‘Can’t, can I?’ said Anna. ‘He won’t let me. I weighed myself this morning and I’m exactly the same as every other week.’
‘Fantastic stuff then,’ grinned Jane. ‘I think you’ve been hit by “Darq” magic.’
‘We want some footage of you in that bodyshaper and then some higher price point corsets tonight, Anna darling,’ said Mark. ‘Leonid’s knocking around somewhere, so we can get some stills.’
Anna stripped off and put on her robe. It felt so natural now. The crew had seen all she had and still remained mentally intact. It was only like stripping down to a bikini on the beach really, when she thought about it. Give or take a vampire rearranging her knockers at regular intervals.
Maria worked her magic on Anna’s face in her surly, silent but wonderfully efficient manner. Then Vladimir came in to view ‘the finished product’.
‘You have the smile under control this week,’ he observed. ‘I take it you haven’t heard from
Tony
since the
plate
.’
He was so wonderfully sniffy Anna wanted to giggle but she reined it in.
‘Actually he left me a rose. A red one. On my doorstep.’
Vladimir stood stiffly in front of her, legs astride, arms folded, hair magnificent behind him. His voice was very sour when he spoke. ‘I must remember that one. The next time I drag a woman’s heart through the mud, I will send her a plate and a rose and she will forgive me everything.’
‘I didn’t say I’d forgiv—’
‘Presumably he still lives with the other girl. Still he goes home with her every night and then deceives
her
once a week by leaving presents for you at your door.’
Ouch!
He punctured Anna’s puffed-up spirit with one expert dart. Smack in the bull’s-eye of her ego. Anna felt her body slump as if someone had whipped out her spine.
Vladimir pulled Anna fiercely in front of him and when she raised her eyes, they locked into place with his.
‘Why do people do this?’ hissed Vladimir, passion throttling up the volume. ‘Why do they sell themselves so cheaply and wonder why they feel undervalued? I don’t understand!’ Softer now. ‘Anna, this
Tony
shines a light on you and you flower, he turns it off and you wither – you are an emotional marionette! I want you to feel your worth
here.
’ He placed the flat of his hand on her breast, above her heart, and yet it was in no way a sexual gesture.
Of course he was right. If Tony came back, she would feel victorious, for a time, whilst he was in between her legs. And in the morning? Would she feel all-powerful if, with his thirst slaked, he got dressed and returned to Lynette Bottom and her gravity-defying tits?
Vladimir took Anna’s chin in his hand and lifted it. He saw that his words had sunk in and was satisfied – temporarily at least. Anna made a conscious effort to keep her back straight in front of him and her trembling lip as controlled as possible.
Vladimir called to Mark, ‘We are ready.’
Leonid took some shots of Anna posing, then she changed into some absolutely gorgeous corsets in sumptuous velvets and heavy satins. Vladmir wasn’t very gentle lacing her into them that night, but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of complaining. Artistic temperament, she supposed, was his excuse.
‘So, how have you felt this week dumping the old drawers and wearing only “The Darqone”?’ Jane asked, for the camera.
‘People have definitely noticed and asked me if I’ve lost weight,’ replied Anna with utter sincerity. ‘It’s been very comfortable and I have felt more confident that everything seems to be in the place it was when I was much younger.’
‘And going to the loo? How easy has that been, Anna?’
‘Surprisingly easy,’ came the answer. ‘The poppers on the gusset are very good. I’ve had bodies before where they were uncomfortable and not very easy to fasten. And I’ve thrown them in the washing machine, tumble-dried them and they’ve come up good as new.’
Jane looked very impressed at the bonus information. Anna answered her raised eyebrow look. ‘Well, I got picked for this programme because I’m just an ordinary woman and how these things wash is important to us. ’Course I wouldn’t risk the higher end ones in the tumble-drier but, well priced as “The Darqone” is, it wouldn’t be a good buy if it all fell apart after a couple of washes.’
Mark gave her a big thumbs-up and then called for a cut.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ said Vladimir in a less thorny voice now. ‘That was a point worth mentioning.’
‘Happy to help,’ said Anna, trying not to look as if she was thinking about Tony and wondering if he had turned up at her house this week whilst she was filming.
