Mist curled up from the riverbank, covering Magdalen Bridge and softening the metal gates and fence. Everything was still grey, undifferentiated except for a blue tint in the sky to the East, high above Shotover Hill. Atop the fence, perched between barbs, a thrush sang a long, many-versed song. Some parts were sweet, flowing with melody, others insistent pulses of rhythm. It was as if a different bird, with different purposes and preferences, was reciting each verse in turn. But it was just one lone thrush singing its heart out.
The air was still. No flicker of a breeze to quieten the birdsong or shape the mist. So they both found their own way, one tumbling over bricks and wire, a broken bottle on the pavement, the other soaring into the clean morning air. More birds would join the chorus but the lone song thrush was the first to sing.
—
Little pockets of family groups, herding pushchairs and excitable yawning youngsters, drifted down Iffley Road, Cowley Road and St Clement’s. Party goers shambled blearily along. Curious individuals and couples quickly checked the time and walked a little faster. A small group of kids, ten or eleven years old, lined up to play hopscotch by the gates to South Park before a slightly older girl ushered them on.
Everyone headed down towards the Plain.
The kids joined the back of a throng of people, waiting for the sun to turn the sandstone Magdalen Tower golden and craning their necks to see the choirboys of Magdalen College School, like dolls in their perfectly white cassocks, sing from the top in unbroken voices. The song was in Latin and was something to do with God’s love. It carried far on the expectant morning air. Parents shushed their children, one drunk nudged another drunk to be quiet for a minute, and everyone stood and listened.
On the other side of Magdalen Bridge, stretching back from the tower along High Street, another crowd also fell silent. Only a blackbird and a passing herring gull, shouting as it glided along the course of the river, challenged the boys’ devout vocal supremacy.
Jak listened patiently, shivering slightly, and wished she had gone straight home from the party. But here she was in a crowd, with fellow students she barely knew. It was a Sunday morning and the buses wouldn’t start for another couple of hours.
—
A man dressed as a tree rode a tricycle pulling a battered old sound system on a trailer. It was playing a reggae song from before she was born, probably before her mum and dad were born. The trailer was a converted wheelbarrow and the distorted bass sound rattled its thin aluminium body.
Jak drifted along behind it, with Jonty and a few other LRBS students. The tree man rode faster, weaving through the slow moving procession. They followed in his wake.
Women, in green dresses and peaked caps with plain feathers, played violins and danced to the beat of a large man’s marching drum. He had painted his face orange but was otherwise dressed normally in jeans and a fleece.
A group of women and men in old style police uniforms, helmet straps half-way up their chins, carried flowers instead of truncheons and marched in a somewhat ragged line. Jak checked her Oxford Bus app: ‘all services on Cowley Road currently delayed until further notice due to event on police advice as of 06:00’.
They passed full pubs, drinkers spilling onto the pavement clutching plastic glasses. And food stalls – hot donuts, bbq chicken and corn-on-the-cob, kebabs… but no coffee. Jak would have loved some coffee.
At Manzil Way a few people had set up stalls on the grass. They had flags and slogans. Jonty chatted to a tired looking woman in a beret and false beard-and-moustache. Jak checked her phone – 06:43 and the buses won’t be running until whenever.
There was a bright-faced woman, looking around her as if she’d lost a friend in the crowd, standing with a banner draped over her shoulder. She had shiny red zip-up ankle boots. Jak stared at them for a second, ‘nice footwear. Not my style, too bright. But nice.’
“Hi, you don’t know me but you look bored. Can you hold my banner for a minute, thanks!” and the bright-faced woman dashed off towards the portaloos.
The marker-pen written banner read: ‘QUEER’, each letter in a different colour: dark orange, yellow, green, blue and purple; ‘SOCIALIST’, all in red. Jak held a pole in each hand, the thin material rippling in a rising breeze, and waited for her to return.
Jonty frowned and moved away to join a huddle of Green Party members carrying tambourines.
—
Carly came back a few minutes later, purposefully weaving through the crowd and rolling a cigarette as she walked.
“Tab?”
“Tab?” Jak repeated, puzzled.
“Yeah, you know, a cigarette, a snouty, a tab. Do you want one? Freshly rolled by my own fair hands,” Carly smiled, “some call ‘em fags but that can make people feel uncomfortable. Does it make you feel uncomfortable?”
Jak, still puzzled, ignored the question, “why do you call them tabs?”
“Dunno. Think my uncle taught me. He taught me to roll ‘em and he taught me to call ‘em ‘tabs’. Then, having converted me, he gave up smoking. Not had a puff since. I was, what, thirteen? Fourteen? That’s my uncle for you, part good to know, part irresponsible twat.”
“Oh. Where’s your uncle from?”
“Around,” Carly waved an arm expansively, “do you want a tab or not?”
“Okay,” for once Jak didn’t hesitate, “go on then.”
Carly delicately placed the rolled cigarette between Jak’s lips. And, with the tips of her fingers brushing Jak’s face as she cupped a hand against the breeze, lit up.
Jak breathed in slowly. And then coughed, flicking away a strand of tobacco from her mouth.
“Like it?”
Jak smiled.
“Plenty more where that came from,” winked Carly, “listen, do you want to meet up for a drink sometime soon? Maybe in Moonies, you know Moonies?”
“Yeah, alright.”