Five Go Glamping (19 page)

‘Fiona, you’re nice, and I like you, but I can see what’s happening here. I know you are angry because of that prick, but I don’t fancy stepping in to be the rebound guy, if you don’t mind. That’s not my style.’

I felt like such an idiot and wondered if the attraction I thought he felt was all fabricated in my head. It was likely he was just a nice guy who had helped me out and didn’t feel anything for me like that at all. My thoughts turned to yesterday when I thought we’d had a moment, but perhaps it had all been in my head.

‘Look Fiona, I am flattered, I really am and you’re lovely. I mean you’re really, really lovely, but do you think this is a good idea – with this second seeing your boyfriend with someone else?’

I nodded. I knew exactly what he meant, I must look like an out and out fruit cake.

I couldn’t think exactly what to say. I was mortified. Sam had rejected me in the kindest possible way. I started chewing the inside of my mouth before I realised I was horribly contorting my face.

‘Look, you’ve had a bit of a shock eh? Let’s get you back to your friends.’

‘No, honestly it’s fine. Look, thanks, for everything, it’s really kind of you. I’ll go. I’m sorry about the whole trying to kiss you thing.’ I set off walking away from him for a few seconds before he caught me up.

‘Fiona, I’d rather walk you back all the same.’

‘No, really I’m fine,’ I said trying to hold back the tears that I had allowed to escape once I was walking away.

‘You’re going the wrong way – the exit is this way.’

‘Oh.’

I didn’t know what to say to him on the way back up the road. He’d ask a question about something and I’d reply, but the conversation didn’t flow, then I’d ask him a question and he’d reply. It was all friendly enough but not like the chatter we’d had on the way down. We didn’t say much as we walked, small talk really and I was glad of that because every time I spoke, I felt the lump in my throat and tears rising again.

Soon enough we got to the pub where he insisted he walk me back to the campsite. Even though I said I’d be fine.

We walked through the back of the beer garden where we’d sat looking at the view in the days before and I did everything in my power not to look up.

‘What did you do before?’ I said, unable to imagine Sam having a life other than this. It was so effortless for him, so easy how he travelled around and moved through the place.

‘I was…’ he hesitated.

‘What?’ I said, worried for a minute he might say he was a mass murderer and all my initial assumptions about him when I met him in the foggy field were true.

‘An accountant.’

‘An accountant?’ How could this man who couldn’t even manage to work out how to sell ready meals for a profit be an accountant?

‘That’s preposterous,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I know’

‘So how come you ended up here?’ I said.

‘I met my ex after she’d had a tricky break up,’ he said. ‘I was convinced it was the real thing. Then she got it into her head she wanted to move away. Somewhere quiet she said, to start a new life. Turns out she’d been seeing her old boyfriend since not long after we got together. She wanted to move here to get away from it, see if there was a chance for us. But in the end she couldn’t stay away from him. So off she went.’

‘And left you here?’ I said.

‘Yep, and here I am,’ he said. ‘Still. Found it hard to manage the pub on my own. I was down for a while, not bothered about it.’

No wonder he didn’t want to kiss me earlier, not that I blamed him. What must he have thought of me, throwing myself at him like that after I’d just seen Connor with someone else.

I wondered if perhaps he might, at some point, think about me like that, if I could let him know this wasn’t a rebound thing. But I guess I didn’t have time to wait for him to change his mind, there wasn’t any time at all. In fact I probably only had a few hours left, not even time to initiate a holiday romance, but I thought I had to try at least.

‘Look Sam, I know how it looked with me wanting to… with you… after you know.’

He shrugged and smiled. ‘A bit of bad timing I suppose, sometimes you meet the right people – just at the wrong time.’ We’d reached the edge of the campsite. ‘Well, I’ll see you then,’ he said. He had his hands in his pockets and was kicking at the dirt.

‘Yeah, maybe tomorrow or something?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ I was about to suggest I could pop into the pub when Kirk came running up the hill, holding Brian Harvey under his arm and waving with the other hand, screaming like a banshee. ‘Oh thank goodness you are back Fiona, something terrible has happened.’

Chapter Seventeen

Kirk was stood wheezing before us.

