Chapter 16

‘What’s it to be then – Kinky Watermelon or Electric Moonfruit?’

‘Got to be the Moonfruit.’  Melvyn Corns, alias Melba Most, insisted, refraining from the predictable temptation to pun about how kinky he could get with a watermelon. He saved such cheap-jack innuendoes for on stage.  ‘I’m in a cerise mood today, darling.’

‘Right you are.’

‘Why do eyeshadow colours have such pretentious names anyway?’ he asked of Jasmine, the beautician.

Meanwhile her assistant, Kerry, tottered in with a silver tray bearing champagne and two crystal flutes.

‘Aw, you shouldn’t have!’   A cliché borne of twin reactions, both influenced by Mel’s upbringing: embarrassment and self-indulgent glee.  These moments were precisely what he aspired to during his working-class-made-good, single-parent, all-it-needed-was-a-whippet-to-make-the-stereotype-complete childhood.

‘Well it’s not every day we get a glamorous superstar in.’

Bless her, she’s trembling!  ‘I’m hardly that, Kerry.’  His laugh was as full-blooded as port; his Black Country accent throaty.  He handed a flute to the lady being buffed with blusher next to him, and they chinked. ‘Cheers Mom – get that down yer Gregory!’

‘Cheers son!  And I think you ought to try that peachier blusher this time. Makes you look less, well…tarty.’  (Such discourse – with a son being smeared with eyeshadow, who wore a scarlet ballgown beneath his beauty salon cape, and who had a vast bouffant wig awaiting him on a polystyrene bust – was not extraordinary for Gloria.)

‘You could be right,’ Mel conceded, contemplating the rainbow of hues in Jasmine’s palette.

He adored treating Gloria to these stays at Swinley Grange – attempted recompense for a lifetime’s unflagging love and encouragement. 

They had been a tight unit since the passing, when Mel was nine, of his father Ernie.  Years later, it was his mother who coined the ‘Melba Most’ stage name; she who – despite being dead-beat from her shift at the Teddy Gray factory – would stop up all night sewing sequins on to costumes for local pub cabaret ‘nites;’ she who was on the front row the night he won The Big Big Talent Show; she who cheered him through Royal Varieties and chat show interviews.

The pair were favoured patrons at Swinley Grange, the upmarket health spa which occupied a converted Tudor manor house on the affluent western side of Wolverhampton.

Gloria’s flat was smaller than the sublime Viscount Suite, which comprised their accommodation.  These opulent quarters – which had slept many a celebrity (and many an aristocrat in the place’s former incarnation) – consisted of a lounge with a settee, a dining table and a TV the size of Birmingham, two four-postered bedrooms, two bathrooms, three balconies, and even a private sauna, all radiating off one another in a continuous crescent.

Mel’s unlocking of the suite front door and ushering of his mother up their private, penthouse-style staircase never failed to elicit her ‘Ooh, our Mel, a normal room woulda done’ protests.

‘We went without for so many years, Mom,’ he would always justify, ‘now I fully intend to relish going with.’

As ‘Melba,’ he was a frequent stand-up performer in the Terrace Suite, the function room which overlooked Swinley’s geometric Victorian gardens.  Laminated posters were spattered about the spa shouting ‘SWINLEY GRANGE PRESENTS ITS UNFORGETTABLE HEN NIGHT CABARET – STARRING THE UK’S TOP DRAG QUEEN MELBA MOST AND THE ITALIAN STALLIONS!!!’

‘Robyn’s gunna be popping in later.’  Gloria’s voice was slightly gagged as Kerry was daubing her lips with Immoral Coral.  ‘You know – my friend from the flower shop.  Her and some pals are on a hen weekend.  I said they could, son, hope you don’t mind.’

‘No probs.’

‘Young Robyn said it would be the cherry on their cake if they could meet the star turn!  They were all getting seaweed wraps, then she’ll phone me mobile when they’re ready.  Your neighbour’s with them, apparently – Heidi, or summat – her what was engaged to Ronnie Poole’s lad.’

‘Oh, the girl with even phonier female body parts than mine!  They’re welcome, providing I’m not on the phone to Ell at that time.  Haven’t heard, have we? 

Wonder if he’s used any lifelines yet?’

Someone else was phoning a friend that early evening.

‘Emily?’

‘Dom?’  Emily crammed the mobile to her ear to mute the kitchen din.  His voice was so sheepish and quiet.  As well it might be, she thought, and instinctively stood up straight as though even on the phone her body language would emphasise her new-found grit.  ‘Well hello stranger.  Are you back from wherever you went to find yourself?’

He flinched at her cutting tone, though it didn’t shock him in the circumstances.  ‘I am indeed home.  After an awful lot of soul-searching.  Ems, I am, so, so sorry – ’
‘I’m going on my break now, Sylv, OK?’  Emily exercised her right to recess and shot out of the kitchen before anyone could shove a serving dish her way.  The car park was so cool and expansive, seeming to signify her liberty.  ‘Look, I can’t talk long, I’m at work, but an explanation for your absence would be very much appreciated.’

‘Quite, quite.  I do have a lot to say.  Face to face would be preferable, though.  Can I pick you up from Alveley Manor, what time do you finish?’

