The Summer Island Festival

by Rachel Burton

  Does he have to be so loud? Luc thought as he drained his pint and stood up to greet Tom. He caught Willow’s eye and she gave him a disgruntled look that told Luc in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t happy about this picture of reunited love that he’d painted. Luc winked at her and she looked away.

  ‘Tom, can I get you a drink?’ he asked, regretting it almost immediately. If he said yes they’d never get away.

  ‘I’m off to see Willow’s mum tonight,’ Tom said. He always did the sound for the folk festival so that must be what he and Cathy were talking about tonight. He didn’t seem to know about the permission for the licences, which was a good thing. ‘Another time?’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’ Luc nodded with no intention of letting there be another time.

  ‘Do you need keys?’ Tom asked.

  Willow shook her head. ‘I’ve got Mum’s keys with me,’ she said.

  ‘Right well, I’ve left the DAT player out like you said, although why you don’t want to use Pro Tools—’

  ‘Trust me,’ Luc interrupted, tapping Tom on the shoulder before he could continue with a monologue on the glories of Pro Tools. Cathy had told Luc that it hadn’t been that long ago when Tom Newell thought that Pro Tools was the work of the devil.

  ‘Are you ready, Willow?’ he asked turning to her and she nodded picking up her dad’s mandolin and her handbag. Luc saw her check for the tape for the third time since she’d arrived.

  ‘Well have fun, lovebirds,’ Tom called after them as they left, his wheezy laugh following them out of the door.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ Willow said as the pub door shut behind them. ‘What were you thinking telling him you wanted to be alone with me?’

  ‘Well it’s not a lie, is it?’ Luc replied and when she looked at him and smiled, he had to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop himself taking her face in his hands and crushing his lips against hers. He walked a little bit ahead of her in an attempt to stop himself thinking about what that would feel like.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked as they arrived at The Music Shop. Willow walked around to the back of the shop to open the studio door and Luc followed. His mouth was dry at the thought that in just a few minutes they’d know exactly what was on that tape. Because, just like Willow, Luc was sure it was significant and Willow was the only person he trusted with that tape. Despite everything, right now there wasn’t anyone else he’d rather share this with.

  Luc opened the door and walked into the familiar surroundings of the studio. Tom might have gone all out on the modern equipment but the studio itself looked exactly the same as it had done years ago when Willow and Luc used to watch their parents record here. The carpets were as old as time, the walls hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years and there was a strange musty smell. Luc noticed a coffee cup sitting on a desk by the door and wondered how long it had been there.

  ‘It smells of musicians,’ Willow said with a shudder. ‘I haven’t ventured in here since I’ve been back and this is why. It always was a dump and Mum would never let me clean it up.’

  Luc remembered how as a teenager Willow had been always tidying up The Music Shop when she worked there at weekends, always moving stuff around to make it more aesthetically pleasing. She’d wanted to do the same in the studio but Cathy had never let her. He led her into the studio now and pulled up a stool as he got the DAT player ready.

  ‘Hand it over,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t let it leave your sight.’

  She passed the tape to him and he noticed her hands were shaking. What was she so nervous about? Luc felt as though they were opening up a whole can of worms and he wasn’t sure if it was to do with the tape or the fact that they were alone together here, against his better judgement. For a fleeting moment he thought about giving the tape back to her and walking her home. When he looked at her, she was biting her lip.

  ‘You sure about this?’ he asked and she hesitated just for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘Play it.’

  ‘Here’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for,’ Luc said as he put the tape into the player.

  He pressed play and they waited in silence. Luc was holding his breath and when he didn’t hear anything he thought the tape was blank, that there was nothing on it and all of this had been a waste of time.

  Then he heard the sound of a man clearing his throat and a voice he didn’t immediately recognise echoed out of the speakers. ‘“Gamble Gold” Take one,’ the man’s voice said.

