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She looked at the floor again, and smiled. “Really, anything?”
“Of course,” I said, but now I felt unease creeping in. I knew that smile, and when she looked up, her eyes glinted with mischief.
“So you’ll come to the pub and do karaoke with me tonight, then?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“You did say anything,” she said as we walked through the door of the pub.
I was saved from replying by a cry of welcome from what appeared to be half of the village’s inhabitants. I recognised a handful of women from the choir sitting at a big round table with their husbands, and waved. Meanwhile, Petra had been dragged almost bodily to a booth, in which I recognised some of the teachers from the school. Her face was positively throwing out sunbeams as she greeted them all. I awkwardly followed, standing to her side as she squeezed onto the edge of the bench on one side of the booth, pressed up against someone who I recognised as the music teacher Stella McBride.
“Room for one more?” I said, plastering a performance-mode grin on my face as they all looked up and clocked my presence.
“Everyone squeeze in,” Petra ordered, and after a hefty push I was perched on the edge of the other bench opposite Petra, next to Donna, one of the Year Three teachers. Immediately, however, we found ourselves getting up to let out one of the guys. He pulled himself to his feet with a groan.
“One of these days, they’ll invent a magic pill that stops you from needing the toilet every five minutes when you’re drinking,” he grumbled.
“Oh, you mean an anti-piss-tamine?” Petra’s comedic timing was spot-on. They all roared at her joke, and quite a few people looked over as we climbed back into the booth. I, however, chose to remain standing, because I knew Petra, and I knew she was about to offer to get a round in.
“So, what’s everyone drinking?” Petra said, right on cue, and there was a clamour of voices. She held up a hand, and they all shut up, as if she was their headteacher and they were the schoolchildren. In that moment, she was so like Victoria that my heart nearly stopped. “One at a time. Donna? We’ll go around the table from you.”
Once everyone had said what they wanted, Petra typed it into her phone and handed it to me. “You don’t mind going, do you, Jean? Use my card; it’s in the wallet.”
“Of course,” I murmured, taking the phone from her and heading for the bar. The total made me wince – but the money was coming from Petra’s own account, not our joint one, so I couldn’t complain. I shoved her phone in my back pocket and was soon wading back through the crowds with a loaded tray. As I approached, all of them, including Petra, were guffawing at something. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as, for one horrible moment, my mind supplied me with the suggestion that they were laughing at me and my barely-balanced load.
“Jean, Jean, do you fancy singing The Birdie Song with me? Donna suggested it,” Petra said over the top of everyone’s laughter once she spotted me.
“But that song’s got no vocals,” I said with a frown.
“I know, that’s why we’ve all told her she’s an idiot!” The whole table, including Donna, burst into laughter again, and I laughed along, even though I really didn’t find it funny. The number of empty glasses on the table caused me to do an internal eyebrow raise – that would explain it.
“No, seriously, what song do you want to do?” Petra leaned forward and looked at me. “I’ll go and sign us up now.”
Now the whole table was staring at me expectantly, and I held my hands up in surrender.
“Surprise me,” I said, to a cheer from the rest of them. Petra leapt to her feet. “Just make sure it’s something that we’ve sung before, okay?” I added to her departing back, and just about heard her reply in the affirmative over the hubbub.
“We’re doing a group number.” One of the other teachers leaned over to address me. “Turn On The Radio by Eulalia Gray. Will you join?”
I quickly counted the people. Seven people, not including Petra and I. Between them, they’d murder the iconic vocals of the legendary Kiwi singer-songwriter with their Cornish accents. I held Eulalia in such a high regard that my insides cringed quite without any conscious input from me, and it was all I could do to shake my head with a polite smile.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Do you have any idea when we’re singing?” I asked when Petra came back.
“No idea, but the list looked quite long. They’re just starting up now. Cheers!” She clinked her wine glass against mine, but I couldn’t seem to drink more than a sip, instead toying with the stem nervously. I’d intended to order a beer, but at the last minute had gone for the same pink Moscato as Petra for appearance’s sake. It was after all the ultra-traditional Veronica on duty, who’d once berated Petra and I for too many public displays of affection in her pub.
“Veronica, why should we give the smallest of fucks what you think of us when we don’t think of you at all?” Petra had said, sweeping out, and from then on it had been war between her and the pub landlady. But in time, Petra had gained power in the village, as deputy head, thus getting most of the villagers on her side. Veronica had subsequently tamed her vitriol to a few penetrating stares, plus a tone dripping with derision, and had stopped chucking us out of the pub.
The School Squad (as they’d named themselves on the karaoke list, I learned) quickly reabsorbed Petra back into their conversation, and I heard her enthusiastically agreeing to join their rendition of the Eulalia classic. I remained on the outskirts as usual, trying to keep up with their jargon and the conversation pinging back and forth between the eight participants, but it was a futile effort and I felt my eyes begin to glaze over. Meanwhile, the karaoke was in full swing as various villagers (and a handful of tourists, early for the Whitsun week) began to howl their way through the old upbeat classics.
After a while, I gave up and surveyed the room instead. At a little table by the door, I noticed Cass and her girlfriend Felicia Wilson. They seemed to have been waiting for me to notice them, because their faces lit up when I spotted them and they waved me over with big smiles on their faces. I felt a matching grin spread across mine as I made my way over to our fellow Sapphic couple.
“Hello, strangers! Hello, soloist!” I made sure my tone was bright and sparkly – which wasn’t that difficult, as I truly liked and admired the two women. Especially knowing what I now knew about Felicia. I’d researched Dissociative Identity Disorder, and I knew that Felicia’s life – and the lives of all of the alters – was significantly more complicated than someone without DID.
“Hello, choir leader!” Felicia matched my chirpy tone. She got up. “Have a seat. You looked like you were barely hanging on by one bum-cheek back there.”
