Bad Heir Day Read Free Page B

in getting to know a group of delicious White Russians. After a while, emboldened by their company, she tottered unsteadily towards the dance floor and sank gratefully into a chair at the edge. The flashing lights made her head spin, as did the jerking forms of about thirty men in morning suits leaping around as the dying strains of “Love Shack” were replaced by “Come on Eileen.” Roaring and foot-stomping floated through the speakers. When “Fever” succeeded “Mustang Sally,” Anna felt the first urge to laugh she had experienced all day. The sight of Orlando Gossett writhing around and assuring some blonde, horsy woman in an Alice band that she gave him Fever All Through The Night made Anna snort with suppressed mirth.
    It was odd, Anna mused with the intensity of the inebriated, how people seemed happy to sacrifice all dignity in the face of really terrible music. Just what was it about “Hi Ho Silver Lining” that got couples leaping up from their tables? Why did “I Will Survive” prompt mass histrionic role-playing, or “YMCA” and “D.I.S.C.O.” have everyone waving their arms about like the compulsory morning workout at a Chinese ball-bearing factory? Most of all, why did the merest riff of Rolling Stones suddenly turn every man on the floor into Mick Jagger (in their dreams)? Even now, Orlando Gossett was prowling plumply around with one arm stuck straight out in front of him, rotating his wrist and imploring the horse-faced blonde to give him, give him, give him the honky tonk blues.
    The music changed, as it was inevitable it would do, to The Rocky Horror Picture Show ,and, as the heaving crowd on the dance floor shifted, Anna suddenly spotted her long-absent consort Doing the Time Warp Again. She watched, unsure whether the nauseous feeling in her stomach was because he was doing it a) at all, b) with a willowy, writhing someone bearing a striking resemblance to Brie de Benham, or c) because the effects of the White Russians were by now wearing off. Or possibly wearing on. Unable to reach a conclusion, or indeed anything else apart from the arm of the chair on which she kept a tight, stabilising grip, Anna watched their gyrating figures, oddly comforted by the fact that even the beautiful people looked ridiculous in the context of a really dreadful disco. It was a great leveller. Quite literally, she thought, as Orlando Gossett flicked to the right just a little bit too enthusiastically and went crashing heavily down on his well-upholstered bottom.
    “ Desperate ,isn’t it?” Anna had been too absorbed in watching the floorshow to notice that someone had sat down next to her. “Still, it beats L.A., I suppose,” added the voice. It belonged, Anna saw, to an extremely pretty girl.
    “It does?” Anna stared at her neighbour’s glossy tan and radiant teeth. “But I thought L.A. was full of beautiful people.”
    “It is. All the men are gay and all the women are gorgeous. The competition’s too stiff.”
    “But you look great,” Anna said. Certainly, her new friend hardly looked the shrinking violet type when it came to men. The only thing shrunken and violet about her, in fact, was the tiny lilac cashmere cardigan out of whose casually unbuttoned front a pair of tanned and generous breasts rose like the morning sun. Even in the dim light her smile was electric, emphasised by plum-coloured lipstick applied with architectural precision.
    “Thanks. As the lady said, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap.” The girl grinned, smoothing a black satin skirt slit the entire length of her thigh over her slender hips. She flicked a heavily mascara’d glance around the room. “It’s nice someone appreciates it. No one else seems to.” A precision-plucked eyebrow shot peevishly upwards. “Can’t say I’m too thrilled about having schlepped all the way up here,” she added. “I only came because I was told this wedding would be thick with millionaires. But I suppose”—she lit up