The End!

‘Where is Justine?’  Chantal shuffled up and down outside St Michael’s Church, nestling against Kris and burrowing her other gloved hand in the pocket of her black faux fur jacket.  She was chicly clad in the new coat, over a slimming black skirt and a figure-hugging, distinctly Charlotte-ish red jumper, which also had Christmassy fluff encircling the low neckline.  They weren’t items of attire she was exactly used to wearing in the humid land she’d called home for almost a year now.  ‘I’m froze!’

‘Oh, hark at Miss Singapore,’ Faith laughed.  ‘A year’s escape from the British weather’s turned Aunty Chantal into a big wimpy-woo, hasn’t it, poppet?’  She jiggled the swaddled baby in her arms.  ‘And everyone knows Aunty Justine’s always late, isn’t she?’  Faith’s delightful little daughter, whose curly hair was jet dark like her mommy’s, gloried in the name Dido Hermione Oliver – the name with which she was today to be christened.

‘Justine’s so busy at the moment,’ Faith continued, ‘with this new show of hers.  She’s hot footing it here direct from the set of the Christmas special!’

‘We are privileged indeed!’  Chantal giggled with affection for their zany friend.  ‘Joking apart, though, it’s ace that she’s doing so well.  Can you believe it?  She posts me DVDs of The Buzz, you know, by airmail – it’s a hoot!’

A happy gurgle from Dido brought their attention back, reminding the girls why they were there.  She was currently fascinated with her Aunty Chantal’s coat; her one chubby hand was raptly playing with the fur.

‘She thinks you’re Elmo,’ Faith laughed, referring to the Sesame Street cutie who was covered in red down of a similar texture.

‘She’s such a little darling, isn’t she?  I can’t believe how she’s grown.’  Chantal curled the child’s small, perfect fingers around her forefinger.  She had seen her tiny goddaughter just once, when the band took some time off in early summer and she’d flown home for a bit of catching-up-with-friends-and-family time.  Dido had been but weeks old then; now, she was blossoming into a little person, with a personality.

‘I don’t know where the time goes myself,’ Faith confided, cuddling her chuckling daughter proudly.  ‘Seems like five minutes since I had her – can’t believe she’s eight months already.’

Faith had warmed to her biggest role to date – as Dido’s devoted Mommy – with an aplomb that would have amazed the shallow crowd she used to go around with.  It suited her.  Today, she was looking maternal and ethereal, yet sexy, in a clinging long velvet dress in gorgeous gothic purple.  It had Morticia Addams sleeves, a flowing skirt, and its bodice accentuated her motherhood-swollen breasts. 

Chantal too was looking stunning.  A year living in an exotic climate with the man she loved, doing the job she loved, had brought natural changes.  She was tanned, in love and much leaner, thanks to her energetic new schedule and membership of the exclusive gym at the Hyatt Hotel in Singapore’s Orchard Road district. 

Conveniently too, the Far Eastern humidity was an appetite suppressant.  Eating was such an effort in that heat, and with alcohol being rather scarce and pricey in the predominantly Muslim subcontinent, Chantal was inclined to consume little but water.  Thus, she lost weight and toned up: her cartoonish bust shrank to less lollopy, yet still voluptuous, proportions. 

‘I think you’ve gained the tits I lost,’ she commented on Faith’s distended melons.

It was almost Christmas.  Faith and Joe had selected this particular sunny, crisp Sunday afternoon for their baby’s christening because it was a rare window when the two godmothers were available.

Colonel K had some time off to spend Christmas with their families.  In the new year they were embarking on another residency, at a hotel on the Orchard Road – the main thoroughfare in Singapore.

The group had gone down a storm at the Hard Rock Café.  The young Singaporeans, ex-pats and well-heeled backpackers loved dancing to their wackily delivered covers of popular hits.

Chantal added an enthralling dimension to Colonel K’s look and sound.  She’d achieved what was once a girlish pipe dream, to duet with Kris on stage and off – and their voices attuned even better than in those dreams.  She did lots of backing vocals and took lead on her own additions to their set list – which included Sunday Girl by Blondie and These Boots Were Made for Walking by Nancy Sinatra.

