Five Go Glamping (13 page)

‘Okay, then.’ I said, getting myself comfy on a bar stool. ‘I’ll have a pint of your finest ale, then please sir.’

I had only meant to have one, but one led to another and another and I soaked up the atmosphere and watched as the old fellas and Sam exchanged friendly fire and teasing. Brian was having a nice time as well and everything seemed fun. I hadn’t planned to stay there long but I loved being there and I liked being with Sam. Conversation was so easy with him, it was all so light and fun and I liked the way he looked at me.

Before I knew it, I’d been there for hours and hours. ‘Oh God, I better go, they’ll be wondering where I am…’ I said when I realised the time.

‘I‘ll walk you back down, these two will be okay for five minutes.’

‘No, you’ve done so much, I’ll be fine, honestly.’

‘I insist, look what happened to you on the way up here.’

‘Okay then, thanks.’

Sam grabbed a jacket and led me to the back door.

‘How do you get on living out here in the middle of nowhere.’ I asked.

‘It has its advantages.’

‘Like what?’

We walked out of the back door into the beer garden.

‘Like this.’

‘What, this beer garden? You can get beer gardens anywhere. In fact we’ve got one in the White Swan at home,’ I waffled on. ‘They have a barbecue sometimes.’

‘No not the beer garden, Fiona.’ He laughed, shaking his head. ‘This – past the beer garden and across the fence.’

‘Oh’ I said. The view was astonishing. I could see so much more of the sea up here. The hills rolled away from it and it went on for miles. It felt like we were on top of the world.

‘It’s incredible.’ I said, spinning round to look at Sam. I’d turned around quickly and had to steady myself as I stumbled. Sam put a reassuring hand out and touched my arm, then held on to my hand. I felt that familiar fizzing again as he stepped a little closer and his face moved a little closer to mine. He was fascinating to me. He didn’t appear to have any clear goals in life and instead of striving and focusing on the future he was happy to spend an afternoon chatting with his customers. And he enjoyed this life of his, it was so full of fun.

He stepped a little closer still and my knees felt like they were going to give way. He was going to kiss me. He looked at me in that way he did and he reached his other hand out. He was definitely going to kiss me.

Chapter Twelve

But just when I thought I was going to abandon all my sensibilities, Sam shook my hand. He wasn’t going to kiss me at all. I don’t know what I had been thinking.

‘Right well, Fiona, have a good time on the rest of your holiday then. Pop in and see us before you go. I know Frank and George will be pleased to see you.’

He abruptly turned and we walked a little further down, closer to the campsite. Then he offered another handshake. ‘See you then, take care.’ He fussed Brian on the head. ‘See you little fella.’

I hoped he didn’t realise that I thought he was going to kiss me but I already felt mortified that I’d thought that in the first place. What kind of idiot was I? Had I invented this attraction between us as something to distract me from thinking about Connor and work and all the other crappy things that were happening? Perhaps he was like that with everyone, showing an interest in people. He no more wanted to kiss me than he wanted to kiss Frank or George.

The problem was that none of this actually mattered. Whether he wanted to kiss me or not, the problem was that I wanted him to kiss me and I wanted to kiss him back so, so bad. However tricky things were with me and Connor, this was not good. I was not good. I wondered if I was only hanging onto Connor because I was afraid. Afraid that without him, my plan wouldn’t work. I was now struggling to see how anything could work with Connor when I was considering kissing someone else.

As Sam turned and headed up the hill, I watched him. He turned around once and waved and I offered a short wave back, keeping my elbow at my side. I suppose I thought it would look cute, but I am also resigned to the idea that I may have looked demented. I took a last lingering look at his shape, his broad shoulders in that white shirt… when I was interrupted by screaming.

‘Oh thank God. Thank God! You’re safe. Come here.’ It was Kirk running up the hill towards me. A bit over dramatic, yes, but it was nice he was concerned about me.

‘Of course I’m safe.’ I said, slowly realising that it wasn’t me he had been concerned about, but Brian Harvey. He picked him up and hugged him tight.

‘Where did the horrible lady take you, diddums?’ he said.

‘The horrible lady? You cheeky git!’ I said, releasing Brian’s lead and storming off down to the campsite.

‘Wait Fiona,’ he shouted after me.

