Reenie hunched in her seat like a pouting eighty-four-year-old toddler. ‘Fine. But don’t ask me to bust a gut to be her friend, all right?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Mattie replied. Everything hurt this morning, from her neck where she’d failed to find a position she could sleep in last night to her heart, which Gil had so easily stamped upon. Reenie might wish for an end to the reconciliation road trip, but she couldn’t want it more than Mattie did today.
I’ve been away from home for too long, she concluded, struck by a sudden need to be back in her shop with Joanna and Laurie, sorting out new purchases for Percy to make for his new home and finding vintage pieces for online customers around the world. She would call her sister and Laurie when she returned to the hotel that evening, she decided. After so long away – more days now than she had ever been absent from her business before – her shop and the life she’d managed to rebuild beyond it seemed almost dreamlike, as if she couldn’t be altogether sure any of it had existed at all. The sooner she could return to her own life, the better.
‘Oh, here we go,’ Kelvin said. ‘Looks like she’s bringing us in.’
Pru lifted her head and followed his pointing finger. Mattie followed suit and saw a figure approaching across the expansive driveway.
‘She has staff?’ Pru was incredulous. ‘Is she some kind of celebrity?’
Reenie snorted. ‘Maybe in Wales. Not in the rest of the world.’
‘She’s been voted National Treasure in Wales for the last ten years in a row,’ Kelvin informed them, scrolling through text on his phone screen. He looked up. ‘Wikipedia says so.’
‘Wikipedia? Pfft. She could have written it herself, then.’
Mattie ignored Reenie and opened the driver’s door as a harassed-looking young man in jeans and a black shirt neared Rusty. ‘Good morning.’
‘Hey,’ he panted, a smile passing at breakneck speed across his face. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, but Miss Davis was unavoidably delayed. If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you into the residence. I’ve arranged for tea, hope that’s okay?’ He looked a little shocked when Pru and Kelvin emerged from the back of the camper van. ‘Oh, is it all of you?’
‘We don’t mind waiting here,’ Pru whispered to Mattie.
‘No need. You’re both welcome to join us. I’m Teifi Miller, by the way. Miss Davis’s PA.’
‘Matilda Bell – Mattie – we spoke on the phone, I think? And this is Reenie Silver.’
On cue, Reenie emerged, like a diva at her eighth curtain call, from the other side of the camper van. She held out her hand as if bestowing a blessing on the young man.
‘Hello, Mr Miller.’
‘It’s an honour, Ms Silver. I’m a huge fan of your work. Your Vegas album was my favourite record in my dad’s collection when I was a boy.’
Thrilled, Reenie feigned a self-conscious laugh. ‘What a sweet boy you are. Remind me to sign you something before I go. Little memento, you know.’
‘That would be fantastic. Well, if you’ll all follow me . . .’
The house Teifi ushered them into was by far the grandest they’d visited on their journey. The road-trip team filed behind Alys’s PA into a wide hall rising through two storeys, with beautiful stained-glass windows on both levels bringing patches of sunlight in dappled shades of red, blue, green and gold. The carpet on which they walked was thick and luxurious, the drapes at the windows and across doors an expensive silk brocade.
A grand staircase rose from the centre of the hall and split midway to head to the east and west wings of the house. ‘It’s a bleedin’ palace,’ Reenie muttered. ‘Good on her.’
Teifi’s mobile buzzed angrily in his hand. ‘Ah, Miss Davis is ready. Would you all like to follow me into the sitting room, please?’
Calling it a sitting room was a little like calling the Millennium Stadium a school playing field. Three sets of sofas, armchairs and occasional tables were laid out in the long, spacious room, the walls and soft furnishings in shades of yellow, old gold and white. It gave the impression that the sun had been locked in the room, causing everything to glow. Two pure white and peach-patched long-haired Chihuahua dogs were snoozing in matching wicker baskets at either side of a grandly carved marble fireplace, apparently unaffected by the sudden intrusion of four strangers into their home.
