Festival traffic

I have had company on my trips into town the last few mornings. Kelly’s car has broken down again and is at the garage, so instead she leaves the flat with me at quarter past eight and we wend our way through the streets together, heading for the train station. On that walk, I realise that the world looks different when you’re not on your own. I suppose that’s true in general, but I’m reminded of it as I pass, accompanied for once, through the sea of grumpy faces that washes over me every morning. I wonder if they notice that I’ve changed, or if they notice me at all. I don’t clock any incredulous looks from people discovering that I do in fact have a mate, which is some consolation. I know that for a fact, because I am checking extra hard.

The conversation on the way in is not something I’m used to; what meetings we have to look forward to that day, what calls we’re going to be on, who’s in the office and who’s not, minor intrigues. “My ginger wingman is back today” I tell Kelly, referring to Iain who has finally returned from two weeks of elsewhere, and as I say it I realise how much I’ve missed him. This low-level chatter is nice, it makes me realise we so rarely have those kinds of chats and I bet there are plenty of couples who do. If you set the words to music they wouldn’t make for much of a song, but I find them preferable to anything I’d ordinarily have pumping out through my headphones.

We arrive at the train station to find it transformed. Barriers are up everywhere and the whole area outside is crawling with people. Then I remember; of course, it’s the festival this weekend. All human life is there, provided you live in some kind of Logan’s Run parallel universe where nobody makes it past twenty-five. Jubilant festival-goers happier than anybody has a right to be before midday, resplendent in giant loose jeans, band t-shirts and preposterous hats, mill around chirping to each other. I don’t even have to eavesdrop well to hear the word “like” featuring as often as five times in every sentence.

Kissing Kelly goodbye and wading through the crowds I pick up my coffee from Natanong in the tiny kiosk.

”Are you better today?” she asks me.

I was exhausted the previous morning, and I'd said so when she asked how I was. I’m surprised that I was honest. I’m equally touched that she remembers.

”Just about. Nearly the weekend! You’re on holiday next week, aren’t you?”

She nods, a huge bright smile in an otherwise dingy place.

“Are you going anywhere nice?” I say, painfully aware that I sound more than a bit like a hairdresser.

”No, just relaxing at home for a whole week. Away from here.” she says, waving in a miniscule gesture to mark out the cramped space which classes as her workplace. God knows how long she spends every day cooped up in there.

“When was the last time you had a holiday?”

“January.”

I proof-read a variety of possible responses in my head, find them all patronising.

The time it takes to pick my way through the crowds makes me late for my bus and I see the door close as I approach and it drifts into the stream of cars, too fast to catch but still in tantalising slow motion. It’s the festival traffic, you see. You have to leave early to have any chance of getting anywhere on time, something I had completely forgotten.

Deserted, I look back across the road at the party starting to happen outside the train station. You can almost feel the excitement in that group of disparate people, sense all the connections that are going to be made over the long weekend, all the legends and misdeeds that will leave their mark on these people for years to come – starting today, when I will be chained to a desk.

I never did anything like this when I was that age; just remembering that, the very act of using the phrase when I was that age, even if I‘m thinking it rather than saying it out loud, is a dispiriting thing. Confronted by the great unwashed, I feel simultaneously washed out and washed up. And I don’t know if it’s jealousy, irritation, or the smugness of knowing that I will get to have showers for the next few days and sleep in a comfy bed, but I wouldn’t want to trade places with them any more than they'd fancy swapping with me.

The throng opposite looks like a refugee camp for people seeking political asylum from any form of responsibility. I hate myself for saying that.

The parade of shops next to the bus stop is a tired, pathetic succession of establishments nobody ever wants to visit. The Persian delicatessen closed down months ago, and even when it was open nothing about its immediate surroundings screamed “come here and buy caviar”. Even the Cash Converters couldn’t make a go of it round here; people might be poor but they still have standards. All that remains is “Gregorys”, a fast food joint that has been there for as long as I can remember. After a night clubbing in town, my friends and I used to pile in there and get chicken doner and chips at three in the morning for the princely sum of three pounds fifty before braving the fights at the taxi rank and heading home to the shared houses and hangovers that didn’t feel that bad back then. I haven’t been to Gregorys since… since I was their age.

I shiver.

There’s nowhere to sit; the benches are damp with the rain from last night and the sky frowns with the threat of the rain which will happen later today. So instead I stand there with my fellow colleagues waiting for the nine o’clock bus. Technically, taking the later bus ought to be a cool thing to do, but looking around me it feels a bit like I’ve been put down a set in primary school. Around me are a bunch of contractors, almost nobody I recognise except the pretty blonde with the big nose who sometimes sits at the next table along at lunch. She is wearing a baby pink cardigan with no buttons, the sort with crinkly labial edges, and she conspicuously avoids recognising me.

Further along a woman is reading A Suitable Boy, a feat I previously thought wasn’t possible when standing up without the assistance of a lectern. I’m reading that book too, but I know that in this environment a shared experience is a million miles from a conversation starter. The front of her skirt is folded over like the wings of a beetle, but the look is ruined by huge clumpy Colgate-white trainers. I think better of making eye contact.

Half an hour in limbo is a hell of a long time, especially when you can feel the pitying gazes of the revellers over the road. Kill me before I get to that stage, they seem to say, save me from that. I suppose I could explain to them that we all start out feeling that way, and then with hindsight it embarrasses us like the wailing of a childhood diary. I could tell them that one day they'll wake up in their thirties to the uncomfortable surprise that it's someone else's turn. But I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that, and even if I did they don‘t want to hear it. I can’t really blame them. But I have to suppress the urge to cheer as the bus finally pulls up smoothly outside the grotty newsagent; I’ve never been so relieved to see it.

Taking my seat, looking out the window one final time, I see a pair of young guys slouching slowly along the pavement on their way to the campsite, sporting skinny jeans and gigantic rucksacks, hipster snails. And then we are off, out into the road, heading towards reality, merging seamlessly with the festival traffic. But I think about the crowd at the station, their tents and six-packs, their haircuts and gossip all the way to the office. It’s as if a past I never had has flashed before my eyes, and I‘m not sure I like that.