We arrived at the Eden Project early for our last gig of the tour. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.
It’s filthy weather and there’s a huge queue of vans, cars and minibuses stranded in the quagmire of the festival site, but it feels like a celebration. Tomorrow Niven and I will drive the hire van back to London, returning our borrowed sound gear to the studio, while the rest of the band heads home. Niven is going to stay at mine for a few days, so at least it doesn’t just end after this evening.
Shona is hardly talking to me. I can’t blame her. She made some cryptic comment last week about the ghost of Phoebe Jones haunting me but apart from that she’s just got on with the job. I’ll be relieved when she goes home, to be honest. Our friendship will survive this, but distance will definitely help.
‘Oi, Mullins! Stop looking pretty and grab the amps from the van!’
‘Yes, sir, Mr McNish, sir!’ I throw Niven a mock salute, unlock the van and start unloading. I’m dragging out a foldback speaker when a flash of vivid colour on the ground catches my attention. Sliding the speaker back into the van, I crouch down to investigate.
It’s tucked under the edge of the marquee currently serving as an artist registration tent. If I hadn’t glanced down I wouldn’t have seen it. I reach beneath the canvas and lift it out.
It’s a small pebble, its smooth surface painted with a rainbow. When I look closer, the rainbow arcs between two blue painted mountains that could be a Scottish glen, framed by a square. It could be the view from a train window passing through sunshine and shadows. But when I turn the pebble over in my palm, the artist mark almost makes me drop it:
~ Phoebe ~
No. That’s a coincidence, I tell myself. It has to be. And anyway, there could be any number of Phoebes painting pebbles and dropping them for other people to find. Since my Phoebe mentioned it, I’ve seen countless stone-painting groups popping up on Facebook.
My Phoebe. Like she was ever mine.
‘Sam, there’s a tree down over the route to the stage,’ Niven yells, coming out of artist registration where he’s just been receiving alternate directions for navigating the festival site. ‘We’ve got to go via the Story Garden.’
‘Where?’ I ask, pocketing the pebble and lifting the speaker fully out of the van.
‘Follow me.’
We follow a narrow path made to look like a mountain pass and negotiate the narrow natural corridor of shrubs towards a bank of garden terraces filled with scented Alpines and herbs. Tiny white lights in the bushes do battle with the relentless rain and structures made of woven willow branches hide at each twist and turn of the path. Lovely to look at but a pain to steer very square, very heavy bits of kit around. My foot slips and hits something hard – and when I look down, I stop walking. Marking the edge of the path is line after line of painted pebbles – each about the same size but every one unique in its decoration.
And then, hurrying the other way and stopping dead when they see me – the very last person I expected to see today. She’s carrying a caterer’s box and is soaked with rain and mud.
Phoebe stares at me and I can’t move. The person I wanted to see more than any living soul back in June – horribly late, but here.
‘Phoebe…’ I begin, not knowing which words will appear; scared I’ll say the wrong thing.
But then she slowly turns and runs from me.