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‘Or that it’s about to rain …’ Elle flicked her braids over one shoulder. ‘Hopefully we get to our tent then go get a glass of wine.’
‘It might be a plastic cup of wine just to warn you,’ Helen winced.
‘Dan! Oh my Goddd!’ A girl wearing a purple sequined catsuit pushed in front of them.
Helen didn’t feel bad about mentally labelling her as a ‘girl’ as honestly she looked about sixteen.
‘Have you got your A-Level results? It was mad!’
Yup. Was Helen really twice as old as everyone else here?
Elle fished out a compact to check her make-up. She was always much less preoccupied than Helen about fitting in.
Inside, the old mine building was lit up by floor lights sending an orange glow up the cobbled walls, casting long shadows from the thin gaps where windows once stood. The ground was uneven, and behind the check-in desks were deep openings in the floor, where you could hear the hiss of the ocean rising up underneath. Helen had always been scared of mineshafts – the fact you could take a pebble and throw it in one, then wait five seconds to hear it hit the ocean at the bottom.
At the back of the mine was a row of desks manned by overenthusiastic eighteen-year-olds wearing lanyards and giving each other an unnecessary amount of high fives.
‘Ladies, welcome to Ship/Wrecked! Can I take a look at your tickets?’ The festival guide was clearly one of those relentless cheerful types. ‘So let me guess …’ His eyes lingered on Elle. ‘… we’re taking you to the luxury glamping?’ He zoomed in on the QR code on their tickets. ‘Oh … actually I see you’re in the tree tents. Wow! Well, you really are in for an adventure!’
Helen did not like the fact that the ‘a’ word had been used twice that day so far. Until these past few weeks, Helen’s sense of adventure had always been strongly overridden by her sense of staying warm, comfortable, and safe.
The festival guide clicked on a torch and shone it down the path ahead. ‘You see the signpost next to the Airstreams?’ The light shone on a series of retro, silver camper vans. The flags on top of them flapped frantically in the growing sea breeze. A dim glow of lights came through their windows. They almost looked toasty. That was clearly where Brody and Alice would be staying.
‘Well those aren’t for you!’ The festival guide yanked uncomfortably on Helen’s backpack and gestured to a winding path in the darkness. ‘Head down that way, it’s quite steep, so be careful.’ He gave a pointed look to Elle’s flatform boots. ‘Then when you get to the bottom of the valley, you’ll see a stream, turn left and go over the bridge. You’re tent 107, it will be towards the end of the trail up on the right-hand side. Have fun!’
The way he said ‘have fun’ sounded a bit too much like ‘good luck!’
Helen and Elle made their way down the small shingle path that pulled away from the cliff edge and led them down into the valley. Gnarled trees hung overhead, blotting out any remaining light. Helen flicked on her phone torch and retrieved her head torch from Nessy’s utility belt. Elle grimaced as she took off her headdress to use the torch instead. The path had the fresh, damp smell of the countryside, fed by cowslip, doc leaves, and nettles that hemmed in the sides of the trail. As they descended into the valley, the stone path dissolved into mud.
‘Geez, they could have done with a few more fairy lights down here …’ Elle clung to stray branches at the side of the path for stability. ‘And how come there’s so much mud? It hasn’t rained in days.’
‘Cornwall,’ Helen shrugged and adjusted her head torch.
Occasionally another festival goer would meet them on the path, waving, their hands covered in neon paint; Helen limply reciprocated. ‘How about we just get to the tent, skip finding the wine, and eat a flapjack?’
‘Great ideaamiga, great idea …’ Elle struggled across the small stones and watery shingle, negotiating the muddy path like a human Bambi.
After a forty-five-minute trek with backpacks (which was easily harder than any BodyPump workout Helen had recently attempted) they reached the stream at the bottom. Helen swung her head torch to read the wooden sign that hung from a nearby tree, ‘wild swim here!’ Helen mentally checked off if she’d brought enough towels, bed socks and jumpers. She looked at the black water of the stream – it didn’t exactly look appealing. She thought about her legs sliding into the cold water, the slippery pebbles at the bottom, Brody walking around the corner …
Elle squinted to look at the sign with her head torch. ‘Tents 90–110, this way,’ she said pointing to an unfeasibly dark section of the woods. The tents were individually marked with fluorescent numbered tags hanging from each one. A discordant hum of music reverberated through the trees.
‘Okay here we go, 103, 104, 105 … where’s 107?’
Helen looked into the darkness, trying to not let the increasing wall of sound distract her. She was pretty sure that from one direction drum and bass was playing, and the other the Vengaboys. Stapled to the tree trunk was another sign saying, ‘106–110’ with an upwards arrow.
‘Do they mean we have to climb up the bank?’ Helen looked at the steep bank in front of them, strewn with damp fallen leaves, and knotted roots covered in moss. ‘Perhaps we should just turn around?’
‘We are not going home.’ Elle’s finger was pointed at Helen. ‘Look, we knew this was going to be … well it was always going to be a bit shit. I mean who goes to a festival in the UK anyway?’
Helen knew Elle was going to make that comment.
‘But we haven’t just got on a train to Cornwall, and trekked down the side of a … a … mountain …’
‘… cliff …’
‘… whatever … to give up now! Give me a leg up?’
‘You mean push you up the bank?!’