If it hadn’t been for him and his dramatics and not being able to be alone for five minutes, then I wouldn’t have had to look after the dog in the first place. Talk about ungrateful. At least I could get maybe a bit more sympathy from Steph and Sinead, I thought. I would tell them what happened with Connor and with Sam and I hoped they would help me try and piece back the mess I was making of everything.

There was some kind of Tai Chi or yoga thing going on so it wasn’t the best time to talk to my friends. Everyone seemed to be gathered in a circle, bent double with their heads between their legs, including Steph and Sinead.

Steph spotted me as I tried to sneak past to get some time to relax in the yurt and pulled my leg, moving me into the circle.

‘And breathe in,’ announced one of the Moonfaces who was leading whatever the hell it was they were doing. ‘And slowly bring yourself back up to standing.’

‘Where have you been?’ asked Steph, in whispers, glaring at me.

‘I went for a walk. I went to see Connor.’

‘But you’ve been gone
all
day. We were all really worried,’ said Sinead.

‘Kirk thought Brian Harvey had been kidnapped,’ said Steph.

‘And down again,’ said Moonface, at which point I attempted to join in. The others had obviously been at this for a while and had perfected some kind of elaborate arm movement thing which I tried to copy but failed. But I managed to somehow bend over, even wearing my wedges, without falling flat on my face. It was way too hot for this nonsense and I’d had a fair few pints by now so I wasn’t exactly coordinated.

‘Well nice to see you were all more worried about Brian Harvey than me!’ I said red faced – more from being upside down and tipsy in the afternoon than from being angry.

‘And breathe. And up,’ said Moonface, her top riding up a bit too high as she waved her arms around. ‘Wonderful isn’t it?’ she said and took a deep and noisy inhale through her nose.

‘Where did you go?’ said Steph.

‘I walked down to the festival. I just wanted to have a look while you two were copping off with those two crusties there.’

I caught a quick glance of Crazy Trousers and Weird Beard who were putting a whole lot of effort into all of this. There was way too much thrusting action if you ask me. I don’t know why they were wiggling from side to side quite so much. I noticed that Weird Beard must have had a good view of Steph’s rear before Moonface instructed us to move.

‘You could have let us know, Fiona.’ said Sinead, who was completely out of sync with everybody’s funny movements.

‘Is everybody feeling nice and calm?’ said Moonface.

Calm? Was she joking? The world at the moment was already confusing enough to me without looking at it from upside down as well.

‘Well, it looked to me that the pair of you were too busy to notice anyway.’ I stopped joining in with all the up and downy stuff now, I didn’t see the point. ‘You probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d been missing all weekend!’

‘Shall we move into downward dog now? Looks like some people’s chakras are spinning quite nicely.’

‘What does that even mean?’ I muttered.

I carried on joining in for a while with whatever the hell it was we were meant to be doing when I noticed Steph wink at Weird Beard.

‘What are you doing
now
? You were mortified this morning.’ I asked, horrified.

‘Well you know, there’s not a lot else to do, is there? Being off the grid and all that.’

I was struggling quite a lot with the whole downward dog business, with my wedges carving up the grass, when Moonface announced we should move into cat pose. That was the final straw really, and I had no desire to get my knees muddy at all. I’d had enough now. I stood up quickly but my ankle gave way in the mud causing me to fall over flat on my arse, no doubt caking my lovely Stella McCartney shorts in mud. In order to get up, I had to roll over onto my knees, getting them muddy anyway. When I eventually managed to get myself vertical again, following a brief attempt at dusting the front of my shorts down, I hobbled off.

‘Fiona,’ shouted Steph, but I ignored her.

At the yurt, I fussed Brian Harvey who was sat obediently outside, like a very tiny guard dog. I poked my head in to see that Kirk was in there asleep. I considered going home – I just couldn’t see any point in being here any longer. I carried on past the yurt into the polka dot monstrosity, pulled myself under the sleeping bag and tried to go to sleep.

I liked being in the countryside and I had enjoyed my afternoon in the cosy pub, but the trouble with all this off the grid business was it left me with what seemed like rather a lot of time to think. The one thing that was going through my head was Connor asking me to trust him. I couldn’t help but think that if he was trustworthy, then shouldn’t I instinctively trust him? And what about me and my feelings for Sam? What was I thinking? Okay, so I hadn’t actually done anything, but I probably would have given half the chance. I’d already managed to mess up the main part of any plans I had for the future and there I was ready to mess the rest of it up.

