Sin Delicious

by Willow Sears

  If the field we land in is anything to go by then Sindee’s lovely ankle boots are going to get ruined and she knows it. Beyond this there are specially laid down matted walkways to keep to but she’s still rather unnecessarily on tiptoes, clinging to Cas for support. Her face tells him she isn’t pleased with under-hoof conditions.

  “Can you get these girls something a little more suitable to wear on their feet?” he says to the tour manager – a man who must produce rabbits from hats if asked. “Girls, tell him your sizes.”

  “Is it beyond the realms of possibility that these ladies could have brought along their own fucking suitable footwear?” replies the annoyed tour manager, who is no skivvy, but realises that properly overseeing band welfare keeps him in a job.

  “Well, you see the thing is, Max,” replies Cas, with a shrug and bit of a frown, “they haven’t.”

  We head for one of the drinks tents. Where else? The lamest thing for anyone to do in the backstage area is to act star-struck. This can be hard considering that only about ten per cent of all those there are actually band members, so a famous face still has you staring. Only VIPs are allowed to introduce themselves, or be introduced to you by someone else. Otherwise the accepted practise for the hangers-on is to stay away. So, although people stop in their tracks or nod and say “Hey,” when you’ve never seen them before in your life, we are able to move around unmolested, which is rare. If our same group walked ten paces into the main festival area we would be mobbed in seconds. This is a freedom to cherish.

  The air is warm verging on hot. There is a gathering of clouds above but nothing that might threaten rain. It will doubtless turn colder later but I was sensible enough to bring a pair of those sheer tights I got from Savage Store and they will look good under my very short leather shorts. They will do better than the lairy pink netted ones Sindee has chosen to wear beneath her mini. Hers are the type of stockings worn by a girl who wants to get fucked, which is why she already has them on. Up top is only a T-shirt but there are the band logo puffer jackets that live in the helicopter so we should be able to survive. Anything else I can buy – assuming someone’s got some English money on them. The warmth of contentment sinks through me. It is going to be a good day. To think that by rights I should be staring at Russell’s ugly mug right now, listening to his shit. With a click of the fingers I am here, chillaxing amongst the famous, free as a bird. I can go anywhere and enjoy this as I please, gratis. I left my camera at the chateau, which essentially means I’ve given myself the day off, and days like this make everything else worth it.

  The guys pull tables together and sit. Already a few faces are coming over with “long time, no see” opening gambits, swelling our group. Beers go down, people are relaxed and happy. There are famous bands here, not up there with my lot, but with stories to tell. However, what is instantly apparent – and is increasingly borne out throughout the day – is that all consider Thunderhed to be on a much higher plane, party-wise. Their reputation has other renowned caners in awe. It is only their tour tales that people want to hear, with wide-eyed wonder and envy. I have that special feeling: that I’m part of the most awesome thing happening on this planet right now.

  Eventually some gumboots are brought, in a polka dot that doesn’t particularly match anything I’m wearing. Someone should swing for this! At least I put mine on. Sindee just frowns at the clash of pink stocking and dotty footwear and sticks them under the table, presumably satisfied that she can get around the VIP area on her stiletto heels without sinking.

  “Anything else, Your Majesty?” says tour manager Max to Sindee, with lots of bitter sarcasm. She just smiles sweetly right back at him, not caring that he has just spent 45 minutes of his life procuring her something she will probably not bother with. I’m guessing that Max has already surmised that Sindee is not here just to make up the numbers. I wonder if the singer’s bandmates have worked this out yet. It is difficult to know if any of them will even care but Cas is still careful not to declare his hand. Any such rumours will quickly be flying out of here straight into the media area, to be printed as gossip for the morning papers. Honey won’t like that.

