Page 31 of What Would Dolly Do?

I hadn’t known Heather and Teresa were in the social club where I was gigging with Mum and Dad.

They’d both come along with Teresa’s dad who had got into trouble with his ex-wife for previously letting his daughter run feral when it was his turn to have her.

So on this particular night he’d insisted on dragging her along to the social club while he met up with his mates and leered over their wives.

He’d agreed Teresa could bring a friend to keep her company and out of his thinning hair, he wouldn’t have wanted her to cramp his dad-bod, beery-breath style.

The first I’d known that my schoolmates were at the club was after we’d sung a couple of songs.

The crowd were receptive and the applause was warm.

That’s the best you could hope for in a social club where people came along week after week to hang out with their mates no matter what acts are on.

They did pay some attention but they were also chatting among themselves and heading up and down to the bar.

It was what it was. The entertainment in those sorts of places isn’t really the draw, they hadn’t bought a ticket to see you specifically, but they did expect value for money for the weekly subs they paid to be a member.

As the Moonshine Trio, we prided ourselves on being a popular act that got rebooked often, so we knew what was expected of us and always delivered.

Occasionally we might get someone calling out a request for a song which we’d do our best to accommodate, we were there to please the crowd after all.

Hecklers were very, very rare, so it was unusual to hear a couple of voices calling out on that night while Mum introduced our next song.

She’d put her hand up to shade her eyes from the spotlight and peered out into the darkened room.

‘What’s that you’re saying, love?’ she’d asked pleasantly.

Mum was a trooper, it would take more than a woman who’d had a few too many wines to put her off.

‘WE WANT BECKY!’ the voice had yelled back.

Mum shot a look at me and I looked back at her, mystified and surprised.

A second voice joined in and they began to chant my name while Mum and Dad looked at each other over my head as we stood there in our trio line up.

Dad in a Stetson hat to set off his red western shirt with the white fancy piping and shiny black acoustic guitar with the colourful embroidered strap.

Mum and I wore matching pastel-pink dresses with handkerchief hems ending just above our white cowboy boots.

Our outfits were completed with tan suede tasselled waistcoats and Mum wore a red flower in her bright blonde curls while I accessorised with a red bandana tied at my throat.

‘What do they want, Missy?’ My dad shrugged and looked confused as he hissed his pet name at Mum while she held up her hand and beamed at the audience.

‘Now we’re so proud of our daughter Becky, here, she’s been part of the Moonshine Trio since she could toddle her way onto the stage, and my husband Carl and I just love to hear her sing too. How about you sing a song for us now, Becky?’

Mum whispered to me then, her mouth away from the mic, ‘Sing that new song you like.’ I was shocked that someone was requesting a solo from me and now Mum wanted to throw a new song into the mix.

We had a playback machine with all our backing tracks and Dad could always shuffle it back and forth if we wanted to change the running order, but I’d never sung my new favourite country hit in public before.

I knew you couldn’t risk a crowd getting restless so I couldn’t stand there dithering.

I looked out towards the two voices who were calling my name and as I did so one of them stood up.

It was a girl about the same age as me. ‘Yeah Becky! Sing one for us!’ Her mate started whooping and then I realised who they were.

I didn’t really know them well but recognised both Heather and Teresa from school. So did my mum.

‘Oh that’s so sweet, it’s your mates cheering you on … go on, Becky, give ‘em that Gretchen Wilson song, they’ll love that.’

Dad was already lining up the track and I was enormously flattered that two girls my age were fan-girling over me in public.

I didn’t make a big thing at school about my side-line as a country music performer, my mate Alina and a couple of others knew but they’d never shown that much interest. Now here were a couple of the cooler girls in my year, ones I didn’t ever remember speaking to me before, shouting my name and asking me to sing a solo.

I was itching to get out front and really show them what I could do.

The Gretchen Wilson song ‘Red Neck Woman’ had only come out the year before.

It was a really fun number about loving everything ‘country’ and had a cool audience call-back line where they could all join in with a ‘Hell Yeah!’ in the chorus.

I stepped forward as the peppy music started up and couldn’t help but tap my foot and swing my hips as I launched into the upbeat song written to celebrate all the down-home perks of being a hillbilly cowgirl instead of a more sophisticated and ladylike woman.

I loved the track and the crowd were enjoying it too, whooping along and lustily joining in with the ‘Hell Yeahs!’ There was a big cheer as I finished and I caught sight of Mum and Dad looking at me with such pride.

