A Tangled Summer

by Caroline Kington

  ‘You seemed a bit pissed off when we met,’ she began, lightly.

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Nothing to do with you. I have as little to do with my parents as I possibly can, but sometimes I get caught. That’s why I had to delay meeting up with you tonight.’ He turned to look at her, his expression completely unreadable in the dark. ‘I’ve thought a lot about you, this week, Ali.’

  Alison managed a small inarticulate reply, before he leaned over her and kissed her.

  Some time later, lying enfolded in his arms, Alison picked up the conversation. ‘Do you live with your parents?’

  ‘Only when I can’t make other arrangements during the holidays. I’ve got a bar job that sees me through most of the Christmas and Easter breaks, but this summer they laid me off; not enough in the way of seasonal visitors.’ He laughed, without amusement.

  ‘You know, Al, you’ve told me so little about yourself. Do you have brothers and sisters? What do your parents ?’She paused, then drove on, ‘And I don’t know, and rather feel I should, whether you’ve got a girlfriend, or not.’

  Al was silent for a moment but did not draw away from her. Then, in a slightly mocking tone, he replied, ‘No, it’s true, I’ve told you very little. Perhaps it doesn’t seem so very important. We’ve got along well enough so far without each other’s life histories. After all, Ali, you’ve played the same game. Have you got a bloke?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be up here on a Saturday night with you, if I had; I wouldn’t have let you kiss me the way we did, if I had. I don’t two-time people.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe you would.’ Again he fell silent. ‘It’s strange,’ he began in a low voice, ‘how things happen and everything changes. I returned home to work off a debt and promised myself it would be one of the last times I came back. I was away last week because I had to sort out some permanent accommodation for myself and go for a job interview that would at least make me financially viable until I finish my course. That way I would have an excuse not to… And then I meet you…’ He sighed.

  Alison didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her arm, tucked under his body, was going numb, but she didn’t want to move.

  He continued so quietly, she had to concentrate to hear what he was saying. ‘I won’t lie, Ali. I do have a girlfriend. She’s on the same course as me. Nothing serious, but…’

  Alison pulled away and sat up, her arm tingling with pins and needles, her emotions jangled. She was deeply disappointed. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. After all, if she thought he was cool, then others must do so, and it would be pretty odd if he was unattached. It was just that…oh sod it, she felt so pathetic!

  Al sat up beside her and pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one, and as the thin stream of blue smoke vaporised in the night air, he said simply, ‘Ali, I really like you. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. When we met, I thought you would be good fun for a brief fling; help pass the time here. But you’re better than that. When I was away, I kept thinking about you. I didn’t want to, believe me, ’cos it changes things and I thought I’d got everything so sorted. But I just wanted to come back and see you. I was amazed how fed up I got when you didn’t text me, and then when you did…’

  ‘What about your girlfriend? Where’s she? Are you sharing this accommodation with her?’

  ‘No. It’s with three other blokes. We’re going off grape-picking in France the week after next, on our bikes, so we had to get the house sorted before the start of term.’

  Alison digested this second piece of unwelcome news. ‘You’re leaving – what, after next weekend?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been planned for a while. We’ll be off for about three weeks.’

  Alison felt close to tears. It seemed so hopeless, what was the point: girlfriend; away for the next three weeks; then off back to his university and everything that entailed. What was the point…?

  He stroked her back. ‘Ali, I have to sort things out. Please, give me a bit of space. I didn’t think you’d be so…’ he paused.

  ‘Stupid? Easy? A pushover?’ she spat out the words.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that at all.’ He turned to her. ‘Ali, all I want to do is kiss you, and kiss you, and kiss you, and…oh, and make you laugh. I don’t feel like that about anyone else.’

  ‘Not your girlfriend?’

