Sandi Burrill and the Beach of Flames (Teen Edition)

By Dominic Jericho

This is a fiery novel about the experience of teen lesbian love in a small seaside town amid a languorous summer in the upper-sixth. Fans of Melvin Burgess, Judy Blume and Amanda Hocking will love this book.
With one year remaining of sixth-form a tragic beach accident strikes the heart of a close-knit group of teenagers, killing two of their dear friends. As they attempt to come to terms with the grief for their loss, political forces threaten to claim and overrun their town, destroying the places and sanctuaries the group frequents.

Determined to withstand any attempts to further fling their friendships apart, the small group closes ranks and vows revenge. When two of the teens, Sandi Burrill and Cherry Trove, fall hopelessly in love with each other, the flames of their passion ignites their independence but overwhelms their understanding. Neither girl is aware how fraught with danger and peril their love will become. When Cherry's brother is accused of raping Sandi's sister, a local councillor's wife Jonquil Davis plots to split the couple, and drive the Burrills away from Amberleigh.

As details begin to emerge that the tragedy was not accidental but a serious crime, it becomes clear where Conservative power-brokers in the town will look to assign the blame. Amid the confusion of the subsequent police investigation, one question looms: will Sandi and Cherry's love survive their remaining tenure in Amberleigh, and the power of political force?

At once a deeply told love story and a coruscating comment on British politics, Sandi Burrill and the Beach of Flames presents a searing portrait of a community on the brink, and eloquently explores the desperation of teenage love trapped by a forbidding and uncontrollable environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dominic Jericho
• Release date: Sep 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463662045

Dominic Jericho

Dominic Jericho is a writer of young adult fiction. He's been writing stories since before he was a teen himself. He started with a pencil on a scruffy notepad before rapidly buying up multiple packs of empty exercise books so he could fill them with ideas, lists, concepts and illustrations. He now writes all his novels on a shiny new laptop, which unfortunately has the annoying distraction of an internet connection.Dominic lives in the South East of England.You can keep up to date with Dominic’s writing by visiting and following his blog. The blog is stuffed full of interesting book-related reading lists, reviews and lovingly flawed interpretations of literary classics. Visit now at: https://dominicjericho.wordpress.com/

Book preview

Stone Circle

Waves tore at the sides of the boat like fatal impostors, like threatening flames, like tongues of fire. Two pairs of hands clung onto the only rope available in the silver dinghy as it rode and bounced the deep waves of the North Sea. The wind whistled around them like a lasso – a cacophony of shrill and sudden whooshes. Combined with the bass rumbling from below, the sound underlined the familiar watery terror facing them both.

The night had fallen fast, much like that same night over a decade ago. Amid moving planes of vast cloud Robin spotted blinking stars. In her mind she drew the constellations. A sheet of icy rain fell upon her cold face but she brushed aside the water with ease. She was used to it. Her lank hair fell about her sodden face, framing it with two brown curls. Watching the sky, she saw the faint moon disappear behind another cloud, the persistent downpour from the heavens continue, and she smiled.

Flambeau was at the back of the boat, negotiating a path through the fleeting storm. As water gushed in from the port side he casually flicked a pump with his foot and the couple of inches that had already built up quickly dissipated back into the open sea. With a majestic one-handed motion he pulled on the motor string and the dinghy lurched forward like a tiger, rising up over a steep wave and out into calm, blue and twilit sea.

After an hour Flambeau turned the motor down and steered the boat into a narrow fissure between the stone cliffs. As the dinghy trilled in the slender stream, the faint engine hum echoed from the cavern ceiling. Although equally cold, here it was also quiet. Asleep at the front, Robin allowed the familiar damp smell and squawking sound of local seagulls to wake her. They had arrived.

*

Olive Spritser sat amid tall grasses growing from the lilting dune. The sound of sea caressing shore felt subtle foreplay to the way she stroked Benjamin Sprite’s neck. For twenty minutes they avidly kissed, Olive’s lips twice getting caught between Benjamin’s teeth. She had not screamed or exclaimed. Benjamin’s thin, muscular arm attempted to grasp the essence of Olive, but the girl’s submissive force had gained control.

