Ibrahim & Reenie (9 page)

9

It was no surprise to find herself alone; she hadn't expected any different. Everyone goes away, sooner or later. Stupid to invest even a tiny bit of trust in any one person. If she had learned one thing in her life, it was that you can only ever trust yourself. Never mind. She preferred it on her own, preferred the pace of it.

It took all morning and much of the afternoon for her to cover just five miles, and in that time the landscape changed very little. Sometimes there were hills, real hills, and the effort of pushing the trolley up each incline exhausted her. At the top of these hills the countryside reached out in seas of recently ploughed earth, the black plastic hay bales like humpbacked whales coming up for air pungent with the scent of fresh manure.

Soon she'd have to stop and rest, but more importantly find somewhere tucked away and private that she could use as a toilet. That was the one thing most people didn't consider on a walk like this. They'd forget it's not just food and clean clothes you need. Sooner or later you'll have to answer nature's call. Not a problem in the cities, where there were public toilets, with hot water and soap, but there was no such luxury between cities. There she had to find a bit of privacy, and even then it was a risky, clumsy kind of privacy; behind hedges or in abandoned coal sheds. Dignity is the first thing sacrificed on a long walk, but she didn't mind so much. She wasn't too proud to piss in the open, though she wondered how it might look to a passer-by.

Eventually she found a place, a short distance from the main road, secluded and sheltered behind a small thatch of trees, in the corner of a vast and barren field. At the top of the field was a farmhouse, but even from some distance she could see it was in poor shape. The outer buildings had yawning black holes in their roofs, and she saw the barely visible hulk of a rusting red tractor, consumed by weeds, in what might once have been a farmyard.

Did anyone live there?
Could
anyone live there? Perhaps, if the farmhouse was abandoned and derelict, she might find her way inside and use it as a shelter for the night. It might not be as comfortable as the house she'd left behind in Cardiff, but it would be better than the tent, and she was drawing up a plan to investigate further when a battered, ancient-looking van pulled up in the farmyard.

The people who climbed out – two men and a woman – didn't look much like farmers. The men had long hair, scruffy clothes. The woman wore her hair in straggly, dirty-blonde dreadlocks. Whoever these people were, they hadn't noticed her, and so she carried on setting up her camp. She washed and changed her clothes, and ate a light meal of bread and cheese. She pissed behind a windbreaker that she had found, before setting off from Cardiff, in the cupboard beneath the stairs. The windbreaker had last seen daylight on a blustery Bournemouth weekend maybe thirty years ago, when it was used to save Reenie, Jonathan and their jam sarnies from the wind and sand.

The afternoon and early evening passed quietly. She fed Solomon, read from a spine-creased Jean Plaidy novel she'd read at least half a dozen times before, and rose to the challenge of a crossword she'd been tackling for the last five days. When it became too dark for her to read, she put away the novel and the copy of
Puzzler
, and she and Solomon retired to the warmth of her tent.

The first vans and cars began to arrive shortly after ten, and she heard music – if it could be called that – coming from the farmhouse. There was no discernible melody, just an electronic wail drifting on the night air, and beneath that a ground-shaking drum – pounding, insistent. When this music had been playing for quarter of an hour or more, Reenie crawled out from her tent, and saw in the distant farmyard flashing, multi-coloured lights and a shifting wall of silhouetted, dancing bodies.

She unfolded one of her deckchairs and sat in that dark corner of the field, watching as more and more people arrived. Every so often she heard a whoop or a cheer above the music, whenever it reached a frantic crescendo. They had begun lighting bonfires now, around the outskirts of the farmyard, and the smoke rose up against the electric lights in glowing clouds that tapered out into the darkness.

What were they celebrating? A birthday? Exams? If Reenie knew anything about youngsters, it was that they needed little excuse. There had been dances when she was a girl, dances with no purpose other than meeting and dancing with boys. She knew people, had met people, who seemed to think those times were more innocent, as if meeting a boy was an end in itself, as if nothing more was ever expected after the last dance of the evening.

