[one week later in Leeds]

“Thanks for meeting me,” said Dora
She had put on one of her ‘Hazel’ outfits, complete with makeup and a long copper wig for the event.

“This is my friend, Tanya.”

Tanya just smiled at Jared Clarke. After less than a minute, she'd taken a dislike to him. His slicked-back hair, pencil-thin moustache and a shiny suit that was far too short in the legs and arms. To her, he looked like a 'spiv' from WW2.

“Hello, Tanya.”

Tanya nodded.

“You said something about having a load of new songs for me to listen to? The market has moved on a lot since you quit, so I hope you have moved on as well.”

Dora shook her head.

“I have just one piece. That is the whole album. I want you to listen to it in its entirety before you pass comment.”

Without waiting, Hazel pressed play on her computer.

As the piece progressed, Jared got redder and redder in the face. Every bit of the music industry, as Hazel had known it, was savagely ripped apart piece by piece, song by song. The last but one song talked about scumbag A&R men and managers who ripped off their artists. The last line of the piece was, ‘when you find a good manager, keep them’.

Several times, Tanya saw him eyeing the door. They’d rented two offices for half a day. One was where Dora changed into Hazel and Tom into Tanya. The other was where they were now.

“That last line was for you; otherwise, what do you think?” asked Hazel when it had finished playing.

“That is just about the biggest load of bollocks I have ever heard,” said Jared as he eyed the door once more.
“If you thought that you could make a comeback, then think again. No sane label or management team would take you on after that… that rubbish. I’d like to know who the musicians were who played on it… I’d make sure that they never got a gig again.”

Tanya sniggered.
“Jared,” said Hazel
“I played everything myself. No musicians, union or not, were involved. I recorded and mixed it all myself.”

"She's right," said Tanya, opening her mouth at the same time.

“Are you two an item?” asked Jared when he noticed the matching rings that they wore.

“We are,” said Hazel confidently.
“And we will be getting married in due course.”

“I’m done here. This has been a complete waste of time. Do you have any idea what time I had to leave home this morning?”

Jared, who had lost his licence some years before for his fifth charge of drink driving, had travelled up from London by train.

“You have plenty of time to get home before the end of the day,” quipped Hazel.

Jared needed no prompting and headed for the door.
“One last thing, Jared,” said Hazel.

“There is a video of me performing all of the work on the internet. I released two short clips on YouTube when you said that it was a load of rubbish. I’ve already had more than ten thousand hits. I’m giving this deconstruction of the music business away for free. Oh, and I’ve already made it public domain, so anyone can copy and even perform it for free. You see, Jared, writing and performing this piece has allowed me to wash the last of the awful stench that your corrupt business left on me away for good. You know who the bad actors are, but you rely on them to earn a living.”

“You…. You’ll never work again. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Jared, I’d be careful about promising things like that. You never know who has been recording your statements. Yours will be added to my website before your train gets to London.”

A very red-faced Jared made a hasty exit.

“That went well, didn’t it?” asked Tanya.

“Ok, smarty pants. It went as you predicted,” said Hazel, who was watching the download counts of her work rise and rise.
“Let’s get changed and out of here,” said Hazel.

Tanya smiled.
“How about Hazel makes one last appearance? We get packed up, and you leave via the front entrance, and I’ll pick you up around the corner near the entrance to the Railway Station. That will get people talking. We can both change once we get out of the city. Then back down the M1 to East Midlands Airport, where we can return the rental car and be home for tea.”

Hazel smiled.
“Oh, you are awful… but I do love you!”

[Later that day, back at their home]

“Well, darling, what are the reviews like?”

“So far, pretty good. A lot of the comments have picked up on my sideswipe at the music industry. Only a few are slagging me off, but I expect those are from ‘bots’.”

“And?”

“And? The most frequently asked question is, ‘Am I going back to life as Hazel?’ I made it clear right at the top of the site that this is my swansong. Shooting that video and today was it as far as she is concerned. I’ve put another statement on the website stating that the music business and I are history. I’m not going back, and I will continue to write and record, but my days of touring and performing at stadiums are over for good.”

Tom came up to Dora and gave her a loving kiss.
“Then today was a success.”

His words were outdated almost as soon as he said them.

The video was going bonkers, and social media had blown up. There were many fierce arguments over the meaning of the piece. The defenders of the recording industry came out in force and slammed her for putting out such a rubbish hit piece. Others knew how the insiders used, abused and tossed artists aside when they were no longer No. 1, defended Hazel.

Then there was the 'Where is Hazel?' debate. Some CCTV images surfaced of her leaving the office block and getting into a car. Tanya had taped over the rear number plate while it was parked in the basement garage. When they'd left the city centre, she stopped and removed the tape. Even so, the search was on for Hazel and the mysterious woman who had been with her in the meeting.

