FESTIVAL - The Girl in the Toilet

FESTIVAL

A Novel by M.H.Allner

Chapter One - The Girl in the Toilet
C O M P L E T E and U N E D I T E D

Previous: Prologue.

Next:   The Girl in the Toilet - Continued

That Wednesday, the skies pulled apart. Bruising overnight, the frothy clouds blackened and growled before expelling two weeks of rain over the dry green countryside only to vanish by morning, swamping the fields with a hot mist that made the colourful assortment of arriving tents pop up already sweating. By noon, the pastures were filling with plaintive discussions on the unexpected humidity. An hour later those voices turned to disgruntled mutters about the need for wellies in the outrageous heat. An hour after that the laughter started as the younger campers began to decorate their little circles with deckchairs and empty bottles. Contented sighs as the cap cracked and the cork popped and even as the empty farm land began to hum with the arrival of more people, constancy settled in.

Beyond the campsites and the booming higgledy-piggledy shanty town, nested a smaller encampment, sprung up like spring flowers over the previous days. Petit huts in vivid shades of yellow and red and blue splashed across the green hill. Skinny women and men with girlish voices mingled among the giant solarpowering sunflowers, swapping numbers and taking contact information because what a good opportunity this was networking.

“It says here that Shangrila is still a dystopia, steampunky and all that right?”

“Do you know the Green Field plan?

.... Have you translation for France? ...There’s such a rough feel, don’t you think, positively bucolic.”

Bobby stood, coming down from the aderrall he’d taken earlier, listening with an inane smile on his angular face. Glastonbury was probably his favourite of all the festivals they did each year. It wasn’t that different in terms of the majority – the people were the same middle-class ragabilly wannabes with eyes wide and peering out for a flash of celebrity; the music on the main stages was the same that you’d hear on Radio One; the drugs were the same you could purchase over the counter in that little agency in Manchester. In fact, he’d read an article about how the festival was completely alien from the love affair begun in 1971 and he couldn’t help but count the number of hunter wellingtons that stomped on by on legs that looked more used to five inch heels.

But something about it was infectious.

He could remember the first few times he’d been allowed to come along with his dad, how they’d stayed in their very own, newly designed pads back then and he and his sister had scampered through the campsites, through the leggy crowds and thudding stages, off on adventures and imaginary quests. They’d spend nights creeping round and peering into tents, collecting secrets that were only valuable because they told them only to each other. When they’d found the girl that had passed out in a puddle and they’d used her Samsung to call the festival ambulance, they’d devoted hours of free time wondering if that girl had ever woken up. Or when they’d found the wallet full of fifty pound notes and they’d spent it all on stall food and fantasy costumes. Bobby’s grin faltered when he thought of her voice laughing across the room...

Lingering alongside the navy and yellow reception tent, he eyed the strategically stationed boxes that acted as a desk and hid a mess of dirty mugs. The new girls bustled about with their charming smiles and tightly fitted blue t-shirts and offered a quirk of his lips to the brunette that caught his eye as she lead yet another set of journalists through the brightly coloured huts. He watched her sashaying away, blondish highlights catching in the sunlight and boobs pleasantly silhouetted against the bright festival homes.

“Oh aren’t they so cute. Like hobbit houses!” One of the women she lead passed him exclaimed excitedly and he snickered alone to the tent.

Across the fire quad, his father waved a large weathered hand at him before ambling towards a couple of pretty, young girls standing outside of their podpad. Old man Sinclair had a habit of talking with his clients as if he considered them old friends. Knowing him, he probably did see them as friends – perceiving their patronage as an olive branch. If the animated conversation struck up with the girls was any indication, this year looked like a good one too. Letting his eyes wander over the pair, he noted they looked younger than some of the other guests, both slim, though the blond had more curve to her than her taller, red headed friend. The red head was hot - with long legs in blue skinny jeans and a sheer white shirt with shoulders of cream lace. Effortless, he thought to himself, some sort of easy grace to that one. The blond was small, pale and average looking although her overly large sunglasses hid half her face.

Deciding to join them, thinking he could use his father as an excuse, he began to cut across the grass, his mind racing with opening lines. His mood fell as he approached – fateful words jovially confided by his own kin:

“You want to ask that guy,” He indicated towards a figure slouched against the stack of unused airbeds, “That’s Jack. He’s much better at that than me.”

Bobby scowled when he heard that name: Jack, Jack of all trades, Thompson.

