Page 3 of Once Upon a Thyme
‘Er,’ he said. It was clearly the sort of day that bred confusion.
Zeb came further forward. I had to admit that he looked more managerial than me, or, at least his jeans were still clean and his shirt didn’t look as though the Flower Fairies had staged a hit-and-run. ‘You said “the band”?’ he asked.
Simon turned to Zeb now and I could see his bafflement. How could the young woman – well, youngish, and definitely young compared to Simon – be the owner of this place and not the slightly smarter-dressed man who was approaching with confidence and not trying to hide behind a stinky bouquet? The dissonance was clearly written all over his face. ‘Yes,’ he said, trying to spread his words between us so he didn’t have to commit to speaking to either one of us definitively. ‘The band. The Goshawk Traders.’
He regarded us hopefully and with a proud expression, like a father revealing his offspring’s Prize For Good Work.
‘Wow,’ said Zeb, faintly and his gaze flicked up to take in the variegated clothing of the people wandering around outside the shop, staring at buckets and picking up packs of dried herbs. ‘The Goshawk Traders.Wow.’
I looked at both men and flourished my bundle of foliage. ‘Who are they, then?’ I asked.
Now they stared at me. In fact, the whip of the surprised ponytail nearly had my eye out. ‘You’ve never heard of The Goshawk Traders?’ Zeb asked. Simon just boggled. ‘Best-selling band? Most downloaded albums? Headlining all the festivals this year?’
‘Um,’ I said, feeling stupid. ‘I don’t get a lot of time for stuff like that.’ The only music I ever heard these days was the stuff we played in the shop, which was far more on the Peruvian Nose Flute end of the spectrum.
Simon clearly took pity on me. ‘We’re folk rock meets prog meets acid psychedelia,’ he said. ‘NME describes our music as the offspring of Mumford and Sons and Genesis delivered by The Grateful Dead.’
This did not enlighten me as much as he apparently thought it would. ‘Are accordions involved?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Look, what can we help you with, Mr Welbury?’ Zeb gave me a wide-eyed ‘what the hell are you doing?’ look. ‘If you want to buy herbs…’
‘Ah. No. Well, not quite. It’s moreinvolvedthan that.’ Simon was talking to Zeb now, but that was fine. As long as nobody tried to send me to make tea, in which case I would, most certainly, play the ‘this is my herb farm’ card. But otherwise, I’d just stand here and listen. ‘We’d like to film here.’
The multicoloured-clothed fraternity were still mooching around outside the shop, as though they were afraid to go too far from the minibus, like cats on a caravanning holiday.
‘Film,’ I said, trying the word out. ‘Here.’
‘Yes. We’d like to make some of the video for the new album here. We were driving past and Mika – that’s Mika over there, viola and washboard – noticed your sign.’
Viola and washboard? I briefly wondered at the random words, then the phrase ‘folk rock’ echoed in the back of my head. Oh no, it was worse than I’d thought. Not just accordions, but washboards too.
Zeb was giving me increasingly desperate looks as though I were expected to say something but the only thing that occurred was the prevalent, ‘Err.’
‘You’d like to film a music video? Here?’ He asked, eventually.
‘Sizing the place up obviously, first, but, yes. If you’ll have us.’ The ponytail whipped again as Simon looked over his shoulder towards the band. ‘Over here, lads!’
‘Well, that’s…’ I began.
‘How much?’ Zeb waded in. ‘I mean, obviously, you’d want exclusive use of the garden and parking, so there would be substantial costs to the business.’ He gave me another wide-eyed look.
‘We’ll talk about that.’ Simon smiled at the space somewhere between Zeb and me, clearly still uncertain as to who reallywasin charge and not wanting to offend the real boss. ‘If the guys approve the place. We’ll just have a bit of a walk around, size the surroundings up, that sort of thing. If that’s all right?’ he added to the air around my left ear.
I could feel another ‘err’ coming on, so was glad when Zeb said, ‘I’m sure that’s fine. It’s fine, isn’t it… Tallie?’ Then he nudged me with his elbow.
The six band members wandered over in a leisurely fashion, four men and two women, or rather – I checked my presumption – four people in loose cotton trousers and two people in skirts. Lots of hair, some beards, piercings, a swirly tattoo and an overall air of patchouli; they were practically a caricature of a folk-rock band. ‘This is Genevra, Will, Loke, Tessa, Vinnie and Mika.’ Simon nodded towards each person; some of them waved rather sheepishly. ‘The Goshawk Traders.’
I could see a couple of customers over in the yard, pointing and gabbling between themselves; one had pulled out a phone and was filming, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the delightful layout of the herb beds that was proving appealing.
‘It’s a gorgeous place you’ve got here.’ This was Mika, a man with lavish dark hair swept back over the shoulders of a tailored jacket, an image of urbane male ruined by the baggy harem pants he was wearing. ‘Oh yes.’ Now he looked at me directly and I felt suddenly scruffier, smaller, hotter and as though I’d gained about four stone whilst standing here. ‘You’re the owner, right?’
He had very bright eyes, I noticed. Very bright and very dark, with long eyelashes that looked as though they were coated in mascara, which of course they very well might be. He smiled and I got hotter.
‘Yes,’ I said, vocabulary battling in my throat to force back the ‘umm’ that was struggling to get out, and making my voice higher-pitched than usual. ‘Yes, that’s me.’
