Five Go Glamping (12 page)

I checked my phone again, still no signal.

‘If you want a signal, you have to go across the road and stand by the gate over there. I know you townies can’t live without your phones and you might get a signal if you’re lucky. If it looks like you have, then step up on to the lower step of the stile and you should get one bar.’

‘Are you being serious?’ I felt his tone had changed with me a little since I hadn’t denied having a boyfriend.

‘Trust me,’

He placed the sandwich down in front of me.

‘Thanks.’ I said and took the magical looking sandwich. It was the most magnificent thing I had ever seen. I took a photograph of it with my phone. Sam found this highly amusing.

‘Do you take pictures of everything you eat?’ he said.

‘No.’ I said, taking a massive bite.

‘You hungry?’ he said, laughing at me. I tried to smile to acknowledge his attempt at humour but as I did I realised I had a huge doorstep of bread in my gob. I covered my mouth and nodded, going red.

‘Well you tuck in, had a bit of a scare there, I’d say. You have to watch out for the fog, comes in so quick and can be pretty nasty. You people have no clue about these things, best to stick to the roads.’

‘What do you mean, you people?’ I said.

‘You people who come to the countryside once a year, thinking us all bumpkins and saying we have peculiar ways.’ He was stacking glasses on a shelf above the bar and when he stretched up, his T-shirt lifted and I caught a glimpse of his abs which for some reason made me go very red. I struggled slightly to remember what I was talking about. He did have pretty peculiar ways if you asked me, running around fields in the evening and then scaring women in the fog and letting this lovely pub go to rack and ruin.

‘You are the ones with peculiar ways,’ he continued. ‘I bet you’ve come here all the way from the city to get away from it all but all you are really doing is bringing it all with you.’

‘Wow, a sausage sandwich and some free philosophy too.’ I said. His words had hit a nerve but in a way I welcomed it. It made me see that what I was experiencing
was
a silly crush. There was no way I could be with someone like this. Someone with no drive and very little get-up-and-go. It made things a bit simpler in my head but I couldn’t deny I was a little hurt by his judgement. By the way he had been looking at me, I felt like he knew me and knew the kind of person I was, but he had chosen to see me as some kind of stereotype.

‘Anyway, if you must know, I don’t have a high powered job, in fact I have a very, very crap job and it’s possible I won’t even have one at all when I get back, and right now I’m going to tell my boyfriend who will hate me.’

Sam was a little taken aback by my response and he looked regretful.

‘I’m sure he doesn’t hate you at all.’ he said. ‘Why would he? Are you on your way down there now to see him?’

I nodded.

‘I tell you what.’ he said ‘I’m not opening for another hour, so why don’t you drink your tea, eat the finest sandwich in the whole of this county and I’ll drive you down there. I’ve got to go down into the village anyway.’

‘That would be nice, thank you.’

‘Who am I to stand in the way of true love?’ he said, and Brian Harvey gave a little bark.

True love. I had never thought of it like that. It seemed such an uncomfortable phrase to describe me and Connor.

Chapter Eleven

I used the loos to sort my make-up out, and tried to do something with my frizzed up hair before taking him up on his offer.

‘Is this your car?’ I said, unable to stop laughing. ‘What kind of car is that?’ I couldn’t tell if it was a truck or a car or a combination of both. The doors were a different colour to the rest of it and part of the roof was covered in tarpaulin which had been stuck down with gaffer tape.

‘It does its job,’ he said, rolling his eyes ‘I have no need for a fancy car to impress my friends.’

‘It might impress your friends if they are a troop of clowns,’ I said. ‘I mean, is it safe?’ I was expecting the door to fall off any minute.

‘You’re quite safe with me,’ he said and he opened the passenger door for me by giving it a little twist and a lift.

Sam dropped me off near the entrance to the festival, which was being held in the grounds of the castle in the village. I thanked him, took one last look at his biceps which had been distracting me on the drive down, and focused my attention on looking for Connor.

