Summer of '76

by Ashdown, Isabel

  ‘Kitty. She’s four.’

  Samantha rests her head on her arm and gazes at him, her face looking all dreamy.

  ‘Are you alright now?’ he asks, deciding to act on the moment. ‘After your break-up with Len?’

  She looks down, and then her eyes slowly travel up the length of his body, until they meet his. ‘It was a lucky escape,’ she replies. ‘How about you? Those bruises he gave you were pretty bad.’

  ‘I think it looked worse than it felt.’

  ‘Really?’

  He laughs. ‘No. It hurt like hell. But, it’s fine now.’ He turns on to his side in a mirror of her, pulling his chin in as he checks out his chest and torso. ‘See, all gone.’

  Samantha reaches over and runs a finger along the groove between two ribs, making him flinch as her fingertip brushes the rim of his bellybutton. She looks over her shoulder to where Gordon lies beneath his T-shirt, and leans in to kiss Luke, her tongue slipping between his lips in a single, shocking movement. She pulls back and smiles boldly, her eyes lingering on the obvious swelling inside his nylon swimming trunks. She presses the flat of her hand against his groin, fitting her pretty fingers around the outline of his cock.

  ‘You’re very brown,’ she says, increasing the pressure.

  ‘Mediterranean blood,’ he replies, holding her gaze.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Her hand releases him and drifts to his wrist, and he wonders if she’s able to feel his racing pulse through his skin.

  ‘Yeah, I’m kidding.’

  Luke is suddenly aware of just how close they are; how her small breasts are pressed together as she lies on her side; how her long fingers now move and caress the sand between their towels. He smiles at her, trying to incorporate his puppydog look at the same time.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asks, lifting her head, looking concerned.

  He clears his throat self-consciously. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Your eyes went a bit funny. For a minute there I thought you were going to faint.’ She pats him on the hand again and rolls over on to her back, draping an arm across her forehead.

  A glider sails across the skyline, momentarily casting them in shadow.

  ‘You know, you’re right, Gordy,’ she sighs. ‘This is the life. Look at the three of us, lying here under the sun. We’re all young, free and single, aren’t we? It doesn’t get much better than this.’

  Luke arrives home by late afternoon, having called in on Nanna on the way back. He helped her out with a few jobs in the back garden and stopped for a cup of tea while she counted out five one-pound notes and slipped them into a brown envelope for him to put by for his birthday.

  ‘How’s your pal Martin?’ she asked. When Luke tried to avoid the subject, she clucked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘Just because you’ve got all these fancy new friends up at the holiday camp, don’t you go dropping Martin. There’s no friends like old friends.’

  It preoccupied him all the way home, as he grew increasingly anxious about Martin, and about the missing reels of film, and he even stopped briefly at the end of Lark Road, staring up the street towards Martin’s house, wrestling with the idea of calling for him. But in the end he decided against it; he wouldn’t know what to say.

  When he first gets home he thinks the house is empty, as he unlocks the front door and makes his way through the cool, quiet hallway. He rests his helmet on the kitchen bench and goes straight to the sink to splash water over his face and neck, running himself a glassful which he drinks thirstily. It’s only as he sets the tumbler down on the side that he hears voices on the back lawn. He pushes open the kitchen door and wanders out into the garden. Mum and Dad and a woman Luke doesn’t recognise are standing at the boundary to the Michaelses’ garden, talking to Mike and Diana across the fence. Simon Drake sits apart from the group, reclining in one of the deckchairs in his shorts and sandals, drinking beer beside the willow tree. He smoothes his forefinger and thumb across his sandy moustache, as if deep in contemplation.

  The woman turns her head and starts visibly when she sees Luke walking towards them.

  ‘Oh, Luke,’ says Mum, looking pale and flustered. ‘You’re home!’

  Luke claws at his damp hair. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello! Marie McKee,’ the woman says, an efficient little hand shooting out to shake his.

  ‘Oh – how rude of me!’ Mum flaps. ‘Luke, darling, this is Marie. You know, as in John and Marie?’

  Diana waves from the other side of the fence. From here, he can only see her upper half, and she’s wearing an orange bikini top, her shoulders shiny with oil. She smiles at him like a sleepy cat. ‘How’s work? Luke’s working with Mike’s Tom, you know, Marie. At the holiday camp.’

