Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  Fern gurgled. ‘Oh, Timmy is sooo good. I’m having the best sex ever.’

  ‘Far, far too much information.’ Amber pulled a face. ‘But I’m glad you’re happy.’

  ‘I’m not happy – I’m ecstatic. So, that’s me sorted, and Zil, so who does that leave?’

  ‘Bog off. Don’t even think about it. I’ve told you a million times, Lewis and I are friends – nothing more. Even if – big, big if – he did decide he wanted it to be more, I couldn’t cope with being just one of many. Been there, done that, no intention of repeating the experience.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Fern rolled on to her ample stomach and started plucking more daisies. ‘I’ll monitor the progress, or otherwise, tonight. Win is going to be with all the Hayfields crew for Leo’s, so I’m working behind the bar. I’m practising for my rest-of-life role: Fern Pluckrose, Landlady and Bon Viveur. Bet you’re really jealous, huh?’

  Amber stretched on her back, the sun sizzling down, and sighed.

  Zillah walked barefooted on to the balcony, her long lilac dress soft against her skin, and leaned against the white railings. Below, a myriad boats moved silently through the burnished river. The sun-ripples reflected in kaleidoscope prisms all around her. It was elegant and luxurious, cool out here compared with the searing heat of the day, and so blissfully peaceful.

  Clancy’s Henley apartment was wonderful. Spacious, comfortable and decorated in cream and pale green and dove grey; it almost seemed part of the river. They’d spent a lot of time here in the last two weeks, talking, crying, laughing, catching up.

  It seemed to Zillah that the years had all concertina’d together. Before, there had been the Clancy years and the non-Clancy years: now those non-C decades seemed to have passed in a flash. Not that she felt the years alone had been wasted: she’d raised Lewis, and kept a roof over their heads, and had a life. No one could ever have replaced Clancy in her heart, so why should she have ever considered settling for second best?

  Today they’d driven out to Marlow for lunch, invisible amongst all the other summer diners, and come back to Henley and strolled by the river. There was still much to say, so much to talk about, but now it didn’t matter. Now they had forever to do it in.

  The years had simply rippled away.

  ‘OK?’ Clancy walked out onto the balcony and stood beside her, close but not touching, leaning on the balcony rail. His feet, like hers, were bare. The sun had turned his skin to butterscotch, and streaked his hair with gold. His jeans were faded and his T-shirt showed his in-shape body.

  He was still the most beautiful boy in the world.

  ‘More than OK, thanks. It’s been a blissful day. I’m really enjoying this … this – whatever it is we’re doing.’

  ‘Courting?’ Clancy grinned. ‘Or is that too old-fashioned for words?’

  ‘Courting sounds lovely to me. Walking, talking, getting to know each other all over again, simply going out together – dating … After all, we didn’t do any of it before, did we?’

  Laughing, Clancy shook his head. ‘Love and lust at first sight didn’t leave us much room for the formalities back then, did it? I didn’t even know your surname for three weeks – and we’d spent most of those in bed.’

  Zillah giggled. ‘Great, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded, smiling. ‘The best.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Zillah shivered with the delicious memories, then leaned further over the balcony, watching a couple trying to moor a punt, laughing together. ‘Do you know, I just don’t understand how you can ever bear to ever leave this place. It’s so perfect.’

  ‘It’s just a shell,’ he sighed. ‘Or at least it has been. A pretty nice shell, granted, but empty, soulless, lonely – like me. OK to come home to when the travelling has become too much, but otherwise I’m happy to rent it out on short terms, and sometimes used to think I never wanted to see it again.’

  ‘I think I expected it to be full of soul band memorabilia.’ She smiled at him. ‘You know, photos of gigs and wild celebrity parties, and the platinum disc for ‘Summer and Winter’ framed on the wall of the downstairs loo, and a spare Gibson Les Paul or two suspended from the ceiling …’

  ‘I tried that. It didn’t work. It was just pretentious – and whatever else I am, I don’t think I’ve ever been that. Anyway,’ he said cheerfully, ‘my letting agent told me I’d got to keep the flat as straight and impersonal as possible if I was intending to rent it out to visiting businessmen and their families who might just think it was some sort of rock-’n’roll den of iniquity.’

