Summer of Love

by Christina Jones

  When it was over I simply smiled at him, shaking, applauding with everyone else, then Solstice moved on to their slow, smoochy numbers and I sat, transfixed. My world had been tumbled upside down. Everything had changed. All the things that I’d taken for granted had been turned on their head. Nothing would ever be the same again.

  All too soon it was over. The Corn Exchange audience roared for more, and Solstice gave them a quick encore, then it was a frantic dash to clear everything away and load the van. There was no time to speak to Lewis, only a moment to give him a hug and the briefest of kisses and ask unspoken questions with my eyes. I was furiously jealous of the dozens of giggling girls who hung around as we were clearing up, all flirting and asking silly questions, and writing their addresses and some phone numbers on bits of paper.

  Eventually, after umpteen trips backwards and forwards, our arms loaded with gear, the van was packed, and my head still reverberated with the echoes of the songs. Berry and Gus and Vin had to be prised away from three of the local girls who had along with several others, rather childishly I thought, scrawled their names and messages of undying love all over the transit in lipstick.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Jez said in delight, waving a fistful of pound notes as we all scrambled into the van and slammed the doors. ‘They even paid us a bonus – and they want us back and I’ve got half a dozen other contacts who want bookings in the next month – and I think, just think, we might be on our way.’

  He roared the transit into life, turned up the radio and we zoomed away from Cheltenham.

  ‘Told you Clemmie would bring us good luck, didn’t I?’ Gus’s voice was hoarse. ‘We won’t be able to go anywhere without her now.’

  ‘Lewis won’t anyway,’ Berry laughed. ‘They’re joined at the hip. Which leaves all those girls free for us! Did you see the redhead in the white dress? Wow!’

  ‘She fancied me, not you!’ Vin croaked. ‘And I’ve got her phone number!’

  ‘No way!’ Gus interrupted. ‘They all fancied me because I’m the singer!’

  They were all as high as kites. Buzzing with adrenaline and success. I was much the same. I’d never known life could be so wonderful, so different, so exciting. Even if it wasn’t going to last.

  ‘So …’ Lewis tightened his arms around me. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘It was amazing. The most amazing night of my life … Thank you … Oh, and – and for “Make It Easy On Yourself”. It was … It was …’

  ‘It’ll be our song from now on,’ Lewis kissed my throat in the darkness as the van rocked, speeding away from the town and into the countryside. ‘Not that we’re ever going to break up, are we?’

  ‘Never, ever.’ I pressed my cheek against his chest in the darkness. The radio was playing Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’. ‘I think I must be the luckiest and happiest person in the entire world tonight.’

  ‘Joint luckiest and happiest,’ Lewis turned my face to his and kissed me. ‘We’re going to be just great together.’

  I gave a huge sigh of relief. He still wanted to see me. Even though we were oceans apart in just about every way possible. Whatever he said, it wouldn’t last, of course. It couldn’t possibly work out. But tonight I wasn’t going to think of the maybes. Tonight I was just going to enjoy every minute. And I’d enjoy every minute until the minutes ended and then my heart would break.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever sleep tonight,’ I murmured. ‘Right now, I feel as though I’ll never sleep again.’

  Lewis laughed softly. ‘Great, isn’t it? A million times better than swotting to be a doctor anyway – and I hate to say this, but you’re going to be mighty tired for your first day at work.’

  I shook my head happily, feeling his hair silky on my skin. ‘Oh, I’ll just have to try to calm down. I’ll make a milky drink when I get home and read something boring like my RE notes – they’re better than any sleeping pills. Don’t worry, I’ll be OK after a night’s sleep.’

  ‘There’s not much of the night left, Clemmie. We’re nowhere near Ashcote yet, and it’s already half-past two.’

  ‘Drop me here, please,’ I said, my heart in my boots as Jez eventually steered the transit through the dark shadows of Ashcote’s main road. ‘This’ll be fine.’

  It was nearly half past three in the morning. I couldn’t go all the way back to Honeydew to collect my bike then cycle home. It’d have to wait.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lewis wouldn’t let me go. ‘It’s dark. This can’t be where you live and – look, I know you said your parents were OK about you coming with us, but none of us thought we’d be this late. Will they be waiting up for you? I think I ought to come with you and explain.’