  Chatting with famous people is fun, although sometimes I play this game in my head of substituting all the names of famous people dropped into stories for the name Joe Schmoe, and these stories become far less spectacular. It is the test of a truly good tale. There must be some kind of mathematical formula for exponentially jazzing up anecdotes with the use of celebrities: insert X (where X is the name of a platinum-selling recording artist), into story Y (where Y is a vaguely entertaining tale about pissing out of hotel windows) to get Z (where Z is a gale of laughter and cries of “that dude is just crazy, man!”). Make X = Joe Schmoe and you will be lucky to raise a titter.

  I’m basking and I’m relaxed but I get the feeling that I’ve heard all this before. I now know that a certain famous diva has a tattoo on her left shoulder, and that throughout having it done she insisted that the brawny tattoo artist do his work whilst having his erect penis inside her. It’s a good story, but what am I meant to do with it? Somewhere beyond these drinks tents a bass-line is pumping and a crowd will be jumping. Others will be at stalls, or just mixing together, wearing happy smiles. Others might be queuing for one of the least pleasant toilet experiences of their life, but none of it will ever be forgotten. Out there is where I want to be. What’s more, I can do it because my face isn’t known to thousands of others, unlike most of the people I arrived here with, who are essentially marooned in this backstage area.

  Sindee is too interested in anything Cas has to say to notice whether I’m here or not, so I head to get a drink to take out front with me. It’s reasonably busy at the bar but two guys leave together and I find myself looking at a female. I remain looking at her because she is familiar, although I can’t place her at all. Because I’m staring she cannot help but look back at me, and having being caught staring, and because I’m way too bitchin’ nowadays to want to seem star-struck, I nonchalantly say hello, as if I might once have met her.

  “Hello,” she says back with a polite smile. Where the hell do I know her from?

  “I’m not famous,” I say. “Are you?”

  “A little,” she replies, “but no one here paid anything just to see me, and no one is wearing a T-shirt with my name on it. I’m thinking of changing my name to Abercrombie Andfitch just to make me feel more popular.”

  She is attractive, but not in a Sindee kind of way. She has a face that demands attention. It will be momentarily unconventionally pretty and then very quickly mesmerising. I’m in danger of staring.

  “You are unfamiliarly familiar,” I tell her. “That is, I’m sure I’ve seen your face before but I haven’t a buggering clue where.”

  She grins, so when I get my drink I don’t feel I need to rush away.

  “I knew a woman once,” she says, “who claimed that it was better for a lady to be only slightly known for the front of her head than very well known for the top of it.”

  Now my smile is a grin too.

  “Wise words indeed. My name is Willow,” I say, offering my hand (no Honey-ish secret sexy handshake this time, more’s the pity). “I’m the Official Fucktographer for the band Death in Venus, and I’m here entirely on false pretences, but don’t tell any of that lot over there.”

  “Official what? Isn’t that Cas Whatshisface?”

  “My job is to digitally record every time the girl with the pink hair has sex with anyone, so that she still knows she has done it after all the drink and drugs. And yes, her next target is indeed Cas Whatshisface but that’s a secret, so I’ll probably have to shoot you now.”

  “Oh God, don’t use a silver bullet – that’s one metal I’m slightly allergic to.”

  So it turns out that I have seen her before. Her name is Troianne and she is a folk/indy/whatever singer, but she was recently an actress and in a rather popular TV period drama (sponsored by Tampax?), which is why I didn’t recogni
se her out of her servant’s costume. She is better in the flesh, that’s for sure. We chat away for a while and then I tell her of my plan to escape the sterility of the VIP area and go and mix with the Great Unwashed for a while.

  “I’d love to join you but I’m doing my show at three,” she says. She’s on the acoustic stage. It’s just her with her guitar plus an accordionist. I wonder if she needs a guest head bang-ist to aid her performance.

  “Then I shall come and watch you,” I tell her.

  “In that case I shall dedicate a song to you. By coincidence I have one called That Girl There Photographs Shagging Rock Stars.”

