Page 18 of What Would Dolly Do?

‘I’ll summon Ferg in the traditional manner,’ Laura said as she reached for a broom leaning against the wall by the Aga. She gave three hard thumps on the ceiling with the top of the long handle then stood with her head on one side, waiting. We all waited. I had no clue what we were waiting for.

Within seconds there was a bump on the floor above followed by the sound of footfall creaking across floorboards and then the louder, thumpety-thump of feet pounding down the stairs.

‘TOM! … My Man!’ A lanky guy with a wild quiff of brown hair wearing Buddy Holly-style black-rimmed glasses burst into the kitchen.

His stubbly face broke into a huge grin as he pulled Tom in for a hug, his oversized paisley-patterned shirt flapping around his skinny body as he gave me a friendly wink.

It was easy to feel at ease with Fergus and Laura and despite them having such obviously easy banter with Tom, I was instantly included and never made to feel surplus to the conversation.

It turned out they’d heard of Sonny’s and had been once or twice before I took over, and they eagerly promised to pay another visit soon now they knew that I was in charge.

They filled me in on how Ferg had been friends with Tom since high school.

‘That’s how I got to know Laura,’ Fergus said.

‘He might even make an honest woman of her one of these days,’ Tom said as Laura swatted at him with a tea towel.

I didn’t get the impression Laura was the sort of woman who was living her life waiting for a big white wedding.

She wore denim cut-off shorts with a sleeveless white t-shirt, armfuls of bangles and a cool collection of silver pendants around her neck. She looked pretty, but powerful.

‘Ow!’ Tom pretended to be hurt by the thwack from Laura’s towel whip and then as if he was reading my mind said, ‘Her middle name is “feisty” you know …’

Laura grinned and said she had considered ‘Feisty’ as a name for her daughter at one point. ‘But in the end, we went for Stevie, after Stevie Nicks.’

‘Great name,’ I said. Could this couple be any cooler? ‘And Reggie?’ I hardly thought it likely that Ferg and Laura had named their youngest after one of The Krays. I knew there must be a story behind the choice but I was struggling to think of appropriate inspiration.

‘Ahh well, Reggie was inspired by our song.’ Fergus looked at Tom and then me before he added, ‘Every couple ends up having a song, don’t they?

’ I knew exactly what he meant but I’d never been in the sort of relationship where we nominated a slushy song to be ‘our tune’.

Although I supposed Robbie and I could have said ‘Islands in the Stream’ was ours; it must have qualified after we sang it together as Dolly & Kenny so many times.

Ferg glanced at Laura then and started laughing. ‘Go on Laura, you know you want to …’

Laura narrowed her eyes for a moment and held his gaze.

She looked quite serious before suddenly slapping her hand on the table and bursting into the opening line to ‘Wild Thing’.

She had a strong, raspy voice not particularly melodic but what she lacked in musicality she made up for in enthusiasm. She might be small but she was mighty.

‘Wild thing … I think I love you,’ answered Fergus in reply to the impressive impromptu performance given by the mother of his children.

I burst into spontaneous applause. Why on earth had I presumed Ferg and Laura’s song would be soppy and romantic? ‘Of course! Reg Presley and The Troggs! I love that song.’

Ferg and Laura grinned at each other, then at me.

‘Excellent!’ Tom said with real satisfaction. ‘You passed the initiation test. They’ll let us stay now. That’s a relief.’

I laughed at that. He meant stay for just a little while, didn’t he?

My mind started working overtime as that thought struck me.

I hadn’t been home since Saturday morning when I’d set off for work around lunchtime to get things ready for the open mic night at the bar that evening.

That seemed a hell of a long time ago. I’d made full use of all the free toiletries in Tom’s hotel room and I was wearing the fresh Nashville t-shirt that he’d loaned me but I didn’t want to push my luck.

I was proud to be low maintenance but even I had some standards.

I quietly asked Laura if I could use the bathroom and grabbed my bag as she pointed me down the hall.

Once inside the downstairs loo I quickly checked to see if I had enough of my ‘emergency kit’ stashed in my slouchy blue leather handbag.

It was amazing how much I could cram inside the well-worn leather of this thing.

Robbie used to call me ‘Mary Poppins’ as I’d often yank assorted stuff from its depths.

Years of gigging had taught me you should always try to carry certain things at all times in case you were unable to get home after a show or decided at the last moment to stay over somewhere.

I already knew I had a small tube of toothpaste and a travel toothbrush in my make-up bag as I’d used them last night and again this morning, along with a spritz from the small bottle of perfume I always had with me.

Tick. Also in there would be bronzer and a face brush to bring a bit of colour and shimmer to my face along with a couple of lipsticks and a small tin of Vaseline which could be used on eyelashes and eyebrows.

Tick. Tick. So far so good. I dug around a bit deeper into the bag feeling around for a small drawstring bag.

It should be in there but sometimes I needed the contents of my emergency kit and then forgot to replenish the supplies.

Aha. Bingo. Safely tucked at the bottom of my trusty bag, two pairs of spare knickers, one pair of socks, two panty liners and three tampax.

No high maintenance woman could survive with such limited supplies but they would adequately suffice for low maintenance me.

Despite carrying an emergency travel kit, I wasn’t used to being ‘whisked’ anywhere by a bloke, but hey, I decided I might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Meeting family members of a man I was seeing was also a brand new one on me.

No relationship I’d ever had before had led to family get-togethers, Christmas with the in-laws or holidays en famille.

Things had never progressed that far, even with Robbie.

I’d got used to the idea that meeting someone who I’d want to do that sort of thing with was never going to happen.

My mum had told me so often that meeting a soul mate, like she had with my dad, was such a rare thing in life that I’d simply stopped believing it was ever going to happen for me.

After a spell of car-crash relationships with mad boys, sad boys and bad boys, I’d given up.

My relationships, few as they were, had since then been pretty unremarkable, Robbie included.

But at least that way I wasn’t getting my heart broken anymore.

Not that I was thinking Tom was going to be my one true love.

Oh good grief no. This was a very unexpected but lovely interruption to my regular life.

I was sure normal service would be resumed very soon but for now I was prepared to go with the flow with a man who was fun and exciting, had a lovely sister and a cool friend.

Here in this ramshackle house it was even harder to think of him as a star, I realised.

I could let myself treat this like a holiday romance in my own city.

Why not? Now I knew I could keep myself clean and presentable if the opportunity to stay over occurred, I was up for it.

Whatever the world threw at me now I was ready. Bring. It. On.

Well, that’s what I’d thought as I emerged from the loo to see Tom, Ferg and Laura with their heads bent conspiratorially over a large biscuit tin in the middle of the kitchen table.

As I came back into the room three pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction and I had the distinct impression they had been talking about me.

I had thought I was ready for anything but did Tom have more up his checked shirt sleeve than I had bargained for?