‘Hi?’ It was Steph’s head at the tiny crack of the opening. ‘Can I come in? I have chocolate.’ She waved a Cadbury’s caramel like a white flag.

I sat up, as far as I could in that tent.

‘You all right?’ she said.

‘I suppose,’ I said.

‘So can I come in then?’

‘Yeah, if you can fit in. But only because you have chocolate.’

Steph unzipped the opening further and clambered in, fell in next to me and snapped the chocolate in half for us to share.

‘I’m really sorry about earlier,’ she said and I could tell she meant it. ‘I’m sorry you had to sleep in here with Brian Harvey. I should have offered to stay in here. We’ll boot Kirk out tonight. How did you get on with Connor anyway?’

‘I didn’t get to speak to him much, he was with that Genna.’

‘That “Yah” girl. Oh I hate her.’ Then Steph did a brilliant impression of her and repeatedly said ‘yah, yah, yah’ which made me laugh.

‘And I went there because I wanted to sort things out with him and tell him about work and because you all seemed to be having a good time and I felt, I don’t know, kind of adrift?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Steph nodded and passed me more chocolate.

‘And I’ve been in the pub all afternoon with Sam, the man who helped with the car.’

‘The hot bloke from the pub?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And I dunno, I thought we were going to have a moment.’

‘What do you mean “a moment”?’ said Steph, her eyes widening.

‘Like, I thought… I thought he was going to kiss me and I don’t know, I’d had a lot to drink but he’d been so nice and everything is just easy for him, you know? And he’s not like Connor…’

‘Oh my God, Fi, did you kiss him?’

‘No, but I wanted to and I think it means I have to split up with Connor, doesn’t it?’

Steph shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He does go missing for days at a time. Have you ever wondered what he might be getting up to? And anyway, you didn’t kiss him, did you? Like you say, you’d been drinking and we’d all been crap here. It’s quite harmless. Don’t worry about it.’

‘I don’t know, Steph, I’m probably being stupid. Connor wouldn’t have taken me to the apartment if he was seeing someone else, would he?’

‘No, you’re probably right,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t want to be with him, you don’t be with him, that’s all there is to it. Whether it fits in with your plan or not.’

It was so straightforward to Steph. She came over and hugged me.

‘Bit cosy in here isn’t it?’ she said as she took a little look around.

‘You could say that.’ I smiled.

‘Hey do remember when we used to camp in the woods behind my house when we were little and have midnight feasts?’

‘Yeah, it was fun.’

‘We didn’t have a care in the world. I was sort of hoping this weekend would be a bit like that, that I’d feel okay when we were here. Like safe?’

I knew exactly what she meant. And I had felt it, back at the pub with Sam.

‘You seem to be distracting yourself with Weird Beard all right?’ I teased.

‘Oh God, don’t! I don’t know what I’m thinking. It’s the best of a bad bunch syndrome.’

We were interrupted by Sinead crawling through the door.

‘Hi,’ she said, squeezing into the tiny tent. ‘Sorry about earlier.’ Like Steph, I could tell it was heartfelt and she genuinely meant it.

‘It’s okay,’ I said ‘I’m sorry too, I was sulking about having to sleep in here and then that weird woman charged me five pounds for a shower.’

‘What weird woman?’

‘There was a woman stood in the shower who asked me for money.’

‘There was?’

They both looked at me puzzled.

‘Are we all okay then?’ asked Sinead.

‘Yeah, course we are. Everything is going to be fine,’ said Steph.

We all lay back on the double airbed and started ridiculing Kirk’s choice of temporary accommodation. Our laughter must have disturbed Kirk who, along with Brian Harvey, also clambered into the tent.

‘So what are you witches cackling about then?’ Kirk seemed a little bit brighter.

‘We’re thinking about digging our way out of here,’ said Steph

‘A spiffing idea.’ Kirk agreed.

‘Tomorrow, after we’ve done whatever weird shit they’ve got lined up for us in the morning, we’ll sack off this sad bunch of hippies and go to the music festival!’