The Bare Necessities (Non-Profane Edition) (19 page)

“We are here,” he
told Paige, who stirred slowly. “We are at the venue. And it's a
naked place.”

Paige rubbed her
eyes and stretched her muscles. “What does 'naked place' mean?” She
looked out of the windows and yawned. “Oh, you mean a naturist
resort. Yeah, then it's a naked place.” Her eyes scanned the three
outbuildings and looked back at Jack. “Four Oaks, right?”

“Oh, how do you
know that?”

Paige smiled.
“Because I know every naturist camp site in England,” she boasted,
and Jack turned to face her, clearly impressed. “And because it is
written on that sign there.”

“If I am staying
here naked with you, is that worth a kiss?” Paige sucked in air
through her teeth and nodded. “Please!”

“Yeah, I guess so!
When we leave, not before! I want to make sure you don't get cold
feet again.”

Claire returned to
the vehicle before he could respond and directed Jack to another
tiny car park, a hundred metres from the centre of the site, and
told him to park it next to “Pitch 8.”

“How much was it?”
Paige asked, and Claire smiled.

“Free. We are
doing the set. We get a hundred pounds expenses after the gig and
free pitch for two days. Which is fortunate as we weren't due to
arrive until tomorrow.”

“What about
food?”

“There's a café on
site or a pub down the road for tonight, but we could do with a
kettle or something. And getting some food tomorrow.”

Paige pushed the
back of Claire's chair as they spoke. “Come on, let's go and get
our tent up. Before we lose the light.”

Jack had never put
up a tent, and as he struggled with the thin material, he was
dispatched back to the car to watch as Paige and Claire erected
their shelter inside ten minutes in the evening twilight. Paige
hammered the pegs into the ground, and they carried their bags into
the big four-person tent.

“Oh …” Jack moaned
as he watched Claire unfurl a sleeping bag. “I just guessed we'd be
in hotel rooms, so I've not brought a sleeping bag. And I haven't
got one anyway.”

“Yeah, I thought
about that,” Paige said with a smug expression and nodded towards
her bag.

“You brought a
spare?”

“I brought a
double.” Claire laughed at Paige. “What?”

Claire sighed. “So
I have to give up my sleeping bag to Jack to share the double with
you?”

“I don't mind
sharing with Jack. Hazel and I shared a couple of times when we
were younger.” Claire's eyes narrowed, and she looked at her
friend. “Honestly, I don't mind. Perhaps we could take it in turns
to have the single.”

“Yeah, OK. Or we
could stop off and get another single.”

Paige's eyes fell
to the floor. “We could. But I thought it'll be better to be
closer.” She nodded at Claire. “It's up to you two. Now can we get
something to eat 'cause it's half nine in the evening and I'm
starving.” Jack nodded and looked at his phone; it had been on
silent for three hours and he had 23 missed calls.

Something told him
that his father was most displeased with him.

* *
* * *

Jack felt the warm
body of Paige against him as he stirred; they had gone to sleep
with their backs to one another, but Paige was a restless sleeper
and had turned repeatedly in the night. He was not used to sleeping
in the same room as someone else, let alone the same sleeping bag,
and she had disturbed him repeatedly.

He could feel her
naked body heat against him, and he opened his eyes to see the side
of the tent. She mumbled something and put her arm around him as
she adjusted her position and Jack froze. Pressed up against his
back was her bosom and he saw Claire look across at him. “You two
look comfortable,” she teased.

“It's snug,” he
replied, and his voice caused Paige to wake and stretch.
“Morning.”

“Yeah, morning,”
Paige muttered and moved her body away from her friend. “You
snore,” Paige moaned.

“I don't. It was
Claire,” Jack replied and readjusted himself in the sleeping bag.
“And my neck is all sore.”

Claire objected to
being accused of snoring, but the three friends wandered down to
the small café with their towels to get breakfast. Jack was nervous
about going nude, and tried to use the cool morning as a reason to
get dressed, but Paige dragged him away from the tent, and he paid
for breakfast for all three of them.

They had to
discuss finances as neither Paige or Claire had an excess of cash,
but Jack promised to pay for the petrol – at least initially – and
they would get accommodation and expenses from their first few
venues, and some payment from others.

