Cruel Summer (2 page)

Ryan laughed. ‘
So
not a good look. Maybe you’re right.’ He wanted the reunion to be a touching, heartfelt comedy, but since they’d left the hypermarket at the
airport he’d had an odd
displaced
feeling – a sense of being lost. The bright lights of Madrid were far, far behind and Katie seemed to be driving them into oblivion.

He tried to shake it off. Unsolved mysteries had always bothered Ryan. That feeling of something you’ve forgotten to do – the weird panic in the night that you’ve left the oven
on, or neglected to pay a bill. That was how he felt constantly about their dead friend. Things just didn’t add up. ‘You know, I miss her, though.’

‘Oh, God, I do too!’ Katie conceded. She tucked an escaped auburn curl behind her ear.

Ryan smiled. ‘Do you remember those plays we used to put on?’

‘For your poor mum? Gosh they were terrible!’ The car passed through what looked like orange groves. The crickets were out in full force – a cacophony. It took Ryan a moment to
realise the shadowy triangles darting among the trees were bats, not birds.

‘Do you remember how I was always called David? I always wanted to be called David. What a lame-arse character name! You’d think I’d have been more creative. Something like
Javier or Storm would have been better.’

Katie laughed, cloudy eyed on memory lane. ‘Janey and I were always twins. We were obsessed with
Sweet Valley High
. I was the good girl and she was the evil twin . . . what did we
call ourselves?’

‘Shana and Lana!’ Ryan cackled. ‘Do you want to know a secret? I always longed to be Dana!’

Katie laughed so hard, she almost hit a stray dog in the middle of the road. She stood on the brakes and swerved around it. ‘Oh, my God! He came out of nowhere!’

Ryan took his feet down and steadied himself on the dashboard.

Katie gave his thigh a pat. ‘I missed
you
this year, Ry.’

‘I know. That old-school, romantic letter-writing thing never really worked, did it? But, after what happened . . . some serious drifting was probably inevitable.’

Katie adopted the ropey Californian accent she’d used in their old plays. ‘Dana, promise me we’ll never drift apart again.’

‘I promise, Lana.’ He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. He’d missed her too, but things were different now. There was a question mark looming large over last
summer. Loose plot ends that needed tying up. Viewers had been waiting on tenterhooks for a whole year. In TV you can’t leave loose ends; everything has to be resolved or you end up with a
mess like
Lost.

What really happened to Janey Bradshaw?
Ryan had to confess that, although he’d been dying to catch up with the gang, part of the reason he’d agreed to the holiday had been
to try to clear up the niggles he felt over Janey’s death. He just wanted some answers. Ryan didn’t believe for a second that Janey Bradshaw had killed herself.

SCENE 2 – RYAN

R
yan’s favourite time of day was about nine in the morning. He’d woken ahead of Katie and was glad of the time to himself. He was
vile
before a cup of coffee and a shower – as Katie was already well aware from years of witnessing his early-morning post-sleepover hissy fits. A cool, wake-up breeze rolled in off
the sea and he pulled the blanket around his shoulders but, without a cloud in the sky, it was going to be a scorcher. That was what he liked best of all – the promise of the day ahead;
anything could happen. Anything except rain, by the looks of it.

He took in a deep breath of holiday: sun cream, ocean breeze and a trace of seaweed. Ryan loved it. One whiff and a million childhood memories came flooding back. If only you could stay young
forever, Ryan thought, pulling his knees up to his chest. If only last year hadn’t happened.

Ryan ran a hand through his off-blond curls, longer than they’d ever been before. His hairdresser – some tattooed bear in a Manchester salon with a ring through his nose – had
convinced him to grow it out a little: ‘Michelangelo style, like David’ apparently. He messed it up further. Might as well go for beachy – they were on the beach, after all.

It was quite the setting, Ryan had to admit. Katie’s dad had great taste. Everything as far as the eye could see was turquoise and white like a photo in some high-end holiday brochure.
White walls, white sand, white tiles. Blue sea, blue sky, blue infinity pool seeping over the horizon. Everything was stacked in perfect horizontal stripes: white, blue, white, blue. The only
splash of orange was the traditional terracotta roof.

The villa was built into the slope of a bleached rocky hillside, the levels of the house like a flight of stairs. Bedrooms at street level, living room underneath (very Mediterranean) and then
the terrace level and the pool below that.