  Dad and Mike don’t say anything, and Luke wonders what they were talking about before he turned up.

  ‘Tom says it’s a lovely job,’ Diana continues, bringing her hands up to adjust her straw hat. ‘They get full use of the pool and all the facilities.’

  Dad clears his throat. ‘Luke, can you give us a few minutes? Marie only arrived a short while ago, and we just need to have a quick chat with her.’

  Luke raises a quizzical eyebrow at Simon, who languidly raises his hand to return a salute. Dad flicks his head towards the back door, to hurry him along, and Luke holds his hands up in defeat, returning to the house and wandering into the cool living room, where the far window opens straight out opposite Mike’s fence. He finds Kitty on the other side of the room, flopped out on the sofa with her thumb hanging from her sleeping mouth, and settles into the seat beside her, exhaling a jaded sigh as he eases his shoes off. He can’t wait to get off this island; he’s sick of being constantly pushed away, sick of being forever on the outside, listening in.

  ‘So, who else saw the photo, Marie?’ Mum asks, her voice travelling in through the window, crisp and clear.

  Luke sits forward in his seat.

  ‘A better question might be, who didn’t?’ Marie answers shrilly. ‘I mean, could it have been in a more public place? The post office! Good God, it’s just about the busiest place in the whole town!’

  ‘Slow down, now,’ says Mike, trying to take control. He’d have been good in the army. ‘How did you come to hear about it, Marie?’

  There’s a moment’s silence, and Luke resists the temptation to sneak over and spy from the edges of the curtains.

  ‘Joyce Harrison phoned me just after lunch; I was out in the rose garden, spraying the greenfly. I could have died on the spot, and Joyce was so embarrassed. She could hardly say the words – a pornographic image, she called it. She said there’d been phone calls all morning long, between the committee members, deciding what to do about it.’

  ‘What a bunch of busybodies!’ Mike exclaims. ‘I hate to think what kind of fuss the education authorities will make over your photograph, Simon.’

  ‘Screw them,’ Simon retorts, and Luke realises that he must have had more than one of those beers this afternoon. Simon always swears more when he’s pissed.

  ‘Joyce was so apologetic,’ Marie continues, ‘but in the end she said that, after careful consideration, they were all agreed that I would have to step down from my position as chairman of the Silver Jubilee planning committee.’ She lets out a little cry. ‘On moral grounds!’

  Luke hears Mum comforting her, and the lower voices of Dad and Mike discussing the situation to one side.

  ‘Mr Linder from the post office dropped the picture by soon afterwards, in an envelope. He said he’d taken it down as soon as he’d got wind of it, but that he couldn’t be sure just how long it had been up on the noticeboard.’

  ‘That was good of him,’ Dad says, and the others all mumble in agreement.

  ‘OK. We need to establish who’s responsible for these photographs,’ Mike says. ‘Marie, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but what exactly were you doing in the picture?’

  ‘I was on the lawn,’ she sniffs. ‘I’m standing on the lawn, with a glass of bubbly. And there ar
e others in the background, but their backs are turned away. It’s quite a close-up, so there’s no doubt it’s me. Oh, God –’ now she almost howls ‘– you can see everything!’

  ‘But who would do this?’ Mum asks. ‘First Simon, now Marie. Who’s next? I can’t bear it!’

  There’s a sudden atmosphere of alarm about to break out in Blake Avenue, and Luke slides down into his seat, covering his face with his hands as a fresh sense of dread grips him.

  ‘Everyone, just calm yourselves down!’ says Mike. ‘I’m afraid we’re all going to have to steel ourselves for the worst. There’s no way of knowing who’s behind this, or what, if any, other pictures they have in their possession. Marie! Come on, now! It’ll pass. Be forgotten in a matter of days. So, where’s John at the moment? Thought he’d be here with you.’

  Another pause. ‘He locked himself in the study and won’t come out.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘I think he’s having some kind of a breakdown. He started ranting about selling up and moving back to the mainland. He thinks it’ll ruin us.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ says Mike.

  ‘He’s had a shock,’ says Dad. ‘He’ll come round, Marie, you’ll see.’

