Summer of Love

by Christina Jones

  ‘Nick and Lewis are totally different. You and Nick have known each other for ages, and Nick will work at the garage in Ashcote for ever and ever. Lewis is rich and from another world. We’ve not known each other very long. He’s just starting out on his career – and his parents will kill him if he fouls up on this as well as on Oxford. He won’t want to know.’

  ‘Tough,’ Paula shrugged. ‘It takes two to make a baby.’

  ‘But only one to be pregnant. It’s my fault. All mine. And I’ll deal with it alone, no one needs to know about it apart from you – and Mum and Dad, of course.’

  We stared at one another again. I knew I had to tell Mum and Dad. I’d tell them about the exam results first, and then about the baby. I knew exactly how they’d react. I knew exactly what they’d say. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do …

  It was far worse than I could ever have imagined.

  The tears, the pain, the accusations, the recriminations: I’d simply broken their hearts.

  They were as angry and as shocked as I’d known they would be. They treated me as I deserved to be treated. I’d been a cheap, silly, little fool. That about summed it up. I apologised over and over again but Mum and Dad were too distraught to listen. They hurled all the late nights, the absences, the lies – oh, so many lies – at me. I haltingly told them the truth, far too late, but I confessed everything except Lewis’s identity.

  They couldn’t even begin to believe the magnitude of my deceit. As I listened to myself, I wondered why I’d ever felt it necessary to tell so many untruths. Then came all the things I’d known there’d be: the ‘what will the neighbours think?’ and the ‘after all we’ve done for you’ and the ‘how could you let us down like this?’. In their anger, they called me some awful names. But worst of all was their genuine heartbreak that my university career and my entire future was ruined. That I’d ruined it myself in such a cavalier fashion.

  They also assumed that the baby was Nick’s and that it was because of my friendship with Paula that it had happened at all. They both came in for some unfairly harsh words. Of course I rigorously denied this. When I wouldn’t tell them who the father was, they then assumed that I didn’t know and were even more angry. I said nothing. White-faced, they blamed themselves, me, everyone else, then me again.

  The next few days were terrible. Now I knew I’d lost Lewis for good my heart was really breaking. I was horrified at what had happened to me. Frightened to death. And I was distraught at what I’d done to my parents. How could I have been so stupid?

  We barely spoke. The atmosphere at home was appalling.

  ‘You’ll have it adopted,’ Mum said about three days later, viciously preparing a salad in the kitchen while I sat at the table. It wasn’t a question. ‘And I suppose you could retake your A-Levels and see if Durham will want you next year.’

  Dad had just come home from work, and nodded. ‘It might be a way out of it, I suppose.’

  I swallowed. ‘I’m not having the baby adopted.’

  They both stared at me as if I was completely mad.

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not going into one of those homes and I’m keeping the baby. And if that means that I have to leave here, then I will. If you don’t want anything to do with me or your grandchild …’

  ‘Grandchild?’ Mum blinked at me.

  ‘Don’t try that on us, Clemmie. This isn’t our grandchild, for heaven’s sake! Grandchildren come along a decent interval after the wedding in this family! Don’t be so silly – you can’t keep it!’

  ‘I can and I am. And it is, you know. Your grandchild. Part of me. Part of you.’

  And part of Lewis, but I didn’t say so. And the reason why I’d never give up my baby. It would be the only tangible part of him I’d have left.

  I let them digest this in silence. It would break my heart to leave home, to have my baby alone, to try to manage as best I could, to bring it up without help – but I’d do it. I knew I would.

  I stood up. ‘I’m going upstairs. I don’t want any tea. When you’ve decided whether I can stay here or not to have the baby, I’ll come back down again and find out.’

  I flew into my bedroom and slammed the door. ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ drowned the sound of my tears.

  ‘Clemmie! Visitors!’ Dad appears in the kitchen doorway. ‘And very pretty they are too!’

  I scramble to my feet from the hammock swing, grinning. Dawn and Jenny rush down the garden path towards me and we all giggle and shriek excitedly as if we were children.