‘What is it now?’ I asked. I hoped he wasn’t cross with me because I had gone missing for the day again – I’d just wanted to come back here and get some support from my friends after everything that had happened.

‘It’s important, Fiona, we need to call the police.’

‘The police? Oh my God, Kirk! What’s happened?’

Before he’d even finished his sentence I shot off down the hill. Sam followed me down and I found Steph and Sinead sat by the fire pit outside the yurt, in tears.

‘What on earth has happened?’

‘It’s Weird Beard and Crazy Trousers, they’ve disappeared. After that thing they were doing down by the river,’ cried Sinead. Steph wasn’t saying much for a change.

‘We were by the river and had a lie down and we must have all fallen asleep – the next thing we know we woke up and they’ve vanished, gone, nowhere to be seen.’

‘The tossers,’ muttered Steph. ‘And now my bloody car keys are missing, which we think they’ve stolen, so we can’t go to sleep now in case they come back and steal the car.’

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘Did you phone the police?’ asked Sam.

‘None of us have a signal,’ said Kirk.

‘Okay, look, don’t worry. You can come up to my bar, and spend the night there. We’ll call the police from there,’ said Sam decisively.

‘What about the car?’ Kirk said. ‘Aren’t we better off staying here so they don’t come back and steal it?’

‘We could let the tyres down,’ I offered. ‘They won’t be able to steal it then.’

‘Good idea,’ said Sam. ‘Right I’ll do that, the rest of you get your stuff.’

*

Sam had shown us all to his spare rooms upstairs and we gathered back downstairs in the bar whilst he poured us drinks and dished us up some of the food from earlier. The police station said they would try and get someone out, but they were a bit stretched down at the festival, so it could be hours until they got there.

Sinead, Steph and Kirk nestled into one of the nooks on the well-worn leather seats and were fussing Brian Harvey when I joined them.

‘How did it go with Connor, are you all made up now?’ asked Steph.

‘He was with Genna,’ I said and I could feel myself starting to cry. Steph shuffled up on the sofa.

‘So he was seeing her?’ she said.

Sinead also shuffled up a bit more.

I nodded.

‘Oh, Fi.’ She put Brian Harvey on my lap and I picked him up and buried my face in his fur. Kirk soon joined in with all the hugging until Brian Harvey became a little alarmed and we all laughed.

‘Think though, Fiona. You won’t have to do all that saving up any more. You can spend the lot. And you can come out three times a week a now and come shopping on Saturdays.’

‘Yeah,’ I said trying to raise a smile. ‘There is that, I suppose.’

I tried to look pleased at the prospect but I’d spent years living on a shoe string to save up so Connor and I could be together. I was angry. God knows how long this thing with him and Genna had been going on. I felt sick and then I thought about the apartment which I had saved up so hard for and the pretend proposal which made me feel even more humiliated.

And even though Steph was right, I suppose I could go out more now, I didn’t even know if I was going to have a job when I got back. Even if I did, I’d have to save up even more if I wanted to buy my own place.

Even if I did decide to go out more – nights out at The White Swan and the quiz – it was all the same. I certainly wasn’t any closer to finding myself this weekend at this stupid ‘Find Yourself Festival’. In fact, I felt more lost than ever.

‘Bit of a tough day for you eh?’ said Sam, sympathetically as I collected the empty mugs of tea.

I nodded, still feeling embarrassed about what had happened earlier.

‘Well, I’m sure the lads from the station will be up soon enough. It will all get sorted out. I’ll get another brew on.’ He gave me a wink and that look again which made me catch my breath. I kept thinking about what he said earlier about meeting people at the wrong time and I was sad I wouldn’t have any more time to spend with him. Even if he didn’t want to be with me, I still liked spending time with him. And I liked being in the pub, after spending so much time here, I felt even more at home.

The pub door swung open and George and Frank piled in.

‘What in God’s name are all these women doing in here?’ said George waving his stick at Steph, Sinead and Kirk. Kirk hugged Brian Harvey close to him to protect him.

‘Sam, what are you up to, they’re in our seats.’ said Frank pulling the waistband on his trousers even higher and giving Sam an accusatory look.

‘Usual, lads?’ asked Sam.

‘Aye,’ said George as he shuffled to the bar, still eyeing my friends suspiciously.

