Blinded By The Light. Sherry Ashworth

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      We were joined by Kate and a bloke about my age. Then a slightly older man came up to us as well. Instinctively I straightened, stood to attention. Some people have that effect on you.

      The younger bloke turned out to be called Will.

      “This is Fletcher,” Kate said, smiling at the older one. “I told you about Joe, Fletcher. He’s the person Nick and I met on our way back from Wolverhampton. Fletcher’s the tenant of the farm, Joe. We’re all responsible to him.”

      I gave him the once over. He was tall, cool blue eyes, rather intense. He wore a white kaftan and I immediately had him down as one of those ex-hippie types who are into ecology and tree-saving and that. He seemed friendly enough, though.

      It turned out Will ran a charity shop in Hebden Bridge, and Fletcher was the tenant of the farm. He grew stuff in the adjoining land and looked after the place. Will seemed more normal. He grinned quite a lot, out of shyness, I reckon. His head was shaved; he wore a white football shirt with the name of some bloke I didn’t recognise on the back. They asked me quite a bit about myself, and as the Bacardi took effect, I found myself more and more ready to answer.

      Quite an adult party, I thought, looking around me during the lull in conversation. It was all talk, no music. Maybe this was just a warm-up session. The other thing I noticed was, I was the only person who seemed to be drinking. There were jugs of fruit juice on the table, and bottles of water, but that was it. The food was mainly dips, hummus, vegetable sticks and hunks of bread. The lack of alcohol puzzled me, and I wondered whether this was because they did something else. This was just the sort of place you could grow your own. I looked around the kitchen. Sure enough there were things growing in pots, but nothing that looked to me like cannabis.

      It’s a bit weird being the only person drinking. You feel like you’re undressed in a room full of clothed people. Still, that didn’t stop me helping myself to another bottle. I looked around the room again, and saw Kate talking to a girl. She was stunning. Shorter than me, with loose blonde hair and dark eyes. Kate noticed my repeated glances in their direction, and brought the girl over.

      “This is Bea,” she said.

      “B?” I said, puzzled.

      “Beatrice,” the girl explained. “Which is a bit of an embarrassment, so I get everyone to call me Bea.”

      I was going to say something stupid like, to be or not to be, but luckily I stopped myself in time. I grinned at her. I could see now that her eyes were brown, contrasting dramatically with her fair hair. Kate didn’t seem to be there any more. I asked Bea whether she lived on the farm.

      “No,” she said. “But I’m going to. They said I could move in during the week.”

      I nodded. “So where do you live now?”

      “In Rochdale,” she said. “With a sort of friend. I’m studying at the college. But I sing too.”

      This was getting better and better. I definitely fancied her and she looked around my age. I had a good feeling about tonight. I gestured in the direction of the Bacardi Breezers and asked her if she wanted one. She shook her head. Then she smiled at me impishly.

      “Why are you drinking it?”

      I shrugged. “It’s a party, innit?”

      “So?”

      “Well, everybody else…” My voice trailed away. I was the only person drinking. I tried to defend my position.

      “Well, OK. It relaxes me, makes me feel good. What’s wrong with that?”

      “Do you need alcohol to make you feel good?”

      “No, I don’t need it, but I choose to have it, which is different.”

      “But you said before it relaxes you, which means you were feeling tense when you came in here. It sounds as if you’re using alcohol as the solution to a problem. So it’s a necessity.”

      “OK. So I walked into a place I’ve never been before. Of course I feel on edge. Drink isn’t a necessity, but it helps. And I like it.”

      This was different. This was not normally how I chatted up girls. But somehow this argument was fun. We were sparring, sparking off each other. It was more meaningful than the usual crap. I swigged down a mouthful of Bacardi as a challenge. Bea laughed.

      “I don’t drink,” she said. “I can feel good without it. As I do right now.”

      I wasn’t sure what she meant. Was she flirting with me? I hoped so. I had to admit she seemed much more relaxed than I did, but then she knew these people. There was something about her, too, that was centred and peaceful. I’d not met any girl quite like her before. Tasha had been like me, a bit mad, a bit of a piss artist. Bea was completely different.

      “Let’s forget about us,” she said. “Think of other people. It’s Saturday night. The pubs are full. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people all over the country are getting wasted. If you were a Martian and came down here and looked, you’d think we had a problem.”

      “Drinking’s just a recreation, like football,” I said. “Or music.”

      “Music is harmony and order,” she said. “Drinking leads to disorder, fighting, illness. Even football is controlled. Drinking leads deliberately to a lack of control. People are giving themselves permission to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, not if they had their judgement intact.”

      This was strong. I realised then she may have had hidden reasons for speaking the way she did. What if her father was a drunk, say? What if she’d suffered from other people’s drunkenness? I back-pedalled a bit.

      “Sure. I’ll concede that in some cases, drinking controls the drinker. But most people enjoy drink as much as they do a walk, a concert, ice cream, whatever. Alcohol is a naturally occurring substance.” I knew that was illogical, but that was the drink talking.

      Bea shook her head and her hair moved in ripples. “Men brew beer and distil whisky It ain’t natural,” she said.

      Then we were interrupted. A bloke came over to us with a guitar and asked Bea if she was ready to sing. She eagerly agreed and left me. There was a general exodus into another room and Kate swept me up and took me with her there. I picked up the third bottle on my way.

      The room we arrived in now had a low beamed roof, and cushions and beanbags were scattered around it, some creamy leather, others a grubby white corduroy. There were plants, more than you would normally see in a house, and a poster of the planet Earth. I noticed the faint smell of incense and watched while some people lit candles. I reckoned I was right about the hippie thing. I imagined myself laughing about these people to Phil on the phone tomorrow.

      Anyway, we gathered round, and the guy with the guitar played a few chords. It sounded as if it was going to be some kind of folk music. Definitely not my scene. Then Bea began to sing and I changed my mind.

      Her voice was liquid and golden. The song she sang wasn’t folk; it was simple, like a hymn, almost. The words were strange and sounded old-fashioned, like Shakespeare, though it wasn’t Shakespeare.

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