Page 33 of What Would Dolly Do?

I stood behind Sonny’s tiny stage in the darkness as Tom spoke into the offstage microphone to introduce me.

‘Good evening folks, welcome to Sonny’s Bar, the hippest, most happening joint in Edinburgh. What you’re about to see doesn’t happen every day, you’re about to witness the debut of Scotland’s very own country music queen … please welcome to the stage … REBA MOON!’

Jesus … no pressure then, I thought. But actually, his big intro fired me up. There was no point doing this half-heartedly and so, after taking a deep breath, I stepped through the curtain and into the spotlight.

I started with ‘Mean to Me’, the first song I had ever tried to write; it seemed appropriate in the circumstances.

Robbie may not have been in the same league of bitchiness as schoolgirl bullies Heather and Teresa but I was relishing the opportunity to fight back at last. I had no idea if Robbie was still in the room but something told me he was lurking at the back, waiting for me to mess this up.

I wouldn’t be giving him the satisfaction of seeing me fail.

Tom and Fergus had prepared backing tracks for me to work to.

I was used to performing that way and I was able to read the room and choose how I wanted to play my set.

Eventually I knew I would love to perform with a live band but this gig was all about getting up on stage and seeing if I could simply face an audience as myself.

The way they cheered my opening number spurred me on.

I sang the Linda Ronstadt number ‘You’re No Good’ next.

My blood was up, injecting passion into my performance, and my voice felt well-oiled by the whisky.

I’d never felt so powerful on stage before. It was just me and the music.

‘Old-Fashioned Girl’, the song I’d written about a whisky loving woman who keeps one step ahead of the chasers went down a storm.

The lyrics I’d written made even more sense now I was singing them live than they’d done when I wrote them.

It was like my whole set perfectly summed up who I was, what I stood for and where I was in my life.

How had that happened? It was magical to experience.

They say songwriting can reveal things you didn’t even know about yourself: that certainly seemed to be true for me, it was quite the revelation.

The crowd were so receptive and I was feeling so in command I risked a bold move and hoped Tom wouldn’t mind when I invited him to join me up on stage.

At first, he looked reluctant – as if he didn’t want to steal the spotlight.

But when I saw his eyes crinkle as he smiled, I knew I’d persuaded him.

As he stepped up out of the darkness his eyes were gleaming with pride and happiness and when our fingers brushed as I passed him a mic I felt a tingle of electricity that wasn’t connected to the equipment.

As we duetted on ‘Heatwave’ I realised I was sharing a stage with a famous music star and more than holding my own.

To see Tom work at such close quarters was pretty awe inspiring.

His voice was rich and melodic and his charisma and stage presence just fabulous, but there was still space for me and instead of hiding, instead of being someone else or wanting to be somewhere else, I filled it well.

The way we took turns with our parts, just like we had in the studio with Fergus, worked seamlessly.

We were having such fun the audience got swept along with us and we finished the number to thunderous applause and cheers.

Tom leaned over and whispered into my ear as the cheering continued.

‘This is your night, Reba, don’t let me take that away from you.

’ I wanted to kiss him so badly but I wasn’t going to give the audience that much of myself, that would have to wait until we were somewhere a lot more private.

It was cool of him to worry about upstaging me but I wasn’t worried about that, not at all.

Instead of a kiss I whispered back, “Moonlight Home”? ’

Tom stepped back and looked into my face with his eyebrows raised as if to ask if I was sure.

I grinned and nodded and we needed no more words to be spoken between us.

Tom went and sat at the piano to play and I leaned over the top watching his fingers as they played the beautiful opening to his brand-new song.

The audience quietened into hushed expectation as he began to sing the words to the haunting tune about being lost in the moonlight.

He sang looking up into my eyes and I joined in with the harmony that led the song to its final destination.

There was a split second of silence after the last note ended and then the crowd erupted again.

Tom jumped up from the stool with a look of both triumph and relief on his face.

How he could ever have doubted his own talent and skill was beyond me …

and yet … I knew all too well how easy it was to put barriers in your own way.

I hoped the ecstatic reaction of the Sonny’s Bar crowd to ‘Moonlight Home’ would show Tom the song had a big future ahead of it but Tom was already wanting to put the spotlight back on me.

‘I hope you’ve saved something for an encore,’ he said with his lips once again so close to my ear it made my pulse race.

As he jumped back down off the stage he went and stood next to my mum and dad who I could tell were glowing with pride and happiness.

I swept my eyes around the room taking everything in.

I caught sight of Stella and Donald behind the bar looking rather thunderstruck.

Robbie was sitting on a stool at the bar and managed to catch my attention by raising his glass to me and giving a slight tilt of his head, not exactly an effusive response but wait …

what? Was that Fergus and Laura at the back of the room?

I’d no idea how long they might have been there but they were now waving madly at me with huge smiles on their faces looking a million times more supportive than Robbie.

There was only one song I could think of to close the set, only one number that I really wanted to perform right now.

I flicked the playback machine to the track and as the music began I tapped my black-heeled boot, swung my tartan-clad hips, threw back my flaming red hair and gave in to being the totally unapologetic country music artiste Reba Moon with a triumphant performance of ‘Red Neck Woman’.

They say there’s no such thing as an overnight success but that one night at Sonny’s felt like the start of something good … although I was aware not everyone was finding the sudden appearance of ‘Reba Moon’ easy to deal with.

The crowd loved my set and I was showered with praise and compliments by people I’d never met.

The people who knew me best, however, didn’t seem quite sure what to say or do once I’d come off stage and stood in front of them face to face.

My mum and dad were full of hugs and backslaps at first but then seemed far keener to know when they would be able to perform on Sonny’s stage themselves and kept asking if they would be able to sing alongside ‘Reba Moon’?

It was quite disconcerting, especially as my mum kept waggling her fingers in the air to indicate quote marks every time she said my new name.

It was dawning on me the reason they’d been so mad keen to come to Edinburgh was because of the publicity the bar had been getting.

Now Tom was sprinkling some celebrity stardust around they were suddenly keen as mustard to come and spend time with their darling daughter.

It felt like they were sort of missing the point.

Stella and Donald said very little. No surprise there, but while I expected it of Donald he actually blurted out, ‘That was great,’ which sounded pretty heartfelt and genuine.

Stella radiated something I suspected was jealousy because of how much she’d fancied Tom herself.

I didn’t think we’d made it obvious we were sleeping together, but people do have a habit of putting two and two together and making four.

Also, to be fair, they wouldn’t have been wrong to think we were shagging.

We were. I still blushed when I remembered.

I think Robbie was actually planning to sidle out without saying anything to me at all.

Sod that. I got between him and the exit.

Let him look me straight in the eye and say I hadn’t done a good job up there.

But people can always surprise you. He couldn’t level too much criticism at my performance and I was clearly comfortable with my new look, whatever he thought, so he took a different tack altogether.

‘You better watch your back,’ he said with a faux-fatherly look of concern and then he leaned closer and spoke slowly as though I was hard of thinking as well as hard of hearing.

‘You do know you’re being used as a publicity stunt, Becky?

Obviously.’ He shook his head and raised his hands as if to say, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’.