My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend (21 page)

The Perfect Mix Tape

I know I waste my life being full of nostalgia for a time I can’t even remember. Everyone’s always telling me it’s pointless.
They’re probably right.

I just want . . . the perfect mix tape. That’s all. I want a laptop and an iPod too – I don’t see what’s wrong with that. We’re living in the
future, so why wouldn’t we shamelessly cherry-pick the best bits of the past and use them for our own ends?

I like old photographs found in junk shops, where you don’t know who any of the people are and you can make up stories about them. I like old VHS video tapes, full
of pointless things that people recorded off the telly and labelled with funny sticky strips and biro.

Most of all I love mix tapes. You can hardly even find them in charity shops any more. They’re a dying species. I hunt them out where I can, obsessively. I buy blank
cassettes on Fleabay and make my own on my mum’s old plastic ghetto blaster from a million years ago. I even have some old mix tapes that were my mum’s – made for her by friends,
old boyfriends: favourite songs and stuff taped off the radio herself. They’re full of Prince, early Madonna, cheesy 90s softrock bands that I can’t identify and would never have heard
of. They’re better than a time capsule. Best of all, someone actually made them. To make a friend smile, to impress a girl, to remember . . .

All I want in life is the perfect mix tape. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

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I wake up in the cramped and crowded van, and everything feels different.

Having spent the night shoehorned into the back of a van that smells of diesel and manages to be cold and sweaty all at once, I am desperate to stretch my legs and go for a pee. Everyone else is
still asleep and I can sense it’s crazily early, but it’s already light outside and I know there’s no chance of me going back to sleep or even settling down again. It’s not
only that I’m wide awake, but my bladder is really not going back to sleep either. I’m going to have to try to find some spot by the side of the road where I can go to the loo while
hopefully retaining some small shred of dignity.

I manoeuvre myself out as carefully as possible. Anna and I slept crammed into a tiny space right at the back and over the rear left wheel – which we were lucky to have and extremely
grateful for, obviously – and both huddled under my parka, and most of the other clothes from my rucksack, for as much warmth as possible. I shift myself slowly out so that Anna doesn’t
stir and has the whole coat over her, and slip through the back doors.

As soon as I’m outside, I feel weirdly better about things. It’s not sunny and it’s still damp, but it’s bright and the fresh air is lovely. I feel free. Even if we end
up going home today, as I breathe in the cold green morning air, I’m glad I’m here.

But as my eyes slowly wake up and take in my surroundings, I actually laugh out loud. We climbed into the van in the dead of night, and I expected to wake up still in the service-station car
park. At some point in the night, or this morning, the van must have moved while I was asleep.

We are in. The van is parked in a vast green field, surrounded by other vans and people setting up stalls. It’s already a bustling hive of activity, a shanty-town shopping centre. By hook
or by crook, and I’m not sure which, we have got into Glastonbury festival. We are here. I am here.

My first reflex thought is to go and wake Anna up immediately, but then I decide to explore by myself for a bit. This is kind of a unique opportunity.

Stumbling around in my denim shorts and my Converse, which are still wet from yesterday’s epic walk in the rain, I pull the sleeves of my cardigan down so that they cover my hands and the
fact that I don’t actually have a wristband. Although, now that I’ve made it through the impenetrable fence, everything seems pretty relaxed.

Loads of the stallholders nod and say hello to me as I pass, interesting-looking people busy doing cool things. I walk the length of the market field and find myself turning down a narrower
green path. I still don’t know what time it is, but I know it must be early because even though there are people around, it is definitely not crowded yet. I’ve a feeling that will
change very soon.

The path opens out, and before me is a huge view of Glastonbury. I feel as though I am standing on top of the world. My breath actually catches in my throat. There are tents as far as the eye
can see, higgledy-piggledy but with a strange sort of order to the whole picture, stretching far away into the distance. Bigger and grander than anything else, dominating the skyline, is the famous
Pyramid Stage. (It really is a pyramid!) From here I can see a couple of the smaller stages too, although I know from obsessively reading the line-up online that there are more tucked away all over
the place. I can see a fairground, with a Ferris wheel and a big top.

