The news seemed to cheer her up. Right then, wed better be off, she said, stubbing out her cigarette and gathering her mac around her shoulders.
Wed better be off? I echoed.
She glanced at her watch, a chunky gold item with chips of diamond that glittered like a broken windscreen in a streetlight. Depends where you live, I suppose. Only, if Im opening a theme pub in Blackburn at eight and weve both got to get changed and grab a bite to eat, well be cutting it a bit fine if we dont get a move on.
A theme pub in Blackburn, I said faintly.
Thats right, chuck. Im under contract to the brewery. Its straightforward enough. I turn up, tell a few jokes, sing a couple of songs to backing tapes, sign a couple of hundred autographs and off. As she spoke, she was setting her hat at a rakish angle and replacing her sunglasses. As she made for the door, I dived behind the desk and swept my palmtop computer and my moby into my shoulder bag. I only caught up with her because shed stopped to sign a glossy color photograph of herself disguised as Brenda Barrowclough for Shelley.
Something terrible had happened to the toughest office manager in Manchester. Imagine Cruella De Vil transformed into one of those cuddly Dalmatian puppies, only more so. It was like watching Ben Nevis grovel. And could you sign one, for Ted? she begged. I wished I had closed-circuit TV cameras covering the office. A video of this would keep Shelley off my back for months.
No problem, there you go, Gloria said, signing the card with a flourish. You right, Kate?
I grabbed my coat and shrugged into it as I followed Gloria into
This sign says, Employees of DVS Systems only. Unauthorized users will be clamped, she pointed out.
Its all right, I said in a tone that I hoped would end the conversation. I didnt want to explain to Gloria that Id got so fed up with the desperate state of car parking in my part of town that Id checked out which office car parks were seldom full. Id used the macro lens on the camera to take a photograph of a DVS Systems parking pass through somebody elses windscreen and made myself a passable forgery. Id been parking on their lot for six months with no trouble, but it wasnt something I was exactly proud of. Besides, it never does to let the clients know about the little sins. It only makes them nervous.
Gloria stopped expectantly next to a very large black saloon with tinted windows. I shook my head and she pulled a rueful smile. I pointed the remote at my dark blue Rover and it cheeped its usual greeting at me. Sorry its not a limo, I said to Gloria as we piled in. I need to be invisible most of the time. I didnt feel the need to mention that the engine under the bonnet was very different from the unit the manufacturer had installed. I had enough horsepower under my bonnet to stage my own rodeo. If anybody was stalking Gloria, I could blow them off inside the first five miles.
I drove home, which took less than five minutes even in early rush-hour traffic. I love living so close to the city center, but the areas become more dodgy in the last year. Id have moved if I hadnt had to commit every spare penny to the business. Id been the junior partner in Mortensen & Brannigan, and when Bill Mortensen had decided to sell up and move to Australia, Id thought my career prospects were in the toilet. I couldnt afford to buy him out but I was damned if some stranger was going to end up with the lions share of a business Id worked so hard to build. It had taken a lot of creative thinking and a shedload of debt to get Brannigan & Co off the ground. Now I had a sleeping partner in the
Besides, the domestic arrangements were perfect. My lover Richard, a freelance rock journalist, owned the bungalow next door to mine, linked by a long conservatory that ran along the back of both properties. We had all the advantages of living together and none of the disadvantages. I didnt have to put up with his mess or his music-business cronies; he didnt have to deal with my girls nights in or my addiction to very long baths.
Richards car, a hot pink Volkswagen Beetle convertible, was in its slot, which, at this time of day, probably meant he was home. There might be other showbiz journos with him, so I played safe and asked Gloria to wait in the car. I was back inside ten minutes, wearing a bottle green crushed velvet cocktail dress under a dark navy dupion silk matador jacket. OTT for Blackburn, I know, but there hadnt been a lot of choice. If I didnt get to the dry cleaner soon, Id be going to work in my dressing gown.
Gloria lived in Saddleworth, the expensively rural cluster of villages that hugs the edges of the Yorkshire moors on the eastern fringe of Greater Manchester. The hills are still green and rolling there, but on the skyline the dark humps of the moors lower unpleasantly, even on the sunniest of days. This is the wilderness that ate up the bodies of the child victims of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. I can never drive through this brooding landscape without remembering the Moors Murders. Living on the doorstep would give me nightmares. It didnt seem to bother Gloria. But why would it? It didnt impinge either on her or on Brenda Barrowclough, and the half-hour drive out to Saddleworth was long enough for me to realize these were the only criteria that mattered to her. Id heard it said that actors are like children in their unconscious self-absorption. Now I was seeing the proof.