‘Don’t mind the dogs,’ Teifi said. ‘Mork and Orson are about as vicious as a pair of slippers. They won’t even notice you’re here. Make yourselves at home, and I’ll have the tea brought in.’ He scurried out, and Mattie wondered if he was ever able to simply walk from one place to another, or if everything had to be done at a canter.
‘Our little Baby Alys a lady of the manor,’ Reenie said, running a wistful hand across a gold velvet cushion. ‘Lucky girl.’
Mattie glanced at Reenie to check how she was. While she had been full of jibes and jokes this morning, now it was as if someone had reached inside her and dimmed the switch of her personality. Leaving Pru petting the sleepy dogs by the fireplace and Kelvin taking surreptitious photos on his phone, Mattie sat gently beside Reenie.
‘Hey. How are you doing?’
‘Don’t worry about me. It’s just this place. It’s a little overwhelming.’
‘It’s bound to be. Alys has worked hard for her money, and good for her for wanting to show it off.’
‘It’s amazing. It’s just more than I expected . . .’
Mattie laid her hand over Reenie’s on the white brocade sofa seat. ‘Let’s face it, very little of what we planned for this trip has turned out the way we thought it would. But it’s been fun because of that, don’t you think? Mostly fun.’
‘I’ll go with mostly. But I’ll tell you somethin’ for nothin’, Mattie, I’m glad this is the last one. I don’t think my heart could stand any more shocks this week.’
‘So you finally came back, then?’
Mattie turned with the others to see a small lady dressed in a long, fitted burgundy dress with a deep green pashmina draped artfully around her neck. She had her arm linked through the good-looking PA’s, and seemed to float rather than walk into her impressive sitting room. Mattie would have recognised her anywhere, her face a regular feature of the banks of magazines lining Kings Sunbury’s newsagents. Her fame had spread far beyond her native Wales, boosted most recently by a raft of prime-time television appearances.
Reenie stood, doing her best to hide the walking cane behind one leg as she found her feet. ‘I thought it was about time I looked in on you.’
Alys greeted Reenie with a kiss on the cheek, then ditched any semblance of decorum and gathered her startled former colleague into a huge bear hug. ‘It’s great to have you here, Reen! Even if it has taken you sixty years to do it. How the devil are you? You’re looking amazing – as ever. Still breaking hearts across the western hemisphere, I’ll bet!’
Reenie grinned. ‘You don’t scrub up too badly for an old chook yourself.’
‘I know! Who’d’ve thought it? Us glamour pusses, a couple of doddery old eighty-somethings – and still causing trouble. Now sit yourself down and let’s chat. What are you drinking? Tea? Bloody hell, Teifi’s got no idea how stars behave. I’m having to teach him everything from scratch. Listen, I’ve some divine cognac from my last trip to Paris. Care for a glass, lovely? Of course you would! I remember, back in the day, you sneaking that old hip flask of yours into our dressing room when Rico wasn’t looking. Cherry B and burn-your-throat-Bourbon, wasn’t it?’
Reenie smirked. ‘Whatever I could swipe from the bar, usually. It was never the good stuff.’
‘Too right! Mind you, remember that fit barman at the club we played near Düsseldorf back in ’53? I seem to remember you sourcing a rather fine malt whisky from the chap. Heaven only knows what you had to trade to get that.’
Reenie’s chuckle was filthy and guttural. ‘That secret’ll go to my grave.’ She watched her friend as she sailed over to a globe-shaped drinks cabinet and poured brandy f
rom an expensive-looking carafe into two cut-crystal glasses. ‘You’ve done all right for yourself, haven’t you, kid?’
‘Can’t complain. Telly work helps now, and once you’re on the circuit here it runs itself. I have a good agent, mind. Sacked off the old geezer ten years ago, took up with a young ankle-biter and haven’t looked back since. Gets me in on everything, she does. Oh, how rude of me. I completely forgot to say hello to your pals.’
Reenie gave a weak smile. ‘Prudence, Kelvin – and this is the famous Mattie Bell, who is the real reason I’m here.’
Alys nodded at them all and smiled. ‘Then thank you, Mattie. I didn’t think I’d see this lady again until both of us got to Glory.’
