Summer of Love by Caro Fraser

Author:Caro Fraser [Fraser, Caro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788541374
Publisher: Head of Zeus

18

1962

The flat was cold. Laura opened the cupboard in the hall and fiddled with the central heating thermostat, then wandered into the kitchen, still in her coat, and picked up an ashtray. The trip from Paris had left her hollowed out, and this place didn’t feel like home. She’d taken the lease on it six months ago, after moving out of the Ladbroke Grove flat that she and Sid had shared for eighteen stormy months – 1961 was to have been the year of big changes, new beginnings. Then the job in Paris had come up before she could properly unpack, with the result that, now she was back in London, it still felt as though her life was stuck on hold.

She took the ashtray into the empty living room and sat down on one of the unopened packing cases and lit a cigarette. As usually happened when she found herself alone with time to reflect, she thought about Ellis, wondering where he was, what he was doing, whether he was thinking of her right now. He had been, in that hackneyed phrase, the love of her life. She would never know anything like that again. The memories of him – his face, his laugh, the touch of his hands – were as constant and fresh as ever, even though the days spent in the wake of his departure, trawling the clubs and music venues of London in hopes of finding him, seemed distant now. Maybe it was an unrealistic dream, but she still imagined that one day, somehow, she would find him again. She remembered how fiercely determined she’d been to save money and travel to Memphis in search of him – before time and fate, in the form of Sid, had taken her in another direction altogether.

She tapped the ash from her cigarette. Sid. With all their history, he was still a friend. Their mistake had been to let sex creep into their professional relationship. After three years of working together in perfect harmony they’d moved in together, partly to save money and partly out of a misguided notion that they were compatible, when in fact they’d been nothing more than mutual dependants, their work and life together habit-forming, letting affection turn into something it was never meant to be. It was a wonder either of them had survived the eighteen months that followed. The rows and bickering, the benders he used to disappear on, the other girls he slept with and thought she didn’t know about. She remembered in particular the pictures she’d found in his darkroom of a doe-eyed, dark-haired girl, naked, legs splayed, staring into the camera in a supplicating way. That was one thing you had to hand to Sid – in his hands the camera never lied.

She drew the curtains and put a hand on the radiator, but it was still stone cold. She sighed. It had been early September when she’d left, and she’d never checked whether the heating worked properly. She went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard.

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