Remix

by Non Pratt

  “… never heard of those guys…”

  “… gutted I couldn’t catch them last time they toured…”

  “… you’ll have to go to that one on your own, no way am I missing Gold’ntone…”

  “… passed out when I stage-dived…”

  “… watched it on YouTube…”

  My phone goes as I’m channelled between gates.

  Where are you where you where are you??? This place is UH-MAY-ZING. Meet you in first set of stalls you see. They have MANY trays of silver studs.

  She’s sent a photo, even though I’m about two minutes from seeing all these earrings in person. Ruby has a very specific fascination with stud earrings.

  Some of us queue with decorum. I’ll find you in five, I reply.

  When I emerge from under the arch of the entrance, I see why Ruby was so excited. Off to the right, beyond the stalls Ruby’s (presumably) browsing, there’s an enormous yellow-and-blue striped tent, the roof pitched in peaks and curves like a fairy-tale palace. Directly ahead of me there’s a cluster of fairground rides, sun reflecting off the roof of the waltzers and a fresh-white Ferris wheel suspending cable-car clouds against the sky. These rides are no different from the ones on the pier at Clifton, but the festival setting gives them added glamour, although the music coming from them – a cacophany of pop tunes and sound effects – seems at odds with the crowd of people in band T-shirts and festival hats.

  I’m turning to look at the ping-pong tables over by the tent marked ALTERNATIVE when I catch sight of Tom.

  Seeing his profile hurts like a burn and I recoil from the shock. An arena of eighty thousand and he’s the first person I see in here? It feels less like coincidence and more like punishment. Still, the sight of him is a scab I can’t resist picking and slowly, carefully, wary of the pain, I let myself look once more.

  He’s with Naj, who’s hard to miss in his dayglo singlet. It’s my bad luck that Naj chooses this exact moment to glance my way.

  “KAZ!” Naj roars, disproportionately delighted to see me.

  Tom looks as horrified as I feel. As he should.

  My natural inclination is to smile, wave and walk purposefully in the opposite direction, but that seems weak somehow. Ruby would never be so feeble.

  Inspired by the way she marched over to Goz and Travis last night, I plaster a grin on my face and walk over to join them, watching the colour drain from Tom’s face with every step. My forcibly bright question about how they are prompts Naj into a monologue about his and Roly’s “epic” night and the delights of a burger-van breakfast, but when I sneak a glance at Tom, he’s turned ashen, as if he’s incapable of emoting anything other than panic.

  “So” – Naj puts an arm round me – “who are you most excited about seeing today, Kaz?”

  This is awkward. Naj has never been this friendly before and I don’t really want someone who smells of fried onions breathing this close to me, but it would be impolite to step away when he’s holding out the programme for me to look at.

  “Well, Gold’ntone, obviously.” I point at the 9 p.m. slot on the main stage. “Maybe these guys. Ruby insists I should go and watch Grundiiz with her, but I’m not convinced. This girl’s got a really great voice…”

  I trail off as I realize that no one’s paying any attention. Naj is looking at Tom, a mischievous slant to his smile, and Tom is looking over my shoulder. Glancing round, expecting to see Roly, I see something entirely different.

  A girl. Waving. At us.

  It’s then that I notice the beads of sweat along Tom’s hairline.

  Seconds later the girl is ruffling Naj’s hair. “Hey, Naj, and hey, you…”

  She steps closer to Tom, her hand sliding up the bare skin of his arm under the sleeve of his T-shirt as she presses her lips to his cheek.

  “Lauren.” Tom smiles, but it’s all wrong. Everything about this is all wrong. “This is Kaz. Kaz, this is Lauren.”

  I’m going to be sick.

  RUBY

  Kaz is taking ages and I’m worried she’s lost, which is impressive given that the stalls are about ten bloody paces from the entrance. I take my phone out from the safety-pin reinforced pocket of my shorts and give her a call.

  “Where are you?”

  “With Tom.”

  “What?” I genuinely do not understand what is happening.

  “Come and join us!” Kaz does not sound normal.

  “Are you all right?”

