Page 106 of High Season

Hannah saw the sunburn glow of the bonfire at the mouth of the caves long before she reached it. She recognized, among the mill of people, the kids that she had seen grow up around here, returning every summer taller and more polished. Somehow, even more beautiful.

For the first time in her life, Hannah felt like she could be one of them.

She took a bottle of beer from what must have once been an ice bucket but was now a pool of tepid water, fishing around in it in a way that reminded her of apple bobbing on Halloween at her grandmother’s house in Lincolnshire. Granny Iris was a fiercely working-class woman who considered a trip to London something to plan months in advance. Once, she took Hannah to see a show in the West End as a special treat. Afterward, they had gone to Harrods, where Hannah had gawped at the rows of velveteen bears and wooden rocking horses in the children’s department. Her grandmother had tutted, and promised that she would buy her something from Argos when they got home instead.

Hannah remembered thinking there and then that she would move to London when she grew up. That one day, she would be the kind of person who shopped at Harrods. It was the first time that she remembers wanting something more for herself. More than this life.

“Hey, it’s Hannah, right?”

A girl who had long, dark hair and a crop top that showed the silver glint of a belly-button piercing was waving. Hannah knew her, although it took a moment to reach for her name.

“You took my brother for a diving lesson last year?” the girl said. “I came out on the boat. It was just, like, not my thing?”

She had an upward lilt to the end of each sentence, turning statements into questions. Olivia. Her name was Olivia.

“My dad took him,” Hannah said. “I was just helping.”

“Right.”

Olivia grabbed a bottle from the bucket.

“Hey, do you have, like, a bottle opener or something? The boys are always showing off, opening these with their teeth and I’m always like, are you guys insane? I am not wrecking my teeth just so I can drink some shitty lager.”

She flicked her head so that her hair fell over her shoulder. It was impossibly glossy, cut into long layers. Hannah had wanted long layers, too, but when she had finally got them last year she had found that the saltwater made the top layer puff up like a mushroom cloud, and she had to spend the entire summer with her hair tied up in a ponytail waiting for it to grow out.

“Who invited you here, anyway?” Olivia asked in a way that seemed genuinely curious, not exactly unkind. Her eyes flicked up and down, as if taking Hannah in for the first time. Hannah felt herself shift, an automatic recalibration of her body, an awareness of her limbs.

“Blake,” she lied. “You know, Blake Drayton?”

There was a flash of something across Olivia’s face. A smile.

“Well, obviously I know Blake,” she said with a tiny roll of her eyes. “Doesn’t everyone?”

She flicked her hair again.

“Hey, do you want something else to drink? I think I saw some wine. Or maybe something stronger?”

She dropped the bottle of beer back into the bucket. Hannah hesitated, just for a second. Just long enough for the thrill of acceptance to register. As if Blake’s name was all that it took for this girl to want to be her friend.

Olivia’s eyebrows were raised. Expectant. Challenging Hannah to say no.

Hannah dropped her bottle, and it sank with a dull clink of glass against the metal basin.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s get something stronger.”

They walked close to the bonfire where the air was hot and dry, a rasp of smoke in Hannah’s throat.

“Some of the girls are just over here,” Olivia said.

She led Hannah to the opening of the caves, a place where the rocks sloped upward, forming the arch of a high-ceilinged tunnel.

Three girls sat, half-lit by the flames. Hannah stopped dead when she saw Tamara perched at the top of a rock, as if on a throne.

“This is Phoebe,” Olivia said, pointing at one of the girls. “Chrissie. And Tamara.”

Hannah’s eyes locked with Tamara’s.

“We know each other,” Tamara said, coolly.