#ch: Cloda

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“Clóda,” one stone. 

“Clóda,” another. 

“Fuck sake,” I murmur to myself, then throw a third, bigger one, which smacks off her window so loudly that I’m briefly paralysed with fear that it has broken the glass. Thankfully it hasn’t. She comes out onto the balcony.

“There you are,” she says quietly, peering down at me in her garden as I drop my handful of stones and wipe the dirt on my thighs. 

“Yeah, here I am. This is a bit Shakespearean isn’t it?” 

“Huh?”

“Like, you know, 'but soft, what light through yonder window breaks…. Defy thy father, refuse thy name', et cetera,” I pause before clarifying, “Romeo and Juliet, no?”

“Oh, I did The Merchant of Venice for my Junior Cert.”

“I thought you’d have still gotten the reference.”

She leans over the balcony to point to a precarious looking trellis against the wall, “If you climb up that thing you’ll be able to reach me.”

“Right,” I say, and press my foot against the flimsy timber to test my weight, “You know I’m like, nearly thirteen stone?” 

“You can try.”

“And if I break it?”

“Hmm, try not to,” she suggests. 

“Right,” I brace myself by slotting my fingers into a gap between some brick facade on the side of the house and I haul myself onto the trellis, and it groans but doesn’t give. “I’m good, I think I’m good.”

From there it’s not so bad. I nimbly move up the wall, grab hold of the sun room gutters and grab a hold of the balcony railings, where I find myself thrilled in the way a child is, having climbed somewhere he is not supposed to climb, the king of the castle overlooking his vast land, though I can’t really see much in the dark countryside, save a few car headlights in the distance, the lighthouse flashing over the bay. 

“Um, here,” Clóda hisses, and I realise I have briefly forgotten my objective, but the rest is easy, I just swing myself over the railing and I’m up. 

“Nice that you’ve a balcony,” I comment, “I don't know many other people who have one of these.”

“We built this house a few years ago, and for some reason I wanted a balcony in my room, I don’t know, I was like, ten, and it was a stupid idea because it’s mostly too cold out here to even make use of.” 

“Useful now though, huh?” 

She tucks her hair behind her ears and bats her eyelashes at me, “yeah I suppose it is.”

She pushes the door open and we creep into her room where the only light is from the glow of the television screen in the corner. It’s clean, very clean with no clutter or clothes lying around, which always freaks me out for reasons that I cannot explain. The idea that a person would have the interest or discipline to keep their bedroom clean is odd. If a person's bedroom is a mirror to the inside of their mind, then the lack of chaos in hers is foreign and unrelatable. 

While she switches on a pink fringed bedside light I throw myself down on the neatly tucked duvet just so that I can mess it up a little bit, to mark my territory like some kind of wild dog let loose in a palace. I peer at her CD collection and mess that up too by pulling one out and showing it to her, “Jesse McCartney, huh? You a fan?”

She goes pink and grabs it out of my hand, “Yeah I used to be, I dunno, not so much anymore, I don’t know why I still have that.”

I grab another, “Who are the Jonas Brothers?” 

“Oh, they’re-”

“That guy in the middle has a pretty wild haircut, would you fancy me with that?”

“No,” she giggles and takes that CD off me too, then slots them carefully back where they were, “I have some silly stuff, I probably shouldn’t have it all out.”

“Nah, well, look, you have some great stuff here, how ‘bout this? Black Holes and Revelations? I love this album, you know I saw Muse live last year.”

The mattress sinks as she sits next to me, “Really? Was it when they came to Ireland?”

“Nah it was in the states.”

Her eyes flash with intrigue, “like, America?”

“Mm, yeah.”

“That’s so cool.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, that you just, like, go to America and stuff. I don’t know anybody who’s gone to America yet, and I want to go so badly.”

I shrug, “well you should, then.”

“How often do you go?”

“Not often, I was there last year and then before that…” I try to remember, “I think I was maybe twelve. It takes a long time to get to where I’m going, you know, from here you can only get to New York and then you have to get a connecting flight and all of that,” thinking about the ordeal of it exhausts me, but Clóda is leaning forward in fascination, as hearing the words ‘New York’ come out of my mouth has sent a thrill through her. 

“What do you go for?”

“Just to visit family and stuff.”

“You’ve family there?”

“Of course, did you not know that my dad is American?”

She frowns, “Well you sound a little bit American but I thought… I don’t know, really, I thought you were putting it on or something.”

“What, like, for attention?”

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head, impatient, “where do you go?”

“Well… I’ve some family in California and some in New Mexico, which is like, a state in the southwest, kinda wedged between Texas and California, if you can imagine that on a map,” I leave out poor Arizona just to make it easier on her, because nobody here knows what the hell a New Mexico, (‘no, no not Mexico, New Mexico’) is so it’s best to keep it concise. 

Clóda is nodding vigorously, “California, like, LA.”

“Kind of. Like, my dad comes from a place called San Bernardino, which is-” I take her wrist and trace a line on the soft skin of her inner arm, “-to the east of LA, say, an hour or two away, depending on the traffic, yeah? And then his family, like his aunts and uncles and their parents, who we used to visit sometimes, they’re living in a place way up north,” I run a gentle trail all the way up to the sleeve of her t-shirt, “to the very tip top of the Sacramento valley in this rugged, gold rush town…” I lift my eyes to her and she’s staring at my hand, following the motion of my finger as I skim the tip of it over her shoulder and across the taut skin of her collarbone. I prepare myself to say more sexy things about the Sacramento river and the rolling hills and the central valley and whatever else I usually bang on about whenever someone asks, but she looks into my eyes and says: “Is there an Abercrombie where you go?”

“Huh?”

“Abercrombie and Fitch.”

I frown, “Yeah?”

“Oh, wow.” She pushes me onto my back and lays on top of me, gazing down at me with fervid glitter in her eyes, “If you go back to America this year, could you buy me something from there?”

I search in her eyes for some sign that she’s joking and determine that she isn’t. She really wants me to do that. “Yep, sure,” I say.

“Ah, that’d be amazing. You know the way they have those bags too? The ones with the black and white pictures of the guys' bodies on them? Well there was a girl in my class who…”

And I zone out and I stop listening to her as she talks about laminating the bags and carrying school books in them, and I wonder if she will even notice the glazed over look in my eyes as I let my eyes unfocus and stare into the middle distance between her and her pastel pink walls and ask myself some serious questions. 

Do I like her?

She’s pretty though.

Sure, she’s pretty but is she fun? 

She likes Muse.

She’s not even very nice though, is she? She’s said a few weird things in the past.

Yeah but I’ve had sex with her now.

I can’t really stop talking to her or anything, can I? That’d mean I’m a dickhead. 

But would I rather be a dickhead or be miserable?

Maybe both outcomes will make me miserable. Maybe I’m just pre-programmed to be a miserable person. Or am I just cursed?

I zone back in for a moment, “...and then Mr. Brennan confiscated all of them, and there was this whole thing where the parents council…” What is happening? 

“Uh huh,” I say, “Uh huh… uh huh, what? That’s crazy,” God she is really pretty though, the kind of pretty that’s hard to find, and it’s not like there’s anyone else around, is there? It’d be awkward to stop seeing each other now with two whole weeks left of the summer. 

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The sunlight dapples over the grass beneath the linden tree, and I lie there with Clóda and watch clouds drift through blue gaps in the foliage. The air is fragrant with the scent of the clusters of blooms overhead and there is barely a sound, so far we are no from roads and traffic that only the cows in the adjacent field create any noise, and the rustling of the breeze through grass and the hedgerows, the chirping of the birds. 

“This is nice,” Clóda sighs with her head cushioned by the grass, “It's peaceful.”

“Yeah I like coming here.”

“It’s so perfect. How did you know about this spot?”

“Well, I guess I just cycle around a lot in my free time and explore.”

“On your own?”

“Of course.”

She considers this, “But isn’t it boring?”

I smile, “No, never. I’m the best fun to be around.”

She reaches over and punches me lightly in the bicep, “God, you’re so full of yourself, did you know that?”

“Do you mind it?”

“A bit, but you’re good looking so you get away with it.”

I glance down at her, the dappled light creating interesting patterns on her skin, “Hm, I’m good looking, am I?”

“Obviously. For God’s sake, you’re the hottest boy on the beach and you already know it. I’ve told you before.”

“Yeah I just wanted to hear you saying it again.”

She bursts out laughing and shakes her head. “Oh my God, like.”

“What?” I’m grinning now, trying to catch her eye as she tilts her face away from me, “Do you hate that about me? Do you hate that I know it?”

“You know most boys wouldn’t get away with being like this.”

“But I do?”

“Mm.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes! God. You could probably do anything at all and every girl in the village would still fancy you, do you know that?”

Mhm,” I thread my hand into her silky blonde hair and kiss the corner of her mouth. She sighs, a fluttery feminine sigh that turns the insides of me to jelly. She softens as I push her gently onto the ground beneath me and kiss her slowly and deeply with my hand on the patch of sun-warmed skin between the hem of her vest and waistband of her shorts. As I slip my tongue into her mouth I gently stroke the taut skin of her ribs with my thumb, then, once I’m sure I’m in the clear, I slide my hand all the way under her top and hold her boob. It’s above the bra, but it’s fine, it’s enough to make me want to punch the air even though I will obviously not be doing that while she is still underneath me. 

She sighs again, this gorgeous, involuntary sound and puts her hand over mine as if to show me that she doesn’t want me to stop touching her, but I stop anyway, I pull back and roll onto my back to cool off because I am only human and my tennis shorts are made of the most unforgiving type of nylon available. 

“Other boys aren’t like you,” she says in wonderment, and I glance at her again, her mouth wet from mine, “I think I’ve just realised that every kiss I’ve had up until now has been awful.”

“Were they?”

“Irish boys are terrible kissers.”

“Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.”

“Have you kissed a lot of girls?”

I laugh awkwardly. How I hate questions like this, questions about what I’ve done or what I haven’t done and who I’ve done it with, as though it’s anything less than a way to be judged, or make the asker feel insecure about their own experiences, when really, I wish more than anything to just kiss a girl or touch her without the presence of other girls in her head. a comparison to those who have come before like those kisses of the past still cling to my aura like spirits when really, they’re banished already. I rarely think of them anymore, and I wish Clóda wouldn't either.

“No,” I lie, because the real answer is that I’ve lost count and I wouldn’t be able to tell her even if I wanted to, “Not many at all.”

“What about other things? Have you, you know…” 

I leap up to hold her wrists and pin her gently to the ground again, “What about you, huh? Miss ‘I’ve done almost everything’? Why don’t you tell me?”

“I have!” She says defensively, “I just… don’t like to talk about it.”

“So why should I?”

“Because you’re a boy, you’re supposed to be proud.”

“But not girls?”

“No, come on, you know it’s different.”

I bend to kiss her jaw, “I guess.”

“I don’t want to be some… slut.”

“You aren’t.”

“I know you might be used to that, you know, all those girls in Dublin, you know we’ve all heard stories about the things that happen in mixed schools, what everyone gets up to.”

“Girls in mixed schools in Dublin aren’t sluts either.”

“Well I have a cousin up there and she says that a girl in fifth year got pregnant last year.” I don’t really like the way that Clóda’s eyes are gleaming with delight over this piece of odious gossip. “Can you imagine? I heard she was getting off with loads of different lads…”

I let her go and sit up on my own, “Well, that’s sad for her.”

Clóda hesitates. “Yeah but she obviously brought it upon herself, like you don’t just get pregnant at seventeen without being-”

“I think it’d happen less if there was basic sex education and access to contraceptives,” this is Jen talking, not me. She’s chewed my ear off enough times about this stuff. Jen, who won’t tolerate a bad word said about a fellow girl, Jen, who understands the parts of the system that are broken so much better than I do, and I’m surprised to find myself rattling it off like this, because it means that somewhere along the way I must have really listened to what she was saying. And believed in it.

“Well, I was just saying,” Clóda pivots, “It was just a story I heard is all. I hope that she’ll be alright.”

“Yeah same, I hope she has support.”