  “You can meet Lauren.”

  “Who’s Laur—”

  Ah.

  KAZ

  I should have used Ruby’s phone call as a means of escape, but my feet appear to be rooted to the dirt beneath them.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  “So you’re the famous Kaz?” Lauren looks at me as if I’m some kind of celebrity.

  “Well, I’m Kaz.” A little bit of bile comes up along with the words, but I swallow it back. “I’m not sure about the famous part.”

  Lauren laughs and nudges Tom. “This one talks about you quite a bit.”

  “No, I don’t.” Tom looks alarmed. “Not like that.”

  Lauren glances at him, confused. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Tom is sweating profusely now. He’s never been good under pressure. “Like anything.”

  Naj laughs – with his widow’s peak and arched eyebrows he looks like the devil. All you’d need to do is draw a goatee and the transformation would be complete. I have never felt more like strangling anyone in my entire life.

  Except possibly Tom.

  RUBY

  Huh. So Tom has a type. Who knew? This Lauren is basically Kaz Mark II. They’re the same height and skin tone – she even has my best mate’s charity-shop style.

  But I’m not Tom and I don’t give a shit what she looks like. Lauren is not the one I care about.

  I take a big step into this little circle of hell and loop my arm through Kaz’s. “Hello. Apparently I’ve come here to meet Lauren?”

  “Hi…” Lauren holds up her hand in a hesitant wave. “That’s me. And you are?”

  “Ruby.” I meet her gaze for a second. Lauren is as underwhelmed at meeting me as I am at meeting her.

  “Nice to meet you.” She tries a smile.

  “Of course it is. I’m delightful.” That was meant to be a joke, but Lauren looks less than delighted by me.

  There’s a pause in which everyone sort of avoids making eye contact whilst also looking for someone else to say something. It is the epitome of awkward.

  “So…” I say, “let’s never do this again. Goodbye.” I do a weird circular wave with my free hand, like an utter twat, and drag Kaz by the arm as she manages a rather quiet, “Bye.”

  As we turn away, I keep a firm hold on her and head straight for the toilets. If I know anything about my best friend, it’s that she’s trying really hard not to vom right now.

  14 • BEAUTIFUL DAY

  KAZ

  Ruby’s always sending me links to interesting things she finds on the Internet. A large proportion of these are photos of a semi-naked Adam Wexler, tattoos she wants and cool illustrations and animations she’s come across, with the occasional Harry Potter GIF thrown in for good measure, but there’s one that springs to mind right now. It’s a series of photos of different pairs of girls, each picture showing the same thing: one holding back the other’s hair as she crouches over a toilet bowl with the caption Friendship is…

  What I wouldn’t give for this to be a toilet bowl.

  “It stinks in here,” Ruby adds helpfully, the hand not holding my hair clamped over her nose and mouth, muffling her words.

  My response to her comment is to attempt yet another dry heave into the cesspool below.

  “That’s number six. New record,” she says.

  “I didn’t know there was one,” I whisper, my eyes still squeezed shut lest I catch sight of the things I can smell.

  “There was. When you’re a bit less retch-happy, I�
��ll remind you when you set it.”

  I risk a breath that I instantly regret – although I’m relieved to discover that it doesn’t prompt a Mexican wave of the digestive tract. “Think I might be done.”

  Ruby doesn’t waste time saying anything, but simply pulls me back from the brink and out into the fresh, glorious air, towing me straight to the taps, where I splash water over my face until I feel something approaching human. When I turn back, Ruby’s stolen some clean toilet paper from a passer-by.

  “I could kiss you for this.” Being sick always makes me a bit over-emotional.

  “Please don’t,” comes the reply.

  RUBY

  There’s nothing like salty carbs to calm an unstable stomach and we head straight to the nearest food van for chips.

  “Remind me to eat something vaguely resembling a vegetable at some point today,” Kaz says.

  My response is to guide the chip she’s holding into the ketchup on the side of the tray. “It’s called tomato sauce for a reason and that reason is tomatoes.”

  Kaz shakes her head and smiles, although it’s faded by the time she turns back from throwing the empty tray in the bin.

