Eddie

I SPIT SAND OUT OF my mouth. I feel like I've just taken a really hard tackle on the pitch. I roll onto my back and look up.

"Eddie Eddie Eddie. Oi Oi Oi!" He's crouching on his heels, looking down at me.

Shit. Nathan Tate. Everyone my age knows him, mainly because he's the guy who supplies dodgy gear to any house party or rave for twenty miles and because if there's any kind of trouble you just know he's not going to be far away. Once upon a time he kicked around out with my big brother; now he's still hanging out with nineteen-year-olds, even though his black shoulder-length hair is going thin at the temples. He's wearing a black hoodie that says I AUTOEROTIC AXPHYXIATE ON THE FIRST DATE. He catches me reading it. "Confused, Eddie mate? Guess you guys were all tealights, Ed Sheeran, and missionary. Am I right?"

He must be talking about Delilah. I scramble to my feet. I should shove him back for that. But after a beat I let it go. Guess I let most things go. That's why, even though I'm a big guy, I've never been in a proper fight beyond a bit of argy-bargy on the rugby pitch (never started by me). "My gentle giant," is what Mum says. "You can't even kill a fucking spider," is what Delilah said, pissed off, when she asked me to squash the one under her bed. Still, I guess everyone has a limit. I've just never found mine.

Tate's grinning away, but his eyes don't match the smile. I can see the dead brown canine tooth that he seems almost proud of, his grin snags up at that side. Same side as the three gold hoops he wears in his earlobe, which he probably thinks make him look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. They don't.

"How you doin' Eddie Eddie Eddie?" My name sounds totally stupid like that. "Where did you just appear from?"

I glance over and see the rest of them at the bonfire have turned to watch.

"The Manor," I mutter.

"The Manor?" he says, using a la-di-da tone. "Very posh! You staying there, Eddie mate? Penthouse suite?" I don't answer. He's holding a lighter in one hand: clicking it every so often, the flame flickering. "Heard they're having some sort of bullshit solstice celebration? Mate of mine works for an organic cider farm, says they've put in the biggest order ever. Can just see it now. City wankers letting their freak flag fly for the weekend. So..." He does a little fake scraping bow. "What brings you down to our humble kingdom?"

I think of that promotion Michelle talked about. No more soggy trainers. Mixing my own cocktails. I stand a little straighter. I've got half a foot on him. "I—I've come to tell you to leave the beach. The music... you're disturbing the peace."

"Oh yeah?" He smirks. "Look at you, Eddie! All growed up. Nah, mate... they can go fucking whistle. King's land, innit?" He uses words like that, like he's from some inner-city London scene, which sounds a bit weird with a Dorset accent. "See they've tried to fence off the land access, all of that, but they can't do shit about us arriving by boat." He turns and looks over his shoulder. "Oh, look who it is! Come join us, babe."

I look past him and see that someone else has broken away from the group. As she comes nearer, I see—oh crap—it's Delilah. It took me a moment as she's dyed her hair from bleach blonde to a dark reddish color. She comes to stand next to Nathan, arms folded.

"Hey... Lila," I say, trying to sound friendly.

"Eddie," she says. Definitely not friendly.

"You look different."

She tosses her head, smirks. I know I'm staring. "Take a good long look at what you're missing, fool."

I broke up with Delilah last year. At first, I couldn't believe she chose me to get off with at that party. That she wanted to keep getting off with me—and the rest. Then the fitness influencer stuff got really boring. I don't miss being a TikTok boyfriend. Maybe I'd have respected it if she'd actually done any exercise, but she'd just cover herself in olive oil and Lycra, get me to take thousands of clips of her twerking in her workout gear, then lie back down on the sofa with a Pot Noodle to watch Selling Sunset. All those creepy comments, probably from fifty-year-old pervs. It's not like she made any money from it, just got sent cheap leggings and dodgy supplements to plug. Thing is, Delilah is mega fit but there are thousands—millions even—of other really fit girls on the socials and they got there first and built up their followings. "I just need my big break," Delilah said. "I am low-key positive it's only a matter of time till PrettyLittleThing come knocking."

"These tits will ruin you for life," she said to me, when I told her it wasn't working. "You won't find better."

But I want more than tits, I thought (even though they are amazing). I want someone I can have a laugh with. Make plans with. Also, someone who doesn't think Khloé Kardashian is #lifegoals.

It wasn't really any of that though. It was what happened in the woods. What we found. Every time I saw her I remembered. Every time we had sex I thought about how we'd been about to do it in the woods when we heard that sound. The scream.

Tate slides a hand onto her bum. Gross. I look at Delilah. Nathan Tate, really? I ask, silently. I fucking dare you to say something, her expression replies. I swallow. I'm probably more scared of her than I am of Michelle.

Tate turns to her. "Aiit babe?" Then he sticks his tongue down her throat. I look somewhere beyond them, to the bonfire. Eventually Tate breaks it off with a disgusting wet pop. "She's got a beautiful fucking voice, my Lilo," he says. "Joining the band, aren't you, babe?"

I don't know what's worse. That he just addressed her as an inflatable sunbed and she seems OK with it—or the crap about the band. We used to laugh at Tate. How he behaves like he's Tome's celebrity because he and his band supposedly once played off off off the main stage at Glasto, but that was over fifteen years ago and he's still hanging out here, pretending he's this big deal.

