One Day in Cornwall. Zoe Cook

been a prat,’ Lucy comforted Nina. She’d learned a long time ago that it wasn’t worth pointing out that they were both at fault.

      ‘I can hear you both,’ Kristian said, pulling away from his conversation with Tom, probably about surfing. Tom grinned at Lucy, who tried to make a face at him that told him to look like he was taking this seriously.

      ‘Oh why don’t you text your little girlfriend about it, then, poor little Kristian,’ Nina said mockingly.

      ‘For goodness’ sake,’ Kristian rolled his eyes. Not a good move, thought Lucy.

      ‘She is a friend,’ continued Kristian. ‘In fact, she’s not even a friend, she had a surf lesson. She texted me to say thank you. You’re out of your mind!’

      This was not going to end well, Lucy realised. She made eyes at Tom to signify that they should extract themselves from the impending explosion.

      ‘Oh you are SUCH A GENTLEMAN!’ Nina shouted, causing other customers to stop their conversations and pretend not to look at them all.

      ‘Hey, calm it down, okay?’ Lucy tried to reason with them. ‘It’s not fair on Tom’s folks to make a scene here.’

      The café was their regular hangout and they’d already pushed their luck this summer with Tom’s parents. Sarah and Neil were far more laid-back than any of the other parents, having recently forgiven them for breaking in one evening after a drunken barbecue on the beach. Tom had been instructed to pay for the broken glass by working an extra few shifts, and the embarrassment of Tom’s mum looking at Lucy and Nina with surprise and disappointment had been the hardest punishment they could have been dealt. Sarah was wonderful, especially to the girls. Tom was her only child and she made no secret of how much she had longed for a daughter. She’d swept Lucy and Nina into their family within a few months of year seven and their friendship with Tom and Kristian. Lucy had known Sarah and Neil vaguely for years. They owned a few places around Hideaway Bay: the café, the fish-and-chip shop and the pub across the bay at New Hideaway. They were friendly with her parents and she’d heard Sarah’s laughter ringing out over dinner-party chatter a fair few times. And then she’d met Tom. They had been at different primary schools; Tom at the private school half an hour away and Lucy at the village primary. Her dad didn’t see the need to pay for primary school. It was when she joined Davenport Heights Independent at age eleven that they first met. Tom had been instantly friendly: Lucy terrified of the new surroundings and at a real disadvantage to the children who were already familiar with the senior school from their primary days. They both got the number 121 bus from the top of the hill to school, and each day Tom sat next to Lucy and asked her questions while she blushed, laughed and eventually looked up at him and realised he was rather lovely.

      At sixteen they were best friends and totally in love. They felt unbreakable to Lucy, unlike Nina and Kristian, who had a relationship so volatile that Kristian sending a message to another girl sent them into a tailspin. Lucy often wondered whether Nina, her best friend since they were five, had been almost forced into a relationship with Kristian because of their proximity to her and Tom. Kristian was a lovely, lovely boy, but he was totally hapless when it came to managing Nina’s fierce temper and tendency for jealousy. Even Lucy had fallen foul of Nina’s wrath when it came to Kristian, although she had surprised herself at the ferocity of her defence when Nina once tried to imply she had flirted with Kristian at a party. The idea was totally absurd and had shown Lucy how bloody hard it must be being Kristian at times. She looked at him now, the same look of disbelief and confusion that she’d see on his face a hundred times before as he watched his girlfriend twist herself into a venomous tangle of rage over almost nothing.

      ‘What are we doing tonight?’ Tom asked, trying to break the tension.

      ‘Can we come to yours, mate?’ Kristian asked. ‘A few beers, a game of pool, swim?’ Tom’s house was the largest not only of the group’s but also in the whole town. Neil and Sarah were widely considered to own Hideaway, their house sitting at the top of the Bay, overlooking their business empire. Their landscaped gardens sprawled out from the back of the huge property, gradually sloping down to a lower level with a huge infinity pool, which looked straight out across the sea.

      ‘Sure,’ Tom replied. ‘My dad will probably want us to help with something, though. You know what he’s like.’

      ‘That’s fine,’ Lucy said, perusing the menu on the table, wondering whether to order another coffee. ‘It’s the least we could do, really.’ She didn’t mind helping Sarah and Neil, and in fact she quite enjoyed folding napkins, helping Sarah to design sandwich menus, and deep-cleaning the pristine white coffee cups ahead of the impending summer high-season.

      It was hot already in Hideaway, the sea just about managing to take the edge off the midday scorch. Lucy was tanned and happy; this was how she liked it. All of them together, good weather, lots of time and no school. GCSEs were done and she didn’t need to think about her results for a while yet. The summer stretched out ahead of them, full of promise. She looked across at Tom and met his eyes. He smiled and winked at her. Kristian was out of his seat and had moved close to Nina, attempting to cuddle her. Nina almost gave in to him, before standing up and storming off, tears in her eyes.

      ‘I’d better go and check she’s okay,’ Lucy said to Tom and Kristian. This was a familiar drill.

      ‘Tell her I’m sorry,’ Kristian called after her. Lucy stopped. ‘What for?’ she asked.

      ‘Whatever she thinks I’ve done,’ Kristian said, looking wounded. Lucy stepped back to the table and planted a kiss on Kristian’s cheek. ‘She’s being a twat,’ she said to him, quietly. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

       7

      London, 2010

      Lucy woke to the sound of her alarm. She opened her eyes slowly, in anticipation of pain and suffering. Sitting up, she took in Scott’s meticulous apartment, the crisp, white sheets, which had been ironed and smelled of washing powder; the tasteful, understated mahogany furniture; the delicate scent of vanilla drifting in from the Jo Malone diffuser that his mum had put in the lounge. She switched off the terrible noise bleeping next to her head and held her temples to try and soothe the throbbing. Scott had placed a glass of water by her bed before he’d left for work and her thirst came like a tidal wave at the sight of it. She finished the glass in five clumsy swallows, water trickling down her chin. Lucy glimpsed the mirror to her left and opened her eyes widely in the hope of waking herself up to survey this sight of herself. She was still wearing the lace dress she’d been in last night, and her make-up was smudged into two grey circles around bloodshot eyes. She looked like an extra from a low-budget horror film. She glanced down at her pillow and took in the black streaks and tidemarks of what must be a mixture of sweat, fake tan and foundation, which had seeped up the now-greasy white fabric in a hideous rainbow of dark brown to dirty beige.

      Out of the shower, and after three sessions of tooth-brushing, gagging at each stroke to the back of her mouth, Lucy found the outfit she’d folded over the back of Scott’s chair last week. She slipped on the black leggings, grey cashmere jumper and leather biker boots. She considered applying make-up, but her skin felt as though it was coated in some kind of hangover wax that no amount of scrubbing could remove and which make-up would merely sit on top of like scum on pond water. She sprayed herself with perfume from her handbag and looked again in the mirror. It was not a pretty sight, but it was an improvement, and probably passable for a post-awards day.

      In the office, the people who had made it in on time were a scale of grey faces. ‘I was sick on the tube,’ Warren announced as he appeared at the top of the stairs, ‘And it was pink.’ Lucy’s stomach lurched at the image.

      ‘Oh God, Warren. That’s terrible, have some water and eat some food,’ she said. As a runner, the lowliest position at any production company, Jenny had been tasked with the early-morning breakfast run and had returned with a mammoth pile of greasy paper-wrapped baps and sandwiches, smelling of crispy