Summer of '76

by Ashdown, Isabel

  As Tom approaches, Luke makes a mental note of how he looks and what he’s wearing, thinking of the things he needs to get when he starts at Brighton in a few weeks’ time. He’ll have to ditch the flares for starters: Tom’s straight jeans are definitely much more with it, and the Converse boots are cool. He fingers his own hair, lazily running his hand up through the front of his overgrown fringe; perhaps it’s time to get it cut.

  Tom stops in front of him, lifts off his sunglasses, and polishes them with the edge of his faded Jaws T-shirt. ‘Luke?’ he says, slowly easing his sunglasses back on to his nose. ‘Mate, you’re not one of Gordon’s lot, are you?’

  Luke doesn’t know what to say.

  Tom puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ve got nothing against ’em, you know. I mean, Gordon, he’s one cool dude. But, just so you know, it’s girls all the way with me.’

  ‘What the hell –?’ Luke finally splurts out, laughing.

  Tom shrugs, and they start to walk towards the pool. ‘Dunno. Just the way you keep staring at me. I mean, I know I’m a thing of beauty, but…’

  ‘Piss off,’ Luke says, flipping his foot round to hit Tom in the back of the shin.

  Tom’s leg buckles, and he skip-jumps out of Luke’s way. ‘But you do, man. You stare a lot.’

  Luke shoves his hands into his pockets and shakes his head, bemused. ‘Sorry, mate. Didn’t realise. I was just thinking how cool your boots are. Daydreaming.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Tom replies as they walk up the steps and into the pool area. He stands at the poolside, hands on hips, surveying the vicinity with confidence. ‘Fair enough.’

  Now that the schools have broken up, the place is overrun with families, and Luke is about to suggest giving it a miss when he spots Samantha sitting on the other side of the pool, dangling her legs in the water beside Gordon. Luke and Tom make their way round the tiled poolside, dodging squirming toddlers and stray armbands.

  ‘Aloha,’ says Gordon.

  ‘Hey,’ Luke says, his heart racing at the sight of Samantha in her bikini. ‘Long time no see, Sam.’

  She stretches her legs out above the water, flexing her toes. ‘Too long!’ she replies.

  She flutters her fingers at him and Tom, and Luke feels suddenly incongruous in his shorts and T-shirt, overdressed amongst all the swimsuited bathers.

  Tom stoops to run his hand through the water, testing the temperature. ‘Nice,’ he says, flicking the water from his fingers, purposely splashing Sam’s face.

  ‘Hey!’ she yelps, smacking his calf, laughing.

  Luke laces his fingers and cracks his knuckles. ‘So, Sam, I wasn’t sure if you were still working here.’

  She pats the water’s surface with her feet. ‘I think we’ve been on different shifts this week. And I had a bit of time off.’

  ‘Holiday?’

  ‘No,’ she replies, smoothing her hands down her shins, whipping the water off in little sprinkles. ‘I just had to sort a few things out.’

  ‘Len,’ Gordon mouths to Luke while she’s looking away. He lays a hand on Samantha’s back. ‘But it’s all good now, isn’t it, Sexy Sam? No more Len.’

  ‘Really? You finished with him?’ Luke asks, crouching down beside her.

  Samantha’s eyes dart up to meet his. ‘He stole twenty pounds from my mum’s housekeeping tin – I caught him. Dad’s been trying to get me to dump him for ages now. I swear he was almost pleased when I told him it was Len who took the money.’

  ‘Thieving gypsy,’ Luke says, shaking his head. ‘You’re well rid of him.’

  She looks at him crossly. ‘You don’t have to sound quite so pleased, Luke. Anyway, he’s gone now. My mum wanted to get the police involved, but my dad sorted it out himself.’

  ‘How?’

  Samantha shakes her hair back off her shoulders. ‘Dad knows one of the managers up at the ferry port – he got him a summer job, directing the cars on and off. To keep him out of my hair, he said. Although Dad said he’d be happier if he knew Len was off the island altogether.’ She giggles at this.

  Gordon nudges her knee with his. ‘It’s good news for us, though, isn’t it? You’re free!’

  ‘Good old Gordy,’ she says, slapping his thigh and giving it a squeeze.

  ‘So what’s happening, man?’ Tom asks Luke, removing his sunglasses and using the arm to scratch the hair behind his ear. ‘Are we staying or going?’

