A Good Man
Copyright© 2011 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 43: A Perfect Summer
Life was perfect.
Or, at least, as perfect as it could be given that it was exam season and those exams were crucial to my and my friends’ futures.
The exams began in mid-May and ran through to mid-June. We were allowed to stay home when we didn’t have an exam, but most of us used this free time to study in the school library anyway. It made more sense to study in a group at a place that had all the relevant materials, rather than trying to study at someone’s house, especially since we were all taking different combinations of subjects and so all had exams at different times.
I’ll admit, I preferred morning exams over afternoon ones. I think I simply felt more refreshed in the morning. Or perhaps it was that I had more time to worry about the exam if it was scheduled in the afternoon.
The Late Spring Ball, to give it its ‘official’ title, although most people called it ‘The May Ball’, was held on the Friday of the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May, and it was a welcome distraction in the middle of the exam period. As a sign of their ‘commitment to the community’ following the completion of the sale, Liddington-Phipps, or should that be ‘WolfgangHaus,’ sponsored the event and were determined to make it the most lavish for many years.
An enormous marquee, even larger than the school sports hall, was erected in the Recreation Ground to host the event. Besides the usual set-up for these occasions, with a stage, dance floor, tables, a bar, and a small kitchen serving bar foods, a section of the marquee housed a Monte Carlo style casino, featuring craps tables, roulette wheels, as well as blackjack and poker tables.
“I feel like James Bond,” I whispered to Clarissa as I took a seat at the blackjack table in my rented tuxedo.
She smiled sweetly as she stood beside me in her gloriously elegant full-length cocktail dress. She looked utterly stunning. Her golden hair was styled in a fancy ‘up-do’, and her dress, covered in tiny sequins, sparkled in the lights almost as much as her light-blue eyes. Once I was seated, she leaned down to whisper in my ear.
“You are James Bond. My James Bond. My hero. And that makes me a ‘Bond Girl,’ James? Do we get to do what Bond does with Bond Girls later tonight?”
I turned my head to her to find her eyes dilated and her chest gently rising and falling as she fought to control her breathing.
“I love you,” I said quietly.
She smiled again. “I know. And I love you, too.” She paused. “James.”
Despite losing twenty quid in less than ten minutes at the table, with one look at the lady on my arm as we left the casino, I suddenly felt like a winner.
We headed back to the dance floor along with almost everyone else. The evening’s headline entertainment was about to start. Guilty Verdict was a popular band from London whose notorious frontman, Billy Thomas, had a reputation as a great on-stage performer.
And he lived up to it.
Clarissa and I joined our friends on the dance floor, as close to the front as we could get, to enjoy the show—an energetic, raunchy hour-long showcase of the band’s own music mixed with some classic covers.
Afterwards, Clarissa and I headed outside into the warm spring evening to take a walk around the lake. As we passed the stage door at the rear of the marquee, we saw three young women we didn’t recognise being let in.
Clarissa nudged my arm and said, “I guess what they say about him is right.”
“What’s that?”
“That he’s as good an ‘off-stage’ performer as he is ‘on-stage.’” She smirked.
I raised my eyebrows. “I’m sure we’ll hear all the ‘details’ in the rumour mill tomorrow.”
“I’m sure we will.”
We took our time walking around the lake, marvelling at the numerous circus acts that were entertaining people. And we talked. About our immediate future and beyond.
“I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to our trip,” she said.
“Me too.”
We had our arms around each other as we walked, holding each other as close as two fully clothed people could be.
“We’ll need to plan it properly. To make sure we see as much as possible.”
“Maybe not so much for the European leg. We’ll have a car and just go wherever we want, whenever we want.”
“But we still need to plan it. Plan a route.”
I nodded. “It’s the American leg that will need detailed planning. We’re not old enough to rent a car, remember? You need to be twenty-one.”
“So public transport it is then. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
She shrugged. “We could always buy a cheap second-hand car when we get there. One of those huge ones. Like a ... what’s it called? Cadillac, is it?”
I grinned. “Yeah, but those things are enormous. I’ve never driven anything that big.”
“Me neither. But it’d be fun.”
I took a deep breath. “I think we’re going to have just as much fun planning this trip as we will taking it.”
After a full circuit of the lake, we arrived back at the marquee, but instead of going inside, we headed for the outdoor dancefloor, where soft, romantic music was playing. I took Clarissa’s hand and led her to the centre of the floor, then held her close as we swayed in time to the music.
Above us, brightly coloured Chinese lanterns provided the illumination. It was magical.
“I love this song,” she whispered in my ear as Tina Thomson’s ‘A Wounded Heart’ began to play. It was an eighties-style power ballad, whose highlight was the Scottish pop princess’s soaring vocals.
We started to kiss midway through the song. And as the last notes of it faded away, Clarissa looked into my eyes and said, “Take me home, Paul. Take me home and make love to me all night long.”
It was, in short, a perfect night. A magical night. And I’ll remember that night for the rest of my life.
After the exams, many of our friends took off around Europe on holiday. Grace and Emily rented a villa on the Costa Del Sol. The Simms twins headed for the South of France with their parents. Kelly and some of her friends were heading for Ibiza.
One thing struck me that summer—most of Clarissa’s ‘Villager’ friends were going to university, but out of the ‘Townies,’ only Lisa and I were going. The rest, like Lauren, Billy, Kevin and Kelly, were all heading straight into the world of work.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” I asked Clarissa as we sat in the lounge in my house, between a massive map of Europe on which we were circling cities we wanted to see and trying to decide the best route to take to see them all as efficiently as possible.
We’d currently planned to cross The Channel at Dover, then head west through Northern France to see Normandy and Brittany, before going south in the direction of Spain. We were trying to decide which French cities, towns and villages to stop at on the way. Clarissa was very keen to do a vineyard tour and wine tasting in Bordeaux, for example.
She shrugged at my question. “It hadn’t even occurred to me.”
“I wonder if it’s finance related?”
“You mean, you think some of the Townies think it will be too expensive?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. I mean, someone like Ems or Grace, aren’t exactly going to be worrying about money, are they? They can both just ask their parents for more.”
“But that doesn’t explain why Lisa is going and Lauren isn’t?
“I’d have thought that was obvious. Their parents can’t afford to support both of them at university.”
“I guess.” She paused. “Maybe...”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe that’s how we ‘help people.’ I mean, University can change your life, can’t it? It doesn’t seem fair that some people don’t go because they think they can’t afford it. Maybe that’s how we help people. Education is so important.”
Now I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But let’s worry about that when we get back, yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s enjoy our year together first and worry about the real world later.”
Just because we decided against the kind of two-week summer holiday in the sun that many of our friends had taken, didn’t mean that Clarissa and I stayed in Micester throughout June, July and August.
Yes, we were planning what amounted to a year-long foreign holiday, and it took a lot of planning, but we made sure to litter the summer with day-trips, short mid-week breaks and weekends away.
We were young, free and had the world at our feet. Day trips to the beach? Yep. Visit as many amusement parks and ride as many roller coasters as we could? Sure thing.
It was incredible.
But it was our three ‘mini-breaks’ that really made our summer special.
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