  ‘That was the house in Kilburn, wasn’t it? Wild, or what?’ She laughed. ‘And I played the album again this morning. I haven’t played it for years – not ever really, not since … but it’s never off the turntable now. I’m in danger of wearing it out.’

  ‘Actually, it’s being reissued on CD in the autumn – to tie in with Soul Survivors, a big nationwide soul band tour. They’re bringing over some of the really big names from the States to tour the UK for six months. Every promoter in the country is jumping on the soul bandwagon. Freddo was talking about us cutting a quick JB Roadshow album to throw in as well.’

  ‘I’d buy it,’ Zillah grinned. ‘Then I’d have two to drive the neighbours insane with. But however good it is, it’ll never be the same as Summer and Winter.’

  ‘Do you really still like it? Does it still sound good?’

  ‘Better than good. It’s brilliant – and so much more than that. It’s us, our life, back then. Vivid. Every song has a memory attached. A place, a town, a beach, a party … us, together. Do you – will you – as the JB Roadshow, be playing the same stuff?’

  ‘At the Harvest Moon gig?’ He shrugged teasingly. ‘You’ll have to wait and see. You’ll probably think we’re pretty crap now – after all, you heard it all first when it was young and fresh.’

  ‘Mmmm. Like us? Still, we’ve worn pretty well, haven’t we? No reason why your music should have gone downhill, is there?’

  ‘No reason at all,’ Clancy said, his eyes, like hers, drowsy with memories.

  They stood in relaxed contemplation for a while, watching a pleasure cruiser glide past beneath them, the tourists all sunburnt and laughing, trying to feed the swans, pretending to topple overboard.

  Clancy broke the silence.

  ‘How’s Lewis?’

  ‘Doing OK,’ she said slowly. ‘Getting his head round it, was how he put it. He likes you very much – you know that, and is delighted to know about his background at last, and says as long as I’m happy then he’s happy.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I didn’t say there was a but.’

  ‘You didn’t need to.’

  Zillah laughed. ‘You always could read my mind. Oh, it’s not a huge but. I think, now he knows the truth about everything, that I wasn’t a floozy and that you didn’t do a runner because I was pregnant, he’s much happier – but he’s scared.’

  ‘He’s not the only one.’ Clancy pushed his hair away from his eyes. It immediately fell back again. ‘I’m absolutely bloody terrified.’

  ‘Are you?’ Zillah looked at him. He still had freckles on his nose. She used to kiss them. ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why. Lewis isn’t the only one having to come to terms with the father-son thing, is he? I’m eaten up with guilt about all that. Thinking of you, on your own, having a baby – our baby – and me not knowing, and you thinking that I’d stopped loving you, that I’d left you … And now, our baby is a man – a really great bloke to boot – and I’ve missed so much, and I don’t know how to handle it. Where to start.’

  ‘We can’t change the past. We can’t go back, so regrets are pointless. Oh, I’ve always regretted losing you – but I’ve never once, not even for a nanosecond, regretted leaving college and doing what we did. And you’re doing just fine with the present. So is Lewis.’ Zillah smiled gently. ‘You’re very much alike.’

  Clancy shook his head. ‘He does look a lot like me, yes. I don’t know why I di
dn’t think about that before – but he’s got your brains, going to uni, doing the job he does, and your compassion and your sense of humour and—’

  ‘Your charm and patience and gentleness.’

  Clancy laughed. ‘Pretty good so far – so why is he scared?’

  ‘Because he thinks you’ll leave me, I guess. Because that’s all he’s ever grown up with: me alone, him not knowing about you, not being sure why – I mean I know you both sort of understand why I decided not to tell him – what was the point when I thought you’d dumped me? That would only hurt him more. And now he’s scared that just when he’s found the final piece of his jigsaw, this – this perfect bliss will end.’

  ‘And will it?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Zillah traced the outline of the tiles with her bare toe.

