Tales of the Jackalope - Kimberley Hall, Norfolk - 2-5/8/07
1/5
By: Christiana Spens
The lawn stretches downhill where the crowds are gathering and the clouds are gone from the stretching skies. The lake glistens below. The wristbands shimmer in the light. I'm at Tales of the Jackalope at Kimberly Hall, Norfolk, with the super amazing photographer Bella, who's wearing black leather shorts, a gold bag from Las Vegas and has blondie hair, and my little sister. We're dazed and wandering, gazing and slumbering with the ease of the breeze and the soundtrack of something vaguely punk.
The afternoon passes in the same vein of sunny serenity and quickly it is evening and all our people have arrived, including a bunch Bella knows from shoots and zines and bars and scenes and queens, obscene.
We drink rose, move onto vodka, visit the purple tent, the blue tent, the red and yellow tent and then go back to the beautiful house to get a little to eat. We walk up the grass, Kimberly Hall radiant - a colour somewhere in between rosé, peaches and cream. I have changed into a gold dress with a delicate pattern and dark patent platforms. Bella could have been in Blondie. Someone says we look like a Testino shot. We aren't posing or anything.
Inside we are offered some soup, but prefer the rosé because we're not really hungry. Someone tells me not to wear high heels at a festival because one day it will be the end of me - apparently they seem to think cocaine is fine. The sun outside the window tints the room with warm light. The music from outside taints the silence with something toxic.
And we want to hear more.
Somewhere along the line and in the next few hours we listen to The Fall (we had a ball), the Rumble Strips (I must confess, I had a kip... well at least I fell back into a hay-stack), These New Puritans, who were a sexy moody little show, melting the background into something noir and scattering downbeat beats into Norfolk's soundscape. Crowds die of joy as Dizzee Rascal does his set, and we dance and smile a little a while.
Lightspeed Champion were exciting and gloriously free-spirited and sardonic. The mellow playfulness was a little dream, though one of the band (no I'm not going to say whom... But let's just say, it wasn't a boy...) really should have worn a bra, was the general opinion. But their music is so delicately addictive, so adorable at parts, so lyrical and with a kind of passion like a sonnet, like a scrawled little love letter, lovers and clowns, voice and drums... Of all the bands that played they were my favourite, wistfully pretty, with undertones of gritty, violins sending the lyrics airborne. And me too!
We hear that Damian Hirst in around somewhere but I can't find him, much as I try.
When it gets to about 3am we find ourselves in the F**ked Up gig, in the middle of a brawl, knocked down to the dirty old ground gazing up at fights and the trysts and the big man smashing his head through something... Then the police turn up and take the mike and inform the restless mass that the show's over because the music's too loud, and with only a little protest the gig's f**ked up, too - but then that's what you'd expect I guess.
Bella and I go to the blue tent and dance for a while, but it's time for a drink or two, and to sit on a haystack and watch or ignore the glamorous people who walk by uber-stoned. The diet coke washes away the fatigue and numbs the cold breeze beginning to blow.
Earlier in the day, albeit when the sun was shining down from the middle of the sky, we decided that we should all go midnight swimming and take photographs - drenched glamour, smeared mascara, bathing in debauchery au natural. At 3 am when it's cold and dark, it doesn't seem so bright an idea, but just the thought of escaping to the beautiful pool in the secret garden is enough to awaken our romantic visions and send us tripping through the dark wild woods in that vague direction.
The same person who stole us a blanket also stole the spotlight of the moon with finesse. We all jump into the water which I thought would be freezing, but is actually pretty warm. The others think it's cold but I find it delicate and mellow and never want to leave. Someone is saying that "This is all so... spiritual..." Someone finds a little frog, we all kiss it, and Bella takes the photo, perched on the side of the pool in some lingerie and that adorable platinum bob.
We're all just innocently skinny-dipping when there's an unwanted entrance of two security guards. Did we invite them? No. No, no, no,
I start giggling and can't stop, and we're all laughing,
"Don't you want to join us?" I ask the younger one,
"No. I'm not allowed,"
"We won't tell... Come on in, you know you want to..."
"You're not allowed in the pool," says the other security man,
"Yes we are, we have special gold wristbands..." says Bella (I think),
"Do you all have wristbands?"
Little silence.
The sound of the water rippling and hushed laughing.
They talk to someone on their annoying little radio walkie-talkie thing. Then the security guard comes back and says that anyone not wearing a gold band has to leave pronto. I do have one, so am happy to frolic around in the water for ages, especially as the sun has risen and the day looks so pretty, and it doesn't feel cold at all.
But the others all get out. I continue swimming around.
Eventually I get told I have to stop swimming around and smoking cigarettes in the pool otherwise I'll be left alone all by myself and we wouldn't want that because you can't have a party all by yourself. So I get out and share a blanket (I think it was some kind of tapestry, super soft) and try to persuade the security man that as we're sharing a towel "Together, we have a wristband," but he says, "It doesn't work like that darlin'".
The pool looks so good... Just one more time... I jump back in and swim round just a little more, it's amazing... Then when the others start to leave I climb out again a little forlorn that it all has to end. I'm given a piggy-back through the woods and back to the Dance Tent.
Back in the house, we chill and dry by the open fire with a gin and tonic. I remember much later about the "Feather Dance" which must have been embarrassing, but it didn't feel that way at the time. I just remember dancing with two big red feathers to Blondie and all that other music for a couple hours as a few of us slumbered on the sofa in a little morning daze.
Bella miraculously finds a Security Walkie-Talkie Thing at this point which leads to a few hours of prank-calling the entire staff. We feel the desire to get revenge for them breaking up our little pool party. Then we sing them some Blondie and something eighties and some Christina Aguilera.
Then we listen to the real security people for a bit.
"Get off the f**king RADIO - You may find it funny, but I don't."
Bella starts choking on her gin from laughing and nearly dies because she stops breathing, because she has gin on the lungs. It's very serious.
Back in the tipi, I wonder if I'm dreaming for a while about the pool and the security and the dancing and Dizzee and the moon and it all, but I haven't slept yet. The morning is mellow, and I lie back on my leopard print mattress and sip water and notice the azure sky, a chink of which I can see at the top of the tipi, same colour as the new bruises that colour my legs, the blue dance tent and my friends eyes, I remember, as I close my own.
Photo top right copyright Bella Howard 2007
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment