Authors: Liz Tipping
‘Yes’ he said ‘Nothing stays the same for long. Everything is changing all the time. You see that there?’ He pointed to cluster of stars. ‘That one doesn’t exist any more. It blew up millions of years ago.’
It was beautiful. I’d never seen stars like it. It was making me fall in love with this place even more.
‘How are you feeling?’ Sam said.
‘Oh you know.’ I said, pulling my cardigan around me. ‘Humiliated. Angry. Wondering what the hell I am going to do with my life. Not to mention mortified beyond belief.’
‘You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about.’ He said and he studied my face a little longer. ‘What do you want to do with your life?’
I thought for a second. All I wanted to do at that moment was stay here with him.
‘I don’t know.’ I said.
‘You can do whatever you like, Fiona. You’ve a real talent. You don’t need to be afraid of what happens in the future. Something will always turn up.’
I nodded, I felt reassured by his words. He was so encouraging.
‘Thank you,’ I said beginning to feel a bit better.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I was thinking, do you fancy hanging around a bit longer, once the car situation is sorted, do you fancy going out for the day?’ he asked.
‘Out for the day?’
‘Yeah, there’s a little thing they have on in a village nearby. The sheep festival.’
‘Sheep festival?’ I said, and laughed thinking about how Ayesha, Doris and me had spoken about it and how Steph had sneered. ‘A sheep festival?’ I said again, giving him my best cynical look.
‘Yeah, you’ll love it,’ he said. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to the sheep festival. And I was looking forward to it more than anything.
‘So, goodnight then.’ I said making my way back to the door slowly, hoping he’d stop me. I wondered how I could express to him that this connection I felt with him was genuine and real.
‘Good night, Fiona,’ he said.
My feet dragged me along the corridor even though my head wanted to stay. I went to bed hoping that everything would seem better in the morning and just when I thought I was nodding off to sleep in the early hours, there was a loud banging downstairs. It was the police.
‘He’s the one, officer!’ shouted Steph and lunged at Weird Beard, both hands tugging at his beard as though she believed it to be fake. Brian Harvey struggled to get free from Kirk and leapt to the ground, tugging and growling at Crazy Trousers. This caused Crazy Trousers to lose his balance.
‘Do you know how much that car cost me?’ yelled Steph who had now taken to pulling Weird Beard’s hair.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’
I rushed towards them and at this point couldn’t think of a subtle way of announcing that I was the one who had the car keys.
I’d only realised minutes before.
After the police car had arrived and the officers had asked Steph to go with them to the campsite, I quickly headed off into the ladies, to see if I could do something with my hair. That’s where I saw them, in the bin. Steph’s huge bunch of car keys. I rushed off out the back gate, through the beer garden, and down the hill to put everything right but when I got there, Steph was already at the ‘uncover the villain’ stage. Or at least she was trying to, but unless Weird Beard had used some super strength nail glue, then I was pretty sure that his beard wasn’t false.
As Brian Harvey snapped away at Crazy Trousers’ ankles, one of the officers stepped in and pulled Steph away from Weird Beard. As he did she pulled away a good chunk of his beard which totally freaked her out and she flapped her arms around while making gagging noises. One of the officers restrained Weird Beard as he protested his innocence.
Then Sinead started shouting, jumping up and down and wagging her finger at Crazy Trousers. ‘It’s him officer. He’s your man.’ I wondered at what point he would be arrested for terrible crimes against fashion. All the same I thought I had better come clean. I took a deep breath and stood in the middle of everyone, held the keys in the air and announced: ‘I have the keys.’
‘What?’ asked Steph.
‘I have the keys,’ I said again.
‘Oh this is unbelievable’ said Sam, his head in his hands and bending over.
‘Fiona!’ shouted Kirk.
Then Sinead asked very politely, ‘Fiona, why did you want to steal Steph’s car?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Sinead. I didn’t want to steal the car, it was me who had them.’ Steph shot her a look and then snatched the keys out of my hand which I was still holding in the air.
‘I’m sorry Steph, I must have taken them with me when I fetched the things out the car the other day, and then I found them in the bin in the pub toilets.’
I couldn’t tell if Steph was cross with me or not as she seemed so relieved to get her keys back. The officers released Crazy Trousers and Weird Beard from their grasp and they were straightening themselves up.
