Summer of '76

by Ashdown, Isabel

  ‘See?’ says Luke. He taps the side of his head again.

  Diana pushes the dining room door open with her shoulder, holding out a large roast beef joint. She halts in the doorway with Mum at her shoulder, following Luke and Dad’s gaze through the window and into the garden.

  ‘Oh,’ she says softly. She places the roast at Mike’s setting and points to the centre of the table for Mum to put down the bowl of potatoes she’s carrying. ‘Back in a sec.’

  They watch her slip out into the garden and fall into step with Mike.

  ‘Stop staring!’ Mum says. Luke sniggers, and she smacks him crossly on the top of his arm. ‘You two bring in the rest of the veg while I go and get Kitty.’

  By the time they’ve ferried all the food in and washed Kitty’s hands, Diana’s back at the table, looking cool and unflustered.

  ‘Mike’s just visiting the bathroom.’ She lowers her voice. ‘He’s been terribly stressed at work recently, and to top it all he’s been trying to give up smoking. Not very successfully, as you can see.’ She gives Luke an apologetic smile, before looking up towards the doorway as Mike reappears. ‘Oh, look! Here he is.’

  Mike enters the room and claps his hands together in a jolly gesture, pushing his large belly out as he makes a show of deeply inhaling the aroma of food. ‘So! Shall I be father?’ He carves the beef with enthusiasm, and within minutes an easy comfort has returned to the room.

  After lunch, Mum and Diana clear the table and make tea, while Mike pours brandies. They move out into the garden, to sit on softly padded garden chairs beneath the shade of a parasol, while the afternoon sun pulsates across the dry, untended garden. Sluggish with wine, Luke reclines in a deckchair, resting his eyes, enjoying the heat. It’s all politics and hairdressers and golf courses and schools, and Luke silently vows he’ll never be so square, no matter how old he gets. And Diana has no excuse – she’s only young, for God’s sake. He wonders what she’d be like if she got really pissed. He wonders what she looks like without her make-up. Without her clothes…

  ‘Bloody mess out here,’ says Mike, gesturing towards the lawn with his glass.

  ‘The lack of rain doesn’t help,’ agrees Dad. ‘Last night’s downpour seems to have made no difference at all.’

  ‘Got a man coming in next week to tear it all up. Isn’t that right, Di?’

  Diana lowers a tray on to the wrought iron table, and proceeds to pour tea for her and Mum. ‘What’s that, darling?’

  ‘The garden.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t wait. We’re having a new lawn, flower borders. One of those lovely crazy-paving patios? I’m desperate for a patio!’

  Mike snorts. ‘She loves to spend my money. Don’t you, Di?’

  Diana sits down with her cup and saucer, and crosses her legs, hitching her little tangerine skirt higher up her thighs. Luke notices the subtle gradation in skin colour from her ankles to her thighs, starting off a warm honey colour at her feet and growing gradually lighter above her knees, lighter still where her thighs finally disappear beneath the crinkly seersucker hem of her skirt. She kicks off her wooden sandals and re-crosses her legs.

  ‘You won’t be complaining when this place looks like a little oasis.’

  Luke’s eyelids droop behind his dark shades, kept open only by the pleasure of watching Diana, unnoticed. Her foot bounces lightly at the end of her crossed leg and Luke is entranced by the startling white gaps between her toes. He imagines sliding the pad of his finger between them, to feel the cool soft skin concealed within. The sun soaks into his face and his mind loosens and he thinks of Diana’s toes, his mind jumbling them up with images of the empty whelk shells on Yaverland seafront, with their chalky exteriors and silky pink apertures.

  ‘You always wanted a pond, didn’t you, Luke?’ Mum pats his knee, forcing him to rouse himself and rejoin the conversation.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says, shifting up in his seat. ‘Where’s Kitty?’

  ‘With the kitten, of course!’ Mum says. ‘She couldn’t be happier, Diana.’

  ‘Oh, please, Jo – call me Di.’ She inclines her head towards Mike, amused as he drops into a doze in his chair, his head occasionally dipping and bobbing as he fights sleep. Luke wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, and pushes his long sleeves up his arms as he stretches into a yawn. Mum gasps, briefly waking Mike, who opens one eye and quickly closes it again.