Jack was an old classmate who devoted his free time to creating ingenious, albeit fantastical and bizarre stories about bygone eras and crime lords and underworlds beyond the logical. Writing, or trying to come up with new magic tricks to thwart Bobby it seemed. Slouched against the unused airbeds, reading a book perched on his leg whilst twisting a rubix cube between his fingers, he cut a comical pencil scribble against the bright eclecticism around him. They were friends, always had been, but hearing his father’s report made the bitter tang of jealousy return. Jack’d been hired long before Bobby had ever thought of actually working at the festivals instead of attending, now in the higher ups of the Sinclair business. Dangling from his lips hung the perpetual cigarette that adorned him with its smooth dark scent and harkened back to London’s corner shops. He liked to think himself a cheerful sort of pessimist, believing his smile was wry and his humour witty enough to be amusing and not so dark that half of the laughter causally linked to guilt. According to the old man, Jack was technically one of the brightest people they knew and his ridiculous brain power was enviable but Bobby just couldn’t see the practicality in all that. Plus it bothered him that Jack, who was so far out of this world one minute, was so eminently useful when it came to this. Of course, he realised that this festival business was more of a passion for his father than it was work and that something about Jack appealed to him and Bobby knew, though he would never admit it aloud, that Jack similarly adored the atmosphere and the people... It was just that Jack always ended up with the hot, leggy redhead and Bobby could only secretly, sneakily, sullenly smile and act as a wingman. Again.

Anticipating the move though, Bobby turned and headed towards his old friend, smile in place despite knowing that Jack would see though it in an instant. It was only a moment before he had snatched the incomplete rubix cube from distracted hands. Jack raised an eyebrow as he lifted his face from the book that Bobby suddenly realised was in French.

“I’m thinking of writing a story about a god that gets stuck in a rubix cube. What do you think?” Jack opened with a sly smile sliding into place.

“I think it sounds ridiculous.”

“That’s because you’re a realist. What if I said that a microchip with a program called ‘God’ was trapped in the rubix cube and can only be opened when completed?”

“I think it still sounds absurd – why wouldn’t whoever wants this microchip, I’m assuming someone wants it, just find someone who can complete them?”

“Because it’s been given to a child who has undergone a serious trauma and cannot speak.”

Bobby tried not to smile and failed. Shoulder’s slumping, he plopped himself down next to the scarecrow writer in his Dixieland breaches and muttered, “There’s a seriously hot girl coming this way, I believe.”

“You mean the girl with the Florence red hair?”

“Yup.” Bobby nodded at the two girls who were leaving his father’s side with wide smiles. Jack turned the book face down, eyes sharpening on the two. He nodded his agreement.

“Hey, Jack right? I’m Harper -” The red head began to say, her voice a lovely soft southern sound with flat vowels that made Bobby all the more jealous of his dark haired companion. But the blond interrupted awkwardly with a hand on Harper’s slender arm.

“Oh, we didn’t realise you were French. Are you Jacques?”

Bobby burst into laughter, “What makes you think he’s French?”

The blond scowled, “Well he’s reading Pere Goriot so I assumed...” and then she blushed and the hint of colour in those pale cheeks was almost endearing.

Jack’s bemused smile, however, was solely for Harper.

“I’m Jack,” he said, holding out his hand, “It’s a pleasure.”

Harper’s smile was wide and white and made her face even prettier. She pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face as she shook with Jack. 

"Harper, and this is -"

"I'm Jess." said the blond, not offering her hand and instead looking a little peeved at the entire situation, "We really just wanted to ask if you could give us any tips about how to get around you see-"

It was clear to Bobby that Jack wasn't really listening to Jess, even though her fingers were as ink stained as his own and that poking from her yellow bag was a copy of Dumas. There would be no discussion of vintage poets or neglected, moth-ridden masterpieces for Jess, if Harper had anything to do with it and Bobby felt a thread of unwanted kinship for the unassuming girl standing awkwardly beside her friend. 

"Well, then, come and sit with us, we'll see if we can help."

*

Jess was beginning to feel very peculiar only a third of the way through her gin and tonic. Her arms seemed to be floating, detached from her body and her feet seemed ever so far away. Harper was knocking back Jaegerbombs with Jack and Bobby, but it could have been Sambuca because her vision was beginning to narrow, tunnelling the wide world throbbing all around her. A dull hum, almost a moan echoed in her ears and it was as if all the things she was aware of were happening at a distance. In fact, it was kind of like she was observing herself with a strange detachment... a strange-estranged-stranged-strange... she giggled at stared, following the exaggerated three-dee world with awe. Moving was wonderful and horrible, the floor had become liquidous – was that a word – wavy, mellifluous – she liked that word and tried to say it but it kept floating out of the reach of her tongue – wavy, mellifluous and runny. The floor was running away from her and she had to curl her toes into it to stay standing. Holding onto the bar didn’t help much though because it felt rubbery and sticky and if she clung too tight her feet seemed to be dragged away in the opposite direction.

