The Summer Island Festival

by Rachel Burton

  ‘I didn’t say it felt like home,’ Willow replied. ‘But…’ She wasn’t sure what it did feel like. She wanted to ask more about her father, about how her parents managed to remain friends after they broke up. Perhaps they might have some advice that would help her, but she didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Do you feel like that after you’ve been away?’ she asked instead. ‘As though you’re coming home?’

  ‘Not in quite the same way,’ Cathy said. ‘Maybe you have to be born here like you and your dad,’ she paused. ‘And Luc. I wonder how he feels about being back?’

  Willow shrugged.

  ‘Have you spoken to Charlie?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘He was supposed to call me after he got back from the Maldives but I haven’t heard anything.’ It bothered her that she seemed to care so little about what Charlie was doing. She’d been with him for almost a third of her life and yet she had just let him slip out of her mind now that she was back on the Island.

  Now that she was able to do what she wanted, eat what she wanted, spend time with who she wanted.

  ‘Don’t worry too much about Charlie going on your honeymoon with your friend,’ Cathy said, but Willow hadn’t really been worrying about that at all. She knew she probably should be, but her mind drifted too easily to Luc, to his mysterious phone call and to the festival. ‘Perhaps you should try calling him again though,’ Cathy went on.

  But as one day merged into another Willow didn’t call Charlie. Instead, each morning as she opened up The Music Shop for her mother, Luc would arrive with coffee and they’d chat for a while about nothing in particular before the shop started to get busy. He never asked her about Charlie, or how long she was planning to stay and she never asked what he did all day on the Island after he left the shop, or whether there was anyone waiting for him back in Nashville. Every day he told her how good it was to see her again, every day he kissed her chastely on the cheek and every day this simple routine felt better and better and further away from her life in London.

  ‘Have you seen much of your dad?’ Luc asked one morning.

  ‘He comes in every afternoon to correct my mandolin playing,’ Willow replied. ‘He’s a much later riser than you!’

  Luc’s eyebrows shot up at the mention of the mandolin.

  ‘You’re playing again?’

  ‘Not really, just messing about.’ She didn’t want to admit how much she was enjoying playing with her dad again. It reminded her too much of all the other things she knew she had missed out on when she left the Island, while she was busy creating a different life for herself with Charlie.

  Willow knew how close Luc and Don had been over the years and she had always felt a little envious of their relationship. It was one of the reasons why she was so angry when he left for America with Luc and Krystal. Despite what Cathy had always insisted, despite what Don had told her, Willow had always assumed that at some point Don and Krystal had been an item, and in those early days when she was alone at Cambridge she had always thought that her father was looking after Luc when he should have been looking after her.

  She knew none of those fears held any truth. But still she had kept her family and her past at arm’s length for far too long and she regretted that now.

  ‘If Krystal and Dad weren’t having an affair,’ she asked Luc quietly, ‘why did Dad leave?’

  ‘I have no idea. Something happened that summer – something that you and I didn’t know about.’

  ‘I guess we both had a lot on our own plates back then. I guess we just didn’t notice.’

  But Willow had noticed and she guessed from what Luc had told her about his panic attacks so had he. She had tried, back then, to ask her mum what was going on, to get her to talk about why Don was leaving and what all the whispered conversations were about that stopped whenever she or Luc entered a room, but Cathy had been as reluctant to talk about it as she was to talk about her days on the road before Willow was born.

  The Big Festival came and went and it turned out that Luc was more famous than Willow had thought, that he did indeed have the odd groupie or two just as Skye had suspected. As the Island filled up with music fans, she saw him being asked to sign things: a record cover, a guitar, even a girl’s bikini on the beach one afternoon although Willow didn’t think Luc knew she’d seen that.

  When she asked him about it he dismissed it. ‘Just a few die-hard British fans of American Stars,’ he said. ‘Most people didn’t watch it, hardly anyone knows who I am.’ But Willow knew a lot of people who had watched that show, a lot of people who would love to see Lucien Hawke play somewhere much bigger than The Seaview Folk Festival. Why had he chosen her parents’ festival? What was he hiding? What was he running away from?

  Luc and Willow met Skye’s partner, Bob Harris, when he visited the Island for a few days. The four of them had dinner together and it felt comfortable – more comfortable than Willow had ever felt with the couples that she and Charlie knew in London – couples who were always trying to outdo each other somehow. Bob was a marketing consultant and was making plans to start expanding his freelance work so he could eventually move to the Island. A voice in the back of Willow’s head thought he was mad to give up his London salary to live on this Island, but that voice wasn’t as loud as it used to be.

  ‘How did you meet?’ Luc asked.

  ‘I tattooed him,’ Skye replied. Bob looked the least likely person in the country to have a tattoo but apparently appearances were deceptive.

  ‘I asked her out in the hope she’d give me a discount on the ink,’ he said.

  ‘Did she?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Of course not!’

  When Luc walked Willow home afterwards and he slung his arm around her shoulders, she didn’t step away even though she knew she should. She still hadn’t called Charlie and her life in London was beginning to feel as though it had happened to a different person in a different dimension.

