The Diary Of emma d may

Northern frights

Emma D. May
Saturday 27 September 1997 23:02 BST
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Sunday 12.01am: Madchester. Trips okay, but music dire - especially after we've driven six million miles from London. Handbag House pumping as drag queens sweat mascara. Everyone wants to leave, but can't find Anna.

2.30am: Find Anna shagging French exchange student in Gents. "Was not," says Anna, "he was helping me do my bra up."

3.30am: Can't find road to "The South". Dylan convinced he is driving a Big Mac, hence going v slowly to avoid leakage of gherkins, ketchup etc.

6.00am: Lost in Lancashire woods. Pull over to consult map and skin up.

10.30am: Everyone wakes up. Dylan tries to start engine, but flat battery owing to lights being left on for four hours.

10.50am: Spin Orange Hooch bottle in manner of adventurers lost in the desert. Hooch compass points across a muddy field. Everyone starts walking, except Anna, who is only wearing bra top and insists on hiding in car in case Lancashire mill owners try to ravish her. "You wish," says Vikram.

11.50am: Thank God. Blot on horizon turns out to be pub called The Slaughtered Lamb. File in, Day-Glo club-wear covered in mud, pupils like saucers. Inside, people stop talking, then stand up. They are not very friendly. Hit Dylan, who is about to ask for Lemonade Hooch. "Five pints of lager," I say, voice sounding horribly southern in the silence. "And may we have the use of your telephone?" Barman grunts, horribly. I'm shivering. Whole pub staring at Tinky Winky. Suddenly realise he is in full, false-eyelashed, mini-skirted, Madonna-tits drag. Feel sick.

11.55am: Barman speaks. "No lager here. No telephone either. Go back from where tha' came, you're not welcome in these parts," or something similarly scary and northern. "Bitter then?" asks Vikram. "Get thee away!" says the barman ominously. "We're expecting an important visitor." Every man in the pub laughs in sinister unison. He points to a life-sized portrait of Princess Diana by the door. Then he lowers his voice confidentially. "She'll be here at midday."

Dylan is freaking. They haven't heard. In their rural isolation they don't know that... Vikram clears his throat. "I'm terribly sorry to have to break the news to you, but Diana, Princess of Wales, is, erm, dead." Silence. Then more laughter. "We know that, lad," says the barman. We all look at each other, like moment of realisation in Scooby Doo. "Then, then... you're expecting a... a... ghost?" shrieks Dylan.

12.01pm: We run. Out and down the windy road back to Anna, left all alone in the woods. Tinky leaves his stilettoes in the bar, still standing there as if his feet are still in them. Laughter follows us.

12.40pm: Can't find Anna.

12.55pm: RAC van arrives, Anna piles out. "Want something doing properly, do it your bloody self," she is saying, loudly. RAC man has post-coital glow. She had got a lift, she says, from a woman who was passing. "She was seriously weird," says Anna. "Said she was on a mission to help people. I asked her for her business card or something, so we could thank her properly, and she gave me this... " Anna produces playing card. She doesn't need to turn it over. We know what it is. It's the Queen of Hearts. Dylan bursts into tears. "I am never never tripping again," he says. "At least, not in Lancashire."

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