Summer of Love

by Christina Jones

  ‘We’ve been offered our first ever professional gig in Cheltenham tomorrow night,’ Lewis explained. ‘Short notice, someone else dropped out – so we had to get together tonight for a final practice run – which is why we couldn’t go to the pub.’

  ‘This is much, much better than going to the pub,’ I assured him, perching on a straw bale. ‘Believe me.’

  Lewis leaned down and kissed me very gently on the lips. I stared into his eyes and kissed him very gently and tentatively back. I was shaking. My mouth was dry. It was wonderful … ‘You can be our critic,’ he said softly, touching my face then straightening up and walking towards the stage. ‘And you must be totally honest. If we’re awful tell us, please, before we go public. This is a much sooner debut than we’d planned, but if you think we’re OK then we’ll go for it.’

  I just nodded, hardly listening. I’d kissed him – and got it right!

  I hugged my knees, watching in complete bliss as Lewis picked up his guitar, and along with the others, made sure all the electrical connections were OK and the microphones working.

  When they started playing, as the first complex chords of The Moody Blues’ ‘Lovely to See You’ billowed through the barn and soared roaring into the rafters, with Gus’s strong voice sounding just like Justin Hayward and the others coming in in perfect close harmony, I was almost moved to tears. They not only looked wonderful, they sounded sensational. The music was loud, louder than any I’d ever heard, reverberating round the barn, and Lewis’s insistent bass guitar throbbed into my very soul.

  Beautiful song followed beautiful song. From tear-jerking ballads to hard rock, most of them were toe-tappingly familiar, being Solstice’s own interpretation of recent hits, but others were unknown to me, and I guessed they were the band’s own compositions. They were word and note perfect, and extremely talented musicians.

  ‘So …’ Lewis’s voice echoed eerily through the microphone as the beat still thundered in echo in my ears, ‘do you have any requests, Clemmie? A favourite song? Something you think will send them crazy in Cheltenham?’

  ‘Well,’ I knew I was blushing as they all looked down at me, ‘my favourite song of all time is “Make It Easy On Yourself” and I always wanted to buy the record but couldn’t afford it at the time and now you can’t get it – but I don’t suppose …’

  Solstice looked at one another and laughed. Lewis whistled. ‘Spooky! That’s one we’ve been rehearsing recently – we thought it would make a fab finale … so, just for you …’

  Vin’s drums dub-dub-dubbed into the familiar intro, while the guitars swept into the lush string melody, then, Lewis stepped up to the microphone …

  Now, all these years on, I can still remember the tingle that shivered up and down my spine. Sitting on the hammock swing and closing my eyes it’s as though a time machine has whisked me back through the years. I can still hear Lewis’s deep, perfect voice as he sang those first heartbreaking words …

  ‘Oh, breaking up is so very hard to do …’

  I keep my eyes shut very tightly. I can hear my parents laughing across the garden at something they’ve found in the paper, but they sound as though they’re miles away. Again, I’m transported back to that special time, that special summer, simply by the words of a song that is simply forever imprinted in my head and in my heart. I remember that I cried then, and stupidly I’m crying again now. The tears are sneaking from beneath my carefully mascared lashes. I really must get a grip; can’t let Mum and Dad see. They’ll wonder why on earth I should be crying on this happy day … I swallow and take a deep breath. Amazing the power music has on the emotions … especially that song. That song and the memories of Lewis and that forbidden summer …

  As the last thrumming chords died away, Lewis looked across at me from the stage and pulled a face. ‘So?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ I gulped back my tears. ‘Absolutely totally, wonderfully, brilliant.’

  The other boys laughed and looked pleased and pretty exhausted all at the same time. Lewis propped his guitar against a speaker column and jumped off the makeshift stage.

  ‘Do you think we’re good enough to grace the Corn Exchange in Cheltenham tomorrow night, then?’

  ‘More than good enough,’ I laughed. ‘They’ll think they’ve got a Top 20 group on stage!’

  ‘Which is, of course, what we’re aiming to be,’ Lewis sprawled beside me on the straw bale, and slid his arms round me. ‘And if we make it, my parents may just forgive me for lousing up my academic career.’