 “Darling,” Harper was saying but it sounded like more like ‘daaaaaaaaahhhhh-ra-line’ to Jess’ humming ears, “Does Yoda prance?”

Jess laughed, “Prancing? Don’t be silly, Jedi don’t prance.”

Jack was laughing at her now, she was sure, because he was staring at her with those damnable eyes with a half-formed smile on his face that took up too much of her tapered vision. She decided she didn’t like that he didn’t laugh properly but only laughed with his eyes because it meant she couldn’t accuse him of anything and he was so hard to read as it was that even if he wasn’t laughing it seemed like he was laughing only with his eyes.

The frown on Bobby’s face annoyed her too because he always frowned and looked so serious when he looked at her and he was leaning into Jack and Harper, talking to them but his voice bent and blurred into too many shades of tone for her to understand. Something niggled at her, a vague recollection of a promise or a decision that she couldn’t place. A few times it came close to her, flitting around her mind but never solidifying enough for her to act, it flashed, flickered and died before she could catch onto it every time. One of them was talking at her now, either Harper or Jack or Bobby, but since they were all looking at her, she couldn’t tell which because their voices ran together.

Pouting, she sucked up the last of her drink and went to leave it on the bar when it slid through her hands and smashed on the floor. Giggling wildly, she slapped a hand to what she thought was her mouth and apologised for the wet all over their feet then laughed again because they were all wearing wellies or boots anyway and it was so absurd to apologise for a mistake like that.

The next thing she remembered was dancing with Harper and a stranger with light blond hair, lighter than her own, who kept grabbing her waist. His hands roamed over her sides, occasionally grazing her arms, her hips, though each time he stepped too close, she threw her head back with a laugh and a smile, wondering how she had ended up dancing with him and why his hands were near her. Sometimes Harper would pull her back, push her hand through her hair and look into her eyes and smile oddly before turning back to where she danced with her own partners.

They were various. Harper was the kind of girl that danced with everyone and everyone wanted to dance with her. Twisting and swaying, she rolled with the beat, mixing in the clever steps she’d learnt in swing dance to the pulse of the music. One man stepped forward and she bit her lip with a smile, glancing up at him with hooded eyes before sliding passed him and into the embrace of a different young man. She danced and let the room dance with her, switching men for each change of her mood. If it had been Jack, she thought, she would have been happy to bend her rules, to dance with him, though he lingered with Bobby at the bar. Not keen on the music, he’d admitted and no matter her argument that music was music, he wouldn’t budge.

She worried for Jess though. It was clear that her drink was spiked, that she wasn’t herself... the boys had been willing to take her back to the pads but Jess herself wouldn’t hear of it, fighting against their attempts to take her arm and help her. It was weird to see Jess so willing to dance, so happy to let go at this point, she’d become too serious over the last few months with all her applications and deadlines and aspirations. Whatever she had taken, the hope was that she’d sweat it out pretty soon, as long as they plied her with water.

Twirling again, she found herself with her back to a tall, dark man with tattoos running down his encircling arms. She tilted her head back and felt his mouth against her hair and one hand rose to rest across her flat stomach. Smiling, she pulled away again, leaving his hand suspended as she moved back to Jess’ side. The blond had attracted a follower, a freckled boy that looked no older than seventeen and whose drunken face dopily smiled at the unfortunate twenty year old. It was probably time to intervene again...

*

“You’re quiet tonight. Bit of a change from usual.” Jack took a swig from his bottle, not really looking at Bobby as he addressed him, his eyes casually following Harper as she swung her way round the dancefloor.

Bobby looked uncomfortable, his gaze also on the crowd that rustled and bumped against each other in a mockery of dance, “We should make sure Jess goes home. You can’t even see her in this lot.”

“She’ll be fine. Probably just K in her drink – it’ll wear off quick.”

“Out there like that? Looked like percy to me.”

Jack shrugged, “She’ll be fine. Harper’s looking out for her,” he saw Bobby open his mouth to answer and added, “We’ll make sure she doesn’t leave with anyone.”

