Despite falling just after the solstice, St John’s Day was celebrated as midsummer throughout Europe for centuries. In England the main festivities, including bonfires, feasting and dancing, traditionally took place on St John’s Eve. Since its formation, the Oxford Authority has put on midsummer events in University Parks as part of its programme of ‘reinstating English culture’. This year, with it falling on a Friday, they have organised the celebrations for St John’s Day itself as proposed by governors of local independent schools.
A group of children, girls in blue blouses and skirts, boys in black blazers with red trim, process from opposite directions towards a tall, red and white ribboned maypole with a painted papier mache ox head on top. As the two groups merge, they alternate – girl, boy, girl, boy and so on – to form a circle. Each child holds a ribbon.
A drum starts up a fast, military-style beat. Recorders and tambourines join in to create a sonorous and chaotic jumble of sound. The children put on masks – unicorns for the girls, lions for the boys – and dance, round and then back, their ribbons entwining and releasing.
—
Jak Churchwell: Cant do Otmoor tomoz. Dad is missing
Ped: 😲
Ped: Later Sat?
Jak Churchwell: Aft we find him
Ped: Sun?
Jak Churchwell: Maybe dont know yet
—
The stench of shit rises from the toilet bowl between Robbo’s legs and attacks his nostrils, eyes and throat. He wretches, doubles over, but can’t vomit. As he reaches his right hand out to brace himself against the wall, the chain attached to his left wrist tugs at the blue-stained plastic pipe leading to the toilet bowl.
The room is tiny, less than two metres square with a rusty sink below an opaque letterbox sized window that lets dim, grey sunlight into the room. A shower head hangs loosely from a metal bar.
Robbo strains but nothing comes. How long has it been since diarrhoea flooded out, filling the toilet bowl and splattering the seat? He can’t tell.
And he doesn’t know how many times he pressed the flush button. Not even a drop of blue liquid trickled down. Some of his liquid shit did slide off the hatch at the bottom of the bowl, but it just added to the pile of excrement accumulated inches below.
There is nothing more to come, decides Robbo, and he half stands as best he can, bent over with his left wrist constrained below knee height, and pulls up his pants and trousers. There is no lid on the toilet. He just has to sit down again, now with his Tweed trousers on, above the shit smeared bowl.
He can hear voices. Or maybe just one voice, the young man muttering to himself. The boat rocks and there are footsteps on the deck. Then a whine, sputtering and the chug-chug of an engine.
There’s a loud crash and the boat judders. The little window rattles in its frame.
And then the engine sputters again and whines again, and is silent. Although the wooden walls continue to hum with its vibration for a second or two.
The boat shakes briefly and footsteps stumble across the deck, followed by male voices from the bank.
“Christ hippy you were nearly fish food there.”
“Happy fish food day!” exclaims the young man loudly, “it will be my honour to lead the procession!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
The young man sniffs and snorts loudly, “what’s the plan, Stan?”
“You got the powder, hippy?”
“No.”
“Gonna get it? I would if I were you.”
More footsteps on the deck. The boat shakes and a door slams. Robbo can hear the young man muttering to himself and the sound of creaking wooden drawers being opened, shut, opened again, and pulled off their runners and thrown across the room with a crash.
Outside, the male voices continue, slightly hushed.
“Somehow I doubt Crissy is going to see this one as an investment opportunity. Fucking idiot.”
“Yeah, to be honest, he’ll want rid. But no hurry. The weed was okay but this powder is mediocre. Dirty. I think we just take payment and leave him be for now.”
“And his Johnny dancers have been an absolute fucking joke.”
“Yeah. Old donkey was okay, usable just about. Better than a half-trained monkey baby.”
“Okay? Wasn’t worth pissing on. Most gormless creature I’ve ever encountered. I mean, we left him at the Bridge of Thighs with his mouth open trying to hitch a lift from the Cherry Gate for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah, fair point.”
The door slams again and footsteps thud on deck.
“But what do we do with the monkey baby?”
“Are you talking about my dancer?” demands the young man, “he’s my dancer!”
“Entering him tonight are we?”
“Yes. Or no. Don’t want him chosen. I like him. And he’s my dancer!”
“He won’t be chosen, he’s a fucking monkey!”
“Well yes then!” announces the young man triumphantly.
“Whatever. You owe us rent.”
“What about my dancer?”
“Worthless.”
“No. No, no. No no no,” the young man’s voice is agitated and loud.
