Parcel for you..Part 32

 

‘What on earth is happening over there?’ said Pat.

 

Stu stood up taller on his cuban heels, like little hooves, they gave him an extra inch and a half in height but in a creepy way, reminiscent of the god, Pan, ‘Oh, just some thugs, too many sherbets I expect.’

 

‘Hey, aren’t they the guys that were dancing with Annie?’ Pat turned and peered at Vanessa who immediately walked away, pushing through the crowd to where she last saw her daughter.

 

The altercation had escalated and others had joined in pushing and shouting at each other, one pulled at another’s tee shirt, exposing his native American war bonnet tattoo which looked absurd against his pudgy white belly. Annie sat calmly in her seat watching in dismay. ‘What’s going on? Don’t just sit there, Annie, come away now,’ shouted Vanessa.

 

Annie shrugged and laughed ‘I’m not worried by this sort of thing. Somebody dropped a drink, then somebody shouted an insult and now there’s carnage. It’s fun to watch.’

 

‘Well I don’t like it. I think I want to leave now. Come on, we’ve seen Stu’s band, let’s just leave,’ she grabbed hold of her daughter’s hand and attempted to pull her out of her seat.

 

‘Mum, get off me! I’ve travelled around the world, a few drunk Brits having a scrap doesn’t intimidate me. You really need to get out more.’

 

Vanessa huffed and rolled her eyes. She felt the barb of her daughter’s comment. It was true, she hadn’t really travelled but she’d had many more experiences closer to home, relationships, divorces, hardships and raising a child. None of it mattered, there was no arguing with Annie and it was difficult to be heard above the din of people fighting.

 

She walked back to where the band were, fully expecting to see Spencer right where she had briefly broken contact with his hand but he wasn’t there. Pat was cosying up to Stu, laughing, Brian’s wife had joined them but there was simply a gap where Spencer had been standing. She stood up on her tip-toes and searched the marquee for his toadstool hat but she couldn’t see it. A sense of panic began to well up inside her, comparable to losing a small child at the fair.

 

‘Pat, Pat, have you seen Spencer?’ she asked but her voice was swallowed by the general din of the space.

 

‘Pat!’ she poked at her shoulder.

 

‘Ow! What?’

 

‘Spencer, I can’t see him. Where did he go?’

 

Pat was apathetic about the enquiry, she shrugged and looked around half-heartedly. ‘Oh, I’m not sure. He’s around somewhere. I think he followed you, didn’t he.’

 

Vanessa hurried back to where she’d left Annie. The fight had moved outside now and escalated, more people had got involved. Bizarrely, Annie was crawling around on the ground, her knees on the tufty grass which was mostly trampled to dirt, she appeared to be searching for something.

 

‘Annie, I’ve lost Spencer, I need you urgently!’

 

‘Look at these beads Mum. I think somebody has broken their necklace. Look at them,’ she opened her hand, ‘they look like malachite.’

 

‘Please get up, Annie. God, he could be anywhere. What am I going to do?’ Vanessa wrung her hands together and strode off, hoping Annie was following but not hanging around to look. Time was of the essence.

 

Satisfied he had left their marquee, she headed outside into the dusk, her head turning left and right, scouring for the toadstool hat. There were other, smaller tents, one to hold the silent rave, and the whirligig tent, on the outside stage there was a semi-naked man sitting on a beer crate playing an acoustic guitar and singing, Froggy Went a Courtin. The scene took on a nightmarish quality, she felt her mind folding in on itself in an attempt to stop her from losing control. ‘Spencer, ‘ she called out, ‘Spencer.’

 

‘Mum, where do you think he’s gone? Maybe we should go back to the car…’ Annie tapped her mother on the shoulder.

 

Vanessa stopped and thought for a moment. ‘No, he loves it here, he wouldn’t have gone back to the car. Do you think he’s removed his hat?’

 

‘Maybe.’ Annie stopped suddenly. ‘We need to think strategically, Mum. What I think we should do,’ Annie placed her hand on Vanessa’s shoulder and calmly looked her in the eye, the effect was quite reassuring,  ‘is firstly go back to where we started and have a proper look, then we should get some of the band member involved and all split up and scour the site, if that doesn’t work, we’ll call security and tell them he’s vulnerable.’

 

‘Okay, okay,’ Vanessa gasped, ‘thank you.’

 

Annie grabbed hold of her mother’s hand. The fight had fizzled out and to their astonishment, the group who had been yelling at each other moments earlier were now hugging and laughing, some were dancing slowly, strangely as if drugged. There was an odd sound too, a sort of soothing humm in the air. Annie’s first thought was that it was an instrument she had heard before at a yoga retreat in India but she couldn’t see who was playing it. 

 

‘Ah, I feel more optimistic now,’ said Vanessa, ‘I think he’s somewhere here. I can feel his presence.’

 

‘There he is!’ said Annie, pointing.

 

Spencer was standing on the outside stage, still wearing his silly hat and holding a microphone, very close next to him was another man, they were touching elbows. There was something off about the other man, something not quite right about his body language, his movements were sort of choppy. The two of them were so similar though, although their hair colour was different, also their eyes and skin tone, the structure of their faces was identical and also their builds. Spencer looked silly in his hat and plain clothes, the other guy was very smartly dressed, he looked expensive.

 

And then Vanessa realised she was looking at the other cyber person, the one that Pat had mentioned when they first arrived, she’d temporarily forgotten all about it.

 

The two men were emitting this melodious sound into the microphone, somewhere between a voice and a musical instrument. She’d never heard him do anything like that before but this soothing tone was the thing that was affecting the people, causing them to chill and laugh and hug each other. Vanessa felt herself becoming gooey, the muscles in her face relaxed and she felt the urge to get up on the stage and hug her husband. She began to walk towards the stage, mesmerised by the other guy who was like a more attractive version of her husband.

 

Spencer noticed her and he stopped humming or whatever it was and climbed down to meet her. He was so excited, he grabbed hold of her arm. ‘Vanessa, you must come and meet Lorenzo.’

 

Lorenzo gave her a wide smile and also stepped down off the stage and offered his hand for Vanessa to shake. Her first thought was that the temperature of this hand was identical to Spencer’s. It felt so strange and for a few seconds, it blew her mind.

 

‘Do you think they’ll stop fighting now?’ said Spencer.

 

Lorenzo glanced around, smiling warmly. ‘They seem calm, it usually only takes a few minutes,’ he turned to Vanessa and said, ‘My husband is very hot-headed so I learned to make the sound of a tuning fork, 432Hz. Spencer and I bumped into each other and I taught him to do it too. It’s so useful when you’re around humans because they get upset and angry so very easily.’

 

‘I can use it on you now!’ Spencer said.

 

Vanessa felt a bit exposed. ‘I…I don’t think I’ll need it too often…will I?’

 

‘You do get stressed, Mum,’ said Annie.