Although his brown eyed friend didn’t lose the slight frown between his brows, he did at least relax more against the table. They watched the crowd in silence, not really appreciating the need to shout over to one another across the music. The tent was full, mostly with young people pretending to know something about the all female DJ lineup. Diverse music filled up the rest of the space with what they wanted to call jungle dub but sounded more like a child had attempted Morse code on a bongo drum. Jack and Bobby, however, were mainly interested in watching the girls. Not just Harper either, she was hot but there were some great looking ones in amongst the bodies too. Jack had to admit he found it difficult not to compare each one to the slim legged red head that had wandered into his life just that morning, but he still noticed them, still appreciated the way they moved as well as their better-than-average looks. He supposed he was a little bit cruel, skipping over the average girls unless they had particularly striking eyes or chests, but then they didn’t know, they couldn’t see inside his brain. Occasionally, he did wonder if girls could read minds. They gave the impression they could. Especially girls like Jess, who had eyes that peered straight through to all the troublesome thoughts inside. But he was usually fairly sure that girls couldn’t read his mind because his mind was in his brain and brains couldn’t be read like books. They weren’t much more complicated but they were at least unreadable, even with complicated medicinal machines.

“Maybe girls have eyes that are better than MRIs...” he mused aloud, garnering the attention of his cohort.

“What?” Bobby asked, clearly not having heard him.

“Just talking to myself.”

“Weirdo.”

Noting that Jess had emerged beside Harper, her pale blondness seeming almost ghostly in the unnatural revolving lights, the two girls embraced and laughed and Harper winked in Jack’s direction which made Bobby’s heart give a little thwump. Jess staggered and giggled again, whatever she’d drunk had really done a number on her.

Both boys knew that Jess wasn’t their biggest fan, that Harper was the one interested in their company, but that didn’t mean they didn’t care about their new festival friends. Friendships formed quickly and dissolved swiftly between the vibrant tents and alternative music, in fact, Bobby actually felt quite protective seeing the petite blond girl woozing away between bodies. In his mind, she was quite sweet, albeit a lot cynical with her humour and her appraisal of the two of them. It was likely the latter kind was her way of protecting her friend, Harper clearly being the more trusting and outgoing of the two.  Of course, that didn’t make her any less frustrating but Bobby could appreciate her... and hoped that the tension might ease as the festival went on. If whatever was stirring between Jack and Harper was any indication, necessity would push them together.

“She’s more fun high.” Jack mused.

Bobby gave him a reproachful look, “C’mon, just cos she doesn’t like you.”

“Or you.”

“Us. Doesn’t mean some anyway.”

“I don’t like her much either.”

“You might if you spoke to her.” Bobby wasn’t sure why he was defending the abrupt girl that had done little more than show disinterest since they’d met in the camp yesterday.

“What are you saying? You like her?”

“I don’t think we know her.”

Jack’s face wrinkled in humour, quirking an eyebrow. “You’re such a girl, Bobby.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever.” Jack actually grinned, “Why aren’t you dancing?”

“Why aren’t you? I’m sure Harper wouldn’t mind.”

“Playing it cool.”

“Trying not to watch her dance with other men isn’t really cool man.”

“You saying I’m not cool?”

“You’ve never been cool.”

Two sharp barks of laughter, “I’m fucking cool. I’m too cool.”

Bobby laughed and rolled his eyes, “Nah mate, you’re a wanker. S’what you are.”

“And what do you do, alone, night after night in your tent?”

“Hopefully takes himself in hand,” a laughter filled interruption broke their dialogue, “Or we’ll have a grumpy Bobby on our hands and that can’t be a good thing.”

It was Jess, eyes still wide and pupils still blown so that only a bright circle of blue ringed her gaze. She had an arm wrapped around Harper, contrasting their different figures to the boys’ pleasure. Harper was stunning, she really was but so close to Jess, her willowy shape with its small, perfect breasts and narrow hips was only pleasantly alternative to her smaller friend. Jess was all curves with slim shoulders and a long neck, her loosened blond hair a straight line as it fell across her collarbone. And without those bug-like sunglasses she had pretty eyes too. Sure, her face was plain compared to the high cheek bones and full lips that Harper boasted, but now she was smiling, rather than maintaining her unimpressed pursed lipped expression, she was rather lovely. Bobby felt a little embarrassed at her terrible joke, noting the grimace that crossed Jack’s face.

“You boys are so boring.” Harper said in the velveteen voice that drove both of them crazy, “Perhaps we should get drinks and join the guys I just met round their campfire?” She rested her hand against Jack’s arm for a moment, locking her eyes with his, “They’re about to head out.”

Hiding a smirk behind his hand, Bobby saw the slight narrowing of Jack’s eyes. Good for her, he couldn’t help thinking, someone willing to keep the prick on his toes. Sobriety also seemed to be slowly catching up with Jess, though not quickly enough to stop her from snorting into her hand when she caught Bobby’s eye. They shared something, a small moment of understanding when they both felt the invisible cord stretch tight between their friends.

“Or maybe we should go look around the rest of the stalls before they close, get some air?” Jack tried to appease Harper’s challenge. Unsuccessfully.

“Nothing’s really open until tomorrow. Might as well just go home to bed if we do that.”