  Clancy sighed. ‘You see – that’s what I’m scared of too. Losing you again. I’d die. Honestly. I thought I was going mad, going to die of a broken heart the first time, but now, having found you again and – well, there simply wouldn’t be any point in going on. Zillah – I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

  She didn’t say anything. A family of ducks paddled past in the glittering river below, leaving a perfect V wash in their wake.

  ‘Zil? Oh, hell – I haven’t got this all wrong, have I?’

  She turned to him, shaking her head.

  ‘Are you crying? Oh, Zil …’

  Then she was in his arms, for the first time in thirty years, and he kissed her and her body dissolved with lust. Oh, God … it felt absolutely wonderful.

  Just like the first time.

  *

  ‘What time’s this rain-dance thingy?’ Clancy stretched lazily. ‘Have we missed it?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’ Zillah opened her eyes. ‘It’s still daylight – unless it’s tomorrow already, of course. I’ve kind of lost track of time.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  They giggled together.

  The river reflected in shifting watermark shadows on the ceiling of the dove-grey bedroom. It was still stifling despite the soft whirr and best efforts of the colonial fan. The white sheets, a tangle of Egyptian cotton, had long since fallen to the floor. A slight breeze wafted through the open balcony doors, shivering softly through the long white voile drapes.

  It had been amazing.

  The years had fallen away. They’d surely never been apart.

  Naked almost before they’d left the balcony, unashamed of their bodies, they’d made love with all the passion, all the intensity, all the pent-up longing and wanting, all the sheer, perfect love of that first time.

  Zillah, worried at first about her flesh no longer being velvet smooth, tight, unblemished, had simply melted at his first touch. She’d trembled beneath his fingers. Nothing mattered. He was beautiful and told her over and over again that she was, too. The most beautiful woman on earth.

  And now she was.

  Tumbling together, familiar and yet new, they’d rediscovered each other’s bodies with an urgency and tenderness that had made her laugh and then cry with pleasure.

  ‘Zillah …’

  She’d turned her head on the deep pillow. ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. And I think I’m dreaming.’

  Clancy had stroked her hair away from her face. ‘Then let’s hope we never wake up.’

  She’d rolled towards him, the soft river air cooling her heated body. ‘I’ve wanted this for so long, knew it would never happen, thought that maybe I’d imagined how it used to be

  He’d pulled her into his arms, kissing her again. ‘Me too. Oh, God, Zil

  And that had been hours ago and since then they’d repeated the experience a couple more times, more slowly, more tantalisingly, just to reassure themselves that it hadn’t all been a figment. Now, sated, happy, drowsy with love, neither of them really wanted to get up and shower and get dressed and go back to Fiddlesticks.

  ‘Remember when Solstice Soul had time off and we used to stay in bed all day?’

  She sighed with pleasure. ‘Mmmm. And we’d stagger downstairs to grab another bottle of wine and go back to bed – and then, when we got hungry, we’d sneak off in the small hours to that all-night shop on the corner and eat curry in bed and fall asleep just as the dawn was breaking …’

  They held each other, smiling, remembering.

  ‘We could do it all again.’ He ran his fingers down her body. ‘Unless you really want to go back to Fiddlesticks and dance in the rain.’

  ‘We did that before, too. Remember? Somewhere in the wilds of Shropshire, wasn’t it? After a gig? In the middle of summer at about two in the morning? Naked.’

  Clancy laughed. ‘God, yes … And then we made love. And we were like drowned rats and afterwards we couldn’t find our clothes, so we ran back to the van without them …’

  She took his face between her hands and kissed him. ‘I don’t think Fiddlesticks will miss us tonight, do you?’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dancing in the Moonlight

  ‘If it don’t rain tonight,’ Gwyneth puffed as she and Big Ida trudged across the village green in the rapidly falling darkness, ‘I’m going to shrivel up like me veg. And Pike hates it being hot like this. So do the hens. The cats now, they’re still enjoying it, but us humans ain’t meant to go without water for this long.’

  ‘Ah, it’s like being in the Gobby Dessert,’ Big Ida affirmed. ‘Lovely weather for camels.’