Ryan closed his eyes, angling his face to the sun. He felt the heat on his skin, imagining how the light must bounce off his cheekbones and full lips. Where was a photographer when you needed
one? In photoshoots, Ryan had learned, you must always work your angles and find your light.

Eyes closed, he listened. Gulls squawked as they picked for worms in the wet sand near the surf, and the boat clinked against its mooring on the jetty. This was paradise.

A certified caffeine-addict, and miles from the nearest Starbucks, Ryan gulped down the remains of his first cup of coffee and was making a second when he heard bare feet slapping across the
floor tiles. A creased and bleary-eyed Katie padded into the kitchen. She wore a pretty kimono over her polka-dot bikini. As ever, her red hair tumbled over her shoulders.

‘OMG, I had the most bonkers dream!’ she said, rubbing her eyes. ‘I had to marry your dad and you were demanding a dowry!’

Ryan laughed. ‘I wonder if it’s a portent.’

‘Ooh, maybe!’ Katie chuckled. ‘You’re dad’s such a silver fox – I could do worse.’

He mimed puking all over the tiles. ‘Gross. You’ll put me off my cornflakes! You want a tea?’ Katie always drank tea, never coffee – she was so, so English.

‘Yes, please. My head feels positively crusty.’ She came over and gave his abs a prod. ‘Check out the six pack!’

He tensed and breathed in for maximum effect. ‘Thanks. I got a trainer. He’s called Fabrizio, and he’s straight – although you’d never think it to look at him.
It’s such a waste.’

‘Well, it’s paid off! Ryan, you have never looked better.’

He felt himself blush and busied himself at the kettle. It was true, he’d worked really hard to bulk up; never again did he want to be the skinny dweeb he’d been at thirteen.
‘
Gracias
,’ he grinned. He pronounced it grass-ee-ass.

Katie laughed. ‘It’s pronounced gra-
thee
-ass. You’re not in South America! Apparently, hundreds of years ago, the king of Spain had a lisp so the commoners adopted it
and it stuck that way.’

‘Really? Oh, well, points for trying.’ He smiled.

Katie slid the patio doors all the way open and wandered out onto the terrace. She sank down into one of the dainty wrought-iron chairs. ‘Did you sleep OK?’ she asked. By the time
they’d finally found the villa, they’d been so tired they’d almost collapsed into bed.

‘Yeah, not too bad,’ Ryan replied, stirring her tea before hurling the teaspoon into the sink. Joining her at the terrace table, he put her tea down and took a sip of his own
much-too-hot coffee before slipping his shades on. ‘When do the others arrive?’

‘Not until about two.’

‘OK. This morning I’m all about the pool and reading scripts, then. Did I tell you about the play last night?’

‘You might have mentioned it once or twice, yes,’ Katie told him with a grin. Much of the journey from the airport had involved Ryan firing off a year’s worth of improv’
workshops, auditions and at least one salacious encounter with a well-known movie-star-turned-theatre-director.

‘This play is
soooo
good though, Katie. Imagine
Inception
but on a much smaller scale and with aliens. I can’t wait.’

‘Sounds marvellous,’ Katie said, perhaps too quickly.

The sun was getting higher in the sky with every minute. Hotter and hotter too. From this part of the world, it was so much easier to think of the sun as something that truly
burned
: a
white ball of flame. Katie stuck to the shade of the terrace – with her milky complexion she’d be crispy baked lobster within minutes.

‘How’s it going in Norwich?’ Ryan asked – aware he’d neglected to ask his friend how she’d been getting on this last year. He nipped back inside and grabbed
some Lays crisps from the kitchen counter. At the hypermarket near the airport last night, he’d found it hysterical that Walkers crisps were called ‘Lays’ in Spain and bought
about ten bags. ‘Yes, I’m having Lays for breakfast, shut up.’ He winked. ‘You should get Lays more often, too.’

Katie laughed. ‘Pervert! Norwich is good. And you know what studying English is like – pretty booky during the week. Then on a Saturday I work in a bookshop. It’s a
book-a-rama.’

‘Boring!’ he yelled. ‘I meant have you got a new PLI?’

‘A what?’

‘A Potential Love Interest! Who’s the “New Ben”?’

Katie blushed and chewed on a fingernail. ‘There is no “New Ben”.’

‘Really?’