  ‘Rachel? No. I don’t think I do…’ He pulled her to him and kissed her. She didn’t resist, didn’t want to. When they finally broke off, he sighed. ‘But I’m not an easy two-timer, either, Ali, so I think I’d better go and see her before I go away.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Wrexham. In North Wales. It’s a sod of a way, but I need to see her. That means I’m going to have to work flat out for my Dad to make up the time. It’s gonna be difficult to snatch more than a couple of hours together before the weekend.’

  ‘Next weekend Hannah has told me there’s going to be an event, held somewhere locally – an all-night disco. She’s pressurising me to go, and asked me to ask you if you’d like a ticket. Nick’s selling them.’

  ‘All night? Cool. How much?’

  ‘Twenty quid.’

  ‘I guess my holiday money will run to that… Yeah, put me down for one. Will you be there?’

  Alison voice was small, and she hated herself for her lack of pride, ‘If you want me to, I will.’

  ‘Of course I do. Look Ali, I’ll be honest with you - until I see Rachel, things won’t be clear. But I’ll be back before Saturday, and I’ll tell you then how things are. You have to trust me. I’m sure everything will be sorted. So we’ll have the whole night, Ali, the whole night, and then you can tell me all about yourself, and I’ll tell you about me.’

  He kissed her again, hard, passionate; and she responded, her brain fizzing.

  * * *

  Elsie re-read the letter she’d just opened, a frown deepening on her face. It had arrived that morning, but, being Saturday, she’d left home before the post had arrived. It was late, and she was tired and she couldn’t work out why she should have been sent it. The note was short.

  The Manor House, Stokeford.

  Dear Mrs Tucker,

  My sisters and I would welcome the opportunity of discussing a matter, which has been brought to our attention, and is the cause of some concern. If it is convenient to you, we would be pleased if you would accept an invitation to tea on Tuesday, at 3.30pm.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mrs Elizabeth Merfield

  ‘Pah! What do they want? It is certainly not an invitation without fire, that’s for sure…’ It would never occur to Elsie to refuse such a summons, but it was received without pleasure, and brooding over what it might mean and being thoroughly disconcerted by the unexpected turn the little deception she and Ron had practised on Alison had taken, Elsie went to bed, completely out of sorts with the world.

  13

  I’m dreading this, Rita,’ whispered Jenny, as the queue shuffled forward. Jenny hadn’t been to Weight Watchers for a couple of weeks and would have ducked out of tonight’s weigh-in, pleading poverty, if Rita had not insisted on lending her the session fee.

  ‘Pie and pints!’ smirked Rita. Jenny had told her about her trip to the pub with Jeff on Saturday night. Jenny smiled guiltily back.

  ‘It was worth it,’ she whispered. ‘Though I’d give anything to have lost something, if only a pound. I hate this!’

  The leader, tall, thin, bright, with an everlasting smile, made Jenny feel as if she were back at school again. The smile never wavered, even when Jenny put on pounds rather than lost them. But there was an edge to her consolatory comments that made Jenny feel faintly humiliated. She had put on as little clothing as she could get away with; even taking off her tights and going for a pee, before Rita had picked her up.

  She persuaded Rita to go before her in the queue waiting to take their turn on th
e scales. Although the results of the weigh-in were meant to be totally confidential, Jenny knew that the next person in the queue, could, if she listened hard enough, hear the leader read off the results. Whereas Jenny was slow, plump and rather dreamy, Rita was wiry and energetic, and Jenny knew that Rita secretly liked the fact that Jenny weighed more than she did, and that, in spite of every encouraging remark, Rita didn’t want Jenny to lose too much. After they had both been on the weighing machine, she would seize hold of Jenny and insist on sharing the exact amount of any gain or loss; Jenny seldom disappointed her.

  In spite of that, and in spite of the awful moment when she had to step on the scales and stop pretending that she was getting slimmer, Jenny enjoyed these evenings.

