Dangerous to Know (19 page)

“I’m late,” I said to Owen. “They’re going to kill me.”

He laughed. “See you later. I’ll come back for a free tea – make sure you’re all right.”

“You don’t need to look out for me,” I said, but he was already loping away into the night, off to find his mates. I watched him go, a tall, ragged figure, moving quick and quiet like a cat. Here one minute, gone the next. Always the same.

Sammy was behind the counter, taking cash and looking harassed, shouting tea and coffee orders over his shoulder to Jono, who was wearing an oversized jester’s hat complete with bells. Idiot.

I pushed my way to the front and just kind of stood there till Sammy looked up and saw me. He stared for a moment.

“Fucking hell.” He passed a Styrofoam cup across the counter, spilling hot tea over his wrist without seeming to notice. “You did it. You actually did it.”

And then he cheered, and so did Jono, who took off his deeply embarrassing hat and threw it in the air. They cheered and surged out from behind the counter and bearhugged me. They must have already been quite wrecked but I didn’t care. I’d made it. I was here. I’d done it. And then everyone in the queue joined in the cheering, too, and a complete stranger passed me a joint. That’s Glastonbury for you.

Bethany wasn’t there.

“She turned up just before eleven with that Amelia girl,” Sammy said, handing me a slab of carrot cake to slice. “Must have left about half an hour ago.”

I stood there holding the cake. “You told her to come back, though, didn’t you?”

Sammy shrugged. “Yeah.” He frowned. “She was meant to be working, wasn’t she?” He glanced at his watch. “Obviously not, though. Mum says this happens every year. We always end up short-staffed. It’s bloody charming – we even managed to get her mate in on our staff list right at the last minute, no ticket and everything. Now they’ve both buggered off.”

I knew, I just knew, that something was wrong. Bethany wouldn’t do that to Yvonne without a good reason.

The joy and the sheer thrill of it all drained out of me, the adrenalin, the energy. I stood slicing cake mechanically, staring at the white wall of the tent. A kitchen in a marquee. After that it was washing and chopping lettuce, tipping it into plastic crates, pouring water from a heavy jerrycan, adding a handful of salt. Jono, the jammy git, had got the best job, flipping Yvonne’s home-made veggie burgers on the barbecue outside, the air was rich with the smell of charring food, icing sugar, cigarette smoke, coffee.

I didn’t see Bethany till three in the morning.

I was mixing icing for the carrot cake when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and she was standing there wearing jeans, her black wellies and a big purple cardigan fastened with a butterfly made of beads. Her hair was in two plaits over her shoulders but the fringe was hanging in her eyes. The plaits were fastened at the ends with beads and feathers. She smiled but even then I knew. She didn’t move towards me. I knew not to touch her. She was separate, apart from me already.

I glanced across the kitchen, saw geeky Amelia standing on the other side of the counter. Waiting for Bethany. They weren’t planning to stay.

A rush of sickness shot through my body and I had to draw in a long breath, staring down at my hands, one gripping the spoon, one holding the bowl of icing sugar and cream cheese. Both hands dusted with icing sugar, sticky with lemon juice.

I was the first to speak. I suppose I thought it would be easier on Bethany if I did. I didn’t want her to suffer. Instead, I brushed off my sugary hands on my jeans, suddenly feeling claustrophobic.

“It’s not going to happen,” I said, “is it?” And I wanted to shout,
Why, why, why?
And, God, I know everyone says this but it’s true: it hurts, it actually hurts – a physical pain in your chest. When the moment was over I knew it would only get worse, because the next day I would wake up and she’d be gone, it’d still be true. The day after that, too. For ever. The weight of it pressed down on me; I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stand it. “Why?” I asked. “Just tell me why.” I half knew already. There was only one reason.

Bethany shook her head. She was crying now, crying a lot, but silently, leaving trails of black eye make-up down her face.

“Dad’s not going to get any more treatment. There isn’t any point. We found out yesterday. He told me to come here, though. He insisted.” She laughed, face covered in tears. “He virtually forced me, got Mum to drive me and Amelia to the station. Said it was my time to be young. I don’t even feel like it. But Dad’s not the reason I can’t see you any more, not really. It’s Mum. She was so upset about that stupid party and now… For once, I don’t want to wind her up.” Bethany smiled, sadly. “She’s a mess. I told her and Dad I wasn’t going to see you again so I could concentrate on school next year. I just want to make them happy. I just—” She stopped talking, tears streaming down her face.

