The Summer Island Festival

by Rachel Burton

‘I thought Dad was in Rocco’s spare room,’ Willow said.

  ‘Your father’s staying with Tom.’

  ‘God, poor Dad.’ Had Storm really turned up in Seaview with nowhere to stay? Typical musician, assuming someone would put him up. ‘Have you seen Neil?’ she asked.

  ‘Not properly. He’s spending time with Luc and Krystal. The three of them have a lot to talk about. They don’t need me interrupting that.’

  Willow noticed the wistful look in her mother’s eye and thought again about what she’d said all those weeks ago, right at the beginning of the summer when Willow had first arrived back on the Island.

  Perhaps someone else still has a piece of your heart.

  ‘I meant…’ Willow paused. ‘I meant have you seen him over the last twelve years?’

  Cathy sat down in the workshop and gestured for Willow to join her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘For the last few years Neil and I have met up for a few weeks at the end of every summer, after the festival. I go down to his house in France. He lives in a little village just outside of Nimes in Provence. It’s an old ramshackle farmhouse with temperamental hot water but it’s so peaceful and the views are beautiful.’

  A look of pure happiness flashed across Cathy’s face as she talked about Storm and his home in France.

  ‘He makes you happy, doesn’t he?’ Willow asked.

  Cathy nodded and looked away, as though she was embarrassed.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why did you keep it all a secret?’

  ‘There have been so many reasons not to tell you over the years,’ Cathy said. ‘At first I was embarrassed and ashamed of what I’d done, of my past. And I felt I had to let go of the whole Storm Tyler episode, cut it out of my memory for your father’s sake. I didn’t want the ghost of my ex to be shadowing our marriage.’

  Willow didn’t say anything, but she thought of Luc and how she had cut him out of her life so that his shadow didn’t follow her and Charlie around. Were we all destined to repeat the mistakes of our parents, of our grandparents, for all eternity?

  ‘I couldn’t do it though,’ Cathy continued. ‘I’d find myself thinking about Neil every now and then. He behaved appallingly towards the end, completely at the mercy of his addictions and he refused to get proper help, but I still loved him no matter how hard I tried not to. After we set up the festival, I used to think of him every summer. I used to think how much he would have enjoyed playing on the beach.’

  ‘But he never did?’ Willow asked.

  ‘No, he never did,’ Cathy replied. ‘He was supposed to play in 1999. It was meant to be a big celebration to commemorate the eclipse but…’ She hesitated, as though she didn’t want to remember everything.

  ‘What happened, Mum?’

  ‘Oh it was all my fault,’ Cathy said. ‘I should never have let him go to the pub on his own. We’d just recorded that demo you found. He had this idea for a comeback, an album of rearrangements of Ballad Book songs but he only got as far as that one. He got so drunk after he recorded it that your father threw him out and told him to never set foot on the Island again.’

  ‘And he stayed away until the summer that Dad left?’ Willow asked, trying to piece everything together in her head and trying to work out where she was the summer that Storm was on the Island. She’d spent a lot of time at Luc’s that summer and it was perfectly possible that her path and Storm’s never crossed. It was perfectly possible that her parents made sure they didn’t.

  ‘And we all knew he was Luc’s father by then,’ Cathy said. ‘Which was yet another reason not to tell you about him.’ Cathy sighed. ‘I wanted to keep you away from him when you were a child and he kept falling off the wagon. I didn’t think you needed to know. The longer I left it, the harder it was to tell you anything at all.’

  ‘But you went to France every year after Dad left,’ Willow said, shocked that her mother had been going away every year, having a secret relationship with someone who used to be ridiculously famous, and she’d never known about it.

  ‘You had your life, Willow,’ Cathy said. ‘And I had mine. You compartmentalised your life – you don’t think I noticed but I did. You shut away the Island and your family and everything that happened and you didn’t think about it.’ She paused. ‘Well maybe I did something similar. As long as Neil was in France, he didn’t have any bearing on my life here, or my relationship with you.’

