Summer of '76 Read Online Free Page A

birds beyond the windowpane. ‘Poor old Richard,’ she says with a gentle sigh. ‘He always was full of shit.’

2
    Met Office report for the Isle of Wight, mid-May 1976:
Maximum temperature 64°F/17.5°C
    The middle of May is beautiful, with a steady warmth taking hold across the island. Any rainfall is rare and short-lived, and a strange kind of hush descends as the breeze drops from the air. After their first exams, Luke and Martin take their scooters around the island for the weekend, planning the route with precision, a two-man tent strapped to the back of Martin’s bike. They avoid the resorts, skirting along the coastal roads where they can, stopping off at viewing points for lunch and a stretch. At St Boniface Down they leave the bikes and climb up the steep south side, where the fabled wishing well is said to be found if the climber ascends towards the apex without looking back down. Halfway up, a pair of tawny-coloured goats is grazing on the path above them; the gull-eyed creatures stop chewing and stand rigid, staring down the path at the lads, each goat a mirror image of the other.
    Martin clears his throat nervously.
    ‘They’re alright,’ Luke says striding on towards them. The goats turn and canter away, up over the summit and out of view.
    At the top the boys take off their rucksacks and lie back on the dry grass, feeling the sun bleaching down on theirarms and legs. Luke closes his eyes as his heart rate decreases steadily and his limbs sink into the hillside. There’s no sound from Martin, who is stretched out just inches away; Luke stays perfectly still as he listens to the light chatter of skylarks dancing in and out of their meadow nests in the surrounding grasses. He exhales, forcing all the air from his lungs, opening his eyelids narrowly against the glare of the wide sky. Swallows glide and dip overhead, briefly cutting out the sun as they dive into the meadows.
    ‘So, we didn’t find it, then,’ he says, ‘the wishing well.’
    ‘Knew we wouldn’t,’ Martin replies. ‘My dad told me it was a load of rubbish when I said we were going to look for it.’
    Luke props himself up on his elbows and gazes out across the water. ‘I don’t know why you bother telling him stuff, mate. I mean, all he ever does is put you down.’
    ‘He wasn’t putting me down, was he?’ Martin says, screwing his face up against the light. ‘He was saying the wishing well was rubbish, not that I’m rubbish.’
    There’s a long bramble scratch running down the length of Martin’s shin, and a small trickle of dried blood merges with the ingrained dirt and dust that clings to his pale skin. Luke stares at him. ‘Yeah, but essentially, mate, it’s the same thing. If he says the wishing well is rubbish, what he’s really saying is that you’re rubbish for thinking you might find it.’
    ‘Can you hear the birds?’ Martin asks, sitting up and tipping his head to one side. ‘Wish I had a camera. You could get some brilliant photos of those swallows if you hung around long enough.’
    ‘How can you tell they’re swallows and not swifts?’
    He looks deep in thought. ‘Just can. Longer tail streamers, I think.’
    Luke reaches for his bag and starts to unpack their picnic. ‘Sorry, Mart. About your old man – I shouldn’t have said that. He’s your dad. You don’t want to hear me running him down.’
    ‘He also said I was a useless, overgrown waste of space,’ Martin says, pulling himself up into a gangly cross-legged position. ‘So I s’pose you might have a point.’ Reaching for a sandwich, he takes a large bite, his expression losing focus as he starts to chew. ‘He’s been getting worse lately. I never know what kind of mood he’s going to wake up in. Yesterday I knocked a cup off the side when I was washing up, and he went mad. He grabbed the rest of the cups off the draining board and chucked them at the wall. Said we might as well make a mess worth sweeping up. We’ve only got two