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  ‘Where’s Dad today?’ I asked.

  She nodded towards the study. ‘In there. He’s writing his memoirs.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘He caught some literary bug during a late one at the Fox last week. Came back full of his glory days and how he should commit them to paper while – oh God, here he comes.’ She lowered her voice at the sound of Dad rising from his swivel chair. ‘Don’t mention the hair, ok?’

  ‘The hair? Why, what’s he –’ I broke off as Dad came in.

  ‘All right, only daughter and light of my life?’ he said, grinning. ‘Everything ok?’

  I couldn’t answer. I was too busy staring at his hair.

  As long as I could remember, it’d been grey. He’d even been proud to dub himself a silver fox, usually to a derisive snort from Cynthia. But no more. Just weeks after his 60th birthday, my dad had become an overnight blonde.

  And not just any blonde. A bleach blonde. There was enough dye on his head to trigger a nationwide peroxide shortage.

  Cynthia shot me a look and I pulled my eyes away.

  ‘Yes. Fine,’ I managed to mumble.

  ‘Well, come here,’ Dad said. I stood to give him a hug. ‘We heard all about the panto from Pip yesterday.’

  ‘Erm, yeah,’ I said, still a little shellshocked at his appearance. ‘She had a fab time.’

  ‘And she told us a new joke. Why are grandads called grandads?’

  ‘Think I’ve heard it,’ I said with a smile. My brain prodded me, reminding me why I was there. ‘Look, can you guys sit down? I actually came with some news.’

  I wasn’t sure why I should feel anxious about breaking the news that Cole would finally be joining me, but I did.

  Dad took a seat next to Cynthia, looking concerned. ‘Nothing bad, I hope, Boo?’

  My face relaxed into a smile at the childhood nickname. It always made me feel safe, even if my dad currently looked more like an ageing Bros reject than himself.

  ‘No, good. It’s Cole. He’s moving up at last.’

  ‘Oh, fabulous!’ Cynthia said, beaming. She accidentally-on-purpose stepped on Dad’s foot. ‘Isn’t it, Danny?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Dad said, a bit too quickly. ‘Lovely lad, Cole.’

  My face fell. ‘You aren’t happy.’

  ‘No! No, we are,’ Dad said. But I couldn’t help noticing the flicker of guilt. ‘If you’re happy, we’re happy. That’s how it works.’

  ‘Then why’re you doing that face? You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Honest answer? No idea,’ Cynthia said with typical Yankee bluntness.

  ‘How do you mean, no idea?’

  ‘Well, how long have you two been together? Three years? That whole time we’ve met him about five times, by my reckoning.’

  ‘We were down south.’

  ‘But he hardly ever came up with you from London,’ Dad said. ‘We thought it might be different after you moved, but…’

  ‘Three times I’ve asked him to Sunday dinner when he’s been visiting,’ Cynthia said. ‘And three times he’s made some excuse.’

  ‘He’s busy,’ I mumbled. ‘He is working two jobs.’

  ‘Still, he’s never seemed particularly interested in getting to know us.’

  ‘He’s just shy. It’ll all be different once he’s here.’

  ‘Well, I guess you know best.’ Cynthia stood to hug me. ‘I am happy for you, sweetie, honest. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this.’

  I looked at my dad, or as near as I could without squinting in the glare. ‘What about you? Have we got your blessing?’

  ‘Since when’ve you needed that?’

  ‘Since never. But I want you to be happy about it.’

  ‘Oh, all right. One blessing, duly administered.’ He came over to give it me in the form of a hair-ruffle. ‘Don’t use it all at once.’ He grabbed a leather jacket – another element in his new look, apparently. ‘Right, I’ll leave you ladies to set the world to rights. I’m meeting Gatesy.’

  ‘Do you have to?’ I said. ‘Thought we might head up to Pagans’ Rock for a walk before I open the shop.’

  ‘Sorry, love. I promised I’d help him move house today.’

  ‘There’s no big hurry, is there?’