  I’ve met plenty of new people on this tour but I haven’t met anyone I’ve so instantly liked as much as Troianne in, well, in I don’t know when. Actually I know exactly when: Elowen. So I see her show and she has an amazing voice. I feel very, very light. It is nice to be just part of the crowd, watching from the front. She’s not been gigging long and you can tell her ego hasn’t kicked in like it has for the guys I tour with. It is refreshing to see. If anything I feel more rock star than she does. Afterwards we chill and drink Pimms, and she is wide-eyed at all the VIPs on show. While she is gawping at one in particular I secretly bob around the bits of cucumber (memories!) and strawberry in my glass, fishing out a sodden green leaf, which I carefully place so that it is protruding from one nostril.

  “Have I got any mint in my teeth?” I say to her, baring said gnashers in her direction. She almost chokes on her own drink and I feel mini internal elation at having made her laugh so. Her face is very expressive. Almost every new word comes with a different facial nuance to help cement the meaning intended. It must be the actress in her. She seems vulnerable, however, for one who plies her trade performing for others. I think she is glad I am here. She turned up basically alone; a huge contrast to the entourage my lot turn up with. It was good to know that music can still be done simply if necessary. She is going to be a star, though – if the world knows what is good for it.

  There is a great atmosphere at this festival, generally nice and friendly. Some crowds don’t give the acts their full attention – a big contrast to metal gigs. There also seems to be a competition, particularly amongst the younger girls, to see who can be first to ingest their shorts via their arse crack. My new lady friend has an album in production and needs to get a band together to do more promotional gigs. I tell her I might know of a guitarist. I’m not sure why I think breaking up my band to offer her Ben O’Shea is a good idea, but it gives me an excuse to get her phone number – in case Ben wants to get in touch with her, obviously. Guilt comes with this little detail-gaining victory. The more I like her, the more I get this ridiculous niggling feeling that I need to get away.

  Sindee hasn’t particularly noted my absence. Our group has fragmented, now scattered around the various drinks and recreation tents, or possibly even watching one of the bands, although I knew there was no one here Cas particularly wanted to see. Sindee hadn’t missed me. She has surreptitiously found herself alone with Cas in the champagne bar, maintaining her pretence of being merely his pal, to keep the rumour mill at bay. I feel as good as I have done all tour. My arrival makes the two lovebirds draw away from each other, as if conscious that they are getting too close. You can see from the feral brightness in their eyes that they are hungry for each other. Sadly for them I’ve not seen a Shagging Tent on site.

  “I’m hungry,” Cas announces. “You girls want dinner?”

  Of course we do – although the word ‘dinner’ sounds a little optimistic for round here. I’m thinking it’s more likely to be noodles with tempura veg or a pork bap eaten off a plastic tray. Cas tells us to wait and I watch him go off to consult with Max the manager, who looks pissed off, with hands out almost pleadingly before going to his pocket to find his phone. Cas returns, a thin smile on that rugged face of his.

  “OK, ladies – let’s eat.”

  Ten minutes later he’s leading the two of us excitedly back to the muddy field and the mother ship. Sindee, who has left those wellies under the table, gives him a little sad face as she squelches on her first bit of field and he, like a knight in shining denim, actually picks her up and carries her giggling across it! I’m left to fend for myself, although I suppose I could always leap on his back. With the green and pleasant land of my birth zipping below us we soon find ourselves being choppered all the way back across the channel to the chateau, where the servants are there ready to take us straight through to the dining hall, our meal already being prepared. That’s right: I was set to scoff something greasy down in the middle of an English field but now, as if by magic, I find myself sitting in the grandest of Frankish surroundings. I breakfasted in Berlin, don’t forget. In theory we could still make it back to watch tonight’s headline act if we kept dinner down to three or four courses!

  There is no dressing in grand gowns this time – quite the opposite. I only just had time to don my sexy new tights before we boarded our whirlybird carriage here. On the wall facing is a huge landscape by the artist Corot – who has always sounded a bit too vegetably for my liking but is nonetheless considered a grandmaster – and I’m sat here at this splendid table in leather shorts and electric blue tights and accompanying gumboots. I’m feeling at home, and when the place in question cost a gazillion French francs to erect, that is a very good feeling to have.

