Jem made extravagant gestures involving the pentangle, the ceiling, his heart, Amber’s heart and finally Lewis still queuing
patiently at the distant bar.
Amber frowned, putting it all together, then she groaned. ‘Oh, Jem! You didn’t? On Cassiopeia’s? That was your star-wish?
That me and Lewis …?’
Jem nodded, grinning from ear to ear and rocking jubilantly on his spindly golden chair.
‘It won’t work,’ Amber said. ‘Sorry. Lewis has so many girlfriends and—’
Jem frowned and did a double thumbs down.
‘And,’ Amber continued, ‘we don’t feel like that about one another. We like each other and we’re friends, that’s all.’
Jem pulled a face and shook his head.
‘It’d never work,’ Amber said gently. ‘I’m probably not staying in Fiddlesticks anyway and—’
Jem slammed his hands flat on the table and glared.
‘And, even if I did, we have to love one another. And we don’t. Cassiopeia won’t change that. Lewis doesn’t love me and I
certainly am not in love with him.’
Jem’s eyebrows rocketed upwards and he tapped his nose.
‘I’m not lying, honestly …’
Oh yes you are, she thought suddenly. Oh, God. Oh,
God!
‘That was embarrassing,’ Lewis chuckled, as he placed two pints of beer and the G&T on the table.
Had he read her mind? Amber squirmed. Oh, pul-ease, no.
‘Not only is the bar all paid for, which means we’re truly freeloading on Joyce and Brian’s hospitality,’ he continued, sitting
down and passing the drinks. ‘But I met Lorraine’s new husband and he wanted to fight me outside because of the way I left
her with the kiddies.’
Jem chortled.
Amber, still reeling from the love-realisation, exhaled. ‘Oh – er – and what did you say?’
‘I said I was Simon’s identical twin brother and I’d like to take him out too, for the way he treated Lorraine. I left them
all wondering why they couldn’t remember that Simon had a twin. I only hope I don’t run into Lorraine. There’s bound to be
a row about maintenance payments. Cheers!’
They chinked glasses.
Lewis joined Jem in creating new constellations of red stars across the white cloth, with much laughter and friendly disagreement.
Amber sipped her G&T and cursed inwardly. OK, so she was in love with him: the lusting, the fancying, the liking, the friendship
had all slowly combined and then, without her being aware of it happening, rolled into a far deeper emotion.
OK … so what? He’d never know, would he? As far as Lewis was concerned, nothing had changed in their relationship, had it?
She could cope with this. Well, for now, at least. Long term was out of the question. She couldn’t live in such close proximity
and watch him with other women. That would send her completely doolally.
She sighed. Leaving Lewis would mean leaving Fiddlesticks, leaving Gwyneth, leaving Mitzi and Hubble Bubble, leaving Fern
and Jem and the place she now thought of as home.
Oh, sod it!
Fortunately at that point, there was a bit of a melee by the bar, and a simultaneous scrabbling behind the stage curtains.
A plump man in a purple satin tuxedo and a bad toupee fought his way through the velvet and into the spotlight.
‘Ladies and gents,’ he wheezed noisily through his microphone, ‘if you’d like to find a seat …’
Amber, deciding she’d have to think about the falling in love thing later, watched as the guests, all decked out in various
degrees of party finery, streamed from the bar and
noisily found themselves seats round the tables.
‘Lovely,’ the microphone hissed. ‘All sitting? Good. Great. Now, we all know why we’re here don’t we?’
Everyone did and said so rather raggedly.
‘Come on!’ the microphone whistled. ‘We can do better than that, can’t we?’
They could and did.
‘Lovely! Now let’s all put our hands together for the happy couple! Ladies and gents, friends and family – I give you – Joyce
and Brian!’
The Masonic Hall cheered. All eyes were on the curtains. Nothing happened.
Jem nudged Amber and pointed upwards.
‘No way, mate,’ Lewis grinned. ‘They’re not coming down from the ceiling. Not this time. We –’ he leaned disturbingly closer
to Amber ‘– had a Hayfields trip to the panto in Reading last year. The Demon King was lowered from the ceiling in a blaze
of light. Jem loved it.’
The curtains twitched a bit more. The man with the microphone scrabbled at the join, lifting them aside. His toupee suffered.
Everyone cheered a lot more.
Eventually Joyce, looking very haggard and in her wedding dress dyed dark red, tottered out, losing her veil in the process.
