We’d been fishing – rods, lines, hooks slung together from bamboo string and safety pins after a half dozen kids came storming through the village, screaming about trout jumping a half-mile upriver.

Chin, stuffed with mushrooms, had tried to walk onto the water from our wood jetty. The first step it seemed he’d do it, the river’s mirror robust enough to take his weight. But the second step he slipped under, no splash, nothing, next thing he’s surfaced a hundred yards offshore hollering about seeing us for supper as the current swung him out of sight.

Homecoming, empty-handed, dusk like a light that never goes out, windows all along the terraces tinged gold, Pole’s overalled legs jutting from under his winched Escort, Blondie buzzing on his transistor radio. Hey, said someone. Who’s that?

She was sitting on the wall outside the only empty house, Led Zeppelin t-shirt, cigarette on, hair haloed in twilight. There were six of us, but we felt outnumbered, flinched, I think when she blew smoke into the sky. I forget who broke the ice but suddenly we were all in thick and fast.
Who are you?
Scout.
What kind of name’s that?
My name.
Where are you from? Here, soon.
How old are you?
Fifteen.
Are you a virgin?
What do you think?
Do you swallow?
Only on the first date.
Topless, wet jeans whistling, Chin came striding along the forest path, a trail of silver water winding back into the trees. You missed the mermaids, he said. Down by the old mill. I got a ride back off them.

Scout flicked her cigarette butt across the road. Show me, she said. Chin didn’t miss a beat. This way.

By the time all eight of us were back down by the water, it was too dark to see anything but silhouettes and stars. Chin took it badly. Scout calmed him down with a cigarette and said, Mermaids don’t like crowds.

I was dozing when Chin finally came in that night, shaken awake when he clambered into the bottom bunk. It’s you and me right? he asked.
You and me, Chin.
Scout and her family moved in all through that week. With his beard and golden-hair, her dad looked like an angel, while her mum was tiny, hardly there: before you got close up and saw the crows feet and stretch-marks, she could’ve been Scout’s little sister.

Chin and I helped them lug the heaviest stuff. We got beers for the trouble. Him, me, Scout and her dad all done on the fourth day, sat on the porch as daylight dimmed from white to gold.

You hurt yourself, son? Scout’s dad looking at the criss-cross scratches on Chin’s wrists.
Chin shrugged. Must’ve been while we were moving stuff in.
Scout glanced at her dad and swigged beer. How old are you?
Twenty-five said Chin.
Scout’s dad whistled. I thought maybe fifteen, sixteen at best.
My thing throws people.
What thing?
I held out a hand but he shook his head. I got ill when I was a kid, he said. Brain thing. Means I got bits of me that will always stay fifteen years old and others that mature like normal.
Scout nodded. Peter Pan.
Yeah, said Chin.
Barn dance that weekend. Chin and I wrecked on burdock and mushrooms. Scout turned up in a silver chiffon thing, made straight for me and stood staring. I like you she said.
Caught off-kilter, I said: Marry me?
I’ve known you five minutes.
Tongue runoff, but for me hot for whatever it got me into: Too many people are afraid to go after what they really want.
I’m into it, she said. Faces on the girls roundabout her turned red, boys’ feet shuffling at my back. But how do I know it’s not the burdock talking?
I’ll do anything.
She led me outside, her gaze slowly spiralling up towards the skyline. If you jump from the roof of my new house to the next one on the terrace, I’m yours.
Boys and girls whooped. Chin ran into the house. I went after him. He’d already broken his beer tin open, slashed his arm. You and me! he said
Chin, you saw what happened to mum and dad. These moments come along and you have to hold on with both hands, whether you’re seventeen or seventy.
He stopped roaring and said: You’re going to need new boots.
We found his old running shoes, sharpened the spikes with the tools in dad’s shed and spent the rest of the summer running up hills and jumping gorges.

Most of the village watched us training. Scout stayed out the way, surfacing every now and again to wish me luck. I’d see colours dancing out the corners of my eyes. The Weald transformed from a wasteland to Paradise.

The night before the jump, Chin sprinted off in my spikes. I found him in the woods, tin of lighter fuel in one hand, open Zippo sputtering in the other. If you make it, what am I going to do?
I’ll never leave you, Chin. We’ll all live in the house. Make a three-storey bunk bed. You, me, Scout.
What if you don’t make it? What then?
After the training we’ve done, there’s no way I’m going to fail.
He sprayed lighter fuel over both boots, torched them and ran flaming through the bluebells. By the time I caught up with him, the shoes were charred through, his feet fried.
Hot day, half England turned out, Chin on crutches, his feet wrapped in bandages. I jumped barefoot, saw stars as I flew over. The landing was messy, but I hung on until half a dozen men managed to get me down. Soon as I hit the ground I proposed. Scout said yes. We partied all night.

Day dawning, some kids came running into the barn, screaming about a mermaid. We ran through the woods to the water’s edge, found Chin drifting face down, the foot bandages unwound around him like vapour trails. I dived in, pulled him out, revived him, but I wasn’t quite so lucky on our first anniversary.

Eighteen years on Scout and me are still together. Sure we’ve had our ups and downs, but we’re here. We buried Chin in the back yard. His grave’s all overgrown, but that’s how he’d like it.. Whenever it’s his birthday we go there and sing to him. If only he’d hung around long enough to be an uncle.