I set off to pay in the cheque and since it’s raining I jump in my car. The radio is tuned to some local station doing a phone-in about football. Football has supposedly ‘come home’ this year as England is host of the European Championship. You can’t get away from it even though the competition ended months ago. I still prefer my sport on wheels so I fumble in the centre armrest for a cassette and slip it into the player without really looking at it.

It begins part way through not having been fully rewound. ‘River Man’. I’m instantly taken back to the first time I heard it. In Penny’s bedroom on a hot afternoon.

On the following Tuesday I was due at Penny’s for ten. At 9:30 I was still agonising over what to wear. The embroidered jeans were a given, as she said my bum looked sexy in them. My favourite T-shirt was in the wash though. The day was another hot one, but I didn’t fancy going round there stripped to the waist, it seemed to presume too much. And what if her mum or her brother happened to be in? My cartoon devil, who had stayed suspiciously quiet since Thursday, called me a coward.

At last, having rejected most of the contents of my wardrobe, I settled for a floaty cheesecloth shirt, worn unbuttoned. I slipped the last of my packet of three into my pocket and set off. I got to Penny’s about five-to. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since Sunday, and I was desperate to exorcise the images from my dream.

She answered the door wearing a sort of house coat, which I hoped was her mum’s.

‘Are you wearing anything interesting under there?’ I borrowed her question from the previous week.

‘Shhh. Tim hasn’t gone yet. Go and sit in the lounge.’

I mentally applauded my decision to wear the shirt.

Penny’s house had a through lounge, a dining room at the back and a narrow galley-style kitchen down one side. The walls were white-emulsion over woodchip, the carpet a light beige. It felt cool and spacious.

I knew Tim Harris in passing, like I knew most of the kids on the estate. A rather pudgy nine-year-old, Tim was often to be seen hanging around with the twins. He was off on some sort of trip with his gymnastics club and was busy packing things in a bag as I went into the lounge.

‘Hello, Tim.’

‘Hello, John,’ he said, then in a louder voice, ‘Sis! I can’t find my white socks.’

Penny called from the kitchen. ‘They’ll be upstairs. Go and get them while I finish making your sandwiches.’

Tim trotted off. Seizing the moment, I slipped off my shirt, went into the kitchen and stood behind Penny, placing my hands on her hips and kissing the back of her hair.

‘No. Wait till Tim’s gone.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘And put your shirt back on.’ A nervous edge had crept into her voice.

I slunk back to the lounge, replaced my shirt and sat on the settee, which was leather and squeaked a little. A copy of Reader’s Digest lay on the table and I skimmed through it reading the end-of-article jokes, trying to memorise the better ones.

Time seemed to move with glacial slowness until Tim left and we had the house to ourselves. Then Penny came in to the lounge.

‘So are you wearing anything interesting under there?’ I repeated, casting aside the magazine.

‘Not telling you,’ she said prim as a schoolmistress, ‘come on.’

She led me upstairs to her bedroom at the back of the house; it had a faint smell of lavender. The previous Thursday’s heightened awareness returned and I at once became conscious of every point at which my shirt touched my skin. I’d been in Penny’s room a couple of times before and had already worked out a suitable joke for this visit.

‘I don’t think I can do it with Marc Bolan watching me,’ I said, nodding towards her posters, which covered most of one wall.

‘Don’t worry. You won’t have to.’

‘Oh?’ I was intrigued.

‘Get your kit off and wait here.’

She left the room. Part of me was worried that this might be some sort of practical joke – that she’d rush back in with a camera or a posse of girlfriends – so I kept my underpants on and tucked the Durex packet into the waistband as a precaution. As I did this I heard the sound of running water and Penny’s voice calling, ‘Come on then.’

I crossed the landing to the bathroom, following the sound. Where our house had a shower with a cheap plastic curtain over the bath, Penny’s had a proper two-sided glass cubicle in the corner.

