by Non Pratt
This was an even bigger deal than it sounded, since Lee wasn’t going with the usual suspects from Dukes, but Owen and his mates from the cool college. People I’d actually like hanging out with for a weekend.
“Only if you stop spending all your time at Hogwarts and start doing something useful, like selling every-flavour ice cream to Muggles.”
Which is exactly what I did.
KAZ
Dad picked Naomi up half an hour ago and the house is quiet but for the clicking of keys coming from the front room, where I find Mum, sitting on the sofa, surrounded by a sea of paper. I perch on the arm, since the space next to her is occupied by the cat. Everyone in this house knows better than to disturb Morag.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Expenses.” As far as I can work out, being a publicist is nothing but expenses – and possibly publicizing things, although I see less of that around the house. “With you and Naomi out of the way I’ll have everything done by the time I go back to work on Tuesday.” Mum glances up from her laptop and smiles.
I’m sure she’s only trying to make me feel better – Mum and Dad divide bank holidays between them and this one was meant to be hers until my Remix request disrupted the system.
“There’s cassoulet in the freezer and I’ve saved Wok This Way’s number on to the phone. You like Number Forty-two with special fried rice, no prawns,” I say, repeating what I’ve written on the kitchen whiteboard.
“Aren’t mothers supposed to worry about daughters?”
“We all know I’m the responsible one.” Because I am.
“Speaking of which, did you pack those condoms I left on your bed?”
“Yes. Thanks for those.” I can feel myself burning up – I thought I’d dodged that conversational bullet.
Mum doesn’t look up from her spreadsheet as she embellishes on her choice of prophylactic. “They’re the featherlight ones that feel like the real thing, so there’s no excuse not to wear one.”
I really wish she’d stop talking. Or that the others would get here. Or that my top lip would produce so much sweat that I’ll drown in my own perspiration.
Sensing my discomfort, Mum slides the computer off her lap so she can shuffle closer and rest a reassuring hand on my knee. “I’ve been to festivals” – which is news to me – “I know what it’s like. Two gorgeous girls and a field full of boys—”
“You make it sound like we’re harvesting them.”
“I just don’t want you to cut yourself when you swing the scythe.”
“Now it sounds like we’re planning to kill them.”
Mum smiles as she reaches up to stroke the hair back off my face, twisting a curl around her finger before letting it ping back. “Just be safe, chicken. That’s all.”
If she knew the only person I wanted to play it safe with was my ex-boyfriend, this would be a very different conversation.
3 • THINKING ABOUT YOU
KAZ
Two hours later and Owen eventually pulls up at the end of a row of cars in a field that passes for a car park. Although the campsite and arena are hidden by a dip in the land, there’s no mistaking which way we’ll find them as torrents of festival-goers flow towards a dirt track lined with tents where staff exchange tickets for wristbands.
Ruby is beside herself with excitement. Her adrenalin levels increased exponentially with every junction we passed on the motorway and she can barely stand still, despite the rucksack on her back and the crate of supplies Lee’s told her she has to carry part of the way. It is impossible to hold a conversation with her as her attention ricochets from tour T-shirts to tattoos to hot boys in sunglasses to girls with cool hair.
Now is definitely not the time to tell her about Tom.
As we shuffle forwards in the crush, I scan the crowd around me – boys who’ve taken off their tops and tucked them into the back of their shorts, girls in bikini tops and shorts so short they’re practically thongs, middle-aged rockers whose tattoos have grown blurred with age. I catch sight of a boy in the crowd who sends a smile in my direction. I glance away before it arrives.
He isn’t the one I was looking for.
RUBY
We’ve found a tidy little spot halfway up the field marked SOUTH SLOPE. Our tent is up in record time, and I leave Kaz to unpack and go to offer my services to Lee and Owen. They’re wrestling with the canvas monstrosity that me and my brothers used to cram into when holidays were compromised by four sets of school fees. There’s only one set left now … or none at all, given the massive question mark over whether Flickers will have me back after the results I got.
