CHAPTER 17
We spent two more days in our little place in the woods, which sat on a very quiet road in a corner of Kent that somehow seemed to escape the hurry and bustle of the outside world despite sitting so close to three main roads. Years later, I would read of the man who lived secretly in his tent, hidden away in the bushes of the central reservation of the dual carriageway leading past Southampton’s railway station, his life passing in parallel with that of the commuters streaming past each day.

I think it was down to the way Ken slipped into the world rather than strode through it. He didn’t seize life and shake it, but moved it his way through persuasion and charm. I saw all too many sites where travellers had simply left everything they didn’t want, from broken furniture to used nappies, before moving on, which isn’t a tactic best suited to encouraging acceptance and generosity of spirit. Ken’s approach reminded me of the fears of those hikers on the Pennine Way, dreading late night noise and music, but receiving instead a cuppa and a communal breakfast.

The bus stop was just over the road from the village hall, a short walk down a lane from our little green hide. We were all packed up, ready to leave, and Ken would pick us up from the edge of the city after we had done the rounds. I was in a skirt again, the wind a little raw around my knees, and to my own great surprise I was missing the warmth of a pair of trousers. The bus was cosy inside, though, and we rumbled round some sharp bends before a long descent to a village, some more ups and downs, and then a fast road to a sweeping exit took us right into the city.

It was the colour that caught my eye. The bus station was right next to what looked like a section of the old city walls, and I could see part of the cathedral above crowded buildings. Chester is a dark red place, the old stone deep in its colour, seizing the warmth of the sun and holding it in the walls and he faces of the old city, while Canterbury seemed to be made of much paler blocks that gave the light back to the world around us. Lorraine tugged me into one of the nearer shops, a C&A or BHS, where we made straight for the jeans selection.

“How did you know, Loz?”

“I seen the colour of your knees, girl! Now then… yup. This place does ski stuff, so we can get you a coat, doesn’t matter what it looks like, and trust me, your cold bits won’t care what it looks like as long as it’s warm! And a woolly hat---ooh! There’s a good one!”

Not a huge shopping spree, but enough to warm me up. We set off down a long street of shops, looking in windows on my part until Lorraine told me to look up first, away from the cloned chain shops to the first and higher floors that still held the character of the city to them. There was a spectacular old building that seemed to be the library, and a narrow alleyway to a really solid gate covered in little badges, or heraldic shields, or something, I didn’t care, and then there was the cathedral itself.

In years to come, what we had that day would be lost, as great buildings succumbed to the need, or desire, to monetarise their existence by charging for entry, but things were still relaxed back then, and we spent a couple of hours wandering around the inside and walking around it’s cloistered heart. Eventually, though, we had to get moving, and after grazing on some bits and pieces from a small bakery, Lorraine and I found the record shop, and my musical education stepped up a gear.

“Saw this place on the trip for the books, love. Got some really rare stuff in as well as the commercial shit. Now, let’s see…”

“Loz?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s that stuff they’re playing? Sounds really weird”

“You don’t like it?2

“Didn’t say that. It’s sort of…”

I thought for a while, seeking the right words for the complicated sounds played over the shop’s loudspeakers.

“It’s dreamy, that’s what it is. There’s all sorts of feelings in it, and I know they’re there, cause I can feel them, but I can’t say what they are”

“Well, who they are, love, is the Pink Floyd. That’s psychedelic, that is. What they call it. We’ll see what else they have here, and then ask at the counter, OK? Now… Right. This is a man called Howling Wolf, though it’s not his real name”

“What is his real name?”

“Buggered if I know, love. These blues men always have odd names. Except this one, love, and I have been after a copy of this for ages! Right, that’s these two for me. What’s here for you?”

“Thought it was for us, Loz?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, but you’ll like these and---oh, you tease!”

“Gotcha! What’s that one you were after? Is that a melon on the cover?”

“Yes, love. Man called B.B. King. And---ooh!”

She was like a child in a sweet shop, attention leaping from tape to tape, shelf to shelf. The latest ‘Ooh!’ was a beige album with a quarter rainbow on the front, called, oddly, ‘Second Album’. I left her to it and headed for the folk section, where I found another album by Steeleye Span and one more by Fairport Convention. Time was pressing, so I pulled Lorraine away from the racks and towards the till.

“Excuse me, Mister?”

“Yes, love?”

“What was that you were playing when we came in? My Mam said it was the Pink something?”

“Oh, right. That’ll be this one. Pink Floyd, that was. Album’s called ‘Meddle’. Got it on LP and on cassette, if you’d like”

I looked over my shoulder at Lorraine, and she nodded.

