Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  Skirting the road-wide cattle grid, the ground mossy and yielding beneath her feet, Zillah walked slowly south, sticking her thumb out as she heard vehicles approaching. The morning air was soft and warm, and for the first time in her life she felt her spirits rise with the soaring bird song. The primal forest, organic, surrounded her, cloaking her safely, giving her a true hippie feel of being at one with nature.

  This was what she wanted. To be alone, unfettered, free to make choices, free to be herself instead of the model daughter, the model student.

  A blue transit van pulled up on the left ahead of her and the driver stuck his head out of the window.

  ‘Want a lift, darling? Bournemouth any good?’

  Zillah nodded, gathered her skirt up and ran, pulling the passenger door open, scrambling inside.

  ‘Hi.’

  The van was crowded with boys of her own age, seven very attractive boys, with long silky hair and long slender be-jeaned legs and logo’d T-shirts. They all looked very tired and fairly uncomfortable, as crammed in with them were all manner of bags and musical instruments and huge black speakers and rolls of cable.

  ‘Make room for her in the back,’ the driver called over his shoulder. ‘Budge up a bit.’

  They budged, and Zillah, after only a fleeting moment of doubt about the wisdom of accepting this lift, and her haversack had tumbled over the three boys in the front seat and into the back.

  The boy sitting next to her, the boy with the huge dark eyes and the high-cheekbones and the sulky-beautiful mouth, smiled.‘OK? Not too squashed? Let me help you

  She fell in love with him then. There and then. At first sight.

  ‘No … I’m fine. Thank you … This is very kind of you.’

  ‘Our pleasure,’ the driver said, selecting first gear and indicating to pull away. ‘Where have you come from?’

  And Zillah told them. All of it. Because she’d spent years and years of lying to everyone, especially to herself, and this was like the best confessional in the world.

  And they listened and offered no censure at the cavalier way she’d binned her glittering academic future, but said they hoped she’d made the right choice, and congratulated her on her decision to take control of her life. And they shared their Coke and cigarettes and chocolate with her as the New Forest rolled by outside, the bracken a green carpet and the myriad oaks a latticed green canopy.

  ‘And you – you’re a rock group?’

  ‘Soul band, yeah,’ one of the boys in the front seat said. ‘We’ve got a rented house in Kilburn that we share, but we’re rarely there. We’re on the road most of the time. One town after another. It’s cool.’

  Zillah shook her head. She had never before known anyone who lived an itinerant life. How wonderful it must be travelling, playing music, packing up, moving on. No set routine, no one day the same as the hundreds of others on either side.

  Perfect freedom.

  The beautiful boy beside her introduced the others, six of them in the band, and the driver who was Stan, their roadie, chauffeur, general all-round good geezer.

  ‘And I’m Clancy Tavistock, bass guitarist. Collectively, we’re Solstice Soul.’

  ‘Zillah Flanagan,’ Zillah said, wondering if Clancy Tavistock could hear her heart thundering. ‘And I’m sorry – but if you’re famous, I’ve never heard of you.’

  They all laughed, the laughter drowning out Jimi Hendrix on the radio.

  ‘We’re quite well known on the club and festival circuit,’ Clancy said, stretching his long, long legs over the seat in front, easing his back. ‘But the Beatles, we’re not.’

  Zillah watched his unconsciously sensuous movements, aching to touch him, shocked and slightly ashamed at the intensity of the wanting.

  ‘We’ve just got a record deal,’ they told her. ‘UK soul is very hot at the moment. Everyone is after white soul boys. We’re not kidding ourselves that we’re going to be the next Ram-Jam Band – but we’ve got bookings as far ahead as the eye can see, and we’re making decent money at last. Mind you, we’ve always had fun – money or no …’

  And as they headed nearer to the south coast and the sky grew huge, silver washed in the sun, they chatted easily and Zillah learned that they all came from London, had been in various bands since they’d been at school, been together professionally for eighteen months.

