Summer of '76

by Ashdown, Isabel

  In the living room, Dad’s sitting in his armchair with his feet on the footstool. He’s got the newspaper on his lap and he’s carefully folding it back along the crease to make it easier to handle. Luke’s seen him do it a thousand times before. ‘Ah!’ he says, slapping the paper down on the side table so he can stand, taking the beer from Luke with his left hand, simultaneously offering Martin a handshake with his right. ‘Just the ticket.’ He raises his bottle. ‘Cheers! It’s a hot one today, eh? May? Feels more like August. Look, I’ve already got the old legs out.’

  Luke cringes at his father’s faded denim shorts and Jesus sandals. He’s not even wearing a shirt.

  ‘Not bad for forty-something. Look at that!’ He pats himself on the stomach, indicating for Martin to do the same. ‘Go on, feel it. My abdominals are as tight today as they were twenty years ago.’

  Martin stretches out his arm and gently prods Mr Wolff’s stomach. ‘Wow,’ he says, sincerely. He looks at Luke. ‘That really is firm.’

  ‘So, I suppose you two have come out of your pit to watch Top of the Pops?’ Dad says, dropping back into his seat and reaching for his newspaper and ballpoint pen. He points his biro towards the television. ‘Flick it on, son. We don’t want to miss the dancing girls, do we?’

  Martin sits on the sofa as Luke switches programmes, giving the old television set a smack on the side to make the picture settle. ‘He means Pan’s People,’ he says, waggling his eyebrows. ‘You know they’re not on any more, Dad.’

  ‘Of course they are. It’s Top of the Pops.’

  ‘Really, Pan’s People aren’t on any more. I saw their last show a few weeks back.’

  ‘Typical!’ Dad says, throwing down his pen. It’s just about the only thing worth paying the licence fee for these days! This’ll be down to that harridan Mary Whitehouse and her bloody decency laws.’

  Luke and Martin eat their sandwiches, chatting over various songs until Noel Edmonds introduces a new act, a mixed dance troupe, who come on to ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by the Stylistics.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Martin asks.

  ‘I can tell you one thing – it’s not bloody well Pan’s People!’ Dad shakes his head, shifting to the edge of his seat where he stares intently at the screen. ‘Good God! They’ve even got men at it!’

  Luke laughs, almost spitting out his sandwich. ‘Urgh, it’s putting me off my food.’

  ‘Well I hope Mary Whitehouse is watching this. Talk about indecent. Look at those outfits. You can clearly see their meat and two veg.’ Dad gets up to lean on the mantelpiece for a better view, moving in so close that he’s obscuring it entirely. ‘You know what? That one used to be a model – the brunette. You know how I know?’

  ‘Go on then,’ Luke replies with a sigh. ‘I can see you’re dying to tell us.’

  Martin has zoned out altogether as he chews his way through his chicken paste sandwich.

  ‘Because I went out with her. Back in my London days.’

  ‘Really?’ asks Martin, refocusing as he gulps down his last mouthful.

  ‘Really.’ Dad raises one eyebrow and drops his voice. ‘A lovely girl, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Dirty old man,’ Luke says.

  ‘But, you know how it is. I had to break it off with her. She was getting too clingy, wanted more from the relationship than I did, blah blah blah…’ Dad flops back into his seat, waving his hand in the air, gazing into the middle distance as if imagining the long-ago affair.

  ‘So, what was her name, then?’ Luke raises his eyebrows suspiciously.

  ‘Name? God knows!’ Dad laughs uproariously, taking a swig of his beer. ‘Bunty? Sindy? Heaven only knows!’

  ‘How can you not remember something like that?’ Luke stands and takes Martin’s empty plate, stacking it on top of his own.

  ‘Ah, so many women. So long ago…’

  Luke rests his arm on the mantelpiece, flipping a box of matches with the tip of his free hand. ‘You see, Martin, the thing you need to remember about my dad is that he’s full of –’

  ‘Luke!’ Mum shouts from the hallway. ‘Is this your motorbike mess on the drive? Someone’ll end up breaking their neck if you leave it there! Clear it up!’

  Dad pulls a smug face at Luke and turns back towards the television. ‘Nice to see you, boys.’

  It’s past ten o’clock when Luke rises on Sunday morning. He clears the draining board and eats boiled eggs with Kitty before leaving the house, pausing to knock once at his parents’ door on his way out.

