A Summer Fling

by Milly Johnson

  ‘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.’

  Is that how I’ll feel about Calum one day? thought Dawn. Can I really see my eyes mist over like that for him? She knew the answer already, otherwise why was she carrying that scrap of paper with a guitarist’s telephone number around with her wherever she went? She volunteered to go for the coffees before her head bombarded her with any more questions and drove her potty.

  That afternoon, Christie sat in a meeting with the heads of department. James McAskill was present and picked his seat next to Christie. Across the table, Malcolm noted how his eyes lit up when he talked to her. He saw Christie’s hand touch his as she spoke privately to him before the meeting started. And when it did commence, he listened to James McAskill telling them all how proud he was of his flagship scheme and how well it was doing under the jurisdiction of Mrs Somers. He listened to Christie’s presentation on how the scheme was growing as she cited examples of some of the most useful ideas that she had received – one in particular about a new programme to process sales figures which a manager from the Rothwell branch had devised himself. She impressed everyone with her delivery and enthusiasm. Then it was Malcolm’s turn to deliver a limp speech about the state of Cheese, trying to smooth over the disappointing figures and doing his best to ignore a few barely-covered yawns. Then he had to withstand being questioned aggressively by McAskill while he stumbled and bluffed by way of answer. McAskill made him look a fool. Everyone around that table seemed to be delighted that he was getting a well overdue bollocking. He hated McAskill. He hated her. If they weren’t having an affair, then he was Tom Cruise. Maybe it was time that Mrs McAskill knew what was going on behind her back. He’d blow the pair of bastards out of the water and see if they were so touchy-feely with each other then!

  Chapter 71

  The next day at home-time, just as Anna logged off, a thought crossed her mind and jetted from her mouth with the speed – and volume – of Concorde.

  ‘Shite, I’ve no shoes!’

  ‘Are you aware you said that out loud?’ said Dawn.

  ‘I’ve no shoes for Saturday! I’ve got the frock but no shoes! Oh God! How could I forget I need to buy shoes?’

  ‘What size are you?’ asked Christie.

  ‘Five. Oh flaming hell! Where am I going to get shoes to match? It’s a dark blue dress! I’ve only got black high heels!’

  ‘No one will see them, surely, if it’s a long dress?’ said Raychel.

  ‘There will be all sorts of posh people going, there’s bound to be. They’ll notice. Vladimir will notice. I’ll notice! You can’t imagine how gorgeous that dress is, so I don’t want to wear shoes that don’t match. I want to feel fab from the feet up and I don’t want to let him down! Oh hell fire! I’ll have to go to Meadowhall but I know I won’t find anything because you never do when you’re desperate!’

  Christie, calm as a cucumber, fished her keys out of her handbag.

  ‘I’m a size five too. Why don’t you come to my house and I’ll fix you up. I’ve got every colour of shoe known to man. In fact . . .’ She thought for a moment, then nodded at herself. ‘Yes, in fact why don’t we all have a nice girly evening at mine. We can watch the show with you, Anna.’

  ‘Ooh, that sounds lovely,’ said Raychel, looking forward to it already.

  ‘I’m not sure I dare watch it with anyone I know.’ Anna covered her face up with her hands and muttered a series of expletives to herself.

  ‘Don’t be so silly.’ Grace gave her a playful slap on the arm. ‘We can’t wait to see it.’

  ‘I’d better go to Meadowhall straight from work,’ sighed Anna. ‘Thanks for the shoe offer, Christie, but I can’t risk leaving it to chance.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ replied Christie.

  ‘Oh God, I’m stuffed, I know I am!’ groaned Anna.

  ‘Think of me as your fairy godmother,’ smiled Christie. ‘Trust me.’

  Raychel opened the door to Elizabeth, John and Ellis and warmly invited them in. Ben had so taken to the little boy, he was wonderful with children. Raychel loved being called ‘Auntie Ray.’ She tried not to think that she would never have children of her own.

