CHAPTER 38
Eric was gone in the morning, but his side was still warm, so it hadn’t been that long. As I luxuriated in the warmth of the bag, the zips opened and he handed me a mug of tea.

“Don’t say I never do anything for you!”

He was already dressed, in cycling kit, and when I asked why he explained that Geoff wanted to go out for a ‘spin’

“Not this morning, aye? I’m all toasty warm just now”

“OK, see you in a couple of hours. The others are doing a breakfast, we’ll get ours in a bit. Laters!”

I made the effort to settle back down, but soon the smell of bacon was too strong to resist, and I wrapped myself in T-shirt, fleece and cycling tights and struggled out of the tent, making a quick visit to one of the plastic toilets before entering the Edifice. Three women looked at me, eyebrows rising in unison like the flags at an Olympic medal ceremony. Bill muttered something about taking a stroll, and I was left to the interrogation. I sighed.

“Before you ask, nothing happened. Well, a lot happened, but nothing, nothing physical, well, that can’t, can it?”

Jan interrupted my flow of nonsense. “More tea? Easier talking when your hands are full”

I took the mug gratefully and settled onto a bench seat. Kelly flopped down beside me and slipped an arm around my waist. “This is frightening you, isn’t it? All going too quick?”

“Sort of, but, well, I wish it was quicker”

I popped out my medication and made a show of taking it. “See, I have this, and Steph’s hair place is doing things, for me, but it’s like a kid as Christmas is coming, why can’t it be today, aye?”

Steph laughed. “I did it the other way round, you know. I was already rather…developed, and I was still playing rugby and working as a man, having to strap everything up and so on. I didn’t have the guts to come out, I was just stuck as I was. You’ve already told most of the people who matter. That’s where we differ. You are going to be changing as they watch, I was already mostly there. Look, next year, here, you will be looking so much more yourself. Think of it as something to look forward to, not something to make you wish your life away”

Jan was nodding. “And Eric?”

I knew what she meant, and I had a sudden rush of certainty to the mouth.

“I think Eric may be along for the ride”

“Good. Now, breakfast…they can get theirs when they get back. They’ll be all sweaty, and who likes a sweaty man?”

We all looked at each other, grinned together, and four arms went up as one with a cry of “I do!”

They were back just as Kelly and I took the dishes down to the wash point, and they were indeed sweaty. Bill busied himself with their meal while I concentrated on getting rid of egg yolk and bacon grease. Kelly was quiet, and I suspected she was appraising me. Where did I fit on her scale of things? Change the subject.

“Kell, any men on the horizon?”

She laughed. “One or two that catch my eye, yeah, but I have issues”

“Pardon?”

“Hairy ginger ones. No, not like that. It’s not just her, anyway, it’s the whole family, including me. Look, I am in my last year at school, yeah, but I still do the things I did as a kid. Sort of obsessions. The whole family is obsessed, nicely. Dad, Mum, me, Steph, we all get really into music, and it frightens people. I had a boy once, he was really clever, a good cook, yeah, and he couldn’t take it, so I sort of…I’m all young still, and look around this place, masses of people like us, yeah?”

There were only the two of us in the small hut. I looked at her, and it was clear to me what she really meant.

“You are really lonely, aren’t you, love?”

She started to weep, and I held her to me as her hands crumpled the shoulders of my T-shirt. I let her purge her need, stroking her hair till she could talk again.

“It’s always the same. They meet the family and they scare the crap out of them. No, no, I wouldn’t change any of them, I mean, how could I have better? Just…sometimes, when I see how happy, how settled Uncle Geoff is, when I see Mum and she doesn’t realise that I know her and Dad have just been shagging, and she’s all dreamy, I just get, not jealous, you know, yeah?”

“I know, love. Trust me on that one. We need to stick together, you and me, give the boys something normal to focus on”

She looked at me then, panda-eyed, and started to laugh. “Us? This family? Normal?”

We were still laughing as we got back to the tent. The boys were still in their cycling kit, as sweaty as predicted, and the sweatier was Geoff. He gave me a hug of welcome, and whispered in my ear.

“He’s a good bloke. Just frightened, OK?”

And off they went to shower, as Bill and Jan busied themselves once more at the stove and Kelly slipped off to repair her face. Steph quizzed me with her eyes.

“Just girl talk, Steph, no biggy, aye?”

She smiled. “Oh, you are most definitely female!”

The morning was spent on a food run into town, and then a stroll around the site, instruments in hand, catching various dance displays and a couple of short performances by some of the many ‘minor’ acts that had come along, till we settled down for a picnic lunch under a huge open-sided tent filled with benches and tables. Steph looked up from her sandwich, eyes opening wide, With a shout of “Yay!” she leapt from the table and collided head on with an old man, whom she wrapped in a hug and kissed on the cheek. She brought him over to the table.

“Jimmy, you know all these people, well, except these two. Adam, Eric, this s Jimmy, one of the finest fiddlers ever. When are you on, Jimmy?”

“Whey, ah hev a spot orly on this e’en, burrave browt me garandsurn alang wi us fer the competition, like”

At least, that’s what I thought I heard. He spoke like Dennis, but far, far worse. Eric did the honours.

“Sorry? I’m from London, we hear funny there”

Jimmy drew in a breath, and tried again. “Ah sayed, ah will be playing tonight, early on, but ah hev come with me grand son for the open mike competition, like. This is Mark, he’s a piper”

A young lad of about eighteen stepped out from behind Jimmy, taller by far than him, and where Steph was more auburn than marmalade, he was the real thing, flaming red hair and porcelain skin dusted with freckles. On a hunch, I glanced over at Kelly, and she was almost drooling. Jimmy was still speaking.

“Yeez are aal gannin’ te the sessions, aye?”

Steph laughed. “Try and keep us away! Jimmy, tell me, have you finally gone and done it? Given up the tobacco?”

The old man grinned, and Mark stepped in.

“Years and years we’ve been telling him, and the doctors an aal, and finally he manages. Makes it better for me, I don’t have te listen te him coughing his lungs up first thing”

“Aye, ah hev them patch things, tha knaas. Not the same as a proper tab, but ah’m still here. Bill, Jan, Geoff, aaaaah, thoo look better every time ah sees thee, Kelly!”

She smiled back at him “And you get harder to understand every time I hear you!”

She got up and joined Steph in hugging the old man, and I realised there was another set of bonds there. He hugged her back, then looked pointedly at the instrument cases Eric and I had by us. I showed him Saburo, and he smiled happily, but it was Mark who came over for a better look, as Jimmy winced on seeing Eric’s banjo. Winced, then winked.

Mark looked at me, and I nodded, and he slotted the flute together and tried the keys.

“This is nice…I can’t get the mouth bit right for these, but I can tell quality. Gizza sec, and I’ll show you mine”

Geoff snorted into his tea, and Mark blushed even worse than Steph. Out of a hard case came a bundle of tubes and a belt arrangement, and he fastened the belt around his waist and attached a sort of bellows arrangement to his right arm. It was bagpipes, of course, and I had a quick mental shudder at the thought of some raucous pig-strangling as he pumped up the bladder---and then over the surprisingly quiet drones came a sharp and very sweet tone as he played a short piece of music I didn’t know. The sound was amazing, and he was also very good. Steph slapped Jimmy on the back of the head, playfully.

“Every bloody year I come here and enter the competition, every year I lose out to some teenaged prodigy , and here you are bringing your own along! I thought we were friends!”