Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up (18 page)

I was fed up with the whole bloody lot of them. Carter had been stroppy ever since I’d gone off with Shona and I was seriously contemplating jumping out at the next pit-stop and hitching home. Instead I dug my iPod out of my bag, put my earbuds in and tuned the whole moaning lot of them out with a very loud dose of Florence & the Machine.

When we finally got back on the motorway, the van gave a dramatic splutter and got slower and slower before it shuddered to a halt. Luckily Paul managed to steer it onto the hard shoulder before it died altogether but we had to wait four hours in the burning afternoon sun for the breakdown vehicle to arrive. The only highlight of the wait, apart from everyone shouting at everybody else, was when Simon flagged down a passing ice-cream van and persuaded the driver to sell us some cold drinks.

It was six in the evening before we got started again and when we reached the festival site two hours later no-one was talking to anyone else, mainly because they’d fallen asleep, and we were stuck in a huge tailback that led to the main entrance.

Although I hadn’t minded everyone not talking because it was less stressful than all the bitching, I knew I couldn’t stay in the van one minute longer. To tell you the truth I was still vaguely thinking about doing a runner and hitching a lift to the nearest train station but even I could tell that was a
baaaaad
idea. I grabbed my backpack and my shoulder bag and crawled over to the door.

‘I’m getting out,’ I announced. ‘I’ll meet you at the campsite. I’m going to walk.’

People began to stir. ‘But Edie, you hate walking,’ Darby pointed out.

‘And you’ll get lost,’ stated Carter with absolute certainty.

‘No I won’t,’ I said crossly. ‘We’ve already decided where we’re going to pitch the tents. I’ve got a map and if I have to spend one more second in this van I’m going to kill someone. Probably Will.’

‘What have
I
done?’ asked Will indignantly.

‘It’s not you, it’s your trance playlists,’ I said.

‘I never thought I’d say this,’ piped up Veronique, ‘but I have to agree with her on that one.’

My bolt for freedom didn’t exactly go to plan. After ten more minutes of pointless arguing, we
all
left Paul and Shona to stay with the van and started walking towards the site. We walked and walked and walked until my feet were slipping around sweatily in my trainers. And Lord knows when I’d next get to have a bath. Not anytime soon that was for sure.

It was pitch dark by this time, lit only by the odd campfire, and we kept tripping over people until we reached the place where we
thought
we had decided earlier to set up camp. It was hard to tell. Of course, all the tent gear was in the van so we had to wait ages for Paul and Shona who’d parked somewhere completely different. It was 1.30 in the morning before we even
began
to assemble the tents, which led to more sniping and swearing as we fell over tent posts and got told off by the hippies in the next-door tent. Eventually all the tents were pitched. The only thing between me and an uncomfortable night in a sleeping bag was the decision about who was going to sleep where.

Carter had been all right up till now. Thankfully he’d slept for the last bit of the journey and woken up in a good mood, which lasted long enough for him to carry my bags up a big hill for me. I might be a feminist but I have no upper body strength. He was now eyeing up a little two-man tent and then eyeing me up and you didn’t have to be a numbers geek to do the maths. The last thing on my mind though was getting naked and horizontal with Carter, I just wanted to sleep.

It was at that moment that Shona shunted Carter out of the way and got into the little tent. ‘Me and Paul are sleeping in here,’ she ordered in her don’t-mess-with-me voice. ‘Dylan and Veronique are sleeping in the green tent and then the two big tents are girls only and boys only. Goodnight.’

Carter looked annoyed so I tried to look annoyed too.

‘Never mind, eh?’ I said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you later.’

He grabbed me around the waist before I could walk off and pulled me tight against him. ‘Tomorrow. We’ll find some peace and quiet tomorrow, I promise.’ But it didn’t sound like a promise, it sounded like a threat.

I don’t know when I’m going to get another chance to write. As it is, Darby and Poppy keep waking up and moaning at me for daring to rustle paper. Serves me right for still kicking it old skool on the diary front.

I’ll probably do a big catch-up when we get back to Manchester. Jesus, I wish I had a time machine so I could jet propel myself home and it would already be several days from now.