“Totally. I think it’d be so hard to have a baby and all when you’re still at school, God, I can’t even imagine.”

Our conversation lapses into silence, and I shut my eyes and listen to the birds singing and the bubbling of a stream not far from here. I’ve been swimming there before. The water is clean and beautiful, but I don’t feel like taking Clóda there today. 

Next to me she is moving around, unzipping and rummaging through her bag. A moment later she shakes me, “Are you sleeping?”

“No, I was resting.”

“Can I take a photo of you?” 

I peel my eyes open and she is wielding a metallic pink digital camera, “of me?”

“Of us, together.”

“If you want.”

“Just because I feel like this is a nice moment,” I agree, and she nestles down next to me in the grass and holds the camera at arm's length, taking about a dozen photos of us in as many poses as she can orchestrate.

“Now kiss me,” she says finally, and it feels a bit embarrassing but I do it anyway because I’m not bothered to argue. Then she lies there and scrolls through all of the photos and talks about which are her favourites, and it is as I am squinting at the little screen that I hear footsteps through the grass. I look up, and someone is hiking through the field in our direction. 

“Oh God,” I mutter.

Liam from the Surf Shack is here, for some completely perplexing reason. “What’s up, Turner?” He says with that big Goofy The Dog grin that he has.

I struggle onto my elbows, “just Jude is alright, thanks.”

“I can’t call you Turner?” “No, sorry.”

He comes to a stop right nearby, looming over us with his hands in his worn out cargo shorts, his blonde curls sticking up in every direction, “Hi Clóda,” He says, and she doesn’t answer him. 

I shield my eyes from the sun and peer at him from under my hand, “Um, what are you doing here?”

“I live up there,” he gestures vaguely across the fields, “this is my shortcut usually, whenever my dad is working late and he can’t drive me home, I like to walk.”

“It’s a long walk from the beach.”

“Not really! And I love to stretch the auld legs, sure you know yourself.”

I don’t know why he talks like that; like a man of seventy eight in the back of a country pub but I’ve always kind of felt like Liam is both impossibly old and impossibly young all at the same time. I feel guilty for being awkward, actually, but everything about being around Liam makes me feel this exact combination of guilt and discomfort, especially since he’s oblivious of the fact that he is in fact not good friends with all of the teenagers on the beach, and nobody is man enough to tell him as much, so we all just go on living this charade. 

“Yeah,” I say, “I know what you mean. It’s nice to get out and walk sometimes.”

“I’m back later though,” He goes on, “I’m just going home now to have a shower and whatnot, see I was out on the waves all day with the surfboard, you know? Good waves today, big waves. I’m heading back in later then for the bingo night at the pub. That’s at eight if you two wanted to come.”

I hesitate, “Bingo? Well-”

“Grand prizes and all. I think there’s a voucher for the butcher in there anyway, some local strawberry jam, lovely, and I think a handbag for the ladies,” He grins at Clóda as though he believes somehow that this applies to her specifically, but she is refusing to look at him. 

“Yeah man, we’ll come if we can.”

“Ah, great stuff,” He rocks back and forth on his heels during the following awkward pause, “I like your new haircut,” he says. “Real cool.”

“Do you? I just did it because I was bored.”

“You think I should cut my hair? Might be handy for the summer, for keeping me head cool and all that.”

“If you want to, I guess.” 

“Yeah! Yeah maybe. We’ll see now. You never know, when you come to bingo this evening you might see me with a matching ‘do!” He winks.

God, this is excruciating. “Totally. Well, I guess we might see you there. Maybe not but, um, who knows.”

“Well, if I see ya I’ll save you a seat at my table.”

“Thanks, Liam.”

“Enjoy, now!” He says, and I don’t really know what he means by that, whether he means that Clóda and I should enjoy each other or the scenery or a third, hidden option, but it doesn’t matter because he is finally leaving, marching across the fields toward home. 

“Oh my God,” Clóda says acidly once he’s out of earshot. “I didn’t know that he knew you.”

“Yeah Liam’s been here forever, I see him every summer, he’s, um, hard to miss.”

“He’s in the boys' school up the road from ours and he’s the worst. We all hate him.”

This sours my guts, “Okay, well, he’s not that bad. He’s just a bit innocent, I think he means well.”

“No, oh my god. He fancied my friend for ages and we were all freaked out. He bought her flowers.” She says this as though buying flowers is the equivalent of doing a shit in her coat pocket, but I suppose that I kind of know what she’s trying to say. 

“Yeah it’s a bit uncomfortable when you get a gift from someone you don’t like.”

“Yeah, especially him. Like, if it was you or something it’d be different, obviously.”

“Would it, yeah.” I say flatly.

“Yeah I mean obviously because you’re fine and you have friends, he’s just…” She doesn’t even have words for what he is, just a disgusted expression like she’s discovered a slug in her flip flop.

“Okay well, I guess I don’t know what it’s like to be a girl who Liam fancies, so I can’t really give any input,” I try to push feelings of incredible shame and disappointment to the side, because maybe what she’s saying is fair. I really don’t know what it’s like to be a teen girl, or how it feels to find Liam waiting outside my school with a bouquet of flowers. Who am I to question the things that she’s saying or how it feels to be in that situation?

“Anyway, let’s take more photos,” she says, brushing the whole thing off as Liam distantly hops a fence and disappears into the trees. I concede, and she hooks her arm around my neck to pull me back onto the soft grass with her. 

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“Go play on that pirate ship thing,” I tell Ivy, “I’ll be over there on the swings.”

She looks up at me under the brim of her horrible frog hat. She made me buy it for her in the end of season sale at one of those tourist shops by the beach, “I'll go on the monkey bars. Will I show you my tricks?”

She's talking about how she can hold onto bars and spin herself in a circle, “Yeah, sure, I’ll just watch you from over there.”

She rushes over and throws herself up onto a bar, “And what if I want to go on the swings?”

“Well you can’t, not until I’m done talking to my friend.”

“Your girlfriend.”

“No” I plonk onto the wooden swing and wait, the cool air rustling through the bushes and lifting little bits of of twigs from the sandy surface of the playground. I swing myself idly, calling out unenthusiastic words of encouragement to Ivy as she spins and twists on the bars until I hear the playground gate squeak open. 

Clóda looks obliviously happy, out of her work uniform now and back in those teeny tiny shorts that would have had my eyes out on stalks a month ago. It's funny how quickly feelings can change. 

“You brought your sister along!” She says brightly as she approaches me, and I spot Ivy looking our way only to look away quickly with a stricken look on her face. I wonder if she associates Clóda with stranger danger and hot chocolate vomit. 

“I told my mom I was coming to the park, so she made me take her.”

“Aw, she’s so cute though!” She throws a thumbs up to my sister, “Nice job on those bars, yeah? You’re so good, do you do gymnastics?” 

Ivy doesn’t respond. 

“No, she doesn’t, she just likes the monkey bars,” I explain. 

Clóda’s smile is strained when she swivels back to me, “Well, how are you? I’ve actually been un-grounded for a few days now, I… have you been busy?”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” she digs around her hoodie pocket for a scrap of paper and hands it to me, “This is my MSN, my email and my Bebo for when you go home and you want to stay in touch. You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. I am.” 

“Well, I hope that we can still talk, and stuff, and maybe at midterm break I could get the train up to Dublin and-”

“Clóda, look,” I hand the paper back to her, still folded. “To be honest, I’m not going to be staying in touch with you anymore.”

Her face falls, “Why?”

“Because.” 

“Because?”

“It’s too much effort, I’m not bothered.”

Perplexed eyes fly all over my face, “Is it the distance? Because it’s only two and a half hours on-”

“No it’s not the distance, to be honest, it’s you.”

“Me? What did I do?” 

I sigh, “Your friends gave me a call the other night.”

“Which friends?”

“I don’t know, they were too busy giggling and screaming to give me names, and I could hardly even make out what they were trying to say, but I heard enough.”

“Enough…?”

“Enough to know that you’ve been bragging about me all over the place, making up stories about how I’m going to buy you a heap of stuff in America and whatever, I never said that.”

She shrugs, but she’s so tense now that it’s more like a jerk, “Well, so? You could do that, maybe, if you wanted to. You said you might get me Abercrombie stuff, I was just telling a few white lies about the other things, you know, to make them jealous.”

“Why would you even want to do that?” 

“I don’t know, I suppose they think it’s pretty cool that my boyfriend is so good looking, and like, that he’s American and stuff…” 

“Who said I was your boyfriend?” 

She hesitates, “Well, I thought-”

“Usually,” I say, gesturing to the space between us, “two people will have a conversation about that kind of thing, you can’t just say what you want, or like, just decide on your own what this is.”

She bites her lip, “But when we had sex I thought-”

“Oh God, people have sex, Clóda, why does it have to mean so much?” I raise my voice a bit and Ivy glances around in alarm. I wave her away.

“Maybe it doesn’t to you,” Clóda says, and her voice cracks a little, once again flooding me with guilt, “but for me, it’s-” she breaks off because instead of an inhale there is a gasp, like something related to a sob that brings me to the edge of taking it all back, but I grit my teeth, “We shouldn’t have ever done anything then, I’m sorry.”

“You regret it?”

I don’t answer her, we’ve lost sight of the point, suddenly, and I’m not completely sure how we got here, “Look, I just asked you here so that I could tell you that I don’t want us to hang out anymore after this summer. We don’t have to hash out all of the details-”

“It’s because you don’t like how I kiss,” She insists, “I wasn’t good enough at it.”

“No, that isn’t it, I-”

“It’s my dad. He’s put you off. Did he say something to you?”

“No.”

“Well then it has to be because I forgot my jumper when we-”

“No, Clóda,” I explode, “It’s because you’re mean. Because you’re not a nice person, okay?”

She blinks.

“You went around the caravan park telling everyone that Kelly Healy is a loser and she needs her mother’s help to make friends, that’s just such a mean thing to do, and I don’t understand why you would do something like that, especially now because everyone thinks that it was me who said it.”

She takes a break from looking pathetic to let her features twist into an unpleasant shape, “Oh, Kelly? But we don’t like her, that’s what you said.”

“What?”

“We laughed about her after going to Shane’s place, you said that she was weird, I didn’t think anyone would really care if I said it to a few people. It just came up, I don't know. Why does it matter?”

“Obviously because it’s a ridiculously horrible thing to do. You just told a load of the people she hangs around with something highly personal about her that you weren’t even supposed to know.”

A pause, “Yeah but she’s weird.”

I am incredulous, “God, Clóda, is this really how you think? Is that your reasoning? That if you don’t like someone then you can say what you like about them to whoever will listen? Why do you act like this, huh? I can’t believe how much time I wasted this summer hanging out with you. You’re ridiculous. You act like a child.”

She bursts into tears, “Well I’m fifteen! What do you want from me?” And she sobs, standing in place while I sit opposite, uncertain of what I am supposed to do next. Is this what fifteen is supposed to be? Sometimes I feel so detached from genuine teenage reality that I cannot possibly imagine how I am supposed to experience it. In some ways I feel twelve years old, in others, twenty, so far removed from the freedom and reality of proper teendom that I can't even imagine what fifteen feels like. Was I ever like her? 

“I think we’re too different,” I say finally, “I think that’s why we can’t hang out.”

“But I really like you,” she sniffles, while in the background Ivy hangs from the monkey bars by her knees, her ugly hat dropping onto the ground. 

“Look, Jude!” She calls, “I can do a new trick.”

“Yeah, amazing,” I say, “Make sure you don’t slip and hit your head, huh?”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Yeah, you might, and then what will I do, huh? Take you back home with your head cracked open?”

“I wouldn’t have to go back to school then.”

“Yeah, good one,” Maybe I’ll crack my skull open too. It feels like a genuine option to consider as I sit there with Clóda crying right in front of me, blocking my exit route. 

“I’m sorry,” I say to her, “It’s just not meant to be, I guess.”

“Okay.”

“Good luck with it all, yeah? The job and school and all that. I’ll probably see you around next summer.”

“You’ll be back?”

“Uh huh. Probably the summer after that too,”

“Oh.”