"I thought you were a fitness influencer," I say to Delilah.

"I'm nineteen years old," Delilah says. "I can be whatever the fuck I want to be, Eddie. And it's none of your business anymore, if it ever was. You're not the only one who wants to get the hell out of this place."

Tate turns to Delilah. "Eddie here was just telling me we aren't allowed on this beach. Telling us to clear off."

Delilah arches an eyebrow. "That's 'cause he thinks he's better than us. Just because he works at that place. You know what he does there?" She giggles. "He's the frigging dishwasher." She shakes her head at me, faux-sadly. "That ain't it, Eds."

"I've been promoted, actually," I say, "bartender." But it comes out sounding pathetic, like the lie it is.

"Ooh, well done," Delilah says. "Bartender. Bet that makes you feel really special."

I know Delilah applied for a position in the spa: she went to beauty college in Poole after school. She didn't get it. Now I work at The Manor I know she never had a look-in. Apart from Julie—an experienced local lady (Dad swears blind she's actually a "witch")—all the spa staff have come from exclusive wellness retreats and swanky hotels in Ibiza, LA, London, and St. Barts (wherever that is). Any front-of-house staff come from farther afield, or they've concealed any trace of having come from around here. Ruby's sure Michelle's had elocution lessons.

Click—the little flame of the lighter in Tate's hand sparks to life again, then dies out. He's like some pyromaniac twelve-year-old kid.

"So, what's it like," he asks, "working for all those rich twats? You know it doesn't make you one of them, right?"

"Yeah, but he wants to become one of them," Delilah says. "That's his little plan."

She's playing with a gold chain around her neck. I think it's new but I don't want to look too closely in case she thinks I'm staring at her boobs.

"Do your folks know you're working there?" she asks, watching me.

"I dunno," I say, shrugging like it doesn't matter.

She narrows her eyes. "Yeah, see... I don't think you've told them. I saw your mum in town the other day? She said she was glad we were getting on so well and wasn't it nice we were spending so much time together." Another blood-freezing look—yup, Michelle has nothing on her. "What did she mean by that, Eds? Sounds to me like you haven't told her where you've really been going?"

Please, I try and tell her silently. Don't tell Mum about this. It would really mess things up for me.

Tate cuts in now, like he thinks he's due some airtime. "What's brilliant, right, is that they want this to be a private beach for the guests. Look—" He points to the wooden steps they've built down from the lawn and the line of white-and-green-striped huts they've put next to them, like something the Victorians used to change in. "They bulldozed the old path we used to use, the one that connected to the cliff footpath. And they've put a fucking keypad on their steps. But this is our beach. They're not gonna take it away from us. Not like they took my dad's caravan park—" His voice cracks. For a moment all the swagger seems to go out of him and I have to look away. I heard these days old Graham Tate stays every night at The Crow's Nest until he's falling off his stool and they refuse to serve him any more.

Yeah, I know what it means to have your dad fall apart in front of your eyes.

"Fuck that place," Nathan says, geeing himself up again. "Fuck that Francesca Meadows. You know what I reckon? It's time someone turned the tables."

There goes the lighter again. Click click click. He's jittery, eyes darting all over the place. Looks high as a kite. Did he drive the boat over here? Delilah and I might not be together anymore but I still care about her. "Lila?" I ask. "Could I have a quick word?"

She shakes her head. "Don't call me that anymore. You don't get to call me that."

"Nah nah nah," Tate says. "It's Tate'n'Lyle now, isn't it babe?" Then "Hail" by Kano blasts through the speakers by the campfire and he turns round to face his mates and fist pump the air, shouting out the words.

I look at Delilah: Tate'n'Lyle? Are you kidding me?

Maybe Delilah's finding it a bit cringe too because she's not meeting my eyes. She goes to flick her hair over her shoulder and her hand snags on the chain around her neck. It flips out of her top and a coldness goes through me.

"Delilah," I whisper, staring. "What the hell?"

"Oh." She looks down. "It's a feather, Eddie. It's not a big deal."

"But it's the one... it's from when we found him, isn't it? The one that was on the desk."

"Yeah. Well. He's not going to miss it, is he?"

"We should have left it for the police."

"Oh for fuck's sake Eddie. You know what they said. Heart attack." She looks at me and for a moment I just know she's remembering that night, how horrible it was. I'd swear there's a flicker of fear. Just as quickly it's gone and she says, "Wait. You aren't telling me you actually believe in them?"

Tate turns around again. "What're you two gassing about?" He can't bear not to be the center of everything.

"Eddie's freaking out over my necklace," Delilah says. She's holding her hand over it protectively.

"I'm not..."

"He's frightened of the Birds," she says. "He actually believes in them."

She's mocking me now. But I saw how scared she was, when we found the dead old man with that horrible look on his face. The door creaking on its hinges in the breeze. Oh my God, Eddie. Do you think... do you think ...

Tate pulls up his black hood so his face is totally in shadow. "Burn to the bone," he rasps. And even though I know he's larking around it gives me a chill. Then he tilts his chin up so all I can make out are his crooked teeth, that dead brown canine, his deranged grin. "Don't tell me you're afraid of some little birdies, Eddie boy?"