It probably sounds like I’m gushing about Polly, and I am. There is nothing better than New Friend Feeling™: when you realise there’s someone you totally get and totally gets you. It’s way better than finding someone you fancy, because New Friend Feeling™ is more honest without all the sex stuff and hormones getting in the way and convincing you that good arms are actually a shining personality.
Polly’s not some wish-fulfilment fantasy I invented; I really did think she was wonderful. For those first few weeks, she could do no wrong. I knew it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t.
But more on that later.
When Polly first invited me to play crazy golf, I assumed she was joking. I’d seen the shabby ‘Fantasyland’ on the seafront a couple of times when I’d ventured into town during the holidays, but it had been overrun by little kids and tourists. Like everything in Brompton, it was ‘faded’.
Still, Polly assured me it was ‘theirs’ after dark. While I’d been up in my room on my laptop, that’s where everyone else had been, apparently. Of course I agreed to go. For someone so aggressive, Polly was oddly magnetic – people stuck to her like paperclips.
After school I went home for tea, or as southern people called it ‘dinner’. Dad was working late, as usual, so it was just Mum and me and a third plate wrapped in sweaty cling film. Since we’d moved to Brompton, I’d noticed Mum’s designated ‘uncorking time’ had steadily crept back from six to four. Now I think about it, there was no way of knowing if the goblet-sized glass of red wine Mum had when I got home was her first of the day. I suppose I wasn’t meant to notice. They seem to think I’m still upstairs playing with my Barbies.
Grumble. I almost can’t be bothered to get on to my parents – it feels too much like I should be lying back on a leather couch. I’m also aware that one day they might read this and I don’t want to feel like I’m chucking them under the bus. They did MAKE me. I suppose I should be a little bit respectful. OK, a lot respectful.
You know that moment where you realise The Awful Truth about your parents? I’d had that about two years earlier. Up until I was about fourteen, my dad was goofy and funny, and my mum was beautiful but strict. Now all I saw was a mean woman and an ineffectual man. Harsh, I know, but it works both ways. My dad always said I’d been a ‘happy accident’ but I, of course, now knew that translated as: I was a mistake.
Pre-me, my parents had this hip life. Young cool music journalist and cute indie librarian. Predating the hipster movement by about ten years, they met at a Pulp gig in Manchester and fell madly in love. So in love I guess they didn’t trouble themselves with silly things like contraception. Sometimes Mum looks at me and I swear I can see her blaming me for stealing the last sixteen years from her.
These days, my dad has a great job but no common sense, so my mum is in charge of money. Although I’m pretty pale-skinned, I look loads more like Mum than Dad – all cheekbones and raven hair – which means as I age I’m only going to look more severe, like bloody Maleficent. Something to look forward to. Personality wise, I’m more like Dad, affable and chill. At least, I hope I am.
‘How was school?’ Mum asked, now on her second glass of wine (that I knew of).
‘Fine.’
Standard answer. We always ate at the dining table with the TV off. It’s a house rule.
‘Fine. All I ever get is fine. It’s OK to not be fine, Vicky.’
‘Please don’t call me Vicky. I hate it more than olives and prejudice.’
She held up her fork to silence me. ‘Oh dear god, don’t overreact. I’m not having this stroppiness, I’m just not, so put a lid on it right now, please.’
‘Mum! I only said …’ There was no point. She was spoiling for a fight and I wasn’t going to give her one. ‘Whatever, sorry,’ I said, sounding exactly like the stroppy teen I’d just been warned about.
‘Have you made any new friends yet?’ she asked in the way you’d ask a four-year-old on their first day of nursery.
I can’t put my finger on when I stopped liking my parents. You don’t stop loving them, but I didn’t like them any more. I used to think my mum was this beautiful Princess Jasmine figure. There’s a photo in the hall from years ago – my mum and dad in super-fancy clothes at an awards thing. Mum’s wearing this amazing peacock-blue sari and I used to want to be her. When I grew up I’d wear that sari and dance and drink champagne and be just like her. But Aladdin wasn’t what I wanted any more. I was working on being anything but her.
‘Maybe.’ I poked a slug-like mushroom off my chicken chasseur. ‘I’m going to meet some people from school tonight.’
‘Oh, OK.’ I could see she wanted to ask if it was at a crack den in a way that wouldn’t stifle me. I’ll give her this, she’s at least read the Good Parenting books.
‘Don’t worry. We’re only playing crazy golf.’
Relief, followed by disbelief. ‘You’re going to play crazy golf ?’
‘Yep. I know.’
