The Holy City by Patrick McCabe Page B

his trouser pockets, finding himself infuriated and affronted. What, he asked himself, is this all about? He hadn’t come into the supermarket to be confronted by unnecessarily provocative sights such as this, he told himself.
    But that was nothing to what was coming. Only seconds later, as a matter of fact, when, quite unexpectedly, he found himself staring in open-mouthed astonishment as, curling her lip, she gazed directly at him, giving her figure-hugging black dress the most provocative little
tug.
    Before patting her hips and for no reason exclaiming:
    â€” Oops!
    The councillor rolled out into the deafening clamour of the Cullymore afternoon. With confluent trickles of perspiration shining on his forehead. He stood in the edgy sanctuary of a dark alleyway, repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists. It was this same official who had made the impassioned speech. Who had posed the definitive question to his colleagues:
What on earth was going on in Cullymore?
    At the fashion show Dolly had been wearing a beautifully cut A-line dress with matching black stilettos. Her unblemished appearance, as the MC had pointed out, was accentuated by her sparing use of Max Factor pancake make-up, whose brand was also responsible for her pastel pearly pink lip colour called Strawberry Meringue. Her gloves, it emerged, were by Dent’s, and were a cream pair in cotton, always the hallmark of the lady.
    The other ladies acquitted themselves admirably throughout the remainder of the show, it has to be said. But afterwards they too began to flock around Dolly, with even greater enthusiasm now than the men. Breathlessly plying her with questions about handbags — and whether she used a lip brush or not. It was as if the spotlight never seemed to desert her. The real Ruby Murray would have had her work cut out to compete — Ruby Murray, who could do no wrong in the UK charts.
    â€”
Softly softly,
the women sighed as Dolly walked by, making heroic efforts not to savagely consume their pendulous, defeated underlips.
    But more action was to follow later on in the Good Times.
    Dolly had been sitting at the bar with some friends when Ronnie Hilton the owner called on her for a song. There was to be no dissent on this occasion either. That evening was declared ‘the best so far!’. For no sooner had she ascended the stage than, without any warning whatsoever, she smacked her thigh and launched into a fast and furious up-tempo version of the Muriel Day hit ‘Wages of Love’,sassily curling the microphone cable, puckering her nose and pouting her lips as she did the twist right down to her hunkers.
    The pub was completely packed now, going wild as Dolly Mixtures gave no indication of desisting, wiggling her ample hips and thrusting out her sequined bosom, snapping her fingers as she launched into ‘Fruit Cake’, raising her dress high as before. Wolf whistles soared and the fever intensified.
    â€”
Yummy delisch!
sang Dolly, running her tongue along her lips as she sensuously swayed:
    â€” It’s Miss O’Leary’s Irish fruit cake!
    Her performance being so powerful that there wasn’t a man present in the bar who didn’t go home, thinking: I’m fantastic! For it’s plainly obvious that Dolly finds it hard to physically resist —
me
!
    Except that they were deceiving themselves, for the final number she sang that night — it was dedicated solely, well, to what person do you think?
    Yes, the one and only, specially chosen
Mr Wonderful!
    So was it any wonder that the nascent Simon Templar, self-styled cool globetrotting bachelor of the sixties, would remain casually at the bar, sipping dry Martinis? For he was clearly moving into the big league now. As the diminuendo of the piano’s tinkling treble gave way to Tony Bennett’s secular hymn to the manifold delights of ‘The Good Life’.
    â€” You look beautiful, Miss McCausland, I said with a laugh,