by Fiona Harper
‘Well, you could always make time to try to get to know me, ‘Doug said. He brightened. ‘I know … Let’s forget the wedding and just do the honeymoon!’
Claire couldn’t help but laugh. There was something about Doug’s irrepressible optimism, at least, that was attractive. ‘Now, do you really want me to book this trip for you, or are you just wasting my time?’
His face fell and he sighed. ‘I really want you to book me the trip. Mother says the Cook Islands are on her bucket list and since her time in this mortal realm is coming to a close, I’d better take her there before the year is out.’
Claire smothered a smile. From what she’d gleaned about Doug’s mother, she suspected the old lady would outlive them all. ‘The Cook Islands … Now we’re getting somewhere.’ She stood up, walked over to a rack full of brochures, pulled one out and flicked to a page that showed the kind of luxury resort Doug’s mother would appreciate, then handed it to him as she sat down again. ‘What you need is to find a nice girl who likes to travel.’
And doesn’t mind a twenty stone chaperone with a blue rinse, she added silently.
Doug, to his credit, was already bouncing back from her refusal. ‘But you’re a nice girl. And you must like to travel, otherwise why become a travel agent?’
Well, he’d hit the nail on the head there, and there were more than a few destinations on her own bucket list that were still unticked.
‘I do like to travel. And I will … But I’ve been very busy getting the new premises up and running and all my time and energy has gone into that.’ And money, she added silently, but he didn’t need to know that, did he?
Anyway, she didn’t like to travel alone – not that she was about to take Doug up on his offer to be his Girl Friday on a deserted tropical island. She wasn’t that desperate. But the last time she’d been away was that horrible trip to Prague with Philip, the last-ditch attempt to do something romantic as their marriage had been falling apart. For some reason, hearing the rumble of case wheels in the pre-dawn quiet just didn’t seem as thrilling any more.
And she wasn’t about to fill the space he’d left behind just because she wanted someone to talk to on a long plane journey. She was enjoying her freedom too much. A few years of staying put in London was a small price to pay for being able to do what she wanted, to fly as high as she could, without those little comments, sharp and penetrating as sniper’s bullets, bringing her smashing back down to earth again.
‘Well, if you won’t come to Rarotonga with me, how about an evening out in the West End?’
Claire blinked and refocused on Doug. She sighed. ‘We’ve talked about dating too.’
‘Oh, it’s not a date,’ he said with a surprisingly straight face. Only the glitter in his eyes gave him away. ‘It’s a party.’
Claire opened her mouth to ask what the difference was, but he barrelled on.
‘Jayce Rider, the guy who took over the Hamilton Hotel and turned its fortunes around is a friend of mine. He likes to throw parties for people in the travel industry and he’s planning one a week tomorrow. I thought you might like to come with me. For purely business reasons, of course.’
She hesitated. Actually, she’d been looking to develop relationships with a couple of high-end London hotels, hoping to be able to give her treasured clients a little bit of luxury at a discount. The Hamilton would be perfect.
She kept her expression neutral as she looked at Doug. ‘I’ll think about it.’
He grinned back at her, reminding her of a puppy who’d been scolded only moments before, but was now wagging its tail, transgression already half forgotten. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said, as he rose from his chair and saluted her farewell.
Claire half stood in her chair as he disappeared out of the door. ‘There’ll be ground rules!’ she yelled after him. He didn’t shout anything back, so she wasn’t sure he’d heard her, but, even if he had, she suspected he might find a way to circumvent them.
She let her bottom bump back down into her office chair and then slumped face first onto her desk. The morning was already so clammy that her cheek instantly stuck to the polished surface.
Was that what Doug’s little visit had been all about?
Had he used her guilt at saying no to an all-expenses paid honeymoon to manoeuvre her into saying yes to the party? Which she hadn’t actually done, she reminded herself, even though it felt as if she had.