It wasn’t exactly Glastonbury, Connor had been right. It was all a bit low-key, more like a big fairground with a couple of stages, but it was still very busy. Some exuberant girls wearing their festival uniforms with flowers painted on their faces knocked into me, almost toppling me over. I was carrying Brian because I was scared he’d get squashed. Then I got kicked in the heel by a stilt walker in a top hat. There was the usual overpriced street food vendors dotted around but I was happily prepared to pay seven pounds for a hot dog. I know I had already eaten but I thought I would seize the opportunity to eat now as I wasn’t sure when I’d get to eat anything other than mung beans for the next few days. A candy floss stall caught my eye, but Brian’s little nose was sniffing out the hot dogs and after licking his lips, he was looking at me with his tongue out. I assumed he was hungry still, and not just being sarcastic.

I found a patch of grass for me and Brian to sit on and eat our lunch. I didn’t think I’d have any chance of bumping into Connor here and should probably make my way back up to the campsite, but then I saw someone we both knew – I’d seen Connor talking to him a few times in the pub. He was a complete stoner and I normally avoided him like the plague. He was wearing a baseball cap, and had removed his T-shirt which he had shoved in his back pocket. He danced over to me waving glow sticks.

I felt reassured that although things weren’t going great for me, I wasn’t as tragic as this bloke. Fancy being that off your face at two in the afternoon. I thought I’d give him a wide berth but he looked at me and a vague recognition flashed across his face as he stood dancing in front of me, so I felt like I had to make some kind of conversation.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen Connor about, have you?’ He carried on dancing and was gurning now.

‘Mate, I have seen every fucking thing, the universe, and I am ‘avin it.’

He was not making any sense, at all. He carried on dancing, even though there wasn’t any music on at that particular moment.

I was feeling impatient with him now.

‘Have you seen him or not?’

‘Yes, girl, I seen him with that bird out of that band. The blonde bird.’

He was probably talking about Genna, a willowy, almost ethereal girl from one of the bands Connor promoted. I could never stand talking to her for more than a few minutes because she said ‘Yah’ a lot.

‘Any idea of where that was?’ I said, suddenly panicked that I might actually see Connor after all. The whole idea of coming down here was to see him but it suddenly made me nervous thinking about it.

He pulled his best gurning face and really, I mean
really,
invaded my personal space by shoving his face right up to mine. ‘He’s behind you,’ he said and started laughing maniacally.

What a bloody lunatic. I turned away, clutching Brian and considered calling it a day.

But he was right, Connor was behind me, and he was talking to Genna by the back of one of the stage tents. He saw me and walked over.

‘Fiona, what are you doing here? I thought you were coming tomorrow?’ he said. ‘And where did you get that stupid looking dog from?’

When I saw him, I looked at him for a few moments and I waited. I waited for the fizz. While I had dismissed the attraction I felt for Sam, it worried me I didn’t feel anything like this with Connor. I told myself I was unlikely to feel like that after five years but now I couldn’t remember if I ever had. What I was feeling was nothing like I felt when Sam touched me, but that was normal, I told myself. We’d been together forever. Connor was a good catch, like Ayesha said. Good for my future. Good for my five year happiness plan. I just needed to tell him about work. I wanted to get it over with, but then Genna walked over and I didn’t want to say anything in front of her.

‘There was a band I wanted to see,’ I lied. ‘Hi Genna.’

‘Yah, hi,’ she said. She was looking at the ground, kicking her boots into the floor like a child who had been told off by her parents.

‘So…?’ He paused and put his hand on my shoulder, but it felt awkward, like he didn’t even know me. ‘Look it’s great to see you, but the band are about to go on and there’s A&R people here so Gen’s a bit stressed… so can you…’

‘Yeah, I can come back after or something. I might go into the tent and watch while I’m here. Talk to you after maybe.’

He folded his arms. ‘We’re hoping to meet up with them afterwards, and talk about meetings, so I won’t be free for ages.’

He could see I was disappointed, so he added. ‘Look why don’t you give me a ring tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll arrange to meet up on the night. Like we said, yeah?’

‘Okay.’

There was applause which suggested the band in the nearby tent had finished. Connor took this as a signal to get going. He held his hands up as if to say he couldn’t help the situation.

‘I’m really sorry Fiona, I’ve got to go, but ring me later, yeah? You trust me don’t you?’

‘Yeah, course.’ I said. He came over to hug me but with Brian in the way, he couldn’t properly, so it ended up as more of an awkward pat on my shoulders, followed by a kiss on the cheek.

