The Summer Island Festival

by Rachel Burton

  She had come here to make amends, but she couldn’t do that in front of Luc because it would mean admitting to Luc what had happened between Charlie and Skye in the pub that day. And being with both Skye and Luc would mean talking about the past, a past that she had been avoiding thinking about for over a decade.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as she headed back towards the door. ‘I can see now isn’t a good time.’

  ‘Willow, come back,’ she heard Luc call from behind her.

  ‘Maybe later,’ she replied, not sure if she would be able to pluck up the courage to come again. She heard the bell on the door jangle behind her as she walked away.

  *

  The last time the three of them had been together was etched on her brain and she could still remember it as though it was yesterday. It was a hot September afternoon in the middle of a week of unseasonably warm weather right at the end of their last summer on the Island. It had felt like the end of everything. Everyone was leaving that summer.

  They had spent the day together in Skye’s dad’s old beach hut, drinking the last of the stolen cider, smoking the last of Luc’s weed. They had known that afternoon was the end of everything but none of them had been able to articulate how they felt. The unspoken words had hung heavily in the air of the beach hut along with the smoke. Skye had left early for a family dinner, her grandparents had come over from Bournemouth to wish her well at art college, and Luc and Willow had been left alone.

  Willow took a deep breath of sea air. The memories of that last day on the Island, coupled with the embarrassment she still felt about the last time she’d seen Skye, had made her run. She didn’t know if she could make amends with her past after all.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Skye called as she caught up with her. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Remembering,’ Willow replied, turning around to look at Skye, the two of them facing each other for the first time in eight years. At first glance Skye looked the same, the smattering of freckles across her dark skin, her hair piled up on top of her head and secured with a scarf, her brown eyes heavily made-up – but there were lines around those eyes now and a weariness that seemed older than her thirty years.

  ‘Are you still angry with me?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Skye replied. ‘I was never angry with you that day.’

  She had been angry with Charlie, with the way he’d treated her. Willow knew that and she’d done nothing to stop him. She hadn’t stood up for her childhood friend.

  ‘Thank you,’ Willow replied. It’s all she could say.

  ‘I heard,’ Skye said quietly. ‘About the wedding. I’m so sorry.’

  Willow looked away. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ she said.

  ‘Come back to the shop,’ Skye said. ‘We can talk there.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk,’ Willow replied, looking back at Skye.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I can’t. Not with Luc there.’

  Skye nodded, understanding. ‘Luc’s thinking of getting another tattoo,’ she said, making light conversation.

  Willow hesitated for a moment. She shouldn’t leave The Music Shop closed for too long, but she didn’t want to go back just yet after all.

  ‘How about a cup of tea?’ Skye asked. ‘No deep and meaningful conversations, just tea.’

  Willow nodded and started to follow Skye back to the tattoo studio.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Willow.’

  5

  Luc

  Luc watched Skye leave the shop, chasing after Willow, and he wondered why Willow had left as soon as she’d seen him. Could she still not look at him? He wanted to explain what had happened that day, what had prevented him from turning up to meet her. It had been the last day they could be together before he’d left for America and he had ruined it.

  He’d thought about that day so many times over the intervening years but had never been able to remember any of the detail. He could remember how nervous he had been about seeing Willow, but excited too. He’d wanted to talk to her about what had happened between them the night before, when he’d told her that he loved her. He knew what it must have looked like when he hadn’t turned up the next day, when they’d had to say goodbye awkwardly in front of their parents later that night. He’d tried to explain everything in the letters he’d written to her at Cambridge, but she’d never replied. Perhaps she’d never received them.

  All he could really remember about that afternoon, and the days that followed, was the sensation of his anxiety spiralling out of control. It had been the first panic attack he’d ever had and it had stopped him spending that last day with Willow, prevented him from telling her how he planned to come back for her as soon as he could. Such childish plans really, imagining that they would somehow survive a long-distance relationship when they’d only just admitted how they felt.

  It had been almost inevitable that their friendship would never make it through.

  Skye had always felt like an anchor to Luc, someone he could rely on, and he knew that Willow had felt the same. The three of them had met on their first day of secondary school and had been inseparable for the next seven years. Skye’s parents hadn’t been part of the folk music scene and her mum had always put meals on the table at normal times and her dad had worked in an office. It had felt like stability to Luc when he was growing up, and he had craved that.

  Perhaps that was what he was hoping to find on the Island again now?

  Luc had come to see Skye this morning to distract himself. Willow had been the first thing he’d thought of when he woke up but he had forced himself to stay away from her – despite his promise to Don. Seeing Willow again when all the feelings he had about her felt so fresh and so raw would be a mistake. He couldn’t afford to make that mistake; it wouldn’t be fair on Willow. It wouldn’t be fair on Annelise.

  He’d decided to go to see Skye instead, to talk about a tattoo that he’d been thinking of getting, to keep his mind off Willow. There was so much he wanted to say to Willow, so much he should have said twelve years ago, but as soon as he’d seen her again, as soon as she’d looked at him with that hardness she’d developed, he couldn’t do it.