Grey eyes softening, Jack changed tack, stepping closer and dropping his voice so that the others could barely hear them, “Maybe we could get out of here, just the two of us for a bit.”

Harper smiled, leaned in to close the gap even more so that her mouth almost brushed across the skin below his ear, “Or maybe..." She pulled away immediately, turning her glinting eyes upon Bobby, "You'd like to dance with me Bobby Sinclair?"

The weight of Jack's gaze made Bobby shiver with amusement but he kept a straight face and opened his mouth to answer when:

“Jackooooo, just daaaance with her already.” Jess whined, dragging up a stool to and plopping herself down on top of it with a bemused, dazed look that told them her world was spinning, “then we can get out of here.”

“Dance?” Jack almost looked panicked, brain clearly seeking an excuse, “To this? It sounds like Chewbacca fucking an ewok with tourettes. Come off it.”

Scoffing at the hyperbolic description, Bobby added, “What he’s trying to say is that he can’t dance.”

Jack glared.

“Probably the only thing he’s truly shit at. No coordination at all.”

“But all you gotta do is dance!” Jess sang off-key over the latest track, “Just rock the dancefloor and do the hand jive baaabayyy.”

Harper’s expression was amused and she laid her long fingered hand on Jack’s, “And you know what they say about men that can’t dance.” She teased.

It was easy to see him relenting, his brain working through the outcomes and only seeing positives when it came to giving in...

*

“So who are you here to see?” Falling back on the usual questions, Jack opened the conversation with an easy one, “What kind of music you into, Harper?”

They were on their way back through the tents, through the fields and pastures and headed towards their pads in the lee of the trees. Bright Chinese styled lamps lit the way, baubles of coloured light floating in the dark as if suspended on invisible branches. It was that perfect cold sort of evening, the kind that only occur in summer, between the dry heat of August and cool spring rains in May. It was humid with the damp of the day before lingering, coiling round their arms even as the breeze, cold and spectral, ghosted across their skin. A mist was rising as the warmth of the ground mixed with the chill night air. A soft rustle rang like laughter in the trees and disembodied voices carried across the land, tangling in the branches along with the wind. 

She walked half on tiptoe, as if she still danced to an unheard tune. Her face lit in the lanterns seemed impossibly more striking, her hair reflecting the light in a myriad of colours that set it to flame. And her smile was wide, lips reddened, Jack's focus drifting to them as she wetted them. She stepped a little closer as she avoided a puddle, only to move away again with an almost twirl that lifted the corner of her shirt, “I have horrible tastes in music. There’s no one in particular but I’ve been to Glasto a couple times before, always had a good time.”

“Yeah?” Jack wondered if she’d ever stayed with them before and how he could have missed her if she had.

“Yeah, I came with my uncle’s family – we stayed in a Winnebago.” Well that explained that. “But I made friends in the camps, went off and had adventures. That was years ago though, before university.”

“And you’re at Edinburgh right?”

“St Andrews actually. Jess goes to Edinburgh.”

He was surprised but tried not to show it, “I assumed you went to the same university, that that was why you knew each other.”

“Nope.” Her smile faltered slightly, “We grew up together. Her father works for my family. We’ve always been close though – we went to the same schools and stuff all the way up to university. And we went on a eurotrip before first year.”

“So you’re kind of like sisters.”

Listening to her talk felt strange to him, she was something else entirely from the girls he knew and it started with her accent. Of course he’d heard Londoners before but he’d never met a girl with the kind of voice that would have blended in on BBC Radio 4. Plus she carried herself differently, with an easy feline grace that he was fairly certain he’d only seen a few other times off television. Perhaps it was confidence that threw her shoulders back and kept her chin up. It was also odd because he wanted to talk to her but as soon as he opened his mouth it was as if all the words he had were dry in his mouth. He wondered if she had the same problem. 

“Something like that. She calls us two cats a in fish bowl.”

“Same sort of thing as me and Bobby then. Except I work for Bobby’s dad and we’ve known each other longer than we’ve been friends, if you get me.”

“Where are you from then?”

“Grew up in Bath, spent some time in Bristol, now done most the season with the Sinclairs again.”

“So not that far from here?”

“Nope, not far t'all if it weren’t for us coming from Scotland for this one.” He let slip one of his crooked smiles again, “Had Rockness before here.”

“What about time off? Do you get much doing this? It must be exhausting?”

“You go place to place, it’s not so bad, usually pretty relaxing once you’re there and able to set up. Sometimes the rain’s a bugger. Occasional weekends are freed up but I tend to stick with Bobby and his pa.”

“You don’t want to go home?”

“Nah. I’m moved out.”

