The Summer Island Festival Read online

  ‘No, Mum, it’s a burglar,’ she replied, hearing her mum laugh to herself at the long-standing and awful family joke – one her dad had started years ago, long before he left Cathy and moved to America too.

  Don had left the Island the same summer that Willow had gone to university. He’d left with Luc and Krystal, splitting up the band and leaving Cathy on her own. Willow had gone to Cambridge to read Economics and spent most of her first term wondering if she’d done the right thing, wondering if she should have stayed and looked after her mother. She had been angry with both her parents and had jumped to a conclusion about her father and Krystal that had never proved to be true.

  Willow closed the door behind her and leant against it. The Island was bringing back memories that she thought were long forgotten. Did she regret leaving without saying goodbye to everyone now? Perhaps if she could find the answer to that, she could work out why she had felt the need to walk away from her own wedding and come back to the one place she’d never thought she’d want to return to.

  Her mother was sitting in the living room surrounded by paperwork. Willow looked like her mother, small and fair – sometimes when she looked in the mirror these days, she saw the mum of her childhood looking back at her.

  ‘Is that festival stuff?’ Willow asked, nodding towards the papers.

  ‘I’m a bit late starting with things this year,’ Cathy replied.

  The Isle of Wight had a very famous festival every June. That festival, The Big Festival as Willow and her family had always called it, was coming up soon and before too long the Island would be full of musicians and festival goers, and Cathy’s shop would start its annual summer rush.

  But every August there was a second, less famous festival on the Island. It was set up by Willow’s parents nearly thirty years ago and started out with just a few gigs in local pubs in Seaview. Over the years it had grown and now there was a whole weekend of events culminating in a final concert on the beach on the penultimate Sunday of August.

  When Willow was a teenager, she would help her parents with the festival. She hadn’t been back for so long that she didn’t know what to do anymore, but she still had an overpowering need to sit down with her mother and help even though she knew she wouldn’t be here in August. She had to go back to work in two weeks.

  ‘Luc Harrison was in the shop looking for you,’ Willow said as she sat down.

  ‘Lucien Hawke you mean,’ Cathy replied with a smile.

  ‘I didn’t realise he was back on the Island already.’

  ‘He arrived last week.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you right before the wedding,’ Cathy replied. ‘And then once we were back here, I figured the two of you would bump into each other soon enough.’ She shrugged. Cathy Cole was always infuriatingly vague. ‘He wants to start building a fan base back in the UK,’ Cathy went on. ‘I got the impression he wasn’t keen to go back to the States.’

  ‘Why?’

  Cathy shrugged again and returned to her paperwork. ‘I didn’t ask,’ she said. ‘I do know that he’ll be here all summer.’

  Which was exactly what Willow didn’t want.

  ‘What was it like seeing him again?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘It was a bit weird,’ she replied. ‘But no weirder than being back here in general.’ When Willow had left the Island she’d been in search of a normal life – or what she had perceived to be normal. She’d wanted to distance herself from the folk music scene entirely and particularly the one on the Island – and yet here she was, back in the thick of it again.

  ‘I won’t be here very long though,’ she went on as though trying to convince herself as much as her mother. ‘I’m going back to London in a week or so.’

  Cathy put her paperwork to one side and took her glasses off, turning to look at Willow. ‘Are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to go back to work, Mum.’

  ‘So this is just a flying visit? You’re not coming home?’

  ‘No, Mum, my home is in London.’

  ‘Your home was with Charlie. You walked out on your wedding for reasons that you still haven’t explained, and I know you’re ignoring his calls—’

  ‘How do you know?’ Willow interrupted.

  She waved a hand in the direction of Willow’s phone, which was sitting on the table in front of them. ‘You’re ignoring all your calls and messages,’ she said. ‘That thing beeps all the time and you just stare at it. I haven’t seen you answer a call or type a word into it in days.’

  Willow couldn’t deny it. She didn’t know how to answer the questions that everyone was asking. She had let Charlie know where she was and that she was sorry, that she needed some time. She knew that was completely inadequate but right now, what else could she do? Charlie had left a couple of angry, frustrated messages and who could blame him for that? But it didn’t make her want to call him back.

  ‘It seems to me,’ Cathy went on, ‘that you may not have a home to go back to anymore. It seems to me that it might be time to start again.’

  ‘I’m hoping to stay with a friend for a while,’ Willow replied. ‘Until I get myself sorted.’ This was rubbish of course and Willow was sure that her mother knew it was. She hadn’t thought about what she was going to do next, but there was something about the idea of starting again that appealed to Willow.

  Was it possible to start again from scratch? Was it possible to admit that the choices you’d made weren’t the right ones? Because while Willow had spent almost half her life trying to run away from the Island, she didn’t feel as though she fitted in with Charlie’s life anymore. She still had that feeling of unease that had overwhelmed her outside the church but she just couldn’t put her finger on why.

  She hadn’t been able to think about anything much since Saturday but as soon as Cathy had driven her back into Seaview again, as soon as she’d smelled the sea and heard the waves, she’d been overwhelmed with the sensation that the Island was calling her back and she’d be lying if she said that the idea of spending the summer here didn’t appeal. She’d always had fond memories of Seaview in the summer, memories of salt on her skin and ice cream on the beach, memories that a primal part of her wanted to relive.

