Page 149 of The Sound Between Us

38

glasto baby

Harrison

The van rolls over churned-up earth, and the whole chassis shudders. We’re crawling past steel fencing, lanyard-only checkpoints, and more bucket-hat-wearing security guards than you can shake a backstage pass at. The windows are tinted, but you can still feel the stares. Phones raised. Mouths half-open.

Welcome to Glastonbury.

I’ve been dreading this moment for months. Last show. Last time the three of us will stand on a stage together.

Dex is slouched in the corner, sunglasses on despite the thick cloud cover that’s been following us since we left London. He’s tapping his fingers against his leg, rhythm too precise, too manic.

Jamie’s opposite me, holding Belle to his chest in one of those wraparound baby slings. Three months of fatherhood and he’s still treating every sound she makes like a potential emergency. He’s got baby puke on his cuff and panic in his eyes.

“Fucking mad, innit?” Dex mutters, peering out the window at the sprawling chaos beyond. “Last one. Feels like we should be in a hearse, not a van.”

“We’re not dying.” Jamie says, though he sounds like he half-wishes we were. “We’re retiring. Gracefully. Like Elton.”

Dex snorts, the sound sharp and bitter. “Elton didn’t retire. He just put more feathers on his jackets and charged extra.”

I stare out the window at the tents instead. Rows of them, endless, like someone took a paper punch to the horizon. People are dragging crates of cider and collapsing camping chairs. Flags on poles. Glitter in beards. It’s alive in that way only Glasto is—loud, chaotic, full of strangers looking for religion in a bass drop.

My chest tightens.

I haven’t seen her since Tokyo. Haven’t spoken to her since she walked out of that hotel room with my name on her lips like a curse. Three months of checking her social media, of writing texts I never send.

The van lurches over a particularly deep rut, and Belle makes a small sound of protest. Jamie immediately shifts into crisis mode, checking her temperature, adjusting the sling, making soft shushing noises.

“She’s fine.” I tell him, though I’m not sure he hears me over his own anxiety.

“Course she is.” He mutters, but his grip tightens anyway. “Just don’t want her first festival to traumatise her for life.”

Dex laughs, the sound edged with something pharmaceutical. “Mate, she’s six months old. She won’t remember any of this.”

“That’s not the point.”

The van rolls to a stop outside the artist compound, and through the windscreen I can see the main stage in the distance, massive and waiting. Tonight, fifty thousand people will watch us say goodbye to fourteen years of our lives.

My phone buzzes. Text from Henry: Break a leg. You know what this means for your solo prospects.

I switch the phone off without reading the rest.

We’re ushered through to Artist Parking, past barriers and checkpoints where our names on a list mean everything and nothing all at once. It’s a tangle of tour buses, Land Rovers, and crew vans. Roadies hauling equipment. Assistants with clipboards and stressed expressions. The organised chaos that happens behind the scenes whilst forty thousand people wait for magic.

The Revelry are already here—their people are everywhere. I clock their pyramid-shaped dressing room marquee immediately, impossible to miss with its professional staging, flashing name in lights, and small crowd of industry types loitering nearby. Damon’s got the Sunday Legend Slot, the one reserved for artists who’ve transcended their original genre and become institutions.

We’re Saturday night headliners, but no one calls us legends yet. Just over.

Jamie shifts Belle to one arm and grabs the baby bag with the other. “Soundcheck in two hours. You lot better be sober by then.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dex grins, but there’s no real humour in it. “I’ll only lick the inside of a gin bottle. That doesn’t count.”

I sling my bag over my shoulder and don’t reply because there’s nothing left to say. The ground squelches beneath my boots as we climb out, Somerset mud that’s been churned by thousands of feet into something that’s more soup than earth. The air smells of wet grass, fried food, and sweat that’s been fermenting in tents since Tuesday.

Belle starts fussing against Jamie’s chest, the sound cutting through the festival noise like a siren. He adjusts the sling, trying to find the position that’ll keep her settled.

“Nine forty-five tomorrow night.” Dex says to no one in particular, checking his phone. “Twenty-four hours and counting until we become has-beens.”