Vladimir took Anna’s chin in his hand and lifted it. He saw that his words had sunk in and was satisfied – temporarily at least. Anna made a conscious effort to keep her back straight in front of him and her trembling lip as controlled as possible.
Vladimir called to Mark, ‘We are ready.’
Leonid took some shots of Anna posing, then she changed into some absolutely gorgeous corsets in sumptuous velvets and heavy satins. Vladmir wasn’t very gentle lacing her into them that night, but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of complaining. Artistic temperament, she supposed, was his excuse.
‘So, how have you felt this week dumping the old drawers and wearing only “The Darqone”?’ Jane asked, for the camera.
‘People have definitely noticed and asked me if I’ve lost weight,’ replied Anna with utter sincerity. ‘It’s been very comfortable and I have felt more confident that everything seems to be in the place it was when I was much younger.’
‘And going to the loo? How easy has that been, Anna?’
‘Surprisingly easy,’ came the answer. ‘The poppers on the gusset are very good. I’ve had bodies before where they were uncomfortable and not very easy to fasten. And I’ve thrown them in the washing machine, tumble-dried them and they’ve come up good as new.’
Jane looked very impressed at the bonus information. Anna answered her raised eyebrow look. ‘Well, I got picked for this programme because I’m just an ordinary woman and how these things wash is important to us. ’Course I wouldn’t risk the higher end ones in the tumble-drier but, well priced as “The Darqone” is, it wouldn’t be a good buy if it all fell apart after a couple of washes.’
Mark gave her a big thumbs-up and then called for a cut.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ said Vladimir in a less thorny voice now. ‘That was a point worth mentioning.’
‘Happy to help,’ said Anna, trying not to look as if she was thinking about Tony and wondering if he had turned up at her house this week whilst she was filming.
‘That’s it then, thank you, everyone,’ Mark clapped. ‘Same time next week for the big finale.’
The last one. Next week was the last time she would be in Vladimir Darq’s house. It blindsided her how saddened she was by that thought. Weekends really wouldn’t be the same. She wasn’t sure what the next chapter in her story would be. Maybe in two Saturdays she would be sharing a takeaway with Tony on their sofa? She really didn’t know how slumped her shoulders would be, or wouldn’t be, by then.
Chapter 60
Early Sunday morning, Grace unlocked the new front door to 32 Powderham Crescent. Paul had organized the replacement as the policeman’s ram had left the old door irreparable. The key slid into the lock like butter, she didn’t have to pull it slightly out on the turn to gain entry, which in itself felt odd. Something else that heralded a change, an end to a past life with all its suffocating routine. Inside the house, there was the evidence of Paul and Laura’s recent clean-up to make everything as untraumatic for their mother’s temporary return as they could. A strong smell of bleach pervaded the air. Bless them, they’d tried to leave no trace of that weekend, but even they could do nothing about the big nail hole in the table leg.
‘Mum, pick up what you have to and get out of here,’ said Paul, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder.
Grace found that the case she had started to pack in readiness for leaving and then hidden under the bed was smashed in, as if it had been stamped on. Gordon had found it, it seemed, which explained a lot. It didn’t matter, she had other cases and Paul and Laura had brought spares.
Grace went to the drawer and pulled out her passport and building society book. From upstairs, she packed a suitcase of clothes and a make-up bag. She collected her treasure box of photographs and homemade cards from the children that she had saved over the years. Her diary and address book, spare glasses and hairdryer, mobile charger: she didn’t want much else. It was amazing how minimalist one could be when one was happy to leave one life for another. Laura was busy checking all drawers and cupboards for things her mother might have missed.
Grace opened the kitchen cupboards to see the plates she would never eat from again, cutlery she would never use again, pans she would never cook in again. It would cost her a fortune to start afresh, but she didn’t want to take anything but the bare essentials. When she moved into a new home, everything would be unused. Things that Gordon had not touched. Things that Gordon had not chosen.
Looking at the house objectively now, she saw how his choices dictated everything, from what sofa they sat on to what table they ate from, from what wallpaper they looked at to what colour carpets they walked on.