She peeled her face off the desk and sat up, then stared at her computer screen, thinking she ought to book the whole blooming trip anyway – two tickets, first class but non-refundable, and twin rooms all the way so he had to share with his Gorgon of a mother. Hah! The cancellation fees alone would make him think twice before he pulled another stunt like that on her, before he started messing with her head—
She inhaled sharply.
Claire, you’re being paranoid.
Not every man she met was out to use her as a pawn in his twisted little games. She had to remember that.
She scrubbed her face with her hands and stared out through the open door across the courtyard to Sweet Nothings, and suddenly remembered her Frappuccino perched on the edge of the desk. Half the ice had melted and one side of the swirl of cream had sunk into the liquid, making it look like a rapidly fading iceberg. She took a sip anyway. It was warmer than she would have liked, but at least she wasn’t in danger of brain freeze.
After a couple of slurps of the cool liquid she began to feel a bit more normal again. She laughed softly at herself.
Stupid woman. Of course Doug wasn’t manipulating her. Everything he felt and thought was instantly written all over his face. He didn’t have it in him to scheme and push and lie. Doug Martin had that going for him at least.
The gravity of this revelation hit her. Her eyes opened wide as she reached the bottom of the Frappuccino and it made a loud vacuum-like sound. That meant Doug had one up on almost every other man who’d played a significant role in her life, which made him a much better prospect than she’d given him credit for.
Yikes. That was a seriously sad state of affairs.
She laughed again and shook herself as she aimed the empty Frappuccino cup towards the bin and scored a mental point for getting it in first time. She stood up and reached for her purse. Maybe she should go and get herself a fresh one. If she was starting to consider Doug Martin as prime boyfriend material, the heat of this sticky May morning was definitely getting to her.
Chapter Two
Just One Girl
The Doris Day Film Club met on Tuesday evenings in the upper room of The Glass Bottom Boat, a shabby little pub on the fringes of Highbury and Islington that had, as yet, escaped the clutches of developers who wanted to transform it into yet another fashionable and minimalist wine bar. Some of the other pubs in the area were cool and grungy, the kind with bare plaster and sanded floorboards that had live music and open mike nights. The Glass Bottom Boat was just plain grungy.
There was no air conditioning in the upper room, just walls covered with red flock wallpaper, a carpet guaranteed to make one’s eyes hurt and rickety tables and chairs that had been stained with dark varnish in an effort to make them look ‘rustic’ instead of just old and broken. The only way to get more air into the room was to wedge the two large windows open as wide as they could go, which wasn’t far, seeing as they were almost glued shut with four decades’ worth of paint and half the sash ropes were missing.
It was a small space, only needing twenty people to fill it to the rafters, so on this muggy evening, the eight members of the Doris Day Film Club fitted in quite comfortably.
The room’s saving grace, and the only reason the club continued to meet here month after month, was the massive, state-of-the-art 52-inch flat-screen TV that almost filled one wall. The landlord had installed it when the last World Cup had been on, and had intended to play sports on it twenty-four-seven, but on Tuesday nights it belonged to the Doris Day Film Club and them alone.
On t
he table nearest the window was Bev, dressed in a pastel blouse and beige slacks. She was giving a younger woman the highlights of her last visit to the chiropodist. Candy, a yummy mummy in her late thirties, was suitably grossed out but trying to hide it, while simultaneously studying her own stiletto-encased feet under the table and wondering if bunions were looming perilously close in her future too.
On the table next door were Kitty and Grace, two vintage fashion queens in their early twenties, who thought anything retro was cooler than cool and never left their houses without their eyeliner wings and crimson lipstick. Kitty was flirting with George, bless him, the lone male of their intimate little society. Everyone had assumed he was gay at first, but it turned out he was just a sweet old bachelor who’d fallen in love with Doris at the age of eleven when his mother had bribed him with a quarter of gobstoppers to accompany her to the flicks to watch Move Over, Darling. He’d never been able to find a woman to match Doris after that, so he’d never tried, didn’t think it would be fair to his bride to always play second fiddle to such perfection. Of course, he didn’t mind it when a pretty young thing like Kitty gave him a bit of attention, even though it made him blush furiously.