She poised her hips, rubbing them against Benjamin’s with glee until he ceased pushing her hand away each time she went for his belt. As the buckle unfastened, the tension of a whole year’s studying seemed to release. The pair accelerated their lustful game. Olive’s hand rushed through Benjamin’s fair, ruffled hair. Benjamin raised his knee slightly, surrendering to Olive more leverage with which to mount him.

Olive’s own jeans were decorously and dangerously adorned. A three-inch wide belt slung round her waist. Fastened by a purple clasp, its rim was crusted with metallic glitter. Benjamin scrabbled at it with thick fingers. It stuck firm, such was the complexity and tightness of its fixing to Olive. Instead he tried for beneath the back of her black lycra top. Here he discovered success, grasping the hinge of her brassiere and deftly undoing one of the two hooks.

‘It’s all in my hands now,’ he whispered into Olive’s gold hooped earring, allowing the bra to disassemble between his fingers. Moving his hands to the front, Olive leapt back and raised her voice for the first time.

‘Bloody hell Benjy – your hands are fucking cold!’

Benjamin grinned. Rubbing his hands together for heat, he reinserted them under Olive’s tailored yet accommodating top, and allowed her contented sigh to smother him like a blanket.

*

Five hundred golden shards of glass scattered dazzling rays of light across the room. The bright mirror ball spun gently from the modest lounge’s ceiling. It lit in buttergold light the drunken revellers: chatting, singing, resisting their lips and then yielding in time to the pumping stereo.

On an arm of a brown leather sofa perched a warm-faced eighteen-year old girl. Blonde streaks ran through her caramel hair. Amanita Walmer chatted furiously to a young man on the opposite arm, a tall, lanky lad bearing mischievous sparkles in his expression. Between Timothy Gaunt and Amanita sat another young man. He remained silent, his only concession to the conversation the odd foot tap in time to the music.

‘Another drink?’

Sandi cooed into the belly of the sofa. Three arms expectant arms extended glasses in unison. Their refills would be an exotic yet potent punch Sandi’s mother had prepared for her daughter’s eighteenth birthday.

‘Great party!’ Amanita gushed. ‘Love the decorations!’

‘Thanks!’

Sandi felt pleased someone acknowledged the effort she and her sister Mercy had gone to. They had spent the entire afternoon adorning the lounge for their beloved friends. Gold and silver ribbons hung from the walls and white fairy lights draped every picture on the wall, transforming the room to a twinkling grotto.

‘How about you Tim? Having a good time?’

Languidly turning his head Tim nodded, gazing at Sandi up and down. She wore what seemed to be a glorified nightie. A silver dress, all one piece that finished somewhere above her thighs. Her silver gloss lips rippled in glittering light. Danny lifted his head also, gazing into her eyes. He recalled the plenitude of memories he’d shared with her, from only two years acquaintance. Auschwitz, Burnett mountain, hypnosis. Brownleaf beach, Gatwick airport and the sixth-form bar they reluctantly left at closing time that evening before making their way to her house.

‘Sandrhina – you look positively chic!’

Danny beamed, releasing a smile that flooded Sandi with warmth. She looked down at Danny and reached for his hand, pulling him up off the sofa and into her arms. She hugged him tightly.

‘Danny – I’m so glad you’re here. This year is going to be much better, for you and for me.’

Danny reluctantly withdrew from her tender embrace. He glanced into her eyes which reflected the living room: the dancing mirror ball, the lustful frivolities of Dawn Russet and Michael Vitus behind him, the drunken attempts of Brandon Wood and Benjamin Sprite to insert a pornographic DVD into the player.

‘I wouldn’t count on it, but thank you for the sentiment all the same,’ Danny replied without missing a beat. ‘You’ll be a gorgeous eighteen-year old.’

