Dream On (32 page)

"That may be because you've been saying goodbye to
her for a few years, now," the lady at the care home had said, when they went
to collect her belongings and make the funeral arrangements. "The woman you
loved and grew up with died some time ago, in a way. The carers of
Alzheimer's patients often feel like this. You shouldn't feel guilty - I
hate to say this, but what you're going through is quite normal!"

All of which made Janice and her mother feel a lot
better; though today, for Janice, was slightly tinged with sadness; she wanted
Evelyn to witness her new found peace.

Perhaps she was up there, somewhere, she thought,
up there on a cloud, with all her marbles still intact, looking down and
feeling happy for her.

Janice smiled, and picked up the picture of herself,
Linda, Evelyn and Harley that she kept on her dressing table. Dave had taken
the picture, about four years before. She stroked her grandmother's hair
through the glass that covered the picture, then looked out of the open window
at the sunshine, and wandered into the bathroom to fill the bath with bubbles.

Theodore W Perlmutter, president of Pacific Coast Records, had long ago given up the hope of discovering new talent by
accident. He'd left that all to the faces around the table in the conference
room, years ago. Couldn't be bothered with it, mostly; these days, even if he
quite liked an act, it never seemed to be anything new, anything different. By
the time the stylists had finished with them any individuality they possessed
was removed, anyway. Was there anything new, now? Or was everything just
another version of what had gone before?  

Mostly, nowadays, he just shuffled into the office
once or twice a week to oversee things. The rest of the time he sat outside
his house on Malibu beach, watching the waves, or did a bit of fly fishing - or
went on these damn cruises that Nancy Jill loved so much.

At least they were usually not too far from home -
he quite liked cruising around the Caribbean Islands. This time, though, Nancy
Jill had dragged them all the way to
Europe,
and now here he was,
bobbing about in the Aegean Sea, for goodness sake, all because they'd spent
their honeymoon on Mykonos, exactly forty years ago.

Theodore W Perlmutter had enjoyed a good dinner,
with more wine than his doctor would recommend, and a forbidden but
delightfully gooey desert - hey, what the heck? He was on holiday. He sat
back, large brandy in place; Nancy Jill was already yawning. With a bit of
luck she'd retire to their cabin soon, and then he could enjoy his evening walk
on the deck, alone underneath the stars, just him and the sound of the waves
lapping away in the darkness. He liked that.

Up on the stage some comedian was making his last
quip of the night, and Theodore turned around, pretending to listen to the
woman next to him telling him what she'd bought when they'd stopped off on Skyros the other day. Must have been a lot of stuff; her voice went on for ages.  He
started to close his eyes, his mind drifting away, as it did so often these
days. His thoughts intertwined with the woman's chattering, and then, running
through it, he could hear some music begin to play. A guitar. A girl's
voice. The music was melancholy, soft; it seemed to stir up inside him some
long forgotten emotion. The voice was soft, too, but not weak; English; he
liked that. Lovely sound. It made him feel nostalgic, though about what he
was not sure; peaceful, too. Theodore thought he could quite happily sit
there, with his brandy, listening to that sound, until they carried him out. He
opened his eyes, and looked up.

And then he saw her.

A girl with white hair, in a white dress, with
golden brown skin and the face of an angel.

Theodore W Perlmutter blinked, and looked again. He sat up in his seat, and found himself automatically smoothing down his hair,
holding in his belly. My God. She was perfect.

He nudged Nancy Jill. "What do you think of her? The
singer?"

His wife looked at him, then up at the stage. "Very nice, sweetie-pie. Very pretty. Lovely voice." She yawned again. "I'm
off to bed now, are you coming?"

"In a while," he said, standing up to allow Nancy
Jill to squeeze past, her gold bracelets jangling as she did so.

"Don't be all night, now," she said, winking at
him. "And don't go making a fool of yourself with that young girl - unless
she's going to make us lots of money, of course!"

Theodore kissed her on the cheek, obediently,
patted her on the generous, peach satin covered behind, and, once she was gone,
grabbed the arm of a passing waitress.

