CHAPTER 45
The beer was finished, our path home was trod, and Eric left me to get changed for bed in the tent as he wandered off to do his teeth. I settled down with Tabby and waited for him to slide in beside me, and he did, bringing a waft of cold knees and minty breath and a cuddle.

“Bit of a big day…” he murmured as I lay with my head on his shoulder and my hand this time toying with his chest hair unopposed. I squeezed him, and spoke into his neck.

“That’s the problem, Eric, this is all a weekend away, not reality. On Wednesday I have to come back to reality”

“Well, I think you stirred Dennis up”

“I hope he’s stirred Sam and Jim and the Fed rep up as well. My decision is made, long term, and you know that. I just need to get through the changeover. That is what scares me, aye?”

“Well, not on your own, hey?”

“I know…”

“Sleep, girl. You have a long day tomorrow, because we are definitely going out on the bikes, and then, after the last band we have a date for you to do the Tull thing with Steph”

“You think I should?”

“Oh, most definitely. Just remember, if you intend doing any standing on one leg, you’ll be in a skirt…”

I kissed him again, and turned over to sleep as he settled around me, and shortly afterwards a teenaged boy was cooking in a car and the heat was washing over me, and I was sitting bolt upright with sweat soaking my nightgown and, just for an instant, no idea of where I was, till Eric slowly eased me back down onto my sleeping mat as the tremors eased, and I just clung to him and sobbed as he held me and stroked my matted hair.

“It is your work, love, that’s what it is. You’ve almost lost those dreams, now, just…you really are worried, aren’t you?”

I lay in the dark as the sweat dried and his arms warmed me. “Yeah, I am. I mean, all this, this like wish-fulfilment stuff, you know, like my daydream”

“You haven’t told me much about that, Annie”

“Oh…it started out as a way of getting off to sleep, then somewhere to hide for a while. I had all sorts of variations, but they came down to a magical change thing, and I just reawaken, and all is changed, and I’m a girl, and…I would sort of work through different scenarios each time and drift off to sleep. Think nice thoughts, avoid the nasties in the night”

“Yeah, well, let’s see if we can get you back off to sleep before we get out on the bikes, OK?”

“Just hold me, love.”

He did, and we slept, eventually, till the morning light woke us as it burned away the dew on the tent. He was disgustingly chirpy after such a disturbed night, and I wondered how much was put on for my benefit. It was into cycle kit before breakfast, which was a sausage sandwich each before our ride, and of course a mug of tea.

Not nearly enough, I thought two hours later, as Eric and Geoff cruised up yet another minor hill while Steph stayed behind to nurse me along. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been when Dennis had looped round me at Ditchling, but I was still not up to par. I was still moving, though, and I could feel my old legs coming back, just less hairy. There was throughout the new sensation of a bra’s straps tightening and relaxing as my body moved, a reminder each time that I was still out, still myself.

Finally we were through the surprisingly-named village of Berwick and beginning the downhill to the site, and I was happily freewheeling while, of course, the two boys were thrashing themselves to be first home, Steph having the manners to hang back for a bit. We slipped in the gate and rode round to the tents, where Jan and Bill were still cuddling.

“Tea?” she said.

“Shower first” Steph replied, and I knew I had another little test to pass. The queue wasn’t long, but my nerves were nearly shot by the time we hit the stalls, skirt and blouse in a bag with clean underwear in my hand. Nobody said a word as I took my cubicle, and stripped off in front of the mirror.

I did, indeed, have tits, and the nipples were noticeably bigger and lumpier. Fat seemed to be clinging to my arse too, while slowly collapsing away from my waist, and it was starting to look better than I could have hoped for, if I ignored the deformity. I checked myself for hair, and as I luxuriated under the warm water I ran my razor over my legs again, and then my arms, and making a snap decision tackled underneath them.