  ‘Mum? I’m off. Kitty’s on her own now.’

  They were out late last night, at one of their parties, and judging by the silence from the other side of the door they won’t be up for a while. Luke’s bedside clock told him it was gone two in the morning when he heard them return, and he could tell they’d had a good time; they were giggling and whispering, Mum joking with Dad to keep the noise down as he dropped his key fob on the front doorstep with a clatter. At least they’re not arguing, Luke thought vaguely, before rolling over and going back to sleep.

  He wheels his scooter down the front drive, turning to wave at Kitty as she bangs on the front window with her Tiny Tears doll, wobbling her head from side to side to make him laugh.

  When he arrives at Sandown seafront Martin is already waiting for him by the pier, and they set off up the island together, to travel the eight or nine miles towards Nanna’s house in Wootton Creek. By the time they arrive, the heat of the day is already taking hold, and they’re glad of the shade of the wooded back roads that fork off beyond Kite Hill.

  Nanna’s home is a simple, low-ceilinged bungalow set on a large plot of lawn that slopes down to the creek beyond a screen of trees and bracken at the bottom. The front garden is almost always in shadow, facing dense trees and wooded pathways which snake off in several directions towards the various stretches of coastline at the top of the island. Beyond the low wall to her front garden there’s a cluster of old pine trees where Nan has set up a wooden bird table, on to which she scrapes bacon rinds and crusts each morning after breakfast. Several peanut feeders and home-made fat-balls dangle from the branches of the trees, and they now swing wildly as a burst of garden birds takes flight, alarmed by the sound of the bike engines turning on to the gravel path.

  ‘Squirrel,’ says Martin, smiling lazily and pointing at the small chestnut rodent as it scoots up the trunk and into the foliage above.

  They leave their scooters in a sunny patch of light at the side of the outhouse, hooking their helmets over the handlebars. Luke runs his hands up through his sweaty hair and opens the front door without knocking. ‘Hi, Nanna! It’s me – Luke!’

  There’s a pause, before Nan’s voice trails back faintly. ‘I’m in the back, love. Just adjusting my ankle strap.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the back!’

  The lads walk through the narrow hallway, until they reach the living room and the bright, warm conservatory at the back of the house.

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, it’s hot!’ Nanna’s sitting in one of the sun-bleached wicker chairs, with her foot up on the tiled coffee table. There’s a support bandage hanging limply from the end of her toes. ‘Here, give us a hand with this, love. Bloody thing. Pain in the arse, it is.’

  ‘Language, Nanna.’ Luke laughs, sitting on the seat beside her. ‘Look, I’ve brought Martin with me.’ He gives her a nudge and she looks up at Martin wickedly.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me, Marty, love. Put it down to my age if you like.’

  Luke eases the tube bandage along her foot, noticing the silvery slip of her skin as it resists the tight elastic. After a bit of tugging and adjusting, he fits it neatly over her heel. ‘So, how’s the ankle doing at the moment, Nanna?’

  ‘Oh, it’s alright, love,’ she replies, using his shoulder for support as she gets to her feet, wriggling them into her pink velour slippers. ‘Just a bit crumbly. Like me.’ She picks up her wooden walking stick and beckons for them to follow her into
the kitchen, where a freshly baked lemon cake is sitting on the side. ‘Fancy a slice?’

  Luke kisses her cheek and fills the kettle at the sink. ‘Grab a seat, Mart. And you, Nan. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’

  Nan sighs heavily as she sits at the small square table, rearranging her thin little legs to get comfortable. ‘What are you boys up to today? Off down the beach or something nice like that?’

  ‘We’re on our way over to Sunshine Bay,’ Luke replies, placing a fresh bottle of milk on the table. The silver foil lid has a wide hole torn in it, where the blue tits have pecked their way through to get at the cream. As he reaches back to fetch the teapot he notices the row of rinsed bottles lined up along the windowsill, and makes a mental note to put them down on the doorstep for Nan on his way out. ‘I start my new job at the holiday camp soon, so they want me to come and collect my uniform.’

  ‘Entertaining the grockles?’ Nanna asks.