  ‘Luke – your arms! What on earth –’ She puts her cup and saucer down with a little clatter, and rushes over to push his sleeve back, staring at the dark bruising that encircles his right arm.

  Luke wrestles his arm back and sits up straight, pulling down his sleeve, shooing her away with a flap of his hands. ‘Get off, Mum! It’s nothing. I fell off the sea wall when I was with Martin the other day. We were mucking about and I slipped.’

  ‘Luke! You could have broken it.’ She returns to her seat, shaking her head.

  ‘Well, I didn’t, did I?’

  ‘Boys will be boys, Jo,’ Dad says. ‘I was the same at his age. Always up to some mischief or other. I once broke three ribs when Henry Peters dared me to jump off the pier at Ryde.’

  ‘Really?’ asks Luke sarcastically.

  Mike gives a little snore, and wakes himself.

  ‘Yep,’ replies Dad, lifting up his shirt for everyone to see. He starts to inspect his brown stomach, sucking it in and clenching his muscles. ‘I’m sure there’s still a scar here somewhere.’

  Mum rolls her eyes and smiles at Diana.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum says, ‘I wish you’d be more careful, Luke. You don’t want to start your first term at polytechnic with your arm in plaster, do you?’

  ‘I keep telling you, everyone calls it poly these days, Mum, not polytechnic. Anyway, Martin helped me back up, and it was fine. So, no harm done.’

  Mike taps the teapot and Diana pours him a cup. ‘That was Martin in your front drive earlier, Luke?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Mike takes the cup from Diana, and stirs in a large spoonful of sugar. ‘Funny-looking lad, don’t you think, Richard?’

  ‘Martin? I suppose he is,’ Dad says pensively, accepting a cup of tea from Diana. ‘We’ve known him such a long time now, I don’t really notice how he looks any more.’

  ‘Freakishly tall, I’d say,’ Mike adds. ‘And those rather dozy-looking eyelids.’

  ‘Mike!’ Diana chides. ‘Looks aren’t everything, you know.’

  ‘An-y-way,’ Luke says, trying to shift the topic, resting his head back against the fabric of the deckchair. Light and shade play behind the cover of his eyelids, mottled illuminations cast by the sky’s bright glare. For a moment the world stops still, before the brief silence is broken by the buzz of a lawnmower several gardens along, mobilising the group back into conversation.

  ‘So, what are you wearing to the party, Jo?’ Diana asks.

  ‘Gosh, I think I’ll have to make something new,’ Mum replies.

  ‘Something summery,’ Diana ponders.

  ‘Oh, dear, frock talk,’ Dad jokes. ‘I’m sure you’d look good in anything, Di.’

  Diana waves him away with a pretty flick of her wrist.

  ‘Flatterer.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Mum agrees. ‘You always look amazing, Di.’

  A smile of satisfaction spreads over Mike’s face. ‘Not a bad-looking pair of girls we’ve got ourselves, eh, Richard?’

  Luke resists the temptation to make a retching noise.

  Diana smiles. ‘Of course, John and Marie’s parties are such good fun, aren’t they? I hear you’ve been to a few already?’

  Luke peers up from behind his sunglasses, alert.

  ‘Yes –’ Mum starts, but Dad speaks at the same time, and they pause awkwardly before he takes over.

  ‘Great fun,’ he says, and then, as if more emphasis was necessary, he adds, ‘Great fun.’

  ‘Marie’s such a wonderful cook!’ Mum says, in a bright voice. ‘They’re a lovely couple.’

  Diana take
s another sip of her tea.

  ‘So…’ says Dad, clearing his throat, but his sentence doesn’t go anywhere.

  The comforting drill of the lawnmower ebbs and flows in the distance, and Luke tries to calculate how many gardens away it is. He moves his head slightly, opening one eye beneath his shades. He sees Mike, in his ridiculous big-game-hunter’s outfit, sitting upright in his seat, his head angled towards Dad. From this perspective, Mum and Diana now just appear as silhouettes on the far side of the group, beneath the orange parasol. Dad sits directly opposite Mike, his ankle on his knee, bottom lip pinched in concentration between thumb and forefinger. Luke closes his eyes and breathes in the heat of the afternoon, feeling his limbs becoming weightless as he drifts, perfectly afloat.