  The rest of the group joined us on the bales, passing round bottles of cider. I swigged at it along with the rest of them because I was hot and thirsty and because I wanted to. It was great – tasting of apples and honey and fizzed in my throat. It also made my head just slightly swimmy, and I giggled a lot and sang a very off-key version of ‘Good Morning Starshine’ but no one seemed to mind at all.

  All the talk was of music, of bands, of more music; the night air was sultry, warm and still, and through the open barn doors the sky was growing navy blue. It was summer in the Sixties and this was perfection. I had never been so happy in my entire life.

  They had one more rehearsal of some of the trickier numbers, and what with the music and the effect of the cider and being hopelessly in love with Lewis and the whole darn heady atmosphere, I forgot to be shy and danced uninhibitedly on my straw bale, singing along.

  ‘Clemmie’s going to have to come with us,’ Gus said as he pushed his mike back into the stand at the end of the session. ‘Tomorrow night. To Cheltenham. We’ve never played so well – Clemmie’ll have to be our mascot from now on. We can’t go without her.’

  Vin and Berry and Jez all whooped their agreement.

  ‘Will all your girlfriends go, too?’ I asked. It would be fun to make some new friends – meet girls who I hadn’t known all my life. Girls who could talk about something other than A-levels.

  ‘No – we’d have to lay on a bus,’ Jez laughed. ‘These boys are serially unfaithful. Playing the field, they like to call it. As for me – my girlfriend is at home in Bournemouth. I’ve been seeing her since we were at school. Now, Lewis here, he’d always said he was a field-player too. He was never going to fall into the lurve trap, although it seems as though you might have made him change his mind.’

  ‘Too right,’ Lewis jumped from the stage, hauled me to my feet, and swung me round. ‘From now on, Clemmie is definitely the only girl for me.’

  Being swirled round by him added to the dizzying effect of the cider, and I felt as though I was flying and clung on to him, my arms tightly round his neck.

  He pushed his face into my hair and his voice was muffled. ‘And of course she’s coming to Cheltenham with us tomorrow – or should I say, with me. Just with me. Aren’t you, Clemmie?’

  Of course, I should have said no. I should have said it was out of the question. I should have said it was lovely to be asked but maybe next time … I should have said there were only five days before the first RE A-level and I needed to revise. I should have said that going to Cheltenham on Friday night would make starting work at Sheldon Busby’s at half-past eight on Saturday morning pretty difficult. I should have said there was no way on earth that my parents would allow me to go.

  Those are the things I should have said.

  I thought about all those things I should have said as I sat on Lewis’s lap in the passenger seat of Solstice’s transit van, bundling along the roads between Ashcote and Cheltenham the next night. I was really glad I hadn’t said any of them. The radio was blaring from a single speaker perched on the dashboard: Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to Be Wild’. It seemed so appropriate. This was bliss and I was young and alive – and there had to be more to life than Ashcote and home and school and exams and studying, always studying …

  Mind you, I could have laughed at the appalling timing of it all. Shakespeare would have had a ball with the entire situation. It was all there: which wicked fate-fairy had deemed that I should meet th
e love of my life in the middle of the most important exams ever? Which benighted sprite had deemed that I should change in an instant from diligent swot to a teenager in love? Which accursed drowsy-potion had turned me overnight from a home-loving schoolgirl into a devious rock’n’roll groupie?

  If only I’d met Lewis after the A-levels then it would have been perfect – well, Mum and Dad would probably still have disapproved, but at least I’d have done my revision and taken my exams so he wouldn’t have been classed as a distraction – but it must have been fate, and it had happened when it did, and now I couldn’t and wouldn’t change a thing.

