Chapter 11

The village control room was manned from the fifth, with our cars sporting the new stickers. We each had a list. There were some of the old and some new names on them. We were to prepare and start the rounds on the sixth.

That gave us time to do a stock take and get more bulk supplies in. We still had a lot of items left over from last time. Back at home, we did the stock take and Margaret rang Mum while I prepared the annex, shifting a load of jeans, tops, sweaters and underwear in, then loading the Cabinet with enough things to give her room. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t go back and pick up things.

We went and picked her, and her suitcases up. Dad was at the GSK site for the duration, and it was better for her to be with us than in a lonely house. The last long lockdown she had me and Margaret with her. At Lower Green, we got her settled in and had lunch. We took her through what would be happening in the future and showed her the bulk storage.

She was keen to help, so we started off with her joining us at Costco, where we topped up the fuel tanks and then walked the aisles with one of the big trolleys picking up boxes of things. I paid for them, and we went back to the house. We stored the boxes and she thought for a moment.

“You paid for these with your card. Do you get reimbursed?”

“I don’t know. I paid for everything in November, just getting some cash from people who paid me for their shopping.”

“If this goes on for a while, you’ll be losing a lot of money.”

“I suppose so. Margaret is getting a payment from the council, by the visit. The business that I have is entertaining and cake making, so neither would count.”

“Do you keep the dockets?”

“Of course.”

“Collect them up and talk to your area controller, if you have one.”

“All right. It’s time for you to meet Molly, anyway.”

We left Margaret sorting out her supplies and took the Subaru to the Village Hall. I introduced Mum to the volunteers, and she told them that she would be available to help out, if needed. She could help with the bookkeeping, seeing her librarian skills included that. I asked about getting reimbursement for my outlay at Costco. Molly was shocked.

“Surely you’ve been putting in for payments!”

“No. I wasn’t aware of a procedure. I know that Margaret gets paid by the visit, but that doesn’t apply to what I do.”

“Do you have your sales dockets?”

“Yes, I’ve brought them with me from the beginning of November.”

“Sit at that desk and cross out all the ones that are your personal purchases. The remainder will be attached to a form that we submit. I’ll give you one to fill in, and the payments will be made to your account. In future, eliminate personal purchases on the dockets and hand them in fortnightly, and we’ll submit them. I know that you’re a volunteer, but you’re not expected to pay to feed the parish.”

Mum stayed to help in the Hall, and everyone gave me a wave and a smile as I left. Well, I think that they were smiling. It’s hard to tell when everyone’s wearing a surgical mask. After that, we had the additional trip to the hall to drop Mum off and pick her up again when we started doing our rounds.

The next day, I had an email from the accountant. The album had sold forty-seven thousand, one hundred and sixty-two copies in December. That put over ninety-four thousand in my business account, less nearly fourteen thousand, one hundred and fifty for Margaret. I didn’t expect any sales listed for the second album, seeing that it had been issued right on the cut-off date.

Later, that day, I had a phone call from the label. He told me that the stock of the duets album was in their warehouse and would be shipped as usual in response to internet sales. He also said that they had listened to all of the Trotters’ tracks and had sorted them into two albums. The first would be issued in February, to give time for the product to be made overseas and shipped to him. The second would be held back until the middle of the year. He then said that he would offer another contract then and would talk to me about it at the time.

As January moved on, the restrictions began to bite. A lot of my visits included a bit of counselling. I was starting to call the police more often as I saw roaming gangs, several consisting of children. As we moved through February, it was clear that a lot of people were dying. All of us volunteers and first responders had test kits to use if we felt any symptoms, with Mum now part of the group. She was thriving with the work, as it kept her mind active and allowed her to know that she was doing something positive. We had a small party for Margarets’ birthday, with me making a cake and the three of us having a little too much to drink.

By the end of January, my personal account had been bolstered by the payment from the local council, who would probably submit all of their payments to the government to cover. It was now getting topped up fortnightly. The album sales during January were well down, with less that fifteen thousand for the first album and only just over ten thousand for the second.

March brought some relief, with some schools reopening on the eighth. I knew, from what I was seeing, that it was more to reduce youth crime as much as anything else. Mind you, the attendances were now a lot less than they had been last year, so I heard. At the end of March, we were allowed to gather in groups of six, and outdoor sports were allowed, but without spectators.

My March album sales were up, for both albums, but not by a lot. The Trotters first album had sold seventeen thousand, six hundred and three copies in March, which returned a bit over ten thousand to each of us, less my fifteen hundred to Margaret. The other two had picked up a bit, with the first album selling over twenty-six thousand and the duets one selling over thirty-two thousand.

Non-essential services were reopened in the middle of April, but our work continued for the elderly and infirm, with the control centre still operating. Indoor hospitality was resumed in mid-May, with pubs re-opening, with distancing, and the social scene slowly getting back to life. It didn’t help me, though, as three of the band had caught the virus. Tiger had died, and the two wind players had survived, but with lungs so damaged that they couldn’t play for more than a few minutes. The Trotters were no more, but I did have the satisfaction of knowing that all the album payments would be going to them for some time, and to help their families.

Our work wound down during the May-June period, and we took Mum home again before the Library re-opened. She had been part of the good works through the lockdown, and we had really bonded in a way that was good. We weren’t just her children anymore; we were now friends on another level altogether. We had laughs, we had tears, but we had each other. Dad joined her a week later, and he resisted the pleas to get a dog, with them ending up with a budgie. She called it Molly, because the singing reminded her of the times that Molly would sing to bolster the flagging spirits of the volunteers.

Probably the best thing about those six months was the fact that it had been one of the mildest winters for a long time. It had been frosty, but nothing our cars couldn’t cope with, and May had been one of the wettest we had in history, but it hardly ever dipped below freezing.

Like most of the country, we celebrated Freedom Day on the next Saturday after July the nineteenth, with a big get-together in the Village Hall. It was a simple ‘bring a plate and drink’ affair. I did several plates of cakes. After that, life returned, but not to the previous normal.

I got in touch with the label, to tell them to send all the payment from the Trotters’ albums to an account that Oswald had given me earlier, and that the band was no more, with the details. I was assured that the second album would be issued with the fact that it would be the last.

I had stayed in touch with Oswald, and he wanted us to get together for a talk. We had lunch at the Kings Arms in Bedford. The upshot of that meeting was that the remaining three, Vince, the guitarist, Eldon, the drummer, and Neill, the bass player, wanted to carry on playing. Oswald could get us nightclub work if I was willing to be in it. He had already spoken to his contacts, and could get us every Saturday evening, rotating through four clubs, at a hundred a week, each.

We discussed it, with the guys keen to back me as the main singer. We agreed to give it six months. We had Esquires for some mornings to put some songs together. It worked out well, as a lot of what we had played after I joined were good for a quartet, dropping some of the old-time dance music. The customers we would be playing to wouldn’t be up for the foxtrot anyway. It only left us to decide on a name. After much laughter, we decided on using our initials, so ‘Vent’ was formed. Margaret stepped aside as my performance manager and I came under Oswalds’ umbrella, paid monthly.

We played Saturday nights, and I got solo work at the Cricketers and a couple of the places we had played as the Trotters, for some Friday evenings. Margaret still came along, but when she wanted to, in the Subaru so she could leave when she wanted.

One Friday evening, at the Cricketers, I saw her dancing with a guy most of the evening, and she had left before I finished the set. She wasn’t home when I got there, so I looked after the dogs and had them both on my bed when she did come in. I didn’t mention it the next morning, but she was smiling a lot.

I got to meet the lad some weeks later. His name was Gavin, and he was a hairdresser. So, they had a lot in common. It got serious, one evening, three months later, when he arrived at the house, and they sat down with me to talk about things. It was to tell me that they were in love and expecting a baby. Between them, they almost had enough to put a deposit on a salon, with an apartment over the top, in Letchworth. It had been successful before COVID, but the owner had died, and the shop had just come available after probate.

The asking price, including the equipment, was a hundred and fifty thousand to take over the long lease, and they had about a hundred and twenty with Margaret now appreciating the payments that she had been given from my album earnings.

I told them two things. The first was that Margaret should talk to Dad to look over the paperwork and let him lead on the purchase. He would also help when Margaret changed her company from a sole trader to a fully registered business. The second was that I would put in fifty thousand in exchange for a partnership and a free visit every now and again, and that I wanted to be shown the books every three months, to make sure that they were on track.

The wedding was at St. Katharine, on a Sunday, with Molly doing the service. The reception was at the Cricketers. I supplied the cake and Vent supplied the music as our gift to the couple, as the guys had got to know her over the time we had played. Gavin had some furniture, I let Margaret take the bed and odd things, and wedding gifts equipped the kitchen. Dad had managed to get the price down to one-thirty, so they had a bit to get them started. The one thing they had was a lot of women who had been grateful for Margarets’ care and attention over the lockdowns, so she had a core of loyal customers, on top of those who had frequented the salon before.

After I got home, that evening, to what was now just me and the dogs, it was deathly quiet. I poured myself a wine and sat in the lounge with my feet up. I was content to be alone again. I had both vehicles, I had a shed full of baking and leftover supplies, I could play the piano into the early hours if I wanted to, and I could watch whatever TV that caught my fancy. The last thought stopped me in my tracks. There was one thing that I had and had looked at it for a very long time without playing.

It was a CD, the one with the duets, called ‘Tanya and Tonya sing the Blues’. I had given some away, a lot of people had bought it, but I had never listened to it. Maybe I was scared of what I’d hear, maybe it was the fear of hearing her voice with mine, with her now long gone. Maybe, it was the fear of raising her ghost in the house she had lived in.

I topped up my glass, went and took my dress off and put my gown on, went to the CD player and slid the disc into the slot. I sat on the sofa and raised my glass to the sound of the opening piano notes. I don’t know what I expected. I had heard me sing, and I had seen the DVD of her. What I didn’t expect was an hour of gut-wrenching beauty, with the two voices swirling around each other like playful birds. My own voice was normal, with Tanya given a slight echo that sounded ethereal. However much Hector had ripped me off, after this I forgave him. It took me twenty minutes to stop crying tears of joy.

I hadn’t bothered to check my accounts since Margaret had stopped being my manager. I would find out if I ran short of money, so I sat in the bedroom, two dogs already on the bed, and went back through my emails from the accountant. The first album was ticking over at between five and six thousand sales a month, but the duets was doing a regular twenty-five to thirty-five thousand, and I could now see why.

I didn’t know, directly, what the Trotters albums were doing, with the second now on the market, but Oswald had paid in around ten to fifteen thousand for the couple of months before the second one had been issued, and the last payment of my share had been thirty-eight thousand.

On the Monday morning, I slept in until woken by dogs, either hungry or with a full bladder. I let them out, put their food down and lazed around getting breakfast. I sat there with a notepad and wrote down the details of my life. I had turned twenty-one, I played four or five times a month, I had a small, but steady, order book for special cakes. I had more money in the bank than I’d ever thought I’d earn in a lifetime. And I was alone in my home.

I wondered if I should start getting around as Anthony again. I had the solvent and the glue so I could attach and remove the breasts and the wig any time I wanted. The semi-permanent had finally faded, even the dye on my lips, and I was able to create my looks at will. I didn’t need to be Tonya full time but was scared at not being her. My own hair had been growing out under the wig, to the point where I now needed a skull cap to hide it. The only things that screamed ‘girl’ were my eyebrows, puffy lips and earrings. I decided that morning, to cut back on the ‘full girl’ look except for shows, and to spend more time as the real me.

That day, I removed the breasts and wig, showered and washed my own hair twice, ironed one of Toms’ old shirts and put a pair of black jeans on with it. I looked in the mirror and saw someone who was neither sex but a little of both. That would be all right for what I did next. That was to lock up the house with the dogs outside, and drive the Subaru to Birmingham, where I spent a fair amount of money getting new clothes from menswear stores. I went for stylish with good materials. I looked gay and was treated well in the sorts of stores that gay men, with style, would shop. Back home, after looking after the dogs, I re-organised things. Margaret had left the chest of drawers with the lit mirror and had emptied the wardrobe. I took in the free-standing rack and transferred all of my day-to-day Tonya clothes there, replacing them in my room with my new things. In my bedroom, the only female things would be the panties I couldn’t bear to replace, and the things in the Cabinet.

It was hard to change after over a year of living as Tonya, but I would be Tony around the house. If anyone called, then so be it. I could become Tonya for the shows, but make sure that she was put aside for normal life. Francis became a great help with me there, as she could see what I was trying to do. She became a sounding board for me as I worked through my fears of being a lonely man. I could have lived with a man, in fact, I had lost count of the men who wanted to live with me, but I wasn’t gay, and would only have a meaningful relationship with a girl.

I started spending the week as Tony, going shopping and delivering any cake order, until that had become almost normal. Then, I pulled back with the show outfits, starting to wear slacks instead of skirts, and minimising the make-up. It took some willpower to do but it did have a positive result.

There had been a girl, around my age, who had attended a lot of shows and had got fairly friendly. She had often been with a guy, but hardly ever the same one twice. One evening, after we had finished our set and were sitting at a table with drinks, she sat down beside me, and we talked a bit. Then she asked me if she could have a quiet chat.

We moved over to a quiet corner.

“Tonya. I have to make a confession. I’m bisexual and I fancy you something rotten. I’m sorry, but I just had to tell you. I’m sure that you have a whole string of men.”

I smiled.

“Charlotte, friend. Don’t be sorry, I’m honoured that you like me enough to tell me this. I like you, too, a lot.”

“I’m more attracted to you as you’ve been wearing slacks. It may be that I want a more manly woman.”

“How would you like me if I was a womanlier man?”

She looked me in the eyes and giggled.

“Prove it!”

“How would you like me to take you out on a date, tomorrow. I’ve got a Subaru that I use when I don’t need to transport the keyboard. We could go somewhere warm and cosy for lunch. There’s a good place near Cambridge called the Blue Ball Inn. I’ll tell you my life story if you’ll tell me yours.”

She gave me an address to pick her up, and I removed all trace of Tonya that night, dressing as Tony in the morning. I arrived at the address with a bunch of flowers for her and rang the bell. She smiled when she saw me and left the flowers in a vase as we left her home. We had a lovely day, and I took her home to meet the dogs and see my double life. We christened my bed before I took her home.

We became a couple, with her by my side at the shows, content that I was her boyfriend, even though I looked like a songstress. She moved in with me before the next Christmas, and we married the following Easter. We agreed to hold off on a honeymoon until we were more settled, with there being a full book of shows until the following Christmas. The other three had said that they would like to finally retire then, so we organised three days in the studio and made a sixteen-song album, which I sent to the label. Split four ways, it would make a good retirement payout if it sold well.

That ‘Vent Your Feelings’ album was issued two years after the second Trotters one and showed the extra experience that we had gained playing the one kind of music for all that time. At a pound each share, it sold well enough to give us all more than twenty thousand a month for a couple of years. By that time, Charlotte and I had been on our honeymoon, bought a bakery business in Letchworth, and employed three bakers and a shop assistant. I did the special orders but let them do the day-to-day baking.

Our son was born in August of that year, and he was called Thomas Anthony Underwood. He had good lungs but did allow us to have a reasonable sleep, sometimes. The dogs loved him. My mother-in-law would sometimes stay with us, sleeping in the annex, and we had a full social life. We helped out at the church, we had a big circle of friends, we had a good bank balance, but our only splash out was to trade the Defender on a new Range Rover, still needed as our road was unlikely to be paved in our lifetime.

We had some friends who sang, and I would often accompany them with the keyboard, but it was all off the cuff. One strange twist was when I was asked to apply for a job at St. Francis School, to teach Music Appreciation.

There was one thing that I didn’t hide from them, and that was my life, and recording history, as Tonya, and they said that it was one of the things that made me a good candidate. My ‘street cred’ was something you can’t push aside. It didn’t take the students long to start calling me ‘Lofty’.

Charlotte didn’t need to work but took over making sure the bakery was working well, and taking orders for special cakes that I would make in the evenings after being at the school. She was a regular at ‘Megs’ Salon’ and would spend hours in our garden, looking after the raised beds of flowers and vegetables, with the dogs running around and young Thomas chasing them as fast as his little legs could run.

The house on Lower Green had become a genuine home, full of love. I think that Tom would be happy with me, and I sometimes played the duet album, when I’m feeling laid back, knowing that Tanya would be proud of the way I had managed my career.

When our second baby was showing, we organised an on-line auction of all the show and daytime outfits, to make room for the spare room to become the childrens’ room, The Cabinet of Curiosities becoming my wardrobe.

My Uncle Henry had been right about one thing. Being around Tom, I had caught something, but it wasn’t nasty, after all.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 2

She sat on the swing with me and the dogs and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

“That’s very sad. I’ve known Tom a long time, Albert as well, since Tom brought him here. I went to school with Tom and saw how he was bullied. There are a few other girls from that time who still live around the area. I have a key to this house, in case it was needed, which I’ll give you. He had a key to mine.”

“I was just given his keys. Is it on the ring?”

I handed it over and she took a key off it.

“What are you doing, now, Tony?”

“I’m staying to calm the dogs. Mum has called Toms’ father to see about the property, and I need to find someone to take the poultry before I finally leave. I don’t know what I’ll do about the dogs, then, as I can’t have them at home.”

“I’ve looked after them when Tom and Albert were away, so they could stay with me for a while. You were very close, weren’t you?”

“The two of them helped me grow up. Albert taught me to cook, Tom taught me piano, and also expanded my knowledge of music and literature. Pretty much everything I have comes from their care and attention. I’m going to miss them both.”

“I’ll ask around about the birds. They originally came from the farm next door, before it stopped being a farm. I’m in the group of houses, about a hundred yards back towards the village. You go up the track to the right and I’m in the house on the right. There are two houses on the left. My name is Francis Abbott. I knew a lot of Andersons when I lived in Stevenage.”

“You may have met my mother. She was Mary Anderson and worked as a helper in the library before she got married.”

“Now you mention it, I do remember a bright girl who was there. That would have been in the eighties.”

She had been gone fifteen minutes, and I had rescued the lunch things from my pannier and put them in the fridge when another car pulled into the property. I went out to see my Uncle Edward and my mother. She came over and held me.

“You poor boy, finding Tom like that. How are you getting on?”

“I’m coping, Mum. How about you come in and I’ll put the kettle on.”

We all went into the kitchen and my uncle also gave me a hug before they sat down. Boobs and Boots went to their beds and settled down for a nap as I put the kettle on and found more mugs.

“Sorry about the state of the kitchen. I had to clear out all the old packets and boxes before I could get the paramedics a cup of tea. I’m afraid it looks as if Tom fed himself with junk food for four months that affected his heart. The initial idea is that it was a heart attack, last night. I’m sorry for your loss, Uncle Edward.”

“I think that you may have been closer to my son than I was, Tony. Mary has told me about your visits here on the drive over. You may have had more to do with him than most in the family. My brother, Henry, tried to alienate him from the rest of the family, and did quite well at it, I’m afraid.”

“He was less than gracious on the first time I met Tom. Tom, himself, laughed it off.”

“That lad was always easy on the ones who picked on him. My wife and I were just happy that Tom had found a partner to share his life. We had a few meals in the Two Chimneys with them. Albert was such a real person, almost larger than life.”

“That’s my memory of him as well. Do you know what you’re going to do with the house?”

“For the life of me, I have no idea of its ownership. We’ll have to wait until the death certificate is issued, then the funeral, until we can talk to Toms’ lawyer. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look around to see if I can find where he kept his papers. He was always a neat boy, so I think I know where they could be.”

While he was away, Mum and I spoke about things. She told me that my boss had allowed me two weeks to work things through, which gave me time to tidy up the animals and clean the house.

“The rest of the property needs a tidy. I think that there’s a motor mower in the shed where the chicken feed is. It will give me time to settle. I can sleep in the annex while I’m here.”