Sandi grinned and embraced him again.

*

The dew from the morning rain shower clung to riotous green grass. A man watching from the aperture that formed a makeshift window saw how single drops claimed each blade, finding a alternative route to the bottom than the one before it. Down the edge of the apex, along the root, skating down the safe flatness. Some twirled around the grass, twisting and turning into a dance between air and stem until finally consumed by damp earth.

With deliberate movement the grey haired man slowly poured olive fluid into the fragile test-tube. It filled too quickly. Twice today he already burnt clumsy fingers on the deceptively flammable fluid. Water cascaded down gutters outside. It had not ceased raining since the end of the previous day. The metal half tubes shook with the weight of the downpour. The waiting never stopped. Sometimes he wished he could end it all, return to the start and choose a different, more sanguine path. But it was impossible. He had chosen his path and selected his route carefully. Dwelling upon times gone by was nostalgia simply for the sake of it. That time was dead.

Laughing lightly, a young girl walked in the room and glanced out the rain-spattered hole in the cliff-wall. There were fields all around here to play in, but not today. There was no chance of even taking a short walk. Somnolent-looking cows sheltered beneath leafy trees, unaware that occasional pourings of sweet rainwater on their irritated heads originated from the same leaves that gave shelter.

Robin looked at Olivio Flambeau. Sinking her chin into her arms, she gazed at him with soft eyes.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

Flambeau merely raised his eyebrows.

‘That we shall see…very shortly.’

*

The silver rainbow of the reflective disc was hastily inserted into the stereo a few minutes to midnight and Bryn Straw shouted for Sandi. This was her moment.

‘Come here birthday girl,’ he shouted and Sandi pirouetted towards the music, momentarily embracing everyone she could see, as Bryan Adams sang out the song that had been reserved for her coming-of-age.

Everyone was dancing. Amanita with Tim. Olive with Benjamin. Hazel with Mary. Liam Flicker with Ian Phalanger. Deeply inebriated, the flirty teenagers fell over each other in the small living room, and relished their morphing into sub-prime adulthood. It felt to Danny a dark cloud had lifted high in the sky as to become invisible. All the events of the past year, the search for Penny, the hopes of meeting Robin, the encounter with Flambeau; all the horrific colour had faded in the past month. It was as if Danny had sunk below the water line, blocking all sound, sight and anything that could remind he was alive. He didn’t want to remember or to feel. Memory was a demon who prosecuted the ultimate torture.

In the lamp lit corner of the room Richey Athurston relaxed in an armchair. Chatting to Squish Ambrose, the new groom, he glanced hesitantly at Danny. Cherry Trove rushed in the room, strawberry tequila threatening to spill from her conical cocktail glass. Half-heartedly she tried to pull Richey away from his conversation and into a slow dance to James Blunt’s Goodbye My Lover. Richey resisted, rolling his eyes to Squish when Cherry turned away.

Sandi danced alone, her eyes shut tight, euphoric as if in some blissful reverie. As Cherry’s flicked hips posed a question to the room, and raised male eyebrows, Danny instinctively held out his hand. He didn’t see how it had happened. One second she beckoned several boys to dance with her – Brandon Wood, Sol Castle, Charlie Shackleton, the next she flung her arms around Sandi’s neck and was revolving slowly beneath the glitterball with the birthday girl. The gleaming orb sent a thousand tiny golden reflections of the pair spiralling onto the languid adolescents who watched, simultaneously bemused and enchanted.

*

Charcoal embers flaked and burned at the centre of the stone circle. Grey wafts of woody smoke rose from the glowing hearth while a distant black tide hissed and soothed. A solitary ghetto blaster sang soaring rock melodies. Liam Flicker had built the fire earlier as a special birthday treat for Sandi. Now he stood before the flaming rage contained by rocks, wearing a cheerful grin on chiselled features.

‘Thought you’d like a little beach party to celebrate your birthday sunrise.’