“On your own?”

“I have a cat. She’s called Ana. Short for Anadiplosis.”

“What does that mean? Sounds Greek right?”

“Yeah, it’s a literary thing. I just like the word. Funny to say.”

“I have a dog called Mulberry because I thought it sounded funny. Not quite as odd as your cat though.”

“Hard to be as odd as Ana.”

They lapsed into a companionable silence and he wondered if it would be too forward to take her hand now. They walked almost a foot apart, but if he stepped a little closer, would she mind? The smile on Harper's lips never fell though she walked slower now, almost ritualistically, with her lifted up towards the lanterns. 

“So what do you do with her when you’re here?”

“Leave her with my parents, they don’t mind. They used to have cats but they all died off.”

She shot him a concerned look but saw his rueful expression and didn’t say much more. He was easy to talk to, she thought, if a bit quirky in his manners. Possibly intelligent, he'd seemed so earlier but now he was much more human than she'd first thought. Much more flawed.

"Plus I think it gives dad a kick to have a cat in the house. He's a fireman."

"A fireman." she repeated, she hadn't expected that for some reason. 

"Yup." he seemed to have anticipated her reaction though, "Always used to make jokes that he had to practise rescuing the cats from trees and that's why we had so many when I was a kid."

Again, a drifting silence filled with the distant chatter and bustle of man in nature. Only a moment this time before she asked, "So what do you do when you're not doing this? This isn't a year round thing."

That was a tricky question. He shrugged, "This and that."

It was too vague and he knew it. She dropped it anyway. 

A breeze curled round and chilled them and promises of warm sleeping bags and comfortable beds called out to them. Their conversation danced away from each other, towards the news and books and both relaxed a little, the tension of their evening dissipating into a comfortable conversation. Both let glances flicker across to the other but as they approached the entrance to their campground and as Jack helped put the near-dead-weight of Jess into her bed and then to sleep, they merely watched one another quietly before murmuring goodnights and Jack offering his number. 

Bobby watched the closed door of the podpad until the solar light switched out. His eyes narrow.  

PART TWO

When Jess woke up it was to something scratchy over her eyes and a pounding ache in her temples. Loud antisocial noises seemed to burn through her ears in obnoxiously bright patterns of chatter and clatter and rattling bloody bangles. Curling tighter onto herself, she raised a hand to her face to discover what felt like toilet paper wound round and round her head.

“Wutha?” She groaned, realising it was over her head and nose too, “Wuthaduck?”

Bolting upright, groaning at the woozing in her stomach, Jess pulled at the mummifying paper wrapped about her face, screwing up her face in confusion as it came apart in her hands, “What...?”

Through the cracks between lashes, she squinted across at the lump in the bed beside her, a tangle of red waves sticking out by the pillow.

“Where?”

“Shut up,” came a pathetic whine from the bedlump, “Gobback to sleep.”

“Toilet paper?”

“You forgot your eye mask. Jack did it for you.” The lump began to stir, twisting round so that bleary, morning eyes glowered across the room at her, “S’time?”

Jess stared at Harper for a long moment, not understanding the question at all, “Time?”

Harper’s face wrinkled in pain as somebody laughed too close to their hut, Jess actually felt a groan in her chest and slumped back to the pillows, reaching for the shelf above her head for where she usually left her phone. Four numbers blurred and danced around the screen, mocking her innumerate gaze, “Look.”

She stuck her arm out into Harper’s face. Going cross-eyed before focusing, “Nearly ten,” then yawning, dark lashes closed over blue eyes, “Sleep.”

But even as Harper’s breathing deepened and she slid deeper into her blankets, Jess felt more and more unwell and less able sleep it off. Sitting up again, gently this time, she reached for her glasses when she noted that she’d fallen asleep with her lenses in again which probably accounted for the ache daylight caused her eyeballs. Colour of a migraine, she thought, bloody Nabokov and Glastonbury.

It was Friday. The festival was officially begun. And thanks to Harper's new admirer, they were officially robbed of the ability to form coherent sentences. She couldn't even remember where they had ended up last night... vague images of being piggybacked by Harper down a muddy track and being swung about until she was dizzy by Bobby... or was it Jack? Body trembling, she slid out of the warm safety of her bed and into her boots and jumper - nipping outside into the cool-eyed sunshine with a wince. Snippets of conversation as they passed around a bottle of cheap French wine...

"He wrote a story about a toy thief once didn't you, Jack?" Bobby laughed, "The story of a nefarious but tormented thief who steals into toyshops all over the world, seeking the perfect teddybear for his son. Only by the time he finds it, his son has all grown up."

Jack grinned in that wry, self-deprecating manner he had, Jess watching how Harper turned her dancing eyes upon him with amusement. 

