Vintage Babes (51 page)

‘You have to take the chance! We both know that nothing is certain in this life.’

‘Yes we do, so isn’t it better if we remain just friends? Good friends, but platonic friends?’ I yattered. ‘I know that some people already believe we’re lovers, and after the Post Office Jezebel has circulated the tale of how she saw us entering a bedroom here, a lot more will believe it, but if we sleep together and it all goes pear-shaped –’

‘Shut up,’ Steve said, and he kissed me.

The kiss was deep, lusty and irresistible. When he pulled back, my heart was racing, the tips of my breasts had hardened and there was an ache in my groin.

‘Persuaded?’ he enquired.

‘Persuaded,’ I replied.

He smiled. ‘That didn’t take long.’

Standing, he drew me to my feet and we went through to the bedroom. He kissed me again and, between increasingly urgent kisses, began undressing me. Then I undressed him – as in I almost tore off his clothes.

‘Be gentle with me,’ Steve said, as we lay in the four-poster. ‘I still have some bruises.’

‘And hairy nipples.’ I licked first one and then the other.

‘God, Carol,’ he groaned, and we were entwined and caressing and he was tasting my breasts and – ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling I could be falling in love with you,’ he said.

‘Ditto.’

Our lovemaking wasn’t just good, it was bloody marvellous. Alright, I hadn’t made love for years – and neither had Steve – but we were so in tune, so at ease, so aroused by each other. We woke up in the middle of the night and made wonderful love again. And again, when we came awake the next day. And after breakfast we skipped a visit to the health club and made love once more.

‘Do you know the name of the film for which Clark Gable received his Oscar?’ Steve asked, later that morning as we waited for the porter to collect our luggage.

I shook my head. ‘Not a clue.’

Placing an arm around my shoulders, he drew me close. ‘It was
It Happened One Night
.’

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

At one end of
the trestle table, Eileen was arranging neat rows of cellophane-wrapped birthday cards, get-well cards and thank-you notes, while at the other Jenny and I swiftly set out second-hand paperbacks, C.D.s and videos. Cardboard boxes containing brand-new toiletries waited to be unpacked. Frances, who was supposed to be partnering Eileen on the charity shop stall, had so far failed to appear and, on discovering the old lady’s lone-handed plight, Jenny and I had offered our assistance.

In a quarter of an hour, Dursleigh’s annual fête was due to begin and the village green was busy. Sellers sped back and forth on last-minute missions; ferrying final items from vans to stalls which were laden with everything from pot plants to home-made patchwork cushions to French cheeses. A bouncy castle was being inflated, next door to a ‘kiddie karts’ racetrack. An old, but splendidly gleaming, Chevrolet – the last in a display of classic cars – bumped over the grass, heading for its allotted parking spot. Chef-hatted Rotarians stood chatting beside the barbecues where they were to cook chicken legs and burgers, while a genuine chef from the Tandoori supervised the organisation of his curry stall. Knots of expectant visitors hovered around the recently constructed stage.

‘Great day for it!’ called the greengrocer, as he put finishing touches to his coconut shy.

‘Couldn’t be better,’ agreed the party-shop woman, who would be painting children’s faces and affixing transfer-type tattoos.

After a week of cool, unsettled weather, the sun shone golden and the sky was blue. When we had awoken and seen the sunshine, Steve and I had shared a smile of relief. Shared an erotic coupling, too. We had needed a warm dry day for, this year, the fête promised to draw a far larger crowd than usual and, this year, the fête’s main sponsor was
The Dursleigh Siren.

When Steve had suggested that backing the event would be good publicity for the paper, plus excellent public relations, Mr P-J had agreed. Mind you, he agreed with everything his profit-producing editor suggested. So for the past month Steve and I had been increasingly involved; conferring with members of the fête committee and, in particular, with Mr Patel who had taken over Duncan Kincaid’s role as chairman, encouraging local businesses to participate, fixing for the brass band and other organisations to attend.

In our eagerness to ensure that all went well, we had arrived early to check on essentials; such as the delivery of the portable loos and erection of a large marquee where drinks and snacks would be sold. Tony and Melanie had also been active; pinning up banners advertising
The Siren
and setting out our stall. Melanie would be in charge of the stall, selling copies of the newspaper and raffle tickets, while Tony’s duties were that of photographer. Next week’s
Siren
would contain a special photo-filled pull-out dedicated to the fête. As for Steve and I, we were to welcome visitors and generally act as roving ambassadors.

‘Still happy with your job at Garth House?’ Eileen asked Jenny, as we began arranging packets of soap, tubs of bath salts and bottles of eau de cologne.

‘I love it,’ she replied. ‘The secretarial side is a doddle and I enjoy meeting all the guests.’

The old lady slid her a look. ‘I’ve heard you’re best buddies with the manager.’

She laughed. ‘I am. The previous girl was such a disaster that he thinks I’m heaven sent.’

Shortly after Steve and I had spent our night there, the hotel had placed an advertisement in
The Siren
for a receptionist. Poppy had double booked a number of other rooms – so Jenny had later learned – and when faced with a particularly irate couldn’t-be guest had burst into tears and scarpered. She had left behind a fouled-up reservation system and stash of unopened, presumably forgotten, mail. After that experience, the manager had resolved to employ someone who was calm, sensible and far more mature.

‘Not tempted to model again?’ Eileen asked.

Jenny shook her head. ‘I was approached to do a follow-up advert, but I refused. I prefer regular work with regular hours. And my first, and last, assignment was so boring.’

