The day after Craig’s funeral, Penny called round mid-morning. We took Sandy down to the beach. As we walked, two jet fighters flew low, over the sea, and then climbed at a steep angle, the roar of their afterburners echoing around the sky and momentarily drowning the sound of the waves.

‘What are they?’ asked Penny, as the noise began to recede.

‘Aeroplanes.’

‘What sort, stupid? I thought boys were supposed to know that sort of stuff.’

‘Phantoms, I think.’ Aircraft identification wasn’t high on my list of priorities then. I’d brought an old tennis ball along and threw it for Sandy to retrieve from the water. After a while I threw the ball to Penny, she caught it and tossed it back. We continued this for a time, the dog bounding between us ready to scoop up any dropped catches.

When we’d tired of the game, I took Penny’s hand and we turned towards home. We walked in silence until she said, ‘What are you thinking about?’

I sighed. ‘All the things I used to do down here with Craig.’

‘Remember what you said, you have to think of the good times.’ She gripped my hand a little bit tighter.

‘I know.’ I replied. Saying it was one thing, doing it was much harder. Every happy memory reminded me that my friend was gone, and that the good times would never be repeated. The silence returned and we strolled on. 

On the way back we bought fish and chips in the square. We sat on a bench, put there in memory of some long-forgotten local worthy, and ate from the paper. Sandy sat in front of us, his head swivelling like a Wimbledon umpire’s, hoping for titbits.

‘Maybe Craig’s name should be on a bench,’ I said.

‘That one over there.’ Penny pointed at the seat Craig used to lie on whilst waiting for the bus to college.

‘The Stebbins memorial seat, for lazy students.’

‘You’re getting better,’ said Penny, ‘that was very nearly a joke.’

‘Thanks.’ I tossed a chip to the dog, his unerring food radar allowing him to snatch it in mid- air and wolf it down greedily.

Back at my house, I shut Sandy in the back garden and took Penny up to my room. We hadn’t been to bed together since Craig’s death and I was unsure of my feelings. We took our clothes off, taking our time, and for a moment we stood naked, facing each other.

‘We don’t have to do this,’ I said.

She held both my hands and looked into my face. ‘We won’t, not if you don’t want to.’

My body wanted to, and was busy semaphoring the fact in the only way it knew how. Except I had discovered that there could be more to sex than a few breathless minutes on the divan and worrying about whether the condom would flush away afterwards. Sex could get you killed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take that risk.

We sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘What is it?’ said Penny.

‘I keep thinking, what if it had been us? What if you’d got …’

‘Pregnant?’ I nodded. ‘And what would you have done if I had?’

‘I’d have stuck by you. You know that.’ A few days earlier I would have spoken those words with my fingers crossed tight behind my back, whilst uttering silent prayers to every known deity that I wouldn’t be asked to live up to them. Now, I was certain I meant them for real, at that moment Penny was the most important person in my life.

‘That’s all I wanted to hear.’ She placed a hand on my cheek and kissed me on the lips, still tasting of vinegar and battered cod. We hugged, tears welling in our eyes, and then we made love.

I must have drifted off to sleep afterwards. When I woke, Penny lay with her head on my chest, her hair spread over my shoulder; I felt her breath, warm against my skin. She was running her toes up and down my calf, ruffling the soft hairs.

‘Penny  … ’

‘Oh, you’re awake. Was it that exhausting?’

‘It was great,’ I said, and I meant it. It was the best sex we’d ever had: rip-roaring, earth moving, force nine on the Richter scale sex that had the mattress springs groaning for mercy. Yet a part of me would have traded every delicious moment for a ten-minute talk to Craig. ‘Was it okay for you?’

‘Yes, it was good.’ She snuggled a little closer.

‘Pen, are you still  …  comfortable  …  with us I mean?’

‘What’s the matter? Worn out by all the shagging?’

‘No, I  …’ I knew she was teasing. ‘It’s just that, it’s been a wonderful summer for us  …  together, I mean, you and me. And now it’s almost over, we’ll be back at college soon and, well, you know  … ’

I felt her head move in a nod. ‘We’ll have less time when we’re back at college, won’t see each other alone quite so much.’

‘I mean we can still go out and stuff, but  …  ’

‘You’re worried we’ll have less time for sex?’

‘Yes,’ I said, relieved that she’d said the words for me. ‘Am I that transparent?’

‘Pretty much. Don’t worry, there’ll still be times.’ She began to giggle.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Where there’s a willy there’s a way.’

We both laughed.

‘Maybe a quick daytime poke behind the college pre-fabs then?’

I felt her shake as she giggled some more. ‘Certainly not! Anyway, they say it’s going to be a cold winter, you don’t want to risk getting your tackle frostbitten.’ She was stroking my thigh now and my body was responding. ‘You want to do it again now though, don’t you?’

‘Maybe for old times’ sake,’ I replied.