“Please don’t,” I said. “Please don’t cry.”

“The stupid thing is, I wanted to come here so much and now all I want to do is go home. I just want to ring Mum and get her to pick me up. But Amelia was so excited. I can’t leave her here on her own.”

“Bethany—”

She shook her head. “Jack, when I said I loved you, I wasn’t lying. I was telling the truth.”

But it didn’t matter. She was still finishing it. Her dad was going to die and she was finishing it with me to please her mother. The pain intensified. It felt as if my insides had been gripped by a giant hand, squeezing tighter and tighter.

“I know my mum can be a bitch,” she said, quietly. “but this is hard enough for her as it is. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“No,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. “Jesus Christ, Bethany, there’s got to be a way.” My dad was probably never going to speak to me again and I’d done it all for her. I was desperate for her to stay.

Bethany shook her head. “Don’t think I haven’t tried to figure it out, Jack. I’ve tried to think of a way. I just can’t do it at the moment. I’ve got to think about them. My parents. You don’t understand: I’d do anything to make this easier for them. My dad’s going to die. Really soon.” Tears were streaming down her face. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I know only I’m fifteen and everyone says we’re really young but you know what? I’m never going to feel like this about someone again. I just know.”

I wanted to beg. I honestly could have.
Don’t make her feel guilty
, I told myself.
Don’t go down to her a bitch of a mother’s level
. I couldn’t forget the look on Bethany’s face when her mum caught us at the party.
You’re making all of this worse, Bethany.
Blaming her. Bethany had looked like she’d been kicked. She’d been made to feel guilty enough, manipulated into doing her duty, the right thing – as that woman saw it. I couldn’t do the same; I was sick with rage. All I could do was back off and make it as easy for Bethany as I could. Score the moral victory. It didn’t feel good.

“It’s OK,” I said. It wasn’t. “I understand.” I felt it in the pit of my stomach, like I was going to throw up. I had to tell her. “You’d do anything for anyone no matter what, and that’s why I love you, all right? You’re amazing.”

Bethany smiled, sadly. “I’m not amazing,” she whispered.

“You are, you are.”

We held each other for the last time and, God, that was one of the worst experiences of my life; that total mad joy, the feeling of being really myself, complete, knowing that I had to let go of it and watch her walk away. So I pulled back first, letting go of her hands last of all.

“I’ll still see you around,” Bethany said. She rubbed her eyes, streaking her face with black eye make-up, silver glitter. “Won’t I?”

I shook my head, gathering hold of myself. I don’t know how I managed to get the words out, keep control; I felt like screaming. “I don’t think we should.”

Even then I wanted to hold her so much that I had to ram my hands into my pockets. Seeing her across a room, at someone else’s party, was going to be far worse. Better not to. Better to burn fast, like this, get it over with.

“Oh. Oh.” And Bethany didn’t say anything else, just turned and walked away, through the kitchen. Amelia was waiting, put an arm around her shoulder. They passed Sammy and Jono still serving customers at the counter, who turned to stare. Then they walked off through the tent, out into the night.

Bethany was gone. Lost in a crowd of a hundred thousand people. Gone for ever.

“Jack?” said Sammy.

“Leave him alone,” Jono muttered. “Poor bastard. Women.” Even then he was acting so worldly-wise I wanted to punch him.

I didn’t, though. I just walked away. Out of the kitchen, through an open tent-flap, through the cluster of staff tents and away.

I never knew where the next three hours went. I walked alone through the crowd for some of it – past the Dance Tent and into this weird American diner place where they were hiring out ballroom-dancing outfits. I was never going to see her again. I knew it had to be like that. OK, it was a small town but we had different friends. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out which parties to avoid.

She was gone, and here was I at the biggest festival on earth, alone. Had it really been worth the sacrifice? I would probably never see Dad again. I’d be written off. He’d forget about me, and all for nothing. It was light when I found myself up in the Green Fields again, legs aching. I’d been walking for hours. I couldn’t face Sammy and Jono yet, so instead, I headed up to the Stone Circle, weaving my way through clusters of people sitting around and smoking weed, drinking, laughing, shouting. I leaned against one of the big standing stones, staring blindly out at the festival below. It was just a mass of colour, of light.

“Hey, want a lift up?”