  What followed was Child Ballad number 132, a song that Steeleye Span made famous in the 1970s. But for Willow and Luc it would always be the song that The Laurels used to close with when they toured with them as children.

  One of Luc’s earliest memories was being backstage with Willow at one of their parents’ gigs. They both had ear-protecting headphones clamped over their heads and were holding each other’s hands. The Laurels had played their version of “Gamble Gold”, a ballad that told the story of how Robin Hood and Little John came across a random pedlar in Sherwood Forest one afternoon. When the pedlar refused to hand over his belongings Robin set on him with a sword. After fighting almost to the death, it turned out that the pedlar was, in fact, Gamble Gold, Robin’s cousin, so off they went to have a pint together as if nothing untoward had happened. Luc had always thought it was a ridiculous song but Willow had loved it. He could remember dancing with her backstage as The Laurels played, just as he could remember dancing with her when The Laurels played “Gamble Gold” at the opening of The Music Shop and at a hundred other occasions before and since.

  But this wasn’t the version of “Gamble Gold” that Luc knew – this wasn’t a jaunty singalong tune to finish a gig with. This was a haunting version of the song that sent shivers down his spine. It was stripped down to its bare bones, just one man, his mandolin and a female backing vocalist. By the time the song was over Luc felt completely overwhelmed.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Willow whispered and when he looked at her she was pale as a ghost.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘That voice,’ she said. ‘You recognise it right?’

  ‘I do but I can’t quite place him.’

  ‘Not the guy,’ Willow said. ‘The backing vocalist. It’s Mum.’

  Luc looked surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. She’s been singing to me since I was in the womb. I’d know that voice anywhere.’

  Luc rewound the tape a little so they could hear it again.

  ‘So it is,’ he said softly. ‘Wow.’

  Willow took a breath. ‘So the GG stands for “Gamble Gold” I guess,’ she said.

  Luc smiled. ‘Do you remember when The Laurels used to play it?’

  ‘Mum always loved that song,’ she replied. ‘The lead vocal must be whoever NF is. You said you recognised the voice?’

  He was sure he recognised the voice but he needed to listen again. He rewound the tape again, and this time he knew for sure. If it was who Luc thought it was then this tape was even more significant than he had first thought. He stopped the recording halfway through, a surge of adrenaline ripping through him – but this time it wasn’t an impending panic attack, it was excitement. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this. He stood up, fumbling for his phone and stabbing at his music app as he attached it to the studio speaker system.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Listen,’ he said.

  After a moment the opening chords to a song they both knew very well started to play. It had been one of their favourites growing up.

  ‘King Silver,’ Willow said quietly. ‘“Chord of Plenty”. I haven’t listened to this in years.’

  ‘Wait,’ Luc said, holding up a finger. He wanted her to hear it too.

  And there it was, the voice from the DAT tape. The voice of Storm Tyler, lead singer of King Silver.

  ‘Storm Tyler,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t recognise it.’
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  ‘Jesus,’ Luc whispered under his breath. He was right, this was huge.

  ‘So this is a demo of Storm Tyler singing “Gamble Gold” with my mother in August 1999?’ Willow double-checked and Luc nodded. ‘But didn’t Storm disappear sometime in the late Eighties? I thought he was dead.’

  ‘There are a lot of theories about what happened to Storm after he disappeared,’ Luc told her. ‘There are whole websites dedicated to him and there are a lot of obsessive King Silver fans full of conspiracy theories. It’s almost as ridiculous as those “Paul is dead” rumours that ran around after The Beatles released The White Album.’ Willow looked at him in a wistful kind of way and Luc suspected that she hadn’t listened to any of the music that they loved as kids since she’d left the Island and he wanted to know why. Why had she drawn a line under everything she’d ever loved?

  ‘But this is definitely Storm Tyler isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘And it’s recorded in 1999.’

  ‘I’m positive it’s him and I don’t think he’s dead. Someone would have produced a death certificate by now. I think he’s just lying low. I think the music business destroyed him.’ Luc knew how that felt now. He wanted to tell Willow but this was neither the time nor the place.