I was thrilled to have pulled it off, I knew I’d performed it well and I’d now be able to make this song my signature solo; the song sort of took the micky out of all the usual country tropes while celebrating them too.

It captured all the joy I got from country music and summed up why I loved it so much.

I knew lots of girls my age were into bands like The Killers and Razorlight and there was certainly nothing wrong with that, but it was good to be able to show at least a couple of my peers why I was into country and have them appreciate it too.

Maybe they’d want to come around sometime and listen to some of my country albums?

We’d had the audience in the palm of our hands after my solo and we segued back into our usual set, performing as a trio or singing backing for one another on various tracks.

Some people were up dancing and the crowd called for two encores at the end and we left the stage congratulating each other on a fantastic show.

The atmosphere backstage after the show was buzzing and the social club staff were clapping Dad on the back and telling Mum what a ‘little cracker’ I was. They were asking how soon we could come back again and everyone was smiling at me and telling me how much they’d loved my song.

I nipped off to use the loo before getting changed into my civvies for the drive home. At some clubs you had to get changed into your stage gear in the toilets but this club had better facilities so I didn’t need to bring my clothes into the ladies with me this time.

I was in the cubicle about to flush the chain when I heard them.

Heather and Teresa must have been in a couple of the other cubicles when I came in but now they were at the washbasins and I caught just a couple of words at first as the cisterns of the toilets they’d just flushed re-filled and they ran the taps to wash their hands.

I heard snatches of their conversation, them saying they’d ‘never seen anything like it’ and something about Mum and I wearing matching white cowboy boots.

I was poised to burst out and surprise them, join in with the jollity and let them tell me to my face how much they’d enjoyed it all but then Teresa said; ‘It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen! ’

Heather let out a guffaw and answered; ‘Oh my God, I know! What the hell does she think she’s doing prancing about like that?’

‘Don’t forget all those Hell Yeah’s and Yee Haw’s she was doing too. Couldn’t you just curl up and die!?’

There was more. A lot more. They poked fun at what I looked like, how I sang, how utterly uncool I was and then started ripping into Mum and Dad too. I couldn’t listen to that.

I opened the door and they caught sight of my reflection in the mirror in front of them as I stood there shaking and pale-faced. You’d think they’d be mortified to be caught mocking me so mercilessly but to my absolute horror they looked … delighted.

‘Oooo look now, here she is … how y’all doin, honey-pie? Are you lookin’ for your horse?’

Teresa looked like she was going to explode at that, snorting and sniggering while Heather did a mangled American accent.

Teresa pulled herself together a bit and looked at me with a serious face. ‘We have to tell you Becky, because we feel it’s only right to be completely honest with you … you are really, really shit!’

They stood there staring at me, quivering in delight at their power in that moment, daring me to respond, or break down.

I wasn’t sure which they wanted but I didn’t want to do either in front of their gloating faces.

I bolted. Their voices followed me down the corridor back to the relative safety of the dressing room.

They were singing the refrain from Green Day’s song ‘American Idiot’ at the top of their voices and screaming with laughter.

School was agony for quite a while after that.

Heather and Teresa managed to whip up a new trend for yelling ‘Yee-haw’ in my direction at any opportunity and hissing ‘American Idiot’ whenever I passed by.

But their re-telling of my country music exploits didn’t find an audience for very long.

I’m not sure everyone else believed they’d really seen me on stage.

I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted by that but it helped to make their bullying campaign falter.

The fact that I’d quit the Moonshine Trio and vowed never to go on stage again also took the wind out of their sails.

It took the wind out of mine too of course.

I’d felt like I was flying that night when I’d stepped forward and taken my place in the spotlight.

I’d had the most fun ever, felt like the very best version of myself, but in the harsh strip lights of that ladies’ toilet all of that joy had been taken away.

Now I sat nursing my scotch whisky feeling as foolish and embarrassed as I had on that night.

Robbie’s look of scornful mockery had reminded me so precisely of the looks on those girls’ faces.

Back then they had made me question everything about myself.

Made me reject liking what I liked and doing what I loved.

Now here I was twenty years later doing exactly the same thing all over again.

A movement to my right brought me back into the room. I looked up to see Tom Coltrane standing in front of me holding two more glasses of whisky.

‘Hey there,’ he said, ‘mind if I join ya? ’