CHAPTER 74
I woke that morning sandwiched between the two and bursting for a pee. There was no way I could use the bottle, it would have freaked Darren too much, so I elbowed Eric to move and went out his side.

The boy was still fast asleep, and I slipped out into a beautifully clear and frosty January morning. The hall was occupied by scattered snoring bundles, and I made my way to the ladies as if I was crossing a minefield.

Relief…it was only seven o’clock, and the kitchen was still empty as I started the urn heating and put the kettle on. One for the slug-in-a-bed hoi polloi, the other for me. I was wrapped in my fleece sleeping kit, my hair off at strange angles and a red mark down my face from a pillow crease, but that didn’t stop me making tea.

I heard the toilet flush again, and then Kelly slipped into the kitchen, and as she realised that I fully understood exactly why she had had to go to the toilet, she blushed crimson.

“It’s OK, Kell, he’s a nice lad, just surprised your mam is being so, well, tolerant”

“We’re both nearly eighteen!” she bristled, and I took her hands in mine.

“I know, love, I am not criticising, I can hardly do that given my situation, aye? It’s just that your family never ceases to amaze me with how easily they go through life. How are things between you?”

“I love Mark…”

It was a very small voice, and there was just a hint of doubt in it, doubt that I would believe her, doubt that he would feel the same way, all sorts of teenaged angst mixed with that certainty that only adolescents can produce.

“Aye, Kelly, aye. I am happy for you, really, but it’s scary, isn’t it? So much invested in just one person?”

“Yeah…and how do you cope? I watched Steph, yeah, and she was so frightened when she met my uncle, so nervous”

I sighed. “Aye, it is a bit like being a teenager again, all that worry, self-doubt, will he like me, and, well, forgive me if it’s a bit much this time in the morning, but, you know, what am I? Am I what he wants? Can I be? What if a real girl comes along? How do I compete if that happens, aye?”

Kelly was nodding, then grinning, then hugging, almost back to her old self. “Yeah, when you put it like that, I have it easy, don’t I?”

“With someone like him, yes, love, I think you do. Now, is he grown up enough to want tea in bed? Let’s indulge our men”

We walked out over the crisp grass to our tents, and I felt almost jealous of her, life starting out as it was, all the things I never had as a girl, including being one. Then I unzipped the tent, and Eric was awaiting his cuppa, and I realised it wasn’t at all bad. Darren slipped out in turn for his own toilet break, and I had time for a cuddle with the remaining occupant before he was back with his own tea and a slight look of accusation. I handed it back, with interest.

“So what is this? Because I’m a woman I automatically become your slave?”

Whatever Naomi and Albert were doing to him was working; he blushed so easily now. We made a small huddle, poking out of odd sides of the pile of quilts, sipping, and I asked him how he felt about the night before. That brought the grin I was learning to adore, as well as the little bit of cheek that told me he was all but healed.

“One question, innit? When we doing it again?”

I pretended to think about it, looking at him from beneath lowered brows as Eric tried hard not to laugh.

“You think Steph and I want some kid blowing us away on stage again?”

His face fell, but then he spotted Eric’s strangled look, and the grin came back as I said “Anytime you like, Darren, anytime at all”

Seamlessly, I realised that there would be room in the Edifice now that Kelly was building her own life, and the next big trip would involve a little drummer boy.

Gradually, life evolved independently across our little camp site, and I heard the early morning cough of Jimmy. He appeared by the tent as we were emerging for breakfast, looking a little worn.

“Ah’m getting too urld for this life, hinny. Ah own that the next time’ll be in a fower star hurtel. Hoo’s the lad?”

“’M OK, Mister Kerr. Was best thing ever, wannit?”

“Aye, son, aye. Noo, breakfast? De we hev breakfast? Ah divvent knaa aboot yees lot, but Ah can smell bacon!”

So he could, and so could we, and evolution took a sudden sharp curve upwards as the smell hit the other tents and upright primate life forms began following their noses, including Ginny.

“You, Gilbey girl, are a vegetarian!”