‘Boring?’

‘I went up to London and made my way to some back of beyond studio, only to have to hang around for ages waiting to be kitted out in the required clothes and for my hair to be fixed the way the kitchen catalogue woman wanted it fixed. Then there was a long argument between her and the photographer’s assistant about which shoes I should wear. When I eventually got in front of the camera, I was told to stand with my head tilted at an odd angle, my hand clasped, just so, around a saucepan lid and an expression of rapt delight on my face for what seemed like hours. Next I had to bend at the waist and smile into an oven. Then I was asked to hold a casserole dish which weighed a ton. The poses went on for ever!’

‘You looked very pretty in the catalogue,’ Eileen told her.

‘Thanks.’

‘And slim.’ Jenny was subjected to a beady-eyed inspection. ‘You’re still keeping the weight off.’ The inspection switched to me. ‘You’re in decent shape, too. Are you both still exercising?’

‘Twice a week at the Garth House health club,’ I said.

‘That must cost!’

‘We have reduced rates. Drastically reduced, thank goodness,’ Jenny said. ‘When I started working at the hotel, as an employee my reduction came automatically. Then I suggested to the manager that maybe he should be generous to Carol. After all, she was responsible for Max teaching at their health club and, although he’s no longer doing it, he’s given Garth House some worthwhile publicity.’

Eileen nodded. ‘He mentioned how he’d run classes there in the last television interview I saw.’

‘And, who knows, I could locate another aerobics smasheroo or write more glowing articles about the place,’ I said.

Jenny grinned. ‘I voiced both ideas. So now Carol and I exercise there twice a week, straight after work.’

‘Which means that by the time Jen arrives home, her husband has set the table for dinner and peeled the spuds,’ I said, with a smile.

‘He did the potatoes once,’ she corrected. ‘Getting Bruce to prepare an entire meal is going to be a long, hard slog.’

‘He’ll do it, eventually,’ I told her.

She nodded. ‘I believe so.’

Their married life had taken on a fresh vitality and become much more of a partnership, so Jenny had reported. Enchanted with his blonder, slimmer wife, Bruce had acknowledged her need for independence, accepted her as a working girl and begun to regard her as an equal. She was no longer told what would be happening, she was consulted. And he had started to pack his own suitcase when he travelled.

‘You don’t suppose Frances could have forsaken her beloved bike and her principles, and decided to come by public transport?’ Eileen said sourly, as a bus pulled to a stop beside the village green.

‘Unlikely,’ Jenny replied.

Frances was, it seemed, gravely worried about vehicles creating greenhouse gases and the erosion of the ozone layer, and only travelled on anything with an engine, under duress.

‘I didn’t want her as my partner today,’ Eileen confided, ‘but everyone else was either away on holiday or busy with their families. And now it’s doubtful if the woman’s going to turn up!’ She studied the stream of passengers, many of them young and female, who were pouring off the bus. ‘Though plenty of others are and we know who they’ve come to see. The gorgeous boy.’ The old lady gave a high-pitched giggle. ‘Never imagined when I met him with you, Carol, that he’d become so famous and such a pin-up. Didn’t think Tina Kincaid would be a TV hit again, either. Not at her age. Don’t suppose you see much of them these days?’

I shook my head. ‘They’re too busy.’

‘But we’re hoping to catch up on Tina’s news today,’ Jenny said.

‘Getting them to open the fête was quite a catch.’ Eileen eyed the crowd which was growing by the minute. Families were flocking in from the High Street car park, groups of teenagers were sloping onto the grass, a mini-bus was disgorging pensioners. ‘There’re going to be record numbers.’

Three months ago, Max and Tina’s appearance on
Sats with Zachs
had created a stir with the viewing public, inspired excited media comments and phenomenal hype. Overnight they had become box office bingo and the couple everyone was talking about. Such was the fuss, Zachary Clegg had asked them back the following Saturday, they had been given their own thrice weekly slot on the morning show – though Jenny had recently read that they were soon to have their own programme – and women’s magazines had printed multi-page ‘Max and Tina’ features. When I had subsequently interviewed Tina about their success, she had spoken of how they were being pressed to give displays at fitness centres, to endorse products, to attend all manner of promotions and parties.

‘That’s A-list parties,’ she had said, in delight.

These demands on their time meant that, as Max had had to relinquish his classes at Garth House, so our work-outs
chez Tina
had also been forced to end.

‘Forgive me, do forgive me,’ a soprano voice appealed, and the three of us looked up from our labours to see a thin woman, her straight grey hair held back by an Alice band, wheeling a bicycle towards us. ‘Very sorry I’m late, but I got up this morning and decided to bake a spinach loaf –’

‘Spinach loaf?’ Eileen demanded, her mouth twisted in disgust.

‘I use organic spinach, and the biddies at the day centre do love a slice with their tea. Then, blow me, I’d just put the loaf into the oven when I remembered I’d agreed to be on duty here with you.’ She smiled a weak smile. ‘I do apologise.’

‘And so you should, Frances.’ Eileen sniffed her annoyance. ‘It’s fortunate Jenny and Carol came to my aid. And Steve, he’s Carol’s –’ She hesitated. ‘They live together. He’s over there.’ She pointed to the stage where Steve was helping to site the amplifiers. ‘What a charming fellow. He carried all the boxes from my car, while these two girls got busy unpacking. However, now you’re here. At last.’ She sniffed again. ‘When all the hard work has been done.’