Everyone ran past Danny on the beach to dance. Olive and Benjamin. Brandon, Charlie, Tim and Sol. Hazel, Sonia, Mary and Amanita. Richey, Michael and Edmund. Florence, Saffelia and Emily. Sandi and Cherry were last, tiptoeing onto the cold sand before joining the others, dancing around the fire as gleefully as if it were their golden mirror ball.

Danny sat on a stone and watched the scene for a few moments. He removed his socks and shoes. Like the rush of the oncoming tide, like a railroad truck emerging from a concealed tunnel, a revelation punctured his tired thoughts. These were his friends. Ever since he could remember these were the people who had grown up with him. No matter if they played on the opposite side of the playground; it didn’t really signify anything that they all lived in different, disparate parts of town. They were all one now. The way they exchanged banter, swapped jokes, held each other’s glances – it seemed nothing could separate their friendships.

As they frolicked by the flames, their eyes reflecting the dancing fire in the darkness of dusk, the realisation struck Danny one day he would miss these people. It was not the physical distance but the geography in lifestyles that would eventually divide their group. But he wanted to forget that for a moment. Throwing his socks into an amorphous bundle in one of his trainers he ran off across the sand and joined the others. They danced into the night. Their innocent, wasteful joy became an epiphany of their last moments of a golden summer together.

*

Let. Me. Out. Danny felt his thoughts would explode from his head if he didn’t find somewhere quiet to repose and express himself. Isolation never filled him with fears of loneliness. Unanimity was a warm blanket, always comforting in times of need. It need never let him go. Silence. Beauty. Complete mastery over one’s own environment. It was an unspoken and sacred joy that secretly visited Danny when he most needed it. The location didn’t matter. It used to be his bedroom. Then it was the Snowfall Grove. Now it was this small and dusty disused place. A minor miracle had led Wonder to show it them last year. Here he was again. In one of the highest pinnacles of Amberleigh Castle, inviting lofty thoughts to exit his teeming brain. Through the arched window he watched the usual crowd play on the beach. They were enjoying the last week before school resumed.

It would be a precipitous year.

The buffer of twelve whole months remaining before the final departure had mistakenly made them assume teenage revels would last an eternity. It had vanished, much like a sandstorm disappears in the ether of the ocean’s haze after it breezes its irritating purge through. An era of uncertainty was descending with alarming speed. Much like the sun as it meets the ocean’s edge, kissing its jasmine rim before the sea cruelly slices and subsumes it in a drop of water, this day was closing. The darkness of invisibility, and the annihilation of familiarity loomed.

It was so long ago now. He could barely remember. The only residing memory of her remained stuck in his head. He had been sitting in a pushchair, waiting to be wheeled round the shops. She had perched before him, tempting him with a purple liquid he now knew to be apple and blackcurrant squash. Memory didn’t preserve so much the specifics of her facial features, but the feeling of kindness and generosity that emanated from inside her core. That profound feeling now persisted in his own heart. It was encased with a fondness so tender he dare not admit it.

He reached the string to pull the arched window ajar, and allow in some air. The growing wind outside coursed through the gap. The pleasant rush felt like a terrier discovering new found freedom after being unleashed. It circulated and swam and skirted the dusty wooden floor as spiders and insects crawled into hiding places.

As Danny breathed he smelt the summer’s simultaneous dwindling, intermingling with the once distant autumn. Sea salt fused with the threat of damp rain. The slight chill refreshed after summer’s onslaught of blazing humidity. It was the hint of the oncoming cold, the bitterness of heat suddenly lost that communicated the relentless passage of time. Until the seasons once again decided to replace it, warmth was evaporating. Stressful, uneasy thoughts seeped from Danny’s mind. They flew away, far away from his berating conscience. Wisps of air carried Nature in the small room, lulling Danny with a pacifying absorption of worries. Here, they were just dim reminders of eternal cycles within a reassuringly uncaring universe. Here Danny was alone, isolated and unseen. Here, he was perfect.