  She tried not to think about London at all, and she tried not to think about Luc’s life in Nashville and the people who would be waiting for him. There were 101 reasons why Willow and Luc could never be together and whatever her treacherous heart might tell her when she was with him, she knew that between them they had thrown away their only chance twelve summers ago.

  *

  ‘Do you still want to listen to that tape?’ Luc asked one morning over coffee in The Music Shop.

  ‘Of course!’ Willow replied. ‘But I’ve nothing to play it on.’ She had a sudden urge to check that the tape was in her bag, just as she had about a thousand times a day since she found it.

  ‘Well,’ Luc said. ‘I’ve booked a session with Tom Newell at the studio. I’ve told him I want to lay down some tracks while I’m here, songs inspired by the Island. I asked him if he had a DAT recorder.’

  ‘Does he?’

  Luc nodded. ‘He droned on for a while about his state-of-the-art Pro Tools system but I kept insisting that I wanted to record on DAT so he said he’d get the old equipment set up for me.’

  Willow chewed her lip. ‘Luc,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to give you the tape.’

  To her surprise he laughed. ‘I know, Willow. I’ve seen how shifty you are around it and I figured you wouldn’t want to give it to me, so I’ve come up with a plan for that too.’

  ‘You have?’ Clearly Willow hadn’t hidden her feelings about the tape very well and she felt embarrassed. She’d never paid much attention to gut feelings before, but the one she had about this tape was too strong to ignore. Just like the one she’d had on her wedding day.

  ‘I told Tom I wanted to get you back into music so you’d be coming with me.’

  ‘I don’t want Tom there when we listen to it,’ Willow said. She sounded paranoid now but Tom liked to “help” out with all the musicians who used the studio. It used to drive Willow’s parents mad when they first handed over the reins to him. They hadn’t expected him to be so hands on.

&n
bsp; ‘Don’t worry about that either. I remember what Tom’s like so I told him I wanted to be alone with you.’ He winked at Willow and her stomach flipped. She didn’t want to feel like this about Luc; it was too complicated.

  ‘Christ, Luc, I’ve literally just walked out on Charlie – what are people going to think when that rumour starts getting around the Island?’

  But Luc just smiled and Willow tried to ignore the fact that the idea of a night alone with Luc Harrison felt more exciting than it should do.

  ‘Why are you so worried about this tape?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I just have this feeling that it’s important.’

  He looked as though he was going to say something but then his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and his expression changed completely. He put the phone in his pocket and made his excuses. He didn’t kiss Willow’s cheek when he left. Whoever was on the other end of that call was important to Luc and was probably the same person who had called him in Skye’s kitchen. The person who he called “sweetheart”. Suddenly a night alone with Luc Harrison in Tom’s recording studio didn’t seem like a good idea at all.

  *

  Luc didn’t bring coffee the next morning and Willow assumed that whoever had phoned him the previous day had reminded him that he probably shouldn’t be spending so much time with her.

  Later that morning she got a text from him telling her to meet him in The Three Doves at 7pm because the recording session was booked for that evening. He reminded her to bring a mandolin to make his cover story look realistic and Willow rolled her eyes at his presumption.

  Instead of coffee with Luc, that morning Willow was treated to the smug smile of Roger Beck in the shop.

  ‘Willow,’ Roger said, drawing out the last syllable as he walked in, the bell jangling behind him. ‘I was hoping to run into you.’

  ‘Seeking someone out at their workplace hardly counts as running into them,’ she replied, pretending not to notice the hand he extended towards her as she kept her eyes on the mandolin she was restringing.

  He laughed, a strange fake sort of noise and Willow looked up at him. He was wearing a beige jacket with suede patches at the sleeves and thick-framed glasses and he looked exactly like his father used to look. He must only be thirty-three but he seemed so much older.

  ‘Same old sense of humour,’ he said as though they were once friends. ‘It’s good to see you back.’ Willow wished people would stop saying that, as though she was back for good.

  ‘What do you want, Roger?’ she asked.

  ‘I heard you were back and I just wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘Roger, we both know that you know I’m back because I submitted the appeal for the festival permissions and I’m pretty sure that half the Island knows I’m back because I left my husband-to-be at the altar on our wedding day. As there is a planning appeal meeting on Monday I really don’t think us chatting about the good old days is appropriate, do you?’

  His smile faded to something a little more unpleasant at her words. Willow had been hoping to avoid Roger completely until the appeal on Monday. She’d figured he was unlikely to come looking for her or to hang out in musicians’ haunts like The Three Doves. Clearly she had been wrong.

  ‘Willow, I think we should be civil about this,’ he said. ‘We both know that your mother’s little festival has had its heyday now. Nobody is interested in folk music anymore and I happen to know that the ticket sales are down year on year.’

  Were they? Willow had no idea. Cathy hadn’t mentioned anything about it.

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that at the planning committee meeting, won’t we?’ Willow said with as much certainty as she could muster. ‘Trust me, Roger, the Island wants this festival. I don’t know why you don’t.’

  ‘Nobody is interested anymore, Willow. Let it go.’

