Chapter 35

Tony went back to the studio to prepare for a band that was booked for this afternoon and evening. Alan, Helen, and I hugged before they left. I invited them for Christmas lunch and Helen told me that if it was as good as lunch today, she would be happy to come.

That left Josie and me, so I sent Becky off, and made us a cup of coffee each. We discussed the farm business, and the Josie told me that she had picked up her guitar again and was re-learning how to play.

“The concert here was a real awakening for me,” she admitted. “I was going nowhere, musically, and now we have the farm running smoothly, I thought I might start playing again. The last couple of years had worked to improve my voice.”

I went to my room and came back with my two acoustics, gave her the one she had played all that time ago and then sat with mine in my lap. I started playing the intro of one of our first duets, and then she smiled and joined in. When we began to sing quietly, I could tell that her voice was much better, if not back to her concert strength. We sang and played for about an hour, and she had tears in her eyes when we put the two guitars back in their cases.

When I came back, she was standing, and we hugged. She whispered. “Thank you for everything, darling Edie.”

I made us another coffee and we spoke about the past and the likely future. I told her that my house was her house if she was here but that I expected Tony would have offers made to produce that would be difficult to pass up. She told me that he had already received offers but nowhere near enough money to leave the Stable Studio. I suggested that he start looking for an assistant to eventually replace him, and that I would fund it.

When she left to go back to the farm office, I felt that we had crossed another line in our relationship. It seemed to swing up and down, firstly because of her personality but now due to simple realities of living.

There’s a saying about the best laid plans of mice and men. In the second week of December, we were struck with a weather event that almost stopped everything. The temperature plummeted, the snow fell, and the experts told us that it could be the coldest winter on record. After about five years of reasonable weather around the festive season it was a bit of a shock.

We had enough warning to get all the cars into the shed behind the clinic. We also got our guys to help us change the lights in there to the hydroponic ones. That would keep it warmer so the cars wouldn’t freeze, and the animals wouldn’t need to be taken into the warmth of the clinic. I had seen a similar weather pattern before meeting the Pixies so knew what to do to prepare.

One of the guys had a Cruiser Troop Carrier model and I gave him a fuel card so he could pick up the others as the weather closed in. The vet vehicle was similar, and we had inherited chains and a small snowplough with it. The plough just bolted on to the front bars. If nothing else, it would allow us to create a reasonable driveway for any trucks that came to pick up.

On that front, we had an arrangement with the supermarkets that took our produce to deliver other things we would need. The snow was deep enough to easily decide that a Christmas dinner was out of the question. We then planned for survival of the group of us that were now stuck. We had Veronica and Doris, both now unable to get away as they had planned. We had Rebecca, Tony and Josie, Sharron, and Carol and the four children. Every morning Jordan would get the truck out and plough the roadway out to meet the highway and the short bit to the packing shed.

We developed a method to keep us fed and entertained. The bigger trucks would come in and collect our produce and drop off anything we had ordered. Christmas day would be just another day with extra food. The only gifts would be those that had been obtained earlier, there was no way we would get into the big stores. Jordan and Sharron took turns to go on callouts.

Three days before Christmas a Post Office truck came by and dropped off some boxes. They were copies of the Detroit concert DVD and the European DVD of our London show. A note with them said that the Detroit one was going to be on TV on New Year’s Eve and the London one was to be shown in the UK on that night as well.

When our guys knocked off two days before Christmas they got a bonus in their wages, plus a copy of the Alicia piano album and a copy of the Detroit show. We were in a little island of warmth in the various buildings and, thanks to the covered walkway, could move between them quite easily.

After Christmas day we started spending the evenings together doing our own thing or watching the big TV my dad had installed. One evening when there was nothing worth watching, Josie suggested a sing-along. I pulled out the two acoustics and we started off playing the old Pixie duets with nearly everyone joining in. As we went along and ran short of songs, Sharron suggested a few old folk songs. Being a poet, she had a lot of these in her head, the lyrics being so poetic.

Between us we sang a few and it was fun inventing the notes to things we had never heard, just from Sharron and Carol singing. They were quite good. We were in the middle of an old Irish folk song about the “little people” when I could hear Ali playing along on the piano. Jamming was something she had never been involved in and this brought smiles our faces.

A little while later we were into an Aussie standard, so Sharron told us, called “Botany Bay”. There’s a rousing chorus which goes along the lines of – “Singing toorali, toorali, Annie, singing toorali, toorali, ay. Singing toorali, toorali, Annie, I’ll see you in Botany Bay.” The second time around we were joined by Ali and Tabitha singing along. Sharron and Carol exchanged looks.

By the end of the evening, we all had a lot of fun. I was happy to be jamming along with Josie and Ali, and it had brought Tabitha out of whatever shell she had been hiding under. Ali told me, as I put her to bed, that Tabitha had been like this for some weeks, but tonight she realized that she could be brave in front of adults.

Over the first weeks of January, we moved forward with our folk singing. When she wasn’t out on call, Sharron would look at her poems with me and we’d pick some words, invent some tune and I would jot down the notes. Toward the end of January, we got Tony to warm up the studio and we all went there to record what we had been doing. We got our guys to help us carry the baby grand over.

Of course, with the concert grand in there, it was an invitation for someone to play it. I deferred to Veronica. By the time the cold snap broke, we had recorded fourteen tracks of original songs and Tony worked on the master. It was a lot of fun. When we had a sample CD, we gathered in the kitchen one day and played it.

It was a curious mix. There were a couple of songs that I was proud of being involved in and most of them were good. The children brought a special aspect with their kiddie voices. Tony said we should really give the CD a name and, after some hilarious suggestions, Carol said that it would never have been made if we hadn’t been snowed in. Josie laughed and suggested that it was perfect, and it ended up being called “Snowden”.

I don’t know who had sent it to Allan, probably Tony showing what we had filled our days with. Allan rang me and asked if he could release it as a novelty album for spring, a lot of the tunes being about green grass, flowers, and butterflies.

We had a meeting, and everyone thought it was something that shouldn’t be kept private. Tony and Jordan had taken pictures on their phones as we sang in the studio, so we had pictures for the cover. “Snowden” was released in March, in time for spring. It had Josie and me on guitar; Veronica, and Ali on piano and all of us, including Sharron, Carol, and Tabitha on vocals.

I had made my album for the beginning of the year, but it was nothing like I had expected. There was a photo that Tony had taken in the studio. It had Veronica sitting at the piano with Josie, Alicia, and me on one side with Sharron, Carol, and Tabitha on the other. The fact that it was two genuine families brought a smile to my face whenever I passed the blown-up picture hanging on the studio wall.

What none of us expected was how it was picked up by the radio and by a wide range of buyers, many older folks. Josie, Veronica, Sharron, and Carol were contracted so that they could receive their shares. Alicia and Tabitha had their shares put into trust for them. Everyone thought that “Snowden” was the name of the group and Allan started to get queries about putting us on stage.

Most of the Sisters had stayed in warmer places but Abigail was keen to record her next album. Sharron and I had saved a dozen songs that we had toyed with and sat down with her to work through them. Josie joined us in the rehearsal room, and we worked on them with her playing acoustic guitar and me on piano, fully expecting to add the rest of the band when they got home.

At the end of February, we went into the studio and recorded the entire album. Tony put out a sample CD for us to listen to and plan the additional backing tracks. As we all listened, everyone remarked that it was good as it was. The album was tinkered with to give it a “live” feel and the master sent to Allan to comment on. He was happy with it and that was eventually released as “Abigail - Coming of AJE.” Now we had yet another facet of the sisters. Abigail, Josie, and Edie could do spots on the “For Those Who Served” concerts if they had a piano that we could use.

That year I did a lot of those concerts. I was on stage with Abigail and Josie, as well as with “Snowden”. Sharron was reticent, at first, but Ali and Tabitha ganged up on her, and told her that it was just a poetry slam set to music. The kids had a lot of fun, and it didn’t matter if they didn’t have a small piano, both were now happy to sing. The concerts now included first responders alongside the veterans so were usually full.

We did one show, in Reno, where we eight carried the whole show. We did songs from “Snowden” and songs with Abigail, Josie and me playing tracks from “AJE” and her earlier album.

The oddest show we did, that year, was when Abigail was held up in an airport some distance away and Josie and I sat on stools, with our guitars, and filled our set spot with our earlier Sisters songs. We did all these shows for transport and lodgings, but they returned tenfold in a boost of our album sales.

Over the summer we had Brad’s crew working on the accommodation block again. It was no surprise that he was ahead of us and permits for extensions were already in place. We added a large classroom with moveable partition walls plus a soundproof music room and a bathroom with kiddie-height facilities.

The upright was moved into the music room, along with the small grand. Veronica started teaching Tabitha basic piano. Since she had been on stage, Veronica had become a performer, on top of being a good pianist with knack for teaching. We got Ali a slightly bigger piano for the kitchen as she was still growing. We also got two more employees, specialist teachers for advanced children, funded by Algernon.

That year, only Emily had been booked for piano concerts, one in Los Angeles and the other in Washington, DC. When we had time, I got together with Pet and Anton and worked on a new set that we could record and then use as the basis of a new Stable Sisters show. Anton had quite a flair for writing pure pop, much to Pet’s amusement. By September we had enough to get everyone together in the rehearsal room.

Ali had a slightly less wonderful birthday that year but being out there on an album and playing live just carried her along. She was only slightly spoiled.

Pet, Emily, and Janet were adamant that they wanted Josie back in the band and it gave us an instant advantage. We could come back on stage with such a varied line-up we could adapt to any situation. Me and Josie with duets; me and Abigail with duets, AJE songs, earlier Pixies songs, Sister’s material, and our new album behind us would allow us to play for hours, if need be.

