‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a go.’
He jumped up and followed her, fascinated as she took the stage, conferred briefly with the drummer and guitarist, and stepped up to the mic. He had never met anyone so self-assured. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation or a flicker of nerves. She smiled at the audience. There was a ripple of applause at the opening chords. Harry recognised it as Joan Armatrading, one of his mother’s favourites, one she subjected them to in the car when they were young, along with Fleetwood Mac and Genesis, before they took control of the CD player.
Then, almost in a whisper, Florence began to sing ‘Love and Affection’. As she murmured the lyrics her eyes momentarily locked with his.
For a moment he could barely breathe. Was this a message, or was she just playing with him? Something cold yet hot slithered into his blood, his heart, the marrow of his bones. This wasn’t just want. This was need.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as she went in on herself, transported to another place, swept away by the lyrics. The rest of the audience was as transfixed as he was. He might think she was singing this for him, but everyone was under her spell. And as the song built, she held a rapport with the guitarist and drummer, their eyes meeting, sharing smiles, even though they had only met five minutes ago, and Harry felt a burning envy. Music did that, it gave people a bond, an instant connection. His fingers were tightly gripped round his glass, his knuckles white with tension and jealousy.
As the song finished, she gave a little self-deprecating curtsey, then jumped off the stage to rapturous applause. When Harry tried to tell her how brilliant she was she shrugged it off with a laugh.
‘You were amazing.’
‘Not really.’
‘Are you in a band?’
‘God, no. I couldn’t stand all those egos. Or all those tedious rehearsals.’
‘You should be. You’ve got such talent.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘Not really. I’m just copying. I couldn’t write a song of my own.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘I don’t want to.’
He was in awe, nevertheless. At someone who could get up on stage and perform like that, yet think nothing of it.
He’d never met anyone before who was more blessed than he was. It was sometimes very dull being the golden boy, the boy who couldn’t fail, because there was almost nothing to strive for. Doors opened easily, people fell over backwards to do your bidding. It was like eating too much chocolate. You could have too much of a good thing. Life had no edge, no bite, when you were damn near perfect. Harry was head boy, captain of cricket, lead in every school play, president of the debating society. And he’d always had any girl he wanted. It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed their company, but none of the relationships he’d had so far felt nourishing. They were . . . merely pleasant. They didn’t make him come alive inside, they didn’t make his soul sing. Florence was the first girl he had met who had sparked something inside him. And he hadn’t a clue how to handle it.
By eleven o’clock they were quite drunk. He’d been buying her shots all night. Drunkenness suited her - she didn’t go all floppy and giggly like a lot of girls. She became even more self-assured. Glittery and dangerous. It only made him want her all the more.
In his vodka haze, he remembered one rule. A rule he’d never had to bring into play before. If you really wanted a girl, you didn’t show it. You had to play it cool. At half past eleven, with a monumental effort of will, he told her he was going home.
‘I’ve got some stuff to deal with,’ he said vaguely.
She looked disconcerted.
‘Bor-ing,’ she told him.
‘I know,’ he smiled. ‘Sorry.’ And he walked away.
Don’t look back, he told himself. Don’t look back.
It worked. The next morning she came up to his hut and knocked on the door. He couldn’t believe the thrill he felt when he saw her red hair through the glass. The ferment in his blood when she smiled and asked if he wanted to go surfing.
‘Sure,’ he replied, as casually as he could.
‘Did you get your “stuff” done?’ She raised her eyebrows archly, looking for a clue.
‘Yeah.’ What he’d actually done was lie for hours in his bunk in a slightly drunken torment, wondering how to play things next.
‘Hi, Mrs Milton.’ Florence flashed Harry’s grandmother a dazzling smile as she came back from the shop with a pint of milk.
Jane smiled back at the pair of them.
‘We’re going surfing - if that’s OK,’ Harry told her. ‘You’ll be all right?’
‘Course.’ Jane pointed to a pile of paper waiting for her on the table. ‘I’ve got a heap of paperwork to deal with. It seems to be never-ending.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Florence. ‘Dad was saying you’re going to have to sell the hut. What a bummer.’