  Zillah’s musical knowledge was shaky to say the least. She preferred the Stones to the Beatles, loved American soul singers like Otis Redding and Eddie Floyd, could sing along with most of the Top Twenty, but the years and years of studying had interfered with the keeping up with current trends.

  ‘We could educate you if you like,’ Clancy said. Then he’d laughed. ‘Always supposing education isn’t a dirty word, of course.’

  They were going to Bournemouth to play a gig. At a biggish venue. Staying for a couple of nights in a guest house – one of the perks, they told her, of having a proper management structure, it beat kipping in the van hands down – then on to a booking in Christchurch, then inland again to Dorchester, then back to the coast, Southampton followed by Brighton.

  ‘If you haven’t got anything planned,’ Clancy said, passing her another can of Coke, ‘you could hang out with us tonight. Watch the gig, stay at the guest house, sort out what you want to do, where you want to go, tomorrow.’

  ‘That sounds great, thank you. If you’re sure I won’t be in the way …’

  And so for the first time in her life, that night, Zillah had been ‘with the band’. They’d checked into the guest house, a few roads back from the sea front, and they’d kindly rearranged the rooms so that Zillah could have one on her own, and had refused her offer to pay.

  ‘This is all on our management account,’ they told her. ‘Make the most of it. We do.’

  So, Zillah had sat beside the stage and watched entranced, as Solstice Soul slammed their brilliantly talented way through the classics like ‘Soul Finger’ and ‘Knock On Wood’, and various ska and reggae and Motown tunes, looking even more sexily gorgeous in their tight black flares and their satin shirts, making the girls in the packed non-stop-dancing audience scream.

  And she knew this was what she wanted; where she wanted to be.

  And later, much, much later, after they’d packed up and found a chip shop open and shared an after-midnight supper on the black, deserted sea-front where the strings of coloured lights danced like a fallen rainbow on the undulating water, they wandered back to the guest house, all still on an adrenaline high.

  In the largest of the bedrooms they had all shared a bottle of Canadian rye whisky laced with dry ginger, drinking from the tooth mugs, and Clancy Tavistock had slid his arm round her shoulder and kissed her.

  And that night he’d shared her bed and told her that he loved her too, and Zillah didn’t believe him, neither did she care. She was in love and her body was on fire.

  The next morning, at breakfast, the landlady served them a full English, and grinned wickedly at Zillah, and Zillah grinned back, sharing the woman-to-woman knowledge, and not feeling ashamed as she’d always imagined she’d be – as her parents had told her she would if she ever did anything like this – but liberated and floating and happier than she could ever remember.

  And when Solstice Soul played Christchurch that night, Zillah was still there, and when they moved on, it was as if she’d known them and been in love with Clancy for ever.

  She wrote home, explaining everything to her parents, telling them that she was happy, safe, having fun – and not to worry about her. She apologised about abandoning her academic studies, but knew they’d understand – which was more or less what she wrote to her tutor too.

  And then, for nearly two halcyon years, she and Clancy Tavistock were inseparable. She believed him now when he said he loved her; no one was in any doubt of it. They were made for each other, blissfully happy, good friends as well as lovers, sharing everything.

  Clancy was kind, funny, intelligent, good tempered; they t
alked about anything and everything, arguing good-naturedly, challenging one another’s views. Zillah took odd bar jobs while the band was on the road and more permanent ones when they were back in London where she shared Clancy’s room in the rented house, pleased to be able to pay her way.

  She loved him as he loved her, with an intensity that defied description. Together, they were magical, and everything around them became star-spangled. Never once did she regret leaving her other life behind. This was her life now, this had been preordained.

  She still wrote long weekly letters to her parents, or sent postcards from whichever town the band was playing, but they never replied. She wasn’t particularly worried – they’d never been the greatest correspondents, and as long as they knew she was safe and happy, they’d be OK.

  The band and Zillah continuously toured the country, then they spent time in the recording studio laying down ‘Summer and Winter’ which went into the album charts and made them more in demand than ever.

  There was a management takeover, and the new bosses arranged a tour of Germany, Italy, France. Six months. And no women.

  The rest of the band had transient girlfriends, and didn’t mind too much. Clancy said if Zillah couldn’t go then neither would he.

