by Lucy Lord
‘That’s wonderful. Thank you so much.’
She jumps to her feet and the rest of us follow suit. Exchanging effusive goodbyes, we depart.
‘Is it me, or is that tree changing shape?’ I ask no one in particular, pointing at a stupendously lush old oak, whose trunk is gently pulsating. ‘Look, its leaves are dancing!’
‘Go on leaves, dance for the madwoman!’ says a laughing voice in my ear.
‘Max!’ I turn around and give him a big hug. ‘Isn’t everything just amazing?’
He laughs again. ‘Lovely to see you all.’ He’s wearing a faded yellow sleeveless T-shirt, raffia flip-flops and three-quarter-length cotton pants that he picked up in India. All standard-issue ethnic clothes are three-quarter-length on him. His golden curls stand on end around his sweet face.
‘This is Dave – he’s in the tent next to ours,’ says Damian, as I seem to be incapable of making introductions. Or, indeed, sense.
‘Nice to meet you, Dave,’ smiles Max, holding out his hand. ‘What do you make of this, then?’ He gestures around the field. Around fifteen yurts, just as Poppy described them, squat at regular intervals throughout the field. Each has a diameter of probably twenty feet. Delicious meaty smells are coming from a barbecue at the far end of the field and some worried-looking long-haired beasts are grazing in an enclosure nearby.
‘Are they yaks?’ asks Poppy, laughing.
‘’Fraid so. Gotta be authentic,’ laughs back Max. ‘Anyway, come and see my yurt.’
We follow him to the middle of the field. He opens the door with a flourish and we all pile in.
‘Bloody hell, Max,’ I say. ‘Your yurt is positively palatial.’ I then start giggling and repeating ‘positively palatial’ to myself until Max tells me to shut up.
‘Positively palatial’ may be an exaggeration, but it’s bloody comfortable for Glastonbury. A large futon with crisp white sheets, plumped-up pillows and a sheepskin (yak skin?) throw dominates the interior. There is coir matting underfoot and a couple of mushroom suede beanbags slouch underneath the window in the far wall.
‘Bedside tables, man. Cool,’ says Damian, gesturing towards a couple of low tables made out of some expensive dark wood, supporting opaque white glass lamps that vaguely resemble Barbara Hepworth sculptures.
‘I know, it’s great, isn’t it?’ says Max. ‘And the pièce de résistance … !’ He whips back a white linen curtain that has been set up at the other end of the yurt from the futon to reveal … a mini Smeg fridge.
‘Fuck me, they’ve given you a mini-bar,’ says Mark. ‘Cunting result.’
‘Cunting? Are you sure that’s a word?’ Poppy gives him a look.
Max bows and opens the door. ‘What can I get you all?’
‘Surely cocktails would befit the glamour of our surroundings,’ says Poppy. ‘Do you have ice and glasses?’
‘Of course.’ Max opens a cupboard hewn from the same expensive dark wood as the bedside tables. ‘There’s some sugar in here, too.’
‘And a big bunch of mint and some limes in the fridge,’ says Poppy. ‘Awesome – we can make mojitos. Though I’m baffled as to why anyone would think they’d fit with the yurt theme.’
‘Probably some ditzy PR getting Central Asia confused with Central America,’ says Damian, to all-round hilarity.
‘Talking of Central America,’ says Poppy. ‘It would be a travesty to let these lovely smooth surfaces go to waste.’
‘Here, use mine.’ Dave gets a wrap out of his pocket. ‘You lot have been well generous to me.’
‘Very noble of you, sir,’ says Damian, as Max goes to shut the yurt door.
After some rather hefty lines, Poppy and I set about making the cocktails with enormous enthusiasm.
‘A tad more sophisticated than last year, wouldn’t you say, Belle?’ she says, chopping mint like Marco Pierre White on speed.
‘Fuck yeah,’ I respond inelegantly, squeezing limes as I perform a little shimmy. ‘In fact, so far I’d say this is the best year ever!’
The cocktails prepared, we head out into the sunshine and sit down on the grass.
‘Well, thank you, Max, for providing such a civilized interlude,’ says Poppy, raising her glass. ‘Cheers.’
‘Yes, thanks Max, cheers,’ we all chorus.
‘What’s the idea behind the yurts?’ Dave asks Max, who starts to laugh.
