A Summer Fling (24 page)

She sat on the sofa with the lazy greyhound while her fiancé faffed about upstairs.

‘Bette’s shown me the frocks. They’re coming on lovely,’ said Muriel. ‘Not be long now before you’re a Mrs Crooke like me.’

‘No,’ smiled Dawn, but it was a smile she had to lift up at the corners with some effort. What the heck was the matter with her? Once upon a time, the thought of sharing their name would have set her off sighing wistfully. She hadn’t even practised her new signature once this past week. Her head was full of music instead of marriage.

The doorbell rang.

‘Get that, will you, love,’ said Muriel, hunting around for her cigarettes only to find that the greyhound was sitting on them, which set her off swearing.

‘I want to speak to Calum Crooke about some DVDs,’ said the official-looking man on the doorstep. ‘Is Mr Crooke in?’

Oh God, he’s police!
Dawn froze. She’d had an idea from day one that the DVDs Calum was getting from Killer weren’t strictly kosher, despite the ‘house clearance’ story. There were a frightening number of boxes full of them up in his old bedroom in Muriel’s house, all looking suspiciously brand new.

Dawn blanched. What the heck should she do? She opened her mouth to say something ridiculous like, ‘Who?’ Then she almost burst into tears of relief when Calum appeared at her shoulder.

‘Calum Crooke?’

‘Yep, that’s me.’

‘I understand you’ve had a delivery of DVDs.’

‘So?’ said Calum, cool as you like. Dawn had visions of his being carted off to the police station at any minute. Her heart was battering against her chest wall with fearful anxiety.

‘I see,’ said the man sternly. ‘Calum Crooke . . . have you got a spare
Kung Fu Panda
? The kids are desperate to see it.’

They were still laughing at Dawn half an hour later because she hadn’t stopped shaking.

‘He’s all right, is Gav. He’s always getting stuff off me,’ said Calum. ‘You need to chill. He did that stern routine to wind you up.’

‘I thought he was the police!’

‘Police? Gav? He’s a bloody fag smuggler.’

‘I didn’t know you sold pirate DVDs!’

‘And CDs, don’t forget the CDs!’ said Calum with a gloating smile.

‘I didn’t know you sold those either!’ Dawn drew her breath in tightly. Could it get any worse?

‘Well, it would only have given you something else to nag me for,’ said Calum. ‘Like you haven’t got enough already. You’re best staying out of my business.’

‘You’ll have to jump off that pedestal of yours if you want to be part of this family,’ said Muriel, laughing still but with a hardness in her voice that Dawn was hearing more and more these days.

Dawn resented that pedestal comment, even though she didn’t say it. She wasn’t on one at all. She had just always hated rip-off merchants. Her mother and father had been hard-working, decent, solid people. They’d never so much as taken a week’s dole in their life and always paid their way. And they wouldn’t have dreamed of buying a pirate CD and ripping off a fellow musician. She just wasn’t crook material and never would be. Maybe that meant she wasn’t Crooke material either?

Calum was still asleep in bed when Dawn drove off to the Rising Sun at nine o’clock without her Gibson. She couldn’t find it anywhere. Calum had obviously moved it, because she knew she hadn’t. She didn’t have enough time to look for it now and waking him would only bring her more ‘nagging’ accusations, plus she didn’t want him asking her where she was going. So she picked up her old acoustic guitar instead.

‘What am I doing?’ she asked herself when she pulled up outside the pub. It suddenly didn’t feel as innocent as just going and strumming along with some other like-minded musicians. She really did need to stop the flow of chemistry between herself and that cowboy. It wasn’t honest. She would tell Al, definitely that day, that she was getting married, she decided. Then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt as excited about anything as she did about playing guitar with him that morning. It felt right and wrong in equal quantities.

The boys had already started practising when she got there. The acoustics of the room were so much better than the bar, and the twangy guitar sound made her feel a strange longing for something way out of the world she was presently living in.

Al waved over and the music stopped.

