Flopped on his back on the sofa, Tom takes another swig of sherry, thinking. ‘The water tank? It’s closer than the pool.’

‘We’d still have to fucking drive there.’

Even as he speaks, the notion of a swim is growing on Kenny. Debbie has been dropped home not more than an hour past her curfew, the night is still young, its hours small and empty. The alcohol is leaching from his system, he is feeling restless again.

‘We could ride,’ he finally announces. ‘If you can keep your bike upright.’

The task does not seem beyond them as they sit beneath the big, cooling fan. Tom rises and follows him unsteadily down the steps. The pushbikes are leaning against a pillar beneath the house; they set off immediately, riding abreast, bare-chested, weaving and wobbling a little. The lightning has eased but their sweating torsos glisten as they pass through the successive light-fields of the streetlamps. The night air is resistant to movement, hot and viscous, difficult to breathe. Tom, heavy with his own thick flesh, is soon struggling for air. The cooling breeze of their own motion fails to keep pace with the outpouring of sweat; soon Kenny, too, is up off his saddle, standing high on the pedals, pushing down as if riding uphill but getting nowhere fast, tethered to his starting point by invisible elastic.

At the top of the descent to the beach-flats they pause to take breath. Sporadic flashes of lightning illume the view. On the far side of the wide flats the road rises again to Bullocky Point. The huge tank and its reservoir of cooling water is still impossibly distant, perched high on the far point.

‘Seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Kenny says.

‘Not one of your better ones.’

‘It gets worse. We’ll have to ride all the way back home afterwards.’

‘So you don’t want a swim?’

‘Did I say that?’

A slow, drunken smile creases Tom’s face. ‘You’re not fucking suggesting?’

Kenny answers by turning his bike back towards home. His friend hoots loudly. ‘I don’t believe my ears. Half an hour ago you were shitting yourself about the car.’

‘I’m older now.’

‘You grow up quick.’

They ride home at speed, forcing themselves through the muggy air, knowing the tank is much closer now, even if they are pedalling in the opposite direction.

‘Bring the sherry!’ Tom shouts upstairs as Kenny fetches the car keys, but Kenny already has the flagon in hand, feeling reckless and ready for anything, as if overcoming his guilt about taking the car is the first step in a more general unravelling. The night is beginning again for the two of them – the old boyhood team, no outsiders. He backs out of the drive at speed, crashes through the gear change, and accelerates away with a squeal of tyre rubber.

‘Petrol’s low,’ Tom notices.

The news seems only mildly alarming. At the top of the beach road Ken switches off the engine and coasts in neutral down the long incline, windows wound open, the air moving sweetly across his upper body. Many times the boys have freewheeled down this same slope on their pushbikes, the contest to glide as far as possible without pedalling, slowing gradually once the beach flats are reached. Tom benefits from his extra bulk; sometimes he can nurse his faltering bike as far as the gardens. The heavy metal mass of the car carries them even further before Kenny restarts the engine for the last ascent.