Five Go Glamping (18 page)

‘But there’s no food left,’ I said.

‘You can get some,’ he said urgently, he fished in his pockets for car keys and cash. ‘Here. Please. I’ll pay you whatever you want. Just a few hours.’

Before I knew it, I had said yes and was on my way to fetch groceries, driving in Sam’s car. I couldn’t stop smiling to myself as I stopped at the roadside farm shop to buy vegetables and then straight on to the wholesale shop we visited yesterday. I rushed around piling the ingredients into a trolley and once I had everything I made my way back to the pub.

I barely had chance to take my jacket off, when Sam started calling orders through. The kitchen was sparkling. Sam must have worked for ages cleaning it up last night. I felt momentarily resentful that I hadn’t been here with him to finish the job, spending more time with him. I had to think quickly with so many people already there. I browned sausages for a huge toad in the hole, while at the same time cooking up a Bolognese sauce. Once the dishes that needed oven cooking were out of the way, I prepared the veg and browned mince to make up the lasagne and the cottage pies. I did it in half the time I had done yesterday and again it was thrilling and gave me such a sense of satisfaction. Sam shouted out vegetarian orders too, with my broad bean dish being one of the most popular. There was order after order and they didn’t seem to stop. Every now and then, I’d poke my head out of the kitchen and Sam would give me a wink which would cause my stomach to flip over. I smiled back at him and he wiped his hair back and pulled at the collar on his T-shirt, and then he started singing a song about bangers and mash and chili con carne. I shook my head in faux disapproval and went back into the kitchen but I liked it, it showed how he had come alive. This busy pub was good for him, just like it was for me.

This went on for another couple of hours, until slowly the customers emptied out – leaving only Frank and George sat in the corner. I hadn’t noticed them come in and they were looking shell shocked. Frank had taken the very sensible step of stuffing paper napkins in his ears, although I wasn’t sure whether it was the noise of the customers he was avoiding or Sam’s terrible singing. He sat there a little bit oblivious with the large triangle napkins poking out either side of his head.

I shouted over to George, asking why he hadn’t done the same, while making eye contact with Sam, but there was no response from George. Frank nudged him and startled George who then turned his hearing aid back on.

‘About time as well,’ said George to Sam. ‘I’ll have a pint now please, now that those vegetarians have gone.’

Sam said ‘Do you want to do the honours?’

‘Why not,’ I said and took one of the last of the glasses from the shelf and quite competently poured a pint of mild and took it over to George.

‘That’s better than his,’ said Frank, ‘I’ll have one too.’

‘Coming up,’ I said.

Sam stood and watched with his arms folded and smiled. I could tell he was impressed.

‘And have one yourself,’ said Frank as I poured him a drink. ‘You’re a natural.’

‘I will, thanks’ I said.

‘I better go,’ I said after I finished my drink. I wanted to stay, but I knew the sensible thing would be to leave.

‘Sure. Look thanks again for everything,’ said Sam. ‘You’ve no idea how much this has helped me out.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I said. I could see the relief on his face and I suspected a successful couple of days meant more to him than he had anticipated. His relaxed attitude to running his pub was probably a response to not wanting to think about the alternative. He’d said it had been successful once.

‘And what about us?’ shouted Frank.

‘You two can find yourself another watering hole for the evening,’ said Sam ‘Come on, let’s go.’ A disgruntled Frank and George shuffled out complaining they should have stayed in the British Legion like last night.

‘How’s the glamping?’ Sam asked as he locked up the pub.

‘Don’t ask,’ I said.

‘Like that is it? Well you look nice, I meant to say earlier.’

‘Oh thanks.’ I said. I felt self-conscious and a teeny bit ridiculous with the flower in my hair and raised a hand to my head. ‘Steph, that’s my friend, she did it.’ I added, feeling uncomfortable.

He nodded approvingly.

‘Well you look great. Come on,’ he said. He put his arm around me and my head went all spinny, so I pulled away, feeling slightly short of breath. I was beginning to panic about heading down to the festival with him and I wasn’t sure I should be spending any more time with him if he was making me feel like this.