*

Benjamin Sprite had been the one to suggest it. Slouched against the student bar, pouring himself a rum lemonade, Liam Flicker had looked into the ceiling and denounced all A-level examinations as instruments of torment. It preceded a confession to the group before him – Sandi, Cherry, Hazel, Danny, Olive and Benjamin – he had no idea how to study for the upcoming Religious Studies exam. Benjamin was also struggling. The demands of spending time on coursework was to be matched against time spent with Olive, a tantalising temptation to which he regularly succumbed. The following week they gathered at Sandi Burrill’s house for their first A-level study group.

Desire pours from every orifice of my being. I can feel it. I want to kiss her on the mouth in front of everyone, partly for the shock value, partly just to taste her lips. It is not enough just to watch her, waiting patiently for the delicate opportunity to present itself. Like a child sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for Father Christmas, I am now poised. Scouring, searching, evaluating every single syllable that drops from those precious lips like solid gold snowflakes. My words are nothing compared to the shapes her mouth makes, seductive power echos through her entire being, whispering the promise of sweet oblivion, the glorious consumption of thought, everything absorbed in one ascendant, sublime climax that would unite our souls permanently.

Danny gazed at the ceiling, allowing his thoughts to permeate dark secrets of his spirit. Everything was hidden, nothing on display. Here, he might be invisible. Here he might be a small cloud among many in a vast and airless sky. Nobody could see, feel or understand. Reaching him was beyond comprehension. He had suffered too much. Life was beginning but then again life was over. Why bother with examinations when the iceberg’s tip melted to reveal dramatic seascapes of sorrow. Sudden relief told Danny all the sadness ever experienced could forever be his.

Sandi skipped over. Taking his hand silently, she pulled him to his feet.

‘Dance with me Danny. I don’t want to think about the damn exams.’

As Manchester indie echoed from the speakers above, they waltzed slowly across the living room. In Danny’s bare and translucent arms Sandi felt like a glorious prize. In the corner a girl looked on jealously.

*

A photograph of a smiling family stood on the ochre mantelpiece. Sheltered beneath a dark acacia tree, rich dark green leaves threw their bright faces into stark shade. An older man, his fair hair thinning, gazed proudly down at a plump, pretty woman and two girls. One was thin with long flowing black hair. The other with shorter roast-toffee hair heaved a deep bosom even at sweet sixteen. Her face was unmistakeable. Sandi Burrill.

‘Mercy was born precisely two years to the day before me. Some people think that’s a bit freaky. My folks say it’s fate. She’s always been there for me. It’s not easy growing up, especially when lots of female hormones fly about, like wasps in summer. But I’ve never forgotten all the times she’s calmed me down and helped me through my difficulties. When a teacher tried it on with me at my last school. When I failed my first driving test. When I thought I’d never make anything of my life.’

‘Surely you never thought that?’

Danny was surprised. To him Sandi was a sexy teen superstar effervescing with assurance. She turned to look at him, pouring the glowing fire of wide irises into her gaze.

‘Of course I did. Doesn’t everyone?’

Danny tapped his foot in time to the tune from the stereo, something about a waterfall.

Sandi’s lilting chirp seemed to trickle through his brain, circling endlessly like an winding helter skelter.

‘It always seemed to me…I always thought I was the odd one out,’ Sandi gazed at Danny. ‘I was always too plump, too short, slightly too buxom for boys. I wear the fire engine lipstick as a disguise. It’s a protective measure because deep down I know I’m not pretty. I don’t feel confident without it.’

‘But you are!’ Danny oozed, resting his freckled fingers on her pale palm.

‘Thanks Danny. That’s sweet.’

Somewhere a bell clanged. Hazel and Cherry’s heads peered round the edge of the door.

‘Grub’s up!’ Hazel shouted,

Olive, Benjamin and Sandi proceeded into the kitchen, leaving a confused-looking Danny to pick up the lipstick Sandi had accidentally dropped.

