Chapter 2

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'.

End of chapter