My uncle came back with a folder.

“This is his collection of accounts. There’s a card for a legal office in Letchworth, so I’ll take it to them tomorrow. They can notify all the services. Will you be all right, Tony?”

“I’ll be OK, Uncle. I’ll spend time tidying up, as it looks as if Tom didn’t do a lot since I last saw him. That will help things when the house goes on the market, if that’s what happens. If you can organise a bin during the week, I can trim the overhanging trees as well as clearing the underbrush.”

As I walked them back to his car, Mum held back.

“When you get one of the bedrooms clear, love, I’ll bring Margaret over to keep you company for a few days. She can help you clean the house.”

“Thanks, Mum, that would be a help. I suppose that she hasn’t done anything about a job yet?”

“Not yet. It will take a while before places start employing. She has her heart set on being a cosmetician, so she may be lucky and get a job in a salon, doing hair, once everyone gets back into real life. She didn’t do well enough for university.”

I waved as they left, and stood for a moment, wondering what I was going to do now. I went back into the kitchen and cooked the lunch that I would have done, leaving half of it on a plate to cool, and then get covered in cling wrap for reheating tomorrow. I would have to sort out some supplies when the shops were open on Monday.

In the afternoon, I thoroughly cleaned the kitchen, dumped a lot of stuff past its use-by in the bin, and made a stocktake list to take to the shops. Then, I went out to the chicken coop and gathered all the eggs that I could find. I would have to talk to the Cricketers to see if they were still taking them. I had a quick look in the shed, finding the mower and a strimmer, as well as a can of fuel for them. After that, I locked the house and took the dogs for a walk, noting where Francis lived, going all the way to the Cricketers. The publican gave me, and the dogs, a lift back, and went away with the eggs I had collected.

That evening, after tea, I fed the dogs and the birds, made myself a sandwich, and sat in the lounge reading for a while. Except for the snuffling of the dogs, the sounds of the animals outside, and the beating of my heart, it was so quiet I could have been the last man on earth. When I went to bed, I left the kitchen door on a wedge, so the dogs could go out, and slept in the annex, with my own door on a wedge, so they could visit. I woke up with them both on the bed with me.

Monday, I fed the animals and found the key to the Defender, coaxing it into life. With the dogs in the vehicle, I locked the house and drove into Letchworth to get my supplies and fill the tank. Back at the house, I stored everything away and got yesterdays’ meal out to reheat. Then I sat in the swing seat and phoned my girlfriend. When we finished our conversation, I sat there with my eyes closed. We had parted on good terms, but she was not my girlfriend anymore. She was moving south with her family, leaving at the end of the week. I didn’t even tell her of my current situation, as that wouldn’t have changed a thing.

That afternoon, I got the mower out and started working on the long grass. After tea, I cleaned the lounge and vacuumed all the floors. It was the first time that I had ever gone into a couple of the other bedrooms. There was one that was set up as an office come library and music room, with an old upright piano, which I had spent a lot of time in. The other spare was bare, just a bed base and furniture. Nothing in the wardrobe or drawers. That one was an easy clean, so I did it well enough to take a visitor.

The main bedroom was where Tom must have slept, after Albert had passed. It was quite a large room, and I just glanced inside, noting the bed with obviously well-used sheets. The room had that musty smell that you connect with old peoples’ homes. I closed the door for another day. That night, Boots and Boobs followed me to the annex and were on the bed while I was showering.

On Tuesday morning, it was as if I was the normal resident. I fed the birds and dogs, gathered the eggs and put them in trays, made myself breakfast and then continued with the mowing. A flat bed arrived with a couple of small bins on, which were unloaded towards the back of the property. One was for garden waste, and the other was for household waste, including old food. I signed as receiving them and was given a fridge magnet with the number on to call when they needed to be picked up.

I started to gather up the mown grass and dumping it in one of the bins. I then got the kitchen bin and emptied that in the other one. After that, I put the catcher on and emptied the cuttings directly in the garden bin. By the end of the day, the place looked a lot better, and the dogs were able to chase a ball around. Wednesday, I got a call on my mobile. Uncle Edward told me that he, as next of kin, had been officially advised of the death, and had been to claim the body and get the death certificate. The funeral was going to be Saturday, at ten, at the Letchworth Free Church, with a private cremation afterwards.

That day, me and the dogs took the Defender into Stevenage, where I left them in the car while I went into the house to collect my only suit and good shoes, along with a white shirt and tie. Margaret came back to Lower Green with me and made friends with the dogs on the way. She was laughing by the time we arrived.

“This isn’t the Tony I grew up with, you know. You were always so moody and contained. It may be these dogs, but you’re much easier going.”

“Maybe we just didn’t move in the same circles, sis. I’ve been concentrating on getting a job and expanding my knowledge. Come on in and I’ll show you how far we’ve come.”

I showed her around the house, now clean enough in most places. I opened the door to the spare room.

“If you come and stay, next week, this is where you’ll sleep. I haven’t checked if there’s bedsheets, but there should be something around. I doubt that Tom would have thrown them away. The bed looks like a double. It’s bigger than the one I sleep on in the annex.”

“Uncle Eddy said the place was a tip when he dropped Mum off on Sunday. You’ve done a wonderful job. If I look in the cupboards and find the bed linen, would you mind if I stay earlier?”

“That would be great, sis. During the night, it’s so quiet that I can hear my heart beating. The dogs are good companions, but don’t say a lot.”

She went off to look around, no doubt less worried about looking in cupboards as I was, seeing that I still felt Toms’ spirit in the house. I went outside and filled the tank of the strimmer and spent a couple of hours going around the edges to make the place look better, with special care around the house walls. I was quite proud of my efforts when I had finished.

Back in the house, Margaret had made a difference. Where I had cleaned, she had wiped and polished. I found her in the spare bedroom, checking out the drawers. She had found where everything was stored, and we made up the bed.

She had also cleaned in the office.

“I’ve wiped the mouse with a disinfectant cloth I found in the laundry. The washing machine is useless, so old, it should be put out to pasture.”

“I’ve got a bin outside for that sort of thing. It can go in that. There’s a lot of other junk outside that can go. Do you want to give Mum a call at the library to see if she minds you coming early. If it’s all right, I can drop you off while I see my boss at the Poachers and pick up a few bottles. I want to be prepared if anyone wants to visit after the funeral.”

I looked around the room while she rang Mum. The CD library was as I remembered it, but there was an extra shelf with some orchestral DVDs, as well as a few of a woman performing in a nightclub setting, playing piano and singing. I turned the computer on and found that the old password – Albi – still worked. I checked the emails, finding a few that were from the last week, answering the personal ones with the message that Tom was now dead and giving the funeral details. My sister finished her call.

“Mum says that I can stay with you for as long as I like, so we can go home, and I’ll pack for a week. Do you still play the piano? I can’t remember ever hearing you, just that Mum has always told me that you played.”

I sat at the upright and started playing an etude, then moved into something ragtime as my fingers remembered what they needed to do. It had been a good five months since I had sat here and there were tears in my eyes as I finished with a ballad, softly singing along.

When I sat back, she hugged me, and I finally sobbed my heart out.

“I’m sorry, sis. I’ve been keeping it all together for too long. I’ve spent hundreds of hours at these keys, with Tom encouraging me and teaching me how to play. The things he knew were so awesome. It’s now that I fully realise that he’s never coming back, and in a week or so, I’ll never be able to visit here again. It’s a big thing to get my head around.”

“It’s perfectly all right, Tony. You’ve been a tower of strength, and something had to give. Come on, dry your eyes and we’ll pick up my things. You can loosen up with me around. I won’t tell anyone about this. It’s between us as brother and sister.”

“Thanks, Margaret. Perhaps a week in close company will allow us to move forward together. There’s only eighteen months between us, and that sort of difference gets less as we get older.”

I splashed some water on my face, and we got into the Defender to go to our home, with the dogs jumping in to see the countryside. On the way, she scratched the head of one.

“Which is which?”

“The female with the row of nipples is Boobs, and the male with the white paws is Boots. I would have thought that Tom would have named them with something more classical.”

“What! Like Romeo and Juliette. That wouldn’t fit these playful mutts. We’ve never had an animal in the house, and it’s only taken me half a day to wonder why.”

We stopped outside the house to let her out, and then I took the dogs over to the Poachers. They were happy to sit outside where the water bowl was while I spoke to the boss and bought a case of mixed wine and a crate of beer. He helped carry them out.

“Nice wheels, Tony.”

“It’s Toms’ old one. It’s helpful at the moment, but I’ll be losing it once the will has been read and the house and contents distributed. It’s almost made me want to trade the Honda in in something with four wheels.”

Back at the house, Margaret had two cases on the doorstep and another in her hand when I stopped. I put them in the back, and we set off for Lower Green.

“I thought that you were packing for a week!”

“That is only just enough, if there isn’t a working washing machine. You may have to bring me home to catch up with the laundry next week.”

“What about the smaller case?”

“That’s my beauty case. I’ll give your hair a trim before the funeral.”

That evening, she watched TV with a dog on her lap, while I tried to read my book with one of my own. It was calming, and I couldn’t hear my heartbeat.

Thursday morning, I woke up with just the one dog on my bed. I put on jeans and a top and went out to feed the birds. When I put the feed out for the dogs, the other one came out from inside the house to dive in. Margaret came out in her dressing gown.

“What hour do you call this?”

“This is the hour that the animals have decided that it’s feeding time. It’s about a half an hour after dawn, every day of the year, and they don’t follow daylight saving. I’ll get us breakfast, and then you can help me collect the eggs. After that, if I’m not gardening today, I’ll have a shower and dress.”

She looked at me and then burst out laughing.

“OK, big brother, you’re on! I’ll get myself ready to face this crazy hour, and then, after all that, we’ll work on that master bedroom. I know that you feel as if you’re trespassing, but you can’t put it off for ever.”

It seemed as if I had a new reason to live with Margaret in the house. We had a cooked breakfast, with eggs from the birds outside, and then I went in the coop and collected eggs while she had a bucket of water to wash the eggs before putting them in trays. After that, I went and showered, then dressed in clean clothes. I stripped my bed and remade it with the last set of sheets in the cupboard, taking the sheets and pillowcases into the laundry to add to a hamper.

When we went into the master bedroom, she wrinkled her nose, opened the window wide, and went into the laundry room to find some air freshener. The first thing we did was strip the bed, putting the sheets, pillowcases, and even the pillows themselves out in the big bin. We turned the mattress over. Once that had been done, I got the vacuum and went around the floor again, going under the bed and moving it so that every inch of the room was cleared.

Margaret was going over the furniture with a polishing cloth, and it started looking good. She was doing the chest of drawers when she stopped and stepped back.

“Look at this piece. What do you see?”

“It’s a chest of drawers like you’d find in any bedroom, but with a mirror added at the back.”

“Agreed. What sort of mirror.”

I looked more closely.

“It’s slightly magnifying. And there’s a row of small bulbs down each side.”

“Look at yourself and see if this makes a difference.”

She flicked a switch on the edge of the mirror, and I suddenly realised that I needed a shave.

“This is a professional actors mirror, Tony. It’s fantastic. Why would Tom have a mirror like this. Didn’t Albert have a beard?”

“He did. I can’t answer your questions. There’s something else I’ve noticed. There are two wardrobes in this room. One is perfectly normal, and the other has a keyhole in one door. That one also has a small plaque on it. If you look closely, you can read it.”

She went over to it and peered at it.

“Toms’ Cabinet of Curiosities’.”

“I have a full set of keys that were taken from Toms’ pocket, I’ll go and get them.”

I went and found the keys and we tried every one of them without any success. After that, we started working on his clothing. There was a surprisingly large number of good shirts that I’d never seen him wear. They were expensive, in very good material, and not the size that would have fitted him.

“These look as if he’s had them for years. I’d put them as being bought in the end of the eighties. The colours aren’t what you’d see today.”

“I think you’re right, sis. In fact, I’d say that he was about my age when he bought them, during the time he was in London. They would fit me quite nicely.”

“I think these slacks would look good on you as well. They are also one size smaller, and hardly worn.”

“OK, leave them in place. They may be handy stock if there’s a garage sale. We’ll clear out all of the current things as we go and put it in garbage bags for the bin. All the shoes can go.

We had cleared all of the worn clothes by lunch, with one pile for the bin, one for charity, and just the good slacks and shirts and a good suit in my size left. I had a closer look at one of the shirts and saw that it would need to be washed and ironed when damp to get the creases out, after being folded for so long. There were a few that I thought I may spend some money to get for myself when we had the sale. That would have to be back in Stevenage, as there was no passing traffic on Lower Green, unless you were lost.

We made up the big bed with everything fresh, using spare pillows we had found in the linen cupboard, and then I went out to the annex and brought all of my things in and put them away. Tonight, and every night until we left, I would sleep in the master bedroom, with the bathroom across the corridor. Working the bathroom in conjunction with my sister was something we had perfected at our home.

That afternoon, we worked on the final rooms that needed more done. The bathroom, toilet and laundry. Finishing with a last burst of energy in the annex. It had only been five days since I had found Toms’ body, and the house looked as if he’d never been here in most of the rooms. That evening, I drove us to Two Chimneys, where we had dinner. Several of the staff remembered me and we were treated well. Margaret was thoughtful on the way back.

“That was an eye-opener. You spent time in that place with Albert, what, six or seven years ago, and at odd times in between, but they still remember you with kindness. What on earth did you do there?”

“Albert taught me to cook, and I helped out in the kitchen for a lot of lunches, preparing food for the paying customers. Tom and I would have many dinners there, with Albert coming out of the kitchen to join us after the other diners had left.”

“How well can you cook?”

“I could take one of the chickens out of the coop in the afternoon and serve it for dinner, with a range of roasted vegetables. I can do more exotic meals but would need to buy in supplies for that.”

“Have you done that, with a chicken, I mean?”

“I have, but only a few times, with chickens that were too old to lay. We had duck, once, but it was too much against my instincts to do it again. Albert made it all seem so normal, and to a chef, it is normal, except that you’d have someone else do the killing.”

“I’ve had a look in the kitchen drawers. There’s some serious tools there, obviously what a trained chef would use.”

“I don’t have a yardstick to gauge them by. I wasn’t exactly in the kitchen with Mum as I grew up, and everything that I’ve used since I’ve taken as normal.”

That night, I slept in the comfort of the big bed, with both of us with the doors open and a dog joining us. Boobs seemed to love being with Margaret, perhaps it was a female bonding. Friday morning, after we had fed the animals and collected the eggs, we took the egg trays to the Cricketers and was told that the dinner, tonight, was on the house, with a live band afterwards.

We went into Stevenage to get a little bit more shopping. We were in Tesco’s’ when my phone buzzed. It was Uncle Eddy.

“Tony, how are you getting on?”

“Good, Uncle Eddy. Margaret has been staying with me for a couple of days and we’ve been able to clean the house thoroughly. I’ve done the garden but haven’t started on the branches yet. I was going to leave that until next week.”

“You’re doing a great job, lad. The reason I’ve called is to ask you to get to the church a little early tomorrow. It would be nice if you could stand with me and welcome the others. I’m not sure how many are going to turn up, but we’re catering for fifty in the church hall afterwards. Will you be bringing Margaret, or will she be coming with your parents.”

She was standing close enough to hear, so said that she would be with me, loud enough that he could hear.

“All right, that’s good. It would be nice for his two cousins to be part of the ceremony. I have one other thing to ask, Tony. Would you give a little eulogy?”

“I’d consider it an honour, Uncle. How did you go with the lawyer?”

“I left the folder with him on Monday, and he got back to me yesterday. He wants us, and that includes you, to attend his office next Monday, at eleven, and he’ll give us the details of the will. That’s when we find out the real state of affairs and can move on from then. I’ll see you tomorrow, looking good and ready to give my son a fond farewell.”

When I pressed the disconnect, Margaret gave me a hug, right there in the Tesco’s aisle.

“We’ll go back via our home, and I’ll pick out a suitable dress for the funeral. This afternoon we’ll sit you outside and I’ll tidy up those split ends of yours. When we’ve got the shopping, can we visit Mum in the library and get her up to speed with everything?”

We finished the shopping, we went home so that Margaret could choose a suitable dress, shoes, handbag, and underwear. At this rate, it would take two trips for us to return to our home when we left the house.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 3

We had lunch with Mum in the library café, telling her what was happening and how far we had got with the house. Margaret told her that the two of us would be at the church earlier to stand with our Uncle and Aunt. After that, we went back to the house, where I had to get shirtless and sit in the garden while my sister worked on my hair.

We went to the Cricketers for a meal and danced to the band, with each other and with other partners. On the short drive to the house, Margaret put her hand on my arm and thanked me for a lovely evening. I think that my sister was coming to realise just how important this time was becoming in our growing up. That night, I spoke quietly to Boots, laying on the bed next to me, telling him that his world may be changing. I don’t think he took it in, as he wagged his tail and licked my chin. That reminded me that I would really have to shave in the morning.

Saturday started out as every other day, with animal feeding, collecting eggs, getting breakfast and then us getting showered and dressed. Today, though, we put the dogs outside and closed the door while we got ready. After my contemplation in the shower, I sat in front of the good mirror, with the lights on, and used my electric shaver. After I had dressed in my suit, Margaret came in and used the mirror to do her make-up.

We made sure that the dogs were inside again, and locked the house, driving to the church to arrive in good time. Uncle Edward greeted us.

“Thank you for getting here early. A few have already arrived. You’ll be sitting with us at the front during the service. I can tell you that Tom did die of a heart attack, from the same hereditary problem that took my father. It seems to follow some in the family, so you’d better make an appointment to start seeing doctors, Tony.”

“Thanks for that, Uncle, I think.”

We stood with them as people arrived. I was making a mental count and there was still fifteen minutes to start time when we passed the catered limit. In all, there must have been a hundred in the church when the service began. The only one from the family who didn’t attend was Henry, and nobody missed him. I was called on after my Uncle had spoken about Toms’ early days, and I spoke about how my cousin had altered my life.

At the end of the service, the coffin was carried by members of the family, with me in the middle so I didn’t have to support much, not that he weighed a lot, and it was slid into the hearse that would take the body to the crematorium. I stood with Margaret, and watched him being taken from me, for the very last time. After that, we stood around with cups of tea and pieces of cake and caught up with the family gossip.

Around one, we were sitting in the Cultivo Lounge, somewhere new to me. It wasn’t highbrow but wasn’t a burger bar either. We were a smaller group; me, my family and Eddy with my Aunt. We had a nice lunch, some quiet talk, and left feeling as close as family members could be. My Uncle and Aunt were very appreciative of what we had done to tidy up the house. When Margaret and I went back to Lower Green, my parents followed us.

When we pulled into the property, the first thing I did was to let the dogs out for a run and pee. The house smelt slightly of dog, but not much. Margaret did the hostess thing and brought our parents in and showed them around. They were both pleased with our hard work, Mum having seen the inside and outside on the previous Sunday. Dad made sure that he looked everywhere with his legal mind in operation. He came into the kitchen as I was pulling bottles out of the box.

“There’s a lot of stuff here, son. If the house goes on the market, it could be sold with the furnishings, but there’ll still be a lot to send to an auction house to sell. You’ll just have to wait until you see the lawyer. We don’t even know if there’s a mortgage on the place.”

“Uncle Eddy took a folder that he said was all the accounts, so the papers would be in that.”

He looked at my sister.

“What do you want to do, now, Margaret?”

“I’d like to stay on here, if that’s all right. I’ve been lazing around at home, waiting for my phone to ring with a job offer, and this has been a wonderful, if sad, few days. As you say, there’s still a lot to be done and I don’t want to leave Tony here with all the work. I do have one question. Why have we never had pets?”