*

Sweet cherry juice stained their teeth. Melting chunks of cocoa glistened in the chocolate brownies, offsetting the juice with endorphin-inducing glee. The Burrill recipe remained an unspoken surprise for those yet to taste their mystery. Cherry buzzed round the table like a bluebottle, flitting in and out of everyone’s conversation with manic paranoia.

Olive and Benjamin had not succeeded resisting their desire; textbooks had long been neglected on the arm of the couch. They had quickly fallen to the floor, along with their owners’ reserve. Cherry and Hazel sampled the brownies, savouring the rich indulgence of chocolate chips submerged like sunken treasures in the sticky cake. Olive and Benjamin were too busy tasting each other to notice. Sandi accidentally on purpose nudged Olive with her swaying hips, temporarily releasing them from their lustful reverie.

‘Food guys!’ Sandi uttered, winking at Benjamin who grinned back.

I want to feed her brownies. I want to rip her bra off her chest and suckle on those dainty nipples. I want her to place her hand on my dripping cunt and have her taste my own fragrant juice. I want to feed her brownies…

Danny grabbed a brownie and ran back to the living room. He didn’t want to miss the next song.

*

Mercy

I. Don’t. Want. To. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. So what if I want to go out all night and hang out with boys who smoke. So what if I want to lay in his lap, my mouth tantalisingly close to the vessel of his desire. So what if I go clubbing and dance all night til my body is ridden with sweat and I am completely and totally and utterly wasted. So what? So what if I let him kiss me on my chest, so what if I whisper sweet lies in his ear and then go off with someone else? There’s no-one here to stop me. So what if I want to fuck him and then run off and leave him in the middle of the night. He’d do the same to me no doubt. So what if I want to experiment with drugs, hashish, weed, ecstasy, THC? So what if I want to experiment with sex so what if I let him put something there just to see if it’ll get me off so what if I let him tongue me there and scream with utter delight so what if I experiment with girls so what if I want it backwards sideways on top underneath tangled up behind a bike shed? So what if I want to kiss her gently on the lips and let her tell me she loves me that she’ll never let me go ever until the day we both leave this earth forever. So what? I don’t want to. I. Don’t. Want. To.

*

‘I’m telling you Danny you’ve got to let her go. We’re in our prime now. You behave like the anguished anti-hero of the school. We’ve only got one more year so let’s not waste it dwelling on the past. There’s a whole life out there for us. We should be embracing it, man! Women, women, women! I’m telling you, you can do a lot better than the little girls who parade around this establishment thinking they’re cool because they’re allowed to wear fishnet tights and matt cream lipstick. I’m talking about real women! Women who have experience, wrinkles, a gaze more serious than giggly. When one of these women looks at you she won’t look away and laugh about you with her mates, she’ll just carrying on looking at you until you look away, or until you let her seduce you.’

Danny twisted his head to look at Tim.

‘It’s a big world out there mate,’ Tim said.

They walked side by side along Amberleigh beach. Golden sand stretched before them in a gentle arc, a sweeping bow delivering an arrow of tide. The restless sea advanced. It disturbed before departing, stranding grey-green pools amid jagged rocks. The sky could have been an artist’s palette. A mutable feast of vanilla and pale yellow shades criss-crossed a wild honey sea, filling the air with its tempest. It felt darker out there in the void of Amberleigh bay. Danny could sense the animosity. Autumn was coming, and Danny felt ill-prepared for what awaited.

Robin weaved in and out of his mind. She was still out there. Somewhere. The sighting before the summer had added proximity, even though he knew not where she was. Before, he could forget. Now, he would never. Chardelia’s death had removed from him something he could never replace. Robin’s absence implied a similar fate, both for him and her. But now it was confirmed. His own eyes had gazed into her steady rainbows with a surety he relived every night when he dreamed. Robin was alive.

Why was this the way he was built? To always be the reflective one, the one plagued with cascading thought. One after the other, until they piled into an oppressive torrent of dread, threatening obdurate collapse.

