Summer of Love

by Christina Jones

  I was so pleased for him. For them. For me, too.

  ‘Home or Honeydew?’ Lewis asked as we reached Ashcote.

  ‘Honeydew, please. My bike’s still under the hedge.’

  ‘Do you have to go straight home?’

  Yes, of course I did. My RE revision simply couldn’t wait any longer. I shook my head. ‘Not straight away.’

  Honeydew basked under the almost-midsummer sun. The fields were still filled with fruit pickers, and as we drove through the main gates I ducked down, pretending to collect my flowers together, just in case Mr Leach spotted me.

  We stopped in the high-walled courtyard outside the labourers’ cottages. Lewis caught me as I jumped out of the van. ‘I bet you could do with a long, cold drink.’

  ‘I’d love one,’ I clutched my flowers as he took my hand and led me into his cottage. ‘It seems years since lunch time – oh, wow! This is fabulous!’

  The cottage was low-ceilinged and very tiny; it was almost impossible to believe that fifty years earlier whole families of six or seven people had lived happily in these three small rooms. It was simply but expensively furnished, with white curtains, dark red leather sofa and chairs, a television, and an extensive hi-fi system. There were ornately patterned rugs on the quarry-tiled floors, and Lewis’s beloved Rickenbacker guitar was propped against one of the walls, the case open beside the television set, sheet music strewn across the coffee table.

  ‘I’ve been working on some fiddly bits. We write some of our own songs. Well, I do most of the music – Gus and Berry write the lyrics – just clear a space to sit down.’ Lewis disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Iced coffee OK?’

  I said yes. I’d never had iced coffee in my life but guessed it was something upper-class people had on hot days.

  We had our iced coffee in little glass cups. It tasted like nectar. The doors and windows of the cottage were open, and across the courtyard the golden fields and orchards of Honeydew stretched away as far as the eye could see, melting into a blue haze in the skyline.

  ‘I’ve got something else for you,’ Lewis walked across to the stereo. ‘I bought this in America when it first came out and found it this morning –’

  He’d been to America? I was speechless with admiration. I didn’t know anyone who’d been on a plane. He’d probably flown on one of the brand new jumbo jets. – Of course he’d probably been everywhere, done everything, while I …The opening bars of ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ suddenly flooded richly into the cottage and it didn’t matter how wide the cultural gulf was. Not any more.

  Smiling, Lewis curled against me on the sofa, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me.

  Two hours later, I cycled home in a complete dream. The turquoise carnations were in my basket, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ was in my bag, in my head, and forever in my heart, and the fact that I had only two days before the RE exam didn’t seem to matter at all. Nothing mattered. Just Lewis and being in love.

  By Tuesday morning nothing had changed. I couldn’t eat, had slept only fitfully, dreamed of Lewis constantly, and hadn’t been able to concentrate for more than thirty seconds on Isaiah and Jeremiah. Mum and Dad seemed delighted that I’d come home relatively early after Sheldon Busbys, had believed me that Mr Smithson had bought me the flowers as a welcome-to-the-staff present, and put my trance-like state down to pre-exam nerves. They even accepted the fact that I spent every moment in my bedroom playing ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ over and over again as a sign that I was diligently swotting.

  ‘OK?’ Dawn asked as we walked towards the school in the early morning sun. ‘How do you think you’ll do?’

  I shook my head. There was no way on earth I’d tell anyone that I had done nowhere near enough revision. ‘It’ll depend on the questions. I’m hoping I’ll pick up marks on the second paper if this one is awful. Oh, it’ll be OK …’

  ‘Course it will,’ Jenny gave a little skip. ‘You’re naturally clever. Everyone says you’ll sail through them even if you never opened a book. And after all, you’ve got love to see you through, haven’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  Dawn stuck her tongue out at me. ‘Bet you wish that you were doing Nick Rayner for A-levels, don’t you? I know I do – oh, what does she want?’

  Paula Conway, in the skimpiest white skirt and a little pink top, was sitting on the wall again.

