by Wendy Holden
***
"Now then," Alan boomed, wielding his crackling microphone and calling the noisy barroom to attention. "The next act needs a bit of encouragement. We've got Keith here on the bass, Les on lead, and Ann on the drums. They're going to try to play 'Apache,' and I want you to clap every time they hit the right note…"
Guy, sitting beside Rosie at the table next to the window, guffawed. When a few minutes after the performance had begun, no one had yet put their hands together, he guffawed still louder.
"Apache?" He snorted. "Bloody patchy, I'd say."
The sweet-faced, dark-haired woman sitting opposite him put her finger to her lips. "Don't be so horrible."
"Practicing all night in the village hall they were last night," Alan told him chidingly over the microphone. "It's not their fault they haven't played it through yet. They kept having to stop for the bingo."
The musicians, fortunately, seemed oblivious to criticism. Ann, a Native American headdress of retina-frying neon feathers crammed over her helmet of blond hair and crushed in the corner behind what even Rosie recognized as a distinctly ad hoc–looking drum kit, pawed away with her jazz brushes, brow furrowed in concentration. In front of her, the barroom shouted encouragement.
"Dum der der dum der der dum der der dum der der DER DER," boomed Alan triumphantly. "Ladeezandgennelmen, I think you'll agree they hit the right notes there. Round of applause, please."
After much laughter and even more effort, "Apache" limped to its end. The two subsequent acts, the headmistress on the organ followed by the Ofsted inspector, put up a creditable show, although remembering the cold war that existed over the "Ofsted" feline, the headmistress's choice of "What's New, Pussycat?" seemed a tad injudicious to Rosie.
She looked around again. Still no sign of Matt. Where was he? She'd turned up at the time he had suggested. He had spent the afternoon bringing her cups of tea in bed and telling her how much he loved her before finally going back to Ladymead. Had he gotten cold feet at the prospect of appearing in public, even if it was just for a drink at the village pub? It was depressingly possible.
"Knickersplitter?" Guy, beside her, was heaving himself up to go to the bar. Rosie shook her head. Her stomach was fizzing as if crammed with Alka-Seltzer.
"Lezgennelmen." Alan's voice boomed from the crackling mike. "Our next act is very special. A last-minute entry—announced they'd be playing only an hour ago, in fact. But no less special for that. Very special indeed."
"What is it then?" yelled someone at the back. "Mrs. Womersley on spoons?"
Alan's eyes twinkled, but he shook his head. "This is an exclusive," he said in tremendous tones. "Even by the Barley Mow's own high professional standards."
"Gerronwithit," called someone else at the back.
"I'll say no more," Alan said, clearly intending to do just the opposite. "Except that it's someone you're all going to recognize. He's been away for a while, but now he's making a comeback, and we're privileged to be the chosen venue. Not Madison Square Garden, lezgennelmen, not Wembley Arena, but the Barley Mow, Eight Mile Bottom."
Everyone laughed again.
"Cut the crap, Alan," shouted a white-haired man in a tweed jacket.
Alan cut the crap. "Lezgennelmen, I give you…Ma-att Locke."
Rosie gasped. The shouting and applause died away into a shocked silence, punctuated by a few nervous titters. As the pub door opened and Matt's tall, slender figure appeared silhouetted against the night sky, carrying his electric guitar above his head, Rosie's heart bounced hard and fierce against her ribs like a squash ball. This was impossible. There was no doubt now that she was imagining things.
Matt was performing. In the Barley Mow. She vaguely recalled him saying something about getting his stage boots back on. But surely this wasn't what he had meant. Watching him push his way through a huddle of farmers to the stage, Rosie's eye caught the signs surrounding the menu. Not only were Mr. Womersley's onions still enjoying pride of place, but the ferret sign had gone up again.
"In order to make his first public appearance for some time," Alan boomed excitedly as Matt struggled through a crowd of large ladies clutching pint glasses, "Matt Locke, the internationally famous rock star, our very own local legend, lezgennelmen, has chosen not to go unplugged in a room at the BBC before an exclusive celebrity gathering, nor has he been tempted by one of the lesser stages at Glastonbury. He has chosen you, lezgennelmen. Us. The Barley Mow. Eight Mile Bottom."
