Chapter 5

We watched as they backed out and then went inside, sitting in the lounge with the dogs now allowed in. We finished our wine and went into the kitchen, where we wiped up. When everything was tidy, Margaret gave me a sisterly hug.

“Every day, I learn something new about you and me. Yesterday, I learned that you could hold things back to allow others their happiness. Today, it was being adult enough to tell things to someone with the separation and training to look at them with some ability to take things in. It’s something new to have Dad think that I was a responsible adult. All my life, I had been the daughter who had a limited future.”

“There’s not that much more to learn, and I think we may have the whole story tomorrow. Goodnight, sis.”

“Goodnight, Tonia.”

I pretended to be upset as she went to her room, calling over her shoulder.

“I’ve got dibs on the bathroom; I’ll call you when it’s clear.”

In the morning, we had a light breakfast and fed the dogs. After I had showered and dressed, I took the dogs to Francis on leads with a bag of food for them. Back at the house, Margaret was showered and dressed. We’d already packed cases, so we loaded the Defender, locked up the house, and headed for London. We dropped off the main road at Stevenage and topped up the tank at the BP on Gunnels Wood Road, buying an A to Z of London to help us find the hotel.

With the aid of the maps, and a few wrong turns, we pulled up outside Mimi’s. A doorman came out and helped Margaret. He passed me a voucher for a numbered parking space and a map of how to get to it, and then carried our bags inside. I followed the directions and found myself at the O-Park, where I parked the Defender and locked it, walking back to the hotel and looking around at all the shops, restaurants, clubs and offices along the way. Having never been outside of Stevenage and the local area, this was well outside my comfort zone.

Back at the hotel, the receptionist gave me a smile.

“Mister Underwood? Your sister is in her room, it’s number seven on the second floor.”

I went up and knocked on the door. Margaret opened it.

“Come and see this room! This is the lounge, and there’s two bedrooms with an interconnected bathroom. If this is what he calls a little hotel, he must be rich.”

“We’ll find out. I’ll give him a call and tell him we’re here. The car is in a parking station some way away. I’d hate to live here with so little parking. No wonder everyone uses the tube.”

I called him and he told me that he would be in the reception in ten minutes. I went to the toilet and Margaret checked her make-up. She had the room card and snibbed the door as we left. We went downstairs and the receptionist saw us.

“If you go into the Henson Bar, Mister Parker will join you when he arrives. Have a seat and get a drink.”

We followed orders and went into the bar area, sitting in an alcove with glasses of wine. We were relaxing when a big guy walked in, took one look at me and his face went white.

“My God! You’re certainly a relative. You look just like him when I first met him as Tom. A few years later, when he was Tanya, I had a schoolboy crush on her for a few years, until I was old enough to take girls out.”

He got a beer from the bar and sat with us.

“Now, to give you some background, my father created a small empire of clubs and pubs, employing entertainers. Several big stars began their career with us, and Tanya was well on the path before the police raid. Do you know all the details?”

“We do. Tom left us the scrapbook of her career and another of the cuttings about the raid, as well as a note with the details that had been left out.”

“Right! It was a terrible time. Dad was going crazy trying to find out where they all were. It was just plain luck that we had arrived at the right station when they were released. He organised immediate transport to a clinic, seeing the state they were in. It was several weeks before the two of them were allowed to leave, and they weren’t the same people again after that. Then, they upped and left town, taking everything with them, including the jewels that Dad had loaned her.”

“Actually, we think the jewels never left London. They were put into a safe deposit box. I expect that Tom intended to return them, but never got around to it.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“We do, and we have the box key. There are a few problems about recovering them, though.”

He looked at me, quizzically.

“The box can only be accessed by a woman, claiming a relationship with Tanya, and able to answer a question about a random song that she used to sing. I expect that she expected to reclaim it herself.”

“We’ll sort that through before the end of the day. If you drink up, we’ll walk to my office. I have old photos and records that my secretary is getting out of the archives.”

We drank up and followed him out and round a couple of corners to a large building. The ground floor was a recording studio, and we took a lift up to his office. I was noting it all.

“Big operation, Mister Parker.”

“It is, young Anthony. Call me Hector. A lot of this is down to your cousin, around five years of having Tanya pulling in the punters created a more than normal income. She was well paid in the last few years and really earned it. Have you seen the DVD?”

“We have. We found a couple of copies in the house. She was very good.”

“More than good. We had about twenty tracks properly recorded for an album, but that was the only visual recording that we found, when we were researching for a retrospective that never happened. Dad was thinking about organising an album and tour to be based on the ‘Naughty Nineties’ before he died, but I haven’t done anything about it. If we could make you look like Tanya, play like Tanya, and sing like Tanya, it would be worth putting a show together.”

He looked at Margaret, who was giggling.