  ‘I’m just warning you, you may get another letter from your mother,’ said Elizabeth, stepping into the kitchen behind Raychel, leaving Ben already crawling on the floor making neighing noises with Ellis perched on his back. ‘It’s fine, it’s nothing to worry about,’ Elizabeth reassured her. ‘I wrote her a letter. I wrote it as if it had come from you. I asked if I – you – could come and visit her next Sunday at twelve. That’s all I wrote and signed it Lorraine. If a reply comes, give it straight to me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ was all Raychel said, and all she needed to say.

  *

  Mr Williamson, Anna’s neighbour with the yellowy cataracts, delivered a parcel for her five minutes after she had got back from Meadowhall. As she suspected would happen, she had walked the length and breadth of the Mall and found bugger all in any shade of blue. It was the ‘out’ colour, it seemed. Until designers like Vladimir Darq made it the new black.

  ‘A gentleman dropped it off earlier on,’ he said. ‘I said I’d give it to you.’

  Tony? Anna presumed it was another of his gestures which, frankly, were becoming annoying. But as soon as Mr Williamson produced it from his old-man shopping bag, she knew it couldn’t possibly be from anyone else but Vladimir Darq. Wrapped exquisitely in silver tissue paper was the most beautiful boned corset in the same blue as her dress, plus matching pants and the sheerest blue stockings. The corset was encrusted with tiny blue beads, each one hand-stitched on. Why had he gone to that amount of trouble when no one would see it? More work had gone into that corset than the dress – and a lot of work had gone into the dress. Her heart began to thump in a way that it hadn’t done for Tony’s rose, or his plate or his Ferrero Rochers.

  Chapter 72

  Malcolm had been buzzing all week with vicious anticipation and was finding it very difficult to keep a lid on it. It wasn’t until Thursday morning though that the dish which he had started to cook, with his anonymous letter to Diana McAskill, looked set to reach boiling point. He could barely breathe for excitement when he saw the stately, elegant figure of the boss’s wife marching down the office past his desk and making a bee-line for where that bitch Christie Somers was sitting. He watched as Christie raised her eyes to see the woman she was so obviously cuckolding and he waited for Diana McAskill to slap the sanctimonious smile off her face. But, alas, that didn’t happen. Diana merely dipped her head and said something to Christie, who then rose to her feet and followed Mrs McAskill silently into one of the meeting rooms. Then again, he considered, Diana
Mac was too classy for a cat-fight. She would verbally slaughter Somers in private.

  He gave it a few minutes before he grabbed a clutch of papers and wandered purposefully down the office, pretending to look for Christie. What he saw through the glass of the meeting-room window was disappointing, to say the least. Diana McAskill was visibly distressed and Christie was comforting her. He cheered up though when the thought visited him that Christie might be confessing the affair she was having with Big McAskill and that was why his poor wife was crying.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said Grace, pulling his attention away from the activities behind the glass.

  ‘Oh, er, I just came to deliver this to Christie.’

  ‘I can see that she gets it,’ said Grace, her hands coming out for it. Malcolm tightened his grip on the papers. He hadn’t even a clue what he had picked up.

  ‘Oh, it’s fine, I’ll come back later.’

  He stole a last sneaky look. Christie was handing Mrs McAskill a handkerchief. He couldn’t wait to see the fallout from this one. He could barely sit still at his desk for itching to find out what was going on.

  But ten minutes later, Mrs McAskill, restored to her composed, serene self, walked past his desk with Christie. There was no hostility between them; in fact they were chatting softly, if seriously, to each other as they made their way to the lift.

  Of course it was an act. There was only one reason why Diana Mac could have been crying and that was because she had found out that her husband was poking a mistress under her nose. Somers was just being a hard-faced cow, enjoying her last moments of composure before her dirty secret leaked out like pus.

  Malcolm was so deep in smiling contemplation as he envisaged the gossip machine cranking up and spreading the muck like shit on a field that he never saw Christie’s approach until she had leaned right over his desk and stuck her face too far into his personal space for comfort.