Suddenly, his voice falls. Robbo can barely hear him, “no, we must not perform the revels this year for it shall be a pitiful spectacle. That’s what they say. For shame, I say yes we must perform the revels. In full, I tell you, in full. There is red wine to be drunk and life to be led. We must dispense gaiety forthwith. Forsooth you do declare gaiety but forewarned of ill omens they do declare nought but shame and ignominy shall befall us.”
“Oh God, the hippy’s malfunctioning. Did anyone bring the ice?”
“For fuck’s sake hippy. Give us whatever you’ve got, that bag of green, for now. That’s your deposit of good faith, we’ll be back for full payment when you’re sober or dead, whichever comes first.”
The two men laugh. And then there is quiet.
“Bye bye badmen,” murmurs the young man to himself as he walks back towards the boat. It rocks as he leaps aboard. The toilet door creaks open.
“Those are such fine strides old chap, shame to hide them away here in this sad place.”
The young man reaches down to the pipe, trembling. He fumbles with the padlock, loses his footing and falls to his knees, his shoulder lurching onto Robbo’s lap. A small key falls to the floor.
“We’ll get you out of here old chap, don’t you worry. To a better place, a new country.”
‘Danger. Get away Pauly Po. Get away now.’
Robbo grabs the young man by the hair and, summoning what strength he can from his exhausted and dehydrated body, pulls him up off his lap and pushes him backwards onto the floor. He stamps on the young man’s hand, which is reaching up for him, and swings himself round, pivoting on his constrained arm, so that he is crouching over where the key fell.
Robbo feels the young man’s fingers gripping the bottom of his trouser legs. He kicks back, falling to his knees as he does so. There’s a sharp feeling at the top of his shin. The key, he’s kneeling on the key. He kicks back again and finds the key with his right hand as he does so. He kicks again and again to prevent the young man hauling himself up. The young man doesn’t fight. He just keeps on grasping with delicate fingers at Robbo’s trousers, the fine Tweed strides.
The key turns. The padlock falls away. Robbo has no feeling in his left hand but uses the now freed arm to brace against the toilet and with his right arm pushing against the wall levers himself up.
“Don’t go chief, don’t go. We still have revels to perform.”
Robbo kicks back and frees his leg from the young man’s weak grip, and runs out into the galley, through the wide open outer door and onto deck.
The boat has been moved to the opposite side of the river, away from the fence and cut down trees, and next to the path where people, the top half of their faces covered by gold and silver Venetian masks, are strolling and laughing. There is a smell of cannabis smoke hanging in the air and what might be gunpowder.
Robbo’s heart is pumping. He feels blood and feeling return to his left hand. He sits on the side of the boat and, holding onto a cleat on the deck, lowers himself into the water. The river is shallow, not even waist height. He wades across, hauls himself up the bank, saturated trousers heavy and sticking to his legs, and crawls behind a bush, just feet from the electrified fence. Robbo muffles a sneeze and blows his nose on his arm.
He peers through scraggly yellow leaves, scans the path on the opposite bank. None of the masked people seem to have noticed him. They continue strolling and laughing, promenading along the path. He watches the boat. The young man doesn’t emerge.
Robbo sits back and waits.
—
“Philip!” Tudor shouts as he hurries along the alley towards the old man and his assistant, “Philip, what do you know about Hank? I can give you info about Robbo.”
“Well if it isn’t Kissy Crissy’s little bit of bum fun in his fancy pants. What can you tell me, little bum boy?”
Tudor takes a deep breath and speaks calmly, “what do you know about Hank?”
“Ha ha ha,” bellows Mr Rumbelowe, “you need to give me something on Robertson first, pretty boy.”
“Robbo went looking for Hank. I checked with Ali who said he thinks he went over the river to look for him. Around University Parks.”
“Ha ha ha,” Mr Rumbelowe bellows again, “those two at the University? Yeah, and I’m the Olympic Pole Vault champion!”
“So what do you know, Philip?” Tudor arches an eyebrow, “And, more to the point, how do you know it?”
“Is that it? He might be somewhere near University Parks? That’s no fucking good to me, is it? When? Is? He? Coming? Back? Or are they keeping him as a pet? Fucking smelly one.”
“What do you know about Hank, Philip?”
“Robertson definitely on the other side, is he? Really?”
“Almost certainly, yeah.”
“Well… let me see… you can fuck off then, can’t you,” sneers Mr Rumbelowe.
“Yeah,” Tudor laughs bitterly and then grins, “and you can fuck off back to your squalid hole and take your ape with you. Crispin’s got your number and your contacts, he’s bought what was left of your squad – says half of them should’ve hung up their boots years ago.
