Summer of Love

by Christina Jones

  I told her all of it then. The lies I’d told to absolutely everyone. And why.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she pulled a face. ‘Lewis is gaga about you. He wouldn’t care what your dad does for a job or where you lived or anything. Believe me, I know when a bloke’s in love – and he is – and as for the rest of it – I can’t believe you thought your mum and dad wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have, though. They would have even disapproved of Prince Charles asking me out during the exams.’ I groaned. ‘Oh God, Paula – I’ve really messed up my exams, and now they’ll blame Lewis and they’ll never like him, so I still can’t tell them about him and – oh, I’ve been such a fool.’

  ‘We’re all fools when it comes to love,’ Paula said, sounding about a hundred and ninety-three. ‘But yeah, probably best not to introduce Lewis to your parents yet then, just in case. And I’ll warn Dawn and Jenny to keep their mouths shut about him, too. Mind, you’ll probably sail through the exams anyway, but even if you don’t, you can take them again, can’t you? You can just start university a term late or something – don’t worry, Clem – you’ll be fine.’

  I nodded. I would be. The world was suddenly a wonderful, wonderful place.

  I skipped back into the shop, and sang along with ‘Oh Happy Day’. What a great song! And this was one of the happiest days of my life.

  When I got home after Sheldon Busby’s, Mum and Dad were just so delighted that I was feeling better and back to normal that they thought going for a bike ride sounded just the ticket. The bike ride, in the low, hot evening sun, took me – of course – to Honeydew.

  Lewis, wearing faded Levis and a white T-shirt, was sitting on the cobbles outside his cottage door, strumming the unplugged Rickenbacker, and didn’t hear me arrive. I just stood and gazed at him. I’d thought I’d never see him again. I loved him so much it hurt. I wanted to laugh and cry and turn cartwheels all at the same time.

  Carefully, I fish my sunglasses from under the cushions of the swing seat and cover my eyes. I’m going to cry again. Goodness – it has to be hormones or something! It’s just that on this oh-so-reminiscent morning, I can still see Lewis as he was that day. Those tattered jeans, his silky hair, his eyes, his smile … I remember so vividly the happiness I felt at that moment, and the sadness that followed … No – I sniff quickly in case Mum and Dad notice – I mustn’t think about it any more. I really mustn’t. In a very short time I must behave like a grown-up and go off to lunch with Mum and Dad, and of course I’ll smile and laugh … The memories mustn’t get in the way. Not today. I try to think about something else – but somehow, that very special moment insists on creeping in again …

  ‘Hello, Clemmie!’ Considering the expense, he chucked the guitar down with unseemly haste, and jumped to his feet. ‘Oh God – I’ve missed you so much!’

  He pulled me close to him and kissed me, and I knew it was going to be all right.

  In between holding each other and kissing and just being, well, in love, we managed to catch up on everything that had happened. I was almost truthful about the exams, not so truthful about my parents, and absolutely truthful about Paula. It was a start.

  Solstice, it appeared were going great guns, with bookings right up until the end of July. Lewis thought I should wear my school uniform for ever and ever and was most put out when I told him I intended to burn it. He was even more appalled when I told him I’d thought he was seeing Paula. We laughed a lot, talked a lot more, and kissed more than either.

  ‘And now we’ve got the rest of forever to be together,’ he said. ‘Life couldn’t be more beautiful.’

  The next few weeks of that scorching summer were absolute bliss. I worked at Sheldon Busby’s on Saturdays, and sometimes in the week, and picked fruit at Honeydew, too. My university fund grew in the post office; I’d bought some new clothes, as opposed to second-hand, and a pair of false eyelashes; my parents were happily planning a celebration party for when the exam results came out; Jenny and Dawn, primed by Paula, were pea-green about Lewis; my doubts about my A-levels started to recede, and life was truly love and peace perfect.