‘But wait!’ I said. ‘Where did they disappear to earlier then eh?’ I added, waggling my finger in the air to accompany my deducing. The officers stepped forward, unsure whether to seize the offenders again.
‘Yes,’ said Steph talking like a lawyer in a court room drama show, ‘tell us why you disappeared for the whole entire day.’ She walked in closer to and pointed a finger in his face.
‘Yes lads, can you tell us where you were?’ asked one of the officers.
‘Why?’ protested Crazy Trousers, going bright red. ‘There wasn’t a crime committed, was there?’
One of the moon faces emerged from her tent. ‘Bright blessings. Nettle tea anyone?’ she shrilled and then looked a bit sheepish.
And then, it became clear that there had been some kind of crime committed – and not only crimes against fashion.
The embarrassment on Weird Beard’s face was evident as the other Moonface emerged from her tent.
I watched it register on Sinead’s face and Steph’s. Kirk let out a gasp. It wasn’t their tent the Moonheads were coming out from, it was Weird Beard’s and Crazy Trousers’. They hadn’t disappeared for the day, they’d been holed up with the Moonfaces getting up to Christ knows what.
‘Do you mean to say that, that
you…
?’ Steph waved her hands between the Moonfaces and the others ‘and
them
, you were actually. After you had been getting off with me? Oh Jesus Christ.’ Then she retched again.
Sinead looked even more hurt and looked like she was going to cry. Kirk sidled up to her and hugged her. ‘This is terrible. Just. Terrible.’
I looked to Sam for a reaction and he seemed to think it was all hilarious and I must admit, no matter how hard I tried not to, and how awful I felt about losing the car keys, I was also seeing the funny side of it.
‘Well, then’ said one of the officers, not knowing what to make of it all. ‘We’ve seen enough here. Looks like this has all been cleared up. We’ll leave you to it now.’
‘Well I’m not bloody staying here with these– these… these sex perverts.’ said Steph. ‘We’re going bloody home.’ She marched over to get into the car. ‘Come on, we’re going.’
Sinead, who had halted her tears by now, said ‘Hang on a minute, Steph.’ I don’t think I had ever seen Sinead so angry. She walked up to Crazy Trousers and shoved him as hard as she could.
He leant out to steady himself on one of the police men, who stepped back – causing Crazy Trousers to fall on his arse. ‘Your trousers are fucking ridiculous!’ she said.
‘Let’s go bloody well go home.’ Steph said marching over to the car.
When Steph said that, it felt like a blow to my chest. I didn’t want to be wrenched away from Sam so quickly. Even if nothing could happen between us, I still wanted to be with him as long as I could.
I breathed out a sigh of relief when Kirk pointed out that all the tyres on the car were let down, so we weren’t going anywhere soon.
The police used their radios to call us breakdown assistance, but Steph and Sinead were too mortified to stay on the site so they wandered back up to the pub with Kirk to collect their stuff while Sam stayed with me and waited for the breakdown to come. I was grateful of these last few moments with him.
‘This is the worse bank holiday ever.’ I said to Sam, sat on Steph’s bonnet, watching the Moonfaces and the other weirdos.
‘It’s certainly been eventful eh?’ Sam laughed. ‘So do you often get yourselves in these scrapes?’
‘No, nothing quite so interesting usually happens to me.’ I said.
‘Well, it’s still the bank holiday, still an entire day to go, you could end up doing something fun. Like…the sheep festival for example?’
‘I really want to Sam, but I think the others are going to want to go.’
‘Yeah, sure. I understand, can’t imagine you wanting to stay here for any reason now.’
But I did have a reason. I knew Sam thought I wanted to kiss him as an instant rebound reaction, but I wanted to stay here with him more than anything. I wanted to tell him how just being with him had changed everything for me. I wanted to tell him that all I’d focused on before was getting things done, planning, documenting it – but he’d opened up a new way of looking at things for me. A new way of seeing life. And I realised I hadn’t needed someone to sweep me off my feet, I only wanted someone to catch me if I fell. I loved how he lifted me up, encouraged me and supported me. When I was with him, I felt like I could do anything. Even if nothing was going to happen between us, I wanted to spend more time with him.
‘I don’t think I could persuade the others to stay a bit longer…’
‘You could,’ he said and moved in closer.