The new album was called “On the Rebound” and we went back on the road in October for three shows in the US that month. Another five shows in November had us firmly back in the marketplace. In December, we left for a tour of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. We were away over the Christmas period and were a very large party that travelled. All of us took our children and nannies. Most of the girls had their partners with them but Jordan stayed at home. I had Ali with me, on a proper tour for the first time.

The tour was different, to say the least. Spending most of winter in the southern summer was wonderful. We were in Sydney over Christmas, and we flew Sharron, Carol, and Tabitha over to meet Sharron’s family. It might have been a shock to them to see their son as a girl for the first time, but they took it in their stride and just loved their granddaughter. Sharron invited Ali and me to an old friend’s home for Christmas lunch.

I couldn’t believe we were sitting outside, under the shade of a big tree, while the menfolk burnt steak and sausages on a barbeque. The shows went well, and our album sales soared as we crossed the Southern Hemisphere. After flying home from Auckland, Alan gave us a month off before we went on a US tour of thirty cities that took us all of spring and summer, and into fall before we stopped. Ali stayed at home this time and worked hard on her lessons.

When Ali turned six, we had a bigger party. There were now another six children who were coming in for lessons. These were children who had special needs or special abilities. We had now added a third teacher, and all the children were given one-on-one teaching, as well as multi-age classes where they learned a lot of more advanced lessons.

Once Josie’s twins had turned four, they quickly caught up with the others. Ali was still out in front, but Tabitha wasn’t far behind. There were a couple of the day kids who were close as well. All ten of them were in an age range within two years and they all got along well. Veronica now had four that were learning piano, and the general history of music. Becky was teaching the girls cooking in the block kitchen. They all got hands-on training in growing vegetables and looking after animals. To my mind it was a wonderful school to be in.

Ali’s sixth party had all ten children playing games and having fun as we all ate too much sugar. My parents came up and stayed with us and the Sanders came over as well.

I was standing in the kitchen, refilling a cordial jug, when Sharron came in and stood beside me. She asked if we could have a quiet talk in the control room, so we slipped out of the house and went over to the studio.

When we went in, she went over to the “Snowden” picture and looked me in the eyes.

“Edie,” she stated. “I’ve been here and on the stage with you and Josie for over a year now. There’s something between you and Josie that’s magic when you sing together. I’ve had a lot of discussions with our clients on vet calls and everyone has a good word for you and your family. A lot of them have commented on the relationship you had with Josie before she left, and many have said that there had been no man around you until Jordan. Several of them have spoken about a certain Eddy, a bit of a loner.”

I nodded and she pointed at the picture.

“What I see when I look at this picture looks like two families. I’m holding hands with Carol and we both have the other hand on Tabitha’s shoulders. You and Josie have an arm on each other’s waist with your free hand on Ali’s shoulders. The similarity is too much to ignore.”

I smiled. “Sharron, you’ve cracked the secret. Like you, I was once a boy and Ali is our child, together. Unlike you and Carol, Josie needed more than a lesbian relationship, so went off with another band member. That much is out there for everyone to know.”

I took her over to another picture. This one had been taken at The Dude prior to the Halloween show. I pointed to me playing violin and asked. “Do you see any resemblance to me as I am now?”

She looked at it and laughed. “You look just like a guy wearing girly clothes. I’ve pictures of me in London that are similar. I must say that you’ve done well for yourself.”

“Just as you have. Think back to those pictures of you. Would you have ever thought that you would be a successful vet, an acclaimed songwriter, and even a singer in an all-female folk group? We don’t see the changes as they happen, but they’re always changes that build toward us becoming new people. I mean new in the ‘kainos’ form, look it up.”

I took her to the Halloween photo.

“That is the day my life totally changed. The girls had me dressing for a week or more, so I didn’t embarrass them on stage. I’ve never looked back after that night.”

We hugged and then Sharron asked. “I suppose you’ve had the full operation, then.”

“Why, haven’t you?”

“Never could afford it. Carol helped me fund a breast job, but I still dangle.”

“We can’t have that!” I said, sternly. “We can’t have an all-girl folk group with one of them still a bloke! Is that why you only have the Aussie passport? I bet you were worried at Christmas when we flew you to Sydney.”

She chuckled. “If it wasn’t for the fact that we flew first-class and had Sister’s stickers on our luggage, I expect that I may have been strip searched. They hardly looked at the passport when we got back here. Being in a group has a lot of things going for it.”

“Well, we must make some changes if you want to go all the way. We can get you into the hospital that worked on me, and I’ll fund it if you can’t. Afterward we can get you a replacement passport with that important “F” in the box. I believe that your certification already has that.”

“I can’t let you pay for my operation, it’s not right. You’ve already done so much for me I would never be able to repay my debt.”

“Debt, what debt? You’ve already repaid any debt with your lyrics. We have two albums out there with “Egg and Chips” as the songwriters, as well as the Snowden album. No, girl, it’s me that’s in debt to you, and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of songs out there in the future. If you feel that strongly about it, I’ll let you repay the bill in instalments, but there’s no need for that.”

We hugged again and then, with that settled, went back into the house to enjoy the birthday party.

Marianne Gregory © 2023