  Zillah had told him not to be stupid, not to even consider wrecking his career as it was reaching its zenith, for her. Six months apart would kill her, too, but she’d still be there when he came back. They’d be so busy the time would just fly. She’d stay on in the rented house in Kilburn, find a permanent bar job, they could write all the time – and think about the getting together session they’d have when he finally came home.

  So, he left, and they both cried, and as she made her way back to the house from the airport, Zillah felt her world crumbling around her. Six months. How could she survive for six months without him? Of course she trusted him, and even if there were groupies throwing themselves at him, so what? He’d come back to her, wouldn’t he? But how on earth would she survive until then?

  The next cataclysmic events all rolled in on one another like an inexorable gathering tide of disaster.

  The new management stopped paying for the Kilburn house – after all, it had never been part of their deal and the band were away touring Europe; they also refused to tell Zillah where exactly Solstice Soul were at any one time, nor would they pass on letters or messages; as she couldn’t afford to stay on in the house and the bar work didn’t pay enough for her to stay living in London, she decided to go home until Clancy came back to the UK. He hadn’t written – but he would, she knew he would.

  Anyway, she’d be able to contact him then, through his record company, surely? And then he’d write to her and give her a forwarding addresses abroad. It would be OK. But, oh, she missed him so much. The days and nights without him, without their carefree, wild, itinerant, hippie, happy life, were an aching physical pain.

  Zillah wrote to her parents, telling them she was coming home for a while, and on the same day as she posted the letter, the thing she’d feared for some weeks was confirmed: she was pregnant.

  She’d hitched down to Cornwall, feeling sick and lonely and more than a little frightened. But she was going home. And Clancy would be back before the baby was born, wouldn’t he?

  ‘You’re not stopping here,’ her dad said, opening the door just a crack. ‘You’ve broken your mother’s heart. You clear off back to where you came from. You’re no daughter of mine.’

  Stunned, Zillah had tried to speak to her mother.

  ‘We had such dreams for you, Zil. We gave up our lives for you. You went to Oxford – you were coming home to be a teacher – and you let us down.’ Her mother’s eyes were flinty. ‘We were a laughing stock. And you’ve ruined your own life, my girl. No, your Dad’s right – you made your bed when you gave up your studies – now you bloody well lie on it.’

  ‘But, Mum,’ Zillah choked on her tears. ‘Mum – I’m pregnant.’

  ‘And so you’re a whore as well, are you?’ her mother had spat, slamming the door. ‘Go away, Zillah. We never want to see you or hear from you again.’

  It was the local vicar’s wife, sniffily disapproving, who took her in overnight and found, through the church network for fallen women, the cottage in Fiddlesticks. Berkshire, it was considered, would be far enough away for Zillah not to be any further embarrassment to her family.

  And Zillah had arrived there in the middle of a scorching summer, lonely, frightened, heartbroken, and clearly labelled as ‘one of them girls in trouble’. As she had to pay the rent for the cottage herself, she’d taken a bar job at The Weasel and Bucket, and despite all her frantic efforts to contact him, never heard from or saw Clancy Tavistock again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Midnight Moonlight and Magic

  ‘I’m fine … no, really … oh …’ Zillah blinked muzzily.

  She was sitting on the kitchen doorstep of The Weasel and Bucket, her head being pressed down towards her knees, a glass of iced water slopping on to the lap of her frock.

  ‘Honestly, I’m OK now. Don’t know what came over me. Must have been the heat …’

  Lewis and Amber and Jem were all staring down at her, their white faces matching in shock and concern.

  She wriggled round a bit to see who was pressing on the back of her neck.

  ‘Timmy, let me get up – honestly – I’m fine now. Get back into the bar – you’ll be so busy – all those potatoes to dish up …’

  ‘They’re all cooked and out there on the hot trolleys. Billy and Dougie are holding the fort.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Timmy, please. Go. For me. Please. There’s no need to make a fuss. I’m okay.’

  Eventually, still looking worried, he went.

