“She’s already sent me three drafts.”
“Awwwww.” Bridge could look heart-warmed about the strangest things. “I didn’t know she cared.”
I was about to point out that she didn’t. But actually, yelling atother people on your behalf was very much Priya’s love language. “Yeah, yeah, we all care about you. Don’t rub it on our faces.”
“You care about meeeee,” she sang out, making a rubbing gesture with her spare hand.
“Oh, fuck off. Look, do you want anything? Like, tea or vitamins, or…spare nappies or something?”
“Do you realise,” said Bridge, “you ask that every time you see me? And it’s still weird. No, I don’t want any vitamins or spare nappies. I think what I mostly want is to know why you smell of manure.”
Taking off my coat, I ambled through to Bridge’s kitchen and put the kettle on, then ambled back so I could continue the conversation below a yell. “I was in a field with Judy and a man who rents out toilets.”
“What were you doing in a field with Judy and a man who rents out toilets?”
“Having a wild threesome.”
Bridge looked disappointed. Or at least as disappointed as it was possible to look if you knew what I was like. “Isn’t Judy your mother’s best friend?”
The cringe started at the top of my large intestine and worked its way up through my chest and onto my face. Who would have thought that my policy of responding to every comment with the most obvious sex joke could go so wrong? “Oh yeah,” I said. “I really didn’t think that one through.”
“Do you ever?”
I thought it through. “No.”
“So why were you actually in a field with Judy and a man who rents out toilets?”
“Well, Judy’s lending me the field because she’s my mum’s best friend. And the man who rents out toilets is going to rent me some toilets to put in the field. Because”—oh God, the more I tried toexplain, the worse this sounded—“I’m organising a really cool, extremely rock ’n’ roll music festival in the field. To, like, save my job and shit.”
Bridge was nodding as if this made complete sense. To be fair, Ihadalready told her about the whole losing-my-job thing, and while organising a rock festival wasn’t the most obvious plan to save yourself from unemployment, mylastsave-my-job-strategy had been to pretend I was dating a hot barrister, so this probably felt normal by comparison.
“Only, the thing is,” I continued, “I don’t know how to do…most of the stuff you have to do to organise a really cool, extremely rock ’n’ roll music festival. But after about a week and a half of digging, Ididfind some people who’d rent me some toilets. So I did that.”
“But you haven’t got any, say, bands or anything?”
“No.”
“Or catering or influencers or sponsorship?”
“No.”
“But you do have toilets?”
“Yes.”
“So”—it was Bridge’s kindest voice—“it’s currently more of a toilet festival?”
“Yes.”
Bridge was giving me a gently reassuring look.
“I’ve fucked this up, haven’t I?”
“No!” Bridge got a surprising amount of conviction into one syllable.
I gave her my best give-it-to-me-straight look. “I’ve organised a toilet festival.”
“Toilets are important. I’m sure you’ll get all the other things later.”