  ‘Maybe he won’t,’ Simon calls over from his deckchair, his words slurred. ‘Maybe the men in white coats will come to take him away.’ He laughs heartily as the others clamour to censure him, ticking him off like a naughty schoolboy.

  ‘Take no notice, Marie,’ Mum says. ‘He’s drunk.’

  Mike claps his hands together – Luke knows it’s him, having witnessed the gesture so many times before. ‘It must be near cocktail time! Why don’t you all come over and join us for a tipple – take our minds off this damnable charade?’

  Simultaneously everyone declines, and sounds of the group breaking up drift in through the open window, as they disperse into little islands. Luke gives Kitty a nudge, waking her up. He sits beside her as she rubs her face, peering at him in confusion, her head cocked to one side as she listens to Mum and Dad seeing Marie off at the front door.

  ‘Morning?’ Kitty asks Luke, pulling her little legs around and off the sofa.

  ‘No. Nearly night-time.’

  ‘Hmph!’ she says, crumpling her chin. ‘Stop teasing, Lu-lu!’ She slaps his knee and stomps away on wobbly legs, casting a fierce glare back at him as she leaves the room.

  Luke flops back against the cushions, and gazes up at the shell-studded lampshade in the centre of the ceiling as the afternoon sunlight slices across his brow, and his mind whirrs. There were only a few party pictures on that reel of film, that was what Martin said, so they might be safe. But what of the other reel, the one Martin can’t find? What if that’s discovered, and put on display? He’s not sure his parents’ marriage would survive it.

  As if she’s read his thoughts, Mum appears in the doorway, with Kitty on her hip.

  ‘Hi, Lukey,’ she says in a sad, singsong way. The front of her hair is pushed up, where she’s been anxiously running her hand through it.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  She tilts her head forlornly. ‘Are you OK, my boy?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ he replies, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Are you OK, Mum?’

  She purses her pale lips and nods slowly, blinking once. ‘I’m fine, my love. I’m fine.’

  She kisses the top of Kitty’s head and places her down on the carpet, as Simon enters the room, shaking his hair from his face and rolling the tension from his bare shoulders. He’s caught the sun, and his skin is scorched a warm tan beneath the fair hairs of his lean torso. Kitty raises her arms and he lifts her up in a bear hug, planting a warm kiss on her forehead. ‘Hello, Kit-Kat.’

  Kitty squeezes his cheeks between her palms, making him pucker up like a goldfish.

  ‘Blub-blub-blub,’ he says, and she squeals with laughter.

  Mum gives Luke a final weak smile then leaves the room, and he hears the door to her bedroom softly click shut. Simon carries Kitty out into the back garden to join Dad, who’s smoking one of Simon’s cigarettes and gazing up at the sky. Luke sits beside the window, watching the two men in their shorts and bare chests, as they stand at the centre of the parched lawn deep in conversation, with Kitty pedalling back and forth on her red tricycle, revived by her afternoon nap. Luke leaves the room and heads straight for the phone stand beside the front door, dialling Martin’s number.

  To Luke’s surprise, he answers the phone on the second ring. ‘Hello?’

  Luke hesitates, not sure what to say. ‘It’s me. Luke.’

  ‘Thanks for the album,’ Martin replies after a pause.

  ‘No problem. Sorry I kept it so long.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Martin clears his throat loudly. ‘I’ll make you a tape of it. I said I would.’

  ‘It’s a brilliant album. The best.’ Luke hesitates while he tries to find the right words. He gazes along the hallway at the closed door that conceals his mother, where he imagines her balled up on the bed in the grip of inertia. ‘Mart, mate. Can we meet up? I really need to get out of here.’

  He can hear Martin’s breathing, the low rumble of the TV in the background, even the tiniest sounds of evening birdsong.

  ‘Mart?’

  ‘Alright. Shall I see you by the pier?’

  Luke presses his fingers against the back of his neck, trying to ease away the knots that have gathered in little bunches at the top of his spine. ‘See you in five minutes.’

  When he arrives Martin’s already waiting and they walk their bikes along the esplanade, with the pinkly dipping sun at their backs. At first Martin seems to avoid any eye contact, and Luke wonders if this is it – perhaps they’re just too different; perhaps this is where it all ends.