Finally, gathered round a square table that had one of its legs propped up by a folded beer mat, were two of the three-strong committee. Claire sat in the central chair and stared at the gossiping group with vague dismay. It was getting harder and harder to start on time nowadays. Quite a few unlikely friendships were budding. Never in her life had she been in more need of a loudhailer.
‘Ladies!’ she began.
‘And George …’ Maggs, her vice-president, sitting beside her, interjected.
‘Ladies and George!’ Claire said, just that little bit louder.
The din continued. Claire sighed.
Maggs tutted beside her. Two years ago they hadn’t had this kind of problem, but two years ago she, Maggs and Claire’s grandmother Laurie had been the only members of the club. Now it was a victim of its own success.
Claire had never actually volunteered for the position of president; she’d kind of inherited the role after her grandmother had died. Gran had started a Doris Day Appreciation Society back in 1951 and had roped her best friend, Margaret – always known as Maggs – into being the second member.
The society had been hugely popular in the fifties and sixties, filled with members who’d been drawn to the independent and charismatic woman they’d seen on the cinema screen, but numbers had dwindled in the seventies, when Doris had stopped making films and it became less than cool to have a squeaky clean image.
Maggs had insisted that Claire take up the mantle of president when the position had become vacant. In honour of her grandmother, she’d said. Claire had been flattered at the time, but now she suspected Maggs preferred the vice-president’s role, because she got to boss people around without actually doing very much.
Claire hadn’t really minded. Watching Doris Day films with her grandmother had been the happiest moments of her childhood, afternoons when she’d escaped the tense atmosphere of home, when she hadn’t had to watch what she said and did or be careful that she wasn’t too noisy. Gran had never minded if she wanted to sing or skip around the flat or laugh out loud.
Thinking of noise brought her back to the decibel level of the current moment. That, and the fact that Maggs jabbed her in the ribs with a bony elbow. She was one of those wiry old ladies, the sort whose strength belied their tiny frames. ‘I used to be able to do a wolf whistle that could stop traffic three streets away,’ she said, looking from noisy club member to noisy club member. ‘It hasn’t been the same since I got my false teeth, but I could always give it a go?’ She raised her eyebrows and began to lift two fingers towards her mouth.
‘Not a good idea,’ Claire said wearily. ‘If they shot out and hit someone, we could be sued, and funds are low enough in the kitty as it is.’
‘Might be worth it, just to get some peace and quiet,’ Maggs muttered, surveying their unruly members with disdain. She turned her focus to the empty chair on the other side of Claire. ‘Talking of money … Where’s our new treasurer, anyway?’
‘She’ll be here any second.’
Right on cue, the door flew open and Peggy burst in, wearing the same pink dress she’d had on earlier, so tight it only just allowed her to trot in her five-inch heels.
‘You’re late,’ Maggs said, switching her laser-beam stare from Claire to Peggy.
Peggy just grinned at her. ‘That’s because my first job as treasurer was to negotiate next year’s rent for the room with the landlord. Not only is the price staying the same, but he’s agreed to throw in a round of cocktails each meeting too.’
Claire’s eyes widened. She was about to ask just how Peggy had managed that – Bruce, the landlord, had never been anything but surly with her – but then she got a prime view of Peggy’s rear end as she bent over to put her vintage handbag on the floor and pull out her notebook, and she had a sneaking suspicion just how their new treasurer had accomplished it.
Maggs nodded sagely. ‘I knew there was something I liked about that girl. I’ve always been partial to the odd gin sling.’ As if to prove the point, she pulled a hip flask from her handbag and added more ‘va-va-voom’ to the already generous gin and tonic in front of her.