“What caught your fancy, young lady?”

“How about two out of three. Tom spent seven years teaching Tony how to play and he knows most of what’s on that DVD. I’ve told him that he can get into the outfits we have.”

“Tell me about them?”

“We have a cabinet style wardrobe with about a dozen complete outfits, with shoes, wigs, shapers and underwear. They’re all very good quality. The only things that have deteriorated are the cosmetics.”

“So, the only problem I can see is getting young Anthony to have a bit of time in our studio, downstairs, and then get him to recreate a very genuine Tanya. He’ll need to get into character to get us the jewels back. I’ll fund that operation in return of the jewels. We can work further as we pass each point. Firstly, though, we’ll sit in our lunchroom and look through the archive boxes.”

We sat in his lunchroom, looking through the boxes, for over two hours. We saw photos of Albert, in his chef outfit, working in various kitchens. We saw pictures of Tom, very early on, as a guy playing the piano. I had to chuckle.

“What’s funny about that picture, Tony?”

“He kept some clothing that would now fit me, but not him as I knew him. That shirt is in my bedroom, along with a few others, as well as some slacks and a suit. I thought that they were very jazzy, but now see that they were early items of stage wear.”

There were a lot of pictures of Tanya, in stage outfits and in normal wear. She certainly passed easily. He told us to put any we liked aside, and he would organise copies for us. Then he took us to another part of his empire for lunch. After that, we went back to the office and went into the studio.

We were introduced to Zacharia, the recording guru, and he led me into the studio where I was sat at a baby grand. He fussed with a microphone on a boom for me to sing into and made sure that the one over the body of the piano was good. When he left me and closed the door, I was in the quietest place I’d ever known, and I was sure that the beating of my heart would be making needles flicker on his mixing board.

“Now, Tony. I want to get a sound check. Can you play something smooth for me?”

I started playing the opening to the first song on the DVD.

“Keep playing at that level and sing.”

I picked up the song in the second verse, trying to emulate Tanya, a bit husky and breathy. After the verse, the voice came back.

“Thank you, Tony. That’s wonderful. Can you start that from the beginning and give ten seconds before you start each song. Keep playing until I ask you to stop. Start in ten seconds.”

I counted down in my head and started to play the first song of the show, continuing with ten second breaks, learning more about myself with every song. With a piano like this to play, I became more attune with what Tanya had been, more as one with the Tom I knew, and it felt as if Tanya was sitting behind me, as Tom had done, taking in my performance. The voice was silent until I had played everything of hers that I knew, and sat back, hands to my face to wipe away the tears rolling down my cheeks.

When Zacharia spoke, he just told me that it was a wrap. Hector came in and I stood, seeing that he also had tears on his cheeks. He enveloped me in a bearhug and told me that I was magnificent. Margaret had followed him, and her mascara had reached her chin.

When we all left the studio, I was told that there would be a properly produced CD in the post for me, my sister having given them our address.

Back upstairs in the office, after the three of us had splashed our faces and Margaret had repaired her make-up, Hector offered us drinks. He proposed a toast.

“To you, young Tony. Tanya back to entertain. You sounded exactly like her, and I could almost see her ghost sitting with you at the piano.”

We sipped our drinks.

“It’s funny that you say that, Hector. Whenever I played one of those songs for Tom, he would be sitting behind me so I couldn’t see him, but I could sense that he was there. Today was the same feeling, but I also felt Tanya listening as well. Was it good?”

“Was it good, the lad asks. It was magnificent. If we put a retrospective on, you’ll have all of the second half. I have an agency, on the second floor, and would like to sign you on as a client. That way, if you ever say yes to performing, we’ll have everything in place. Now, there’s a nightclub of ours, two streets away, where we will have dinner together. Would you be a dear and let my people and Margaret turn you into a passable woman so I can get the jewels. Margaret can go with Sophia, my secretary, and buy you a complete outfit. It will give us time to get you into character before you present yourself at the bank in the morning.”

“Why the extra time?”

Margaret grinned.

“That will give me time to drill a few basics into your head. It will take the rest of the afternoon to prepare your body, and all evening to prepare your mind. There are ways of walking, talking, sitting, standing, and acting that will ensure that nobody sees anything but a woman in front of them. We’ll get you a nightie and gown so that you stay in character all night. You’ve already got the height, the body, and the voice. When you were in the studio, you sounded just like the video.”

I nodded, just hoping to get this over before I saw anyone who knew me. Sophia led us to her office, where I had to take my shirt off. She had a notepad and Margaret had a tape measure.

“I’ve seen his labels at home, and I looked at the sizes that Tanya used to wear, so I’ll expect that most of the measurements will equate to a size ten.”

