There once was a Dragon
Chapter 2
By Graham
Gisele visibly winced as
she opened the door to the George and Pillage. Mull of Kintyre, number one for
a month now, was showing no signs of going away. She had initially been
grateful that Wings had at least displaced that appalling offering from Abba,
but the thought of this sentimental trash popping up every two minutes over the
whole of the Christmas period filled her with dread.
She spotted Mary Trencher
picking her way through the busy tables, no doubt half-asphyxiating everyone in
her path, smelling like a schizophrenic fruit tree with her over-use of Pavlova
Payot. Head down, rooting in her handbag for coins, she was most likely heading
for the jukebox and Gisele was having none of it. Ignoring Ted who had
dutifully come to the bar to take her order, and nearly knocking a tray of
cherry-adorned Babychams out of Alf Butcher’s already unsteady hands,
she swiftly changed tack. The dismayed Mary lifted her head to find Gisele
already pushing coins into the machine and repeatedly punching one of the
buttons.
‘Fifteen,’ was Gisele’s triumphant answer to
Mary’s unspoken question. ‘And there’ll be more to come later.’
Ted, making a fairly safe
assumption, already had the dark pint on the counter, shamrock neatly etched into its
creamy top, as Gisele took her regular stool. Her face took on the closest
approximation to a smile she seemed to be able to manage as her chosen song’s intro kicked in for its
first play, but as the her recently deceased idol’s distinctive voice hit her senses, she could feel the sting: ‘Babe, you’re getting closer... The
lights are goin’ dim’. A salty droplet spoilt
Ted’s artistry before Elvis
could complete the third line: ' The sound of your breathin’.'
Born Sally Bails, Gisele
re-christened herself when she first arrived in the village fifteen years
previously, adding the surname Egelmann for good measure. She was never sure
where the fascination, near obsession, with everything Swiss came from, but she
had decided that if she had to spend the next chunk of her life in a
godforsaken little place like Chustlewick, then it would be under her terms,
and she would be known the way she wanted to be known.
If the villagers were not
unduly concerned with the incongruity of an apparently Bavarian name being
attached to someone with a strong North Yorkshire accent, it was perhaps
because they were struggling to a greater extent to take to this strange
woman's appearance and behaviour. Gisele always wore her mousey-brown hair
pulled so tightly back that her deep green eyes seemed to permanently in a
state of surprise. Finishing up in two tightly braided buns, one just above and
behind each ear, seemed to place her in a decade so far back that even the
Chustlewickians seemed modern by comparison.
It wasn't so much that
her behaviour was specifically bad, she didn't actually do anything that could
be construed as nasty or evil or anything like that, but she certainly did seem
to lack any social skills. The extent to which this was true, and the extent to
which this was universally perceived, was exemplified in the impact that she
had had on the once thriving, small guest house cum hotel that she occupied and
ran.
Reg Bails gave his
daughter, and only child, Sally the keys to Chustle House on the eve of her
twenty-first birthday. He didn't actually use the words, 'now take these and
piss off,' but the sentiment was there. His wife, Sally's mother, had departed
via a cheap softwood box just a few months earlier, and this was his chance to
regain the peace and the solitude that he had yearned for since first getting
hitched to 'that shriveled old hag' twenty-five years earlier. He had come into
the deeds for the guesthouse through a series of thoroughly suspect deals and
wasn't sure what to do with it. Circumstances meant that he was not able to
sell it, at least not for a good many years, and there was no way he was moving
to what he considered the back of beyond.
Reg figured that if his
daughter could at least keep the thing in good enough condition to ensure it
was still standing by the time he could 'legally' sell it, then she would have
been some use to him at last: if no ornament. Sally, now Gisele, moved in to a
thriving and popular holiday choice, and systematically reduced it to a
last-resort stopover within a few short years. Whereas the diary was once full on every day of the week for at least ten months of the year, there was now
rarely anyone staying other than Monday to Thursday nights.
This restricted operation
sort of suited Gisele. She just had to sling the sheets into the washing
machine each Friday morning, give the place a quick run round with the Hoover,
and she was done until Monday evening when she had to reluctantly open the door
to this week's 'losers'. Long having fallen off the holiday destination
favourites listing, her clientele was now limited to third-rate salesmen and
businessmen, not wanting to pay the higher rates in the nearby town or
industrial areas, who came by habit. Their persistence in continuing to use her
establishment was hardly due to having expectations of a warm and friendly
welcome, but it was cheap. And furthermore, Gisele was not adverse to writing
out a receipt for a couple of pounds over the price charged, which meant that
her lodgers were able to recoup enough from their expense claim to pay for
their drinks at the George and Pillage, and sometimes a lot more.
But as she sat over her
quickly diminishing pint at the bar, taking in the Fifth consecutive play of Way Down,
she was fretting over the guest due to arrive tomorrow. Quite how she had
allowed this to happen she wasn't sure, but she had a stranger arriving on
Christmas Eve, and he was due to stay until New Year's Day. The man had been
uncommonly persistent when he had phoned. She had done her best to put him off,
but to no avail, and in the end, somehow, she had capitulated. Maybe, just
maybe, it was his name that had intrigued her: Hlasek.
'Pint of Red Barrel
please Ted, and a Britvic orange for Bella.' The voice, so familiar, and so
warm, was uncomfortably close to Gisel's ear. But the bar was full, and Brett
had probably had little choice of where he could push his way in.
Brett Charles was hardly
likely to have made the choice to stand so close to Gisele easily. It was
nearly three years ago that he had ended up in her bed. New Year's Eve, and
they had both had too much to drink, especially him. He had woken up to a sight
he had not expected, and would never have wished for. With her hair out of its
persistent buns, falling over her shoulder and across her breast, she
admittedly didn't look as severe as he was used to seeing her, but this was not
his woman of choice. He had crept out of the room, taking care not to make any
noise that could waken her, and hid in his flat until the second of January.
For her part, Gisele
thought she was in love. Accepting that Brett wasn't, and that she had no cause to
be, was no easy task for the woman that the villagers had long dubbed 'The
Dragon', and it became no easier when, twelve months later, Bella Thompson
became Mrs. Charles.
Gisele had trouble even
looking at the beautiful brunette, especially since... But she couldn't help
herself just now, and her gaze was drawn back into the body of the pub. There she was in all of her distended glory. Gisele could not help but wonder
at the transformation of the model-like figure into this, still highly
attractive, woman who looked liked she had a beach ball shoved up her dress.
And then it happened. A
thought shot, unasked for, into her head. A thought so shocking, even to her,
that she nearly choked on her Guinness, inadvertently spraying Brett's
immaculate floral shirt:
'I'll get even with you. Maybe not directly, but certainly through that as yet unborn brat of yours'.
'I'll get even with you. Maybe not directly, but certainly through that as yet unborn brat of yours'.
End of chapter