I arrived late to make sure I wasn’t the first to get there. I hate that. Brompton Front glittered like a miniature Vegas with arcade lights. As I walked past the machines were busy with kids I recognised from lower down the school. They huddled around claw-grab games while a pair of hard-as-nails-looking girls were so good at Dance Dance Revolution they could do it backwards without facing the screen.
There was a bijou funfair on the pier but, out of season, it had shut at six thirty. With the lights all off it was straight out of Scooby-Doo – I could make out the silhouette of the ghost-train skull and the roller coaster was like a ribcage. The crazy-golf course was underneath the pier, but set back from the beach. Down there it smelled of sea – that smell the sea has … sea-y? How else would you like me to describe it? Luckily, it was masked by the scent of freshly made fish and chips, vinegar, doughnuts and candyfloss. Heaven.
The tide shivered over the shore but there was tinny music coming from the crazy-golf sound system. It wasn’t the Eurodance of the arcades, it wasn’t even English – it was K-pop. They were playing Korean music in Brompton? Maybe this really was Polly’s space after all.
The wooden sign over the entrance featured a NOT MICKEY MOUSE welcoming kids in. Basically a poorly painted imitation Mickey Mouse with a much creepier smile – his tongue poked out of the edge of his mouth like he’d had a stroke. His manic leer seemed to say ‘Roll up! Roll up to the circus of nightmares!’ The sign actually read ‘Fantasyland – Fun for All the Family!’
I saw the others already waiting on the other side of the archway near the ticket booth. They were sprawled over the children’s play area like a Vice magazine spread, drinking cheap fizzy dessert wine straight from the bottle.
Polly stood on a swing straddling Daisy. Alice, as ever, sat on Alex’s knee on the roundabout. Tonight he was dressed like Sherlock Holmes (and not the foxy Cumberbatch version). Beasley teetered in the centre of the see-saw, waving his golf club like a majorette. Were they waiting for me? That was sweet.
‘Hey!’ I said. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘No worries,’ said Polly. ‘Wine?’
I actually hate wine, I think it both looks and smells like cat wee, but I accepted the lukewarm bottle so I didn’t look loserly. ‘Thanks.’
‘We were in the middle of a heated debate,’ Beasley explained. ‘If you had to have sex with someone from Sesame Street who would it be and why?’
‘Oh my god!’ I exploded.
‘I said Elmo,’ said Daisy, climbing off the swing to hug me. ‘And now everyone says I’m a paedo. Tell them I’m not, Toria.’
‘That is so wrong!’ I laughed. ‘You can’t have sex with them, they’re … Muppets!’
‘Cookie Monster is quite sexy, don’t you think?’ Polly grinned.
‘No, I don’t!’
‘Come on, you have to pick … or, like, your mum dies.’ Beasley dropped his club on his foot.
‘I’ll opt for my mum dying. The Muppets are more important. Which would you pick, Beasley?’
‘It was my question, so I don’t have to answer. When I lived in America I went to Sesame Street. I got to meet Big Bird.’
I would later learn that was a lie. Sometimes Beasley lies.
‘Cop out.’ I perched next to Alice and Alex. ‘So what’s this all about?’ I said, waving an arm at the golf course. ‘Do you actually play crazy golf?’
‘Well, of course,’ said Alex, continuing to chew, or indeed masticate, a dictionary. ‘It’s the most sublime pastime in all the kingdom. We take it very seriously.’
‘We don’t,’ Alice droned, more interested in filing her nails.
‘We jolly well do. It’s a fight to the death.’
Polly swung out and delivered a gentle kick in Alex’s face, which he ducked. ‘We don’t keep score but we do play.’
‘We’re just waiting for Nico and Zoë to arrive and then we’ll get going,’ Daisy said with an adorable kitten-like yawn.
Beasley explained. ‘Nico and Zoë go to the other sixth-form college in Brompton. They couldn’t get into Brompton Cliffs because they live too far away.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Polly sprang off the swing, bumping Daisy into the woodchips. ‘**** it, let’s get going. We need to teach Toria what to do anyway. Let’s get you a club. You got money?’
She led me to the kiosk. There was one hatch for clubs and admission and another for ice creams and stuff. Tonight both were operated by one guy: a stoned-looking rodentman with greasy hair. He reminded me of the drunk teacup mouse from Alice in Wonderland. ‘Oh look, a new one,’ he said, deadpan.
‘Ignore this ****,’ said Polly. ‘This is Jamie and he is what happens if you fail your exams.’
He glared at her with dewy pink-rimmed eyes. ‘Thanks, Polly. Love you too.’
‘That’s why we come here. Jamie makes us all work harder.’ Clearly used to Polly’s shit, he handed me a club and a score card as I slipped him the money. ‘You won’t need the score card,’ Polly reminded me.
