Seeing Stars (28 page)

By the time the second set started, they were all a little drunk. Amber, deciding that they’d probably never get served again,
had got four of everything.

This time, the JB Roadshow opened with a shortened version of ‘Sock It To ’em JB’ combined with ‘Soul Finger’. Instantly,
everyone was on their feet, albeit a little more raucously and unsteadily this time. Amber watched them on stage, feeling
the music throb into her, the frisson of excitement tingle through her veins.

They were electric, exciting, noisy, talented, and very, very sexy.

‘Come on,’ Lewis grabbed her hand as the band roared into ‘I Feel Good’. ‘This is seriously good – come on, Jem.’

They danced together again, holding Jem’s hands, crushed by Joyce and Brian’s friends as the soul music, song after familiar
song, thundered up into the stucco and gilding.

This, Amber thought dreamily, is the best night of my life – ever.

‘And now –’ Tiff Clayton once again caressed the microphone ‘– we’re going to slow things down a bit with a
special request from Brian for Joyce on this very special day …’

The Masonic Hall went ‘Aaaah …’

‘So let’s see all you lovers out there smooch away to Brian’s heartfelt choice: the late great Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving
You Too Long”.’

Lewis and Amber looked at one another and spluttered with laughter.

As the slow, soulful opening bars started, Jem pulled them all closer together. Amber grinned down at him, shaking her head.
Then they swayed slowly, the three of them, as Tiff Clayton growled out the bittersweet lyrics.

As the band moved on to ‘Private Number’, Joyce and Brian appeared to be having words.

Jem pulled away from them, frowning, pointing down to his feet.

‘What’s up?’ Lewis leaned close to him. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

Jem shook his head, then placed his palms-together hands against the side of his face.

‘Tired? You lightweight!’ Lewis laughed. ‘OK – go and sit this one out. Can you manage OK?’

Jem nodded, and as he made his way carefully through the swaying couples he turned and winked at Amber.

It just seemed so natural, as the JB Roadshow slinked into the sultry ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, to move into Lewis’s arms.
As he slid his hands round her waist, Amber felt as though her flesh was on fire. She slowly put her hands onto his shoulders,
knowing she was trembling, praying he wouldn’t notice. They moved easily together, bodies touching, moving away, moving back
again. Natural. Instinctive. Like lovers.

The JB Roadshow kept them in this delicious state through several more Otis Redding and Ben E King numbers, then Tiff Clayton
spoiled it all by announcing they were having a further uptempo soul selection for the boppers.

As the band started their stepping and swaying routine and ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’ screamed into the hall, Amber moved
away from Lewis. ‘I think I’ll join the lightweights,’ she said, her voice disappearing into the music. ‘OK?’

He nodded, still smiling, and followed her back to the table where Jem had rearranged the sequinned heaven again and was grinning
from ear to ear.

‘Yeah, OK,’ Amber hissed at him. ‘Very clever. It worked – but it was only a dance or two. Not a lifetime commitment. And
I hope you’ve left us something to drink …’

Still beaming, Jem pushed the glasses across the table.

‘Feeling better?’ Lewis asked, as he sat down. ‘Good. And I think we’ll have to rechristen you. Oh, no – don’t look all innocent
like that. You need renaming, and no, not Arty, you meddlesome sod. I think we’ll have to call you Puck’n’Cupid from now on.’

‘I’ve already told him,’ Amber said lightly, ‘that it was only dancing.’

‘Exactly,’ Lewis drained half a pint of beer without stopping. ‘Only dancing …’

They sat back in their chairs, closer together now, relaxed. Amber, reliving every minute of his hands burning through her
flimsy frock, his body touching hers, wondered if Lewis could still hear her heart thundering. Oh, bugger the love-thing.
Why Lewis? Why, oh, why had she fallen head over heels for a man who, at best treated her as a friend, and at worst, seemed
totally disinterested.

It had never been like this – heady, floaty, walking on air – with Jamie. It had never been like this, full-stop.

The party was coming to an end. Amber simply wanted it to last for ever.

The JB Roadshow hadn’t flagged, each song was as fresh, as professional, as the one preceding it. It had been a truly amazing
experience.

‘Hi, Amber, duck,’ a cheerful voice chuckled above her.

‘You look good enough to eat. Everything OK? Enjoying it?’