That was a seriously weird feeling. I rinsed, watching the soap and the hair flow down over my painted toes, I spent a while longer under the warmth, just relaxing and working through the weekend in my head, and trying my best not to think about the challenge I would soon have at work.

I dried myself, and rubbed some stuff Jan had given me into my shaved areas, before I started up the hair drier provided, doing my best to fluff up what I had. On with the underwear, and I remembered Kelly’s word. “Pretty…”

No, I wasn’t, but Eric seemed happy, and I certainly was. I slipped into the new clothes, and the scooped neck of the blouse actually revealed a hint of cleavage. Whatever next…Steph was waiting for me, her own hair looking amazing, and after we had picked up some fresh milk from the little shop we were soon back and relaxing in the late morning sun. I saw Bill rather more attached to reality than he had been earlier, studying the programme.

“What’s on?”

“A variety of odds and sods, some worth seeing, and then a finale with Martin Simpson and his band.”

Eric stirred under me. “Heard of him, for once, bloody good guitarist. Do we have a plan for the day?”

Bill nodded. "Think so. Snack here for lunch, then there’s a session for the ‘Improvers’ people in the beer tent, and Jimmy has his last set about two. Five o’clock for Simpson, dinner down there from whatever looks nice, and then the big session in the racecourse bar”

Eric gave me a squeeze. “So beer then?”

Bill grinned from behind the programme. “Yup, beer! And silliness and music and mad buggers doing Jethro Tull, I believe. And today is floppy hat day, that sun is rather warm, children”

The ‘Improvers’ Session’ was fun, as lots of newly-practised people on a variety of instruments vied to show what they had learned, and we just idled away an hour or so playing gently with them. This was what music should be about, people coming together and having fun with what I remembered Ms Tickell calling ‘air dancing’. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Jimmy and Mark, then various Morris sides, some close harmony singing under a little outdoor sort-of-tent, and feeling the warmth of the sun almost but not quite match the warmth of the people around me,

It all felt so natural, so good, and yet underneath was always the understanding that after Tuesday Adam would be back. Please god, let it be straightforward.

I was in the long skirt, and flouncy blouse, with Jan’s wide straw hat on over a pair of sunglasses, and I did indeed feel right, natural, a feeling only enhanced by the hand holding mine, and it would all end in a little over 36 hours. Eric felt the tension in me.

“Worried about work?”

“Yes, in a word.”

“Well, leave that till it comes. Just be yourself today and tomorrow, then we can sort the rest of your life out as we need to. OK?”

I kissed him on the cheek, and he Paddington-stared me. “If you are going to keep doing that, you will have to start carrying your own tissues. No owner’s brands on this man!”

“Spoilsport!”

Martin Simpson was one of the people Eric had particularly wanted to see, as while he is, so I was told, regarded as godlike by guitarists, he started out as one of Steph’s pet hates, a child prodigy. On the banjo. I told Eric, repeatedly and regularly, that the two concepts were mutually incompatible, but he told me that I knew nothing, and when I insisted on my greater knowledge as a musician he actually slapped my arse.

I must admit, though, that he was good. A drawling voice, when he sang, overlaid guitar playing I can only describe as scintillating. I couldn’t follow the technique, as it involved wires and bits of wood, but it was rich and complex and very, very skilled. He even managed to make a banjo sound almost musical, though it still clucked and quacked. Eric was so obviously star-struck I wanted to giggle.

We retired to the picnic tent afterwards, my man sighing with contentment, and he got his own bottom smacked when he remarked that Simpson on his own had made the weekend worthwhile. It was all of two seconds before he realised, but I could only hold my grin for another five, so it was sort of quits.

I went to help getting the food in, a seriously tasty piece of cod and chips, but Eric just put his hand on my arm.

“No, the wind’s changed, stay up this end”

I followed his eyes…the hog roast stand. All the courage I had built up started to drain from me, and he saw, and he stayed.

“Eric, how the hell am I supposed to deal with this shit when I can’t even handle a roast dinner?”