  In a heartbeat he’s awake again, as Kitty’s high-pitched scream rings out from the house and she appears in the kitchen doorway. Mum and Diana rush to her aide.

  ‘Hurt me!’ she manages, in between heaving snivels. She holds out her arm and flops against Mum’s legs, her head bowed with the emotion of it all. Mum soothes her, as Diana retrieves the kitten from the kitchen floor and steps out into the garden beside her.

  ‘Right!’ Mike stands and claps his hands together, marking the end of the afternoon. ‘So, we’ll see you at the McKees’ party?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ says Diana. ‘Party of the year!’

  Luke continues to watch them, as if through glass. Dad now stands beside Mum, affectionately running his hand across her back and up over her shoulder, turning up the charm. He pats his chest decisively, and with a flick of his head indicates for Luke to get out of his deckchair and join them. Out on the front doorstep, they go through the formality of kisses and handshakes as Luke waits at a distance, tearing foliage from the overgrown hydrangea bush beneath the front window. He rolls a rubbery petal between his fingers, flicking it into the baked flowerbed, before hopping over the low wall on to his front drive, where he stands in the doorway, watching his parents as they walk around the adjoining gate post and up the path towards him.

  ‘Thanks again,’ Dad calls over to Mike and Diana, who have wandered out on to their lawn to see them off.

  ‘Until the party,’ Mike shouts back, raising his pasty arm in farewell. ‘Richard – we’ll definitely pair up, then? I’ll drive.’

  ‘Good plan!’ Dad replies. ‘See you then.’

  Mum returns Mike’s wave with a startled smile, before setting Kitty down and walking steadily along the path ahead of Dad, avoiding Luke’s gaze as she brushes past him in the hall.

  ‘Jo?’ Dad says, following her into the kitchen, where she’s busying herself at the sink. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Mum shrugs Dad’s hand from her shoulder, unaware that Luke is standing in the doorway.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she hisses. ‘You heard him – let’s pair up, he said. And what did you reply? Good plan!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jo, he didn’t mean that!’

  ‘Of course he did. He’s been staring like he wants to eat me all afternoon! You’ll have to tell him we’ll make our own way to the party. Make it clear.’

  ‘I can’t do that – that’s just plain rude.’ Dad laughs.

  Mum throws down her rubber gloves and turns, startled to see Luke in the room. ‘I’ve got a headache,’ she says, and she kisses Luke on the forehead and disappears into the hall.

  6

  Met Office report for the Isle of Wight, late June 1976:

  Maximum temperature 91°F /32.7°C

  Since the downpour ten days ago, the temperature has risen dramatically with no end in sight. Each day, Luke’s father returns from school, stripping off his shirt the moment he’s through the door, complaining that the children are unmanageable, that the heatwave is driving them all demented. The government should let them close early for the summer holidays, he says. In the afternoons he tunes in to catch what he can of Wimbledon, drawing the living room curtains to block out the glare, occasionally yelling from his seat to share the latest scores or announce that another tennis ball has burst in the extreme heat. Mum busies herself to avoid him, drifting about with Kitty through endless muggy days, retreating to her room to lie down when it all gets too much. Ever since that Sunday lunch next door Luke has kept to himself, working long hours when he can, to avoid the arid tension that crackles through the household whenever they’re together.

  Today, he has an early shift and he slips from the house quietly, as his parents wordlessly take breakfast in the kitchen. Wheeling his scooter down the driveway, he pauses to check it over, giving the lamp a little polish with the hem of his T-shirt, only looking up as he hears his name called from the next door garden. Mike Michaels strides across his lawn with a young man at his side, and comes to a stop at the low wall that separates them. The lad is wearing torn straight jeans with a black and white striped T-shirt, and his eyes are hidden behind dark sunglasses, making it hard to judge his age.

  ‘Mr Michaels.’ Luke nods.

  ‘Mike. I insist. Luke, remember we told you about my son, Tom?’

  Luke smiles, feeling like an idiot in his happy camper gear. ‘Hi.’

  Tom half-raises a hand, before hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. ‘Alright.’

  ‘You promised to show Tom the sights, didn’t you? Well, here he is!’ Mike slaps his son on the shoulder; Tom pulls a face at Luke, the corner of his mouth lifting up in a pained grimace.