"I think I heard that story before," she had interrupted but no one had listened.

Shaking her head clear, she could also recall Bobby teasing her with his own bland humour and making her giggle despite herself. They had been walking and walking, dancing through the stalls and the bubbling campsites that simmered with anticipation for today.

Everything began today... but she could hardly think what acts were playing. As long as they made it to whatever thing it was that they'd talked about last night... that had sounded good... some kind of swing dancing night. 

Jess stumbled up the steps to the elegantly furnished poshwash with its overwhelming soapy rose smell, gagged and dashed to the nearest porcelain god, kneeling at its alter and giving it the cheap wine and whatever else it wanted. She felt like death. Drinking was bad, it made you think you were going to die. Bad, bad, drink. She rested her head on her arm and sighed.

She wasn't sure how long she was there, nose full of the dank blue bleach, but it felt like hours before she heard Harper's voice again. Calling her, calling her again and then exclaiming when she saw the recognisable shoes sticking out of the stall. Questions, stupid questions. Jess wanted to know what the hell had happened last night and Harper explained slowly.

"People are evil. You must feel horrible now."

"Not evil," Jess groaned, running through her flu like symptoms with the knowledge that she had spent her night drugged and ridiculous, "Moronic, which isn't the same you know. Not really. Evil implies something intelligent, a decision or plan. Morons are just fucking animals. Brutish pigheaded wankers."

Harper's laugh was strained, "At least you're still able to rant. If you weren't I know there was something wrong with you."

"I hate morons."

"Me too, hun."

Jess frowned, trying to think think think what she had meant to ask... "Oh god. I was meant to make sure you didn't do anything stupid with that guy. Jack. You didn't did you?"

"Of course not! I was looking after you mostly. Had a nice chat but not sure what to make of him. He's keen though."

"Course he's keen. It's you."

"You say that..."

"Don't even try that modesty shit on me right now. I'll projectile on you."

"Gross."

"So are you."

"Look, I thought you and I could go off for the day, see the music, watch stuff just us two? Maybe meet up with the boys if we go out tonight?"

Jess moaned her approval before dry heaving again, "No more alcohol."

*

Glastonbury Festival buzzed with vitality all day. In fact, it was the sort of place that Jess knew she'd struggle to put into words for any one else who ever asked her about this place. Besides the ache that rippled through out her body and the terrible hollow feeling in her stomach, there was nothing that she honestly believed could be explained without sharing the experience. Everywhere she looked was a scene, a person, a performance, a sound that held the undefinable. It was more than the ley lines and the mystics that peppered the crowd with green hair and dreadlocks. It was more than the drugs, because she was sure that most people didn't go out on nights like her own. It was even more than the music, despite the incredible lineup of names she recognised. Admittedly, she was more excited about the second day of performances than the harder sounding artists featuring on the stages today. Thankfully the ground was drying out too, so they were able to walk with relative ease through the throngs of people.

They spent the morning just ambling. Finding out about the powerful structure of the Pyramid stage, about how its apex was meant to gather the energy from the earth and transmitting it out, whilst also drawing the power of the sun and stars to its pinnacle and returning it to the earth again. Apparently it was the big name stage though as they bought coffees from a near by vendor neither recognised the music.

Yet the empty, sick feeling made Jess miserable, her energy flagging and she wasn't surprised when the boys appeared at their makeshift picnic by the time they were waiting for the run up to the night's headliners. She noticed when she and Bobby were left together again and the time it took for Harper to return with Jack, smile brighter than before, with their drinks.

Jack on the other hand was pleased. When he'd been stuck in the camp, on duty when Bobby was off on his own to see Pendulum and the girls had vanished into the festival without a word... First, he walked back to his tent. Then he walked back. Instead of going to his post on the gates, he slumped on the pile of slightly deflated airbeds. He smoked a new cigarette and tried to think, to sort out his thoughts while wondering what exactly had changed between him and Harper in the last twenty-four hours.

She was sharper than he had first realised, more than just a pretty face. She was also harder to catch than those he usually ended up chasing. Perhaps that was it, he wasn’t used to actually having to chase anyone. Always, they pursued him, he could take what he wanted from them. He felt a slight thread of guilt as he thought that, a painful idea of what his sisters would say if they caught him thinking like that crossing his mind. But he was a self aware kind of guy and he knew that there was no point denying that he was a reasonably attractive man with the sort of personality that drew your typical girl in without effort. He was well-spoken and well-read without being erudite. He was charming and amicable without being forward or overbearing. He was narcissistic and aloof but so self-deprecatory that he pulled it off. And for some reason, those qualities suddenly felt like a burden around Harper.