  Samantha twists her upper body, looking from one lad to the next as she grips an elastic band between her white teeth and gathers her hair into a high ponytail. ‘Go and get into your trunks – the water’s lovely! Gordon and I were just debating whether to have another swim or not, weren’t we, Gord?’

  ‘Yes sirreee,’ he replies in a crappy cowboy accent. He swings his legs and starts to hum.

  ‘What d’you reckon, Tom?’ Luke asks. ‘Wanna go in? Although, of course it’ll mean getting your hair wet.’

  Tom’s hand automatically pats the front of his hair. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he replies, feigning a yawn.

  ‘Oh, go on!’ Samantha pleads, and she reaches out and tickles Luke on the back of the knee, sending a thrill of electricity up his thigh. He jumps back with a surprised yell, his eyes drawn to the rise and fall of her breasts as she swings her legs round and drops into the pool. She treads water beneath them, beckoning them in, the swell of her chest shimmering in the bright rippling water. Gordon plunges into the pool to join her, and Luke and Tom head off to the changing rooms.

  ‘What about that, then?’ Luke says as he steps out of his shorts and hangs them on a hook, feeling happier than he has in weeks. ‘Sam’s single again. Finally got rid of that dickhead Len. She’s nice, isn’t she?’

  Tom puckers up his chin as if giving the question serious thought, then stretches his arms high above his head in a taut, muscular movement. ‘Sam?’ he says with a lopsided smile. ‘She’s not bad at all.’

  When he arrives home that afternoon, Luke finds the house quite still. He pauses in the corridor, listening, and follows the sound of the television to the dim curtain-drawn living room, where Kitty lies on the sofa with her elephant, staring vacantly at the TV.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asks her, pulling back the curtains to let the evening sun stream in.

  Kitty squawks, pointing at the television. ‘Can’t see!’

  ‘It’s Songs of Praise, Kitty! You don’t even like it.’

  ‘Do!’ she snaps angrily, and she turns her face into the cushion.

  Luke pinches her big toe, making her snigger. ‘I said, where’s Mum?’

  ‘Bed,’ she replies, snatching her toe back and scrunching up like a hedgehog.

  ‘And Dad?’

  ‘Doing the stretchy thing,’ she replies, flexing her arms wide. ‘With Uncle Simon.’

  Luke ruffles her hair and leaves the room, walking back through the hallway and out on to the front path. He finds Dad in the garage, just as Kitty had described, standing at the centre of the concrete space, using his chest expander, while Simon sits on a motheaten armchair in the corner, drinking beer. Dad’s teeth are clenched in an agony of exertion as he draws the wooden handles up and out, stretching the rusty-looking coils across his chest.

  ‘Bloody hell, Dad, I wouldn’t do that without your top on,’ Luke says, making Dad jump back in surprise. ‘You’ll get your chest hairs trapped in the springs.’

  Simon raises his beer bottle in Luke’s direction, a slick of foam clinging to his moustache. Dad puts the expander down and shakes his arms out, rolling his shoulders back as if he’s limbering up for an important race. ‘Good day at work?’

  ‘It was OK. What’s with all the keep-fit?’

  Dad reaches round and pulls his heel up against his thigh in a stretch. ‘I’m thinking of doing the Island Marathon next year.’

  ‘Really?’ Luke gives Dad a disbelieving frown.

  ‘Yes, really. I’ve done it before, you know.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ He turns to Simon and pulls a face.<
br />
  Dad stares at him, looking insulted. ‘Yes, I have. I did have a life before you came along, Luke. Quite an exciting life, at that.’

  ‘So if I go inside now and ask Mum about the time you ran the Isle of Wight Marathon, she’ll be able to tell me all about it?’

  Dad reaches down and picks up the chest expander, turning his back on Luke and resuming his exercise. ‘If she can remember it.’

  Simon grins broadly.

  ‘Dad. It’s hardly the kind of thing you’d forget, your husband running the Marathon. So what was your time, then?’

  ‘Two hours, fifty-four seconds.’

  Luke shakes his head and walks away. ‘Now I know you’re lying,’ he says, and he returns to the house to look for Mum.

