The Joiners pt 11.

by
Angharad
Carrie went to bed feeling as if she was in dream as soon as she had stepped onto the stage, then something inside her had taken over, as if it knew what to do and how to do it. She had performed well, perhaps not as well as she had previously sung those same songs, but well enough to win. Whether that was fair and square she didn't know, but she knew that agent bloke, him from London, wanted her to win because he wanted o sign her up and if he had she could have been performing as a Carpenters' tribute band, which was partly what she wanted to do to make some money, especially as she might need to have some sort of operation down below. She wondered how much that would cost and how long it would take to earn it. If she used that agent bloke, probably forever, his suit looked expensive, so did his shoes and he presumably paid for them both via the sweat of his clients.

She's removed her makeup, which took longer than usual because she was wearing more than she normally did, but it made her look older and maybe that helped win the competition. That reminded her as she cleaned her teeth, what happened to the cheque she won. Bugger, she didn't have a bank account in that name, in fact she didn't have a bank account in the name of Carrie anything. How would she sort that? Her dad would know, he set up her original one. Wouldn't she have to change her name first and how do you do that? The internet would show her, but she'd have to have her mum or dad go with her to do it. What if they didn't want her to do it? Oh poo.

Exhaustion eventually made her sleep and she slept longer than she usually did, but it was a Saturday. Unbeknownst to her, Tara was arguing with Rob over the various shares in the prize.

"And what exactly did you do, Tara?"

"I sent in the application."

"By post?"

"No, Dad, email, it is the C21st you know?"

"I'm aware of that, Tara, I was before you were born."

"Oh yeah, well, if we won it we were going to split it four ways, equals, you know?"

"What did the others do?"

"Macey loaned us her karaoke machine, and Colm, well he's Colm."

"I think it was Carrie who did all the work, so I can't give you any of the cheque, Tara."

"But we had a deal with Carrie," she whined, "that is just so unfair."

"I can't give any to Carrie either."

"What, but she won it, the guy gave the cheque to her and she gave it to you."

"Yes she did, but the problem is, there is no one named Carrie Joiner, there's no one called Carrie Carpenter either, not officially anyway, so how were you going to cash the cheque?"

"Oh flip, Dad, that is just so unfair."

"It has nothing to do with fairness, it's about fact. Now we could change Carrie's name by a number of ways but statutory declaration is the easiest and cheapest and is as valid as the others, but she can't do that without your mum or me being with her."

"I think she wants to change it anyway," said Tara still smarting at the loss of her prize money.

I spoke with your mother last night and we're agreed that we don't want them to know Carrie's real surname, especially as it's Carpenter, it would be too big a coincidence to easily avoid interest from the media, and with online media as well these days, we could have reporters or correspondents knee deep in the driveway. So if she continues singing, we have to keep the lid on this really tight, okay?"

"Yes Dad," she sighed, "Why d'ya think I told him her name was Joiner. I thogught that was pretty good for thinking on my feet."

"It was very clever, Tara, but then I have never doubted your cleverness, but it doesn't always stop you getting into scrapes, does it? Nor involving your br - sister."

"But, Dad, this is the first time I've involved Carrie."

"That may be because she's only been your sister for a week."

"So are you gonna let her sing for some pin money?"

"If that chap in the sharp suit is her agent, I suspect all she'd ever get is pin money. She has a genuine musical talent and personally, I should like to see her study piano or another instrument under a proper tutor. She spoke about studying music at university, I think that would be the best thing she could do, but I have my doubts that many of today's pop stars were properly trained."

"Rick Wakeman was, Carrie said so the other day."

"I'm well aware he was classically trained as a pianist, but how many of the others were, I wouldn't like to guess."

"But if they're naturally talented, why should they wait another three or four years to make any money?"

"Because the extra skill they'll acquire will be an enormous help as well as learning how to deal with composition and arranging and other skills. Not everyone who is good at music wants to perform for a living, many teach or offer backroom services."

At this point Carrie wandered in, yawning and dressed very casually. "Look, Dad, there is life after death," said Tara loudly and Carrie tried to laugh and yawn at the same time and almost choked. Tara's wit was well known in the family and sadly Carrie was often the butt of it, but she didn't seem to mind, especially as sometimes got one back and that was very nice feeling.

She stumbled out to have some cereal for her breakfast, it was after ten so Penny told her not to eat too much as she was cooking lunch and Carrie was helping her.

"How come I have to help, Tara gets away with it every time."

"Put it this way, darling, would you like to eat a meal Tara had cooked?" asked Penny.

"Uh, probably not, I mean she'd likely poison us the first time so she wouldn't have to cook again," was Carrie's retort.

"Dressed to kill and cook the same way," muttered Penny chuckling to herself, which Carrie found amusing and laughed with her.

"Look out the coven's in session," said Tara.

"What?" asked Carrie.

"All this cackling, where did you park your broomsticks? Daddy wants some more coffee."

"He didn't send you to make it, did he?" challenged Carrie.

"No, I offered, so there." Penny half expected her to stamp her foot and stick out her tongue like she used to when she was little, a habit acquired by Carrie until a boy told her she sounded like a little girl. It stopped very soon afterwards.

"What for lunch, anyway?"

"Baked potatoes," said Penny.

"I wondered what I could smell." Tara made the coffee and retreated back to the lounge to continue her attempt to get her paws on some of the money, but Rob held firm.

"Can't we just sign the back and put it into the bank?"

"Once upon a time you could, but the banks are much harder to use these days because they seem to feel everyone is out to do them."

"What the biter bit?"

"Probably," smirked Rob he had great relationship with his children it was just a pity they didn't like electric train layouts. He had hoped Cary would but he proved even less impressed with it than Tara. Still, it did have the advantage that Rob would be left alone when he was tinkering with it. Every cloud had its silver lining.