‘There is only one rule,’ Alex explained as we pushed through a turnstile to the first hole. The course was set in a synthetic tropical garden with lanterns strung between imported palm trees. ‘You can’t move on to the next hole until you pot your ball and you can’t steer it in with your toe, Polly Wolff.’
‘I’ll do what the **** I want.’
‘No cheating, Pol.’ Daisy gave her the most serious glare such a pixie could manage.
‘OK, I won’t. Unless I get really ******* bored.’
With a vaudevillian flourish, Alex welcomed me to the first hole. ‘Welcome, dear lady, to Brompton’s finest crazy-golf establishment.’
‘God, why don’t you just whip it out for her?’ Alice muttered, not nearly quietly enough.
Let me talk you through the golf course. It’s important. Not to the story, but to me.
Hole 1: Hole 1 was a straight putt through a giant fibreglass skeleton’s mouth. It was purely decorative, Alex explained – it’s dramatic and foreboding, but it was actually a clear shot to the hole. Beasley swore that once upon a time the jaws used to open and close mechanically, but literally everyone else thought he’d dreamt that.
Hole 2: this was where it got exciting. On Hole 2, you hit your ball down a slope to the lower level. Polly told me that this one was pure luck – no amount of skill could compensate for the gravity and acceleration of the ball as it rolled downhill. Your only hope was if you bounced back off the guard at the bottom and rebounded into the hole. ‘Just smack it and hope for the best,’ Polly told me. ‘Coincidentally, my life mantra.’
By Hole 3 – a water feature with a hump bridge – it was clear that, while it was true no one was keeping score, everyone except Daisy was competitive. In fact, never had crazy golf been so hard core. In particular, Beasley, Polly and Alex seemed in it TO THE DEATH. Polly had a love/hate relationship with her ball – if it went the right way she’d kiss it, if it didn’t go in it would get called a ******* little ****. Even Alice lightened up – when she potted her ball she performed a fairly convincing pole dance around her club.
If we had been keeping score, I’d have been doing pretty well – I totally fluked the third hole and got a hole-in-one.
Hole 4 was Daisy’s favourite – the ‘Disapproving Seal’. It was a straight line barricaded by a painted stone seal. Time and weather had worn its face, and Daisy was right – its expression could only be described as ‘disapproving’. I felt judged by this statue. I judged him right back. There was no way you could get a hole-in-one on this one unless you got lucky.
Hole 5 was a hard chicane, and then there was Hole 6.
Oh, Hole 6.
Hole 6 is where I met him.
That creaky little windmill would become a memorial for our meeting. He is Nico Mancini. If his name sounds like he’s out of a romance novel, it’s because HE SHOULD BE IN A ROMANCE NOVEL. He loudly announced his arrival with a cry:
‘I can’t believe you started without us. You are all dead to me.’
I turned round to see who was calling. I actually saw Zoë first – a strikingly beautiful black girl with silver glitter framing her eyes. Her ears were so pierced they seemed weighed down by metal.
Nico was behind her. However I describe him he’ll sound hideous, so rest assured he was beautiful. Seriously, if Nico had been born five hundred years ago he’d have been a muse to artists and sculptors and poets. He had thick curly hair falling over his forehead and heavy straight-line eyebrows. They were what I noticed first about a second before I noticed his smile and accompanying dimples. And then he noticed me.
‘Oh, hi. You must be the new girl.’
‘Yeah. I’m Toria.’
‘I know. Pols has been telling us all about you.’
Zoë introduced herself with a broad hug (she also asked where I got my coat, so she passed). I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I couldn’t take my eyes off him and, although he greeted the others, he kept looking back at me.
Let’s talk about Instalove. A lot of my online friends have book blogs and, by and large, Instalove is one of the worst tropes of young adult fiction. I mean, it’s crap, right? Two people – be they undead or not – meet and know within seconds that they’re gonna get married and be together until Happy Ever After.
Until that moment by the windmill, I was one such haterade drinker, but that was because I’d never felt Instalove. Turned out it was very real. It’s not love: love I think, like a pretty weed, needs time to put down roots. Instalove is a separate thing. Within the first two minutes of meeting Nico, I’d unlocked a fictional photo album in my mind – all the dates we’d have: the pier, the park; all the kisses; all the arguments and in-jokes. Does anyone else do that or is it just me? I couldn’t stop it; it was an avalanche of fantasies and now I was buried.
Instalove, Instalust, call it what you want. I just wanted him.