“It doesn't have to be awkward. We can just be normal.”

She sniffs, “Alright”

I look up at her from where I sit and take in the tears on her cheeks, the way her chest heaves with each gasp, and I tell her “You'll be alright.”

I get up and call for Ivy, “c’mon, we’re going home now.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted a go on the swings.”

I look around to see that Clóda has taken my place on the seat and is blubbering miserably into her sleeves. 

“Swings are closed,” I say. 

“Okay, well, you can take me tomorrow.”

“We’re going home tomorrow.”

“Early.”

“You want me to get up early?”

“Yes, you’re lazy, you should have to get up early like me.”

“Yeah but you have an incentive, I don’t care about the seven AM cartoons.”

“Well you should.”

I laugh, “Why is that?”

And she tells me why, and we walk out the playground gate and through the village, side by side with the last of the August sun on our backs. 

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“Jude,”

A small finger prods my cheek. My Forehead. My chin. “Jude. Jude. Judie.” I groan and pull the duvet over my face to stop the sun from searing my eyeballs. 

My voice is hoarse, “Did you open the blinds?”

“It’s eight. You’re supposed to get up.”

“God, why?”

My sister repeatedly slaps my head through the covers, “There’s no baguette.”

“No baguette?” What is she talking about? “Ivy, stop, stop,” I grab her little wrist and pull it away from me, awake now and not pleased about it. “Why did you come in here, huh? You’re not supposed to come into my room.”

She whips her arm out of my grip, “But it’s eight,” She says, “and there's no baguette left.” 

“Oh, for breakfast,” I rub sleep from my eyes, “Okay yeah, I get it. We’re out of bread.”

“You have to go to the bakery before they all sell out. All the old grannies get there first and they buy up the baguettes,” She throws herself down at the foot of my bed and kicks her feet up in the air. She’s dressed herself already, I see, in scruffy clothes that she’s usually only allowed to wear when she’s staying home. “And I think I feel like a chocolate croissant today.”

“A chocolate one? Since when are you a spoiled little brat?”

She sticks her tongue out, “Uh! You always sneak me a chocolate one when mom and dad are away.”

She’s right, I was just teasing. “Okay, get out of my room and wait for me, I need to get changed.”

She runs obediently out while I drag myself out of bed and into yesterday’s shorts, cursing every other teenage boy who will get to sleep in until midday and beyond today, blissfully free of all responsibility and all little sisters. And Jen too, in the guest room next door, probably sleeping soundly and won’t have to deal with anything like this, and will run free all summer, sleeping under the same roof with different rules to the ones I must adhere to. 

It’s a bright morning. The tide is in and the air is salty and fresh as seagulls circle over the strand. The beach cleaners are always out at this time, in their high visibility jackets and yellow rubber gloves plucking up the debris left over from yesterday's holiday makers. Ivy skips alongside me with her worn out sandals crunching on the sand that’s blown in over the ground, gleefully kicking the fallen palm fronds over into the low stone wall that borders the path. 

“What are you so happy about?” I say accusingly, though her joy is unfortunately contagious. 

“Everything. I’m going to kids club and it’s sunny today and mom and dad are working in Dublin for the whole week and I’m getting a chocolate croissant,” She sings that last word with glee and skips and spins ahead of me, flapping her arms around with free, unfettered delight like she could take off and fly. 

“C’mon, you’re hyper. Save some energy for the club. What are you going to be doing today anyway? Art or sports?”

“Yesterday was sport. We did dodgeball but with those soft, squishy balls.”

“The foam ones?”

“Yeah, and one of the boys took a bite out of one of them, it was disgusting.”

I laugh, “You know I used to take bites out of them too.”

She comes back and gives me a slap in the thigh, “You’re a smelly, disgusting boy too, then.”

“Yeah, I am, but I don’t care. Foam has an interesting texture, huh?”

“No it doesn’t, and it’s filthy and it’s all rolled all over the floor and had dirty old hands all over it.”

I shrug, when I was a child the last thing I cared about was whose dirty hands touched what, nothing like Ivy. I shoved everything I could find in my mouth with abandon, I didn't care. Honestly I still don’t really care, because at this point I’ve put the kinds of filthy, unregulated things into my mouth that make a foam dodgeball seem gourmet. “So if you did sports yesterday, does that mean you’re doing art today?”

“Yep.”

From where we stand in the queue outside the bakery, the smell of fresh bread and buttery pastry floats right toward us and makes my stomach growl, “So what do you think you’ll be doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would you like to do?”

“Well… once, in school, we did paper weaving.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

She looks at me incredulously, “You know what paper weaving is.”

“No, I don’t.”

A scoff, “You already know everything about art, so you definitely know about this.”

“Well let's pretend I don’t and you can tell me about it.”

And she does, she goes into incredible detail while we wait, and then I buy a baguette and three chocolate croissants, one for Jen, and I get Ivy some juice for the hell of it and a coffee for me even though I’m not sure if it’s coffee I like or the idea of it. 

I’m happy to let her talk like that. It fills a gap, and I like it, because when she’s talking so much it means that she’s comfortable and not conscious about annoying our parents or saying something that they think is silly. I want her to be silly. It’s what seven year olds are.

Back at the beach house I even put on music while I make some breakfast, Low by Flo Rida, because our mom hates music like this and always turns the radio off when it comes on, which is all the time lately because it’s plagued the charts for months. 

“How can she have apple bottom jeans and baggy sweatpants?” Ivy wonders as she munches on her buttered baguette. 

“I guess she has four legs,” I say, and she flinches as I try to grab her nose, “you shouldn’t be listening to the words of this song anyway, they’re for adults.” Last week she asked me what ‘promiscuous’ meant after I let her listen to Nelly Furtado and then I had to pretend I couldn’t find it in the dictionary.  

“Why? Because of her big bum?”

“Ivy!”

The boat club is busy that morning with hoards of parents leaving their children at the kids club. Children and parents and me, a sixteen year old brother. I feel self conscious as we wait to sign her in. 

“Good morning Ivy,” the activity leader beams down at her with a toothy grin, “Where’s mammy today?”

“Home in Dublin. She’s working.”

“And daddy?” I want to laugh at the absurd impression this woman has that our dad has done anything meaningful or useful for either of us in his life. 

“He has to work too.”

“They’re very busy,” I explain, “They usually need to be at home during the summer for several weeks on and off so I’m just stepping in for now.”

“Well lucky that they have you to take care of it all.”

Yes. Lucky me. I pass Ivy off to her and wave goodbye, and as I’m making my way back towards the exit I pass the dining room. I stop and peer through the door curiously, just in case, and alas, in the bright sunlight from the windows, the sound of cutlery and glass and the smell of breakfast in the air, she crosses the room, a flash of blonde in tight black clothes.

“Hi, Clóda.” I say. I’ve caught her off guard. 

“Jesus chr- Hello,” She puts the tray she was holding onto an empty table with a clatter and tucks the two front strands of her hair behind her ears. “Where did you come from?”

“I was bringing my sister to the kids club.”

“That’s nice of you.”

I shrug, “I like to give my parents a break from parenting sometimes.” I peer into the chaos behind her, “You busy?”

“Yes, I-” She turns around anxiously, “It’s very busy at breakfast time.”

“Okay well I’ll leave you alone then.”

“No, I-” 

I stop, and she pats her silky hair, twisted into a bun at the top of her head, “Are you hanging out on the beach later?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh right, well, that’s fine then I was just-”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I interject quickly, “I’m just looking after my sister all week while my parents are away, I can’t really leave her alone at night or anything so I won’t really be around.”

She blinks, “Your parents left you alone for a week?”

“Yeah they always do that,” I say casually, “It’s fine. Jen is staying with us so sometimes she helps, but actually, no, mostly she doesn’t, which is fair enough.” I move away from the door to let a patron pass by and Clóda comes to lean with me against the wall, “But if you like, and it’s not weird for you you could always come over and babysit with me sometime.”

“How old is your sister?”

“She’s seven.”

“Cute.”

“She’s not cute, she’s a brat, but she goes to bed at half past eight, so,” I shrug, again, attempting to be cool and casual, and it seems to be working because Clóda is blushing now. “If you’re free tonight? We can watch a film, or… something…” I trail off, privately delighted by her pretty smile, evidence that she’s forgiven me for not touching her boob last week. Maybe I’ll remedy that tonight if she gives me another chance. 

There’s a man behind the bar watching us now, “Clóda,” he says sharply, “you have to work faster, get busy please.”

“Oh, um,” She wipes her hands on her trousers and reaches around awkwardly to retrieve her tray. “That’s my dad. He gets annoyed when I chat too much. Especially to… non-customers.”

I grin at the older man and wiggle my fingers at him while he practically snarls, his face jowled like a bulldog. “Nine?” I say to Clóda.

“Yeah, I’ll try.” And she’s gone. 

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I wait for her to finish her story about the Abercrombie bags and then I pull her into me so that we can kiss for a while, and I like her then, once I’ve ignored the disquiet in my head, turned it down so that it’s more of a niggling annoyance somewhere in the background of my mind.

“Did you know that being with you feels like being in a movie?” She whispers as I help her out of her top, and I almost admit to her that I do that on purpose, and that it’s really not hard to climb up onto her balcony like Romeo and orchestrate that perfect vibe when I could have probably come in through the scullery door instead and saved myself the effort, especially since she evidently didn't even get the reference.

“It’s just kinda how I am, I guess,” I say, and am suddenly a bit disgusted with the simpering way I say it and the stupid little half shrug I do to accompany it. If any of my friends knew that I am like this behind closed doors they would give me some devastating nickname that would haunt me for the rest of my life and probably, deservedly, destroy my reputation. 

Clóda doesn’t see it like that, I know by the look on her face that to her I am an exotic, suave American boy who can buy her Abercrombie T–shirts and will punctuate a chain of hickeys on her neck that she can flaunt to her friends.

“Do you want to keep going?” I ask her, “How close are your parents?”

“They’re in the sitting room below, we’d have to be really quiet…”

I bite my lip, “and how bad is it if I make noise?”

“Are you serious? Really bad. My dad does not like you, and I’m already on thin ice since he found out I was lying about camping.”

“Wait, he found out about that?”

“Yeah because of the ticks on me, remember? I said they were from Rachel’s dog. Well the other day my mam saw her mam at the newsagents and asked her how her dog was, and she said that he never even had any ticks. Then they figured out that I’ve been lying about where I’ve been.”

I stare at her incredulously, “so where did you say you were?”

She glances away, “well, they questioned me for ages, and I tried not to say anything, but eventually I kind of didn’t have a choice but to say that I was with you.”

Heat rises to the top of my head, “So they know.”

“Yeah, but it’s fine… Well, like, they’re really annoyed with me and I suppose they’d be annoyed with you too if they were to see you, but-”

“Clóda, I’m certain they are livid with me. What am I even doing here, are you serious? Why did you invite me over?”

“Because I’m grounded.”

“You’re-” I get up and begin to yank my shoes on, “You’re grounded? Great. Wow, yeah it was a great idea to come here.”

She has an utterly perplexed look on her face as she sits up and watches me fumble with my laces, “Are you leaving?”

“For Christ sake, yes. Of course I’m leaving. I don’t feel like being castrated by your dad.”

“But I won’t see you until I’m done being grounded if you don’t come over…”

“Yeah, well just text me when you’re out, then.”

“In a week?”

“Yeah, let’s give it a week, huh?”

I exit swiftly through the balcony door and leap over the railings and down the side of the sunroom. I land in a hedge and several branches snap noisily. A dog barks in the garden, a porch light comes on but it’s okay, because by then I’m already gone. I am back on my bicycle and riding back toward the beach under the cover of night before anybody can catch sight.

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Clóda is waiting on the couch when I come back with fingers drumming on her knees, “There’s orange juice on the floor,” she points out. “Did someone spill it?”

“Oh, sh- yeah, Ivy did. I haven’t had a chance to clean it yet.”

“Do you need help?”