  Why should today be any different?

  His phone rang and Luc saw his agent’s number appear on the screen again. He still didn’t have anything to say so he stuffed the phone back into his pocket unanswered as the bell above the tattoo studio door jangled and Willow and Skye came back in.

  Even though he’d been trying to avoid Willow he was relieved that Skye had managed to convince her to come back. He walked into the little kitchen at the back of the shop to put the kettle on. He’d missed the ritual of making tea while he’d been touring in America, staying in hotels that never had kettles.

  ‘How long have you been back?’ Willow asked Skye as the two of them followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the small Formica table.

  ‘I came back after I finished my tattoo apprenticeship in London,’ Skye replied. ‘I missed the Island.’

  Luc put the teapot on the table and Willow finally looked at him. Her expression was unreadable.

  ‘Really?’ Willow sounded as surprised as Luc had been when he found out that Skye had come back. They’d spent most of their teenage years talking about all the things they were going to do when they finally got off the godforsaken Island. It had been particularly important to Skye, but they had all wanted to find somewhere else that suited them, somewhere better to fit in.

  Skye smiled. ‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘I always said I’d never come back but it turned out I missed the place. Didn’t you?’

  Willow shook her head. ‘I’ve never missed the Island,’ she said. But there’s something in the way she said it that made Luc think that she wasn’t telling the truth. ‘I found everything I wanted in London.’

  ‘But you came back anyway,’ he interrupted. He didn’t mean to say anything. He’d thought he would leave quietly once he’d made
the tea but he wanted to know why she was really back. It was more than just the wedding – he knew that – and she might feel more comfortable talking with Skye here too.

  ‘I’ll pour the tea,’ Willow said, ignoring him and reaching for the teapot. ‘And you can tell me all about how you came to buy the tattoo shop.’

  Luc propped himself against the counter, still debating whether to leave or not.

  ‘As soon as I got back I came here to see Darren,’ Skye explained. ‘I wanted to work for him, see my own clients and build a business of my own but it turned out he was selling up and moving back to the mainland.’

  ‘Wasn’t he from the north somewhere?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Manchester,’ Skye said. ‘I thought that was the end of it and I didn’t really know what else to do. I should have called first, before I left my job in London. But Mum persuaded me that I should try to buy the place off him.’

  ‘Well it looks fantastic,’ Willow replied. ‘Much better than it did when Darren had it.’

  ‘And none of that awful music,’ Luc said quietly. If there was one thing that bonded them all together back in the day it was their mutual hatred of Darren’s taste in music.

  ‘Enough about me though,’ Skye said. ‘What about you?’ Skye directed the question at Willow. ‘Why are you back on the Island after all these years?’

  ‘As if you don’t already know.’

  ‘OK fair enough,’ Skye said, holding up her hands, palms forward. ‘I think probably all of Seaview and half of Ryde know that you walked out on your wedding. But how are you? Are you OK?’

  Luc noticed something that looked like relief pass over Willow’s face and then she smiled. It wasn’t much but for a moment it almost felt like old times, sitting around drinking tea and confiding in each other.

  ‘I don’t know how I am,’ Willow said eventually. ‘I thought I had everything I wanted but…’ She trailed off as though she’d run out of words. As though she had no way of explaining what she was doing here.

  Luc knew how that felt better than anyone.

  ‘All I ever wanted was to get off this Island,’ Willow said.

  ‘We all did,’ Luc replied but still Willow didn’t look at him.

  ‘I wanted to get away from folk music. I wanted to get a normal job and get married and have babies.’ Luc ignored the pinch of envy and guilt he felt when he thought about Willow having a family with someone who wasn’t him. ‘I got my degree, I got my dream job, I worked hard and earned good money. I met Charlie at Cambridge and he trained as a lawyer. We bought a flat in the centre of London and we got engaged. We spent two years planning a wedding and then…’ She shrugged. ‘I thought it was everything I ever wanted,’ she repeated, and Luc noticed the past tense, as though that life wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

  ‘I never really believed you when you said you wanted all those things anyway,’ Skye said after a while, looking at Willow over the top of her mug. ‘All that stuff about money and comfort and a normal life. It never rang true. And then when I saw you…’ She stopped for a moment, shrugged. ‘I’m just surprised you kept up the pretence this long,’ she said. It sounded to Luc as though they had seen each other over the intervening years. What had happened?

  Willow looked up then, staring at Skye. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked. Luc gripped the countertop harder, hoping they wouldn’t have an argument. He’d always hated it when they argued.

  Skye put her mug down. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Willow,’ she said gently, reaching over to take Willow’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just I always thought deep down you would come back to the Island one day, even if that meant walking away from that life you built. This is where we belong.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Willow replied.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s strange how you came back at the same time as Luc?’ Skye asked. ‘It’s like serendipity.’

  Skye had always believed in things like serendipity, that everything in life was mapped out and happened for a reason. Luc, on the other hand, believed that life was a series of random events that you had to make the absolute best of.

  But Willow hadn’t explained anything; she hadn’t said why she was back, why she wasn’t on her honeymoon. Maybe she didn’t know.