  We’ve never lost touch, and always celebrate high days and holidays together. Jenny has been married and divorced twice, has a son from each marriage, and teaches RE at an independent school on the outskirts of London. Dawn married a boy she met at university, is still happily in love, has three children, is a very proud and brand-new grandmother, and works for a bank in the Midlands.

  We admire one another, pretty sure that we’ve aged well and glamorously, and all talk at the same time, catching up on the gossip. Whenever we meet we’re still the same three girls who grew up together, went to school together, played together. Still friends. We never quite set the world on fire as we’d intended, but we’ve all been lucky with our lives.

  ‘I can’t wait for this lunch,’ Jenny says, patting her flat size-10 stomach. ‘I’m starving and I’ve heard good reports of this new restaurant. Who else is going to be there?’

  ‘The usual crowd … including Paula and Nick, of course,’ I say, laughing.

  Jenny and Dawn laugh too. Nick Rayner, the undesirable heartthrob of Ashcote, is now the owner of the Ashcote Garage, and quite a little gold mine it is, too. Nick is now plump and balding and is becoming an elder statesman of the village. No one would believe he was a black leather tearaway in his youth. He and Paula married in the early seventies and are still in love. They have four children, all of whom married young and have children of their own, all of whom still live in Ashcote. They are a huge and happy family. Paula, now the village postmistress, is round and mumsy and a million light-years away from the flirty nymphet of our teenage years.

  ‘Anyone else?’ Dawn asks. ‘Any nice men for Jenny?’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m not introducing Jenny to husband number three – I’m sure she’ll find him without my help. Anyway, there’ll be –’

  We’re interrupted by Louisa, my daughter, waving from the back door. Louisa. My only child. She’s thirty-four now. I still can’t believe it. She’s tall and slim and so beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Just like her father.

  ‘Mum! Cookery Nook are on the phone!’ Louisa runs down the path, waving her mobile. ‘They’re ready for us.’

  ‘Fine,’ I smile. ‘And are Granny and Granddad ready to go?’

  Lou and my parents adore one another. They always have done. From the minute she was born.

  She nods and grins. ‘And Granny’s wearing a really bad hat.’

  We exchange mock-horrified glances. Mum still likes to wear a hat for special occasions. Neither Lou nor I would be unkind enough to dissuade her from her notions.

  In the usual last-minute hoo-hah over making sure the door is locked, and that everyone has handbags and hankies and that the cars aren’t blocking the lane, I watch Louisa fuss round Mum and Dad. She’s a lovely girl – woman, I mean. We’re very close. And she’s just become engaged to Ben, who she works with in an Oxford book shop. I’m pleased. I like him enormously. He’ll be waiting at Cookery Nook with the rest of the party.

  Lou did everything I should have done: three excellent A-Level results followed by university, although not Durham, a career in book-selling which had been her ambition since she’d first learned to read, and, before Ben, plenty of boyfriends.

  Boyfriends … Lou’s had lots of boyfriends – but none of them, as far as I could judge, generating the white-hot passion and deep once-in-a-lifetime love that I’d shared with Lewis. Not even Ben. Lou and Ben are blissfully happy, and sure of their commitment to
one another, but they’ve never seemed to have that heady, giddy, pulse-thundering relationship that I’d had.

  Now I’m walking along Ashcote’s sleepy lanes again with my family and dearest friends towards Cookery Nook which has been built on the site of the old infants’ school where Mum was a cleaner. Everyone is talking non-stop. The sun spirals from a clear September sky and the verges are still head high with waving grasses and wild flowers. Nothing much has changed in Ashcote.

  Once Mum and Dad had realised that I was serious about keeping my baby, they did what everyone had said they would, and helped me far more than I deserved. For a while I’m sure they thought I’d change my mind and have it adopted, but until then they put on brave faces around the village, and made sure that if people made cruel remarks about my condition then they never reached my ears. Paula, too, was a tower of strength in those early months, always there for me, always on hand to listen. Even Mr Smithson in Sheldon Busby’s came up trumps. He said he saw no reason why I shouldn’t continue to work for as long as I was able.

  Which, of course, left Lewis …

  As everyone with any inkling of pop music will know, Solstice became one of the best-known and top-selling groups of the late 60s and early 70s – only going into decline with the arrival of the punk era.

