A Summer Fling Read online

  ‘In a minute,’ he said, savouring the feel of her, curling strands of her long, black hair around his finger, taking in her long-faded perfume. He could have breathed her in for hours.

  ‘Am I enough for you?’ she said, eventually. It was a question he had heard so many times and he answered it as always.

  ‘Ray, you’re all I could ever want.’

  Chapter 3

  Grace got up the next morning at five-thirty and watched the Teletubbies, Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine for a brain-numbing two and a half hours with four-year-old Sable. The combination of a young child’s energy and an early morning following a restless night made her feel far older than her fifty-five years. Gordon was, of course, in bed. It was women’s work getting up and seeing to the children. Or, at least, that was the regime she had always been used to – first at home with Mum and Dad, then when she married the widower with the four dependants: Laura aged six, Paul aged five, Sarah aged three and Rose aged fifty-four. It was funny to think she was older than her mother-in-law was when she died. Rose had seemed like an old, old woman.

  Sarah arrived at eleven with her customary ‘Sorry I’m late. Thanks for letting her stay the night. I know it was last minute.’

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ said Gordon, up and dressed now in his gardening clothes, his thick, steel-grey hair still wet from a leisurely shower.

  ‘Any chance you could look after her for another hour?’ asked Sarah in her best wheedling little girl tone. ‘Just so I can go to the supermarket?’

  ‘ ’Course she can stay here,’ said Gordon, his voice drowning out anything Grace might have had to say on the subject. He chucked Sable under the chin. ‘She can come out and watch her grandad plant some seeds.’

  ‘It’s far too chilly for her to be outside,’ said Sarah, wrapping her fur-trimmed maternity coat a little further around herself at the mere thought of it.

  ‘Well, she can stay inside with her grandma then,’ said Gordon. Grandma. The word grated on Grace’s nerves like a fingernail scraping down a blackboard. She preferred Nana and Gordon knew that. It was as if he was using the word on purpose – a Chinese water torture slow drip, drip: ‘you will be old’.

  ‘I promise I won’t be longer than two hours,’ beamed Sarah, happy at having an extension to her freedom. ‘Three at the most.’

  She tried to ignore how tired her mother looked and concentrated on her father’s expression of bonhomie instead. Gordon disappeared out to his allotment. Grace wrestled with trying to get the washing done, the beds stripped and entertaining a hyper Sable. She needed to go out shopping herself but she was exhausted. Gordon was so generous with other people’s time.

  Sarah came back after lunch, just as Sable had drifted off to sleep. And just as the postman arrived with two catalogues for caravan sites in Blegthorpe-on-Sea.

  Calum’s loud beer-snoring awoke Dawn. She went downstairs to try and sleep on the sofa but what she gained in peace levels, she lost in comfort. The sofa was old and past it; they really could do with another one but every spare penny was being put aside for the wedding. Well, every spare penny of hers, that was. At least Calum had a job at the moment, and one he was sticking at – not that it brought in mega-bucks. But where she was saving everything she could, Calum contributed what was left out of his ‘social fund’. She would have to get a loan out at this rate for the honeymoon, but she was going to have the fairytale. If it took her the rest of her life to pay off her wedding day, she would have the frock, the flowers and the fancy cake. She knew it was the start to a marriage that her mum and dad would have wanted for her. Then, when the wedding debt had been paid off, they could start looking at something a bit better than Calum’s dump of a house. Dawn had moved into it eight months ago and not managed to persuade Calum to do anything to it. There were still wires hanging down from the ceiling, bare plaster walls, furniture that looked as if it had been dragged out of a skip. He was five years younger than her. Dawn rationalized that as some sort of excuse for his student-like existence.

  Calum was still in bed when she pulled up in front of her future mother-in-law’s council house semi at the other end of town. She beeped the horn of her antique, but thankfully reliable Fiesta, and a minute later Muriel wobbled down the path in tired leggings, a grubby-looking fleece and flip-flops. Not that Dawn would ever have been ashamed to be seen with her. Muriel was Muriel, and Dawn loved her to bits, just as she was.

