Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  ‘So,’ Zillah had finished, ‘I don’t blame you one bit for flying off the handle. We’ve always been such good friends and always been open with one another.’

  ‘Except about this,’ Lewis had said, but his tone had lost its harshness. ‘Oh, look, Ma – you must have your reasons for keeping it quiet. I just hope he wasn’t some serial killer or something like that. My guess is that he was already married? God – you’re bloody inscrutable when you want to be! Oh well, I’ve spent almost thirty years with “father unknown” on my birth certificate – I suppose I’ll spend the rest of my life in the same state. Get over yourself, as Fern would say. You’re not going to tell me, are you? Not even now?’

  Zillah had shaken her head. ‘No point, love. Truly no point. I wouldn’t know where to begin – and no, he wasn’t married but he will be by now and he’ll have another family and, even if we could trace him, he’d probably die if you turned up on his doorstep wreaking havoc in his nice, settled, orderly life.’

  Lewis had stood up and walked over to the window, his back to her.

  The spicy scent of the jambalaya and the shouts of laughter from the barbecue hovered on the stifling air.

  Then he turned round and looked at her. ‘Please answer me one question, then. Did you love him?’

  ‘With all my heart. And I still do. And I always will.’

  After that, Zillah thought as the morning sun moved round Fiddlesticks and the garden grew ever hotter and she drained her coffee, it had been more than OK and she’d cried and Lewis had hugged her and so had Jem and they’d all been covered in Cajun sauce. And she’d stayed to dinner and then they’d joined the others on the lawn and all got quite merrily drunk as the misty lilac dusk spread up from the river.

  The radio was still warbling softly as she stood up to face another day.

  ‘Superstar’ by the Carpenters.

  Zillah was just too late to stop the first, poignant line – about an old love – echoing deep, deep into her heart. She slammed her hand on the off button and burst into tears.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lovelight in the Starlight

  ‘Excuse me,’ Amber tapped the woman chattering in the massive arched and studded doorway of Winterbrook’s Masonic Hall gently on the shoulder. ‘I wonder if we could have a word with – um –’ she looked down at Freddo’s scribbled note on the passes in her hand ‘– Joyce or Brian? Just to check if they’ve been told we’ll be here?’

  Lewis had been all for them bluffing their way into the ruby wedding party and taking the consequences, but Amber had to see the JB Roadshow in order to persuade Fiddlesticks to pay for them, and didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of being thrown out before she’d heard a single note played.

  The woman in the doorway broke off her conversation and peered at her.

  ‘Oh, you just go along in, dear. They’ll be delighted to see you. You must be Joyce’s friend Cissy’s daughter’s girl. But what on earth have you done to your voice? You didn’t used to speak like that, did you? Have you had electrocution lessons? My, but you’ve really grown, dear – but then you must have been only six or seven when I last saw you. Can’t believe they’ve been married forty years, can you?’

  ‘Er – no …’

  ‘And we all said it wouldn’t last, didn’t we?’ The woman chortled. ‘Especially with Brian’s little problem.’

  Amber trilled with laughter too. She didn’t dare look at Lewis who was standing behind her. However, Jem, who was holding her hand, joined in silently, his body shaking with glee.

  ‘Bless him,’ the woman glanced down. ‘Young Arty always enjoyed a good joke. You haven’t changed at all, Arty, love. Well, have a good evening – no doubt we can catch up on all the family gossip later.’

  ‘Oh, no doubt,’ Amber smiled, praying they never bumped into one another again. ‘Through here, is it?’

  She shoved Jem, who was showing every sign of wanting to continue the Arty discussion in his own inimitable flamboyant gesturing language, ahead of her with a warning glare. ‘Don’t. Please don’t. We’re not supposed to be here, remember – so if anyone calls you Arty you just smile and nod and be nice. OK?’

  Jem poked out his tongue and winked.

  ‘She thought I was someone called Simon. Married to Lorraine. Divorced after eighteen months. Left her with two kiddies and another on the way,’ Lewis grumbled as he caught them up in the elaborately stuccoed vestibule and they pushed into the main hall. ‘Sounds like I’m a bit of a loser to me.’