“That’s easy. When we married and lived in a flat while we both did studies, it was a no pet place. By the time we came to live in Stevenage, we just hadn’t thought about them, How are you getting on with those dogs?”

“They’re lovely, friendly, and great companions. Except for the snoring during the night, that is.”

“At least they have plenty of space to run about in while they’re here. They will have to go to a shelter when the house is sold.”

“That would be so sad. I know that with us all out to work, we couldn’t keep them at home.”

I offered wine, beer or hot drink, and we all had wine. Dad wanted a chardonnay that I had, Mum and Margaret both had a dry white, and I poured myself one of those for me. As I was doing that, there was a knock on the door. I put the bottle down and went and opened it.

“Francis, come on in. I saw you with a group of ladies this morning.”

“We were all old schoolfriends of Tom and had to say goodbye. That eulogy of yours was really from the heart. I hope I’m not disturbing things.”

“Of course not. These are my parents, Mary and Robert Underwood, and my sister, Margaret.”

Francis accepted a drink and sat with us in the kitchen.

“You were Mary Anderson, and you were in the library when I was going to school.”

Mum laughed.

“And you were Francis Wilder, who devoured everything we had on knitting and crochet. Since I’ve taken over as the librarian, I’ve put little signs up to help people find things, and the craft section is now called the ‘Wilderness’.”

“It was all helpful for me. I managed a craft shop until I got married, and every generation of my family are outfitted in my work.”

They talked about old times for a while, and my sister and I learned more about our parents during that chat than we had known. Dad had always been a workaholic, and somewhat distant. Now, however, he was showing a humanity that we hadn’t seen. Perhaps today had shown him that we’re all mortal, after all.

Finally, Francis got around to what she wanted to tell me. She had asked around Lower Green and found someone to take all the poultry. He would show up on Sunday with a truck and cages to transport the birds. I told her that I would haul the unopened sacks of seed out from the shed to add to the load. Francis left to walk home, and Mum and Dad left, not long after. Margaret and I stood and waved them off as Dad backed out onto the lane, bags for the charity shop in their car. Margaret giggled.

“We’re standing here like a married couple, waving visitors off. This is like a quick lesson in what adult life can be.”

“I know. I’ve had more responsibility this week than I’ve known, even with tending a bar. Having a whole house and land to look after has been a great experience.”

On Sunday, the guy came for the birds. Together, we rounded them up and loaded them on the truck in cages. Then we loaded the remaining seed and dismantled the chicken coop and fence, loading that all up. The eggs that we collected were put into trays for a final delivery to the Cricketers. While all that was happening, the dogs were running around like mad things, wondering what was happening in their world. When the site was cleared, the guy gave me fifty pounds and left with his quacking and clucking load. I got the mower out and trimmed the site to look similar to the rest of the area, if a different colour.

The two of us were sharing the cooking and cleaning, with me learning things from her, and her learning things from me. Whatever we did, we had good meals, with the dogs doing pretty good with leftovers. As she had said, we were spending the days like a married couple. When Monday dawned, we both dressed neatly to see the lawyer. Margaret was never going to let me face the outcome alone.

We dropped the final eggs off at the pub on the way, telling them that the birds had now gone to a new home. We were told that they already knew where the birds were and would still be getting their eggs. We found the lawyers office in Letchworth and parked the Defender.

“So, here we are at Bailey, Bailey and Bailey. I wonder why they didn’t just call the firm Bailey Brothers.”

“Maybe they thought that it sounded like the name of an off license. Anyway, gird your loins, brother dear, and see what happens.”

We met my Aunt and Uncle inside, and we were all escorted to a large office, where a Mister Jackson was waiting for us.

“Good morning, folks. I’ve been Tom Andersons’ lawyer since he came back from London. This won’t take very long, as his estate is very simple. Please sit, does anyone require a drink?”

We all shook our heads and sat. He sat at his desk and picked up a folder, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers.

“This is the last will and testament of Thomas Anderson, formally of Lower Green, Ickleford. There are a number of bequests in it. I remember the signing quite well, as he only wrote this one out in late January. He told me that he was worried about the new epidemic, now the pandemic, and wanted to have a new will that didn’t include Albert, once he had died.”

He looked at the paper again and read.

“There are the usual clauses regarding sound mind, but the nub of the matter is that he has left bequests of five thousand pounds, each, to six ladies who had remained friends since his school days. He also has left twenty-five thousand pounds to you, Mister Anderson, as a repayment of a long-ago loan, with interest. Then he leaves the rest of his estate, after fees and charges, to Mister Anthony Underwood, ‘who has shown me true friendship and aid through a difficult time and has the talent to be a pianist or chef, given the support that my money would afford him’. The details of the estate will be for Mister Underwood to hear. Does anyone have any questions?”

My Uncle and Aunt stood and shook hands with the lawyer. Uncle Eddy smiled.

“Things are just as they should be. This makes me proud of my son, as he has used what he gained to help Tony, who is a particularly apt person to receive the estate. Thank you. I’ll see you later, Tony, and we can arrange to pick the bins up. I’ll still pay for them, as this is an outcome I had hoped for, but didn’t expect.”

We had hugs and they left the room. I was still in shock.

“This is all such a surprise, sir. I never expected him to leave me anything.”

“When I last saw Tom, he was telling me how he had the best music student that he had known, as well as one of the quickest to learn new things. He told me that Albert had gained great pleasure in teaching you to cook, and also told me how you supported him when Albert passed on. He considered you the son he never had, and this was the only way he could repay you. He didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but that’s something none of us expect.”

He picked up another folder and opened it.

“This is the estate detail. You are now the owner if the house in Lower Green, all the goods and chattels therein, and the vehicle. You will be now liable for the services, rates, and other charges that may arise. Before we go any further, I have to advise you that, as you are now responsible for the property, you really should make your own will, as you could well be knocked over walking to your vehicle when you leave here. You’re free to go elsewhere.”

“It’s all right, sir. I’ll stick with you. There’s so much to think about.”

“All right. Now, the house is fully paid for. Thomas closed the mortgage with some of the money that he received from Alberts’ life policy. There was a policy on Thomas’ life as well, which he changed to name you as the beneficiary. When that is paid out, the cash part of the estate will be just shy of two hundred thousand pounds. He also left an envelope with me to give to you. I have no idea what it contains, but it does feel like a letter and something flat but solid.”

He gave me the envelope and I clutched it as he called for his secretary to bring in the paperwork to sign me on as a client. In the space of a few minutes, I had gone from an innocent lad with dreams to someone who needed to have a lawyer!

We went through the papers, and I signed in several places.

“We will now take our retainer from the estate, before paying it into your bank. It is only a token amount, as there are charges for our work at later dates. Now, if you’re up to it, Anthony, we can take your will details. It doesn’t have to be extensive, at first, and you can update it at any time as life goes on.”

“I think it can be pretty simple, sir. I’d like to leave everything to my sister. She’s helped me clean the house and has almost as much input into it as I have. As you say, I can make bequests as I wish, but let’s stay simple for the moment.”

He wrote down Margarets’ details and we were ushered to an office tearoom where we sat with a tea and biscuits while the will was being typed on the proper paperwork. Margaret had been very quiet.

“Are you all right, sis?”

“It’s all just so much in one go, Tony. You have the house and car and will have money in the bank. It means that you’ll not come back to live with us and will be able to keep the dogs. You can give up tending the bar and do anything you want.”

“Do you want to move in, as well? I think that you’re enjoying the independence.”

“Yes, please. If I get my license, I could find work in Stevenage, Letchworth, or Luton. I could get a motorbike one first and ride your Honda. Give things a month or two, and we can both see what the future holds for us. There has to be something we can do that’s better than working in a bar or a salon.”

“All right. Let’s do it. I’ll tell the Poachers that I’m not coming back, and we can clear out our rooms at home and set up in our own place.”

When I had read through my will and signed every page with Mister Jackson and his secretary witnessing it, he gave me the papers for all the services, telling me to contact them to change the property ownership. I gave him my banking details. Clutching a new folder, with the paperwork, my copy of the will, the envelope, and the estate details, we went back to where I’d parked the Defender. Now, my Defender. Margaret rang Mum and arranged to meet at the library café for lunch and a chat, and we drove into Stevenage and parked.

We had a little while before meeting Mum, so I pulled the envelope out of the folder and opened it. There was a letter, with a key. I sat and read the letter and then passed it to my sister, as I was getting tearful. She read it and had to repair her make-up. We sat, in silence for a few minutes.

“He did love you as a son. This is about as heartfelt as his love for Albert. You must have been a rock for him at that time, seeing that he writes that it was only the thought of taking you further on the piano that stopped him ending it. The bit at the end is strange. Whatever could be in a locked cabinet that would make you think less of him. He was almost sorry that he had left it for you. It must have been something profound from his early days for him to lock it up and give his lawyer the only key. The line at the very bottom, which looks like an afterthought, could lead to other information.”

“Yes. I’ve no idea who this Harvey Parker or his son, Hector are. We’ll find out when we open it. In the meantime, nothing about that to Mum, just the bare facts of the estate, and then we have a long list of places to go to and change billing details.”

I left the envelope in the vehicle and took the folder with me when we went to meet Mum. She was as surprised as we had been when told that I now owned the house. Being methodical, she took us up to the library and photo-copied the will, the estate estimates, and the list of services to show Dad, so he could have details should he want to give me advice. We told her that we would be coming home to clear out our rooms and both live at Lower Green, for the foreseeable future. She told us that she could already see good changes in both of us with our new-found independence.

We put off seeing the utility companies until later, going first to a whitegoods shop to order a new washing machine and dryer, pay for them, with delivery to the house. Then it was a visit to my bank to tell them about my likely income and set up a new account which it could be paid into that would give me interest. Margaret also banked there, and we both changed our address with them. The lawyer was going to get Toms’ banking changed to my name, with new cards issued once that had been done.

We went home to Lower Green and we both cuddled a dog, now knowing that they would be with us for a long time. We went to our rooms and started making changes with the knowledge of other things we would be bringing here, making lists of things we needed to get. Later on, I disconnected the washing machine, and we tossed it into the bin. We both avoided opening the cabinet. There had been too much happening today to add that to it.

That evening, I cooked us dinner, which we had with a glass of wine, and we sat at the table with a notebook to make a shopping list of foods we wanted, now our residence was to continue beyond a few more days. Before we went to bed, I unloaded everything from the chest of drawers onto my bed, while Margaret emptied the smaller one in her room. We exchanged the furniture, so she could use the lit mirror, and reloaded the drawers.

That night, as I laid in bed, with Boots snuggled at my side, it came home to me that this was now my bed, in my house, and this was my dog. I went to sleep with a smile.

On Tuesday, it was a whirlwind of shopping and seeing the services in the morning. The afternoon was delivery of the new whitegoods, so we set to in the laundry, scrubbing it out. The delivery guys did take them out of the boxes and carry them in for us, for a tip, but we were left to connect them up and get them ready to be used. I found a file, in the office cabinet, where the guarantees and instructions could be put, and broke the boxes down to go in the household goods bin.

At the end of the afternoon, I rang the Poachers and explained that I was now a house owner and was too far away to come back to work. They were not totally happy but had to be good with it. On Wednesday, we went to our old home to collect all the things we were taking. We had the two suitcases for Margaret, as well as her laying a lot of clothes on the back seats of the Defender. My side was a bit easier, a garbage bag with jocks and socks, tee-shirts and other small things. The rest of my things were laid on the back seat with hers. I had a box with my CD and DVD collection and my laptop and printer. My old X-Box, games and old toys were left on the bed with a note to say that they were donations to the childrens’ section of the library.

We took it all home and helped each other carry things in. Tom must have updated the electrics when he fully owned the house, as every room had more outlets than usual. I was able to set my laptop up in the bedroom, on the chest of drawers, with the printer beside it. All the extra paper and oddments joined similar things in the office. The key remained in the envelope, snug in the bedside table drawer.

When I put all of my CD and DVDs in the office, there wasn’t a lot of room left. Margaret had all hers in plastic containers with slots, and had put her collection in the office, the three containers on top of each other. If there was ever another lockdown, we could listen to music all day without repeating a thing.

On Thursday, we went to the big box store park in Stevenage, getting a free-standing clothes rack for all the dresses that wouldn’t fit into Margarets’ wardrobe. I got a battery driven chainsaw to work on those branches. In the afternoon, I worked on that job, filling the bin, while Margaret did a proper clean of the annex and putting the laundry through the new system. That evening, we watched TV, learning more about the unit and finding a DVD slot in the side that we had missed. After the show had ended, Margaret slid one of her favourite band DVDs in the slot to give me a bit of a training session on the latest trends for teenage girls. I didn’t find it very good, but I couldn’t get a few tunes out of my head when I went to bed.

On Friday, I called the number to have the bins removed, and they gave me a time on Saturday morning. We took the dogs, with leads, and drove to Luton, where Margaret was keen to wander in the Matalan store. We left the dogs with a window slightly open and spent a half an hour checking the place out, with Margaret keen to come back for at least half a day. We then went into the main town, finding a parking spot at the Luton Indoor Market, and took the dogs for a walk. She had noted a few employment agencies along Stuart Street, so we looked at their boards, and had lunch at El Grubego, a Polish style café with just the one small table outside where we could sit with the dogs.

By the time we got back to the Defender, the dogs had had enough, so I looped east again, bypassing Stevenage, and went to a place I had been on the Honda. We parked by Cromer Windmill, and took pictures of each other, with and without the dogs. Margaret wanted to send an update to her friends, and this was different enough to make a statement.

On Saturday, Francis walked in as the bins were leaving. We were invited to dinner at the Two Chimneys, with her, her husband, and the other five couples who had received their money from the estate. It was a lovely time with all the girls telling us stories of Tom when he was at school, right up to the time he had left to go to London.

That night, before we went to bed, Margaret just said ‘tomorrow.’ I knew what she meant. We knew about Toms’ school days. We knew about is time living in Lower Green and his teaching. It was time to discover his story in London. We couldn’t put off opening the cabinet any longer.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 4

That night, it took a long while for me to go to sleep. The morning would be two weeks since I had discovered his body, and Tom had filled the days since with his spirit. As I laid in the dark, idly scratching a dogs head, I thought about the clues that had been left. A small boy bullied and called a queer, who had grown up gay and finding love with a larger man. It all fitted a profile.

Then, there was the make-up mirror, as used by professional entertainers. The clothing, in a size for the younger Tom, had obviously been bought for use but deemed superfluous. There was nothing in the house of Alberts’, and nothing in the house that linked the lad who bought the jazzy outfits to the man who had lived here. My guess was that we would find it all in the cabinet.

I must have slept well, as I was woken by a dog tongue on my face. I hauled my body out of bed and went to the kitchen door, opening it to let two bundles of energy race across the back garden to their favourite toilet spot. I went and did my own business and then put food in their bowls and put them outside. Margaret wandered into the kitchen.

“I still can’t believe that we start the day at this ungodly hour.”

“It is the hour that god sends up the sun, even on days we can’t see it.”

“Ooh! Listen to the vicar. I’m going to have my shower. See you in half an hour.”

I made myself a cup of instant coffee, and stood by the sink, looking out at the back garden and taking sips of drink. I started to think about a garden. Tom had lived here for so long without any flower beds, anywhere around the house. It would only be the weeds that provided colour, and he must have liked colour, if those shirts were anything to go by. I was planning raised beds across the back, alternating flowers and vegetables, when Margaret came back in, looking radiant.

“Bathrooms’ free. Is the water hot?”

“It won’t take long. I’ll be back when I’m looking civilised.”

“Boys never look civilised. It doesn’t come with the territory.”

I went off to the bathroom and had my shower. The bathroom smelt like lavender body wash, and it was at hand, so I did my hair and body with it. When I was dressed, I went back into the kitchen and turned on the gas burners to create a chefs’ breakfast. Margaret came up behind me.

“Who’s been sleeping in a gay man’s bed, then?”

“What girl didn’t tidy up her body wash?”

“Hey, we need more shower caddies to carry two lots of things. Keep with the lavender, Tony, it smells good on you. Are we ready for the big reveal after we’ve washed up?”

“We have to be. I’m betting that we’ll find a wardrobe full of female clothing, shape-making underwear, and impossible heels.”

“I’m with you on that, with all the other clues. The thing that I keep coming back to is why he locked them away. There must have been some cataclysmic event.”

“Big words on a Sunday morning. I’m glad we have something serious to think about.”

I cooked us a good breakfast, noting that we’ll need to start buying eggs. When we had washed up, we took turns in brushing teeth, and finally stood in the master bedroom, with the key now in my hand. I put it in the lock and turned it.

“Here goes nothing!”

The door swung open to reveal a wall of drawers. I put my hand behind the edge of the closed door and found bolts, top and bottom. The door opened to reveal about a dozen colourful dresses, the sort that you see on stage. Below them were pairs of impossible heels.

“We were right!”

“It was almost inevitable. Open up the drawers, starting from the bottom, and let’s see what they contain.”

“If it’s female underwear, you can do the touching.”

“Chicken!”

“Sorry, sis. No chickens here any longer.”

The lower drawers did contain female underwear. Margaret lifted out some things and commented about the obvious high quality. About waist level, the drawer contained two scrapbooks. We went through to the kitchen with them and put the kettle on. Sitting with a fresh cup of tea, we took one each. I looked at mine.

“This is a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about a police raid on a nightclub, in Soho, in nineteen ninety-four. It was a place called ‘Shackles’.”

She turned her book so I could look at the flyer, which showed someone wearing one of the dresses in the cabinet, sitting at a white piano, with the heading, ‘Tanya Hyde in Shackles’. I got up and went to the office, coming back with the three DVDs. They were three copies of a recording of Tanya Hyde, but not released until twenty-o-five. The release was issued by an independent company, called ‘Parker Productions’ and the cover apologised for the quality, as the discs had been made from the original Super Eight film.

“It looks like we now know who the Parkers are. These would have been available ten years after they came here.”

“This scrapbook is great! Tanya grew out of Tom in drag to be an attractive and talented performer. There’s cuttings from gay papers about the performances.”

I went back to the cuttings I was looking at. It appeared that the bust was done by a particularly nasty vice squad. There were several letters to the editor regarding the heavy-handed actions. The last cutting showed Tanya, from the flyer, with a story about the compensation that had been paid to the star entertainer along with a number of other staff of the club. All had been charged with ‘drunk and disorderly’ although no breath or blood tests were offered. As I turned that page, an envelope dropped out of the book. I opened it and read the single page it had contained.

‘Tony, if you’re reading this, it means that I died earlier than expected. There are some facts about my case that were never made public, and the compensation hearing was carried out behind closed doors. Albert and I were paid out because on the night I was arrested, on stage, they charged me, and every person working in the club, with being drunk. I was tossed into a cell with five guys, still in my stage outfit, and was gang raped by them for two days. The guards didn’t come when I was screaming. They didn’t stop Albert suffering a similar treatment in a cell with five Angels. They threw us out into the street, where we were taken to a clinic by friends. We both had to be operated on to repair the damage. That vice squad had been paid by a gang that owned other clubs to close us down and were eventually brought to justice. We left London with our money and a life-time problem that made it difficult to crap, and impossible to have sex. We did have enough love for each other to live normal lives, together. Thank you for your care and love for me when Albert passed away. All the best for the future. Tanya’.

I sat for some minutes. The big bed had never been the site of sexual release, only love and cuddles. Albert must have been sleeping in the other room, and Tom had done everything he could to eradicate the painful memories. Margaret put what she was looking at down and looked at me.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“One that’s now left this world. Read these cuttings first, and then this letter. It’s the cataclysmic event that we suspected. I’m going to walk around the garden and throw a ball for the dogs.”

I spent some time with the dogs, hardly able to see from the tears in my eyes. Margaret came out to join me, her panda eyes showing that it had got to her as well. We stood in the garden, holding each other, until the crying stopped. We went back inside and put the scrapbooks back in the drawer. I locked the cabinet as we both couldn’t face the contents any more today.

