Revelry

by Lucy Lord

  I felt slightly sheepish about the hours I’d put into my labour of love – let’s face it, it was a pretty bloody twee thing to do – and was reluctant to tell Poppy and the others. As it happened, I needn’t have worried. They all thought it was brilliant, and Pops even insisted Damian drive me all the way over the river to Emma’s terraced house in Stockwell to deliver it, all wrapped up with a pink bow on top, one cold December evening. Mark did take to calling me Polly-Bella-Anna for a few weeks afterwards, and often asked if I’d done my good deed for the day, but all the piss-taking was affectionate.

  My phone rings. I look at the display. It’s Poppy.

  ‘Hi babe, we’re downstairs.’

  ‘Yay! You’re early! I’ll be down in a sec.’ I lock the balcony door, plonk a pair of oversized shades on my nose, heave my rucksack over my back – fuck me, it’s heavy – pick up my tent and card and stagger down four flights of rickety stairs.

  I love Damian’s car. He bought it last year when he was upgraded from staff writer to features editor and columnist on Stadium (Poppy refers to the promotion as ‘the Faustian pact’). It’s a navy blue convertible late Sixties Merc and today will be the first time I’ve been in it with the top down. Hendrix is blaring from the stereo. We are going to look like such a bunch of wankers rolling up to Glasto. I can’t wait.

  Poppy jumps out to give me a kiss. She looks fantastic as ever, in her Ibiza denim hot pants, cowboy boots, sage green long-line vest and the trilby she had on the other night. If anything, she seems even more hyper than I am, chattering away at such speed I can barely follow what she’s on about.

  ‘If you can shut up for one moment, I have something for you,’ I say, proffering the card. Pops looks at it properly and a big smile crosses her lovely face.

  ‘Oh Belles, you are so talented. I wish I could draw like that. Look, darling, at what Bella’s made for me.’ She shows it to Damian.

  ‘Bloody brilliant. You’ve captured my missus perfectly, gorgeous little jet-setter that she is.’ He gives the card a kiss and props it up on the dashboard.

  ‘Thanks guys!’ I bask cheerfully in their praise.

  Poppy opens the boot and there is just enough room for my rucksack and tent.

  ‘’Fraid you’ll have to put Mark’s stuff on the back seat,’ she says. ‘Never mind – you can put it between you like a wall to stop his groping hands.’

  ‘I really don’t think Mark’s going to be interested in groping me,’ I say, still mindful of what I just read in Stadium and thinking, irritatingly, of the Brazilian twins and the young intern with the pierced nipple.

  Damian laughs, the sun bouncing off yet another pair of designer shades. ‘You’re female, aren’t you?’

  I get into the back of the car via Poppy’s passenger seat. We get going and within minutes I am rummaging for something to tie my hair back with. Driving west out of London is great. People in other cars hoot and the odd pedestrian waves. My elation is building to a disquieting crescendo and we haven’t even started on the intoxicants yet.

  ‘So where are we picking Mark up from?’ I shout over the wind and music.

  ‘Richmond,’ shouts back Poppy.

  ‘How very respectable,’ I laugh.

  ‘I know – seems unlikely, doesn’t it?’

  ‘By the way, Bella, big respect for what you said to Alison the other night,’ shouts Damian. ‘The look on her face when you chucked your drink at her! She started ranting about getting you to pay for dry cleaning after you’d left.’

  ‘Oh, she wants more than that. She wouldn’t contact me directly, of course. She told Andy to tell Max that her shirt was ruined and she wants me to replace it. It was Jil Sander apparently. Fuck knows how I’m going to afford that.’

  ‘They’ve got identical shirts in Primark for a fiver,’ says Poppy. ‘And you can cut the label out of my old Jil Sander coat if you want. Bet she won’t notice. Insensitive bitch.’

  We all crack up at this. God, life is good.

  ‘So what’s this shoot Ben’s on tomorrow?’ I ask, unable to resist the temptation of talking about him.

  ‘Abercrombie and Fitch,’ says Damian. ‘He said the last one was great – the director got them all stoned, then just filmed all these pretty young things laughing unselfconsciously together. Money for old rope if you ask me.’

  ‘Yeah, like you work your fingers to the bone. Comparable to mining is the life of a Stadium columnist,’ says Poppy, as I try to banish from my mind the image of Ben getting stoned with a load of nineteen-year-old natural beauties. I really wish I hadn’t picked up that bloody magazine.

