A Summer Fling (41 page)

‘Anna, how nice to see you again,’ he said. God, he was so gallant. The most gallant thing Tony had ever done was tell her that he wouldn’t climb over her to get to Angelina Jolie if they were all in bed together. Then he had spoiled even that by asking her if she thought she might fancy a threesome in the future. Anna said that quite categorically she didn’t. Besides, the way Tony’s brain worked, she wondered if given the chance, he’d pick two other birds and leave her standing outside.

They went inside Darq House. Anna was thrilled to see it again. Luno came stalking over, his tail whirring like a helicopter blade, and pushed his muzzle into Anna’s hand.

‘Hi, boy, I’ve missed you,’ she whispered to him. Luno stayed for a pat, then returned to his basket, slumping down but keeping his eyes on his master who was pouring two goblets of wine, one of which he handed over to Anna.

‘
Noroc!
’ he said, which she took to mean ‘Cheers!’ and repeated the word back to him before taking a sip. It was very nice for virgin’s blood. No wonder vampires were always thirsty.

‘Anna, next week it is the
Balul Lun
Plin
.’

‘The what?’

‘A Full Moon Ball. I hold it here in Darq House.’

‘A ball?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here?’

‘Right. You will be coming, of course.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, Anna.’

‘A ball?’

‘Yes. I want you to come.’

A thought crossed Anna’s brain, carrying a long dark shadow with it.

‘It’s not one of those surprise things, is it? Jane’s not going to turn up and ask me to model naked up a specially-built catwalk?’

Vladimir smiled. Just out of one side of his mouth. His eyes twinkled. They were
so
not contact lenses, as she had once suspected. ‘No, no tricks, you will be in a dress as a guest. An honoured guest of mine.’

‘Oh God, I haven’t got a dress posh enough for anything like that. What sort? Long, short?’

He held up one finger to silence her, got up from his seat, disappeared for less than a minute and returned with a long, soft, silver case over his arms. He unzipped and opened it and held up the most beautiful long gown in a shade of blue reminiscent of a late-night sky. Anna’s jaw fell open so wide it almost got lost in her cleavage.

‘I told you I had something for you,’ he said.

‘Well, you were right, it’s not a plate!’ gasped Anna. ‘That can’t be for me, can it?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Vlad. ‘Don’t worry, it will fit. You don’t need to try it on before. Trust me. Put it on next Saturday only. I will send the underwear to you before then, but I need to work some more upon it first. The car will pick you up at nine o’clock.’

‘Do I bring a bottle?’

Vladmir gave her a disapproving look. She guessed the answer was a no then.

‘Thank you, Vladimir, it’s gorgeous. I’ve never had a dress like it.’

‘Of course, it’s a Vladimir Darq. How could you?’

Anna smiled and lifted her eyes to the man in front of her with the black hair and the full red lips, and had to pull them away again fast. He was too gorgeous. How could she go back to ordinary Saturday nights watching Ant and Dec and eating a sad fart ready meal for one? Anna felt suddenly empty inside and tearful and gulped at her red wine.

‘You know that the show is going to be broadcast on Thursday night at nine p.m., Anna? The lingerie will be in the shops the next day – so the timing is perfect.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Only five days to find out if she’d made the biggest chump of herself and wrecked Vladimir Darq’s career single-handedly. Oh God, how could she dare to go into work the day after? And why nine p.m.? After the watershed? She daren’t ask. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. There was nothing she could do now but wait for it, watch it and die of shame afterwards.

Anna put her goblet down. She didn’t want to outstay her welcome.

‘Well, thank you for this beautiful dress.’

‘My car will pick you up at quarter to nine next Saturday evening.’ He kissed her hand. She cradled that hand all the way home. Not even the sight of Tony’s thong gift could pull her back down to reality. She’d be back there soon enough.
But please God, just give me one more week to enjoy being up on this number nine cloud!

Dawn was glad that no one wanted to come with her to the old people’s home to see Aunt Charlotte on Sunday afternoon. Her obligation to show the old lady the photograph of her wedding dress gave her the perfect excuse to miss out on eating a big lamb roast dinner with her soon-to-be in-laws and enduring scary hints as to what was in store for the dreaded hen night. Denise had turned up with some huge inflatable willies the day before and Demi was getting some T-shirts printed.

‘I’m getting them cheap from Empty Head,’ she declared proudly. ‘They’re only costing you forty quid, Dawn.’ Dawn noted the
you.

Dawn didn’t want to pay forty pounds for T-shirts for a bunch of strangers with, no doubt, something crude and embarrassing printed on them. Then again, she envisaged Demi’s face if she said as much – a look that would spread to Denise’s and Muriel’s faces as quickly as nits hopped. She opened up her purse and handed over two twenty-pound notes.

‘Bit of a bloody cheek asking her to pay when you’ve ordered them,’ said Denise.

‘Well, they’re only coming out of that money Auntie Charlotte gave her, aren’t they?’ retorted Demi as if Dawn wasn’t there.

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ said Denise with a hopeful raised-eyebrow look at Dawn.

‘Er, do I owe you anything, Denise? For the inflatable er . . . things,’ she asked, hating herself, hating her weakness, hating the fact that the closer she became to the Crookes, the further away she drifted.

‘Forty quid will cover it all,’ said Denise.

‘Can I owe you ten? I’ve only got thirty left in my purse.’

‘ ’Course,’ said Denise with the beaming smile of someone who had just made a healthy profit.

At the old people’s home, Dawn approached Reception and asked the woman behind the desk if she could see Charlotte Sadler. The woman’s face dropped into a sorry kind of smile when Dawn explained who she was and why she was there.

‘She’s very fragile and confused at the moment,’ she said. ‘It’ll be one-way traffic, I’m afraid.’