‘A new reality TV show where they shove a load of people with mental health problems into a great big yurt in Kazakhstan, and manipulate their neuroses for the delectation of the Great British Viewing Public.’
As we all crack up, Max shushes us and mouths, ‘No, really.’
We lounge in the sun with our cocktails, surrounded by people who look as if they should be on the roof terrace at Shoreditch House. After a bit, Poppy checks the time on her phone and yelps.
‘Cinderella time. Sorry to love you and leave you, but I really do want to see DJ Dawg who started his set at four. And I told some of my colleagues I’d see them there. It’s quarter past already.’
So Poppy goes in search of the dance tents, Damian his next-big-thing indie band and Mark his Mongolian deep-throat singers. We all agree to meet at the Pyramid Stage for Primal Scream at 10.30, but to stay in mobile touch for any pre-Primal hitherto-unforeseen excitement, phone-coverage-dependent, of course.
‘Great as it is amongst the yurts, Max,’ I say, ‘I feel the urge to get down with the people a bit more – do you know what I mean? A bit of the old group-hug mentality that you get in the fields around the main stages?’
‘I certainly do. Come on, let’s go. What are your plans?’ he asks Dave, who is checking his phone.
‘Just got a text from my mates. They’re stuck in traffic and probably won’t be here for at least another couple of hours. They say it’s dead grim.’
‘Yeah, it would be,’ says Max, and I think of Ben. Bugger. ‘Hang out with us some more, why don’t you?’ he adds, and Dave’s face lights up with his lovely smile again.
It’s baking hot now, as we make our way, with thousands of others, towards the main stages. All around us people are disrobing. As my initial mushroom madness has given way to light euphoria and a certain lack of inhibition, I take off my vest top (I am wearing a bikini underneath) and use it wipe my sweaty brow.
‘That’s attractive,’ says Max, removing his own T-shirt to do the same. I notice Dave gawking at my brother’s impressive chest, and for the first time it occurs to me that he might be gay too. Excellent, I think, matchmaking plans already formulating in my befuddled brain. I’ve grown rather fond of Dave in the few hours we’ve known him, and Max could certainly do with some success in his love life.
We stop at a beer tent for some plastic pints of Stella. The queues are so long, we get two each, even though they’ll warm up in no time. After weighing up the options, we all agree we’d rather face warm beer than more time standing in line. We find a space looking down at the Pyramid Stage, far enough away from it to be able to sit down on the litter-strewn grass without being trampled. Then, suddenly and wonderfully:
‘Bella? Max? Is that you?’
I look around. ‘Ben! But how did you get here so quickly? What about the traffic?’ I ask, all a-fluster.
‘It was a stroke of luck actually,’ he says, smiling that devastating smile of his. ‘Susie, the director, offered me a lift in her helicopter. She’s covering the festival for some US TV channel, so they had to get her here quickly. We landed at Babington House.’
‘That’s pretty cool,’ says Max, getting up and shaking Ben’s hand. ‘Good to see you, mate.’
‘Isn’t it funny how easy it is to bump into people here, considering how huge it is?’ I stammer, entirely unprepared for seeing him so soon. ‘Though it wasn’t that easy for Kestrel’s mum to find him last night, poor woman. God, she must have been out of her mind with fear …’ I am babbling with idiotic nerves.
‘What on earth are you on about?’ Ben laughs, not actually want
ing a response. He is looking predictably gorgeous in slightly baggy faded jeans that hang off his narrow hips, though a battered brown leather belt stops them sliding halfway down his bum – the US jailbird look that has been taken up by teenage boys in Surrey. His almost obscenely perfect V-shaped torso is bare and brown, and last year’s cowboy hat protects his beautiful face from the sun.
‘Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?’ he continues, and I get to my feet, intending to give him a peck on the cheek, but he puts his hands round my exposed waist and pulls me closer, landing me a smacker right on my lips. My skin burns under his touch.
‘You’re looking great,’ he says. ‘Green suits you.’
Behind him, Max raises his eyebrows at me and grins.
‘So how was the helicopter ride?’ I ask, trying to ignore my galloping heart and racing libido. ‘That’s so glamorous!’
‘It was fun. Fantastic views over Stonehenge and it certainly beat being stuck in traffic for hours. Had a bit of trouble fending Susie off, though.’