  ‘No, no.’ I shook my head quickly. ‘No, they won’t be waiting up for me. It’ll be fine.’

  Oh, what a tangled web I’d woven!

  ‘Well, at least let us drop you at your door.’ Lewis looked concerned. ‘We can’t just leave you here in the pitch dark. There aren’t any street lights or anything.’

  ‘I’ll be home in a couple of ticks from here,’ I fumbled with the door catch. ‘The village is as safe as houses – ah!’ I opened the door, kissed Lewis briefly, said goodnight to the others, and jumped out on to the road.

  ‘But, when will I see you again?’ Lewis leaned from the van. ‘I don’t know where you live, you’re not on the phone – Clemmie, please …’

  ‘I’ll get in touch tomorrow – um – later today. At Honeydew. And thank you so much for tonight. For everything. I’ll never, ever forget it. Goodnight.’

  And not looking back, I ran through Ashcote’s darkness. In half an hour the dawn would start to streak the sky with light. I just prayed and prayed that Mum and Dad would be in bed.

  They weren’t. All the lights were on. I pushed the back door open, feeling like a criminal. All the wonderful, heady excitement of the evening had evaporated. They were sitting at the kitchen table, still fully dressed. Mum was crying, Dad just looked exhausted.

  I felt bitterly ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late …’

  They jumped up, shouting at the same time, upset and angry. I said nothing.

  Their words tumbled over themselves: they’d been to Jenny’s, they knew I hadn’t been there on either night; Dawn hadn’t seen me; not even Paula had any idea where I’d gone. Then there were loud accusations of telling lies, of worrying them to death; they’d scoured the village when I hadn’t come home by midnight and they’d discovered my bike was gone. Then came the tears and the we’ve done everything for you, trusted you, given up so much …

  It was awful. Truly awful. I knew I deserved every bit of it.

  ‘Look – I’m so sorry – I got delayed. I know you’re upset – I knew you’d be worried but I couldn’t let you know I was going to be late. But I’m OK. Really.’

  Dad was more angry than I’d ever seen him in my life. ‘And how were we supposed to know that? We thought you were dead! We imagined all sorts of things! Where the hell have you been?’

  Mum just burst into noisy tears again. I wanted to cuddle her but thought she’d push me away and I couldn’t bear it. I hated them being so angry with me. They’d never ever been really cross with me before, at least not at the same time – I’d spent seventeen years with the best and kindest parents in the world – and simply by doing something a little bit foolish that had made me happy I’d reduced them to this state of distraught fury.

  But I knew I couldn’t tell them where I’d been. If I told them then they’d forbid me from ever seeing Lewis again. I just shook my head, blinking away my own tears. ‘I went out … with some friends … I needed to have a break from studying. I’m really, really sorry.’

  ‘Sorry isn’t good enough! What friends? Why weren’t you revising? Where have you been until this time of night? Dear God –’ Mum dabbed at her eyes. ‘You haven’t been with Nick Rayner, have you?’

  Again, I said nothing. I really wanted to laugh and say that Nick Rayner was the last bloke on ear
th I’d stay out half the night for, and that I’d spent the last two evenings in the company of the only boy I’d ever love, who just happened to be an ex-Oxford undergrad and whose father was a neurosurgeon – but I knew that they’d think I was mocking them.

  ‘She has!’ Dad jumped to the same conclusion, clearly taking my silence as an admission of guilt. ‘Oh, Clemmie! How could you do this to us? After everything we’ve taught you? Warned you about? What on earth possessed you …?’

  I sniffed back my tears. This was terrible. ‘All I can say is sorry. I would have let you know where I was, but without a phone and –’

  ‘But two nights on the trot!’ Dad roared. ‘You’ve lied to us, Clemmie! Deliberate lies! Why on earth would you do that? We trusted you – and this must never happen again. Understand?’

  I nodded. I felt bone tired. I just wanted to curl up in bed and pull the eiderdown over my head and make all this go away.

  ‘You’ve let us down,’ Mum had stopped crying which was a blessing. ‘That’s what you’ve done. We had such great hopes for you – you were going to be different, going away to university, having a chance … now you’re no better than Paula!’