“Don’t stop me following my nose, does it? Always been said, the one smell even a veggie can’t resist is bacon”

“So it works for you, does it?”

A huge and manic grin, the one that had saved my life. “Fuck, yeah!”

Simon and some of the WI ladies had appeared, and there was a nice little breakfast being sorted for us. All free, along with last night’s beer. I collared the vicar on that one.

“Ah, the food is a thank you from the Women’s Institute and the hospital Friends, for what you put on for the children. The beer, well, there’s a certain hired killer standing behind you”

“Stewie?”

“Morning, Annie love. I tell you what, I have slept in a lot worse than this! No, Simon’s correct, I put the beer in, goes down against my accounts as a charitable donation”

“Aye, but you had a good go at getting it all back, didn’t you?”

“A bootneck, and a barrel of beer? There are traditions to uphold, Annie my sweet! Now, my darling wife needs her arteries furred, so I shall catch up once I have her food. And thanks; you and the ginger monster are bloody good value for a night out, especially when it’s free”

More cheek. I settled down with Eric, Darren having sat down by Steph, no doubt for a chat about music, and Polly Armitage joined us, bleary-eyed and her own breakfast in hand.

“What do you think, Polly? How is he doing, in your view?”

She groaned a little. “Wake up first, yeah? I had a few last night and it is all sort of a bit unusual for me. I’d almost forgotten about hangovers…”

She guzzled some tea. “Seriously, I am astonished. Whatever the Woods are doing, and to be honest it must involve the rest of you, I have rarely seen a more dramatic turnaround in a child. I watched him last night, well, until I got dragged up to dance, and had another beer, and so on, but he was in his own little bubble of joy up there”

I nodded. “He really loves to play, aye, and he actually has a talent. That isn’t as easy a thing to play as it looks, you know, it’s actually quite sophisticated, and he just took to it straight off.”

“Yeah, but I was watching his interpersonal skills, his socialisation. That kid loves you, you know? Absolutely worships the ground under your shadow”

“Can’t see why, Polly, I banged him away, don’t know how many times”

She muttered almost under her breath, and I caught something that sounded like “Why are the good ones always so dense?” before she continued.

“Respect, Sergeant Price, it’s about respect. I would guess that you have never belittled him, never told him his fortune in a sneering way. That’s what he’s been used to, you realise? Being treated like some odd species of vermin?”

“Yeah, but he’s a human being, aye, and just a little boy. You give people what they need, don’t just slap them down”

“Hallelujah, she’s got it. Yes, Annie, you do, but how many others act like you? I hear some of your colleagues suggested he be hosed down in his cell. You didn’t do that, you got Doctor Khan in, you got me in, you found him a safe place, for fuck’s sake, Annie, you gave him what I suspect is going to be his real, true family, and you still can’t see how different you have been? I have to pick up all sorts of shit in my job, and no matter what I do, if it goes wrong, it’s always my fault, and trust me, it almost always goes wrong, one way or another.”

She paused, for some tea.

“Look at him, Annie, as if you didn’t know him. He’s a little boy, on a camping trip. His Nan has dropped him off, and he’s having breakfast with his uncle and aunty. His cousin is walking around with her boyfriend, and he is watching her though the lens of the biggest crush you could imagine. He will be back at school in a little while, playing football, and telling his school friends about last night, and how he played boss drum, and how wicked it was, and he will stop talking to watch some teen princess walk past with her skirt rolled as short as she can manage, and then come home to play computer games with his granddad. Normal, yeah?

“Not being sent out to thieve on pain of a beating from some bastard of a kiddy fiddler, not sleeping the night on the floor of a cell stinking of his own shit. That’s your doing, Annie Price, so bloody well wake up and take some credit.”

There was nothing I could say. She took my hand. “I know it’s been said to you before, but Den tells me you wanted to be a nurse when you were a little girl. Er, you know what I mean, sorry. Just, I think you have your place, and you fill it well. Thank you, Sergeant Price, for giving some hope to the rest of us”