‘I can imagine, dressed like that,’ says Max wryly, apparently forgetting that he is wearing even less than Ben is. ‘Would you like a beer?’
‘No offence mate, but I’d rather have a cold one,’ laughs Ben. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ And he saunters down the hill, oblivious (or perhaps not) to female heads swivelling as he passes.
‘Bloody hell. He. Is. Fit,’ says Dave, confirming my earlier suspicions. He’s been silent for the whole encounter.
‘That’s an understatement and a half,’ laughs Max. ‘So what’s going on with you two, Bella? He was very touchy-feely.’
‘He was, wasn’t he? Thank God I’m not imagining it.’ And I find myself telling them about the kiss the night after I left Max and the others at Osteria Basilico.
‘Hmmm,’ says Max thoughtfully, once I’ve finished. ‘Well, I can see why you’re tempted – hell, who wouldn’t be? – but I don’t want you to get hurt. Be careful, sis.’ His big brown eyes are serious.
‘Why would I get hurt? We’ve been friends for ages, and now he seems to be noticing me as a woman –’ both Max and Dave wince at this – ‘too.’
‘It’s just that blokes like him who could have anyone aren’t the easiest people to go out with. And look at you, Belles, you’re head over heels already. Anybody can see that.’
‘Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a bit?’ I say hotly, but now both boys are shushing me, as Ben is returning with his beer. As ever it’s taken him a fraction of the time of anyone else to get served.
Ben sits down between me and Max and leans back on his elbows, his long, denim-clad thigh brushing mine. I feel as if I’m in the most wonderful dream and I never want to wake up. The sunshine, the atmosphere, the music, the chemical euphoria and now this? Bloody hell.
‘So what have I missed?’ asks Ben, once we’ve introduced him to Dave and explained where the others are. ‘Such a bore, having to do that shoot this morning.’ Sometimes he talks as though he were in a Noël Coward play, a RADA affectation that I might just find a teensy bit pretentious in a lesser man, despite my continuing affection for the 1920s and 30s.
I start telling him about my poker win and little Kes, when suddenly I remember. ‘Oh shit. We couldn’t put your tent up. By the time we got to the field there was literally just enough room for our three tents. Sorry.’
Ben smiles and directs his startlingly blue, long-lashed gaze at me. ‘Never mind, darling. I’m sure we’ll make do somehow.’ Am I imagining it, or is the pressure from his leg increasing? Max looks over at us sharply and changes the subject.
‘Have I told you the latest about Andy and Alison’s wedding?’
‘God, what a bitch,’ says Ben. ‘What does he see in her? I mean, he’s a bit dull but he’s not a bad bloke.’
‘He’s not dull,’ says Max irritably. ‘He’s highly intelligent and extremely principled. He was great fun at Cambridge.’
‘OK, sorry,’ says Ben, smiling and putting his hands up in mock surrender. ‘I forgot he was a good friend of yours. I’ve probably been listening to Damian too much.’
‘Damian has a severe case of professional jealousy,’ says Max. ‘Anyway, apology accepted.’ He smiles back. It’s impossible to be cross with Ben for long. ‘Back to your original question. Well, Alison is also highly intelligent and she claims to be extremely principled. Which is difficult to believe, given her chosen profession.’
‘She’s a lawyer,’ I say to Dave, who gives a gratifying guffaw.
‘She was something of a star at Cambridge,’ continues Max. ‘Head of the Law Society, double firsts right the way through, you name it … She was considered a real catch. And she didn’t seem nearly so hard in those days. But yes, now I do feel sorry for Andy. Henpecked is not the word.’
‘So what’s going on with their wedding?’ asks Ben, with his endearingly camp thirst for gossip.
‘Well, so far the original florist, photographer and band have all backed out because they refuse to work with her. It’s taking all of Andy’s powers of negotiation to keep their chosen venue, and the vicar has taken to drink.’
‘Noooo … !’ I gasp, gleefully.
‘Yes, really,’ Max laughs. ‘I’ve been to the venue three times to check things out for the catering. It’s Hambledon Hall, Bella,’ he adds, naming a beautiful seventeenth-century manor house in the next village to where our mother lives in Oxfordshire.
‘Oooh nice.’
‘Yes, very. Anyway, every time I’ve been to the village pub for lunch, the vicar’s been in there, knocking back the Scotch and complaining about the lawyer woman from London who’s making his life a misery.’