  Zillah sighed, sipped at the water and took a deep breath of cool night air. Her head was clearing, her heart resuming a normal rhythm.

  There. She was fine. Truly.

  She looked up at Lewis. ‘Sorry, love. That must have been a bit scary for you.’

  He squatted beside her, holding her hand. ‘Do you want an ambulance? Or I could run you into the Royal Berks in no time. Ma – you’re ill, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she squeezed his hand. ‘I’m not ill. I’m ridiculously fit. And no, I don’t need to go to hospital or anywhere else. I just fainted. I’m feeling a hundred per cent again now.’

  ‘You never faint. I’ve never known you faint. Ma, please let me take you to the hospital – just to get you checked over.’

  Zillah laughed rather shakily. ‘No, honestly, love. I don’t need a check-up. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be back at work.’

  ‘You will bloody not,’ Lewis hugged her. ‘You’re going home. Now. And I’ll stay the night. Amber can take Jem back to Hayfields. Martha will sit in with him. And tomorrow I’m going to make a doctor’s appointment and—’

  ‘Lewis, love, stop right there.’ She smiled gently. ‘Listen to me – I’m absolutely fine. All I need is a couple of minutes.’

  To do what? Zillah exhaled. To explain to Lewis that she’d been foolish enough to think that a stranger in the bar, a beautiful tall man with glossy hair falling over his big dark eyes, a man with high cheekbones and a sulky-sexy mouth, was his father?

  That this man, who had clearly only come to Fiddlesticks for Plough Night and no doubt had a wife and kiddies waiting in the beer garden, was Clancy Tavistock? The only man she’d ever loved?

  She laughed to herself. Tell him that and he really would think she was ill – and not just physically.

  And it wasn’t as if it had been the first time. God, no. Over the years she’d imagined she’d glimpsed Clancy Tavistock in all manner of peculiar places and her heart had gone into overdrive and she’d had to stop and steady herself – although she’d never passed out before, which must be down to the stifling heat – and when she’d looked again it had been a complete stranger and part of her had died.

  Amber stooped down. ‘Zil, if you’re real
ly feeling better, I’ll take Jem back through to the bar, shall I? I think he was pretty scared when you keeled over. He’ll be better out of the way.’

  Zillah nodded. ‘Good idea – and he’s probably hungry, aren’t you Jem?’

  Jem, clinging to Amber’s hand, nodded. He’d been crying.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Amber led him away from the back door. ‘Let’s see if Timmy can put a whole mountain of grated cheese on your spud, shall we? Or would you like baked beans? Or maybe both?’

  Jem nodded happily and trotted out of the kitchen with Amber.

  ‘She’s very good with him, isn’t she? They get on really well.’

  ‘What? Oh, yeah,’ Lewis nodded. ‘And he loves her to bits. Ma – I don’t want to talk about Jem or Amber right now. I want to know—’

  ‘Good lord, Lewis,’ she smiled gently at him. ‘What will it take to convince you that I’m absolutely OK? Do I have to turn cartwheels or something? Look, I’m going to stand up and prove to you that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me at all. Not even the slightest wobble. There! OK?’

  He grinned at her. ‘Yeah, OK – but still, people don’t faint for no reason and—’

  ‘Lewis?’ Timmy poked his head round the door, ‘Jem needs to go to the loo. Amber can’t take him obviously and I’m all tied up and …’ He looked at Zillah. ‘You’re looking a lot better, love. Get yourself off home as soon as you want. I’ll walk you over the green and make sure you’re OK.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ Lewis frowned. ‘I will. I’ve already told her—’

  Zillah shook her head, laughing. ‘I’m going nowhere.

  Lewis, go and see to Jem. Timmy, get back to your spuds. Both of you, leave me alone and stop bloody fussing!’

  In the bar, the crowd jostled and roared: Plough Night was being critically analysed with Paxmanesque acidity; potatoes were being eaten at the speed of light; Zillah’s ‘funny turn’ was no longer the hot topic it had been half an hour earlier, now being put down to the heat, summer flu, the change, or a fad diet, depending on who you listened to.