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‘It’s definitely over, then—your marriage?’ Star queried.
She knew that Lindsay and her husband had split up several months earlier. Her husband, from what Lindsay had said and from what Star had read between the stilted lines of explanation that she had been given, was apparently unable to accept the sudden success of his wife’s business and the fact that she was now the major breadwinner in their small household.
Star had only met Miles Reynolds briefly. He was, according to Lindsay, a hugely gifted and under-appreciated set designer. Star had found him sullen and inclined to try to put down his long-suffering wife.
It had been his decision to move out, because, or so he’d complained, it was obvious that Lindsay’s business success had gone to her head and now meant more to her than he did.
Lindsay had begged him to come back but Star had urged her not to give in to his emotional blackmail and to leave him to stew in his own sulks.
Now it seemed that the marriage was definitely over.
‘You’ll have to take care, when you file for divorce, to protect your ownership of the business,’ Star warned her now.
‘Divorce?’ Lindsay gave her a shocked look. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think...’ She lapsed back into silence, unwilling to admit to Star, whose views of marriage and men she now knew very well, that she still loved her husband and that there were times when, despite the fact that she knew he was behaving both childishly and selfishly, she missed him and ached for him so desperately that she was quite willing to give up the business completely just to have him back.
Only her common sense kept her from telling him so, and she knew that Star would be as little able to understand how she could continue to love him and to accept him as he was, faults and all, as Miles was to understand how important the stability afforded by her own business success was to her and her hopes for the future, for the family she had hoped they would one day have.
‘Remember,’ Star warned Lindsay as she dropped her off outside her front door, ‘no more freebies, no matter who asks for them; you don’t need them any more...’
‘No,’ Lindsay agreed meekly, bit her lip. Then she temporised, ‘Well, only the sitting room at the new centre they’re opening in town for the over-sixties. They deserve it, Star,’ she protested when she saw Star’s expression. ‘They’ve worked hard all their lives and they deserve a bit of comfort and care now; besides, I’ve already promised.’
Giving her a dry look, Star put her car back in gear. Some people were just too soft for their own good, she thought.
Once home, as she went through her post, she reran her answering machine to listen to her messages. Most of them were non-urgent; she tensed as she listened to one from her mother detailing the most recent instalment in the saga of her current romance. Star sighed as she heard the indignation mounting in her mother’s voice as she described the confrontation with her friend over the discovery that she, Star’s mother, was deeply embroiled in an affair with the friend’s still-not-quite-twenty-one-year-old son.
Shaking her head, Star wound the tape on. She would call her mother later.
There was a message from Tim saying that he wanted to discuss with her the story-boards that she had dropped off with him the week before.
These outlined the basics of a possible nationwide advertisement that she had thought of running to bring the company’s product into the public eye.
What she had in mind was to use a similar theme to that of a certain very successful coffee ad, by planning a set of ongoing ads that linked together in instalment form to make a story.
The first depicted the overheated atmosphere in an industrial setting without the benefit of any air-conditioning, coupled with the arrival of a visitor from a competitive business which had the benefit of Brad’s air conditioning units. To inject a little humour into the situation Star’s story-boards had depicted several of the extras in various states of undress. She intended to follow the first ad up with a second showing the coolly competent visitor offering the name of their air-conditioning supplier, but his rival deciding to use a cheaper and less reliable X brand.
Into the resultant chaos would walk the cool, important female buyer whose business both firms were competing for, at which point the X brand units would break down, allowing the user of Brad’s air-conditioning to sweep her off to his own cool and well-ordered factory where the deal could be agreed in true ad fashion with a clinch. At this point there would be a tongue in cheek stating that there was only one situation where an efficient air-conditioning system could be too efficient. The elegant female buyer would purr, ‘And is this how you turn it down...? Ah, yes... Goodness, it seems hot in here...’ Her hand would reach out to stop the man’s from turning it up again as she whispered, ‘I have a better idea,’ and reached behind her to undo the halter-neck tie of her top.
So far Star had only presented Tim with the first segment of the story, hoping to whet his appetite for the rest.
What she hoped to persuade him to do was to agree to a nationwide TV campaign. She had done her costings and was convinced that a successful campaign would fully justify the costs involved.
It wasn’t just Tim whom she would have to convince, though, she reminded herself; it was Brad as well.
Having checked her diary, she rang and left a message on Tim’s answering machine to confirm that the appointment he had suggested for the following morning was convenient.
As she left home the following morning, Star noticed that the ‘TO LET’ board for the flat adjacent to her own had disappeared, and she wondered briefly what her new neighbour would be like before concentrating on more important matters.
They were having an exceptionally good summer and the town was full of people in casual, brightly coloured clothes.
Star, in contrast, was quite formally dressed in a subtle beige pleated silk skirt and a contrasting cream silk long-line sleeveless top. Her skin tanned well despite the colour of her hair, going a warm peach rather than a deep bronze, and she was sardonically aware of the interest that she was creating amongst the male motorists at the garage when she stopped for petrol.
Resolutely refusing to make eye contact with the most persistent of them, she went to pay for her petrol. The garage sold basic groceries along with sweets and ice cream, and, whilst she was waiting to be served, on impulse, Star reached into the freezer for an ice cream— the kind that came on a stick and was covered in chocolate.
Having unwrapped it and disposed of the wrapper on her way back to her car, she had just unlocked the door when she heard a male voice to one side of her. ‘Very sexy... It’s really turning me on and making me hot, watching you suck that.’
Inwardly furious, but refusing to be intimidated or to show any kind of embarrassment or self-consciousness, Star turned round and looked coldly at him.
Middle-aged and besuited, he looked for all the world like the ‘Mr Average’ respectable family man he no doubt claimed that he was, and Star had no doubt that his wife would immediately have denied the very idea that her husband c
ould behave so offensively.
He was still leering at her and now he was looking at her breasts, Star observed, and she removed the ice cream from her mouth and told him with acid venom as she pushed the melting ice cream onto the front of his shirt, ‘Here—perhaps this will help you to cool down.’
Let him explain that to his wife if he dared, she thought.
As she spun round on her heel and got into her car she noticed that the garage forecourt was now empty apart from the obnoxious man’s saloon and a sturdy four-wheel drive which had drawn up at the other side of the pumps.
As she drove off she glanced at her watch. She had plenty of time to make her appointment with Tim. Mentally she rehearsed the argument that she had prepared to counter the objections she suspected he would have to such a high-profile and expensive campaign.
From his hired four-wheel drive, Kyle watched thoughtfully as Star slammed her car door and started her engine.
He had seen her crossing the forecourt as he had driven into the garage and had been on the point of walking over to speak to her when he had witnessed her confrontation with the other driver and overheard what he had said to her.
There was, in his book, no possible excuse for the other man’s behaviour, but he wondered what it was about certain people that caused them to attract to themselves situations which could only reaffirm their distorted views and suspicions of others. Was it, perhaps, due to some powerful cosmic force which had as yet to be scientifically identified? he mused fancifully as he went to pay for his own petrol. He doubted it.
He had been in Britain less than a week and had already discovered that although the climate was reputed to lack a certain warmth its people did not. Sally and Chris in particular had made him very welcome. Star, he suspected, would greet his arrival with considerably less enthusiasm.
‘I don’t think Star realises that you’re actually going to be taking over from Tim,’ Sally had confided to him the previous evening when she and Chris had invited him round for dinner. ‘I know she can seem a little difficult—’ she had begun in defence of her friend, but Chris had interrupted her acerbically.