The boys rigged her out in ‘feminine’ takes on their kooky costumes – including sixties dollybird minis and GI Jane combats.  That Chantal was willing to wear this livery outside of a fancy dress party was a measure of how far out of herself she had come.  That he managed to look a complete babe in it was another marvel.

She and the boys gelled like brothers and sister.  She was even more extrovert with them than she’d been with the girls – though possibly, in such a laddy milieu, it was a case of having to be.  They spoilt her, and couldn’t believe how different she was to the bashful, podgy girl who’d danced self-consciously along to them that New Year’s Eve.

Chantal also fell in love with hectic, muggy, pulsating Singapore: a blur of skyscrapers, temples, rickshaws and peculiar-looking trees that didn’t grow in England.  Everything was so vivaciously colourful over there, and there was a kind of spice in the air that thrilled her.

The place epitomised the whole ‘East meets West’ ambience that characterised so much of modern Asia.  One day, Chantal could be scoffing two-dollar noodles at a street-corner hawker stall; the next, she might partake of a genteel ‘high tea’ at the illustrious Raffles Hotel, or cocktails at the equally plush but trendier Westin Stamford: with seventy storeys, the tallest hotel in the world.

The band rented luxurious apartments, more spacious than the houses some of them were used to, in an ex-pat block just outside the main Singapore city.  The complex boasted charming grounds, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a free bus – driven by a chirpy little guy blessed with the Orientally monosyllabic name Ong – which conveyed residents into and out of the city every hour.

The gang, accustomed to living at home, had never known such freedom and opulence.  They spent their days by or in the pool, virtually passing out with bliss in Orchard Road’s planet-sized department stores (in Chantal’s case), or discovering the many landmarks crammed into this country that was but a dot on a world atlas.  Favourites included the Raffles, Singapore Zoo and the tranquil, microscopic island of Sentosa.

Not once did Chantal miss Sorrell & Genge, or Willenhall.  She did, however, miss enormously her parents, and Justine and Faith.  Ken and Shirley – who rarely voyaged beyond Brean Sands, on coach excursions – had this year jetted out for two wonderful fortnight’s breaks with their daughter, but the girls had as yet been unable to, due to their respective televisual and baby commitments, and Chantal longed terribly for their camaraderie.

‘Oh, Singapore’s the most amazing place, Faith.  You and Joe really must come.’

‘Yeah, maybe when Dido’s a bit older.  Perhaps we could have a second honeymoon – we’d certainly get a tad more sun than we did on our first one, picturesque though Scotland is.  Yeah,’ Faith smiled to herself, warming to the idea, ‘we’d have to leave Dido at home of course – not that she’d exactly have a shortage of willing grandparents to babysit her for a couple of weeks or so.’

‘It would be a scream if Just could come at the same time.  I’d be your tour guide, and All the Rage could take Singapore by storm!’

‘That would be bostin’, Chantal!’  A spark of the old ‘raver’ Faith lit her eyes.  ‘We’d have to fit in with her schedule, though.  Shall we synchronise diaries later?’

It was four months since Justine had made a pricey phone call to Chantal just after the close of her Retro Heaven tour.  The tour had proven a wicked success – not least because it had resolved Justine’s mind finally upon where her ambitions lay.  And they lay, after all her indecision, in presenting. 

Though she cherished every minute she was in Retro Heaven, Justine decided that nightly singing and routines were too monotonous and physical to her.

She liked change.  She liked people too, and interaction.

Her favourite aspects of the show – apart from reading her profile in the programme (‘Justine is from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, and is thrilled to be making her theatrical debut with this production…’), seeing her typically OTT billing as ‘Talent Scout’s own Justine Oliver,’ and the sheer wish-fulfilment of working ‘in the theatre’ – were the crowd responses and communication with people.