  ‘But my mother knows where he is,’ Willow said. ‘Or at the very least she knew where he was in 1999.’

  Luc didn’t say anything, he just stared at the DAT player.

  ‘My mother and Storm Tyler,’ Willow repeated.

  ‘You had no idea that she knew him?’ Luc asked.

  ‘None, I just told you – I thought he was dead.’

  They sat in silence for a moment and Luc thought about the enormity of this tape they’d found. For a few years in the 1980s King Silver had been one of the hottest bands around. They’d split for a few months in 1984 while Storm embarked upon a solo tour but things hadn’t worked out and King Silver got back together the next year, but by 1987 they’d all gone their separate ways and Storm Tyler hadn’t been heard of since.

  ‘What does the NF stand for?’ Willow asked after a while.

  ‘Neil Flannigan I’m guessing. Storm’s real name.’

  ‘Could you imagine what people would say if they knew we had this?’

  ‘I know. You were right, Lil.’ The nickname just slipped out. He’d always called her Lil when they were younger, a hangover from when he was small and couldn’t pronounce “Willow” properly. He didn’t realise that he’d done it until Willow looked at him, her eyes locking on his. Luc looked away first, taking the tape out of the player.

  ‘This is something important,’ he said, avoiding her gaze. ‘You have to keep it safe and I don’t think we should tell anyone about it just yet.’

  But she didn’t reply and when Luc looked at her again, her brow was furrowed as though she was trying to catch a memory that she couldn’t quite get hold of.

  18

  August 1984 to January 1985

  After Cathy’s debut performance with The Laurels, Don decided to make it a regular thing, turning the duo into a trio with Cathy on mandolin and sharing vocals with Krystal. Cathy wasn’t sure how happy Krystal was about this arrangement. While the older woman was perfectly nice to Cathy there was an underlying feeling that Cathy was an imposter, someone who was only there through pity. If it hadn’t been for Don regularly telling her that she was bringing something special to The Laurels, something that had been missing, Cathy might have run away from the whole thing.

  Not that she had anywhere to run to. Despite what her mother had told her about keeping in touch if she needed anything, Cathy was determined not to ask for help, or to beg her mother for her father’s forgiveness. Pip had sublet Cathy’s room in the flat so she couldn’t go back there, not that she could afford the rent until she found a job.

  Cathy hadn’t spent the night with Storm since the first time she’d performed with Don, when Krystal had been ill. In fact, other than on stage each night none of the members of The Laurels saw Storm at all. Even his stage performance was becoming erratic. He started turning up late and cutting his sets short. He played shambolically, forgetting the lyrics to his own songs or giving up on a song halfway through and mumbling at the audience about how he didn’t like that one much anyway. To Cathy it looked as though he had forgotten his own songs, but nobody said anything so she kept her misgivings to herself.

  Each night when he came off stage he would walk past her and Don and Krystal, barely acknowledging them, and disappear to God only knew where. Cathy had gone back to sharing a room with Krystal. Storm had even started getting from venue to venue under his own steam and Cathy wouldn’t see him from one evening to the next.

  Cathy knew that Storm drank a lot. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him without a drink in his hand and every time she saw him, every time he breezed past her without a hint of acknowledgement, he stank of alcohol. She also knew that alcohol wasn’t the only drug he indulged in and often remembered the white powder all over the dressing room in the Astoria when she’d visited him there after his gig. She’d overheard Don and Krystal talking about it on more than one occasion and, although she never joined in the gossip – still feeling too inexperienced to have much of an opinion, it was starting to feel as though things were getting progressively worse.