Gordon. She wondered how he would cope on his own after a lifetime of living only the alpha male role. There was a big basket full of his underwear. The instinctive thought flashed across her mind that she should put it all away tidily in his drawers, only to be quickly overridden by more sensible ones. Ghosts of twenty-three years’ worth of duty were much harder to cut off than her feelings, it seemed.
Gordon was being held for a month in hospital for assessment. She didn’t know if the Crown Prosecution Service would force him to court. As she understood it, they would take into account the hospital’s findings. She knew in her heart of hearts though that Gordon wasn’t mad. He was a bully of the worst sort. She had been too easygoing – never rebelling against him to keep the peace. She suggested a red sofa, he had wanted the brown one and so they had bought the brown one. It was the same in all things. He hadn’t bargained for the fact that his children would one day grow up and do things out of the nest that he could no longer control. How could she not have seen all this before? It was hardly as if she was blinded by love for him. In the early days she had hoped they would grow close and have a proper marriage. But he had killed that idea early on, not wanting even to discuss his problems in the bedroom. And she had been forced to accept that too. He could have sought help instead of letting it twist his life out of shape. He could have been a very different man. Maybe she should have revolted so much earlier. Maybe if she had, things might have been very different.
Paul’s caring voice reached her ear.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Mum, but you couldn’t have done anything to change him. None of this is your fault.’
‘Oh Paul,’ said Grace, her head falling against her son’s strong shoulder. ‘I just want to go.’
Grace hoped that one day she would be able to filter out the bad memories of this house and once again see the children drawing at the kitchen table, running in from the garden; see their little clothes hanging up on the washing line. All she could think of now was the smell of bleach and that nail hole in the table leg. It had been her home for nearly twenty-four years and she had been a prisoner in it for twenty-four hours – yet the memories of that Bank Holiday Monday far outweighed the pleasanter, sunny days of raising her beloved children.
June
Chapter 61
Dawn wasn’t her usual chirpy self by half and hadn’t been all week. She hadn’t once breezed in as usual to talk about a bizarre programme she had seen on the TV. Not even on the Thursday morning when she came in with four wedding invitations did she seem like an excited bride-to-be.
‘I’d love it if you could come,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if my side of the church will be heaving. I’ve only got a couple of great-aunties and uncles and I haven’t seen them for years. That’s if they turn up. They might even be dead.’
‘’Course we will,’ said Christie, thinking, poor love. She so wanted to whisk Dawn to one side and ask if she needed to talk. She suspected the girl was suffering from more than prenuptial nerves. But would she be taking her interfering skills a tad too far? ‘Grace and I have been discussing your wedding present. Is there anything you’d like? It’s always difficult buying things for couples who have already set up house.’
‘Oh, I’m not bothered about a present,’ said Dawn. ‘I wasn’t inviting you for th
at.’
‘Do you have a wedding list?’
‘Er, no,’ replied Dawn. She had asked Muriel to let her borrow her Argos catalogue at the beginning of the week so she could start writing out a list. Muriel had raised her eyes and clicked her tongue at that.
‘People will buy you what they want to buy you,’ Muriel had laughed, rather humourlessly. ‘It’s a bit bloody cheeky telling people how much money to spend!’
Dawn had tried to backtrack then and say that it was just in case people wanted ideas. It was the done thing.
‘Done thing?’ Muriel had scoffed, raising one side of her lip like an insulted Elvis and making a lah-di-dah-type ‘oooo’ sound. ‘Not with our lot it isn’t the done thing! I tell you this, Dawn Sole, I’m seeing a bit of a different side to you with all this wedding stuff. I hope you’re going to get off your high horse when you’re one of us.’
Dawn knew without a doubt that Muriel would later relay to her daughters just how ‘up herself’ her future daughter-in-law was getting. She had felt herself getting so ripped up over their dinner table lately that she contemplated changing her name to ‘Tear-and-share’.
‘It never crossed my mind that you were inviting us to get a present,’ tutted Christie kindly. ‘But you must have one. I tell you what, leave it with us.’ Her suggestion to Grace would be to give the newly-weds an envelope of money rather than risk buying something they wouldn’t like and have to go to the trouble of changing.
