Follow a Star (4 page)

In his pocket, his phone started to ring. ‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Speaking. Cecil Blythe’s nephew, that’s correct.’ Then he sat down and listened intently whilst the woman on the other end of the phone gently explained the situation.

May had a crick in her neck from fruitlessly trying to dry her hair under the hand drier in the cell-like shower block. It was still damp at the crown, but the long walk back to the station would take care of that and hopefully give her time to think about what she would do when she got there. Remembering there was a hair band in the bottom of her wash bag, May scooped up her thick hair, glad to have something to tame it before it turned into a total frizzball. She stretched the band and it promptly snapped.

She leaned against the washbasin and counted to ten. Dammit! How had she become so inept that even the simplest things were beyond her? The trouble was she’d got too used to people running around fixing her hair and make-up, working their magic to conjure up an illusion of perfection. Wasn’t it about time she stood on her own two feet again? She stared at herself, a blurred image in the polished steel. The real May was in there somewhere; all she had to do was find her.

In her pocket, her phone pinged. Another message from Aiden to add to the growing list, but nothing, she noticed, scrolling in vain, from her parents. Perhaps one day they’d surprise her and offer the sort of good, old-fashioned parental guidance she’d really appreciate right now. Yearning for familiarity nevertheless, she tapped the screen. There was no reply at Soul
Survivor, the dippy hippie shop her mother ran, and when May tried her parents’ home number she got Kurt Cobain who intoned ‘Hello’ fifteen times before Cathy’s bored voice stated, ‘Cathy and Rick. Here we are now. Entertain us.’ May told them all she was alive and kicking. Unlike Kurt Cobain, she thought, ending the call, who if he’d known that he would feature so heavily on a middle-aged suburban couple’s answerphone would probably have shot himself even sooner.

So where did she go from here? It seemed as if she couldn’t even run away without ballsing it up. Right now it would be the easiest thing in the world to go back with her tail between her legs, before it was too late, and beg Aiden to make it all better for her.

‘May!’

Someone lunged towards her the minute she got outside, but the initial shock lessened at the sight of golden sunshine gleaming on bright red hair.

‘Bill!’ She scowled. ‘I told you, I don’t need a lift.’

‘No, I know you don’t,’ he mumbled, scratching his head, ‘but the thing is, I need you.’

Huh! So Bill had chickened out of doing the trip by himself after all.

‘What use could I possibly be to you? We’ve already established that my purpose was to sit around looking decorative whilst your uncle did manly stuff steering the boat, only breaking off to lavish expensive gifts on me.’ She swung her bag over her shoulder a little too heartily and staggered which ruined her stage exit until she recovered herself and managed to walk.

‘Please don’t go,’ she heard Bill say. Shrugging, she strode away determined, for once in her recent history, to stick to her guns but he caught up with her easily. ‘I’m sorry. I was out of order. Please come back.’

‘But Bill,’ she cooed, ‘you’re not old enough for me. I’m only interested in sailing with a sugar daddy.’ She gave him a sideways glance. Definitely squirming.

‘Look, I was wrong to jump to conclusions, but I was only trying to protect Cecil. I still am – please May, whatever you think of me, I need to get this boat to Little Spitmarsh as soon as possible, and it would be so much easier with your help. My uncle’s taken a turn for the worse, and I desperately want him to see this boat before it’s too late.’

‘Oh god, Bill,’ she said, instantly capitulating. ‘Why didn’t you say? Of course I’ll help. It’s what I came for, no matter what you think.’ Besides, as she later acknowledged to herself bleakly, sitting beside Bill as they set off to buy provisions for the voyage, it wasn’t as if she was spoiled for choice of places to go.

In the small outer London borough of Ebbesham, in the bedroom of a thirties semi-detached house whose twin had been disfigured by the addition of a shoe box of an extension obliterating any nod to its Arts and Crafts origins, Cathy Starling reached out and ran her hand over her bedside table until it traced a familiar outline. She placed a cigarette between her lips and stuck her hand out again until her fingers found the lighter. She lit up, drew deeply and reluctantly opened her eyes.

