Love Is Free

Embedded by Becky Black-1

Embedded by Becky BlackLucy stepped down onto the train platform and looked for the exit. This was the first time she’d arrived alone on a train to visit her Uncles Mike and Barry—known as Baz to all. Dad had wanted to drive her here, and Uncle Mike had offered to drive up and collect her. But she’d insisted she could manage to take a train alone. Flagging in the July heat, lugging her bags, her feet aching, she wished she’d accepted the offer of a ride. But her journey was done and there was Uncle Mike, waiting at the ticket barriers. She dropped her bags and he engulfed her in a hug.

“You don’t want to hug me,” she said. “I’m all sweaty.”

“I haven’t seen you since Christmas, I’m definitely hugging you.”

“Sorry I haven’t visited in a while.”

“Oh you had to focus on your studies, kiddo. How were the exams?”

“I think I did okay. Results in a few weeks.”

“I bet you did amazing.” He picked up her bags. “Brought your brick collection then?”

“Or you’re getting old and weak.”

“Very likely.”

He was fifty-three, if she remembered the dates right. Though in good shape for being so ancient.

“You need the loo or anything before we go?” he asked, as he put her bags into the boot of his car.

“Uncle Mike, I’m not a toddler!”

He chuckled, as they got in the car. TalkSport started playing on the car’s sound system. Mike turned it to a music station.

“It feels like no time since you were a toddler,” he said, driving out of the carpark and into the traffic of the small town on the south coast of England. “And now you’re ready to head off to university. How’s Emily? You two still an item?”

“Item? Uh, the 1980s called. They want their slang back.”

“Uh oh, am I being cringe, fam?” He grinned.

“Very. And yes, me and Emily are still together. She’s in France with her parents for a few weeks.”

“If she comes back while you’re still staying with us, she’s welcome to come join the merry band.”

“Like a commune?” Lucy asked.

“Hah! I don’t think we’ve had anything like a commune vibe since Alice and Jani stayed for the winter after their place in Wales flooded. And that was mainly because they brought the llamas.”

She knew those names from Uncle Mike’s memoir. Fellow activists, like him and Uncle Baz. The car headed out of the town centre, and onto country roads, with glimpses of the sea here and there, until they reached the village of Ostreham. They drove onto the drive in front of a large old house that Uncle Mike and his husband Baz had bought back in the 1990s, and been fixing up ever since. They hadn’t been husbands then, and most people called Baz Uncle Mike’s friend around her. But Lucy hadn’t been a stupid child and when they told her they were getting married, she’d wondered why they had waited so long. Being eight at the time she hadn’t been aware the law had only just changed to allow it.

“Any new ghosts?” Lucy asked. The first time she had visited this house, only about a quarter of it had been livable. The rest had been very spooky to her childish eyes.

“None recently,” Mike said. “But I’ve got high hopes for the attic. It’s still got stuff in there from the 1800s.”

He sent her to the front door with the keys, saying he’d get her bags out and she let herself into the big hallway, which was very…stony, as always, with big stone flags and unplastered stone walls. Rugs and wall hangings warmed the place up. Lucy dropped the house keys in a bowl on a table by the door, and checked her face in a mirror hanging there. Not so hot and bothered, but her dark hair hung limp and frizzy around her hairline. She hung up her denim jacket with its many many badges and patches.

“Loosey Goosey!”

Uncle Baz came into the hallway from the kitchen, still wearing his royal blue nurse practitioner uniform, sporting a rainbow NHS pin badge and a rainbow lanyard for his ID.

“Uncle Baz!” She hugged the stuffing out of him, then slapped his arm. “Don’t call me Loosey Goosey! I’m not ten.”

“You’ll always be Loosey Goosey to me. How are your folks? And Emily? When are we going to meet her?”

“My folks are fine. Emily will come later in the summer. She really wants to meet you two. You guys are legends.”

“We are?” Baz nodded back towards the kitchen as Mike came in with the bags. “C’mon through. I’ve made some tea.”

They sat around the kitchen table, in the stone-floored kitchen. Baz poured tea and Mike offered Lucy a slice of a loaf cake. Some neighbour’s prize winning lemon drizzle cake, apparently.

“So why is Emily so keen to meet us?” Baz asked. “And where does she get the idea that we’re legends?”

“From me. I gave her your book, Uncle Mike.”

“You know you can call us Mike and Baz,” Mike said.

“As you said,” Baz added. “You’re not ten.”

“Sorry, go on,” Mike said. “You gave her my book?”

“I hope that means you bought her a copy,” Baz said. “Just sayin’,” he added.

“I did, because I’ve written all over mine,” Lucy said. “I’ve learned so much from it.”

“It’s not a textbook,” Mike said, smiling.

“More a series of unfortunate events,” Baz said. “But that title was taken.”

“Guys! It’s seminal!” Lucy blushed. “Metaphorically speaking.”

Baz smirked. “He doesn’t write that type of books. Though I’ve told him, he’s leaving money on the table not giving it a try.”

“Behave,” Mike said. “Can’t take you anywhere. Go on, Lucy.”

“It’s why I want to stay here with you for the summer, before I go to university. I know that’s where you really got into activism, and I want to learn how to do the same.”

“We were mostly making it up as we went along,” Baz said. “I certainly was. Swotty here has read more theory than me.”

“So I get the benefit of your experience,” she said. “But I want to hear how you’re still fighting. Because you said at the end of the book, that the fight never stops, right?”

