The other fella looked older than Dave, not much but a bit, and he weren't as buff as him. I thought I might've made it up then I heard someone call him that one day so that must be how I knew in the first place. I weren't like a stalker or anything but you sort of get to know people when you're around them a bit, don't you? I can't even remember how I found out his name was Dave, it just sort of appeared in my brain. I saw him round now and then, especially after I got moved up the nice end full time. You alright? he asked, and I sat there bollock deep in that muddy water thinking you fucking blind prick but I gave him two thumbs up til he smiled a bit and wandered back inside. And Dave come out his cabin then in one of them old bastard cashmere cardigans he wears and stood there leaning against the door frame with his cuppa, looking at me like I was something foreign in the zoo. My leg just ran away with itself, I stepped funny on the grass and went flying down the hill flailing like Eddie the fucking Eagle, landed right on my arse in this puddle about the size of Windermere. Well, it had been raining and I'm a clumsy fucker at the best of times so obviously down I went in the mud. Fewer beer cans and pools of sick up there, just had to do a bit of garden pruning and fix shit and wash windows when people were out, stuff like that.

I mean, it wasn't really, it was the same thing, but he worked up the end with the cabins where people seemed a bit nicer behaved.

Anyway, my best mate Maffers got me the job and I took his shift this one time on my day off cos his girlfriend got them tickets for the footy. I dunno why you'd come to a nice place like this just to leave crisp packets all tangled up in the grass when there's like flowers and rabbits and stuff, it's just weird and rude. It was just after I started working at the campsite, cleaning up people's abandoned shit from the end with the tents. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely | DEDICATION

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When the Music Stops by John T. Fuller