I got the letter that the lawyer had given me. It made a lot more sense now. I checked that my phone had enough battery life and made the call to the number on the bottom.

“Good morning, Hector Parker, can I help you?”

“Good morning, Mister Parker. My name is Anthony Underwood and I’m calling you from the house where Tom Anderson used to live. You may be more aware of his stage name, Tanya Hyde.”

“Wow! That’s a blast from the past. Is Tanya still tickling the ivories?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that I discovered Toms’ body in the garden here, all of two weeks ago.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that. Tanya and Dad will probably be chewing the fat, then. He passed a few years ago. Is Albert still cooking up a storm?”

“Again, I’m sorry to say that he died about the same time as your father. Look, I’m Toms’ cousin, and he left the house to me, including a cabinet that I only unlocked this morning. It contains some of Tanyas’ stage gear and scrapbooks. I know about his time in Stevenage, and I have been a regular visitor here since I was thirteen, but this performing, and the police raid, is all very new and confronting.”

“It was more than confronting at the time! I was only in my teens, and it knocked Dad for six. It took months to clear the names of all the staff, but, by that time, the customers had all moved on. Shackles never reopened and is now a tapas bar with the odd flamenco evening. I would love to talk with you more. Can you come to London for a couple of days? I can put you up in a little hotel that I have shares in.”

“I do have a bit of time on my hands. It will be me and my sister, as we’ve both been discovering the secret life of our cousin.”

We talked some more, and I agreed to come to London on Wednesday, calling him when we arrived. He gave me the address of the hotel and we finished the conversation.

“That was interesting, sis. That was Hector, as Harvey passed on about the same time as Albert. We’re going to London for a couple of days, accommodation curtesy of Hector. From what he said, I think that Tom and Albert disappeared without trace when they left. I can understand why Tom never recreated Tanya after that, it would have been too traumatic. That also tells us about the clothes he did keep, all from pre-Tanya days. He must have dumped all of the daytime Tanya outfits and bought new Tom gear between there and here.”

“We’ll have to leave the dogs with Francis while we’re away. Are we going to tell anyone about all this?”

“I don’t think it would do any good, but we could give Uncle Eddy a copy of that DVD to look at, if Tanya was as good as the cuttings suggest. It was, after all, just a role that Tom played to earn some money. It must have all started in his last years with the music school and snowballed from there until he was Tanya twenty-four seven.”

We did other things for a while and then I did lunch. After that, we sat in the lounge, glasses of wine in hand, and watched the DVD of Tanya ‘tickling the ivories’. It was like looking at someones’ old holiday movie. The vision tended to jump a few times, but the content was eye-opening. Having known Tom so well, I could see him under the wig, the paint, the over-the-top dress and the heels. It was a fabulous performance of piano playing, singing, and working with an appreciative audience. When we ejected the disc, I put it back in the case.

“That was the Tom I knew when he was teaching me to play. After I had mastered something classical, he would leave the room and come back with some music to lighten the moment. I would never finish a lesson on a serious note. Just about every song on that DVD was something I’d played and sung. He would always sit behind me, at the desk, when I played. I wonder if it brought back happier days.”

“That, Tony, will only be proved if the drawers we haven’t looked in still have the scores. With the right make-over, you could recreate that show.”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t have the nerve.”

“Tony may not have the nerve, but I bet that Antonia Hyde would nail it.”

She smiled and I laughed, so lifting our spirits. I rang Uncle Eddy and arranged to see him at home, on Monday afternoon.

Before we left the house on Monday, we opened up the cabinet again and looked in the drawers that we hadn’t checked. A couple contained falsies, waist clinchers and thigh pads, one held a mass of cosmetics that Margaret said would have gone hard by now, and one was full of music scores that I remembered. Above the drawers was a cupboard, with half a dozen wigs on foam heads. Margaret pulled one down.

“There must have been good money in those days. The wigs are human hair and very well made, the underwear is about as good as you can get without being a millionaire, and the cosmetics were all expensive at the time. Tanya was doing very well for herself. That brings me to something that’s been niggling at my brain. That show had her with a lot of jewellery that flashed like the real thing. So far, we’ve found nothing here, and there wasn’t a photo in the house, not of Tom, Albert, or even his school pictures. Where are they?”

“We haven’t looked for things like that. There’s the rest of the filing cabinet, or, to take a leaf out of the spy novels, there could be an envelope with a deposit box key, taped to the underside of one of the drawers in the house.”

We went and looked in the filing cabinet, finding a lot of old accounts, tax records and payment slips for Albert from the Two Chimneys and Tom from the school. Then we pulled out every drawer in the house, including the ones in the cabinet, and checked underneath. We found nothing.

I made us lunch, and we were sitting there afterwards, when Margaret laughed.

“Tom was Tanya for a few years, right?”

“It would have been from about eighty-nine, when he graduated, to ninety-five. What has that got to do with it?”

“Six years living as a woman, a successful performer and immersed in femininity would have given him a lot of insights into how a woman thinks. Where does a woman hide her secrets?”

“I don’t know, perhaps under her knickers?”

“If I didn’t know better, my sweet brother, I would suspect that you know more about how women think than you let on. Back to the Cabinet!!”

We opened up the cabinet again and started with the drawers from the bottom, with Margaret lifting everything out. We found what had eluded us in the third drawer up, under the knickers. It was two envelopes, with two different bank branches written on the outside and Toms’ full name in the bottom corner of the local one, and the name of Tanya Rebecca Hyde on the other, in London. They both contained a numbered key.

We closed the cabinet again and went back into the office, putting both envelopes on the desk. I sat on the piano stool and Margaret sat in the office chair and we tried to get our heads around this new development. The whole affair was like one of the spy novels that Tom liked to read. I had read quite a few myself. On the shelf was his Ken Follett collection and my eyes followed the spines until I stopped. I got up and pulled one from the shelf.

“This isn’t the time to start reading a novel, Tony. We have a problem to solve.”

“We needed a key to our problem, sis. This is ‘The Key to Rebecca’ and written by Toms’ favourite author. It’s a spy novel, set in Cairo.”

I flicked through the book and a folded paper fell out. I picked it up and opened it, then laughed. I passed it to Margaret. She looked at it and gave me an evil grin.

“So, the deposit box, in London, that is in Tanyas’ name, can only be opened by a female who can answer a question based on one of her songs. I could do the female bit and you know the words to the songs. Problem is, it needs the female to answer the question. You do know that means that the contents are probably jewels, deposited by Tanya, and that the only way we’ll know is if we make you look like a woman.”

“That one can wait a bit longer, sis. You’re not having your evil salon ways with me! We can look in the other box on the way to see Uncle Eddy, as it’s in Letchworth. If it’s photos, they may like them.”

We drove into Letchworth and went to the bank. They wanted to know how I had the key, and I explained. They rang the lawyer to confirm and then the box was brought to us in a side room. When we opened it, we saw a load of photos. Tom must have cleared the house after Albert and put the frames out in the rubbish. Margaret had a plastic bag folded in her handbag, and she got that out and we transferred the photos to it. She put the two wads of banknotes from the box into her bag. We told the bank that the box wasn’t needed any longer and gave them the key. Before we left, Tom’s account was finally transferred to my name and new cards would be in the post.

At Uncle Eddys’ home, we brought them up to date with some of our discoveries and spread the photos out on their dining room table. That brought laughter and a few tears. There were the school pictures, some of Tom outside a building that looked like a college, one of him on his graduation day. There were several of Tom and Albert, or should I say, Tanya and Albert, and we had to explain our deductions about their time in London. There were a few of Tanya in full showgirl mode. My Aunt had to sit down when she saw them.

“She was so beautiful! That’s a very elaborate outfit.”

I showed her the DVD.

“It was what she wore as Tanya Hyde, a night club performer. I have this DVD of one of her shows, and she was totally fabulous. It all came to an end when the club was raided one night, and it never reopened. That’s when the two of them came here.”

“When was that, dear?”

“About the end of ninety-four or early ninety-five, as far as we could tell.”

“That’s odd. Tom didn’t get in touch again until around ninety-nine. He told us that he had a job teaching music in Letchworth. We didn’t question that. Can we keep the photos?”

“I’d like to keep one of Tom and Albert, as I knew them, and a couple of her showgirl ones as keepsakes. It would have been good to see Tanya live. You’ll know why when you watch the DVD.”

“We’ll do that, tonight, when we’re alone. I know that we’ll both have a cry. You know, you look a lot like him in those college pictures.”

We stopped and got the frames needed for the pictures we had kept. Back at home, we loaded the photos in them. One was in the lounge, one was in the kitchen, and Margaret made sure that one of the showgirl ones was on my chest of drawers in the bedroom. We rang home and invited our parents for dinner on Tuesday evening. There was a lot to tell and show them.

Tuesday was a busy day. We spoke to Francis about looking after the dogs for a few days from Wednesday morning. I went into Letchworth to get the things for dinner. On my way around, I stopped at a car dealer and discussed trading in my Honda on a small car that Margaret could drive. I made us lunch and Margaret finished her cleaning. In the afternoon, I sat at the piano with the big stack of scores on the desk, making sure that I knew all the songs that I had learnt, and then working through the few that I hadn’t played before. By the time I left the room to start dinner, I reckon I could answer any question that was asked.

I got the dinner prepared and Margaret came in, looking fabulous. I left her to look after things and went for a shower and get dressed. We had decided to act like hosts for this evening, as we wanted to appear responsible and adult, considering what we were going to show them.

My parents arrived and we sat them in the lounge with glasses of wine.

“We’ll have dinner, but before that, there are some things that we’ve discovered that you should know about. Margaret will take you through some of it while I finish cooking, then there’s a DVD to watch and then we’ll show you some other things we’ve found.”

I went to the kitchen as Margaret started to give them some of the background. We had dinner and they were sat in the lounge as we played the DVD while I was washing up. Mum was amazed and in awe of the performance. Dad had his legal face on, and not giving any indication of what he was thinking. After that, we took them into the master bedroom and opened up the Cabinet of Curiosities to show them the actual show outfits. Mum was even more amazed as Margaret spoke about the quality of everything. Back in the lounge, Dad spoke.

“If you inherited the house and contents, everything in the cabinet belongs to you. From that DVD, Tom was very successful, right?”

“Right, Dad. There was a fair bit of money floating around in those days. We think that Tanya had about four years on top of her game.”

“Now, the estate still has to go through probate, agreed?”

“The lawyer said that only red tape would slow it down, and, as the sole beneficiary, I could consider it as proven.”

“The show has Tanya adorned in what looks like diamonds?”

“Quite right. We have found, in the cabinet, two envelopes. One had a box key from a bank in Letchworth where Tom had his money. That contained a load of photos which we left with Uncle Eddy. Tom had cleared the house of them after Albert died. The other contained a box key at a bank in London that we think contains the jewels.”

“That’s something for the future. If they’ve been there twenty-odd years, another few days won’t harm. There will be a cost that needs to be paid before they allow you access.”

“That has already been considered.”

I could see Margaret trying hard to keep a straight face. Dad thought a bit more.

“If Tanya was so successful, there has to be a reason why she ended up, back as Tom, and teaching music in a school.”

“Exactly, Dad. I would rather let you read about it before we tell Mum. We haven’t told Uncle and Aunt. Tom was here for a few years before he got in touch with them.”

“All right. I’ll tell you when we get home, darling. It must be something serious if that’s the way you want to play it.”

I took him through to the office and pulled both scrapbooks out of the filing cabinet.

“One is from her career, and the other is why it stopped. There’s a short letter at the end with more information that turns it from serious to something utterly awful.”

I left him to it and went back to the lounge, where Margaret was telling Mum about our trip to London in the morning. Dad was a quarter of an hour before he joined us.

“I’ve put the files back in the filing cabinet, son. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow evening, love, after I’ve had the chance to do some research through my contacts in London. I do remember the events in the paper. It was quite a story at the time and took the legal profession some time to calm down. I can fully understand your thinking, children. Eddy doesn’t need to know the full story. We can let him remember his son as a someone with two successful careers. I thought that you had both moved forward in the last couple of weeks, but you’ve shown more responsibility than I could ever have wished for. Enjoy your trip. I think that it’s time we went home, darling, and let our kids get their sleep.”

Marianne Gregory © 2026

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

Chapter 6

I must have been exhausted from the day, as I slept well until I woke needing a pee. It took me a while to get out of bed, as the nightie had become twisted around my legs, but I managed to get into the bathroom without exploding. I sat on the seat in an automatic movement, even though I wasn’t wearing the special pants. Margaret came in from the other door as I was finishing.

“Good morning, Tonya. Don’t try to cover up, it’s just us girls here. When you’ve washed your hands, look in the wardrobe a pick something for today. There’s a couple of choices. I’ll have my shower and then you can have yours while I dress. Then I’ll help you dress after I’ve ordered breakfast.”

I finished what I was doing and wiped the end with a sheet of paper, then stood at the sink to wash my hands as she sat. I went into the bedroom and looked in the wardrobe. There were two skirts. One was a dark blue and pleated, a bit like a school uniform. The other couldn’t be more different. It was dark red, in a shiny material, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. There was also black satin shirt, quite plain, but I knew that any girl I saw wearing the combination would catch the eyes of every guy around.

I pulled the bed together and took the two items down, laying them on the bed. I would need the corset again to make it work. Margaret came out of the bathroom and looked at what I’d chosen.

“Good girl. You need to be unmistakably girl, today. You’ll need black stockings. There’s a fresh pair in the drawer. Get yourself showered and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I showered and dried and went back into the bedroom. I was able to put the special pants on, then I managed to pull the corset on, by breathing in as I heaved. For some reason, the feel of the support of the breasts was comforting. Next was the stockings, which wasn’t as much drama as last night, followed by the only black panties I could find, which were so minimal, I wondered why they had bothered. The shirt felt slippery on my bare shoulders, and the buttons were the wrong way. The skirt came to mid-thigh and the zip was on the side. I put last night’s shoes on and went to look in the big mirror. Except for the lack of hair, I still couldn’t be confused with any boy I’d ever seen. Except for the lack of hair, I looked almost exactly like one of the pictures of Tanya I had seen yesterday.

Margaret came through as I stood there.

“Looking good, Tonya. I’ll call room service and then we’ll get the wig fixed.”

Back in my room, I was sat on the bed as she prepared the wig, with a brush through it, and placed it on my head. She had a tube of something sticky, which she used, moving around my skull and holding the wig band down until it was fixed.

The chain was back on my neck, the watch and bracelet returned to my wrists, and the rings went on my fingers.

‘We’ll leave the studs in, for the moment, so that the piercing can heal. If you keep using drops before the hole has firmed, you end up with oval holes.”

There was a knock on the outer door, and we went into the other room. I opened the door to let the maid in as Margaret made space at the breakfast bar. She had ordered full English for both of us, and we did it justice. We had cleaned our teeth, made up our faces, and checked that the key and address was in my bag when she looked at her watch.

“Good timing, once more, Tonya. We will see Hector down in reception.”

When we got to reception, he was talking to the receptionist.

“Good morning, girls. You both look fabulous. I’ve just told Sue that you can check out whenever you like, this afternoon. When you’re ready to go, bring the vehicle keys to reception and a lad will go and get it for you. There’ll be nothing to pay. Now, where’s the bank?”

“It’s Lloyds, on Oxford Street.”

“That would have been close to where Tanya and Albert were living. They had an upstairs flat on Hanway Street. It’s not far, and we can take the scenic route.”

The scenic part was when we had walked along Frith Street and arrived at Soho Square, where we walked through the square, surrounded by shady trees, grass, and flowers. If it wasn’t for the constant sound of traffic, it could have been a park anywhere. He was carrying a briefcase and looked every inch the successful businessman. On the way, he spoke about me performing in the club. He said that I could do Friday and Saturday nights and stay in Mimi’s. If I brought down the outfits, they would be stored at the club, and I could have a case with day wear being kept for me at the hotel. That meant that I could travel light.

“What sort of money are you thinking of?”

“Two thousand a week, paid into your own account. For that, I would expect you to sometimes come down mid-week, to rehearse with other singers. You would replace the usual accompanist, who wants to retire, and back other acts for the first part of the night, do your set after a break, and then back someone else until the early hours. You’ll be working for the money.”

“If I’m at Mimi’s, can we have a room like the one we now have, so Margaret could make sure I’m presentable? She could help out at the club as a make-up artist.”

“I’ll think that one over. Oh, before we get to the bank.”

He stopped and opened the briefcase, pulling out a photo ID for me. It was a driving license in the name of Antonia Rebecca Hyde.

“That will be good enough for the bank but won’t hold up if you get pulled over. If that happens, this is an Equity card in your real name, with a note on the back giving your AKA. That card is real, and it will be yours to keep when you sign with me. Last night was a success, and you really showed total control.”

Margaret giggled.

“I told her that Antonia would nail it, when she was in front of an audience.”

We carried on as I put the items in my bag. When we got to the bank, I walked up to the ‘help desk’.

“Good morning. About twenty-five years ago, my cousin placed some items in a safe deposit box, intending to pick them up later. Unfortunately, she has died, and I’ve inherited everything, finding this envelope recently. Is there any way I can retrieve the contents?”

“Give me the key, miss, and I’ll check with my manager. After that amount of time, there will certainly be fees to pay.”

He took the key and went into an office. We waited, and, about ten minutes later, one of the older men who had been in the club last night came out with some paperwork.

“Oh! Good morning, Antonia. Mister Parker. That was a magic show last night. The previous manager had told me about this deposit, and to wait thirty years before opening it, unless it was claimed. If I can have an ID, purely to follow the rules, I have a question for you to answer, to confirm your bone fides.”

He looked at the sheet and quoted a song line, asking what came next. I answered it and he smiled. The blond, who he had been at the club with, was waved to come over.

“Julie, could you please take Miss Hyde to the viewing room and bring this box out of the vault. Then copy her ID for the records. Miss Hyde, there are fees accrued.”

Hector spoke.

“I’ll take care of those, sir. Once we’ve confirmed that the contents are what we think they are.”

“Very good, Mister Parker. Julie will type up an invoice when you’re ready.”

The three of us followed the blonde to a small room with a table and a couple of chairs. Hector stood as we sat down. When the box was placed on the table, and the key given back to me, the girl left the room. I unlocked the box and sat back. Hector opened it to reveal a number of named jewellers boxes, and some that were plain. He pulled them all out and lined them up on the table. As he opened the proper ones, even I could tell that the diamonds and emeralds were the real thing. He then opened up the others. Two were empty.

“She must have been wearing the paste when we were raided. They weren’t with her when she was released. That loss isn’t a big problem, they were cheap copies. We have all the real ones, and that’s a win. They were worth about ten thousand when she left, and they’re worth about forty thousand today. Thank you for this, Antonia. I’ll take the good stuff and you girls can keep the paste.”

He closed the boxes and put them into his briefcase. Margaret closed the others and put them in the big bag she had with her. I looked in the deposit box and saw a couple of differently coloured ring boxes. I pulled them out and opened them. One contained a diamond ring, and the other had a gold ring. Margaret looked at them and put her hand on my arm.

“One is an engagement ring, and the other is a wedding ring, They must have considered themselves married. No wonder they stayed together until Albert died.”

I put the ring boxes in my bag, we left the box and the key, then went back to Julie. Hector spoke to her.

“The boxes contained what we expected. Can you give me an invoice for the fees, and I’ll pay that today. The box is no longer needed.”

Margaret and I went outside and watched the traffic while Hector sorted out the account. She linked her arm in mine.

