The Ned Wood Archive

Joe

Of course, it’s only when Joe gets up to the Pyramid Field that he realises how big a search he has.  It’s pointless.  Have you ever tried to find anyone at Glastonbury?  It’s packed.  Ellie’s here somewhere.  Probably with her mate.  But where’s she likely to be?  He knows that you can’t find Glastonbury by looking, you have to sit back and let Glastonbury come to you.  But he decides to look after all.  It’s important. In any case, he could spot that face in the biggest crowd. It’s like looking for diamonds in a stack of clay.

He’s come along the track past the Cider Bus.  First he goes down the front of the Pyramid crowd, stage right, and tries to get into the mass of bodies that way. It’s too tightly packed.  He just about squeezes into the area right in front of the stage, but he can’t get up close.  So he elbows his way right through the crowd, dirty looks and all, mainly people Ellie’s age or younger, all the way across to the far side of the stage and out again, all the while straining to see whether he can spot her.  

Is she the sort of person who’d go right up to the barrier or would she go for the slightly calmer view further back?  He turns to the right, goes up the hill a little, then starts to work his way back through the crowd behind the mixing desk.  This is a bit easier to push through, but he still isn’t winning any friends.  As he goes, he casts a quick glance at every one to see whether he spots a familiar face.  To be honest, Ellie’s face is so wonderful it’ll leap out of the multitudes.  He doesn’t really need to peer as closely at everyone as he does.

He zig zags across the whole field a couple of times.  He thinks he’s giving himself a good chance of covering enough of the crowd to spot her, but there’s so many folk here.  It does become easier the farther back you go.  People are sitting around back here towards the massive tree.  There are spaces between them to walk through.  Now, would she shout out to him if she spotted him first?  Or would she hide away because she didn’t want to see him after all?  Maybe she’d had second thoughts after spending a day apart.  No, surely not.  Anyway, he’s supposed to be following his heart isn’t he?  Or is it his head, now?

He hasn’t had any luck by the time he reaches the track at the top.  He looks back at the crowd and tries to work out where he’s missed.  He starts drifting round the outskirts at random thinking that his haphazard approach will increase the odds of a chance encounter.  Bastille come on to a huge cheer and start with Flaws.  One of the first tracks of theirs he heard.  Now everyone is looking at the stage, it’s easier for him to search through all of the faces, even though it’s rude of him to have his back to the performers.  Oh well.  Dan won’t notice.  They play Things We Lost in the Fire.  That’s another of the old ones he knows.  It’s a bit like old times.  Like just him and the four of them up at Strummerville!

He continues to weave in and out, watching the crowd but listening to the band.  He hasn’t seen anyone that looks remotely like Ellie.  Or her mate for that matter.  Bastille do a version of What Would You Do from that covers tape they did.  That’s fairly old too.  Have they pulled out the old numbers just for him?  Then they play Poet and it stops him in his tracks.  Now if this was fate trying to tell him something then he must be really close to Ellie.  He does a full 360 to see where she is.  Then another.  He’s over on the left side of the field, about half way up.  He tells himself she’s obviously quite near.  He dodges in and out of the crowd in small circles around this spot.  Still no sign.

Bastille play some newer numbers that he doesn’t recognise.  He stops searching for a few minutes and tries to watch them.  He’s too far back to see anything meaningful on stage what with the distance and all of the flags, so he watches on the screens.  They play Icarus.  That’s sure as hell telling him something.  Look who’s digging their own grave.  What did he say to her?  That the sun comes out every time she’s around.  And who was it that flew too close to the sun?  Stop kidding yourself Joe, he says to himself.  Then his phone pings with an intense command from George.