  ‘He has to get the hire van back by five. I’ll see you soon, eh? Love you both.’ He bent to give me a kiss, planted another on Cynthia’s cheek and strode out of the room.

  I shot a questioning look at Cynthia, who shook her head. ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’

  ‘I’ll make more tea,’ she said, heading to the kitchen.

  ‘Hold the lemon!’ I called after her.

  When our tea had brewed, she handed me a fresh cup and sank back onto the sofa. I went to sit beside her.

  ‘So come on,’ I said, reaching for the milk jug. ‘What’s with the hair?’

  ‘You had to ask.’ She sighed. ‘Your dad’s going through a difficult time at the moment, Becky. You know he’s been kind of down since he turned sixty.’

  ‘I know. He seemed bright enough today though.’

  ‘Oh, he’s bright. He’s so bright I’m ready to damn well strangle him sometimes – the days I know where he is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s out most nights. It feels like I’m barely keeping track of him.’ She fixed me in an earnest gaze. ‘Listen, sweetie, I know you’ve got your own stuff going on. But… just be there for him, can you? I’m worried.’

  ‘What’re you worried about?’

  ‘Ok, look.’ She put her tea down and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. ‘We never told you this, you and Cam. Well, there didn’t seem any point worrying you till we knew, and then you were in the middle of the big move, we figured you didn’t need the stress…’

  ‘What, Cyn?’ I said, alarmed. ‘Is something wrong with Dad?’

  ‘No. But… there could’ve been. Your dad had a bit of a scare, a few months ago. Found a lump somewhere a lump shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  She gave my shoulders a comforting squeeze. ‘No need to freak, it was just an inflammation. But I don’t mind telling you it frightened us both rigid. We got our wills done and next thing I know, your dad’s locking himself in the study reminiscing about his youth and the bathroom cabinet’s full of Just for Men, Billy Idol Special Edition.’

  ‘Oh God. The textbook mid-life crisis.’ I patted her arm. ‘Well, we’ll get him through it. Just be grateful he hasn’t blown your savings on a sports car.’

  ‘It’s not his behaviour. Lord knows, I could cope with that.’ She cast her eyes down. ‘It’s the late nights. I’m scared stiff, Becky. Scared he’s – that there might be someone else.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. He loves you to pieces.’

  She gazed at her ringless left hand. ‘And yet…’

  ‘Come on, you know he does. You two’ve been together –’ I did a quick calculation – ‘God, thirty-one years. He’d never do anything to jeopardise that.’

  ‘But it’s not really about how he feels, is it? It’s about getting old. The fear you’ll never get another chance to experience the thrill of being with someone new. It’s not unheard of for men to try to cure ageing with sex.’

  ‘Not my dad,’ I said firmly. ‘He’d never do that.’

  ‘He did it to your mum.’

  I almost splurted tea across the room. ‘He what?’

  She sighed. ‘Should’ve told you this years ago really. It wasn’t your cousin’s graduation party where we first got together, Becky.’ She held up a hand to stop me interrupting. ‘I know, that’s what we said. But we’d been seeing each other for nearly a year by then, while your parents were still married. Secretly.’

  ‘Shit! Did Mum know?’

/>   ‘She suspected, I think. She and Danny both knew it was over by then, but still… it was wrong.’

  I gazed into the distance while I tried to process this new information. Cynthia had been mum to me for so long, she was the only one I remembered. My real mum had died before I’d even had time to form a picture of her. But it would never have occurred to me that my dad, loyal, loving, laid-back Danny Finn, was capable of being unfaithful.

  ‘It’s… done now,’ I said, fighting down my shock. ‘And you were his soulmate, in the end.’

  ‘But it wasn’t right. I’m sorry, Becky.’

  I summoned a smile. ‘Well, no good crying over spilt adultery, eh? We’re here now. You’re in love, you’re happy. You’ve got a partner, a son, a granddaughter, not to mention the sort-of daughter that came free with the rest. Happy families. Focus on that, not something you can’t fix now.’

  ‘Nothing sort-of about this daughter,’ she said, smiling back.

  ‘Dad wouldn’t cheat on you, Cyn. I know it.’