  Luc was thinking about leaving, when his phone rang again and when he saw her name on the screen he answered automatically.

  Annelise.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said as he answered, kicking himself as soon as the words tumbled out of his mouth. He hesitated for a moment, looking over at Skye and Willow who were staring at him. He wished he hadn’t answered after all. ‘Can I call you back in ten minutes?’ he asked.

  ‘My agent,’ he explained as he hung up. He could see by the way they looked at each other that they didn’t believe him.

  ‘I should go,’ Willow said, draining her tea.

  ‘You’ll come again won’t you?’ Skye asked as Willow stood up. ‘We should talk.’ She paused, her eyes flicking to Luc and then back to Willow. ‘Just the two of us,’ she said.

  Willow nodded.

  ‘I’m here all the time,’ she went on. ‘I live upstairs.’

  Luc watched Willow get ready to leave.

  ‘Willow, wait,’ he said as he followed her out into the shop.

  Willow turned around and, for a moment, she looked eighteen again until that hardness washed over her face as though she was putting on a mask.

  Was the mask to do with the Island or something she was so used to wearing in London that she didn’t know how to take it off?

  He leant against the doorframe and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans to stop himself from touching her.

  ‘Have you spoken to your mum about the festival?’ he asked.

  ‘I offered to help but Mum turned me down,’ she replied. ‘And I haven’t congratulated you on your headline slot. Nice going, Lucien Hawke!’

  She grinned and it surprised Luc that she seemed genuinely excited for him. For a moment he thought that maybe he could do this after all. But then he watched her face fall. ‘I won’t be here by then though,’ she said.

  He felt himself blush and he looked down so she couldn’t see colour in his face. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the floor.

  ‘I didn’t really want to headline and I’m not sure it will help anyway,’ he said.

  ‘Help in what way?’

  ‘Did Cathy not say anything?’

  ‘She said that she’d let herself get in a muddle,’ Willow replied. ‘But she does that every year. Like I said I offered to help—’

  ‘She hasn’t got council permission,’ Luc interrupted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s been changes at the council. She usually gets the licences and permissions for the festival automatically every year but this year there’s a problem. I don’t really know why, I haven’t seen the letter but you should ask to read it.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Mum’s been running that festival for years. The council can’t stop us.’

  ‘Well they can,’ Luc replied. ‘And if we don’t do something about it there isn’t going to be a festival this year.’

  Willow looked at him for a moment as though she was going to say something else, but then she nodded and walked away.

  Luc ignored the sensation of disappointment in his stomach.

  6

  December 1983

  The three girls arrived at the Astoria on Tottenham Court Road as soon as the doors opened. After handing their tickets over to be torn in half, they stepped inside and didn’t even stop at the bar before walking into the auditorium, determined to get to the very front of the stage for King Silver’s final show of the year.

  ‘I’ve heard it’s really easy to get backstage here,’ Jenny said. ‘There’s hardly any security.’

  Cathy smiled but didn’t say anything. She had her own plans to get backstage tonight and she didn’t really care if her two friends joined her o
r not.

  She had just finished her first term at the Royal Academy of Music. Living and studying in central London had been everything she’d imagined it to be, but her favourite part of it was the live music. Whether that be classical concerts at the Royal Albert Hall or gigs like tonight, Cathy loved every moment and every spare penny she could get her hands on went towards concert tickets. She finally felt as though she had found her calling, as though she was on a path that was taking her to the place she wanted to be most – on the stage itself.

  She didn’t pay a lot of attention to the support act, a singer-songwriter called Don Warwick who had been hailed in the NME recently as “the new Nick Drake”.

  ‘He looks more Kris Kristofferson than Nick Drake if you ask me,’ Cathy’s friend Pip said into her ear during the support set. Pip was also at the Academy – an accomplished pianist.

  Cathy laughed and looked again at the young man on stage. ‘Cute though,’ she said, as she stood near enough to notice the ice blue of his eyes and the softness of his lips. Don was playing acoustic guitar tonight, although Cathy had heard he was also something special on the mandolin.

  But Cathy wasn’t here to see Don Warwick, she was here to see Storm Tyler. She’d seen King Silver live three further times since that memorable Reading Festival two and a half years ago, but she had never got to meet Storm again. Tonight, she was determined to change that. Ever since she’d spoken to him Cathy had been sure that Storm played a part in her future and she was determined to begin that future now.

  When King Silver finally came on stage forty minutes late, they were greeted by a rapturous roar from a crowd that had been becoming restless as they waited. As the opening bars to “Chord of Plenty” rang out through the venue’s PA system Cathy allowed herself to absorb the atmosphere and imagined what it would be like to be on the stage instead of in front of it.

  The viscous aroma of sweat and beer and cigarette smoke invaded Cathy’s nostrils and she wondered if you could smell that from the stage too. As she turned to look behind her she saw a sea of fans jumping in time to the music and everyone in the seats above standing up and dancing. A group of bare-chested men in leather jackets were climbing on each other’s shoulders to form a human pyramid.