“This world. It’s dog eat dog, grift for a living and the sound of traffic twenty-four hours a day. The only reason we don’t hear it in the hotel is thanks to triple glazing. When you look out the window, it all looks strange. Not like our quiet end of Lower Green. The money seems good, Tonia, but once immersed in the nightlife, there’s no breaks. Oh! There’s adulation, money and your five minutes, or five years, of fame.”

“I know, sis. It’s been a whirlwind of a visit. We got the result for Hector, I got to play in front of an audience, and I recorded some songs. I won’t be signing with his agency, not this time. I want to create a true home at Lower Green, now we have all the answers we were looking for. Hector is basically a good man, but he has an empire to run, and I have the feeling that his keen appreciation of me will only last until I’m on the payroll. Then there’ll be extra work, suggestions that I move here, maybe a tour and living out of a suitcase for three months. I’m a country bumpkin from Stevenage, not some starlet with dreams of the stage.”

“So, sis, what now?”

“Now I avoid signing, have some say about naming the CD, if he wants to release it, take what we’ve gained and go home. So, I’ll have to live as Antonia, but being a woman who can play dance music to an audience is better than being a short barman for the rest of my life. When I was looking around for a job, before I went to the Poachers, I made a list of every pub and club between Stevenage and Luton. There were thirty-five. If only half have live music, that’s seventeen places where I can play. If we go out as far as Bedford, or even Northampton, I could get bookings almost every weekend of the year, and only do any place two or three times.”

“Will you still want me around?”

“Of course I do. That dedication, last night, wasn’t just for show. You may find a nice guy and start a family, and as my manager and makeupologist, you would be seeing a lot more eligible men than working in a salon.”

“It’s cosmetologist, sis. But I like what you’re saying. We don’t have to do things in a rush. We can print flyers and take them around. It will only take one place to have you on to show others what you can do.”

Hector came out of the bank, a big smile on his face.

“Now, girls. What would you like to do now?”

“If it’s all the same to you, Hector, we were just talking about going home.”

“Not coming back to the office to sign?”

“Not this time, Hector. Thank you for the opportunity to play last night and thank you for your kindness. It’s just that this has been our first exposure to the big city, and we’re not sure that we could get used to it.”

“What about fame and money?”

“It’s all very good but look what it did for Tanya. One day, the tide will turn and people like me will become pariahs again. I don’t want to get trapped in this life, not at the moment. I’m sorry if I’ve messed up your plans.”

“Look, Antonia. I appreciate your honesty. If I get that CD that you recorded issued, what do you want to call it?”

“How about ‘Antonia Underwood in a Reflective Mood’ The notes could have Tanyas’ story and that I’m her cousin. You may, with all the new technology, be able to put together an album of duets, using the recordings that you have in storage. It could be ‘Tanya and Tonya sing the blues’.”

His eyes glazed for a moment.

“If I didn’t know who you really are, Toni, I could kiss you. We’ll send you a box of your CDs that you can take around. I’ll also send you the video that our fixed cameras recorded last night. It will be something to show your grandchildren. I’ll stand by my side of the bargain we made, you keep the outfits and the wig, they were worth it to get Dads’ jewels back, and believe it or not, to lay to rest the crush I still had for Tanya. Have a good trip home.”

He gave us both a hug, then walked off, along Oxford Street, without looking back. We went back the way we came, walking through the park and savouring the smell of nature.

“You know, sis, I was still in two minds until he brought us via the scenic route. It reminded me of that line in ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ about putting all the trees into a museum and charging a dollar and a half just to see them. No matter which window we look out of, at home, there are trees almost close enough to touch.”

We walked along Frith Street until we got to the Sussex British Bistro. We went in and found a nice table. We ordered dry whites and sipped them while looking at the menu. It was getting towards noon, so we had a good lunch. I had a huge meal of roast beef and vegetables, while Margaret had a cod wellington, as something she could remember for a long time. We took our time and made the one glass last.

Back at the hotel, I gave the receptionist the car keys and asked for it to be outside in an hour. We carefully packed, me putting my new clothes away. After using the bathroom, we carried our cases down to reception and only had a few minutes to wait before the Defender stopped outside. The lad helped us load up and thanked me for the tip. We checked out and drove away, content in our decision. The biggest difference between now and the last time I had been driving was the fact that I was going home in a short skirt and satin shirt and could look down and see my knees encased in stockings.

There was another difference that was very new. It was the waves and whistles we got as we cruised along. Margaret could hardly stop laughing and her enjoyment was contagious. We were a happy pair driving north and getting happier the closer we got to home.

We were past Potters Bar when I thought about home and all that went with it.

“You’ve gone quiet, Tonya, something on your mind. Regrets, maybe?”

“No regrets, sis. No, it’s just that I thought about going home and several things raised their heads in my mind.”

“Let me guess. One is how we’re going to explain your current appearance, with the others being more heads of the same Hydra. We can hide away until the semi-permanent fades, or else we can face the problem, head on.”

“We?”

“Yes, my talented sister, we. All we do is tell the truth, with a little bit of fictional aspiration. We tell anyone who asks that you were given a treatment to appear female to see the bank. Hector bankrolled the process but went overboard to try and get you playing in his nightclub, without your permission. We don’t have to provide an hour-by-hour timeline. The only question that’s likely to be asked is if you intend to stay this way. From what we spoke about, earlier, you want to be an entertainer called Antonia Underwood. Any other problems I can solve for you with my keen brain?”

“Just one. How the hell do I get out of this car without hitching my skirt and showing the world these ridiculous panties?”

“They’re not panties, doofus. They’re known as a thong. Think that you’re lucky that you have that gaffe on, or else you’d have the stringy back laying in your bum crack. What you do is slightly lift your bum, pull the skirt down as tight as you can, open the door and the swivel with your knees together. Use the door to support you as you slide, gracefully out and onto terra firma. Now, what are we going to do when we get to our neck of the woods?”

“I think we need to see Mum in the library, first. Then she can warn Dad about things. He’ll want me to sue Hector for something or other, but we’ll let sleeping dogs lie, considering that I never complained at the time.”

“OK, Stevenage first, and then what?”

“We stop and pick up the dogs, spending some time with Francis. I think that we should invite her and the other girls to dinner, at home, to give them the full story. I think that they’ll understand Tom more than we think and would appreciate seeing that DVD and the Cabinet of Curiosities. It would also give them more insight to me and my plans.”

“We can let Mum talk to her brother and leave it up to him to call us. Let’s face it, Tonya, there aren’t too many others that will notice that Anthony isn’t around any longer. They’ll certainly notice Antonia when you get out and about.”

We eased onto the slip road as we passed GSK, and it wasn’t far to the library. I followed the advice, which seemed convoluted but worked. It was something to remember when I was in a short skirt again. We went in and found Mum putting books back on shelves. Margaret saw her and called out.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Hello, dear. Back from your trip. Who’s your friend? I can’t remember seeing her before.”

“Hi, Mum. I’m a bit different from the last time you saw me.”

She looked more closely and smiled.

“Oh dear! The curse of the cabinet strikes again. You really do make a striking young lady. What do we call you now?”

“I’m Antonia. Or Tonya, or Toni with an ‘I’. I can explain how this came about. It wasn’t meant to be, honest!”

“Let me put these books away and you can join me in my office.”

We helped to replace the books, and I found out that there was a way to put them in lower shelves that’s particularly female if you’re wearing a short skirt and heels. I noticed Mum looking at me and grinning as I squatted.

In her office, we took her through the reasons, and the process, of me looking like this, and the problem with the make-up. We also told her about being taken for dinner at the nightclub and my performance.

“So, my new daughter, are you moving to London and being a star?”

“No, Mum. I resisted the pull of a couple of grand a week and a lot of hard work. It would only be a finite period, as my ability to pass would diminish after a few years. We’re staying put.”

“I’m proud of you, daughter. Did you get the things in the other deposit box?”

“We did, although they were mainly jewels that Hectors’ father had loaned Tanya. He was able to retrieve all the genuine stuff, and we left with the paste, less the items Tanya had been wearing on the night of the raid. They disappeared while she was under arrest. Will you and Dad come over on Saturday evening? I’ll cook dinner and we can have a long talk. There’s a few things that I’d like to ask him about setting up my own company as an entertainer.”

“That would be lovely, Tonya. Remember to get a nice dress for the occasion and wear an apron when you cook.”

“I already have a cocktail dress, Mum. Hector paid out a lot to entice me to sing for him and didn’t want anything back. We’ll see you about five?”

“We’ll be there, love. I’ll tell Eddy that you’ve now got all the answers, and that you’re following in Tanyas’ footsteps.”

“Thanks. Mum. We need to get the dogs, now, and rearrange my wardrobe. I have a little bit of shopping to get, tomorrow.”

When we left her, I felt a lot better. My parents had been the biggest fear in my mind. We looped around Hitchin and pulled up outside Francis’ home. We both got out and Margaret knocked on the door. Francis opened it, looked at me and laughed.

“My God, Tony. You are the spitting image of Tom at around that age. He was gorgeous as well, when he dressed. You really have to tell me how you left as him and came back as her.”

“I’m happy to reveal all, Francis. Can you get the girls together, one evening. I can cook dinner for us all and give you all the details of Toms’ life when he left. It’s quite a story, and we have things in the house to show you all. My parents will be with us on Saturday, so any other day would be good.”

“I’ll ask around and let you know. It will be interesting to see how the dogs take to you, like this. You do smell much the same, so they should be all right. You’ll have to introduce them to the perfume you choose, when you start wearing it.”

She went to the kitchen door and called for Boo, and two dogs rushed in, dashing up to Margaret and then giving me a sniff before realising who I was. We put them in the back of the Defender and Francis gave us both a hug before we left. When she hugged me, she whispered in my ear.

“You’ve changed, Tony. Not only in looks, but also in your actions. There was something that you learned about yourself in London. I’ll try to get the girls together as soon as I can, as it’s going to be hard to wait to be told all.”

We went the hundred yards to home, getting out the car and letting the dogs out. They raced around the garden with gay abandon. I opened up the kitchen door and went inside, looking around with fresh eyes. Margaret passed me, patting my arm and smiling as she did so. When I had left, this was home, but barely. Now, it was a home that I had chosen over a life of being on stage in London. As I went back to the Defender to collect our luggage, I was really home, and more content than any other time in my life.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 7

That evening, we ate light, seeing what we had for lunch. The dogs were happy to see us and ran around a lot. We both went and changed into nightwear before we sat in the lounge with the dogs, with me becoming more aware of keeping the clothes neat.

Before we went to bed, we went to the master bedroom and closed the door on the dogs while we pulled a load of things out of the cabinet and relocated it in my drawers, putting my guy things in the cabinet. The result was that I had enough panties, bras, stockings and corsets to not need to buy up big. We took each dress out and I held them against me for Margaret to check. None of them were suitable for day wear.

My everyday wear now only consisted of the dress I had worn to the nightclub, the outfit I had worn today, the pleated skirt and the couple of tops that Margaret had bought, and a couple of pairs of my old jeans that didn’t look out of place. My old tees were too tight to wear with breasts, unless I was competing in a beauty contest. Although I could get into the shoes in the cabinet, none of them would be good for a supermarket run.

I turned my computer on and checked my bank account. I transferred some from a savings account to my card to give me some leeway when we went shopping. Margaret told me that I would do best, for my money, in a thrift shop, so we found the addresses of thrift shops in Luton, as I could then shop in Letchworth and Stevenage as a girl with a choice of outfit. If I found some things, tomorrow, I could come home and put it away before heading to the shops in Letchworth for supplies.

Before I turned it off, I checked my emails. There was one from the lawyer, to tell me that the inheritance was likely to be confirmed next week, seeing how straightforward it was. He had the insurance payout and would transfer it as soon as the paperwork had been signed.

There were a couple of other things we needed to do. The first was for me to try on the two rings, to check if they fitted. They felt all right to me, but Margaret thought that they were a little loose, and needed to be resized. The other thing to do was to count the money that we had found in the box with the photos. It was all current notes and added up to a bit over four thousand. Margaret suggested that we used that to fund my new wardrobe, five hundred at a time.

That night, I shared my bed with Boots, as usual, who was very snuggled into my body, as if to let me know he was happy we were back. It was wonderful to get up and go through the usual things with the dogs and our breakfast. We sat in companionable silence as we ate. Margaret went off to have her shower first, while I tidied up.

When we left the house, dogs in the back, we drove to Luton and spent the morning going from thrift shop to thrift shop. I ended up with a good selection of skirts and tops that were still good, and a few daytime dresses, plus a range of handbags, some skinny-leg jeans, a long and a couple of shorter coats for when the weather got cooler. I also had two pairs of boots and six pairs of shoes, although it was difficult to find any that weren’t high heels. In the back of the Defender there was also a cardboard box full of music scores of party and torch songs of the forties to sixties.

We also got some things for Margaret and hadn’t broken the bank. We had lunch in Luton, at the Polish place where we could have the dogs outside, and then parked on the roof of the indoor market, leaving the dogs inside with a window open a bit. We went into the shops and looked for lingerie. I needed to get some slips, nighties and a bathrobe. We also stocked up on tights and knee-highs to use with the longer skirts, as well as a few more bra and panty sets. By the time we left, we had put a good hole in five hundred pounds for the day.

We took the bags back to the car and Margaret stayed with the dogs while I went off to get our supplies at Lidl from a list we had written. There was a jeweller in the complex, and I took the two rings to them, telling them that they had been an inheritance and if they could be resized. They measured my fingers and gave me a list of my sizes. I wanted them to both fit the third finger on my left hand, to wear when I wanted to be left unbothered. They told me that I could pick them up around the same time, next week.

Having shopped at Lidl, we didn’t need to go out again, so put things that didn’t need washing in my room, and the ones we weren’t sure of went into the laundry. One of the things that I took from the day was that the pleated skirt, while plain, had been very comfortable and easy to wear.

As I was preparing our dinner, Francis arrived and told us that the girls would be with us on Tuesday afternoon. I asked her if there was any special likes or dislikes, and she told me that they had all enjoyed a meal that Albert had often cooked for them. I had been taught that one so told her that I would do it for them.

On Saturday morning, we went to one of the big hardware stores and I bought a plastic table with fold-up legs and four, fold-up, tubular steel chairs. If we were going to host more than four, we would need more eating places, and this was cheaper than buying a bigger table and chair set. I also bought enough basic ingredients for the meal, serving a dozen. I would do it tonight, for my parents, and repeat it on Tuesday. The basis of the meal was just chicken, and the additions of various herbs and spices was what made it different.

I also persuaded Margaret to go into a driver training school in Stevenage and organise lessons in a dual-control car, starting next week. While she was talking to them, I spent a little while looking at the job cards at an employment place next door, to see if there was much call for a singer. That afternoon, I prepared the meal. The chicken legs had to be marinated in a special mixture to absorb the unique flavours, but much of the rest was the usual peeling and dicing. With my time spent with Albert, I was able to produce a hotel style dish with a little extra time.

When my parents arrived, we were set up in the kitchen and were both freshly showered and in good dresses. Margaret had done my face with the extra touches, and I looked like a star. It must have looked good, as both our parents gave us big hugs, with Dad almost squeezing the life out of me. Over the next few hours, we ate, we drank, and we laid out everything we now knew about Toms’ time in London, as told us by someone who was there.

Dad wondered about the jewels, and if they really did belong to Hectors’ father. We described what we could remember of them and could safely say that Tanya, while earning good money, would never have been able to pay what they would have cost. We got the boxes of paste copies and Mum was adamant that we were right. We spent some time going through the process of me now in a dress. With that, we did give Hector a bad name, because he had organised the process and had told the other girl to get me ‘the works’.

Margaret described my performance in the nightclub as well as laying down a recording. We promised them a copy when we got them. I told them about my side of the experience. How I had started hesitant, but fed from the audience as I could see them dancing. I mentioned the lad that I saw Margaret dancing with, and she blushed.

Dad wanted to know why I wasn’t there, tonight, in a nightclub.

“That’s an easy one, Dad. The way Hector was acting, he was sure that I would fall at his feet and kiss his shoes for the chance to play. The thing was, that when I did play, I would have signed there and then if he had the paperwork and a pen. Two grand a week for doing something I loved was tempting. Where he lost was taking us through Soho Park on the way to the bank. There we were, in a garden setting, with birds in the trees, right there among the concrete and squalor. I glanced back along the alley that lines up with the centre pathway and saw rubbish bins and tents. He was offering a glittering future in a city where homeless live in the back streets. Trade this place for that! No way!”

“So, what are your plans?”

“I want to explore the possibility of playing the pubs and hotels in this area until the make-up wears off or when I can’t maintain the illusion. Margaret can be my manager and make-up, and we can live here until she finds a nice lad and moves on. We’ve become far more attached to each other than when we lived at home, and there’s so much more we can do. When the inheritance comes through, we can cruise for a few months, with Margaret learning to drive and me trading in my Honda for a small car. It’s still parked where I left it the morning I found Tom. All I’ve done is put the cover over it.”

“What if you get pulled over now?”

“I’ll just have to say that I’m in character as an entertainer and show my normal license. Hector did give me one with my current picture in the name of Antonia Rebecca Hyde, which was all right for that purpose, although the bank manager had been at the nightclub with one of the girls in his branch and recognised me straight away. If I do get stopped, he also gave me a genuine Equity card with my right name on the front, and my entertainment name on the back. It would have been activated if I had signed, but it may come in handy.”

Mum looked stern.

“The bank manager was in a nightclub with someone from the branch! What was the age difference?”

“About forty years, or so.”

“What sort of nightclub was this?”

“One where me sitting at a table with a guy who was a teenager when Tanya was there, was probably one of the closest when it came to age. I did get the impression that the majority of the men were sugar daddies. A couple said that they had seen Tanya when she played, and that place was called Shackles, probably because it was a master and slave place. The money that was flowing wouldn’t have been possible in an ordinary restaurant setting. Hector said that having her on stage for four years expanded the empire. We only saw two floors of his five-storey headquarters, the office and the studio. He owns the nightclub, among others, and a stake in the hotel we stayed in. He’s not short of a quid. The thing that got me, was when I told him I wasn’t interested, he just walked away without a fight.”

“Then I’m doubly glad you didn’t sign on. People and places like that aren’t fit for a well brought up child, especially a young girl!”

When we all said goodnight, and they left, we tidied up and went off to bed with our companion pets. I had to smile, as I had been treated as just another daughter for the whole evening. No discussion about returning to a life as Anthony.

Sunday was, after the hectic and eventful week, a day of rest. We did the usual morning rituals and stayed in our gowns for a few hours. I told Margaret about my idea to get a car that we could both drive without needing the pedal blocks that the Defender had. It had been handy, having it set up for short people, but would prove a problem for her.

Mid-morning, we got ready to go out and went to the Weston Road Cemetery, in Stevenage, where Toms’ ashes had been interred. It was the first time we had been there and found a beautifully open and calming place with trees and flowers. We put flowers by his marker and told him that we now know the whole story and was sorry that he had been through so much.

I then took us to the Wilbury Hills Cemetery, in Letchworth, where Albert had been put, just up the road from the Two Chimneys, and laid some flowers there. We had lunch at the hotel, and I took us home via the track that I had cycled on, so that Margaret could see the Lavender Farm.

In the afternoon, I changed into a tee and jeans and worked out in the garden, now thinking about the space as a garden rather than just a space. I had a good look in the shed along the back and tidied up where the feed had been stored. I found a lot of old, and rusty, garden tools and a workbench with a vice. I made a note to get some spray to try and release all the screws and joints.

It made me think about things that had not been front-of-mind in my life. If I bought in some old railway sleepers, I could start building raised beds. I would have to go to a garden centre and do some research. What I did do was to take the cover off the bike, start it up and ride it into the shed, out of the weather, replacing the cover. I was happier that it was out of sight and more secure.

