would ever be guests. And it would never be a nursery.

  Dawn called at Muriel’s bright and early as arranged to sort out the bridesmaids’ dresses with Bette across the road. Then she had to have two cups of coffee because Demi wasn’t yet awake and when she did venture downstairs, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  ‘What position did you sleep in?’ laughed Denise. ‘You’ve got hair like a Maori’s hut!’

  ‘Go arse,’ said Demi, pinching some of her dad’s toast.

  ‘Dawn’s been waiting forty minutes for you, you lazy cow.’

  ‘I’m up now, aren’t I?’ barked Demi at her sister. Dawn heard her muttering, ‘Anyone would think it was the bloody Royal Wedding!’ under her breath as she went upstairs to put on a bit of make-up.

  Five minutes later, they were marching across the road. Muriel obviously knew Bette well enough to open the door, go on in and then announce: ‘Only us, Bette.’

  The largest woman Dawn had ever seen waddled towards them in a poky front room filled with smoke fug. She had a choice of chins to put out on display and was dripping in so many gold necklaces that she looked like a cross between a Lady Mayoress and Mr T. Strangely though, she had delicate, tiny, plump hands and beautiful nails painted red; the two little ones were pierced with jingly charms hanging from them.

  Bette greeted Dawn warmly, after killing her cigarette in the ashtray on a coffee table heaped high with tripey women’s weekly magazines. Muriel sat on the sofa arm while the others squeezed themselves down on Bette’s sofa and the big lady herself occupied the armchair which creaked in pain when she dropped into it.

  ‘I’ve collected some patterns for you to look at,’ said Bette, her voice sounding as if it was coming out of her voice box via a cheese-grater. She emptied a carrier bag full of pattern packets out on the coffee table. Most of them looked as if they were out of some 1970s’ nightmare. The fact that neither Demi nor Denise was cooing either told Dawn they were of the same mind.

  ‘This is all right,’ said Muriel, tapping her nail-bitten finger at a long, swishy number.

  ‘I’m not wearing that!’ said Demi. ‘I’ll look a right chuffing frump.’

  ‘Take that bottom frill off and drop the neck a bit and it’s lovely, that,’ said Bette, lighting up again. ‘I’ve done that dress before and it looked beautiful. I did it in shell-pink for a woman up Ketherwood last year.’

  ‘Trust Bette, she knows what she’s doing.’ Muriel nudged Dawn from behind.

  ‘I suppose if you drop the neck it would look all right. I don’t want to look like a doll,’ said Demi, who was rubbing her head and would agree to wearing a black bin-liner in five minutes’ time just to get out of there and back to bed.

  ‘Well, I’m OK with it,’ said Denise. ‘If you take that frill off for me an’ all.’

  ‘Well, that was easy,’ said Bette, reaching into another carrier at her side. ‘Here’s your material samples. You wanted peach, did you say? Here you go then, cocker.’

  Dawn passed around the squares of peachy materials. She was pleasantly surprised to find the lovely shade that matched the tiny roses on her own dress. She intended to make sure it was replicated on the wedding stationery and chocolate favours. Then, fresh fag-a-dangle, Bette measured Denise and Demi’s vital statistics. She was wheezing as though she had completed a full body work-out by the end.

  ‘Leave it with me, kid,’ said Bette, giving Dawn a big wink on the way out. ‘What Bette can do with a needle isn’t worth talking about.’ Which was all mixed up. At least, Dawn hoped it was all mixed up.

  Chapter 37

  The Mercedes arrived for Anna exactly on time. Leonid once again answered the door and pulled her excitedly into the vaulted room which was now populated with a small film crew who came over to introduce themselves: Mark, the director, who was dressed very grungily and would have made a great Jesus in a play with his long, thin face and beard, a young, leggy runner called Flip (short for Philippa, she explained in a very confident but smiley voice), a punky cameraman with a white Mohican hairdo, who introduced himself as Bruce, and a plump and pretty make-up lady called Chas. Vladimir was standing at the back of the room with a tiny, white-haired, pinch-faced woman of about sixty and the tall, gamine Jane Cleve-Jones who was even more gorgeous in real life than she was on screen. Seeing that she had arrived, the trio came over and Vladimir nodded a welcome. Jane introduced herself with two alternate air kisses at Anna’s cheeks. Everyone seemed very friendly. Even the dog rose out of the basket and came over with a slow walk, tail wagging, and pushed his head into Anna’s hand, sniffing her.

  ‘What’s his name?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Luno.’

  ‘I’ve got a cat. He can probably smell that,’ said Anna.