Back home, thank the Lord. I’m typing this and sticking it in my diary because there’s so much to say. Also, as God is my witness, I am never going to another festival as long as I live. That’s an Edie promise. Anyway:

The festival was every bit as vile as I thought it would be. There were loads of beered-up lads wearing those ridiculous velvet jesters’ hats with the bells on so at least you could hear them as they sneaked up behind you and tried to cop a feel. But even they weren’t as bad as the masses of hippies in the healing field who were walking around bare-ass naked and ensuring that I’d never be able to eat another cocktail sausage as long as I lived. After a breakfast (well, lunch if we’re going to get technical about it) of fresh doughnuts from a nearby stall, everyone split up and I was left alone with Carter. The girls had gone off to the fair and although they’d begged me to go with them, Carter had kept a tight grip on my hand and made it plain that we wanted to spend some quality time with each other.

We started walking down to the main stage and I forgot how nervous I was about what we’d planned to do once we were at the festival. He was just Carter, he wasn’t scary. In fact, we spent the next half hour bonding as we moaned about the medieval bathing facilities and the annoying hippy brats that kept banging into our legs at five-minute intervals. Why is it little kids have no spatial awareness?

Carter and I sat and watched a couple of bands and I thought, this is good, this is what normal couples at a festival do, as we sat on the grass, holding hands and sipping lukewarm lager.

In between sets, Carter turned to me and took off his shades. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he said, musingly.

‘Do what?’

‘You’ve had hardly any sleep, I know you’re dying for a shower ’cause you’ve told me about ten times, but you look fantastic, like you’ve just stepped out of a Fellini film.’

I didn’t actually know who Fellini was (though I guessed he was some hip foreign film director) but I pulled a face. I did not look fantastic, not by anyone’s standards. I had on a crumpled T-shirt and a pair of pink pedal-pushers that were already covered in grass stains. And however much sun-block I smeared on my face my freckles were multiplying by the minute. I tugged my fingers through my tangled hair.

‘It’s nice of you to say it, Carter,’ I began. ‘But I look and feel horrible. I don’t know how you manage to stay so smart.’

It was true. Carter didn’t have a single crease in his ensemble of checked shirt and dark blue jeans. He must have slept standing up.

Carter smirked. ‘I’d be quite keen on getting a bit more rumpled.’

Here we go. I raised my eyebrows at him and he chuckled.

‘Let’s go back to the tent,’ he murmured seductively. ‘And I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.’

I didn’t say anything for a while. The tension hummed in the air between us and I knew that Carter was holding his breath. I couldn’t put it off for any longer.

‘OK,’ I agreed with a sigh. He grinned and pulled me to my feet.

‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,’ breathed Carter, leaning in to kiss me.

It had taken us half an hour to get to the main stage but with Carter tugging at my hand we made it back to the tent in ten minutes.

I stood there feeling completely detached, almost as if I was outside of myself, while he unzipped the canvas.

Carter held the tent flap open for me as I crawled inside, he was already unbuttoning his shirt as he inched towards me. This is it, I thought, I’m about to have sex in a tent, in the middle of a field, in broad daylight. It was not how I’d imagined this moment to be. Carter reached for me and pulled me down so I was lying on top of him and started to kiss me. His hands were stroking under my T-shirt as he whispered, ‘You’ve got too many clothes on.’

I wriggled out of my T-shirt and wished this was happening to someone else as Carter began to fumble with the clasp on my bra. His eyes were roaming all over me and his hands weren’t gentle as he twisted at the fastening. There wasn’t a whole lot of tenderness going on. But how could I tell Carter that I’d made a mistake when I’d promised him I’d finally do the deed? There wasn’t any going back…

Carter had managed to get my bra undone and was trying to coax me to slip it off when we heard a scuffling noise outside the tent. I froze.

‘What was that?’ I hissed as Carter rolled me over so he was pinning me to the ground.

‘What was what?’ he said impatiently.

‘I heard a noise,’ I said. There was another scrabble at the tent canvas. ‘There it is again!’

The next second, to my horror, Poppy’s head appeared through the flap.

‘Oh my God!’ we both squeaked. Poppy’s head retreated and I grabbed my discarded T-shirt and held it to my chest.

Carter, God rot him, started to laugh. ‘Foiled again,’ he said, lying back with his arms behind his head.

