Chapter 14

Cal drove me over to Fallowfield after school on Thursday. I was shocked at the amount the insurance companies wanted to insure me to drive, but my dad came up with a solution. We registered the car in the name of the company and insured it for ‘any driver with the permission of the company secretary.’ That at least brought it down under two thousand pounds.

I followed her back to the hotel, where to my surprise, instead of heading inside, she parked her car next to mine, opened the passenger door and got in.

“Let’s go find somewhere out in the country to eat,” she said as she buckled her seat belt, “come on, driver, let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Monton,” she replied.

“Where’s that?”

“Head for Salford, then Eccles. I’ll direct you from there using my phone.”

“No need,” I replied, “the car has Sat Nav built-in. Where are we heading?”

“Crompton’s at the Waterside, it’s supposed to be very good and, for once, I’m going to buy you your dinner to celebrate passing your test.”

“Well thank you but you don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.”

I leaned over and kissed her.

“Then, thank you, I accept.”

“You can thank me properly when we get back,” she said, “my bag’s in the back of my car.”

I was reminded of a joke I’d seen recently. ‘What’s the best way to get your girlfriend to stop demanding constant sex? Marry her.’

The trouble was, there was no way we were anywhere near that point and wouldn’t be for some considerable time to come. I sighed internally and gave myself up to my fate.

Dinner at Crompton’s was excellent, good food, well prepared and beautifully presented, although I have to admit, my personal preference is to eat off a plate rather than a slate roof tile or a wooden block.

We hadn’t been in the room for more than two minutes when we got back to the hotel before Cal started taking her clothes off.

Before she could get the buttons of her blouse undone I caught her hands in mine.

“Just stop for a minute, Cal, let’s sit down and talk.”

“What’s wrong, David. What is it? Are you, are you finishing with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Cal and no, I’m not finishing with you.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Cal, I just want to sort one or two things, around the subject of us. I promise you, it’s nothing bad.”

“I love you,” she said quietly.

“And I love you,” I replied, “that’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

“I’ve been thinking,” I began, “we’ve been best friends pretty much since we were five years old. Then when we were fourteen, thanks to some pushing from my Mum and with the help of yours, we decided that we wanted to be more than just best friends.”

“And then we started going at it like a pair of really horny rabbits,” she said.

“Something like that,” I said, “and I think that was where things went wrong. We went too far, too fast.”

“So are you saying we shouldn’t make love anymore?”

“No,” I replied, “not that, I think that what I’m saying is we should just be boyfriend and girlfriend for a while, go out on dates, kiss a lot, work up to it. Be like all our friends who are paired up. We have a big advantage, neither of us is on a limited budget. We own houses. Between us, we must be getting on for the richest teenagers in Yorkshire, if not in England. Right now it seems that the only reason we’re together, is for sex. Is that really the relationship you want?”

She looked at me and, for a moment, I thought she might be about to burst into tears, but she caught herself and smiled, that little lop-sided smile she had that melted my heart.

“I have been a bit ‘in your face’ about it haven’t I?” she said, “And I think you’re mainly right, but you’re not suggesting giving it up completely are you?”

“No, just calming it down a bit and being a couple, doing other things together. Now we have two cars we’re more mobile, we can go off and do things without you having to do all the driving. And we have your end of term dance tomorrow.”

“Can we come back here after that?” she asked.

“I was planning on it.”

That brought her big luminous smile back.

“And I suppose you’ll be thinking that, since you took me to a dance, I’d be willing to let you take liberties with me?”

“I was planning on that too.”

“You men are all the same,” she said, “just because you take a girl out and have fun, you expect her to put out in exchange.”

“Cal,” I said softly, “I’ll make you a promise. You will never, ever be expected to ‘put out’ for me. However, if you will consent to make love with me, I will agree to do the same with you.”

“That sounds good,” she said, then we kissed.

When we broke the kiss I started to tug her top out of her waistband.

“Does it count as consent if I just don’t tell you to stop?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said, “it has to be positive.”

“Well, I’m positive I want you to make love to me. Is that positive enough?”

“It will do.”