“God, no, it’s fine, I’ll just-” I dip into the bathroom and yank some toilet paper off the roll and then start layering it over the spill. God, this is embarrassing. Why did I invite her into this mess? She shouldn't be seeing any of this. The house was supposed to be clean and fragrant with some cool music playing and maybe even one of my mother’s less fancy and less noticeable candles lit on the shelf, but no, here I am on my knees beside Clóda, mopping up orange juice with toilet paper that is rapidly disintegrating and turning to mush in my hands.

To add insult to injury she says, “how’s the whole babysitting thing going?”

“Yeah amazingly. So good.”

She looks around her again and I fear that she will spot something else that’s gone wrong, but she just says, “This beach house is pretty nice.”

“Yeah we’re lucky.”

“Do your parents, um, do they have good jobs?”

“Yeah, you could say that I suppose, my dad’s a dentist and my mom is an actuary.”

“What is that?”

I shrug, “Basically she works in insurance, it’s very boring.”

“I actually used to always wonder who owned this house. I’d see it every time I was walking to the end of the beach, but like, it’s shut up all winter so I never really knew anything except for that some wealthy family from Dublin owns it.”

“We’re not that wealthy,” I gather the soaking tissue in my hands and go and dump it into a waste paper basket. “Probably about the same as you, huh? Didn’t you say that your dad owns the boat club?”

“It’s in the family, yeah, but that’s the only business we own now since we had to sell the restaurant in town.”

“Oh now you have just one business?” I slump down next to her and make sure that our elbows are touching, “I didn’t know you were lowly peasants. God, how do you survive off that?”

“Shut up,” she smirks at me, “It’s not all great, with the recession and all..”

“Yeah the recession,” I roll my eyes, “It’s always the recession this and the recession that these days, isn’t it?”

“Yeah it’s so boring, I don’t care about economics or anything like that.”

“Same. I never pay attention in business class.” I spring forward and grab the TV remote from the table, trying to be very cool and play off the fact that it is now sticky after Ivy mauled it with her child-hands. “You want to watch a movie?”

“Okay.”

“What kind?”

“Do you have the movie channels?”

“Yeah all of them.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah.”

“At your holiday house?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re wealthier than I am then.”

I laugh, “Come on, let’s pick a movie. What’s on? Oh look, Ocean’s Thirteen is there, or… Bruce Almighty.”

“What about P.S I love you?”

I flick it on without hesitation, “Yeah sure.”

She laughs in disbelief, “Really?”

“Why not?” We’re not looking for Oscar winners here, just some background noise, and anyway, sometimes I secretly don’t mind chick flicks that much, at least it offers some ambient background noise instead of the gunshots and helicopters that are always in the films I watch with the guys. Obviously I love those kinds of movies, but girls aren't often as enthusiastic.

I sit back and drape my arm over the back of the couch. Not touching her, not yet, but enough to break any awkward tension and dissipate any confusion she may have about why I invited her over. See, I’m slick like that.

“Does your dad know you’re here?” I murmur as the opening credits roll. 

“As if. He thinks I’m at Rachel’s house. You know he actually asked me about you earlier when you came by the boat club.”

“Was he wondering if I work out?” 

She laughs, “No, he was all like ‘who was that young fella hovering around the door?’ and all, he says you look rough.”

“‘Rough’?”

“I think it’s the shaved head, makes you look like a skanger.” 

I pretend to be shocked, “A skanger? I’m no skanger.”

“Well I know that, but you look like one when you don’t have any hair.”

I run a hand over my head. There’s nothing I can do about it now. “And Rachel? Does she know that you’re supposed to be with her?”

Clóda shifts guiltily, “Um, no. She’s mad at me actually, so I haven’t talked to her in a few days.”

I shift in close to face her. I shouldn’t be addicted to teen girl drama but it’s fascinating. The things they say and do to one another are always crazy, it’s true psychological warfare. “Oh yeah? What happened?”

“Oh, just, you know.”

“You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

“She’s annoyed because she called first dibs.”

“On?”

She blushes bright pink and looks away, and I understand that this is about me. They should probably be more relaxed about this kind of thing, because Shane fancied Clóda too but I got there first. There’s no hard feelings, it’s just how it works, and I think girls might have an easier time if they got on board and accepted things like this.

“Did you tell her that I said I don’t fancy her?”

“No, do you think I should? I’ll tell her that you think she’s annoying or something.”

“Um, no, don't tell her that.”

“She is annoying though.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Clóda scoffs, “She is, she, like, copies everything I do. If I curl my hair, she curls her hair, if my nails are purple then her nails are purple, she has no originality. It just annoys me so much.”

“Yeah that sounds tough, I guess, but if you wanna tell her as much then you have to say that it’s you that thinks it, not me. I don’t want to get involved.”

“Do boys have this type of drama?”

“No.”

“Right… I’m sorry for bringing it up, you probably think it sounds really stupid.”

“I don’t, it’s okay, you can chat to me about it if you want.”

“Well, okay then,” she says, and launches immediately into a ten minute tirade about Rachel and how annoying she is, and how this relates to and ties in with some other girls at their school in some friend group they’re in, and I try my best to stay engaged but it’s frankly confusing. I can’t keep track of who’s who, and sometimes it’s Clóda herself, the main focus of all of these stories, who seems to be in the wrong. She keeps saying things like “Do you know what I’m saying?” and I don’t, but I suppose it’s okay and I can just nod along because what’s important is that she’s here and the things about her that are nice make any doubts I may have about her dissipate and float away for now. Like her eyes, hazel, the beauty spot on her chin and that view of the side of her neck when she tucks her hair behind her ear. When I picture myself putting my mouth there her words don't really matter. 

The next time she looks up at me through long, black lashes she trails off, her sentence dies on her lips because she knows I have stopped listening. She knows I am going to kiss her, and I am, because I’ve already subscribed to the idea that kissing her would be so nice. 

She watches my hand as I move to push a piece of her hair away from her face and then locks her eyes on me as I lean in and press my lips to hers, and while the idea is nice, so nice, the reality is different. It is wet and messy and she’s still not very good at this. I don't know why I half expected her to have improved in the last week, but it’s alright because I’m two things, I’m patient and I’m a good teacher.

“Like this,” I murmur, drawing back with her face in my hands and dotting kisses to her mouth. 

Her breath hitches, “Am I bad?”

“No, I'm just trying to show you how I like it.”

My phone begins to buzz in my pocket and I ignore it. I don’t know why she is so eager to unhinge her jaw and shove her entire tongue in my mouth, but I’m not letting her. Every time she tries I pull back and start again as the phone stops ringing. Then it begins again. 

Clóda sounds dazed, “Is someone ringing you?”

“Never mind it.” We kiss more as it vibrates furiously against my thigh.

“It’s kind of distracting.”

“Really?” 

“Mm.”

I grumble to myself and pull it out of my pocket to see Joe calling, and I pull a face. This guy should not be calling me. Preferably he wouldn’t even have this kind of access to me past six PM, or actually, my number at all, but I answer it anyway. 

“Yeah?”

“Hey man.”

I pause for several incredulous seconds, “Yeah, hey. What’s up?”

“Nothin’ much man, how are you?”

“Why are you ringing me?”

“Oh! I think Jen wants you to come and get her.”

“Jen?” I sit up straight letting Clóda’s hands and legs drop away from me. “What’s wrong?”

“We dunno, man. She’s just crying and shit. She just says that she wants you to come over.”

“Where are you?” 

“My brother’s house.”

I pinch the skin between my eyebrows, “Did you- did she-” I’m hyper aware of Clóda listening to my every word, “Is she, um, intoxicated?”

“Yeah man, she took a couple yokes and then started freaking out, I dunno. She’s outside crying and asking for you.”

“You left her outside?”

“That’s just where she was.”

“Can you put her on the phone?”

“Um, she can’t really talk, she’s kinda hypo- hyp- she’s gasping really hard.”

“Okay, I’m coming,”

 I stand up as Clóda watches me. “Where?” She says as I finish up the phone call. 

I move through the room frantically grabbing keys, money, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry but I have to go and get Jen. She’s at a party tonight and she’s not feeling well,” I instinctively reach to paw at the front of my hair though it isn’t there anymore. “This is terrible, I know, I wish-”

“You want me to stay here?” She glances around awkwardly. 

“Well… yeah, you know, I can’t leave my sister in the house on her own, and Jen needs to be brought home, I promise that I won’t be long, the house she’s at is just down in the village, like ten minutes each way, and-”

“Yeah I suppose, I-”

“As a huge favour?” I interject desperately, “Can you just stay? I’ll owe you one, and you don’t have to do anything, just sit here for like, twenty minutes, half an hour max and I’ll be back.”

“I have to be home by eleven.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“Um. Okay.”

“Yeah, great, finish the movie, um… thank you so much, seriously. I’ll be right back.” I rush up the stairs and out the front door. This is bad. This is genuinely terrible, but there’s nothing that I can do about it, so I push all thoughts about what is happening to the back of my mind and climb onto my bicycle. 

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Jen sits on the deck outside the beach house when I come down the wooden steps, and she eyes my shopping bag. 

“Got everything?”

“Yep.”

“Enough snacks for me too?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, are you ready to go? Shane and Joe are waiting-”

“Yeah just a sec,” I nip up the stairs and push through the front door, and my dad is where he’s been all day, looking at his laptop at the kitchen table. He barely glances up. 

“Where have you been?”

“Around.”

His keyboard is the only sound aside from Ivy, murmuring to her dolls in the living room below. I throw the plastic bag onto the counter and start stacking a few things into the fridge. “I noticed Ivy was out of yoghurts,” I say, “I picked up more for her to have tomorrow.”

Dad says nothing. 

“And I borrowed your credit card, I assume that’s okay.”

“Hm?”

“Your credit card. I took it.”

“Mm. Hope you didn’t drop it somewhere and lose it.”

“No,” I slide it out of my wallet and place it on the table, “There it is, safe and sound.”

I go back to the fridge and hide a chocolate bar behind a jar of mayonnaise for Ivy, then grab one of dad’s beers and slip it into my old schoolbag. He doesn’t seem to notice so I swipe another.

He leans back in the chair and stretches his arms with a grunt. “Did you get food for dinner tonight?”

“I'm not making dinner, I've plans.”

“Plans?”

“Yeah I’m going camping in the forest. I told you this morning,” I point lamely at the sleeping bag I left by the door. 

“I’m not sure that you did.”

“I did, definitely.”

“Well I think I’m gonna need you to stick around, things are just too busy around here today.”

“Where’s mom?”

“Uh, the hotel I think. She said she was getting some sorta massage.”

“Maybe after her massage she can cook, because as I’ve said, I’m busy tonight.”

“She might be a while.”

I stiffen. “Well then get a takeaway.”

He peers at me over the rim of his reading glasses and sighs this long, world weary sigh that makes me feel like rolling my eyes. “It’d just be convenient if you stayed.”

“Yeah I know, but I’m not available.”

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you help out a little at home, I know that you think you can just do whatever you want because you’re on vacation but it’s just not gonna like that for-”

“Yeah I get it, but I’m not going to be here tonight. One night. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I thought you might have grown out of this teenage stuff by now, Jude, this whole moodswing thing, you know, when I was sixteen I was already-”

“Working in an ice cream parlour and bringing in your own money, I know,” I grit my teeth, “and I’m sorry about not doing the same, but-”

“- and you know, you really were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, if my parents knew that I’d raised-”

I snatch up my bags and leave the door swinging behind me. 

As Jen watches me as I storm down the stairs the corner of her mouth twitches up. “You’re a bit red around the ears,” she points out, “Did you get into it again with Christopher?”

I hop down from the deck and haul my bike from the sand. “Let’s just go.”

After meeting Shane and Joe in the village we swing by the Boat Club to pick up Clóda. 

“Oh you’re cycling,” She says as she shakes her hair free of her high bun, “I didn’t bring a bike.”

I glance at her empty hands. “Or a sleeping bag? Or food?” 

A shrug, “No.”

“You can share with me then,” I say, and I’d usually have done a much better job at being smooth, but instead my words come out sharp and impatient, and then I feel guilty when I catch sight of her wavering smile as she clambers onto the handlebars of my bicycle.  

