CHAPTER 37
Each day brought a new conflict in the form of a new confirmation. The toilets was one that almost surprised me; my subconscious was clearly telling me that if Steph had done it, so could I, but my rational part saw it as it was, a quick route to an early exit from the Job.

I was also watching Eric, and seeing him shimmy in the breeze of my change like a flag. He was there for me, consciously and conscientiously, but underneath I wondered if he was suffering. That moment with the hug, where he had stiffened for just an instant, then almost crushed me. What was that all about, some moment of confusion, or of regret that he had decided to make the promise he had so glibly given? It couldn’t have been disgust. That was what I told myself, not disgust at having a man hold him.

We were back at what Steph was calling the Edifice, the capital letter obvious as she spoke, and Jan and Bill were dishing out a simple but very filling meal of stew and rice. Bill summed it up:

“We can’t dance on a full stomach, nor drink on an empty one, so…”

They also surprised me by packing a collection of bidons, cycling water bottles, and once again the explanation should have been obvious. It helped to quench thirst without spending all night on beer, and, basically, getting shitfaced too early. These were people who knew what they were doing, and I wondered how many pratfalls they had taken before working out their system.

Steph had changed, into a green dress over leggings.

“I get a bit lively for a skirt!” she said.

“Why wear one, then?” I asked.

“Annie, love, if you think about it, it’s obvious. I wear a skirt because, after so many shitty years, I can. Full stop”

She started to giggle, and Kelly joined in. The youngster explained.

“First time we saw her, trying to get out of a tent, on her knees, in a dress, not a clue!”

Steph sobered very quickly. “That was my life saver, Annie, I came here on my own and in a couple of hours I wasn’t. This lot just took over. You have it harder, I know, but you are far from alone, just look at that bloke sitting next to you with his gob shut pretending we aren’t talking about him”

Eric raised a finger. “I was taught not to speak unless I had something to say.”

I thought furiously for several seconds, weighing up whether he would feel pressured with so many witnesses, then made my decision. I took his hand and squeezed it.

“Eric Johnson, you do yourself down. This lot have a mad fiddling ginger excuse to be so accepting. You haven’t. I know this is causing you all sorts of uncertainties, all sorts of shit, but you are still here. That is courage, mate. That is agape, brotherly love, whatever you want to call it, and that is more than I could have hoped realistically to get”

Oh fuck it, in for a penny. “Eric, this is not meant to put pressure on you, but everyone around this table knows what I am feeling. One day, I may be able to sort that out, but it isn’t now, and I don’t expect you to be anything other than what you are. All I will say is that I value your friendship, your love, above almost anything, and I will do my best not to spoil that. There you are, my cards on the table, in public, aye? Just understand this: I am never going to be able to repay you, nor Ginny, Kate, any of the others. I will take whatever you are able to give, and I will thank you for it, whatever it is.”

Eric looked stunned, so I gushed on. “Look, mate, all that wasn’t meant to put you under any pressure, just let you know how I appreciate you”

Love you. There, said it, if only to myself. I changed the subject quickly.

“So, this weekend, we have beer, and music and silliness. What’s next, Bill?”

He didn’t need the programme. “Young Welsh folk followed by mad Swedish weirdness, followed by my sister in law getting, as Geoff puts it, all hairy. Oh, and beer”

Eric grinned, looking a bit shellshocked. “Glad you sad the last one. Can we sort of reverse the order? Oh, for this session, banjo or guitar?”

He was looking at me, so I answered. “Satan, of course. Let’s give these soft English Marchers a bit of ‘unleash Hell’!”

Eric looked at me sadly. “We really have to get you and those other two girls onto some more intellectual films.”

Yes, I did love him. If only I could do anything about it.

We moved off to see Calan, as a phalanx of axe-wielding warriors, or something, Kelly carrying what looked like a noticeboard. Calan turned out to be rather good, a young Welsh group, all harps and cow-horn pipe things, and then finally we were in the big tent for some Swedish folk-punk. Eric looked at me oddly, and asked the obvious question.

“What the fuck is it with you and all this Swedish shit? I mean, you are Welsh, for fuck’s sake!”

Subtlety. “Eric, my sweet, it is simple. I learned a bit of Muppet Cookery after I heard Lisa, then there I am in HMV Oxford Street and they play the worst paranoid fantasy I have ever heard. How could I not love it?”

The track that had caught my imagination was ‘Det á¤r Jag” with the words ‘Det á¤r Jag som fá¶ljer efter, Det á¤r mina steg du há¶r’, It’s me that’s following, it’s my step you hear. In my shattered state I had heard that song calling to me, the utter paranoia of its lyrics matching my mindset back then. It was only later that I had realised the subtlety of the rest of their music; the stalker power piece held me close and tight.

