‘You wanted a word,’ she said as I approached.
She smelt of cocoa butter and rainwater, of snogging on the sofa with News at Ten on mute and Tracy Chapman singing ‘Fast Car’ on your parents’ stereo. Paint-smelling DIY Sundays and sun warmed car seats, of pound parties with the furniture piled up in the bedrooms and wardrobe speakers wedged into the living room thudding in your chest cavity while somebody’s mother holds court in the kitchen dispensing rum and Coke. I wanted to snake my arm around her waist and feel the warm skin under my fingers so badly that it was like a memory of something I’d already done. My arm twitched.
I took a deep breath. ‘I need to ask you something important.’
‘Yes?’
‘While you were upriver. .’ I said.
‘So far away,’ she said, her hand toying with the lapel of my jacket. ‘A whole hour by car — forty minutes by train. From Paddington. They leave every fifteen minutes.’
‘While you were away,’ I said, ‘Ash got himself stabbed with an iron railing.’
‘You should have heard the screams at our end,’ she said.
‘Yeah, but I got him into the river and he was healed,’ I said. ‘How did that work?’
Beverley bit her lip. The sound of my dad’s eccentric arrangement of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ wound its way through the mist and around us.
‘Is this what you wanted to ask me about?’ asked Beverley.
‘I was thinking of Lesley’s face,’ I said. ‘Whether we could do the same thing.’
Beverley stared at me in what looked like amazement and then said she didn’t know.
‘It worked for Ash,’ I said.
‘But the Thames is his river,’ she said.
‘I thought that bit was your mum’s.’
‘Yeah,’ said Beverley. ‘But it’s also his dad’s.’
‘It can’t be both at once,’ I said.
‘Yeah, it can, Peter,’ she said crossly. ‘Things can be two things at once, in fact things can be three things at once. We’re not like you. The world works differently for us. I’m sorry about Lesley’s face, but you go ducking her in the river and all she’s going to get is blood poisoning.’ She took a step back. ‘And you shouldn’t care whether she has a face or not,’ she said.
‘She cares,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘I can’t help you, Peter,’ she said. ‘I would if I could — honest.’
My back-up phone, the one I don’t mind risking around potential magic, sounded a message alert.
‘I’ve got to get back,’ I said. ‘You coming?’
Beverley stared at me as if I was mad.
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go flood Rotherhithe or something.’
‘See you later,’ I said.
‘Sure,’ she said. Then she turned and walked away. She didn’t look back.
I know what you’re thinking. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, it was only a little flood and the property damage was a couple of a million quid tops. And besides, the insurance companies covered most of it.
I arrived back at the jazz tent just in time to say goodbye to my parents, who were heading home now the set was finished, and Abigail who was getting a lift back with them.
There was a perceptible change after they left. And not just because the sound system near the Thames path that had been silent in deference to my dad turned on its speakers with a sound like an Airbus A380 clearing its throat. The tourist families with kids were draining away and gaps between the stalls were suddenly full of young men and women, drinking from cans and plastic glasses or openly passing joints back and forth. Me and Lesley knew this crowd of old, or at least the West End Saturday Night version of it. It was our cue to slip back to the Asbo and don the stab resistant and high-visibility raiment of the modern constable. Not to mention the knightly accoutrements of extendable baton, pepper spray and speedy cuffs. I clipped on my airwave and checked to make sure that the ruinously expensive second shift of TSG were awake and on call.
When the sound system kicked in, it was strictly BBC IXtra playlist. Rough enough for the upriver crowd with enough proper beats to stop the Londoners from getting restless. Lesley liked it and I could cope, but the couple of times we ran into Nightingale we could see he was suffering. We took turns to hit the improvised dance-floor at the river end of the park, although the thermal properties of the Metvest means it’s not your ideal club wear.
At one point I found myself alone by the river watching a three-quarter moon grazing the roof of Charing Cross station. There was traffic humming through the mist, the sky was clear enough that you could almost see a star and I thought I might have heard a scream of outrage coming from the direction of London Bridge. It was long, low and thin and yet shot through with a kind of mad glee, and I might have recognised it. But you know what I reckon? I think I imagined the whole thing.
The pissing contest took place at three or four in the morning. I’d lost track when even the supernatural amongst us were beginning to wilt. The first I knew of it was when Oberon grabbed my arm and started dragging me to the east side of the park.
‘It’s a contest,’ he said when I asked what was going on. ‘And we need you to step up and represent.’
‘Represent what?’ I asked.
‘The honour of the capital,’ he said.
‘Let Lady Ty do that,’ I said. ‘She’s keen enough.’
‘Not for this, she’s not,’ said Oberon.
We picked up a cheering section which included Olympia and Chelsea, goddesses of Counters Creek and the Westbourne and winners of the London-wide heats of I’m A Posh Teenager. . Get Me an Entitlement five years running.
‘Do it for London,’ called Chelsea.
‘Aim straight,’ called Olympia.
‘What the fuck are we supposed to be doing?’ I asked Oberon again.
He told me, and I said he had to be fucking kidding.
So we lined up with me and Oxley in the middle, Father Thames on our right with Ash and a couple of followers beyond him. Beside me on my left was Oberon, Uncle Bailiff and some guys I didn’t recognise.
The women — thank god the girls were all tucked up asleep — lined up three or four metres behind us — thus saving our blushes.
‘All right boys, unsheathe your weapons,’ called Oxley and there was the sound of zips and unzipping and cursing as some fumbled with buttons. ‘On my mark. Wait for it. Wait for it!’ called Oxley to groans and catcalls.
‘Loose,’ shouted Oxley and we did.
I ain’t going to say where I came in the pack except to mention that it was embarrassing. But I obviously hadn’t had the chance to put away the pints like some of my competitors. Thankfully most of it was beer because a wall of steam arose in front of us and could have been a lot ranker than it was. It came down to Oxley, Oberon and the Old Man himself. The two younger men ran out at the same time with yells and groans.
Father Thames, as casual as a gentleman in a pub urinal, glanced left and right down the line to ensure he had our full attention before cutting himself off in midstream and calmly buttoning himself up.
‘Well, what did you expect, boys?’ he said into the silence. ‘I am the master of the source, after all.’
I woke up in the back seat of the Asbo and, despite that, I felt surprisingly good. Fucking wonderful in fact. I got out of the car and stepped into warm early morning sunlight. Immediately suspicious, I powered up my mobile and used to it to check the date — it showed what I expected — I hadn’t spent fifty years in enchanted faerie revelry. But in my line of work you can’t be too careful.
Still, the faerie fair had vanished with the morning sun, leaving behind drifts of rubbish and muddy rectangular footprints pressed into the lawns. Just like a big dirty river that had burst its banks and left its mark on the dry land. It was in a state, but fortunately I’m a man who has a mum who knows a woman who runs a company that specialises in cleaning up after rock festivals. The woman who ran it said that if you’ve ever done clean-up at Glastonbury then nothing short of highgrade nuclear waste will ever scare you again.