She started measuring me and ran the tape over my whole body, even my inside leg! She said it was to set slack lengths. Another odd one was from my waist to just above my knees, for skirt length.

When I was allowed to redress, another office girl was called in and told to take me to a good salon and get me the works to act as a woman. Hector gave her his credit card and told her to get a session as well, to fill in time. I found, when we arrived at the salon, that what I was about to endure was something that they did almost every day.

Two hours later, we left the salon, and she took me back to the hotel. She looked fabulous and Hectors’ card had taken a beating. I was having a hard time coming to grips with my own experience. What had been done to me, would, in many respects, not go unnoticed by anyone. The lack of body and limb hairs could be covered, but the new eyebrows, plumped lips, studs in my ears, and gel coated nails wouldn’t. Especially the longer ones on my fingers. They had shortened my hair and attached a wig, glued breasts on my chest and made up my face. My original clothes were just about adequate for the short walk.

Margaret was in the room when I knocked, and she looked me over and smiled.

“Almost all the way there, Antonia. Hector wanted to know what ID to get for you, so I told him to use Antonia Rebecca Hyde.”

“ID?”

“Yes, for the bank. I asked him how he could organise it, and he said that this was Soho and that anything is possible.”

She got me to stand in front of a door and took a picture of my head and shoulders with her phone, then sent it off to a number she had.

“That should give them time. We’re having dinner with Hector and Zacharia, so we need to get you ready. Go into your room and strip everything of and then have a shower with the body wash in the bathroom. Make sure you put all the wig into the shower cap. Here’s some special undies for you to put on. You have to try and squeeze you testicles up into your body and put your willie in the tube. It will mean that you have to sit to pee.”

I did as she had directed, wondering why I was going along with this. It was necessary to get the deposit box opened, and I hoped that it did contain the lost jewels, or else Hectors’ cash would have been wasted. As I soaped my body, including the bits that weren’t there earlier, I thought about my time in the studio. I had started playing as me, impersonating Tanya, but had ended the session as Antonia, playing a tribute set.

After I had dried off and worked out how to wear these new underpants, I put the robe on that was hanging on the door hook and went into the bedroom. Margaret was waiting for me. She looked all over my body to check that no hair had been missed and then took the shower cap off and teased out the hair. There were things on the bed that I had refused to even touch, the last time I had seen the like. Now, systematically, I was shown how to wear them.

The first item was a sort of corset, which supported the breasts, pulled in my midriff, and gave me the semblance of an hour-glass shape. Then, I was shown how to put stockings on without poking holes in them, and they were attached to the corset suspenders. After that there was a pair of panties that went over the suspenders. Margaret explained that when I need to pee, these could be pulled down easily and I could sit. The special underpants would let me pass water, if I had loaded my willie correctly.

There was a dress for me. It was what she called a cocktail dress, straight skirt and just thin straps over the shoulders. Then shoes in the same colour, not impossible heels, but heels just the same.

“I’m going to have my shower. Go into the lounge, walk about and take shorter steps with you pretending to be walking on a narrow plank. Sit down, making sure you sweep the skirt, so you don’t crease it, and learn to sit and stand keeping your knees together. When I’m dressed, we’ll finish off our faces and add some bling.”

I did as she asked, looking at this girl walking around in the mirror on the wall, and in two minds about her. I stopped walking and looked carefully at her reflection. In my mind, it was me, but also was Antonia, the other me that had been created today. It was then that I realised that I hadn’t cleaned the salon make-up off, and my face looked the same as when I had come back to the hotel. I would have to ask my sister what can been done about that.

I stood, I sat, I walked, I thought about things, and my movements became almost natural. I started to wonder if the new nails would make playing the piano different. I would have to hold my fingers flatter, instead of playing with them bent and using the ends to play. That would be doable, and would, I think, make the sound gentler and smoother. Margaret came into the room in a similar dress but higher heels.

“My face. It’s been through the shower and the make-up didn’t come off. Is it waterproof?”

“No, it’s a semi-permanent. I’m afraid that you’ll be Antonia for more than a few days. It’s enough for everyday wear, but I’ll add things for occasions like tonight. By the time we get to this time tomorrow, you’ll be used to being Antonia. Tonight, interacting with people who’ve never met Tony, will show you that you’re every bit as good as Tanya was.”

“What about when we go home?”

“We’ll tell everyone, who asks, that you’re going to star in a show, and that it’s needed to be good enough to pass. Mum and Dad have seen the DVD and will be happy that you can pay tribute to Tanya. I bet Uncle and Aunt will be over the moon to see you honour their son in such a way. I expect that Francis and her friends helped Tom become Tanya a few times after school. If you’re still worried, I can coat your face with concealer.”

“But!”

“No buts, big sis. For the next twenty-four hours, you’re Antonia Rebecca Hyde, the cousin of Tanya Hyde, the nightclub star. Own it and be the star that you are.”