I feel a massive thrill of excitement as I look out over it all. I think of all the exploring I can do, the amazing experiences to be had out there. All new, things that could never happen at
home. I don’t want to go back yet.

After I finish admiring the view, I find a compost toilet that isn’t actually too bad; this is
nothing
like the awful chemical toilets I’ve experienced at festivals before.
Even better, next I come upon a tent that is strung with fairy lights and decorated inside like a cross between a cafe and a cosy sitting room – complete with rocking chairs, rugs, and
paintings hanging on the canvas walls. I buy myself a cup of tea and settle in a rocking chair that peeks outside the door – a cup of tea always somehow tastes better outside, and it
certainly seems fitting this morning.

As well as the expected hipsters, crusties, the odd ageing punk, I’m quite delighted to see families with tiny children running about and even a very old couple in full evening dress.

‘Now
that
,’ says the dapper elderly gent as he walks past me and clocks my appreciative grin in his direction, ‘is how to make an old man’s day.’

On my walk back to the stallholders’ field, I buy a bag of hot doughnuts, like the kind you get at the seaside, from a stall painted up like a gypsy caravan. A breakfast present for Anna
and the rest of the gang, and to say thanks to Reggie and his friends.

By the time I get back, not only are they all up and about, but they are helping to construct Reggie’s friends’ stall. Anna is standing on tiptoe holding up a corner of tarpaulin as
high as she can, while men with dreadlocks whisk about her with ropes and poles. Still in her floaty dress and with the now ruined flowers in her hair, she looks like she is at the centre of some
sort of pagan maypole ritual. The scene is straight out of
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
, despite the camper van right behind them.

‘Hey!’ Anna yells, collapsing in giggles as the tent falls all around her.

The others get a whiff of the hot doughnuts and come running, leaving Anna holding up her pole.

Most of the stall is already set up – Reggie is apparently just helping out his mate Joules, who has been here since Monday and already seems as if he has lived here forever. They are
running a stall selling fancy-dress costumes; they’ve got loads of dressing-up boxes and fairground mirrors, and dozens of outfits from vintage finery to homemade tutus to crazy full-body
dinosaur suits.

After breakfast we help with the remainder of the preparations, and the stall is already beginning to get busy.

‘Thanks for helping, you two,’ Mad Reggie says, grinning down at us, with a jester’s hat flopping over his eyes. ‘You should go off and have some fun, see some bands or
something.’

‘We can’t just ditch you! Not after you got us in and put us up for the night,’ Anna instantly protests.

‘Well, it would be great if you girls could help out, if you don’t mind . . .’ says Joules, who is dressed as a penguin. ‘Stick on some costumes, if you like, and get
stuck in.’

And so it is that Anna and I find ourselves working at Glastonbury festival, dressed up as a mermaid (me) and Supergirl (Anna). We are soon rushed off our feet with people who, upon walking
past, suddenly decide that a ridiculous costume is a life essential. Despite the fact that we’re working hard, the atmosphere on the stall is incredibly relaxed and it feels like one big
party – we’ve got music blasting out and everyone’s in a carnival mood.

‘Roll up, roll up!’ Anna calls out into the passing crowd, adding a top hat to her super-heroine outfit. ‘Costumes for all!’

I sell a feather boa to a man with a beard and a pair of massive sparkly sunglasses to a tiny girl, then stop for a quick dance-in-the-sunshine break. We’ve got Bob Marley blaring out; the
sun is boiling by now and I’m pretty sure I must be catching the sun, if not burning. My mermaid costume – my absolute favourite of the whole selection – is basically like an
extended sparkly swimsuit, so I’m probably going to get some weird tan lines. I’ll have to tell my mum I’ve been revising in the garden all weekend.

‘Hey, Tuesday!’ Reggie shouts out suddenly, while I am up to my elbows in fairy wings. ‘I’ve just been having a sneaky kip in the van and your mobile’s been ringing
off the hook.’