Harry winced. He knew Jane didn’t much like discussing it. But she didn’t seem to mind Florence’s forthrightness.
‘Yes,’ she said drily. ‘It’s a real bummer. But that’s life. Nothing good lasts for ever.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ Florence wrinkled her nose. ‘Why not?’
Why not indeed ?
thought Harry. This summer, for instance. He hoped that was going to last for ever.
They spent all day together at the bottom end of the beach where the seasoned surfers hung out. The waves were higher here and the grockles couldn’t be bothered to walk down this far, so there weren’t any obese families stuffing their faces with chips and stubbing their cigarettes out in the sand.
Florence was good at surfing - of course - but in the end Harry had more stamina. She lay on her towel watching him, until eventually he had to admit defeat. People thought surfing was just about standing on your board, but actually it was knackering - paddling out against the tide, using your upper body strength to stand up just at the right moment, then keeping your balance before wiping out.
There was nothing better than surfing exhaustion - it was an all-over tiredness, a combination of physical effort and being at the mercy of the elements: the sun, the water and the wind. Afterwards they lay side by side on the beach, then Florence rummaged in her bag and produced ham sandwiches and chocolate fridge cake that her mother had made. Later, they made their way back up the beach at the languorous pace of the truly relaxed, windswept and sun-kissed. As they reached the Carrs’ hut, Harry prayed she would want to come out again that evening.
‘Meet you for a drink later?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got to have supper with my grandmother. She’s had a bit of a shit time lately.’
‘Hey, you don’t have to explain,’ said Florence. ‘See you in the Ship about ten?’
Harry and Jane ate mushroom omelettes with salad and French bread at a little bistro table outside the hut. They agreed this was the best time of day, when the majority of people had gone home but the diehards were still enjoying the waves and the sand. Dogs ran round in ecstatic circles, kites fluttered in the evening breeze, plumes of smoke gave away people having barbecues.
‘You seem to be getting on well with Florence,’ commented Jane. ‘Considering you all used to go out of your way to avoid her like the plague.’
Harry grinned ruefully.
‘I don’t think it’s the same person. I think they swapped her. I think some other family’s got the Ginger Ninja.’
‘She’s certainly grown up,’ said Jane. ‘But be careful . . .’
‘Be careful?’ Harry frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Jane took a sip of her wine and decided she’d said too much. It was just a feeling she had. Feminine intuition. A sense that Florence was enjoying being admired by Harry, because you’d have to be blind not to see his infatuation. And she felt very protective of her grandson. A grandmother wasn’t supposed to have favourites, but how could Harry not be her favourite, with his easy charm and affectionate nature? He’d stayed on this week specially to keep her company, because he was worried about her. Not many eighteen-year-old boys would worry about their grandmother like that.
She wasn’t going to voice her concern, though.
‘Oh, just ignore me,’ she told him. ‘I suppose I’m feeling a bit . . .’
She waved a hand in the air to indicate a general lack of oneness with the world. He reached over and touched her arm.
‘You’ll be OK,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll all look after you.’
Jane didn’t want to be looked after. She didn’t want to rely on her family for anything more than wonderful moments like this. She didn’t want to be a burden. She wanted to be a pleasure that could be picked up and put down, dictated to by nothing more than the seasons - Christmas, Easter, birthdays, the summer. She felt a little burst of anger again at her predicament. Bloody Graham, she thought for the millionth time. Spoiling everything like this for everyone.
She smiled over at Harry. He was obviously anxious to go and meet Florence again, but was too polite to say so.
‘Off you go,’ she said. ‘I’ll wash up.’
As she watched him go, she said a little prayer for his heart. Such a fragile thing, that organ that ruled your physical being.