Everyone screamed with excitement.
Brian, who had clearly gained about ten stone since the wedding day and lost all his hair, was also in red, his suit making
him look like a sad Santa Claus as he stumbled out behind her.
As the assembled throng whooped and clapped, an unseen tannoy blared the ghastly Peter Sellers’ version of ‘We’ve Been Together
Now For Forty Years’.
Joyce and Brian looked suicidal.
Flummoxed, the plump man drew his finger across his throat and the tannoy came up with a scratchy version of ‘ Congratulations’.
Joyce and Brian, clearly Cliff fans, simpered in the spotlight, while a small child of indeterminate sex with a sagging nappy
waddled up to the stage, dropped a bouquet of forty red roses at their feet and immediately burst into tears.
Stepping over the child, the plump man, obviously Frank, abandoned his microphone and wobbled down the stage steps and across
to his Funk Machine.
‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘Come on, Joyce and Brian! Down on the floor! Let’s be ’aving yer! And can someone move that bloody
kid!’
The howling child’s mother, cigarette in hand and halfway down a Bacardi and coke, undulated across the floor to collect her
offspring.
‘That’s it,’ Frank barked tersely. ‘Get it out of the way, love. Quick as you like. Now, ladies and gents! Let’s hear it for
the happy couple as they take the floor for the first dance …’
‘Congratulations’ was drowned out by ‘The Anniversary Waltz’.
Joyce and Brian staggered self-consciously down into the spotlight and trotted round the floor, seriously out of time.
Amber, sniffing back tears of laughter, couldn’t look at Lewis.
Jem, however, was clapping his hands and stamping his feet, loving every minute.
The evening rolled on in much the same vein. She and Lewis chatted about the Fern and Timmy thing, deciding it had to be celestial
forces at work – that or Timmy was going through a mid-life crisis – and if it was some sort of temporary aberration on Timmy’s
part they both hoped Fern wouldn’t have her bubble burst too harshly.
They also touched on Lewis’s fallout with Zillah, the apologetic making-up and her reluctance to divulge anything further
about his father.
‘I’m going to leave it for a while,’ he said, destroying an entire cosmos of sequin stars. ‘I’ve waited this long. I guess
I can wait a bit longer. Although I do want to find out. Still …’ he sighed, ‘at least I know she loved him now. That’s something.’
Jem reached across and hugged him. Amber really wanted to do the same.
Around them, The Funk Machine played suitable music, people danced, shrieked, laughed and argued, all the time drinking themselves
silly at the happy couple’s expense, and then much to Jem’s delight, the food was made available.
‘I’ll go,’ Amber said, standing up. ‘I’m used to carrying plates of food. A bit of everything?’
Jem held up both hands.
‘Double helpings? OK. Shan’t be long …’
As she left the table she thought Lewis said ‘Please don’t be’ but she’d probably imagined it, and if she hadn’t, it probably
only meant he was starving.
The food, while not up to Mitzi’s standards, was very good and plentiful. And despite their misgivings about the morals of
using the free bar, they’d refilled their glasses several times. By the time Frank wobbled back to the stage, they were all
feeling wonderfully relaxed and mellow.
‘Laydees and gent-le-men!’ Frank had been at the free bar too. ‘I know you’ve all had a great time so far—’
Much cheering.
‘But now is the moment we’ve all been waiting for! I shall put my Funk Machine away—’
Desultory titters and one shout of ‘About bloody time’.
‘– and join you in dancing the rest of the night away to the UK’s – no, to the world’s – greatest soul band!’
Amber wondered if Frank was related to Freddo by hyperbole.
‘Lay-dees and gent-le-men! Put your hands together for … THE JB ROADSHOW!’
Stars!
There was a split second as the curtains swept back when Amber knew she was holding her breath, then, just as Freddo had predicted,
the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and her flesh shivered.
The JB Roadshow, in a blaze of moving criss-cross lights and twinkling star-studded backdrop, exploded into ‘Sock It To ’em
JB’ their trademark opening number.
The sound was out of this world.
The drummer thundered out the famous James Bond rhythm as the other band members moved in synchro, sidestepping, rocking their
instruments into the air as the singer strutted, shouting into the audience. Then the two guitarists, followed by the organ,
took up the tune, which grew and roared round the hall. The band were now moving in unison as they played, the overhead star-lights
cascading down on them.
The singer grabbed his microphone again and yelled out the James Bond film titles. The Masonic Hall joined in with gusto.
