Tipperary

It all started at a fucked up, mash of a party in a depressingly damp field in July.

It all started with my fathers addictions to shitty wine, cheap polyester and pissing on people from towering heights.

It all started with my mothers compulsion for a tidy house and her eager lapping at the guiser of yellow water that gushed in her direction.

It all started with my Grandmothers deceit, her love for lies that twist and turn and create their own seething mass of a life form.

It all started with my Grandfathers return from the war, a smart man in a smart uniform, charming and utterly consumed by rage and spite.

I don't really know when it started, maybe its like that song, you know that cheesy pop one that you can't quite get out of your head ' The fires been burning since the world was turning'. (Sorry,go listen to another inane tune, it will disappear soon enough!)

The drugs hadn't really worked, I was grinning but hating at the same time, angry that my mouth wouldn't soften into a comforting scowl, but was instead stuck in the rigamortis of a smile. It all seemed so fake, so banal. This huge group of hippies and drop outs that somehow believed they were better than everyone else. Honestly believed they hadn't sold out with their uniforms of tie die and beads and day glow paint, jingle jangling like a bunch of small, slightly demented children on a May day holiday.

Cold and damp was crawling into my bones. My mind was growing darker and more brittle whilst I wandered about looking for that little warm, safe place I knew I wouldn't find. Random faces talking shit, bumming fags, hiding their lusty cocks behind a facade of love, concern and right on radicalism about nothing much. I Caught glimpses of my friends, my ride home, flashing their knickers for a quick line of coke. Flirting with the DJ with the dreads and the fake Jamaican accent, (The one whose dad was a barrister in Harrow). Observing them desperately selling their souls to fit into this seedy scene. London, Brighton, Malaga, Belgrave, Amsterdam different places, same shit, same faces.

The site was a ploughed field. It was already soggy with the weeks of rain, bloody English summers! The vehicles setting up had churned deep furrows into the ground. The place had turned into a stinking quagmire. Plastic and cardboard sheets had been put down as makeshift walkways to the various tents but these had already been coated in a thick layer of slippery mud.

I wished I was anywhere, anywhere but here. I bitterly toyed with the idea of a frontal lobotomy, perhaps I would enjoy it more then, believe it all. Well at least I hadn't been as stupid as the various casualties scattered like corpses from a medieval battle field who had convinced themselves they would be able to swallow the lies with just a few more pills.

I never fitted, too bent to be straight, too straight to be bent, too geeky to be cool, too cool, well you get the picture. In a good mood that was liberating, I could flit between groups, make many friends not be limited. When mood indigo hit, which it did, once a bloody month regular as clockwork, then I felt so utterly eaten by loneliness, desolate, withdrawn and remote. No place to really belong, a misfit in society, one who should have been wrapped in dirty blankets, tight and smothering and left to die. God what self pitying, all consuming narcissism holds fort in the darkest corners of my soul.

I stopped and watched a group of men shiftily scouring the site, feeling through the pockets of the undead. Helping themselves to the booty they found. No one around outside, well no one in any fit state to charge to the rescue on a shining white stead. What was I going to to do, fuck all, what could I do? The crows continued pecking whilst sweating, convulsing bodies, packed into the main tent, oblivious, as the techno rose to fever pitch.

I missed the old parties, sitting round a campfire, shooting the shit. I felt like a Luddite in a car factory. Sodding Criminal Justice Act: Now the government had created the wildest fantasies of your average Daily Mail reader. Huge groups forced like a bad sausage mix, to stick together. The gluttonous gel? Safety in numbers. Outwitting the cops. DJs with private lawyers always available at the end of their fucking enormous mobile phones.

I pretty sure half the crap in the world is created like this. What can we scare you with today. As long as you're not watching whilst we shaft you, we will get away with it. Creating false horrors, fears and terrors and then watching with fat cat purrs and satisfied sighs as self fulfilling prophecies take hold.

I carried on going, what choice? Clubbing in town, every piece for sale, try before you buy. Walk through the dance floor clasping your body, protect your arse and you've got no hands left to remove the tongues from your cleavage. Get to the bar to be robbed bloody blind by establishment charging a fiver to relieve your thirst. Groped, pawed, disrespected, despoiled and dispossessed, no thanks! So whilst the world was fighting over resources, screwing itself, overpopulating, I carried on partying.

I trudged off through the mire, struggling with every footstep, heavy clays caking my shoes, mud and shit spraying my dress. I needed to escape, I headed to the edge of the site.