A fleeting moment of wondering if her eldest daughter’s sudden urge to run away to sea would bring her to her senses was almost immediately blotted out by an acute sense that it was time to get her own life back on track. Only a glamorous rock chick could get away with proclaiming that fifty was the new thirty. By that reckoning it still meant that in four years’ time she would be forty. Whichever way you looked at it, getting old stank. A cylinder of ash dropped on to the crumpled purple bedding. Unconcerned, Cathy flicked it on to the floor then hauled herself into a sitting position. It wasn’t that she was losing her figure; there wasn’t any extra flesh on her long bones, but something was definitely wrong with her skin. These days it looked as if someone had screwed it up very tightly but hadn’t managed to smooth it out again, and when she pinched the top of her thigh it just sat there for a while. Like a favourite pair of knickers washed too many times, all her elastic had gone.

Wedging her cigarette firmly in the corner of her mouth, Cathy picked her old silk kimono out of the discarded clothes beside the bed so she wouldn’t offend herself as she passed the mirror. A firm subscriber to the view that eating healthily was what invalids did, Cathy toyed with the idea of having a shot of Southern Comfort for breakfast but rejected it in favour of something hot: black coffee and another cigarette.

Somewhere along the line her supernova had become a black hole, sucking up her youth and the best years of her life. How had the Seventies turned into pushing sixty? Rick hadn’t helped either, vetoing her weekend rave because he had to get up early for a roofing job. Of course, if he ditched the sudden interest in cycling and his new carbon fibre bike, he might have a bit more energy. And last night, he’d even been too tired to make love because he’d knackered himself on a pointless twelve-mile ride. Was she really married to a MAMIL, a middle-aged man in Lycra? What next, for fuck’s sake? Blinking back tears of self-pity, Cathy ground the end of her cigarette into the dregs of her coffee and left the cup on the side.

If she didn’t get her act together she’d become completely invisible. People used to say she looked like a young Cher, after the nose job, of course, and heads would turn when she walked down the street. May didn’t realise how lucky she was. Why make a fuss about all the attention in a profession where the average shelf life was very short indeed? Where you could count the number of older women still in the game on one hand. Only someone as young and fresh as May could take her looks for granted, Cathy thought resentfully. Nowadays no one took any notice unless she was wearing a particularly short skirt, and then the odd, battered carload of lads might hoot at her back then retreat with shocked faces, looking as if they’d tried to pick up their own mums, once they’d seen her face.

But if there was no turning back the clock for her, she now stood a fighting chance of rejuvenating the shop. As a teenager she’d been thrilled and inspired by a couple of daring visits to Sex, Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s punk boutique. Unfortunately safety pins and tartan had gone out of fashion by the time she was in a position to open her own shop, so she’d stocked up on ultra-feminine, floaty fashion and called it Soul Survivor instead. That was fine until people stopped buying floaty dresses, when she’d given up on fashion and resorted to selling scarves, cards, scented candles and a few vaguely mystic, quasi-spiritual bits and bobs full of promises that even she had doubts about. No wonder she was bored. But just when she was staring down the barrel of gun, facing the fact that nothing could save Soul Survivor when customers had the entire internet to choose from, the cards had shuffled in her favour.

Ebbesham borough council, stung by a shopping satisfaction survey describing it as ‘just another suburban clone town’, was now popping up temporary shops and pumping out free Wi-Fi. Far from being seen as an embarrassing anachronism, Soul
Survivor was being heralded as an example of the town’s quirkier enterprises. Her overdraft, which had crept up during the lean years, no longer gave her such bad vibes, thanks to a most unexpected guardian angel, a new commercial landlord with a far more laid-back attitude than the previous bloodsucker, who had stepped in at just the right time. The planets were in perfect alignment and this was her chance to shine.

Leaving the house she was nearly flattened by a teenage boy on a skateboard who added insult to injury by calling her a stupid old bag. ‘Stupid’ she could cope with, ‘bag’ even, but ‘old’, no way. ‘Death will come!’ she shouted after him and was gratified when he was so busy putting his fingers up at her that his concentration lapsed and he nearly castrated himself on a bollard. ‘Have a nice day,’ she wished, passing him doubled up on the ground. Hers was getting better by the minute.

A workman, lounging in the doorway of Soul
Survivor when she arrived five minutes late having stopped to buy tobacco for her roll-ups, also nearly got the sharp end of her tongue.

‘Call this customer service,’ he jeered. ‘I’ve been waiting here so long I thought I was going to take root.’