  Lewis’s dream came true even if mine had bitten the dust in truly spectacular fashion. I smile again at the memories as I walk along, my arms linked through Jenny and Dawn’s – just as we had on our journeys to school a lifetime before.

  Remembered scents of dog roses and columbine and the sweet rich perfume of privet flowers hangs languorously on the air. Time slips away once more as I’m drawn back to the past …

  The autumn of 1969 was as glorious as the summer had been. Mum and Dad, although still not happy about my pregnancy, were beginning to accept its inevitability. They still knew nothing about Lewis, and when his letters arrived from Germany I read them and stored them unanswered in my dressing table drawer. Because I knew how Lewis would react, I decided simply not to tell him.

  I just stopped writing to him … no, that’s not true. I still wrote to him every day – long letters pouring out my heart and my love – but I never sent them, except for one brief one to say goodbye. It was for the best. There was no point in prolonging the agony.

  His letters to me became more and more anxious. He simply couldn’t believe that I’d stopped writing. That I didn’t want him any more. Neither could I. But it was the only way …

  Towards the end of October, when Solstice were due back from Germany, I was nearly five months pregnant. I was working full-time in Sheldon Busby’s and had discussed Lewis’s return with Paula over and over again.

  ‘He knows where you live,’ she said. ‘He’s bound to come round and see you. He’ll want to know what’s going on.’

  I shook my head. ‘He thinks I’m at university by now, doesn’t he? Anyway, I wrote and told him it was over and that I’d met someone else.’ It was the only letter I’d posted.

  Paula’s jaw dropped. ‘What? What on earth for?’

  ‘So that he can get on with his life and so that he doesn’t have to finish with me and so that he doesn’t feel obliged to –’

  ‘He loves you and you love him!’ Paula almost stamped her foot, making Mr Smithson frown along the counter.

  ‘You are so stupid!’

  ‘I know.’

  What other choice did I have? For the next couple of weeks I hurled myself into my work, even though everything about Sheldon Busby’s reminded me of Lewis. Again all the songs were poignant – none more so than the heartrending ‘Nobody’s Child’. Paula always turned it right down every time someone wanted to hear it. I still cried, though. Everything made me cry. How long ago it all seemed when life was just lovely, and I was playing at being Marianne Faithfull and never once considered the consequences.

  ‘Clemmie, there’s a problem with booth 4,’ Mr Smithson said. ‘Are you up to checking the speakers? Someone wants to listen to “Everybody’s Talkin’” and apparently can’t hear it. You can manage it, can’t you, my dear?’

  I nodded. Mr Smithson wanted to wrap me in cotton wool. He was lovely to me. I’d tried to explain that I was pregnant, not ill, and being young and healthy had never felt better. At least, not physically. But Mr Smithson seemed to think I should be at home with my feet up and not lift a finger.

  I tapped on the door of Booth 4 and walked in.

  ‘Hello.’ Lewis stood up from one of the stools and pushed the door shut behind me. ‘Now would you like to tell me what exactly is going on?’

  I stared at him. Oh, how I loved him! How I’d missed him! This was like a dream come true. I had to force myself to stand still and not hurl myself into his arms.

  Trying to stop myself from shaking, I took a deep breath. ‘I gather you don’t want to listen to Nilsson, then?’

  ‘No. What I want to know is why you stopped writing, why you’re not at university, why you’ve dumped me for someone else, why –?’

  I blinked back the tears. ‘Did Paula –?’

  He shrugged. His face was stony. ‘Paula came up to Honeydew, yes. She told me not to take any notice of the only letter you managed to send, and that you wanted to talk to me but that I mustn’t, under any circumstances, go to your house. So I didn’t, and here I am and I really think I’m owed some sort of explanation, don’t you?’

  I rubbed at my eyes, knowing my mascara would smudge and that I’d look like a panda. It didn’t matter. I simply stared at him. I’d missed him so much and I’d love him for ever but I had to let him go.

