Where the Halling Valley River Lies, Carl Halling [urban books to read txt] 📗

smaller of the two, "and this here’s Sue...what's yours, baby?"
"Why do you call me baby?" asked David.
“Because you look like one," said Julie.
"I happen to be all of eighteen years old,”said David, feigning indignation.
“We thought you was abaht twen'y,” said Sue.
"Really? Well I'm eighteen and my name's Shane.”
"Wha's your name?" said Julie, gesturing towards Gilles.
"My nem eez Gilles,” he replied.
"Where are you from?" Sue asked David.
"London. Why?"
"You sahnd Ameri'an or somefing."
"Well, I am half-Canadian."
"Oh, that would explain it," Julie resolved.
"Why," David went on, "where do you girls come from?"
"We come from London an’ all, sarf, “ said Sue.
"What are you doing down here?"
"We're spendin' a few days on 'er dad's boat," Sue went on, pointing at Julie.
"Has your dad got a boat?" Shane asked, as if amazed that these two cockney waifs should be associated with the super-posh world of yachting.
"A yacht!” cried Julie, “not just a boat. Don' come from any old family, I don'."
For reasons best known to themselves, the three young men set on their way once again, and once again, they were followed by the girls, who took to kicking a stray tin can around to make their point.
"I weesh Coreen were not 'ere," Gilles whispered into Shane's ear.
"Why?" said David.
"Eez prezence eez deesconcertin’ zem."
As if to confirm what Gilles had just said, the girls suddenly turned a corner and left their half-hearted suitors to their own devices.
"See ya, then!" they cried.
"Bye, girls!" said David.
"Bye, David darlin’!"
And with that, they disappeared, doubtless feeling, quite reasonably, that they’d given David and Gilles every opportunity to demonstrate their romantic interest in them.
"I wonder where zey went?" Gilles wistfully enquired.
"I shouldn't worry about it,” said David, “you've got your Belgian girl, haven’t you?"
" ‘Ave I?" said the forlorn Belgian. Perhaps he couldn’t understand why David had behaved in such a cavalier fashion towards two girls who’d clearly been besotted with him on sight. But then Gilles was a normal young man, devoid of the loser gene that causes those such as David to waste and squander every good gift that comes their way.
It’s as if they don’t have enough to fight against, or fight for…perhaps a little like WASP prince Hubbell Gardiner, as played by Robert Redford in the romantic movie masterpiece “The Way We Were”. For at the beginning of the film, a short story of Gardiner’s, “An American Smile” is read out in class by his college professor in which he describes himself as “in a way…like the country he lived in; everything came too easily to him.”

The Isle of Wight is separated from the mainland by a strait of the English Channel known as the Solent, and on David’s penultimate day, a trip to this island county lying to the south of Hampshire took place, and the entire course was involved.
Lunch was in a public house in the port of Yarmouth to the east of the island, where tall, slender English gentlemen of the old school, clad in double-breasted reefer jackets and flannels or white duck trousers, were apt to take a tincture or two between sails. Some sported bow ties, and others, magnificent handlebar moustaches which appeared to betoken a former membership of the Royal Air Force. Their wives favoured large navy-blue pullovers, silk scarves and slacks, although by nightfall they’d be in full evening dress.
Back in Lymington for tea, David happened to bump into Sally, a fresh-faced young sailing ace, possibly in her early 20s, who typically scorned the use of beautifying products, but for whom David had a soft spot nonetheless.
"Hello," he said, “where are you going?"
"Back to my room,” Sally replied.
"Oh”, he went on, “hey, apparently there's a get-together of all the crews on the course tonight, you know, a few drinks, a bit of dancing, a lot of laughs, are you going?"
"I don't know, I..."
"Oh, go on,” he urged, “I’m going.”
"Well...okay," she said, "I suppose I'll go...uh...this is where I turn off."
"Oh. Well..."
"See you tonight then."
"Yes, bye...hey wait! Do you know my name?"
"Yes, of course I do, David, bye!"
"Bye, Sally!"
Back at the guest house, the clock struck five to find David dressed to the nines as was his wont, and taking tea with Mrs Drummond-Smith, who’d have been scandalised had anyone suggested he was anything other than a deeply likable young man with a single, glaring fault: forgetfulness.
She had a duty to charge her guests for the packed lunch she made for each of them every day, even if they forgot to take it, but never did in Shane’s case, even though he was the only one of her guests to routinely leave his lunch behind.
The truth is she had more than a soft spot for him, as he may have reminded her of the bachelor dandies of her youth.
A little later, David, Corin and Gilles set out together for the dance, briefly stopping off at a pub for some much needed Dutch courage, although David’s was the greatest need by a hectare or three.
"Half of bitter, please," Corin ordered.
"Half a shandy, pleez,” came Gilles’ modest request.
"Double scotch for me please,” said David…and a mere ten minutes later, he was ordering a second one, while Corin wisely passed, and Gilles ordered his usual half of shandy. Some ten minutes after this, David started up on the pints.
"Come on, David,” said an exasperated Corin, “let's go”.
"We mus' go," Gilles agreed.
"Drink up!" Corin went on, "we don't want you in a disordered state before the dance, now, do we?"
David swallowed his pint and the three departed the pub. Shortly afterwards, they arrived at the site of the evening’s festivities which was a large hall filled with tables and chairs with a space left for dancing. But David’s first concern was locating Sally.
He saw her sitting next to a slim, smart, casually dressed young man with fashionable light blond collar length hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and promptly approached the apparently happy couple, perhaps half-expecting she’d quit her date just to be with him.
"Hello, Sally," he said.
"Hello," she replied.
"Do you want a drink?" he asked.
"Er, no thanks," she said, "but I will have one later on."
"Okay then," he agreed, before making his way to the bar.
"Double scotch!" he ordered…and then some ten minutes later, he ordered a second one, soon after which, things went a bit hazy for him; and he had no
further recollection of the remainder of the evening. However, one thing is certain…it ended with his jumping fully-clothed into the filthy waters of Lymington harbour.
What happened is that Corin and Gilles had spent some time wrestling with him, pretending that they were about to throw him in, and then relented as if exhausted by their efforts, at which point, to their amazement, Shane launched himself in by his own volition, before spending some time in his soaking wet clothes discussing music with a coterie of hippies encamped nearby listening to “The End” by the Doors.