  They were held in the hall of the primary school that all her children had once attended. Jenny had spent countless hours there in the past, listening to little concerts or the school nativity play; being dragged around by one child or another to admire their artwork stuck on the wall; helping out with school dinners, the faint whiff of which still seemed to linger, although she knew the school didn’t do dinners any more; or sitting, waiting in the hall nervously, as she’d had to do countless times, summoned to the head teacher’s office to face the fall-out from some piece of mischief one of the children – usually Charlie – had got up to. Very little about the school had changed: the pictures drawn by the children looked the same and the air still smelled of stale plasticine, and Jenny felt as she always felt in that hall, lining up with the others, apprehensive and rebellious by turns as they waited to see their teacher and receive her gentle ticking-off, that there was little difference between her and the children.

  The other weight watchers were a mixed bunch, mainly women; men being an irregular rarity who received huge emotional support from the rest of the group when they did turn up, but who seldom lasted more than two sessions. The women were of all ages; mainly married, with families to run and busy lives. Sometimes they brought their children with them, and almost all came with a friend. There was a camaraderie among them that arose from the shared experience of bulge and fat; of the inevitable lapses; and of the desire to put the clock back and be as thin as they once thought they were, when they were young and careless.

  After the weigh-in, the ladies would pull their chairs into a semi-circle and the leader would give them a lecture on the topic of the week. It was a living manifestation of the magazines Jenny devoured, when she could afford them. As well as the more serious aim of the leader, to get them to eat less and eat well, there was a lot of joking and backchat, and Jenny, although generally quiet, loved the feeling of belonging to the group.

  Once she had married Jim, she had left her friends behind, and even Lizzie, her sister, came to visit rarely. She was often very lonely on the farm, and if it hadn’t been for Rita, whom she met shortly after she got married, life would have been miserable. Rita was very much more gregarious than Jenny, and swept Jenny along in her wake, joking and chatting, for which Jenny, smiling shyly in the background, was grateful.

  The queue edged forward. Progress was slow, there were nearly thirty of them to be weighed and their results entered on their progress charts.

  ‘I bought myself a cream doughnut to eat when I get home tonight,’ the girl behind Jenny in the queue whispered. ‘Naughty but nice, innit? Why not, wiv a whole week before we gets weighed again…?’

  ‘Yeah,’ whispered another, ‘I always have sausage ’n’ chips after. Best meal of the week, it is!’

  It was Rita’s turn. Jenny kicked off her shoes in readiness; her insides turned to water and she tried to distract her thoughts. She’d had a lovely time on Saturday night. Jeff had introduced her to a number of his friends and they’d made her feel as if she’d known them all her life. There was a folk group playing. It was a new experience, and one that affected her in a way she’d never been affected by music before. Jeff and his friends had laughed at her excitement.

  She had tried to explain how she felt. ‘Here am I, a shabby, borin’ old middle-aged woman, finding out about things I never knew existed, and here they were, all the time, on my doorstep. Have I been going round with my eyes tight shut? Have I been asleep all my life? I feel as if I’m just waking up.’

  And she didn’t know whether it was because he’d drunk a few, or because of what she’d said, but Jeff had put his arms around her shoulders and given her a hug and said he didn’t think she was shabby or boring, and that he’d bring her to hear another group.

  But yes, she’d had a pie, fat and juicy – forbidden food; and worse, a pile of glistening golden chips and at least three Bacardi and cokes. She was quite tiddly by the time she’d got home. He hadn’t kissed her when they said goodnight, but that hadn’t stopped her fantasising. Then, as she undressed for bed, she had caught sight of her body. That had brought her to earth with a sobering clunk.

  ‘Jenny, how nice to see you. We’ve missed you the last couple of weeks. How have you been doing? Oh – we seem to have put on a bit, dear; nearly seven pounds. What have you been celebrating?’

  * * *

  Nicola had scarcely spoken to Stephen at the Sunday rehearsal. In spite of his shy attempts to engage her attention, she appeared to avoid his eye and surrounded herself with the other actors. They seemed to sit in gossipy huddles more frequently than usual and at one point, something Nicola said initiated such a gale of laughter that June Pagett became annoyed and threatened to call a halt to the rehearsal, since, clearly, their attention was elsewhere, and why should she waste her time. After that, Stephen became convinced the others were looking at him in a different way. At the end of the afternoon, Nicola had rushed off, not even pausing to say goodbye to him and Angela, unusual in that she had once declared ‘as a professional, one should always remember to thank the stage crew, without whom nothing would happen...’

