The Ned Wood Archive

Ellie

They all sleep in this morning. For a start, they’re all massively tired after the journey. For another start, whenever any of them wakes up and looks outside, they see it’s still raining and decide to wait a bit longer. Ellie and Phoebe that is. Abi and Lauren won’t reach the waking up and looking outside stage for an hour or two yet. Even when Ellie and Phoebe get up and stretch their legs, they go back and sit in the tent and wait. Good job it’s big enough. You can stand up in it. In the centre bit between the two “bedrooms”. So the two of them are squatting on a couple of sheets laid on the grass between their side of the tent and Abi & Lauren’s.

Ellie’s sketching. Phoebe’s scrolling. Ellie takes her sketch book with her most places. It’s where she notes down ideas and stuff. Inspiration for later. She’s sketching out a couple of things from the day before. Super wonderful things. She’s imagining that she’ll keep hold of these sketches. Not for her own memories. They’ll never leave her. What she imagines herself doing is showing the sketch book to her grandchildren. If she ever has any. I mean, she’s not sure she’ll even have kids. But if she ever does have kids and if her kids have their own kids, then maybe one will sit with her and she’ll open this sketch book and tell the stories of that June Wednesday long ago.

On the way down she saw a red kite. A massive red kite. She’d seen kites before on the outskirts of London, when they went out to the country, but this was bigger and bolder than the others. The coach was on the M3 or maybe that first section of the 303 after Basingstoke, she’s not sure. Everyone was silent. Probably asleep. She looked out of the coach window and saw the kite flying over a crop field. Enormous wingspan. Long feathers at the wingtips like a witch’s fingers. And the perfection of the bright red triangular tale.

It seemed as though the kite was performing just for Ellie. Swooping and circling and showing off. Demonstrating what it could do. Giving Ellie a lesson about the ease with which a bird can move through the air. And all just for Ellie’s benefit. It only lasted a few seconds. Maybe three passes of the coach as it sped along the road. Weaving left and right. Then gone. The kite back to hunting, the coach onward to its destination.

That’s the first sketch. The kite in full flow. The second is a sequence of kente designs. Regular patchworks of ideas. Alternating horizontal and vertical stripes. Interlocking chevrons or diamonds. Zigzags and corbie steps. All of them inspired by a chance meeting. She’ll be sitting in her old age with a child on her knee telling them about the day the universe honoured her with those two unforgettable visions. The kite with its red tail and its aerodynamic skills and the bloke in the African shirt with the loving eyes.

Some time around 11, the rain stops. Lauren pokes her head out of their inner tent bit.

“Are you guys up already?” she asks. “What time is it?”

“Breakfast time,” says Phoebe.

Lauren ducks back into her side and wakes Abi up.

“Hurry up, Abi, we’re all going out now,” they can hear her tell Abi.

“OK, OK, OK. Just wait a min,” they can hear the response.

Phoebe carries on scrolling. Ellie carries on sketching. Fifteen minutes later, wearing the same clothes as she had on yesterday, Abi surfaces. The four of them pull on their wellingtons and waterproofs and head off to the markets near West Holts to get some brekkie.