The Summer Island Festival

by Rachel Burton

  ‘Do you have the first clue of the shame you’ve brought on me and my family?’ Charlie said eventually. He sounded pompous and overblown. ‘Why did you do it? You owe me an explanation at least. You could have told me if it wasn’t the wedding you wanted, we could have had something smaller.’ His voice was quieter, steadier now. ‘Why did you do it?’ he repeated.

  ‘Because I don’t love you.’ The words were out of Willow’s mouth before she realised she was even thinking them. But as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. She hadn’t loved Charlie for a while. She couldn’t remember when she stopped.

  ‘You don’t love me!’ he exclaimed, and Willow could imagine the incredulous look on his face. Charlie couldn’t possibly imagine anybody not loving him – he was the sort of person everyone loved. But perhaps other people didn’t know him as well as Willow did, perhaps they hadn’t seen the parts of him that weren’t loveable. He started to say something else but the line had become muffled and Willow couldn’t make out his words.

  ‘Charlie, where are you?’ she asked. ‘I can hardly hear you.’

  ‘I’m in the Maldives,’ he replied as the line cleared.

  ‘You’ve gone on honeymoon on your own?’

  ‘Not on my own no,’ he said quietly. ‘I got the tickets changed. I took Kate.’

  ‘You’ve taken Kate on our honeymoon?’ Willow repeated. Kate, her maid of honour and her only bridesmaid. Willow cringed as she remembered the look on Kate’s face when she told her father she couldn’t go through with it, that she wanted to go back to the hotel. Kate would have been the person who broke the news to Charlie.

  Kate. The only person who hadn’t messaged her since the wedding.

  ‘I’ve not taken Kate on honeymoon,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘I’ve gone on holiday with a friend so as not to waste even more money. You made it very clear that you didn’t want to come.’ He paused and neither of them said anything for a moment.

  ‘What do you want to do, Willow?’ he asked.

  The door of the shop opened and the bell jangled. Willow made another mental note to take that bell down before it drove her mad, and to start locking the door when the shop wasn’t open. She turned around to see Luc, clutching two coffees and a bag of pastries again.

  ‘I don’t know what I want, Charlie,’ she said, holding her hand up to Luc and turning away from him. ‘But now isn’t the best time to talk.’

  She heard Charlie sigh in frustration. ‘When are you coming home?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ she replied.

  ‘What about your job?’ Charlie’s voice rose again. ‘What about our flat? You can’t just walk away from your life, Willow.’

  But I can, she thought. If I want to.

  ‘I have to go, Charlie,’ she said quietly, blinking back the tears that were burning the backs of her eyes.

  ‘But we need—’

  ‘I need some time to think,’ she interrupted, suddenly sick to death of Charlie and his family telling her what she did and didn’t need. ‘Let me know when you’re back in London and we’ll talk.’

  14

  Luc

  Luc could see that Willow was trying not to cry as she ended the call and turned to him. He handed her the coffee he’d bought.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said quietly as she took the drink.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Not really – that was Charlie. My almost husband.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He’s gone on honeymoon.’

  ‘By himself?’

  ‘No. With my maid of honour.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he said.

  ‘He says it’s just as friends, that he didn’t want the holiday to go to waste but…’

  ‘But you don’t believe him?’

  ‘I have no reason to not believe him,’ she replied carefully, as though she didn’t want to lay any blame on this man she’d almost married. ‘I have no reason to not trust him.’

  ‘Not many men would take a woman on a romantic holiday and stay just friends,’ Luc said quietly. ‘Not that I want to generalise. How long have they known each other?’

  ‘We’ve both known her since university.’

  There was nothing Luc could say to make her feel better. He didn’t know these people and telling Willow that he really didn’t think very highly of this almost husband of hers wasn’t going to help anyone, so he handed her the bag of pastries instead.

  ‘Any closer to working out what made you a runaway bride?’ he asked but he immediately regretted it as he watched her close down on him. If she wanted to talk about it at all, Luc wasn’t the person she was going to talk about it with. He had to accept that. He would be doing them both a favour if he just kept away.

  ‘What are you doing here again?’ she asked, dodging his question.

  ‘I just thought it would be nice to see you,’ he replied.

  Willow looked at him for a moment and he wondered what she was going to say. Then she smiled and it felt like the greatest reward he could ever have.

  ‘It’s nice to see you too,’ she said.

  They drank their coffees and talked about the Island, how it was still exactly the same as it had been when they were kids. How familiar it felt.

  ‘Did you ask your mum about the tape?’ Luc asked, but he knew she wouldn’t have done because he was pretty sure she thought that tape was as significant as he did.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a recording of The Laurels,’ she said quietly ‘There were some initials and a date written on the back. You saw that too I think.’

  Luc nodded and Willow reached under the shop counter to get the tape so they could look at it again.

  ‘The only way to find out is to listen to it,’ Luc said. ‘I think we should ask Tom Newell.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Willow replied reluctantly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Luc laughed. ‘I know he’s a bore but who else is going to have a DAT player these days?’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘This is going to sound ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But I’m just not sure if I want anyone else to know about it, let alone listen to it.’