I laughed. He nudged me.
‘Come on. I like having you around. We’re a good team,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘What do you say? You can trust me you know.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I said.
*
‘Worst bank holiday ever. Ever,’ said Steph when we were back at the pub.
‘Really, really bad.’ said Sinead joining us. ‘I’m sorry everyone.’
‘Well, me and Brian have had a nice time, haven’t we Brian?’ said Kirk, which left the rest of us wondering where the hell he’d been and what planet he had spent the weekend on.
‘Wasn’t all bad,’ I said, my gaze drawn to Sam who was seeing the officers out of the door.
‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Sinead. ‘You are in love with him, aren’t you?’
‘Shush,’ I said, flapping my hands, going red, not wanting Sam to hear.
‘You do! You have fallen for him big time,’ she said.
‘Okay, I like him, now shush. But I made such a fool of myself yesterday with him. Connor was there, with Genna, and it was so cringe and embarrassing.’
‘He’s nice,’ said Sinead, touching me on the arm. ‘He has nice eyes.’
We all looked over at Sam who was brushing his hair back off his face.
‘He has a nice arse, more like.’ said Kirk, nodding. Steph joined in with the nodding enthusiastically.
‘Well there is that too,’ I laughed. ‘But I wouldn’t mind staying around a bit longer. I can’t face going back yet. There’s work and Connor to think about, and I was thinking that seeing as we’ve all had a shitty weekend of it, we could just hang around for a bit. Sam wants to take me to the sheep festival.’
‘I bet he does’ said Kirk.
‘Seriously Kirk?’ said Steph. ‘Only you could make that into an innuendo.’
‘Would you mind if we stayed around just for the day? I know it’s silly but I kind of wanted to spend some time with him.’
‘Yep’ said Steph. Sinead nodded and Kirk agreed.
‘We’ll go to the festival or the beach. It could end up being a nice day anyway. And we can all punch Connor if we see him.’
‘Definitely,’ agreed Sinead.
Sam came back over, and said, ‘Well you certainly made an impression on those guys.’ He held a piece of paper in the air. ‘One of the lads has given me their number and said if you are around for a while to give them a ring.’
‘At bloody last,’ said Steph, ‘things are looking up. I thought I was losing my touch here.’
But before she could grab the paper, Sam held it aloft and said ‘Hang on there, you’re a bit keen aren’t you?’ And then passed the piece of paper to Kirk. ‘Here that’s for you,’ he said.
Kirk beamed. It was the first time I had seen him genuinely smile all weekend.
‘Well that’s bloody great’ said Steph, adding an actual ‘harrumph’ at the end.
‘Hey Sam, seeing as we are letting you take our Fiona out later to some dreadful sheep festival affair…how about you let us stay here another night?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ he said.
Sinead and Kirk egged each other on to ring the policemen, which they did, and arranged to meet them down at the music festival that afternoon. Steph and Sinead made jokes about being gooseberries but I could tell they were excited to be staying.
‘That’s that sorted then,’ said Sam.
It finally looked like I was going to get a good holiday after all. I knew I wasn’t mistaken when I thought Sam had feelings for me. Something was going to happen between us, I could feel it. But then, after days of not having a signal, my phone rang – and it turned out I’d have to go home after all.
Sam was understanding that I had to leave, he made reassuring noises and thanked me for my help.
He headed down to the campsite and inflated the tyres on Steph’s car, then drove it back up to the pub for us.
‘I’ll maybe see you again,’ Sam said as everyone piled into the car, leaving me outside. ‘Next year for the festival, maybe?’ he said.
I smiled ‘I don’t know about that, I don’t think I’m really a festival kind of person.’
‘Well, I’ll see you then,’ he said.
‘Bye,’ I was still waiting to see if he’d do something, even as I slid backwards into the car. I felt like I was being wrenched away from him, from the pub, from this place where I could see everything differently. I held one last look at him and wanted to reach for my phone and take a photograph, but like the view on top of the cliff, I knew I’d never be able to fit everything in the picture. I wouldn’t be able to capture all of him. The photograph would be too small for all of him. So I did what Sam said and looked. I just looked.
I didn’t take my eyes off him as Steph pulled away.
*
After a long journey, Steph dropped me at the entrance of the hospital.