  ‘Hiya, kiddies! Back to school?’ She looked at my rucked up uniform dress and my stupid straw boater and laughed. ‘And you are a right dark horse, Clem. Mr Smithson thinks you’re the bee’s knees – and I hear you’re going out with Nick! Still waters or what?’

  I felt very little-girlie beside her painted sophistication, but I smiled. ‘Yes, well, some of us have it, some of us don’t. Anyway, why aren’t you at work?’

  ‘Going in at lunch time. I told Mr Smithson I had a dental appointment. Whereas actually my appointment is much more interesting than that.’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, Mr Wonderful, is it? Managed to shake off his wife and kids for the morning, has he? Sorry, can’t stop – have a nice time.’

  I held my hat on as I ran to catch up with Jenny and Dawn and the rest of the nervously giggling girls who were streaming round a couple of parked cars towards the school gates. Paula was welcome to her clandestine affair with her mystery man. I had the real thing …

  Dawn stopped walking and grabbed my arm. ‘Holy Moses! Look at him!’

  ‘Blimey!’ Jenny choked. ‘Pinch me and tell me I’m dreaming – he is gorgeous …’

  Lewis was leaning against the school gates.

  I wanted to laugh out loud. Snatching my hat from my head, I ran towards him. He caught me and swung me round.

  ‘Oh, Clemmie – I’ve missed you so much. It’s been driving me crazy, not seeing you. And you look really cute … I had to see you – just to say good luck and to give you this.’

  He handed me a small square box. Aware that most of the Sixth Form were watching with open-mouthed envy, I reached up and kissed him. So much for being discreet!

  ‘You’ll never know how much I’ve missed you.’ Shakily, I opened the box. Two slender silver bangles nestled in tissue paper. ‘Oh, Lewis, they’re lovely. Thank you so much.’

  ‘One for luck and one for love.’ Lewis slid them on my wrist. ‘Mind you, if your school is anything like mine was they’ll confiscate them – but hey, it’s worth the risk. Anyway, all the luck in the world with the exam and I’ll see you later.’

  ‘It’ll have to be after the exams are over.’

  He kissed me again. ‘I can’t wait that long!’

  ‘I’m not sure I can, either … oh, I’ll have to go and I don’t want to …’

  We shared one last lingering kiss. In a total daze I pulled reluctantly away from him, took one last look, then ran through the school gates. Dawn and Jenny and everyone else bombarded me with questions. I didn’t answer, didn’t listen to them. I knew then that I’d smile for ever and ever. I was simply walking on air.

  Stroking the bangles, I turned round again, just for one last look at him before the RE exam took over the next three hours of my life, and nearly passed out.

  Outside the school gates Lewis was opening the driver’s door of a gleaming black Ford Capri, and Paula was scrambling into the passenger seat.

  I felt numb. Completely dead. I ignored everyone’s excited questions about Lewis as we queued to file into the assembly hall. It was as though I wasn’t there. Everything was happening at the end of a long, black tunnel. My legs wobbled alarmingly and my chest hurt so much I could scarcely breathe.

  And of course, once we were in the exam room and I turned the paper over, I couldn’t answer a single question. Even if the print hadn’t been blurred by my tears I wouldn’t have been able to write a sensible word. So much for me being able to pass exams without revising. Even without the shock of discovering that Lewis was Paula’s Mr Wonderful, I knew I simply hadn’t done enough work.

  I really didn’t care. The pain
inside was indescribable. It all made awful sense now: Paula and her mystery man who came into Sheldon Busby’s and did other things in the evenings and who drove a Ford Capri. Paula’s lover who was so beautiful, so educated, so rich … I felt sick. Lewis probably had a whole stack of suitable records and bangles and a standing order for dyed carnations. He probably laughed himself silly by making fools of the local girls. I was just the current link in a never-ending chain of working class dalliances.

  For three hours these thoughts and others far more awful hammered through my brain. For three hours I stared at the questions and stabbed at my paper with the nib of my fountain pen. For three hours I wrote rubbish and thought about Lewis and Paula together and wanted to die.

