A Summer Fling (18 page)

‘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.

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 contained 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.

‘Wh . . . what do you mean?’

‘She’s after my body,’ said Calum, treating it like a big joke. Like he treated everything.

‘I didn’t exactly see you pushing her off,’ sniped Demi.

‘She only moved in because you weren’t around, Dawn,’ said Denise.

‘Jesus, he’s like a dog on heat,’ said Muriel.

Tears rose in Dawn’s eyes and she was outed before she could push them down again.

‘No point in getting upset,’ said Demi. ‘He won’t change. They don’t. If they’ve got away with it once, they’ll get away with it again. Everything with balls is a twat.’

With tears in her own eyes, she flounced off, sending her plate zooming across the table to clash into her brother’s.

‘Is she on the blob?’ said Calum, still grinning. ‘Nothing happened, Dawn. I swear. Did it, Den?’

‘Not that I saw,’ said Denise, keeping her eyes down on her dinner.
That was a very careful diplomatic answer
, thought Dawn.

‘Oh ho, I know that look: nag-alert!’ said Calum, pointing at Dawn who tried to protest that she wasn’t going to do anything of the sort.

‘You need to get a grip, lady.’ Muriel’s voice came quiet but hard across the dinner table. It hurt, especially because Dawn had deliberately made a conscious effort
not
to say anything. Calum had used her to deflect attention away from himself.

‘Oh, chuffing hell, happy bleeding birthday, Den!’ said Den’s man, Dave, lifting up his can of lager and raising it in his girlfriend’s direction.

‘Oh, I’m glad someone remembered!’ said Denise with an annoyed sigh.

‘Happy birthday, sis!’

‘Aye, happy birthday, love.’

‘Happy birthday.’ Dawn joined in the family chorus but felt nothing like a part of them at all.

Grace was just finishing her Sunday dinner. She hated the fact that her table wasn’t a complete representation of her family. Joe was there with Laura, Sarah and her husband, Hugo, and Sable, Gordon at the head of the table taking the meat carving very seriously as usual. Paul should have been there; lately she had found herself wanting to scream that at Gordon. But Grace had not been built to rail against social order. And she definitely hadn’t been built to rail against Gordon.

‘How’s the job going, Mother?’ said Sarah. ‘New boss not too much of a bitch, I hope?’

‘It’s very enjoyable and the new boss is lovely, thank you, dear,’ said Grace. She suspected Sarah had an ulterior motive for enquiring about her job satisfaction.