David Andersen looked at the novelty thermometer hanging by the end of this bar in San Antonio bay. It read - quite understandably given this was Ibiza and it was summer - 40°C. As a dyed-in-the-wool Northerner with a streak of Danish in his heritage, this was definitely not his kind of weather. His pale skin rebelled at the conditions, sweating profusely and requiring him to wear factor eight million sun block to avoid burning worse than his home-cooked chicken. He had only landed this morning and he was already catching the rays, which he knew would turn his skin bright red, which would promptly slough when he got back to Wetherby, returning him to his natural grey hue.

Jaime, on the other hand, had the enviable ability to step off the airplane and ten minutes later be well on the way to a bronzed physique that would have David chewing his tongue off in desire if he wasn't already sleeping with her. His brother Simon had much the same ability, except he burnt on day one, and after that turned a mucky brown colour that persisted for a month, the bastard.

Simon had his mother's genes in this regard, David definitely his father's.

What it amounted to was David lurking in the shade for as much as possible, whilst his girlfriend, brother and friends lay stretched out on sun loungers, glistening with suntan lotion with the rest of the pasty northern Europeans like a battalion of over-ready turkeys. The only exception to this was the equally pale-skinned Jake Brooks, and the result was the two of them sat in an English-owned bar beneath the cover of a giant umbrella, drinking endless bottles of San Miguel and shooting the breeze until six in the evening, when they both felt they could walk around with bursting into flame like a pair of fucking vampires.

Currently it was two in the afternoon and David had co-opted his friend into watching the Ashes test match on a big projection screen. Today was the first day of the third test, and David found himself having to explain the subtleties of a form of cricket that lasted five days and didn't necessarily guarantee a winner. Still, it was easier than the time at Lancaster Uni when he had tried to explain cricket to a politics student from Ohio. What would be harder would be trying to get Jake to actually enjoy what he watching, so David had decided to treat the cricket as a sort of background noise whilst the pair of them got steadily drunker as the hot day limped towards the cooling relief of the evening.

San Miguel was a funny beast, David thought, turning the bottle in his hand so that it caught the rays of the sun and cast wavering golden shadows on the cheap plastic table. You could drink it and drink it like lemonade, the stuff went down easier than a five quid hooker after all, and not feel any effects until you stood up after a few hours and found your legs were now two independent entities with very different opinions about where they wanted to go. This was especially true if the friendly barmaid from Bristol who had taken a shine to the pair had taken into her mind to keep an almost constant flow of lager to their table. She was nice enough, but David barely looked at her. Neither did Jake, although in his case it was because he thought she had a face like a horse, not for any particularly loyal reasons to Lisa. Ibiza was an island filled with good-time girls here for one thing, and they weren't all total dogs. He could wait.

*

Jaime Drayton was lying in a blissful state of mindlessness on a plastic sunlounger, her iPod headphones in her ears playing the glam rock stomp of T-Rex's Get It On, slim shades blanking out the glorious sun that poured from an infinite blue sky. Her bikini top was lying next to the lounger with her big bag that contained everything needed for a day by the pool. David had always joked that she was like his mum in that she carried enough crap to break a packhorse, whilst he himself never went out with more stuff than could be carried in his pockets. It was just a minor joke between the two of them, a little battle of the sexes that provided texture to their relationship.

The newly-minted Doctor Jaime Karen Drayton, MD liked to be prepared.

When they returned to Yorkshire in a week's time Jaime would start at her first post out of Medical School, thrown in at the deep end at the vast, ungainly pool that was the National Health Service, dropped into what had been her first choice: Accident and Emergency. She felt the tight little ball in her stomach that was the exhilarating mixture of nervousness and excitement, and savoured the warm little shiver it gave her inside. But she was glad she was here right now; the coming weeks and months were sure to be fantastically hard so this holiday was a welcome calm before the storm, but she had been working towards this moment since she was eleven, and she wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Muffled by the music in her headphones she could vaguely make out the sounds of Simon Andersen and Pete Phillimore titting around in the pool with an inflatable beach ball they had picked up in a little shop next to their hotel. Every so often they splashed the dozing Michelle Creighton and Fiona Lake, the warm, chlorinated water quickly waking the barmaids up from their pleasant, sun-induced comas. The lads were well drunk from a combination of the cider they had drunk in the airport bar and the bottle of vodka half empty and staying cool in the shade of a knackered palm tree.

Lisa Morton was sulking in her hotel room ever since Jake had decided a day watching cricket getting tanked was a better use of his time than being with her. Everyone knew that Jake would smooth things over by evening; they were used to Lisa's little tantrums over her boyfriend's behaviour.

Jaime rolled over onto her front and reached into her bag for her cigarettes and a lighter. Lighting up she took a long drag on one of the Spanish cigs she had picked up at a euro a carton. Given that was roughly eight times less than what they paid at home, both her and David were buying in bulk, even if the cheap Spanish tobacco burned the throat like a demon and left a peculiarly rank aftertaste.

She felt the smoke fill her lungs and let out a long, contented sigh. She could feel the sun as if it was filling her with a sensuous golden warmth; in total contrast to the torrential rain they had left Wetherby in early that morning. Good God she felt good, and the end of the week was nothing more than a mild irritant at the far side of seven days in the sun.