  ‘Five minutes to go, girls,’ the invigilator warned. Then, ‘That’s it. Time’s up. Stop writing. Make sure your name is on all the sheets.’ She stalked down from the stage and marched up and down the rows. ‘Clementine Long! You know very well that jewellery is forbidden in school! Take those bracelets off and I don’t want to see them again!’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ I nodded. I didn’t ever want to see them again, either.

  I knew I’d throw them away when I got home, along with the carnations and the record and one of Lewis’s old plectrums I’d picked up in the cottage – Paula probably had a matching set, too. Half the girls in Ashcote were probably the proud possessors of Lewis’s gifts.

  Not waiting for Jenny and Dawn and their never-ending questions, I belted out of the exam room and ran home. Muttering to Mum that the exam had been awful, I flew upstairs, hurled myself on to my bed, and cried as though my heart would break. Which of course, it already had.

  I’m not sure how I survived the next few days. They all merged into a sort of blur of pain. Mum and Dad put it down to my studying too much and blamed themselves for having such high expectations. They even thought they may have been a bit too harsh about my escapade with Nick. I simply looked at them through my swollen eyes and couldn’t tell them the truth. The truth and I seemed to have parted company ages ago.

  I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t even go to work at Sheldon Busby’s on Saturday. How could I? Paula would be there. I asked Mum to ring from the phone box at the Ashcote Stores and apologise to Mr Smithson. She told him I had a sick headache and he was apparently so upset that it made me cry even more.

  I didn’t go downstairs when Dawn and Jenny called round. I did nothing but watch the sun burn its way across the sky and the darkness eventually fall and stared unseeing at my text books. ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ languished silent on my Dansette turntable, the turquoise carnations died in their vase, and the silver bangles were with the plectrum beneath my pillow. I would throw them all away one day – but not yet.

  On two occasions Paula came round to see me but my shriek of fury made Mum explain to her that I wasn’t feeling too good and she went away again.

  Somehow, because I had to, I went in for the last two exams. I needn’t have bothered. The second RE paper was as abysmal as the first, and as for History of Art …

  Dawn and Jenny, now completely mystified about my prolonged headache, my woebegone state, Nick Rayner, and the identity of the boy at the gates, asked various probing questions. I snapped my answers, none of them true of course, and returned to skulking in my bedroom.

  ‘Will you feel up to going into the record shop tomorrow?’ Mum asked, sitting on my bed, trying to tempt me with a cucumber sandwich. ‘Or do you want me ring them again?’

  I shook my head. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I’d have to face Paula eventually and Lewis Coleman-Beck wouldn’t be so brazen or so cruel to come into the shop while we were both there, would he?

  ‘No, I’ll go in tomorrow. Mum – I’m really, really sorry about everything.’

  She cuddled me, not understanding why I was apologising. ‘Maybe some fresh air would do you good, love. Why don’t you do a bit more fruit picking up at Honeydew?’

  ‘No! Oh, Mum …’

  ‘It’s all right, Clemmie, love. It’s all right. We’ve put far too much pressure on you. You’ll be fine now those awful old exams are out of the way. Look, I’ll talk to your Dad and if you really want to go out with Nick then maybe we can sort something out and –’

  ‘I don’t!’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to go out with stupid Nick Rayner or any other boy ever! I’ll never, ever go out with anyone again!’

  Mum, looking even more worried, patted my shoulder. ‘I blame myself for this – but I only wanted what was best for you. For you to have a better chance in life than I had. You’ve worked so hard – and when you’re at university you’ll have years of studying. You should get out and enjoy yourself while you can.’

  I threw myself into her arms and sobbed. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault at all; I wanted to tell her everything but I couldn’t. She didn’t understand and just kept saying it would be all right. But I knew it wouldn’t. Nothing would ever be all right again.

  The next morning I caught the early bus into Reading. There was no way on earth that I wanted to make the journey with Paula, although there was some demon nagging at me telling me she’d probably be getting a lift in the Ford Capri anyway.

  Mr Smithson was delighted to see me, asked kindly about my headache and the exams, and then left me alone. Which was just as well. I had to cope with this on my own. Other people, I told myself, had survived broken hearts and so would I.