  He finds her in the bedroom, curled up on top of the patchwork bedspread, her back curved away from him. The curtains are open, but the room is gloomy, where the sun has moved round to the other side of the house. Luke stands in the doorway for a few seconds, watching her shoulders rise and fall, trying to establish whether she’s sleeping or awake.

  ‘Mum?’ he says softly, taking a step closer, wondering if she and Dad have had another argument.

  She inclines her head a fraction, letting him know she’s heard, and he quietly treads across the carpet to sit on her side of the bed, looking down at her drawn face.

  ‘Mum, are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she whispers, not meeting his eye. When she does look up, she attempts a smile, only managing a downturned grimace.

  ‘You’re not,’ he says, putting a hand on her upper arm.

  ‘Is Kitty alright?’ she asks, running a loose hand across her face.

  He pulls his hand back into his lap, and fiddles with an oil mark at the hem of his shorts. ‘She’s watching the telly. Dad’s in the garage. Training,’ he says, hoping it will provoke some amusement. It doesn’t.

  She releases a slow breath and closes her eyes again.

  ‘So I see Simon’s here,’ he says. ‘Does that mean you’ve sorted things out with him?’

  She lies still. The curtains sway lightly beside the open window and Luke surveys the familiar items of his parent’s room: Mum’s dusty stack of unread books, pushed to one corner of the windowsill; the chair on Dad’s side, piled up with crumpled clothes; Mum’s dressing table, scattered with perfumes and hair rollers and bottles of gold-capped nail varnish. He glances along the length of her fragile body, his eyes coming to rest on her pretty painted toenails, feeling like he’s teetering on the edge of an unfinished dream, about to drop back in.

  ‘Mum?’

  She opens her eyes and swipes away her tears, releasing a slow breath before she speaks. ‘Simon’s going to be moving in for a while.’

  10

  Met Office report for the Isle of Wight, early August 1976: Maximum temperature 77°F/25.2°C

  On August 5th, Big Ben stops running. Luke stands in the early morning kitchen while everyone else sleeps, eating Marmite on toast, listening to the news on the radio.

  Dad appears in the doorway, turning up the volume to hear the end of the report.

  ‘Metal fatigue,’ Luke says. ‘Apparently it’s knackered.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Dad replies, filling the kettle and fetching down two mugs. ‘You know the world’s going to pot when you can’t even rely on Big Ben any more. And you heard they’ve appointed a drought minister now? It’s a bit late in the day, if you ask me. Should have done something about it months ago. What’s he going to do, wave his magic wand and miraculously fill the reservoirs? I don’t think so.’

  Luke watches his father as he makes the tea and slides four slices of bread beneath the grill.

  ‘Is she OK, Dad?’ he asks, placing his dirty plate beside the sink.

  ‘Your mum? She’s fine. She’ll be even better once she’s had breakfast in bed.’

  ‘You know what I mean. You can’t have missed the fact that she’s been miserable since Simon moved in. She’s been in a right state all week.’

  ‘She’s just tired. She’ll soon snap out of it.’ He rubs Luke’s back and places a jar of jam on the tray. ‘Are you popping in to see Nan on your way back tonight? You haven’t been round there for a while.’

  ‘That’s what she says about you every time I call round. You should make more of an effort, you know, Dad. She’s your mum.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been busy. Stop off and buy her a nice tin of biscuits for me? She’d like that.’ He finishes making the tea and loads up the breakfast tray. ‘And stay out of the living room, will you, son? Simon might need a bit of a lie-in today.’

  Tom’s on a different shift, so Luke takes his scooter and sets off alone in the early sunshine, enjoying the peace of the calm roads and avenues. As he turns out of Blake Avenue, he sees Sara Newbury with three of her dogs on the verge outside her gate. Even though it’s still early, she’s only wearing shorts and a bikini top, and she clutches one of the chihuahuas snugly under her crêpey brown arm. She stiffens as he approaches, obviously suspicious of a helmeted stranger passing by at this time in the morning. Luke is relieved when the Rottweiler takes no notice of him but instead lowers his backside and pigeon-steps around for a moment, feverishly sniffing to locate the optimum patch for his bowel evacuation. Luke slows to a stop a few feet away, conspicuously watching Sara Newbury, confident that she has no idea who he is behind the cover of his crash helmet.