"Excuse me, honey," he said. "What's the name of that
girl, up there?"

The waitress smiled at him, and lifted some empty
glasses onto the tray she carried.

"Oh, that's Ariel Swan," she said. "She's good, isn't
she?"

"She's wonderful," said Theodore. He fished in his
pocket, pulled out a couple of notes and, without looking to see what they
were, pressed them into the hand of the waitress. "When she finishes playing,"
he said, "can you take me wherever it is she goes when she comes off stage? I
want to meet her." He felt in the breast pocket of his shirt. Yes, there were
some there; force of habit, there were always some there. "You go in first,
and give her one of these," he said, handing her a card that bore the words
'Theodore W Perlmutter. President. Pacific Coast Records'. "Make sure she
knows I want to see her, okay, sweetheart? Whatever you do, don't let her
go. I have to see her."

After her set, Ariel made her way back to the
dressing room she shared with four dancers. She was tired. She didn't feel
like going back to her cabin just yet, though; Will would be waiting for her,
and he was starting to get on her nerves. They'd remained just friends until
only a few months ago (despite Dave Bentley's fears), then they'd got together
one night when she was feeling a bit lonely; she regretted it, now. He was
pretty hot to look at, but that was about it, really, and he was becoming less
appealing the more she became involved with him; why did men have to get so
damn clingy? Will hadn't got that nice-but-still-sexy thing going on that Dave
had. Probably because he wasn't that nice. A bit self-centred. No, she
wouldn't go back to the cabin just yet. She'd take a walk on deck, enjoy the
air, before going back to avoid a sexual marathon for which she wasn't in the
mood. With any luck, Will would be asleep. Oh, this was stupid. Hadn't she grown
out of getting involved with men she wasn't that keen on? Evidently not. With
a bit more luck they might find themselves on different boats, next time, and
that would be that.

She was hoping to go home for a while after this
cruise, if Oceanwide Entertainment would give her enough time off. She missed
her dad; she'd emailed him earlier that day, telling him; he'd be pleased. And
maybe she could see Dave, too - or was that wise? He entered her thoughts more
often than she'd thought he would; she often recalled those few months when
they were getting ready for Raw Talent with an unexpected nostalgia - oh, she
didn't know; her feelings towards Dave were so confusing -  

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in!" she called out.

A waitress she recognised poked her head around the
door. "Oh good, you're decent," she said, and stepped into the tiny room. "Someone wants to see you." She held out a card.

"Yeah?" Ariel read the words on the card, and smiled.
"
Yeah
?"

She looked up, then, and her eyes flitted past the
waitress's shoulder.

A man stood there; he was in his late sixties or
early seventies, she guessed, portly, suntanned, casually but expensively
dressed, like many of the other, older men on the boat. On every boat, really.

He smiled at her. He looked nice.

"Hello," she said, and smiled back at him. She felt
a funny sensation in her chest; it was like the first day she'd met Frankie,
back in London all those years ago, like the first time they'd got on the plane
to take them to Buenos Aires, to begin their travels; it was the feeling that her
life was about to change.

"Hello, my dear," said Theodore.

She was even more perfect, close up.

"I'm Theodore W Perlmutter," he said, and held out
his hand; she took it, and her skin felt like silk. "I'm the President of
Pacific Coast Records," he said. "I imagine you've heard of us, if not me! I loved what you did tonight."

She smiled, and when she did so he felt as though
she was the only woman he would ever want to look at, ever again.

"I have," she said. "Heard of you, I mean. Thank
you. That's wonderful. I'm so glad you enjoyed it."

"I most certainly did!" He crossed his arms, and
put his head on one side. "Would you do me the honour of joining me at the bar
for a drink?"

"Oh -  yes, of course," she said, "I'd love to!"

That English voice. Got him every time.

"Good!" Theodore W Perlmutter linked his arm
through hers, in a respectful, fatherly fashion, he hoped. "Come on, I'll order
us a bottle of champagne."

She smiled at him, and accepted his arm. "Champagne?"