"Eeh, 'e's not bad, is 'e? Very lifelike. Same hair and everything," muttered a thick-set man with a dark mustache to his wife, who peered at Matt through her bifocals as he climbed slowly onto the pile of curtain-covered pallets constituting the stage.
"Looks just like 'im," the wife pronounced. "Them big lips and everything. Should go on Britain's Got Talent, he should. Looks a bit nervous though, don't he?"
This, Rosie saw, was the understatement of the century. Matt's face was white with panic as he eyed the eighty or so people crowded in front of him. He was clinging to his guitar like a drowning man to a raft, his bloodless fingers pressed tightly to the strings. Even if his road crew alone was normally bigger than this audience, being here was obviously costing him unimaginable effort. Through the thick atmosphere Rosie could feel him battling his demons, wrestling desperately with the urge to dash out of the door and run back to the safe prison of Ladymead. Come on, Matt, she silently urged him. You can do it.
But could he? His eyes had retreated behind his brows; he pulled strands of hair nervously over his face and swallowed violently and repeatedly, his Adam's apple traveling up and down his long neck like a turbocharged lift. Chewing his lips, he looked wildly around him. Oh, God, Rosie thought, he's going to run. She jumped up and down to catch his eye, finally succeeded, and, crossing her fingers, put her whole heart into her smile back at him. At that moment, Matt seemed to relax.
Skimming his elegant fingers across his guitar strings, he smiled unsteadily at the audience. "This is a new song I just wrote," he muttered. "For my, um, new album." His voice cracked slightly. The feedback screeched like a banshee. Alan winced. Go on, Matt, urged Rosie, everything crossed.
The noise of chatter died down. Even the clink of glasses behind the bar was silenced. The entire barroom listened intently as, after a few soft chords, the familiar raw, sleepy voice, shaky at first, then more confident, filled the smoky air. As he hit the chorus, Rosie felt tears spring to her eyes; heard, too, a few powerful sniffs from behind her in the audience. After a few minutes, Rosie glanced at the Britain's Got Talent couple. They seemed in no doubt now to whom they were listening. Matt's final chord fell like a drop of water into a silent pool. After a few seconds of absolute quiet, the pub rose to its feet and erupted into a frenzy of raucous applause.
The bifocaled woman clamped a tissue to her nose while Alan, Rosie noticed, was looking decidedly moist around the tear ducts. And there, at the back by the door, was none other than Murgatroyd, scraping at his eye with a white handkerchief and cheering like a football fan.
Stamping her feet furiously into the flowered red carpet, Rosie alternately cheered, wept, and hammered her ecstatic fists hard on Guy's shoulder. "He's done it. He's done it!"
Matt, grinning broadly, eyes shining with relief, suddenly murmured something through the microphone. The room fell instantly silent once more. "Thank you very much," he said softly. "You don't know what it means to me to hear you react like that. I haven't heard that sound in a long while. Hell, I might even start performing in public again." As everyone laughed, Rosie saw that she was the only person who thought he wasn't joking. Or who guessed how much had really been riding on their reaction. "I'm very proud of the new album," Matt added, wincing slightly at the screeching feedback. "But I haven't worked on it alone. I've had some help from someone very special. Someone I've only met lately."
Rosie shrank into Guy. Oh, please. Matt wasn't going to mention her…
"Ladies and gentlemen, Iseult Mahoney."
/> The door of the pub burst open, hitting Murgatroyd hard on the arm and provoking from him a most un-Jeeves-like curse. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as Iseult danced in, hair flowing, and strode to the stage as if she'd been doing it all her life. Her huge eyes shone with stuck-on sequins and excitement, while her barely there pink T-shirt, bearing the diamante legend F*** ME, I'M FAMOUS, struck Guy as rather familiar. One of Samantha's? Yes—and abandoned, he was sure, because no one had ever recognized her in it. Or in anything, come to that. Iseult grinned happily at the audience, slipped a hand heavy with silver skulls round the microphone, and as Matt slashed away at his guitar, ripped into a number that practically blew the dust off the rafters. Her voice was sweet, rich, and powerful and, when Matt joined her for the chorus, combined perfectly with his own smoky rawness.