Penny was already inside, warm water flowing over her naked body. I pulled off my pants and put on the condom. No shaking this time. Then I stepped into the shower. Giuseppe Farina, Alfa Romeo, 1950; Juan Manuel Fangio, Alfa Romeo, 1951 …

We indulged in little foreplay. She put her arms round my neck as we kissed, I put my hands under her thighs and, as I slipped inside her, she lifted her feet from the floor. This was new and exciting. I forgot all about Formula One and it was over far too fast. We relaxed and stood there for a second or two, then I had an idea.

‘Wait here,’ I said. (It was a stupid thing to say. Where on earth was she going to go? I thought later.) I hopped out of the cubicle and flushed the contraceptive away, wrapping it in tissue to make sure.

Then I got back in the shower, picked up the soap and began to wash her, letting my hands linger on her breasts and buttocks, watching the white bubbles glide over the soft, creamy skin. When I’d explored almost every inch of her flesh she took the soap and began on me.

As she worked her way down my body I got a bonk on and began to regret scrapping my last Durex. The cartoon devil told me not to bother and just go for it; I willed him to disappear. When Penny began to soap my penis I couldn’t control myself and came in her hand.

‘Sorry.’ This was Katie Simpson all over again. I hung my head so that lank, wet hair fell forward and hid my face.

‘Silly boy.’ She lifted my chin and placed a blob of semen from her fingers on the end of my nose. I knew then that it would be all right.

I don’t know how long we stayed in the shower. At least we were doing our bit for the water shortage by sharing it.

Later, wrapped in fluffy pink towels, we lay on her bed and listened to her Carpenters’ album. Anywhere else I’d have dismissed this as girly music, but here Karen Carpenter’s haunting vocals were perfect. A collection of soft toys sat on a shelf opposite. ‘I like your bear,’ I said, gazing at the well-loved beige teddy in the centre of the row.

‘You like my bare what?’ Penny replied. We both began to giggle so much we couldn’t speak.

As the record ended, and our temporary hysteria subsided. I lay back and closed my eyes whilst Penny got up to put another record on.

There was a hiss and a crackle and I felt her climb back on the bed as a twanging guitar sound filled the room followed by a haunting male voice. We were three tracks in before I spoke, I still had my eyes shut. ‘Who is this?’

Penny’s voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘Nick Drake.’

‘It’s beautiful. Why haven’t I heard it before?’

‘He isn’t well-known, killed himself a couple of years ago. Tragic he was only about twenty-five or something.’

From where I was at that moment twenty-five seemed incredibly old. Left school, finished university, if I got in, probably a couple of years into a job – still I could see it was no age to go committing suicide.

When the record ended we stayed silent for a while then I felt the moment was right to tell her about Sunday and the accident, about my thoughts, my feelings, about being sick afterwards. I left out the dream as I didn’t want to upset her.

‘Poor darling,’ she crooned, ‘it must have been awful.’

I nodded and we kissed and held each other close: soft newly washed skin, damp hair and the smell of lavender. I wanted that moment to last for all eternity but I got a sudden cramp in my leg and had to leap up and hop around the bed whilst Penny laughed at me.

It must have been about two o’clock before I left. I carried my shirt and smelt the soap on my skin as I walked home in the sunshine humming ‘Top of the World’.  

Mum was pottering in the front garden when I got back. She wore a large straw hat to keep the sun off her face. Sandy lay stretched out on the lawn like one of those tiger skin rugs.

‘Nice time?’ she asked.

‘Yes, thanks.’ I felt there was an undercurrent to these pleasantries now. The S-word hung in the air like a hawk waiting to swoop onto its prey.

I fetched Sandy’s lead from the house. He was always up for an unscheduled walk and his tail swished in a steady rhythm as we headed down the street.

In Chapel Terrace I knocked on Craig’s door. He answered it in his swimming trunks. ‘Hiya, John.’

‘Fancy a walk?’ I said, ‘I need to talk.’

‘Not again,’ he said with a raise of his eyebrows, and a smile.

‘’Fraid so,’ I replied with a sheepish grin.