“Need any help?” I offer, just as one of the poles slips and cracks Lee across the knuckles. He gives me a murderous look, which I take as instruction to go back where I came from – i.e. the tent, where Kaz is still unpacking. Admittedly I cheated by not packing properly in the first place, but it looks as if Kaz has brought her entire wardrobe.
“You know we’re only here three nights, right?”
Kaz gives me Unimpressed Face. “It’s called being prepared.”
“What, for a Who Has the Most Tea Dresses Competition?” Kaz throws a ball of thermal socks at my face and I start rooting around in her toiletries bag.
“What are you doing?” Kaz is refolding her pyjamas to put in her sleeping bag. I have not brought any pyjamas. Or any deodorant. Or toothpaste.
“Looking for deodorant. And toothpaste.” But that’s not what I find. “Oh my God, Karizma Asante-Blake – have you come prepared for an orgy?”
Kaz looks very hot and bothered and actually drops the shirt she’s trying to fold as I brandish the MASSIVE box of condoms I’ve just discovered.
“Mum gave them to me.”
“And she thinks you’re going to need all these?” The packet says TWENTY-FOUR. Kaz hasn’t even had sex with one person yet – her and Tom went out for nine months and didn’t manage to get round to getting it on. One weekend’s barely going to be enough for her to look at another boy, let alone boff one.
“You know what my mum’s like,” Kaz says.
I do. Afua’s well cool. Not like my mum, who had a shit fit when she found a blister pack of the pill under my pillow and banned me from seeing Stu for a fortnight. She’d have banned me for life if she could.
“Still, your mum’s right to be worried, dude.” I eye her outfit. “The way you look in that dress this weekend will be like a gender-flipped Lynx ad.”
It’s not an outfit I’ve seen before and Kaz is showing a lot more off than she’s usually comfortable with. I thoroughly approve.
KAZ
It’s the first time Ruby’s mentioned my dress and now would be the perfect time to tell her why I’m wearing it.
What I actually say is, “I’m sure I’ll be beating them off with a stick.”
“You know beating them off usually works best with your hand?” Ruby’s doubled over, laughing so much at her own innuendo that the second ball of socks I throw at her misses. Once she’s recovered, she rips off a strip of condoms and tucks it into her pocket before declaring that I have finished unpacking (I haven’t) and crawling out of the tent. Where Ruby leads, I follow. Even if I haven’t finished unpacking.
RUBY
Instead of heading down to the bottom of the hill where there’s a cluster of fair rides and a ton of people who’ve yet to find a place to pitch their tent, we walk up to the line of stalls at the top. Almost immediately I’m distracted by one that’s full to brimming with the most tasteless tat I’ve ever seen. Within a minute of dragging Kaz inside, I strike gold in the form of an awesome penis-shaped bong.
“Oh God, do you have to?” Kaz says as I make her hold it so I can take a photo that I send to Ed asking him if he needs a flat-warming present – although since Emma made him get rid of his old lava lamp, I’m not sure she’ll go for the purple-penis bong.
“Yes, I absolutely do. It is perfection in glass form.” I take it from her to hold it close to my
face and stroke it lovingly as Kaz turns away, hissing at me to put it down.
Her advice comes too late. Someone, namely the stallholder, has noticed. “Buying for yourself or a friend?”
I glance round to see if there’s any further opportunity to humiliate Kaz, but she’s disowned me and is trying to look extremely interested in the racks of novelty socks outside.
“Much as I love an anatomically accurate appendage,” – I glance at the stallholder again, he’s quite cute – “I think I’m going to pass on this particular occasion.”
“You sure? I’ll do you a dicks-count.” His eyes twinkle as I shake my head and smile.
“How long’s that one been cum-ing?” I shoot back and this time he’s the one laughing. Again with the quite cute.
“I’m glans you asked?” He’s screwing up his face in anticipation of my scorn. To be fair, he deserves it for that one.