To see the woman Reenie had always referred to as ‘Baby Alys’ as a confident, brash and, it had to be said, slightly inebriated eighty-one-year-old was a sight to behold, and despite Reenie’s obvious jealousy, Mattie could see a deep fondness in the old singer’s eyes for her former friend. She’d told tales of their questionable exploits at gigs across the country and further afield, Reenie’s version of events painting herself as the ringleader and Alys as her wide-eyed, innocent partner in crime. Meeting Alys now, however, Mattie suspected she’d had more input than Reenie had admitted. Now that she had seen Reenie with all of her surviving former colleagues, it was clear to see where everyone had stood in the group: Tommy was the optimist, always hoping for the next big break, and the oil on troubled waters when fights occurred; June, the talented but prickly diva; Alys, the young star in the making, looking to Reenie for inspiration. Mattie could imagine them as young people – younger than she was today – embarking on a bright future, with the world seemingly falling at their feet. Had they all believed Rico when he’d promised them stardom and all the trimmings that came with it?
After almost an hour of swapping stories from their years in The Silver Five, Reenie’s face grew serious. She reached out to pat Alys’s knee. ‘Now, love. It’s time for me to say what I came here to tell you.’
Alys put down her glass, and clasped Reenie’s hands between hers. ‘There’s no need.’
‘There is. I should have said something years ago, but I was a coward. Easier to move forward feeling like a star than look back to see the dirt you left behind. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left the way I did. More than anything, I’m sorry I didn’t say something before I skipped out on you. We chatted about most things, you and I, but I couldn’t tell you what was happening that time. That was a big mistake, love, I realise that now. You used to say I was like a big sister to you and – well – you deserved better than I gave.’
Alys observed Reenie for an uncomfortable minute, then, without warning, threw back her head and laughed. ‘And that’s what you came here to say? Oh, sweetheart, I don’t blame you for that! I’d be mad to. You leaving gave me the push I needed.’
‘Come again?’
‘Well, before that night, I never thought I had it in me to really sing, you know. Not solo. I used to watch you and June up there, giving it welly, and just thought, “I can never be like them!” I assumed I’d always sing backing for stars like you two. Nice Welsh girls from Caerphilly don’t always push themselves forward – at least, they didn’t in my day. My mother had kittens hearing I was singing in a club with a bar. If she’d known what else I was getting up to, she’d’ve had a coronary on the spot! Another brandy for anyone? Plenty here.’
Mattie, Kelvin and Pru mumbled their refusals but Reenie held out her glass, an odd look in her eyes.
‘There you go! Lovely.’
‘I don’t get this: when I left, your career was pretty much over. June said as much when I saw her a couple of days ago. And Tommy.’
‘You’d think so, but it wasn’t for me.’
‘But you’d had your heart set on that gig. It was all you talked about, you and June, for months. I did you out of your first booking at the Palm Grove.’
‘Second.’
‘Sorry?’
Alys smiled. ‘My second gig at the club. Oh, Reenie, didn’t you know? I played Jake Kendrick’s club months before The Silver Five were supposed to.’
Reenie’s eyes narrowed as she knocked back half the brandy in her glass. ‘When? And how?’
‘With Ted. On the sly, mind, but it was the first time I’d tried performing without you all. And to my surprise, I found I was pretty good at it.’
‘Ted? My Ted?’
‘Depends. How many Teds do you have?’
‘Ted Farnsworth. The bandleader I started out with.’
Alys clapped her hands. ‘The very same!’
And then Mattie remembered. The singer with the Ted Farnsworth Orchestra that had made Grandpa Joe, his friends and most of the audience stop what they were doing, compelled to listen to the ‘cracking girl singer’. It hadn’t been just any singer drafted in to replace Reenie: it had been her very own bandmate, the girl she’d considered to be a protégé.
‘I think my grandfather saw you perform that night,’ she said, as Alys turned towards her. ‘He said everyone in the club stopped to listen to you.’