  ‘Until he turned up,’ Willow said, understanding the need to compartmentalise, to separate out the different parts of your life. She understood where she got it from now as well, but she wasn’t sure it was a particularly healthy thing to do.

  ‘Until he turned up,’ Cathy repeated. ‘Again.’

  Willow saw her mother in a whole new light. She had a life that Willow had known nothing about, just as she’d had a life in London that she’d never really talked about to Cathy.

  ‘I think perhaps we both need to stop shutting each other out,’ Cathy said slowly. ‘And be a bit more honest with each other.’

  ‘Charlie and I are over,’ Willow said.

  ‘I’d figured that out, Willow, and after what he did I’m glad.’

  ‘And I was thinking I might move back to the Island if that’s OK? Back home.’ The words spilled out of her mouth before she knew she’d said them but as soon as they were spoken she knew they were true.

  The Island had always been home, so naturally she was going to move back.

  ‘Of course it’s OK,’ Cathy replied. ‘And what about Luc?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Willow replied. But she knew that after the festival Luc would go back to Nashville and she would get on with her life in the only way she knew how.

  *

  She sat with her parents at the restaurant table later that evening making small talk.

  ‘We haven’t seen you for days, Willow,’ Don said. ‘Where have you been hiding?’

  ‘I’ve been at Skye’s,’ Willow replied. ‘I just needed some space. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ Don said as the waiter brought their main courses. ‘It’s us who should be sorry. We should have told you everything a long time ago.’

  Cathy began by telling Willow about the first time she’d seen Don, when he opened for King Silver all those years ago.

  ‘He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen,’ Cathy said.

  ‘I was hailed as the new Nick Drake you know.’

  ‘My friend said you looked more like Kris Kristofferson.’ Cathy laughed.

  The story took all evening to tell as her parents broke off on tangents like this. The main course was finished, and dessert had been and gone. Coffee cups sat empty in front of them before the tale was over. Willow knew everything, from Cathy meeting Storm when she was sixteen to her going on tour with him. She knew about his addictions, his behaviour, his inability to stay faithful or sober and she knew, for the first time really, how famous and talented The Laurels had been before she and Luc were born. She could put her own childhood into the context of the story – the summer of the first Seaview Folk Festival and the year that The Laurels started touring again, what she was doing when Storm recorded the tape and where she and Luc were when he found out he was Luc’s father.

  ‘It was my fault that it came out when it did,’ Don said. ‘I was so angry with Neil for falling off the wagon again. He’d screwed up so badly time and again and he was supposed to play the festival, which he couldn’t do of course. I’d bent over backwards to accommodate him, and he let us all down.’ Don paused, wiping his brow with his napkin. ‘But he had hurt us all over again and I couldn’t stand him being there. It was when we were arguing about it all that Krystal told us. She didn’t mean to; it just slipped out and Neil was there of course. He overheard.’

  ‘And yet, despite all that, you and Mum managed to stay friends,’ Willow said.

  ‘Yes. The break-up itself was amicable enough. Despite how angry I was with Neil, he wasn’t the re
ason we split up. Our marriage was over and we both knew that. It had been for years. I’d really only stayed around for you, Willow, and you were off to Cambridge.’

  But I needed you, Willow thought to herself. But that was something to talk to her father about some other time, when they were alone.

  ‘And all of this is why you don’t speak to your father?’ Willow asked her mother instead.

  ‘He gave me an ultimatum and I chose Storm Tyler.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  ‘I’ve never regretted a moment of it,’ her mother said. ‘Because at the end of the day I got to have you.’ Willow met her mother’s gaze then and she knew how much her parents loved her, how they’d kept things from her to protect her. She wished they’d told her why they’d broken up though. She wished she’d been able to understand that at least before she’d gone to Cambridge. It might have helped her make sense of her life instead of running away from it.

