Chapter 3

The meal was magnificent. If this was what being famous was all about, I would have to keep track of my weight. The waiters were attentive, and the wine was enough to take the edge off my worries about later. Joan told me that dessert would be after the show, to allow me to make space for it. We went out to the car, and I picked up the guitar case, then we went to freshen up.

I followed her into the ladies’ toilets before stopping dead. Me – in a woman’s loo? She saw my panic and took me by the hand and whispered, “First step towards the new you.”

The meal was interesting on another plane. Joan would wait until we were between courses to talk. In between the soup and entrée, I was congratulated on my piano playing.

“I was impressed Harriette. You’re natural. It could be all that guitar playing but I believe you may have kept some earlier piano quiet.”

“I did spend some time playing at a pub with a piano, and the pianist showed me some simple tunes and explained the techniques, but I never took it seriously. You can’t lug a piano into a shopping arcade to busk, can you?”

Between the entrée and main course, my success as a girl was critiqued.

“Harriette, you are very good at passing as a girl, but it’s all an act for you. By the time we’ve finished, you’ll be a natural girl, no cracks with Harry showing through. Tonight, is a case in point. You must do well enough that all these diners leave thinking that they’ve heard a girl songstress of note. Any less will make you feel bad. Use your husky voice and don’t push any high notes and you’ll nail it.”

When the main course was over and the open mic started, the manager acted as compere. First up was a comedian who was good, and he got lots of laughs. Next was guy who did comedy from a different angle. He played the fool and regaled us with times he made total stuff-ups, getting as many laughs as the first guy. After that, the manager looked at me and I got up and walked over to where I had left the guitar. Getting it out of its case and strapping it on seemed like second nature. On the way to the mic, I whispered that I would need a second mic on stage later, and his eyes went very wide.

I sang some of the old songs from my early days busking, using a quieter voice. There was nothing flashy, nothing loud, just gentle ballads. The diners applauded after every song and the staff tried to stay in the room longer than usual. After about half-an-hour I started playing the intro of one of Joan’s hits and waggled my eyes at her. The manager brought out the microphone and a waiter went to help her stand. I was getting into the first verse when she arrived at the microphone and took her time to adjust it, joining me in a duet with the second verse.

I know I was acoustic, but the atmosphere in the room was electric. These were people who knew her songs but had never seen her. She had stopped recording in the late fifties. When the applause erupted, she asked me if I knew any more, and we went for another twenty minutes regaling the crowd with some of her greatest hits. Finally, I announced that I needed my dessert, and we left the stage to a standing ovation.

When the manger brought our desserts, he told us that the meal was on the house and that tonight he had one of his dreams answered, to see and hear one of the stars of his youth.

“Ably assisted by a megastar of the future.”

I smiled at him, and we ate our dessert with lots of the other diners coming to our table, asking for autographs. They told me that I had a great future and told Joan that she was wonderful in the past and hadn’t lost any of it. When we were finished, we stood and went towards the door, applause breaking out behind us. I told Joan to acknowledge her fans, so we turned and gave them a wave before we went out to the car. She stayed quiet until we were back at the cottage with hot chocolates in front of us.

“And you told me I was wicked!”

‘Didn’t you enjoy singing, again?”

“Yes! Dammit. You toned all my songs down so I could reach the notes with my old voice. It was fun and I felt forty years younger. You came here to be taught how to read music and learn how to be a girl. Today you read a simple tune and played it on the piano, and then, tonight you held the room in the palm of your hand. You know that you’re exactly what Jules said you are, and it won’t take very long, believe me!”

The next few weeks flew by. I was Harri, full time, and was now able to play the piano, and then the guitar, from the written music. Joan making it more complicated as we went on. The number of times she had to call me out with a mannish gesture or words became less and less. At the same time, she started writing songs for us. I was able to help with more modern wording and we tried them out, she on the piano with me on the guitar. Three weeks after our duets on stage, Jules rang her and asked if she would be kind enough to grace his stage again.