  ‘You think it’s something special, don’t you?’ Luc asked.

  ‘Imagine if it is,’ she replied. ‘And it fell into the wrong hands.’

  He’d been thinking the same thing: that this tape Willow had found was something unique that had been hidden for years, whether intentionally or not. He wasn’t sure what she meant about “the wrong hands” but he did understand the feeling of proprietorship she had over the tape because he felt it too.

  ‘Let me have a think,’ he said. ‘I’ll work something out. In the meantime, keep the tape safe.’

  ‘Luc,’ Willow said quietly. ‘I had lunch with Skye yesterday.’

  ‘She said she was going to invite you.’

  ‘I told her about the night before you left,’ Willow went on and he looked away from her. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to talk about that night.

  When he looked back at her again she was picking nervously at her empty coffee cup and all the light that had been in her eyes was gone.

  ‘Luc, I meant what I said that night,’ she said. ‘And I’m fairly sure you did too. I’ve never understood what happened, but coming back here has made me realise what a difficult time that summer was for both of us and…’ She trailed off as though she’d run out of words.

  Tell her, the voice in Luc’s head said. Tell her what really happened. He looked up and his eyes met hers.

  ‘What happened,’ he began. ‘That summer—’

  ‘We were both in a bad place that summer,’ Willow interrupted. ‘We both know that. My parents were splitting up, you were leaving, Skye and I were off to university.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t handle it all very well.’

  ‘You were eighteen,’ Luc said.

  ‘We were both eighteen.’

  He took a breath, knowing that there w
as so much more to it than that. So much more that he needed to tell her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Willow,’ he said instead. It sounded woefully inadequate, but she smiled up at him and his heart felt as though it would burst.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, his mouth dry.

  She walked up to him and he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. She smelled of coconuts and Parma violets and he wanted to stay there breathing her in forever. When he’d walked into this shop five days ago and had seen Willow for the first time in so many years he’d figured he was the last person on the planet that she’d ever want to see again.

  But as he stood here now with her in his arms it felt like the most natural thing in the world even though he knew he shouldn’t be here with her. He thought briefly of Annelise and let his arms fall, stepping away from Willow.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ she replied leaning against the counter.

  ‘That morning before we all left for America, I was coming to meet you but…’ He paused, his chest tightening. Not now, he said to himself. Not in front of her. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. ‘That morning I had a panic attack.’

  He’d said it. The words were out in the open.

  ‘I never knew you had panic attacks,’ she replied. She looked so concerned he could barely stand it.

  ‘That was the first one,’ he admitted. ‘It came from nowhere and I thought I was dying.’

  ‘What caused it?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t really know at the time but looking back I guess there was so much going on that summer like you said, so many changes.’

  ‘Do you still get them?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ he said. ‘But I know how to manage them now.’ That wasn’t really true though and he found himself unable to meet her eyes. There was so much she didn’t know, so much he was hiding from everyone and he remembered sitting on the beach the other day thinking about how he needed to end all this, the secrecy, the lies. He needed to be honest with people about how he felt, about his writer’s block, about Annelise.

  But he couldn’t. Not yet.

  ‘I should leave you to it,’ he said, standing up again. ‘Let you get on with opening the shop.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. The concern in her face was too much. He didn’t deserve it right now.

  He grinned, but he wasn’t sure how genuine it looked.

  ‘Of course I am,’ he said. ‘How’s your mum going with those planning permissions?’

  ‘She’s working on it. She’s appealing the council’s decision next week.’ She paused. ‘The irony is that Charlie is a planning lawyer and could actually help us, but obviously I’m not his favourite person right now.’

  ‘You and Charlie—’ Luc began, not really sure what he was going to ask.

  ‘I think it’s over,’ she interrupted. ‘But I have no idea how to unravel the last twelve years of my life, how to start again. I just needed to run away and now I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I know that feeling,’ he said quietly, immediately regretting it when he saw the look she gave him, the question in her eyes.

  Instead he took a step towards her, bending to kiss her on the cheek just as he had done on Saturday.

  ‘You know, Willow,’ he said, ‘not a day has gone past when I haven’t regretted the way we had to say goodbye.’

  15

  August 1985

  Cathy took a deep breath before stepping out of the wings and following Don Warwick out on to the stage. She clutched her mandolin tightly as the audience applauded and she sat on the stool that the more famous Krystal Kane usually occupied. Cathy was finally getting her chance.

  When Storm had introduced her to Don Warwick on the first day of the tour, she recognised him immediately as the support act that had opened for King Silver at the Astoria the previous autumn. She was surprised to see him and his bandmate Krystal – who were both a few years older than Cathy – playing together as The Laurels. She’d always assumed Don was a solo act and she’d also assumed that Don and Krystal were a couple. But she’d been wrong about that, just as she’d been wrong about assuming she’d be Storm’s support. It had quickly become obvious that Cathy was merely along for the ride, and for Storm’s evening entertainment should he wish her to be.