  ‘Wish I could be certain. It’s such a funny thing, getting old,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Just be there if he needs someone to talk to, won’t you?’

  ‘I always am, he knows that.’

  She squeezed my arm. ‘Thanks, Becky. You’re a good girl.’

  Chapter 6

  The bell over Fancypants’ door jangled about ten minutes before closing time.

  ‘Oh,’ I said when Lana walked in, decked out in her Egglethwaite Silver blazer. ‘Thought you were a customer.’

  ‘Who says I’m not?’

  ‘Looks like you’ve got your fancy dress sorted,’ I said, nodding to the maroon blazer with its gold epaulets. ‘Hey, I’ve got some flaming batons in the accessories section if you’re interested?’

  ‘Oi. Lay off the uniform.’ She dumped her trombone case and threw herself into the armchair by the changing rooms. ‘I get enough of that off Stew.’

  ‘Where’ve you been playing?’

  ‘Outside the castle. Bit of a busk for market day.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yeah. Roger’s been working us extra hard lately, putting collecting tins for the Temp out at every gig. I’m jiggered.’

  ‘Did you make much?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not enough to turn the tide. Still, every little helps.’

  I nodded to the trombone case. ‘Can I have a go?’

  ‘Help yourself.’

  She smirked as I opened the case.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing. I should just warn you, it’s harder than it looks.’

  I put the instrument to my lips and blew into it, puffing out my cheeks. Lana laughed as a slightly amplified version of my own breath emerged.

  ‘Here, try it like this.’

  She demonstrated the right technique, poking the tip of her tongue between her lips then withdrawing it sharply.

  I tried to imitate her, punching a breath into the trombone, and a fat, flatulent rasp filled the air.

  I shot Lana a delighted grin. ‘I did it!’

  ‘Yeah, not bad for a first go,’ she said, smiling.

  I was well away now, marching around the shop, yanking the slidey bit about as I tooted. There was something incredibly satisfying about the cat-murdering din I was managing to conjure.

  ‘Ok, ok,’ Lana said, putting her fingers in her ears. ‘Stop, before your neighbours form a lynch mob.’

  Reluctantly I put the trombone away again, feeling strangely cleansed by my foray into the world of brass.

  ‘Here, brought something to show you.’ She reached into her handbag. ‘You got me all nostalgic in the meeting last night. Went home and dug this out.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, examining the small leather album she handed me.

  ‘It was my dad’s. Old photos of the Players. He kept pictures and press cuttings from every production.’

  I opened it at a photo of a handsome, dark-haired man in his 30s, wearing a blue uniform with gold trim. He had an arm each round a little girl and boy who I recognised as the young Lana and Tom.

  ‘He was Buttons that year,’ Lana said, smiling fondly. ‘Here.’ She took the album, flicked to the first photo and handed it back. ‘First panto the Players ever did. ’77, I think. Cast photo Dad cut out of the paper.’ Lana pointed to a pretty, if rather smug, young woman with Debbie Harry hair. She was in long leather boots and the shortest of principal-boy tunics, obviously very proud of her shapely legs. ‘Look familiar?’

  ‘Bloody hell! Yolanda?’

  ‘Yeah, before she got too old and they moved her into the good fairy parts.’ She pointed out some of the others. ‘My dad again, playing Simple Simon. He wasn’t long over from Italy then. Eric Spiggott as the dame – he was the last Player apart from Yo-yo, till he passed away last month. Principal girl, don’t know her name. She moved away for university, never came back.’

  ‘Who played the cow?’

  ‘Heh. He wasn’t a Player, but I know Rodge was in the back end. Always fun to remind him his greatest service to the village was the time he was a cow’s arse.’

  I gazed dreamily at the snapshot of the past. Everyone was grinning, standing in front of a giant beanstalk made of old curtains. They looked like they were having the time of their lives.

  ‘It’s a shame, isn’t it? Not just for the Temp, for the kids too. Me and Cam used to love the pantos.’ I looked up from the album. ‘You know, that big one I went to with Pip wasn’t a patch on the old Egglethwaite ones.’