This time, it was to be a show for charity, and he thought that she might bring in the audience as it would be a special experience for a lot of people. Of course, if I was still around, I would be very welcome. Joan relayed the invitation and I nodded. She accepted the invitation and asked if there could be a piano on stage.

Over the next week we worked up a set of her old hits and favourites, plus three of the new songs we had written. She called Jerry and asked him if he’d come and see how I was handling my training and gave him the time and place. On the Friday, we treated ourselves to a session at a salon she knew, and we made sure we didn’t mess our hair by sleeping in hairnets that night.

We were to go on at seven and were not surprised when Jerry arrived at the cottage with Candice and Nicola. I was told that the others were due back in the country in a few days and were happy to wave the ship goodbye. Jerry had been busy, and had organised a flat for them, near the rest of us, as well as near a studio he said we would use for practise and for recording. The girls had been busy, designing new stage outfits to accentuate the glitter theme. We had a long talk about the music for the future band and I showed them the dozen or so songs that had been written. Joan had insisted that I would get equal credit for these.

We all went off to the hotel at five, Joan and I in elegant dresses and lots of jewellery. Jerry had booked a table for three, and Joan and I had one for ourselves. We ate our dinner, again on the house, to the strains of a nice crooner with a three-piece accompaniment, one playing the baby grand on stage. After he went off, the stage was taken over by a well-known comedian, and then it was us.

The first few songs had Joan at the piano, me with my guitar. We did a few of her album songs, and then she stood at the mic while I took over the piano to do five of her hits. Then we swapped again, and I announced that we would now play a few songs that might be heard on the airwaves, next year. We then did another four songs that we had written for the band. To finish off, Joan stood beside me, and we did a duet of her two greatest hits and then bowed, leaving the stage to a thunderous applause.

The night was supposed to end with another well-known band, but they had cancelled at the last minute. Joan told the manager that he had most of a band here, tonight, if he could come up with a couple of amps. So, twenty minutes later, the three of us were up on stage, me with a borrowed electric, the girls with their own instruments, never going anywhere without them. We had conferred and decided to do some of the old songs from our playlist that we could do as a three-piece.

We finished off the nights’ entertainment with an hour set of mixed songs, some from our glory days, including the song from the video. We stood, side by side, across the stage and I sang as much as the others, sometimes we sang as a trio, and I thought it sounded good. It was good to be singing with the girls, again. I was the best dressed, for a change. Jerry and the girls were given cards to show, if they came back, to get free meals for a year. Joan and I were told that we had the same thank you but were well enough known not to need a card.

Jerry took the girls home and I went back to the cottage with Joan. It was as if I was going home with my mother, and suddenly realised that I hadn’t called my dad for a couple of weeks. When I mentioned that, Joan said that she would drive me down for a visit, if I rang him early in the morning to tell him to make sure he was ready to receive us.

Early next morning I rang home, waking Dad. He sounded a bit grumpy but brightened up when I told him we were coming down to see him, today, and take him out to a Sunday lunch. I told him to look smart because we would be. He didn’t ask who the ‘we’ were.

Joan and I dressed in sunny Sunday outfits, extremely girly, as she said that I was now at the right stage for it. She had decided that I was now the right shape, if assisted, and the right weight; and had also passed all the tests in how I carried myself, walking, talking and generally being a natural woman. On the way down she asked me about Dad, and I told her that he was a retired sales engineer, a widower, still fit and that we had a small collection of her albums.

When we arrived and as pulled up outside, I thought I saw the curtains twitch. I’m certain that he wondered who the two well-dressed ladies were in the Jaguar outside. We got out, locked the car and I fished into my bag to get the door key. I opened the door and called out to him that I was home. He stepped into the hall, and I gave him a hug.

“My God, Harri, don’t you look the lady. When you said you had to look like a girl for the band, I never expected you to be so beautiful, even more like your mother than before.”