  ‘Mart, there’s been another photograph. In the post office this time. One of Marie McKee.’

  Martin scans the cracks in the pavement as he walks along, taking care to tread between them. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. She was round at ours just now. They were all out in the back garden, talking over the fence with Diana and Fatty Michaels.’

  ‘That’s two, then. Two photos.’

  ‘So, you reckon there’s only few on that reel? What – four? Five?’

  ‘More like four.’

  ‘So, there’s at least two more photos to come out.’

  Martin nods.

  Luke reaches out for Martin’s handlebars, to make him stop and look up. ‘Listen, I know we can’t do anything about those photos, the ones the police have lost. So we just have to pray to God that there weren’t any of Mum and Dad on there, and that it all just blows over. But the thing is, Mart, you’ve got this other film somewhere, haven’t you? All the time it’s not found – well, I won’t be able to sleep at night, mate. We need to find it.’ He pauses for effect, and Martin nods again, still concentrating hard on the pavement. ‘My mum’s gone into meltdown, man. You should see her. She cries all the time, and she keeps shutting herself in her room. And Dad’s spending all his time in the garage with Simon, pretending nothing’s happened.’

  Martin rubs his nose, his drooping eyes downcast.

  ‘I don’t know how Kitty would cope if they split up,’ Luke adds, giving Martin’s handlebars a little shake. ‘She’s only four, you know?’

  Martin’s jaw clenches, the muscles below his ears standing out like tiny bumps. ‘Why did they do it, Luke? Why would they go to a party like that?’

  They prop their bikes up against the railings and drop down on to the beach where they can sit against the sea wall in the warm glow of the sunset.

  ‘I dunno, mate. I’ve asked myself the same thing a million times. I mean, look at us – we’re seventeen, eighteen – we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. We’re meant to be out there partying, meeting girls – having sex – not them! Urghh. At this rate I’ll be drawing my pension before I finally get with a girl.’

  Martin sniffs behind his curtain of lank hair. ‘Still no luck with Samantha, then?’

  Luke
laughs briefly, running his fists over his face. ‘Not yet, despite my best efforts. But she’s finally split up with Len, and she has been giving me a few very positive signals.’

  ‘So maybe you’ve got a chance?’

  ‘I reckon. Listen, Mart, we’ve got to find that other film, you know. It’d be a disaster if it got into the wrong hands. I think my mum would top herself or something.’

  Martin says nothing.

  As he gazes out across the sand, Luke spots gnarly old Sara Newbury at the shoreline with her pack of dogs. She’s handing out treats, signalling for them to sit, attempting to photograph them before they scatter like mice. Her high voice rises every now and then – sit! – stay! – before she hands out more treats and tries again, before moving up the beach.

  ‘Keep looking, will you, mate?’ he says to Martin, giving him a nudge. ‘I won’t sleep properly till I know it’s been found.’

  Neither speaks for a while, as they watch the tide lapping at the shore where the sanderlings run in the shallow waters. The orange-red reflection of the sky stretches across the wet sand and for a moment it feels as if they’re the only people on the island, the last remaining inhabitants.

  ‘Have you had any more trouble with the graffiti?’ Luke asks.

  Martin shakes his head. ‘It was just kids. Dad caught them last time and waved his shotgun around to scare them off. It wasn’t even loaded.’

  Luke laughs. ‘So, is everything OK with your dad now?’

  Martin gazes out to sea. ‘Not bad. He’s over at the doctor’s at the moment, about his bad back.’

  Luke picks up a stone and throws it down the beach, trying to hit a bottle that’s washed up on the pebbles. ‘You don’t have to get home straight away, do you? I thought maybe we could go for a pint?’

  ‘I’d better not. I want to make sure Dad’s alright. See how he got on. Hopefully he’ll have some better tablets now.’

  ‘Does he take that much trouble over you, mate?’

  Martin throws a stone at the bottle, clipping the sand just beyond it. ‘He gave me this yesterday.’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a shiny silver lighter. ‘He said it was a present from my mum – said she’d want me to have it. It’s a proper Zippo. Look, it’s even got his initials engraved on the side.’ He flips it open and lights it, ker-chink, watching the pale flame dance for a moment before flipping it shut and returning it to his pocket.