Wyld Dreamers

health, isn’t confident he will pass. No one is quite sure why he was away so much. They sense it is a subject he prefers not to discuss. Seymour and David shake hands. ‘And this is David’s girlfriend, Amy Taylor.’
‘Hallo Mr Stratton, pleased to meet you. Thank you for inviting us to stay here with Julian. You have a beautiful place.’
‘Hallo. Like it, do you, Amy?’ Seymour’s gaze seems to pin her to the spot. ‘It’s a bit tatty round the edges but yes, a certain charm. Julian, can you take the camera from the car? And the bag of food on the back seat of the car. Would you mind bringing it in, David? Simon, those bottles must go straight into the freezer. Mrs Morle looking after the place alright, Julian? And how is our feisty Lynn these days?’
He leads them into the house, calling for Pilot; asks someone to lay the table, to fetch glasses, to put music on. A Little Feat album plays while foods she has never seen or tasted before are spread across the table. Smoked salmon, the thinnest slivers of meat, olives fat with anchovies, roasted peppers sprinkled with herbs, a smoky green dip pungent with garlic. They rip pieces of breads from baguettes, the drink makes her tongue sing.
As they eat, Seymour tells them what he’s been up. People he has photographed that week, names she has seen mentioned in newspapers, exotic and eccentric people of note. He tells a story against himself, a gaff he made with someone famous and it’s very funny. It all sounds unreal, too strange for her to envisage, the opposite of the life she has shared with her parents where routine prevails; jobs and homework and meals and washing up. The wisps of her hangover disappear.
‘Let’s have a toast,’ Seymour says. ‘To the summer. To you all.’ He pushes back his chair and stretches out his arms in a magnanimous gesture. ‘Have you had a look around the place yet? What do you think of my escape to the country? I’m thinking of an artist’s retreat, somewhere laid back and cool where people can rejuvenate the creative juices and have fun. Just needs a few improvements, here and there, and I’m thinking that Julian could run the place, perhaps. That’s all in the future. We’re just glad you’re here now to help us get our little dream going.’
Amy is a bit drunk. A song floats round her head, Dusty Springfield’s ‘I Only Want to Be with You’. She is sure it will be somewhere in the snake of vinyl in the sitting room. What if the boys scoff at her choice?
She puts on the record. It was playing the first time she saw David in the Student Union bar. Her brother had invited her and Mary, her school friend to the ‘Spring Bop’. The students, mostly men as far as she could see, were much older than she and Mary. They were ranged like skittles around the football table shouting as they whacked or watched a tiny ball race up and down a table between the legs of plastic figurines. They clasped pints of beer. In the corner was a student with a different style. A cigarette clamped between his teeth, one booted foot resting on a stool, the man with long nut-brown hair, a stubble-coated chin and a Led Zepplin t-shirt lazily strummed a guitar. She was mesmerized. A girl with long hair parted in the middle joined him to share a joke. Amy felt jealous. Two months later, when she had kissed the guitar player, she was introduced to the girl. It was Maggie Bond, David’s younger sister.
A ringing telephone brings her back to the present. No one, it seems, plans to answer it. So Amy decides she will. Down the hall she finds a room with a desk and on it, a heavy black telephone.
‘Hallo? This is the, ah… the Stratton family.’ She stifles a snort.
It is not her family but she answering as though it is. ‘Amy, is that you?’
Her mother sounds relieved.
‘Oh, hallo, Mum! How are you?’ Amy realises that her speech is slurred.
Her mother says: ‘I’ve been calling on and off all morning, Amy, but there’s been no answer. I’ve been so worried. You didn’t ring last night to say you had arrived. Are you alright? Amy, are you there?’
‘Mum, hi, sorry, I couldn’t call last night. We got here really late.’
‘You could have called this morning though.’ No one else listening would know her mother is hurt but Amy does.
‘Sorry, Mum, I was waiting until one o’ clock when it gets cheaper to make calls.’
‘Amy. It’s Saturday and calls are cheap all day!’
‘Oh yeah, course. Sorry Mum. Yes, I’m fine. How are you?’
‘I can hear music. Is there a party going on?’
‘No, well, yes, just a few friends of the family have come for lunch with Mr Stratton. Dad alright, Mum? Look, I’ll call again in a few days and tell you how we’re getting on.’
Her mother does not reply.
In other moods, Amy might have persisted. But she wants to get back to Dusty and the smelly cheese. ‘Mum, I said I’ll call in a few days. Speak soon.’

4
No one called her Lily, she told Mr Stratton the first time they met, well, that must be over ten years ago now. She had gone up to the big house after he wrote to her. The gentleman asked if she’d continue to work for him as the housekeeper, same as she had for the previous owner. She didn’t like the man’s look, not at all, and when he used her first name rather than her married name, she had to put him right, there and then. London ways he had, informal, not the way she wanted things done. She had drawn herself up to her full height, five feet three inches, only a little shorter than he and addressed him sharply: ‘I’ll thank you to use my full name, Mr