  After a while we turn into a tree-lined street of semi-detached Edwardian houses with perfectly kept front lawns behind box hedges. It’s the sort of street where dads wash their cars on a Saturday morning.

  ‘This can’t be where Mark lives,’ I say in bemusement. ‘It’s so … so … suburban.’

  ‘Oh he’s all talk and no trousers, our Marky,’ says Poppy. ‘Underneath all the bullshit, he’s as conventional as they come.’

  Mr Conventional swaggers out of No. 42. Bare-chested, he is wearing very tight, very faded jeans, a leather thong around his neck, Aviator shades and a cowboy hat.

  ‘He sooo waxes his chest,’ says Poppy under her breath.

  ‘Auditioning for the Village People, Marky?’ shouts Damian.

  Mark grins. ‘You’re just jealous I can carry it off,’ he shouts back, and makes his way over to the car, pausing to say hello to a couple of little girls on tricycles.

  He chucks his huge rucksack into the back seat as effortlessly as if it were made of foam, then saunters back inside and returns with a crate of Stella, which he throws in on top of the rucksack. Winking at me, he mouths, ‘Hello gorgeous.’ I smile. For all his manifold faults, there is something about Mark you can’t help liking.

  We resume our journey and soon excitement is mounting again.

  ‘Beers, anyone?’ says Mark.

  ‘Better not mate,’ says Damian. ‘But the rest of you go ahead.’

  ‘Poor love,’ says Poppy, leaning over and helping herself. ‘I’ll drive on the way back.’

  ‘Yeah, when a drink’ll be the last thing you want,’ laughs Mark.

  ‘Dammit, you’ve rumbled my cunning plan.’

  I open my can of Stella and pour the golden liquid down my throat. ‘Mmmm, nice and cold.’

  ‘Straight out of the fridge,’ says Mark. ‘They won’t stay cold for long in this weather though, so we’d better drink ’em quickly.’

  ‘Ooh twist my arm, why don’t you?’ laughs Poppy. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we have a sing-song?’

  As we can’t agree what to sing, she plugs her iPod into the Merc’s speakers and soon we are bellowing out everything from Bowie to Amy Winehouse to Stevie Wonder to Blur to – erm – The Carpenters.

  ‘Poppy?’ Asks Damian. ‘What the fuck …?’

  ‘Ooops sorry, my guilty pleasure. Shall I skip it?’

  ‘No no, I love it,’ says Mark. ‘Karen Carpenter – what a voice, man.’ And he starts singing along in a surprisingly tuneful tenor to the cheese fest that is ‘Close to You.’

  When it gets to the chorus, we all join in. I tilt my head back and look up at the unblemished sky, happiness washing over me like a great big Cornish wave. Ben, Ben, Ben, I think. How am I going to get through the anticipation of the next twenty-four hours? The only answer, as it always is at Glastonbury, has to be to get wasted. I finish my beer in a huge gulp and ask Mark for another.

  ‘Oooh look, I’ve spotted the first fellow Glasto car,’ says Poppy, pointing at a battered old Mini whose back window is almost completely obscured by piled-up rucksacks. We overtake and wave. The driver, a forty-something woman in plaits and tie-dye, grins and waves back.

  ‘I’m feeling it already,’ says Poppy, in pseudo mystical tones. ‘Are we all feeling the luuurve, man?’

  ‘Fucking hippy,’ says Mark, but he’s smiling. Because, joking aside, she’s r
ight. There is something about Glastonbury when the sun shines that really does make you full of love and slushiness towards all mankind. When it rains, it’s simply a case of survival.

  As we progress, the ratio of festival-goers to normal law-abiding citizens gets bigger and bigger. Finally we get to the Tesco megastore, that indicator that we’re on the final strait.

  ‘So who needs what?’ asks Damian.

  ‘Another crate of Stella,’ says Mark, as we seem to have pretty much demolished the last one in the three hours it’s taken to get here.

  ‘Bin bags and loo roll,’ I say, stupidly pleased with myself to have remembered.

  ‘We could do with some boxes of wine for the tent,’ says Poppy. ‘And I could do with a pee after all that beer.’

  ‘I’ll stay here and man the fort then, shall I?’ says Damian, picking up a copy of the Daily Star from the car floor.