  ‘Maybe he isn’t frightened by the presence of garlic this week,’ Vladimir said with a little sniff. Anna puffed out her cheeks with embarrassment but he ignored her and introduced the stern-looking woman with the white hair. ‘Anna, this is your make-up lady: may I present Maria Shaposhnikova.’

  The tiny woman held her hand straight out and shook Anna’s with the strength of a WWE wrestler. Close up, Maria looked like an ancient-faced snow pixie with anger management issues.

  ‘Maria is a master. I work with no one else,’ said Vladimir, going on to translate what he had just said for Maria. She nodded, without smiling, at the compliment.

  ‘Can I get you some refreshment?’ Leonid asked, looking at Anna’s shaking hands. ‘A glass of wine maybe?’

  He held up a long crystal decanter full of dark red liquid.

  ‘Maybe just a little one,’ said Anna, receiving the pewter goblet that he handed to her. It was strange drinking out of something which had a taste of its own. But it was a lovely, fiery wine.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Anna. ‘What sort is it?’

  ‘It’s a wine local to the part of Romania where I come from. Sânge de virgina,’ said Vladimir.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ said Anna.

  ‘The nearest translation would be “Maiden’s Blood”,’ said Vladimir with a twinkle in his eye, as Anna had a sudden choking fit and then tried to explain that her wine had gone down the wrong way.

  ‘We’ve been doing a few shots around the house,’ said Jane, flicking her long caramel-highlighted hair over her shoulder. ‘It’s absolutely fantastic. I am so in love with it. It’s going to make a great programme. Vladimir tells me he discovered you at a railway station.’

  She said ‘discovered’ like Anna was a top model, like Twiggy was ‘discovered’ in a hairdressing salon. Anna had to clamp down on the sudden urge to giggle.

  It was late and the film crew had a lot to get through, so Anna was shoved in a chair and stripped of make-up by Maria and a lot of swoops of cotton wool.

  ‘Aarrgh, I’ve got no make-up on – get the crucifixes out, everyone!’ laughed Anna, then she clamped her hands over her mouth. Not the most appropriate joke to make in this house.

  The camera was quite a frightening piece of equipment, Anna decided, as its big lens-eye trained on her for the first shot. Everything went quiet and Anna did as she was directed, which wasn’t difficult because all she had to do was stand there while Jane and Vladimir talked about her.

  ‘Why did you pick Anna to be the face of your “Every Woman has a Darq Side” project then, Vladimir?’

  ‘I could see instantly that Anna feels she is much older than she is and as a result her confidence has gone. I am going to show women that whatever their size or age, there is always a goddess in them waiting to show herself.’
r />   ‘Cut!’ said Mark.

  There were a lot of short ‘action’ sequences, Anna noticed. It was quite fascinating to be part of a TV show. Not as glamorous as she had imagined by any stretch though.

  Anna was feeling quite relaxed until the moment when the director asked if she could strip off now. She had a sudden and awful vision of Malcolm seeing her norks on the box.

  ‘Just to your undies, Anna. We need to ask Vlad why he thinks they are so bad.’

  Anna took a deep breath and slipped off her shirt and skirt. She imagined that everyone would burst out laughing, or throw up. What she didn’t bargain for was, and unfairly so she soon realized, that they were professionals doing a job and they’d probably seen more boobs and bras and backsides in their time than the porn king Ron Jeremy.

  Leonid took some shots of Anna with a very big and heavy-looking camera. They needed some stills, he explained. She hoped those pics wouldn’t turn up on any Readers’ Wives pages.

  Filming commenced again.

  ‘So, Vladimir,’ began Jane. ‘What is wrong with Anna’s underwear?’

  ‘What is right with it?’ He laughed without humour. ‘The bra is too small, she is wearing the wrong size completely, and there is no support at all for a bust.’

  ‘It’s pretty though,’ put in Jane.

  ‘Pretty bad, you mean. Look how the straps are making a groove in her shoulders,’ he carried on, lifting up the said strap and showing the camera the indentation it was making on her skin. ‘As for the pants . . .’ He made a sound of despair.

  ‘Cut,’ called Mark. ‘Excellent. Anna, there’s a screen in the corner; can you change into some more underwear and we’ll do the same.’

  It appeared Vladimir couldn’t find words bad enough in English for the second and third lots of undies. There seemed to be a lot in Romanian though. Then Jane held several coloured scarves against Anna’s face and she went through which shades would work with her skin tones. That was interesting. Apparently black worked very well, which was lucky because that was more or less all that Anna had in her wardrobe. Vladimir waved away the ‘colours’ theories. He said that if a woman had inner confidence she could carry off the most inappropriate hues and still look fantastic. Anna tried to imagine herself pulling off clothes in bright colours the way Christie did. She concluded that she wouldn’t stand a chance.