  But not if Luc Harrison, or whatever he called himself these days, was going to be here too. She didn’t know if she could cope with that.

  ‘Are you going to see Skye while you’re here?’ Cathy asked the same question Luc had.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ Willow replied. She hadn’t thought about anything except the sound of the sea and the mandolins in Cathy’s shop. She hadn’t thought about those things very hard either because she didn’t want to admit the pull they were having on her after just a few days. ‘I probably won’t have time. She probably won’t even know I’m here.’

  ‘Everyone knows you’re here, Willow,’ Cathy said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the other side of the Island has heard all about it by now.’

  ‘Do you want some help with the festival while I’m here?’ Willow asked in an attempt to change the subject.

  ‘No, Willow, I’m fine,’ Cathy replied. ‘I’ve been involved in festivals for most of my life. Besides, it seems to me you’ve got quite a lot of thinking to do.’

  2

  Luc

  As Luc walked away from The Music Shop and away from Willow, he felt the familiar tightening in his chest, the shortening of his breath. He wanted to turn back, to start the conversation with Willow again but he carried on walking towards the beach instead, knowing he needed to be alone.

  He sat in the sand dunes looking out to sea, taking deep breaths in an attempt to slow down his heart rate. He let sand run through his fingers and allowed the smell of the sea and the gentle sound of the waves to calm him as it had done when he was younger.

  Why are you here, Luc?

  Willow’s question echoed in his mind and he didn’t really have an answer. To play the festival of course,
but he didn’t need to be here until August for that. He could have stayed in Nashville for a while longer but he’d been hoping that the familiarity of the Island would help him recover from whatever it was that had been happening to him over the last few months – the exhaustion, the panic, the writer’s block – but nothing had changed. He’d been expecting the sand and the sea to work a miracle. He’d thought that as soon as his feet touched the beaches of the island he grew up on, everything would be all right again.

  It was strange to be back. Everything felt so familiar yet so different, as though he was wandering about in a dream. Instead of inspiring him, the tangy smell of sea air and the wind blowing in from the Solent reminded him of Willow and of the day he left – the day he’d screwed everything up.

  His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket looking at the number that flashed up on the screen – his agent calling from LA. Luc’s thumb hovered over the screen as he tried to decide whether to take the call or not and he felt his chest tighten again. He killed the call as the panic attack threatened to engulf him and he concentrated on his breath again. He didn’t want to talk to his agent. He hadn’t got any news and he had made no progress on anything. He closed his eyes but all he could see was Willow.

  When his phone rang again, he answered. He couldn’t ignore Willow’s dad.

  ‘Don,’ he said. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Don asked. ‘How does she seem to you?’

  Don had told Luc about Willow getting married. Whenever Luc and Don’s paths crossed, as they did from time to time when Willow’s father was in America, Luc had always asked how she was, what she was doing. When Don had told him he was going to London for the wedding Luc had smiled, but it had felt like a kick in the guts – as though it was finally over. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting – for Willow to wait around for over a decade for him to come back?

  It had been Don who had called Luc on Saturday to tell him what had happened, that Willow hadn’t gone through with the wedding, that she was coming back to the Island. Luc’s heart had leapt when he’d heard that, even though he knew he had to keep his heart and his feelings under tight control.

  ‘I saw her today,’ Luc said. ‘She’s helping Cathy in The Music Shop.’

  ‘How does she seem?’ Don asked.

  ‘It’s hard to say. It’s been so long since I last saw her and she didn’t exactly seem pleased to see me.’

  ‘But she was OK?’ Luc could hear the frustration in Don’s voice. Willow’s father wanted to be here with his daughter, but he couldn’t cancel the tour.

  ‘She looked exhausted,’ Luc replied. ‘And sad, but I guess that’s inevitable. Look, shouldn’t you be talking to Cathy about this?’

  ‘Oh you know what Cathy’s like: she just tells me everything is fine when it isn’t.’

  ‘I can go back,’ Luc said. ‘I can try to talk to her again if you like.’

  ‘That would be great.’ Don paused then, and Luc heard him take a breath. ‘Have you told her?’ he asked.

  ‘Told her what?’

  ‘About Annelise.’

  ‘God no,’ Luc said quietly. ‘No, I don’t want to tell anyone yet. I can’t risk it getting out – it’s not fair on Annelise.’

  ‘OK,’ Don replied but he didn’t sound as though it was OK.

  ‘Besides, Willow has enough on her plate.’

  Don didn’t say anything.

  ‘Does Cathy know?’ Luc asked. ‘About Annelise?’

  ‘No, I haven’t told anyone. But you are going to have to tell them eventually.’

  ‘Eventually,’ Luc replied.

  He promised again that he’d look out for Willow until Don could get back. It wasn’t a hard promise to make – after twelve years they were back on the Island at the same time. He wouldn’t be able to keep away, even though he knew he should.