  Lana laughed. ‘Now come on. I’m as loyal as the next villager, but we’re hardly competition for the £20-a-ticket jobs.’

  ‘I mean it. Ok, so they’ve got impressive sets and special effects. Couple of biggish names on the bill. But apart from that, it was a bit rubbish. Awful script, dire acting –’

  ‘It’s supposed to be dire, it’s panto.’

  ‘This was dire even by panto standards.’ I paused, trying to put my finger on just what’d been wrong. ‘It had no heart. It felt like the actors wanted to be somewhere else.’

  Lana cast an affectionate look at the photo of her dad and the other Players.

  ‘You could never’ve said that about ours, for all our shoddy beanstalks.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said, warming to my subject. ‘Ours had heart because the actors cared. The audience cared. We all cared, because it was for the Temp.’

  She smiled. ‘You really love that place, don’t you?’

  I grabbed her arm, my eyes kindling. ‘We can bring it back, Lana!’

  ‘What, us two?’ she said, frowning. ‘We don’t know anything about pantomimes.’

  ‘You didn’t know anything about viaducts but you got ours opened up, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, and it was a lot of hard work.’

  ‘Worth it?’

  She pulled her blazer sleeve back to look at her silver charm bracelet, fingering a tiny train dangling from one link.

  ‘Best thing I ever did,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Then let’s try it.’

  ‘But where do we even start?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Is there really nobody in the village with theatre experience?’

  Lana grimaced. ‘Oh God. I’m going to regret telling you this, but… yes. There is one person.’

  ***

  I rapped on the door a second time. There was no answer, but I could hear voices round the back so I knew there was someone in. Eventually I wandered round the side of the house to find them.

  I followed the chatter to an open garage. An old, bug-like Morris Minor in British racing green was parked inside, the kind with wood detailing round the wheel arches. A pair of legs stuck out of each side.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get spark plugs,’ the left-hand pair was saying.
/>
  ‘Because it doesn’t need a spark plug. Do you even know what a spark plug is?’

  ‘It’s… a plug,’ Deano said. ‘A sparky one.’

  ‘And yet he knows fifty ways to make pastry,’ muttered the voice I recognised as Magical Marcus.

  I tapped one of the legs and Marcus’s oil-smudged face appeared.

  ‘Oh. Becky. Hi again.’

  I nodded a greeting. ‘Great Awesome-o. Hey, did you know your car’s sprouting legs?’

  ‘Believe me when I say this is very much not my car.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m helping Deano work on it in exchange for storing my bike here.’

  He pointed to a motorbike resting against the wall.

  ‘That’s yours?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He smiled at my expression. ‘What?’

  ‘Magicians aren’t allowed to ride motorbikes.’

  ‘Well, the shop was fresh out of broomsticks.’ He raised his voice. ‘Deano! We’ve got a visitor.’

  Another oil-stained face, this time with a shock of bright scarlet hair on top, popped out. ‘Becky with the good hair. Heyup. To what do we owe this honour then?’

  ‘Came to ask you about something.’

  He got up. ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Well, Lana told me – sorry, Deano, I have to know. Why’re you doing up a Morris Minor?’

  He gave the car a fond pat. ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she? 1969 Traveller, a real classic.’

  I ran my eyes along the car’s humped, bulbous curves. ‘She’s certainly… in great condition. But why a Morris? Could you not’ve gone for something a bit more Greased Lightning?’

  ‘Trust me, this old girl can pussy wagon with the best of them.’ He trailed his fingers lovingly over the bonnet. ‘Can’t you, you sexy beast?’

  ‘So what was it you wanted?’ Marcus asked. ‘Something for Lana?’

  ‘No, something for me. She told me – Deano, can you stop stroking the car, please? It’s creepy.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, bestowing a last lingering look on his Morris. ‘Go on, Becks.’

  ‘Lana told me you once tried to stage an amateur production of HMS Pinafore at your catering college.’

  ‘That is 100% true.’

  ‘She said the entire cast and crew walked out.’