Then he left. I told myself it was just bad timing. The wrong time to talk. I’d speak to him the following day, or when we got home.

‘You’re not stupid looking.’ I said to Brian Harvey, kissing his head. All the noise and bustle seemed to quieten for a moment. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been around so many people and felt so alone.

*

I couldn’t remember the way back, but I knew it was up the massive hill. I didn’t want to stay at the festival any longer, so I thought I’d better make my way back to the site and see if I could turf someone out of the yurt and finally have a kip on one of those comfy beds. I was shattered after a terrible night’s sleep and this exchange with Connor had left me exhausted. I just wanted to switch off and think about something else.

Some of the road didn’t even have a path, and I couldn’t remember what you were meant to do when walking on country roads, whether it was to walk away from traffic or towards it. Not that there was much traffic about. I was about halfway up when a car slowed down and stopped next to me.

‘You didn’t stay long? Desperate for more mung beans are you?’ It was Sam.

I found myself smiling immediately. I wasn’t broken down or stuck in a muddy bank this time, but again he had shown up at just the right moment.

‘You’ve not been crying have you?’ he asked. He looked concerned.

‘No, not really.’ I said.

‘Not really? Come on get in.’

‘Thanks.’ I said.

‘No bother.’ We didn’t say much on the drive up the hill, he’d occasionally glance over and smile, and I’d look over at him and smile back. He didn’t ask me what had happened and I was glad of it.

As we pulled up at the pub, a couple of older men were waiting outside.

One of them waved his walking stick at Sam as we got out of the car. The other one said ‘What time do you bleeding well call this? We’re dying of thirst here.’

The one with the stick said ‘Looks like he’s been riding around the town with women, instead of looking after us, his regulars. Don’t you know we’ve got arthritis? We can’t stand here all day.’

‘Yes, he’s too busy thinking about women to be opening up for us.’

I loved this easy, light hearted exchange between the customers and Sam. It made me laugh. The one with the stick winked at me to let me know it was all in jest and I could see they enjoyed this kind of banter regularly.

‘You’ve no worries there pal, I’ve had enough of women to last me a lifetime,’ said Sam.

‘Ah, you just haven’t met the right one yet. How about this one?’ he motioned to me. ‘You could have this one? She looks like she would do.’

‘Ah, I’m sure she would. I’m sure she would.’ Sam smiled at me and rolled his eyes.

He opened the door for me for me, ushered the three of us in.

‘Come on in then, before you die of thirst,’ he said to the men.

‘We could have expired out there you know. Warm day like this.’ I wondered how much of a regular thing it was that Sam would fail to open on time. It’s a wonder he had any customers left.

‘Ah Frankie, think of the money I’ve saved you,’ he said, taking his place behind the bar. ‘Gentleman, I would like you to meet Fiona. Fiona is here on her holidays from the big city experiencing our quaint little way of life. I’m sure you would like to give her a warm welcome to our lovely little pub.’ The men both waved at me.

‘Fiona, this is Frank – don’t be fooled by his stick, it’s only for waving around at people. He makes it up the hill every day to drink my finest ales. And this is George, his partner in crime, who will tell you that I don’t look after my beer but still manages to drink many hundreds of pints of it each week.’

‘You cheeky bleeder,’ said George.

Frankie interrupted ‘You’re not with those hippies down the road are you, with their big circus tents? Bleeding eyesore it is.’

‘Yes that’s right – the yurts. Actually –’ I turned to Sam who was now pouring pints for the men as they settled into their well-worn seats on opposite sides of the room.

‘I really should get back there you know, thanks for the lift and everything but –’

‘You can have one drink before you go. Besides, the lads here like a bit of female company. We don’t get many women in here,’ his eyes twinkled mischievously.

‘There was one here in May,’ offered Frank, waving his stick for attention.

‘And there was another one here in April too.’ added George.

‘Now you see, Fiona, you have to stay and have a drink, you’ll be talked about for years.’ I did want to stay and have a drink. I didn’t fancy the alternative and I felt at home here. Even though it was a little worn and tired, it was cosy and friendly. I liked that there weren’t any chalkboards with fancy cocktails on. I loved the wood panels and the fireplace. It felt genuine and real.