The final day of the course was a melancholy one for David. For someone had told him it was possible to catch a deadly disease from swimming in the waters of Lymington harbour.
Around lunchtime, Dylan’s father Mr Watts found him gazing into the very part of the harbour into which he’d elected to project himself the previous evening, and set about reassuring him that in all probability he’d escape from his injudicious dip unscathed.
Soon afterwards, David set off for the final time for Mrs Drummond-Smith’s elegant domicile in order to pack in anticipation of his father’s arrival, expected later in the day. On the way there, he had a chance meeting with Captain Peter St Aubyn, who urged him to mend his ways in a spirit of paternal concern:
“David”, he urged, “stop the drinking and the chasing of the birds…it’s a hard world out there…”
While he was touched by the skipper’s words, he might as well have told him to stop breathing. He was only 18 after all
That’s not to say, however, that the vast majority of young people at any given time aren’t equipped for success, because they are. It’s just that the David Cristiansens of this world are never among them. For them, the party never ends, until it’s forcibly closed down forever.
Soon after reaching the guest house that had been his home for the past fortnight, Shane discovered that his dad had already arrived. In fact, he was getting on famously with Mrs Drummond-Smith, with whom he was engaged in an animated discussion, whose central topic was: David himself.
“He is a little eccentric,” he told her at one point, which caused the gracious lady to almost cry out in protest, as if it had been a mortal insult.
“Eccentric?” she exclaimed, “oh, anything but…but he does have one fault, I’m afraid to say….he is rather forgetful.”
She then went on to tell David that Gilles had been looking for him earlier on in the day, and was sorry to have missed him. Of course, were this today, the two young men would have already exchanged e-mail addresses or cell phone numbers. But in those days, precious friendships and romances forged over extended periods of time were all too often discarded overnight to be lost forever. The reason being that the only way to stay in contact was via telephone or snail mail, which required a certain amount of dedication, and not everyone had the patience for it.
The words of singer-songwriter Carole King’s “So Far Away”, from her classic “Tapestry” album from 1970, “So far away, doesn’t anyone stay in one place anymore?’, could be said to be an apt description of social life in the mid 1970s for some people. You could say goodbye to a person you loved on any day of the week, in any month of any year, and never see them again as long as you lived.
Indeed, after the summer of ’74, David never saw Gilles, or Corin, or Dylan, or Daryl, or Sally, or Captain St Aubyn, or Mrs Drummond-Smith, or the two blonde teenagers who’d tried so hard to elicit his romantic interest ever again. But he never forgot them, nor the events of that faraway summer of so long ago.

Chapter Three

The summer of '74 was one of the most blissful lifelong loser David Cristiansen ever spent at the beautiful little former fishing village of Santiago de la Ribera; and there were a good few of those.
Each afternoon, he’d meet up with friends both male and female on the jetty facing his apartment on the Mar Menor, which was more or less deserted after lunch, where they’d listen to Bowie on cassette, or Donny keening “Puppy Love” on a portable phonograph, and generally enjoy being young and carefree in a decade of endless possibilities.
To some youthful Spanish eyes back in '74-'76, David was an almost impossibly exotic figure from what was then the most radical and daring city in Europe, and he played his image up to the hilt. In truth, though, he was barely less sheltered and innocent than they, and how wonderful it felt for him to