From The Festival

Part One

"I told you, Simon, we're bloody lost," shouted Claire in exasperation. "Two hours ago we left the main road; I told you you'd gone the wrong way. Only an idiot would have taken that turning, it wasn't even signed!"

"Look, Claire, we can't be that lost. We're only in Yorkshire, for God's sake! It's not like we're in the middle of the Sahara, or in the back streets of Beirut or somewhere. We're bound to see a signpost soon, or someone we can ask where we are."

"I don't know why you don't just turn the car around and go back where we came from." Claire said, becoming exasperated.

"Listen, Claire, if I did that, it'd take us ages to get back to the main road. Then we'd just be back where we started from."

"At least we'd know where the hell we were!"

Claire was by now totally frustrated. She knew that Simon was probably right, they'd eventually find a village or a local inhabitant of the moors or something, but for now, she felt angry, very angry. With a cloudless sky and the heat of a July afternoon sun beating down upon the land below, Claire felt more than a little uncomfortable and, even with the air-conditioning working flat out, the interior of the car felt like an oven. Her blonde hair, usually so neatly styled, lay plastered to her forehead. Her beautiful new summer dress was plastered to her legs, she felt a headache coming on, and she wanted a drink. Not just an alcoholic one, though a nice glass of Chardonnay would go down nicely, she decided, but any drink would do for now, coke, lemonade, water even!

"Anyway," said Simon, "we'll find somewhere soon."

"Yeah, sure we will," Claire said, sardonically. "We've driven through miles of uncharted forest, over God knows how many hills and moors, without seeing anyone except a few sheep, and as far I'm concerned we could be stuck on top of the Pyrenees for all I know."

"Wait; look, Claire, there's a junction coming up!"

A junction! The first one they'd encountered since leaving the main road. Claire's hopes rose. As they approached the welcome sight of the 'T' junction ahead, she exclaimed, "Look, Simon, there's a signpost!"

"Maybe it'll point to Dalby Edge," Simon said, almost with a prayer in his voice.

They'd set off that morning looking for the tiny moorland village where Claire's Aunt May had retired to, before dying and leaving her cottage to Claire. Claire had never seen it, in fact she hadn't seen much of Aunt May since she was a little girl, but as her only surviving relative, she supposed her aunt had no-one else to leave her property to. At first the drive had been pleasant with the pair in good humor, but as they'd ventured further off the beaten track and the towns and cities had given way to open moorland and the lush, green hills that dominated this part of the country, every country road began to look the same and even with the aid of a road atlas, it soon became evident that most of the minor roads on the moors weren't even featured in the selection of maps available to them. Road signs had grown fewer as the roads grew narrower and the earlier, good natured banter that the two had exchanged had turned to frustrated irritation, at least from Claire's perspective. Simon knew he'd taken the wrong turn two hours ago, but he just wished Claire wouldn't rub it in quite so much.

Simon slowed the car as they neared the stop line at the junction. As he drew the car to a halt, he suddenly exclaimed,

"That's strange."

"What is?" asked Claire.

"Well, look," he replied quickly, " There are two signs, one pointing right, one left, but only one has a name on it. The other one's blank. Fat lot of good that is!"

Simon's observation was quite correct. The tilted sign was one of those very old-fashioned country style signposts made of wood and painted in white, with black lettering, though both the white background and the black paint were well-worn and faded, the natural and slightly rotted surface of the wood beneath the paint showing through in places. Though the left-hand sign was eerily blank, the one pointing to the right could still be made out quite distinctly, despite its weather worn appearance. The sign read 'Bardley Magna, 3 miles.' Claire quickly consulted the AA road atlas she'd been clutching for the last fifty miles.

"Oh, that's just great," she exclaimed.

"What is?"

"Bardley bloody Magna, Simon clever dick. It's not even on the map, you numbskull; that's what's great. You get us lost, bring me up on the moors miles from anywhere and when we finally find a signpost, its to somewhere that's probably so small, no-one bothered to add it to the map of England."

"At least there'll be people there. You're never satisfied, Claire, that's your trouble. There's bound to be a shop or a pub or something like that. They'll probably be able to tell us how to get to Dalby Edge. For all we know, it could be the next village along the road from them,"

"Then why doesn't it say so on the signpost?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe the sign painter ran out of paint. It was just a suggestion."

"Right, well then, let's just get there, shall we?" she replied, and then fell silent.

Simon made the right turn and the road quickly narrowed to a single track. After negotiating a very tight, right hand bend, they began a descent down a fairly steep hill. At the bottom of the hill, the road again turned sharply, this time to the left, and then widened out again.

"Oh wow, would you just look at that!" exclaimed Claire. "I didn't expect anything like this."

"Me neither," admitted Simon.

As they passed a sign that read 'Bardley Magna,' they were stunned to find themselves entering what Claire thought could probably be the prettiest village she'd ever seen. The road they were on was obviously the main thoroughfare through the village, and was lined on both sided by beautiful, well aged trees of varying species. The grass verges from which the trees grew were pristine, well tended and mowed, not a weed in sight, and there wasn't the faintest sign of any litter to be seen. The houses, which sat back from the road, were all different, and all looked as if they'd been designed by an architect. They, too, were pristine, with beautifully maintained gardens, most with gravel driveways, superb exterior paintwork. Not a satellite dish in sight, though strangely, there wasn't a soul to be seen, not in the gardens, on the street, anywhere at all in fact. Simon drove slowly past the picturesque little church, though its doors looked locked, which was hardly surprising on a Saturday afternoon, except if there'd been a wedding taking place, which there obviously wasn't. He couldn't help noticing that, like the rest of the village, the churchyard was immaculate, every grave looked as though it were tended with loving care. The pathway from the gate to the church looked free of weeds, and there wasn't a single hairline crack to be seen in its flagstones. Simon surprised himself by the sheer amount of input his mind absorbed from this slow drive through the village. He didn't normally notice things quite so acutely, but there was something about Bardley Magna that he found strangely compelling!

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