‘That’s it then, thank you, everyone,’ Mark clapped. ‘Same time next week for the big finale.’
The last one.
Next week was the last time she would be in Vladimir Darq’s house. It blindsided her how saddened she was by that thought. Weekends really wouldn’t be the same. She wasn’t sure what the next chapter in her story would be. Maybe in two Saturdays she would be sharing a takeaway with Tony on their sofa? She really didn’t know how slumped her shoulders would be, or wouldn’t be, by then.
Early Sunday morning, Grace unlocked the new front door to 32 Powderham Crescent. Paul had organized the replacement as the policeman’s ram had left the old door irreparable. The key slid into the lock like butter, she didn’t have to pull it slightly out on the turn to gain entry, which in itself felt odd. Something else that heralded a change, an end to a past life with all its suffocating routine. Inside the house, there was the evidence of Paul and Laura’s recent clean-up to make everything as untraumatic for their mother’s temporary return as they could. A strong smell of bleach pervaded the air. Bless them, they’d tried to leave no trace of that weekend, but even they could do nothing about the big nail hole in the table leg.
‘Mum, pick up what you have to and get out of here,’ said Paul, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder.
Grace found that the case she had started to pack in readiness for leaving and then hidden under the bed was smashed in, as if it had been stamped on. Gordon had found it, it seemed, which explained a lot. It didn’t matter, she had other cases and Paul and Laura had brought spares.
Grace went to the drawer and pulled out her passport and building society book. From upstairs, she packed a suitcase of clothes and a make-up bag. She collected her treasure box of photographs and homemade cards from the children that she had saved over the years. Her diary and address book, spare glasses and hairdryer, mobile charger: she didn’t want much else. It was amazing how minimalist one could be when one was happy to leave one life for another. Laura was busy checking all drawers and cupboards for things her mother might have missed.
Grace opened the kitchen cupboards to see the plates she would never eat from again, cutlery she would never use again, pans she would never cook in again. It would cost her a fortune to start afresh, but she didn’t want to take anything but the bare essentials. When she moved into a new home, everything would be unused. Things that Gordon had not touched. Things that Gordon had not chosen.
Looking at the house objectively now, she saw how his choices dictated everything, from what sofa they sat on to what table they ate from, from what wallpaper they looked at to what colour carpets they walked on.
Gordon.
She wondered how he would cope on his own after a lifetime of living only the alpha male role. There was a big basket full of his underwear. The instinctive thought flashed across her mind that she should put it all away tidily in his drawers, only to be quickly overridden by more sensible ones. Ghosts of twenty-three years’ worth of duty were much harder to cut off than her feelings, it seemed.
Gordon was being held for a month in hospital for assessment. She didn’t know if the Crown Prosecution Service would force him to court. As she understood it, they would take into account the hospital’s findings. She knew in her heart of hearts though that Gordon wasn’t mad. He was a bully of the worst sort. She had been too easygoing – never rebelling against him to keep the peace. She suggested a red sofa, he had wanted the brown one and so they had bought the brown one. It was the same in all things. He hadn’t bargained for the fact that his children would one day grow up and do things out of the nest that he could no longer control. How could she not have seen all this before? It was hardly as if she was blinded by love for him. In the early days she had hoped they would grow close and have a proper marriage. But he had killed that idea early on, not wanting even to discuss his problems in the bedroom. And she had been forced to accept that too. He could have sought help instead of letting it twist his life out of shape. He could have been a very different man. Maybe she should have revolted so much earlier. Maybe if she had, things might have been very different.
Paul’s caring voice reached her ear.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Mum, but you couldn’t have done anything to change him. None of this is your fault.’
‘Oh Paul,’ said Grace, her head falling against her son’s strong shoulder. ‘I just want to go.’
Grace hoped that one day she would be able to filter out the bad memories of this house and once again see the children drawing at the kitchen table, running in from the garden; see their little clothes hanging up on the washing line. All she could think of now was the smell of bleach and that nail hole in the table leg. It had been her home for nearly twenty-four years and she had been a prisoner in it for twenty-four hours – yet the memories of that Bank Holiday Monday far outweighed the pleasanter, sunny days of raising her beloved children.
