He Said/She Said(94)
‘Do us a tea,’ ordered the crusty. ‘Builders, nothing wanky.’ He recognised in me the failings that so frustrated Mac; my obedience only confirmed them. I handed him the mug. A bowl of (fashionable, brown, irregular) sugar lumps sat on the counter. He stuck his whole filthy fist in there and ate a handful.
‘Please don’t do that,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to throw them away.’ He laughed, his teeth the same colour as the brown sugar.
‘Cheers,’ he said, and walked off, taking the yellow mug with him, which I gave up for lost, along with the bowl of sugar I tipped into the bin and the pound I ought to have charged him. ‘Prick!’ he shouted over his shoulder, by way of a farewell.
Feeling about an inch tall, I mixed boiling water from the urn with cold water from the tap into the washing-up bowl to clean the mugs, and was five minutes into the chore when I realised someone was watching me.
‘Is this yours?’ A yellow mug hovered at chest height; behind it stood a girl with black curly hair, white skin and small, dark features pinched tightly in the middle of a heart-shaped face. ‘Some minging old crusty just threw it across the field. Hit me in the leg. I don’t know why he’s being such a knob. Something to do with the eclipse. Confluence of heavenly bodies, probably. Mercury’s in retrograde. Or ley lines.’
‘No, I think it’s that there’s some really strong acid on site,’ I said. She laughed, steam curling from her mouth, and handed me the mug. I dipped it into the sudsy water.
‘I’ll have a cup of chai, please. No sugar but loads of milk.’
So much for shutting up shop. ‘Coming right up,’ I said.
‘That’s the problem with hippies,’ she said, as the teabag steeped. ‘Always the exact opposite of what they purport to be. Peace and love my arse. Ok, not all of them. I’m sure you’re a beacon of sincerity. But some of the most violent, lazy people I’ve ever met have had a CND sign hanging around their necks or that Hindu tattoo they all get.’ She could have been describing Mac. I experienced the lightbulb pop of a long-known truth finally expressed.
‘Have you done the whole circuit this year?’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’
‘The circuit?’
‘Working the festivals. That’s what I’m doing. Cash-in-hand work in the holidays. I’ve gone to so many over the last few summers that I’m starting to recognise people. That bloke on the burrito stall over there, I’m sure he was at Phoenix the other year.’
‘Possibly,’ I said, only then seeing that Burrito Jon had locked up for the night. ‘This is our first go at anything like this.’ It’s my brother’s idea really. We just wanted a way to see the eclipse that would pay for itself.’
‘And has it?’
‘We’ve lost money by coming.’
‘No wonder I can’t pick up any work. There’s a glut of labour. A skewed job market. I’m a hopeless victim of capitalism.’ She laughed again. ‘This is good chai.’
I smiled. ‘Is it strange, going to a festival on your own?’
‘I wouldn’t have chosen it that way. I can usually persuade a friend to come, but August is funny this year because most of my friends from home have gone to work in Ibiza for the summer. There’s a couple of people I know watching the eclipse in Devon, I probably should’ve gone with them.’ A breeze shook the trees, shivering the wind chimes. ‘It’s weird here, isn’t it? There’s something almost sinister about it. Not just the lack of people. The way it’s laid out. Usually it’s just one massive field, or fields with a bit of hedgerow in, but here it’s proper woodsy. There’s great clumps of trees. You wouldn’t be surprised to see an ogre or Little Red Riding Hood.’ She looked like something from a fable herself, her skin an unearthly white. ‘I’m Beth, by the way.’
‘Kit.’ The hand I shook was soft, like she’d been soaking it in honey, so different from Laura’s long, slim fingers I almost gasped; there was no ignoring the striplight flicker of desire and I pulled away, cutting the dangerous current.
‘Is it just you and your brother?’ She asked the question straight, but my hand still tingled where she’d touched me. I was suddenly, acutely aware of how isolated we were. I saw myself as though in an old-fashioned film, an angel at my right shoulder to represent my conscience and a devil at my left, a little red embodiment of my animal self. Tell her about Laura, whispered the angel. Tell her about Laura, now.
I swerved the question. ‘He’s tripping with his girlfriend. Better to be alone than stuck with someone who’s hallucinating.’
Beth grimaced. ‘Yeah, acid’s not my poison either. Not since Glastonbury ’94 and the burning crosses coming at me across the field.’ She shuddered. ‘Festivals aren’t the right places to lose your bearings.’ She drummed her fingers on her mug. ‘So what do you do when you’re not doing this?’
‘Just left Oxford. I’m about to start my doctorate in astrophysics.’
‘I read the other day that religion’s on the up in physicists,’ she said. ‘Apparently all the other scientists are atheists. But physicists, the ones who spend real time contemplating the hugeness of the universe, are more likely to say they believe in God than almost any other discipline. I thought that was really interesting.’ I don’t know what my face was doing but she smiled again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m talking too much. It’s just that this is the first intelligent conversation I’ve had in about two days.’