She left for school after breakfast on Friday morning with instructions to me to pick her up from school at five-thirty and we’d go and eat then to on to her end of year dance.

Once she’d left I took a good look at myself in the mirror and decided that a haircut wouldn’t hurt me, so I went walking down Deansgate to find a barber. I found a good one, not one of those any style you like so long as it’s short back and sides but one that actually styled hair. It seemed that Robin, the guy who ran it, had been the senior hairstylist at Granada TV Studios until he’d become disillusioned with the egotism of all the ‘bloody poncey actors’ and left to start up his own business.

He was good, but he did blush slightly when he asked me what I was doing in Manchester and I told him I was a ‘bloody poncey actor’ preparing for a part in my next film.

“Sorry,” he said, “no offence intended.”

“None taken,” I replied, “I’ve worked with a few of them.”

By the time I was finished, it was getting towards lunchtime, so I stopped off and got myself a take-away sandwich and coffee and took them back to the hotel and ate while spending a couple of hours with my script. I was pretty confident by this time that I could just step in front of the cameras and start.

I did get a phone call during the afternoon, from James in LA. It was early, only about six-thirty over there, so I decided I’d better answer it if it was getting him into the office at that time.

“Hi James,” I said, “do you have bad news to impart?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because, while it’s mid-afternoon here, it’s six-thirty in the morning over there and you’re in the office,” I suggested.

“Not bad news, just news.,” he replied, “can you be at Pinewood by next Wednesday?”

“I could,” I answered, “but why would I want to be?”

“Costume fittings and make-up tests.”

“I take it I’m on contract from then?” I asked.

“Yes, your thirteen weeks start from then, if the production overruns you go onto the penalty clause.”

“Good, while I don’t think Sam would ever do that to me, I don’t trust Disney.”

“And you’re right not to, these days they’re nothing but a bunch of sharks.”

“All right tell them I’ll be there and have them book me into a hotel,” I said.

“Will do,” he replied, “anything you need doing at this end?”

“Oh, on another note, they decided on Another Place as the final title for the TV show and it premieres on the network on August 2^nd. The preview results are very favourable. They may want you to tape some segments for talk shows.”

“That sounds doable, but they’ll have to be at Pinewood.”

“I’m not sure that would work,” he said, “they may want to do it at the TV studios in London.”

“Then it won’t happen, I’m not going to work on set until nine or ten pm then travel into London, do a show and travel back.”

“All right, I’ll pass that on,” he said.

“Good, anything else?”

“No we’re good for now, I’ll call you if anything crops up.”

Around four-thirty, I showered, redid my hair and dressed in a midnight blue dinner suit, white pleated front shirt and matching midnight blue bow tie and walked out to my car, drove into the centre of Salford, to a florist I’d contacted earlier in the week and picked up my order, a white Gardenia buttonhole for me and a small bunch of Gardenias for Cal. I would pin the flowers to her dress after we had eaten.

When Cal came down the stairs at the school, she was an absolute picture. Her dress, a proper ball gown was Emerald Green, highlighting her red hair and exactly matching her green eyes, hair up on top of her head, revealing her long, elegant neck. She drew a lot of admiring glances from fellow-students of both genders and every sexual orientation.

I walked across to her, took both her hands in mine and kissed her softly on the lips.

“You look absolutely wonderful tonight,” I said.

“It’s all for you,” she whispered in reply.

“You’re perfect,” I said.

“I know,” she replied, “lucky you.”

I smiled and we walked out hand in hand.

“Where are we going to eat?” she asked.

“Hawksmoor,” I replied.

“That’s one of the best restaurants in Manchester, how did you manage to get a table?”

“Amex Concierge service,” I replied, “they’ve never let me down yet.”

“But it’s very expensive,” she said.

“You’re worth it,” I replied, “besides this is a big night for you. You get to show off your film star boyfriend to all your friends at school, so we need to act like film stars.”

“What happened to, ‘I’m not a film star, I’m just a boy who’s made a film?’.”

“I’ve decided to embrace my destiny,” I said.

“Does this mean you’re not going to go to Uni anymore?”

“No, not at all,” I replied, “I still think it could all come crashing down tomorrow and I’m still going for my backup plan.”