  Solstice were being booked all over the country, and I travelled to gigs with them in the transit whenever I could. As my parents still didn’t know that Lewis existed, I used all sorts of mythical new friends from work to explain away my late nights, and no longer felt guilty. My guilt had all been linked to school and skipping my revision: now it was over and I was free. And one day Mum and Dad would meet Lewis and love him as much as I did, I was sure of that. It was just a matter of timing …

  My most enduring memories of that time will always be sitting on Lewis’s lap, as the van rocked and rolled into unfamiliar towns; watching proudly from the side of the stage as Solstice wowed another audience; listening to the radio playing songs like ‘Bad Moon Rising’ or ‘Je T’Aime’ in the darkness on the way home. We’d stop off at transport cafes in the early hours, sharing tables with weary long-distance lorry drivers, drinking strong coffee from thick white mugs and eating fried egg sandwiches, with the echoes of the night’s performance ringing in our ears, laughing and planning our future.

  Sometimes Gus, Vin, and Berry brought their current girlfriends along too, but as they changed them as regularly as their socks, I never got to know any of them very well. Jez’s long-term girlfriend, Hazel, occasionally came up from Bournemouth and we formed a sort of youthful dowager aunt outfit, becoming very sniffy about these transient groupies.

  It was a wonderful, wonderful time to be young.

  The 1st July dawned, equally as scorching as flaming June had been. I was at Lewis’s cottage. I’d been fruit picking all morning and improving my suntan in my cut-off jeans and a skimpy vest top. Lewis and Gus were working on a batch of new songs. The television was on: Lewis had a colour set and to me, as we only had black and white at home, it was like being at the cinema. We’d just watched the Investiture of Prince Charles, looking so young and dashingly handsome, by the Queen in the sunshine at Caernarfon Castle.

  There was so much going on in 1969 … Funny, I thought, that in a couple of generations time this would all be history and schoolchildren would be learning about it and finding it quaintly old-fashioned.

  ‘We’re just going up to the barn to run through these,’ Lewis waved the sheaf of music scores at me and picked up the Rickenbacker. ‘Are you coming with us? Or is your nose still stuck in that book?’

  Lewis had bought me the new paperback version of Frenchman’s Creek the previous weekend and I was really hooked on Dona’s spirited love affair and adventures. ‘I’ll be over in a bit. I’ve nearly finished and I want to find out how it ends.’

  ‘I knew it would happen. I knew you’d soon lose interest in me,’ Lewis laughed and kissed me. ‘See you later then – if you can tear yourself away.’

  I threw a cushion at him, then stretched out on the sofa, with the doors and windows wide open to the drowsy heat, and lost myself in the story.

  ‘Noooo!’ I reached the end, and hurled the book down in disgust. ‘How could she bear to do that? How could she go back to that boring, pompous prig? How could she leave her dashing pirate and –’

  ‘Lewis?’ A rather high-pitched voice coo-eed from the courtyard. ‘Are you at home?’

  I didn’t even have time to scramble from the sofa before Mr and Mrs Hawton-Ledley, Jess and Henry, Lewis’s godparents, were inside the cottage.

  ‘We’ve got a little surprise for you – oh!’ Mrs Hawton-Ledley peered at me. ‘Who the devil are you?’

  ‘I didn’t know Lewis had staff!’ Mr Hawton-Ledley guffawed.

  ‘Aren’t you one of the village girls?’ Mrs Hawton-Ledley asked. She pronounced it ‘gels’ and I wanted to laugh. ‘What are you doing here? It’s private property, you know.’

  ‘What’s going on in here – oh, I say!’ A very elegant middle-aged man in a sports shirt and flannels was laughing over Mrs Hawton-Ledley’s shoulder. ‘Hello, my dear. Are you a chum of my s
on’s? I’m Jonty Coleman-Beck. Lewis’s father.’

  Completely panic-stricken at being in the company of a doctor – and a London brain surgeon at that – who just happened to also be Lewis’s father, I made a sort of babbling noise. ‘Er – hello … I’m Clemmie – um – Clementine Long.’

  Mr Coleman-Beck laughed. ‘Then Lewis has clearly inherited my impeccable taste. Lovely to meet you at last, Clemmie. He’s told us so much about you – Lydia will be furious that she’s missed you.’

  Lydia, I guessed was Lewis’s mother, and I thanked the Lord that she wasn’t there too. It was like something out of Monty Python – of course they would be called Jonty and Lydia – my mum and dad were Frank and Jean.