Christie fought against asking, but she lost the battle within five minutes.
‘Dawn, can I ask – are you all right? You look so low, love.’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Dawn, pinning on a smile. ‘I just have so much to organize it’s wearing me down a bit, to be honest.’
‘Aren’t you getting any help from anyone?’
‘Oh yes, loads,’ said Dawn as chirpily as she could manage. That was partly the trouble. Hardly any of Dawn’s plans for her wedding had escaped from being Muriel-ized. Anyway, it wasn’t the wedding that was getting Dawn down the most. She had tried to put the eBay guitar thing to bed, but it refused to sleep. What if she hadn’t spotted it? Would Calum have sold her guitar? Was that the sort of man she wanted to marry? Every day seemed to bring up another reason why she and Calum shouldn’t be walking down that aisle, and she was less and less able to pretend that everything would be all right when she got his ring on her finger. And how would she feel getting that ring on her finger at the same time as Al Holly was packing up the tour bus and leaving her life for good? Why was that Canadian Cowboy even in the equation? Maybe she shouldn’t go to the pub this Friday. But still she knew she would.
‘Daft question, I suspect, but is there anything we can do to help?’ said Anna.
‘Thanks,’ said Dawn, shaking her head. ‘I’ll be fine. In a month I’ll be Mrs Crooke and all the pressure will be off.’
‘Where’s the honeymoon?’
‘Still not sorted anything,’ said Dawn. ‘Maybe we won’t bother.’ Her dream of a romantic fortnight in the sun alone with her new husband wasn’t going to happen, she knew that. He’d already taken a thousand of Aunt Charlotte’s money to buy some more dodgy DVDs so he could ‘make a big profit and that way they might get their honeymoon.’ She knew as soon as she handed over the cash that it wouldn’t go back in the wedding fund and that she had seen the last of it. She was trying so hard to fight against second thoughts about the wedding – especially as so much was organized and paid for. She was on a conveyor belt and heading for the aisle however many bodily parts of hers might be protesting about it. Damn Al Holly and his bloody Strat!
‘Anyway, enough about me, how are you, Grace?’ said Dawn, deflecting attention away from herself. ‘Just because I haven’t asked this week, it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about you. You must be fed up of answering that same question though and you know what I’m like, always putting my foot in it.’
‘I’m fine, pet,’ said Grace with a lovely smile. ‘I just have a lot of things to think about. The house will have to be sold and I can’t imagine that Gordon is going to be very flexible on that front. I’m taking it all in bite-sized pieces.’
‘I think that’s very wise,’ said Raychel. She was involving herself more in their conversations recently, rather than hanging back. Part of her was really freeing itself up. And it felt so good. ‘Pub tomorrow after work as norm?’
‘I think I can safely plan that far ahead, yes,’ said Grace.
‘You as well, Dawn?’ asked Raychel.
Dawn smiled for the first time since last Friday.
Chapter 62
‘That guitarist can’t keep his eyes off you!’ said Anna, nudging Dawn.
‘He can so!’ protested Dawn.
‘He’s very handsome,’ said Grace.
‘He looks very sexy with that floppy Elvis hair,’ said Christie.
‘And the guitar makes him even sexier, if that’s possible,’ added Anna. ‘Imagine him playing you like that.’
‘Oh, wow!’ said Dawn dreamily, forgetting temporarily to play it cool.
‘I told you, you fancied him!’ came a merry chorus, pointing fingers at Dawn and poking her.
‘I don’t fancy him,’ she laughed, ‘but I do think he’s nice. How could I not? We like the same music.’
‘So you’re making beautiful music together,’ teased Christie.
‘I didn’t say that!’ said Dawn. ‘But he is a really lovely bloke. If I weren’t getting married, I might let myself fancy him.’ Then, for the benefit of Anna, she added quickly, ‘But I am, so I’m not allowed.’ It wouldn’t have seemed right confessing that she had a bit of a crush on Al Holly when Anna’s man was bonking another woman. She remembered how she had flown at Christie that one time for saying something about taking a married lover. She didn’t want any of them to think ill of her.