“Hope you had a nice day so far,” She says, and as I pull away from the curb with a wobble I try to relax my body with some deep breaths. “Yeah it was fine. Tell me about yours.”

And she does, and we five cycle until the village tapers away to become scarce houses dotted along the coast, on and on until the mouth of the woods. I listen to her talk, not really what she is saying so much as the sound of her voice, and I realise that if I concentrate on things like this, like the steady lock of her hands over mine and the silk of her hair blowing back against my face then I don’t have a lot of space left to think about how awful and selfish I am today.

By the time we reach the forest and tether our bikes to a fence I’m feeling almost back to myself again, so much so that I can even join in the conversation Shane, Jen and Joe are having about Dexter, and as always when it comes to TV, Jen and I start arguing about something or other, some part of the story that I picked up wrong, some character that I love but I am supposed to hate, and this is my favourite way to be with her, giving off, winding each other up so much and acting pissed off until someone thinks we’re being serious and tries to mediate. It’s the best way I can think of to whittle the time away on this trek from the onset of the woods to the dark depths of it, where the stony path turns to a dirt trail and briars snag at our ankles, where we duck under and scramble over low hanging branches and pick twigs out of one another's hair. 

Clóda, who has been silent for a long time, slips her hand into mine and pulls me back from the group. “There was a sign that said ‘No Camping’ back there,” she murmurs. 

“Yeah I know, we got caught before, a couple of years ago, but that’s why we’re going so deep in. Don’t worry, the guards never come this far.”

“Right,” she glances overhead where the dense firs have blocked out most of the evening sun and cast enormous shadows down upon us. I can listen now that the others have gone on ahead and their voices are dulled from the sounds of the trees brushing together in the wind, the squelch of the damp earth underfoot and the roar of the waves over the sand dunes somewhere to the east. A hare springs from a nearby cluster of ferns and flees from us, and Clóda screams and clings to my sleeve. 

“You okay? A bit scared?” 

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Of the woods?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we’re just a bit far from the path.”

“It’s okay, nothing is going to happen, there won’t be anybody but us. And the ghosts.”

She bats my arm, “God, stop.”

“You believe in them?”

“No.”

“I do.” 

She shivers and says softly, “Okay well I don’t want to think about that.”

I peck the crown of her head, “Don’t worry, Just joking. I’ll mind you.”

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We set up camp in the lingering pink light in a clearing behind the hump of a sand dune that separates us from the stretch of beach. Up here the sand has mixed with the pine needles. The charred sticks from someone else’s bonfire lie in a pile of ash on the forest floor, and we set up our tents to face it, and Shane and I clear some pieces of rubbish from around it while Jen and Joe collect some firewood to make a new one. 

The waves are loud now, up this close, and I look forward to falling asleep to the sound later. It reminds me of those CDs that Jen had to listen to the last time she saw a therapist, something about visualising each breath moving through one’s body with the fluidity of the ocean waves. I felt like a Buddhist monk afterwards but we both pretended that it was a stupid exercise because it felt weird to admit to being moved by something like a meditation CD.

Clóda goes to the top of the dunes and gazes toward the horizon, but I only notice her because Shane does. Then he notices me noticing him and throws a bottle of Lucozade, deliberately missing the pile of rubbish we’ve made and hitting my shin. It’s heavy and full of something that, though amber in colour, is definitely not Lucozade. 

“Are we alright, man?” I say while he stares at his feet like there is something highly interesting about the plastic bits on the end of his shoelaces. “Yeah, obviously, why?”

“Because you seem pissed off at me.”

“Dunno why you think that.”

“Just a feeling,” I pause, “And I had a run in with your sister earlier on, she seems a bit annoyed at me too, so I was just wondering was something said at home, or…”

He scoffs, “Kelly’s some thick. Don’t mind her.”

“Right, and you and me, we’re-”

“We’re fine, man.” He tosses the last of the rubbish aside and starts going through his bag with his back to me. I’m not satisfied. 

“Shane,” I come closer, “You know that if there’s weird shit between us then I just want to air it out, I’m not that good at conflict or anything, but like I just have this feeling that you’re not actually okay with…” I lower my voice, “...with how things panned out with Clóda and all.”

His shoulders stiffen, “No, I couldn’t give a shite about that.”

“Right…” 

“Sure I’d be used to that by now, wouldn’t I?” he bites out, “You going off with all the girls. What’s it to me?”

“Just if you liked her, you know?”

“Well I didn’t.”

“You didn’t.”

“Nah. Not bothered.”

“Well, like, you seem bothered, so-”

“Jude?” Clóda calls, the setting sun is in her face, “Do you want to go for a swim before it gets too dark?”

I sigh and turn back to Shane, “I’m not done with this.”

“Well I am. Just go swimming.”

I hesitate, but go to her, running to that mound atop the dune and she greets me with arms thrown around my neck. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I kiss her quickly and draw away to pull my top over my head, then take my socks and my shoes off and dump them in the grass. She takes her clothes off, and she’s not self conscious of herself but I try not to look too much anyway in case she thinks I’m the kind of boy who would get overly excited about seeing her in a bikini.

“Will it be cold?” She shivers as the sea breeze nips our warm skin, and I tell her that it will, of course it will.

“God, I don’t know then.”

“Well you can’t back out now.”

“No?”

“No,” and I scoop her off the ground and throw her over my shoulder, and she shrieks in protest as I carry her down the side of the dunes, across the beach and right into the water with me. 

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As the sun sets and the waves glitter in the pink light we four sit on the crest of the dunes, obsessed by our attempts to open the crown seals of our beer bottles with Shane’s keys. It's been twenty minutes and nothing has happened, we just watch him, bored, as he fumbles it over and over again.

“There’s a knack to it,” he keeps saying, “You'll see,” and then makes a big show of trying to prove himself as the key lamely flicks off the glass neck and barely dents the cap. 

“We can try using a shoe,” Joe suggests. “I did it before at a party, like. You’re meant to put the bottle inside it and then thump it on a wall and then the cap just, like, comes right off somehow.”

“How would that work?” Jen tuts, “The cap is bent onto the thing, you’re not going to knock it off by ramming it into a wall, are you? Think about the science of it.”

“We also don’t have a wall,” I point out and flick the little aluminium cap with my nail. I think about the consequences of opening it with my teeth and wonder what kind of fit my dad would have if I chipped a tooth, pierced my ears and shaved my head all in one day.

Joe shrugs, “I’m just throwing out suggestions here, lads. And if you’ve no better ideas then-”

“I’ve almost got it,” Shane grunts just as the key flies out of his hand and lands somewhere in the sand beside us.

“Ugh! Joe,” Jen cries with resignation, “Just go up to the surf shack and ask Anthony for a bottle opener. Let’s admit defeat here. You can tell him it’s for lemonade or some shit, I don’t care.”

I cringe, “Oh God, don’t send him up there, if Anthony knows we’re hanging around up here then…”

“Then what?”

“Like, do you think he’ll send Liam up to hang out with us again?”

Jen hesitates, “Well, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll be too busy to come this time.”

I groan, “When is Liam ever busy in the evening though?”

“Well I feel sorry for him.”

Joe scoffs, “For Liam? Do you guys remember that time that we told him we’d rolled him a special joint but it was actually just bits of grass and herbs from Jude’s kitchen? And he thought he was high and started rolling around on the carpet and everything?”

I smirk and Jen thumps my arm hard because I’m the only boy she can reach. “Youse are all mean,” she says, even though she wasn’t there so she doesn’t actually know how funny it was. “Liam is nice, he’s just trying to make friends.”

Joe laughs, “Here I’ll go up to the surf shack and tell him we’re playing truth or dare again. Dare him to talk about something that’s not surfing or that time his da brought him to Australia, for once.”

“Piss off Joe, just go get the bottle opener. I don’t care if Liam comes over. You can all challenge yourselves and be nice to him for once, you dickheads.”

When he leaves I prod her knee, “Since when are you so nice, hm?”

“I’ve always been nice, I don't know what you’re on about.”

“Yeah Jen,” I roll my eyes, “You’re an angel.”

A bottle cap suddenly flies down the dune between us, followed by a satisfying pop. “Got it,” sighs Shane. “Finally.”

A short time later Joe comes back with the bottle opener, but is perplexed to find us already drinking. 

“Shane got the key thing to work,” I explain. “But thanks for going anyway.”

“Aw what? I had to talk to Anthony for ages when I was there. He asked me about school and everything.”

“Oh no,” Shane hands him an open bottle as he plonks onto the sand, “and Liam?”

“Dunno, wasn’t there. Didn’t see him anyway.”

“Good,” I mutter, and Jen elbows me sharply in the ribs and hisses, “Well he would have been welcome if he was there, right Judie?”

“Right.”

“Wait I forgot something,” Joe digs around in his hoodie pocket and pulls out a little bag, “I ran into my brother on the way to the shack, he was coming back from work. Gave me this,” he flicks it and dangles it in front of us as though it’s something more exciting than the three euros worth of the worst quality hash that money can buy. 

“Giz that,” Shane snatches it out of his hand and peers at it closely, “Man that’s basically just weed dust.”

“Enough to feel something off it though.”

“Hardly.”

“Well either you want some or you don’t.”

Shane flicks the dregs of his beer onto the sand and then launches the glass bottle into the marram grass, “Yeah, fine so.”

Joe glances at Jen, “You in?”

“Yep.”

“Jude?”

I hesitate, “Nah, man, I’ll just stick with the beer for now, thanks.”

Shane laughs, “Jude gets sick off weed.”

“Seriously?”

I cringe, “Not all the time.”

Jen is laughing then, “Jude gets sick off everything. Once we were inhaling permanent marker fumes in first year and he went and got sick out the changing room window, and there was that time that he had a shot of tequila-”

Bile rises immediately in my throat at the memory, “Yeah, thanks, I don’t want to think about it.”

She cackles, “Oh come on, and that time in the playground when we-” I dive toward her to push her into the sand and start poking her ribs where I know she’s ticklish so that she has to stop talking about it. 

“Stop!” She shrieks, “God, stop!”

“Are you gonna shut up? Huh?”

“Yes, yes I swear!” and as she lies there gasping for air I fidget with the laces of my shoes and the frayed thread of my shorts with jerky, trembling fingers. I don’t want anyone to know about the things we used to do in the playground. They wouldn’t find it as funny as Jen does. Or, in a worst case scenario they might be intrigued and want to know more about all of the things that I hate talking about the most. 

“Do you get sick off beer too, man?” Joe says, “‘Cause my brother says that Americans can’t hold their beer at all. That they get drunk off nothing. Is that you?”

“Your brother? What does he know? Didn’t he get his head stuck between the railings on Wexford bridge and have to be cut out by the fire brigade?”

“Twice, yeah,” Joe laments, “He’s got big ears, like.”

“I heard he got his head stuck in the window bars of the boys school in town too,” Shane pipes up, and Jen starting giggling into her collar until she can’t hold back anymore and collapses in a fit of raucous laughter, and then Shane does, and I do too, while Joe protests and tries to explain to us that his brother was just doing it to be funny, and how there’s actually nothing wrong with him despite what we may think. Tears blur my eyes with laughter , and every time I think I can stop I’ll catch eyes with Jen or see Shane’s red face and I’ll laugh all over again, and so Joe huffs and plonks onto the ground with us and starts to roll a clumsy joint in silence. 

“Hey guys, what’s so funny?”

A familiar voice causes Shane to jump to rigid attention and bring a self conscious hand to smooth down his cowlick, and it’s from looking at him that I know that Clóda is here. Everyone springs to attention whenever she shows up.

She stands at the bottom of the dune like some kind of vision with her straight blonde hair swishing around to her mid back and slim legs extending out from the shortest denim shorts that I’ve ever seen on a girl, and yet they don’t look tacky on her. Nothing looks tacky on Clóda, and I’m so busy looking at Clóda in her non-tacky shorts that I don’t even notice her friend until she introduces her. 