  “So. Tom’s girlfriend…” I start. There’s no point dodging the issue, but I keep a wary eye on Kaz, in case those chips make a sudden reappearance. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Presumably watching some bands.” Kaz’s voice is as deadened as her expression and I’m momentarily breathless with anger at Tom for doing this to her. For leading her on like that when her replacement was planning on rocking up today.

  “Where was she yesterday?” When it might have been good to know she existed. “Squashed in a pocket of his rucksack? Locked in the boot of his mum’s Fiesta up in the car park?”

  I get a vague smile for this. “Lauren said something about her cousin’s wedding. Her parents dropped her off on the drive back.”

  Since I can’t think of a suitably witty comeback to this, I opt for the low road.

  “Whatever,” I say, linking Kaz’s arm in mine and moving towards the clothing stalls. “This new girlfriend isn’t a patch on the last one.” I squeeze Kaz’s arm and a second later she squeezes back. “Plus she’s as rough as a hedgehog’s arse.”

  Which makes her laugh for a second, only for it to turn into self-doubt. “No, she isn’t, Ruby. She’s depressingly gorgeous. And sweet.”

  “Like the stench of a rotting corpse.”

  Another laugh, louder, deeper, like she actually finds me funny. “She seemed really friendly.”

  “About as friendly as…” C’mon, brain. “Crabs. The kind you catch off a dodgy man-whore, not the snippy ones.” I make pinching crab-claws with my free hand at her until she bats me away.

  She’s shaking her head, but it’s doing nothing to shift the smile that’s growing there. “You’re determined to hate her?”

  “Best friend’s honour.”

  And she stops walking and pulls me into the biggest hug I think she’s ever given me. So big that I feel like I’m surrounded in a blanket of cosy-Kazness.

  “I love you to bits, Ruby Kalinski,” she murmurs.

  “Back atcha, Karizma Asante-Blake.” I give her an extra tight squeeze. People talk about love all the time, but they mean all that romantic crap that comes with sextras and heartbreak. The kind of love that drives you mental and changes you into a different kind of person – the kind of love Kaz felt/feels for Tom.

  That isn’t something I ever plan on feeling.

  The love I have for my best friend? That’s the kind I plan on feeling for ever.

  KAZ

  Ruby’s solution to cheering me up is to distract me with shopping. When she buys a vest with a whimsical unicorn on, she haggles with the stallholder until she leaves with a bonus whimsical badger vest for me, and at the vintage clothes stall she joins me in looking through the racks of dresses rather than standing by the mirror trying on all the hats and annoying the vendor the way she usually would. It’s hard to be miserable in the face of such relentless determination to cheer me up.

  That’s not to say that my conscience isn’t putting up a pretty good fight. I’m torn between blaming myself for being so stubborn that I refused to accept Tom could have a new girlfriend, to feeling white-hot fury for how he’s handled it.

  He had known – when he held me, when he kissed me, when he tugged off my dress and ran his hands over my skin. And when he did say something, when it was already too late, he still didn’t tell me the whole truth: that Lauren would be here.

  When Ruby disappears behind a curtain to try on a playsuit covered in lightning bolts, I take out my phone and reread his messages.

  Give me the weekend to make things right, OK?

  Now I understand why that was how long he needed, given that he’d been planning on spending it with Lauren…

  Please don’t hate me.

  I love you.

  Tom is treading a very fine line between the two.

  I force myself to think of them together, hoping it might work like aversion therapy: by facing my fears so I shall conquer them.

  Beautiful Lauren, with her thumb hooked in Tom’s belt loop.

  The familiarity with which she greeted Naj.

  A glisten on Tom’s cheek where she’d kissed him.

  Her apparently genuine pleasure at meeting me.

  She seemed so nice.

  “Are you going to be sick again?” Ruby’s in front of me, the playsuit she was trying on inside out and back on the rack. I shake my head, although I keep my mouth shut, just in case. So much for my therapy session.

