Page 35 of What Would Dolly Do?

I t was an impulse decision to get the bus out to see Gordon and Morag in Murrayfield later that morning.

I couldn’t really explain to Tom why I wanted to do it but he didn’t put up any resistance to my desire to head off on my own to see my former bosses.

He offered to get Iain to drive me but part of the appeal of the trip was the time I could spend alone on the bus just turning things over in my mind and trying to figure out how I felt about it all.

Gordon and Morag’s place felt like a safe space to return to after a night of unexpected outcomes.

I tried not to dwell too much on how I should have felt my own flat, where my own parents currently were staying, should have been the location calling to me most. But it wasn’t.

For now, I wanted to put off my next encounter with my parents.

I loved them dearly, of course I did, and I knew they loved me too, but their lives had always revolved more around their love for being on stage than their love for me.

Don’t call the NSPCC, I wasn’t a neglected child, but I wasn’t always their priority.

That’s okay – it made me independent in many ways.

Parents are tricky customers for everyone, I knew that.

Sometimes the fact they’ve known you from birth is a hindrance, rather than a help.

The whole, ‘ haven’t you grown’, ‘you never used to like olives’, right through to ‘ you know Sandra and Kevin’s son Jason is a lawyer now?

Such a lovely lad … you’d like him if you gave him a chance …

’ No chance! That kind of twaddle had really ground my gears over the years.

The more they spouted nonsense like that the less information I revealed about what was really going on in my life.

I know most parents’ motives are good, mine included, and that they usually have your best interests at heart, but all too often they are basing their help/advice/opinion on outdated information.

The person you used to be, no, not even the person …

the child you used to be. Now my parents lived mainly in Spain it didn’t really help them know me all that well.

Last night was only the second time they’d ever met Robbie.

That was partly my fault: Robbie and I had never had the kind of relationship where meeting the prospective in-laws had been appropriate.

How crazy then, that they’d already met Tom …

not that I was imagining that’s where our liaison was heading!

Marriage!? God no! I pulled the emergency stop on that train of thought and instead began considering that maybe I should make more effort to spend more time with Mum and Dad in the future. Maybe?

I parked that thought too while I looked ahead to seeing Gordon and Morag.

The fact they’d met me as an adult had given them a head start in taking me at face value, judging me on my personality and abilities as they were now.

It had been refreshing to be with a couple who took to me so quickly and always saw the best in me.

Gruesome Guy had done his best to wreck that, of course, but thank goodness he hadn’t managed to succeed.

The last-minute plan to head to the Graysons meant I was turning up empty-handed this time.

No French pastries boxed and tied with ribbon to present on the doorstep.

Hopefully they wouldn’t mind me just dropping by and would be as pleased to see me as I was keen to see them.

I hadn’t been able to make too much effort with my appearance either.

I was still wearing my tartan trousers and black studded ankle boots from last night but I’d borrowed a simple black t-shirt from Tom – his stock must be getting low as I’d not given him back the red Nashville one I’d swiped before yet.

Together with my new red hair the overall look was slightly punkier than how Gordon and Morag were used to seeing me.

I didn’t mind that at all, it felt like a good visual blend of the old Becky and the new Reba.

I was learning fast that Reba Moon wasn’t just a costume I was wearing for the stage.

Now I’d given myself permission to appear publicly as Reba it was like I had finally released the real me into the world.

I realised that, as Becky, I had allowed life to happen around me, living my life on the edge of the action and not putting myself at the centre of things often enough.

As Reba I was now the one driving the action.

I was fed up waiting for things to fall into place by themselves and was making decisions and taking steps to get to where I wanted to be, in my musical career and in my life.

Becky always had hopes and dreams but Reba was the one who was going to try and make those dreams happen.

I’d proved as much to myself when I’d finally had the guts to bring Juliana Ripon into the conversation with Tom.

I hadn’t got a definitive answer about how things stood with Juliana but he had said I had nothing to worry about and that he would ‘deal with it’ – whatever that meant?

Once I announced my intention to go and see the Graysons he looked a bit relieved and said something about having to make some calls to his manager and ‘other folk.’ I wondered if one of those calls might be to Juliana?

Then I thought about the ‘commitments’ the record guy had been bandying around.

There was clearly a whole lot to Tom I didn’t know yet.

While we ate our room-service breakfast Tom and I had also spent a bit more time talking about the variety of responses my performance had prompted from the people who had seen my Reba Moon debut. Tom was tactful about my parents’ enthusiasm for wanting to perform themselves.

‘Ahh, they seemed a fun couple, I suppose you can’t blame them for wanting to get in on the action,’ he’d said.

I thought he was being overly generous but, if I’d started moaning about how the night should all have been about me, me, me, I was aware I could easily sound like I was being a total diva.

I reckoned I should save that sort of behaviour, at least for a little while; I wasn’t quite in Mariah Carey’s league yet.

Tom had found Donald’s taciturn approval and Stella’s sulky silence completely hilarious.

‘They’ll come around,’ he’d said, grinning like an idiot when he realised Stella’s issue with me stemmed from her having the hots for him.

‘She’s only human,’ he’d said with such glee it was hard to reconcile with the fact that he was a country music star with lustful fans all over the world.

It just proved that men were men however famous they became, which is what I think I said as I swatted him with a pillow.

He wasn’t as amused by Robbie’s behaviour and to be completely honest neither was I.

After declaring Robbie a ‘dumbass’ after their initial encounter, Tom had now concluded Robbie was a ‘dumbass, a dick, and a disrespectful dork’.

He stopped short of asking what the hell I had ever seen in him, which was good – one, because it would have been a tricky one to answer and two, because I didn’t feel Robbie’s bad behaviour should be any reflection on me and my previous life choices as Becky Mooney.

‘Ya do have to be prepared for this sort of thing now, Reba,’ Tom had said in a much gentler tone than the one he’d used about Robbie.

As I poured a second cup of coffee from the pot he’d talked about how any sort of attention caused ripple effects through your life.

He said fame didn’t necessarily alter the person who was famous but it really could affect people around them.

His voice was filled with sincerity as he spoke and I knew he was talking from personal experience as well as giving me a realistic explanation for some of the things that had occurred the night before.

I wasn’t ‘famous’ but appearing on stage alongside someone who was as well known as Tom had already made people start to look at me in a different way.

Tom assured me this was just the start; ‘Stick with me, kid, we’re gonna make you a star!

’ he’d joked. But I felt as though I was on the brink of something exciting, risky but potentially wonderful.

I considered all of this as the bus jogged along on its way to Murrayfield, as well as wondering how Gordon and Morag would react to the new improved me?

I doubted they would have seen any social media so I was keen to tell them in my own words about my butterfly from a chrysalis moment and hear their honest reactions.

As Tom and I had finished our breakfast our conversation had eventually turned to what still felt to me like the biggest talking point of all.

The bombshell statement to end all bombshell statements.

The suggestion of a future recording contract for Reba Moon from record company executive Steve Bannister.

I knew he might have just been telling me what I wanted to hear so he could get my signature and approval to release Tom’s new single – but it was like pure magic to me.

It wasn’t a childhood dream – it was something I’d never even dared to dream.