AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Yeah man, I go first, I’ll get a hold of that tree branch, then I’ll pull you up, okay?’ Elle’s ruby fingernails were already groping blindly into the rippling, cold mud.
‘Okay.’ Helen’s hands pushed on Elle’s hips as Elle dug her heels into the bank, grappling up the side of the bank to the first row of branches.
‘Now take my hand!’ Helen could see tiny clods of dirt in Elle’s manicure.
Elle pulled Helen up behind her, and assessed that perhaps all of Elle’s spin classes and squat racks hadn’t been entirely in vain.
107.
They could just make out the outline of their tent in the trees, hovering above them like a damp, green spaceship. Their tent was suspended above the ground in a triangle shape, tied unevenly to the surrounding trees. The website had shown a picture of the tent bathed in sunlight, a happy couple (of course) dangling their legs out of the side of it, like a pair of wood nymphs.
The reality was the tent was pitched at an angle, which was obvious even to someone as un-technically savvy as Helen. When they were inside this meant the heaviest item (their backpacks) slid to the bottom, Helen lay in the middle, and Elle was bunked on top of her like a layer of sediment.
Elle had changed into her lilac tracksuit which already had mud splattered up the inner leg. The bedding the festival provided was damp with dew and their sleeping bags felt highly inadequate. Elle pulled on her ‘beauty sleep’ eye mask ‘for extra warmth’ alongside a beanie which Helen was surprised she owned. The wall of sound had now morphed into a genre of music Helen strained to recognise as Psytrance coming from one direction, and techno from the other. The phrase, ‘I’m losing it …’ reverberated around the tent, repeated endlessly over the thudding base.
‘Flapjack?’ Helen meekly offered Elle. ‘Sorry this is so …’
‘No more saying sorry, we’re goodamiga. I am cold, I am tired of this music, and I need to pee,’ Elle said. ‘But we’re good. Tonight we sleep, tomorrow we find this Brody and I go have a glass of wine with your nan.’
Chapter 29
Helen was surprised when she finally woke up that it wasn’t to the dull thump of music that had mocked her foam ear plugs all night, it was to birdsong. Somehow warm sunlight had also managed to reach them, the outlines of trees dancing in shadow on the inside of the tent.
Obviously, Helen had struggled to sleep. Normally sleep involved a ritual including moisturiser, fluffy socks, and a hot water bottle shaped like a sheep. Washing your teeth by swilling some water around in your mouth, brushing furiously, and then spitting it out over the side of the tent wasn’t going to cut it. Elle had also woken up at least three times to pee, which she did by hanging her bum over the side of the tent: and flapjack supplies were already running low.
Helen checked her phone and saw a series of dots where the bars of signal were supposed to be. How was she going to follow Alice, and find Brody, without her phone?
‘We have to go to the main site to see if there’s Wi-Fi,’ Elle yawned; she had put large sunglasses on the second she had woken up, like a reality TV star.
They made the forty-five-minute trek back to the main site of the festival. Helen’s thighs were burning: between the lack of immediate food options and morning exercise Ship/Wrecked was currently doubling up as a fitness bootcamp.
The main festival site was in a dusty stretch of valley just short of Polveath cove. At one end was a large main stage where some reggae band was already playing; one guy in wellies and a tie-dye onesie danced by himself in the dust. Multi-coloured circus-style tents dotted the valley, advertising things like ‘vinyasa yoga’ (Helen now knew what doing yoga blind drunk would look like), ‘meditation zone’ (everyone was asleep) and there was a wooden shipwreck installation where the Instagram clique were taking turns hanging out of the crow’s nest in bikinis.
Bikini plus wellies seemed to be a popular look; there was also a strong contingent of people who considered glitter a substitute for clothing, and the odd person styling out an old pyjama set with an extravagant headscarf in an attempt to look Bohemian.
Helen checked her phone: still no signal.
Elle was holding on to an iced latte in a soggy paper cup made with agave, and three rationed ice cubes. ‘Don’t worry babe, we’ll ask the Instagrammers where the signal is …’ Elle strode over to the pirate ship where a group of three people were huddled over something. From the outside it looked like they might be choosing which crow’s nest pic was the best from their phones, in reality they were holding a shrew. A real life droopy-nosed shrew.
‘There you go little guy.’ One of the men stroked the shrew’s head and put it into his breast pocket.
‘Has he got a name?’ Elle leaned against the boat.
‘He’s not our possession to name, but I’m Aiden.’ The tallest guy touched his chest gently. ‘Have we met before?’
‘If we had, I’m sure I would have remembered. This is Helen and I’m Elle.’
Helen had to give it to her: Elle was still managing to purr out her words on minimal hours of sleep talking to an unwashed-looking guy with mini-dreads.
‘Hel and Elle, I like it! Well this is Chug, because he likes giving cuddles and hugs, and this is Fairy.’ Aiden gestured limply to his two friends, and patted the shrew back down into his pocket. ‘There, there little guy. So have you been to Ship/Wrecked before? Or are we welcoming new people to our community?’
‘Nope we’re first timers, we’re actually desperately looking for the Wi-Fi.’
‘Of course you are,’ said Aiden knowingly, cupping the pocket where the shrew was.
‘Do you know where it is?’ Helen felt rude and desperately unspiritual asking.
‘The real question is do you want to know?’
