Looking Back on the Summer of ‘87



  Looking Back on the Summer of ‘87

  By

  Robin P Gilbert

  Copyright © 2011, Robin P Gilbert

  License Notes

  eBooks by Robin P Gilbert

  The Serendipity Trilogy

  Double Negative

  Single Positive

  Nothing Neutral

  ( Forthcoming in 2012 )

  Other FREE eStories by Robin P Gilbert

  Elysium

  Speckledom Recitals

  Brightly Falling

  Tales from the Gateway Worlds

  The Magic Moonstone

  More coming soon!

  I travel a lot. My job takes me all over the country. I’m often tempted during long, boring stretches of highway to suddenly pull off the road, crash through fences and go cross country – it would be tough in a BMW but the temptation persists nonetheless.

  The thought of taking older, quieter roads is usually abhorrent to me, but sometimes, just sometimes... a detour through a village or a country town, anything to alleviate the endless monotony, to actually see some of the country I traverse so frequently, so blindly.

  Such thoughts were on my mind as another stretch of anonymous tarmac dragged interminably by one cold, foggy morning in late winter. Why fate conspired to force me onto an older, quieter road that particular day I don’t know, but I took it anyway, enjoying the exhilaration of the unknown.

  I hadn’t gone fifteen minutes when the BMW stopped.

  I pulled in to the side of the road, hit the hazard lights and grabbed my mobile. Should I call the breakdown service direct or call the office and let them handle it? Shit! I hate having to make such trivial decisions – that would make the folk in the office laugh. I can make million dollar sales pitches, choose entire product ranges, but red lippy or pink lippy could keep me occupied for eternity. It’s just so difficult sometimes. For me.

  I’ve been dry for, for a while now. A long while, if I’m honest, but it still hurts. Still taunts me. Still calls out to me every morning when ensconced in another single bed in another single room, alone. I sip morning tea instead and wonder what my husband is doing. Ex-husband. And what my children look like.

  I knew if I called the office Clare would answer politely, change tone when she heard my voice and sigh, tell me to wait, that she would sort it out, as usual, tell me that somebody will be along in thirty minutes. I knew she hated me. I didn’t blame her. I could be a real bitch when I put my mind to it.

  And when I didn’t, come to think of it.

  I called her anyway.

  Thirty minutes. What the hell was I going to do for thirty minutes? I couldn’t work on the laptop – I’d not plugged him in since yesterday and Giles wont work without power. I name everything these days. Cedric the BMW, after the CE license plate prefix. Dave, sounds like DAIO. Peter the pen, formerly Bill the biro. It’s pathetic, I know, but companionship for the lonely is paramount no matter what form it takes.

  These things were my family now.

  Thirty minutes.

  Bloody hell! I bet Clare “forgot” to mention I was a female alone. I bet she’s chuckling to herself right now, warm office, warm coffee. Probably hasn’t even made the call yet...

  Warm coffee? Warm... something else?

  Pub sign over there. Surely I’ve time for a quick one? No! forget it!

  No, go on, a quick G & T wont hurt, considering the circumstances. No! Yes! Shit! The constant argument. The internal conflict. A living hell.

  Twenty five minutes. Fuck it! I left the car and started walking.

  A low mist obscured most things but the neon pub sign read, “The Angel Inn”, surely implying a swift one was harmless. Just one.

  What I could see of the surrounding landscape was grassy, sandy, broken by leafless trees erupting from the cold ground like broken, blackened bones. I clambered to the top of the nearest sand dune and was amazed to discover that, although higher now, I could no longer see the sign.

  Or my car. What? I felt suddenly afraid. My heart was pounding. I had that awful knot you get in your gut sometimes.

  Don’t worry, Mary, breakdown guy will be here soon. Just descend and wait in the car. Had I called them direct or had I called the office? I must have called one or the other. Yes, I called the office. I did call the office, didn’t I? I suddenly wasn’t so sure, my thoughts seemed lost, twisted around somehow.