  ‘Nothing so glamorous,’ he replies with a snort. ‘I’ll be cleaning out chalets and minding the pool. Just part-time until after my exams, then I’ll do more shifts. The money’s not too bad – and if you work there you get a free pass for the pool. And cheap food.’

  ‘And you’ll get lots of nice girls down there if you’re lucky.’ Nan gives Martin a wink. ‘What about you, Martin, love? You looking for a job too?’

  He rubs his nose self-consciously, and looks down at his hands. ‘Oh, no. I’m working for my dad, you know, making picture frames. It’s the family business.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she says, pinching at her blouse collar and blowing up over her face to cool off. ‘Though I don’t s’pose you meet many girls in that line of work, do you?’

  Martin shakes his head and gives an embarrassed little smile.

  ‘Of course, she’s right, mate,’ Luke says, sitting at the table and pouring the tea. ‘Once I start work down at Sunshine Bay, I’m gonna be fighting ’em off. I won’t know which way to turn for girls throwing themselves at my feet.’ He raises his eyebrows at Nan, who chuckles.

  Martin covers his cake-filled mouth.

  ‘Just think of all those girls in bikinis, Mart,’ Luke grins. ‘Like Honey Ryder in Doctor No.’

  ‘Or Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC,’ Martin replies, chewing slowly on his cake.

  Nan points at the sugar bowl on the side, and Luke passes it over. ‘If it’s naked girls you’re after, you’d have liked it round here back in the day.’

  ‘How’s that?’ asks Luke.

  ‘Well, we had our own nudist colony up at Woodside, when it was still just the big house. Run by Reverend something-or-other. Bare bottoms everywhere. And not all of ’em that nice to look at, I’ll bet.’

  ‘A vicar? Are you pulling our legs, Nan?’

  She looks affronted. ‘No, I’m bloody not! It only closed down ten or so years ago, before they turned all that land into the holiday camp, as if we needed another one. You ask anyone. They were supposed to stay in the paddock if they were in the altogether, but no end of ’em used to get down on the beach, frolicking about under the tamarisks!’ She giggles to herself. ‘I remember it clearly, because it all started up the year your dad was born, not long after we’d moved on to the island. Lots of the locals were up in arms about it – couldn’t believe a vicar would encourage such shenanigans! Some of the youngsters used to cycle up to the bay and stand on their saddles trying to peek over the hedges. I even heard that the lads from Ryde rowing club used to take a regular trip across the creek just to get a sneaky look on their way down to the Sloop. Well, we didn’t have all the dirty magazines in them days. Probably the first time some of ’em had seen a naked body!’

  She gives Martin a little shove across the table and the boys fall about laughing. ‘Bloody hell, Nan,’ says Luke. ‘I’ve never heard of that before. What about you and Grandad? Didn’t you ever fancy getting yourself a nice all-over tan?’

  ‘You cheeky bugger!’ she hoots, slicing them all a second piece of cake. ‘No, we did not! Mind you, I once had to give him a right bollocking, when I heard him and his daft mate Eric Stubbs had cycled down there for a look one Saturday night. Eric’s wife, well, she heard him bragging at the front gate and dragged him round here to get it out of them.’

  ‘No! What did Grandad say to you?’

  ‘Not much. He said he was so drunk at the time that all he remembered was falling into the hedge and tearing his shirt collar. He said Eric was a bleedin’ idiot for thinking they’d all still be out in the gardens at that time of night. It must’ve been midnight by the time they got up there – all the nudies were tucked up nice and cosy in their beds by then!’

  ‘I bet you were mad at him, weren’t you?’ Luke licks his finger and cleans up the crumbs from his plate.

  ‘Me? Nah. He’s just a man, after all. Anyway, talking of daft men, how’s that dad of yours? Hasn’t been over to see me in weeks – since he bought me that bloody thing over there.’ She flicks her hand towards the small fridge in the corner of the kitchen. ‘Waste of space. What do I need a fridge for?’

  Luke stacks the plates and puts them on the side. ‘You’ll be glad of it if this weather keeps up, Nan. But yeah, Dad’s fine. Looking forward to the end of term, I think. He’s always threatening to jack his job in, but you know he never will. He never stops moaning about teaching, but I think he’s glad of it when the long school holidays come round.’

  ‘He always was a lazy git.’

  ‘Nan.’

  ‘Well, he was.’