She was about to tell him what he could do with himself until, getting close, she saw, even without her glasses, who it was. ‘Oh, what do you want?’

‘That’s a nice thing to say to your old man.’ Rick wrapped his hand round her waist and Cathy let him pull her towards him and stopped feeling quite so prickly. He’d worn well, she thought, sliding her hands up his face. Time had filled him out a bit and there was more grey than brown in his wild curls, but the heavy-lashed dark gold eyes still made her weak at the knees.

‘Hurry up and open the door, before people stare,’ Rick said, pressing his crotch against her.

Picking at the dried mortar on his T-shirt, Cathy pretended to push him away. ‘But you’re filthy.’ She grinned.

‘So my missus tells me. My clothes are dirty, but my hands are clean, and you’ll do very nicely. Listen, I didn’t drop by just to talk. I can pick up the mobile and do that. Now are you going to open the bloody door or am I going back to my roof?’

She loved the way he undressed her, gently peeling off each garment with throaty noises of appreciation as if he saw her with new eyes every time. He pushed her into the changing room and drew the inky blue curtain around him then lifted her on to his thighs, her back against the wall, so they could watch themselves in the mirror. Having admired her slender legs gripping his muscly bum and been reassured that her small breasts were still worthy of their silver nipple ring, Cathy lifted her head, tossed back her long hair and concentrated on more important things.

‘Oh God! Oh God! Oh GOD!’

‘Oh Christ, my legs!’ said Rick. ‘That’s what you call a knee-trembler.’ Ever the gentleman, he reached out for one of the long floaty scarves that people seemed to buy but never wear and slid it between her legs as he eased out. Cathy made a mental note not to put it back on display.

‘I thought you were showing off a bit,’ she teased, watching him trying to rub some life back into the tops of his legs. ‘I’ve got some juniper oil in the shop somewhere. S’posed to be good for overexertion. Don’t go away.’ Backing out of the changing room her smile froze when she found that neither of them had remembered to put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door, and she was being regarded with some confusion by a Miss Marple-alike.

‘Are you some sort of protestor?’ asked the little old lady, bearing her handbag in case of attack.

‘No, absolutely not,’ beamed Cathy. ‘I’m—’

The little old lady waited.

‘I’m—,’ Cathy looked down at the ends of the scarf still tucked between her legs. ‘I’m Salome in our amateur dramatic production and I was just practising my dance of the seven veils.’

A flash of the old lady’s very white teeth signalled her approval. ‘And do you sell tickets?’

Cathy’s mind went blank. ‘What sort of tickets?’

‘For the show. It looks like great fun!’

Seeing Rick’s rigid feet and bare ankles protruding from the changing cubicle, Cathy rose to the challenge of making them quiver. ‘No, unfortunately members of the cast aren’t allowed to, but you will be able to buy them from the library in a couple of weeks. Five pounds is the usual price, but it’s half that for students and senior citizens. Quite a bargain, wouldn’t you agree?’ A muffled guffaw from behind the curtain told her she had hit the spot.

‘Splendid! Now I’d better not hold you up any longer. Keep up the good work!’

Hastily locking the door before Miss Marple remembered what she’d originally come in for, Cathy surprised a sober-suited businessman who was staring in at the window display. As he shot off looking somewhat pink about the gills she wondered whether, after her impromptu streak, he would be more or less likely to buy the Blue Heaven massage oil he’d been eyeing.

‘You might have to practise that dance in front of me later,’ Rick grinned, zipping up his jeans.

‘Oh yes?’ said Cathy, spotting her knickers at last. ‘And what do I get on a plate?’

‘My balls if I don’t get back to work soon.’

‘Better get a move on then, I prefer them where they are.’ She straightened up and looked at her husband. ‘That was fun, wasn’t it? Like the good old days.’

‘So I’m past it, am I?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Not you as well. I get enough from the blokes on site calling me bleedin’ granddad.’

‘Oh don’t be so daft!’ She wrapped her arms round him and buried her face in his neck. The old hurt was still there no matter how careful they were not to prod the scar tissue. ‘I do wonder where the years have gone.’ She sighed. ‘It only seems like yesterday that the girls were babies. Now Stevie’s at university, and May … I hope she comes to her senses and realises just what she stands to lose in this bid for what she calls freedom. Doesn’t she realise how many girls must be lining up to take her place?’