Page 1 of What Would Dolly Do?

I stared into the mirror and the face of Dolly Parton stared right back at me.

I wasn’t hallucinating, she was sitting right there, the undisputed queen of country music; bouffant blonde hair, bright blue eyeshadow and lips painted in ‘Harlot Red’.

I noticed she looked a little more weary than usual, but it was Dolly nonetheless.

I blinked back tears as I realised my performance income was going to take an even bigger nosedive now I’d lost my very own Kenny Rogers. Damn Robbie, he’d picked a fine time to leave me, hadn’t he?

I took a last look at the woman in the mirror, platinum blonde hair piled high on top with cutesy tendrils framing her sad face.

Even in despair, I thought Dolly looked glamorous and alluring.

That was the best thing about dressing up as the queen of country music – as Dolly, every fibre of my being was set to full dazzle; you couldn’t dip your headlights when you performed as Dolly.

Even sitting here, in the cluttered, poky storeroom that doubled as my dressing room, my heartbreak had an air of tragic glamour while I still resembled divine Dolly.

Once she’d been removed, with the help of half a pot of Nivea, my misery would have nowhere to hide.

It was now time to perform the opposite of the make-over Dolly had given herself.

I was about to take away everything that made me feel confident enough to stand on a stage and perform to an audience night after night.

Piece by piece, bit by bit, I would soon revert to my own ‘plain Jane’ status and simply be single, soon-to-be-thirty-five, Becky Mooney.

I lifted Dolly’s wig off and placed it on the mannequin head on the dressing table.

My own light brown hair was pinned up so, as I plucked at the grips holding it in place, it stuck out in all directions even as it fell back down to my shoulders.

I wiped away the arches of turquoise blue eyeshadow and peeled off the spidery jet-black eyelashes revealing something I did have in common with Dolly Parton, my green eyes.

Me, Dolly and the flame-haired temptress Jolene from the hit song all shared the same unusual eye colour.

I wasn’t so blessed in the bosom department, however.

Sticking my hand inside my shiny pink jacket, I yanked out the foam domes that gave me an impressive Dolly-esque embonpoint.

Now my waist didn’t look so teeny tiny as it did with them in and, once I’d discarded the matching flared trousers and sky-high platform silver sandals, my thighs would look a bit chunkier too.

It was always a bit depressing to see the normal version of myself reflected in the harsh lights of the dressing room mirror; black hoody over blue jeans, white trainers on my feet ready to run for the last bus back to my flat on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Sometimes, I would have to exit through a bar where the audience had just cheered and whooped as I’d finished a show with a final singalong encore of ‘9 to 5’ and not one person would recognise me. What a way to make a living.

On the bus twenty minutes later, I let myself think about what Robbie had told me just moments before we had to entertain 250 people with our ‘Dolly & Kenny Country Music Spectacular’.

His timing was awful, that was for sure.

The social club had been bursting at the seams with the friends, family and associates of a local businessman celebrating his 50th birthday.

We couldn’t let them down. No matter what happens, I always try to follow the oldest rule in showbiz, ‘ The Show Must Go On’ .

It was just like Robbie though, I thought to myself bitterly, his timing had always been terrible. I don’t think he’d ever come in at the right place in the second verse of ‘Islands in the Stream’ in all the years we’d worked together!

‘I’m moving to Peterborough,’ he’d said, although I’d had to ask him to repeat himself as he’d been fixing his ’Kenny’ beard in place and all I’d heard was a muffled mumble that had sounded like ‘I moo moo piddle butter’ which didn’t make much sense, even for Robbie.

‘Eh?’ I’d said as I’d pulled a wide studded belt another notch tighter to cinch my waist in just an extra smidge more.

He’d stopped fiddling with his silvery stick-on whiskers and stood by my side in front of the dressing room mirror, addressing my reflection instead of facing me properly. The coward.

‘I’m moving to Peterborough,’ he’d repeated and I’d looked back at the two of us stood side by side, a rectangle of lightbulbs framing us, a Scottish Spitting Image version of country music’s best-loved star couple.

