The Six

by Luca Veste

  Chris stopped dead in his tracks and I had to shush him as he made a noise like an excited animal. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Will you keep your voice down,’ I said, unable to keep the smile from my face. ‘Yes, I am. It’s time. We’ve just bought the house, we’re doing well financially . . . and I bloody love the bones of her, mate. Why should we wait any longer? It’s not like we’re getting any younger. We’ve been talking about it for a while, but I don’t think we were sure until the house went through.’

  ‘I can already see you with a kid,’ Chris said, holding back laughter. ‘Walking around with a papoose and a membership for Chester Zoo.’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that . . .’

  ‘I’m made up for you,’ Chris said, using the fingertips of his right hand to lift the flop of hair from his forehead. ‘I just don’t envy you telling Stuart I’m going to be your best man.’

  ‘Cocky, aren’t you?’ I replied, laughing openly now. ‘You’re so sure I’d pick you?’

  ‘What are you two gossips talking about?’

  We looked up as Stuart joined us. Chris glanced at me with a ridiculous grin on his face and motioned with his head. I sighed and told him what I’d just told Chris.

  ‘Well . . .?’ I said when I’d finished, expecting the usual lecture about never settling down from Stuart. He had always been opposed to any notion of getting older and doing mature things. ‘Tell me I’m wasting my life and I should have stayed single. Again.’

  Stuart hesitated, then smiled at me. ‘I think it’s great. About bloody time if you ask me.’

  I held onto Chris, as I pretended to almost faint. ‘Are you serious? The great Stuart Johnson, thinking marriage and kids is a good idea? I don’t believe it.’

  He gave me a playful shove and told me to shut up. ‘Listen, even I know we’re not as young as we once were. And besides . . . maybe I’ve been thinking about settling down myself. Finally.’

  We followed his gaze towards Michelle and both broke out into ahhs and oohs. He laughed and we went back to the cars still joking around.

  An hour or so later, after traversing along an inordinate number of country roads that could barely be called that, we finally arrived at the festival. It wasn’t until I was out of the car that I realised quite how in the middle of nowhere we appeared to be. We had driven past the odd farmhouse on the drive, but now it was a muddy field and acres of land all around us. We found a spot out of the way and pitched our tents as far away from anyone else as we could manage. Behind us, woodland stretched out for as far as we could see. Chris grinned at me the entire time we were setting up and he suddenly looked ten years younger. I wondered if we all did. Michelle and Stuart were snogging like teenagers, being goaded by Alexandra and Nicola.

  It was the way things had been, the way I hoped they always would be.

  ‘Why this?’ I said to Chris, as we both took a break and opened a can of lager for each of us. ‘I didn’t think you went in for all that nostalgia stuff?’

  ‘Look at us,’ Chris replied, swiping an arm to indicate the others. ‘This is our last chance, before you and Alexandra get married and start a family . . .’

  ‘Now you say it out loud . . .’ I said with smirk, but Chris waved me off.

  ‘We both know you can’t wait to get started. You’ll get married, have kids. Stuart will either wake up and realise Michelle is “the one” or go travelling again if he wasn’t being serious. Me and Nicola will carry on as normal. Getting older and older each day. I saw this event and thought it was a perfect way of drawing a chapter in our lives to a close. Make sense?’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said, knocking back a large glug from the can and noisily sighing with satisfaction. ‘Are you and Nicola going to be doing the same then?’

  ‘We’re already married,’ Chris replied, chuckling to himself. ‘You were there, remember?’

  ‘I meant having kids. I’m surprised you haven’t before now.’

  Chris placed his hand on the back of his neck and seemed to rub some life into it. ‘Well there’s the whole not being able to conceive thing, Matt . . .’

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ I said quickly, annoyed that I’d put my foot in it. I remembered when he’d told me that they couldn’t have kids. I didn’t think he’d ever been as low as he was at that point. ‘I meant, you could adopt or whatever. I think you’d make boss parents.’