As I reached my second climax of the afternoon I silently dedicated the moment to Craig and I clearly heard his voice in my head calling me a ‘jammy bastard’.

‘Do you think there’s sex in the afterlife?’ I said, as we got dressed.

There was a long pause before she replied. ‘It wouldn’t be much of an afterlife without.’ Then she sniggered. ‘I suppose they’d have afterplay.’

‘What?’ I hadn’t seen the joke.

‘Instead of foreplay.’

I groaned. ‘And I expect they eat after-life mints.’ It wasn’t one of my better jokes but we laughed anyway and I felt things were returning to normal.

‘What are you grinning at?’ asked Penny.

‘The afterlife,’ I said, ‘it’s dead funny.’ It was her turn to groan and she hit me hard enough to cause a bruise.

Saturday morning, I woke to Mum shaking my shoulder. ‘Come on, show a leg, you’ve got a job to go to.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ I whined, partly because I didn’t want to go, and partly because I’d taken to sleeping naked and I was self-conscious when she came in my room to wake me.

‘You can’t let them down,’ she scolded, ‘and anyway, it’ll help take your mind off things.’

After a hasty breakfast I trudged round to the garage. Only to be greeted by Mr Duckett with, ‘I didn’t expect to see you today.’

‘I need to keep busy,’ I said. ‘Take my mind off things.’

‘Happen, lad, that’s probably best.’

I passed a couple of uneventful hours washing cars, trying hard to concentrate on the job in hand and not let my brain slip into neutral. Although the funeral had helped in providing some sense of closure, I was still troubled by thoughts and dreams of Craig; sometimes so vivid I could have reached out and touched him.

Job done, I went to the office to collect my money. I almost bumped into Dino as I was leaving. It was the last thing I needed at that moment and I tensed for a fresh confrontation.

‘John,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry about Craig, he was a good lad.’

Taken aback, I took a moment before I could reply. ‘He was,’ I said, ‘thanks, Dino.’ It seemed that everybody had liked Craig and that made me miss him more than ever.

I set off for home. On the way I met Penny. I suspected she had engineered the encounter, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Walking hand in hand we arranged to meet the following afternoon, our last day of freedom before returning to college, to recreate our first date. ‘The-Sunday-After-the-Disco’, as Penny put it.

‘You realise that was a last minute idea?’ I said.

‘What was?’

‘The walk on the beach. I asked you out before I remembered it was Sunday, then I panicked. Couldn’t think of anything to do, a walk was the best thing I could come up with.’

She squeezed my hand. ‘I’m glad you did. No one had ever asked me on a walk before, they’d always wanted to go somewhere or do something.’

‘A walk isn’t “something”?’

‘You know what I mean, it’s not like a café or the cinema.’

‘What you’re saying is you fell for me because I’m cheap.’

She released my hand, skipped a few steps ahead and turned. ‘I’d have said skinflint,’ she taunted, then ran.

I chased her for a short way, when I caught up we kissed and I said, ‘Thanks for everything this last week. It would have been a lot tougher without you.’

‘You say the nicest things.’ There was a catch in her voice as she said it. We kissed again, briefly, then walked on in silence.

On Lancaster Drive we saw Graham. He was bolting the replacement wing onto his car.

‘Not at work?’ I asked him as we neared.

‘Got the push, didn’t I?’

‘How come?’

‘They said my hair frightened the customers.’

Beside me, I heard Penny suppress a snigger. I felt her fingers dig tighter into my hand.

‘Good to see you’re getting the car fixed up, anyhow,’ I said. The discarded damaged wing lay on the grass.

‘Yeah, got the bits from the scrappy.’

‘Do you want the old bit?’ Penny said, out of nowhere. Both Graham and I looked at her in surprise. ‘Only I’ve got this modern art project to do next term, and that would be ideal.’

I was puzzled. ‘Penny, you don’t―’ She silenced me with a sharp kick to the ankle. ‘Ow!’

‘I want to use lots of different old car parts,’ she ploughed on. ‘To show the futility and shallowness of twentieth century consumer society.’ I hadn’t a clue what she was on about.

‘Take it if you want,’ said Graham with a shrug.

She made me carry the wing. When we were out of Graham’s earshot I said. ‘What was all that about? You don’t even do art.’ We headed down the pathway towards Penny’s house.

‘Take a close look at it,’ she said.

‘It’s a bent wing off an old Cortina.’

‘And what else?’

I looked at the wing. ‘There’s some scrapes of blue paint on it.’

‘Yes, and what colour was Craig’s bike?’

‘Blue  …  no, don’t be silly. Graham said it was damaged in a car park.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘Why not?’

She looked at me and gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Billy said he saw a silver car in the High Street; Graham damages his car about the same time, and there’s blue paint on it, same as Craig’s bike. And he was acting pretty odd on Monday.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘And anyway, what would we do about it?’