‘Boys, I’d like you all to meet Miss Dawny Sole. Dawny – this is Kirk, Samuel and Mac.’

They all said a really friendly hello and Dawn noticed that they’d already got a stool ready for her. She took her guitar out of its battered old case.

‘I’ve had to bring this one,’ she said. ‘I seem to have temporarily mislaid my Gibson.’ She was aware she had missed the opportunity to say that her ‘boyfriend must have moved it’. Deliberately missed the opportunity.

It was still a very nice instrument and she sat fine-tuning the strings on it while the band members asked her questions about her dad and his band and Samuel fetched her a coffee. It was obvious that Al had filled them all in on quite a few details. They strummed idly and then Samuel led the music into a tune she recognized because her dad used to play it and her mum used to sing it.
I Took My Chance With You.
And just as all the horses had started to run together in the Grand National, the band and Dawn were suddenly all playing it and Samuel started singing and Dawn opened her mouth and her voice joined his and her heart lifted from her shoes back to where it should be residing. It was the most exhilarated she could remember feeling in years. She felt as if she was standing in sunshine and it threw the rest of her life into dark shade.

‘You have a lovely voice, Dawny Sole,’ said Samuel. ‘What else do you know?’

‘Crikey, loads of things. Anything from Tammy Wynette to Chris Isaak.’

‘We once opened for Chris,’ said Al.

‘NO!’ said Dawn, who had rather a thing about Chris Isaak. And for the same reason she had a bit of a thing for Al Holly: because they were from similar moulds, physically as well as musically. ‘I wish I could afford him to play at my wedding.’ It was out before she could stop it and she could have smashed her own mouth in for it. She always did have the clumsiest gob in the world. Al’s head made the smallest jerk, but she still saw it. There was nothing else for it but to say what she’d been putting off.

‘I’m getting married at the end of June, you see, and I wondered if you’d be around to play at my wedding. Obviously I’d pay you. I’d rather have you than Chris Isaak anyway. It’s Saturday the twenty-seventh.’

‘Ahhhh – that’s the day we leave for London. That’s a real shame. I’m sorry, honey, no can do,’ said Samuel.

‘Oh, never mind, it was just a thought,’ said Dawn. She tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt. There would be no relief from the karaoke now. Then again, did she really want Al Holly to play the background music while she twirled around a dance floor with Calum?

‘How about this one?’ suggested Al. The strings of his guitar gave birth to an echoey, haunting Chris Isaak intro and Dawn joined in softly in the background, feeling that wavelength she had shared with Al slip out of sync. Sometimes she felt that life was playing its own
wicked game
on her.

Sunday lunch at Grace’s house was a strained affair to say the least. That week there were just the two of them. Grace hadn’t done any of the fancy vegetable dishes she usually did when the table was surrounded by family. She had no desire to make an effort to do her lovely cauliflower cheese and mustard or her leeks in cream sauce. Gordon would just have to put up with plain mash, plain carrots, plain cauli and broccoli. She couldn’t even be bothered to chop up any onions to put in the gravy.

They ate in silence. As usual, he had his Yorkshire puddings first as a starter. As usual, he carved the roast and Grace dished up everything else. Sarah and Hugo were out having lunch with friends. Paul was having lunch with Laura and Charles and young Joe. Grace looked down at the dinner she had just spooned onto the plate for Gordon and she had the greatest desire to spit on it. What he had done to the family was unforgivable. But Gordon would never apologize, even if he thought he was in the wrong for what he had done. Not that he did. He had crossed an emotional Rubicon with every one of them now except Sarah. Her family were on different banks and the bridge, it appeared, was irreparable.

Dawn’s smile couldn’t have been wider as she waved goodbye to the band when their practice session came to an end. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spent a morning as sweet, lovely, enjoyable, wonderful. Maybe she never had. Certainly not as an adult anyway. It was one of those mornings she knew she would be reliving all day. Although it would have been even nicer had she not opened her trap about her wedding, she thought.