  Still stunned to think that Lewis’s parents knew about me while mine knew nothing about him, I slid from the sofa. Very aware that I was far too skimpily dressed to be ‘meeting the folks’ for the first time, I muttered my hellos, shook hands all round, thought I really should curtsy, and sort of explained to the Hawton-Ledleys that Lewis and I were – um – friends, and that he was in the barn rehearsing some new songs and maybe they’d like to pop across and see him there.

  Mr and Mrs Hawton-Ledley snorted down their aristocratic noses like two cart-horses and declined, but Jonty Coleman-Beck beamed with enthusiasm. He was so much like an older version of Lewis that I felt a bit more at ease. If I could just forget his elevated career status and his preposterously well-bred voice, I might even like him …

  ‘Lead on then, my dear. I do want to see what that wastrel has done with all the money we’ve thrown at him. And if he doesn’t turn into the next Mick Jagger after giving up Oxford then I’ll disinherit him!’

  Mr Coleman-Beck strode across the courtyard to the barn, with me trotting nervously alongside. I wished I could have forewarned Lewis – but I needn’t have worried. The father and son reunion was joyous. I was impressed at the easy-going relationship Lewis clearly had with his father. And even more impressed with the pride in his voice when he introduced me.

  ‘Far too late,’ Jonty roared with laughter. ‘We already know all about one another, don’t we, Clemmie? Not only did you not do her justice when you told us about her, but she’s far too good for you, my boy. Your mother is going to adore her. But just in case you thought this visit was entirely social, there is something I need to discuss with you, so if you put down that overpriced banjo I’ll treat you both to a rather late lunch or very early dinner.’

  ‘Great, thanks, but now you’re here you’ve got to hear what you’ve funded. Just tell me what you think of this …’

  Lewis jumped back on to the stage, picked up the Rickenbacker, and Solstice thundered into one of Gus and Lewis’s new songs. It was foot-tapping, catchy, and very, very sexy. There were also, if you listened carefully, those few jaunty opening bars of ‘Oh My Darling, Clementine’, interspersed among the rock riffs. Blushing, I bit back a smile and stared at the dusty floor before sneaking a quick look at Jonty.

  He was grinning hugely, clapping his hands, and stamping his feet. When it was over he gave a long whistle of approval. ‘Bravo! Encore! Splendid stuff! And all inspired by this young lady, I’ll be bound! Not as classy as Matt Munro, of course, but pretty damn good. Now I must just have a word with the other long-haired layabouts …’

  Jonty rushed over to chat animatedly with the rest of the group and Lewis and I exchanged conspiratorial grins across the barn. It was going to be OK and Jonty was, of course, wonderful if slightly exhausting in his exuberance. But meeting him only illustrated again the massive gulf between Lewis’s upbringing and my own …

  We eventually went off to eat in a new restaurant on the outskirts of Reading. I wore one of Lewis’s soft denim shirts as a dress because there was no way on earth I could be seen in public in my shorts and vest. We roared away from Honeydew in Jonty’s Jag – he had a Jag, naturally – and I wondered just how long it would take Mr and Mrs Hawton-Ledley to spread the word about me and Lewis round Ashcote.

  Maybe it was high time that I introduced Lewis to Mum and Dad. And if I introduced them at the party after the exam results then there would be no recriminations, would there?

  I voiced this over lunch. This was because I was far, far too nervous to eat. It was the first time I’d been into a proper restaurant for a meal. We simply didn’t go out for meals. Mum and I sometimes had lunch in the Cadena when we shopped in Reading, but that was it. And as I was now faced with a plate of lobster thermidor ordered by Jonty, umpteen knives and forks, and two waiters hovering far too close, talking seemed preferable to eating.

  I also thought that if I could see how Lewis tackled his lobster, then I’d know where to start. And I vowed to eat it even if I didn’t like it. I liked fish – it couldn’t be that different, could it? I just wished it didn’t look quite so – well – whole …

  ‘My parents are going to throw a little party when the A-Level results come out in August.’ I played with my bread roll. ‘Well, not on their own of course, but with a few of the other parents – in the village hall.’

  ‘That sounds like fun.’ Lewis winked at me across the table, still not touching his lobster. ‘And will you all be in your school uniforms?’

  ‘Oh, definitely.’

  ‘Then count me in. In fact, count Solstice in – we’ll provide the entertainment.’