‘Freddo! How lovely to see you,’ she grinned delightedly up at him. ‘Thanks so much for this – it’s been a brilliant night.
It’s – they’ve –’ she nodded towards the stage ‘– been fantastic. Everything you said and more. I didn’t think you’d be here
…’

‘Got to make sure my boys get their dues.’ Freddo put his glass on the table and pulled up a chair. ‘I always try and make
the last bit of the act anyway to see how they’ve gone down and pick up any future gigs. All the boring management stuff,
you know. Hi.’ He leaned across the table, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Freddo. Agent to the stars.’

Amber laughingly introduced Lewis and Jem and everyone shook hands.

‘So.’ Freddo cocked his head on one side. ‘Will they suit, duck? The boys? For your moon gig?’

‘Absolutely. Definitely. They’re just brilliant.’

‘OK, so when you’ve got the go-ahead from your people you just give me a bell – or better still, come along to see me in person
and we’ll firm up.’

Amber nodded.

The JB Roadshow were winding down now, playing Aretha Franklin and Solomon Burke. The Masonic Hall was smooching madly. Joyce
and Brian were dancing the last dance with other people.

Freddo pushed his chair back. ‘Give us ten minutes or so when the set’s finished, then come round the back of the stage. All
of you. Bring both your young men too, natch, duck. You can meet the boys, give them a bit more info about your gig. OK?’

‘Yes, great, thanks.’

‘Just go up the stage steps there to the side, round the curtain, across the stage, and there’s a little blue door straight
ahead of you. You’ll find us – no sweat.’

Jem chuckled happily as Freddo said adios and pushed
his way up on the stage and round the side of the heavy curtains.

‘Is he for real?’ Lewis laughed. ‘I thought you’d exaggerated. This has been a hell of a night.’ He leaned across the table.
‘Thanks, Amber. Thanks for all of it. I can’t remember when I last enjoyed myself so much. It’s been sheer magic.’

Jem, filling his pockets with star sequins, indicated that he heartily concurred.

Twenty minutes later, with the Masonic Hall’s clearingup, saying-goodnight, mwah-mwah noises in the background, Amber, with
Lewis holding tightly on to Jem’s hand behind her, pushed her way into the backstage dressing room.

The room was smoky, and reeked of beer and cigarettes and a raft of different deodorants. A couple of pot-bellied, long-haired,
middle-aged men were rolling up cables, wheeling amplifiers, and generally tidying up the necessary rock’n’roll paraphernalia.

The JB Roadshow, stripped of their on-stage glitz, were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts and slumped, exhausted on various
bits of equipment swigging beer from cans. They still looked, to Amber, pretty damn hot for their age.

‘Hi guys!’ Freddo waved his can of lager across the room. ‘Come along in. I’ve told the boys all about you.’

Tiff Clayton, the singer, more lined close to but nonetheless still extremely attractive, laughed. ‘He certainly has – but
he lied. You’re even more stunning than he said.’

Everyone laughed then. Amber blushed.

Freddo stretched. ‘I’ve told them all about your weird village thing, duck. I mean, being local, I know how strange these
rural customs can be and Fiddlesticks is renowned for its moon-bayers – but even so, they didn’t quite believe it.’

‘Believe it,’ Lewis nodded. ‘The place is mad. Barking. But they’ll love you. You – all of you – were, are, brilliant.’

‘Thanks, mate.’ Tiff Clayton grinned, his face creasing into wrinkles. ‘We try to please.’

Amber felt ridiculously shy now, being backstage with the band who were, after all, a bunch of tired middle-aged men who’d
just finished work. Her ears were still ringing.

‘Um—’ she smiled at everyone, ‘I just wanted to say, well, what Lewis has just said really. You are amazing. I’ve never heard
anything so fantastic in my life. Er—’

The band raised their cans to her.

‘What I’d suggested to the boys just before you came in –’ Freddo yawned ‘– is that if your people give the go-ahead, I’ll
come over and give the place a bit of a recce. I’d like to check out the venue for myself. I mean, being an open-air gig,
I’ll need to know we’ve got all services to hand, and the safety stuff – all the boring crap that has to be done these days
– will that be OK?’

‘Fine,’ Amber nodded. ‘Good idea. Look, if it’s OK, why don’t you come over on one of the other celestial festival nights?’
She glanced up at Lewis. ‘When’s the next one?’

‘Plough Night – it’s not anything spectacular, but yes, it’d give you a bit of a taster and you could get the lay of the land
and stuff.’

‘Plough Night it is then,’ Freddo said. ‘And when’s that exactly?’

‘Middle of August – not long.’

‘Sounds good to me. So, Amber duck, you’ll be in touch and all being well, is it a date?’

