Chapter 28
A glowing Sachin Roy and the other band members sagged with exhaustion as their set came to an end and the whole field roared like it was going into battle, while drinks sloshed over the rims of their cups, and feet stamped thunderously upon the earth, adding to the din of hands clapping.
Sachin’s thanks, spoken into the mic, were drowned out by the town’s noisy appreciation, and Carenza was there to take the mic from him.
The sight of her on the stage hushed the crowd and there were a few grumbles of consternation. ‘Look out! The fun polis have arrived,’ cracked one joker in the crowd. ‘Hide your bottles, a’body,’ said another.
She smiled through their ribbing.
‘Thank you, Mr Roy and the uh… What are you called again?’
‘Down in the Dhol Drums,’ Sachin said into the mic. ‘And that was our first gig in twenty-five years!’
This raised another bout of cheering and whistling and Aamaya Roy couldn’t resist pulling her rockstar husband down into the crowd for a hug. Carenza waited until all the whistling abated.
‘Thank you for your impromptu performance,’ she said, and her voice boomed from the speakers. ‘I hope Mr Roy and the rest of the band will consider this an official invitation to open the celebrations for us next Beltane?’
Surprised gasps and looks of confusion gave way to more celebratory yelling.
‘And thank you to all the stallholders and the people of Cairn Dhu for coming together to make our Beltane Bonfire and Sausage Sizzle a truly remarkable and unforgettable night.’
More cheers followed this. In the crowd, the sight of Peaches and Euan cheering through cupped hands caught her eye. She waved to them, wishing there was more she could do in that moment to show them she really had been learning a lot tonight, but it was nine o’clock and the moment had come.
‘Please follow me over to the hill on the Knowe to crown this Beltane’s King and Queen,’ she told the people.
To her utter astonishment (and in a moment she would never ever forget) she felt herself lifted bodily from the ground and held aloft on the shoulders of, well, who exactly, she didn’t know, but she suspected from their staggering and the smell upon their clothes of burnt chemicals it was her drunken nemeses, the men with the fireworks. All the town followed in their wake.
The men delivered her up to the top of the Knowe hillock where she straightened her skirt and waited for the people to amass once more.
The schoolchildren made their ways to the front and lay on the sides of the gentle hill looking up at her, while Jolyon and Shell muscled their way right to the centre at her feet, determined not to miss a single word of this.
Carenza spotted Senga with her arms folded and her sister by her side on the edge of the crowd, her features set blankly as though nothing special at all had passed between them tonight. Nevertheless, Carenza lowered her head in gratitude.
‘Get on with it!’ someone shouted, setting off laughter and shushings across the crowd, until astonishingly, every person stood in complete silence, not something Carenza thought possible in a people so fond of blethering.
‘The elders,’ she shouted, since she had no microphone now, ‘have decided!’
Instead of more cheering, like she’d expected, the silence held. The air stilled between the granite walls of the wide mountain valley as though generations of unseen ancestors were trying to hear.
Carenza fumbled getting the slips of paper from her pocket. She showed the crowd the handful and the silence deepened. The children lining the hill turned their heads as they exchanged looks of excitement.
Carenza unfolded one of the slips, which had been tied in a love knot, and tears began to roll down her cheeks as she read the first, inevitable, names. Of course, she thought. Of course it was them.
Still she made no announcement. She knew she must read all seven before the decision was reached. Her hands shook as she opened the second and saw the same pair of names in a scratchy hand.
She nodded to herself as it dawned on her that the elders really did understand everything, long before others who considered themselves wise had even the faintest idea.
The next four papers had the same names, excepting one, which she shoved into her pocket, before she unwrapped the last, and her whole frame shook with the happy tears she had no power of controlling.
‘The elders have decided,’ she tried to shout so everyone could hear.
‘And it makes me’ – her heart hurt as it grew inside her – ‘so happy to announce’ – she sniffed, and wiped at her face, not caring that she was a mess – ‘that the May Queen and her King are, this year… Peaches McDowell and Euan Sparks!’
Now the town erupted in happiness as the young pair were located and shoved to the front in a sea of clapping hands.
Carenza had her arms out ready to help them up the little hill and as soon as they stood at the top, she brought them both in for a hug. ‘Well done,’ she told them both. ‘I can’t think of a better choice,’ and she knew, deep within herself, that she was already learning to truly mean this.
The young couple presented themselves to the delight of the crowd, their joined hands held aloft, and that’s when Carenza felt herself suddenly tire of the spotlight she so often sought, and sometimes seized by force; attention she had craved like a neglected, petulant new bride craves the approval of the husband she hasn’t yet learned to detest. Carenza knew in that moment she was done taking centre stage.
She had done too much on her own all these years.
It was time to blend in with her town a little more.
‘Pauline?’ she shouted into the crowd, scanning the scene for the only remaining committee member, who she’d sidelined to such a degree she’d given her no official job to do.
A hand lifted at the far side of the crowd, and it held a paper crown.