  ‘I hope you’re going to clear that up,’ he calls through his open visor, keeping his voice friendly and nodding towards the mountain of dog turd that now adorns the scrubby grass verge.

  She gasps, furious, and pushes open her purple gate to wave the dogs inside. Luke carries on up the road, feeling the warmth of the morning breaking through, as the hum of lawnmowers and birdsong starts to fill the air. The distant whisper of the sea is always there, a transparent layer that lies beneath all other sounds, as it rolls over the beaches that surround the island, ever constant. Fleetingly, he wonders if he’ll miss the island when he’s gone; he wonders if it will miss him.

  Turning into Lark Road, he stops outside Martin’s house and pauses to watch the swallows as they swoop above the rooftop and disappear into the back garden. He props up his scooter and carefully unstraps Martin’s Young Americans album, removing it from its carrier bag and checking it over to make sure it’s not been damaged on the way. He walks up the front path and props it against the doorstep, taking a step back to look up towards the first-floor windows, where the curtains are drawn. The red graffiti has been scrubbed back again, but a shadow of it remains, the flecks over the front step like a blood trail from the house. He hasn’t had any contact with Martin since he stopped by with Tom last week; he’s got to get that film off him, but he’s not sure how to broach it after the way their last conversation played out. Luke knows he was an arsehole, but he doesn’t seem to have it in him to apologise, and he’s not sure that Martin would want to know anyway. He cranes his neck to look at the upstairs window, blinking at the reflected sun and willing his friend to appear behind the glass and make it all alright again. But the curtains remain closed as the house sleeps on, and Luke walks away, back along the path, and out through the wrecked wooden gate.

  Samantha and Gordon are on the same shift as Luke, and after work they decide to avoid the crowded pool and take a swim in the sea instead. Luke’s irritated that Gordon wants to come along, that he can’t take a hint and let them have a bit of time to themselves, but he does his best to hide it lest Samantha notices and thinks he’s an idiot.

  They find a quiet spot a little way along the beach, beyond the jetty, and stretch out on their towels, side by side, with Samantha in the middle. The water laps gently against the shingle shore, and the sun beats down in a seemingly endless blanket of heat.

  ‘This is the life, eh?’ says Gordon, flexing his scrawny pink toes. ‘I thought I’d miss out on the summer holidays, working all the time. But we get the best of both worlds, don’t we? Like they say, every clou
d has a silver lining.’

  ‘You’re like a walking encyclopaedia of clichés,’ Luke says. He’s propped up on his elbows, admiring the increasingly dark tan of his own belly.

  Samantha flicks his ankle with her foot. ‘Don’t be mean!’

  ‘Well, he is!’ Luke replies, resisting the urge to flick her back.

  ‘It’s true,’ says Gordon, his voice serious. ‘I am. My mum’s always saying so. There’s no smoke without fire.’ He sits up, cross-legged, reaching for a pebble to roll between his palms. ‘So, what do we think of the current number one?’

  ‘Oh, I love it!’ Samantha replies, brushing sand from her towel with a delicate little movement of her foot.

  Behind his sunglasses, Luke pretends to stare into space, allowing his eyes to linger on her honeyed legs. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Elton John and Kiki Dee. You know – Don’t go breakin’ my heart –’ Gordon breaks into song, shimmying his shoulders like a girl.

  ‘Yeah, yeah – I know it!’ Luke interrupts, embarrassed to be sitting with him. ‘Thanks for that, Gordon.’

  ‘I know you love me really, Lukester.’ Gordon sighs and flops back against his towel as Samantha gives Luke a knowing little smile.

  ‘You do, though, don’t you, Luke? Who couldn’t love our Gordy?’

  Luke grunts, watching a trio of rowing boats pass by, filled with holidaymakers and camp staff. A little girl, about Kitty’s age, waves at them, and Luke waves back.

  ‘That’s sweet,’ says Samantha, lying back and stretching her arms high above her head so that her stomach caves in to reveal two achingly dark hollows where her hips meet the top of her bikini briefs. ‘Not many young men would bother waving back, would they?’

  ‘Wouldn’t they?’ he replies, flipping over on to his front. ‘I’ve got a little sister, so I suppose I’m used to it.’

  ‘Have you?’ She rolls on to her side so she’s facing him, with her back to Gordon, who’s now breathing deeply with his T-shirt draped across his face. ‘What’s her name?’