And he could have had Jane, too, by now. She would have had sex with him, no arguments. In the back of the car or somewhere, anywhere; she just wanted the bloody thing cleared away, like dirty dishes — everybody said the first time was crap anyway, this messy chore to be undergone before you could start enjoying it.

But Eirion would gently detach her clammy little hand from his belt. I want this to be proper, he’d mumble. Do you know what I’m saying?

Proper? Like, what did proper have to do with it?

I don’t want this to be… ordinary, you know? Run-of-the-mill. Me and you, we’re… And then he’d go all embarrassed, looking out of the car window at the moon. Jesus.

Ordinary? Listen, ‘ordinary’ would have been just fine by Jane, who had no illusions, didn’t expect rockets and Catherine wheels. ‘Ordinary’ would’ve been an enormous relief.

She found herself stomping across the playing field between the tennis courts, panting with anguish under the merciless sun. A torrid sun, guaranteed to turn the Pembrokeshire coast into Palm Beach. Did Eirion’s fat-cat family have their own beach? Did they all sprawl around naked and uninhibited? Like, just because they were Welsh didn’t mean they were all buttoned-up and chapel-whipped, necessarily. Probably the reverse: she and the Young Master would be assigned a double room and presented with a gross of condoms.

Shit. She shouldn’t be feeling like this, because back in the exam room she’d probably done OK. You always sensed it. She’d get her ten GCSEs and then come back in September and do some A levels.

Come back as an adult, with a lover.

She swallowed.

So Eirion, at seventeen, was experienced and mature, had done the rounds, and had met Jane — who was sexually backward to what, in this day and age, was a frightening extent — and she had become like ‘special’ to him, maybe because when they’d first met she’d been physically hurt by someone she’d thought was a friend, and he’d felt protective and stuff… and that was OK, that was acceptable.