  ‘Morning, lovely,’ said Muriel with an excited little half-toothless grin. The Crookes were a rough family, but they had taken Dawn to their bosom. This was especially important to Dawn since her own parents had died in a car crash sixteen years ago and left a gaping hole in her heart. She missed them so much. She wished it was her mum sitting in the car beside her now, helping to pick out her wedding clothes. But Muriel Crooke was the next best thing.

  Their first stop was ‘Everything but the Bride’ on the out-skirts of town by the new Tesco. The tired display in the window was awful and was a perfect indication of what lay inside. A cracked, headless mannequin with no bust was wearing a white dress that was the colour of old greying knickers and would have better befitted a toilet roll doll of the 1970s. The accompanying bridesmaid mannequin did have a head, and a face that had been painted on by someone with a very shaky hand and no artistic talent: she wore the pained expression of a kid being given a wedgie. She looked uncomfortable in her lilac satin dress that had long faded in the sun. Yellowing confetti was sprinkled around their feet, resembling bird poo.

  Dawn went in but knew instantly that she wouldn’t find her dress in here. The buyer wanted a slap. There wasn’t a lot of choice because the owner was obviously phasing the wedding dresses out and prom dresses in. Each one seemed the same as the rest but in a different colour. It was as if there was only one standard pattern for all the frocks – big wide skirt and puffy sleeves – with slight variations of neckline or ribbon/sequin detail. They weren’t harassed by the sales assistant whose ear was stuck on the phone.

  ‘. . . it can’t be too short, you were there when we measured you. I asked you if that length felt comfortable and you said yes. Well, maybe you should have had on the shoes you’d be wearing for your wedding. If you come in here in flats to be measured up and you’re wearing heels on the day, how can that be our fault?’

  Dawn reckoned the gold stars for customer service might be thin on the ground in this place.

  Muriel pulled a face at her, making Dawn chuckle. They slid out of the shop and Dawn took a big gulp of air.

  ‘If that were me on the other end of that phone, I’d have slammed it down, got a taxi over here and smashed her cocky bleeding face in,’ said Muriel.

  Dawn was laughing so hard it took her four attempts to open her car door. She knew Muriel would tell the others how the day went, adding her funny embellishments. She hoped she would save it until Dawn was present to hear it.

  They drove through Penistone and to stop number two, ‘Love and Marriage’, a far superior site on the Holmfirth Road. The window display was gorgeous: an ivory dress around a wire frame that represented an exaggerated hourglass figure. It was surrounded by handbags and shoes with expensive designer names. This was a pendulum swing to the other end of the market. A frighteningly big one if those names were anything to go by: Choo, Prada, Chloe, Louboutin . . .

  They had barely stepped foot in the shop when an assistant bore down on them offering help.

  ‘Just looking, thanks,’ said Dawn.

  ‘Are you searching for anything in particular?’ pressed the assistant, giving Muriel a sneaky look up and down, which Muriel saw and her lip instinctively curled back over her teeth.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dawn, wishing she could just wander around for a bit, unharassed.

  ‘This is nice, Dawn,’ said Muriel, picking out a long, cream dress. ‘Can’t find the price tag though.’

  ‘Nine thousand,’ said snotty assistant woman.

  ‘Pounds?’ gaspe
d Muriel. ‘You’re having a laugh?’

  ‘No, it’s a Vladimir Darq. The reason it’s so cheap is that it’s second-hand.’

  Muriel’s jaw dropped. Cheap was the last word that came to her mind. She was speechless with amazement that someone would pay that amount of money for a frock.

  ‘He’s a famous designer,’ said the assistant. ‘You have heard of him, presumably?’

  ‘Can’t be that famous if I’ve never heard of him!’ sniffed Muriel, enjoying that she was rankling the snotty cow.

  ‘I have,’ nodded Dawn. ‘I didn’t realize he was a wedding dress designer though.’

  ‘He doesn’t make bridal gowns any more,’ said the assistant. ‘This dress was from his very last collection of them – very much sought after.’

  ‘Aye, by people with more money than sense.’ Muriel clicked her tongue loudly.

  ‘I’m not looking for anything that . . . fancy,’ said Dawn. Of course the assistant knew she meant ‘expensive’ by ‘fancy’. She’d taken one look at the pair of them and knew they’d be leaving empty-handed. The mother, she presumed, would have thought a Vera Wang was something that came with fried rice and prawn crackers.

