May you love freely with passion and beauty too.
Glitter blessings be upon you!”
Shirley bent forward and kissed my forehead, giving me an eyeful of her abundant cleavage. She wasgreat. I wassoglad I’d hired her for today. Half the peeps at the festival were now covered in biodegradable glitter – it really added to the atmos. And she looked spectacular.
I loved snagging the super strange acts for Bunt Fest, and Shirley – akaGlitter Angel– definitely fell into the super strange category. She was tall and well built (especially in the chest region), while her bleached blonde hair was teased out to mammoth proportions and sparklingly with her trademark glitter. Her outfit was a skin-tight, rainbow-coloured, shiny catsuit that was unzipped enough that her huge breasts looked in danger of emerging at any second. But the best thing about her was that she was on stilts, so she could be seen from any point in Bunt Fest and had a great vantage point to administer herglitter blessings. Apparently, when it got dark, she would also start juggling with and eating fire.
Awesome.
She moved on then to glitter bless Giles Grantham who at first looked slightly alarmed (I’d managed to get him to shed his tweed jacket, but he still had his shirt and chinos on), but as she kissed his forehead and he got the same eyeful I had, his face broke into a huge grin. I’d hosted Bunt Fest at Libby’s in-laws’ massive garden for the last five years. Bunty Grantham (Libby’s mother-in-law) had been very much on board from the beginning, but her husband, Giles, took a little longer to warm up to ‘a bunch of bloody hippies’ invading his land on an annual basis. But the Granthams were sitting on a huge plot of land in Richmond that I suspected had been in their family for centuries – the first time I saw it, I knew ithadto be the venue for the charity festival I ran every year.
We used to hire a farmer’s field way outside London and paid exorbitant prices for the privilege. Bunty and Giles gave us use of their huge garden for free. Their only stipulation had been that part of the proceeds went to support the local church, and that the Parish Council members could all attend. I think Bunty enjoyed shocking the crap out of them and the Church had never before raised as much money.
So, last year fifty per cent went to my charity and fifty per cent went to repair the church roof. This year I’d talked to the vicar and showed him some stats, then I’d gone and spoken to the Parish Council. Now all of the money was going towards the charity: Freedom through Education. Something I’d been involved with during my time in Médecins Sans Frontières. It was a group that helped support women in Malawi, educating them on HIV, birth control and everything in between, and giving them the means to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty – something I, and now Richmond Parish Council, felt passionately about.
“Well,” Giles said to me as Shirley moved on to her next target. “What a cracking young lady.” He gave me a pat on the back. “Damn good show here today, Kira. Kids are having a whale of a time and I’ve never seen the vicar so happy.” The vicar’s wife wasn’t looking overly happy at the moment, but then again I doubted she had been expecting a buxom, oversized fairy on stilts to kiss her husband on top of his bald head, while thrusting her assets right into his face.
“Glad you approve, Giles,” I told him, adding my own kiss on his cheek. He flushed red and his chest puffed out in response. “All for your benefit of course.”
Three dreadlocked men, one playing a flute, one on the tambourine, and one with a ukulele, came up to us then. All of them were dancing (but not in time with the tunes they were playing) and they started dipping and diving in front of us. Ferret’s Testicles were a rock-flute band and a regular at Bunt Fest.
“Yes, yes,” Giles muttered, smiling at the men and, I suspected, suppressing an eye roll. “Very good, chaps. On you go now. Don’t waste it all on us.”
I started dipping and diving with them, getting into the badass flute harmonies they were banging out.
“Don’t encourage them, Kira,” Giles said out of the side of his mouth. “Bloody hell, you’d think they’d take a shower before they perform.”
I laughed, flinging myself forward in a shimmy as they started jazz-fluting with a vengeance. As I straightened up, a large hand fell on my shoulder and I turned to face what I thought would be Giles, only to be confronted by Barclay. He looked even more out of place than Giles in his suit trousers and a tie. He had shed the jacket and his tie was loosened at the neck, but he still looked completely ridiculous in the environment. I had to press my lips together hard to suppress a nervous laugh.