“Of course we’ll teach you,” Mike said. “It’s good to know kids are still interested in getting their hands dirty and not only being t****k warriors.”

“He thinks he’s cool because he’s heard of t****k,” Baz said. He checked the kitchen clock. “I’d better change. Transport sub-committee meeting at six.”

“We’ll meet you in the Gardener’s Arms afterwards,” Mike said. “Have a nice dinner to welcome Lucy.”

“Good idea. Should finish about eight.” He grabbed a biscuit, gave Lucy a wink and headed off upstairs.

“Transport sub-committee?” Lucy asked Mike.

“We’re both parish councillors.”

“Oh. Right.”

Their tea and snacks done and cleared away, Mike took Lucy up to the guest room she’d have for the summer. She unpacked, and decided to take a shower, after the long, sweaty day. It was about six-thirty by the time she finished sorting herself out. Baz had left long ago on his bike, and when she went downstairs in fresh clothes, she heard Mike pottering about in the kitchen, listening to the radio.

She wandered through the other rooms, refamiliarising herself with them. She loved the big living room, with its one stone wall and the others more normal plastered ones. It had large windows on three sides, as the room went right through to the back of the house. The back of the room held a big dining table. Three large sofas dominated the rest of the room, with a couple of coffee tables and rugs in front of them. Low bookshelves ran around most of the walls.

The wall spaces between the windows were covered in framed pictures, some art, some of them family and friends. Lucy grimaced at pictures of herself at various ages, though she had to smile at the one from Mike and Baz’s wedding, where she’d been chief flower girl. She hadn’t much liked the title flower girl. At other weddings she’d attended, the flower girls were very small girls who were too young to be bridesmaids and she’d been eight at the time, so far too old to be a flower girl. But as Mum had pointed out, you can’t be a bridesmaid if there isn’t a bride.

There were many pictures of Mike and Baz as young men, at the height of their activism. Baz skinny and dark-haired, Mike, rugby-player bulky, sandy blonde, looking like the posh boy he was, very much gone bad. People had thought the working-class boy from Leeds was the bad influence on the posh boy from Surrey, but Mike’s memoir made it clear he’d already been primed and ready by the time they met, when they were both sixteen, at a protest march in Manchester, in 1988. Like, practically the stone age! Mike was in town with a school trip, and had sneaked away to attend the march, where he’d met a punk, who had travelled over from Leeds. They talked for so long, Baz had missed his train home and Mike was nearly reported missing by his teachers.

They’d kept in touch for the next two years, by letter and landline. Baz even had to use the phonebox! No email even! Somehow they’d arranged that they’d both apply to university in London. Baz had done a nursing degree—which seemed like nothing now, but for a boy to choose nursing as a career back then meant he didn’t have to officially come out of the closet to anyone. They all assumed he was gay. Since he’d never cared what anyone thought ever, he’d stuck two fingers up at the world and did what he wanted.

She wandered through to the other side of the house, where Mike had his office. This had lots of high bookshelves around two walls, only going halfway through the house. A dark wood desk, that looked a hundred years old, held a big computer monitor and a laptop. Notebooks, books, folders and papers were scattered around the desk, along with a photograph of the two of them on their wedding day. Sweet. There were more photographs on the wall, and some of them were from newspaper stories and even a couple of police mugshots. Activism had a price and Mike and Baz had always been willing to pay it. She sat in the chair, imagining herself one day having done things worth writing a memoir about. The bookshelf nearest the desk had box files marked Clippings and Articles. Mike didn’t only write books. She saw articles with his byline on lots of news sites. Some l***q focused, others more general.

“Hey, are you ready to go?” Mike asked, appearing in the open doorway.

“Yes.” She jumped up. “I didn’t move anything.”

He chuckled. “Feel free to do some of my research. I’ll give you an acknowledgement. Grab your jacket. It will be chilly on the walk back, with the breeze off the sea.” They locked up and headed out of the driveway. This house had once stood isolated in extensive grounds, but there were large modern detached homes on both sides of it now. “We’ll have to sort a bike out for you,” Mike said as they walked. “Ours will all be too tall for you. I’m sure Baz will know someone who can loan you one for the summer. Best way to get around the village.”

“Ah, sure.” She hadn’t ridden a bike since she was twelve. As they walked into the centre of the village they passed a post box, which had one of those twee knitted toppers on it, which included a figure in a wheelchair, and someone with a white stick and a guide dog. Weird. The dog was cute though.

* * * *

Emily: Morning babe

Emily: How’s it going?

Lucy glanced down at the message from Emily. She picked up her phone to answer.

Lucy: OK. Going to village fete today.

Emily: Dafuq?

Lucy: IKR M&B help organise it. Roped me in to do stuff too.

Lucy: It’s all kinda weird tbh

She’d been here two weeks, and was definitely wondering when she was going to start learning how to smash the patriarchy. Mike and Baz kept taking her along to things like volunteer shifts in the village shop, or shopping trips for old folks, or collecting their medications. Something they must do a lot, because the staff in the pharmacy didn’t even ask them for ID. She supposed they knew Baz, because he worked at the GP’s office. But Mike? And how did he get any writing done when he was running about doing that stuff all day? Not to mention all the parish council meetings! There were frequent visitors to the house, but her hopes that they’d be fellow radicals planning protest marches and picketing, were quickly dashed. There had been people round talking about this fete a lot. Even the vicar! The actual vicar.