We had booked the gîte for two weeks – it was at the end of a dirt track up a valley. The barn had been made into four large family rooms; breakfast was in the farm house. “Both our parents were sheep and goat farmers, but stuff that. We converted the buildings and opened a gîte for guests. We’re doing OK.”
And so were we. We went for long walks up the valley and over the hills. We did some performances, not many, not more than one a day, in little places like Vidauban, Collioure and La Garde Freinet, not the big places on the coast.
I was walking up the valley with Jolly and Jollity, when the two of them stopped and sat on a dry stone wall. A wonderful view down the valley, but that is not why they stopped, they asked me if I would.
It was a strange request, but not totally unexpected. I knew that I had not joined 9gals! because of my stupendous dancing and singing, but because I could be a mother to them. I had figured that out; I also knew why Jollity had parted from her brother.
Jollity had done all the song writing, she had played the lead guitar and she had done all the singing. What had he done? Nothing, just playing about on the stage moving his lips and of course taking all the credit.
I knew that Jolly had very little experience of life, just three years; but Jollity had had several boyfriends, but “No girlfriends!” I of course made no objections, I just agreed. I helped with the foreplay. It was good.
But I hadn’t expected what came next: Eloise and Harlequin, the two extroverts, the two heaviest singers, asked me if I would.