Summer of '76 (20 page)

‘Have you reported this?’ Luke points towards the graffiti.

Martin shrugs. ‘There’s no point. We gave up trying to wash it off after the third time.’

Luke looks back down the path to check that Tom’s still out of earshot. ‘Listen, man, we need to talk about those photos. One of them has turned up – stuck up in the village hall of all places. It’s Simon Drake – stark bollock naked.’

Martin stares at him, unblinking.

‘Mart? Don’t you get it? If someone’s got pictures of him, they could have some of my folks. It must have come from that reel of film the police took off you.’

There’s a loud clatter from an overhead branch as a wood pigeon takes flight through the trees. Martin nods his head briefly.

‘So? Have you remembered if there are any of Mum and Dad on that film?’ Luke shoves his hands into his shorts pockets, kicking his foot impatiently against the doorstep.

Martin runs his finger down the length of his nose, his irises moving like clock hands as he retraces his thoughts. ‘Well, the first film, the one I put in my pocket – that was a whole reel of the party. I remember that. Then I loaded a new film and only took a few more on that one before we left. That was the one the police took out of my camera when I got arrested.’

Luke rolls his eyes. ‘Mate, they didn’t arrest you. They took you in for questioning, that’s all.’

‘It felt like I was arrested,’ Martin replies, kicking at the angry patch of red paint that clings to the edge of the doorframe.

‘Sorry,’ says Luke. He rubs his hands over his face, pushing his hair back off his eyes. ‘So, mate, have they returned the photographs yet? I mean, they’re still your property, aren’t they?’

‘Well, that’s what was funny. PC Paley came round, yesterday.’

‘Funny? Why?’

‘Because he wanted to apologise, about the photos.’ He nods at Luke, like he should know what he’s on about.

‘Apologise for what?’

‘For losing the photos.’

‘What?’ Luke’s heart pounds in his chest. ‘They’ve lost them? Fuck.
Fuck
.’

‘Well, they don’t actually develop them themselves at the chemist’s – they send them away. And on that day, he said,
some of the photographs seem to have got mixed up, and they couldn’t find mine at all. Someone else must have been given them by mistake, he said.’

There’s a creak as Tom rattles the broken gate at the end of the path. ‘Luke! Come on, man. We don’t wanna be late!’

Martin looks alarmed; he takes a quick pace back from the doorstep, into the shadows. Luke gives Tom a sharp shake of his head and turns back to Martin, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘Listen, Mart. It’s really important that you remember – were there any pictures of my folks on that film?’

‘I’m sorry. I just can’t remember.’ He shakes his head, confused.

‘Well, you’d better just let me have that other one, then –’ Luke glares ‘– and I’ll destroy it.’

Martin turns again to listen back into the house.

‘
Mart
!’

‘
I can’t
,’ Martin whispers. ‘I’ve lost it. Well, I haven’t lost it, but I can’t think where I put it. I know I put it somewhere safe when I got home – but I just can’t remember where.’

Blood rushes into Luke’s face. ‘
Christ
, Martin! You’d bloody well better find it.’

‘But I don’t know where it is.’ His Adam’s apple shifts like a blockage.

Tom beeps his horn. Luke leans in, pressing up close to the doorframe, keeping his voice low and controlled. ‘Do you understand the damage this could do, Martin? Stop being such an idiot! I’m fed up of sticking up for you, you know? It’s
embarrassing
.’

Martin blinks, and starts to back away. Luke stomps down the path, pausing to look back though the
branch-dappled
light of the overgrown hedges to where Martin watches, almost hidden behind the remaining crack in the door. He points a finger at him, alarmed by the menace in his own voice. ‘Martin, I’ll keep coming back here until you find it.’

As he closes the gate and starts to walk away, Martin’s subdued voice trails after him.

‘I want my Bowie album back, Luke.
Young Americans
? I want it back.’

‘Not until I get that roll of film,’ Luke replies, and he clicks the gate shut and returns to Tom’s car.

After work, Luke waits for Tom at the front entrance, so that they can go for a swim before they head back home. He’s felt nauseous all day, lurching between anger and shame as he tried to stop thinking about the way he spoke to Martin earlier.

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.

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.