Five Go Glamping (11 page)

‘Not for me thanks.’ I waved back. Bright blessings my arse. I wondered what time it was, it must have been getting on for lunchtime. No wonder I was starving. My phone confirmed that we were indeed heading for noon but I still didn’t have any reception so I had no way of knowing if Connor had texted me. I found myself annoyed that I even had to worry about him never texting me and my thoughts turned to what the others had said about me keeping an eye on him. I wasn’t sure if they meant his general uselessness or if they were insinuating he was unfaithful. I felt an overwhelming urge to speak to him, frankly, without tiptoeing around issues. I kept trying to imagine how he would respond when I told him about what had happened at work. It was nagging at me and I wanted to get it out of the way. Maybe he would surprise me and be supportive, tell me everything was all right.

The only way I was going to get in touch with Connor was if I went down to the village to the proper festival. So I grabbed my stuff and decided to get a shower before going to find Connor.

I was surprised to see a woman stood motionless in the shower block.

‘Are you showering today?’ she enquired.

‘Erm… yes.’ I waved a bottle of shampoo as some kind of proof.

She held out her hand. I didn’t know what was going on here, whether I was supposed to shake her hand or what. As if I didn’t have enough to be confused about.

‘One pound please.’

What? I had to physically give her a pound?

‘Two pounds if you want longer than five minutes.’

‘How on earth are you supposed to have a shower in five minutes? Better make it two pounds then, I suppose.’ I fumbled for change, all the while she still had her hand stretched out. I took a fiver out of my purse.

‘No change given.’ she said and pointed to a sign which read NO CHANGE GIVEN.

I had to then count out five-pence and twenty-pence pieces and even coppers to give her, but I was one penny short.

I really thought that would be okay, but no, I was wrong

‘No pound, no shower,’ she pointed to the sign again.

‘Okay look, I’ll give you this fiver, and I’ll have a twenty-five minute shower then.’

‘You can’t have twenty-five minute showers, you can only have one pound showers and two pound showers.’

‘Fine. That’s fine. In that case, please take this five pound note and I will have a two pound shower.’

She raised her finger to point at the sign but I interrupted.

‘Yes, I know. No change given. So you have this,’ I pressed the note into her hand ‘and I will have a two pound shower, you can keep the change and I will go in.’

She looked at me as though she was doing me some great favour, but after some consideration, she stepped aside and let me pass into the cubicle.

I locked the door behind me and as I did, she announced ‘Time starts now’ before I had even had time to get the towel out of my bag.

I turned the creaky shower tap and freezing cold water gushed out from an ancient and rusty shower head.

In the shower I tried to put the thoughts of the man from the pub out of my head, but I kept seeing glimpses of his face and thinking about how it felt when he lifted me onto the bank. I counteracted the thoughts of him by reminding myself about my plan for the future, and I prayed that once I saw Connor later on, he’d spark the same feelings this man did and then I could go back to having something of a straightforward life before I did something that would mess things up further. Part of me wondered what I’d do if he was cross about the work thing. I didn’t have time to wrestle with these things for very long before the mad shower block woman shouted ‘Time up.’ I barely had time to get the conditioner out of my hair.

I was going to kill Sinead. Bloody glamping – this was the least glamorous thing I had ever done in my life.

*

‘How could you let me do it?’ screamed Steph at me. ‘What were you thinking, Fiona?’

We were back in our yurt now, and I was rifling through Steph’s make-up bag while Brian was happily playing outside with his arch nemesis – the guy ropes. Sinead had decided to go to the local farm shop for breakfast supplies with Weird Beard and Crazy Trousers, so Steph had dashed back to our yurt and was now hiding under her duvet.

‘What do you mean, what was I thinking? You’re the one who did it!’ I said.

Her face then shot up from under the covers.

‘But he had –’ she actually heaved, and had to take a deep breath and compose herself, still shouting. ‘He had…’ and now a whisper ‘… a beard. A really long horrible beard. How could you let me do that?’

‘From where I stood, it looked to me that you were rather enjoying playing tongue tennis with old Weird Beard.’

Steph heaved again.

‘I can never show my face in public again. Not ever. How could you let me do it? How?’

‘It’s not my fault, Steph. If you want to go round getting off with weirdy beardies, then that’s your problem.’