  Willow felt a stab of anger at this. Surely that wasn’t true? The folk festival was as much a part of Seaview as the sand and the sea and the clifftops and Cartwright’s sweet shop.

  ‘Plenty of people are interested in folk music,’ she said. ‘Luc Harrison just won American Stars and lots of people will pay to see him.’

  She watched Roger’s face grow paler and his fake smile get tighter when she mentioned Luc’s name. What was it about Luc and the folk festival that made Roger so angry?

  ‘He didn’t actually win though did he, Willow?’ he said unpleasantly.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Roger? Mum’s festival has been going for nearly twenty years. People love it and it brings business to everyone in Seaview. It makes people happy so why are you hellbent on destroying it when it’s never caused you any harm? We’d all be so sad if we couldn’t have a festival this year.’

  His lips were so thin now that they had almost disappeared entirely.

  ‘What do you care about the festival?’ he asked quietly. ‘You haven’t been back for years. But now here you are again, you and Luc and Skye, all back together again like you were at school.’

  ‘Roger, what on earth—’ Willow said, shocked at his anger now.

  ‘I’ll see you at the planning meeting,’ he interrupted. ‘And you’d better come up with a very good argument for this festival, a better one than Luc Harrison playing at it, if you want the council to approve it. You can trust me on that.’

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the door.

  17

  Luc

  The feelings Luc had for Willow weren’t as firmly boxed away in the past as he’d hoped they were. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was driving him mad and it definitely wasn’t helping him focus or get over his writer’s block. He knew that he’d almost kissed her right before his phone started ringing. Annelise couldn’t have timed that call better if she’d tried.

  The phone call had brought him back to earth – just as the one he’d accidentally answered in Skye’s kitchen had three weeks ago. He was back on the Island for a reason, the same reason he’d done American Stars in the first place, the same reason he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted or let himself fail. The same reason he had to get his feelings for Willow under control before he ended up hurting her all over again.

  He had to concentrate on writing this next record and he had to make sure the festival went ahead. And at the end of the summer he had to go back to Nashville.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  He had to stop thinking about Willow to protect both of them and to protect Annelise, and that was why he’d skipped his usual morning coffee with Willow in an attempt to keep away from her.

  But now they were in The Three Doves together, it felt like old times again and Luc didn’t know how he could keep away from her.

  Which meant he had to tell her the truth, and soon.

  He sat opposite Willow at the pub table rather than on the bench next to her. It wasn’t much but if it just put a bit of distance between them for the time being then that was for the best. He tried not to notice when his knees brushed against hers as she told him about her visit from Roger Beck.

  ‘I don’t understand why he’s still so angry,’ Willow said. ‘He started off perfectly politely – he looks exactly like his dad now – and then he just got really cross. All I did was refuse to shake his hand.’

  ‘Willow.’ Luc laughed. ‘You should probably at least try to be nice to him for the sake of your mum’s festival.’

  ‘It’s not like he holds the future of the festival in his hands. He’s just put in an objection based on nothing. All Mum and I have to do is convince the council that we’re not a nuisance and we’ll be fine.’ But Luc saw a cloud cross her face that contradicted that statement and he wondered what else had happened to make her worry. ‘I’m more interested in why he’s still holding a grudge anyway,’ she went on.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Luc asked.

  ‘Isn’t what obvious?’

  Luc grinned. ‘Roger Beck was head over heels in love with you at school. Absolutely crazy about you. I t
hought you knew that. Skye thought it was hilarious.’

  ‘What?’ Willow frowned. ‘Why did nobody tell me about it?’

  ‘Would you have gone out with him if we had?’

  ‘No, but…’ Willow trailed off. ‘You think that’s what this is all about? Because he had a crush on me at school and I ignored him and now he’s finally got a chance for revenge by blocking the permissions for Mum’s festival?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s what it’s all about,’ Luc said, remembering how many other boys had a crush on Willow when she was at school and how oblivious she had been to it all. ‘I don’t know if you remember this but Roger’s dad was always against the festival too. He thought it brought the wrong element into town, especially back in the day before they started The Big Festival up again.’

  ‘He was?’ Willow had never been as interested in the folk festival as Luc had been.

  ‘Yeah, he’s just fighting his dad’s battle coupled with his unrequited love for you and this is what you get.’ Luc laughed spreading his hands.

  ‘Shut up,’ Willow said smiling. ‘I feel a bit sorry for him.’

  ‘For Roger?’

  ‘Well he doesn’t think much of you either. He was very derogatory about American Stars.’

  ‘Hardly surprising that he hates me is it, seeing as he was in love with you.’

  Willow felt her cheeks colour at this, a memory of lying naked on the beach with Luc flashing into her mind.

  ‘Where did you rush off to yesterday?’ Willow asked, changing the subject. ‘Is everything OK? I missed you this morning.’

  Luc had been hoping she wouldn’t ask that question, hoping she wouldn’t really notice that he hadn’t brought her a coffee today. But hearing her say that she missed him made his heart sing.

  Before he had time to think of an answer he was interrupted.

  ‘Here they are,’ a voice shouted across the pub. ‘Love’s young dream!’