  “Where were you this afternoon?” Sindee asks me as we slurp on vichyssoise.

  “I was with a new lady friend,” I reply, not meeting her eye. The reminder of Troianne gives me a pleasant little shiver.

  “Did you fuckulate with her?” she says. She is always making up words like this. She once called Russell a ‘cocktopus’, which thankfully he took as an insult and got annoyed.

  “No I did not.”

  “Why not?”

  I slurp my soup extra loud by way of answer, because I cannot think of any other. Cas gets up and walks the three quarters of a mile down the table to refresh my glass, since it was he who sent the hovering servants away. I catch his warming smell as he leans across me. He is placed at one end and she at the other, with me somewhere in the middle, feeling a little like a tennis umpire as they fire sexy looks back and forth at each other. I should feel more like a gooseberry but I don’t. Cas seems to know that I am part of the Sindee package and shows no sign of minding it. He could easily have left me stranded at the festival but he made sure I was not. I doubt Sindee would have shown such effort, not now she has her shagging spectacles on.

  It is another of those brilliant times and it has to be said it is all down to Cas. What other instance in my life will compare to this? What could match such spontaneity mixed with fabulous extravagance? We are treating this place as our own and yet that painting on the wall is going to cost more than any house I ever buy. I could steal it and some guy from the record company would simply shrug and add it to the Thunderhed bill. That is how surreal all this is. It doesn’t feel like anyone is paying for it. It seems like this is just how life is. The next course arrives, and is it sliced pig in a bread roll avec stuffing? Of course it effing isn’t. It’s a most delicious ragout of seafood. The new wine to accompany it is only a ‘99 – a mere stripling, but is so golden as to be almost suspicious. Naturally it smells and tastes divine. The label says Bâtard-Montrachet in italic script. Lord knows what Honey would have made of that name. More Bastard Montray-chit, sweetie?

  I think that’s what I like about Cas: he isn’t Neanderthal for the sake of it. That’s why I don’t feel wary around him even though he is the biggest, meanest scrapper of the lot. Beneath that rocker exterior there are hints of a gentleman trying to come out. I feel safe when he is around. I know things have gone too far to stop now. No one is present to prevent Cas and Sindee ending up in bed together tonight, but I don’t feel anxious. There are nerves but they are from anticipation. One simply cannot feel any different in this atmosphere, with all this specialness going on around them. I separate the weird orange to
ngue bit from the white body of my plump scallops.

  “Anyone want my corals?” I ask, holding one up on a fork. “I don’t really care for them.”

  “Yeah, but Sindee has told me what you do like,” says Cas, and the two lovebirds grin at each other again. OK, so now there are some proper nerves. What the hell has my friend been saying about me? What is his implication? The atmosphere becomes even more charged with that simple sentence. Cas, with more consideration than Sheen would ever show, waits for us to finish our fish before rolling himself a joint. He wears a grin, almost a sneer, as he blows out smoke and peruses us both in turn. It’s an I’m coming to get you, and I’m going to make your night fabulous face. I wonder how it is going to start.

  “It’s just a suggestion,” he says, “but I don’t think you girls should over-stuff yourselves with dessert. We can always get some afterwards.”

  Yep, so now the heart is beating faster. There is no mistaking what he means by ‘afterwards’. And he said ‘girls’ plural, which means he isn’t fazed by the thought of me there snapping away.

  “I vote for afterwards,” Sindee says, discarding her napkin on the table and pushing her chair back to stand. She is raring to go. The juggernaut has lost its brakes. She is already moving, her eyes all hungry for Cas, the grin broad.

  “Bring your camera,” she tells me as she passes. I thought when this time came she might want some privacy, such were her feelings for this man compared to others on this tour. Still, why have pictures of your victorious journey to the final, and then not have ones of you holding the trophy? Cas puts his hand out for her and she takes it. There isn’t a single trace of guilt on his face.