‘For God’s sake Fiona, you could have stopped me. Just because you’ve got a so-called boyfriend, doesn’t mean you have to leave the rest of us to our own devices when there’s predatory hippies about.’

‘What do you mean, my “so-called” boyfriend? Connor and I have been together for years! And anyway, I didn’t see you struggling to get away.’ Once again, Steph’s assumptions about me and Connor had made me feel defensive and more determined to keep things on track with him. It wasn’t fair of her to blame me for her getting up to whatever she did last night. She always did these rash crazy things. It was her way of letting off steam. She never thought to think about what she was doing sometimes and it could get her into sticky situations.

It’s quite hard to slam a door on a tent, so I had to make do with trying to pull a bit of the canvas door down, but it didn’t come down and that made me stumble forwards and startle Brian who barked at me and made me jump and stumble backwards. I also had to go back in because I’d put my bag down in there, so I looked even more stupid.

‘Fiona, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’

‘Sod off, Steph.’

I hoisted my bag up over my shoulder and left. Again. Outside Brian Harvey was barking at the Moonfaces so I called him over, clipped his lead on and took him with me. Poor Brian Harvey, gone on his holidays and no one wants to play with him. Like me, what was the point in me even being here if everyone was going to ignore me? I was hurt by Steph’s outburst even though I knew she was only angry with herself. It was true I sometimes steered her away from doing daft things, but I didn’t have to be there every step of the way for her. I would go to the festival and find Connor, at least then I wouldn’t be alone.

Chapter Ten

It didn’t occur to me until I was halfway up the hill, that I didn’t have any clear idea where I was going. I was trying to avoid walking past the pub so I took what I thought would be a shortcut. As I ascended further I noticed my phone was getting intermittent signals so I thought if I went a little bit higher, I’d be able to open a map – and if I went even higher still, I’d be able to call Connor and let him know I was on my way. For now, I decided to follow Brian Harvey’s lead, struggling through the thick grass in my wedges. I was paying so much attention to my phone that I didn’t notice the mist rolling in until I was caught in a thick fog of it. It came out of nowhere and disorientated me. I was still trying to walk upwards but as Brian ran around my ankles, I turned to pick him up and lost all sense of direction as the mist soaked through my clothes and I stumbled, unable to see where my feet were taking me. I thought it best to keep on walking in one direction as best I could and eventually I would come to something.

‘Don’t panic Brian, this will all be okay. We’ll be fine.’ I told him. ‘The worse thing that’s going to happen here is that my hair is going to frizz up in this damp.’ I don’t think he believed me. Neither did I.

I focused on putting one step in front of the other and then I heard what sounded like rattling chains and creaking. I could make out the shape of what looked like a creepy old cottage. At the same time, Brian barked loudly and I almost jumped out of my skin. The ground below changed suddenly and I heard a voice shouting as I fell arse over tit when I slipped on the grass. Before I hit the ground, something grabbed me from behind and pulled me upright.

‘Oh Christ, are you going to murder me?’ I blurted out to the large figure looming above me. I was terrified. That would be typical, after I had managed to escape from the weird hippy cult, I was now about to be murdered by a serial killer. I was terrified, but at least I wouldn’t have to tell Connor about my job. I heard Brian Harvey whimpering nearby and I pulled him close to me as I steadied myself on my feet.

The murderer let go of my waist, which he’d caught as I fell, and gently spun me round to face him. I could now make out his face and he was laughing. I was relieved it wasn’t a maniacal ‘I am going to kill you’ kind of laughing and as my eyes adjusted I could see it was the man from the pub.

‘It’s you,’ I said. I couldn’t believe I had taken such a perilous journey to avoid him and here he was again, making my stomach flip over and over.

‘I heard chains rattling, and there’s that dirt track over there and there’s that creepy looking derelict old house.’ I could make out the cold grey stone walls of it now. It definitely looked sinister in the fog. ‘And I’m in the middle of nowhere in this field and I don’t know how to get home.’ I tried to dust myself down with one hand as I straightened up.

‘That dirt track, as you call, it is the main road to Dorchester, there’s buses along every twenty minutes. This field is actually my beer garden. And that creepy old cottage is The Creech Inn, where you were last night, remember? I’m Sam, the landlord,’ He offered his hand out for me to shake.