  ‘So do I,’ Chris replied, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows? Right now, Nic is pretty focused on what we do have. We talk about it, but I don’t know. I’ll tell you what though – over twenty years we’ve been together and I would still do anything to make her happy. And she’d do the same for me.’

  Silence fell over us for a second before I shook it off. ‘Mate, who knew getting old would turn us into sappy gets? Let’s get drunk and stupid, like the old days.’

  Chris laughed hard and clunked his can against mine. ‘Agreed.’

  We were soon lost in the group and its madness.

  All six of us. Happy, laughing, shouting, telling stories. Remembering times when we were younger. The pacts we’d made, the drunken tales of woe, the shared experiences. They all fell out of us in a collective bout of togetherness.

  We were young again, for a final weekend.

  It was the six of us. Had been for as long as I could remember. What had started as friendship had become more than that for almost all of us.

  The darkness grew at night and we laughed, we drank, we sang. We enjoyed ourselves, as if it were the nineties again and we didn’t have a care in the world.

  And at night, when the silence fell, we didn’t feel any different.

  Three

  I looked at Alexandra and smiled. ‘Worth it?’

  ‘Worth it,’ she replied, stroking my arm and looking off towards the stage. The last band was playing and even though they looked like dots from where we were standing, it was still some sight.

  It was almost as if twenty years hadn’t passed for any of us. Earlier in the day, I’d looked around and it was like we were all eighteen again. Bouncing up and down, laughing and singing along to songs we didn’t always remember the words to. Making our own up, to cover the gaps.

  We were wringing every last moment of joy from the experience. We may have been in our mid-thirties, but we could have been kids again.

  Now, as the moon shone above us, and the music came to an end, it felt like we could do this forever.

  ‘What a weekend,’ Stuart said with the wide grin he always wore after drinking. His words weren’t slurred yet, but I didn’t think that would be far off. ‘So glad I came.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you are,’ I replied, catching Alexandra’s eyes as she linked her arm in mine. I nodded towards Michelle, who was staring with googly eyes towards Stuart. Alexandra giggled and covered her mouth. ‘Let’s get back. It’s a bit of a walk from here.’

  We walked in pairs into the darkness, the occasional fluorescent light above trying to guide our way. We’d pitched our tents on the very outskirts of the fields. Wanting to be as far from the younger attendees as possible.

  That was probably the only thing that had marked us out as part of the older campers that weekend, though. Most of the crowd the festival had been targeted at – like us, the thirty-odd-year-old contingent – had decided against camping. Those who seemed to just want to dance to music they vaguely remembered as toddlers had filled the campgrounds.

  ‘How many do you reckon we saw in the end?’ Alexandra said, resting her head against my upperarm as we trudged through the field.

  ‘Bands? I don’t know. Over three days, maybe twenty, thirty?’

  ‘Some of them looked proper old now. Still got the dance moves, but they’re all a bit slower these days.’

  ‘We’re all getting old,’ I said, drawing her arm closer to me with a squeeze. She responded with a playful punch to my arm.

  ‘Speak for yourself. I’ll still be going to festivals in my seventies. Dancing long
into the night.’

  I laughed softly, waiting for her to rest her head on me again. It was Sunday night. The end of a perfect weekend. Three days of drinking, singing, laughing and talking.

  ‘It’s like being back at uni,’ I said, watching Chris and Nicola walking ahead of us. Stuart and Michelle were behind us, doing what they seemed to have spent most of the weekend doing – slobbering over each other like love-struck teens. ‘Carefree, young enough to not worry about the consequences of anything, Not having to get up at a ridiculous time in the morning for work . . .’

  ‘Drinking too much, smoking too much . . .’

  ‘Yeah, those things too,’ I said, looking over my shoulder and smiling at Stuart and Michelle. They were clinging onto each other, pausing every few steps or so to kiss and grope each other. ‘Do you think those two will actually make a go of it this time?’

