The Ned Wood Archive

Joe

Joe gets back to his tent sometime that morning.  Tom and some of the other guys are up.  It’s the first time he’s seen them in ages.  Since Thursday in fact.  Of course they want to know what he’s been up to.  Some of them had heard from George that he’d “fallen in love” so they’d assumed that’s where he was and were ribbing him as a dirty stop out.  Tom, though, had heard him messing with his tent early that morning, so wanted to know what that was all about.  Joe wasn’t in the mood for telling.  However, Tom and Alex, and the other guys from work took his silence as an admission of guilt and needled him even more.

The noise brought George out of his tent.  He wanted to know what Joe had been up to as well, but his antennae were more finely tuned, so he intuited that all wasn’t totally rosy.  

“Tell me about it, Josephine,” he says.  “No, let me get dressed properly and we’ll go and get something to eat.  You can tell me all about it then.”

Not many people at Glastonbury dress up for breakfast.  George does.  He digs out a long, flowing skirt in a bright paisley-like pattern and pairs it with a glitter vest because, darling, it’s never too early for glitter.  To top it off, he’s got a wee little parasol, maybe about eighteen inches across, brightly coloured like the rest of his gear, and sprinkled with shiny little mirror dots of plastic that catch the sun.  He tells Joe that he got it in the markets the day before and had been praying for loads of sun so he had an excuse.  Not that he needed an excuse.  Arm in arm, they stroll off through the Green Fields to find somewhere shady to chat.

Slowly Joe explains the cockups of the previous evening and the morning.  They’re strolling along the track from the Tiny Tea Tent to the Avalon field.  This track, like the one from the Tea Bus to the Circus Field, is where the better market stalls are.  More discerning.  Away from the main drag that he’d been down with Ellie the day before.  George decides he’s going to get Joe something.  Something to help him stay cool because the sun is up and everywhere is sweaty.  Something to make him look really stylish.  Something to go with the sexy bright blue shirt Joe’s got on, cos, of course, he’d found the time to pick that out this morning.  They go into one of the first stalls in the Avalon field and George pulls a skirt off the rails.  Same cut as his own, but blues and yellows rather than oranges and greens.

When you are out with George, you get captured by his enthusiasm.  Everything is fun.  Joe’s mood has swung somewhat since he got back to the tent.  It’ll swing back and forth multiple times before the end of the day, but he thinks, what the hell, why not.  It’s Glastonbury, isn’t it? After all, it really does go with the shirt.  They are one size fits all, elasticated waist skirts.  Joe pulls it over his shorts and hitches it up around his waist so that it’s the right length.  Any lower and it’ll drag on the floor.  George tells him to take his shorts off before he decides.  Now, give yourself a twirl.  Joe notices how refreshingly cool his legs are underneath.  George tells him it’ll be even cooler if he goes the full Vivienne.  George tries to demonstrate by doing his own 360 degree twirl, but fortunately for the passing public, George’s twirl only raises the hem of the skirt by a few inches.  Anyway, Joe’s decided.  He’ll wear the dress round the site.  It’ll be fun.  They’ll look like twins!  Almost.

George has Joe sit down on one of the benches over by the Avalon Inn and points out the ruches in the skirt.  For a few minutes Joe is fascinated by the mechanics.  He pulls the two at the front and ties them up like George has done which raises the hem unevenly a bit like the curtains in your gran’s bay window.  He tries them at different lengths.  He plays with the ones at the back.  At least he thinks that’s the back.  To be honest, he doesn’t know if the skirt is the right way round or not.  Is there a front and a back?  In the end, he settles for the simplest approach which is to ignore the ruches altogether and to let the skirt flow.  And by pulling up the skirt and folding over the waistband, he can keep it from dragging too much.

The pockets are pretty useless, though.  No zip.  No fastening.  Nothing would be safe in them.  George is expecting this complaint and gives Joe his bum bag.  

“You keep your stuff in this,” he says, taking his own phone out and putting it in his own useless pocket.  “I’ve got another one anyway.”