  ‘But you never told me anything,’ Willow said quietly.

  ‘No,’ Cathy replied. ‘And perhaps we should have done. Perhaps we should have told both you and Luc. Perhaps that would have made the whole thing easier, but at the time we thought we were doing the right thing.’

  Nobody spoke for a moment.

  ‘And now Luc is headlining the festival his father never turned up for,’ Willow said.

  ‘And his father’s going to bloody well turn up for it this time too,’ Don said.

  ‘He is?’ Willow asked.

  ‘He is,’ Don replied. ‘If I have to drag him on to the stage myself.’

  Willow smiled. ‘I can’t believe I pulled it off.’ She paused thinking of Luc. ‘We pulled it off.’

  ‘Your mum says you’re thinking of moving back to the Island,’ Don said.

  Willow took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m coming home.’

  Willow had always known she would stay for the festival, but after that her life had felt like an unknown in which anything could happen. She’d spent the summer assuming that, as soon as the festival was over, she would just go back to London, go back to work and get on with her life. But she knew now that she couldn’t do that.

  She knew she had to build herself a new life.

  Two months ago, when Willow had walked away from her own wedding and left Charlie at the altar, she hadn’t really known why she’d done it. But she did now. It wasn’t because things had changed between her and Charlie – although they had of course and now Willow had found out about her ex-fiancé and her ex-best friend she knew why – it wasn’t even because she didn’t love him. It was because things had changed in her and they had started changing when she’d watched the musician who called himself Lucien Hawke pick up his guitar on the very first audition episode of American Stars and she’d realised who he was. She had started to understand that she needed to learn to love herself again.

  She hadn’t realised what had been happening at the time but watching Luc play had reminded her of everything she had left behind, everything she truly was. She had thought that she had needed to change everything about herself to have the life she thought she wanted, to have Charlie.

  But nobody could hide their true self forever.

  Despite her parents’ marriage falling apart, Willow believed that there was no going back from a wedding. That it was forever. And she’d known, as she had stood with her father in the doorway of the church on her wedding day, that she couldn’t keep it up forever. She couldn’t keep up this act of being somebody she wasn’t.

  She’d come back to the Island because she’d had nowhere else to go, but while she had been here, she’d finally remembered who she really was – someone who loved playing the mandolin, someone who never much liked wearing make-up or having to brush her hair. She had spent years blaming everybody else for her inability to quite grasp on to happiness – her parents for breaking up, Luc for leaving her, Charlie’s family for never really liking her, Charlie himself for always wanting her to be somebody she wasn’t.

  But the only person Willow had to blame for her own unhappiness was herself. She had chosen to leave the Island; she had chosen to stop playing mandolin and stop listening to the music she had loved to listen to with Luc. She had chosen not to reply to Luc’s letters, or to try to apologise to Skye and she had chosen to change herself to make Charlie happy.

  Ultimately none of it had made Charlie happy, and none of it had made her happy.

  The only person in charge of Willow’s happiness was Willow. She had made a lot of mistakes over the last twelve years, but she knew now that she could fix them and she could find the person she used to be again.

  She loved the Island and she loved being back, with or without Luc Harrison.

  *

  A few days before the Seaview Folk Festival began Annelise barrelled into The Music Shop, the bell on the door that Willow had never gotten around to taking down, jangling behind her.

  ‘Hello,’ Willow said as Annelise came up to her and gave her an awkward hug. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you for ages,’ Annelise replied. ‘And I wanted to say hello.’

  ‘Well it’s lovely to see you, Annelise, but are you here on your own?’ Willow asked, worried that she’d wandered off again and that Luc was somewhere frantically looking for her.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Daddy’s on his way too. I just ran on ahead.’

  Willow’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t seen him for nearly two weeks and she hadn’t realised how much she’d missed him.

  ‘He misses you,’ Annelise went on. ‘I heard him telling Gramma Krystal how much he wants to see you.’