  Anyway, even if I had stayed at home I knew I wouldn’t have been able to revise because the only thing I thought about was Lewis. He had taken over every one of my senses; he invaded my sleep; I spent all day smiling just because I could see his face in my mind, hear his voice, remember the things he’d said, the way he made me feel …

  Mum and Dad had been pretty cross when I’d arrived home so late the night before. I’d felt terrible telling them that Jenny and I had been working hard on our revision notes, all the while trying not to giggle or grin too much or say something stupid because of the cider. And I hadn’t been able to sleep; all I could hear was Solstice’s wonderful music, and all I could think about was Lewis and the excitement he’d brought into my life. And yes, I’d felt guilty about lying to Mum and Dad, but it was only a tiny lie, wasn’t it?

  Once more using Jenny and the RE revision as an excuse, and foolishly promising to be home earlier, I’d hastily put on my make-up, worn my jeans and silver flip-flops again, this time with a filmy turquoise shirt, a jumble sale bargain, knotted at the waist, and met Lewis and the rest of the group at Honeydew at six o’clock. Having hidden my bike in the same place, I’d helped them load the equipment into the back of the dark blue van, feeling every inch the sort of rock chick I’d read about in Paula’s Rave magazine.

  I had no qualms at all about what I was doing. It was as if every romance I’d ever read, every adventure story I’d ever studied, had just leapt into wonderful, magical technicoloured life. I no longer had to live my Swinging Sixties vicariously through Paula and her tales – this was my moment – and it wasn’t hurting anyone, was it?

  ‘Sorry?’ I looked up at Lewis as the transit van swung round a corner. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I asked if your parents were OK with you coming out tonight?’ Lewis tightened his arms around my waist. ‘I mean, they probably think a jaunt like this will do you good before you start the rest of your exams, but maybe I should have met them, you know, explained that I’d take care of you and have you back in time for work in the morning.’

  I bit my lip. I was getting quite good at deception. ‘Oh, yes, they were fine about it – just fine.’

  Jez looked across from the driving seat. ‘If you hadn’t have come with us tonight I’d’ve probably had to play bass. Lewis certainly wouldn’t have gone without you.’

  Gus, Berry, and Vin, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench seat behind us, laughed. The radio was now blaring out The Foundations: ‘In The Bad, Bad Old Days’. We sang along with the chorus.

  ‘When did you all get together?’ I asked in a quieter moment while ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ played. ‘Have you known each other for ages, or did you answer an advert in Melody Maker or something?’

  ‘Nothing so romantic. We met at college,’ Lewis said. ‘We’d all joined one of the music clubs in the first year and formed Solstice initially just for fun, but none of us were particularly studious, and when we spent more time on the group than on lectures and tutorials, we decided to drop out and see if we had the talent to turn professional.’

  ‘Your parents must have gone mad.’ I shook my head, imagining what mine would have been like if I behaved in such a cavalier fashion with my academic future. ‘I mean, we’re so lucky, our generation, having opportunities to go to university and things that our parents never did. My dad drives a coach and my mum cleans at the local infant school and they’re just so proud that I’m going to college.’

  Lewis stroked my hair away from my face. ‘Yeah, I can understand that. It wasn’t quite like that for me – or for any of us really. Although my parents were furious that I wasn’t going to follow in the family footsteps and become a doctor.’

  My mouth went suddenly dry. Lewis’s parents were doctors? Doctors, like all professional people, were regarded in Ashcote as being way above mere mortals. I’d never known anyone whose parents were doctors or lawyers or clergymen or anything like that. They were way out of my league, and my heart was sinking fast, but I wasn’t going to show it.

  ‘Um – that’s nice – er – are they GPs? Er – locally?’

  ‘Mum is, Dad’s a neurosurgeon. Both in London. My brother and sister both studied medicine, too. I’m definitely the black sheep. We’re all in the same boat though. Berry was reading law – his Dad’s a QC, and Gus’s father is in parliament, so he was reading politics and economics and –’

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. I felt very stupid indeed. However much I pretended that it didn’t matter, Lewis and the rest of Solstice were way, way above me socially. Different class, different worlds. It mattered very much indeed. I groaned. How could I have ever thought that Lewis with his looks and his talents and his social background, would feel anything for someone like me?

  I had a sudden deep feeling of doom.

  I think I already knew the answer to the next question, but I had to ask it. Had to know. ‘Where were you at college? Which university?’