The recording of Jared mouthing off in the meeting did nothing for his street cred. He was suddenly ‘not available for comment or interview’.

After a few days, some music journalists released their reviews of Hazel's swan song. Some of the older ones compared it to 1970s concept albums and rated it highly. One even compared her angst in the songs to that of ‘Pink’ in ‘The Wall’. That pleased Dora. The younger ones toed the record label line and thought that it was the worst album of the decade.

After a week had passed, the video had been downloaded more than five million times. The vast majority of comments had been very positive. The main streaming services recorded another sixteen million downloads.

Tom could tell that Dora was pleased. Her deconstruction of the music industry gathered a lot of support from former artists who saw themselves in her story. One song had been re-recorded by a prominent rapper who’d been ripped off by his management. It went to No 1 in the USA.

Other than a couple of updates on her website, which was registered to a shell company in Gibraltar, Dora had remained silent. Tom saw a look of contentment on her face.

There had been many calls in the media for her to be interviewed live on the matter. Dora turned them down, saying that her last interview was her last one and nothing had happened to change her mind.

Tom saw this as a sign that she was just managing to keep a lid on things.

“Don’t keep all of it to yourself,” said Tom one morning.
“A problem shared is a problem halved.”

Dora sighed.
“I know that I have said no, but part of me wants to say yes. I also know that saying yes could jeopardise what we have here and between us.”

“It is a difficult situation. You have made it clear that you, or rather Hazel, is not going to play ball. As I see it, someone has to dangle a pretty big carrot in front of you to get you to even consider changing your mind. If you agree to an interview, how do you know that the interviewer will be impartial and not have an agenda… i.e. one that supports the music industry?”

Dora smiled, then leaned across the breakfast table and kissed Tom.

“That’s why you are so good for my life. You always think about me first.”

“I have to, don’t I? I care about you and about what we have here. I know that one of these days, someone will recognise you, but the farther we put that into the future, the less of an impact it will have on our life.”

“Thank you, Tom.”

Tom stood up and said,
“After you have done the dishes, I’ll be ready to give you a lesson on the tractor.”

Dora grinned.
“What a choice. Get grilled by some media hack or learn how to drive a tractor? I’ll take the tractor any day. At least it does not have some hidden agenda.”

It was Tom’s turn to laugh.
“I don’t know. That thing sometimes has a mind of its own when it gets into a rut, like someone else I know…”
Dora laughed and reached for her gloves. Time for a driving lesson.

Dora seemed to take to the late 1980s Ford tractor like a duck to water. It took her just a couple of hours, and she could plough a dead straight furrow. He had to admit defeat.

“Is there anything that you can’t do?”

Dora grinned at me.
“I’ve never tried to climb Everest, so…?”

“Why the sudden interest in driving a tractor?”

Dora laughed.
“The digger is next. Don’t think that you are getting off lightly.”

“Is this part of your grand plan now that I have the fields close to the house under control?”

“I have been thinking about the long term, but it only works if the two of us are together. You have told me about the different soils on my land and what crops they would be good for.”

Tom looked a bit shocked.
“I was listening and thinking. What if we start a smallholding? This place was one many years ago and several owners before me. We could grow stuff and raise chickens and pigs or something?”

Tom laughed.
“Have you been watching Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm by any chance?”

Dora laughed.
“I think that he is a numpty, but good entertainment for the public. He tries to be a common man, but he can never be one. I read somewhere that he has others do all the real hard work for him. I’m not going to be like that even if it isn’t true. I want us to be partners in the operation of Tanya and Dora’s Farm. I don’t want to rush into anything more than a few chickens until we have a proper plan down on paper.”

Tom looked relieved.
Dora took his hand.
“See, I’m not thinking only about myself. I’m thinking about us for the long term.”

“It is more complicated than that,” said Tom, holding both of her hands.

“Do you mean children and Tanya’s operation?”

“Something like that.”

“Yes, and whenever you are ready.

Tom didn’t respond right away.

“Don’t you want children?”

“It is not that… This is all a bit unexpected, that’s all.”

“Then we can talk things over. If you have doubts, then now is the time to talk about it, isn’t it?”

“No pressure then?”

After a moment, he added,
“Perhaps you should listen to David Bowie, ‘Under Pressure’. That’s how I’m feeling right now.”

Dora laughed and began to tap out a rhythm on the metal of the tractor bonnet. Then she started singing that very song with just her tapping as accompaniment.

Tom shook his head. Dora was so talented as a musician. It was a waste for her not to be performing to an audience of more than one person and the local wildlife.