  Alexandra looked over her shoulder and then back at me. ‘It would be about time. It’s obvious they’re perfect for each other.’

  ‘And it’s not like we haven’t told them enough times.’

  They had been an on/off relationship for as long as I could remember. They never seemed to split acrimoniously – we never really knew if they were together or not. There were no arguments or cross words. No picking of sides. They were simply a couple one day and not the next.

  It seemed to work for them.

  ‘I suppose they’re not like them two,’ Alexandra said, meaning the couple ahead of us. Chris and Nicola. ‘They’re different, I guess. They found each other early enough to not allow any doubt to creep in.’

  I couldn’t disagree. I’d known Chris the longest of everyone, but even then I couldn’t really imagine a time when he’d been alone. Nicola had been on the scene almost as soon as I’d met Chris. And they fell into a relationship just as quickly. ‘What about us?’

  Alexandra stopped walking, reaching up to me and placing her arms around my neck. ‘It just took us a little longer than those two. That was all. And hopefully Stuart and Michelle will realise it like we did.’

  I smiled down at her and kissed her.

  ‘A perfect end, to a perfect weekend,’ Alexandra said, her smile shining in the moonlight.

  ‘Not going to get any disagreement from me.’

  It was past midnight by the time we all reached the tents we’d called home for the past three days. The nearest neighbours were a good distance away, but we could still hear soft music beating from that direction. Raised laughter every now and again. It wasn’t loud enough to bother us. On the other side of the tents was the woodland that encircled the entire area. A mass of fields in the middle of a seemingly unending forest. We’d taken advantage of the cover the trees afforded us, meaning we didn’t have to go searching for Portaloos every few minutes. Late at night, it hadn’t been as much fun, but I’d used the torch on my phone and not gone far past the tree line on the couple of occasions I’d had to relieve myself after the sun had gone down.

  The first night, Stuart had attempted to tell us a ghost story that involved the woods. One of those old urban myths we’d all heard before. He hadn’t got through much of it, before our laughter at his awful storytelling ability became too overwhelming.

  Still, bad stories aside, I hadn’t wanted to go much further into the woodland than was necessary. They gave me the creeps even in the daytime. Too many trees, too many hiding places.

  Chris was already digging into his stash of food as we joined them. He threw me a bag of crisps that I caught with both hands, almost too hard. I passed them to Alexandra and grabbed another myself. Sat down in the fold-up chairs we’d brought along with us.

  ‘Nothing’s been nicked,’ Chris said, his familiar refrain every time we’d arrived back at camp. ‘Successful weekend in that respect.’

  ‘I told you there was nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Yeah, well I wasn’t sure,’ Chris replied, reaching the end of his crisp packet and pouring the crumbs into his upturned mouth. ‘You hear all kinds about these things now.’

  ‘It’s not that long since we’ve been to a festival,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘You’re making it sound like we’re in our fifties and reminiscing about Glastonbury or whatever.’

  ‘I’ll be glad of my own bed,’ Nicola said, sitting on the grass near Chris’s feet and resting her head against his knees. ‘That’s something that’s definitely changed since we were last on one of these. I can’t deal with the lack of memory foam like I used to.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I replied, stretching my arm out over my head. ‘Back has been aching all day.’

  ‘Didn’t seem to bother you when you were bouncing up and down this afternoon,’ Alexandra said, laughing as she reached for a can of beer and opened it. ‘We’re not as old as you think. Stop making out like we are.’

  ‘I agree, Alexandra,’ Chris said, deadpan as usual. ‘You’re only as old as you allow yourself to feel. I think I could still keep up with the eighteen-year-old Chris. Probably outdo him as well.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ve always been a slow drinker,’ I said, avoiding the kick from Chris I had expected. It was nowhere near me and Nicola giggled in response.

  I opened my mouth to say something when it was snapped close by a noise from behind us. Back the way we’d walked.