  ‘You know how it is …’

  ‘No I don’t!’ Lewis grabbed my shoulders. ‘I love you, Clemmie. I hated every minute of being in Germany, even though it’s probably made our career and we’ve got a recording contract and a tour and all sorts of stuff out of it. All I thought about was you. I missed you every second of every day and night. All I wanted was to come home and be with you. I thought you felt the same! What happened to change you? Us?’

  ‘This …’ I lifted my long T-shirt.

  My stomach swelled slightly under my denim skirt.

  Lewis stared down at it, then at me. And his eyes filled with tears.

  But the past is over. Gone. Alive only in my memories and my dreams.

  We’ve reached Cookery Nook. There are balloons and a banner outside and I laugh.

  ‘Go on, Mum,’ Louisa pushes me forward. ‘You first …’

  I walk inside. It’s quite dark, with little twinkling wall lights and candles and silver sequins scattered on the pristine white table cloths. There are roses everywhere. And then from the darkness, there’s music.

  A rollicking version of ‘Oh My Darling, Clementine’ bounces from the walls.

  Solstice, older, but still drop dead gorgeous, are playing on the little dais above the tiny woodblock dance floor. Lewis, tall, slim, and devastating and still looking like Scott Walker crossed with David Bowie, grins at me. I grin back through the tears. I adore him.

  The rest of the party pouring into Cookery Nook joins in on the chorus. I blush and am very relieved when the waiting staff emerge with the champagne buckets and their notepads. Everyone is finding seats and chatting across the tables.

  I’m delighted to see Ben catch hold of Louisa and cover her face with kisses. Jonty and Lydia Coleman-Beck are with Jess and Henry Hawton-Ledley and are greeting my parents like the old friends that they are. Mum adjusts her hat to a jaunty angle. Dad laughs.

  ‘I still fancy the drummer,’ Jenny whispers as she and Dawn find their seats with Paula and Nick. ‘Is he currently available?’

  ‘Vin has just divorced wife number four,’ I whisper back. ‘He’s even ahead of you in the multi-marriage game. You’ll make a lovely couple.’

  Lewis has unplugged the Rickenbacker and crosses the floor.

  ‘Congratulations …’ he pulls me towards him and kisses me.

  ‘We’ve already done that this
morning,’ I kiss him back. ‘But thank you – and for all this. This is even better than I’d ever dreamed.’

  ‘I promised you this,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘And I always keep my promises, don’t I?’

  I nod, fighting back the tears and kiss him again.

  ‘Dad!’ Louisa calls across the restaurant. ‘Put Mum down! You two are so embarrassing sometimes! Come over here and tell Ben about your new tour. He thinks you’re really cool.’

  Lewis laughs as he does as he’s told, and I laugh as well. Solstice have recently been asked to take part in a ‘Celebrate the Sixties’ UK tour with other bands from the era. It’s been a source of massive amusement in the family, with dire warnings of men of a certain age being far too frail for the temptation of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll, and that they’ll be better off with multivitamins, a milky drink, and Terry Wogan.

  I slide into my seat and gaze around the restaurant. Everyone I love is here, under one roof. Mr Smithson, long retired, and his wife are with the girls I worked with all those decades ago. There are old school friends, and Solstice and their wives, and our new friends made over the years, and our families all mingling together. Everyone is eating, drinking, talking, and laughing.

  No one deserves to be this happy.

  Lewis and I still live at Honeydew. We moved into his cottage immediately after our 1969 Christmas wedding. It snowed, and over my pregnancy bump I wore a white velvet dress with a swansdown hood like Lulu had when she married Maurice Gibb. Jenny, Dawn, and Paula were bridesmaids in matching crimson velvet mini-dresses. We had the reception at Honeydew and honeymooned in Jersey. Lewis and I were deliriously happy then – and we still are.

  Of course, now the four labourers’ cottages have been knocked together, giving us a spacious home. And we own Sheldon Busbys. Lewis bought it when their first LP, ‘Solstice – Summer and Winter’, went platinum. So yes, I’ve worked in Sheldon Busby’s all my life on and off. It’s still as it was, with the listening booths, and the original layout and vinyl records: a shrine to the music of earlier decades, and as you probably know people come from all over the world just to say they’ve been there.