The Doris Day Vintage Film Club. Fiona Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ a very sensible head on her shoulders and always looked stylish, but Kitty started bouncing in her seat.

      ‘We’d love to help, wouldn’t we, Grace?’

      Grace nodded coolly.

      ‘We’ve already talked about it,’ Kitty added.

      Abby looked warily from one to the other. ‘You have?’

      The vintage girls, both in red and white polka dots this week – Kitty with white on red, Grace with red on white – looked at each other before continuing.

      ‘If you’d let us … We’d really like to give you a makeover.’

      Abby looked shocked, as if she’d just been announced the next Miss Universe, and maybe just as tearful. ‘You’d do that? For me?’

      Both girls nodded. ‘You’d be helping us really. We love doing makeovers,’ Kitty said, ‘but Grace says she’s getting bored doing them on just me. What we really need is a fresh canvas.’

      ‘Fresh meat, more like,’ Maggs muttered under her breath.

      ‘Are you up for it?’ Kitty asked, nodding encouragingly.

      ‘Um … I think so.’

      ‘Great!’ Kitty said, clapping her hands together. ‘How about we do it before the next film club meeting?

      Abby looked nervously between them. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

      ‘We’re going to have so much fun,’ Kitty said brightly, as she stood up, and she and Grace linked arms and scurried away, plotting furiously as they disappeared down the stairs.

      The rest of the club members started to drift after them, but before Abby escaped, Claire went over to her. ‘Are you okay with the whole makeover idea? It’s fine to say if you’re not.’

      Abby looked grim for a few long moments. ‘I’m as fine as I’m ever going to be with it, and I’ll never get those tickets if I don’t, so I suppose I’ll just have to do it, no matter how I feel about it.’

      ‘Is it a special match?’

      Claire expected Abby to nod just as emphatically, but instead she looked flustered and her cheeks grew pinker. ‘Kind of …’ She looked at her trainers as she scuffed the offensively patterned carpet with one of them. Eventually, she looked up at Claire from under her hair. ‘It’s not so much who’s playing, but who I was hoping to ask to go with me.’ And then she blushed even harder.

      ‘A boy?’

      Abby’s eyes stayed on the carpet. She nodded. ‘I’ve known him since we were in primary school together. We bonded over a shared love of football and we’ve been friends ever since, it’s just … every time I look at him, things seem to go a bit weird.’

      Claire nodded. She remembered feeling that way about boys when she was Abby’s age, that swirly feeling in her stomach when you thought about them. The little kick of your pulse when you knew you were going to see them.

      ‘Does he feel the same way?’

      Abby’s face told Claire everything she needed to know. ‘I’m just “Abs” to him, his mate with the killer left foot, but I thought maybe if we could get away from the other lads, have some time on our own …’

      Ah, it was all starting to make sense now: Abby’s sudden and desperate need to embrace her hitherto undiscovered feminine side, why she’d come back to the Doris Day Film Club.

      ‘Can’t you talk to your mum about this? If you told her why you wanted the tickets, she might understand.’

      Abby shook her head, her lips a thin line. ‘All she wanted after two boys was a daughter she could fuss over and dress up and go shopping with, and instead she got me. I’m just one huge disappointment to her. She just thinks Ricky encourages me in my tomboy ways.’

      Claire gave Abby what she hoped was a sympathetic look. ‘Well, we – the club and I – are going to do everything we can to make sure you prove her wrong at that party. If you want our help, we’ll pull out all the stops to make it happen.’

      Abby stood up, looking concerned. ‘Do you really think you can help me look like a girl?’

      I’m sure we can,’ she said, smiling.

      Abby smiled weakly back. ‘Thank you, Claire.’

      Claire watched her trail down the stairs, looking slightly less forlorn than when she’d arrived, and then she made sure everything was shipshape, switched off the lights and closed the door.

      Much to her surprise, she found Maggs waiting for her on the landing. ‘Well …’ Maggs said. ‘Have you read it?’

      Read what? Claire almost said, and then she remembered. She hadn’t used that handbag since last week and she’d made herself forget about the letter. Besides, she’d had other letters on her mind since then – a string of notes going backwards and forwards between her and her cheeky neighbour. On the one hand, he was driving her crazy, but on the other, she had to admit he had quite a way with words, and sometimes he could be quite funny.

      No, she thought to herself. Do not be sucked in by surface charm. That was how her mother had got snared by her father. He’d seemed lovely while they’d been going out, courteous, strong, principled. It was only after she’d married him that she’d discovered just how iron-clad those principles were, and just how exacting he could be if anyone failed to meet his standards.

      Okay, her downstairs neighbour was nothing like him – mainly because he had no standards whatsoever – but the advice was good all the same. Always look deeper. Always look beneath. Exactly what she hadn’t done with Philip.

      Her ex-husband proved her point quite nicely. He’d seemed the polar opposite from her father when she’d met him. He’d been romantic and affectionate and thoughtful, but she’d still fallen into her mother’s trap. Maybe she wouldn’t have if Mum had been around to warn her. Gran had tried, but Claire had pigheadedly refused to listen, and then, after a few years, when she’d really realised what he was like, she’d been too stubborn and proud to admit she was wrong.

      Anyway, she didn’t want to think about Philip. It was over. In the past. She was moving on, just as she had done with her father.

      They started walking down the stairs, and Claire could feel Maggs looking at her. ‘What?’ she asked.

      ‘Well? Have you read it?’ Maggs said, rather impatiently. It was only then Claire realised she’d been so lost in thought – hijacked first by Mr Dominic Arden and then her ex – that she’d forgotten to answer her.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said laughing. ‘Away with the fairies. And, no, I haven’t read it. I don’t intend to. I told you that last week.’

      Maggs didn’t say anything. Didn’t mean she wasn’t communicating heaps.

      ‘I know you think it’s a mistake,’ Claire continued, ‘but I can’t do it. What happened, happened, and I have no desire to revisit it. What was it that Doris’s brother said about her? Something about her never being concerned СКАЧАТЬ