Sweet Chariot

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It all almost seemed too perfect, but I accepted it unquestioningly at the time. After all, it was no less than I deserved. I was a student, back home for the summer holidays, full of confidence and party spirit and I just naturally assumed that this kind of thing should happen to me.

But still...

A beautiful summer's day, in the height of June. Warm but not hot. Cobalt blue sky seeming almost too vivid, but maybe that's just the way I remember it now. From early morning the sky had been cloudless, and there was just a hint of a breeze as we busied with the preparations.

There was to be a party. A big party. Our friend's parents were away on holiday, and they'd left her with the run of their house. Except it wasn't a house; it was a mansion. I can't remember how many bedrooms, but it was set in its own grounds, had a games room with a full sized snooker table, a sauna and Jacuzzi, and a den with a hammock. I'll come back to the hammock later...

Early afternoon we were busy stocking up. We'd taken the car to the local off-license. I remember the shopkeeper asking if we were having a party when I went in to buy a crate of beer and two bottles of whiskey. I also remember his face when my mates started piling in behind me and purchasing their own personal supplies. We seriously had a tonne of alcohol.

My clearest memory is of the early evening, on the lawns at the house. There were about ten guys, and about ten girls (I rather liked those odds) and we had rather shyly separated into unisex groups. The guys were sitting on the grass playing drinking games. I was showing them how to scuttle a can with a biro to drain it in seconds. Not a trick for the faint of heart. While we did that, the girls were showing off for each other, practising gymnastic routines. Cartwheels and handstands as we looked on bashfully bemused.

It was around that point that I first noticed Katie. She was blonde, attractive, with shoulder-length hair in soft cascading curls. Blue eyes, and sensible white underwear. Who says gymnastics and short-skirts don't mix? I decided there and then that she was the one I wanted to talk to, and by that point the drinks and the conversation were starting to flow a little more freely.

Katie was a couple of years younger than me, and I felt sure I'd be able to impress her with my worldly wisdom, and suave sophistication. Suffice to say, she wanted nothing to do with me, and draped herself instead over a younger guy. I remember the indignation. That was not how it was supposed to work. So I did what I do best, and concentrated on transitioning from the vertical to the horizontal in the shortest amount of time possible.

By midnight, everybody was drunk. I was, despite myself, having a good time. There was lots of random chat going on, and everybody was in a talkative mood. I thought I'd seen Katie being led off to one of the guest rooms by her younger man, but was trying hard to pretend it hadn't happened. Or if it had, that it didn't bother me.

Which made it quite a surprise when I suddenly found myself talking to her. We were sat at the kitchen table blethering away. God knows what about, but she seemed to be hanging on my every word. Things were looking up. At some point we ended up kissing, and kissing led to a discussion of taking a sauna together. In our drunken state however we couldn't work out how to get the damn thing functioning, and eventually gave up.

We talked and kissed and kissed and talked until the early hours. Around four in the morning, still dusky out, there was a sudden shout and a mass exodus of our fellow party-goers. Everybody spilled outside and tore off into the grounds, chasing somebody (or bodies) for reasons I never discovered. Somehow I appeared to have lost my shoes by that stage. So as all the others ran down the gravelled drive and off into the distance, I hobbled along supported by Katie. We were soon left behind; so we turned around and went back.

To find steam billowing from the Sauna we'd tried to get working earlier. Seemed we had managed it after all. So in we went, stripping off as we went along. A hot and sweaty ten minutes later we spilled out, and headed for the den. Which is where the hammock was. It honestly seemed like a good idea at the time, but I was still more than a little hazy. It turned out to be completely impossible, at least in our drunken state. But we did have fun trying. I will say that.

Getting dressed afterwards, we managed to find my shoes, and decided to go in search of the others. We found them at sitting in the long grass at the foot of a nearby cemetery, and joined them to watch the sun slowly rise. Sitting there, while Katie made a daisy chain and wrapped it and herself around my neck, one of the young lads suddenly launched into song. A strong but soft voice in the early dawn singing the hymn Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

We'd all ambled back up to the house after that, Katie and I hand in hand, me enjoying every moment of what had been a damn fine day. Which was why I was completely shocked when we got back up to the house to discover Katie and the younger man I'd seen her with earlier sitting in the kitchen waiting for us all. Which is when I realised the girl I'd been with all night was Katie's sister Lucy. But by then I really didn't care. I was already in love.