  I turned away from where I thought I had seen that pub sign but paused... which way? Car? Or drink? Cold, sandy dunes with long grasses that stabbed like little needles? Or warm car?

  It was difficult. I sighed, walked down the hill.

  When I reached the bottom the road had gone.

  Well I’m sure it hadn’t gone, I’d just turned myself around and descended the wrong side of the dune. As I’ve said, it was foggy, the sun a blurred silver penny, indistinguishable and useless. I climbed the hill again, descended the other side, but met only gorse bushes and ferns – still no road.

  A drink now was very appealing, I don’t mind admitting. No! This is stupid! Then inspiration struck. I pulled the keys from my pocket, pressed the auto unlock.

  Nothing.

  I spun around, repeatedly pressing, listening for the familiar beep-beep.

  Still nothing.

  Stupid, Mary. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

  I took a few deep breaths, composed myself, climbed back to the top of the dune again. Where the hell was I?

  Then I heard singing.

  Not a crisp, solitary voice soaring alone across the wind but scores of voices creating such waves of emotion that the hairs on my neck stood up. This choir wasn’t imagined. Honestly! The volume increased as I listened... or I became more attuned to it. The choral tones were so powerfully intoxicating, so mesmerising... I stood on the cold, soft sand for a long time, listening, lost.

  Breakdown guy may well have come and gone, if indeed he was coming at all, but I didn’t care. For the first time in years, I felt... happy. Yes, happy and content to be lost and alone on this sandy hillock in god knows where.

  In the last few years I had lost my lover, my children, my home. My life. Myself. I was the most successful salesperson the company had ever had and was amassing substantial wealth, but this was the first time in years that I felt truly happy.

  I stood there statuesque amid the fog for time unknown... until the voices faded and a need to move on overwhelmed me.

  I wiped away my tears and climbed another dune, pushed through innumerable damp gorse bushes but got no closer to my car. Or to “The Angel Inn”. What I did discover were the ruins of some old house. No, not a house, a castle.

  The dry, stone walls were only a few feet high, sandy, wind worn, lost to history, but they were six feet across and still exuded an ancient power. The singing had returned and seemed louder too, reaching crescendo, drawing me onward into this castle that once was.

  The deep manliness of the voices were so resonant, so overwhelming.

  Impossible to ignore.

  I stepped onto the wall, wobbling on my heels.

  The singing grew louder still, seemed even closer.

  I lowered myself awkwardly down the other side into what would once have been the inside of the castle and the world simply slipped into insignificance, faded behind me like so much tarmac, no longer relevant.

  A sudden deep chill enveloped me, cloying, dampening my face. I could almost taste the thick air, sense the pre-history as if its tangible fingers caressed every inch of my body.

  It was incredibly sensual. Exciting without being erotic.

  I cautiously descended a grassy bank, my heels affording good grip. The singing had
receded again, like waves upon a beach it ebbed and flowed, now distancing itself from me as though I no longer needed it.

  As if it no longer needed me.

  “Mary?” a voice called, dulcet and close.

  I held myself, attentive, deafened by my beating heart. Breakdown guy? Surely he would have shouted, “Mrs Andrews!” No. “Miss Elliot!”

  I was frozen, full of fear, waiting, straining to hear.

  “Mary?” it called again, quieter or perhaps more distant.

  Could others be here, hand holding lovers walking in the mist? Or a young man and his dog – called Mary? No.

  A sudden flit of movement beyond a decrepit archway caught my eye, a shadowy figure, hunched, scuttling from gorse bush to low wall and disappearing.

  Oh God! Who was that?

  I stood still, too scared to breath... but the fear left as swiftly as it had arrived, replaced with an urgency to investigate, a need for answers. I pulled my heels from the sand and approached the archway.

  Then stepped through.

  For some reason I expected a lively, black and white marble chequered ballroom peopled by masked interlopers, talking in small groups while a string quartet played Mozart from an ivy balcony. I expected waiters carrying trays