He went upstairs and came back with his jeans and baseball boots on, a white T-shirt in his hand, which he struggled into as we walked.

We headed down towards the beach.

Craig and I were soul mates and sounding boards. I had few secrets from him (with the exception of the Katie Simpson incident and my lost underpants). I unburdened myself to him as we walked. On Sunday I had only been able to relive the road accident, now I told him about me and Penny and about my mum’s reaction to finding the Durex packet. By the time we reached the sand he had heard the full story of the previous few days.

I found a piece of driftwood and threw it for Sandy to retrieve from the water. Craig was philosophical. ‘You should be happy.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s all out in the open, you don’t need to sneak around.’

‘But I enjoyed the sneaking around. It was more  …’ I searched for a suitable word, ‘… thrilling.’

‘Look, mate, you’ve got to take what you can and be grateful. Half the guys in college would sell their grannies just to be going out with Penny. Let alone giving her a good seeing-to in the shower,’ he said and grinned. This was why I liked Craig. He had a way of keeping my feet on the ground.

My immediate worries dealt with, we discussed Lauda, the accident and its possible effects on the world championship. The field now seemed clear for Hunt to take the title.

We had turned to walk back when Craig stopped, kicked off his shoes and pulled off his T-shirt.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Going for a splash about.’ He was undoing his belt. ‘Come on.’

‘It’s all right for you, you’ve got your cozzie on.’

He was hopping on one leg now as he pulled off his jeans. ‘You’re wearing undies, aren’t you?’

‘I can’t go—’

‘Coward!’ he called as he dashed towards the waves.

Craig knew me too well and I rose to the bait. I left my clothes in a heap and joined him in the water in my underpants. I was wearing a dark coloured pair which would just about pass for trunks. ‘Shit! It’s cold,’ I yelled as my feet hit the water. The North Sea was never warm, even at the height of summer.

‘Weed! Remember what it’s like in winter.’ When we were fifteen in a rash moment of bravado we’d agreed to do the ‘Boxing Day Dip’ in aid of charity. We’d been almost blue when we came out of the water, and my teeth had chattered all the way home.

‘Okay, so it’s not that cold,’ I said, splashing Craig as hard as I could.

We stood for a while in the shallows, splashing each other, Sandy bouncing around us barking in excitement and adding to the clouds of spray. Then Craig waded out a little farther so that the water was above his waist. Next thing I knew he was waving his swimming trunks in the air. ‘Come on, I dare you,’ he said.

I went out to join him. Not being a confident swimmer, I didn’t like to go too far into the sea. I knew I’d be okay with Craig though; he had earned a collection of life saving badges. When the water was above my waist, I slipped off my pants and held them up for Craig to see. We enjoyed the freedom of swimming naked for a few minutes, diving over the waves so that our bare backsides were exposed to anyone who might be passing but we didn’t care. Then we struggled back into our things under the water and made our way out onto the beach.

Of course, we didn’t have a towel, so we dried ourselves as best we could on our shirts, then lay down to let the sun do the rest. ‘You realise my mum’s going to go absolutely mental on wash day?’ I said. ‘I only put this clean on this morning.’ In our household you were expected to get two days wear out of a shirt before you put it in the laundry.

‘Mine too,’ said Craig. ‘Worth it though, eh?’ he added with a grin.

We both laughed, then closed our eyes and settled back with our hands behind our heads.

My pants were still damp when I put my jeans back on, and my shirt was creased and covered in sand. We discovered neither of us had a comb in our pockets, so we set off home looking like we’d been washed ashore from a shipwreck, moist and bedraggled, but happy to be alive.

An ice cream van was parked by the Coastguard tower as we headed home. I had some change in my pocket and we bought large cones, breaking little bits from the bottom to give to Sandy. That dog would do anything for ice cream.

I managed to sneak into the house without my mum noticing and went straight upstairs for another shower. My shirt and pants I pushed right to the bottom of my laundry bag, but I was only delaying the inevitable lecture.