‘He said that?’ The glamorous lady’s eyes misted over. ‘Aw. A moment like that, it changes you. It makes you believe you can be as big as you dream. I watched that crowd falling silent and just listening to me – and that was when I knew, as soon as I could leave the group and strike out on my own, I had to do it.’
‘Alys Davis, you sly old mare! When were you going to tell the rest of us? Did Rico know?’
‘Heavens, no! I wasn’t that daft, even at twenty-one years old. And as for the rest of you, I knew we wouldn’t be together indefinitely. We were all pulling in different directions: it was only a matter of time. So when you did your moonlight flit, I knew that was my chance to move on, too. You did me a favour, cariad.’
Reenie shook her head. ‘No, no I didn’t! You could’ve had international fame instead of being a local celebrity. If the group had survived we could’ve been bigger than bleedin’ Cliff Richard – playing arenas and singing when it rains at Wimbledon . . .’
‘Better to be a raging swan in a tiny pond than a little duck paddling in the sea,’ Alys intoned, cackling with laughter. ‘I found my niche early on. I wasn’t likely to pass up that opportunity. I’m the Gloria Hunniford of the Valleys, don’t you know? The Darling of the Brecons, the – oh, what is it they called me last year at the Green Man Festival? Oh yes, the Powys Goddess of Gold! I owe the chap at the Daily Mail a few quid for that one, I reckon. Point is, Reenie, without you doing a bunk and leaving us all flailing about, my career would’ve been dead and done years ago. Instead, I have everything I wanted and more. Nice house, recognition, regular work and a rather fit boyfriend . . .’ She leered over at Teifi, who sent a dazzling smile back before leaving the room.
Reenie looked as if she’d opened a ring box and found a slug. ‘That? You expect me to believe you’re shagging that young bloke? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!’
‘He’s only a few years younger,’ Alys purred.
‘He’s young enough to be your grandson, you dirty old woman!’
‘He keeps me young, in more ways than one.’ She roared with laughter. ‘Your face! Don’t look so surprised. The nights get long and lonely out here in the Welsh wastelands. What else are we supposed to do?’
Reenie rolled her eyes. ‘Trust you, Alys Davis. Trust you to be the dark horse out of all of us.’ She shook her head, but a grudging respect took the place of her disappointment. ‘Will you come and do the gig, love? As an old hand at Palm Grove performances?’
Alys threw her arm around Reenie’s shoulders and refilled her brandy glass. ‘Oh, Reenie Silver, I wouldn’t miss it for the world!’
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Hey You!’ – Tommy Steele and the Steelmen
That night, Mattie declined Reenie’s enthusiastic invitation to ‘a celebratory dinner’, choosing instead to order food to her room. Pru had offered to take Gil’
s vacant bed, for which Mattie was grateful and Kelvin visibly over the moon. ‘No funny business,’ she’d assured Mattie quietly. ‘I just figured you might need some space.’
With Gil gone and Mattie determined to press on regardless, she wanted to rest as much as her aching body would allow tonight and catch up with events at home, before the journey back to London tomorrow and the gig that would follow. Knowing she was almost at the end of her adventure made her long to be back in Kings Sunbury, living a life she recognised. It would be a long time before she went away again, she promised herself, climbing into bed and reaching for her phone.
The sound of Laurie’s crazy Labrador barking when the call was answered made her want to laugh and cry simultaneously. ‘I said, get down! Take my advice, Mattie: don’t ever get a dog if you want a quiet life. So how are you after your epic trip?’
‘Good. Tired. I just want to do the concert and come home. How’s everything at Bell Be-Bop?’
‘Bop-tastic as usual.’ It was an old joke, so overused it was practically fraying at the seams. ‘No, but seriously, your sister is a dream. Better than you. I’m kidding! I’m not, actually. She’s amazing. You won’t recognise the place when you get back. Organised like you wouldn’t believe. I swear we’ll never find anything again, but it looks pretty.’
‘And you? Everything okay?’
‘Aw, thanks for asking. I’m dating Percy.’
Mattie sniggered, but the extended silence this was met with indicated Laurie wasn’t pulling her leg. ‘No! When did this happen?’
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