It was decided that Zoë and Nico could pick up the game from where we were. Nico seriously affected my A game; all of a sudden I was square-shaped and tongue-tied. Trying to play crazy golf sexily is no small feat, let me tell you. Worse still, the windmill was pretty tough – there was only a narrow pipe going through the middle and you had to avoid the creaking, rotating sails. Could I get my ball through that hole? No, no I could not. Luckily Nico and Beasley were having similar difficulty, either that or they wanted to linger with me while the others moved on to Hole 7.
‘So where did you move from?’ Nico asked. He stood like Jesus; his club across the back of his shoulders and his hands dangling over that.
‘Up north,’ I replied, suddenly wary of my cloddish accent. ‘My dad got a job at the university.’
‘Sucks. You miss your mates?’
‘Not as much as I thought I would.’
This was true. My old friends would never have done this. Chloe and Katie from back home were very into doing work on school nights (nail-biting high achievers – you know the type. Being perfect looks exhausting, I’m very glad I’m not), and doing things with their families on a weekend.
‘Woo-hoo! Your turn,’ Beasley said, finally getting his ball through the tunnel.
I positioned myself in front of my ball and managed to tap it into the side of the windmill, in the process blocking Nico’s next move.
‘Nice one! Thanks for that!’ he said.
‘Sorry, I snookered you. Or golfed you … Is that a thing?’
‘It can be.’ I wondered if I could trick him into showing me what to do, like in the movies where the guy stands behind the useless girl and shows her how to make the swing. ‘So Pols says you’re pretty cool.’
‘And she’s hard to impress,’ Beasley chipped in from the other side of the windmill. ‘I don’t know what you did to win her over. We tried to introduce someone new into the group last year, and she killed her and wore her skin to school.’
I smiled with a self-impressed glow in my stomach. ‘Did she really say that?’
‘You’re in her friend bag. She doesn’t mess about with that.’ Somehow Nico used his ball to knock me through the tunnel.
‘Wow! Good shot! Yeah, she mentioned the friend bag.’ The fact that Polly, the COOLEST GIRL IN THE WORLD, had been talking about me with Nico, THE HOTTEST GUY IN THE WORLD, made me so freaking happy. A hugely optimistic part of my brain wondered if she was trying to set us up.
The game gave us plenty to talk about, and before we knew it we’d sailed past Hole 7 and caught up with the others at Hole 8.
Hole 8: was amazing. By far the most impressive hole on the course – a pirate ship, skull and crossbones billowing in the sea breeze.
We took the stairs up to the ‘top deck’ of the ship where the others were waiting for us.
‘This one is a capricious tyrant,’ Alex told me. ‘Regard.’ On the top deck of the ship there were three holes. ‘Two of them lead to the target, but one takes you back to the entrance.’ I looked behind me and saw there was a funnel at the foot of the stairs we’d just climbed.
‘Well, which hole is it?’
‘We’re not telling you that!’ Polly grinned. ‘That’s cheating.’
‘It’s all very metaphorical,’ Alex went on. ‘Like how we’re all shooting blind, unsure whether we’re really going forwards or backwards.’
‘How deep of you,’ I said, setting up my shot. ‘It’s not a metaphor. It’s multiple choice. This has a two-in-three chance of success. I reckon real life isn’t so stacked in your favour.’
‘In real life,’ Polly added, ‘they’d all take you back to the beginning. The way to get ahead is to do this.’ She picked up her ball and tossed it over the side of the pirate ship. It landed on the level below and rolled towards the hole. It stopped short of getting her a hole-in-one.
‘That’s cheating!’ Daisy exclaimed.
‘That’s the point,’ Nico said. ‘Cheaters usually win.’
‘That’s the way to win,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s more fun to play.’ I tapped my ball and it rolled into the left-hand-side hole. There was a sharp intake of breath and I heard the ball plop out of the hole underneath the steps and back to the beginning. ‘I lived, I learned, I won’t do it again. See – it is like real life after all.’ I swung my club over my shoulder and headed back to the start.
Hole 9: Hole 9 was an anti-climax to be honest, like they’d spent all their time, money and imagination on the pirate ship. This one was a straight line but with lots of bumps along the way. Theoretically you could get straight down the middle, but it was pretty tricky. Tricky but boring. The worst.
‘Hole Ten looks like a ****,’ announced Polly and it really did.
Hole 10 was supposed to be the Loch Ness Monster emerging from the water but, like the seal, the paint was worn and chipped, and rather than a prehistoric beast, it looked like a partially submerged member. You had to steer your ball through the humps. Nico set about giving the head of the beast a handjob with both arms wrapped round it.
‘I really think I’ve mastered the technique,’ he bragged.
‘Oh, he’s loving it,’ Beasley laughed. ‘You can see it in his eye.’ The poor thing, appropriately, only had one eye.
