Lucy in the Sky

volume down.
    ‘It’s okay, I like it,’ I say, and turn it back up. After a minute or so, the stirring strains of The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ fill the car. ‘ Great song…What is this album?’
    Nathan reaches across me and opens the glovebox. Several cassettes tumble down and almost fall out. He grabs for one, looking back up to keep an eye on the road and slams the glovebox shut, grazing my bare knee with his hand and making me feel light-headed. He passes me the cassette case. It’s still quite dark outside and I can barely see so I switch on the overhead light.
    ‘Do you mind?’ I ask.
    ‘Course not.’ Messy handwritten scrawl lists about twenty band names and songs, some of which I recognise, and one or two which I don’t. Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Powderfinger, Blur…
    He’s got my taste in music, which makes a nice change from James, who usually has house beats blasting out of the stereo.
    ‘I’d love a copy of this,’ I say. ‘Don’t suppose you have it on CD?’
    ‘Nah.’ He grins.
    ‘iPod?’
    ‘Nope,’ he replies cheerfully.
    Oh, well, never mind.
    ‘How did you get my number?’ I ask after a moment.
    ‘Molly keeps her address book by the phone in the kitchen. I checked before I left yesterday morning.’
    So, he was still thinking of me when he woke up.
    ‘What time did you leave?’
    ‘I think it must’ve been about seven. I felt like shit all day,’ he replies.
    ‘I told you the vodka was a bad idea but you wouldn’t have it!’
    ‘Good night, though, hey?’
    I nod my agreement. ‘Good night.’
    Soon we’re at the beach. It’s 6.30, the air is cool and it’s getting lighter with every minute that passes. We climb out and Nathan unstraps his red and white surfboard from the station wagon roof and props it up against the car before getting a large blue boogie board out of the boot. I wonder if that belongs to Amy too. I don’t want to ask. He hands me her wetsuit. It looks tiny but they’re supposed to stretch, aren’t they?
    Across the other side of the road there’s a small wind shelter and I tell him I’m going over there to change. I don’t really welcome the idea of him watching me try to squeeze into Amy’s wetsuit.
    It’s tight, but it fits. Just. Nathan appears after a few minutes, already kitted out.
    Apart from a few surfers I can just make out down the other end, the beach is deserted. We pad across the cool, damp sand towards the surf. The ocean looks calmer and the waves aren’t nearly as big as they were the other day.
    ‘Thanks for bringing this for me.’ I motion to the boogie board under my arm.
    ‘I came by the beach earlier and the conditions aren’t ideal but you’ll be alright on that,’ he replies.
    ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at surfing properly.’
    ‘Yeah, you would,’ he tells me. ‘But it takes time and I just thought, as you’re not here for long…’
    I suddenly feel downcast. If you were going to teach me to surf, I wouldn’t mind using the rest of my holiday to do just that. But of course Nathan’s got better things to do. It occurs to me for a horrible moment that he might just see me as a big-sister type. There’s a very real and distinct possibility that he’d be appalled if he knew what I’ve been thinking about him.
    ‘You ready?’ he asks, snapping me out of my nasty thought as we reach the water’s edge and he attaches his ankle strap. His surfboard stands tall–taller than him.
    I squeal as a wave crashes against my feet. ‘It’s freezing!’
    Nathan laughs. ‘Do you want to sit this one out?’
    ‘Yeah, I think I might, actually.’
    I back up a little and watch as he strides into the water, pushing away from the beach on his surfboard before lying flat and paddling overarm. A wave comes and he ducks down, manoeuvring his board right through it before coming out the other side and paddling further out.
    Soon he lifts himself easily up onto his board and straddles it, sitting there bobbing for a while until a decent wave comes andhe flips his board around and starts paddling fiercely towards the shore. Then he’s up and riding it, surfboard whizzing up almost vertically for a split second before it cuts back down, slicing through the crest of the wave. He rides it in towards the shore and then stands fully upright for a second before slowly sinking down into the water.
    ‘You ready?’ he calls, flicking his just-below-jaw-length wet hair back out of his eyes. God,