  ‘Apparently you were looking for me to give me some papers,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Oh . . . er . . . it’s all right, I don’t need to see you about it any more,’ he said, caught on the back foot.

  Christie didn’t move. She continued to lean dominantly over him and then a grim smile spread across her lips.

  ‘Now, I can’t prove that you’re the phantom letter writer,’ she began slowly with menace, ‘but we both know you are. We all know you are.’

  Deny, deny, deny, thought Malcolm. She can’t prove a thing. But it perturbed him that he could be so easily highlighted as the instigator, and more so, that she would say something to McAskill on those lines. But she doesn’t know, she only suspects.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking—’

  ‘Oh, cut the crap, Malcolm,’ snarled Christie. ‘You have so crossed the line this time. You have no idea what you’ve done.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ said Malcolm, coughing away the belying tremor in his voice, but she had started walking away from him on the second word. Her unshaken demeanour was in stark contrast to his. He felt sure they could hear his palpitations down in the London regional office.

  ‘What the heck was all that about?’ said Dawn. ‘Are you all right, Christie?’

  ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ said Christie with stiff control. ‘But it seems that Diana McAskill has received an anonymous letter alleging that I’m having an affair with her husband.’

  ‘Malcolm?’ said Grace.

  ‘Funny how everyone jumps to his name first, isn’t it?’ said Christie. ‘His body language was screaming to me that he was involved. All the signs were there and there were many of them. God, I’d love to hook him up to a polygraph.’

  ‘He came down for a nosey when you were both in the office,’ said Dawn. ‘His eyes were out on stalks to see what was going on.’

  ‘Why would he do such a horrible thing?’ said Raychel.

  ‘Because he’s Malcolm and an arsehole?’ suggested Anna.

  It was a reason that no one disputed, although only Christie knew just how much of an arsehole he had been on this occasion. He had as good as signed his own death warrant by putting that letter in the post to Diana.

  Chapter 73

  ‘You’ve got a gorgeous house, Christie,’ said Dawn that evening as she spooned the last of her pasta into her mouth. ‘I don’t mean to be nosey and look around as much as I am doing, but I can’t keep my eyes off your things.’

  ‘Dad was lucky that the previous owners didn’t rip all the original cornices and ceiling roses out. So many old houses lost their original features through the fads of the day.’

  ‘You lived here long then?’

  ‘Most of my life,’ said Christie. ‘Niki and I grew up here. Of course, I moved out when I got married, only to move back in when I was widowed.’

  ‘It’s nice you get on so well with your brother,’ said Anna. ‘My sister’s nuts. I don’t feel connected with her in any way at all. She thinks hedgehogs are gods and smokes “herbs”.’

  ‘Niki gets on with everyone,’ said Christie fondly. ‘He’s the most laidback, patient man I’ve ever known. He even put my husband to shame and Peter was calm as a mill pond.’

  ‘He can’t half cook as well!’ said Anna, eyeing up his culinary contribution to the evening which sat in a big bowl waiting to be served up. He had made them all a ‘Bad Girl’s Trifle’ for dessert. It was very boozy, very chocolatey and very full of calories.

  ‘Shall we have coffee in a little while? After I’ve sorted Anna out?’ Christie suggested with a twinkly smile. ‘She’s looking jumpy. She doesn’t trust my claims that I can complete her outfit.’

  ‘I’ve tried Barnsley and the whole of Meadowhall and I still can’t find a single pair to match, can you believe?’ Anna huffed.

  ‘Come on, o ye of little faith,’ Christie said, rising from her chair and heading off upstairs.

  Anna followed quickly. She was desperate to see what Christie had for her, although she doubted they would find a match. Anna just wasn’t that lucky.

