The West Enders: Episode Three

Welcome to the pub, the King George III, or “the George” as it is known to the dolls. It’s the favourite watering hole of the local singles, many of whom you can see here. Holding hands at the table, we find Midge Sherwood and Sam McLaughlin. The fact that they are holding hands is something new. Midge and Sam have been “together” for several months but Midge has been very frustrated at how slowly their relationship seems to have been going. Sam is an actor and Midge is the local psychotherapist. Sam was immediately attracted to Midge because she seemed so natural, so genuine, so different from the actresses and models among whom he normally found himself. Their “dates” have been hours together in coffee shops and in the doll house talking and talking and talking. Midge finds Sam incredibly physically attractive and wonders when their relationship will move beyond the talking stage. On those rare occasions when they touch, her heart flutters and she hopes… but nothing ever happens. But today Sam sees her in her gorgeous holiday clothes and finally notices how lovely she is and thinks he’s been taking her for granted. Will sparks finally fly between them? Stay tuned…

Mira Tan and Tommy Lu are in the back of the pub, deep in conversation. Mira owns the local yoga studio and is active in promoting community events. She’s an immigrant from Malaysia, a Buddhist and vegetarian, but is known to enjoy a pint occasionally. She is beloved by all the dolls for her calm, kindness, and for being eminently sensible. She likes to dress in traditional clothes and so when she dons sexy holiday garb, everyone is slightly taken aback. Tommy seems to find her quite attractive. He’s a relative newcomer to the doll house, a business associate of Barbie’s.

Sutton Matthews, in the striped tie, is another relative newcomer to the doll house. Sutton came to the UK from the USA to play basketball, a sport that is gaining in popularity on this side of the pond. Merida MacDonald, with the gorgeous red hair, thinks he’s the hottest thing she’s seen in ages. Merida is a former model with the Barbie agency, always in a state of discontent, always seeking something new, especially if it comes wrapped in a handsome male package, like Sutton. Merida hasn’t decided what she wants to do with her life but saved enough money from her modelling days to give herself a little time to think about it. Unfortunately, she seems to do most of her thinking in the pub. She hails from Scotland originally. We’ll meet her sister Luna a little later. In keeping with the international flavour of the doll house, Sandra González hails from Spain and Steven Obi, although born and raised in England, comes from a family that immigrated from Nigeria. Sandra is another business woman who started her professional life working for the Barbie Agency. She remains one of Barbie’s closest friends. Steven is a former model and they originally met at the agency. For him, it was love – or lust – at first sight. Unfortunately, Steven’s reputation as a womaniser has preceded him and Sandra is not interested in being his newest conquest. Steven and Merida had a long passionate affair during which Steven was regularly unfaithful until he finally dumped her and then proceeded to seduce his way through the rest of the agency. He’s convinced that his passion for Sandra is the real thing this time. She’s not and keeps him at arm’s length. But he just won’t take no for an answer. She seems to tolerate him, if nothing more.

Charlotte Armstrong is Ken’s sister. Another former model, her career was far more successful than his, reaching supermodel status. She hated the modelling business, however, and yearned constantly for something more fulfilling. She thinks she has found it at last. She has always been a keen yogi and is now doing yoga teacher training with Mira. Liam Hemingway, Sam’s best friend, is busy chatting her up, but she’s not really interested. Liam is an actor as well, and has been working his way through the various beautiful dolls in the house trying to get lucky. No luck so far. Merida is looking a bit shocked because the last time she saw Liam, he was trying to chat up her sister Luna.

We’ve already met Kevin, pub owner and manager, and Yvette, barmaid, so we’ll move on to two dolls who link us to our next episode in which we’ll meet the students and the band. This is Pierre Tomy and Yuki Yukimura. Yuki’s been a regular on the blog, but has never been properly introduced. Yuki is a university student from Japan, studying fine arts. She’s eschewed romance for most of her time in the doll house, but has suddenly developed a passion for Pierre, the optometrist who works in the Medical Centre. They met over the summer at a barbecue in the garden, when Pierre overheard Yuki and her best friend Momoko speaking Japanese. He joined in their conversation to their surprise and Yuki’s delight. Pierre speaks French, English and Japanese fluently. He’s a classical musician as well as an optometrist and spent much of his life in Japan. Yuki is smitten, but Momoko doesn’t understand the attraction at all. We’ll meet Momoko formally in the next episode.

What’s this? It looks like Sam and Midge are heading out… So we shall follow them!

And now, we’d better leave them…

 

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