‘Six, but I’ll go home first, and change.  I’d rather not come in my waitress garb, stinking of roast spuds.’  She spat out a little laugh at herself.  ‘I guess it’s force of habit, this need to spruce myself up for you.  What you actually deserve is me turning up blobbed with gravy and saying like me or lump me!’

‘You’re so right.  Fetching you from home might not be the wisest idea, though – your parents – ’

‘I’ll wait outside.  End of the drive.  Will seven o’clock do you?’

‘Seven it is.’

‘I can’t go anywhere pricey, though.’

‘No, no, I’d prefer an evening in.  At the flat.’

‘Ooh, the flat!  Bruce away again?’

‘Mmm.  I’d like to chat in private.  We can get a takeaway – either stop at the Chinese en route or ring out for something.’

‘This won’t be a sleepover, though, Dominic.  If you’re expecting to seduce me on your futon, think again!’

Dom, to be fair, was neither obtuse nor randy enough to expect that.  ‘I’ll behave myself.’

‘I’ve got your birthday present at home, would you believe – bought it ages ago, as I told you, but of course you weren’t around to receive it on the day.  You might as well have it.’

‘You humble me.’  His voice sounded thick.

Emily remained unsentimental.  ‘Well I’ve no use for it.  I’m going back to Singapore, you know.  In four weeks.  Got a work placement first, with a law firm.  Then going to stop at Kris and Chantal’s for a week, then I’m flying down to Indonesia, then finally I’m going to make it to New Zealand and Oz.  Pointless wasting these last four months of my gap year.  So you won’t be seeing me much, I’m afraid.’

It was the Friday following the fete.  Standing on that cricket pitch, surrounded by catfighting ex-spouses and line dancers, had somehow hardened Emily’s resolve to take Robyn’s recommendation and leave the country.

Heidi had taken advantage of the Passey distraction to correct herself and pick up the dance relatively unheeded.  Rowan, in his no man’s land standpoint, looked all concerned at the girl.  Emily shifted away before the vicar could start jabbering on about how ‘plucky’ Heidi was.  Everything was grating on her, saying ‘Get out of here, get out.’  She’d booked flights straight after the bank holiday.

Dom, eyes shut, with the cold phone against his face, knew he’d lost her now.  Therefore his planned confession of truth could impair him no further in her eyes.  Or was it pointless?  Since their relationship was unlikely to recommence, was she best left in ignorance of the entire facts?

He’d just told her he had a lot to say, so he owed her some kind of account – but perhaps an abridged one would suffice?

Mel, meanwhile, was enthralling sixteen girls in pussy cat ears with scandalous anecdotes backstage at Swinley Grange.  He’d summoned a tray of champagne for them all.  Zara, for whom a whiff of the cork was enough, was already repeating herself, crooning ‘Thank you shoo musch Mel – you’ve really made my hen night!’

‘You’re welcome, doll.  Now I was telling you about the time I got stuck…ooh, hello.’
A burst of Singin’ in the Rain from his bodice flummoxed the girls for a second.  Mel rooted out his mobile, looking gleeful at the undisclosed number.  ‘Bet this’ll be Ell! 

’Scuse me ladies.’  He floated off into an alcove, his red gown fanning behind him.

‘Who’s L?’

‘The vicar, Heid,’ Robyn answered.

‘Oh him.’  Heidi bolted her champagne as though to wipe her memory of Ellery. 

‘He’s filming Who Wants to be a Millionaire today – Mel’s one of his phone-a-friends.’

‘Best of pals they was at school,’ Gloria reminisced, ‘used to be known as Mel and Ell.  Who’d a-thought they’d finish up in such different careers?’

‘Oh, I don’t know that they’re so very different,’ Robyn muttered drily.

‘Hello. Mel?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Mel, it’s Chris Tarrant here from ITV1’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  How the devil are you?’

‘Glorious, thank you, Chris.’

‘Now I expect you know why I’m calling.  I’ve got a certain reverend here, a certain Ellery, and he’s doing rather well actually.  He’s up to £50,000 but this next question has rather stumped him.  It’s worth £75,000 and if he gets this one wrong we may well hear a spot of unholy language here in the studio.  Now the next voice you hear will be Ellery’s.  He’ll give you the question and a choice of four possible answers.  Ellery, thirty seconds.  Your time starts now…’

‘Hello Mel.  The physician Franciscus Sylvius is credited with the creation of which alcoholic beverage – A: Tequila, B: Gin, C: Advocaat, or D: Lager?’

‘You picked the right person, Ells,’ Mel chuckled raucously, ‘it’s gin – hundred per cent on that one.’

‘Mel, you’re an absolute star.  If you’re right, I’ll buy you a vat of the stuff.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.  Good luck!  That mate of mine is one rich rev now, girls,’ Mel jubilated, hanging up.  Gloria glowed at her knowledgeable son.  ‘I knew being an old soak would come in handy one day!  Cheers!’

Ellery Crisp won his £75,000, thanks to Mel and his knowledge of gin history.  Devoid of lifelines, he elected not to play the £150,000 question, which was rugby-related.  He left the studios an ecstatic man.