Harleigh Park

I arrived at the train station at ten o’clock, to find Adam with a cooler of beer under his arm and Mike with his acoustic guitar slung across his back. I watched the guys’ faces as they acknowledged me, then looked again just to be sure…

“I’m liking the nose stud,” Adam said, surprised. I smiled broadly.

“You know it. Where are Trace and Dave?”

“Here,” Dave said, and the world went black as he put his hands over my eyes. He’s six foot two compared to my five foot four, and likes to remind me of my lack of height.

“We were getting some food,” Trace said, and I elbowed Dave so I could see him. Trace, of course, had a surfboard hopefully tucked under one arm.

“Great, now we’re all here, let’s get going!”

The train into London only took half an hour, and it was a half-hour filled with cheerful laughter and the usual mixture of sex jokes and good-natured threats.

“So, Al, you going to be wearing a bikini to tan in?” asked Mike, and I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t even know why you care so much, there’s no way I’ll ever be into you,” I reminded him.

“I just wanted some free, assured staring.”

“Girls can stare for free, you have to pay,” I retorted, flipping him the finger.

Getting into Brighton at round about twelve o’clock, we headed straight for the beach. I texted my friend Aidan, who lived in Brighton, and found out he was down the beach too. I hadn’t seen him since I’d sneaked off to go to a gig in Brighton in the Easter holidays under the guise of visiting friends in Kent, so it would be good to see him again.

“Gotta love the sea air,” grinned Dave. Trace and Mike were racing each other down to the beach like the overgrown kids that they were, and Adam and Dave were walking in step on either side of me.

We stepped out onto the beach, and I kicked off my flip-flops. Dave stripped off down to his trunks and ran into the water, whooping and squealing against the cold. We watched, amused.

“Right, you,” I said, tapping Mike on the shoulder, “you are going to go get me an ice-cream.”

“And in return?”

“I will find you some cute girls to come listen to you sing,” I suggested, though I obviously wouldn’t.

“Well, you obviously aren’t, but eh… s’only ice cream,” Mike grinned, passing me his guitar and getting up from the sand.

Lying back on the beach, I watched the sun glide carelessly across the sky , scanning through my book and and licking my ice lolly, and ignored Dave behind me, asking for my opinion on different girls.

“What about her? What do you think?” he asked for the seventeenth time. I put down the book and looked at who he was pointing at. A girl, small and curvy, with straight dark hair and a pink bikini, wrapped in a white towel.

“Eh. Not my type. Besides, I think she has a boyfriend,” I said, pointing to the guy who was running across the beach towards her. As we watched, he scooped her into her arms.

“Oh,” Dave said, put out. “Oh well, there are plenty more girls on the beach…”

“Precisely,” I said, licking the last vestiges of flavour from the lolly stick. “Now, who wants another ice lolly?”

Aidan came and sat down next to me, putting his skinny arms around me in a bear-hug.

“Hey, Al! It’s been too long!”

“Oh, I’d say it’s been just right,” I said, lying down and resting my head on his matchstick thigh. “Don’t want to be seeing you too much now, do I?”

“Cheeky,” I said, and ruffled my hair. We sat there and talked for a while about not much in particular – life, schoolwork, Aidan’s now lack of it, his plans for the future. Girls.

“Plenty of cute girls in Brighton this time of year,” he observed, looking out over his hometown coast.

“I haven’t seen any I like yet.”

“There’s one who just keeps… looking at you,” Aidan said thoughtfully.

“Really?” I asked, my eyes closed behind my aviators. “I haven’t seen anyone. If she’s interested, she’ll come talk to me, right?”

After a while, my friends regrouped back around me from wherever they’d been – surfing, buying beer and begging cigarette probably – and we lounged in our patchwork gang. I moved from Aidan’s leg to allow him to move, laughing at the dance he did to relieve his cramp.

And then something I wasn’t expecting happened. A girl had wandered over and was standing by us curiously.

“Hi,” she said, and smiled at us.

“Hi,” I said back. I will admit it now, I am a sucker for a pretty face. And this girl’s face was very pretty. Pale as a ghost, with hair the colour of summer moonlight and streaked with bright pink. Her eyes were very big and very blue – startlingly so – and she was in a tiny blue checked sundress. I found myself thinking of Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.

“I was just listening to your conversation… you’re from Harleigh, right?” she asked the assembly in general, but looking at me.

“Yeah,” I said, frowning. “And?”

“I just moved there,” she said, smiling, sitting down on the sand between me and Trace.
“Oh, cool,” Trace said, smiling and extending a hand. “Trace.”

“Like Cyrus?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because, for the record, Metro Station suck.”

“Trace like short for Trakas, actually. I was Trace before he was cool,” Trace said flippantly.

“Dave.”

“Adam.”

“Mike.”

“Aidan. Not really part of this lot. Just her friend.”

She looked at me last.

“Al.”

“Konnie,” she said, with a radiant, dreamy smile. She looked like she was slightly stoned.

“So, did you come down from Harleigh too?” Mike asked hopefully.

“Dad lives down here. Mum just moved to Harleigh for her job. I’m moving in next week,” she said. She spoke in a floaty sort of way, like the words just sort of drifted out of her mouth without visiting her brain.

Konnie sat with us, and we all made small talk – everyone except Mike, who was frowning at her. I could tell that everyone was enamoured with her, because I can read my friends like comics. Except for Dave, because his Ray Bans were hiding his expression.

“Got it!” he said finally, and we all stared at him.

“Got what?” Dave asked.

“Wood?” Adam suggested.

I rolled my eyes and hit him.

“You were in those adverts, weren’t you?” he said, frowning slightly at Konnie. “The ones for Levi’s jeans.”

“Only once,” Konnie replied. “Then I decided I wasn’t cut out to be a model.”

“Oh?” Trace enquired politely.

“Yeah… I prefer singing,” she said.

“Mike here’s a singer,” I said, and reached over to grab his guitar. “Go on, maybe you two could sing us a duet or something.”

“Oh, a musician. I love musicians,” Konnie said, her eyes sparkling.

Mike swallowed. “Okay… don’t read anything into this, it’s just a good song, okay?”

He started playing something. I burst into laughter within a few seconds. The others looked at me, confused.

“Kiss me, under the bearded barley…” I sang, off-key and very badly, but they picked up the melody and the words and burst out laughing.

Mike and Konnie continued, and the sound was sweet enough to draw in people. By the end of the song, there must have been twenty people all standing around appreciatively and more singing along. There was a cheer as they finished, and Konnie and Mike exchanged an awkward smile.

“I think you have an audience,” Adam said, amused. “Hey, can we smoke on the beach?”