  ‘Oh, yes. I will – but I’m on my way to work right now.’ Luke eases his rucksack on to his back and starts to fiddle with his crash helmet.

  ‘No problem! Tom’s got a car, he’ll drive you, and he can look into getting a job himself when he gets there. He’ll give you a lift back, won’t you, Tom?’

  Tom doesn’t answer.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t finish until four. You won’t want to hang around that long, will you?’

  Tom shrugs. ‘I haven’t got anything better to do, I s’pose.’ His accent is a weird mix; he sounds like a posh boy trying to rough it.

  ‘Good man!’ says Mike, giving Tom another slap. ‘Go and change into something smarter before you go. No one will give you a job looking like that!’

  ‘Dad, if they don’t like what I’m wearing, then I don’t want their poxy job. I’m not compromising myself for no one. This is me; take it or leave it.’

  Mike glares at Tom and reaches into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He lights it, maintaining eye contact with Tom while Luke looks on, embarrassed. ‘As you wish,’ he says before marching back across his bald front lawn with a wave of his cigarette. ‘See you later!’

  ‘Pillock,’ Tom says, indicating for Luke to follow him to the yellow Cortina parked on the road beyond the drive.

  Luke throws his rucksack over the passenger headrest and gets in. For the first five minutes or so, they drive along in uncomfortable silence, only broken by Luke’s occasional instructions on direction. ‘Nice car,’ he says, eventually thinking of something to talk about.

  ‘Cheers,’ Tom replies. ‘It’s a Mark Three. Only six years old.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘So, is that your scooter back there?’

  ‘Yeah. At some point I’ll get on with some proper driving lessons. I’d like a car some day.’

  ‘The scooter’s pretty cool,’ Tom says, flipping down his sun visor. ‘Though you can’t get a girl in the back of a scooter, can ya?’

  Luke laughs, turning to see that Tom’s not even smiling. He’s got a matchstick poking out of the side of his mouth, which he moves lazily between his teeth.

  ‘You’re after a job, then?’

  Tom curls his lip. ‘Apparently so. My old man seems to think I’m turning into a layabout or something. That’s why I’m here. He’s scared shitless that I’m going to let down the family name, by not being a capitalist bastard like him.’

  Luke can’t begin to imagine his own dad taking such a close interest in anything he gets up to.

  ‘He thinks he’ll have wasted
all that lovely money on my crappy education, I suppose. You heard about the punk movement?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘It’s gonna be massive. But the squares seem to think it signals the arrival of bloody Armageddon. My dad’s one of the squares.’

  ‘You live in London, right? There’s got to be more going on there than there is here. How come you’re on the island for the summer?’

  Tom sniffs out a small laugh. ‘Now, there’s a story. I went to this gig a few weeks back, up in Manchester. Mind-blowing. The Sex Pistols.’ He turns to look at Luke as if it’s a question.

  Luke shakes his head, feeling like a hillbilly.

  ‘Don’t suppose it’s crossed the water yet. Anyway, they were storming. What a gig!’ Tom shakes his head earnestly and rolls his matchstick to the other side of his mouth.

  ‘Turn left here,’ Luke says as they approach Kite Hill.

  ‘Anyway. After the gig, we went on to this party, and things got a bit out of hand. I was done for drunk and disorderly, and my stepdad had to come all the way up from London and get me out of jail, ’cos I was only seventeen.’

  ‘You look older.’

  ‘That’s the funny bit. I turned eighteen the next day, but the offence happened when I was seventeen so they had to treat me like a minor. Fucking pigs.’

  The ‘fucking pigs’ part of the sentence slips out in what’s clearly his original posh-boy accent and Luke grins to himself. ‘Yah,’ he says.

  Tom darts him a scowl. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. I meant “yeah”.’

  He points out where Tom should park and walks with him to the managers’ office. The ground outside the hut has all but turned to dust in the heat, and even the ornamental grasses around the building are starting to look dreary under the scorching sunlight. Luke sprints up the wooden steps and knocks on the door, where he’s greeted by Suzy, the manager on duty today. Last week Gordon told him he’d heard Suzy had a reputation as the camp bike, she’d been through so many staff and visitors since she started here a year ago, and Luke felt mildly insulted that as yet she’d never shown any interest in him at all.