“I’m all out of penis puns, I’m afraid,” I say, ignoring the buzz my phone makes with Ed’s reply. I’m just getting into my groove here.
KAZ
My best friend and I are very different when it comes to boys. Ruby adopts a scattergun approach of flirting with anyone she sees regardless of sensible limiting factors such as (in the stallholder’s case) age. Whereas I can only flirt with someone I actually fancy, which is unfortunate since there is only one person I know who meets that criteria.
When we booked the Remix tickets, Ruby made it clear that hot boys were part of the plan – and not just for her. It was only a month after things had ended with Tom and even though I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about the idea of looking for someone new, Ruby assumed I’d be over him by now and ready for action.
Only I’m not. It hasn’t been as easy for me to recover from Tom as it has been for Ruby and Stu. Tom wasn’t just my first boyfriend, he was the first boy I ever fancied – when I was ten and saw him in cricket whites. Tom was my first crush, my first kiss, my first love… He was supposed to be my first. It’s hard to look at other boys and see someone I might Do It with when I’ve always assumed that person was going to be Tom.
I really need to tell Ruby about him being here.
RUBY
Kaz does not seem especially interested in my assessment of Cute Stallholder Guy.
“Does he have a name?” Kaz cuts through what I was saying.
“I assume so.” I glance back at the stall thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll find out later…”
It’s meant to be a joke – the guy was good for a warm-up flirt, not actual gameplay – but Kaz is giving me the same look she’s been giving me all summer, the one that screams, “I think you’re a depraved sexpot.”
I’m not so much a depraved sexpot as a deprived one. I’ve not had any since Stu, which is kind of like having champagne on tap one minute and going cold turkey the next. Well, not cold cold turkey. Lukewarm turkey. I’ve still got my right hand and an overactive imagination – although there’s only so far that a certain expertise and an Adam Wexler fantasy can take me. It doesn’t matter if those fantasies have gone all the way and then some, I’m someone who likes the feel of another body on mine, skin on skin, lips and tongues and teeth. The warmth, the smell, the taste.
“Can we go and sit somewhere for a bit?” Kaz says out of the blue, which I’m grateful for. I don’t actually want Stu in my head when I’ve left Clifton to get away from him.
Kaz is fiddling with her pendant, so I figure there’s something she wants to talk about. Something I won’t like… We find a shady spot under some trees since the sun is trying to BURN THE FLESH FROM MY BONES and I clamber to sit on the fence so I’m eye level with the necklace-twiddling nutter in front of me.
“What’s up?” I ask.
KAZ
Best to treat this like a plaster and rip it off in three … two … one…
“Tom’s here.”
“You what?” Ruby actually glances over her shoulder as if he’s materialized behind her. “Tom’s where?”
“Here. At Remix.”
“O…K…” Ruby looks entirely nonplussed. “And this is the first I’m hearing of it because?”
But I don’t have to say anything for her to know the answer.
I am such a wimp sometimes.
RUBY
Brilliant.
Thomas sodding Selkirk.
Kaz is gabbling about how she only found out the other day and she wasn’t sure whether to even mention it because we’re probably not going to bump into him anyway when there are so many people here.
It’s all just noise to cover up what she really wants to happen: she wants to see Tom. All summer – ever since they split – by so many twists of fate that it’s been a cat’s cradle of coincidence, Tom and Kaz have failed to bump into each other. She was on choir tour, he went away with his family to France, Kaz got shipped off to Wales. In the week and a half in which they’ve both been within sight of the sea, they’ve not been within sight of each other.
There’s no point fighting it. Much as I want Kaz to get on with her life and into someone else’s pants, it’s not going to happen if she’s on red alert for her ex.
So much for leaving all that shit behind.
KAZ
Ruby stops me with a resigned wave of her hand. “I think we should just go find him. Get it over with.”
My response to this is to throw my arms around her waist and lift her from the fence, my cheeks hurting from grinning a wide and incredulous grin.
“Are you sure?” I drop her unceremoniously on the floor.