‘But she was so fit and well the last time I came,’ said Dawn.

‘That’s how some of them go, love. It can happen so quick.’ She came out from behind the desk and beckoned Dawn to follow her to Charlotte’s room.

‘I shan’t keep her long,’ promised Dawn, following her down the carpeted corridor, ‘but I told her I’d come.’

There was a drastic change in the old lady since Dawn’s last visit. She was half-sitting up, propped by lots of fat pillows, her long hair now lying about her shoulders in ghostly white tendrils and she was decidedly thinner. Her bones looked as fragile as those of a baby bird and she was reposing, mouth open, devoid of teeth, which sucked her cheeks down into dark holes.

‘Charlotte, love,’ said the woman quietly and rubbed her hand. ‘Charlotte, you’ve got a visitor.’

The old lady’s eyes flickered open. There was no recognition in them at all. They moved over Dawn as if she were just part of the furniture of the room.

‘Sit with her for a bit,’ said the woman, moving to the door. ‘Can I get you a coffee or a tea?’

‘I’d love a coffee, please,’ said Dawn, taking the seat at Charlotte’s bedside. ‘Milk, half a sugar if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Not too much trouble at all, love,’ said the woman. ‘Kettle’s always on here!’

Dawn studied the old lady. Her breathing seemed laboured and she looked so much older than she had appeared last time.

‘Hello, Aunt Charlotte,’ said Dawn softly. ‘Do you remember me? I’m Dawn. I’m going to marry Calum, your great-nephew. We came to see you a few weeks back. You wanted to see a picture of my wedding dress. I had one taken at my last fitting for you, so you can see what I’ll look like.’

Charlotte’s eyes roved back to Dawn and she gave the slightest nod. Dawn opened her handbag and pulled out the photograph.

‘It’s so pretty,’ Dawn carried on. ‘It’s ivory with tiny peach roses at the neck and a V at the waist and a big full skirt. Would you like to see?’ She held up the photograph in front of Charlotte and kept it there. To Dawn’s delight, the old lady’s eyes locked on it and then her hands came up and reached for it.

‘I didn’t want to let you down after I’d promis—’

‘You look very happy,’ Charlotte said in a scratchy, toothless voice. ‘I like your boots.’

What a shame
, thought Dawn. She couldn’t really see it.

‘Who’s that man?’

‘What man, love?’ asked Dawn.

‘That man in the hat.’

‘Oh, er . . .’ There was no man there, of course. Dawn made something up on the spot so as not to confuse the old lady even more.

‘He’s the man who owns the dress shop,’ she said.

Aunt Charlotte dropped the photo. As Dawn reached to pick it up, Charlotte said in a voice that was steady and weighty with tears, ‘Oh, Dee Dee, what are you doing? We just want you to be happy.’ The old lady’s left hand fell on top of Dawn’s and squeezed it with a strength that seemed impossible for a woman of her fragility. Then the brightness seemed to fade from her eyes and she closed them with a tired sigh. She had drifted off again by the time the woman returned with the coffee.

‘Did you manage to get her to see it then?’ she asked.

‘Sort of,’ said Dawn, thoughts and memories bombarding her head.
I must have misheard. She called me Dee Dee?
‘She told me that she wanted me to be happy.’

‘She didn’t speak, surely?’ said the woman with a gently disbelieving tone. ‘She hasn’t spoken for a while now.’

‘It was the oddest thing . . . she called me Dee Dee’ –
Mum and Dad used to call me Dee Dee
– ‘Then she gripped my hand . . .’

Dawn’s voice faded away. It was obvious the woman thought she was nuts.

‘Well, if she did, then that’s lovely,’ she said sympathetically though. Some people saw what they wanted to, she had seen that so much, in this place especially.

Dawn cleared her coffee in two gulps. It was luke-warm from the amount of milk in it. She laid a soft kiss on Aunt Charlotte’s cheek. Her breath was so shallow in her barely rising chest as she slept that Dawn wondered if she would see the old lady alive again. She was so glad she had come as promised, but what Charlotte had said made her feel so shaky she had to fill up her lungs a few times with fresh air before she dared to start driving home. How she wished she could have seen that photograph as Charlotte had seen it!
And Dee Dee? How very strange.

‘So, any more presents left on your doorstep then?’ Christie greeted Anna first thing on Monday morning.

‘A thong,’ replied Anna flatly.

‘What is that man up to?’ said Grace. Relationships! Did anyone have a happy story to tell, apart from young Raychel who was obviously love’s young dream with Ben.

‘What does he mean by leaving you a thong?’ asked Raychel.

‘Fuck knows,’ said Anna. ‘Can’t understand why anyone would wear a thong like that anyway. It covers nothing.’

‘I think that’s the idea,’ smiled Christie. ‘How overtly sexual!’

‘What do you reckon he’ll leave next week?’ asked Dawn. ‘Himself maybe? Naked on the doormat?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘He’s obviously still with scrawny arse, but if he
does
turn up next weekend in person he’ll find I’m too busy to be impressed.’

‘Why’s that then?’ asked Grace.

‘Well,’ began Anna, ‘if I haven’t fled the country because the show is being broadcast on Thursday, I’ll be at Vladimir Darq’s house at a Full Moon Ball. Beat that for an action-packed rollercoaster of a week.’ Then she filled them in on the dress he had made for her.

‘Wow!’ said Dawn. ‘Imagine getting that sort of attention from a man.’

‘Why do you get that sort of attention from a man when you aren’t going out with him and will never see him again after next weekend, but get bugger all from one you’re supposed to be living with? How does that work out?’ Anna grumbled.

‘Because you’re with the wrong man, that’s why,’ said Christie. ‘My husband treated me like a queen. I felt blessed every day that I had him.’