He patted her hand. "Yes. Well, it's a celebration,
isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"I hope so!" He opened the door. "Tell me, Ariel my dear,
are you doing anything for the next couple of years?"

She laughed. "Well, I want to go home and see my father
some time - and a couple of friends - and I'm contracted to an agency in London
for a while. Why?"

He patted her hand again, and led her out into the
carpeted corridor. "Family and friends I understand. Contracts, we can get
out of." He stopped, then, and turned to look at her. "If you want to, that
is."

She smiled, rather nervously, he could tell. "What do you
mean?"

He laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry!  I didn't say, did
I?" He coughed, and took her hand. "Ariel, if you'll let me, I think I'd like
to make you a star!"

At twenty past seven on a Friday morning in late June,
the sun was shining brightly, the day promised to be a hot one, and Dave
Bentley was feeling just grand.

Life was so much better, now, than it had been just
a year before. Just thinking about the spring and summer of 2008 made him
shudder.

Horrible times. Thor but a page on MySpace,
forgotten by just about everyone but him and Ritchie. Janice had told him
where to get off - and quite rightly so, he could see that now. The weather
was shit, and Shane had moved away. Oh, and Ariel had gone, too, of course. 
Yes, she'd emailed, quite often, but Dave wasn't much good with computers, and
he could never think of anything to write back. What was there to tell her? That
his life was an empty shell without her and he was completely pissed off? Even
if he'd had loads of stuff to relate, it wasn't the same as talking to her,
holding her.

But then things had started to pick up, bit by
bit. Mostly he just went to work, saw Harley, went to the pub and tried not to
drown his sorrows too extensively - but then, one night in The Romany, he'd met
Isabel. 

She wasn't Ariel, and she wasn't Janice, but she was good.

The relationship had started slowly; it had taken a
while, but he thought he was starting to fall in love with her. Maybe Janice
was right, maybe love was different every time - different when you were older,
too. He didn't feel the white hot need for her that he'd felt for Ariel, and
he didn't feel that other-half-of-him, coming home thing he'd had with Janice;
it was something else. Not as intense as either feeling, but it was about a
hundred per cent better than being depressed and alone.

Being with her had made him understand, he thought,
about Janice and Max. About how life moved on. Max had turned out to be a
brilliant step-father for Harley, and Dave didn't mind at all that he and
Janice were getting married; in fact, he was happy for them. He truly was. This must mean he was dead mature, he thought, and he'd given himself a fair
few mental pats on the back about it.

Isabel was starting to be a great step-mum for Harley, too;
his son now came to stay with them at her flat on a regular basis, and that
suited everyone.

Isabel was lovely, really. He knew he'd been
attracted to her at first because she looked like Ariel - though nowhere near
as beautiful, of course; no-one was as beautiful as Ariel. In the beginning,
when they'd made love, he used to pretend she
was
Ariel, but he'd had to
stop that because once, in the throes of passion, he'd called her by the wrong
name, and she'd got very upset. Aside from that, it just made him depressed
when the explosion was over and he realised he was lying next to the wrong
woman. It was better now, though, because he'd stopped needing to pretend she
was someone else, and that had to be good, didn't it?

Better than his new relationship, though, was the fact that
Shane had got in touch with him again, to tell him all about his baby daughter,
Chloe.
Weird.
The whole story had come out in a rush, over
the phone one night (Shane had sounded as if he was drunk or speeding, but it
had turned out he was just ecstatic about fatherhood), all about how he hadn't
been the father of Kerry's baby after all, and something about going on The
Jeremy Kyle Show (
what??)
, and then Cecilia being pregnant, too -
anyway, the upshot of it was that he and Isabel had driven up to Spalding to
see Shane, Cecilia and Chloe, and Dave couldn't believe the difference in him.

Around his baby, anyway. When he and Shane went to
the pub, leaving the girls at home, he'd been just as bad as ever. Eyes
darting this way and that every time a pretty girl walked past, flirting with
some dark haired bird with great legs; it was obvious to Dave that they were
more than just acquaintances.