‘Definitely,’ she smiled happily at the band who now looked as though all they wanted to do was sleep for a week. ‘We’ll see
you in the middle of August – and Fiddlesticks won’t know what’s hit it.’

What A Little Moonlight Can Do

‘So –’ Fern bounced up and down in the corner shop’s already broiling early morning queue ‘– then last night he said that
he couldn’t understand why he’d never before realised that I was a woman.’

Amber, who days later still simply couldn’t get ‘Sock It To ’em JB’ out of her head, frowned. ‘And you took that as a compliment,
did you?’

‘Naturally.’

Fern bounced some more. Her chest was leaping up and down on its own. Billy Grinley and Dougie Patchcock, thumbing through
what passed for Mrs Jupp’s top-shelf mags, stopped leering over the rather demure centrefolds and leered at Fern instead.

‘So, is it – I mean – are you – you know?’

‘Together?’ Fern giggled. ‘Nah – not yet. But I’m working on it. Oh, but it’s so lovely after all those years of loving from
afar to actually be able to talk to him, and laugh with him, and be with him, and share things. We –’ she looked quite serious
‘– have got a lot of learning stuff to do, though. I mean, we don’t really know each other at all. We’re at that lovely stage
where everything we say is all new and fresh and exciting.’

Amber shook her head. It was inexplicable. It certainly
sounded like love – well, maybe not the madly crazy, topsy-turvy, heart-punching, all-in-a-heap, out-of-nowhere love that
she felt for Lewis, of course – but love nevertheless.

‘And have you mentioned to Timmy that this – this bolt from the blue – occurred straight after Cassiopeia’s Carnival? I mean,
does he believe that it’s astral magic at work, too?’

‘Oh, yeah, definitely,’ Fern grinned as the queue shuffled forward. ‘He says he went to bed that night dreaming of whisking
Zillah off to some Daphne du Maurier hideaway where he intended to propose – and woke up knowing it was the worst idea he’d
ever had in his life. He said it scared him rigid. He thought he was going mad. And then he said, when he saw me outside the
pub that morning, he knew, he just
knew
…’

‘OK, I agree it all sounds pretty miraculous, but –’ Amber frowned ‘ – you can’t move in with him, can you at the moment?
You can’t live together? Or work permanently at the pub? Or, well, be together as a couple at all, because of Hayfields and
Win.’

Much to Dougie and Billy’s delight, Fern bounced even more. Amber fleetingly wondered if she should mention getting a good
sports bra. No, possibly not. Anyway, whatever else she thought about the Timmy-Fern thing, even she had to admit that Fern’s
bosoms were absolutely made for bar work.

Fern spun round on one foot. Her chest caught up eventually. ‘Ah, but even that’s going to be OK. See, my contract with Hayfields
is up at the end of the year – I’m on short-term contracts. Different clients who are just passing through, or being assessed
for other homes. It’s not a lifetime one-to-one commitment like Lewis and Jem – because Win’s leaving Hayfields in December.
She’s moving to Devon. To a similar sort of set-up but nearer to her family. She’s really excited – she’s been waiting ages
to get a place down there. I was never going with her –
sooo it’ll mean I’ll be absolutely free to be with Timmy for ever and always from Christmas. Magic, huh?’

‘Magic …’ Amber echoed weakly.

‘Yes?’ Mona Jupp peered over the bacon slicer. ‘Next?’

‘Just these –’ Fern pushed several bars of chocolate and a handful of iced buns across the counter ‘– please. The chocolate
is for Timmy – he’s got such a sweet tooth, bless him – and the buns are for Win. She’s sitting outside on the bench. We’re
going to paddle in the stream to cool off and feed the ducks.’

‘Not with my best fancies, I trust.’ Mrs Jupp made a moue of annoyance as she bagged up the buns with a flourish and a twist.
‘They’re fresh in this morning. Anything else?’

‘No thanks.’ Fern paid for her purchases, and smiled soppily at Amber. ‘So – what about you? D’you want to come and feed the
ducks with us and sit in the sun and talk about the meaning of life and love and the wonders of the cosmos?’

Amber shook her head. ‘Hard to resist, but sorry – I’m here to see Mrs Jupp and then I’m taking Gwyneth and Big Ida into Hazy
Hassocks to do some shopping this morning while I go to work.’

‘Catch you later, then,’ Fern smiled beatifically as she bounced out of the shop.

Dougie and Billy watched her bosoms go with regret.