I remember noticing a couple of bulbs had blown and one was flickering, which created a distinctly less starry image than the one the real Dolly and Kenny would project. Typical.

There hadn’t been time to get into the full-scale, screaming, humdinger of a row this casually dropped bombshell really deserved.

The sweaty face of Jock McIntyre, the club’s resident emcee, had poked itself around the dressing room door warning us we had just five minutes before the show began.

I’d just had time to discover that Robbie was leaving me to be manager of a pub in Peterborough.

I’d always figured the bar job he’d had for the last few years in a small club off the Edinburgh Mile was just a thing he did to top up his showbiz earnings.

I hadn’t realised he saw it as an actual career.

‘It’s a promotion, Becky,’ he’d said. ‘It’s a big place and I can really put my own stamp on it. It’s the chance of a lifetime.’

Robbie’s idea of a life-changing opportunity was clearly very different from mine and it was a lame excuse for leaving me in the lurch and I told him so.

Not only was he wrecking my singing career by leaving me Kenny-less, he was also presumably ending our romantic relationship.

Under absolutely no circumstances would I be moving to Peterborough – I wasn’t even completely sure where it was?

‘It’s not really a romantic relationship though is it, Becky?

Be honest,’ he’d countered, waggling his fingers in the air when he said the words ‘romantic relationship’ as I attempted to claim he was leaving me heartbroken, bereft and abandoned.

‘It’s really only ever been a friends with benefits arrangement, hasn’t it?

For both of us. Don’t try to pretend this has ever been some big love affair. ’

Robbie spoke kindly, with no malice, and he had a point.

My on/off relationship with him for the last six years could probably be described as a case of ‘love the one you’re with’ as opposed to either of us being with someone we truly, passionately adored.

There hadn’t even been that many ‘benefits’ on offer in recent months either, now I came to think about it.

As my bus climbed another hill, noisily grinding its gears as it did so, I struggled to precisely remember how we’d even made the transition from singing partners to bedfellows.

We’d always got on okay, most of the time, and beneath the Kenny Rogers wig and whiskers Robbie wasn’t unattractive, but my murky memory recalled a sparsely attended gig in Aberdeen as the turning point.

A couple of lairy blokes heckling from the bar and too many shots of tequila to comfort ourselves afterwards had been the key to us tumbling into bed and stumbling into being a couple.

It wasn’t really anything to write a love song about, if I was telling the truth.

So, as I’d taken to the stage at tonight’s 50th birthday bash and launched into a jaunty version of ‘Two Doors Down’ singing about dancing and having a party, I was already beginning to reconcile myself to the fact my relationship with Robbie had run its course.

Sweeping my eyes along the row of middle-aged revellers already jigging about to the music and lapping up my dizzy-Dolly Americana patter, I was less worried about the vacancy in my love life and more worried about the impending one on stage.

How could I carry on as a solo performer and keep gigging without my ‘Kenny’?

Punters always loved the well-known duets we did like ‘We’ve Got Tonight’ and ‘Islands in the Stream’ …

how would I be able to do those alone? And Robbie’s solo renditions of ‘Ruby’, ‘The Gambler’ and ‘Coward of the County’ gave me the necessary time for costume changes.

The audience appreciated my Dolly outfits becoming increasingly colourful and star-spangled as our set went on.

As more questions popped into my mind, I had to force myself to slap on Dolly’s famous megawatt smile and push my worries away as I performed, for the sake of the audience.

I knew all too well that no one ever wants to see a downbeat Dolly.

Back to being Becky on the bus, I almost missed my stop as I gave in to fretting for my Dolly Parton future.

Having Dolly as my alter ego was more than just a showbiz sideline, and Robbie knew that.

How could he do this to me? He must know how hard it would be for me to consider going on alone.

Perhaps Dolly and I had reached the end of the country road and I’d have to follow Robbie after all.

Not to Peterborough … I wasn’t that desperate …

although I had now learned it was in Cambridgeshire …

who knew? But perhaps it was time to turn my back on showbusiness, enter civvy street and get a ‘proper job’ working 9 to 5 full-time?