Lost Summer

It was getting dark by the time Adam and the others arrived at the disco at the weekend. A group of younger boys lurked in the darkness at the edge of the tiny car park furtively smoking cigarettes. In the entrance hall two women from the church social committee sat behind a scarred wooden table taking money and dispensing entrance tickets. One of them cast a disapproving eye over Nick’s leather jacket.

‘You can leave that in the cloakroom if you like,’ she said.

He gave her his money without answering and held her eye until, flustered, she dropped her gaze. Inside they stood bunched near the door. The hall was about half full. The music was loud and clusters of local kids stood around the walls, boys on one side, girls on the other, except for three young girls dancing together near the stage at the front. The DJ seemed to be absorbed with his record collection. A bank of coloured lights in front of his sound system blinked on and off with the music and a single silver glitter ball suspended from the rafters cast a forlorn pattern on the dance floor. A woman and a balding man wearing a knitted tie with a brown check shirt were selling cups of orange juice and sandwiches, which nobody was buying. The woman wore a fixed smile and jigged determinedly in time to the music. Occasionally they both glanced uneasily towards a group of four teenagers standing in one corner of the hall.

They were conspicuous both by their appearance and by the space around them that set them apart from everybody else. Their clothes looked like hand-me-downs and they shared a common dark hue to their skin and eyes. If anybody looked their way they stared back with silent hostility. Adam recognized one of the two girls as the one he’d seen from the bus back in the spring, though there was something different about her. He decided she looked smaller than he remembered, perhaps because last time he’d seen her she was on horseback. She also seemed young, which he put down to the fact that all the other girls in the hall wore clothes and make-up that made them look older than they really were. She looked over as if she sensed him watching her until one of the boys with her noticed and glared at her.

‘Fuckin’ gyppos,’ Nick muttered.

Graham nudged him and nodded towards a couple of girls who had started dancing together. ‘There’s Christine Abbot and that friend of hers.’

They wore high heels and short tight skirts, and when one of them noticed they were being eyed she said something to her friend and they both giggled. Nick and Graham went over to talk to them.

Adam looked around for Angela but he couldn’t see her anywhere. He and David lingered by the door. A few boys plucked up the courage to approach a group of girls. They paired off and started moving to the music with blank expressions. The music seemed to get louder as if the DJ thought sheer volume would make up for what else the hall lacked. It was hot and airless and after a while Adam told David he was going to get a drink. In the toilets he splashed water on his face and then made his way to the entrance and went outside where it was cool and the sound of the music faded.

‘Hello, Adam.’

He turned around and found Angela smiling at him. ‘Hi,’ he said and for a second or two was at a loss for anything more to say. She wore jeans and a pink T-shirt with the imprint of a pair of lipsticked lips on the front like a big kiss. With the touch of make-up she wore and her hair done differently she looked older. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said eventually.

‘Were you waiting for me?’

He wasn’t sure what to say. His heart was beating faster than normal. ‘Would you mind if I was?’

‘No.’ For a moment neither of them spoke, absorbing the fact that they seemed to have crossed some kind of invisible boundary. ‘What are you doing out here anyway?’ she asked.

‘It was hot inside.’

She gestured towards the children’s park next door. ‘Shall we go over there then?’

‘Don’t you want to go in?’

She looked at the door. ‘Not really.’

The park was deserted, lit with a single overhead lamp. Angela sat on a swing and caught the chains in the crook of her elbows. They talked for a while about nothing much, the sounds from the hall drifting over to them. He told her about his job and she told him that she liked art at school but didn’t know what she wanted to do when she left.

‘What about you?’

‘I think I’d like to be a journalist.’

‘You mean work at the Courier?’

‘No. I mean for a national paper. Or perhaps a magazine.’

‘You’d have to live in London or somewhere wouldn’t you?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Don’t you like it here then?’

‘Sometimes I do,’ he said, and grinned at her.

She smiled. ‘Like now?’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly emboldened he said, ‘I’m glad you came tonight.’

She reached across and found his hand. ‘I’m glad too.’

They went for a walk hand in hand around the park. It was warm and the air felt thick and soft in the darkness. The sounds from the hall grew fainter.

‘Shouldn’t you go back inside?’ Angela asked. ‘Who’d you come with?’

‘David and the others. I think Graham and Nick were talking to some girls though.’ He frowned, looking back at the hall, thinking perhaps he should go back, though he didn’t want to.

Angela squeezed his hand. ‘David’ll be alright. All the girls fancy him.’

He was surprised, but when he thought about it he supposed it was true. David was popular and easy-going and he made the girls laugh. He experienced a faint twinge of jealousy. ‘What about you? Do you fancy him too?’

‘David?’ She laughed at the idea. ‘I suppose I never thought of him like that. I prefer the dark serious type,’ she teased. ‘I remember the first time I saw you after you moved here. I felt sorry for you.’

‘Sorry for me? Why?’

‘You looked lonely.’ She squeezed his arm and he smiled though he was slightly uneasy that she had felt sorry for him.

It was late when Graham and Nick came out of the hall with the two girls they’d been talking to. When Nick put his arm around one of them she laughed coarsely and pushed him away, but then the four of them made their way around the back of the building and vanished in the darkness.

Angela raised her eyebrows and looked amused, then looked at her watch. ‘I should be getting home.’

‘I’ll walk you,’ Adam offered.

‘Alright.’

‘I better just go and tell David.’

‘I’ll wait outside.’

It was crowded in the hall and at first he couldn’t see David anywhere. He looked twice around the hall until he finally found him talking to the gypsy girl he’d noticed earlier while her friends looked on with sullen suspicion. One of them in particular stared with obvious hostility. He had the same general look as the girl and might have been her brother.

‘I’m off,’ Adam said when he went over.

‘Alright. See you later.’

The girl went back towards her friends and David followed her with his gaze.

‘Did I interrupt something?’

‘I just asked how long they were staying.’

‘I don’t think her friends liked her talking to you.’