  A lot of musicians drank and took drugs – everyone knew that – but this was more than just the usual overindulgence on tour. Storm’s performance was suffering and the audiences weren’t happy. As the tour progressed Cathy felt a low grumbling, a vaguely discontented energy, emanate from the crowd each evening as rumours of Storm’s increasingly erratic behaviour preceded him from one town to the next. The Laurels found themselves playing longer and longer sets to try to distract from Storm’s increasingly appalling timekeeping and although they were well received night after night, the crowd weren’t there to see The Laurels.

  Cathy felt as though they were all burying their heads in the sand. She knew Don had spoken to Storm’s manager but it hadn’t changed anything and she had a feeling that things were going to take a turn for the worse. The Laurels carried on regardless, playing their support set pretending everything was all right.

  Until the night, towards the end of the tour, when Storm didn’t show up at all.

  At first everyone thought he’d just been delayed, his manager insisted he was on his way. The Laurels extended their set – they’d become quite adept at that over the previous weeks – adding in a few Ballad Book favourites and, much to Cathy’s delight, a song that she had written and the trio had been working on together. It was the last song they played and the audience seemed to like it, applauding enthusiastically and some of them asking for more. It was the first time that Cathy had experienced that feeling she had asked Storm about in his dressing room at the Astoria, that feeling of an audience listening to the songs you wrote and enjoying them. She knew she had a long way to go, but it felt like a first step. Don had nudged her as the audience applauded and caught her eye, winking at her, and Cathy had felt a sense of gentle euphoria wash over her as though she was right at the beginning of something.

  The feeling was short-lived. As The Laurels came off stage they were greeted by Storm’s manager telling them that Storm had stepped out in front of a taxi and was now in hospital. He had mild concussion and a couple of broken ribs but, in the circumstances, had decided to cancel the rest of the tour.

  ‘Was he drunk?’ Don asked, but Storm’s manager didn’t reply.

  ‘Of course he was bloody drunk,’ Krystal muttered as she walked back to the dressing room.

  The three of them sat backstage for a while trying to take in what had happened.

  ‘Well The Laurels have had some good exposure,’ Don said, trying to find a silver lining. ‘Perhaps we could work on that, start playing bigger venues than we were before. After all,’ he went on looking at Cathy, ‘we’re a proper band now.’

  ‘We’re going to have to do something,’ Krystal replied, but Cathy st
ill got the impression Krystal would be happier if she wasn’t there. Perhaps Krystal was right: this tour hadn’t been quite what she’d imagined and she was beginning to wonder if going home with her tail between her legs was her only option now.

  ‘I don’t know if I can go on being a part of The Laurels,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I should probably just try to make amends with my father and go back to the Academy.’

  ‘You can always come and stay with me,’ Krystal said unexpectedly, so much so that even Don looked at her in surprise, confirming Cathy’s suspicions that Krystal hadn’t been entirely happy about her becoming a permanent member of the band.

  ‘What?’ Krystal went on when she realised that both Don and Cathy were staring at her. ‘Cathy’s got a lot to learn about being on the road, but she’s a talented musician and we’d be mad to lose her. She can stay in the box room in my flat.’

  Don sat back in his chair and grinned. ‘You’ve a heart of gold, Krystal Harrison,’ he said.

  ‘Harrison?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘Kane is just my stage name,’ Krystal said. ‘But don’t you go telling anyone that. And don’t go getting ideas that I’m all heart either, Miss Cole. That room is tiny.’

  Tiny it might be, but Cathy was beyond grateful for the second chance.

  *

  As autumn moved into winter The Laurels found themselves getting more and more gigs in pubs and small venues in and around London. Their name was starting to become known within the folk scene and their performances were often sold out. This was partly due to Don’s relentless hard work at getting them exposure and with the money they’d made from gigs, the band had even managed to record a few songs to sell on cassette at concerts. But the gentle rise of The Laurels also came down to the reputation they’d earned as being versatile and reliable during the disaster that was Storm Tyler’s solo tour. Word had got around about how strong their support set had been and how they’d carried on playing until the bitter end, even when everyone had known that the tour had fallen apart completely.