“Yo,” I said as the Ferret’s Testicles moved off to treat some other unsuspecting person to their musical talents. “What are you doing here?”
Barclay stared at my face, which had a swirling pattern of flowers over one cheek painted in neon and glitter, before he took in the rest of my outfit. My sleeveless t-shirt was quite conservative for me other than theSex Ed is my Jamin bold letters over my chest, but my denim cut-offs were not. In fact, they were verging on indecent. My legs, although short, were bloody awesome so I never felt uncomfortable showing them off, and it was warm for May so I’d gone with it. But under Barclay’s scrutiny I was feeling half naked. His eyes had swept me from the top of my head down and were now fixed on my thighs. His cheekbones flushed red and a muscle ticked in his cheek.
“Mr Lucas?” Giles cut in. Of course he would recognise Barclay (Gileslovedthe Tories). “Giles Grantham. Great to meet you.” After a long moment Barclay managed to tear his gaze away from my legs to focus on the hand that had been extended towards him. He shook his head as if to clear it, then took Giles’s hand.
“Barclay, please,” he murmured, and Giles looked pleased as punch to be on first name terms with a Conservativepolitician. I could see him planning his next trip to the East India Club to regale all his cronies about this.
“Well, Barclay,” Giles continued, completely oblivious to the tension in the air. “Good to have you, old chap. Decent do Kira’s put on here, don’t you think?”
“You’veput this on?” Barclay asked, his eyes flashing back to me.
“I expect you’ve come down to add some political clout to it all, eh?” Giles went on. “Are you giving a speech or something? Well done, Kira.” He gave me a nudge with his elbow. “Capital idea. All this lot must love Lucas what with him sorting out the environment and all that. You’re probably not aware, Barclay, but this ismyland. I let Kira use it every year for the festival. Don’t I, dear?”
“Er, yes,’ I stuttered, trying and failing to look away from Barclay’s eyes. “Yeah Mr G – you and Bunts are the best.”
“The festival is named after my wife,” Giles put in, puffing out his chest with pride. It seemed that now that Bunt Fest had the approval of an actual Cabinet minister Giles was very much on board. “Bunty objected at first – didn’t want to take the credit – but Kira talked her round. You’re good at that, aren’t you, Kira?” I managed to flick my eyes over to Giles and gave him a weak smile.
“Would you mind very much if I stole Kira for a minute, Mr Grantham?” Barclay asked.
“Oh yes, do carry on,” Giles said, shooing us away. “Must have lots to sort speech-wise, I expect.”
“Quite,” Barclay bit out, giving Giles a forced smile and then taking me by the elbow and propelling me away.
“Barcos,” I said, my short legs having to break into a jog to keep up with his longer strides. “What’s going on?”
He stopped for a moment, looked around and then turned us towards the house, propelling me forward again. But after a few strides, Glitter Angel, who must have spotted him through the crowd and made a beeline for him, blocked his path and we were both showered with glitter as she gave us her Glitter Blessing. After she’d shoved her cleavage right in Barclay’s face and kissed his forehead (when this happened to Giles, the vicar, Jamie and Pav, I’d thought it was hilarious; with Barclay a flash of jealousy shot through me that was so strong it obliterated all amusement), Barclay turned to me and both his brows went up, causing a small shower of glitter to fall down his cheeks. Glitter Angel must have dumped her entire stock over him. Multicoloured glitter covered his hair, face, shoulders; even his dark trousers were carpeted with it.
She moved away in search of fresh victims, and with her cleavage not directly in Barclay’s eye line I began to see the funny side. I pressed my lips together to hold my laughter in, but, as he shook his head and more glitter cascaded down his shoulders, I couldn’t hold back anymore. Unfortunately, because I had been suppressing it for so long, it came out as my ‘piggy laugh’ as Libby liked to call it – more snort than laugh really. When I was finished piggy laughing, Barclay was staring at me again, looking way too intense for someone observing my porcine antics.