That evening, they sat down to talk. At first, it was as if they were both sitting on eggshells. Eventually, Tom said,

“Listening to you earlier singing so beautifully got me thinking. Is there some way that you can do both? Chill out here on the farm and also perform. I can see how much it means to you just to sing. I’m not asking you to go back into the Music Industry rat race, but a happy medium. Yes, it will mean some exposure on social media, but once they understand that you are not going to produce million-selling albums or do any touring, then they’ll turn their attention to some other diva…”

“Diva? I’m not a diva.”

Tom laughed.
“You know what I mean.”

Dora laughed.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist that. I do know what you mean.”

“Once before, you mentioned getting advice from a former one-hit artist who was now a session musician. Could you do something like that?”

Then Tom had a thought.
“Or start your own business teaching people to sing… not the sort of singing that you used to do, but proper singing like you did today and for your last encore? It might be possible to do it all online. You know ten or fifteen-minute lessons. But… you would have to appear as the old you.”

As their conversation continued, Tom saw a change in Dora’s body language. For a while, he was a bit confused, but then he remembered the video of her in the studio. She was in charge, and that worried him. The glint in her eye told him that the lure of the music business was becoming harder and harder for her to refuse.

As soon as he could do so without insulting Dora, he left and went to bed. That evening had told him loud and clear that his time with Dora was at an end.

Over breakfast the next morning, Tom said,
“Dora, I was thinking about last night. It seems to me that the part of you that wants to return to performing is winning over the part that wants to remain here. As such, my time here is over. I’ll leave as soon as I can find a place to live and a job.”

He didn’t wait for a response but walked out of the cottage and back to his space, where he began to pack.

He had only just started packing when Dora came into his bedroom.
“Please, Tom, don’t go. I didn’t mean to… “

The words would not come out.
“I love you, Tom. I love Tanya. You keep me sane. Did I wish to go back into the music business? I did once. My time has passed. My place is here, with you, making this place ours and raising a family and, yes, lots of hard work from both of us. I guess I showed you last night that I miss the industry. I do, but that is in the past. Here and now is real and for the future.”

She wiped a tear away from her cheek before saying,
“Please stay and marry me. The thought of losing you is just too much to bear.”

Tom looked at Dora. Her body language had changed dramatically. The confident woman of the world had gone walkabout because she was nowhere to be seen.

“You have always been straight with me and have tolerated my craziness. You are part of who I am now, and I don’t want that to go away.”

“Dora, how do I know that this is not another of your little games?”

“Life is not a game,” she retorted.
“If I go back into the recording and touring merry-go-round, I’ll give you this place.”

Those words shocked Tom. He knew just how deeply she cared for the cottage. She’d made the interior all hers, and her influence on the cottage garden was there for all to see.

“Just let me write it down, and I’ll sign it. I mean it. Please stay. I do love you with all my heart, and I need you in my life. You are the only person apart from my grandmother who has ever cared about me as a person and not a moneymaking machine.”

Dora didn’t wait for Tom to answer. She came up to him and held his face with her hands while she kissed him.

Slowly, he began to respond. Dora pushed him down onto his bed and began to undress him, at the same time kissing him passionately. Tom responded by undressing Dora.

While still being on top of him, she settled her vagina onto his very erect penis.

After their lovemaking was over, they held each other tightly. It was Dora who broke the silence.

“Thank you for that, Tom.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You were gentle. It was my first time.”

Those five words shocked Tom.
“I was saving myself for the right person. You were too much the gentleman to ever come on to me, so I had to do it myself. It was nice.”

This time, Tom began to weep.

“Don’t be sad, Tom, I love you. You know that.”

“But…” she said between tears.
“What if you get pregnant?”

“Then I get pregnant.”

Dora laughed.
“No one would want a fat former pop star to appear on their shows now, would they? Beyonce, yes, but me? No way!”

Tom managed a smile.

“Ok, my darling, I’ll stay, but please… no more talk about singing for at least a while?”

“Singing? Oh… that’s something that I do in the bath… badly or when I’m on the tractor.”

Tom held Dora tightly. He was ‘never going to let her go’.

[The End]

[Postscript]
Tanya married Dora some six months later when she was three months pregnant. Dora’s wedding present to Tanya was a pair of her very own breasts. A week before she gave birth to a beautiful girl whom they named Zoe Ariadne, the first of the five pregnant sows arrived at their smallholding. The room that had contained the 'Hazel' artefacts was now a nursery, and Tom's old rooms were now occupied by Gavin, a very effeminate young man who had grown up on a pig farm in Norfolk.
As well as managing the livestock, Gavin could be his real self, Simone, whenever he felt like it. Simone soon came to stay. Together, the three of them faced the world. They are who they want to be, and anyone who disagrees needs to get a life.