  ‘You do that, my darling,’ says Poppy, uncharacteristically not commenting on his choice of reading material. She’s up to something. She leans over and kisses him. ‘Thanks so much for driving so well.’

  We go into the supermarket, still playing ‘spot the fellow festival freak’, which is getting too easy to be much fun by now. We stand at the checkout till, me with my loo paper, bin bags and a couple of litres of Diet Coke to mix with my vodka, and Poppy with a 3-litre box each of red and white wine and a long stack of plastic cups. She leans up and whispers, ‘Come to the loo with me. The time is ripe for a mind-sharpening snifter.’

  I grin. ‘OK. What about the boys though?’

  ‘Damian won’t risk it until he’s finished driving, bless him, so it’s probably kinder not to tell him. Mark can fend for himself.’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’ It crosses my mind that it would probably be kinder still to wait until we’re all in a position to partake, but such noble thoughts soon pass as my weak flesh follows my oldest friend to the salubrious environs of the Tesco megastore public toilets.

  A middle-aged lady in a floral frock, with the kind of perm that you only ever see outside London, is washing her hands. She smiles at us in the mirror.

  ‘You’ll be going to the festival. Lovely day for it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I smile, while Poppy, ever more voluble than me, even before the coke, launches into, ‘Yup, we’ve come down from London, and we’re so excited, we can’t wait to get there. Especially after last year, which was such a disappointment with all the rain and mud …’ Yadda yadda yadda …

  ‘Well, word has it that this sunshine is going to stick,’ says the friendly woman. ‘So you make sure you enjoy yourselves. There – you’ve got a local’s blessing. It’s a good omen in these here parts, you know.’

  She’s laughing at us now, with our presumed city prejudices. Or sending herself up. Either way, it’s a nice introduction, and once she’s left the loo I say to Poppy, ‘What a lovely woman. I almost feel guilty now for sullying her local supermarket with our dodgy wares.’ Poppy raises her eyebrows at me.

  ‘Almost, but not quite,’ I say and, giggling, we pile into one of the cubicles before anyone else can come in.

  Walking back outside, the sun seems hotter and brighter than ever, glinting in sharp angles off the parked cars. The haze from the tarmac underfoot is practically shimmering, as it does in movies about the Wild West.

  ‘There they are,’ says Poppy, pointing at the Merc, and she skips towards it, dangling a wine box from each hand, the plastic cups clenched between her teeth.

  ‘There you are, my little chickadee,’ says Damian, lowering his shades and looking at her over the top of them. ‘Feeling a little livelier, are we?’

  Poppy laughs. ‘Oh darling, you know me so well. Couldn’t resist, I’m afraid. You don’t mind, do you?’

  He kisses her nose. ‘I just want you to be happy, my love.’ Awww, I think, wishing this moment was happening between me and Ben.

  ‘Though I’ll be bloody glad to get there now. Let’s hope the final traffic isn’t too crazy.’

  We climb back into the car, crack open some more beers and set off once again on our way. It’s very hot indeed now, and I hold my Stella against my burning forehead, glad of the wind in my hair. I am experiencing life in glorious surround-sound technicolour. The fields we pass are absurdly bucolic; The Clash shouting from the speakers relentlessly, incongruously rock ’n’ roll. I cannot stop smiling.

  Mark looks over at me and laughs.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You,’ he says simply. ‘With your big eyes and messy hair and little freckles on your nose. You look about twelve.’

  I grin at him some more, not feeling like such an old hag after all. I then remember I’m wearing shades – so how can he see my big eyes? – and nearly say something, but think better of it. Don’t wreck the moment, Bella.

  Eventually we reach the car park. We disembark and begin the long trek o’er field and o’er dale to the camping ground. All around us people are smiling – despite at least an hour’s tough exercise, and possibly disastrous frisking, before anyone can get anywhere to relax properly. A lot of the men are, like Mark, bare-chested, which improves my mood still further. In case the weather breaks, we head for our usual place, at the top of a hill, to the right of the main Pyramid Stage.

  We are all huffing and puffing when we reach our chosen field, even Mark. Even though he’s ridiculously fit, he has inexplicably opted to bring a rucksack so heavy I can’t even lift it off the ground. For a minute I suspect it’s simply for showing-off purposes, then reflect that surely even he couldn’t be that dumb.

