Chapter 3

I met Cate in the bar of the Hub restaurant at the Ramada. The smile of welcome as she saw me was flattering, as was the kiss she gave me. From what I had heard, air kissing either side of the cheek was 'de rigueur' for celebrities. Not so for Cate, her lips actually made contact with my cheek. "It's so good to see you Jack. I feel as if it has been a long time since we met in Devon."

"It's good to see you too, Cate." I replied. "How do you like Derby?"

"I haven't seen any of it. The car met me at Derby station and the next moment I was here. I could have walked it in five minutes. This whole area seems to be new."

"It has been derelict for years. Many years ago it was the Midland Railway steam locomotive works. Now it is all new development. The Derby County football stadium is just down the road."

"Ouch stadiums, thank God I am not playing that. I remember playing at Wembley once. I was support for a rock band that had three hits, played Wembley then vanished into obscurity. Their sound system was rubbish. You get echoes in a stadium and my last phrase was coming back to me as I sang the next. The group got confused and at one point I was singing with no accompaniment. What a night that was. Never again!"

I went to the bar and ordered some drinks, we sat down in the rather over-large club chairs and toasted each other. "Have you been busy since we met?" I asked Cate.

"So, so." She answered. "I have done gigs in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and then back down to Bristol, Reading and Guildford. Have you been busy?"

"Yes. Funnily I was up in Newcastle for a couple of days. Then I had a week in Belgium going through new product with the Mills I represent. During the summer months I am not so busy, come September I will have quite a lot of new designs to show as the manufacturers get ready for the Furniture Show."

A waiter came over and asked us if we would like to move into the dining room. It was the right time as the bar was becoming crowded and I could see people looking at Cate with querulous expressions. I knew what was going through their minds. Was she who they thought she could be? Alternatively, was it someone who looked like her a lot. Cate ignored the looks, I supposed she was used to it. We followed the waiter and he showed us to the table Cate had booked. We sat down and he placed a menu before each of us and hovered with the wine list before placing it in front of me. She then startled me. "It's the hair that does it. They are not sure. Getting my hair cut short was the best disguise I could have used." She looked at me accusingly. "But it didn't fool you."

"That's because I'm an Essex boy. Essex boys have got nous." I said putting on my Estuary English accent.

Smiling broadly Cate replied. "Well I'm an Essex Girl, and you know what they say about them?"

"A much undeserved reputation. Any way you aren't wearing white stilettos."

"I did when I started out. I must have looked a sight. All that long hair, make-up plastered on with Dusty Springfield eyes and white stilettos. Ugh!"

"You could sing though, and that made a difference. Dusty was fantastic and when you came along you had much that reminded people of Dusty."

"In what way?"

"It was the delivery. She sang and people would believe that she was singing with personal experience. However she had an aura of being untouchable and unavailable. You had that same delivery but you could have easily been the girl next door."

"Well in your case I was almost the girl next door."

"If you can ignore the sixteen miles between Southend and Upminster."

The waiter returned and I ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir. We were both having the Roast of beef.

"If you liked Dusty and Kat Lacey, you must have been into Rock at one time." Cate was delving.

"All I know of Dusty is video from her best years. What were we at that time, seventeen, or eighteen? If you wanted to find a girlfriend then you had to go where music was playing, so yes, I did listen a lot to Rock."

"Were you successful?" She smiled as she asked.

"Here and there, from time to time."

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Like most lads of the time I enjoyed the company of girls; unlike most lads how much I did and with whom I did it must remain confidential between the girl and me."

"If you didn't boast, you must have been even more successful. Girls like a guy who doesn't tell everyone what they got up to."

"Exactly."

"So where did your interest in Swing come from."

"As I said I heard a lot of Rock then, for the reasons I mentioned, but I didn't buy Rock music. I bought Classical. You know Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Beethoven. Stuff like that."