She still recalled in every detail her first fumbling moments of intimacy with a boy named Harry Green, in Limehouse. Only moments earlier, she and Harry had been inside the old Market Hall, dancing, as Frankie Laine sang
‘
What Could Be Sweeter?'
and she remembered how they laughed as the record jumped and scratched, having been played at almost every other dance that summer. Not many people had a copy, but the lad who'd organised the dance, George Whitlock, had a brother stationed over in Germany who sent home parcels of American cigarettes and LPs.

When the lights came up she and Harry went for a walk, but even at fifteen Reenie wasn't naïve enough to think that was all he wanted. They found an alleyway behind the hall – a dank and shadowed gully the local kids called ‘Lovers' Lane' – and they kissed with open mouths. She allowed Harry to put his hand inside her blouse, and touch her breasts, and Harry guided her hand down towards his already-open fly. Little more happened that night. She'd been forewarned by her friends, those more experienced than her, not to give herself up too early, and she took her hand away when she suspected Harry was moments away from losing all control of himself.

She straightened her blouse and fixed her hair, and wiped the cupid's bows of lipstick from Harry's cheek and neck with her handkerchief. Hand in hand, they walked out onto St Paul's Way, and her waiting friends laughed as Harry made one last adjustment, to hide his erection. The boys, Harry and his friends, walked the girls as far as Mile End tube station, jumping the barriers when no one was looking so that they could see them off on the platform with final goodnight kisses.

It was another two years before she gave herself to a man who wasn't Harry Green, but that night in Limehouse, and the realisation of her sex, and all that it entailed, was like an explosion, an air burst, over the last days of her childhood. The next day she could barely stop smiling, and at breakfast wondered if her father and stepmother noticed this change in her. When she left the house, later that day, she walked as if buoyed by her confidence, as if she'd discovered a secret that she, and only she, now knew.

Were the kids dancing in that farmyard any different? Did they have the same desires and aspirations? Were they there to meet boys and girls? If they were, the music they danced to was hardly romantic. Where were the lyrics? Where were the sweeping strings and the crooner's chocolate-smooth voice? When Frankie Laine sang, and she allowed Harry Green's hands to wander, Reenie had drowned in the music and the words being sung, believing every line. Now it sounded like the kids were dancing to hammers and drills.

She listened to the noise and watched the lights and smoke for almost an hour before deciding to investigate. A good night's sleep was out of the question. She wouldn't complain about the noise. Even if they didn't look like farmers, there was every chance they owned the place, and she couldn't imagine they'd take kindly to a trespasser asking them to keep it down. Better, she decided, to introduce herself, satisfy her curiosity.

After navigating her way, clumsily, across the dark field, Reenie entered the farmyard and was hit by a wall of noise and warmth, and by the thick, cloying smell of smoke. Some of the youngsters were dancing, their bodies moving in rough time with the music. Others sat around the fires, smoking what Reenie knew were not cigarettes.

The first to spot her was a boy whose blond beard looked translucent and out-of-place on his boyish features. Like so many of the others his hair was tangled up in muddy dreadlocks, and his skin was almost milk white. He looked at her, first with a frown, then a smile, and as Reenie walked a little further into the farmyard came bounding over to her.

‘Hey! Hey! You okay?'

She turned to face him. ‘Sorry?'

‘Are you a friend of Womble's?'

‘Wom…? Excuse me?'

‘Did you just get here?'

She pointed to the dark end of the field. ‘My tent's down there,' she said. ‘I'm just camping for the night. Whose farm is this?'

‘Farm?' said the young man, laughing as if her question was silly. ‘Womble owns the house. That's why I asked if you were his friend.'

‘I don't know anyone called Womble,' said Reenie. ‘Wasn't that on the telly? The Wombles?'

‘Yeah. That's Womble. Underground, over-ground. I'm Casper, by the way.'

He held out his hand, and Reenie shook it hesitantly.