‘Go to the police, of course.’ She was beginning to sound like one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five.

‘They wouldn’t believe us. And it can’t be true, not Graham.’

‘Well, I think we should keep that.’ She nodded towards the wing. ‘Just in case.’

I shook my head, but she made me put it in her dad’s garage anyway. That night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, turning over in my mind what she had said. Whilst it was true Graham had never been the brightest light on the Christmas tree, I found it hard to believe him capable of a cover-up. Yet what about the colour of the car, the blue scrapes and the timing of the damage? Could it be more than mere coincidence?

Sandy by my side, I met Penny at the pathway, as I had on The-Sunday-After-the-Disco. I’d made a special effort to wear the embroidered jeans and the rest of the clothes from that first date. ‘Does this bring back memories?’ I asked in greeting.

‘You’re wearing the same outfit. I wish I’d thought of that.’

‘Never mind, it’s you that matters, not the clothes.’

‘So, are you wearing everything the same?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if you’re really good, I might let you see my lucky underpants.’ She giggled and we set off. We said little on the way down to the beach, each lost in our own thoughts, our own memories. I began to wonder how many times we’d done this walk together in the months that had passed since May, and that first occasion.

Walking along the shore, holding hands, watching the dog scamper in and out of the surf, I tried to savour the moment. But the question of Craig and of Graham wouldn’t go away.

‘Do you think it’s true?’ I said.

‘About Craig’s accident?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘We’ll never know unless we tell someone.’

‘But what if it’s not Graham after all?’

‘Then he’s got nothing to hide, and he’ll have a perfectly good explanation for everything.’

I smiled, remembering the Sid Viscous joke. ‘I’m not sure Graham ever had a perfectly good explanation for anything.’

‘You know what I mean. I honestly think we should tell someone.’

I knew she was right, but I found it hard to admit to myself let alone say so out loud. My cartoon devil would at that moment have called me spineless, but he’d deserted me since Craig’s death. Even though I would never class Graham as a friend, he was someone I’d known for a long time and I sort of liked him. On the way back, matters were taken out of my hands. In the square was the village bobby.

Constable Weldon was agreed by all and sundry to be a cantankerous old sod; I didn’t know anyone who liked him. Even my nana, who had a good word for almost everyone, called him a ‘misery guts’.

‘Now’s your chance,’ said Penny.

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘not old Weldon.’

She gave me a despairing look. ‘Coward. I’ll tell him.’ Before I could protest further she headed off across the square. ‘Excuse me, officer  … ’

The rest of the conversation was lost to me. I saw Weldon take out his notebook and write something down. At one point they both looked at me, and I pretended to fiddle with Sandy’s collar.

‘What did he say?’ I asked as we resumed our walk.

‘He said they’d look into it.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Pretty much. I said you’d thought it was nothing. But he said we were right to tell him.’

‘Thanks, now I’ll get done for withholding information.’

‘Silly,’ she said, putting an arm round my waist. I genuinely worried about that sort of thing though.

I parted from Penny at the usual spot, with a kiss and a ‘See you in the morning,’ and ambled home. Once there, I went up to my room and began to sort out my books for the return to college. I’d only been in there a few minutes when Mum came in carrying a small pile of shirts which she placed on the bed.

‘Been ironing?’ I enquired.

She hesitated for a second before she spoke. ‘No, I saw Jean Stebbins after church. She thought you might have a use for these, some of them are almost new.’

‘Oh, Mum, no  …’ I realised the shirts had belonged to Craig.

Mum nodded. ‘I thought it might upset you, but she was so insistent. You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want.’ She patted me on the shoulder.

‘Thanks,’ I said, with a tight smile.

Mum went back downstairs and I sat for a while and looked at the sad little heap on the bed. On top was a black T-shirt, which I knew had been a favourite of Craig’s; I took off my own shirt and tried it on. It felt strange, wrong, and when I looked in the mirror it was Craig I saw looking back at me. I pulled off the dead man’s shirt, screwed it up in a ball and threw it to the floor, then I sat down and cried. I thought I’d started to get my feelings under control, but now they all came bubbling to the surface again.

The tears had stopped, but I was still sitting there, my head in my hands, when my mum came to tell me tea was ready. She looked at my bare chest, then at the shirt on the floor. ‘I’m sorry, love. It was too soon. I should have just put them away somewhere.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘They  …  they brought everything back, that’s all.’

I stood up and she hugged me. We went through the pile together then. One of the shirts was denim, and looked brand new; I couldn’t remember Craig ever wearing it. I slipped it on, more for my mum’s sake than anything.

‘That one’s nice,’ said Mum, ‘it suits you.’

I fastened the shirt and we went down for tea. That one item became a regular part of my wardrobe, the rest were left to languish in drawers and cupboards until they were given away to jumble sales, or my mum turned them into dusters.