The sky rose above them like a phoenix, raging red, its fiery wings spread from one end of the world to the next, but even that couldn’t compare to the lightshow on the stage before them. Strobes pulsed like galactic sabres, the ground trembling beneath their feet as the bass began to boom and the crowd’s shouts rose to a towering crescendo. ‘Coldplay’ was on everyone’s lips now – God help the band coming out if it wasn’t them, Cassie thought, as Luke led her through the crowd again, the shock of his hand on hers dulled now by four beers and a couple of chasers.
Something in the way he held himself made people stand aside for him. Was it the white smile that contrasted so cleanly with his rough stubble? His expensive jacket? The self-assurance that came from success? Could they tell he came not just from another country but another world? Her other life?
She followed him, hoping they would at least get close enough to see the band on stage, even if they did have to watch the video screens to tell who was who. There were more people here than she could fathom, white lights of phone screens already held aloft, set to ‘pause’, as they waited for the band to come on. The warm-up acts had done their work with aplomb – the mood was electric – and with the sun almost set, what else was there to wait for?
Nothing.
In the next moment the lights went down and the crowd went wild. An explosion of white lights more like fireworks set the stage alight and suddenly a man with an elephant mask was singing at a mic, his head filling the hundred-foot screen.
The crowd erupted as Chris Martin’s distinctive voice carried over the field and down to the creek behind. Cassie threw her arms in the air with a scream, jumping up and down dementedly and whooping as loudly as she could.
She couldn’t believe it. They actually were here! Here she was, in a festival in Cornwall, listening to Coldplay – part of a scene. She felt the energy lift her up like a wave. Why had she never done this before? It was yet another thing she had missed out on in those lost years of her life. She looked across at Luke and was surprised to see he was already watching her, a quiet smile on his face as she overreacted for them both.
He leaned in. ‘Can you see them?’ he called across to her.
‘Sort of,’ she shouted back.
He dropped down to his knees. ‘Come on.’
She looked at him in horror. ‘Luke, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Get on my shoulders.’
‘No!’ she laughed.
He looked back at her. ‘Yes. You’ve always wanted to see them live. Do it.’
‘Luke—’
‘Cass! Do it before I get trampled to death!’
The crowd was tightly knit and moving by degrees. She threw one leg round his right shoulder, having to hold on to his head as she put her left leg over too. It seemed for a moment as though he couldn’t stand up with the weight of her on his shoulders, but then his hands found hers and moved them away from his eyes.
‘That’s better.’
‘Oh!’ she said nervously, as he started to get up and she felt like he might pitch forwards, throwing her into the backs of the people in front; but he smoothly rose to standing, sending her rocketing up to ten feet in the air.
Cassie gripped his head harder, convinced she was going to fall, but his arms folded round her socked calves, holding her tightly in place just as Chris Martin pulled off the elephant head and ran from one side of the stage to the other. Without even thinking about it, Cassie let go, her hands in the air as she whooped at the top of her voice, laughing as she made eye contact with the other girls enjoying this privileged vantage point.
The first organ chords of ‘Fix You’ rang out, a white laser beam sweeping over the crowd like a prison-yard spotlight. Cassie swayed to the beat, her head thrown back as she sang loud and proud, ‘When you try your best, but you don’t succeed; when you get what you want, but not what you need . . .’ She knew she was part of a collective moment that would stay forever with every person here. She felt transcendent, transported – so much so that when an image was beamed onto the huge screens, a hundred feet high, of a beautiful woman with bright blue eyes and pinked cheeks, her mouth spread wide in an excited laugh and her sexy boyfriend between her thighs, it was a moment before she realized it was her.