Summer Madness

I am finally at my parent’s house when the heat of the summer sun hits it’s peak, July seventh. It should feel cooler than the desert I have just returned from, the desert where I bared my soul to fifty thousand people. The Americans know how to deal with the heat, but we don’t, and pushing forty degrees Celsius in rural Derbyshire of all places feels unbelonging. Planes were grounded in airports and I wondered if the tarmac was melting and then my makeup started dripping down my chin. I’ve got to get better at that. Separating myself, I mean.

I’ve been back for about a month. I’m going to be here for a few more days, maybe a few more weeks. Until this all blows over. Lately, I feel as though all the days are blending together and I’m reminded of lockdown and apocalyptic newsreaders and psychosis. Something about today, July seventh as I’ve said, feels different. Today the heat is as hot as the desert, though that heat only brushed against me shyly whilst I was transported from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned building. Until I was on stage of course, but I don’t remember that. Today, the radio told us to stay indoors. Today, I have a number one song in the United States of America.

It’s climbing the charts here too, but my managers don’t seem to care that everyone in my life has heard my brazen lament a dozen times, casually lowering the volume so they can exclaim that they know me to anyone that will listen. It starts playing on the radio in the kitchen and I reach to switch it over, to a general cry of dismay from my cousins, who mean well. A headache is starting just above my right temple. I released that song back in February, when I was wrapped up in second-hand scarves and hand-knitted gloves and I couldn’t pay my heating bill in London. Back then I wished every day for a bit of sunshine in the ever-perilous grey skies of the city. Until this time last month, I would guess that that earworm of a desperate song had been listened to by maybe two thousand people tops. I was meant to play an introductory stage next to a bar, under a canopy, at that festival in the desert. They last minute told me I’d be playing main stage.

After the midday sun has relented, I step outside for the first time in five days. Outdoors, the fields stretch out for miles in either direction, so flat that I used to convince myself that if I just squinted hard enough, I’d be able to see the next town over, just under twenty miles away. But the hazy horizon does exist no matter my concentration. My mother worries for the crops, but they seem just fine, awaiting the Harvest Moon. I pick some blackberries that burst from the bushes in the garden, the juice smearing. They’re sweet. They’re the sort of food I forget the taste of when I haven’t had them in my mouth for a while, the smell of them isn’t carried on the wind. In my childhood, hot days like today always brought the smell of something festering and rotten to the house like an unwanted invite. Something like that is on the breeze today. Illness and decay.

The heat is outrageous, the newsreaders really weren’t kidding. Suffocating in its severity. I’m sticky and sweaty, aware of the blackberry juice tinging my fingers violet. Still, I have to make this journey. The buzzing sound of insects whirs on. I walk to the edge of the north-west field, kicking up dust that makes me cough as I go. The sun blisters my back and I keep my head down. There won’t be shade until I reach where I need to be, and then yet the humidity won’t give me reprieve. I douse myself in half a bottle of water and continue.

When I reach the smattering of trees at the edge of my parent’s property, I sit down to tentative silence, other than my heavy breathing and the trickle of the nearby stream. Last night I saw a pair of eyes down here from my bedroom window, unmistakably. But I see no evidence of activity, no tent set up, no tripods or cameras or disturbances. I actually do have stalkers, you know, I’m not exaggerating that. They found my London flat, and they found the hospital my dad works at. One girl faked covid so she could ask my dad what my hair smelled like when I was a toddler. But I don’t think they’ll find me here. Until this all blows over.

In which case, what I saw last night was nothing. The tantalisingly worse option.

I pick myself up and make my way about a mile downstream where I know I’ll find final quiet. When I do, I don’t know how to ask for the chaos to stop. I stand knee-deep in the water, my legs shaking. I have burnt some of the skin around my sensitive thighs and they sting as I sink deeper into the water. The rocks beneath my feet are uneven, and I sometimes worry I’ll slip, but I know this place. I came here as a child when the world was loud, so that I could be louder. I can’t get the faces of those fifty thousand out of my head, they all morph together into a mono-crowd, chanting and chanting and chanting my own words, my own frivolous words. So, I do what I have always done. I sing. My voice has always been my own, regardless of the rest.

As I walk home, the sun disappears behind a cloud. I glance to the west, where dark clouds are gathering high above. I think I hear my own popstar voice on the wind as it turns to a strong gust, and then it’s gone. I breathe out as I hear thunder in the distance and a raindrop lands atop my nose, disappearing down my neck. When I get back to the house, I try to speak to my mother, who is thrilled at the rain. Nothing comes out.