  The hall, midnight dark with the curtains pulled against the brilliant evening sunshine, but fortunately massively air-conditioned, was awash with everything ruby. Candles, streamers, balloons, little table lanterns, hearts and flowers all glowed the colour of congealing blood.

  ‘Looks like a satanic mass,’ Lewis said. ‘And that table must be the sacrificial altar. Mind you, they’ll be hard pushed to find a virgin in Winterbrook.’

  ‘And whose fault’s that?’ Amber smiled sweetly.

  Lewis and Jem both poked out their tongues.

  The white-clothed table, admittedly overdone with red roses and candlesticks, stretched along an entire side of the vast room. Waiters and waitresses whizzed backwards and forwards with dishes covered in cling film. Amber felt sincere professional sympathy at the size of the catering task ahead.

  Jem tugged at her hand and pointed at the food.

  ‘Not yet, gannet,’ she laughed. ‘You’ll have to wait. Look, there are loads of little tables to sit at – shall we go and find one while they’re still free?’

  ‘Near the bar, the food and the exit for preference,’ Lewis grinned at them both. ‘This could turn out to be a long night.’

  Tugging at Amber’s hand, Jem headed immediately for the circular tables dotted round the outskirts of the sumptuously linen-folded and gilded room. He chose the one nearest the stage, beside towering banks of Marshall amps and speakers. If the JB Roadshow were as good as Freddo had promised, she probably wouldn’t be able to hear herself think later, Amber reckoned as she pulled out Jem’s chair for him, let alone speak.

  There were further ruby candles and roses on each table, along with wonderfully generous heaps of deep-red star sequins randomly scattered across the white cloths.

  Delightedly, Jem started to gather them together and spread them into small celestial ruby drifts.

  Joyce and Brian’s official guests, hundreds of them and mainly all of an age, were clustered at least eight-deep round the bar.

  ‘Shall we?’ Lewis raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Why not, seeing as neither of us are driving,’ Amber nodded. They’d decided to indulge in the luxury of a taxi in case the whole affair became very boozy towards the end. ‘I’ll have a G&T, please, seeing as this is a posh occasion.’

  She watched Lewis move with his easy, confident stride towards the bar. It was the first time she’d seen him wearing anything other than the tight faded jeans and T-shirts. She smiled. Even dressed smartly, as Jem was, in black trousers and a baggy white shirt, he still looked like a beautiful fallen angel.

  Jem, having organised the sequins to his satisfaction and now transfixed by the splendid banqueting hall, was pointing at everything with delight. Beside them, massive dark-red velvet curtains were pulled in towering tightly-closed dusty folds.

  At the appropriate moment, Amber thought, the stage would be revealed. And the JB Roadshow. Hopefully.

  A banner – hand painted on a double bed sheet – above the stage read: ‘Joyce and Brians Ruby. Congrat’s Mum and Dad. Hears Too The Next 40’.

  Amber flinched and averted her eyes. Lynne Truss would probably have demanded a rewrite.

  As Lewis edged his way closer to the bar, she and Jem continued to take in the rest of the grandeur. Oh, bugger … there was a table piled high with cards and presents. She hoped no one would have noticed that they’d arrived empty handed.

  Oh – and over there, propped beside a glittery twin-deck disco, ‘Fr
ank’s Funk Machine’, was a huge blown-up photo of Joyce and Brian on their wedding day. How sweet they looked, how in love, how very young: Joyce in her sticky-out lampshade wedding dress with a short veil over her Cilla Black hair, and Brian in a collarless Beatle suit with a pudding-basin fringe. And eight, no nine, bridesmaids all back combed and white lipped in rigid nylon frocks, not to mention two small pageboys in kilts and the best man who clearly had a severe squint.

  Jem leaned across the table and grinned as he pointed at the tiny wooden pentangle round Amber’s throat. The colours of the various veneers went perfectly, she thought, with her short brown and gold strappy layered dress rescued from one of her Moth Cottage bin bags and carefully aired and ironed. It was probably over two years old – she’d only worn it once, and no one back home would have been seen dead in anything so outdated. Amber hadn’t given any of that more than a fleeting thought.

  ‘I told you I’d always wear your star –’ she smiled at Jem ‘– and I will. It really is gorgeous.’

  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.
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br />   ‘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!’