Page 75 of Summer at Harbour View House
‘I can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in one place in all my life. How many tickets did you sell in the end?’
Natasha felt her chest swelling with pride. ‘Seven thousand, eight hundred and nineteen in advance,’ she said. ‘Although we’ve had a couple of hundred paying at the gates. It’s quite … something, isn’t it?’
Everyone had come together to help. Jago’s mate on the council had arranged for security, licencing, and an onsite St. John’s Ambulance service in case of any medical needs. Matt had a mate who owned a theatre company in Truro who had loaned them the stage gear. And all the local people—all those who remained at any rate—had pitched in to help, everything from stewarding to litter picking.
‘Hey there,’ came a familiar voice as a burger van pulled up by the entrance. ‘Sorry we’re late. Where do you want us?’
‘Hey, Pete,’ Natasha said, recognising the owner of the burger van from Sycamore Park, where she had often stopped for coffee on a Saturday morning. ‘Glad you could make it. You’re plot seven.’
‘Lucky seven, nice. Oh, by the way, this is my daughter Lily,’ he said, indicating a young woman sitting in the passenger seat. ‘Just in case we get busy, but if not, she’s a huge Cowslip fan.’
‘I am not!’ Lily said, giving Pete a nudge as Natasha and Lizzie waved hello. ‘Well, I mean, I kind of like that one song they did, but only because Dad insisted on playing it all the way down here.’
‘Can’t beat a bit of classic rock,’ Pete said. ‘Right, we’d better get set up.’
They drove on inside. Natasha waved as they passed, then turned to Lizzie. ‘Let’s just hope Cowslip actually play,’ she said.
‘Oh, they will,’ Lizzie said.
‘Some of them, at any rate.’
The final rehearsal last night had been something of a misnomer. To be fair, The Crescent—also known as Danny—had stepped up behind the drums in place of Ben, and pulled off the setlist with ease. Ben had done his best, but Danny was a professional drummer and it showed. However, The Curve had pulled up an armchair alongside Eddie, and the two of them had sat and perused the performance of the backing band without actually playing or singing a single note, leaving both the band and the rest of those in attendance to wonder if they would actually show up on the night, and if they did, whether they would be any good.
From the other end of the field came the sudden beat of drums. Natasha took a deep breath as the first of the local bands recruited as support acts got things under way.
‘Here we go,’ she said.
‘What’s that your maid friend would say?’ Lizzie asked.
Natasha smiled. ‘Squee,’ she said.
‘Look at him,’ Ben said, nodding to where a TV reporter was interviewing Paul Stoat for the evening news. ‘He thinks it’s all a game.’
‘I’m the one in the tabloid reports,’ Paul Stoat said, clenching a fist at the camera. ‘I’ll crush this village if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘Can you tell the viewers at home what your motivation is?’ the reporter asked placidly. ‘What is it that drives Paul Stoat?’
‘You know they call me the Weasel,’ Paul said, giving the camera a sideways look like a mad scientist about to unveil a plan for world domination. ‘But how would they feel if they went through what I did? I’ll give you one example. When I was seven, a worm … was placed in my school lunchbox.’
‘No!’ the reporter cried.
‘Yes!’ Paul said. He waggled a finger at the camera. ‘I have nightmares about it to this day. You think I have no motivation for wanting to take this town down?’ He slammed one fist into the other palm. ‘If you’d been where I’d been, you’d understand.’
‘Is that true?’ Natasha said, leaning close to Ben.
Ben grinned and shook his head. ‘I remember that,’ he said. ‘He did it himself to get me and my mate Terry into trouble for calling him names. He picked it up outside school and kept it in his coat pocket all morning. We were sat there in the dining hall eating lunch, when suddenly he started wailing.’
‘What happened?’
‘We both got hauled into the headmaster’s office. Notes went home. Dad and Mum believed me but Terry wasn’t allowed out to play for a month.’
‘What did you do about it?’
‘We wanted to give him a dead arm but we were too scared of his dad, who was always coming into school to complain. Best thing to do was just ignore him, but of course that just made him worse.’
Paul was now in full flow. ‘You see this chaos behind you?’ he said. ‘It’s nothing short of a hippy commune. A place like this needs order. Organised paid parking, curfews—do you know, they sometimes have the lights on in the pub after midnight?’
‘Is it true you bought a ticket for this event?’