Seaweed washed ashore and wrapped itself round a nearby rock. A solitary vine clinged to stability before the unfaithful tide betrayed it again. The air hung rich with sea salt. Breathing in slowly, Danny nodded to Tim. He agreed life was all to play for, while secretly wishing he was up in the painted sky with Chardelia.

*

‘Come away.’

Her voice echoed like a lilting song.

‘Come with me.’

Benjamin stepped forward. Olive extended her leg and caught Benjamin’s heel, bringing him tumbling down on top of her.

‘Hello big boy!’ She greeted his arrival with a kiss.

Benjamin caressed Olive’s shortcake skin, and stroked her toffee hair. He allowed his tongue to linger on her bottom lip, as if coated with sugar. It was raspberry chapstick today, he was sure. Her body squeezed beneath his. An exhilaration long promised, only recently fulfilled, now felt anti-climactic.

Their first kiss had been a drunken fumble. Olive had been crying in the middle of the road after watching her cousins depart for Australia. There had been rumours, tiny gossips that Olive had become too friendly with Wayne, her male cousin two years older. Forbidden love that was never to be repeated, she told Benjamin later. As she stood, tears fell in the road’s shiny puddles. Benjamin allowed himself to hug her until the tears stopped and her sodden hair intermingled with his jacket. Olive had looked in his eyes, her pleading gaze generously inviting him to numb her from the pain. She was surprisingly warm to the touch. As she opened her mouth he felt the dual luxury of undeniable moisture and lubricating access. It symbolised the zenith of euphoric achievements for an insecure teenager. Acceptance.

Their lives had slowly intertwined like their young bodies. Benjamin visited her every Saturday after cricket practice. Olive bought him little presents. Bags of his favourite sweets, a new pair of wicket keepers gloves, a miniature rugby ball. Benjamin caressed with a tenderness hidden when he hurled a cricket ball with exponential speed towards the stumps.

It was a happy and joyful union. Both sets of parents looked on fondly. Benjamin was a sports hero. He wasn’t intending to go to university but stick around in Amberleigh and work in the local sports centre for a year, building his experience. Olive hadn’t made her mind up yet. She was considering Blackpool or Sussex for Psychology. Benjamin prayed it wasn’t Sussex. Surely that would mean the end of them? Friends could see love in both pairs of eyes, and wondered why they waited so long to find each other.

As Olive cradled Benjamin’s head in her lap she leant over and tickled beneath his arms until he laughed uncontrollably. A few passers-by glanced as the pair straddled each other on the park bench. Benjamin was oblivious. Olive gazed into his indigo eyes, stroking his muscular cheekbones.

‘Why wasn’t life this easy before?’ she asked, as a small magpie flew between two trees.

‘It was,’ Benjamin said. ‘We just didn’t realise until now.’

He winked, before they both fell into a set of giggles. Their lusty sound drowned out passing traffic and dissonant thoughts that could disrupt their happy kisses.

*

Amberleigh Abbey remained a secret hidden to most residents. From a distance you could believe it was complete and still a fully functioning church. Close up the gothic beauty of its romantic ruins overwhelmed. Carpets of grass stretched between rising stone walls that reached for heaven. Years of weathering had left it with no roof other than God’s own. The Abbey stood obstinately on a patch of earth a few hundred yards from a cliff edge which accommodated the North Sea’s frequent crashes and erosions. With no discernible road leading to the ruins, the Abbey was sheltered from casual intruders and irresponsible vandals, apart from the odd seagull flying in off broad sea winds. Clumps of trees rose either side of the Abbey before the forest descended toward Amberleigh town, offering no indication of the architectural treasure they hid on the other side.

It was a two hour walk at least to the spot known as ‘Plunket’s pulpit’. At the pulpit, a sudden gap in the tree cover overlooking a high rock, walkers enjoyed stunning vistas over the Abbey to the forest beyond and the vast, rock-shattering sea.