“Eric, you will adore them. No advance warnings here, but expect some back of the neck hair stuff”

And so it was. They drifted through Sná¤ll, and Fly med Mig, and then Ská¤gget, and by the time that song came round I was up at the front shaking my thang in a manner as hairy as anything Steph could manage. Sweat was running down my face as they finished, and Geoff was up by the two of us handing out water. I realised I was next to a similarly sweaty Steph, who just grinned at me before mouthing “Magic!”

Out into the coolth of the night air, clutching our instruments and draining our bottles, the siren call of the beer tent ahead of us as the family gathered together, and somehow, magically, we managed to find enough seats from various parts of the marquee to sit us all together. Kelly’s noticeboard turned out to be some sort of platform that she laid flat on the grass, while the men were despatched to the bar for the necessaries.

Beer. Wine for Jan, wine for Kelly, but beer, in pint glasses, for the rest of us. I took a swallow, and Eric’s choice was spot on. Not an ale I had heard of, but a good golden bitter from a local brewer. I fitted Saburo together and ran a quiet couple of scales to check the tuning, as the others did much the same, and I realised what Kelly was up to as she laced up a pair of clogs. There was muttering, and laughter, and the sounds of fiddles being tuned, and Eric just leaned in and said “Wake them up, girl”

I do love that flute. As the last overtones of my little piece died out, someone shouted “Shit, yeah!” and a fiddle was off, quickly joined by random strangers, and I swapped to Saburo’s brother to join in. It was all simple stuff, some of which I knew, but almost entirely in one of only three keys, all major. Piece of piss, really, to harmonise and improvise around the melody as Kelly did some quite amazing things with her feet and Steph just sat grinning at me as she played, doing much as I was.

More beer, more tunes, more ornamentation and more laughter and smiles. I had never played anywhere like this before apart from our camping sessions, and the big difference there was that we all knew each other. Here, strangers played, some of them badly, joined in, dropped out, smiled. That was the overall image I took from it: smiles, laughter over a beer glass. Several of what must have been regular festival goers came over to us to say hello, almost always directly to Steph, who was positively glowing. Geoff called over to me.

“Don’t worry, she won’t go all hairy tonight, she’s saving that for Saturday and, of course, Monday. We’ll have Jimmy with us then, and that always sends her over the edge”

So, wait till Saturday, which was nearly on us. The barman called time, we drank up and packed up, and strolled back by headtorch light to our camp, the Woodruffs hand in hand and Kelly still doing little steps as she went. The long day was tearing me down a little, so as we arrived I said goodnight in a round of hugs as Jan started the kettle heating. I slipped into Eric’s tent, and then into T-shirt and sleep shorts.

I had forgotten. The two bags were still zipped together. I had a moment of hesitation, sitting in what was becoming quite a chilly night, and then slipped in and snuggled down, the sounds of quiet conversation and laughter coming from all around me.

Eric woke me as he came in, the cold air over my face bringing me out of sleep. There was a bit of fumbling and rustling as he changed, and then he was sliding into his half of the bag, rolling onto his side and spooning into me, his arm over my waist.

“You awake, Annie?”

“I am now. Big farting bloke, smelling of beer, putting his cold knees against me”

“You have more than enough beer about you too, woman. Laid out the piss bottles?”

“Under the fly, sticking plaster round the neck”

“Great stuff. Look…I can see what you are feeling. I can’t really miss it, but I stick by what I said before. I am not running away. It feels sort of right like this, here in the dark…it’s just the daylight that throws me off. Can you get that?”

“So what am I making so obvious?”

“Falling in love. Not many people do that with me, so I got a bit clever at spotting it”

“Yeah, but…..that’s the problem. There is fuck all I can do about it”

He sighed. “Wait and see, girl, wait and see. You have me all confused as it is, so let’s see what happens. This, like this, this is more than OK, this my mind doesn’t get twitchy over. I am not rejecting you, Annie, I am just saying that I can’t accept you. It’s what we all said; as soon as we knew what your problem was it was all so obvious. My good mate is a girl in a bad costume. It’s just…I don’t do bloke on bloke, it is just too foreign for me.”

“I am truly sorry, Eric, I don’t have too many choices in this”

“Yes you do, and you have exercised the main one. You are so alive now it hurts to watch you, like looking into the sun. I can see the girl in there, clearly. I know I am being shallow, but let us wait until I can see the girl in the flesh, see how I react then.”

“Shallow? I can’t think of anyone deeper. You are right, Eric Johnson, I do love you. Now, this conversation is going nowhere except where it hurts, so if it s all right with you, please just keep holding me and get some sleep.”

He kissed the back of my neck. No dreams.