“I suppose.” She squints against the sun behind me. “But don’t pull that shit again, you hear? This is you and me – we don’t do secrets.” There’s a moment in which she watches me before her expression relaxes. “Now. Fire your special flare gun that forms an image of a man wearing slightly too-short trousers, light a candle and sing ‘Jerusalem’ backwards or whatever. Summon the Selkirk.”
I hold up my phone with Tom’s number on the screen. “Or I could just use this, like a normal person.”
He answers on the second ring.
“Hey, Tom,” I say, doing an excellent impression of Mickey Mouse.
“You called, m’dear?” The friendliness of his voice – the familiarity – renders me mute for a moment. “Hello, Kaz…?”
“Sorry, yes, hi. Umm… I heard you’d be here as well. From Naomi. Or Dad. No – Naomi!” Either way it sounds like I’ve been keeping tabs on him. “Dad’s taking Naomi to London.” Stop talking now, mouth. “For the weekend. Naomi said that your dad said—”
Ruby actually leaps forward and puts both hands over my mouth, whispering, “Shut. Up.”
Tom doesn’t seem to mind that I ended my last sentence with a “whumph”, but I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “If by ‘here’ you mean Remix, then yes. We just got here. Me and Naj and Roly.”
Now what?
Ruby, whose eyeballs have been rolling around so much I’m surprised they’re still in the sockets, mutters, “For fuck’s sake” and takes my phone. “Hey, Tom, how’s it going? We’re in the middle of exploring the campsite and wondered whether we should come and explore your part of it, wherever that may be. Possibly explore whatever food you’ve got. And whatever drinks.”
There’s a pause. “Totally like scavengers. Think of us as a particularly sexy pair of racoons.”
I can hear him laughing from here, no more immune to the Ruby Effect than anyone else. She concentrates as he explains where they are.
“Got it. See you in five.” Handing me the phone back, Ruby looks at me for a long moment. “Are you sure about this, Kaz?”
4 • NOT MY IDEA
KAZ
All the way from South Slope to where Tom’s camped in Three-Tree Field I tell myself the same thing.
I am sure. I am sure. I am sure.
Once I’ve seen Tom we can get on with our weekend. It won’t change anything. I just want to say hi, to show how fine I am being friends. Just to prove it
to myself – to Tom – to Ruby. Just to double-check that’s all we are. It’s been a long time and maybe Tom’s missed me the way I have him…
Tom told Ruby that they’re camped next to someone flying a fluorescent pink Jolly Roger. Ruby spots the flag first. I spot the boy.
Tom looks the way I always imagine him. Body broad enough to hold me, tall enough to make me safe – big but gentle, like a bear from a fairy tale or a picture book. His haircut is the same one he’s always had (apart from the winter of the unwise buzzcut) and the smile he’s wearing as he talks to the person next to him is the smile I’ve missed every second of the last sixty-nine days, twenty-two hours and … twenty-three minutes.
Maybe I am not so sure about this after all.
RUBY
How can Kaz fancy someone with such appalling trousers?
Oblivious to the awkward, Tom gives Kaz a hug before turning to me as I take a quick step back and nearly stack it on a guy rope. I can fake friendly on a phone call, but Tom is not a person I am prepared to hug. Which definitely puts him in the minority, because I am usually all about the hugs.
“Hello, Tom,” I say.
There’s a moment in which Tom and I communicate our feelings without having to say a word. He knows that I would quite happily strangle him with the rogue guy rope I’ve just dislodged and I know that he doesn’t think he deserves it.
Tom Selkirk buys into his own reputation as a nice guy. One who helps little old ladies with their shopping and gives up his seat on the bus to pregnant women. A reputation that isn’t a reality.
Tom has known Kaz longer than I have – they spent summers together, shared hiding places and secrets and sweets and a healthy resentment of Naomi. They have the kind of history that should have been worth more than an evening’s conversation and the eternally shit sentence “I just don’t see you like that any more.”