Harleigh Park

It was a lazy, sunny day at the beginning of the summer. School had ended and the number of disillusioned youths visible in town seemed to have increased tenfold in the space of a week. Harleigh was buzzing with juvenile activity; there were five senior schools and colleges in the town, and the sudden release of six thousand angsty teenagers from their Government-enforced imprisonment meant that the whole city had come to life.

In the sprawling rectangle that was Harleigh Park, I was lying on the grass with Mike and Trace, waiting for Dave to arrive. Adam was on holiday, having been spirited off to visit some relatives by his comfortably-off family, and was due back today.

Mike, his fair hair tangled with the grass, offered me a cigarette with one lazy movement.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Trace?”

“Cheers.”

He lazily flicked a lighter, and I watched as the flame took over.

“You really should partake, Al,” he said, glancing at me.

I shrugged, plucking a piece of grass from the ground and playing with it between my fingers. Staring at the blue, cloudless sky, it was hard to remind myself that I was in England. The weather was far too nice. It was uncomfortably warm; there was no way I could envision doing anything except lying here in the late morning sunshine.

“You know,” Trace said through a mouthful of smoke, “we could get a train. Go somewhere on the coast.”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Too hot today.”

“It’s never too hot for the beach!” Trace countered. He was only in a loose pair of board shorts today; his flip-flops lay discarded by his shoulder, and he hadn’t even bothered with a shirt. Trace – real name Spyro Trakas – was one of those stereotypically cool kids: skateboarding in the winter, surfing in the summer, and going to the gym and swimming in between. His chest was perfectly flat and muscled, making him the crush of almost the entire female population of the school. He was half Greek, half American, and spoke with a Californian accent from his childhood there. Shaggy dark hair, crooked smile and eternally-tanned skin: it wasn’t hard to see why he was drooled over. He’d been my friend since he’d moved to Harleigh in Year Eight and he’d seen me twenty foot in the air, most of the way up a tree. In exchange for teaching him how to climb trees, he’d taught me how to skate.

“Yeah it is. Today is definitely too hot for the beach,” I said, stretching out and closing my eyes.

“You just don’t want us to see you in a bikini,” Mike said. I could imagine his eyebrows waggling as he said it. I took off a shoe and threw it in his direction.

“Ow.”

“Sorry, Trace. Chuck it at Mike instead?”

“Ow!”

“Cheers.”

From the sounds that followed, Mike and Trace had decided to launch into a fight. Despite Trace’s strength, Mike usually won their almost-daily fights. I didn’t bother opening my eyes, just lay back and listened to the day’s music: the slow breeze through the trees; the birds singing sleepily; the shouts and cries of my friends’ scuffle.

“Hi,” came a familiar voice, and suddenly standing over me was Dave. Dave’s the smart one out of the lot of us, the one who we ring up for help with our homework and has a local business repairing computers from home. He’s not quite a part of any of the normal geeky stereotypes though – he doesn’t spend hours a day playing computer games, nor does he try and be sarcastic and cool. He’s just a regular guy, with an awesome head of vaguely afro-esque hair inherited from his father and a worryingly good knowledge of where to purchase cannabis.

“Iyer,” I responded, waving a hand in lazy acknowledgement.

He inclined his head towards Trace and Mike. “What caused it this time?”

“Trace threw my shoe at Mike.”

From the sounds of Mike’s cry of “Who’s sexy now, bitch?!”, it seemed that Trace had once again lost. Extracting himself from under the tangle of Mike’s limbs, he came over and flopped onto me. I pushed him off onto the grass, much to mine and Dave’s amusement.

“Dave, is it or is it not too hot to go to the beach today?” Mike asked, wandering over and sitting down heavily on Trace, silencing Trace’s protestations by clamping his hand over her friend’s mouth.

“Yeah, it is,” Dave said, kicking off his shoes and sitting down. “Too hot to do anything.”

“Eurgh, why did you just lick my hand?!” Mike complained, moving his hand and wiping it on Trace’s leg.

“But if we go to the beach, we’ll get to see loads of hot girls in their bikinis,” Trace argued, unperturbed by Mike.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Okay? So all you lusty fuckers can go ogle hot girls, and I will go surfing.”

“But if you go surfing, we won’t get to see you in a bikini!”

“That’s the point, Mike. Idiot.”

Lunch was at half past two. We filed into a café where the waitresses all recognised us by face, and ordered fish and chips and hot dogs. Adam joined us, swinging in round the door and launching himself on me.

“Al! I missed you!” he said emphatically.

“Piss off, it’s only been two weeks,” I said, pushing him off and onto Dave’s lap. Adam had been visiting his aunt in South Africa, and he had returned with a deep tan and a bandage around one hand and a dark hickey on his neck. “Who did you neck?”

“Gorgeous, she was. Went by the name of Saffi,” Adam said, opening his phone and browsing through his photos to show us. Saffi looked cute; dark skin, huge eyes and hair in hundreds of tights plaits.

“Ah, summer lovin’, happened so fast,” Trace crooned jokingly. Adam threw a chip at him.

The rest of the day was spent in the park again, throwing a Frisbee around and chatting. Trace and I eventually decided to grab our boards and do a bit of skating, and Mike lay there smoking a joint (no doubt obtained from Dave) and writing out some lyrics, while Adam regaled Dave about a no-doubt exaggerated account of South African love and lust.

The next morning, I woke up at dawn. I lay awake for a while, not moving, staring at posters on my wall in the growing light. Once I heard the clock strike six, I rolled out of bed and showered as quietly as possible and pulled on a tankini, then shorts and a shirt over the top. Great. It was six thirty, and I had another three hours to kill before anyone else would be awake, and another four until we were due to meet at the train station to get a train into London, and then another one down to Brighton. Three hours to kill, in an empty house. My parents were in Norfolk for a weekend, visiting some cousins or something, and the house had felt empty ever since my sister Helen had gone to university. Her summer term had finished months ago, but she was still staying in Bristol with her boyfriend. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas.

I turned on some music, blasting it as loudly as I could without waking up the irritable neighbours, and then proceeded to wander around my house like a ghost. The temptation to call one of my friends to get their lazy butt out of bed was almost overwhelming. At eight o’clock, after going through three albums, I gave up and called Mike. Of course, he didn’t answer.

After another hour of boredom, I grabbed a twenty that Mum had left for me on the table, and headed into Harleigh with a plan.