“Thank you, Daddy, Dear. Now say hello to Joan, who has made this possible, and has become a dear friend.”
He did a double take as Joan moved up to him and gave him a hug.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Hunt, your daughter has been like a breath of fresh air for me over the past month. She has had me singing again, to an actual audience, twice now and I feel a few years younger. I won’t say how many.”

“It’s Justin. Can I call you Joan?”

Of course, Justin, I feel that I’m almost part of the family, the bond that Harriette and I have forged.”

After Joan and I had used the bathroom to freshen up, we left the house and Joan drove us to the coast. I had quickly claimed the back seat, so that Dad had no alternative but to sit in the front. After a slow start, Joan started asking him about his younger days and it didn’t take him long to become comfortable with her. I only spoke when I had to. When we got to the coast, we pulled up near one of the big hotels. Dad got out and quickly went to the other side to open the door for Joan. I was left to my own devices.

As we walked towards the entrance, we each took an arm, so that he was escorting two ladies. I did so because he was, after all, my dad. I saw that Joan had a smile on her face as she took his other arm. When we entered the hotel, there was a cry of “Mum!!” and a woman rushed to give Joan a hug.

“It’s been too long, Mum. You’ve been bottled up in that cottage since Dad died and I’ve missed seeing you out and about. If you came down in the Jaguar, it’s a wonder it lasted the distance, sitting in your driveway all that time.”

“I’ve been prised out of my shell by this young lady I’ve brought to see you, darling. She had me up on a stage and singing to a room full of people on the day after I started teaching her to read music. Last night we did a charity show at my local hotel. Now, Pauline, I want you to meet the very talented Harriette Hunt, and her father, Justin. This is my daughter, Pauline, my youngest. She owns this hotel where I hope she’s going to give us lunch.”

Pauline gave us both a welcoming hug and then led us through to a dining room that was almost full. After a quick word to her waitress, a table for four was set up and we were seated. As I looked around, I could see some interested looks in our direction. It looked like they held dinner dances as there was a small stage with a piano. Pauline sat with us, and the waitress brought us each a menu.

During the meal we learned more about the private Joan, the one who was a wife and mother of three. The oldest two were both boys, one now in the US, working as an attorney, the other in Japan where he had a restaurant. Pauline had married and it was her husband that had cooked our food. They had bought the hotel, literally “for a song” in the bad days for British seaside towns, the days of too cheap air trips to sunny foreign beaches.

Her husband came out of his kitchen to join us in a coffee. When he heard that Joan had recently sung in public, he joked that the stage was empty now. Well, what could we do but rub his nose in it. Joan stood and smiled.

“It seems that I’m now expected to sing for my supper. Come along, Harriette, let’s show this room what this old stager has in her tank!

There was a microphone on a stand and another over the piano. Oliver, Paulines’ husband, switched on the PA and we tested it for level. I sat at the piano and Joan went up to the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, some of you in this room may have heard me sing a long time ago. Today, Harriette and I will regale you with a show that we performed, last night, for a charity event.”

We repeated the show that we had perfected for last night. As I played, I looked around the room. Most of the diners were gazing at us in wonder. Dad was just beaming, no doubt at the fact that it was his child, on stage, singing along with the woman who provided the soundtrack of the best days of his marriage. I had the odd thought that I may have been conceived to the strains of Joan singing.

Oliver and Pauline sat in rapt attention, she with tears dripping off her chin but a big smile on her face. I wondered just how long it had been since she last heard her mother singing. Because we didn’t have my guitar, we didn’t stand side-by-side for the last bit but, as far as I was concerned, this was all about Joan giving her daughter a gift from the heart.

When we finished the last song and Joan gave a little bow, the diners applauded, and Pauline almost ran to hug her mother. I went back to the table and Dad almost crushed me in his arms. This was so wonderful, for me, I had tears in my own eyes. After that, we went to the private quarters and had a lovely couple of hours talking about the old days, Dad holding his own. I regaled them with a few stories from being on the road with Candicanes and the cruise.