In the December dark, Saddleworth looked like a Christmas card, early fairy lights twinkling against a light dusting of snow. I wished Id listened to the weather forecast; the roads out here can be closed by drifts when there hasnt been so much as a flake
I edged forward slowly, completely gobsmacked. I appeared to have driven into the set of a BBC period drama. I was in a large cobbled courtyard, surrounded on three sides by handsome twostory buildings in weatherworn gritstone. Even my untrained eye can spot early Industrial Revolution, and this was a prime example. Wow, I said.
It were built as offices for the mill, Gloria said, pointing me towards a pair of double doors in the long left-hand side of the square. Leave the car in front of my garage for now. Then the mill became a cat food factory. Sound familiar?
The factory where you used to work?
Got it in one. She opened the car door and I followed her across the courtyard. The door she stopped at was solid oak, the lock a sensible mortise. As we went in, a burglar alarm klaxoned its warning. While Gloria turned it off, I walked across the wide room that ran the whole depth of the building. Through the tall window, I could see light glinting off water. The house backed on to the canal. Suddenly life looked better. This house was about as impregnable as they come. Unless Glorias letter writer had the Venetian skill of climbing a ladder from a boat, I was going to be able to sleep in my own bed at night rather than across the threshold of Glorias bedroom.
Its beautiful, I said.
Especially when your living room used to be the cashiers office where you picked up your wages every week smelling of offal, Gloria said ironically.
Especially when your living room used to be the cashiers office where you picked up your wages every week smelling of offal, Gloria said ironically.
I turned back to look round the room. Wall uplighters gave a soft glow to burnished beams and the exposed stone of the three outer walls. The furnishings looked like a job lot from John Lewis, all pastel-figured damask and mahogany. The pictures on the wall
Thank God, she said with feeling, opening a walk-in cupboard and hanging up her coat.
Anyone else have keys?
Only my daughter. Gloria emerged and pointed to a door in the far wall. The kitchens through there. Theres a freezer full of ready meals. Do you want to grab a couple and stick them in the microwave while Im getting changed? Without waiting for an answer, she started up the open-plan staircase that climbed to the upper floor.
The kitchen was almost as big as the living room. One end was laid out as a dining area, with a long refectory table and a collection of unmatched antique farm kitchen chairs complete with patchwork cushions. The other end was an efficiently arranged working kitchen, dominated by an enormous freestanding fridgefreezer. The freezer was stacked from top to bottom with meals from Marks and Spencer. Maybe country living could be tolerable after all, I thought. All you needed to get through the winter was a big enough freezer and an endless supply of computer games. I chose a couple of pasta dishes and followed the instructions on the pack. By the time they were thawed and reheated, Gloria was back, dressed for action in a shocking-pink swirl of sequins. All it needed was the Brenda Barrowclough beehive to define camp kitsch better than any drag queen could have.
Amazing, I said faintly, scooping chicken and pasta into bowls.
Bloody awful, you mean, Gloria said, sitting down in a flounce of candyfloss. But the punters are paying for Brenda, not me. She attacked her pasta like an extra from Oliver Twist. She finished while I was barely halfway through. Right, she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Ill be five minutes putting on me slap and the wig. The dishwashers under the sink.
With anyone else, Id have started to resent being ordered around. But I was beginning to get the hang of Gloria. She wasnt
The drive to Blackburn was the last sane part of the evening. Gloria handed me a faxed set of directions then demanded that I didnt mither her with problems so she could get her head straight. I loaded an appropriate CD into the car stereo and drove to the ambient chill of Dreamfish while she reclined her seat and closed her eyes. I pulled up outside the pub three-quarters of an hour later, ten minutes before she was due to sparkle. She opened her eyes, groaned softly and said, Its a bit repetitive, that music. Have you got no Frank Sinatra? I tried to disguise my sense of impending doom. I failed. Gloria roared with raucous laughter and said, I were only winding you up. I cant bloody stand Sinatra. Typical man, I did it my own bloody-minded way. This modern stuffs much better.
I left Gloria in the car while I did a brief reconnaissance of the venue. I had this vague notion of trying to spot any suspicious characters. I had more chance of hitting the Sahara on a wet Wednesday. Inside the pub, it was mayhem on a leash. Lads with bad haircuts and football shirts jostled giggling groups of girls dressed in what the high-street chain stores had persuaded them was fashion. Mostly they looked like theyd had a collision with their mothers cast-offs from the seventies. I couldnt think of another reason for wearing Crimplene. The Lightning Seeds were revealing that football was coming home at a volume that made my fillings hurt. Provincial didnt begin to describe it. It was so different from the city-center scene I began to wonder if we could have slipped through a black hole and ended up in the Andromeda galaxy. What a waste of a good frock.