The guitarists moved together, their fingers sliding expertly over the strings, the volume increasing, as again the organist
picked up the main thread while the singer, enticing and seducing his audience, swayed and stamped
and socked it to ’em in a frenzied crescendo of noise. The beat pulsed into Amber’s body. She could literally feel the bass
line in her bones. Oh, it was spectacular. Real, live music by musicians who knew how to play – and then some. It knocked
clubbing and mixing decks into an entire hatstand of cocked headgear.
She stared, transfixed at the stage, her body moving to the beat, knowing she was laughing. They were sensational. Truly,
truly sensational.
And Freddo’s photos hadn’t lied at all. Well, OK, maybe the three brass players had slight paunches and the keyboard player
had less hair than the others, but otherwise, considering they must be ancient, they were fantastically well persevered. All
tall and lean and looking the real McCoy in tight black velvet flares and neon bright satin shirts, the JB Roadshow brought
the Masonic Hall to its knees.
As ‘Sock It To ’em JB’ came to its ear-splitting climatic end, everyone was on their feet clapping, yelling, screaming for
more. The band had hardly broken sweat and, knowing they were great, smiled down at their adoring audience.
The singer, all dyed blonde hair and wicked grin, moved his body sexily towards the microphone and with the drummer and the
bass player still quietly keeping the beat, introduced the band to massive rounds of applause.
‘Our brass section – Monty, Pete, and Joey! On drums – Jezza Samson! On lead guitar – Berry Knight! On bass guitar – Clancy
Tavistock! On organ – Ricky Swain! And who have I forgotten?’
‘Yourself!’ screamed the Masonic Hall.
‘Ah yes,’ he winked. ‘And I’m your vocalist – Tiff Clayton! Ladies and gents – get up on your feet, get on to the floor, put
your hands in the air and welcome The-J-B-ROADSHOW! Let’s hear it ONE-MORE-TIME!’
The Masonic Hall erupted.
The next number was the Bar-Kays irrepressible ‘Soul
Finger’, and within seconds of the gotta-move opening bars, the floor was packed. Everyone danced and waved their arms above
their heads.
Again, on stage, the JB Roadshow thundered, stamped, clapped and played up a storm.
‘Stone me!’ Lewis yelled in her ear. ‘It’s exactly, exactly like listening to my ma’s records! This is what I grew up listening
to. They are absolutely brilliant. She would have loved this!’
Oh, she will, Amber thought. Fiddlesticks will have the JB Roadshow for Harvest Moon even if it means I have to sell my body
to pay for them.
Jem was on his feet, balancing himself against the table, clapping his hands and swaying with delight.
‘Come on, Jem!’ Amber bent down and shouted. ‘Dance with me!’
Grabbing both her hands, Jem grinned and moved out on to the packed floor. Finding a vacant patch in front of the stage, Amber
held his hands tightly and they stomped and rocked to ‘Knock on Wood’, followed by ‘Soul Man’ then ‘Sweet Soul Music’ – each
one sounding better than the last.
‘Call me a gooseberry if you like,’ Lewis yelled, moving between them and taking one of Jem’s hands in his, ‘but I’m not missing
out on this!’
‘In the Midnight Hour’ was followed by ‘Mustang Sally’ and they danced together, grinning like children, singing the wrong
words, elated.
Soul tune after soul tune, all perfect, roared and rocked from the stage. Amber felt she could have danced all night. She’d
never felt so high, so alive.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Tiff Clayton caressed the microphone, with the last chords of ‘Hold On I’m Coming’ reverberating round
the hall, ‘we’re going to take a break for twenty minutes. Then we’ll be back – and yes, I promise you, for – er – Joyce and
Brian and all you like-minded lovers out there, we’ll be playing some slow and
smoochy soul in our second set!’
Everyone clapped and whooped.
‘In the meantime, get the drinks in, rest your feet and well see you again in twenty minutes when we’ll sock it to you ONE-MORE-TIME!’
Still cheering and applauding, everyone made a beeline for the bar.
The noise was echoing in Amber’s ears. She’d probably hear it all night, long after they’d left Winterbrook.
‘I’ll get some drinks,’ she grinned dazedly at Lewis. ‘Shall I?’
‘I’m just going to take Jem to the gents – so, yeah, great – and I’ll see you in a bit.’
He smiled at her. Jem, still jigging, smiled at them both and winked.