Dawn wasn’t her usual chirpy self by half and hadn’t been all week. She hadn’t once breezed in as usual to talk about a bizarre programme she had seen on the TV. Not even on the Thursday morning when she came in with four wedding invitations did she seem like an excited bride-to-be.
‘I’d love it if you could come,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if my side of the church will be heaving. I’ve only got a couple of great-aunties and uncles and I haven’t seen them for years. That’s if they turn up. They might even be dead.’
‘’Course we will,’ said Christie, thinking,
poor love
. She so wanted to whisk Dawn to one side and ask if she needed to talk. She suspected the girl was suffering from more than prenuptial nerves. But would she be taking her interfering skills a tad too far? ‘Grace and I have been discussing your wedding present. Is there anything you’d like? It’s always difficult buying things for couples who have already set up house.’
‘Oh, I’m not bothered about a present,’ said Dawn. ‘I wasn’t inviting you for that.’
‘Do you have a wedding list?’
‘Er, no,’ replied Dawn. She had asked Muriel to let her borrow her Argos catalogue at the beginning of the week so she could start writing out a list. Muriel had raised her eyes and clicked her tongue at that.
‘People will buy you what they want to buy you,’ Muriel had laughed, rather humourlessly. ‘It’s a bit bloody cheeky telling people how much money to spend!’
Dawn had tried to backtrack then and say that it was just in case people wanted ideas. It was the done thing.
‘Done thing?’ Muriel had scoffed, raising one side of her lip like an insulted Elvis and making a lah-di-dah-type ‘oooo’ sound. ‘Not with our lot it isn’t the
done thing
! I tell you this, Dawn Sole, I’m seeing a bit of a different side to you with all this wedding stuff. I hope you’re going to get off your high horse when you’re one of us.’
Dawn knew without a doubt that Muriel would later relay to her daughters just how ‘up herself’ her future daughter-in-law was getting. She had felt herself getting so ripped up over their dinner table lately that she contemplated changing her name to ‘Tear-and-share’.
‘It never crossed my mind that you were inviting us to get a present,’ tutted Christie kindly. ‘But you must have one. I tell you what, leave it with us.’ Her suggestion to Grace would be to give the newly-weds an envelope of money rather than risk buying something they wouldn’t like and have to go to the trouble of changing.
Christie fought against asking, but she lost the battle within five minutes.
‘Dawn, can I ask – are you all right? You look so low, love.’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Dawn, pinning on a smile. ‘I just have so much to organize it’s wearing me down a bit, to be honest.’
‘Aren’t you getting any help from anyone?’
‘Oh yes, loads,’ said Dawn as chirpily as she could manage. That was partly the trouble. Hardly any of Dawn’s plans for her wedding had escaped from being Muriel-ized. Anyway, it wasn’t the wedding that was getting Dawn down the most. She had tried to put the eBay guitar thing to bed, but it refused to sleep. What if she hadn’t spotted it? Would Calum have sold her guitar? Was that the sort of man she wanted to marry? Every day seemed to bring up another reason why she and Calum shouldn’t be walking down that aisle, and she was less and less able to pretend that everything would be all right when she got his ring on her finger. And how would she feel getting that ring on her finger at the same time as Al Holly was packing up the tour bus and leaving her life for good? Why was that Canadian Cowboy even in the equation? Maybe she shouldn’t go to the pub this Friday. But still she knew she would.
‘Daft question, I suspect, but is there anything we can do to help?’ said Anna.
‘Thanks,’ said Dawn, shaking her head. ‘I’ll be fine. In a month I’ll be Mrs Crooke and all the pressure will be off.’
‘Where’s the honeymoon?’
‘Still not sorted anything,’ said Dawn. ‘Maybe we won’t bother.’ Her dream of a romantic fortnight in the sun alone with her new husband wasn’t going to happen, she knew that. He’d already taken a thousand of Aunt Charlotte’s money to buy some more dodgy DVDs so he could ‘make a big profit and that way they might get their honeymoon.’ She knew as soon as she handed over the cash that it wouldn’t go back in the wedding fund and that she had seen the last of it. She was trying so hard to fight against second thoughts about the wedding – especially as so much was organized and paid for. She was on a conveyor belt and heading for the aisle however many bodily parts of hers might be protesting about it. Damn Al Holly and his bloody Strat!