  Amber, walking with them, smiled in the gloaming. She was so pleased that she’d decided to stay in Fiddlesticks. How could she ever leave it now? Loving Lewis was a bit of a bummer, of course, but hey, no one had ever promised her that life would be perfect, had they?

  ‘It’ll rain,’ Big Ida tipped her head back. ‘Count on it. Leo’s Lightning will see to that.’

  Amber also looked up at the sky. It was perfectly clear, with a lemon-slice moon and a sheen of stars. If it was going to rain it’d be some sort of miracle.

  ‘We’ll see you later, duck,’ Gwyneth said. ‘When Leo’s in the right place and we do the rain dance. Me and Ida are booked to spend the evening with Mona Jupp and the Motion gels.’

  ‘Rather you than me, then,’ Amber giggled. ‘Have a nice time.’

  She paused on the rustic bridge and pushed her hair away from her damp face. The temperature didn’t seem to have dropped since midday. The air was motionless, humid and oppressive. The majority of Fiddlestickers were, like her, still dressed in vests and shorts.

  Leo’s Lightning she’d learned, didn’t involve the usual eating and drinking extravaganza. It all sounded far more pagan, with the entire village gathering together to ask for rain.

  ‘Even if you’ve had a really wet summer?’ she’d queried. ‘Wouldn’t that be a bit pointless?’

  Gwyneth had looked shocked. ‘Leo don’t just make it rain at the drop of a ’at, duck. It ain’t hit and miss. He knows exactly what we needs and when. If we’ve ’ad a wet summer, then ’e ’olds back on the old waterworks until we do need it. See, Leo’s there to guarantee we gets what we needs to make the Plough Night wishes for good crops come true.’

  Amber had nodded, still slightly sceptical. ‘But, how? I mean – what about meteorology and weather forecasts and climate change and global warming and stuff like that?’

  Gwyneth had shaken her head sorrowfully at this glaring gap in Amber’s education. ‘All rubbish. Leo is in charge of the weather, duck, not the likes of that Michael Fish or those dopey girls with long fingernails and no command of the English language what you gets on the telly these days. It’s preordained in the heavens. In the lap of the gods. If you asks him proper, Leo measures out exactly the right amount of rain from one Lightning Night to the next. Garn – I thought everyone knew that.’

  Amber had looked shamefaced and said she must not have been concentrating on that day at school.

  She smiled to herself in the sultry darkness now. Poor old Leo was going to
have to rip the skies apart to keep the Fiddlestickers satisfied tonight.

  Amber scanned the crowds sitting late-night picnicking on the parched grass, knowing she was looking for Lewis.

  She could see most of the familiar faces – but not his.

  The Hayfields mob, out in force, were sitting on tartan rugs, laughing. She could see Win amongst them, and oh yes, Jem, chuckling and eating – so surely Lewis wouldn’t be far away?

  ‘Looking for someone?’

  ‘Yes – no – sort of …’ She smiled at him. ‘And how do you do that? Always manage to creep up on me out of nowhere?’

  ‘Years of practice, having learned to sneak silently away from jealous lovers.’

  ‘Show-off.’

  He laughed. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart. Oh, God – he was sooo gorgeous. Was she ever going to be able to simply look and not touch? Would she turn into another Zillah, resigned to accepting lifelong celibacy because no other man would measure up to the only one she ever wanted and couldn’t have?

  She’d give it a try. She could do no more.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t see you for ages. Not since – I didn’t like to—’

  ‘No, I needed to be on my own. To have time to myself. Just to sort stuff out in my head.’ He looked at her. ‘I appreciate you keeping your distance. You understand me really well, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve learned quite a bit about you, yes.’ Amber felt ridiculously flattered. ‘Enough to know that when you wanted to talk to me about it you would, and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t. And, especially after our chat in the park at Winterbrook, I know what this – what Clancy appearing like he did – must mean to you. Too much to take in?’

  ‘Far too much,’ Lewis sighed. ‘But I’m getting there. He’s a really nice bloke. He’s taking it easy too with the absent-father stuff – at least he hasn’t suggested he takes me to the zoo or football matches or bloody McDonald’s.’