After my dirty work, I had a shower, washing the hair that was still attached. Margaret had said the hair and breasts would need removing in two weeks to allow the skin some rest, so I was now treating the attachments as part of my body. It was a steep learning curve when I went to dry myself, and Margaret had to bring me a second towel to wrap around my head.

When she had helped my get it dry, with a blower, she brushed it out and gave me a bit of a wave. As I was clean and semi-naked, she suggested that we see if the performance outfits would suit me. I went and put the gaffe on, now knowing the name, and we arranged the things from the cabinet drawers on the bed. She said that I didn’t need to worry about thigh pads, as I wasn’t going for the sex siren look, so we got me in a bra and panties, then put the waist clincher on, with Margaret lacing me up as I breathed in. We went with nude stockings as a baseline, attached to the garter straps, and then she helped me into each outfit, one at a time, including matching a pair of impossible heels and a wig.

With each outfit, she got me to move around and sit, to make sure that I wouldn’t stretch or rip the dress. She also got me to stand against the plain door, so she could take a picture of me. We also took a note of what wig worked best, just putting them over the current one.

By the time we had worked through the outfits, the dogs needed their tea, and I was wearing the last one as we fed them. It was silvery white, with fringes and matching heels. I found that I could move quite easily in it, finding that squatting was much easier in heels when I put their bowls down. One thing that was good, was that all the skirts were tight, making sure that my knees never splayed. It was like walking hobbled, but I guess that was what Shackles was all about. While I had tried them all on with white underwear, we did have the black and red sets to fit some of them better.

All the time, Margaret was making notes about make-up colours and accessories. With the last outfit, I had put on some of the paste jewels that we had brought home. I was about to get back into normal clothes when there was a knock on the front door, a door that we had hardly used, so it must be a stranger.

Margaret went to see who it was and came back to the lounge with a lady with a clerical collar. I explained that I was trying out performance outfits and was looking to sing and play piano when I could get bookings. She was visiting, as a usual greeting of new people in her parish. The Anglican Church of St. Katharine was in Ickleford township, and the only one in the area.

We put the kettle on, and Margaret spoke to her while I went to change, putting the pleated skirt and a top on, and going from the heels to a pair of slippers. That really felt like a change! Back in the kitchen, Molly, the vicar, was telling Margaret about her visits with Tom and Albert. They had never attended the services but had helped out with piano playing and catering whenever there were events on. Margaret dropped me right in it when she said, proudly, that Albert had taught me to cook, and Tom had taught me to play.

Molly stayed for a light tea with us, and she told us a lot more about the area and the people. Francis was a member of her congregation and had told her about us this morning. When I say that she had told her, she had told her everything! My greeting her in a stage outfit hadn’t been too much of a surprise, and she had been fully aware of Tom and Alberts’ situation, although she, like everyone else, didn’t know the full story, thinking that they were just a gay couple of guys. We both told her that we weren’t churchgoers, but would help out when we could, and she took our contact details before she left, saying that she would email us when there were events coming up. One thing she was certain of was the Harvest Festival in September, a very important event in this semi-rural area and about a month away.

After she had left, we sat at the kitchen table. Margaret giggled.

“There you are, Tonya. The only church in town accepts you for who you are.”

“That’s just the one person. Others may not be so welcoming, although having their leader accepting me may stop anything really nasty.”

“Play them something on their piano and sing to them. That will win them over. How are you on scone and cake making?”

“Pretty good. Now I know why Albert had such a big oven. It was used for a lot more than meals for two. I’ll get some more supplies, tomorrow, and do some cakes for Francis and the girls.”

“I’ve got my first driving lesson in the morning, so you’ll have to go shopping on your own. In the afternoon, we’ll go to a place I know, in Stevenage, and get you some new cosmetics. We’ll dump all the stuff from the cabinet, as none of it will be good after twenty-five years.”

We took turns, now as usual, to use the bathroom to cleanse and do our business before changing for bed. We wished each other goodnight and then went to try and get into bed. I had worked it out that lifting the blanket and rolling the dog worked well, and Boots seemed to consider it part of the game.

In the morning, I fed the dogs and made breakfast while Margaret got herself ready. She washed up while I went and got ready. I went with the existing make-up with a little extra lipstick today, and she called out that she was leaving as I was zipping up my skirt, one of the ones I had bought in Luton. I told the dogs that I’d be back and went to Letchworth. I knew that I had plenty of time if Margaret got through the written exam and then started her lessons.

The closest garden centre to us was just on the road into the town. It was called the Hitchin Centre and had a lot of nice things to buy. I asked about raised beds and good, local, plantings, and was given a brochure on building raised beds using railway sleepers, with different ways to secure them in place. I got prices, and the cost of getting a small truck with stones for the drainage, and soil to provide the body of the bed. I also had a list of the best flowers to plant. I already had an idea of what vegetables I would need to put in.

When I left there, I went through Luton to Dunstable on the western edge, and the music store of Octave. There, I looked at keyboards and amps. I could get a Yamaha DGX 670 electric grand piano, with stand and pedals, plus a twenty-watt amp, a microphone stand, and microphone for a little over a twelve hundred pounds. If I was going to play in places without their own piano, this would be absolutely the minimum I’d need to be independent.

I got all the details after trying out a setup that they put together for me. After a couple of songs, and asking me what I intended to do, they offered me a discount if I would put their sticker on the equipment and send them flyers of where I’d be performing. When I left, I had all new products in the back of the Defender, as well as a couple of books with the scores of the best songs for me from the last few years. The garden project would have to wait a little while.

I went back to Stevenage for my shopping. I needed cake mix, flavouring and extra flour if I was going to do cakes for the girls. I also got thickened cream, custard, and ice cream, all in packages. You don’t have to make everything from scratch when you cook, not with the quality of the packaged things available. I finished with a bag full of chicken legs and would marinate them overnight, for extra flavour.

I had everything I needed, so went home. When I arrived, Margaret was home. She had passed her written exam and had her learners coming in the post. The instructor had taken her to one of the big box parks, where there was enough space for her to start with her lessons, learning to start, move forward, move backward, keep a lookout and drive in curves, aiming for a particular parking space. She thought that she had done well and was taking another lesson on Thursday.

She helped me carry the Yamaha into the house and set it up on one wall of the lounge. That’s when I realised that I’d forgotten to get a seat. I could use the one in front of the upright, for now, but would need to get one that matched the unit. I plugged it, and the amp, in and turned everything on. Set as a normal grand, it sounded a lot like the one in the club. I used the controls on the amp to mellow the sound and played a few of the songs I knew. The dogs were stretched out on the carpet with their tails wagging.

I put the boxes in the shed, got us lunch, and started getting things together for the cakes. I was going to make a pair of Victoria sponges, the basic cakes today and adding fresh filings tomorrow. I had strawberries for one, and raspberries for the other, as well as double cream.

Once I got everything going, I made up a scone mix that we could have for afternoon tea. Then I went to my bedroom to turn on the laptop and check my emails and banking. My banking site showed that my outlay, this morning, had put me close to emptying my normal account, so hoped that the inheritance would come through on time. I did one other thing before I turned off. I went on the site to register businesses and submitted a request to open up a business called TonyaTunes, with this address as the base, my full name as the sole trader, and musical entertainment as the business.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 8

On Tuesday morning, we weren’t going out anywhere, so we stayed in our gowns and made sure the house was clean before showering and dressing. I moved the Defender, turning it around, now easy with no chicken coop, and then backed it up to make space for visitors.

It was nice enough to catch up on the laundry and we remade the beds. I took the marinated legs out of the soak and laid them out on a baking tray, ready for this afternoon. After lunch, over the course of the afternoon, we did little chores, finished the sponges, peeled and diced for the dinner for eight, and set up the extra table and chairs, using two tablecloths.

Francis arrived about three, to help out, and the others were all here by four. We sat them at the table with cups of tea and fresh hot scones, with cream and jam, and brought out the two scrapbooks, without the extra page. They took a while to look through them, with us answering the questions that inevitably arose, especially with the police raid. We told them that Tom and Albert had been badly treated while in police hands and left it at that.

When the scrapbooks went back into the cabinet, they took turns to wash their hands and I served up dinner, which went down a treat. Dessert was a choice of the Victoria Sponges and topping. Then, we sat them in the lounge with glasses of wine and showed them the DVD, the first time they had seen Tanya in full entertainment mode.

After that, we showed them the cabinet and the stage dresses. Margaret showed them what they looked like on me. Of course, they wanted to know what I sounded like, so we went back into the lounge, and I sat at the keyboard and serenaded them for nearly an hour, until they needed to leave.

Everyone gave us hugs and told us that we were worthy holders of Tanyas’ legacy. Francis stayed on after they had left, and I made some hot chocolate as I put the plates and pots into a hot, soapy soak. She took a sip of her drink and sighed.

“There has to be more that you’ve held back. Tom had never shown any sign of Tanya when he came here to live. I won’t tell the others, as they didn’t see him as often as I did.”

I went and got the page and gave it to her to read, When she had stopped crying and had settled down, she gave it back.

“This answers a lot of questions. Does anyone else know this?”

“The son of the owner of the nightclub was there when they were released and arranged the hospitalisation. Our parents know, and then just the three of us.”

“It doesn’t have to go any further. If you destroy this, there’s only the scrapbook. Can we eliminate any more people knowing?”

I went to the gas stove, lit a burner and held the page edge against the flame, then holding it over the sink until I had to let it go. When she left, she gave us both heartfelt hugs.

“Thank you for this insight into our good friend. It was lovely to see her in full flight and will give us a good memory to hold on to. You really are the image of her, you know, in talent as well as looks, adding a big touch of Albert as well. I’ll talk to my friend at the Cricketers tomorrow. I’ll ask if he has a space for you, one Friday evening. We’ll also save space for your cakes at the next bring and buy at the church.”

We finished the washing up and tidying, folding the extra chairs and the table for me to put in the shed when it was light. As we were putting the left-over cake in containers, Margaret looked at me.

“That was an interesting dinner party, Toni. There were eight of us, all women, and it was like a birthday party I had once. Never did they treat you as anything but another woman, and you didn’t drop out of character for a second. Will this be you, even when the semi-permanent wears off?”

“I don’t know, sis. It depends on the future of my playing. If Tonya works well, I may as well carry on as I am. If it doesn’t, then we’ll see. For the moment, I’m enjoying the me that I am, accepted and included by other women. It’s as if I’ve grown a personality.”

Wednesday, when I looked in my emails, there was one from the lawyer, with two attachments. One was the court ruling on the probate, and the other was the transfer of a hundred and seventy-six thousand pounds to the account I had given him.

There was another, from the company registration office, and the attachment was my new certificate for TonyaTunes, with a registration number. I printed all of the papers off and sat on my bed in disbelief. Today, I had a business, and money. I now had a house and a car, my motorbike and a future. I did a bit of research and then shut the laptop down.

Once we were up and dressed, and having breakfast, I broached the subject of cars.

“Last night, one of the girls said something about Tom helping out in the depth of winter. From what was said, I gather that our access is too remote for a snowplough, and that he would take Francis to the shops with the Defender. That stopped me contemplating trading it in on a van. If we do get a car that we can both drive, it will have to be a four-wheel-drive so that we can get out of here in the snow.”

“OK, I get your thinking. What do you suggest?”

“There’s a Subaru dealer in Stevenage. Let’s go over there and have a look at what they’ve got. All their models are diesel, and we put that in the Defender. If we see something we like, second hand, we can put a deposit on it with some of the cash we still have. My inheritance has come through, and I can pay the balance from that.”

We went into Stevenage and looked at cars. There was a 2015 XV AWD that was reasonably priced. It was a manual and we talked about trading my Honda on it. We came up with a ballpark figure which I thought reasonable, took it for a test drive, and paid a big deposit from our cash reserve. They would prepare it for pick up in the afternoon.

From there, we went to the cosmetic supplier that we had talked about and got me a full kit. Then, I drove to the Octave shop and picked up the seat that I had forgotten the other day, in shiny black to match the keyboard. I also picked up the rings at the jewellers in Luton. Back home, we had lunch and then I got the Honda out of the shed and removed the extras that I had added. Who knows, I may get another one. While it was warming up, I transferred enough money to my card to pay the extra for the car, then put my bike jacket and helmet on and rode off to the car dealer, registration papers in my pocket.

At the dealers, we finalised the price and I paid the residue, put my jacket and helmet on the back seat, and drove the car back to Lower Green. After the Defender, it was like riding in a lounge room, if a little underpowered.

For the rest of the day, and on Thursday and Friday, I looked through the books on more modern songs that I could add to my repertoire. I had about an hour and a half that I knew, and having one of the books with me would give me another hour. Margaret was singing along as she had the washing machine going with the tablecloths in, the music being much more the background sound of her mid-teens.

On Saturday morning, I had two phone calls. One was from the Cricketers, asking me if I could pop around and play them something on their upright in the bar. They didn’t have a proper piano for the dance area and stage. The other was from Hector.

“Hello, Hector, how are you?”

“Really good. Am I speaking to Anthony or Antonia?”

“Until the semi-permanent wears off, I’m staying as Antonia, Toni or Tonya for short.”

“OK. Tonya, we have finalised the post-production of the session that you recorded. I’ll send you a box that you can take around. Now, a friend of mine, who is with a label, came in while Zacharia was working on it and wants to put it out for general release. What do you think about that?”

“I’m happy with that, as long as they use Antonia Underwood as the name. Will there be anything coming to me?”

“It will be a budget offering, so you’ll get two pounds a sale. I know that you don’t want to sign with me. Is there someone that can manage you?”

“I’ve set up a registered sole trader as ‘TonyaTunes’, all one word with capital ‘T’s, and Margaret will be my manager and make-up specialist. I’ve got to pop into a local pub to do a few songs before they book me. I’m not rushing things as I want it to be at a pace I’m happy with.”

“Get her to register herself as an agent. There aren’t many rules, and all she needs to do if you’re her only client is to keep good books and pay the taxes. Same goes for you. Remember, paying her fifteen percent is classed as a cost for doing business. I suggest that you find a friendly accountant. I’ll still submit your name for an Equity card, as long as you come and play for me when you’re a big name.”

“Do I get to choose how big I have to be?”

“I know that I put you off by being too needy. I spoke to my wife, and she told me off. I’ll be happy with whatever you do. We’ll get a small cut from the album as the recording studio, as well as something from the duets album, which is coming along nicely. It wasn’t until we pulled the recording out of the vault that we realised how similar your singing and playing is. It’s made it much easier to work with. We played my friend a couple of tracks that we had finished, and he wants to issue that too. Your cut will be the same as your album.”

“I’m adding more modern numbers to the set and may run across someone locally who can write something original. I’ll just have to be out there and playing and see who I meet. It’s going to be a whole new world.”

“Have you any pictures of you with Tanyas’ old costumes on?”

“We did have a session with me trying them on. There’s only a couple that would work up here, the rest are more suited to the sort of club Shackles was.”

“Yes, she had to be pretty raunchy there. Mind you, Tanya could do raunchy better than most. I’ll send you the box of discs, as well as a few copies of the video we shot. It should help you find places to play. I’ll include the Equity card as Antonia Underwood as a stage name and a form for you to fill out and post back to me, formally requesting it. It will list me as the issuing agent, but that doesn’t bind you to my agency, that would need a bunch of other forms. Include the banking details when you’ve set it up. Thank you for the chat, I wondered if you had put your London experience behind you as much as Tanya did. I look forward to seeing you in the charts, and, one day, in a guest spot here.”

I spoke to Margaret about what he had said, and we went on the company site and submitted a request for a company registration as a performers’ agent, with the name of Underwood Sisters Agency, with Margaret Underwood as a sole trader. We paid the fee from my account. Then, we looked in the phone book for accountants. There was one that she had met, as one of her school friends was his daughter, and she had been at her house where he worked from home. She rang him up and we had appointments to see him on Monday.

After lunch we took the Subaru to The Cricketers, where I sat in their bar with the upright and entertained the drinkers with a range of the old and new songs in my repertoire. They had a spot for me, a week after the next Friday. I would be the first act of the evening and would be followed by a dance band that I had heard there before. They were called the ‘Trotters’, as in fox trotters, and did old and new style dance music. When I had seen them, they had a singer, guitarist, drummer, double bass, trumpet and saxophone, and had been quite good. They would be setting up on the Friday afternoon, so I was told to get there around two, so that I could claim some space on the stage for my keyboard. They did have a PA and microphones, but I would need my amp.

On Sunday, we took a picture of me in the shimmery fringe dress, with a wig that matched, and fully made up in showgirl mode. While I was changing back to normal, Margaret created a flyer that announced that Antonia Underwood would be performing at the Cricketers, Ickleford. We printed some off as souvenirs and emailed a copy to the Octave and some around to family and friends.

Over the next week, we became clients of the accountant, with him helping us set up accounts for both our companies, seeded with five hundred in each account from the remainder of the cash. I spent a lot of time at the keyboard and the upright, learning a lot of new songs. My exposure to entertaining had given me the impetus to do the best job I could, even if it was for a few dozen locals.

I also spoke to Francis about the Harvest festival, which was now only a few weeks away. I would take the plastic table and a couple of chairs, and she suggested that I make a couple of dozen Victoria Sponges with about four flavours. The venue was an open area, outside the cemetery, and there would be big tents for us. Tom and Albert used to take the dogs when they attended.

Margaret had her driving lessons, and the following week the instructor told me that she was good enough to drive the Subaru, with extra lessons being further apart. She had a pair of magnetic plates, so we put them on and spent much of the weekend going out and about to give her the time behind the wheel without an instructor beside her. After that, we had her driving it whenever we could. If I went somewhere, alone, I would take the Defender.

On the Friday, I took my keyboard over to the Cricketers in the Defender. When I went in, the other band was already there and setting up. They were mainly twenty to thirty years older than me. A couple of the younger ones helped me carry my gear in and set it up on one side of the band, where it looked good. We set up a microphone for me and I sat at the keyboard to do a sound check.

I played through one of my songs and everyone was happy. I stood in the room as they did their own sound check, next to their manager. When they had finished, he showed me their play list and asked me if I knew any of the numbers. I pointed out a few that I knew, and he grinned.

“Lads. Humour me a little. Tonya knows a few of your set. Seeing that you’re both on stage, tonight, why don’t we see what you sound like, together.”

He showed the singer the list with the numbers ticked and urged me to go up on the stage with them. The singer called out the title and they started playing the tune, while I came in on the piano. We did four songs, with me on the piano and also singing duet with the singer. When we stepped off the stage, I laughed.

“That was interesting. I’ve never sung with a backing band before.”

The manager looked surprised.

“Surely you’ve played a lot of other places where they had a band?”

“No, I’ve only played in public once before, and that was an impromptu performance in a nightclub in London. I was there with a guy who had known my cousin when she was a regular on stage. It was her that taught me to play.”

“But you’re so good. It’s hard to believe that this will be your second time with an audience.”

“It’s a long story, and no longer relevant. I’m here, I’ve got my kit and a set that I can play. I’m looking to work the local area in the future, nothing special. I should have some CDs to play for people soon, so they can hear what I can do.”

“You have a CD, already?”

“I recorded some tracks in the studio owned by the man who knew my cousin. He’s got a pal in the industry who’s going to issue it, as well as another which will take my tracks and mix them with some that they have of my cousin, from the nineties, as a set of duets. I haven’t heard any of them yet.”

“Give me your contact details. Here’s my card. When you get some albums, give me a call. Do you even have a manager?”

“My sister will act as manager, as well as my make-up and dresser. This is all very new to me. I didn’t even know I could entertain until a couple of weeks ago.”

“Can you come back on stage, tonight, and do these songs again, with the band?”

“Sure, it’ll be fun.”

The singer went to where he’d left his coat and came back with a sheet of paper.

“This is a list of newer songs that we rehearsed, but they don’t work as well as they should with a guy singing. Do you know any of them?”

