Page 42 of What Would Dolly Do?

I knew very well it would be pretty impossible to say no to Laura so I didn’t even try. I wanted to see her anyway, I’d missed her and I was curious about what she’d said on the phone. She’d made it sound like she had something particularly important to tell me.

We’d arranged to meet early afternoon at a pub down in Grassmarket.

It was full on madness in the streets as I fought my way there, tourists packing every area of sidewalk and queueing outside Fringe venues for shows and performances.

You see some crazy sights around the city during the festival, from fire-eaters to fan-dancers, everyone has a gimmick to try and pull the punters into their show.

On the one hand it was annoying for us Edinburgh natives to be invaded by such lunacy every August but, then again, we’d all missed it so badly during the pandemic years the return to chaos and craziness was a relief.

The visitors and the money they spend are generally made very welcome, even though it could take twice as long to get anywhere with them all constantly blocking every inch of pavement space.

I arrived slightly breathless at The Last Drop, one of Edinburgh’s oldest drinking establishments named due to its proximity to the location of the last public hangings which took place in the eighteenth century.

I hoped there wasn’t a particularly sinister reason Laura had chosen such a macabre spot?

The pub didn’t look like it had changed much since those days either, with its stone flagged floors, low ceilings and dark, wonky walls.

I pushed my way through a gaggle of American tourists blocking the doorway.

They appeared to be confused by a number of items on the menu.

‘What in the world is “Cullen skink”?’ I heard an extra-large man drawl while his skinny wife was equally puzzled by the mention of ‘neeps and tatties’.

I found Laura tucked into a corner table next to a tiny leaded window. She looked like a mystical absinthe fairy in a vivid green strappy sundress with shafts of sunlight dancing off her strawberry blonde hair. There were two pints of frothy-headed Guinness on the table in front of her.

‘I took the liberty of ordering for you,’ she said with a wink. Guinness wasn’t my usual tipple but I was glad I didn’t have to jostle my way to the bar and the drinks did look rather delicious. ‘You look like you need building up anyway,’ Laura added as I took my first sip.

‘Okay, mom,’ I said as I wiped my mouth, and we were instantly back into our usual, jokey banter. I had been worried things might have felt weird between us but it didn’t feel strange at all to be hanging out with Laura again. I was grateful for that – Laura’s help and friendship meant a lot to me.

The first thing Laura wanted to tell me was that Tom hadn’t sent her and he didn’t even know she was meeting up with me.

I wasn’t sure how to take that at first; was I actually a bit disappointed to hear he hadn’t sent his little sister as a special envoy?

Laura didn’t let me think about that for too long because she was already explaining why she had come.

‘You two need your heads banging together,’ she said and I almost spluttered stout all over the table as I remembered just why little Laura Coltrane’s nickname was ‘Feisty’.

‘You’re such a good match for each other, I could see it straight away but neither of you are being completely honest with each other. ’

I reeled back at that and started to question what she thought I was lying about but before I got too far she cut me off.

‘Have you told Tom you love him?’

I didn’t reply, but I didn’t need to, Laura read my shocked expression perfectly. How did she know? ‘No, I thought not but I know very well that you do. Look how the weight has fallen off you in the last couple of weeks; if that’s not love then I don’t know what is!’

I had to admit my clothes were hanging looser on me than ever before.

It had given me the extra push to discard half of my existing wardrobe of boring and functional items. All my knee-length skirts and drab tops were now hanging in the charity shop while I enjoyed dressing as Reba Moon all day every day.

Today I’d pulled on frayed denim cut-off shorts and a white vest but thrown a silky red floral robe over it as a colourful cover-up.

The scarlet red of the robe clashed with my coppery hair but I loved how eye-popping the colours were together. Laura obviously approved too.

‘You look great by the way, I’m not saying you don’t.

’ She grinned at me and then carried on, ‘Men are simple souls, Reba, and he shouldn’t need it spelling out that you really are in love with him, but of course he does.

’ She took a swig of her own Guinness but before she carried on I had a question of my own.