Soon the entire pub was dancing. Ann, still wearing her feather headdress, slipped back behind the drum kit while Alan dived behind the bar and reemerged with an accordion. The headmistress wrested the maracas from the Ofsted inspector's grasp and shook them provocatively in his face. To Rosie's surprise, he smiled. Duffy, meanwhile, was cavorting with a tambourine and a large lady in purple who was looking adoringly into his eyes. "You can stuff my envelope anytime," Rosie heard her growl as they waltzed past, Duffy's face as red as his Royal Mail van.
To judge from the numbers arriving, word was apparently spreading not only around the village but down into Slapton too. As more and more people arrived in the pub, it seemed the thick-walled building would burst with the pressure of numbers.
Hours later, a perspiring Matt and Iseult played their last encore to a stamping, cheering crowd. Looking slightly abashed, Murgatroyd quietly slipped back to Ann the headdress he had spent the last hour leaping about in and melted away to get the Mercedes. "Do you do special delivery?" Duffy's admirer was asking as, arm thrust firmly through his, she levered him past Rosie and out of the pub door.
Matt shot Rosie a mock-desperate look through the masses now pressing him and Iseult to autograph bar towels, beer mats, and even a bottom. "Please don't tell me you'll never wash it again," said Matt, grinning and crossing the T's with a flourish.
Rosie leaned over to Guy. "Iseult's fantastic. What a voice. You must be very proud."
"We are," Guy said, sliding his hand into that of the sweet-faced brunette. "Despite the fact that she's obviously decided the family name lacks star quality. Mahoney indeed."
"It is family. My mother was Irish." The brunette sniffed. Her eyes, Rosie noticed, were shining with tears.
"At least no one took their knickers off." Matt grinned as, eventually, he and Iseult signed the last cigarette pack and struggled through to Rosie, Guy, and the brunette by now established as Iseult's mother, Marina.
"You got off lightly then," said Guy, snorting, and the memory of Mrs. Womersley's Harvest Festivals sprang irresistibly to Rosie's mind.
"But I have been asked to open the Eight Mile Bottom carnival," Matt added. "They desperately need a celebrity, apparently."
"Congratulations," said Alan, swooping in on the conversation. "That's a great honor, that is. Last year it was the local wildlife artist that opened it, and the year before it was a presenter from Radio Cobchester."
Rosie looked closely at Alan. As usual, it was difficult to tell whether he was joking.
"I said I'd think about it. Can't see how I can refuse though," Matt said, rubbing his hair and grinning devastatingly at Rosie through the tousled strands. "It turns out they're being lobbied night and day by some nutcase actress in the village who fancies herself as the lady of the manor as well as the most famous person since God and is desperate to open it. Apparently, I'm the only person who could stop her getting her way."
"Can't imagine who that could be," drawled Iseult, while Guy noisily cleared his throat and Marina bit back a smile. "Still, she needs something to do now that Mark's gone back to London and the film's gone tits-up."
Mark's gone back to London. Rosie felt a slow wave of relief course through her. Now, perhaps, life could begin again. She looked at Matt, who was listening to Alan.
"I take it that they didn't tell you about the curse of the carnival then?" the landlord was saying in an undertone.
Matt shook his head. "Curse?"
"Oh, yes." Alan grinned. "Notorious for trouble the carnival is. Last year the brass band crashed on the motorway on the way here, we couldn't get anyone to be the carnival queen, not even a man, and there weren't any floats because the farmers needed all their trailers for haymaking. And a couple of years before that the person opening it—some singer, I think—had a heart attack that morning."