  Tuesday night was even worse. The whispering started before the rehearsal began. June Pagett made him read in for the wretched Scrub and every time he opened his mouth, a suppressed titter went around the room. Finally a break was called for coffee and, with relief, Stephen went to help Angela. Her chin was red and wobbly and she looked upset.

  ‘What’s up, Ange?’ he whispered, spooning in the instant coffee.

  ‘I don’t know how you put up with it!’ She was unusually fierce. ‘I don’t know what’s got into them tonight.’

  Just then, Gerald O’Donovan piped up in a loud voice, ‘I say, I’d die for a piece of chocolate cake with my coffee…’

  Someone sniggered, ‘Oh, you don’t want to die, Gerald, leastways, not such a horrible death.’

  Someone else chimed in, ‘I hear your mum makes chocolate cakes, Stephen…’

  And another added, ‘Bring a piece in for Gerald, he’s longing to taste it…’

  ‘Death by chocolate!’ And they all laughed.

  ‘Does she make wedding cakes?’ another asked, at which there was hysterics.

  Stephen felt hot and uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure where this was going, and looked across at Nicola for some sort of reassurance. She picked up a coffee and turned away from the group, laughing lightly. ‘She’s probably got one baking in the oven, right now. Believe me, Stephen’s Mum’s cakes are an experience. They’re obviously made of stern stuff, “down on the farm’.’’ The last she drawled with an unmistakable imitation of Olive’s round West Country tones.

  Stephen flushed and moved over to Angela, pushing past Robin Roberts, who was engaged in a flirtation with Roxanne.

  Robin Roberts looked up. ‘Phew, what’s that pong?’

  Roxanne, June’s Romanian, giggled, ‘You naughty man. Eet ees the cowshed you know. My father, ’ee says ’ee can smell the cowhands a five kilometres away…’

  For a moment, Stephen stood there, clenching his fists, helpless.

  Angela came to his rescue. ‘Stephen, I’ve got loads of stuff to show you… Come o
ver here; we’ve not got much time now, but I’ve brought in all this stuff on rare breeds I got off the Internet. You can take it with you, if you like…’ Her enthusiasm helped, and somehow he got through the rest of the evening.

  When June finally called a halt to the rehearsal, she addressed them all, coldly, ‘I have a feeling that tonight’s rehearsal has not been taken seriously by a number of you. It was bad enough on Sunday. There’s too much whispering and giggling going on at the back of the hall. We cannot afford not to have everyone focusing on what is going on on the stage. How you expect me to concentrate, I do not know. We’ve not got much time left, so please, everyone, next rehearsal, concentration, concentration, concentration. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes June.’ They all replied dutifully and left, still sniggering and surreptitiously making the odd mooing sound. Someone even started humming loudly a tune that sounded a bit like ‘Here comes the bride’. Nicola was one of the last to go and Stephen, rushing around putting the hall back to rights, felt his heart flutter into his mouth as she floated over to him, ruffling a hand through her curls, her eyes wide and bright as she sought him out.

  ‘Oh Stephen,’ she smiled at him so sweetly, he almost swooned, ‘Can you give me Simon’s telephone number?’

  ‘Simon’s?’ he croaked, wretched.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, still smiling. ‘I’m going back to London as soon as this pantomime is finished and I thought I’d look him up.’

  * * *

  Breakfast at Marsh Farm that Wednesday morning could not have been a more depressed affair. Stephen, gloomily moving his spoon around a mess of soggy cornflakes, remembered how, a week ago, he had been over the moon because Nicola had kissed him. Everything lay before him, his world, rosy with possibility. Now…