  I was just about to say that would be just perfect when Jonty got to grips with the lobster’s claws and a pair of nutcrackery things. I winced and pushed my plate away.

  ‘Sorry to spoil your plans, then,’ Jonty munched happily. ‘But this was the reason for my visit. There’s not much point in having friends in high places if you can’t use them – and Eric, one of my old college chums, has a night-club or three in West Germany. Well, after The Beatles, British groups are all the rage over there and he’s invested his money well – and he says if you’re any good he’ll give you a stint. Top of the bill. Excellent money.’

  Lewis grinned. ‘That sounds great – wow, Germany! A lot of bands got their big breaks out there. So when would it be? And how long for?’

  ‘There’s the rub,’ Jonty demolished a second claw. ‘He’d want you out there at the beginning of August for a three-month residency.’

  Three months! I couldn’t be without Lewis for three months!

  Lewis shook his head. ‘But that would mean not being back here until the end of October and Clemmie would be going up to Durham by the end of September and –’

  Jonty laughed. ‘Oh, the pangs of young love! Don’t be so silly, you’re far too young to give up everything; you’ve both got your entire futures ahead of you. You’ll have to go your separate ways and meet up when you can … Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.’ He munched happily through another few mouthfuls of lobster. ‘Anyway, Lewis, have a chat to the other boys, but I’ll need to know by the end of the week. Eric won’t wait any longer than that – he’ll book someone else in and you’ll have lost your big chance. He’s got a lot of friends in the recording industry too; they’re always out there scouting round for fresh talent.’

  I felt sick. Lewis had to go. I knew that. It was the break Solstice had been waiting for. But, oh, why now? We’d already talked about how we’d cope with being apart when I went to university – but that seemed ages away. We’d at least have the summer together … Now we’d only got a few weeks left, then he’d be in Germany and I’d be in Durham and it was nowhere near enough.

  ‘Aren’t either of you going to eat your lobsters?’ Jonty raised his eyebrows. ‘Too much in love to eat, are we? Oh, I remember it well! Lydia and I used to pine dreadfully. Still, I hate to see food go to waste – shove ’em over here, then Clemmie.’

  Once Jonty had demolished all the lobsters, leaving a carnage of shells, and Lewis and I had picked at the salad and pushed a gooey trifle around our plates, we all whizzed back to Honeydew. And of course, Solstice agreed to go to Germany. There was no other choice to make.

  The pending tr
ip to Germany put a real dampener on our otherwise blissful summer.

  I worried myself sick that Lewis would meet someone else while he was away. I’d seen how the girls threw themselves at the band everywhere we went – the transit was now so covered with lipstick messages of love that you couldn’t tell what colour it had once been – and Lewis was only human and far too good-looking, and – I tried to push it all out of my mind.

  We simply had to make the most of the few weeks we had left.

  ‘We’re on a countdown,’ Lewis said gloomily, ‘like the Apollo mission.’

  I sighed. Lewis might just as well be going to the moon. Without a phone I’d have to rely on letters and they’d probably take forever to arrive from Germany. I knew I’d write every day – but what if Lewis didn’t write back? What if he forgot all about me? What if … what if … what if …

  I voiced these fears to Paula the following Saturday. She was the only person I could talk to properly. We were rushing round Reading in our Sheldon Busby’s lunch-hour, diving in and out of dark, noisy boutiques, trying on clothes in places like Biba and Chelsea Girl.

  ‘It’ll be horrible for you,’ Paula said, posing in the entrance to the fitting room in a micro-mini dress of magenta psychedelic swirls, with a matching feather boa round her neck. ‘But if you really, really love one another it’ll be OK. I mean, you’re not going to look at any other boy while you’re at university, are you?’

  I stopped in the middle of tipping a big, floppy brimmed purple hat at different angles and looked at her indignantly. ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘Then why would Lewis look at other girls? Oh, come on Clemmie – he loves you, doesn’t he?’

  ‘So you say …’

  ‘You mean he hasn’t?’ Paula flicked at the feather boa. ‘He hasn’t told you?’

  ‘Not in words, no.’

  She grinned. ‘And have you told him?’

  ‘Of course not! I know the rules!’

  The boy had to say it first, of course. Everyone knew that.