‘What lie has Tom told me?’

Laura gulped down her beer and shook her head. ‘I never said he lied.’

‘You said he wasn’t being completely honest with me, that’s the same thing.’

‘No. No Reba, it’s not but …’ She seemed to be struggling to find the words to explain exactly what she meant. ‘There are some things I think Tom needs to explain but it has to come from him, it’s not my place to speak for him.’

‘Then why are you here?’ I didn’t mean it unkindly and I didn’t say it in an aggressive way but I really wanted to know … what was Laura trying to achieve here?

She talked for quite a long time then, about Tom and what he was like when they were growing up.

Some of it I already knew. They had been a tight-knit bunch, her and the two older brothers.

Pete was the eldest and he took on the role of man of the house after their dad did a bunk.

He was sensible and responsible, Laura said, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising he’d ended up a pillar of the community as a police sergeant in the local constabulary.

Laura was the baby and didn’t remember being too perturbed by her father’s disappearance.

‘I had two big brothers looking out for me, I always felt they had my back so I never really missed having a dad.’ She added that between the two of them Pete and Tom had most fatherly roles covered.

‘Pete would insist on me being home at a decent time, even if he had to come and pick me up himself. Tom was the one I could pour my heart out to, tell him about any boyfriend trouble. Tom would give me a cuddle and tell me everything would be okay and Pete would threaten to punch the guy’s lights out. ’

‘Sounds like the perfect combination,’ I said.

I thought Laura was glossing over how tricky life probably was at times growing up in a single-parent family but I knew it would have become much harder for the siblings in their twenties when their mum died after a short illness.

Tom had briefly mentioned losing his mom so tragically young but I wasn’t sure why Laura was telling me all of this now?

‘Pete was always focused on getting into a solid career, something with prospects and a pension. I was the baby, so protected by the two of them that I never really worried too much about anything. For me life was an adventure and I grew up feeling able to be a free spirit. Even when life finally teaches you things aren’t that simple, it’s very empowering to have started out that way.

I believe it gives you wings you wouldn’t otherwise have had.

’ Laura looked thoughtful as she considered this for a moment.

She was clearly a talented artist and although the kids now took up most of her time she’d told me she really wanted to carve out some time to paint more dramatic works of art like the ones I already owned.

‘And Tom?’ I presumed Laura was leading somewhere with all of this.

‘Tom was the sensitive one, creative and romantic, he felt things more keenly than me and Pete. Stuff cuts deep with Tom, it’s what makes him such a terrific songwriter but it’s not an easy way to live.

He didn’t have Pete’s focus or my devil-may-care attitude.

I think my mum worried about him the most when she got ill’.

My heart twisted listening to Laura talk about Tom like that.

This was the stuff no one else would know about the famous Tom Coltrane, the stuff that never made it into the gossip columns or dawned on the screaming fans who pushed to the front row of his concerts.

He did put his heart and soul into his music though, as a songwriter and a performer, so he did reveal his inner self to the world in that way.

I agreed with Laura that it did help him to be a great artist.

‘Tom needs to be with someone who understands him, someone who sees the real him and can be a true partner.’ Laura looked at me pleadingly.

‘He already has someone else in his life, Laura, things are more complicated than you are making out.’

Laura closed her eyes for a moment while she gathered her thoughts. ‘All I can say about that … is Juliana Ripon is not the right match for Tom … and they both know it!’

There was something Laura wasn’t telling me but she wasn’t going to be drawn any further. She did have more to say about why she thought I needed to give Tom another chance.

‘It’s not just your voices that blend well together, Reba, you’re good for each other, any fool can see it.

You wouldn’t cut a record without rehearsing it first, working things through, keeping the bits that work and cutting out the things that don’t, would you?

’ She held her hands palms up and shrugged as if to demonstrate what she was saying was the most obvious thing in the world.

‘So you’ve hit a couple of bum notes recently but with a bit more rehearsal …

’ she left the suggestion, that all Tom and I needed was just a bit more practice to make things perfect, hanging in the air.