  ‘Our range starts at five thousand for this one,’ said the assistant, presenting a plain white satin dress in a thick polythene cover.

  ‘Oh,’ said Dawn. She cooed over the dress to be polite, but all parties knew this was a no-go sale opportunity. Dawn made noises of ‘maybe having to go home and look at some magazines first,’ in order to leave the shop with some dignity intact. Two minutes later, she let loose a long breath of relief as she stepped outside.

  ‘She thinks she’s in Paris not bloody Barnsley!’ Muriel laughed loudly on the doorstep. ‘Twenty-two quid for a pair of tights? A pair of tights, did you see?’

  It was as they were coming back to Barnsley, via the small, pretty village of Maltstone, that Dawn braked hard opposite the church, nearly sending Muriel through the windscreen.

  ‘Didn’t know there was a bridal shop here, did you, Mu?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Muriel with a sniff. ‘I’ve no reason to come to Maltstone. There’s nothing around here for me.’ She wasn’t a woman for garden centres and rural tea-shops.

  Dawn reversed into a parking spot in front of a shop with a bay-window full of the prettiest display of bridalwear. Above the door hung a sign in romantic, swirly text, saying simply ‘White Wedding’.

  The doorbell tinkled daintily as Dawn and Muriel entered.

  ‘ ’King hell, it’s a Tardis!’ said Muriel over-loudly as the narrow shop seemed to go on forever in length. Racks of dresses lined the walls, and showcases of tiaras and shoes ran floor to the cottage-low ceiling. Dawn’s mouth opened in a round O of delight. This is more like it!

  A very slim and smart assistant greeted them with a big smile. On her plain, black fitted dress she wore the name badge ‘Freya’. She was probably the same age as Muriel, thought Dawn, although with her coiffeured hair and unchewed nails, she looked fifteen years younger.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Freya asked Dawn politely.

  ‘I’m getting married and I er . . . need a dress,’ replied Dawn shyly.

  ‘Well, do feel free to wander,’ said Freya. ‘I will say though, don’t judge the dress until you have tried it on. You’d be surprised how many brides go out looking for one particular style only to find it doesn’t suit them at all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dawn, feeling very much at ease in this shop. She and Muriel had a look around but Dawn realized she might need some expert help after all.

  ‘I don’t know where to start, there’s just so many,’ she said. She wanted to get it right because what if she found a dress, bought it, then spotted another one that was nicer? That thought had tortured her a few times.

  ‘Well, let’s start with colour,’ said the assistant. She studied Dawn’s pale, heavily freckled skin and her shoulder-length copper hair. ‘May I recommend ivory rather than white? White isn’t always flattering, especially to people with pale skin like yourself. Size 10, at a guess?’

  ‘Spot on,’ returned Dawn. Freya went to the rack of 10s as Muriel was pulling size 24s off the hangers and holding them up against herself.

  ‘And are we going to be a summer bride or a winter one?’ asked Freya.

  ‘June,’ said Dawn.

  ‘I might try on one myself,’ said Muriel. ‘Get Ronnie to renew his vows, seeing as I’m a lot thinner than the first time we went down the aisle.’

  Freya’s face never twitched, even though Muriel was twenty-five stone plus now.

  ‘We’ll have a joint do,’ laughed Dawn.

  Freya pulled out a long, tapering gown, shaking out the creases.

  ‘This is silk, ivory as you see, a bow on the back, beaded detail on the front bodice. Very flattering for the smaller-busted woman.’

  ‘Not do me any good then,’ snorted Muriel and laughed so hard that her enormous and flimsily restrained breasts jiggled like two giant blancmanges. The bra hadn’t been built that could hold them in place without industrial strength scaffolding.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Dawn, but she was shaking her head. ‘It’s not leaping out at me, though.’

  ‘OK,’ said Freya, and flicked the plastic protective case swiftly back over it. ‘What about this?’ She presented something swimming with ruffles.

  ‘Oooh,’ squealed Muriel.

  ‘Too fancy,’ said Dawn quietly. ‘Sorry, it’s not me at all!’

  ‘Oh, don’t apologize,’ said Freya. ‘Finding out what you don’t want is the most effective way to lead us to what you do want. So, less frills . . . let me see.’

  She pulled out a very unfussy number in satin.