“And so should you Rumbelowe. Call in your debts if you’re desperate but see if anything happens to Robbo… well just remember this is Crispin Miles’s town. He’s the landed gentry. You’re just another serf, always were.”
“Stupid fucking cunt!” shouts Philip Rumbelowe and glares at Tudor.
But he puts out a hand as a sign to Big Dave to stay back. And turns his scooter round to accelerate away, back down the alley. Big Dave runs after him, struggling to keep up.
—
Men and women, dressed in dinner suits, ballgowns and Venetian masks, drink from wine bottles. Other masked men, all in black, let off firecrackers. BANG BANG BANG. Purple smoke drifts across the park on the wind.
The smoke stings the young woman’s eyes as she beats her bodhran along with a mixed group of drummers and other percussionists. They all wear headbands with a single feather. Next to them a group of morris dancers jingle-jangle in widening circles. An older man in a fox mask skips round the circle, distributing pewter tankards, and then carries on down towards the line of trees by the river with the dancers falling in behind him.
Wine, gin and Pimms stalls line the riverside path. Five men suspend a barrel of beer from the bough of a large oak tree using poles and rope. One of them shins up the tree with a hammer and hits the barrel until a wooden peg falls out followed by a waterfall of beer. The morris dancers, one by one, fill their pewter tankards from the flowing beer.
Up by the cricket pavilion, reclining young men in dinner suits raise themselves from their siesta, tidy away their picnics and return home, briefly, to change.
—
It is getting dark. Drumbeats reverberate through the air and bonfires, three, four, maybe five glow through the trees. There is nobody else, as far as he can tell, on this side of the river. Robbo makes his way along the bank, staying low and away from the electric fence as best he can.
He crosses a shallow ditch to a clump of trees. Too shallow a ditch, he reckons, to get under the fence. Too risky when he can’t see the fence properly, the trees shading it from what little light remains in the western sky. Here at least there is a bigger space between the river and the fence, and he can sit down and half-see what is happening in University Parks through the single line of trees on the other side of the river.
There are fire torches set into the ground around a barrel. A cloaked figure with antlers on their head, he can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman, ladles liquid into a bowl. Masked people gulp it down in one draught and pass it back to the cloaked figure. Some of the thick liquid trickles from their mouths and down over their chins. It is dark red. Wine? It must be wine, surely.
Then the drumming starts and people take the torches out of the ground and carry them in a line. Robbo can’t quite see but he feels sure there is someone dancing, like he was told to do. More and more drumming starts, and lines of torches crawl across the park, their carriers like ghosts – too in shadow, too flickering, too indistinct to focus on.
A young man, the same young man? Robbo can’t be sure in this dying light. But the way he meanders down the slightly sloping bank to the river, never quite steady but not falling, like a tightrope walker, could be the young man.
He stumbles as he reaches the water’s edge, one of his feet splashes into the river. And then leaning over, he pulls at his trouser leg as if trying to pull his foot out of the water. He stumbles again and vomits.
A group of masked men carrying lit fire torches march past, along the path. The young man looks up, still bent over, hands on his knees and feet in the river. He half-turns to watch them and as he does so, for a second, his shirt catches the light of the torches.
Robbo can see dark red liquid soaking into the pale material. It runs from his mouth down his chin and there are drops on his collar. He wipes his lips, smearing half his face. Is it wine? Or something thicker?
The young man falls to his knees and lowers his face into the water. He stays kneeling, head bowed as if in prayer, for what seems like a very long time.
The drumming continues. Cries and shrieks and what sounds like the crack of a whip ring out from somewhere in the park. Maybe it was just a tree branch snapping. The young man struggles to his feet and walks back in the direction of the boat.
Robbo shudders and decides to move on too, further along the bank, away from the torches and the red liquid. Somewhere safer.
It is dark. A thin crescent moon reflects in the quiet river but only casts the faintest of light. Robbo scoops up some water into his mouth and drinks as much as he can, pauses to watch and listen for anyone on the opposite bank but there is just the distant sound of drumming, and he drinks some more.
There is a bush overhanging the river. It is wide and straggly but with large enough leaves to conceal the ground by it. And just beyond that is a large tree. A sycamore? Jak would know.
Robbo props himself against the trunk, clears away a few twigs and dried leaves, and curls up in the foetal position.
‘Lay your head down and rest, Pauly Po. But be ready to run.’