  ‘Oh, Mum, please don’t say things like that! Yes, I’ve worried you and upset you tonight – but I’m still going to university. I’m still the same person and yes, OK, I know I was thoughtless and stupid – but I haven’t murdered anyone, or done anything wrong. I was just enjoying myself and being a bit selfish and silly. I’m safe and I’m home and it won’t happen again, I promise. Now, please, please can we just go to bed? You must be exhausted and I’ve got to start at Sheldon Busby’s in about three hours’ time.’

  For a moment they looked as though Sheldon Busby’s was the last place I’d be going, but perhaps they thought that I’d be out of Nick Rayner’s clutches behind a shop counter. I didn’t even hang around to say goodnight properly, but with a further flurry of mumbled apologies, flew out of the kitchen.

  ‘One more thing, Clemmie!’ Dad’s voice bellowed along the hall. ‘You’re not to see that Rayner yob again, understood?’

  I paused at the bottom of the stairs. If I hadn’t felt so deflated and awful I’d have probably smiled. Still, at least this time I wouldn’t have to lie to anyone. ‘Yes, Dad. I promise I’ll never, ever go out with Nick Rayner again.’

  Starting a new job while half-asleep and mind-blowingly in love was not to be recommended. Fortunately, it was Paula’s Saturday off so I didn’t have her asking probing questions all day. Sheldon Busby’s was enough of an ordeal as it was. I’d pulled on my jeans and the black and silver shirt and let my hair hang loose as there was no time before catching the bus to do anything with it. My eyes were gritty, my head ached, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a dark corner and go to sleep.

  Mr Smithson was very kind, as were Julie and Viv, the other two Saturday assistants who made up the staff with four full-timers. They showed me how to work the till, how to place the records on the turntables for the listening booths, and how to find the index numbers of the LPs when customers brought the empty sleeves to the counter and slip the right record inside.

  I tried to remember everything. ‘What if it’s a record we haven’t got?’

  ‘If you get asked for something you can’t find,’ Mr Smithson said, ‘you look it up in these reference folders. A lot of records are old and no longer easily available, or perhaps foreign imports not generally released over here, but we can order them. Never turn a customer away. Always make a sale. You’ll soon get the hang of it. Go on, try it out …’

  Of course I tried it out on ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’. I’d already decided that it would be the very first thing I’d buy with my wages. And I’d play it over and over and over again.

  ‘Oh! It’s not listed – not as a single any more – only on an LP – and –’ The disappointment swamped me. ‘It costs – oh, and look how much it costs to order it!’

  Mr Smithson laughed. ‘When people want a record for their collection the cost is usually immaterial. Anyway, you seem to have picked that up quickly. Clever girl – I do hope you’ll enjoy working here.’

  I did. It was frantically busy, and hard work, and the morning flew by. I was tired, and missing Lewis, and felt guilty about upsetting my parents, and worried about the RE exam – but it was great to be meeting people, listening to music all day long, and knowing that I’d be paid at half past five. But more than any of that I was reliving, over and over, the previous night in my head. Every detail, every word, every touch, every kiss. It was bliss.

  By lunch time I’d lost track of the number of people who had come in to listen to and then buy ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’. It was number one that week and I felt that the words would be branded on my brain until I died.

  ‘Can we listen to “The Ballad of John and Yoko” by –’

  ‘John Lennon,’ I finished for what seemed like the millionth time, without looking up. ‘Yes, hold on … um – booth number 4 will be free in a moment – oh!’

  Jenny and Dawn were grinning at me from the other side of the counter.

  ‘We don’t really want to buy it,’ Jenny said. ‘We’ve only come in to find out about you and Nick Rayner.’

  ‘Your mum was livid last night,’ Dawn’s eyes were wide with delight. ‘It was great.’

  ‘You look really, really rough,’ Jenny said with relish. ‘Which is all you deserve seeing as you dropped me right in it. Why didn’t you say you’d told them you were with me?’

  ‘I’m so sorry – I know I should have warned you, but there wasn’t time – and how was I know I’d be late and they’d check up on me?’

  ‘What was it like, though?’ Dawn clearly wasn’t bothered about the moral ethics involved. ‘What was he like? Where did you go? What did you do? Are you seeing him again?’

