The Ned Wood Archive

The magic of that place brought it back to me

Beans on Toast, 2025

Ellie & Joe

Slowly everyone drifts away leaving Ellie and Joe alone.  

Abi and Lauren had been on their way back to the tent to get ready for Taylor Swift when they got messaged by Phoebe.  In fact, Phoebe had kept them up to date all afternoon. Ever since she’d decided to go with Ellie to the Park.  Now Ellie is introducing them to everyone and telling Abi and Lauren what happened with the excitement of someone in the bar afterwards describing the goal they scored in that day’s game.  The rare excitement of someone who only scores once or twice a season.  Abi says she’ll have to keep her wedding dress now so she can pass it on to her daughter.  By which she means the old Finchley shirt.  The three of them: Phoebe, Abi, and Lauren want to chat with Ellie all night.  But they also want to catch up with Taylor Swift too.  Eventually, they walk off down the hill headed to the tent to put on their glitter and glam for the night’s headliner.

Tom, Megan, and Max had been at the Other stage watching Geese when they were summoned by George.  They went up when the set ended and were able to watch the whole shooting match outside Scissors.  Joe introduces Ellie to his siblings with the excitement that he normally reserves for telling Tom of his latest musical discovery.  Like Sprints in 2024 or Us in 2023.  Megan gives Ellie a massive hug but Tom is more reserved.  It always takes him a while to feel comfortable around new people.  They head off back to the Other Stage for some more rock and roll courtesy of Interpol.

James had been up at the Park with George, so he knew what was happening all along.  He sent the message round to Charles, Jack, Duncan, and Alex, but only Duncan bothered to come along.  The rest were either too far away or too sceptical of what James was saying.  They soon disappeared, George, James, and Dunc, off to Silver Hayes for some serious dancing.  Before they went, George explained to Ellie that the old black tux had only been borrowed from the folk at Scissors, so could she let them have it back, please.  Which is a relief, right, because she doesn’t want to look like Bryan Ferry all night.

Joe and Ellie had been chatting and posing for photos diligently but all the while looking forward to being alone.  Just the two of them. In truth, they were savouring the anticipation, like when you are old enough to know what you are getting for Christmas and mature enough to save opening up the best present til last.  Or when you’ve bought a whole stack of albums and you leave listening to the best one until the end.  They both enjoyed the slow build up of excitement while they chatted and posed and talked and joked with their mates and with each other’s.  It wouldn’t be long until the best part, the time when they would be alone together.

But there was one more important thing Ellie wanted to do.  The bloke that had returned the wallet was walking away so she shouted him and the two women with him to stay a while.  She called them over and gave all three of them a massive hug and got Joe to do the same as she explained to Joe how they had rescued his wallet.  She had them repeat the short version of the story, just enough so that he understood.  About the wallet getting picked up with the litter on Saturday morning.  There’d be plenty of time for her to recount the full version later.

The thought had passed through Joe’s brain a couple of times since Saturday morning that the disappearing wallet could have been some sort of test.  You know like those old Shakespeare plays where the woman pretends to be someone else or tells the bloke she’s lost his ring as some sort of test to see whether he reacts the right way.  And Joe’s never sure when he’s watching those plays exactly what the right way to react would be.  When Ellie gave him back his wallet, the thought did pass through his mind that she’d somehow light-fingered it that Friday.  Now that he knows it ain’t not some test or joke, Joe can shake the guy’s hand and tell him that he doesn’t know how grateful he will always be.  The bloke says it’s all part of the service, then he and the two women go back up to the Park to watch Christine and the Queens top the bill.  

And that leaves Joe and Ellie alone.  Alone in a crowd of two hundred thousand people.  But they may as well be the only ones on the farm.  They aren’t interested in hanging out with any of the others.  To be honest, they aren’t interested in any of the headliners either.  Without discussing it, they both understand that they share a need to just wander through the festival, the two of them alone together.  They want to repeat the Friday, skating over the surface, gliding above the crowd, floating across the whole site, just the two of them.  It’s another one of those endless days, those sacred days.

“Can I get you something to eat?” asks Joe.  “We should celebrate!”

They both know there’s only one place to go: the Lebanese place down by Sweet Charity.  And there’s only one place for them to sit and eat.  They do sit and eat.  But they spend much more time just looking at each other.  Drowning in each other’s eyes.  Eventually Joe gets up and clears away the paper plates.  He looks for a special bin to place the rubbish in.  For a moment, he can’t see where it is, but finally he finds the bin with the sun painting on it.

“Is that where you dumped your wallet, then?” asks Ellie.    

To be honest, Joe has absolutely no idea what he did or didn’t do with the wallet.  However, he decides to play up a bit.

“We need to make a sacrifice to the sun goddess,” he says, taking out the wallet and making as if to place it in the bin.  Then he stops, puts the wallet away, and turns to Ellie, looking straight at her.

“I lost you once.  I ain’t never gonna lose you again.”

They head up to the ribbon tower, look out over the world beneath them.  They climb up to the sign and get a different view on the same world, still beneath them.  They talk.  Not about the future, there’ll be another time for that.  They talk about the past two days.  What each of them have done.  Who each of them have seen.  Where each of them have been.

Joe tells Ellie about the witch he met in the Healing Field.  He promises to introduce Ellie to her even though it seems that she already knew Ellie.  He tries to explain what she’d told him about his head and his heart, but he can’t tell her what it means, so Ellie has to explain for him.      

They joke about Joe’s inability to keep his wallet safe.  They joke about Joe’s missing beard and his braided hair.  They joke about Joe’s skirt and she tries to persuade him to swap with her, him to put on Abi’s rugby shirt and Ellie to try on the skirt.  They joke about Joe’s inability to find anything to rib Ellie about.

And they sit in silence.  Next to each other in front of the giant Glastonbury sign.  Happy just to be together.  At last.