  The others came up behind, after Christie beckoned them, and went into Christie’s bedroom which was like a miniature country house room with its oak panels on the wall and a large, heavy four-poster with velvet drapes tied at the corners. Christie went over to a door at the side of a huge wardrobe and pulled it open to reveal another cavernous room filled with banks of clothes – modern and vintage – in every colour of the rainbow and then some more. There were cabinets full of bags and purses, pashminas and stoles, and racks and racks of shoes.

  ‘Chuffing hell, where’s Mr Benn?’ said Anna.

  Christie laughed. ‘I’ve always loved clothes. I inherited quite a few from an aunt of mine who had a shop. I’ve been collecting the rest of them for years.’

  ‘Good grief,’ said Grace, looking at a shimmering silver evening dress behind glass. ‘Do you wear any of them?’

  ‘I used to,’ said Christie. ‘When Peter was alive. We went to a lot of parties and did a lot of cruising around the world. Something I intend to start doing again when I’m ready.’ When I’m ready? wondered Grace. What a great hole Peter Somers must have left, for her to take so long to recover.

  ‘Good God, I don’t believe it!’ said Anna, honing in on a pair of long, slim blue shoes from a rack with at least twelve other pairs in dark blue. ‘They can’t be the same colour, that would just be too spooky.’ She pulled out a small square of material that Vladimir had included with the dress, presumably for the purpose of accessorizing, and placed it against the shoe.

  ‘It’s a match. I don’t believe it!’

  ‘It’s not quite,’ said Christie. ‘But you’d need to be lit with a thousand-watt bulb to notice the subtle difference.’

  ‘That was just too easy to be true. Pinch me, Raychel,’ said Anna, still shaking her head. She let loose a near-hysterical laugh. ‘You’re magic, Christie Somers. Pure bloody magic.’

  ‘But do they fit?’ asked Christie.

  ‘Who gives a fart!’ said Anna. ‘I’ll
either cut my toes off or bung bog paper in the bottom. They’ll fit.’

  ‘Try one on,’ said Raychel, who was holding her breath more than Anna.

  Anna threw off her shoe and put the blue stiletto on. It slipped beautifully onto her foot.

  ‘No, that just cannot be,’ Anna gasped. ‘Can I borrow them, Christie?’

  ‘Say no, Christie. That would be really funny,’ giggled Dawn.

  ‘Of course you can borrow them, silly. There’s a bag to match somewhere. I never bought shoes without getting hold of the bag to match. Ah, here it is.’

  ‘Here’s another!’ said Raychel, finding a second in that shade buried deep on one of many shelves full of purses and folded wraps. It was, like the shoes, darkest blue, jewelled with blue sparkling stones studded along the heavy clasp. It was slightly dusty, so she rubbed it against her knee.

  Anna’s hands greedily came out for it. She held it reverently, then thumbed open the clasp. ‘Christie, are you sure? It’s never been used. Look, there’s the price label still on. Oh no, hang on, it’s not the price – it says—’ Her voice cut off.

  Christie reached slowly for the bag and read the handwritten label.

  For you, my darling girl.

  ‘Christie, are you all right?’ said Grace, seeing the lightning change on her features.

  ‘Yes, I—’ Christie crumbled against the wall behind her and Grace leaped forward.

  ‘Good grief, love, what is it?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not!’ said Anna, coming to the other side of her for support. ‘Dawn, get that chair!’

  Dawn pushed the chair behind Christie only a split second before she fell backwards onto it. She struggled for composure, looking blankly up at the four women who were watching her with concerned confusion, and then she burst into tears.

  They closed around her like flower petals protecting their precious centre. Then Anna ran to Christie’s en-suite and grabbed enough toilet roll to satisfy a pack of Labrador puppies with a tissue fetish; Raychel raced to get a glass of water; Dawn hunted down a flannel to soak with warm water – she didn’t know why. Grace remained with her arms around the woman who had given her comfort in the same way through her recent dark times, as Christie sobbed into her shoulder. Then, like a summer shower darkens a blue sky and ceases as quickly as it started, Christie recovered. She raised her head to see these four dear women she had become so fond of in such a short time.