I turned my back on him, did up my bra and pulled on my T-shirt before crawling out of the tent. And colour me puce ’cause every inch of me was blushing.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Poppy gabbled. ‘I had no idea.’

‘It’s all right,’ I muttered. I actually wanted to get down on my knees and kiss her feet in gratitude but I managed to restrain myself. ‘What’s up?’

She pulled me away from the tents. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near him,’ she said scathingly and then I remembered what he’d been doing the last time she saw him and winced.

‘Forget him for a minute,’ I advised her, wishing I could do the same. ‘And tell me why you’re so upset.’

Poppy gave a little cry of frustration. ‘Grace has gone missing. I turned my back for a second and she’s disappeared.’

‘OK, where were you?’ I asked, my Miss Efficiency autopilot kicking in.

‘I was in the dance tent,’ Poppy wailed. ‘But I’ve looked all over. And the others are all looking and we can’t find her anywhere.’

‘All right, we’ll get Carter to stay here in case she comes back and we’ll go and look for her,’ I decided. ‘We’ve all got our phones and we haven’t had time to run down our batteries. We’ll find her.’

‘Wow, Edie, I never knew you were so sensible,’ Poppy exclaimed as I poked my head through the tent flap. Carter was lounging back on a rolled-up sleeping bag and grinned when he saw me.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said wolfishly. ‘I was beginning to think you’d abandoned me.’

‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I said quickly, as he gave me an annoyed look. ‘Grace has gone missing, Poppy’s in a complete state and I need you to stay here in case she turns up. All right?’

‘But Edie…’ he started to say as I waved at him vaguely and turned back to Poppy.

‘You go to the Missing Persons tent and I’ll check the animal welfare stalls,’ I told her as we began to hurry down the hill.

‘Thanks, Edie,’ Poppy said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you. I can’t seem to think straight.’

‘You’re just worried about Grace,’ I panted as we picked up speed.

‘Well, it kinda goes with the territory of being a bossy older sister. And, y’know, I’m sorry I’ve been so off with you,’ said Poppy.

‘Forget it,’ I said and meant it. ‘But please don’t tell anyone about me and Carter… how we… what we were doing when you saw us.’

‘Why would I tell anyone about that?’ Poppy shrieked. ‘It’s scarred me for life!’

I checked the animal rights stalls and went back to the healing field but I couldn’t find Grace anywhere. I bumped into Will and Robbie but they’d had no luck either. I was just about to call it a day and head back to find the others when I thought I saw Grace in the crowd. I pushed through people to get closer but she’d gone. I looked around helplessly and then I saw her. She was with a group of lads. They were all staggering about and laughing, Grace included, but she looked pale and confused. One of the bigger lads slung his arm round her and the pair of them looked like they were about to topple over.

I rushed towards her and Grace threw her arms round me. ‘Edie! Lovely Edie,’ she gasped. ‘You look all weird.’

Her pupils were massively dilated and she was all floppy as if her limbs were made of Plasticine.

I turned to the lads who were standing there giggling feebly. ‘What have you done to her?’ I shouted. There was no response, just more giggles.

I poked the one nearest to me. ‘What has she taken?’ I demanded, grabbing the front of his T-shirt.

‘Just some stuff,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll let you have a tab for a fiver.’

‘What is wrong with you?’ I yelled. ‘Has she taken an E?’

‘It was probably acid,’ suggested this quite, quite beautiful boy who was part of the crowd that had gathered to watch. ‘You wouldn’t spike someone with E, it’s too expensive.’

‘Oh, OK,’ I said distractedly but, like, not before I’d managed to clock how amazing-looking he was. I turned back to Grace, trying to keep her upright with one arm while I still had a grip on the boy’s T-shirt with the other. ‘You’re lucky it was me who found you,’ I snarled at him. ‘If it had been her sister or one of our boyfriends, you’d be lucky to still have kneecaps.’ I gave him a hard push and he fell over on the ground, still laughing at some private joke. I glared at his mates but they were just gazing at me like I should have come with subtitles or something.

‘Hey! Hey! Listen to me! What have you taken?’ I demanded of Grace, but she had her head nuzzled into my shoulder. There was drool going on too.