“This is my friend from school, Rachel,” She says. Rachel has blue makeup on her eyes. That’s all I notice, because my eyes have slid back to Clóda again and the way her mouth moves when she says, “We were just going for a walk. Are you guys up to much?”

“Smoking a joint if you want some,” says Joe.

She pulls a face, but Shane jumps in quickly, “We’re not actually, he got some shit hash from somewhere but none of us want it. Here, we’re just having a few beers and talking and stuff if you want to hang out.”

And Joe throws his hands up incredulously and mutters to himself as he stuffs his wonky, unlit joint back into his pocket in defeat and disappointment that nobody wants to get semi stoned on the accumulated remnants of the dust from his brother’s friend’s weed grinder tonight.

But it’s okay for everyone else, because Clóda and Rachel do want to hang out, and they scale the dunes to sit with us, and luckily by now Shane has perfected the art of popping bottle caps off with his house keys so that he can impress them both and be equally impressed with himself. I consider starting a bet with Jen to guess how long it will take for him to slip the fact that he plays centre field on his local football team into the conversation but decide against it in case she accuses me of being mean and the girls hear her.

“Nice earrings,” Rachel sits down to my left, and I know that she probably intends it as some sort of insult, maybe even a flirtatious insult but I don’t really care about what Rachel, Clóda’s friend from school, thinks about my earrings. 

“Thanks,” I say, “they’re from Claire’s Accessories,” which makes her laugh, and she scoots in closer to me, “What’s your name?”

“Jude.”

“There’s a girl in my school called Jude.”

“Right, well I guess you’ve found two of the girliest things about me in the first minute of meeting me.”

She laughs again even though it wasn’t that funny, and Jen, to my right, laughs privately to herself too. “Hehe,” She imitates in a high pitched voice as Rachel turns to take a beer from Shane. “She fancies you.”

“I don’t care.”

There’s a gust of cool air on my head as my cap is whipped from me, “I like your hat,” Clóda says. She puts it on and leans down to rub her hand over the surface of my shorn head, “But I don’t like your new hair. When did you shave it off?”

I peer at her and smile. I don’t care about Rachel, but Clóda? Clóda does wild things to my insides. “Are you saying you liked my old hair?”

A shrug, “Yeah it was alright. I just preferred it.”

“I might have left it how it was if I’d known that.”

She blushes and giggles, and Shane looks at me, and as I look back at him a muscle twitches in his cheek. I shrug. What are you gonna do? I can’t help it if the girls I like usually seem to like me back. I’m lucky like that. 

Rachel grabs the hat to distract her and puts it on backwards, and she pulls a stupid face and then they giggle and wrestle each other for it while Shane and Joe watch them with fascination. 

“Oh, okay, they both fancy you,” Jen hisses, “surprise surprise.”

“Are you jealous?”

She rolls her eyes, “Please, I’ve lost all hope of finding one single lesbian in this whole town. I’m the only gay for ten miles. I’ll just die alone this summer as I predicted.”

I jut out my bottom lip, “poor Jen.”

“Yeah, piss off.” 

Rachel whoops abruptly and loudly near my ear and snatches my beer bottle from the hollow I made for it in the sand. “I’ve your beer now,” she points out, and dangles it in front of my nose. “I’ve your hat and your beer,” 

“I can see that.”

Jen hisses at me, “she just wants you to flirt back. Just go wrestle her for the stupid beer. Don’t embarrass her.”

Clóda thunders down after her, grabs my hat and waves it triumphantly in the air. “I have it now! What are you gonna do?” I get up for her. 

“Hey, now, give me back my hat,” I say, and I wink at Jen, and she winks back, and I chase down the beach after them both. 

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The lights are still on in the mobile, and the windows glow warm yellow through the gauzy blinds. The silence of the late evening is punctuated only by the chirping of insects in the grass, and the crunch of our feet upon it. Long weeks under the sun have left it dry and crisp underfoot, though footfall has worn it away to dust and dirt around the steps to the veranda. 

“Mister Turner, is that you there?” I jump as a voice cuts through the darkness. At first I didn’t notice anybody there, but Shane’s mother sits on a deck chair with a novel on her lap looking at me with a curious tilt of her head. A little citrine candle lights up the pages of her book and fills the air with the smell of lemons. 

“Hello Caroline,” I clear my throat, hit with a strong urge to be extremely polite, “How are you this evening?”

“I’m well, thank you,” she says, “Is this your new girlfriend?”

“No,” I glance at Clóda who is looking at anything but me. “She’s just come with me to get something of Shane’s. Um, would you mind if we go inside to get it?”

She peers at us, “Are ye all hanging about down on the beach?”

“Yeah.”

“Not getting up to anything your mother wouldn’t like to hear about I hope.”

I shake my head, “No, Caroline,” though she and I both know that she’d never tell my mother anything. All the other mothers avoid mine at the coffee shop when they see her and say things about how odd she is when they think I’m safely out of earshot, but they’re all like this, even her peers back home in Clontarf. It'd be more surprising to me if they were friendly to her.

She waves us away and goes back to her book, “Go ahead in, so, if you know what you’re looking for.”

Before I go inside Caroline stops me with a hand on mine, “C’mere to me,” she says very quietly, “Would you do me a favour when you’re in there?”

She pulls me close to her face, “Would you ever go in and ask Kelly if she wants to go and hang out with ye all?”

“Um… Kelly?”

“She’s not really mixing with the other young people, she’s on her own a lot and I think all she needs is someone like you to ask her to go out and hang about with you. She won’t listen to me when I tell her, so don’t tell her it was me who asked. I’m just worried about her cooped up in there all evening watching the telly or whatever she’s doing.”

I shrug, “Okay, if you want.”

She gives my hand a satisfactory pat, “Thank you Jude, I think it’d mean the world to her just to be asked, especially by such a nice boy as yourself.”

“Yeah, of course, no problem.”

Shane’s room is our first destination, and we set about digging half a dozen bottles from beneath his bed. I don’t know where he got these or for how long he’s hidden them here, but I don’t suppose that alcohol really goes bad, nor are we in any position to be picky about it even if it did. 

Clóda’s curiosity gets the better of her as I’m underneath the bed frame, “Who’s Kelly?” 

“Shane’s little sister,” I say quietly so that my voice doesn’t penetrate these notoriously thin walls. “I dunno what her story is. She never really talks to us.”

“Oh, well, do you think it’s a bit weird that her mam is telling you to hang out with her?”

“Yeah a bit, but let’s not tell anyone that maybe. I think it’d be embarrassing if everyone knew, don’t you?”

“Mm. Maybe.”

I swipe a layer of dust off my t-shirt and begin putting several bottles into the pockets of my cargo shorts. I work slowly and carefully so that none of them clink together and cause enough noise to raise Caroline’s suspicions. There are two left. “Do you have space for any?” Clóda looks down at her skimpy outfit with pockets that wouldn’t even fit a quarter of her own hands. “Right, never mind.” I shove them into the waistband of my shorts and head back into the hallway. 

“That’s Kelly’s room,” I whisper, and we hover awkwardly around the door for several long moments. 

I raise my fist and knock. 

A voice comes from within. “What?”

“Uh…Hi, do you-”

“Ugh! Shane. If this is about the DS, I told you it’s my turn on it today and I’m having it, so you can piss off away from my door, and-” She flings it open to see me and Clóda instead, and her face drains of colour. “Oh God.”

I don’t know what comes over me, but the sight of her there with her curly hair sticking up around her face, wearing hot pink floral matching pyjamas makes a laugh explode from me. And not one of my normal laughs, but a high pitched squawk. Her eyes boggle in horror and she blinks once. Twice before she manages; “Wha- um, I’m sorry, but what the actual hell are you doing here?”

I stuff my knuckles into my mouth, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Jesus, Kelly, I’m not, um, laughing at you really, you just looked so surprised, and… in those pyjamas and everything.”

She looks down at herself as though she can’t believe she’s even wearing them, like they’ve appeared on her body without her knowledge. She looks at Clóda then and almost turns the same colour as them. “Everything else is in the wash! God! Did Shane send you here to play another stupid prank on me?”

“No, it’s- We were here to get something but then we were uh, we were wondering if you want to come and hang out with us. We’re down on the dunes near the surf shack.”

“Why would you want me to go there?”

“I dunno, in case you wanted to. I just thought I’d be nice and ask.”

I can’t tell if she’s shocked or furious, or something in between, “I’m sorry, you’ve come here to be nice? Do you think I was born yesterday? Why do you think I would want to go anywhere with you?”

“I don’t know. If you were bored or something or if you wanted company.”

“Yeah, okay. Well I’m not that bored, thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah? Where are your friends tonight?”

She baulks. “Busy. Just like me,” and I peer into the tiny twin room behind her to see just a half empty bag of popcorn and a Nintendo DS on one of the beds. “Wow, yeah I can see that.”

“Leave me alone please.”

“Yeah, fine.”

After she slams the flimsy door in our faces I look at a shell shocked Clóda and shrug. That’s classic Kelly. She’s not been right with me since I put a frog in her hair two summers ago. 

“She’s nice, isn’t she?” I mutter to her as we pass through the tiny kitchen. She snorts into her elbow, and this moment seems to dissolve the tension between us, “Oh God,” She says, “Yes she’s a real delight, I definitely wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her.” 

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I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The afternoon sun beats down against the back of my neck and I blink and drag my forearm across my face as a bead of sweat migrates from my eyebrow into my eye. With a loud pop, Shane drives the tennis ball towards me with his powerful right arm and it dives sharply to the ground in front of me. I spin it back with ease and send it screaming towards the baseline, past him and out of reach.

“Nice,” Jen says lazily. She’s sitting on the ground on the sidelines with Joe and they are sharing the single cigarette that they managed to bum off a boat club patron trying to enjoy a smoke with his lunch. “Gotta be quicker, Shane.”

He ignores her and bounces the ball a few times in preparation for his next serve. He tosses the fuzzy sphere into the sky and slams it over the net. I whack it back with my left hand. Easy. Shane is strong but I am fast, agile, quick like a whip. He’ll never beat me at tennis. We hit back and forth a few times before I spin the ball right at his feet and he swings. And misses. And flings his racket onto the astroturf. 

“Done,” He proclaims, “It’s too hot, I’m pure sweaty now.”

He was never good in the heat, he’s always bathed in sweat, his t-shirt soaked, his hair wet with it, but not me. I have Chihuahuan Desert blood in me, raised in that withering heat, of dry earth, cacti and oleander, diamondback rattlesnakes and paleozoic rock, the dryland doesn’t give a shit about anybody. 

Ireland in July is just fine for me. 

I sling my racket over my shoulder and saunter toward the net, “C’mon, Shane, is that all you’ve got?”

He grunts, “get one of the lads to play against you.”

“Not us,” Jen pipes up, “At least not me.”

Joe shakes his head, “Not me either, you’re a sore winner.”

I scoff, “A sore winner? C’mon, you’re all just afraid to lose.”

“Not afraid, it’s just boring when there’s like, a 100% chance that it’s going to happen, look,” Jen sucks the last of the cigarette and flicks it away, “We know you love winning and you think you’re so great and all that-”

I’ve stopped listening, Clóda has just come out of the lounge with a tray of tea.

“Hey,” I jog over as she serves a table by the court.

She glances shyly at me, “Hey.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good, oops-” her trembling hands spill a drop of milk from the little white ceramic jug she is putting onto the table. She apologises to the customers and mops the spot quickly with a cloth while I rock back and forth on my heels. She straightens up and walks me to the edge of the terrace, and though she is trying to look serious I know I have amused her, “You know, I’m working.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind.” I bend to kiss her. 

“You’re cheeky,” She giggles and pushes me away, “Come back when I’m off.”

“Yeah? When is that?”

“Four, but you’ll be picking up your sister from the kids club then.”

“Not today, my mom is back from Dublin. I’m all yours.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

“Will you go somewhere with me?”

“Where?”

“Somewhere nice.”

“Very specific,” she rolls her eyes and turns around nervously to where her dad is now standing at the patio door and staring me down with what I’m sure he thinks is an intimidating look on his face. I grin at him and throw him a big sarcastic thumbs up. 