In the kitchen, the domestic goddesses were making salad to go with the potatoes, Penny made her own coleslaw, she had a shredder thing on her food processor. It was few years old now but she smiled to herself when Tara on hearing this wondrous machine could do anything, asked it could make Cary her sister and could she have a new dress too. Penny looked at number two daughter slicing tomatoes and wondered if Tara's request had been granted by the mysterious deity, Ken Wood.

While they ate, Rob asked what was going to happen about school and Carrie? The short answer was, she couldn't attend her current school, it would be too risky. But as they'd been on half term, Penny hadn't been able to get hold of the other school, which was about the same distance away but in the opposite direction. It seemed to have a reasonable reputation but whether they'd have any places, was another matter."

"Judi gave me a note saying that our child would be on sick leave while various test were carried out and suggested they could take several weeks."

"Won't the school want to know what's wrong with her?" asked Tara.

"They can't under data protection unless it's a notifiable disease, such as some sort of contagious fever."

"Does that mean I have an extended half term?" said Carrie smiling broadly.

"No, because I'll ask them to send you stuff either via Tara or the internet, the latter may be better, because Tara's likely to forget to collect it," said Penny.

"Oh it's let's get Tara day, is it? At least my head isn't full of stupid old pop songs." She rose from the table and stomped off into the garden where she discovered it was raining so she wandered down to the various sheds and ended up sitting at Carrie's drum kit and tapped away before letting rip until she was almost exhausted when as she stopped she saw someone with a telephoto camera pointing it at her. She screamed and ran back into the house. Once Rob understood what the hysterical girl was saying he ran out and down the drive just in time to see a large BMW drive off. He didn't get the number either but they would get some gates fitted which were difficult to climb over and would be kept locked. Being an architect he knew someone who could do it for them quite quickly.

"They must have thought you were Carrie," Penny said to the still whimpering Tara.

"It was horrible, Mummy," she said sniffing, while Carrie looked on wondering if that was the case and in which case why? She'd won a local karaoke contest not some national TV thing with Simon Cowell."

Just then the phone rang, it was Macey asking if they'd seen the hotel website and the local rag's website. Carrie went off to investigate. She heard Rob talking downstairs and called him up. The hotel was running a video of her winning the contest and then doing her encore, the paper had the same videos running, declaring her the voice of the century or some other hyperbolic nonsense and referring to her as local schoolgirl, Carrie Joiner. Rob watched the videos and wondered if they had been given permission to film them. He called Tara and she thought she'd signed a waiver that they could take photos or make recordings.

"If they know where we live, it won't be long before they discover our name is really Carpenter and then the ox waste will hit the rotating air circulator," said Rob grimly.

"What does that mean?" asked Tara with Penny standing behind her.

"The shit hits the fan," said Carrie smirking.

"Oh," said Tara grimacing.

"Is there anything we can do?" asked Penny.

"I very much doubt it, but I will ring the police as we don't want any further trespassers coming into the garden or up to the outhouses. He went off to look up the number for the local police headquarters to make a call he knew would take much longer than in the old days when you spoke to the desk sergeant who sent someone round and everything was sorted. Nowadays, they ask so many questions and that's before you speak to a copper, if you ever do. He's shut the gate, but it was hardly more than a token and any fit young man would be able to climb over it very easily. He was tempted to nip down to the local farmer's supplies warehouse and buy some electric fencing and a battery, but it is designed to keep stock in not humans out - 'nah you'd need something wired into the mains for that,' he muttered to himself as he waited on the phone for the police to answer.

The police were sympathetic but unable to help much, of course if he saw anyone else he should call them. Whoever he spoke to kept very calm when Rob suggested they'd be long gone before the police arrived. "Yes sir, but if they know we're on our way..."

"They'd have time to pop in the pub and have couple of drinks before you got here."

"Now now, sir, we are extremely busy and short staffed after government cuts."

"Yeah, well don't blame me, I didn't vote for this shower, couldn't run a bath let alone a country."

He put the phone down feeling frustrated and worried. He had made them take a note of his name and address, but they had strongly advised him not to take the law into his own hands. His reply caused the police spokesperson to urge caution and not to break the law.

When he was telling Penny later that evening and she asked what he'd said that had upset the police. "Oh that, I simply said if I catch anyone anywhere near my two girls, I'll write my own laws and enforce them."

"What?" gasped Penny, but you're always so calm and unruffled.

"We have two young women here, one of whom is particularly vulnerable at the moment, I don't know what I would do if I caught anyone near them, I really don't."

"Daddy, why don't we do something like this?" Carrie arrived with her iPad and showed her parents a relatively inexpensive videocam system that ran on wi-fi and would support half a dozen cameras."

"Well done girl, I'll speak to Derek tomorrow, I suspect he could do something a bit better than that and within a few days, I'm going to get a lockable gate put in as well."

"What an electric one?" asked Carrie.

"Not at the moment, but I'll get him to put one in that could be motorised later if we want it."

"What with a doofer thing?" Carrie smirked clicking her fingers on an imaginary controller.

"It's called a remote controller, Carrie, not a doofer."

"When I retire, I think I'll invent some and called the brand, Doofers."

"Not doofus, then?" said Tara loudly making them all laugh.

They were all laughing before they went to bed but once they got there, none of them slept that well and at one point Carrie went into Tara who was crying in her sleep and got into bed with her, after which Tara went back to sleep but Carrie didn't. As she lay there in the wee small hours, she wondered if it was worth doing the Carpenter's tribute thing if this was what it was going to be like. It seemed unlikely, it would surely die down in a day or so and she felt this presence which had given her courage to go on stage, approved of her intention to continue. It was all in her imagination but as she dropped off to sleep, she sighed, "Night Karen."