One Perfect Summer

bastard,’ I mouth at Joe. He laughs and carries on pulling a pint.
    ‘What? Don’t you know that one?’ Mum asks me wryly.
    ‘No. Happy now?’
    She raises her eyebrows. ‘I suppose so.’
    Today felt like one of the longest days of my life. Mum worked and I sat around trying, but failing, to get into my university reading. All I could think about was seeing Joe again. I would have gone to the pub at lunchtime if I hadn’t thought I’d look desperate.
    ‘Ladies and gents, we’re just going to take a short break and we’ll resume in a minute,’ Joe’s mum tells us in a thick West Country accent. Strangely, Joe may have been brought up around here, but his accent isn’t nearly as broad as his parents’.
    ‘I’m going to nip to the loo. Do you want another on my way back?’ Mum indicates my drink.
    ‘Sure.’
    I scan my quiz sheet to check my answers.
    ‘Alright?’
    With a start, I look up to see Joe standing there.
    ‘Budge up.’ He nudges me so I shift along the bench seat.
    ‘ Big Brother ?’ I ask him with a raised eyebrow.
    ‘I had to resort to internet research. Wait until you get to the question about Pop Idol .’
    I groan comically and he laughs. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’
    ‘Nothing,’ I reply hopefully.
    ‘Want to go to Corfe Castle with me?’
    Is this a date ?
    ‘Sure!’
    ‘There’s a bus stop at the end of the road. We can catch the bus to Swanage and then take the train to Corfe Castle.’
    ‘Is this the steam train?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I could drive us to Swanage, if you like? I could borrow Mum’s car.’
    ‘In that case, you could drive us to Corfe Castle.’
    ‘Where’s the fun in that? I want to take the train . . .’
    ‘Actually, me too.’
    ‘JOE!’ his mum barks from the bar.
    ‘Coming,’ Joe replies wearily. ‘Catch you later.’ He’s about to walk off, but then he stops suddenly and bends down to whisper in my ear: ‘The answer is Darius Danesh.’
    He gives me a meaningful look, his dark eyes still managing to sparkle in the dim lighting. Then he’s gone.
    Mum returns with a fresh round.
    ‘Thanks,’ I say, taking a sip of my drink.
    ‘What are you smiling about?’ she asks with a knowing look.
    ‘Nothing,’ I reply breezily.
    ‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain someone behind the bar, would it?’
    ‘Cut it out, Mum.’
    She giggles, annoyingly, then her brow furrows with curiosity. ‘Looks like his mother is giving him a bit of a talking-to.’
    My eyes dart towards the bar and at that moment both Joe and his mum look at me. Joe quickly averts his gaze, but his mother gives me a cold, hard stare. A bad feeling washes over me, and before I know it she’s storming over to our table.
    ‘You’re cheating!’ she accuses me.
    ‘No, she’s not!’ Mum scoffs on my behalf.
    ‘My son says she helped him come up with the questions!’
    I realise with horror that the bar has fallen silent and everyone is watching this exchange. It’s at times like these that I could do with my old friend the Pterodactyl. Joe rushes over to join us.
    ‘She didn’t help me with the questions,’ he says. ‘She just knows a lot of the same stuff as me. And look . . .’ He grabs my quiz sheet. ‘See? She didn’t know the Big Brother one.’
    ‘Sandy! Even I know that!’ a drunken man shouts out from the table next to us. His laughs are silenced by the look Joe’s mum gives him. She snatches my sheet from Joe and then challenges me with a new question:
    ‘Which band plays the song over the opening credits of The Royle Family ?’
    I grimace before answering truthfully: ‘Oasis. “Half the World Away”.’
    ‘See? She even got the extra point by knowing the title! She’s a cheat!’
    ‘No!’ I shout. ‘I just know that one! He’s right, we have the same taste.’
    ‘Well, if you’ve got the same taste, you won’t know this; Joe can’t stand the bleedin’ show.’ She takes a deep breath and then speaks loudly so the whole pub can hear. ‘Who came third in the first series of Pop Idol ?’
    ‘Um . . .’ My eyes dart towards Joe. He looks panicked. ‘I don’t know,’ I reply.
    ‘You’re lying,’ she sneers, drawing her lips, plastered with salmon-coloured lipstick, into a thin line. ‘You’re out of the quiz.’
    ‘That’s not fair!’ Mum exclaims.
    ‘No, it’s fine,’ I reply tersely. ‘I’ll sit the rest out.’
    ‘She’s not cheating!’ Joe defends me, but I can see he’s not going to convince