‘I swear. I’ve been too busy. I wanted the full fresher experience, so I joined pretty much every society and club on campus. I actually played lacrosse! Can you believe
it?’

Ryan smiled – wholesome fun sounded about right for Katie. ‘Not a single drunken traffic-light party?’

‘If I
had
gone to a traffic-light party, I’d have been wearing red.’

‘With your complexion? Girl, no!’ Ryan laughed. ‘But why not? Isn’t that what being a fresher’s all about?’

Katie shrugged, hiding behind her tea. ‘Little bit of Ben. Little bit of Janey. I suppose I needed some time.’

Ryan didn’t push her any further. He knew that, even now, she still wasn’t over Ben. In his TV drama, Ryan figured, this was the point where you inserted a flashback for the benefit
of new or casual viewers. An overview of the story so far . . .

Series One.
Katie and Ben had first met at Longview High. Although Ryan hadn’t actually been present at their first fateful meeting he imagined it had gone
something like this. They would have bumped into each other by a locker (although their school didn’t have lockers) and the plinky-plonky piano backing music would have made it clear that
they were
meant
to be together. They had probably done that thing of being so in-love-at-first-sight that they could only mumble half sentences as the
LOVE
overrode basic speech,
but, however it had happened, everyone except them had instantly known that they were made for each other.

They didn’t kiss until the end of the first series. Ryan had been there for that. It was on a starlit garden swing at Liv Hewitt’s fifteenth birthday party. Katie had been upset
because there was a misunderstanding about something (Ryan couldn’t remember what, but, needless to say, at the time it had seemed HUGE) and Ben had been comforting her.

Series Two.
In the second series, fate had intervened to keep the young lovers apart. As every TV scriptwriter knows, if you get the romantic leads together too soon
all the sexual frisson dies and there’s nowhere for the characters to go. In this case ‘fate’ had been two sets of well-meaning but meddling parents. Obviously, in the grand
tradition of young love, the obstacles had been overcome and by the time they sat their finals, Katie and Ben were officially together.

Series Three.
But plain sailing doesn’t make for very good TV. There have to be bumps in the road. For some reason, Katie and Ben had decided to call time on
their relationship the Christmas of Year Twelve. Ryan vividly remembered Katie’s red, puffy eyes that night as Ben held her under the mistletoe – no kisses for them, only tears. Ryan
had never understood why they’d broken up when they were so perfect together.

Series Four.
In order to move the plot forward, Ben had been paired with Janey – an odd couple at best – and they had been together until the night of the
ball . . . the night when she . . .

Well, we all know how that went
, Ryan mused.

Now, here they were for the summer special reunion, and Ryan couldn’t
wait
to see what twists were in store for Katie, the beautiful redhead, and her handsome ex. Whatever
happened, it was destined to be must-see TV.

The others arrived just as Katie and Ryan were finishing lunch. It was so weird; the second Ryan went somewhere sunny, his body started demanding tuna toasties and chocolate
milk – so that was just what they’d had. Then, Katie washed the dishes while he leafed through the
Mindprobe
script. He was staring at the page, but failing to see the words;
Janey was on his mind again.

Perhaps, on the verge of their reunion, this was the first time he’d properly confronted the lingering sadness, unresolved questions and general
weirdness
of the whole affair.
Last summer had been so awful, he hadn’t been able to get out of Telscombe Cliffs fast enough. He’d thrown himself into his reinvention spin-off series. After all, it was his story, not
Janey’s.

But now, even with the hot kiss of the sun on his skin, he couldn’t get Janey out of his head. He thought back to the funeral. God, that had been a miserable day. Granted, funerals
aren’t meant to be a LOL-fest, but he hadn’t been at all steeled for the wave of grief that had greeted him like a black tide at that chapel. The memories were black and white, because
the day had been black and white. Black clothes in the white chapel. A black coffin covered with white flowers.

The friends had gone as a group. In fact, it was the last time – save for his reunion with Katie last night – that he’d seen any of them. They’d sat at the back of the
church to allow Janey’s family the best seats. Edgar Allan Poe once described the death of a beautiful woman as ‘the most poetical topic in the world’ and Janey’s death had
certainly fit the bill: an event so startling, so scandalous, almost all of Year Thirteen had attended. It had been a full house, standing room only. Janey’s funeral – the hottest
ticket in Telscombe Cliffs.