I looked at the list and borrowed a pen from their manager, ticking about six that had been in the books that I had been working through. I gave it back to him and he picked one.

“Let’s go back on stage and try this one first. We’ve got plenty of time and all the kit’s in place. I’ve got a bit of an idea.”

We all went up on the stage and got ready. The one that he had picked had a piano introduction, so I led off and they joined me. I sang the song as I had practised it and thought that it was pretty good with the backing. The manager was standing in front of the stage when we finished all of them. He looked up at the singer and smiled like he had just smelt a pile of money.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Tiger?”

“I am. Tonya, we do a lot of places where we need more modern songs, but the ones that work best in dance halls are sung by women. We don’t play that sort of place every week, but enough to give you some regular work. If I mark the ones that we can do, tonight, and you shorten your set by dropping the other songs that we’ll be playing we’ll shorten our set and call you up to finish the evening with us, doing the five we’ve played and another five that we agree on. It should be a memorable evening. If it works well, we’ll have you join us at the bigger dance venues where younger ones come along.”

“How will we work that if I’m not a regular member of the band?”

The manager took out a calculator and ran a few numbers.

“If tonight works out, I’ll give you a list of bookings that would benefit your singing. I’ll pay you as a contractor for each show, at a hundred a show. If your album takes off and you start attracting more customers, I’ll hold out for a bigger payment for the band and increase your take. We don’t have to sign anything, and the deal can be broken by either side with enough notice. What do you say?”

“It will mean that I’m out there and getting noticed. That may help me getting solo bookings. Let’s make it a deal until Christmas, when we can sit down and discuss next year.”

I held out my hand and he shook it.

“Tiger, go and get a photocopy of that list, marked with the songs you want her to play, and we’ll hang around here to make sure that we can live up to our side of the bargain. I’m sure that Tonya will want to go home and get ready for the show.”

I turned my keyboard and amp off and gathered my bag. Tiger came back and gave me the copy. He had put extra marks against five songs.

“See you tonight, Tonya. I know that there isn’t a huge crowd here, usually, but we’ll knock ‘em dead.”

I had arranged to pick my keyboard up in the morning, so took the Defender home. We would be coming back in the Subaru, to allow me to be wearing my stage outfit, with Margaret driving. For much of the afternoon, I looked at the songs he’d marked and tried them out on the upright to fix them in my mind. Then, Margaret removed the wig, and I had a shower, followed by making a light meal for us. After that, I became Tonya Underwood, the singer, while Margaret fed the dogs.

When we left home, I was in the shimmering white dress with the fringes, a pair of impossible heels, and a freshly washed, almost white wig to suit, that went down past my shoulder blades, or over my breasts, depending on how I stood. I had a cardigan that I could use if it was too cold when we finished the show. Margaret had given me a showgirl face, and the paste jewels sparkled. I was ready to rock!

When we arrived, we could hardly get into the car park, finding a space next to the bands’ van in an ‘artistes only’ spot. When we walked in, the place was packed. Before I went up on the stage, we spoke to our parents, Uncle and Aunt, Francis and her husband, the other five girls with their husbands, several of Margarets’ school friends, including one with her father and mother, our accountant. It seemed that people had passed the news on, and they were all keen to see Tonya on stage. On top of that, there were a crowd of regulars, and another that looked like Trotters fans.

It only seemed like minutes before the publican went up on the stage and welcomed everyone to the Cricketers Friday evening entertainment, introducing me as a local lass with a wealth of talent. I went up on stage, carefully in these heels and nodded to the crowd as I sat at the keyboard. To me, it was all too short before I reached the end of the set and stood to accept applause. There had been a lot of dancing, and I was happy with my set. Tiger was waiting to go on the stage and held his hand out to help me down the steps, giving me a smile and a wink. The band went and got themselves ready and Tiger introduced them before they started playing.

I was on a spare seat with my parents and Margaret, finally getting there after being waylaid by a lot of nice people who wanted to tell me how wonderful I was. I had hardly taken a sip of wine when I was asked if I wanted to dance. Dancing and I had never been compatible, but Margaret dragged me to my feet to join her and the lad who was leading her to the dance floor. My partner was Wilfred, or Wilf, and told me that my set had captured his heart.

I had seen my sister dancing with the other lad while I’d been playing and entered into the spirit of the evening. I found that I enjoyed it, as Wilf couldn’t do the old-time dances, so we rotated slowly with my arm round his neck and my head against his chest. He was a lot taller than me. As we were near the stage, Tiger splayed his hand. I pulled my head back.

“Wilf, it’s been lovely dancing with you, but I do need to powder my nose before I go back on the stage.”

“Are you doing another set?”

“I’m joining the band for the last part. It’s a surprise.”

“I’ll say it is! They’ve needed a girl singer for a long time. I’ll hang around until the end. Can I take you home?”

“Sorry. I’m with my sister and we live locally. Maybe I’ll see you at another show, but I haven’t been given the venues. You’ll see what I mean when we close out the evening.”

He took my hand and walked me back to the table and I gave him a kiss on the cheek as I picked up my clutch. Mum went with me to the toilets. I really did need to go, and we stood next to each other afterwards, redoing our lipstick.

“You’re very good in so many ways, love.”

“How’s that, Mum?”

“You play and sing like an angel, you look like a star, and you act exactly as a girl should. Are you going home, now?”

“No, Mum. I’m going back on that stage, and we’ll be finishing the evening as ‘Tonya and the Trotters’, perhaps for just the first time of many, should it all work as we hope. It’ll be a surprise for everyone.”

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 9

The band got towards the end of a song, and I stood, taking a sip of my wine. Dad looked at me with question in his eyes, which was answered when the tune finished, and Tiger went to the microphone.

“Thank you for being such a good audience. I can see that there are a lot of people here to experience Tonya performing. I’m now asking her to join us to round out the evening with some more modern tunes. I have to tell you that this has only been rehearsed on paper, so I ask you to give us a little leeway. Come on up, Tonya, and let’s show these wonderful people what entertainment is.”

He held out his hand as I went up on the stage, and he led me to the keyboard. He had put a sheet on the music stand with the songs he wanted to do, in order, as a way to round out the evening with a set that would build to a big finish. I looked at it and smiled at him. The first song had me leading in, and I started that as he was going back to the microphone, picking up a pair of maracas on the way.

We worked through the ten songs to end the evening, without anything odd that the audience could pick up on, getting progressively tighter. The last song of the night had both of us singing and then it finished with a big chord. There was a lot of applause from a crowd where very few had left. We all took bows and there were calls for ‘more’, but the publican put a stop to the proceedings by coming up and thanking everyone for coming and thanking us for the entertainment.

Slowly, the crowds left, the two lads coming over for a kiss before they went. My Uncle and Aunt were very happy that I had played some of the tunes from Tanyas’ DVD, and our parents had tears in their eyes when they hugged me and my sister. Francis said that she would see us tomorrow, and several people wanted to know where we would be playing again. Those, I pointed to the bands’ manager, who was helping take down their kit.

Eventually, Margaret and I were able to leave, with her telling me that she had more than a couple of drinks and asked me to drive us home. When we got in, the dogs were ready for bed, having been laying on mats outside.

We didn’t talk much as we got ready for bed, with the wig treated with solvent. It went back in the cabinet on its head, and the dress went back on a hanger. I was very thankful to put the shoes away. They may have looked magnificent, but I wouldn’t want to wear something so tall all day. I had a good night of deep sleep, waking up after Margaret had fed the dogs. This entertaining was hard work!

When I wandered into the kitchen, Margaret was ready with a hot pan to give me a cooked breakfast.

“I heard the toilet flush, so I guessed that you’d be needing food. That was a good show, last night, and that dance music looks harder than the nightclub set.”

“You’re right there, sis. I feel like I did a day’s work. It was a real experience, and the band may want me to play other shows with them. The manager will be in touch.”

“Does he want to sign you up?”

“No. We agreed on an arrangement where he would pay me a hundred a show as a contractor, between now and the end of the year. We may start to get enquiries about solo spots from the exposure, as well as when the CD is released, depending on how it goes. Don’t worry, you’ll get your fifteen percent. I’ll be getting a hundred today, in cash, so I’ll give you the fifteen. We’ll have to keep a record of cash payments to give to the accountant.”

When we both dressed, we went with jeans and sweaters with boots. The dogs went with us as we took the Defender to the hotel to collect my money and equipment. The publican was almost over the top in his praise of the evening, as well as the big crowd that we had attracted, giving me an extra hundred as a bonus. I gave Margaret her first thirty pounds as my manager, and she hugged me before putting it in her purse.

We were putting the gear back in the lounge when Francis arrived, so Margaret made the tea while I connected everything up. Francis wanted us to start planning for the Harvest Festival stall, which was to be the second Sunday of September, just two weeks away. I had thought about that, and had planned the Victoria Sponges, and had added a big batch of tea cakes to my list. Scones would sell well, but not cold, and there was no power to the site.

When she had left, the two of us talked things over and went out to the shed, with gloves and left-over COVID masks on, and did some more cleaning up, now the bike wasn’t there. We had lunch and went to the big hardware store and bought two metal storage cabinets to be delivered. I had the idea that, if I was going to make cakes in bulk, I would get flour, baking powder, sugar, and other ingredients in bulk, and store them out of the way of rodents.

Later in the week, I got a call from the band manager, asking me to attend a meeting of the band on Thursday, at the Kings Arms on St. Marys’ Street, Bedford, where they often played. It was to be at eleven, and we could stay on for lunch.

During the days, we went to the big stores and bought the extra supplies, using the Subaru with Margaret driving. The car was good for shopping, being smaller and a hatchback. With the back seats flattened, it almost had as much load space as the Defender. We got boxes of one-kilogram packs, so that I could store them as normal in the kitchen, and just have to go out to the shed when I ran short. The boxes all went into the shed cupboards nicely. I checked the cookbooks that Albert had collected, which Tom hadn’t cleaned out, and found a few recipes that wouldn’t take a lot to whip up. There was one on wedding cake making and decorating, which I put in my bedroom for a bit of light nighttime reading.

On the Thursday, we took the Subaru up to Bedford and found the pub. The meeting was in the bar, and was mainly the manager, Oswald, Tiger, and me, discussing lists that they had. That’s when I found out that the rest of the band had daytime jobs with nine-day fortnights, which was how they could get a Friday off. They played once a month in this pub, and the following week at the Bull and Butcher in Milton Keynes. There was also a regular spot at the Esquires, in Bedford, an alternate Wednesdays, on the ‘old-timers’ evening. I was told that the weekends there were all electric bands.

That would give me four shows a month, which would give me a chance to get some solo spots. They had, before the lockdown, been getting regular wedding receptions, but that had stopped in April without picking up yet. They thought that nobody was game to book ahead in case it was forbidden at a later date. I had a look at the stage and then agreed to start joining them that Saturday. We had lunch and went to a store to buy a diary for the financial year, so Margaret could start to write in our appointments.

Margaret had another driving lesson on Friday, so I did some experiments with cake making. Saturday, we took the Defender, with my equipment, to Bedford for the show. The crowd wasn’t as big as the Cricketers but were all diehard Trotters’ fans and very appreciative of my appearance as part of the band. The poster, outside, had advertised the show as the Trotters, with Tonya, and we repeated much of our previous show, seeing that we hadn’t been able to rehearse anything else, but mixed up with me on stage the whole show.

The following Wednesday, we did the same show at Esquires, to an older audience, where the band did old-time dance music with blocks of me joining them for a bit of swing. The feedback from both was very positive and I thought that I would be pretty certain of earning four hundred a month.

The day after that show, we had a note in our post box to go into Letchworth to collect a parcel, which turned out to be a box of CDs and some other things. The CD was well presented, with a picture of me at the piano in London, taken from the video that had been shot on the night. It was the full session that I had played, so was good value for the money. It didn’t have anything about Tanya, so I guessed that they were saving that information for the duets. There were a half a dozen DVDs of the video, the copies of the photos we had chosen, and some papers. One was the application for an Equity card, with the card clipped to it. That just needed filling out and posting back. I now had some performance dates that I could tell Hector about.

There was also a contract with the label. They wanted me to sign with them for four albums, with the first already produced and the second as the duet album. It confirmed that I would be paid two pounds per sale for the first two, and that the payment period was the twenty-first of the month to the twentieth, with payment made by the end of the month. There was space for me to enter my banking details. I had a think about the other two albums, wondering if two Tonya and the Trotters albums would work. We could record locally and courier the master to the label. I wasn’t beholden to Hector to use his studio. I would have to see how it went.

That evening, we put the DVD in, and I watched me on stage, for the first time. On Friday, Margaret had another lesson and the instructor booked her for a test at the end of the month, before it got frosty. I was busy making cakes for Sunday, as I would be busy on Saturday with the show in Milton Keynes. That was another good show, and we were getting to be a tight unit, with more interaction with the audience. I had taken along some CDs for the band to listen to. I had filled in all the forms in the morning and posted them off on the way.

On the Sunday, we had the Defender loaded with table, chairs, dogs, and boxes of cakes for sale. We paid our site fee to Molly and set up in a tent with others. There were a couple of cake stalls, a chocolate stall, and several craft stalls, typical of that kind of festival. I had added two dozen CDs for sale at a tenner each. The event started at eleven, after the church service. We had sold all the CDs by one, and the majority of the cakes by four, when we packed up to go home, leaving the remainder of the cakes with Molly to be taken around to parishioners. Francis had wanted to buy a CD, but I told her that there were a half a dozen at home for her and the girls.

One guy who did buy a CD, and wanted me to autograph it, was the detective sergeant and he said that he had been at the show at the Cricketers. He asked me where I lived, and I told him that he had already been to my house at the end of Lower Green. He thought a moment.

“That’s where the guy had died of a heart attack. I spoke to a fellow then.”

“That’s right. That was me then, and this is me at the moment. Before you ask, no, I’m not gay. This look was foisted on me by someone in London who wanted me performing in his nightclub, the same as my cousin, the one who had died, had performed in the mid-nineties. He ordered his girl to get me the works, and I ended up with semi-permanent make-up.”

“You got a lot more than make-up, seeing your performance the other Friday.”

“That was all down to my cousin and was seven years of being taught how to play.”

“What about the cakes?”

“That was five years of being taught how to cook, by Albert, his life partner.”

“You’re still at his house, then?”

“My house, now. He left it to me, along with his Defender. My sister is staying with me at the moment. She’s acting as my manager and should, hopefully, be a busy girl when my name gets out there. That CD, by the way, has only been on the market for a week.”

He picked up a couple of the business cards that were on the table.

“I’ll let my boss know about your situation. He may want to drop in to make sure that you’re settled in.”

“If he wants to see me play, I’ll be at Esquires, in Bedford, a week on Wednesday, and then at the Kings Arms, in Bedford, the Saturday after that. I’m part of the Trotters at the moment.”

He hadn’t been the only one to pick up one of my cards. The ones that we had got for Margaret seemed to be popular as well. Mine had Tonya Underwood, entertainer, while hers had Margaret Underwood, cosmetologist and hairdressing, home visits by appointment.

When we got home, I put the table and chairs back in the shed and went in the house where Margaret had the kettle on. I opened up my bag, where I had put all our takings and we counted it out, three hundred and sixteen pounds fifty pence. I took away two hundred and forty pounds for the CDs and gave her thirty-six pounds from my purse. We then split the remainder between us. We went off to write up our official earnings.

Francis arrived in time for a cup of tea and one of the cakes I had kept at home. She told us that a lot of her friends had told her how nice we were, and how tasty the cakes were. When she left, she had six CDs for her and the other girls. I had a bit of a think about that, and then went to write it up as a promotional give-away, along with the six that I had given to the band. Our accountant could work it all out at tax time.

On Monday, we rang Mum at the library and arranged to take the parents out for a meal on Tuesday evening, at seven, at the Rump and Wade. I wanted to make sure that they knew that we appreciated their care and support for the two of us, as well as give them a CD and a copy of the DVD.

That was an interesting meal. Dad was a bit nonplussed at having his children take him to dinner. For him, that had always been a fathers’ job. He did, however, congratulate us on what we were doing with our lives, and how much he had enjoyed the show. We told him about the other shows that I was now doing, as part of the Trotters, and we gave them two CDs, one for Uncle Eddy, and a copy of the DVD, explaining that it was the show that I had performed in London, off the cuff. We gave them some of our business cards, with Margaret saying that she had a few enquiries, and would be able to fulfil the home visits when she passed her test, next week.

On Wednesday, I experimented with a fruit cake, and made icing for it, trying my hand at decorating. We had it for dessert for several days afterwards with cream, ice cream or custard. On Thursday, I registered another sole trader business. Underwood Delights, cakes made to order, became a reality by the next week.

We had, for us, a quiet weekend. Margaret got me naked and went over my body with wax, where needed, which wasn’t very much, thank goodness. She also removed the wig and the breasts for the two days, so my skin could breathe. The make-up had almost disappeared. Just my luck, I looked like Tony when the police car pulled into the property.

I met them outside, and the inspector smiled.

“I was told to expect to see a hot girl. Isn’t that what you said, sergeant?”

“I’m having a rest from that. The only hot girl in the place is my sister. Do you want to come in and have a cup of tea?”

“We will, but just want to have a look around, first. You’ve done wonders since we were here last.”

“OK, the cupboards in the shed contain baking ingredients, in bulk. I’ll give you the keys if you want. The bike was traded on the Subaru, which my sister will be driving when she passes the test, next week.”

When they came in and sat down, I made the tea. The Inspector looked around.

“You’ve been busy in here as well.”

“The whole house, Inspector. You’re welcome to have a look. About the only things here, unscrubbed, are the dogs.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing to earn money?”

“I don’t mind you asking. I’m presently working four nights a month with the Trotters, and I’m thinking about advertising as a supplier of bespoke cakes. I had good feedback from the ones I sold at the Harvest Festival. My cousin left me this house, free and clear, and over a hundred and seventy thousand pounds, so I have no need to be doing anything illegal. The CD that is now on the market will give me two pounds for each sale, and I have a contract to supply another three albums. I’m pretty happy with my life, at the moment. What you see, today, is me having a rest from being Tonya. I needed to present as Tonya for a specific reason, and she has stayed with me. The make-up I was given is fading now, though.”

“You intrigue me. What was the reason?”

“My cousin had left things in a safety deposit box at a Lloyds bank branch on Oxford Street. It could only be claimed by a woman who could answer a question about one of the songs that’s on that CD. She expected to reclaim it herself. That was when she was Tanya Hyde, and not Tom Anderson. The box ended up containing jewels that belonged to Harvey Parker, who owned the nightclub where she was playing regularly. I do have a DVD of one of her performances there, although it’s pretty poor and copied from Super Eight.”

“After meeting you here, the first time, I had a look at your cousins’ record. That arrest didn’t look at all right.”

“Sit there, Inspector. I have the scrapbooks from that period, which should scratch that itch.”

I went and got the two scrapbooks, finding Margaret sitting in her room with one of the novels. I took the two scrapbooks back to the kitchen.

‘One is of my cousins’ performing days, and the other is cuttings regarding the arrest. I can tell you that the drunk and disorderly was trumped up, as she was arrested in mid-performance, along with every member of the staff, and they were all arrested for the same thing, and were all tossed out of the police station without any breath tests being taken, or any charge levelled.”

They looked through the books, and the sergeant looked at me.

“You could be identical twins. You look just like these pictures when you perform, except for the outfits.”

“There were a dozen outfits here when we looked through the house. The one I wore at the Cricketers was one of hers, and over twenty-five years old.”

The inspector closed the case scrapbook.

“It doesn’t say why there are barriers to looking at the records?”

“All I can tell you is that the particular vice squad was corrupt, my cousin and the others were held for some days in crowded cells, and the squad were sent to jail, themselves. The compensation hearing was behind closed doors, so I’ve been told, and my cousin never performed as Tanya Hyde again, coming home and getting a good job teaching music.”