  Paula arrived at just after nine. I couldn’t look at her. I hated her. She’d probably come straight from Lewis’s cottage. I heard her giving Mr Smithson some excuse and then them both laughing. I hoped they weren’t laughing at me.

  Every record I played was about lost love, or even worse, being happy. Every customer that morning seemed to want to listen to ‘Oh Happy Day’. The happy word went round and round in my head and I hated it. I knew I’d never be happy again.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Paula asked as we both reached for the same LP. ‘I came round a couple of times to see how your exams had gone, but your Mum said –’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘Absolutely fine. And you can tell that to Mr Wonderful – or shall we give him his real name now?’

  Paula shrugged. ‘Why would he be interested? And you can call him what you like – he’s in the past. We finished last week. And no, before you say anything, he’s not married, but he is a two-timing rat. Still – it’s his loss.’ She fluttered her batwing eyelashes across the counter. ‘Yes, sir – we’ve got all the Bee Gees’ records. Over here …’

  I took the money from my customer and fumed. So Lewis had dumped Paula, had he? How long would I have lasted if I hadn’t found out? And was he three or even four timing us both? I groaned in misery. So much for the forever and ever love I’d dreamed about.

  ‘One thing,’ Paula hissed as she pushed past to get to the till. ‘I went out with Nick Rayner – yeah, OK I know what I said about him, but at least me and Nick are on the same wavelength – last night and he swears he’s never been out with you in his life.’

  ‘He hasn’t. I lied. I’ve lied about a lot of things.’

  ‘You?’ Paula look shocked. ‘Miss Goody Two Shoes? You tell lies?’

  ‘Hundreds,’ I nodded. ‘Cut out the acting, Paula. You know I’ve been lying about everything. You must do. After all, you’ve been seeing Lewis, too.’

  ‘Lewis?’ She frowned at me. ‘Lewis who? Oh, Lewis! Oooooh – if only! He is simply fab! And what do you mean ‘too’? Good God – you mean you’re Lewis’s girlfriend?’

  It was all getting a bit Alice Through the Looking Glass.

  Paula grabbed my arm and dragged me out from behind the counter. ‘There’s a problem with the speakers in booth 2,’ she shouted to Mr Smithson, as she pulled me through the shop. ‘We’re just going to sort it out.’

  ‘OK,’ she shut the door. ‘Now let’s get a few things straight here …’

  It took several false starts. We both talked
at the same time. But slowly, slowly, the tangles became unravelled.

  I shook my head in total disbelief. ‘So, you hadn’t met Lewis at all until that morning outside the school?’

  ‘No – Berry was always very careful to keep me well away from his friends and his whole life. I didn’t even know he was in a group until Lewis told me. I just saw the car, the Capri which Berry said was his, outside the school and thought it was Berry because we were supposed to be meeting. Then when it wasn’t, I asked your Lewis if he knew where Berry was as he hadn’t turned up – and he took me to Berry’s flat in Lower Ashcote.’ Paula shook her head. ‘I felt so stupid – I didn’t even know where Berry lived. He’d never told me. And when we got there Berry was with another girl – I think Lewis was as shocked as me – and I told him I didn’t share my men, and he just laughed, and Lewis drove me back home … And that’s it.’ Paula chewed her lip and sighed a bit. ‘Berry’s just a lowlife womaniser, but so gorgeous with it, and I fell for all his charms and lies.’

  Berry often borrowed Lewis’s Capri when his own car was off the road. I knew that. Lewis had told me.

  I wanted to kiss Paula. I wanted to kiss the entire universe.

  Paula smiled at me. ‘Anyway, all Lewis did on both journeys was talk about you – except I didn’t know it was you. He didn’t name names. I was soooo jealous – he is simply sensational. He did say you were at the Grammar School and he wouldn’t be seeing you until after the exams were over – but even then I didn’t twig. I thought it was probably Pammie Mason, you know, the Sixth Form’s answer to Lulu.’

  I tried to stop myself beaming from ear to ear and failed.

  Paula looked at me in admiration. ‘So you’ve been seeing Lewis all this time and no one knew? Not even your parents? Wow, Clemmie, you’re amazing.’