  ‘Ah, it’s too plain. Heck, I’m not easy to please, am I?’ Dawn half-expected Freya to sigh in that annoyed way that Calum’s sister Demi was always doing.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Freya, though. ‘I’ve seen would-be brides come in here and reject forty dresses!’

  ‘How much is this?’ called Muriel, holding up a white satin gown. There was enough material in it to make a sail for a billionaire’s yacht.

  ‘That particular one is three thousand pounds,’ said Freya.

  ‘Chuffing hell, they aren’t cheap, are they?’ said Muriel and slid it back on the rail, none too straight either, although Freya didn’t give a hint of disapproval.

  ‘This one, perhaps?’

  ‘Neck’s too high.’ Dawn shook her head. ‘That’s gorgeous though.’ She pointed to a rather full-skirted confection in white. Freya didn’t look convinced that Dawn and the frock were a good match, but hung it up in the changing room for her all the same. A couple of minutes later, Dawn emerged to show herself off.

  ‘Bleeding hell, where’s your sheep, Bo Peep?’ asked Muriel with a snort.

  The dress drowned Dawn and, true enough, the white material made her skin look like the colour of uncooked pastry. Freya nodded in an ‘I told you so’, but kindly, way. She was holding up a gown that made Dawn’s eyes shine.

  ‘It’s from our vintage collection,’ explained Freya. ‘It’s a very special dress.’

  Long and flowing, it had a beautiful scooped neck with peach rosebud detail, a full skirt, three-quarter sleeves and was made of smooth, smooth ivory silk. Dawn’s hands reached greedily for the hanger. She closed the dressing room curtain and when she opened it again and emerged in that dress, both Muriel and Freya gasped with delight.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ said Freya. The dress suited the tall, slim woman to a T. The ivory lent her pale skin some colour, her neck looked extended by inches and the fitted bodice gave the illusion of curves where there were few.

  ‘Oh. My. God. This is the one, I just know it,’ said Dawn. She was almost in tears imagining the skirt trailing behind her, brushing the aisle floor. ‘Do you know anything about the original owner? Was she happy?’ She didn’t want a dress with negative vibes stored in the threads.

  ‘Very,’ Freya said,
adding, ‘Eventually.’

  ‘Well, you would say that,’ parried Muriel. But Dawn wanted to believe Freya anyway. She was hooked.

  ‘It is lovely, mind,’ said Muriel. ‘How much is it though?’

  ‘It’s fifteen hundred pounds. Any alterations are free and you will most likely need them despite it being a near-perfect fit now. Most brides lose some weight and have to have their dresses nipped in nearer the date.’

  ‘Fifteen hundred quid – for a second-hand frock!’ Muriel gave a mirthless little laugh.

  ‘It’s very special,’ said Freya again, smiling. ‘It looks meant for you.’

  Dawn gulped. It was over her budget, but she knew anything else would be second-best. She could cut back on something else, but not the dress. She would pray for a miracle pay rise or a big win. She would start putting an extra line on the lottery, starting this week.

  ‘I don’t care – I’ll take it,’ she heard herself say.

  An hour later, Dawn had spent another two hundred and fifty pounds on shoes, a medium-length ivory veil, a tiara and some matching earrings. She hid the purchases on her Visa card and tried not to let worries about the expense spoil the excitement.

  ‘Look at this one,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s an eight berth.’

  Grace dutifully left the sink, peered over his shoulder at the catalogue and then returned to scrubbing the Sunday dinner pans, which were infinitely more interesting.

  ‘Plenty of room for our Sarah and Hugo and Sable and the baby when it arrives, and our Laura and Joe.’

  And Paul too, Grace added to herself, but there wouldn’t have been much point saying it aloud. Gordon was a master at ignoring what he didn’t want to hear. Paul was as good as dead to his father.

  ‘It’s got central heating and a built-in washing machine and dishwasher.’ He looked at Grace standing with the tea-towel. ‘It’s got more than we’ve got here, in fact. It would be just ideal for us when you retire. You’re over ready for a long rest.’

  ‘I’m only fifty-five, Gordon.’

  ‘Only?’ he snorted. ‘You’re getting older every day. You’ve got to be in the next batch of early retirements. I can’t understand why you haven’t been asked already. They’ve retired loads at your place!’