After breakfast,
Claire got dressed and walked to the small convenience store in the
neighbouring village. Paige and Jack offered to accompany her, but
she asked for some time alone, and Paige took Jack for a naked swim
in the site's tepid pool.

Jack was still
openly reluctant about being naked, but as scores of families
joined them in the water and as the site became awash with bare
people of every shape and size, his anxieties seemed to vanish.

Paige was able to
swim away from the naked rugby player easily, and her slight body
gave her an agility Jack did not possess. They openly swam and
played loudly in the pool, before Paige joined in a teenage game of
water volleyball.

It was clear that
by lunchtime, Jack was more comfortable with his surroundings, and
as their dinner settled and the three of them went for a walk in
the neighbouring woods, Paige began to see broad grins from her two
friends. “This really is so … relaxing!” Jack surmised to his
friends as they ambled down the small hill to their tent. “It's
fun!”

Paige giggled and
held her hand out for her friend to take. “It is,” she agreed, and
Claire pulled out a small bag of food when they arrived back at the
tent. The pre-prepared salad with cold chicken and fizzy drink on
paper plates was gratefully received by her two friends.

The three of them
spent the evening playing cards in the tent before they wandered to
the pavilion on site and spoke to a handful of the families. Jack
was a little disturbed that a sizeable number of the campers knew
who he was, and the three musicians were asked repeatedly for their
autographs.

The following day
was very similar and the teenagers swam in the pool, walked in the
woods, before they drove Jack's car to the open field on the edge
of the site where they were playing. They noticed that the site
became a lot busier as a number of guests arrived in the
late-afternoon and Paige joked that they had all come to see them
play!

Claire spoke to
the site owner, and two long power cables were provided as Jack set
up the equipment and a small crowd gathered. “I saw you on the
Internet,” a child's voice cried as an eight year old came up to
Paige.

“Did you?” Paige
said with a smile, crouching down to the child's level. “Was I any
good?”

“Mummy says you
are a star, and I think you were OK too,” the girl replied and
smiled. “But I think The Wanted are better.”

“Shall I let you
into a secret?” Paige answered with a smile. “I think The Wanted
are better too.” Claire laughed behind her, and the girl ran back
to her parents. “What?”

“Nothing,” Claire
answered as Paige grabbed the microphone and introduced
herself.

Tomorrow they
would be in Dorset, and the following day Cornwall, and as the
assembled crowd clapped, the eight year old came and sat at the
front. “Do you want to come and sing with me?” She asked, and the
cheeky girl could hardly contain her excitement. “Shall we sing Hot
N Cold?” The girl nodded and climbed onto the stage with Paige's
help. “Hey, and I bet The Wanted don't let you do that!”

* *
* * *

Paige laughed as
she grabbed the microphone. “I can't believe this is a naturist
site,” she teased the audience. “One, two, three, four, five, six
bare people and the rest of you … you're a disgrace! Back in
Hampshire on Tuesday, we didn't have this. I had an eight year old
on stage naked singing with me. They must be made of sterner stuff
up there!”

Paige got some
good-natured heckling. “It's bloody cold,” a voice cried.

“Not next to these
heaters, it's not.” The naked Paige giggled and introduced her band
before they started with Bad Reputation. Paige sang with passion
and conviction, putting energy into her rock songs as she danced on
stage. She took time to give a brief explanation about each song,
and hauled a couple of identical twins from the audience to sing
Hot N Cold, with her; it was their most well-known of covers and
everyone knew the words to it.

Paige was cheeky,
when she asked Jack and Claire to play their instruments, and then
passed her microphone to the two sisters and walked into the
audience. “I think I'm redundant,” the girl joked as they the two
naturist children did their best to sing Katy Perry's classic.

Paige returned to
the set, to sing Don't Leave Me, a powerfully understated song that
had her audience silent as they listened to her hit some very
difficult notes. The band got another standing ovation and were
asked to repeat a handful of songs which they were only too happy
to do.

Tired, the three
of them put their equipment into Jack's car and went to settle in
their tent when a voice from behind the canvas dome called. “Jack,
Jack!”