  Martin hides his face behind his teacup, draining every drop with his last mouthful. The sun shines through the window into his eyes and he blinks like a mole.

  ‘Actually it was him who came up with the idea of me getting a job at the holiday camp. He said he was a Bluecoat at Pontins for a while when he was my age.’

  Nan splutters. ‘A Bluecoat?’ She wipes her lashes with a crumpled lavender hanky. ‘The closest he ever got to it was a singing competition he went in for when he was nine!’

  Luke’s jaw drops. ‘He wasn’t a Bluecoat?’

  She raises her eyes theatrically. ‘And he came last, poor little bugger. Tone deaf.’ She eases herself out of her seat and hobbles over to the sink, where she pauses to watch the rise and fall of the birds beyond the windowpane. ‘Poor old Richard,’ she says with a gentle sigh. ‘He always was full of shit.’

  2

  Met Office report for the Isle of Wight, mid-May 1976:

  Maximum temperature 64°F/17.5°C

  The middle of May is beautiful, with a steady warmth taking hold across the island. Any rainfall is rare and short-lived, and a strange kind of hush descends as the breeze drops from the air. After their first exams, Luke and Martin take their scooters around the island for the weekend, planning the route with precision, a two-man tent strapped to the back of Martin’s bike. They avoid the resorts, skirting along the coastal roads where they can, stopping off at viewing points for lunch and a stretch. At St Boniface Down they leave the bikes and climb up the steep south side, where the fabled wishing well is said to be found if the climber ascends towards the apex without looking back down. Halfway up, a pair of tawny-coloured goats is grazing on the path above them; the gull-eyed creatures stop chewing and stand rigid, staring down the path at the lads, each goat a mirror image of the other.

  Martin clears his throat nervously.

  ‘They’re alright,’ Luke says striding on towards them. The goats turn and canter away, up over the summit and out of view.

  At the top the boys take off their rucksacks and lie back on the dry grass, feeling the sun bleaching down on their arms and legs. Luke closes his eyes as his heart rate decreases steadily and his limbs sink into the hillside. There’s no sound from Martin, who is stretched out just inches away; Luke stays perfectly still as he listens to the light chatter of skylarks dancing in and out of their meadow nests in the surrounding grasses. He exhales, forcing all the air from his lungs, opening his eyelids narrowly against th
e glare of the wide sky. Swallows glide and dip overhead, briefly cutting out the sun as they dive into the meadows.

  ‘So, we didn’t find it, then,’ he says, ‘the wishing well.’

  ‘Knew we wouldn’t,’ Martin replies. ‘My dad told me it was a load of rubbish when I said we were going to look for it.’

  Luke props himself up on his elbows and gazes out across the water. ‘I don’t know why you bother telling him stuff, mate. I mean, all he ever does is put you down.’

  ‘He wasn’t putting me down, was he?’ Martin says, screwing his face up against the light. ‘He was saying the wishing well was rubbish, not that I’m rubbish.’

  There’s a long bramble scratch running down the length of Martin’s shin, and a small trickle of dried blood merges with the ingrained dirt and dust that clings to his pale skin. Luke stares at him. ‘Yeah, but essentially, mate, it’s the same thing. If he says the wishing well is rubbish, what he’s really saying is that you’re rubbish for thinking you might find it.’

  ‘Can you hear the birds?’ Martin asks, sitting up and tipping his head to one side. ‘Wish I had a camera. You could get some brilliant photos of those swallows if you hung around long enough.’

  ‘How can you tell they’re swallows and not swifts?’

  He looks deep in thought. ‘Just can. Longer tail streamers, I think.’

  Luke reaches for his bag and starts to unpack their picnic. ‘Sorry, Mart. About your old man – I shouldn’t have said that. He’s your dad. You don’t want to hear me running him down.’

  ‘He also said I was a useless, overgrown waste of space,’ Martin says, pulling himself up into a gangly cross-legged position. ‘So I s’pose you might have a point.’ Reaching for a sandwich, he takes a large bite, his expression losing focus as he starts to chew. ‘He’s been getting worse lately. I never know what kind of mood he’s going to wake up in. Yesterday I knocked a cup off the side when I was washing up, and he went mad. He grabbed the rest of the cups off the draining board and chucked them at the wall. Said we might as well make a mess worth sweeping up. We’ve only got two left now, and a few glasses.’