‘I'm Reenie,' she said. ‘And this Womble… he owns the place?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Can I speak to him?'

The young man, Casper, shrugged. ‘Sure. Let me see if I can find him.'

He climbed onto an upturned milk crate, standing on tiptoe and scanning the farmyard. When he saw the person he was looking for he waved his arms, and whistled loudly through his fingers, and they were joined by an older, paunchier man – Reenie guessed he was perhaps twenty years younger than her – with long brown hair, and a saggy, once-aquiline face.

‘Womble, this is Reenie,' said Casper, jumping down from the milk crate.

The older man, Womble, studied her with a lopsided grin and narrow, stoned-looking eyes. She'd seen that louche expression often enough to know what caused it.

‘Hey,' said Womble. ‘Cool name. Welcome to the party.'

Reenie nodded, trying not to stare at the others in the farmyard. ‘Right,' she said. ‘It's just, this young man tells me you own this farm.'

‘Farm?' Womble laughed. ‘Honey. Farms make things. They breed animals for meat, or they grow crops. There's not much growing here,' he turned to Casper. ‘Unless you count the you-know-what in the attic.' He mimed taking a long drag, inhaling sharply, and he and Casper bumped their fists together clumsily.

‘Well, anyway,' said Reenie. ‘I just wanted to ask you, I've pitched my tent at the bottom of the field. Your field.'

‘Honey,' said Womble. The word was already beginning to grate. She'd never been called ‘honey' before, and didn't like it. ‘This isn't my field. It's nature's field.'

‘So does that mean it's okay for me to camp here?'

‘Sure thing, honey.'

Inside her wellington boots, Reenie clenched her toes.

‘Right,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

‘As long as you can handle the noise, you're welcome. We're having a bit of a get-together.'

‘I can see that.'

‘But you should join us!'

‘Yeah!' Casper chimed in. ‘You should totally join us!'

‘Well,' said Reenie. ‘I don't know…'

‘Oh, come on,' purred Womble. ‘I could tell, the minute I saw you. You were meant to be here. You know that, Reenie? I'm talking about meaningful coincidence. Have you read Jung?'

‘Young what?'

‘Carl Jung. Synchronicity. It'll blow your mind, man. Blow. Your. Mind.'

Reenie didn't particularly want her mind blown, but within minutes found herself sitting on one of the orange plastic milk crates, next to a fire, being introduced to people a third her age and younger. Casper talked about her as if she were some treasure he'd unearthed or an exotic species found far from its natural habitat. One of his friends offered Reenie a joint, another a handful of dried black mushrooms, and she declined both.

‘Not with my constitution,' she said. ‘A glass of wine's enough to knock me on my arse most days.'

She listened to them talk, following as best she could what they were saying. In between rambling psychedelic observations, she made out that they were self-described ‘travellers'. ‘Nomads, really,' said Casper, his voice muted as he held in the most recent drag from a joint.

‘You mean gypsies?' said Reenie.

‘Yeah, I suppose,' said Casper, proudly.

‘But you're not gypsies, though,' said Reenie. ‘I mean, I've met gypsies. I've known a lot of gypsies. Romanies and Tinkers, I mean. And you're neither.'

‘Well, no. I don't mean we're
actual
gypsies.'

‘But you live in a caravan?'

He shook his head. ‘Well, no. I don't. We've got a squat. In Bath.'

‘A squat?'

‘Yeah. Just this house. We've been there a few years.'

‘Right.'

‘I'm homeless, see?'

She studied him over the flames. He may have straggly dreadlocks and a haze of facial hair, but Casper's skin was unblemished and his blue eyes sparkled without the bloodshot look of a drinker, or someone with too many sleepless nights to look properly rested ever again. When he spoke there were no dropped aitches or glottal stops. Even under the influence of whatever he'd taken he spoke well. If he had been dressed any differently – and it was easy to imagine him dressed differently – Reenie would have called him ‘posh'.