She’d adored running the Hare & Talent events, and her ‘Spice’ and ‘Take That’ co-stars often remarked upon her natural vivacity being perfect for television.  So she took a crack at some more auditions.  And the one which bore fruit was a completely Justine-ish job for ITV Central, fronting a new local interest show called The Buzz – its title derived from the Black Country pronunciation of ‘bus.’

‘I travel round the Black Country on a bus, interviewing people,’ she screeched down the phone at Chantal, as though she really had to shout for her voice to carry the entire six-thousand miles.

‘Congratulations mate!  How did you land a job like that, you cushy devil?’  Chantal sprawled into a chair on her apartment balcony with the cordless.  It was five PM – ten in the morning back home – and she was still bikini-clad, having just padded in from the pool to shower and change for the night’s stint at the Hard Rock.  Kris, Elvis and Max were still down there, having a laddish splash about.  Chantal grinned on the phone, with fondness for both her old life and her incredible new one.

‘You know I kept in touch with Todd Davies after Talent Scout?  Well he’s mates with one of the commissioning editors at Central telly – who happens to know Joe too, very incestuous this industry – and he put my name forward.’

‘Nothing going on between you and Todd, is there?  No juicy romance for the tabloids to get their gnashers into?’

‘Nah!’  Justine chortled huskily.  ‘Besides, most of the chaps I’ve met in telly bat for the other side – like Rory!  What a shock that turned out to be!  I’m still living in hope for a Beckham lookalike to seek me out.  Anyway, I went for a read-through, and they really like me!  They reckon I’m a “character.”’

‘Well you’re certainly that and no mistake.’

‘“A cross between Geri Halliwell and Su Pollard” is how the director described me.’  She sounded absurdly proud of this description.  ‘He said he wanted someone who’d add a touch of authentic Black Country flavour – like faggots and peas, I s’pose – ’

‘Or hot pork sandwiches!’

‘Black pudding!’

‘Pork scratchings!’

Justine howled at that.  ‘Oh ar!  The pork scratching of ITV, that’s what I’ll be!  I’m gunna love this – I can’t wait to start filming.  Just shows our Joe ain’t the only one with presenting skills.’ 

‘How’s Joe’s job going?’

‘Oh bostin’, bostin’.  He’s taken to fatherhood like the proverbial duck to water an’ all.  But then our Dido’s such a munchy little thing!  And how’s things with you?  I presume it’s show time soon – that’s why I thought I’d catch you now.  What you been doing today, jet-set queen?’

Chantal affected a pampered footballer’s wife drawl.  ‘Oh you know: a strenuous session in the gym, followed by a bit of swimming, bit of sunbathing…swimwear’s my uniform out here, you know!’

‘Such a hard life!  Well it’s pissing it down here in Wolves.  I might pop out for a paddle in the road in a minute.’

‘Quit yer grumbling, girl!  You’re the one whose going to be on the telly soon.’

‘So I am,’ Justine squeaked, as though that had only just dawned on her.  She was so unpretentious; her successes were such wonders to her.  She then went into a childlike chant: ‘I’m gunna be on the tell-ee, I’m gunna be on the tell-ee…’

Now, Justine was enjoying cult local renown with The Buzz. 

The programme was a low-budget wonder.  It was in essence a chat show – its gimmick being that Justine travelled to meet the West Midlands characters she interviewed, by means of a Centro bus.  En route, she nattered – and instigated the occasional sing-song – with any fellow passengers who took her interest.  She elicited extreme reactions in them: they tended to either think she was a scream or alight a stop too early to evade her. 

The regional media were already branding Justine Oliver ‘The nutter on The Buzz,’ and in fact the producers’ intent all along had been to create a televisual version of that infamous public transport oddball.

Justine seemed so made-for-TV, it was amazing that none of her previous auditions ever bore fruit.  She possessed a natural froth and affability that drew folk out of themselves.

She regularly Jiffy-bagged DVDs and press clippings – mainly penned by her old Express & Star pal Lance Cooper – off to Chantal, which brought hours of homesick hilarity to Kris and the lads.  They showed the episodes to some of the Singaporean friends they’d made.  The Black Country humour didn’t translate awfully well, but these friends found Justine captivating – in a bemusing kind of way. 