Tonight was just dancing at the Ship. No bands, just a DJ blasting out funk and disco from the seventies. Florence looked like an angel in a floaty white dress spattered with white sequins that set off her tan. It was hot and they both drank too much, becoming woozy from booze and the day’s exertion. They held onto each other as the DJ slowed the music down. Harry recognised Barry White. Another of his mother’s blasts from the past. But you couldn’t argue with it. You couldn’t dance to it with another person and not want to get closer to them. The gravelly voice and the relentlessly throbbing beat took you over. Their eyes were locked. He went to kiss her but she shook her head, pulling him through the sweating hordes and out of the door, leading him back down to the beach, down behind the huts where it was dark, and sheltered from the wind, and no one could see you.
Now she was kissing him. He was touching her golden skin with his fingertips. Weaving his fingers through that mass of curls. She tasted wonderful - sweet but salty. She ran her tongue ring over his top lip and he shivered. He slipped his hands under the flimsy cotton of her dress, ran his hands up her body until he felt her breasts. She arched her back and pushed them into his palms, welcoming his touch. Her nipples were hard.
He was hard.
‘Fuck me, Harry,’ she whispered hoarsely in his ear.
Normally, he wouldn’t need telling twice. But he didn’t want it to be like this. A seedy shag up against the back of a beach hut? This was his first true love, a woman he was in awe of. A woman he revered. He wanted to undress her slowly on a bed, feast his eyes on her beauty, make proper love to her, make it a night she would never forget.
‘I don’t want to do it here,’ he told her.
‘Come on,’ she goaded him, tugging at his belt with one hand and feeling his cock with her other. He groaned. This was the most exquisite torture.
With a mighty effort of will, he pulled away.
‘Call me weird,’ he said, ‘but I’d rather do it somewhere . . . comfortable. I’m not really into al fresco sex.’
She pulled away from him, frowning. He sensed a sudden change in her mood. A sulkiness.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to . . .’
‘You
don’t
want to.’ She smiled, but her eyes narrowed. ‘If you don’t fancy me, just say.’
‘Fancy you? Of course I fancy you. Florence, I . . .’
He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say he loved her. He’d sound such an idiot. He’d barely known her twenty-four hours. Well, he’d known her for years, strictly speaking, but not
this
Florence, this bewitching creature that had him losing sleep, his appetite, his bloody mind . . .
‘Fine.’ She started adjusting her clothing, covering herself back up. That electric skin, those softly firm breasts.
‘Listen,’ he said urgently. ‘Tomorrow . . .’
She put her hands on her hips.
‘Tomorrow’s the sandcastle competition.’ Clearly, in her mind, a sandcastle competition and a lovers’ tryst were mutually exclusive. ‘You are going to help me, aren’t you?’
‘Of course . . .’
Any excuse to spend more time with her.
‘Good. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She walked away from him, back towards her hut, her head held high and her shoulders back, clearly still smarting from his reluctance. If she only knew.
He went to bed that night in despair. He could smell her on him, the scent of burnt oranges. He didn’t think he would sleep, but he did, and when he did, he had troubled, mixed-up dreams filled with her face, her voice, her very essence. He woke at four o’clock with a shout, and was appalled to find tears on his face. He thought he might be going mad.
The next day he woke with resolve. He got dressed quickly and walked up the beach and into the village to the tourist office. He knew they kept a list of hotels and guest houses that had vacancies, because his family often referred friends there when they came down to stay. The helpful assistant printed him out a list. He quickly dismissed the top three establishments as too old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, but the fourth, a bed and breakfast called Beachcombers, described itself as ‘fresh and funky, a romantic getaway with a luxury edge - wi-fi, white linen and breathtaking views’.
He walked along the esplanade until he found it - an old Edwardian villa on the front that had been given a total makeover, with seagrass flooring, ice-cream-coloured walls and unframed canvases. The owner was a willowy surfer-chick with a friendly smile who didn’t look at him askance when he asked to see the room they had available.
It was small but perfect, painted in turquoise and white, with a tiny little balcony framed by voile curtains. Harry’s heart thumped as he booked it.
‘Just for one night,’ he told the owner. ‘It’s a surprise for my girlfriend.’