She walked to the door with Al, who was gallantly carrying her guitar for her. They made it as far as the porch because a flash flood was in full pelt and Al pulled her back when she attempted to walk out in it.

‘You’ll get drenched,’ he said.

‘I live in England,’ laughed Dawn. ‘This is what we’re used to.’

But still, the opportunity to stand next to Al Holly and talk to him was there for the taking. And despite the fact that she knew she really should start to distance herself from him, she would no more have made a second attempt to run to her car than she would have asked Muriel for a loan of her flip-flops to walk down the aisle in.

‘Do . . . do you have rain like this in Canada?’ asked Dawn, attempting to say something in the thick silence that surrounded them. Then immediately afterwards she said, ‘I’m sorry, that was the world’s most rubbish question, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Al in that slow, calm, dry way of his. ‘I think comparing the rainfall of different continents is very interesting.’

‘You don’t really, do you?’ said Dawn, unsure if he was being sincere or sarcastic. He gave her the slightest raise of his eyebrows that told her he didn’t think comparing rainfall of different continents was in the least interesting and she let loose a bark of laughter.

‘So, you’re getting married, Dawny Sole,’ said Al, which pulled the brake on that laugh.

‘Yes,’ said Dawn. Of course it was right that she had told him but still, she felt so disappointed that any flirtation would stop now.

Al nodded slowly as if all sorts of things were running through his mind. She wished she knew what they were.

‘And is your fiancé in a band?’ said Al at last, and in such a way that the answer would be of heightened importance.

‘No, he’s not,’ answered Dawn. She wanted to laugh though. The image of Calum on stage in cowboy gear playing an instrument tickled her. The words fish and bicycle came to mind.

The rain stopped so suddenly it was as if a tap in heaven had just been switched off. They fell into step across the car park.

As they reached Dawn’s car and she fiddled in her bag for her keys, Al asked, ‘Is he into your music?

‘God, no, he’s not into music at all.’

Al handed Dawn her guitar and said, ‘Then he isn’t for you. Any fool would see that. Have a good week, Dawny Sole. Hope to see you again Friday.’ And with that, Al Holly turned and strode back inside, leaving Dawn numb, speechless and feeling that she had just received a precisely aimed waking-up slap across the face.

There was a hand-delivered letter in Raychel’s mailbox when she went down to collect the Sunday newspapers. It just had her name on the front in a lovely scrolling font. She waited until she was back in the flat again with Ben before she slit it neatly open with a knife. It was a short letter written on pretty, pale pink paper.

*

Ben read over her shoulder. He noticed how she gripped the letter as she read it over again.

‘I think we made a mistake moving to Barnsley,’ Raychel said, with a cross edge in her voice.

‘Oh, don’t say that, pet,’ said Ben. He liked this lovely new flat, and the friendly, buzzing little town and working for John Silkstone.

‘Will you tell your boss that I can’t help his wife,’ she said. ‘My mother didn’t have a sister.’

‘But you know she did.’

‘She said she did and then she said she didn’t. Who knows which bits were lies and which bits were the truth. It’s not as if I can tell your boss’s wife anything of comfort, is it?’

Ben pulled her round to face him, his big hands warm on her shoulders. He bent so he could look into her large grey eyes. His voice was soft when he began to speak.

‘Ray, you know that I would never let anything or anyone hurt you again. John Silkstone is a really good man. If his wife has been looking for her sister for all these years, let her see you once, then, like she says, she can put it to bed.’

‘And what if it’s true?’ said Raychel. ‘What if I am the person she’s looking for? The answer is no, Ben.
No
.’

The strength in her words belied the tremor in her voice.

When she reached home, Dawn was determined to find her missing guitar. Calum was in the pub by that time. He hated it when she rang him there but on this occasion she didn’t care. He didn’t answer. She stabbed in a text, telling him to ring home because it was important.

Her mobile phone rang within the minute.

‘What’s up?’ Calum’s impatient voice jumped down the receiver.

‘Have you moved my electric guitar by any chance?’ asked Dawn.

‘I thought you said it was important, for fuck’s sake!’