Stonemouth

They sat close, on towels, her hair still glistening darkly. Ellie and Josh were sort of going out. Only sort of; goss had it they weren’t actually doing it, probably because Ellie was holding off. She was widely believed still to be a virgin: an unusual, even eccentric choice for a pretty girl in our circle, never mind somebody with a credible claim to being the most ravishingly gorgeous young woman in town. But this was the girl Josh had asked out and actually stuck with, and without even asking me: teach me to worship from afar and not actually tell any of my pals I thought she might be The One, for fear of the inevitable scorn.

Ellie. Of all people. I mean, for fuck’s sake.

Josh was handsome in a Daniel Craig way (not that DC had become the new Bond at this point — it was Ferg who pointed out the similarity a couple of years later); it was gnawingly frustrating for me to see the two of them sitting close like that, laughing quietly together, especially as they looked made for each other. They’d been together all the summer so far and just looked relaxed and easy in each other’s company.

Fuck it, she was supposed to be mine! I’d hardly talked to her, barely touched her — a handshake, once; a brush of cheek against cheek at her birthday earlier that year, and a few formal hugs, the ones where you only sort of hug from the shoulders and exchange light pats on the back, so you’re lucky if you even feel any press of breast against your chest. (Still, I breathed in the exquisite smell of her each time, filling my lungs with her scent, keeping it in until I felt dizzy with the trapped force of it.)

This was when we were all supposed to be at our most free, wasn’t it? Between school and the rest of our lives. Everything was meant to be fluid, all sorts of experimentation was supposed to be indulged. I was young, smart, good-looking. I had green eyes before which women tended to melt. (Not claiming any moral superiority or anything here, just stating a fact.) I deserved at least a sporting chance to capture the girl, and now, this summer, ought to be my best shot, but I wasn’t being allowed; Ellie and Josh looked like a done deal.

I couldn’t believe life could be so unfair.

Even the adults were in on this and had opinions about it; Ellie and Josh were practically public property. I mean, Mum knew Josh; she taught him at school, but this was more than that; even my dad knew.

‘Aye, I’ve heard. Could be a good thing,’ he said, over the Sunday dinner table, after I’d mentioned something about the happy couple. Mum looked at Dad. He shrugged. ‘Dynastic marriage, kinda thing,’ he told her. Mum looked distinctly sceptical. ‘Two important families in the town,’ he went on defensively. ‘Nobody’s interest to have them at each other’s throats. Alliance like this, this generation getting… What?’

It looked like one of those frustrating moments when something passed between Mum and Dad that I still couldn’t read. Mum might have shaken her head, just very slightly. Dad made a tiny grunting noise. They changed the subject, swiftly.

Meanwhile: Marriage? I was thinking, horrified. Who the fuck said anything about fucking marriage?

And later, from the kitchen, I overheard Dad saying, ‘… Mike best pleased …’

Mum said, ‘Parents often don’t, especially dads. Trust me, hon; teachers… sometimes before the kid does themself.’

Dear God, Ellie was beautiful. Firelight on a beach under the stars will improve pretty much anybody’s looks, obviously, but even so, the girl was just startlingly beautiful: eye-wideningly beautiful; breath-sucked-out-of-you beautiful; the kind of beautiful that can make a grown artist weep because you know you will never, ever quite capture the full, boundless totality of it, that it will always lie beyond you, no matter how closely you look or how well you attempt to express it, in any medium known to humankind.

That sculpted, bounteous, quietly smiling face, those cheekbones, those wide dark eyes, and those lips; even her nostrils and ears, all those sweet dark curled spaces and perfectly scrolled and rounded edges of exquisitely smooth, honey-hued skin, turning inwards.

There were times when Ellie looked like some ethereal Scandinavian goddess, others — especially in certain lights, her tan skin against a pale background and her hair water-dark — when she took on something that had to be from her mother, who’d come from a Roma family: a startling, earthy, gypsy look. It was a bewildering, almost contradictory mix of appearances, sometimes flipping from one to another almost as instantly as in one of those perception tests where one second you see the outline of a vase, the next you’re looking at two faces in silhouette.

I felt I was about to start moaning or something, if I hadn’t inadvertently already, so I looked away.

Ferg was lying, gazing at me, an odd expression on his face. He turned his head languorously, taking in the handsome huddle that was Josh and Ellie, then looked back at me.