Tara (29 page)

'Sex appeal.' Tara's voice from the door made them both look round.

Both Mabel and Amy laughed. They hadn't known Tara was within earshot, but in fact her remark was true.

'What would you know about such things?' Amy giggled, glad that Tara had at least stopped sulking.

'Only what I've read in magazines,' Tara admitted. 'But I can't actually think of one person in the village with sex appeal!'

'That's a relief,' Mabel said drily. 'We don't have to lock her up!'

'What about this actor then?' Amy was anxious to smooth over any bad feeling to pave the way for a serious chat later. 'You'd better tell Tara about that.'

Tara sat down and poured herself some tea. Like her grandmother she rarely apologised; merely joining them was supposed to indicate a slight change of heart.

'Apparently he's a real dish,' Mabel said slyly. 'And drives a flashy car, but I don't want you riding your bike up to Stanton Drew to gawp at him.'

'How old is he?' Tara asked.

'About thirty-five, they said.'

'I wouldn't even cross the road to see someone that old.' Tara put her nose in the air. 'You can borrow my bike though, Mum, he's nearer your age!'

Amy was picking over some raspberries for jam on Saturday evening, when Tara stalked into the kitchen.

'Well, how do I look?' She struck a pose like a mannequin in one corner of the kitchen, then turned on her heel to show the back of her outfit.

'Very nice, dear,' Amy said.

Tara had designed and made the outfit herself, an emerald green shantung sheath dress with bootlace straps, topped by a little bolero jacket. Her hair had been in rollers all day and now it was backcombed into a bouffant style, flicking up on her shoulders. Her eyes were heavily outlined in black.

'Only nice?' she asked waspishly.

'You've got a lot of make-up on, you don't need so much.'

Tara had bought the material for her dress in a Bristol market and it was the sort that creased badly. The dress's seams were puckered, but Tara wouldn't listen to her mother's advice and put them right. Amy also privately thought the dress was too tight, but she wasn't going to raise objections at this late stage.

'All the girls wear heavy make-up, it's the fashion,' Tara retorted.

It was hard for Amy to see Tara looking so grownup. In her heart she knew there was no real danger at the village dance, but she remembered only too well the feelings Bill had aroused in her at sixteen.

'Where's Gran? I wanted to see her before I left?'

'Out in the dairy. Someone came to buy eggs and cheese, she's still with them.'

'I'll say goodbye as I go past, then.' Tara bent to kiss her mother. 'Leave the back door unlocked. I might be late.'

'This is my granddaughter, Tara.' Mabel's lined face lit up with pride as Tara walked into the dairy. 'She's off to the village dance.'

Tara stopped dead in her tracks as the man turned to greet her. It had to be the actor everyone was talking about.

He wasn't just handsome. He was devastatingly beautiful – butter-coloured blond hair worn just slightly longer than the local men's, deep brown eyes and the kind of rugged perfection she associated only with Martini advertisements.

'This is Mr Wainwright' Gran beamed at Tara, as she slapped some butter between two pats, then wrapped it in greaseproof paper. 'He's not only an actor, but an artist, too. He's staying at a cottage over in Stanton Drew.'

'Simon, please,' he said, shooting out a slender hand to shake Tara's. 'Mr Wainwright makes me sound middle-aged.'

Tara forgot she had thought thirty-five was old. In his light grey slacks and checked open-necked shirt, casual elegance oozed out of Simon Wainwright. Even his voice was delicious, deep and resonant, the sort she'd only heard on the wireless.

'It's nice to meet you,' Tara said awkwardly, desperately trying to think of something riveting to keep him here. He was at least six feet tall and his brown eyes held all the sex appeal she'd found lacking in the local men. 'Has Gran told you she paints, too?'

'She has indeed.' His mouth curved into a smile that sent shivers of delight down her spine. 'She also told me you were very talented!'

'I'm not really.' Tara blushed. She wasn't usually so modest, but then she'd never met someone famous before and she was wary of showing off till she knew him better.

'I left it too late for the shops. In London there's always a shop open somewhere. Thank heavens I saw your sign, otherwise I'd be one starving artist!'