‘Sorry,’ he said, putting his hands up in the air as if letting me know he wasn’t armed. ‘And hey, I’m sorry about last night, about you having to leave so soon. Was everything all right?’

‘I don’t know.’ I said.

We chatted easily walking down the hill, Frank and George followed behind us shouting every now and then that Sam was a disgrace of a publican. Sam told me stories about the old fellas in the bar and told me how they were his only two regular customers.

‘It’s a shame you’re not nearby, I could do with a bit of help at the weekends. If we could get some customers in. I’m sure we would with your cooking.’

The moment he said it I pictured myself back in the kitchen with him, laughing and singing his stupid songs – and every now and then he would look at me in that way of his. Like no one had ever looked at me before. I imagined what it would be like to do this walk into the town every day or use his car to stock up on ingredients. I glanced around at where we were, taking the view in. It would be idyllic and a lot nicer than spending my Saturdays with Doris.

‘Yeah,’ I said, admiring the view ‘That would be great. I like working with you.’

‘Well, the offer’s there if you want it,’ he said.

‘Be a bit of a long commute for a Saturday job,’ I said, bringing myself back down to earth. ‘You could get someone else in though, it’s a lovely pub, and there’s that view out the back. You could do barbecues or have bands on, anything.’

‘He did used to have someone,’ shouted Frank from behind us.

‘Until she decided to leave him,’ shouted George.

‘Thanks for that fellas,’ he said.

‘That true?’ I said

He responded with a nod and ‘shit happens’ tilt of the head.

‘What happened?’

‘She got it in her head that she wanted to do an ‘Escape to the Country’ so we moved here. We made a success of it for a while. Only when we got here, it turned out what she really wanted to do was escape from me.’

I found myself wanting to know more but I sensed he didn’t really want to talk any more about it so I was happy to walk with him – I even managed to slow down to his idle pace. I felt really relaxed in his company, and I was growing more and more annoyed that Connor may be around later.

At the bottom of the hill, we parted ways with Frank and George.

Streams of people were feeding in from a makeshift car park as we approached the castle grounds.

The nearer we got the more we were jostled. At the gates, a burly security guard motioned to Sam and called his name, opening up the barrier to let us in.

‘Perks of the job,’ Sam said and winked.

We walked through the barrier and joined the streams of people. As we did various folk said hi to Sam. He appeared to be a bit of a local celebrity, though you wouldn’t know it considering how empty his pub was.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

‘Maybe?’ I said. I wasn’t sure if I was hungry. I knew I felt sick and nervous and had a dreadful feeling of anticipation.

‘So what do you fancy, we’ve got barbecued pulled pork, of course, have to keep you city folk happy with your trendy food,’ he said as he pointed to the vast array of burger vendors on the edge of the field.

‘Or there’s macaroni cheese, your bog standard hot dog…’ He paused, seeing I was distracted. I couldn’t help thinking it would be nicer if we’d stayed at the pub like last night, but without Connor interrupting. I was keeping an eye out for Connor when Sam said ‘But I wouldn’t want to keep you from your fella now.’

‘I’m not sure how I’m going to find him in all this lot,’ I said dismissively. I wasn’t sure I even did want to find him, as I was having a rather nice time here, with Sam. A couple of women walked past and checked Sam out and giggled as he smiled at them. He pretended not to know they thought he was hot.

And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Connor.

I wasn’t sure it was him at first as I could only see him from the back. But then I recognised Genna. She was leaning against the side of one of the burger vans, giggling as Connor moved a hair from her face. She looked down coyly and then Connor lifted her chin up slightly and kissed her on the cheek. I stopped breathing momentarily as he pulled away, and ran through a million possibilities in my head as to why my boyfriend was doing this. Maybe she was upset, it was just a kiss on the cheek, but then he put his hands around her waist and kissed her again on the mouth and again and again until they were locked in an embrace that none of the excuses I was creating in my head could dismiss as innocent.

I pressed my hands against my chest to remind myself to breathe and that’s when the tears came.

‘Fiona?’ said Sam, he had moved round to stand in front of me. He must have been wondering why I had stopped still in my tracks.