He pulled me to him. “One step at a time, as ever. That’s how Stewie talks about dealing with the PTSD, that’s how we will deal with life, OK?”

“Why are you so good to me? I haven’t anything you want, nothing you need…”

“You have yourself. Took me a while to realise it, but then I can be a bit slow, and you weren’t exactly forthcoming, were you?”

“Well….at some point that question has to come up, aye?”

“We deal with things when we need to, OK?”

“OK…”

He kissed me, so it was OK, and then the others arrived, Kelly now wrapped around Mark, bearing the chips I had earned that morning, and tea, and fish, and mushy peas. Ginny would have killed me.

We ate our meal as the sun stayed warm, then made our way bearing our boxes and bags to the Long Bar, where an old man in a tweed jacket and a flat cap had cornered a drift of chairs, which we laid claim to. Kelly had popped back to the tent for her clogging board, and Jimmy’s greeting to us consisted of holding out a freshly-empty glass to Geoff with the words “That Twisted Spire’ll de me, lad!”

Steadily the bar filled. Steph had warned me about the range of instruments, but I was still astonished. Harps, cello, trombone, all set up alongside the more usual mix of fiddles, guitars, squeezeboxes, and, of course, banjos. There were dozens and dozens of bodhrans, it seemed, and Jan sighed at the sight.

“They all buy the damned things cause they think they are easy to play, and, well, they aren’t.”

While she was talking to us, she started lightly beating her own drum, and as she played with her left hand inside the skin, and the drum ‘spoke’, I noticed several of the new bodhran-holders drifting away. She winked.

“I don’t mind the idea of people playing what they can, I just wish they would learn a sense of rhythm before buying, well, a rhythm instrument.”

There was a clatter as Kelly’s board slapped down on the floor, and the beer arrived, and as there was a lull in the tuning, Jimmy just said “Allan and Salmon Tails, usual” and we were off. Two simple tunes, easy to play, easy to enjoy, and soon there was a crowd of people either playing the melody, providing some sort of rhythm, or vaguely jamming, and it was wonderful. I stayed with Saburo for most of the evening, as we had a lovely, gentle play with the rest of the festival-goers, and then it was time for Timmy. I looked around as people took a short beer break, and then called out “Anyone know this one?”

‘This one’ was the Tull, of course, and our little family band started to swing along nicely. Nothing showy, nothing over the top, as Eric played proper guitar for once and Steph and Jimmy harmonised with me. There were a few happy smiles from some older people, and as one eased through with a fresh pint he muttered to me “You’re going to let rip, aren’t you?”

I nodded with the flute, and then did exactly that, as my well-honed little band of supporters took up the rhythmic side of things and I went silly with the metal. I had to do it, just had to, and I stood up, and then Steph got up with me, her eyes holding that hunger, and Jimmy grinned as some shouts of recognition went up, the politest of which was something like “It’s that ginger nutter again!”

And she was, and I was the dark-haired nutter back to her, but part way through, as I did that repeated rhythmic phrase again, the one before going back to the main tune, I heard the trombonist echoing me, so I turned to him and winked, and we bounced off each other for a while before I gave the nod to the rest to come back down to Earth and it was good, and it was loud, and it was spontaneous and it was magical. They played on, as I sank a pint, simpler tunes, fun tunes, and I dug out my tissues and wiped the lipstick off Timmy just before the now-traditional call of ‘cheap beer’ from the bar.

Both Kelly and Mark had dropped out of playing and clogging, largely because neither smallpipes nor clogs work when the clogger is sat on the piper’s lap. It was that sort of evening, showing me why the Woodruffs came back year after year. I felt utterly alive, utterly in love with music, my friends, and one amazing man, and as we finally walked back to the tents I was rivalling Kelly in keeping interpersonal space to the minimum possible. Sweaty, happy, in love.

Wednesday would be another world. Wednesday could wait. I had one more night with him, and I would deal with work when I had to.