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party last night!’ he goes on, ‘but how’s the sore head today? You didn’t seem like yourself at all afterwards. You kept hugging your dad and telling him it had been seven years since you last saw him. And as for the crap you were coming out with later on …’

      ‘James,’ I interrupt firmly. ‘Never mind all that. The fact is, I’ve got something really important that I have to tell you. Right now.’

      ‘Shoot.’

      ‘You remember I was offered that internship at The Times over in London?’

      ‘Do I remember? We’ve only been talking about absolutely nothing else since that bloody letter offering you the gig arrived last week,’ he says flatly, staring into the tepid looking polystyrene coffee cup in front of him.

      ‘Well, I’ve definitely made up my mind,’ I tell him. ‘Wanna hear my answer?’

      He glances hopefully up from his coffee, eyebrows raised. I drag out the moment just as long as I can then almost burst with this deep need I have to tell him.

      ‘And guess what? I’m going to turn them down!’

      ‘You’re what?’

      He says it so loudly that the Bitches of Eastwick all turn our way to tune in, like some kind of three-headed hydra.

      ‘You mean you’re really saying no to them? To the London Times?’ he says, stupefied. ‘But I thought you said it was like the answer to your prayers.’

      ‘Absolutely no question,’ I say firmly. ‘Because if I were to move to London, let’s face it, it would spell the end for you and me. I mean, it’s not like we can Skype or email each other, or even text.’

      ‘Ehh … what’s Skype? And what’s a text?’

      ‘Oh, never mind,’ I tell him, anxious not to veer off-course. ‘The thing is you’re just too important to me. I can’t do it. Can’t and won’t. So what do you think?’

      ‘You’d actually do that for me?’ he says, stunned, looking at me like he’s just waiting on the ‘but.’

      ‘James,’ I say, taking his beautiful face into my two hands and really spelling it out, almost like I’m speaking to a toddler. ‘Just listen to me. If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s this. We come first. You and me. Besides, it was just my first job offer. There’ll be plenty more where that came from, just wait and see.’

      ‘You know something, Kate?’ he says pulling away slightly, shaking his head and stubbing out his fag into the dregs of his coffee cup, so it hisses and stinks – a habit of his that slightly grates with me now, but I let it pass. ‘You don’t sound a bit like yourself at all today. Not in the slightest. You’re normally so ambitious and focused about your career. It’s one of the things I really love about you. ’

      ‘Well, this is the new me!’ I say, squeezing his thigh and marveling at just how toned it is. God, when I think back to the sight of James in the buff, I almost want to drag him out of here right now to have my wicked way with him in the back of that clapped out Mini Metro he drives. ‘And here’s why James; I’ve never felt more sure of anything in my whole life.’

      And then we kiss in front of the whole canteen, not caring that the Bitches of Eastwick are staring over at us and it’s divine and I love being this young and in love all over again.

      Every time I go home I hug my Dad so much, it’s frankly starting to embarrass him. Mind you, he worries about me every time I let something slip about the future. Example, last night Princess Di came on the telly and I asked Mum to change channels, as I still couldn’t bear to look at her in all her youth and beauty and promise.

      ‘Why’s that love?’ she asked, frowning across the sofa at me. ‘Because she’s separated from Charles now?’

      ‘No, because she’s dead! In a car crash … in … 1997 …’ I trail off a bit here as Dad chips in.

      ‘I think we’d better get that lump on your head looked into properly Kate. Ever since your birthday, you sound delusional. You were raving the other night about Take That splitting up …’

      ‘And you said that Michael Jackson is dead too,’ Mum chips in. ‘And that Bet Lynch leaves ‘Coronation Street’’

      ‘OK, that’s it,’ says Dad firmly. ‘I think you’re definitely suffering from concussion.’

      I slip up a bit with Amanda and Sophie too, as the three of us are January sales shopping in Topshop. (Cannot believe we don’t have Zara here yet … and when I asked about Karen Millen, they both just looked blankly back at me.)

      ‘Call me later to arrange to go out tonight!’ Amanda says as she’s heading home.

      ‘Sure, I’ll call your mobile.’

      ‘A mobile? Are you joking? Only wankers have mobiles. And drug dealers.’

      Oh shit.

      ‘Ok, then I’ll email you.’

      ‘Email?’ says Sophie. ‘ I wish! We don’t even have a home computer!’

      ‘You’re joking!’ I blurt out. ‘How in God’s name do you manage without Facebook?’

      Now the pair of them are looking at me, puzzled.

      ‘Face … what?’ they say in unison.

      I change the subject and we go back to the far more welcome topic of talking about boys and effective ways to get rid of stubborn zits.

      Thank God I never got round to mentioning Twitter.

      *

      Best thing of all is that I even get to play God with everyone else’s life too. I meet up with Amanda first in MacDonald’s for a coffee (can you believe there’s nowhere else for us to hang out on a Saturday afternoon? When I mentioned Starbucks, she just looked back at me totally bewildered.) The place is noisy and packed with kids tearing about, high as kites on Happy Meals and when I ask for a decaf soy latte, I won’t repeat where the stressed looking girl behind the till told me to shove it.

      ‘Anyway, there’s something important that I really have to tell you,’ I bossily tell Amanda, as we clamber onto plastic seats and clear away the disgusting mess the last family left behind.

      ‘What’s that?’ she asks, sitting back and lighting up a fag.

      ‘Well, it’s about the place you’ve been offered at RADA.’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘The thing is, I think you should most definitely take it. No, don’t just take it Amanda, grab it with both hands. Trust me, you’ll be so glad you did in later life. You could end up like Judi Dench, or even Helen Mirren!’ I add, quoting 2015 Amanda back to her.

      ‘Yeah, but I also have an offer in on this new soap opera that’s starting up. Now I know it’s just a few week’s work to start with, but the money is bloody phenomenal! I could wipe my student debt off in no time if I accept it. Whereas if I go to RADA, I’ve no guarantee of a job at the end of it, do I? Plus I’d have to waitress in London to keep myself going. And at the end of it all, I could come out of it like one of those tosspot actor wankers who are so far up themselves that they call everyone ‘lovie’ and ‘dearie,’ and come out with insincere crap like, ‘I love your work’ and ‘channel your inner pain.’

      ‘Amanda, you have to trust me. If you turn down RADA and go with the soap opera, it will end up being the biggest regret of your life.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘Trust me, I just do.’

      Later that night, I even get to wave my magic wand over Sophie’s life too. She phones my house – oh the shock of actually having to use a landline in our narrow hallway at home with both parents earwigging in. Anyway, Sophie asks me over for a pizza,

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