  ‘It’s a good job we got here today,’ says Poppy, looking around. She’s right. The field is extremely overcrowded already, but we find a space just big enough for our three tents.

  ‘What are we going to do about Ben’s tent?’ I ask.

  ‘Can’t be helped at the moment,’ says Damian. ‘He’ll have to share with Mark. Or you of course, Bella,’ he adds slyly. I look up at him and he’s laughing. How much does he know, I wonder?

  We pitch our tents and I lay out my sleeping bag and pillow inside. I like the ritual of making it a little haven before we start, knowing what a hellhole it’ll be before long. After last year’s tent was so revoltingly flooded, I abandoned it. This year, Max has let me have the one we used to use as teenagers, as he’s hiring a yurt, the ponce. The tent bears some embarrassing graffiti that we clearly found hilarious at the time, but is in pretty good nick other than that, considering it’s nearly twenty years old. One of Dad’s expensive guilt-gifts, I seem to recall.

  After another swift line, Poppy and I get started on the vodka. It’s nearly five o’clock now but as it’s almost midsummer’s day it’ll be light for a good few hours. We gaze down over the surreal Camelot-like scene below us, stretching out further than the eye can see, more like a little town than a temporary festival structure. Almost everything has been put up now, ready for the first acts to start in the morning. The Pyramid Stage looms, white and angular, down to our right, with the Big Top-like swirly red and blue stripes of the dance tents beyond it. Directly in front of us are more fields of tents, sloping down to the main eating, drinking and shopping fields. The shopping always surprises me. I mean, who actually goes to a festival to purchase wind chimes and dream catchers? Beyond them a distinct, snaking lane demarks the Green Fields, with their multicultural veggie offerings, runes, healing stones and the like.

  It’s all too exciting. I’m desperate to go and mingle, and I let the others know by waving my arms about foolishly and tripping over one of Mark’s guy ropes.

  ‘Careful, lovely,’ says Poppy.

  ‘I think she needs another sobering line,’ says Mark, as he bashes his tent peg back in with something very heavy from his rucksack.

  ‘Oh go on then,’ I say. ‘But let’s go soon. I can’t wait to get down there and start exploring.’

  ‘Four fucking aces,’ says Mark, shaking his head. ‘You are one lucky bitch.’

  ‘My cards may ha
ve been good, but my bluffing skills are beyond compare,’ I boast, ludicrously pleased with myself after my poker win. We emerge from the casino tent we found an hour earlier in one of the festival’s many peripheral fields. Its other attractions include an old-fashioned carousel, a ghost train, coconut shies and fire-eaters.

  We plundered the complimentary dressing-up box before our game of poker and Poppy is wearing a top hat and pink tutu, Damian an antelope’s head and Mark a Red Indian headdress. I’m sporting a contraption that combines a big nose with Groucho Marx specs and moustache. If Ben were here I’d have been more conscious of trying to look pretty, but now I don’t really give a fuck. We are seriously wasted.

  ‘Where’s my mummy?’ screams a little voice, and we all try to refocus. A small boy, only about four or five years old, is wandering around, lost, crying and helpless. He has long, curly hair and looks absolutely terrified. I bend down to take his hand and he backs off, sobbing even more.

  ‘Take the Groucho face off, Belles,’ says Poppy, as Damian removes his antelope head. God, I’m a stupid cow. I whip the contraption off my face and sit down on the grass, so I’m eye level with the poor little bugger.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

  ‘Kestrel.’

  ‘And where are your mummy and daddy?’

  His sobbing abates a bit, now he can see my normal face, and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

  ‘I haven’t got a daddy. I don’t know where Mummy is.’ He looks around defencelessly again. Everywhere we look are crowds of people, off their stupid fucking faces, none of them taking any notice of the forlorn child in their midst. Poppy starts calling out, ‘Hello! Has anyone lost a little boy?’ into the mob, to no avail.

  ‘I want my mummy.’ Kestrel starts crying again and Mark scoops him up into his big, strong arms.

  ‘Don’t you worry, mate, we’ll look after you. Your mummy’s probably just gone to the toilet or something. She’ll be back in a minute.’ He whispers at Poppy and Damian over Kestrel’s head, ‘Go to the information tent and see if anyone’s reported a missing boy. We’ll stay here with him in case his mum comes back.’ Poppy and Damian race off in what I hope is the direction of the information tent.