I turned to face a skinny guy with a dyed green beard, beanie hat pulled down low over his eyes. “You look like a chap in need of perspective,” he said, with the uncanny insight of someone who has taken a lot of substances in one night.

I shrugged. “All right.”

The guy gave me a shin up and I sat on the stone. Before I could thank him, he was gone. I stared out over a valley full of light, strands of smoke moonlit-silver. I rolled a fag, but smoking it didn’t change anything. I felt as if I’d broken open like a dropped egg.

She was gone. Bethany was gone. At last, one of us had done the right thing. The sensible, mature thing. But it didn’t feel right.

I closed my eyes, wondering what was going to happen when all this was over. I had to face Dad at some point.
You’ve been an idiot
. I’d come haring down here with Owen and all the time Mum and Dad didn’t know where Herod was, if he was even still alive. Now I’d stuck the knife in again, twisted it. There were payphones here somewhere, had to be. If I called first thing then at least Mum wouldn’t worry about me any more.

What was Dad going to do when I got back? Would he just disappear to Tokyo or San Francisco or Paris or New York, and I’d be forgotten again? His bright, shiny boarding-school brochures seemed kind of appealing now: the idea of going somewhere new, far away from her, from Bethany.
You must be desperate, then,
I thought. What a loser. I remembered what Jono was like when he broke up with Dani Smith just before Easter.
She’s minging, anyway.
He said it to anyone who’d listen. But I could never say that about Bethany. I couldn’t hate her, and it only made everything worse because I still wanted her, didn’t I? Just couldn’t have her.

“Jack, is that you?”

I couldn’t help jumping. I turned. Stared.

At first, I thought the person looking up at me was Owen. It wasn’t. He had longer hair and he had an earring too, like Owen, like Dad, but his was a small green jade hoop. He was wearing a ragged sweater, jeans and brown workboots.

“Herod,” I said. And then I had to say it again. “
Herod
. What are you doing here?” The sight of him knocked the breath right out of me. I literally couldn’t believe what I was seeing, so I just sat there, utterly helpless with shock.

Herod smiled, as though finding me sitting on a massive stone pillar at Glastonbury was the most ordinary thing in the world. They’re all the same: Herod, Dad, Owen, moving along in a different stream to everyone else. “Jack,” he said. “Kismet: fate. I had a feeling I might see Owen – we always used to meet here – but it’s you. Wow. You look so much older since Christmas.”

I stared at him, cigarette burning down between my fingertips. I looked into his eyes. Was he really there?

Herod looked back, just him. The Creature was gone. For now, perhaps. But it was gone, all the same. This was just Herod. He’d beaten it.

Herod smiled at me and I laughed; I couldn’t help myself despite the weight of misery in my belly. He reached out with one hand and I took it, sliding down from the stone. “What are you doing here? Man, you should call Mum.”

“Why? I was going to call on Tuesday, after all this.” He stared at me, frowning. “What’s wrong? Is she OK?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’ve really got no idea,” I said. “Have you? Listen, two weeks ago, that girl from the Peace Centre rang to say you’d gone missing. Mum and Louis were in France. She called
Sabine
in Paris. They came home early.”

“Shit,” Herod said, very quietly, shutting his eyes a minute. “Andy. I should have guessed. I’m such an idiot. I really didn’t think she’d do something like that. I thought she had more sense.”

“They think you’re ill again. Mum’s completely freaking out,” I said. “Dad came back and everything. He was in Japan and he flew over a week ago to look for you.” I told him about identifying the body, the homeless shelters, the calls to every hospital they could think of. “What happened?”

“Oh, my God.” Herod sighed, pushed back his hair. “It turned out Andy wanted us to get together. I’ve never thought of her in that way. Didn’t reckon I’d led her on or anything. It was pretty awkward, but I’d been thinking about leaving the Centre for a while, maybe going to live in France.” He smiled. “It’s easier to live on the dole and be an artist over there. Anyway, I left sooner than I was going to, before I’d really spoken to the others about stuff. Dave and Simon were away on a retreat when it all kicked off, so I just told Andy. I really didn’t think she’d do something that stupid.” He sighed again. “Bloody hell. I’m here doing meditation workshops for Simon’s cousin. He’s got a yurt. He normally comes down here but his girlfriend’s just had a baby and they didn’t want to waste the pitch fee. I said I’d come and do the classes for them.”