CHAPTER 41
As I had expected, once Jimmy had been recognised there was a surge of people wanting to sit near him and play along, or just to listen. Steph asked him how he had managed to keep so many seats together.

“Ah whey, ah just telt them they war fer me band, like. Whey, ne lies there!”

The beers arrived, and the first one seemed to disappear from most people’s glass as if by evaporation, which is why the sensible boys had brought a double round back. Once more we settled our selves into our positions, and prepared our instruments, Kelly eschewing clogs this time for a bag of whistles of various keys and sizes. As I fitted Saburo together (he seemed to fit more naturally than his brother) I could see people laying out copies of the festival tune book, and smiled. They were learning, slowly, the stuff I had had to learn so quickly, and who cared whether they were beginners? I was buzzing with the music, with the whole vibe of the evening, and I was absolutely certain I was in love.

Someone started up a tune I half recognised, and others joined in on a variety of more- or less-well-played instruments, and we were off, delighting in the simple pleasures of making unplanned music with a crowd of a couple of hundred complete strangers. Not that complete, though, as it was obvious that Steph too was recognised, almost as well as Jimmy, and I began to detect a little deference towards our corner, almost as if people were waiting to hear what we had to play before starting one of their own. It went well, though, and I noticed Mark and Kelly were now staying as close to each other as possible. It struck me, then, how beautiful she was, dark hair tumbling over a face that had received only the lightest of touches from the acne fairy. Mark was in her eyes, and she in his, and the rest of the world seemed to pass them unnoticed. They were still playing, though.

At a pause, Steph called over to Jimmy “Dream waltz?”

“Whey aye, pet!”

It turned out to be a rather lovely lilting piece, and after a couple of runs through the main melody phrase I had it, and Saburo silked his way into the mix. After some more turns, Jimmy and Steph started playing a sharp-edged transposition of the melody with Kelly as pipes, flute and melodeon carried the body and bouzouki, guitar and bodhran gave us the rhythm. Eric knew from the start that it was definitely NOT a banjo piece.

Gradually, as the evening faded into morning, we drew an audience rather than a session, and the barman was calling time. Steph whispered to me “Remember that tune, ‘Wild Hills’? Mark will drive it, two fiddles for effects, and then you can take over. Full overtones, yeah? Then leave it for me and Jimmy”

It was a tune that had caught my ear when Steph first played it, and it was completely free in tempo, as before, so there was no real scope for a rhythm section. This was four soloists each trying to guess the game the other three were playing, and fuck me it was hard work, and brilliant fun. Mark did his bit, grandfather and hairy woman dancing around the wails from his cluster of tubes, and then I took the lead, putting the overblown notes in wherever I could.

I caught the eye of Jimmy, and he stood up, taking the melody for himself as Mark kept the drones going, and then Steph started too, and they played it as a round, each inviting the other to the next phrase.

And then it was over, and they were grinning at each other, and then at me, and there was applause, and Steph was saying “We give them that Jethro Tull thing Monday night, yeah?” and panting and sweating all at once. That was when I realised why young men of an eligible kind ran screaming from Kelly’s doorstep. The whole family was obsessed, and it was wonderful. For an instant, I wished there was a spare brother for me, and then Eric gave my knee a squeeze, just a little one.

“You are as bad as her, Annie. You ought to see your face when…oh, yeah, there was that film.”

“You got a problem with that, punk?”

He smiled, and it was soft, and happy, and it was all for me. “No. No problem at all”

Jimmy went back to the caravan he was using, but of course Mark walked back along the dark dirt road to our encampment. I lingered at the back, just to catch the silhouettes, and there it went, like teeth catching one by one on a zip, as Bill’s hand took Jan’s , then his brother took Steph’s, and Mark reached out firstly to take Kelly’s hand and then, with a clear surge of courage, to slip his arm around her waist. Not bad moving on a day’s acquaintance. And then we two made it unanimous, Eric murmuring “Well, rude not to” as my heart surged. I took a risk, and laced my fingers into his, and he just let me do it and squeezed my hand.

When we hit the lights by the dance tent, he dropped it, and I understood, and I understood him even more when we arrived at the Edifice. Jan and Bill got the kettle going, and we settled into our chairs in the dining vestibule, and he took it again, this time in the light and the full view of the people around him. Jan caught him doing it, and I got a happy grin from her as Geoff just ducked his head.

“Look, you all know who she really is, and I am cool with that, and with her, but public is different. Public is dangerous, for both of us. I have been doing a lot of thinking, and it is not just being away, all the excitement, yeah? It’s called realising when somebody just fits with you. Physically…no, my mind isn’t hooked up like that, but I know this woman, I have known her for years, and I think, well, I think this could work, and I will give it a shot. Bit better than not running away, yeah?”

I couldn’t speak for a second or two as my grin was too wide, so I just nodded. Jan smiled, handed out the tea, and kissed Eric as she did so.

Mark eventually left to go back to his grandfather, after a quite prolonged good-night session outside the tent, and I went down to the huts to do my teeth. Eric was still not back when I returned, but I found Steph waiting by our tent with a bundle in her hands.

“Ginny said I should give you this when and if the time was right”

It was that first nighty she had bought me, the one like Tabby’s, and wrapped in it was Tabitha herself. That was just like Ginny, to set something up just in case, but with a pretty clear suspicion that it would happen. Steph looked at me in the dark, and the distant street lights let me pick out just the faint lines of her smile.

“He’s a good man, Annie”

I stepped forward into her cuddle, because it wasn’t just a hug, it was warmer.

“He’s an amazing man, Steph, absolutely amazing. Thank you. Breakfast then?”

She chuckled. “Geoff has threatened another spin, and this time he wants company. No, not just Eric! Think of it as our womanly duties”

That did it. The day, the music, Eric’s behaviour, the touch of his hand, and no doubt the cocktail of hormones fizzing inside me, all of them conspired to bring yet more tears to my eyes. I sobbed out, as clearly as I could, how I felt.

“It’s like being a bloody teenager, I should take advice from Kelly!”

I felt her nod. ”Yeah, it is. It’s like a second puberty in some ways. It settles down after a while, but till then it can be a wild ride. Now, sleep well, we have some riding to do tomorrow.”

She kissed my cheek and walked back in the dark to her tent, as I slipped into ours and quickly changed into the nighty. Tabitha came into the cold bag with me, as it was too chilly to leave her out. Shortly afterwards there was the rasp of the outer tent zips, and then the familiar draft across my nose as Eric entered. He fumbled around a bit, wriggling out of trousers and into boxer shorts, and then he wriggled into the bag behind me, and I waited for him to spoon me as usual. It didn’t come, as he simply lay on his back behind me. He whispered to me.

“Annie?”

“Yes, Eric?”

Can you turn this way, please?”

I squirmed round n the bag till I was on my left side, facing him in the darkness.

“Lift your head a second”

I did, and his arm came down under my neck, then pulled me across so that my head lay on his shoulder. He reached down for my right hand, and laid it onto his chest, where my fingers found a light furring of hair. I couldn’t resist toying with it, but he placed his own hand flat on mine to stop me.

“No, not just yet. Give me time, OK, and we’ll get there.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Sleep well”

No dreams, once again.