“For a walk,” I clarify, “If your dad is okay with that. Maybe he’ll request a chaperone.”

“My dad is not okay with that, but I’m not planning on telling him about it.”

I shrug, “Okay.”

“Alright then.”

“What are you doing standing here talking to me, huh? Don’t you have work to do?”

She laughs to herself as she walks away from me.

“Lazy,” I call after her. “I think I’ll write in and complain to management.”

She gives me the finger. 

When I turn back around to my friends they look suitably unimpressed, but they’re just jealous. “You sure about that rematch, Shane?”

His jaw is set as he whips three tennis balls out of his pockets and whacks them directly at me at the speed of bullets before I have time to respond. Every one of them bounces directly off my innocent body. 

“Ow!” I protest, “What’s gotten into you? Calm down, jesus!”

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I put Jen sitting at the kitchen table while I pour her a glass of water from the tap. In the bright lights of the beach house she looks so ill, staring now into some middle distance with her shoulders slumped, exhausted after the worst of the panic has passed.

“Here,” I hand it to her and she takes conservative sips, “You’re going to be fine.”

“I feel a bit better.”

“That’s good, and you’ll feel-”

“Jude?” a voice comes from the living room.

"Hang on a sec," I mutter, and I stray from her side for to investigate.

Clóda stands stiffly in the centre of the living room with wide, anxious eyes and I almost want to collapse into a heap on the stairs because it’s now clear that something else has gone wrong. 

“What is it?”

“Your sister.”

That’s when I hear it, the muffled sobs coming from her bedroom and my stomach plummets to the floor as I rush down the rest of the steps. “What happened?”

“She threw up,” Clóda says, “and she came out here looking for you and I gave her a fright, I-” she hugs her arms around her body, “I didn’t mean to, she just didn’t expect to see me, God, it’s so awkward but I feel like a monster, I hate that-”

“No, it’s okay,” I pass by her and go straight into Ivy’s room where she is balled up on top of her pink covers. I shut the door behind me and murmur, “Ivy, it’s me.”

She looks around at me, red nose and puffy eyes and then resumes her crying into her damp pillow. I know that look, I have betrayed her. The mattress squeaks as I sit down with her, and I see that she has thrown up on the floor. Chocolate.

“Ivy, I’m sorry that I wasn’t here. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well you did,” her voice sounds choked, “you left me all alone.”

“Only for a few minutes,” but I know that this doesn’t matter. 

“There was just that girl.”

“Yeah, my friend. I thought she could look after you, I had to go and collect Jen from somewhere she… forgot her bicycle.”

“You lied, you told me that Jen was here.”

“Yeah, I did,” I hesitate, “I’m sorry Ivy. Do you hate me?”

She turns over onto her back and drags the sleeve of her pyjamas beneath her dribbling nose, “Yes.”

“That’s fair. Do you want me to call mom and dad?”

“No,” she says with disgust, “No I don’t want to talk to them.”

“Well what do you want?”

“For you to take care of me when I’m sick.”

“I know,” I reach out to brush her damp fringe away from her forehead, half expecting her to shove my arm away, but she doesn’t. “We’ll get you looked after and everything cleaned up, okay? And when you come out I promise that my friend will be gone. I’ll get some clothes for you that don’t have sick down the front, yeah? And then everything will be fine.”

“I still don’t like you now.” She says.

“Yeah that’s fine, I don’t either.”

Outside it is raining now, but Clóda and I linger in the mist as we say goodbye.

“I’m sorry,” I say for the tenth time, “This was a total disaster.”

“No it’s okay, these things happen I suppose.”

“I suppose.”

“I hope that your sister and Jen will be okay.”

“They will, I’ll just,” I heave out a sigh, “I’ll just sort it all out, everything is going to be fine.”

“Good.”

“Can I pay for your taxi home?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“The rain is really picking up, I feel like it’s the least I can do.”

She chews on her lip, “Well, I suppose my hair does get frizzy…”

I hand her twenty euros with no hesitation, though it still feels like a cheap offering. She smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear, “You know, if you want to see me again I’d be up for it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Maybe some afternoon when you’re not on duty and we can really chill out.”

“Yeah I’d like that.”

“Okay. I felt like, you know, we were only getting started tonight. I feel like you have a lot more to teach me.”

I chuckle and lean in close to her, “Whatever you want, Clóda.”

“Text me.”

I lean down to kiss her cheek, which instantly feels like a stuffy, old person thing to do, so I am relieved when she turns her head so I catch her lips instead. Closed lips.

Progress. 

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Later, as we amble back to the campsite together we are careful not to touch. I keep thinking about that sensation, the grit, “I’m sorry about the sand, you know, it kind of seems obvious in hindsight but I really didn’t expect it to get up-”

“It’s okay,” she shudders, “I could tell that it would have been nice if we were somewhere else.”

“Yeah,” I can see the smoke from the bonfire now, rising from the tops of the fir trees in ribbons and I look forward to its warmth on my cold body. “Did it hurt you?” I ask, “Apart from the sandpaper experience, I mean.”

Clóda thinks for a moment, “Not much more than I thought it would. Was it okay for you?”

“Yeah I had a nice time. You know overall I feel pretty lucky to have spent time with you tonight.”

Inexplicably this makes her start to cry, which gives me a fright, and I reach for her with urgency as though I can somehow halt what has already begun, “I can’t believe I did it,” she sniffles, “Like, it’s just done and now I’m not a virgin. It’s so weird.”

“Yeah I understand that, um, can I do anything to help?”

“No, I think I just want to get into your sleeping bag and go to sleep.”

“Tired, huh?”

She nods. 

“Well maybe by the time we get back to the guys the food will finally be cooked, what do you think?”

She laughs thickly, “Yeah, maybe.” and I take her hand to lead her over the hump of the dune towards the campsite. 

The first strange thing is there is no noise, no chatter or laughter, just the crackling and popping of the fire, and I'm hit with the feeling that something is off before we even climb to the top of the dune. 

Standing there and looking at the deserted campsite I am perplexed, “Where is everyone?” Clóda stands and stares. “I don’t know. In their tents? Is it really that late already? It didn’t feel like we were gone for that long.”

I zip open Joe’s tent. Empty. Shane’s. Empty. Jen’s… a half smoked joint is on the ground outside, and it is empty. The sausages she was cooking lie blackened upon the barbeque, the colour and consistency of charcoal. 

“Um, guys?” I call out into the trees but they only answer with the gentle swish of their branches. Grasshoppers chirp somewhere, and nobody replies. “Is this some kind of prank? Come on.”

I glance back at Clóda, still on the dune. “Do you think it was the ghosts?” I joke, “Or an alien abduction?”

“God, stop,” she shudders, “This is really freaking me out.”

“Maybe they’ve just gone for more wood? Or for a piss? I don’t know, I-”

A shaft of torch light beams through the trees toward me and with it comes a voice, “oi! I already told you to leave!”

“Oh fuck!” I wheeze, “Fuck fuck fuck, Clóda, go.” She stares at me like a deer in headlights. 

“Go!” I repeat, “You have to start running!”

I grab my bag, then her arm and haul her through the trees away from the light because she still isn’t moving, and along the verge of the woods we go, lit only by the moon as we trample over twigs and snap branches, fire in our lungs and hearts pounding in our ears. 

“Ow!” She keeps saying, “Ow, ow ow!”

“I’m sorry, I know, I know, I know” because the thorns tear at me too, through the thin cotton of my t-shirt to the skin underneath just as harshly as they lash my arms and my legs and snag my cheek. 

“I’ll have you done for trespassing!” The voice bellows from behind us, “This is private land.”

“Fuck sake, we know,” I mutter, and can he not see us leaving?

“What is happening?” Clóda cries. 

“We’re trespassing,” Is she not aware of that? 

“Are you sure we’re running the right way?”

“Yes.” No. But we soon find the gravel path again and tear toward the gate where my bike is tethered still, though alone, and I feel a white hot fury that snarls and twists inside me as everyone else has left me. I launch my body over the gate and yank my bike free. 

“Get on.”

“Jude-”

“Clóda, I’m serious.”

“Wh- what the hell?” Her face is a mask of upset and confusion, and I look at her, really look now at the leaves in her hair, the rip along the cuff seam of my favourite hoodie, raised white cuts, some bleeding, on her hands and her legs and one, brilliant red streak of blood on the inside of her thigh thanks to me, and I feel such intense shame for my anger that I could cry.

“We have to go,” I say more gently, and when she comes to me I pick the remnants of the woods from her tangled hair as carefully as I can. “Will you get on the handlebars? I want to get you home before the guard comes back.”

She obliges and scrambles on while her limbs tremble. I murmur all of the reassuring things I can think of to her as we take off down the path and back toward the village with dust behind the wheels. She sounds dazed, “I’m supposed to be at Rachel’s.”

“Well you might have to tell your parents a lie, say that you felt sick.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says. “Good idea.”

We cycle in silence for a long while then, and I look up at the sky and I remember being small, a tiny thing on my great aunt’s lap while the warm autumn winds blew in from the desert and licked my arms and legs, and she would point up at the stars and the moon and tell me that no matter where you go, they always look the same. 

Clóda interrupts my pensive thoughts with a simple statement; “That was mad,” and it makes me chuckle, “Yeah, that was pretty stupid. You know what though? In a few days this is going to be the funniest thing ever.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, one hundred percent.”

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“You and Jen,” She says to me as we walk alongside the shore, “What’s the story there?”

“What you mean?”

“You seem close.”

“We are, she’s my best friend.”

“Right, well…” She trails off, “Okay never mind. That’s fine.”

“I know it’s fine. Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“Do you think that boys and girls can really be friends? I mean really really.”

I huff out a laugh. If she knew how often I think and talk about this exact topic she’d laugh too. “Yeah I think so. At least I think that I think so. It makes it a bit easier when one of you is gay though.”

Clóda’s eyebrows shoot up, “She’s gay?”

“Yeah does it make you feel better to know that?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah of course,” I almost say that I know because I already tried to kiss her a few years ago and it didn’t exactly go down well. She’d thought I was experimenting on her, and maybe I was. Maybe we were experimenting on each other. 

“Just because you’re always together, and laughing, and like, she’s staying at your beach house and all of that, I was wondering-”

“Does she make you feel insecure?”

Clóda burns red, “No, I don’t get insecure.”

“It’s alright, she’s staying with me because the family she usually lives with are on holiday in Malaysia this summer. She didn’t want to go with them so I invited to come to the beach house with my family instead.”

“What do you mean 'the family she stays with'?”

“Yeah Jen doesn’t live with her parents anymore. She lives with our friend Michelle.”

“Hm. Sounds a bit weird to be honest.”

“It’s for the best, hey,” I press my hand against her arm, goose pimpled, then her hand clutching it in a frigid claw. “You’re freezing. Why didn’t you bring something else to wear?”

“I don’t know, I just didn’t think about it.”

I take my hoodie off and zip her into it, “better?” 

“A bit, but I’m still cold.”

“Okay,” I pull her into my chest and rub my hand over her back the same way I used to do to Ivy when she was a toddler wrapped in a towel. “Maybe we should go back to the fire, hm?”

“No, I want to be on our own.”

“Okay, then why don’t we find somewhere sheltered to sit? That sea breeze is really picking up.” 

With the warmth of the day evaporated from the sand it is chilled against my hands and elbows as we find a spot to sit amongst the marram grasses. As soon as we sit I hold her close to me because maybe all we need is to share body heat. Maybe it’s the most sensible thing to do. 

“Here, give me some of my heat back,” I say to Clóda as I slip my hands into my hoodie and press icy hands against her back. She squeals and pushes me away, only to get her revenge by flattening her own cold hands against my cheeks, my neck, under my t-shirt where she finds the warm skin of my chest and I squirm but I don’t stop her. Instead I lean in to tickle her neck and her ear with my lips and breath and then with her pinned underneath me I kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her, and now with her hands under my clothes and hers under mine I feel it; that familiar ache that spreads throughout my body, and the heat and the hunger that drives me past my senses. We stop laughing and I kiss her harder.