‘Ah, don’t panic. We’re only having you on,’ said Anna, hoping that she hadn’t frightened Dawn into refuting that she liked the guitarist because of her fit in the pub about mistresses.
‘So what are we all up to this weekend?’ asked Christie. ‘Anna, how’s the filming going?’
‘I’m getting into my stride,’ Anna winked, ‘though half of me thinks I must be mad. I’m going to have no control about what footage they use. There’s a bit of a difference in an experienced film crew seeing my bad underwear and the rest of England – including all the pervs. Like Malcolm, for instance.’
‘Bet he tapes it so he can see you on a continuous loop,’ grinned Dawn.
‘Stop, you’ll make me vomit!’
She almost told them about Tony and his presents, but she jammed her mouth shut just before the first word came out. It wasn’t as if there was anything to tell at the moment and she didn’t want to jinx anything by blabbing yet.
‘I’ve got my bridesmaids’ dresses fitting tomorrow,’ volunteered Dawn.
‘What colour are you going for again?’ asked Raychel.
‘Peach,’ came the answer. ‘The same colour, actually, that’s on the ribbon on the wedding invites. I’ve got all the favours to wrap up in the same colour tissue paper, and I’ve also got to ring up about the cake and the flowers, so it’s going to be a wedding-heavy weekend.’
‘You sound a bit chirpier today than you have all week,’ said Anna.
‘I’m gradually getting less stressed and more excited,’ she lied.
‘Maybe it’s that guitarist who’s cheering you up,’ said Raychel.
‘Oh, don’t you start!’ said Dawn. She didn’t deny it though, because when Al Holly was nearby she couldn’t stop that smile rising up from within her and spreading across her face. She virtually sunbathed in his presence.
They all stayed for an extra drink so Dawn missed Al’s break. She was twitching to get to him but couldn’t exactly leave the company so she stayed after the others had gone until the end of that night’s gig. It wasn’t a hardship. She sat at the bar and just watched him. She started to imagine, as A
nna had said, that he was playing her like she was a guitar and then had to thrash those thoughts down with a mental sledgehammer.
‘Ah, Dawny Sole,’ said Al, coming straight over to her after resting his guitar on the stand. ‘And how are you this evening?’
‘I’m good, and you?’
‘I’m good too. Drink?’
‘Er . . . please. What are you having?’
‘I’ve finished work so I’m having a beer.’
‘I’ll just have a Diet Coke, thank you. A small one.’
Al paid for the drinks.
‘Time is surely flying. We’ve only got three more Friday nights to play here now.’
‘Only three?’ said Dawn. Of course there were only three. But it sounded such a little number. It yanked her spirits right down.
‘Come and sit outside,’ said Al, picking up the drinks and leading her to the back of the pub where there was a beer garden. There was a free bench and table in the corner by the boundary hedge and that was where Al Holly headed. They sat opposite each other, their beers and a night-light candle between them, their hands sitting dangerously close on the surface of the table.
‘What a lovely evening,’ said Dawn, trying not to look at Al Holly’s unblinking eyes. The candlelight was dancing in them. ‘What’s the weather like in summer where you live?’
‘Ah, the weather question again!’ he said playfully.
‘Oh, be quiet and answer me.’
‘OK, it makes this look like the Arctic.’
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Well, a little exaggeration there, but nice and hot in summer and mild in the winter. Just the way I like it.’
‘Me too,’ said Dawn. ‘This is the first decent summer we’ve had for ages. It’s been absolutely sogging wet for the past couple of years.’
‘We have ski hills though. We’ve kind of got everything. Except the Kiss Me Quick hats.’ He grinned and his eyes crinkled up at the corners and something inside Dawn leaped and put her breathing out of sync. She shouldn’t be looking at this man and feeling these feelings. He was a constant feature in her head and being near him every Friday was like recharging a battery in her heart. He was supplanting every thought she had of Calum and he had no place to. Tomorrow she was getting her bridesmaids sorted and on Sunday she was wrapping up chocolates in peach tissue and ribbon in preparation for her wedding. She took a long sip of her drink that cooled her throat but did bugger all to still the palpitations.
A Summer Fling Page 28