‘The chains are on the cellar door. I’m bottling up and then I’m going inside for a cup of tea and a sausage sandwich – and I’m not intending to murder anybody.’

‘Fiona,’ I offered. The fog was clearing and a bus full of pensioners chugged along the ‘dirt track’ waving to Sam, who waved back. ‘And this is… Brian Harvey.’

‘Well, nice to meet you properly, Fiona and Brian Harvey.’ He gave Brian Harvey a pat on the head.

‘Thanks again,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I seem to be getting myself into all kinds of scrapes. Did you say you were having a sausage sandwich?’ I said. After last night’s mung bean stew, a sausage sandwich sounded amazing.

He raised a smile.

‘Well I suppose I was a little bit rude to you yesterday. A sausage sandwich might go some way to apologising.’

‘Oh, there’s really no need to apologise,’ I said.

‘No, there is, I’m sorry, I was in a foul mood. I have staffing issues. Booked someone from an agency and they let me down at the last minute. ‘

He put his arm on my back which made me fizz all over and led me and Brian Harvey down a little grassy slope. I reassured myself again that this was only a little crush I was having. This mesmerising man would do the same to anybody, I told myself, and he had come to my rescue a few times, so it was only natural I had a growing admiration for him. I both loved and hated that him touching my back made me fizz all over. It was probably best I got myself out of there as soon as possible. As soon as I’d had my sandwich.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked. I shook my head.

At the bottom of the slope was a small terrace with pub garden beer tables. He held the door open for me and ushered me in. We walked down a wood panelled corridor into the pub. It was certainly nice and cosy even if it was a bit rough around the edges. There was a huge fireplace and dark wooden furniture; the pictures on the walls had olde worlde pictures of the pub. It was hard to believe he needed any staff to have staffing issues in such a quiet little place.

‘Have you had someone leave?’ I asked, pressing him a little.

‘Can’t get anyone to start in the first place. Only needed someone this weekend to do the food when the festival was on, so it wasn’t exactly a job with great prospects. Grab a seat.’ He gestured to a tired looking bar stool and I placed Brian Harvey on a stool next to me. He barked at the pork scratchings behind the bar.

‘Hungry are you, little fella?’ He tore a packet down and opened them for Brian on the bar.

Brian snatched them up hungrily and so would I have if they didn’t now have dog slobber on them.

Sam took the back of an envelope and scribbled ‘Help Wanted’ on it and walked over to the window where he taped it on.

‘Bit late now isn’t it? The festival is already happening.’ I said.

‘Yeah, well I didn’t exactly plan ahead.’

‘What will you do?’ I asked him as he walked back over to the bar.

He paused for a moment and rubbed a hand across his stubbled chin.

‘I’ll see what happens,’ he said and shrugged. ‘Shame as it’s the only week it gets really busy. Will probably have to shut the place.’

I couldn’t understand how he could be so laidback about it all.

‘That would be a shame,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I thought so yesterday, which was why I was in a bit of a mood, but what can you do? Cup of tea then?’

‘That would be lovely thanks.’ I was intrigued by his attitude, I couldn’t work out if he was incredibly lazy or possibly a bit daft to not see what potential this place had. It was charming. All it needed was a bit of care.

‘I’ll get those sausages on, and then you can tell me how you found yourself in a field on your backside with Brian Harvey.’

‘Well, one of my friends copped off with a weird looking crazy trousered fool,’ I began, talking to him as if I had known him forever as he stood in the small kitchen behind the bar. I felt so at ease with him.

‘The other one has taken to copping off with men with beards and the other one is eating wallpaper paste casserole with two moon headed women because he can’t stand not being the centre of attention. And on top of all this, I can’t seem to get a bloody signal on my phone.’

‘Not to mention getting yourself stuck in river banks. Wanting to call your boyfriend is it?’

‘Something like that.’ I should have said to him straight away ‘Yes, my boyfriend’ but I didn’t want to. I liked how he looked at me with that curious way of his and liked how comfortable and easy it was just talking to him. I waited for a little bit longer to enjoy this fizzy feeling when he glanced at me like I was fascinating. I wasn’t sure if I could detect a little bit of disappointment in his face. Then I told myself I was being stupid and I had to keep my head clear and remind myself how Connor was trying to make an effort and had practically, sort of, proposed.