‘Wow, she sounds scary,’ says Dave.
‘I chucked a glass of red wine over her last time we met,’ I boast, to a chorus of ‘Respect!’ and high-fives. Yes, this is fun.
‘Oh, and you should see what she’s trying to make poor Alison wear.’
‘Her bridesmaid is also called Alison,’ I say to Dave. ‘Oooh, go on.’ It’s appalling really how much I enjoy a good bitch.
‘For a start, it’s charcoal grey. No, make that pewter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t bridesmaids meant to look joyous and celebratory? Anyway, it does absolutely nothing for her complexion.’
‘No, it wouldn’t,’ I say, remembering Alison’s pink skin and mousy hair.
‘Then there’s the cut. It has a high neck, which makes that rather buxom bust of hers look vast and low slung.’ This is one of the great things about having a gay brother. ‘There are cut-away armholes, which show off the plump arms nicely, a calf-length bias-cut skirt which clings in all the wrong places, and – get this – a drawstring waist. The proverbial sack of potatoes. It’s as if she’s deliberately chosen all the elements that flatter her friend the least.’
‘But why would she do that?’ I ask.
‘Why d’you think, Razor?’ It’s short for Razor-Sharp Mind and a hangover from our childhood. I pull a face at Max as Ben says, sagely,
‘She’s probably one of those women who’ll do anything to ensure she doesn’t get upstaged on her wedding day.’
Max nods. ‘That’s about the size of it. And poor little Alison doesn’t have a hope in hell of standing up to her about it. If anybody dares to disagree with her, she starts screeching “it’s my big day” like some demented banshee.’
‘God, remind me never to get married,’ says Ben with a shudder, reaching out and stroking the inside of my elbow. Great tingles of pleasure shoot through my whole body and I try not to gasp. Why is he doing this to me?
‘Shit, I shouldn’t be laughing about it,’ says Max, shaking his curly head and looking guilty. I turn to stare at him again. ‘I really hope it’s just pre-wedding nerves, combined with the pressure of her job. If anyone deserves to be happy, Andy does. He’s had a tough time of it.’
‘Well, he should have had better taste than to get involved with her in the first place,’ jokes Ben.
&nbs
p; ‘No, I mean before. Christ! Anyway, I told you, Alison wasn’t always so bad.’ Max sounds unusually angry, for him. I suspect he’s cross with himself for getting carried away bitching.
‘Why, what happened?’ I ask, intrigued now.
‘In a nutshell, both his parents died in a car crash when he was seventeen. He was an only child, and very close to them – they were both teachers …’
‘Oh God, poor Andy. How awful.’ Hearing about such tragedy in our sunny festival surroundings feels horribly incongruous.
‘He was forced to grow up very quickly, which is why he sometimes seems so serious,’ Max goes on.
‘What caused the accident?’ asks Dave.
‘A pissed truck driver who got less than a year in jail. Andy was so angry about it when we first met at Cambridge. It was only a year after his entire life had been wiped out.’ Max wipes his sweaty face on his rolled-up T-shirt again. ‘It’s one of the reasons he got into journalism – he’s passionate about exposing the truth.’
‘OK, sorry, you’re clearly the right man for best man then,’ says Ben lightly. ‘And let’s hope you’re right about Alison’s pre-wedding nerves.’
‘Sorry for bringing the mood down,’ says Max. ‘But I love that guy and won’t hear a word against him.’
We are all silent for a moment.
Trying to get back to where we were, I repeat the Glastonbury mantra, ‘So, what’s on the menu for the rest of the day? Does anyone want to see anything in particular over the next couple of hours or shall we just chill?’
Max, who has just picked up his programme, gives a little shriek, then laughs. ‘Well, I’m sorry to revert to stereotype quite so dramatically, but I’m afraid I must see the Scissor Sisters. They’re on the Other Stage in twenty minutes, and it’ll take twenty minutes to get there. Anyone else up for it?’
‘Oh my God, I’d forgotten about the Scissor Sisters,’ says Dave. ‘Yes, I’m definitely up for it.’
‘Having just got here, I’m more inclined to chill for a bit,’ says Ben, looking at me. ‘In fact, I think I’ve got a bit of catching up to do, retoxification-wise.’