All day yesterday she had seemed keen, flirtatious and coy. Not too coy, but coy. Plus, whenever she was talking to him, she brushed his arm or played with her hair, signs he was sure were meant to be read as ‘interested’. Then today, waking up, she had smiled that too-dazzling-for-the-morning smile and disappeared before so much as saying hello. What was that supposed to mean? Bobby always said he punched above his weight when it came to girls and Harper was almost certainly out of his league. She was too bright and too easygoing and too pretty. Frowning to himself though, he realised this was the first time he’d ever really truly thought of any girl as being unattainable. It made him unsure as to how to act.

His worries still featured but as they moved into the crowd, pressing close to the stage, he felt himself coming to life. The music began to play. Jess' head felt fuzzy but the guitar seemed to shift some of the cobwebs, the drum shaking them increasingly from her thoughts and the singer, whoever they were, some guy in black that looked like anybody from the backcover of a CD, made her forget entirely about her misery as she threw herself into the music. Jack let an arm curl around Harper's waist as he helped move her further into the crowd. Nodding to the beat, quirking a brow when he caught her delighted smile. 

It was the kind they liked, fast, pulsing, strong.

*

Waiting in line after the last act was painful. It was one of those uniquely awful festival experiences that caused almost as many conversations as the weather. Harper was practically bouncing as they queued. Her head was full of the day’s activities... and Jack... everything seemed to return to him, though she hated to admit it. He was something else entirely to her. It was like she’d never met someone like him before, someone so smart and charming and with so much potential and yet so little sense of himself. He seemed unreal to her, like a phantasm from a different century at times, born too many decades late for his abilities to be noticed.

And Jess was so distracted and disenchanted with everything. The only thing that seemed to cheer her up was buying that new notebook from the weird leather stall. It was understandable that she felt rotten. Of course it was when her drink had been spiked and she could hardly connect the blanks in her mind. But it was irksome and she'd left the boys behind during the day so they could have some quality time together. Only, it hadn't worked out at all and she'd ended up texting Jack to find out if they wanted to meet for an early dinner near the main stage...

“I’m going to try opening this one, it’s been closed the whole time,” Harper said, still bouncing from toe-to-toe, “God the boys are going to be wondering what the hell has happened to us.”

“It’s not like they’ll think we’re dead, they’ll wait.” Jess replied with a grimace, the more time they spent with Bobby and Jack, the more she hated to admit that she liked them.

Harper flashed her a grin and reached out for the shut stall –

“OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY HELP!” Screaming erupted down the line. Hysterical screaming, a begging plea and repetition of oh gods and noes, “Is she even breathing?!”

Jess’ heart pounded: a story? Leaving a stunned looking Harper standing in front of a vacant cubicle, she jerked her body through the gathering crowd, “I know CPR,” she shouted and bodies began to part, “Let me through!”

It was a girl, clearly dead with her eyes wide open and glazed, lips a shade of grey and skin so unearthly pale... half her face was pressed to the damp grass where she had clearly fallen from... inside the portaloo. Jess felt fascination curling in her stomach. A dead girl from the toilet. And adorned in such an old fashioned dress, the kind a medieval lady might have worn. And makeup, exquisitely applied makeup so that, if not for the deathly pallor of her skin, she should have seemed a portrait or a doll. Her eyes darted along the cold body, seizing upon every detail, the embroidered hems, the clinging scent of toilet bleach, the cups that had probably tumbled with her dress from her perch up there to down here.

“She’s dead...” whispered someone to her right and Jess nodded.

“Very.”

Someone wretched, the hysterical shouting quietened and Jess noted that she’d probably just been quite callous. But this was... this was a real story... a young girl found dead in a toilet at Britains biggest music festival? She could write on the prolific drug scene (though she winced when she thought of the looks Bobby and Jack would give her) or the influence of drink on the young (only then she remembered her own hangover) or the dangers of the music business’ industrialisation of musical institutions such as this. So many ways she could with it, she just had to find out the facts about how this exquisitely presented girl ended up falling face first out of a plastic portaloo and she could have a scoop. A flash of a camera from somewhere snapped her from the spiralling train of thought – a picture, she needed photographs.

Her own phone was soon in hand, crummy blackberry lens doing nothing to enhance the images but they’d do. Position, relation to open toilet, close up of her face, close up of her hands and dress, zoom in on the bare feet that she’d only just realised were bare... and the mess all around her. She just seemed so alien to the litter and yet here she lay, a nameless piece of detritus gathering a crowd like flies.

*

N E X T 

To watch my progress through NaNoWriMo: http://nanowrimo.org/en/participants/dragoon362/novels/festival-230383