“Cassette, please, mate. And we’ve got these as well”

“Sound is a lot better on the record, darling. Decent hi-fi, especially on the Curved Air, as long as you’ve got some solid woofers, and you can really hear the playing as the band meant it”

“Ah, we’ve got the hi-fi at home. Just visiting, and we’ve got a long drive. Can’t put a record on in a car, can you?”

“Fair point. That’s what’s great about these things: music anywhere you want, as long as there’s somewhere to plug your player in. The future, there in your hands. Nice mix of sounds there. Your choice, or your daughter’s?”

“Teamwork, this. What’s the damage?”

We paid, or rather Lorraine did, and we were out of the shop surprisingly quickly, Lorraine pulling me into an alley before taking me by the shoulders.

“Your Mam?”

Her voice was soft, close to a whisper. I shrugged, holding back the trembling that wanted to seize me.

“It sort of made sense…”

“Does it still make sense?”

“I think so”

Not another word from her, as she hugged the life out of me, and then we were off and away from the high street shops to the main road, where we stood on the verge until a familiar van pulled up in a chorus of horns and shouted abuse. We clambered into the cab, pulling away to more horn blasts, and in a little while we were back onto the A2 and heading West. There was no more conversation for a long while, Ken following Lorraine’s unspoken lead, until we were past Faversham, and she broke her silence.

“Looks like you’ve become a Dad, love”

“Oh? That bit about adopted stuck, then?”

“Yup. Debbie?”

I could feel the shakes once more as they fought my control.

“Yes?”

“You call us what you like, love, as long as it’s sort of polite, OK?”

“Yeah…”

“But”

“But what?”

“That was a nice thing to say about me, love. I won’t complain if it keeps making sense. Same for him in the driving seat”

I found some heart, easily done as it was in my mouth right then.

“Can’t do that, can I? Sound silly calling him ‘Mam’, wouldn’t it?”

Ken roared with laughter.

“Cheeky cow! Anyway, time to hear what you found for us. What’s first, Deb?”

“Let Mam pick, cause she did most of the choosing from the shop. Where are we going?”

“There’s a question! Well, we have a couple of weeks on the south coast, usual stuff, then two rallies, first one in Weymouth, second near Cowbridge, before we hit the same places we did on the way down. Getting near time for winter quarters, duck. And yes, they probably will”

That last comment puzzled me, which left him grinning happily. As we pulled off the main road towards Maidstone, the music cut in, with a man bellowing more like an angry bull than a human being.

‘Oh, smokestack LIGHTning!”

I turned round to see Lorraine mouthing the lyrics to what was clearly the Howling man, and had to ask.

“How big is that singer?”

“Dunno, love. Big. Twenty-plus stone, anyway. He says he’s three hundred pounds. You like it?”

“Think so. How does he sing like that without ripping his throat out?”

“Ah, these blues singers, the real old one, they pickle their voiceboxes in whisky. King’s different, though. Play him next, OK?”

That previous discussion had clearly been closed down, so we settled down to the new tapes and the hum of the tyres. More markets followed, more odd little places tucked away from the overnight wind and the eyes of strangers, and yet another weekend dancing under a marquee and another metal badge for my denim top. Bleak forests followed by bleaker shores, my headscarf abandoned in favour of the woolly hat Lorraine had chosen, my legs far warmer in the woolly tights I hadn’t noticed her add to the pairs of jeans when we were shopping together, my life starting to make sense, more so with each day I woke safe beside them.

That aspect had come as a shock. From the first day in their care, I had slept between them, their bodies a shield against the enemies and demons of the night, but now I was happier to let them snuggle together as I lay beside one or the other, no matter which, rather than between them, dividing their love, each for the other.

Knitted hats and Arab scarves, army surplus woolly jumpers and thick socks, one-shot solid-fuel stoves that Ken called ‘Hexies’, batteries for torches alongside the lights themselves. Smiles, odd handshakes and more folded notes to fit into the cashbox. Hot chocolate, hotter tea, bacon sandwiches and Irish stew with a little hint of curry powder ‘to add interest, ladies’, as Ken said without fail. A high bridge over the Severn, and another field in Wales, this time next to a great sweep of hard standing where the bikers didn’t have to worry about their side stands sinking into the ground, and where the frame tent was guyed to concrete blocks rather than pegs.

The first scarf sold for the day, and two figures sprinting across the grass towards me.

“DEB-BIE! YAY!”