Claire decided not to remind the older lady just how vocal she’d been when Claire had suggested Peggy for the post of treasurer. She’d called Peggy a ‘slip of a thing’ and had campaigned long and hard for Bev, who she’d strong-armed into coming from her Pilates class, to take the job, even though Bev had said flatly that she didn’t want to do it.
Maggs leaned across Claire and held out her hand. ‘Can I borrow one of those for a second?’ she asked Peggy, nodding at her shoes with the polka-dot bows. Peggy opened her mouth to ask why, but Maggs waggled her fingers impatiently. In the end, Peggy just sighed and handed one exquisite shoe over.
Maggs took it by the toe and rapped the heel on the table three times so loudly that the whole room fell silent. ‘There you go,’ she said to Claire, and handed Peggy back her shoe.
All eyes turned to Claire. She stood up. For just a split second nothing came out of her mouth.
It was stupid. She should be over this by now, not only because she’d been leading these meetings for almost a year, but because her previous job had required her to give numerous presentations. However, while she was good with people, fabulous one-to-one, there was always this jab of panic every time she got up to talk to a group. It hadn’t worn off in the slightest over the years. There was something about this intense moment of silence, when every eye was trained on her, that made her feel like an insect on a microscope slide. Her throat always went dry and her fingers tingled.
She breathed in through her nose and cleared her throat.
She smiled at the small group of women – and George – in front of her, nursing their Diet Cokes and their warm white wines. ‘Hi, everyone. Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Doris Day Film Club. First, an order of business before we get going with tonight’s film: we’ve had a suggestion … Instead of running film night once a month as usual, we’ll meet weekly and have a Doris Day Film festival over the summer: twelve weeks, taking us from now right through to the end of July. Would all those in favour please raise—’
She was cut off as someone gave the slightly temperamental door behind her a shove then barrelled into the room, almost sending her flying. The whole group turned to look at the newcomer. Their visitor, a young woman, stared back at them with undisguised terror.
‘Is this the Dor—’ Her gaze darted from face to face. She paled as she spotted the red lips and eyelashes of the vintage crew and started to back away. ‘Um … Never mind. I think I’m … um … in the wrong place.’
She attempted to reverse, but hadn’t counted on the fact she’d moved a little bit sideways as she’d fallen into the room and she ended up backing into the wall and hitting her head on a wall light, al
most dislodging its tasselled orange shade.
‘No, you’re in the right place,’ Claire said softly. ‘This is the Doris Day Film Club.’ She indicated an empty chair next to Kitty, the nearest of the vintage girls. ‘Please join us.’
The girl remained frozen. Claire realised she was younger than she’d first thought, maybe only in her late teens. She wore a football shirt and shapeless jeans with battered trainers on her feet. There wasn’t a lick of make-up on her face and her thin dark hair was parted severely down the middle and hung lank down either side of her face.
‘We’d love to have you.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Claire, the president of the club, but that doesn’t mean much except I do the boring stuff and get custody of the library of films we watch each meeting.’
The girl looked at her hand as if it were a live cobra about to strike. Panicked, she glanced at the door, but Claire had stepped forward when she’d starting talking to her and was now blocking her escape route.
Eventually, the girl’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’m Abby,’ she said, so quietly that Claire hardly heard her above the noise of the drinkers who’d spilled out onto the street below the open windows, eager to escape the cloying heat of the pub’s dark interior.
Kitty straightened her spine and twisted to stare at Abby as she bypassed the empty seat next to her and scuttled round the back of the tables and chairs to find a spot in the corner tucked away behind Bev and Candy.
‘Hang on, I know you, don’t I?’ she said.
Abby didn’t answer, just dropped into the chair, hunched over and folded her arms tight.
Claire looked between the two of them. A couple of the others were scowling, thinking Abby a bit rude, but it hadn’t been disdain Claire had seen on Abby’s face. It had been fear. Strange, because Kitty was a friendly, open-hearted girl of twenty-three, whose passion for all things vintage was unrivalled, her only flaw a tendency to open her mouth and let whatever entered her head spill out of it.
