Sometimes we looked so hard for summer we never found it until Fall. That's such a dumb line said Suze, so I laughed and said I guess, but you know it's true. Suze just looked at me and added, Crap. Pour me another whisky.

[crepe suzette]

We were sitting on the harbour wall and Jan goes, Everyone else calls her plain old Suzy, but you call her crepe suzette. Why? I said Did you ever read Absolute Beginners and she said I half saw it once at a party but I was too pissed to notice much. Patsy Kensit is too crappy for words. Yeah, I nodded. Well she played Crepe Suzette. The book is fucking genius, but it's such a cliche to say so. I don't care though.

*

Uh huh was all she would add to that.

*

I said, Do you read much? but she shook her head. Not much. She was looking at the lighthouse on Lady Isle, blinking in the night. Stuff like Just 17 really. Not books.

*

I felt a bit distanced then. Jan was good at making that feeling crop up. She had the knack I guess.

*

[doctor sax]

We headed for the Anchorage and a pool room and Jan said This hill kills me every time and I just slurred out about all the deaths we must have died. I told her that one of my friends fell off the back of a Station Wagon up here and broke his ankle one night. That was years ago though, I ended, and Jan went, Yeah? And I bet then you called it an Estate car.

*

The Anchorage was pretty busy but we got a seat up by the pool table anyway. Jan saw some kids from school that she knew and went to talk. I sat alone and looked at the ceiling, which was cracked and yellowed from cigarette smoke.

*

I'm not good at sitting alone and doing nothing in bars, so dragged heavily on my whisky and soda and took a book from out my canvas bag. Jan said it was a student's bag, and that was fair enough. It had badges on it that said 'Give Up Art' and 'Demolish Serious Culture', plus one that Richey Edwards gave me that said 'Destroy Work'. I thought it looked funny, and that was why I carried it.

*

The book I pulled out was 'Doctor Sax', and I felt like a real phoney sitting there because I could barely focus on the words, never mind understand what they were saying. So I just turned to my favourite passage, and read over and over about the great russian bear punyarding with his knife. I knew I was doing it only for the pose, but I figured that was just fine. It was better than holding a copy of The Sun.

[crap ii]

I stood up from the brown leather sofa in Suze's front room and walked across to the bay window. Her apartment, or rather her parents' apartment as it was, occupied the second floor of a three storey terraced block and overlooked the beach and prom. I looked out the window and took in the scene, such as was visible at two in the morning. You can see the lights of Ayr really clear, I said. Dunure even.

*

Suze kept on drinking, didn't say a word. We used to ride down to Dunure castle every summer. We kinda detoured to it on the way back from Girvan. I looked to Suze. You ever been to Girvan?, I asked her. She grimaced. You're talking crap again she said and I told her I know.

*

I have to call a cab I said. Suze went Yeah, the Taxi number's by the 'phone. So I called Jem and they said Twenty minutes, half an hour. I said to Suze, A whole hour, and she said You want coffee then? I said Sure, strong, black. No sugar.

[Getz]

It was 1990 and I had my hair close cropped and wore a button down preppy shirt. I left my desert boots by the tv set and looked through Suze's dad's records. Stan Getz, I said, holding up a battered sleeve. About as good as it gets I guess, to which Suze blustered Fuck Off.

[blur]

Suze was 18 that summer and was wearing blue velvet leggings and a purple silk top that billowed like sails when she moved. Her shoulder length hair was dark and deep like Jamaica. There were tiny multi coloured flowers painted on her DM boots, and a t-shirt that said 'Kill Your Television' hung over the back of a chair.

*

She came over and sat so close that I could smell her Body Shop musk. She smelled so fresh and new that I hid my hands under my knees.

*

She leaned in front of me so her hair brushed over my cheeks as she pulled a sleeve from her own pile of records. The cover said 'Blur'. I said, What are they like? I've only heard that single, and Suze said They're gorgeous. I told her, Put it on then,

[stuff]

I'd heard the 'a' side loads of times. We danced to it on Thursday nights in our Subculture club where no-one ever came except a small gang of goths and a few ex-casuals. Most of the goths were still in school, and that was funny, because I expected them to be talking about The Sisters or Nick Cave, but instead they talked about teachers and detentions, and school uniform petitions. All the goths dressed like Suze and Jan. The ex-casuals just wore t-shirts that said 'Fools Gold', peered through greasy curtain haircuts and always had a cigarette falling from the corner of their mouths. All of them danced to the Monkees, Saint Etienne and LFO in front of a Jackson Pollock backdrop. All of them drank too much for a Thursday night.

[baby lemonade]

Suze played the flip side of the single for me and I said Is that it then? It just sounds like pretty plain indie pop to me. Singer wants to be Syd Barrett too, by the sounds of it. And then Suze just goes Syd who? You're full of shit, you're too old these days, and I said Yeah I guess you're right at that. Play that Getz album.

*

Fuck you, Suze laughed and pushed me back against the sofa. Her musk drifted round my nostrils again and I closed my eyes.

*

*

[after tears and before the first kiss]

We looked in each others eyes and our fingers slid apart. Suze said We should never have done that and I said I know, but we were young. She looked at the wall and said nothing but only breathed out slowly. I could hear her hollowness echo in the stairwell. I said, I have that cab to catch, and she said I guess, and smiled like tomorrow's sunrise.

Alistair Fitchett. 1995.