‘You’ve certainly had enough practice,’ Zoë said and everyone called BURN.
‘What’s up, Zoë? Scared of the schlong?’ Nico put on a voice, apparently like how he thought a penis would sound. To Nico, a penis would sound Swedish. Or kinda deaf.
‘Oh, Zoë, don’t hate me, I don’t want to hurt you. I want to be your friend …’
‘Sorry, dickmonster. Just not my bag.’ Zoë turned to me. ‘Yes, I am a lesbian.’
I shrugged, unsure if I was meant to be horrified or impressed. My old school had an LGBT committee and was in the local papers when two Year 13 guys proposed to each other in the canteen, so this wasn’t especially exotic. I realised though, that for Brompton, it probably was.
‘Oh OK. Cool.’
I sensed I was being tested again and evidently I passed because the game carried on.
Hole 11 was the hardest yet and the only one where you had to putt uphill.
Poor Beasley, who I increasingly sensed was the butt of many a joke, stood behind the hole, in charge of fishing the balls that overshot out of the bushes and palms.
I simply couldn’t get my ball up. Even if I could get it up onto the flat, the ball rebounded off the backstop and rolled back down.
‘OK,’ I said to Nico once my arms were dead weights. ‘This one is starting to feel like a metaphor.’
He laughed. ‘You want me to go catch it up at the top?’
‘I don’t wanna cheat.’ I hit my ball up to the top again, where a Converse-clad foot pinned it down.
‘Oh we all do it,’ Polly called down from the top of the ramp. ‘We don’t keep score, remember?’
I smiled, unconsciously covering my mouth with a hand. I forgot I didn’t have teeth like tusks any more. Nico took my other hand and we ran up the slope in tandem.
Hole 12: the final hole. What had once been a grand volcano finale, with a working fire on top, was now a damp squib. As Beasley explained, the working flame was against health and safety regulations and so it had been permanently turned off. It was still quite tricky: you had to get the ball up a little ramp, through the volcano and out the other side.
And then it was over. My ball plinked into the hole in three moves and the course was done. I didn’t feel as triumphant as I might have; I didn’t want the night to end. Somehow two and a half hours had vanished in a matter of seconds. See what I mean about time changing? My face hurt, actually ached, from laughing.
This lot were so good. The way they held hands, and groomed each other, and took the piss … They were speaking a foreign language I so badly wanted to learn. I suddenly felt a terrible pressure to be funnier, cleverer and more like them, but I only felt like an outlier as they slowed to translate for my benefit.
Game over, we gathered by the kiosk and handed in the clubs and balls. Daisy had lost her ball at Hole 11, so we had to fish a rogue one out of the bushes before we could return.
‘That was fun,’ I said, trying to wedge myself into conversations that were going on without me. ‘I was sceptical, I’m not gonna lie. Who knew crazy golf could be so good?’
‘Are you tripping?’ Nico said. ‘When wasn’t it amazing? You’re not one of those hipsters who pretend everything’s awful are you?’
I answered that with a question: ‘If I was a true hipster, wouldn’t I think this was ironic retro fun?’
‘You have a point,’ Polly interjected. ‘We like that no one else ever comes here. Some nights we don’t even play, we just sit on the pirate ship or swings and shoot the ****. None of our ***** parents let us all go to each other’s houses. It was either here or the graveyard …’
‘And that’s where the Goths go.’ Beasley finished her sentence, reaching over her to hand his club to Jamie.
‘****!’ Polly suddenly announced. ‘I was meant to be home, like, half an hour ago. Basically, my parents are ******* psychotic. I’m actually running. Toria … you’re a dude. See you outside school tomorrow at eight thirty.’ And with that she was gone, her pink ponytail swinging behind her.
‘They really are really nuts,’ Daisy said. ‘If you think her dad’s bad, wait till you meet her mum. She is so scary.’
‘It’s true,’ Beasley added. ‘Imagine if Satan and Cruella de Vil had a baby of pure evil.’
‘Wow. I thought my mum was bad.’
‘Hey,’ Nico said, unchaining his bike from the rack. ‘Are you doing anything Friday night?’
I pretended to think about it for a second. I was clearly doing nothing. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Awesome. Come to our gig? It’ll be awful, we’ve barely rehearsed, but everyone’s coming.’
I was ‘everyone’. I had a genuine inspirational teen-movie moment and my eyes glazed over. I wondered if this was what belonging felt like. Maybe this was an unexpected upside to moving; I might get to reinvent myself as someone who got invited to stuff. Yeah I know that sounds mushy but it really did feel special. Oh, who cared: if Nico was going, I was there.