I roll on top of her and pin her body down with mine, our hands roaming, mouths messy and desperate, and although I zipped her into my hoodie only ten minutes ago I’m already zipping her out of it again just so that I can feel more of her body in my hands. 

My t-shirt comes off. I think it was me who removed it but I don’t know or care because now my fingers wrestle with the clasp of Clóda’s bra. I wish I could do this with one hand. I wish I was that slick but I’m not, but it doesn’t stop me trying it for several seconds before I admit defeat. Like most other mortal men I need both my hands, but they do it easily, and then I am touching her with them and she sighs while I swallow the sound with my mouth against hers. She lies there open to it, arms open to her sides, lips open as I glide my tongue against hers, legs as I fit my hips between them. 

She gasps at the sensation of being close in this way, of feeling all that she can feel between thin cotton and jersey. 

“You can touch me if you want,” I prompt. 

“Where?”

“Wherever you usually touch a boy.”

“Oh, yeah obviously.”

She doesn’t move, so I draw back to look at her, breathing hard. Her teeth tug on her lip and she looks at me with uncertainty, then slowly, hesitantly she reaches for the elastic waistband of my shorts. Even the brush of her fingers against my lower stomach does insane things to the inside of me and I shudder. I hold my breath as she pulls at the band, slides a cold hand in and she’s under, and there. Not doing anything, not moving, just holding. 

“When you go back to Dublin after the summer,” she says anxiously, “will you stay in touch with me?”

“What? Will I-” I suck air in through my teeth at the new sensation, “Yeah of course. I’ll text you all the time.”

“And you’ll visit me too?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have MSN?”

What the fuck. “Yeah, yeah I have MSN- ow, no-”

“I’m doing it wrong!” She drops me like a hot potato and shrinks away in horror.

“Are you alright? It’s fine, you just-”

“I fucked it up.”

“Clóda- no, it was nice.”

“Can't we just skip this part?” Her hands spring to her sides in surrender, “I clearly don’t know what I’m at.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just, um…” I feel a lot of the desperation and urgency slipping away and make an effort to heat things up again by licking her neck a bit and reminding her that she is hot. It’s never really hard for me to get in the mood anyway, as all I’ve ever really needed to do is have the privilege of a girl underneath or on top of me to feel like stars and moons and a million constellations of light have dropped into my palms. 

I adore girls, I think, as my hands slide under her skirt. I worship them and everything about them that makes them different from me. Soft skin and lips and the scent of their hair, their humour, the way that they laugh… I think that I like girls more than most boys like girls, honestly, not that I’m competitive about it, just, if there was a contest I would be winning. 

Clóda’s breath hitches and she clutches to me so tightly that my face is forced into the sand over her shoulder, but I don’t really feel like pointing it out to her, because sometimes with good things comes some sacrifice, and if eating sand is a part of the experience of fingering her then I suppose I can accept that. 

“Oh, that feels odd,” she says. 

“Um, Odd? Does it usually feel odd to you?”

She seems to realise what she has said, “Um… yeah, I-” A panicked sob escapes her and she blurts out, “I don’t know! I’ve never done anything more than kissing before! I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like!”

I sit up instantly, wiping and spitting sand off my tongue. “But you said-”

“I know, but I was just saying that. That’s what everyone says! Everyone just makes it all up, I hoped that maybe you…” she trails off.

“I’ve never made anything up.”

“You’ve done all of this before?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t say ‘of course’ like it’s so obvious! Most people haven’t done a thing, I suppose I was just hoping that it was the same for you.”

I scratch the back of my head, “No, well, I have…”

Her eyes widen in horror, “Have you gone all the way?”

“Yeah, a few times.”

“A few times?” She covers her face in anguish, “But you’re only sixteen.”

“It’s not a big deal, really. It’s just, like, fun, and I don't mind if you’ve never done it, or anything, really. If you want to give it a go, then…”

A pause, “You’d do it with me anyway?”

“Yeah, I think you’re nice.”

“You really don’t mind?”

“No.”

She looks at me. I look at her, and for a long moment neither moves or says a word, perhaps for fear that whatever opportunity has just presented itself will evaporate into thin air if we dare say or do the wrong thing in the wrong way, that we will realise it is a stupid idea and we alongside it are stupid people. 

“Okay,” she whispers carefully, “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” I scramble around in my pocket for a condom. “You trust me?”

“I think so?”

“You have to know, not think.”

“I know.”

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“You need to cook them more, I’m not eating that.” I’m backseat driving as Jen tries to fry sausages on the disposable barbecue she brought along. I tried to point out that she needs to wait until the charcoal turns white before she starts adding in the meat, but for some reason she thought I was making it all up to wind her up. “I think you should take them off and start again.”

“And I think you should shut your face,” She flips over an anaemic sausage to discover that it is tragically raw on the other side too.

“I brought snacks,” I point out, “We can just give up on this whole charade and eat crisps instead.”

“I’m not a quitter, I’m a fighter, and I’ll defeat these bloody fucking sausages if it’s the last thing I do.”

I bend to murmur in her ear, “You should have let Shane do it, he knows all of this boy scout kinda stuff.”

We both look around to see him and Joe giggling and red eyed in a cloud of dank smoke. 

I sigh, “Alright, let’s figure this out, you know, we’re both smart people and I think that we can-”

Clóda is calling for me again. She’s been doing this every five minutes or so in a vye for my attention. So far it's been because she wants me to listen to part of a song on her iPod or show me some picture she took on her camera, but I know it’s that she’s feeling left out. I’ve been realising over the course of the evening that she’s not all that good at conversing with any of the others, and I feel sorry for her. Still, Jen's shoulders stiffen every time Clóda interrupts us and I am torn between them.

I turn around, “Yeah?”

“Do you have a jumper I could wear? I’m getting cold.”

“You really didn’t bring a jumper?”

“No, because I thought I could have yours.”

“But I only have the one that’s on me… the fire’s not keeping you warm, huh?”

“Not really,” she pouts and I understand what she is asking for. I scoot down next to her and put my arms around her, and though she doesn't really feel cold I'm sure that is not really the point.

Jen snickers, “Oh don’t mind me. Just slaving away over a hot barbeque… all on my own now, trying to get five hungry teenagers fed…”

“Calm down, Jen, you can figure it out.”

“You’re the last one getting a sausage.”

I laugh to myself, “You know, actually, that just reminded me of that time that we-”

Clóda interrupts me by launching herself at my mouth and kissing me. I draw back in surprise, “what was that for?”

“You’re just so cute,” she says, “ I couldn’t resist.”

“Oh, okay, well you’re cute too, “ I kiss her back, then again and again while Jen makes puking noises until Joe joins in and they heckle us in the background about getting a room. 

I move my mouth to her ear, “Let’s go somewhere,” and she giggles with delight. I like that; how much she likes me. I take her hand and we head towards the dunes, where the full moon has risen high over the beach. 

“Where you off to?” Jen says.

“For a walk.”

“Well I’m not saving you any food if you take too long to come back.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back in less than three hours, before the sausages are finally done.”

She laughs and sticks out her tongue at me so I give her the finger as I turn away to take Clóda onto the beach side. 

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Ivy is in her pyjamas by seven that evening but she won’t settle. She keeps insisting that when mom and dad are gone she doesn’t have to follow any rules, including bedtime, and I realise the error of my ways in establishing this dynamic with her. Perhaps being the fun brother has too many downsides. 

“Please, Ivy, just get into bed, what do I have to do?”

“I’m not tired.”

“I don’t care, go anyway.”

“What if there’s something good on telly that I want to watch?” She swipes the remote from the table and switches on some re-run of Gossip Girl, which is absolutely not allowed.

“No, turn it off, that’s not for you.”

“It’s for girls, it says it in the name.”

“They’re not girls, they’re… ladies, and they’re all spoiled. A bit like you, huh?” I snatch the remote out of her little hand and flick it off, so she balls her fists up in frustration and starts pummelling me with them. It is nine o’clock in ten minutes and I haven’t gotten around to cleaning our breakfast, lunch or dinner from the kitchen. Baguette crumbs and puddles of spilled hot chocolate still litter the table and counter upstairs making it look like, well, like a teenage boy is running this operation. 

“Stop,” I cry, “you’re over excited, this is what happens when you get too much sugar, I swear to God…” 

“Give me the remote!”

“No!”

“I want to watch TV!” 

“Go. To. Bed.” I put the remote high up on a shelf where she’ll never reach it, which is a stupid idea, because she shrieks and starts trying to scale the furniture to get closer to it. I swear I can feel the ticking of the clock inside my brain by now, she has to go to bed, I don’t know what else to do. When she gets onto the coffee table she kicks over the glass of orange juice that she asked me for fifteen minutes ago and sends it to the floor with a hollow thunk. I stand and watch as liquid pools over the hardwood flooring and I feel something in me snap. I grab her and yank her down hard. Way too hard. 

“Ow, ow,” she cries, “let go!” and I peel my fingers away to see the red ring I have left around her little wrist. Tears have sprung to her eyes, and in a panic I get down on my knees and hold the sides of her head as she begins to shake with sobs. 

“Ivy, I’m sorry,” I say, “That was too hard, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I really didn’t, I’m sorry…”

“I just wanted to watch the telly,” she whimpers, and fat tears pour down her round cheeks and drip from her chin. I feel ill. This is what happens with me, all the time, I get her hyped up and feed her sweets and then I get angry when she can’t calm down. She’s just a little child and I’m a fucking idiot without a clue about how to be responsible. It’s only been a day since we’ve been left alone and look at us now, the kitchen is destroyed, there’s orange juice seeping into the oak flooring and I’ve made my sister cry. 

“Ivy, please,” I say, “I’m sorry I hurt you, what can I do to make it better?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to call mom?”

She gasps, “No,” and she’s right, what a stupid idea. 

“Do you…” I look around me in a panic, “Do you want another hot chocolate?”

This brightens her up, “Another one?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Of course, yeah, sure. If you… If you get into your bed I’ll take it in and you can have it there, what do you think?”

She swipes her hands over damp cheeks, “I’m allowed hot chocolate in my room?”

“Yeah just for tonight, and only if you promise that you won’t spill it or tell anyone else. Okay?”

She nods, and I breathe a sigh of relief. 

She goes to her room while I head up to the kitchen and shove old plates and mugs out of the way to make room for a new one. I give her two scoops of chocolate powder and extra marshmallows as a guilty offering, and as I’m stirring it all together with hot milk a shadow crosses the window.

I curse under my breath. She’s five minutes early, and usually I’d be happy that a girl was so eager to hang out with me, but now is a less than ideal time. I try to get to the door before she does but I don’t make it, and the doorbell rings obnoxiously through the house. 

“Hello,” Clóda says when I open up to her, and her eyes immediately drift to the ridiculous looking hot chocolate in my hands, “Um, is that what you’re drinking?”

“No, um, it’s not, it’s for my sister.”

“She’s still up?”

“She’s going to bed now, I just wanted to bring this to her, and then we’ll be on our own,” She steps inside and I close the door gently behind her. 

“Is that a good idea?” She wonders, “All of that sugar?”

Fucking hell, I don’t know, do I? “It’s fine. You can just come downstairs and sit on the couch, I’ll be a minute,” I see her taking in the mess of the kitchen, and add, “don’t worry about that, it’s just been a busy evening, it’s not like that usually.”

“Okay.”

Ivy is sitting up in bed wearing an anxious expression. “Who was at the door?”

“Jen.”

“Oh,” a pause, “Did she lose her key?”

“Yeah she did, she was out on the beach and it fell out of her pocket.”

“Oh no, I hope she can find it.”

I push her fringe away from her forehead, “yeah, I hope so too. You know how it is with girls' pockets and all, they don’t really fit much in them, do they?”

She smiles, “No, they don’t. So it’s not really Jen’s fault, it’s her jeans.”

“Exactly,” I straighten up, “You okay now?”

“I think so.”

“Okay well, if you need something just shout for me and I’ll hear you. Don’t come out into the living room or anything, I’m going to be, um, watching a really scary movie.”

“Oh okay.”

“Goodnight Ivy.”

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