Matt's brow furrowed. "Sounds a bit risky. I've only just got myself back on the straight and narrow as it is." He flashed Rosie a grateful glance that went straight to her groin. "Do you think they'd want me to be the carnival entertainment instead?" he asked Alan. "I could do a concert. For free, obviously."
Rosie looked at the landlord, expecting delight. But Alan was sucking his teeth and looking doubtful. "Difficult one, that. They've booked Norman Billy for the evening, you see. Plumber from Slapton and very popular—people round here arrange their weddings around whether he's available or not. Very good cover versions he does. Mostly yours, as it happens."
Matt shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "No contest, in that case. You don't want me spoiling the fun and performing my own stuff. Suppose I'd better practice my ribbon-cutting then." He slid an arm around Rosie. "Come on. We'd better be off. I'll see you at Abbey Road then, Iz. Time we started laying a few tracks down. Nine-thirty next Tuesday morning, be there or be square."
At this, Marina burst into tears. "Abbey Road," she sobbed into Guy's chest. "My little baby's going to be recording at Abbey Road!" In reply, Guy kissed the top of her head.
Iseult rolled exasperated eyes at Matt and Rosie. "Ridiculous, isn't it?" she hissed in a stage whisper. "My parents are divorced. And now they're having an affair with each other. An affair. Grown-ups are so bloody stupid."
***
Matt grinned at Rosie as he humped a guitar case out of the door. "Back in a minute. Just sticking this in the back of the Merc." He paused and cleared his throat. "Don't go away," he added nervously, searching her face with serious eyes. "I've got something to ask you. Something to give you. Had to wait and see if the gig went well first. But it's all OK now."
It's all OK now, Rosie repeated silently, exultingly, watching him disappear. It's all OK now. It was then that she noticed, with a jolt of the heart, a familiar hulking figure at the back of the emptying room. By his side, a short, round, dark-haired woman was talking animatedly to Ann.
There was no way she could avoid him. "Jack," Rosie said, walking up to him, glad of the gloom hiding her blushes as she remembered their last furious exchange. "I've never seen you in here before."
"Aye, well, I've never been a big fan of this pub."
Rosie could have bitten her tongue out. Of course. It was in the Barley Mow that he had met Catherine. Please, she thought, don't let him start banging on about all that again.
"But Susan thinks I should get out more. Great concert, wasn't it? Matt's pretty good, I reckon."
Rosie nodded, trying not to look amazed. "It was. He is. And thanks for saying so."
Jack's teeth shone in the gloaming. "Maybe I'll get some of his CDs. You get sick of Jennifer Lopez…This is Susan," he added suddenly as the dark-haired woman, having finished her conversation with Ann, turned bright, inquiring eyes on Rosie. "My fiancée."
"Congratulations," said Rosie, meaning it. From the way Susan was beaming at him with mingled love and pride, it was obvious Jack would have no trouble from the woman he was with in the Barley Mow tonight.
"Rosie's an, um, illustrator," said Jack, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. He was, Rosie noticed with astonishment, wearing shoes, not wellies. Moreover, the shoes were new.
Susan's face lit up. "Wonderful. I need someone to do some drawings for the brochures
I'm planning for Spitewinter. Advertising bed-and-breakfast, farm-fresh produce, and so on. Would you be interested? When we get back from our honeymoon, that is?"
"Of course. I'd love to." Rosie was about to add that she'd done quite a few Spitewinter sheep and cows already but thought better of it.
"Thanks." Jack grinned as Susan disappeared to retrieve her coat. "We're getting married on a beach in the Seychelles. Susan thinks I need a break from the farm."
"She's right. Have a great time."
"We will."
Rosie screwed up her courage and looked directly into his eyes. "Be happy, Jack. You deserve it."
"So do you. You be happy too."
"I will." Spotting Susan returning and Matt coming back in, Rosie crossed her fingers behind her back. Was the something he had to ask her what she hoped it was? Or was he merely wondering if she'd seen his guitar pick?
"Oh, and if you're thinking of buying us a wedding present…" Jack added.