  I tried, and failed, to stop myself from smiling. They completely misinterpreted the smile.

  ‘Oh!’ Jenny practically stamped her foot. ‘Oh, it’s not fair!’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been out with him!’ Dawn groaned. ‘You are soooo lucky!’

  From the corner of my eye I could see Mr Smithson watching me, so I plonked John and Yoko on the turntable and ushered Jenny and Dawn towards booth 4. ‘Go on, I can’t talk now – I’ll lose my job. Maybe I’ll see you later.’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Can’t. We’re doing revision all weekend. I suppose you’ve finished yours?’

  ‘Not really.’ That was an understatement! ‘I’m going to get stuck into it tonight and do nothing else for the next couple of days. Still, once Tuesday is over we’ll have more time to catch up.’

  ‘Yeah, then we’ll want all the sordid details. You are such a sly maggot, Clemmie Long! I’d much rather have been with Nick than reading about the industrial revolution.’ Dawn, whose history exam was on Tuesday morning too, looked pea-green with envy.

  Jenny nodded. ‘At least we’ll have a bit of breathing space after Tuesday – until the second RE paper the next week – and yucky History of Art.’

  ‘Clemmie! There are a lot of people still waiting to be served!’ Mr Smithson’s voice bellowed across the top of Marmalade’s ‘Baby Make it Soon’. ‘And you’ve still got an hour until your break! Come along! Chop-chop!’

  By quarter past five I thought I’d fall asleep on my aching feet. I had never been so tired in my life. I had an evening of revision to face but all I wanted to do was sleep, after I’d seen Lewis, of course.

  ‘Clemmie – there’s a gentleman asking about an out-of-press record,’ Mr Smithson called along the counter just as we were closing. ‘Can you look it up for him, please?’

  Wearily, easing my feet behind the counter, I reached for the folders. ‘Yes, certainly. What’s the title?’

  ‘“Make It Easy On Yourself”, of course.’

  I looked up straight into Lewis’s blue eyes. Well, almost. Most of his face was hidden behind a huge bunch of turquoise carna
tions.

  ‘Oh …’ I was almost overcome by the rush of love I felt for him.

  He laughed gently, handing me the flowers. ‘Yes, I feel a bit like that, too. These are for you – I thought they’d match your eyes. There’s a shop in the market that dyes them every colour under the sun.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I bit my lip and blinked back the tears. Crying would be very childish. ‘They’re gorgeous – and no one has ever bought me flowers before, not even ordinary ones, and these aren’t and – and oh, thank you …’

  ‘You can get away now, Clemmie,’ Mr Smithson was beaming. ‘You’ve done really well today. Here’s your money, my dear, and thank you. I hope you and your young man have a lovely evening.’

  I think I floated out of the shop. Outside, it was noisy and stiflingly hot; the heat from the late afternoon sun beating down to meet the fumes of the busy street rushing up. Just like ‘Summer in the City’.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind roughing it in the transit,’ Lewis took my flower-free hand and pulled me towards him and kissed me. ‘I would have collected you in my car but Berry’s borrowed it – again – as his brakes have gone – again – so I’ve pinched the van from Jez. I knew you’d be tired and I thought you should be chauffeured home in style.’

  And I was. And I much preferred travelling in Solstice’s van than in Lewis’s car, I decided. I’d guessed on the day we met that he had a car. They must all have cars. They were so rich and privileged that having cars was an accepted part of their lifestyle. I didn’t tell him that very few people in our street owned a car. That Dad, with a horror of buying things on hire purchase, had worked overtime to save for a car for years, but that the car fund had become my university fund two years ago. The social gulf between us was wide enough. It didn’t need added illustration.

  All tiredness forgotten, I sat in the front seat of the transit, my feet up on the dashboard, the flowers in my lap, and my hand under Lewis’s on the steering wheel.

  He asked me if my parents had been angry at my late return, and I lied again, so easily, and said no. He asked me if I was OK about my RE exam and if my revision was on schedule. I lied and said yes. He told me that Jez had spent all day phoning the people who had shown interest in Solstice the night before, as well as contacting other venues across the country, and that firm bookings were coming in thick and fast.