Fiona Harper - The Doris Day Vintage Film Club

And she wasn’t about to fill the space he’d left behind just because she wanted someone to talk to on a long plane journey. She was enjoying her freedom too much. A few years of staying put in London was a small price to pay for being able to do what she wanted, to fly as high as she could, without those little comments, sharp and penetrating as sniper’s bullets, bringing her smashing back down to earth again.

‘Well, if you won’t come to Rarotonga with me, how about an evening out in the West End?’

Claire blinked and refocused on Doug. She sighed. ‘We’ve talked about dating too.’

‘Oh, it’s not a date,’ he said with a surprisingly straight face. Only the glitter in his eyes gave him away. ‘It’s a party.’

Claire opened her mouth to ask what the difference was, but he barrelled on.

‘Jayce Rider, the guy who took over the Hamilton Hotel and turned its fortunes around is a friend of mine. He likes to throw parties for people in the travel industry and he’s planning one a week tomorrow. I thought you might like to come with me. For purely business reasons, of course.’

She hesitated. Actually, she’d been looking to develop relationships with a couple of high-end London hotels, hoping to be able to give her treasured clients a little bit of luxury at a discount. The Hamilton would be perfect.

She kept her expression neutral as she looked at Doug. ‘I’ll think about it.’

He grinned back at her, reminding her of a puppy who’d been scolded only moments before, but was now wagging its tail, transgression already half forgotten. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said, as he rose from his chair and saluted her farewell.

Claire half stood in her chair as he disappeared out of the door. ‘There’ll be ground rules!’ she yelled after him. He didn’t shout anything back, so she wasn’t sure he’d heard her, but, even if he had, she suspected he might find a way to circumvent them.

She let her bottom bump back down into her office chair and then slumped face first onto her desk. The morning was already so clammy that her cheek instantly stuck to the polished surface.

Was that what Doug’s little visit had been all about?

Had he used her guilt at saying no to an all-expenses paid honeymoon to manoeuvre her into saying yes to the party? Which she hadn’t actually done, she reminded herself, even though it felt as if she had.

She peeled her face off the desk and sat up, then stared at her computer screen, thinking she ought to book the whole blooming trip anyway – two tickets, first class but non-refundable, and twin rooms all the way so he had to share with his Gorgon of a mother. Hah! The cancellation fees alone would make him think twice before he pulled another stunt like that on her, before he started messing with her head—

She inhaled sharply.

Claire, you’re being paranoid.

Not every man she met was out to use her as a pawn in his twisted little games. She had to remember that.

She scrubbed her face with her hands and stared out through the open door across the courtyard to Sweet Nothings, and suddenly remembered her Frappuccino perched on the edge of the desk. Half the ice had melted and one side of the swirl of cream had sunk into the liquid, making it look like a rapidly fading iceberg. She took a sip anyway. It was warmer than she would have liked, but at least she wasn’t in danger of brain freeze.

After a couple of slurps of the cool liquid she began to feel a bit more normal again. She laughed softly at herself.

Stupid woman. Of course Doug wasn’t manipulating her. Everything he felt and thought was instantly written all over his face. He didn’t have it in him to scheme and push and lie. Doug Martin had that going for him at least.

The gravity of this revelation hit her. Her eyes opened wide as she reached the bottom of the Frappuccino and it made a loud vacuum-like sound. That meant Doug had one up on almost every other man who’d played a significant role in her life, which made him a much better prospect than she’d given him credit for.

Yikes. That was a seriously sad state of affairs.

She laughed again and shook herself as she aimed the empty Frappuccino cup towards the bin and scored a mental point for getting it in first time. She stood up and reached for her purse. Maybe she should go and get herself a fresh one. If she was starting to consider Doug Martin as prime boyfriend material, the heat of this sticky May morning was definitely getting to her.

The Doris Day Film Club met on Tuesday evenings in the upper room of The Glass Bottom Boat, a shabby little pub on the fringes of Highbury and Islington that had, as yet, escaped the clutches of developers who wanted to transform it into yet another fashionable and minimalist wine bar. Some of the other pubs in the area were cool and grungy, the kind with bare plaster and sanded floorboards that had live music and open mike nights. The Glass Bottom Boat was just plain grungy.

There was no air conditioning in the upper room, just walls covered with red flock wallpaper, a carpet guaranteed to make one’s eyes hurt and rickety tables and chairs that had been stained with dark varnish in an effort to make them look ‘rustic’ instead of just old and broken. The only way to get more air into the room was to wedge the two large windows open as wide as they could go, which wasn’t far, seeing as they were almost glued shut with four decades’ worth of paint and half the sash ropes were missing.

It was a small space, only needing twenty people to fill it to the rafters, so on this muggy evening, the eight members of the Doris Day Film Club fitted in quite comfortably.

The room’s saving grace, and the only reason the club continued to meet here month after month, was the massive, state-of-the-art 52-inch flat-screen TV that almost filled one wall. The landlord had installed it when the last World Cup had been on, and had intended to play sports on it twenty-four-seven, but on Tuesday nights it belonged to the Doris Day Film Club and them alone.

On the table nearest the window was Bev, dressed in a pastel blouse and beige slacks. She was giving a younger woman the highlights of her last visit to the chiropodist. Candy, a yummy mummy in her late thirties, was suitably grossed out but trying to hide it, while simultaneously studying her own stiletto-encased feet under the table and wondering if bunions were looming perilously close in her future too.

On the table next door were Kitty and Grace, two vintage fashion queens in their early twenties, who thought anything retro was cooler than cool and never left their houses without their eyeliner wings and crimson lipstick. Kitty was flirting with George, bless him, the lone male of their intimate little society. Everyone had assumed he was gay at first, but it turned out he was just a sweet old bachelor who’d fallen in love with Doris at the age of eleven when his mother had bribed him with a quarter of gobstoppers to accompany her to the flicks to watch Move Over, Darling. He’d never been able to find a woman to match Doris after that, so he’d never tried, didn’t think it would be fair to his bride to always play second fiddle to such perfection. Of course, he didn’t mind it when a pretty young thing like Kitty gave him a bit of attention, even though it made him blush furiously.

Finally, gathered round a square table that had one of its legs propped up by a folded beer mat, were two of the three-strong committee. Claire sat in the central chair and stared at the gossiping group with vague dismay. It was getting harder and harder to start on time nowadays. Quite a few unlikely friendships were budding. Never in her life had she been in more need of a loudhailer.