“Thank you for being so frank with me. From what I’ve seen, and heard, I think that I can guess why the compensation was paid. Look, if you need anything, just ask. I’d like to buy one of your CDs, if you still have them. It’s my wifes’ birthday, next week. Autographed, if you don’t mind.”

I went to the office with the scrapbooks and came back with a signed CD.

“Here you are sir. That’ll be ten pounds.”

He smiled and gave me the note.

“When she’s listened to that, you can take her to the Kings Arms, in Bedford Town Centre, next Saturday evening. We’ll be onstage then. If I see you, I’ll say hello.”

“I’ll ask her if she’ll like to dance. Tony, I will tell you something. That is that we don’t do policing like that here, not then and not now. Even the thought of what happened then brings bile to my throat.”

They had a quick look through the house, said hello to Margaret, and left. She was at the kitchen table when I went back inside.

“What did they want?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was just to see that I wasn’t up to anything illegal. Maybe to see if I had a bunch of guys living with me, with a couple tied up in the bedroom. What was interesting, was that he had looked up Toms’ record and ran into a blank wall of red tape. If Tom hadn’t left us the explanation, we would never have known.”

I stayed as Tony until Tuesday, when Margaret turned me back into being Tonya. In the afternoon, I checked my emails. There was one from the accountant, telling me that there had been a deposit in my account from the label. I appeared that the ten days, or so, that the CD had been available, it had sold fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-seven copies, and I had received thirty thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four pounds. I replied, asking him to transfer fifteen percent to Margarets’ account.

Wednesday, I dressed for the show. I was dressing to fit in with band, so wearing more normal outfits, saving the other show outfits for when I did a solo show. That afternoon, we drove to Bedford in the Defender with the kit in the back. We set up for the evening, played a few new things that we had talked about, had a bite to eat and then did the show as well as we could, which was to great applause with a full dance floor, almost twice as many as the fortnight before.

We drove home that night, with Margaret dozing in the passenger seat. I was happy with the outcome and the improvement of some of the new songs, I had my eighty-five and Margaret had already spent her fifteen during the evening. She had an excuse, though, as she had the driving test in the morning, and was worrying about it. I was going to put my phone on alarm so that I could wake her up in time to be ready. I don’t think that she would thank me for it until later, though, when I would tell her that she was over four thousand, six hundred pounds better off than she was yesterday. I smiled as I drove south. I was Tonya, again, and feeling playful.

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Chapter 10

When we arrived home, I let the dogs in and then got Margaret out of the car and into the house. She was aware enough to get herself undressed, ready for bed, and cleansed. I pulled her bedclothes back so that she could get in. There was snoring before I put the light out. It could have been Boobs, though.

I made sure that the Defender was locked and got ready for my own bed. I laid in the dark, idly scratching a dogs’ head. It seemed to calm both of us after a busy day. I thought about the money. I hadn’t really factored that in with my thoughts about my future life. If the CD sold eighty-five thousand copies, it would give me as much as Tom had left me, and that had seemed like a fortune at the time.

I must have slept well, waking to the alarm on my phone playing ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and getting louder. I turned it off and went to the bathroom, had a shower, and got dressed before I went to wake my sister. I made sure that she was in the shower before I went to the kitchen and looked after the dogs when they had returned from their ablutions. I was getting things ready for breakfast when Margaret wandered in, still in her gown.

“Coffee, give me coffee!”

I poured he a cup and asked her if she wanted egg, bacon and baked beans. Luckily, I had already started the toast that was all she could manage. As she ate, she looked worried.

“What’s the problem, sis?”

“What do you wear for a driving test? Is it a smart dress to appear sophisticated, or shall I go with jeans and a sweater to be warm and the girl next door?”

“I had a shirt and jeans on when I took mine. But, there again, I was a boy at the time. Go with those black jeans you have with a bit of room in them, and a warm sweater. Put your handbag on the back seat, and don’t slide it between your seat and the door. Make sure you have a tissue tucked into your sleeve. Don’t wear a necklace that may interfere with your movements and lastly, wear sturdy flats.”

“Ooh! Who’s a smarty pants this morning. That Oswald kept topping my wine up. I was starting to think that he was trying to get into my pants and then his wife turned up. The speed that she finished the bottle made me think that he was trying to make me drink as much as I did, to limit her intake. Strange things that married couple do to protect each other. It was a good show, though, and a lot more people that the first time you played there.”

“I noticed that. It will be interesting to see what they crowd is like on Saturday. When you’ve finished, you’d better get dressed, the instructor will be here at ten, and you need to have a clear head by then. I think that he’ll get you to drive around the likely route that they’ll be using today.”

When she was getting ready, I tidied up in the kitchen and went out to open up the Defender, taking in the keyboard trestle first. Propping the back door open, I manhandled the keyboard in and set it up. Margaret was out in time to carry the microphone as I took the seat in. She did a few laps of the property in the fresh air and was ready when the instructor arrived.

I gave her a hug and wished her good luck, and she thanked me for getting her ready. With the house quiet, I sat in the lounge with the book on cake decoration, trying to work out how to make sense of it. After a while, I put it down and just thought. The show attendances were picking up, I was playing four times a month after just one solo spot. The album was out there, and I was happy with my life.

I had no regrets about saying no to Hector, and oddly, no regrets about being turned into a clone of Tanya. There were people who looked out for me, some who looked to me for my opinion, some who even looked at me with just one thing on their mind. Sadly, the last group had not yet included a good-looking girl. The short period of being Tony again was really strange, as I had tried to make sure that I didn’t have to go to the shops, in case I was seen.

I must have dozed off, as it was the sound of a car horn that woke me. I went outside, to be hugged by a happy sister, who had obviously passed her test. We waved the instructor off and the second thing she wanted to do was to drive me somewhere for lunch. The first thing was to dash to the toilet to relieve herself. We got our bags, locked up the house and left the dogs in charge.

I directed us to the Blue Ball Inn, near Cambridge, somewhere I had been on my bike. We had the Shepherd’s Pie and a wine. We finished our lunch and I smiled.

“Seeing that you’re buying, I’ll have the Apple Crumble for dessert.”

“Hey! I’m not made of money, you know.”

“I beg to differ, sister dear. I got an email that told me that the CD sold over fifteen thousand copies already.”

“That’s great, what do I get as your manager?”

“I already asked that your money is to be transferred. There should be a bit over four and a half thousand in your company account.”

“In that case, I’ll have one as well. Another wine to celebrate?”

“You’re driving, remember.”

“Spoilsport!”

The apple crumble was delicious, and she paid up, happily, and we drove into Cambridge to wander around the town. Back at home, she looked at her banking and gave a little squeal. I checked my laptop and saw that I now had the cake business registered. I forwarded that to the accountant and asked him to set up another business account for me and seed it with five hundred from the music account, and to list it as an investment.

The month of October was like a dream. We went to the venues, and I played with the band, now including more from my own repertoire. Margaret remained strong enough to resist extra drinks, started to canvas venues to get me solo spots, and our lives became settled into a routine. She had registered herself as ‘Megs’ Hair’ as a sole trader and started to get appointments for home visits.

I became a member of Costco, with my cake business registration, and we filled the two cabinets with long-life product to save time and money. At the end of the month, there was an email from the accountant to tell me that I had received another payment from the label. The album had sold forty-eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-six copies, which gave me ninety-six thousand, five hundred and ninety-two pounds. I emailed my paperwork with the cash payments, expenses, and asked him to transfer the fourteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-eight pounds and eighty pence to Margaret.

The first day of November brought a phone call from a number I didn’t know.

“Good morning, Tonya Underwood speaking.”

“Good morning, Tonya. This is Sergeant Snow from the Letchworth Police. I’m calling you because a little bird has told me that the country is likely to go into lockdown again. Can you come in and fill out forms to get stickers for your vehicles. They will allow you to travel freely. I expect that you may be called on to make and deliver cakes during the period. Molly, from the Ickleford church, will undoubtedly get in touch with you when it’s announced. Your sister may be called on to do in-house hairdressing among the local elderly.”

“Will do. Why us?”

“We already know that you’ve got bulk storage, and we have a list of known suppliers who buy from Costco. They will remain open to registered distributers through the lockdown. We also know that you are trustworthy and level-headed.”

“Any idea how long it will last.”

“I doubt that it would remain in place through the festive season, as that would be political suicide, but next year will depend on how serious this second wave is. I have your number and will give you our contact details when you come in. I’ll also give you direct numbers for the other services, seeing that you’ll be our eyes in the community. See you soon.”

I called Margaret and we sat in the kitchen while I told her what I had just heard, without the note that we were trustworthy and level-headed. We put our coats on and took both cars to the police station, where we were given forms to fill out, with a queue of others coming in. We had an official badge, each, to denote us as approved for travel, and stickers for the vehicles but told not to put them on until the announcement. We then went to Costco, where I loaded the Defender with a range of things, from eggs to dog food, powdered milk to boxes of tea bags. Margaret loaded up with hairdressing and cosmetic supplies, as well as bulk shampoo and conditioner. Of course, we didn’t miss getting several bales of toilet paper, having been caught last time.

We took it all back to the house and stored things away in the shed and spaces in the house. The office ended up with just enough room to get to the desk. Margaret rang Mum to give her a bit of prior warning but told her it was just a rumor we had heard and may not be true.

On the fourth of November, the lockdown was announced, and all the venues were closed. Molly did get in touch, and we were asked to help out around the area. We put the stickers on the vehicles, and both had a box of masks to wear whenever we were out of our cars. We went to the village hall, where Molly had set up a control site, with volunteers, all widely spaced and wearing masks, sitting at desks and co-ordinating assistance around the area, with us being new to the slick operation that had learned a lot in the first half of the year.

The hospitals and nursing homes were all getting their normal deliveries, and I was given a list of the elderly and infirm in Ickleford to see, every day, after getting bread from Costco and adding any cakes I could make. Margaret had a similar list of people who would only needed to be seen every couple of weeks.

We spent November out and about, every day, delivering and looking after the ones on our lists. I found that I was delivering to customers who were convalescing from a hospital visit as well as the elderly. These were with families and needed other things beyond what I had. After a few days, I was taking shopping lists and cash to pick up things at Costco. If I bought bulk, I would hold on to the extra for others. One other thing with the mainly younger customers was that most had interesting jobs when they went back to work, and I had many interesting talks during the days.

In the evening, I baked, with all those on my, and Margarets’ lists getting birthday cakes on the right day. With our travel freedom, we were also able to deliver to family and friends, which allowed us all to get through the month, when the restrictions were lifted, just as the sergeant had predicted.

Over the month we had called for an ambulance for nearly a dozen of our customers and called for the police on three occasions when we saw roaming gangs. For the two of us, it had been work, and had allowed us to grow into adulthood. We both had a wider range of people we knew, and an appreciation of peoples’ lives outside our own orbit. On top of that, we were getting our fuel from Costo pumps paid for by the government, and Margaret had a sheaf of paperwork with every beauty treatment she had done, which would be reimbursed by the local council.

Even better, people still bought the CD through on-line websites, and it had sold another thirty-nine thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven units. That gave me over seventy-nine thousand pounds in the account, less just under eleven thousand nine hundred that was transferred to Margaret.

I had stayed in touch with Oswald and the band. Thankfully, they were all healthy in December. Tiger and the boys had spent the enforced rest by working out songs that would work well with a female singer, something that hadn’t crossed their minds in the earlier lockdown. One other thing was to call the label and ask if a Tonya and the Trotters album would be accepted, which they welcomed. In the first week of December, I loaded up the keyboard and we met the band, one chilly morning, at the Esquires venue. Every job that the band members had was only going to be a couple of days a week until after the New Year, so they all had spare time.

Esquires wouldn’t open for customers until it had been cleaned, so they allowed us to use it for a couple of days. We worked through the new songs that they had chosen, as well as a half a dozen originals, finalised during the month from snippets that had been thought about over the year. By lunch time on the second day, we almost had a completely new set that we could play. When we were eating our sandwiches, I broached the subject on my mind.

“Guys, my album has been selling well, and I’m prepared to spend some money to record. Is there a good studio nearby, big enough to take the whole band in comfort?”

There was some discussion, and the consensus was that the MAK Studio, in an industrial area east of the city, was our best choice. Oswald rang them and had his phone on loudspeaker so we could all listen. The studio was only just ramping up, and there had been a lot of cancellations. By the time the conversation was ended, we had made a booking for Sunday afternoon, Monday, and Tuesday, of next week, for six hundred pounds, including masters. I gave the boss there my accountants’ email and asked that the account was made out to TonyaTunes. Oswald and Tiger would go and double check the studio.

For the guys, this was a big thing, one that could improve their lives. I did warn them that the returns wouldn’t be huge. Based on what I was getting for mine, each share for us would be less than thirty pence per sale.

Later that week, we went to see our accountant. We gave him a big Christmas cake that I’d made, and also organised the payment distribution should the Trotters album go on the market. Any payments from the label would come to him. He would transfer six sevenths to Oswald to pay the guys, who would be taking his commission from that. That would be on my books as payment for services from the band.

Our usual shows had been dropped, seeing that it was so close to Christmas. Oswald had got us a number of end-of-year shows, starting Saturday night. We had another show Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday the week after, and a Christmas Eve show the Thursday after that, followed by a New Years Eve show the Thursday after. I had one show, which was for the volunteers at the Ickleford Village Hall, on the Tuesday before Christmas, organised by Molly and the local council.

That Saturday night, we tried out a lot of our new songs, which worked well. We had developed into more of a party band than an old-time dance band. Sunday afternoon, we met at the studio, got set up and did some things to get used to the surroundings and playing without an audience. We laid down two tracks before we left, listening to them and smiling.

Monday and Tuesday, we worked hard and ended up with another twenty tracks. While we were still there, I rang my contact at the label. I told him that we had twenty-two tracks, which would be suitable for two CD’s. I asked him how much, per album, would be paid, and he told me that I’d get four pounds a sale, seeing that I was supplying the masters. I wrote down his address, and the manager at MAK told me that the master set would be couriered by Friday afternoon, if I paid an extra fifty pounds. The man at the label said that they would listen to what we supplied, and issue the Trotters’ albums in the New Year, with the addition of on-line sales, something that they had worked on over November.

I paid the extra and got a cash sale receipt. Outside, we had a small get-together to discuss what we’ve achieved, loaded up our equipment, and drove home. The equipment would be needed on Wednesday evening. I was quiet on the way home, until Margaret put her hand on my arm.

“Why the silence, Tonya. I would have thought that what you’ve done would make you happy?”

I sighed.

“I’m happy, sis. What we’ve done has been great. However the label set the tracks, there will be two good albums out there, which will finalise my contract with them. The reason I’m quiet is because I’m berating myself for being such an idiot when we were in London. I asked how much I would get for these albums and was told that it would be four pounds a sale, because we’re supplying the masters. That means that Hector is getting two pounds a sale from my album. So much for the ‘small commission’ that he told me. If I see the bastard in a hundred years’ time, it would still be too early. I don’t begrudge them the duet album, seeing that the remastering of the two sets of recordings will take time, but we did that first one in a single take!”

On the Wednesday evening, at the show, we had a talk about what we would call the albums and decided that one would be ‘Pacing with the Trotters’, and the other would be ‘Speeding along with the Trotters’. Oswald was going to email me a list of the members, along with the pictures that he had taken at the studio, along with a short biography, for me to send to the label.

I had that email, with a range of photos as attachments, on Friday, so forwarded it to the label, with a new bio for me. I told them the two album names, and that all payments would be processed through my accountant and asked about the duet album. Saturday morning, I had a reply, thanking me for my speedy supply of all the needed information. They told me that the masters had been received and they would let me know what they thought, next week. Next week would also be the release of the duets, and a box would be couriered to my address.

Our next shows were the Saturday and Sunday. Both were company parties, and both had the highest levels of drunken stupidity that I’d ever seen. I was glad that I had worn the engagement and wedding ring, with a number of guys that I needed to flash them at. It was a lot of fun, though, even if Oswald and Margaret had to come and sit behind the stage for safety. Oswald must have known, as he’d charged triple our usual for both shows, and I ended up with six hundred, less ninety for Margaret. On Monday, I needed to wipe the keyboard and amp down, having been hit by a stream of beer.

That left just three shows for the year. My freebie solo for the volunteers and the Christmas and New Year Eve pair, which would give me another six hundred. The Village Hall was festooned with streamers when we arrived, and we carried my keyboard in and set it up on the small stage, with the amp and microphone. It was a very pleasant party, with a lot of us thankful for getting through the last lockdown. We were joined by a lot of first responders that we had worked with. It was a ‘bring a plate’ affair, and I’d made a big batch of small cakes. I sung my songs and there was a little bit of dancing. I had practised a few carols, and we had a little sing-along. As we were reloading the Defender, the sergeant came and stood beside me, speaking quietly.

“This is between the two of us, Tonya. There have been high level messages from London, and the feeling around the station is that there’ll be another lockdown, not long into January. On the second, can you and your sister come into the station and pick up new stickers and passes for the 2021 year. Take the old ones off your windows as they won’t be acceptable. I’ve warned Molly to be prepared for a long one this time.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Snow. We’ll do what we did before, unless there are other things we’re asked to do. I’ll bring you in a new album when we come in. I had a box of them delivered this morning. It’s similar songs to the last one, but is duets between me and Tanya, whose body you saw in the garden, which were recorded over twenty-five years ago.”

On Christmas Eve, we went visiting in the Subaru. It had been a good buy, as the days had been frosty but there had been very little snow so far. We dropped in to see Francis, giving her six copies of the duets album to pass out. Then we went to our old home for lunch, giving Mum a copy of the album, plus one to pass on to her brother. After the lunch, I waited until we were having a drink.

“Yesterday, I was told that we should go in and get new stickers for the cars. The word is that there may be another announcement in January. Dad, if you’re in GSK full time, Mum can come and live with us and help out with our delivery work. My contact told me that it may be for longer than the last one, but I stress that it’s only hearsay at the moment.”

Dad thought a bit.

“There seems to be a lot of activity in the accommodation buildings. I think that you’re right. I worked from home in November, but it doesn’t look like that will be an option, this time. We can lock up the house if you go to Lower Green, love. I’ll be happier if you’re with the family. What will you do for sleeping?”

“We can let Mum have my bed and I’ll sleep in the annex. It’s quite comfortable and I’ve slept there before. I can make room in the wardrobe and drawers for her by shifting some of my things into the Cabinet. The only things we’ll need to do is learn to co-ordinate between me and Mum with dressing, and between Margaret and Mum with the bathroom. There’s a small ensuite in the annex. We will be starting early and finishing late in the afternoon. We don’t dress up to do the rounds.”

We left early, as I had a show to get to, in Leighton Buzzard. The Defender was already loaded, and I needed to shower and dress for it, as it was an up-market affair at the Astral Park Community Centre. The guys would be all wearing suits.

I was in the cocktail dress that I had worn in London, and Margaret had her party dress on as well. At the venue, we met up with the guys. They all gave me a present, and I gave them all a copy of the duets album. The show was good, with a lot of local dignitaries and well-dressed couples. We did a long show, with a number of ballroom songs and the rest from our old and new repertoire.

Our New Year Eve Show would be at the Cloisters, the Masonic Centre in Letchworth Garden City, so close to home for us. We went all-out party for that one, with me in one of the raunchier outfits from the collection, something that I had the nerve for now. That one went after midnight, as it should, and we really earned our money. Back home, I gave Margaret her share and we both didn’t take long to get to bed.

We went to the police station on the second, and the hammer dropped on the fourth. It was expected to happen, but not as bad as it did happen. It closed down all non-essential services, gatherings and sports. Effectively, we had, as a country, shut up shop.

Marianne Gregory © 2026