Tara saw that her Gran had not only sold him eggs, cheese, butter and milk but had found him a loaf of her own homemade bread, a pot of marmalade and some bacon. She was always one for making the most of an opportunity.

'Are your family with you?' Tara asked.

His brown eyes had a wicked glint. 'I haven't one,' he said. 'Just down for a few days of rest before an audition. Where are you off to all dressed up?'

'A dance in the village hall,' she said, blushing because it sounded so rustic. 'It's about the only thing to do around here.'

'Perhaps I can drop you off?' He raised one perfect blond eyebrow questioningly. 'That is, of course, if you haven't got a partner coming to collect you?'

'It's only a couple of hundred yards.' Gran stiffened as she saw the effect this handsome stranger was having on Tara.

'But I'm going that way.' He smiled charmingly at Mabel and pulled a leather wallet from his inside pocket. 'Now, Mrs Randall, how much do I owe you?'

His car was a silver 'E' type Jaguar and he barely had time to change gear before they arrived outside the village hall.

'That's it there.' Tara pointed out the Old School House next to the churchyard gates. 'Hardly worth a lift.' She giggled.

Simon smiled at her, pulled across the street and up the slope till they were right in front of the door.

'Be-bop a lula' blasted out with more volume than musical talent and Mr Jakes on the door, in a funereal black suit, was waving his hands in protest.

'Sounds promising.'

She knew he was being sarcastic.

'What are you doing tonight?' she asked.

He made her feel so strange, all sort of prickly inside. There was something exotic about him, not just his beautiful clothes, the car or even his perfect profile. It was a glimpse of something racy, something dangerous and thrilling. She was reluctant to get out of his car.

'Nothing,' he said. 'I might pop down to the local later. Sketch or read a book.'

'Why don't you come in with me?' she asked breathlessly.

He looked round at her, smiled and took one of her hands in his.

'I don't think it's quite my scene,' he said softly, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it. 'Teddy boys in bootlace ties and bumper shoes, giggling virgins and a few farmers' wives to keep it all in line.'

Tara laughed. 'You've missed out the spotty country boys in cavalry twill trousers.'

'I bet you'll be the only beauty in there,' he said, fixing his brown eyes on her. 'All the boys will be queuing up to dance with you. An old man like me wouldn't get a look in.'

He was flirting with her, but whether that meant he was angling at something more she couldn't be sure.

'I've always preferred older men.' She fluttered her eyelashes. 'Go on, come!'

'Maybe later,' he said, and got out of the car.

For a moment she was baffled as to what he was doing, but to her amazement he opened the car door for her.

It couldn't have been timed better if she had planned it. Shirley and Judith, two girls from her class, came around the corner just as he took her hand to help her out.

'Au revoir, ma cherie,'
he said, lifting her hand up to kiss it again.

Shirley and Judith stood there, gawping.

'Struth!' Shirley said as he roared off up the High Street. 'Who was that?'

Tara smiled. Shirley and Judith were exactly what Simon meant by giggling virgins. They both wore cotton dresses with can-can petticoats, even though that fashion had gone out two years earlier, big plastic earrings and bright red lipstick with their hair backcombed like birds' nests.

'Who was he?' Judith took a step towards Tara and the smell of L'Aimant was overpowering.

'My dream man.' Tara smiled.

Simon Wainwright smiled too as he drove off. Tara was just the kind of diversion he needed and he sensed she was a ripe plum, ready for picking. It was good to be out of London for a bit, not least because he could play the part of a celebrity and get the kind of adulation he rarely got in town. Aside from the one detective series his face wasn't known; most of his work had been for radio, where his talent for accents and different voices came into its own. But he was on his way up. Today he was driving a friend's car, but if he got a film offer soon he might be buying his own.

Born in 1930 in genteel Cheltenham, his mother widowed just a few years later, he had been brought up in a house of women. A grandmother and two older sisters had pampered him, a select private school had prepared him to be a gentleman. Acting came naturally to him, but the breaks hadn't come as he expected and until quite recently he'd had to take a job as a cocktail waiter to keep himself while auditioning. But down here no-one need know that ...

The dance was just like all the others. The band was too loud, with ear-splitting feedback. It played Buddy Holly, Adam Faith and Billy Fury songs, all with more enthusiasm than talent.

Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Jones, two formidable matrons from the choir, handled the refreshments and kept eagle eyes peeled for signs of illicit alcohol being added to the orange juice.

The Scouts had decorated the hall and it seemed not one of them had an eye for art, let alone symmetry. Crepe-paper streamers had been tacked up and twisted round anything available. Chinese paper lanterns were pinned up at random, vast bunches of balloons hung in clusters. But the stage decoration made Tara smirk most of all. They had tried to create an image of a barn; with bales of straw, pitchforks and a couple of old stone cider flagons.

Apart from the couples who were 'going steady', only girls were dancing. The boys propped up the walls, smoking heavily, their feet tapping to the music as they weighed up the talent, or got up the nerve to ask someone to dance.

Tara was totally bored. She knew most of the boys would die to dance with her; she knew, too, that half the girls hated her because of it. But what fun was there in it when not one of the boys was even remotely interesting!

She might have flirted with Graham Sweeting if she hadn't met that man Simon. Graham always had a half-bottle of gin or vodka in his pocket, he could jive really well and he wasn't bad at kissing either. He was what Gran called a 'bad lot'. He rode a motorbike, wore a leather jacket and had greasy black hair styled in an exaggerated quiff. Back at Christmas they had got into some serious snogging in his dad's car, and it had been enough to give her an inkling of what sex was all about. But looking now at his lean hips in tight jeans, his sullen, sexy mouth as he dragged on his cigarette, she knew taking things any further with him would be a mistake.

Her heart sank as she saw Robert Caldwell coming towards her. He was the type of boy her mother wanted for her, earnest, reliable, clean-living. He went to Bible-study classes and collected for the missionaries. One look at his sandy hair, red-tinged skin and bitten finger-nails was enough to put her off.

'Would you dance with me, Tara?' he asked, blushing even redder.

She couldn't refuse him – he was a nice enough boy – but his breath smelled, his hands were always clammy and, anyway, she couldn't bear anyone who wore hairy tweed suits.

'You look stunning tonight,' he said shyly. 'Did you make that dress?'

One of the most infuriating things about Robert was the fact he was actually interested in her as a person – what she did, what she wanted to do – not just her looks. He read a great deal, knew about things other boys didn't and possibly, if one had the patience to work on his clothes and image, he might be worthwhile in a year or two.

She was just stepping out on to the dance floor when she sensed Simon had come back for her. There was no draught from the door, not even a bang, but she knew the way the little hairs prickled on the backs of her arms and neck that he was standing behind her, looking at her.

To show she'd noticed him would be a mistake; instead she declined Robert's invitation to jive, and chose 'the Shake,' so her hapless partner couldn't show her up with his over-enthusiastic leg and arm movements. After a respectable period of letting Simon watch her wiggling bottom, she turned, feigned surprise at his presence, then leaned towards Robert.

'Sorry, Robert, I'll have to go, a friend of my family's just popped in. I must go and have a word with him.'

'You came back then?' She stood in front of Simon, her arms folded across her chest defiantly. 'Why's that?'

Even if her mother's reaction to her dress had been lukewarm, all the girls admired it. Here on home ground she felt confident enough to try her famous pout.

'As if you didn't know!' He smiled wickedly. 'I popped into the pub, two pubs in fact, but I was lonely.'

'Come and dance?' She held out her hands, knowing all the girls from school were watching open-mouthed. It pleased her to see that he looked slightly unsure of himself, it meant he'd been giving her some thought.

'I'd rather take you somewhere a bit more private,' he said. 'I feel as if the world and his wife are watching!'

'They are.' Tara giggled. 'That's half the fun!'

Simon looked at the band and winced.

'Not for me. Come home to my cottage and dance with me there?'

'I shouldn't,' she said weakly, looking into those wicked eyes and knowing she would anyway.

'Yes you should. We artists have to live dangerously.'

It was dusk as they left the village; as they approached the small round Toll House at the turn-off to Stanton Drew, Tara suddenly felt uneasy. By day the walk back to Chew Magna was pleasant, but the prospect of narrow lanes in the dark was scary. And suppose someone reported back to her mother that she had left the dance with Simon?