All three band
members turned to see a naked Lucinda emerge from the shadows, and
she shivered. “It's cold here.”

“Lucinda!”

“You can wear
something in the evenings,” Claire remarked, and Jack's aunt
nodded. “Ignore what Paige says, she's just a fundamentalist!”

“Yeah, I know. But
I wanted to blend in.” She looked at her nephew. “Your father says
'you are to return home at once and stop messing about.' I trust
you have a suitable message to give back to him.” She looked at the
stunned faces of Claire and Paige and smiled. “One that ends in
'off' I hope.”

“You can tell him
that I am happy here and will be staying with my friends.” He
looked at Paige, clearly hoping to get approval and she nodded.

“Excellent. I
hoped you'd say that.” She looked across at Claire and Paige
outside the spacious family tent and rubbed her hands. “Is it OK to
go in? I got a tent, somewhere over there, but I wouldn't mind
seeing my nephew before he leaves the site.”

Jack was grateful
that Paige passed his Aunt Lucinda a T-shirt to cover herself, but
Paige was half the size of his aunt, and the garment had to stretch
to accommodate the voluptuous woman. Lucinda sat down on the
groundsheet of the tent that contained two sleeping bags and Jack
spoke. “What are you doing here?”

“What, you'd
rather your father came here? You posted a schedule on your
webpage, Harriet found it. He wanted someone to go there and give
you a rollicking. Which is me.”

“But you don't
want him to go home,” Paige said, a little perplexed by the 47
year-old woman. “Do you?”

“Do I bollocks!”
Lucinda replied. “I told him to come. But his father thinks I am on
his side, not your's.” Paige chuckled as Jack shook his head.

“So what was he
doing?”

“Oh, and that
message about Harriet. It wasn't nice.”

“Yeah, but's
true.”

“Yeah, I know. But
very sneaky. I thought my nephew had more class than that. And
anyway, the thought of his heir to the family firm running away
with … commoners … well let's just say that a bit of cocaine was
nothing.”

Jack shrugged.
“She was callous to me. I just …”

“Well I thought
better of my nephew,” Lucinda lectured, and she sighed. “He was
furious, and he blames you two.” She waved her finger at Claire and
Paige. “Thinks you two are harlots and are leading him astray.”

“I am not!” Claire
thundered, and Lucinda cocked her head.

“Then you must try
harder, my dear,” Lucinda teased. “Because someone's got to. So
anyway, as it's a naturist venue, your father just wanted to call
the Police. I don't know why he thought that was a good idea or
what the rozzers would say, but I suggested that I go along and see
you. To talk some sense into you.”

“Right. And then
tell him that I am not coming home tomorrow.”

“No. I intend to
stay here for a few days. I will ring him and tell him that you are
considering what I am saying and then in a week's time, I'll go
home. By which time you will be somewhere else. And hopefully my
brother will have calmed down.”

“You're staying
here?” Jack asked, and she giggled.

“Oh don't look so
surprised. One of my husbands was a naturist. My first husband, and
the one I wished I had kept.”

“Really? I didn't
know you were a naturist.”

“Yeah well, to be
fair, I've had twelve husbands, so I've had just about every hobby
and profession going.” Lucinda looked at Jack's companions. “Girls,
avoid doctors. Sex is just a biology lesson. Fishermen are boring.
As are wine experts. I tell him to pick up a bottle on the way home
and I just it's life history when he gets to the house when all I
want to do is drink the bloody stuff.”

“Aunty,” Jack
interrupted.

“Oh the naturist,
young Robert. I can still see him. Married at eighteen. Divorced at
twenty. Just got cut off from my social circle and he couldn't cope
with the problems it caused. He ran away. There's not much naturism
in the Rees-Montague world.” She looked at Jack and smiled at him.
“And it may happen to you. But don't let it worry you. Life's too
short to let other people run it.”

“He won't,” Paige
told her. “Well he better not. We had a chat.”

“Excellent. Now,
I'm off to bed, I've had a long drive down, and I have a cheeky 18
year old Speyside to have a gobble of, and I shall see you in the
morning. My future stars.”