  Luc had never wanted to leave the Island, but Krystal was going and he’d felt he had no choice but to go with her. Leaving for America had been a long time in the planning for Luc’s mother, but in the end they had left in a hurry and Luc had never really understood why. Something had happened, some kind of argument between his mum and Cathy. Don had flown out to Nashville with them, but he hadn’t stayed for long. He had his own life to live, his own music to make.

  Why are you here, Luc?

  The memory of Willow’s question made his chest tighten again and he concentrated on his breath, determined not to give this rising sense of panic any freedom. He countered it with a question of his own.

  Why are you here, Willow?

  It had taken him three days to pluck up the courage to go and see her. Even this afternoon he’d walked past The Music Shop several times before he’d finally gone inside. He had watched the shadow of Willow’s back through the window as she sat on the countertop. His heart had been in his throat as he’d pushed the door open, relieved that she’d left it unlocked, not sure she’d have let him in otherwise.

  When she had turned around to look at him, she’d almost taken his breath away. Luc had wanted to touch her, to hold her, to take her hand and run down the beach with her just as they had done when they were kids. He hadn’t expected all those feelings to come flooding back.

  Like the Island itself, Willow had looked the same but different – she’d seemed harder somehow, tougher than the girl he used to know. But she was different now – she’d left her past and the Island behind to trade futures in one of the big investment banks in London.

  As soon as he’d seen her, all the questions that Luc had been planning to ask her – questions about why she was here and why she had walked away from her wedding, questions about what had happened twelve years ago – died on his tongue and he’d pretended he was looking for Cathy.

  When Willow was in front of him, he hadn’t known what to say.

  He’d had to walk away from her because he couldn’t let all these unexpected feelings take over. It wasn’t fair on anyone. He’d felt the panic rising inside him, just as he had done twelve summers ago. The panic that had followed him, no matter how far he’d run. It was the panic that had ruined everything in the end.

  Coming back to the Island had felt like the right thing to do, but now that he was here it didn’t feel the way he thought it would. He’d known Cathy still lived here but he hadn’t expected to see anyone else – he’d been hoping to go under the radar for a little while at least. Bumping into Skye had been his first surprise, followed by greetings from people he’d forgotten existed. Everyone said “hello” as though they’d seen him yesterday, as though he hadn’t sold over half a million records, as though they hadn’t seen him on TV. And to everyone on the Island Lucien Hawke was still just Luc Harrison.

  Which was exactly what he wanted. He needed a break from Lucien Hawke.

  Why are you here, Luc?

  Luc hadn’t answered the question and now, as he sat on the beach his breathing finally returning to normal, the question continued to echo in his head.

  Why was he here?

  Luc had needed a change of scene. He’d been exhausted in Nashville, tired of all the public appearances, the gigs, the pressure after American Stars and the album coming out, and he hadn’t been able to write. The record company wanted another album but he had nothing left to give.

  Not that he was going to be telling anyone that story. As far as anyone knew, Lucien Hawke was back on the Island to play the festival. Not the big famous one that rolled into Newport in a couple of weeks, the other festival on the Island, the one hardly anyone knew about. The one Willow’s parents had set up.

  As far as anyone knew, that’s the only reason Luc was back.

  But there was something else, something Luc was barely admitting to himself. He was here to find something. He wasn’t sure what it was or where he needed to look, but Luc was here to find the part of himself that he’d left behind, the part of himself that felt as though it had been missing for longer than he could remember. He had no idea if it was
here or not – he didn’t even know where to start looking – but he needed to come to terms with his own past.

  Luc had never known who his father was and for years it had never bothered him; he’d barely thought about it.

  But since his life changed completely and he ended up on American Stars he couldn’t think about anything else.

  3

  August 1981

  ‘Come on, Catherine, hurry up or Dad will have to leave without you,’ her mother called up the stairs as Cathy applied another coat of mascara and teased her hair one last time. She put on a slick of pearly pink lip gloss and took one last look at herself in the mirror.

  This will have to do, she thought as her stomach filled with nervous butterflies again and she turned away from her mirror.

  ‘Hurry up!’ her mother repeated as Cathy ran down the stairs into the hall.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked.

  Her mother smiled. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. Cathy knew that her mum hated her hair so backcombed and wished that she wouldn’t wear so much eyeliner but she also knew how important today was to Cathy – she’d been waiting for this moment for years.

  ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Cathy called as she ran out of the front door to her father’s car. ‘Late tonight,’ she added with relish.

  Cathy’s father, Brian Cole, had been involved with the Reading Rock Festival since its incarnation in the 1970s and Cathy had grown up amongst his tales of rock legends and biker gangs. She loved music and was accomplished on both guitar and violin and Brian had promised her that the summer she turned sixteen she could come to the festival with him for one day – a day of her choosing – and that she could come backstage and meet some of the bands. Cathy had chosen the Sunday because her favourite band, King Silver, were playing second from last, just before The Kinks.

  ‘Excited?’ Brian asked as they headed west out of the London suburb that they lived in.

  Cathy nodded. ‘And nervous,’ she replied. ‘Don’t show me up, Dad, will you?’

  Brian chuckled to himself. ‘Just don’t wander off anywhere though,’ he said gently. ‘I need to know where you are all the time.’