She sat me at her vanity and added some highlights to the eyes, and some colour to the cheeks. The last was a smear of lipstick on my already dyed lips, to allow me to taste it and also give me the excuse to redo them later. The studs were replaced with dangly earrings, a thin chain put around my neck, and my hands were enhanced by a small watch on one wrist, a bracelet on the other, and a couple of rings on my fingers.

She had me sit on her bed while she did her own face and put her jewellery on. Then, she gave me a handbag, and filled it with the things I was expected to carry, as a girl. There was even a purse, which she put my cards and cash in. Picking up her own bag, she looked at her watch.

“Perfectly timed. Come on, Antonia, time to meet our escorts in reception.”

We left the room and went down to reception. When we walked out of the lift, her arm linked in mine to keep me moving, Hector and Zacharia were waiting for us. Hector made a slight bow.

“Good evening, ladies. I have to say that you both look fabulous. Come, Antonia, take my arm and we will walk to the nightclub where we have a table reserved,”

I tried to smile as I put my arm through his crooked one, and we left the hotel, Margaret and Zacharia following us. As we walked, several people said hello to Hector, and he introduced me as Antonia, a new singer. I was amazed at the smiles that strangers gave me, and it helped me start, as Margaret had said, to own my character. In the nightclub, we had a table next to the dance floor. The stage had a white piano on it, but was in darkness.

Hector held my chair as I sat, while Zacharia did the same for Margaret. I looked around and nearly laughed. Most of the tables around us were populated by older men and younger girls. It looked like a sugar daddy and mistress convention. The meal was lovely, with Margaret telling me what to order, avoiding anything that would drip. We had wine and the conversation was about the recording, that afternoon, and the possibility of recording more, newer songs. I looked at the stage.

“Is this where the DVD was shot?”

“No, that was at Shackles, but it is the piano. Unlike people, they never age. Do you want to play it?”

“What about the usual entertainment?”

“Nothing planned for mid-week, but you can show everyone what you can do. I can get the microphones live and the spotlight on for you.”

My dinner companions were smiling, so I nodded. Hector stood and went off for a few minutes. As he was coming back the stage was lit up. He held my chair as I stood and took my hand to help me up the stairs to the stage as one of the waiting staff lifted the piano lid and keyboard cover.

“Go and stand by the piano, Antonia, and I’ll introduce you.”

He went to the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, we bring you the very first public performance by a young lady who laid down an album in my recording studio this afternoon. Some of you gentlemen are old enough to have been regulars to my fathers’ club, Shackles, and would have heard the incredible Tanya Hyde. I present, for your entertainment, her cousin, Antonia Hyde!”

He left the stage with some applause, which continued as I sat on the piano stool and got comfortable. I started doodling to find the best way to hold my fingers and then spoke into the microphone.

“Thank you for that kind reception. In my teens, I was taught to play by my cousin, Tanya, and a lot of her rubbed off in the process. The dance floor is empty, and I hope to see it filled before I finish.”

I moved into the intro to the first song and started singing, amazed that I was here, in London, playing the same piano that my cousin had played often. Before the end, there were a few couples dancing. Halfway through the set the floor was filled. I looked out to see my sister dancing with a boy about my age and smiled at her. I filled out the set with other, newer songs that I had played around with. Finishing about ninety minutes after I had sat, I spoke again.

“I hope that you’ve enjoyed the evening. I’d like to end the set with something that I’d like to dedicate to my sister, Margaret, without whom, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

I ended with, ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ and bowed to the applause. Hector came back on stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, that really was the first performance of a very talented Antonia Hyde. I have every hope that she will grace our stage as a regular in the future. I give you, Antonia!”

He held out his hand and I walked over to him and bowed again, then he walked me off the stage and back to the table. After that, we, and most of the other diners, had our desserts and after-dinner drinks. During that time, many couples came over to tell me how wonderful I was, with some of the older men telling me that they had heard Tanya when she was playing at Shackles and that my playing brought back so many memories.

Margaret said that us girls needed to powder our noses and get taken back to the hotel, as it had been a very long day. In the toilets, she gave me a hug and thanked me for the dedication, then we went to the cubicles to do our business, and stood, side by side, repairing our lipstick.

We were escorted back to the hotel, with Margaret giving Zacharia a kiss on the cheek in the reception. I grinned and gave Hector one as well, then we went up to our room and undressed, with me getting a lesson on face cleansing and removing the wig. We hugged and said goodnight. I laid in a strange bed, with the strange feeling of silk between me and the sheets and thought about the performance.

The odd thing was that I wasn’t thinking about spending the evening wearing a dress, I was going through the set, trying to think about ways I could improve it.

Marianne Gregory © 2026