  Ruby sighs and shakes her head, feeling my forehead with the back of her hand as if checking my temperature. “Your condition is worse than I feared, Miss Asante-Blake. We’re going to have to proceed to some mega-serious medication.”

  I don’t think doctors use the word “mega”.

  RUBY

  The nearest tent is the Mellow Tent, which is fuck-all use for what I have in mind and I tow Kaz diagonally uphill across the field until we’re at the Heavy Tent, from where I can hear some suitably moshable music.

  “I’m not sure, Ruby…” Kaz pulls back, but I’m having none of it.

  “I am. Come on!” Not letting go of her, I dive right into the depths of the tent. This can only be the second band to play so far and I’ve no idea who they are, but it seems a surprising number of people do. The crowd’s deeper and thicker than I’d expect at this time of day, but when they launch into their next song, I get why. Whoever these guys are, they’re catchy.

  And just like that the crowd opens up in a swell of movement and sucks us in. Keeping a firm hold of Kaz’s hand, I pull her into the middle of the action, bouncing around like I know the song, grinning at the people around who actually do – and that’s it, she’s sold, dancing with me the way we used to when we went to The Cellar. Before Stu ruined it for me.

  Music has always been the key to unlocking Kaz.

  Back when we were two strangers sitting next to each other on the first day of seniors, it was the moment I asked what music Kaz liked that I saw a glimpse of the girl who was going to be my best friend.

  It’s not that I’m not passionate about what I listen to – I am. Find me a song to love and one listen will turn into an obsessive hour-long repeat until my body’s a vinyl record and the groove’s been etched into me. But my love of music is from the outside – I react to what I hear without really thinking. I just go with my gut.

  For Kaz it’s as much about her head as it is her heart. A song isn’t just a sound that tugs at her heartstrings, for Kaz it’s all notes and keys, melodies and harmonies, rhythms and patterns – she hears what there is and she hears how it’s made. Music is a magic that flows through her body like blood. She’s last to speak up in class, girl voted Least Likely to Say Boo to a Goose, but like last night, get music to do the asking and Kaz will show the world her soul.

  We only catch the last two and a half songs by whoev
er these people are, but it’s enough. By the time they’re done, so are we.

  My best friend has come back to me.

  15 • SELLING THE DRAMA

  RUBY

  The others are on the hill. I can pick out Lee’s laughter from fifty paces and Anna’s Hawaiian shirt gives a handy visual aid. The five of them have spread rugs off to the side of the big screen that’s halfway up the slope. It’s between bands, and rather than show everyone a magnified shot of an empty stage, the screen’s being used as some kind of unofficial information feed. Across the top is splashed a banner that says FESTBLOG and as we approach, the main screen invites us to send “info, jokes, pics and gossip using #festblog and the Festblog team will give you 140 characters of fame by posting the best on our timeline”. When that image dissolves, it’s replaced with a photo someone’s taken of their mate’s backside, with WELCOME TO THE GRAND CANYON scrawled in marker pen across his boxers and an arrow pointing up to his bum-cleft.

  I’ve always wanted to see a fifty-foot arse.

  Not.

  Owen and Anna are standing up to get drinks and Kaz and I sneak into their spots.

  “Don’t get comfy.” Anna’s threat is entirely undermined when she winks. And by that shirt she’s wearing. It’s hard to take someone wearing a luminous pineapple print seriously.

  “Beer, please, bar keep.” I hand her a tenner, ignoring the side-eye that Kaz gives me. The stuff in here’s so watered down – and so pricey – that it’s not like I’d be able to get drunk if I tried.

  “No inebriation on my watch,” Lee says, his head resting on Parvati’s stomach.

  “You’ll be too drunk to see, love.” Parvati leans forward to pat his cheek and I hide a smile as Dongle casts a less than subtle glance at Parvati’s cleavage.

  “Stop perving, Dongle,” Parvati says, giving him the finger.

  Next to me, Kaz seems mesmerized by the Festblog screen showing a series of selfies of boys with willies drawn on their forehead in fluorescent face paint. Next there’s a survey of the festival toilets, complete with ratings. The ones at the bottom of the hill by the main stage come out best, which is handy to know.