Temporarily escaping into the dank corner of my imagination, I aimlessly walked on. Before I knew it some fucked twat had knocked me sprawling into the mud. He was giggling madly and ranting about the wonderful mud and the wonderful people. Hypothermia, yeah fucking wonderful!

I was at that point, I had enough. I was ready to punch the next person who smiled inanely at me, I was going to aim straight for their smiling mouth. I picked myself up out of the mud, pretty tricky, I must have slipped at least twice.

The distinctive smells of woods smoke and coffee crept stealthily into my senses.A chance of a cuppa? I headed in the direction of a big, rusting Mercedes van. I must of looked like a zombie out of a cheap film. I walked towards those smells like I had scented fresh meat. Smoke curled in an inviting question mark from behind the van.

I found myself behind a circular group of oaks fringed by hawthorn and tucked into the center was a tiny, brightly painted tepee blushing with the warm soft oranges and reds of a fire. A lady in her 50’s with a shock of grey hair, turned bright by the light of the fire offered me a brandy coffee in a deep, solid but melodious voice. I accepted grateful for this reprieve, a quiet oasis in the desert of mud and drugs.

I sat down inhaling the deep aromas of the coffee she gave me. I wrapped my fingers around the mug, letting the warmth creep into my numbed fingertips. She poured a generous slug of brandy into my coffee. I took a deep grateful gulp. A breeze blew up creating strange music around me and the moon broke through the clouds bathing the clearing in lustrous light. Her lunar face was full, haloed and tilted upwards towards the heavens with a contemplative smile, a Madonna from the Middle ages.

I looked around; ribbons, bells and wind chimes hung down with pendulous plenty from the trees. I could just make out wild dog roses and honeysuckle scrambling through the hawthorn. A cherry tree touched the sides of the tepee,bowed deep like a contentious courtesan, by the weight of its dark ruby fruit. Beautiful flowers brimmed and trailed from pots and containers. The whites and sky blues almost luminescent in the moonlight, contrasted by rich purples, and dark blues. I knew in the daylight these flowers would be all colours of the rainbow.I felt my soul lift as though it was remembering it was free energy.

We sat in a peaceful silence, I felt as though something had suitably altered. My dark thoughts lifted, alone not lonely, complete.

Time stretching.

The heavy base of the techno, slowed and quietened like the heartbeat of the planet. A barn owl flew overhead, silhouetted against the moon. I became aware of the noises of insect chattering. Oddly orchestral mixed in along with the chimes and bells and the faint sounds of techno floating in on the breeze....

Beautiful, restful peace.

Connected to it all.

Overflowing joy.

She asked me to come away with her. If I went I knew I would feel this for all eternity. I knew who she was.

I dreamily looked up, ready to follow her anywhere and she held my gaze, softly smiling.

I could go with her.

It would all stop. No more bollocks politics, no more dreary drudgery, no more bullshit.

She held out her hand.

It would all stop.

Noises, raucous and loud rudely interrupted the tranquility. I looked around frantically scanning the horizon.

I could see the first rays of dawn breaking in reds and golds. topped heavily like a winter quilt by fog and mist. How long had I been sitting here? I strained to listen to the discordant notes. My brain began to disseminate; The techno had finished. I could hear the sounds of Reggae and above it shrill and sharp, voices angry and frighten.

The voices became clearer, the police were raiding the party. I stood up and turned around. I walked to the van and heard a guy shouting orders to keep the video running, to not stop filming! Make sure you catch that copper planting the drugs in her purse.

I look back over my shoulder wistfully to see what I knew I would: The moon had been eaten by the heavy fog. In an empty patch of field, one stunted, tired looking oak stood forlorn against the grey darkness. With a deep sigh I faced the sunrise and the van.

I stumbled towards the party, past a burning police car, past drug dealers hurriedly burying their stashes in the sodden ground. Past an Asian man being given a public cavity search by three burly coppers.

As I got closer the Reggae abruptly stopped. Silence then, what the hell! Piano music? I could see the Police swat teams with their identification labels removed, tooled up with tear gas and batons, circling the main tent like a pack of hungry wolves. I side-stepped a policeman and ran towards the main tent spotting my friends all sitting in a protest of solidarity with other party goers. In the center of the tent a pianist thumping out “It’s a long way to Tipperary” on a battered up old piano.

People sitting at the edges were being dragged off forcibly by heavy handed police men. Nobody retaliated. They just sat quietly. They were giving the roadies a chance to smuggle out the sound system. My friends waved and grinned at me. I made a dash forward and I threw myself down beside them, giggling. I leapt into confusion, chaos and clouds of tear gas.

It all started when I chose!