You truly are international, Chantal e-mailed Justine, you’ve got your own fan club out here.  Come to Singapore and you’ll be mobbed!

I got mobbed in Morrisons the other day, Justine mailed her back.  A gang of lads recognised me, made lots of ‘You’re that bird off the telly’ type catcalls.  It was ace!  Can’t go anywhere these days – I need to get myself a hunky bodyguard!!

‘D’you think we ought to go in now, babe?’ Joe asked attentively, taking his sweet daughter from his wife.  ‘Get the bab in the warm?’

‘Yeah, maybe you’re right.’  Faith beamed at him, feeling so blessed to be married to this solicitous soul.

‘Our Just’ll be along soon enough.  You know what she’s like.’

‘I’ve started doing the odd gig again,’ Faith told Chantal as they strolled into church.

‘Oh brill.’

‘Yeah, I took some maternity leave, but Kev kept me on his books, and he’s giving me the occasional wedding booking, like I used to do before I met you and Just.  I’m actually enjoying it more this time around.  One or two folks have recognised me from Talent Scout!  It might seem to you like I’m going backwards, seeing as the wedding singing was what I wanted to escape from in the first place, but it’s all I want to do at the moment.  I didn’t want to do anything for the first four or five months after Dido was born.’

‘Who can blame you, with such a cute little thing to keep you at home?’

‘I’ve no regrets – motherhood is amazing, and being in All the Rage was the catalyst that brought me to it.  Through being in that group, I had some cracking times, made lasting friendships – and also met Joe and had Dido!  Maybe when she’s older I’ll try and get some more gigs.’

‘Who looks after her when you’re out singing – Joe?’

‘No – Mom.  Joe usually comes with me – he’s got his Saturday nights free now, of course.’

‘I always thought our Chantal would be the homebody type, settling down early,’ Shirley confided in Audrey as they ambled into church behind the girls, in their M&S suits, ‘but now her’s jetting all over the world.  We’re that proud of the little wench, aren’t we Ken?’

The party were just inside the vestibule when a sudden waft of Olbas Oil proclaimed Justine’s arrival.

‘Sorry I’m late, folks,’ she flapped, managing to hug all her relatives and mates during her rapturous flight in, ‘I thought that director was never gunna let me go.  He went for twenty takes – I said: “Derek, don’t you realise how important this day is to me?  It’s not every day you get to be godmother to your gorgeous little niece.”  Oh give us a hold, our Joe,’ she crooned, relieving her brother of Dido, with whom she already shared a loving rapport – one child recognising another.

Wolverhampton Market no longer clad Justine Oliver, but her dress sense remained nonconformist.  The goblin green number she had on now was little larger than Dido’s pink christening dress.  Accompanying it was a velvet jacket threaded with beads and gold sequins, and her newly red hair (not auburn, but literally red – as in pillar-box) was braided with ribbons and tiny gold bells.  Goosepimples studded her tiny legs.  Faith affectionately remembered the day she first saw Justine, when she was similarly shivery in the market place, nearly two years ago.

‘How’s the world of telly?’ Chantal enquired.

‘Oh, it’s ace.  I’ve just heard we’ve got a second series an’ all!  We’ve got the Christmas spesh, of course, then a bit of a break, then I’m back on the buzz for series two!  Now there’s someone I’d like you to meet.  For a recent ep, I went to visit a new lookalike agency in Brum.’

The girls noticed properly for the first time the young blond chap who had loped in behind Justine.  He had bleached, trendy hair, a smart suit and a sweetly shy manner.  He also happened to be a dead ringer for David Beckham.

If a choir of clunks could be heard, it was the sound of bottom jaws hitting the aisle.

Bet he loves her tattoo, Chantal thought mischievously.

‘This,’ Justine’s face shone in the presence of this silent young god, ‘is Paul.’  She nuzzled up to him, as best she could with a baby in her tiny arms.  Her eyes were adoring.  So were Paul’s.  Clearly Justine had found her Mr Right.  ‘Never let it be said that I don’t take my research seriously!’