Mercy Burrill stood on the broken stump and gazed at the verdant wetness. It calmed the soul, seeing this place again. A small notebook rested at her feet. A handmade pencil poked beneath white parchment. It was the hesitancy, the unwanted silence when she had asked him the question, that planted a creeping doubt in her mind. It had taken root, like a weed. Now it grew with the rapidity of her breathing during last night’s intercourse. Brazil Trove, known to his friends as Razzy, had surged with the adrenaline of two month’s sexual abstinence. As the headboard banged against the wall, Mercy had screamed out her namesake. Tingling pleasure spilled from the tip of her clitoris to the extremities of her fingers, toes and neck. Razzy continued until her exclamations dyed into barely audible squeaks, akin to a plunging dolphin, and he erupted inside her like a waterfall breaking through a dam wall.

Thinking of it, Mercy heard the small waterfall as it trickled through Amberleigh’s cliffs, absorbed by the trees, falling to the sea. They had cuddled for five minutes. Mercy had gazed in his eyes with little subtlety but it was his abrupt departure from the bedroom to make tea and toast that gave her pause for thought. The cuddles were getting shorter.

She pushed the end of her pencil on the page and began to compose a poem. Something that would give precise articulation to her feelings. To permit her mind to relieve and release itself of responsibility. Thunderously ominous thoughts spilled out, into the infinitely dense space.

*

It was DVD night at Cherry’s. The thick summer air had subsided and a lighter breeze with its autumnal bite flowed in off the coast. Danny pulled his black cardigan across his shoulders, kicking the front door of Dunkinley shut as he left for a relaxing Saturday night. It had been three weeks since Richey Athurston had publicly announced his split from Cherry. Danny had bought an extra bottle of aftershave that afternoon.

The swirling lights of Shox erupted on the cobbles as Danny meandered through skimpily clad women and police patrolling the streets. He nodded to Sergeant Lombard as he passed him. Lombard was trying to help a drunken girl up off the floor after one too many Bacardi breezers.

Shox. That had been the scene of the infamous betrayal, nearly a year ago. How times change, Danny reflected. Now he was marching to her house, wearing an intent and purpose he hadn’t felt since the pursuit of Robin. Perhaps there might be some way to snatch a little joy and satisfaction from the year before it concluded with damp Autumn and the bitterness of a cold Christmas.

Tim Gaunt stood erect on the top platform of the Amberleigh fountain, stopping one of the hoses with his right foot.

‘I’m gonna fuck a little missy tonight if it kills me. Damn it, Danny. I got to gets me a woman!’ Tim shouted.

A few passing girls giggled at the sight of him.

‘Since when did you turn into a boyz from the hood?’ Danny called up at Tim.

Knees bent and arms splayed, Tim jumped down and landed beside Danny with uncharacteristic finesse, splashing water on Danny’s jeans.

‘Sorry about the water, fella. Feet got a little wet.’

Danny rolled his eyes and marched off. He remembered the idiom. He wouldn’t mind getting his feet wet too.

A historic market town by day, Amberleigh’s charm was transformed to a raving hub of hedonistic debauchery by night. Danny never ceased to be amazed by the metamorphosis, activated as soon as sun fell. Tonight their destination lay elsewhere. Danny walked the steep steps leading up the old part of the town. Cherry’s parents owned a deluxe town house here.

‘Damn I’ve got something in my shoe,’ Tim complained as they fell through the metal gate.

Throbbing music sounded within and Danny knew he’d reached the right house. Silhouetted figures danced through the window, intermingling with occasional light inside. Danny saw Sandi’s voluptuous contour pirouette to the arms of a fellow dancer. His pulse skipped a beat like a record player’s pin missing the track’s groove.

‘I thought it was DVD night.’

‘You know how girls like to dance.’

Tim still shook his foot as if his toes were possessed.

Inside Cherry’s house walnut veneers gleamed everywhere. Around the picture frames of the happy family in the cream hallway; bolstering the three piece suite in the beige lounge; the sturdy table