  ‘I knew it had been too good to be true,’ Chris said quietly, sighing around every syllable it seemed. ‘Always got to be a kick-off at a festival. No one can just come to these things and have a good time anymore . . .’

  ‘Shush,’ I replied, standing up and looking back out into the darkness. I was trying to work out what we were hearing. Raised voices, low and high. They were travelling from a good hundred or two hundred yards away, but we could hear them over our neighbours’ music. ‘I think it’s them two.’

  ‘Stuart and Michelle?’ Chris said, getting to his feet and standing next to me. ‘Surely not. I’ve never heard them say a bad word to each other. It’ll be one of that lot from over there, pissed or something.’

  Chris pointed towards tents in the distance, but I didn’t think he was right. I could hear Stuart’s voice, his Manchester accent drifting our way. I looked at Alexandra and smiled. ‘Maybe one of them made the mistake of trying to propose or something.’

  She didn’t smile back at me. Instead her brow furrowed, as she lifted herself up to her feet and stepped forwards. ‘It’s getting worse.’

  I turned back in the direction of the raised voices and could hear them more clearly now. I was sure it was Stuart and Michelle now – I could hear them distinctly, shouting, arguing. All the time getting closer and closer back to camp.

  ‘Shall we pick sides now, or wait to hear what it is they’re screaming about?’

  Alexandra aimed a playful punch towards my shoulder, but missed purposively, it seemed. ‘It could be serious.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Chris said, taking a couple of steps forward and then turning back to us. ‘It’ll be something stupid, no doubt. Matt, come on, let’s go get Stuart and calm them down.’

  I hesitated, looking at Alexandra who gave nothing away. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders, following Chris.

  Four

  I wasn’t even sure what the argument was about at first.

  It became clear soon enough.

  Stuart and Michelle had appeared from the darkness, with no effort to disguise the fact they were in the midst of a major row. Now everyone was involved – for a reason I could only assume had more to do with alcohol than strident beliefs.

  ‘I thought we weren’t going to pick sides?’ I said, not for the first time, as Nicola made another jab towards Stuart. ‘It’s not our fight to have.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you haven’t been the one to pick up the pieces when he buggers off and leaves Michelle on her own again.’

  Nicola stared at me after she spoke, almost daring me to argue with her. She may have been the smallest in the group – just over five feet tall, but solid-looking all the same – and
I had always avoided any type of confrontation with her. Instead, I sighed and looked towards Alexandra for help, but realised she was trying hard not to be drawn in.

  ‘Why don’t we just chill out and have a drink,’ Chris said, his voice still unwavering. He was always the one who tried to calm things down, but I didn’t think he would succeed this time. ‘Let’s not spoil the weekend with a disagreement. We can talk about it another time.’

  ‘No, Chris,’ Michelle said, arms folded across her chest, swaying slightly as if an invisible breeze was moving her. ‘A drink isn’t going to help the situation. All I said was that maybe it was time he grew up and made some final decisions.’

  Michelle pointed an accusatory finger towards a silent Stuart, who was edging away from the group with every passing second. He didn’t look as surprised by her outburst as the rest of us, but seemingly didn’t want to stick around to find out what the result of it was going to be.

  ‘You’ve been all over me for days, now you’re just going to run away again?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant . . .’ Stuart said, but even I could see the lie from a mile away in the dark.

  ‘Not what you meant?’ Michelle replied, her voice louder and mocking now. Desperately trying to hide the hurt too, I imagined. I wanted to pick Stuart up and throw him as far as I could at that moment.

  Idiot.

  ‘How about you go now and leave us alone? It’s not like you don’t lift out easy enough. Last in, first out. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you’re afraid of? You’ve always wanted to finish things with me for good, but you don’t have the balls to do it because you know what’ll happen if you do. Everyone in this group will choose me over you.’

  Stuart laughed humourlessly, but when he looked at the rest of us, he stopped. At Chris, who averted his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest. Easy to read, as he always was.