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again?’
    Hobbes
nodded.
    ‘I’ve
told you before they’re no good for you,’ said Billy, with a stern frown.
    ‘I
made a mistake.’
    ‘You’re
telling me? Oh well, I’d best get you home. You’ll have to pick up your car
tomorrow.’
    Billy
helped Hobbes stand, trying to support him as he struggled to the hearse, the
pair making an entirely ludicrous tableau. I helped get Hobbes into the back,
where he lay flat, groaning, and joined Dregs and Billy in the front, there
being plenty of room for three to sit abreast. Following a brief scuffle, I had
to take the middle seat, so Dregs could stick his head out. An elderly
gentleman raised his sunhat respectfully as we pulled away at a speed in
keeping with the vehicle’s original use.
    ‘Has
he taken one of the green bottles?’ asked Billy.
    ‘Yes,’
I said. ‘What on earth is in that stuff?’
    ‘Mysterious
herbs from the East, so I was told. Mrs Goodfellow makes it and it’s powerful
stuff, though the side effects can be alarming.’
    ‘I’ve
seen them,’ I said, nodding.
    ‘Did
he howl?’
    ‘Yes.
It didn’t half give me a turn.’
    ‘Not
as much as it gave me,’ said Hobbes and coughed horribly.
    ‘At
least he’s compost mental again,’ said Billy.
    ‘That’s
compos mentis,’ said Hobbes.
    ‘Which
proves my point.’ Billy chuckled.
    Hobbes didn’t speak for the rest of the
journey, except for a snuffly complaint about a headache. I wondered about the
green stuff he’d taken, alarmed that its side effects were presumably better
than not drinking it. On reaching Blackdog Street, he rolled from the hearse
with a brief word of thanks and went straight upstairs to bed. I checked on him
from time to time but he was fast asleep, still bubbling like a cauldron on the
boil.
    I
was, therefore, by default, back in charge of catering and, despite the lure of
the pubs, I decided it wouldn’t be fair to desert Hobbes. Besides, I had no
money. Dregs’s dinner was not a problem; opening a tin of dog food, I spooned
it into his bowl and watched him wolf it down in half a dozen noisy bites,
before taking himself upstairs to lie at Hobbes’s door. Next came the important
thing: my supper. A rummage through Mrs Goodfellow’s cupboards revealed
surprising quantities of tins, mostly ancient ones. I was amazed she kept so
many for I’d hardly ever known her use one – except for tins of pears, which
Hobbes liked with his Sunday tea. None of them appealed.
    Then
I had a brainwave. A jacket potato with cheese would taste great and be highly
nutritious. Selecting a brick-sized spud from Mrs Goodfellow’s store, scrubbing
it clean, I sliced it down the middle. Next, taking a nice chunk of the
wonderful, crumbly Sorenchester cheese from the pantry, grating it with a
potato peeler, I heaped a generous amount onto the potato halves and shoved
them under the grill. After lighting it, reckoning they’d take about half an
hour to cook, I sauntered into the sitting room and turned on the telly. As I
sat down, the regional news came on, making no mention of dead sheep or big
cats.
    However,
one item caught my attention, a report on the First Annual Great Sorenchester
Music Festival. I watched with increasing interest, despite the inane and
annoying presence of Jeremy, a reporter who clearly imagined himself the
epitome of cool. He might have been twenty or more years earlier, though I
doubted it and his three-minute slot showed him to be a patronising, smug,
ignorant twit. He interviewed the festival’s organisers, a pair of local
farmers, clearly not gentleman farmers but genuine, horny-handed sons of the
soil, though I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to get so encrusted in mud
when it hadn’t rained for weeks.
    Why the report piqued my interest so much
mystified me for, although I had attended the occasional music gig over the
years, I’d not really enjoyed them and the last time I’d gone out to see a band
had been quite painful when a careless, or