Sweet Home Summer: A heartwarming romcom perfect for curling up with. Michelle Vernal
She tried to look fierce, but her mouth was twitching. Dad looked over the top of his paper, a plume of pipe smoke rising above him and filling the room with its distinctive aroma. He shot her a disapproving look before raising his paper once more. Bridget decided it would be wise to take herself off before he changed his mind about letting her go.
It had been touch and go as to whether his youngest daughter would be allowed to attend the Valentine’s Day Dance at Barker’s Creek Hall. He was convinced young people were being led astray by that music they were all going silly for. ‘Rock’n’Roll has a lot to answer for.’ He’d been heard to mutter more than once. He’d only agreed to Bridget going to the dance tonight because their parish church was organizing it as a fundraiser and Jean had said, under duress, that she would keep an eye on her. Jean could twist their father around her little finger; she could do no wrong in his eyes with her nice young man who had good prospects in the office at the mine where both men worked.
Mum, Bridget knew, was putting a dollop of jam and cream on to each of the pikelets she’d made for the girls to take to the dance as an offering for supper to be held later in the evening. She didn’t want to run the risk of marking her blouse or skirt by helping, but she would go and keep her company while she waited. So picking up her stole from where she’d draped it theatrically across the back of the settee, she pulled it around her shoulders and went through to the kitchen and sat down at the table, safely out of her father’s line of sight.
Jean’s boyfriend Colin was calling for them both shortly, but Jean was still upstairs in the bathroom fiddling about with her hair. Normally Jean would sit on the handlebars of his bike risking life and limb on the gravel roads, but Colin had managed to borrow his dad’s car. Jean had only consented to take her sister and friend because Bridget had threatened to tell their parents that she had seen her parked up with Colin last week when she’d told them she was going to the pictures at the Town Hall with him.
Mum chattered on about what the dances had been like in her day when ‘swing’ had been all the rage and Glen Miller the star of the day. She was about to demonstrate her jitterbug moves, jammy spoon still in hand, when they heard a toot, followed a moment later by a knock at the front door. Bridget looked on with amusement as her father folded the paper, leaving his pipe to smoulder in the ashtray as he got up from his seat to open the front door. She knew he would shake Colin’s hand with a vigour that left no doubt that he had high hopes his eldest daughter would have a ring on her finger by the year’s end.
Jean came skipping down the stairs in a cloud of Arpege perfume, an expensive gift from Colin for her birthday, and Bridget, carefully holding the supper plate her mum had placed in her hands, followed her out the front door. She barely heard the instructions her mother was reeling off for how she should conduct herself with decorum or her father’s watch-tapping instructions for curfew, as she settled herself into the back seat of the Holden FJ, arranging her skirt just so. She did not want it crushed by the time she got to the hall! Colin, she knew would have to hose the car down in the morning because it would be covered in dust by the time they navigated the shingle road leading to Barker’s Creek Hall.
They picked Bridget’s best friend Clara up on the way, and the two girls sat giggling in the back as they bounced along, their conversation full of excited chatter over who they thought would be there tonight and who they’d like to dance with and who they most definitely would not! Their hands nervously smoothed the folds of fabric in their skirts in anticipation. Jean shot them both the odd, ‘oh grow up’ look over her shoulder before rolling her eyes and saying, ‘Kids,’ to Colin. He’d reached over and patted her knee with a smile. Bridget suspected it was just an excuse for him to touch her sister’s knee.
Present day
A toot and a wave from someone she knew driving past would invariably drag her back from her remembrances. ‘You’re a nostalgic old fool, Bridget,’ she’d tell herself before carrying on down the road and coming to the local school. Mary and Jack, then Isla and Ryan had all gone to Bibury Area School. She’d gone there too but in her day, there’d been a wooden schoolhouse plonked in the middle of what was now the sports field. It was long gone, cleared away to make room for the new like so many other pockets of Bibury’s past.
The pavement forked a short way past the school, and she had the choice of following the path by the Ahaura River or the roadside footpath. She always walked down by the river remembering how she’d sat on the banks, hidden from view as she kissed Charlie. The memories of those kisses would fade as the path forked once more and she found herself almost reluctantly following the footpath that looped around back to High Street. She’d inevitably also find herself wishing that she’d been brave enough to choose a different path back when it had mattered.
It was a walk filled with memories and ghosts, but Bridget was sure it was the only thing that kept her hip from seizing up completely, and it gave her the edge she needed to beat Margaret at bowls.
The potatoes were bubbling in the pot, and her eyes were beginning to smart as she chopped the onion. She didn’t know if it was the onion that was making her want to cry or the memories evoked from the card she’d received that morning. She blinked them away upon hearing the front door bang shut.
‘You can’t beat the smell of frying onions,’ Joe called out from the hall, and she smiled. He said the same thing every Thursday, bless him.
They’d settled into an agreeable routine of a Thursday evening with Joe always washing the dishes after they’d eaten. He’d moan and groan about how full he was while Bridget dried and put away.
‘Pudding, Joe?’ she’d ask when the last of the dishes were cleared.
‘Ooh, I don’t know if I can.’
‘Are you sure? I’m having some.’
‘Ah go on then, I might be able to make a bit of room.’
Tonight, she’d found a bag of stewed black boy peaches from Margaret’s tree in the freezer, and so she’d whipped up a crumble. Having dished two bowls up with a dollop of ice-cream, they went through to the living room to eat off their laps while they watched Seven Sharp. Mary had harrumphed upon hearing of this arrangement.
‘You always made me and Jack sit up at the table, Mum.’
‘Seven Sharp wasn’t on when you and Jack lived at home, Mary,’ Bridget replied. She didn’t like to miss an episode. It was the show’s host Mike Hosking she was fond of, having listened and argued with him for years on talkback radio. It was like letting an old friend into her living room each evening.
Joe, however, was on the fence. ‘He wouldn’t last five minutes in a real job,’ he’d say. ‘Look at all that crap he puts in his hair.’
Bridget would tell him to pipe down and eat his pudding.
Joe would head home at half past seven when the current affairs programme had finished. He would get home just as Mary was heading off to her dance class. They were ships passing in the night which suited him fine once a week. ‘It means I can work on the bike in peace without Mary going on about how I spend more time with it than I do her.’ He’d kiss Bridget on the cheek and thank her for looking after him before revving the engine of his ridiculously oversized motorized beast, and heading home in a cloud of exhaust fumes. Bridget would close the door thinking her daughter was right, she had married a petrol head but a petrol head with a heart of gold.
This evening however before the credits rolled on Seven Sharp, Joe and Bridget looked at each other startled as they heard the front door open and Mary call out.
‘Is everything alright?’ Bridget looked at her daughter seeking reassurance as she barrelled into the living room.
‘Everything’s fantastic, Mum. Guess what?’
‘What?’ Joe and Bridget chimed.
‘Isla arrives home in two days. Isn’t that just the best Valentine’s Day present ever?’