  ‘Oxford,’ Jez said, steering the transit into Cheltenham’s main street. ‘Dreaming spires, Commem Balls, punting on the Isis … Very swish, very privileged, and very, very boring.’

  I’d been right, of course. They were not only socially elite, they were the educational elite, too. And they were all wealthy enough for it not to matter at all that they’d thrown away the best educational opportunity the country could offer. I wanted to cry.

  ‘There’s the Corn Exchange,’ Vin leaned over my shoulder and pointed. ‘The organiser said if we went to the back entrance there’d be someone there to meet us.’

  ‘OK, Clemmie?’ Lewis looked at me. ‘You’ve suddenly gone very quiet.’

  I nodded quickly. ‘I’m fine. Really. Just a bit nervous, that’s all.’

  ‘Me too,’ Lewis exhaled as Jez snaked the van slowly up to a pair of battered green doors at the back of the Corn Exchange. ‘I think I’ve got stage fright …’

  He needn’t have worried. By the time Solstice had set up all their gear on stage, and Jez had fixed the speakers and the mikes and the swirling spotlights, and the compere, in his tuxedo, had whisked everyone up into a state of frenzy, it was like waiting for the start of a Rolling Stones concert.

  Backstage, amongst the guitar cases and the clothes and towels and bottles and the heaps of musical paraphernalia, Lewis had kissed me and held me tight. As I was getting quite good at the mechanics of kissing, I’d kissed him back. Then I whispered my good lucks and tiptoed down the steps in the gloom to sit in the dance hall, out of sight at the side of the stage.

  Beneath the multifaceted mirror-ball which rotated slowly in the ceiling, the Corn Exchange’s packed audience was sprinkled with glittering diamonds in the darkness. Ten-deep, they’d crammed to the front of the stage, and the atmosphere was electric.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ the compere screamed. ‘Tonight we have the biggest musical phenomenon on the planet! I know you can’t wait any longer – so you won’t have to! For the first time in Cheltenham – let’s hear it for – Solstice!’

  The curtains swished back as Vin gave a thunderous drum roll and the lights criss-crossed backwards and forwards across the stage. Lewis, Berry, and Gus, so tall and slim and gorgeous in their tight jeans and tie-dye T-shirts, stepped up to their microphones and roared into The Beatles’ version of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’.

  The girls, all dressed in hippie layers with flo
wers in their hair, or little Clodagh Rodgers mini dresses, screamed like banshees at the sight of so much sexy male beauty.

  I didn’t blame them. I sat in the darkness, totally mesmerised.

  Solstice were sensational. I stared at Lewis, playing his guitar and singing up on the stage, not quite believing that he was mine. Well, for tonight anyway. My hopes of forever had been dashed the moment I’d happily blurted out about my working-class background and ruined everything. But right now, that didn’t matter. If I never saw Lewis again after tonight, being here, being part of this, was worth every bit of heartbreak it would cause in the future. This moment, I knew, was something I’d remember for the rest of my life.

  They swept triumphantly from one superb song into the next, and the Corn Exchange rocked. I felt superbly smug, sitting there in the shadows, watching as the girls screamed and yelled and danced and preened in front of the stage. They could look all they wanted – but I’d be the one going home in the van.

  ‘Now we’re going to slow things down a bit for the end of the set to let you lovebirds have a smoochy dance or two,’ Gus’s voice echoed from the microphone, ‘and I’m going to hand over lead vocal to Lewis here on bass guitar. The song is “Make It Easy On Yourself” by The Walker Brothers, one of our favourites …’ he paused, laughing, as everyone roared their approval. ‘And obviously one of yours, too – which is just as well. And this one –’ he glanced across to where I was sitting, ‘I’ve been told, is just for Clemmie.’

  The lights dimmed, the arousing intro started, and Lewis stepped up to the microphone, strumming the bass line. His voice was deep, pure, and spine-tingling. His eyes never left mine. It was as if no one else was in the room. The words, heartbreakingly romantic, were simply from him to me. I sat and shivered, holding my hand over my mouth so as not to let any sound escape, and felt my eyes fill with tears. So this was love? Always and forever.