The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,48
to shag him, is it?’
Fergus stood like a lemon while Louise asked Jason on the grass walkway dividing the field of tents.
‘Do you want a beer?’ I suggested to allay the weirdness of the situation. ‘I’ve got some rolled up in my sleeping bag. They’re a bit warm.’
‘Thanks. That would be great.’
I rummaged around first unearthing some Haribo before handing him a Budweiser. We clinked tins once we’d pulled the tab.
‘Look, I’m sorry if this is making a scene. I did say to Jase that I didn’t expect you to share with me. I can sleep outside like the camp guard dog if they really want to share a tent. It makes no difference. I’m just glad to be here.’
I warmed to him after that.
‘Right, all sorted,’ Louise said, picking her way through the cornucopia of tent paraphernalia and giant bottles of water. ‘The boys will share to save Fergus having to camp on his own. You’re stuck with me.’
As soon as we’d pitched tents with both openings facing each other, stored the contraband vodka and bananas (a good source of potassium to counteract a weepy comedown) we set out to explore the festival. I arranged a meeting point should we inevitably get lost.
‘You’re like a Scout leader!’ Fergus teased as I pointed out the giant Coca-Cola flag planted in the centre of a stack of hay bales. ‘Next you’ll make us link hands like kids on a school trip or tie ourselves in a rope line like mountaineers.’
‘No chance – that makes going to the loo really difficult,’ I replied, smirking. He wasn’t so bad after all. I wondered why his girlfriend had dumped him.
We trawled the rambling site with the obligatory noodle stalls, burger joints and a few paltry vegetarian places lodged between the St John Ambulance station and the Lost and Found. The combination of smells set my olfactory detection powers into overdrive, almost causing a headache. The satellite bars were each five people deep, convincing me drinking all the beers before we’d left leaving the vodka to fall back on had been a good idea. The main stage rose prodigiously out of the field like a flashing UFO, its magnetic pull attracting crowds like iron filings. The air was thick with bass lines thumping from the different stages, and as we wandered round, we got caught in the crossfire of the Flaming Lips and some underground band no one had ever heard of seeping out of the Melody Maker tent.
‘I’d like to see The Verve,’ I said as we queued for chicken kebabs. ‘They’re on next at the main stage. We could take our extras we have then, if you like?’ I’d since transferred my twizzle of drugs into my bum bag, henceforth known as the Body Bag.
‘Isn’t it a bit early?’ Louise said. ‘There’s the whole night yet.’
‘Do it in bits, cheeky corners, low-level buzz so that when Cypress Hill come on, we’ll be insane in the membrane! Trust me, I’m a doctor.’
‘Insane in the brain! OK.’ She grinned impishly at me.
‘Fergus, you going to partake?’ Jason asked. ‘You need to give Christa twenty quid a pop if you do.’
‘Drugs?’ he hissed under his breath. ‘What kind? Acid?’
‘Jesus, no, we want to have a good time, not freak the fuck out that someone’s head’s turned into a carrot.’ Louise laughed. ‘Es.’
‘Ecstasy!’ he almost shouted.
‘Shut the fuck up, dingbat,’ Jason said in a hushed manner. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ve never done anything like that,’ he said in the tone of voice of someone looking for any excuse to try it.
‘Maybe take it slow. We are. Have a nice dinner, well, a greasy chicken kebab, then have a corner. Christa will show you what to do.’ Jason looked at me and I nodded.
Fergus’s eyes were already wide in anticipation of doing something naughty (and illegal). I reflected on my first time. It had actually been with Louise alongside Justine and Mia at Gatecrasher. It was one of the weekends Louise had come up to stay in my second year. She was only just eighteen, her last year at school. Mia had sourced them from one of her housemates. We all nervously bit down on halves, swigging from the same water bottle behind a pillar in the dark and waited impatiently for the magic to infect us with the lunacy of unhindered dancing. It took about an hour before the tingling started on the crown of my head and the intuitive need to move succeeded.