‘Fiona?’ he said again. He placed his hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t take my eyes off Connor and Genna. It probably looked to Sam like I was having some kind of episode. I was frozen to the spot, but all I wanted to do was get out of there. This was all too much. My body was flooded with a million emotions. I was angry, hurt and felt an overwhelming sadness. I wondered how long it had been going on and wondered how many times he had been out with her and then come home to me. I was then hit by a wave of guilt that – had Connor not arrived just at that moment yesterday – I might have been doing the same thing with Sam. I was engulfed by such a huge sense of sadness that everything me and Connor had shared could have been a lie. I was furious that I had given him the option to get out of our relationship yesterday and he’d refused, arguing passionately that he wanted to stay with me. And why? So he could humiliate me. I wondered how many people back home knew he was seeing someone else and imagined everyone in the pub laughing at me. I could picture his hipster friends mocking me, and Connor laughing about how I had no idea and he could get away with anything.

‘I have to go,’ I said to Sam. ‘I have to go.’

‘What are you looking at?’ he asked puzzled, turning his head round to see for himself.

‘There,’ I said.

I pointed and that’s when Connor stopped manhandling Genna and saw me.

He came rushing over, almost breaking into a jog, panicking.

I needed to get out of there. I was no longer frozen to the spot and wanted to run away. I turned and walked quickly towards the main part of the crowd, stumbling on the uneven ground, looking for the exit.

‘Look Fiona, it’s not what you think. She was upset, I was looking after…’ I heard him calling after me. Then, as I got to the edge of the crowd, I heard a cry.

I turned round to see that Connor was flying head first towards the ground as Sam retracted the foot that had caused Connor to trip.

Connor had landed in a pile of mud and got up angrily, launching himself at Sam. ‘What’s your problem?’ he shouted at him. ‘Do you know how much these jeans cost?’ He started to dust himself down.

Sam held a hand out and placed it on Connor’s shoulder. ‘You’d better go pal. The lady obviously doesn’t want to talk to you.’

‘What’s that got to do with you?’ he said, standing a few feet back. ‘Fiona, what are you doing with this bloke again?’ he said to me.

‘What am I doing? What the hell are you doing?’ I said. ‘Look, just go, Connor. Leave it. I never want to see you again. You are scum. Absolute bloody scum.’

One of the burly security guards ambled over to Sam ‘Everything all right mate?’ he said, eyeing up the mud covered Connor.

‘Yeah, fine. Our friend here had a little trip. He’s leaving now. No problem.’

‘No, there’s no problem.’ said Connor and shot me a pleading look. ‘Let me explain,’ he said.

‘Forget it,’ I said.

‘Mind how you go now,’ said Sam.

‘Prick,’ said Connor to Sam and brushed past him, giving him a snide-y shove with his shoulder. Sam instantly reacted and went to push Connor back, but the security guard intervened, shouting ‘Woah, steady Sam.’

As the security guard bundled Connor off, I stood staring at Sam. I felt winded and I held onto myself around my waist to get my breath back. I was unsteady on my feet, like the world had tilted.

‘I’m sorry about all this. Thank you. You always seem to be around when I need help.’ I said.

‘No problem.’ said Sam, he reached out to steady me and placed a hand on my arm. I could see the concern in his eyes. ‘You all right?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said and I wasn’t sure at all. I took a few deep breaths. ‘Maybe I should get back?’ I pulled my bag further up on my shoulders and motioned with my thumb behind me. I asked it as more of a question. I wanted to stay a little longer to see if anything could be rescued from this day. I hadn’t realised it before but I saw now how Connor had been the only thing that was remaining of my plan. He had been keeping me tethered to it when I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to cut the ties. It was the last thing that had been stopping me from being spontaneous. This plan for a future which I was holding onto so desperately had always had him in it. But now with Connor gone, I didn’t have anything left to lose. I could do anything I wanted to.

Sam was scanning my face for some kind of response and I was formulating one.

I was going to trust my instincts and act on impulse, that’s why I decided I was going to kiss him. I stepped in closer to him, he already had a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I’d have to negotiate him being almost a foot taller than me, but I moved in and put one hand on his waist and stretched up on my toes so that my lips could meet his.

‘Woah. Okay, hang on a minute.’ He stepped back from me, leaving me teetering almost on my tiptoes.