  ‘You did?’

  But before Annelise had a chance to reply the shop door opened again and Luc walked in. He leant against the doorframe and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans just as he had at Skye’s studio all those weeks ago.

  He smiled his lazy crooked smile.

  35

  Luc

  ‘Hey,’ he said quietly as Willow turned to look at him. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘That’s what I was telling her,’ Annelise said as she sat down on the shop floor, making herself at home. Luc looked away from Willow, feeling himself blush.

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ Willow said.

  ‘I just needed some time, you know?’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ Willow replied. ‘Me too.’

  Her expression was unreadable and he didn’t really know what he expected – for her to throw herself into his arms and declare her undying love? He’d missed her for most of the last twelve years after all; there was nothing new about that. Willow had told him she didn’t want to lose touch with him this time when he went back to America. But he didn’t want to go back to America at all, not without her.

  He’d have to though, for a while at least. He had a lot of changes to make.

  ‘Is it true you play the mandolin?’ Annelise asked Willow.

  ‘I used to,’ Willow replied. ‘But I haven’t played for a long time.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Luc interrupted. ‘You’ve been playing all summer. You must have picked it up again by now?’ He winked at her and remembered that first day all those weeks ago, watching her as she sat on the counter with her back to him.

  ‘Will you play for me, Willow?’ Annelise asked.

  Willow hesitated for a moment. ‘OK,’ she said warily. Luc knew she didn’t really want to. She had always been private about her music and had never wanted to play on stage no matter how much Luc had pestered her. ‘Would you like to play with me?’ Willow asked.

  Annelise’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh yes please,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll go and get you a guitar from the back,’ Willow said, turning away.

  ‘Hey, Willow,’ Luc called after her. ‘Bring me a guitar too. We’ll all play.’ If they all played together she wouldn’t feel the pressure of him watching her. She turned around and smiled at him and he saw relief there.
r />   ‘What would you like to play?’ Willow asked as she came back with two guitars.

  ‘I’ve been learning a new song,’ Annelise replied. ‘It’s one Daddy’s been playing a lot. It’s about Robin Hood.’

  ‘“Gamble Gold”?’ Willow asked, looking at Luc. He shrugged and smiled.

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  ‘Do you know it, Willow?’ Annelise asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ Willow smiled. ‘I know it.’

  Playing “Gamble Gold” with Willow and Annelise in the shop he had spent so much time in when he was growing up, made Luc feel as though everything had come full circle. As they played faster and faster until Willow got in a muddle and collapsed into giggles, he knew that the Island was his home whether he lived there or not.

  The shop door opened, the bell jangling, and Luc looked around.

  ‘Tom,’ he said as Willow and Annelise carried on giggling behind him.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Tom Newell said.

  ‘Come in, Tom.’ Willow stood up, wiping her eyes. ‘We were just messing around.’

  ‘I’ve got Monty with me so I won’t come in,’ Tom said. ‘But I saw you as I was passing, Luc, and just wanted to confirm I’ve cleared the next two days at the studio for you.’

  Luc felt Willow trying to catch his eye. ‘Thanks, Tom,’ he said.

  ‘Daddy, can I go play with Monty?’ Annelise asked.

  Luc looked over at Tom. ‘Is that all right?’ he asked. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tom said as Annelise followed him out of the shop.

  ‘You’re recording?’ Willow asked as the door shut behind them. ‘That’s fantastic.’

  ‘I’m practising for the festival really,’ Luc said. ‘But I’ve been playing around with this idea so I might see what it sounds like while I’m there.’

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘I still haven’t been able to write anything,’ Luc said, leaning on the shop counter. ‘But I’ve been teaching Annelise some old Ballad Book songs and I thought I might do an album of them – rearrange the ballads for a modern audience.’

  Willow grinned at him. ‘That sounds like a brilliant idea!’