He chucks my parka at me, which I left hanging on the van door with my phone in the pocket. Immediately it starts to ring again. I don’t even glance at the screen.

‘Hello?’

‘Tuesday Cooper? Where the
hell
have you been?’

Crap. It’s my mum. Nobody else talks to me in that tone of voice. She’s supposed to be in Bruges; how on earth does she know I’m not at home?

‘Um—’

‘This is Sadie Steinbeck,’ the voice continues. ‘We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours. Jack’s going out of his mind over here.’

I’m an idiot. Of course it is not my mother on the other end of the line. My mother does not have a clipped New York accent, and she actually sounds a bit nicer than this woman, even when
she’s at her most cross with me.

‘Well, I
did
try and call you. Then we couldn’t get in, so we walked for miles to the nearest service station and thankfully we bumped into Mad Reggie from college,
so—’

‘Right. I need you to come and meet us right now. Jack has interviews and appearances all lined up, and this has really thrown a monkey wrench in the works. Seriously. Hurry.’

I look over to Anna, who is talking to a group of girls and animating a full-length Chinese dragon with both hands and a lot of roaring. They are all laughing as the three girls pile in and form
the complete dragon, each holding the attached sticks and with red fabric flapping over their heads.

I falter. ‘Actually I’m right in the middle of—’

‘Look, if you want these passes you have to come and get them
now
. Jeez. Some girls would be more grateful. No wonder Jack’s been gabbing about you and how effing
“different” you are for days now.’

She says this sourly, like it’s a bad thing. But I can’t help swelling up with joy slightly. Any disgruntlement at being dragged away, ignored and then summoned at a whim vanishes
into thin air.

‘OK. Where are you?’

‘VIP section, between the Pyramid Stage and the Other Stage. Be there
now
.’

Having imparted all of the important information in a way that is both unpleasant and makes no sense, she hangs up.

‘Anna? We’ve still got those VIP passes, but we’ve got to get going . . .’

‘Funny.’ She laughs. ‘I’d forgotten all about them.’

So had I. Kind of.

Everyone hugs us goodbye, and Joules lets us keep the costumes. Strolling through the fields and drinking our beers, hearing chilled-out reggae coming from the Other Stage as we skirt the
periphery of the crowd, it would be really nice just to hang out, and wander around, and dance in the sun. But the idea of the VIP section is even more exciting – I’ve never been a VIP
before. Actually I’m not sure I’ve ever been any kind of an IP.

As we get closer to the Pyramid Stage, the crowds thicken and the reggae gradually turns into an anthemic indie singalong. It’s one of those blokeish bands I’ve never really been
into, the kind of music that you hear on mobile-phone adverts, but once we are in the thick of it, I have to admit that the whole scene is surprisingly moving. People are holding their arms in the
air, singing along unselfconsciously. There are so many of them that the sound is like one big wave; everyone is united by it in this brief instant. I am swept away by the beauty of a communal live
experience and the power of a perfect two-minute pop song.

‘Where
is
this VIP section?’ Anna asks eventually, after we’ve done a lap of the whole area.

I’m thinking the same thing. Either Sadie Steinbeck got it wrong – which seems unlikely, given her tone of terrifying efficiency – or the VIP section is really hard to find. I
don’t know what I expected – a red carpet, a pearly gate. Maybe it’s more like a secret Narnia-type thing.

‘Why don’t we try here?’ I sort of suggest.

There is a gap in a boarded-up chain-link fence with a few people milling about outside it. There is something about a couple of the men hanging around that reminds me of the paparazzi outside
Jackson’s hotel last time.

As Anna and I approach, I become aware of a definite force field, a weird energy surrounding the area. Even though it is just a gap in the fencing, and it is essentially unguarded, nobody goes
near it. A few surrounding people are looking on in inexplicable fascination, even though there doesn’t appear to be anything much going on.

As I stride through the gap, with Anna in tow, all eyes are upon us. It’s like there is a collective intake of breath, as if everyone there expects us to be turned away, surprised that we
are even daring to chance it. One of the cluster of photographers raises his camera for a split second, then lowers it again without bothering to take a picture.