When we made our excuses, saying that we had to go, Pauline whispered in my ear as she hugged me.

“Thank you for this, Harriette, I’ve never seen my mother so happy for years. I do remember her singing in the old days, but today was pure magic. Luckily, we have a camera focussed on the stage and the receptionist set it going as you went to sing. Now I will have something, on tape, that I can look at, some time, a long way into the future, that will bring joy to my heart. I hope that you come back with Mum, and often. Come down and stay if you want. By the way, how long has my mum known your dad, they appear very comfortable together?”

“Would you believe since mid-morning, today?”

She looked shocked and just murmured, “Oh boy, I think that there’s magic in the air.”

Before we got back to the house, we stopped and bought some fish and chips to take home. Dad fussed about and got out the best china to put it on. I had eaten many a meal with both he and Joan, but this was the oddest, with both together. I might as well go off to the lounge, the amount of speaking I needed to do. In the end, I told them to head for the lounge while I made a pot of tea. I knew we had Joans’ favourite in the cupboard.

When I opened the door to carry in the tray, they looked a little flustered, and Joans’ lipstick was mussed. Who would have thought? I poured them their tea and made the excuse that there were a few things I needed to get from my room, to take back to the cottage. I stayed out of their hair for an hour, and then knocked and asked Joan if she wanted to head back to the cottage, or should I make up a bed in the spare room?

She blushed and nodded, saying that we had better move. I took our things out to the car, including a small bag of things I had collected, for appearances. I waited in the car while she said cheerio to Dad. On the way she was very quiet for most of the trip, then gave a little giggle.

“Harriette, I told Justin that I’m going to make up a room for him and that he is welcome to come up and stay with us. He is a lovely man, and I can tell that he has been lonely since your mum died. Probably as lonely as I’ve been since my poor Albert passed away. I hope that, long into the future, you will be able to look back on thirty or forty years of a happy marriage. You’ve no idea how happy and contented one can be with a good partner. Perhaps Justin and I can be good friends, I think I would like that.”

I told her that he had always been the perfect father to me, and that he missed Mum a lot, even more so since he knew I was going to be living with her. I then said that it was quite likely that I was conceived to the strains of one of her albums, and she shrieked with laughter, and we weaved a bit, getting a honk from the guy behind us.

“No wonder we have a connection, Harriette, if I was in the room while you were being made.”

Back in the warmth of the cottage, sitting in our nighties and gowns with a cup of hot chocolate each, Joan became thoughtful.

“You know, since you have been here it’s been a magic time for me. I was fast getting to the point where I was looking forward to leaving this stage for the last time. Now, I just want to live longer, if I can, to feel the experiences that your future is going to generate. I wasn’t sad that none of my children followed me on the stage, they were always left to follow their own dreams. I saw Pauline crying as we sang, this afternoon, and I could see they were tears of joy. Justin didn’t know which of us he should be gazing at, I felt – I don’t know – wanted, again. It took him a little while to realise that it would be all right to kiss me, and it was wonderful when he did. Thank you for giving us space.”

“It’s all right, I could see the way things were going, and so could Pauline. I’m happy for you both. Now, do we make up another room, it would mean clearing a lot of things out, or will you just make room in your wardrobe for his things?”

It was lucky she didn’t have her drink in her hand when I said that, as she got into a giggling fit which turned to hiccups. I went to her and leaned over to hug her, rubbing her back until the hiccups faded.

“You, my girl, are as astute as you’re naughty. We’ll give him a call in the week and go and collect him. Leave the sleeping arrangements as a surprise. In the meantime, let’s rinse these cups and go to bed, we have hits to write while you’re here.”

“Yes, Mum,” I grinned.

Marianne Gregory © 2023