‘You’re here again, are you?’ said Frank to me.

‘Looks like I am.’

‘You’re the new girlfriend, aren’t ya? Well I never! You kept that quiet, Sam. A
girlfriend
indeed. Hear that George? Got himself a girlfriend,’ said Frank.

‘We better have a whisky chaser to celebrate. On the house.’

‘There’ll be no whisky chasers on the house. And no girlfriends,’ said Sam as he poured the men their pints of mild. I knew he was joking but it still stung a little when he said it.

‘Take no notice of him love, broken hearted is he. Needs to find the right woman,’ said Frank and chuckled.

They both shuffled over to their seats by the window, not minding that Sinead and Steph and Kirk were in the way. Frank dived in and sat in the middle of Steph and Sinead, and George sidled up the other side of Steph – leaving no one any room on the seating designed for three. Frank and George budged up closer which had the effect of Steph almost popping out of the middle. She got up in a huff and joined me where I was standing at the bar, as Frank and George made enquiries about the dog.

‘So what do you do round here for fun then?’ she asked Sam.

‘Ah you know, this and that.’

‘Doesn’t it get a bit boring? I mean, there’s not a lot to do is there?’

‘I keep myself busy enough,’ he said.

Steph took her drink and squeezed herself back in amongst the others.

Over in the corner I heard Sinead telling Frank about our weekend.

‘To find yourself? Well how do you know how to get there if you can’t find yourself in the first place? What a load of the silliest nonsense I’ve ever heard.’

I smiled. He had a point.

‘So what
do
you do for fun then?’ I asked Sam.

He looked over at the others to see if they were busy and leant his arms on the bar, lowering his head. ‘Come with me.’ he said.

He opened the bar hatch and took me by the hand, along the corridor and out to the beer garden.

‘This.’ he said once we were outside ‘This is what I do for fun.’

‘What, you sit in the beer garden?’ I asked, perplexed.

‘No, you’re not looking high enough.’

He stood behind me and straightened my shoulders, took my head in his hands then very gently tilted it up.

‘This, this is what I do.’

At first I noticed how bright the stars were and then more and more stars appeared – the longer I looked, the more I saw, until every inch of the sky was covered in sparkly wonder.

‘Wow.’

‘Sometimes I sit here for hours, just looking. I’d never move back to a town now.’

‘It’s amazing.’ I understood why Sam would never want to leave. I loved it here too.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘So listen,’ he said. ‘I imagine you’ll be leaving tomorrow with all the stuff that’s gone on. Once you get your car sorted’

I hadn’t thought about it until he said it, but I suppose we would have to. We couldn’t impose on Sam’s hospitality, he was only helping us out while the police got here. I didn’t want to go back and stay in the yurt but I certainly didn’t want to go back home where all there was to do was worry about work and Connor.

It felt like the air changed. I felt chilly for the first time in weeks. I shivered. Sam must have sensed this and put an arm on my shoulder and I found myself naturally moving in towards him almost like I was being pulled.

We were interrupted by Frank and George yelling for service.

‘I better get back in,’ he said.

‘Yeah.’ I said pulling away.

‘So, there’s a few towels there, the shower’s along the hall. Give us a shout if you want anything.’

The police hadn’t arrived and it was getting late. Sam had given Steph, Sinead and I a room with a double and a single, leaving Kirk and Brian Harvey a double all to themselves. Steph and Sinead fell asleep pretty quickly after all the free drinks, but I couldn’t sleep. I was still processing the day’s events. It was difficult to comprehend how when I went back everything would be so different, especially now I didn’t have my plan to cling to. I kept thinking about what Sam said about how it was okay to not know what was going to happen and it was okay to be afraid about that. I loved how he was able to change my perspective on things I thought were so clear. I was still tossing and turning so decided to get up and clear up downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs I noticed the back door was ajar so I took a look and saw Sam sitting outside sat on a barrel with a bottle of beer.

‘Hi,’ he said and raised his bottle in a toast and passed one to me.

‘Hi.’

‘Couldn’t sleep? ‘

I shook my head. ‘I was hoping the police would be here by now. It looks different from earlier,’ I said, noticing the stars were all in a different position.