  She shared a tour bus with Don and Krystal. She never got to play, except on the bus and occasionally at a soundcheck. She shared a room with Krystal unless Storm asked for her, in which case she spent the night with him. After a couple of weeks on the road Cathy was bored, regretting giving up so much to just be Storm Tyler’s bit of fun when none of the other groupies who hung around outside his dressing room grabbed his interest. She remembered the night she had hung around waiting for him at the Astoria. Was that the reason Storm thought she wouldn’t mind being treated like this? Did he see her as nothing more than another of his groupies?

  The only thing that stopped her giving up and going home was that she couldn’t stand the thought of her father being right. She couldn’t stand to see the smug look on his face when she walked back into her parents’ house with her tail between her legs, or to listen to him tell her about how he had known Storm for years and knew what he was like, how he had warned her this would happen.

  Besides, she was on the road with proper musicians. If nothing else she was learning, storing it all up for next time. She knew her big break would come if she just stayed determined, if she just played the long game.

  Her break came, in the end, sooner than she’d expected. During the third week of the tour when they were due to play a venue in Exeter, Krystal came down with food poisoning.

  ‘Why don’t you come on stage with me tonight?’ Don asked.

  ‘Me?’ Cathy said. A feeling somewhere between excitement and terror coursed through her body.

  ‘Yes you.’ Don laughed. ‘You know all the songs, you’re just as good as Krystal on the mandolin and you sing well.’

  ‘I’m not ready,’ Cathy replied. She didn’t know why she was making excuses when the one thing she had been waiting for was being offered to her.

  ‘Cathy, we all know that you came on this tour thinking you’d be supporting Storm,’ Don said kindly. ‘And to be honest I’d like to see you do this, to show Storm that you’re more than just his plaything.’

  Cathy blushed at that and looked away. She couldn’t deny that she was embarrassed about what had happened and had wondered what Don and Krystal must think of her. But Don seemed genuinely annoyed on her behalf and at the same time thought she was a good enough musician to share the stage with. That had to count for something.

  ‘Go on,’ Don encouraged. ‘Don’t make me go out there alone.’

  Cathy still wavered. She wondered what Storm would say.

  ‘We can open with “Gamble Gold” if you like.’ Don grinned.

  ‘But that’s Storm’s encore!’ Cathy said.

  ‘Sod it, we’re having it tonight.’

  And so out on the stage later that night Don introduced Cathy to the audience and then looked at her and winked before counting them in. As they played the opening chords to a song that Cathy had come to know so well, a sense of enormous wellbeing washed over her. She was finally where she belonged.

  Later, after the gig, Storm caught up with her in the dressing room she was sharing with Don.

  ‘You stole my song,’ Storm said. Cathy couldn’t quite make out his tone.

  ‘It’s a Child Ballad man,’ Don replied. ‘Anyone can play it. And Cathy plays it even better than you.’

  There was a pause as Storm’s green eyes, glazed slightly from an ingestion of substances stronger than alcohol, flicked between Cathy and Don. She didn’t know how he would react and realised she was holding her breath.

  And then Storm started laughing – a deep throaty chuckle, his mouth open so Cathy could see the glint of his gold tooth.

&
nbsp; ‘She does as well,’ he said walking over to her and crouching in front of her. He took her head in his hands, his rough calloused fingers at the base of her neck and kissed her, his tongue finding hers. He tasted of stale whisky and cigarettes. He smelled of some other woman’s perfume.

  Cathy had promised herself that she wouldn’t go to Storm’s bed that night if he asked. She had told herself she was sick of the way he treated her and that, if Don saw her as a musician of equal calibre to him, then Don and Krystal were the people she should be asking for advice.

  But when Storm was there, touching her, kissing her, she couldn’t resist him. Cathy had worked out now what her father had known all along – that Storm was trouble. But still she couldn’t resist him. Nothing could get him out of her system, even knowing that he was bad for her, that he wasn’t the man who was going to help her get what she wanted.

  As Storm trailed kisses along Cathy’s neck, she caught a glimpse of Don looking at her sadly before leaving the room.

  16

  Willow

  Willow began to fall into a gentle routine as her initial two weeks on the Island turned into three. She tried not to think much further into the future than the next day and she still got that strange anxious feeling every time her mind wandered to London or to her job. She had googled the word “burnout” more times than she cared to admit but she still couldn’t work out if that was what she was suffering from. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she did know that her mum needed her to help with the festival and she would stay in Seaview until that was done.

  ‘How do you feel about being back?’ her mother asked. ‘Do you feel like you’re settling in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Willow replied, surprising herself with her answer, surprising herself with how quickly Island life had consumed her despite her resistance. She’d started playing her father’s old mandolin regularly, even though she’d told herself that life was behind her now. ‘Some mornings when I first wake up it almost feels as though I’ve never been gone.’

  ‘It’s funny how it has that effect on people,’ Cathy said. ‘Your father’s the same. Even though he spends more time in America than here these days, whenever he comes back for the festival he says it feels like he’s back home.’