What can I say?  It's Chapter 3!

‘Well it’s obvious what he sees in that girl.’

Chantal winced, and paused in her task of scrabbling for loo paper in the Red Lion’s useless dispenser.  She recognised the spiky voices outside the cubicle as belonging to two brassy-earringed harpies who’d been at the last Colonel K gig, chain-smoking and scowling at any female who dared be more attractive than them.  Chantal’s name hadn’t been mentioned yet, but she knew intuitively that she was the subject of their sinkside miaowing session.  She hunched, as though hiding from the harpies – despite the fact they had no way of seeing her.

‘Who?’

‘Kristian!  You know – him what plays in that band, Colonel K.  You musta seen him.  At that table up by the stage, with a big gang of folks.  That’s his wench, who’s singin’ tonight.  You know – the one with the – ’

The description was left unfinished, and Chantal guessed the girl was making ‘big tits’ gestures, cupping her hands an exaggerated distance in front of her own puny bosom.  Such girls were so predictable – like the playground bitches who’d made Chantal’s school days an ordeal.  It was thanks to their years of backbiting that she had such a sensitive ear for what people were saying about her.

There was a pause, and Chantal could almost hear the cogs clonking round in the other girl’s minuscule brain, before she answered in gormless tones, ‘Oh yeah!  I was thinkin’ that bloke looked a bit familiar.  I’ve twigged where I know him from now.  And he’s knockin’ her off, is he?’

‘Ar,’ her mate rasped acidly.  ‘It’s easy to spot that Kris in a crowd – he’s the one with stretch marks round his gob!’

There was dirty belly laughter then, mingled with jets – and the cloying stench – of ‘desperate to get laid,’ pound-shop perfume.

‘Like I say, it’s easy to see as he’s only with her for that reason.  Cuz her ai’ gorra fat lot else goin’ for her!’

‘Nah, her’s a right mongrel!  I don’t reckon her jugs are real, do you, Nat?’

‘If they’re real, so are Jordan’s!  Bet they give her black eyes.’

I’d like to give you a black eye!  Chantal, hunched on the loo, despised herself for being so spineless.  Kris had instilled her with undreamed-of confidence since that momentous New Year’s Eve, but she was still prone to shy fits.  She’d love to have gone clomping out there and squared up to those two cackling chavs.  Then again, what could she feasibly say to them without sounding like a total plank?  ‘Actually, for your information, my breasts are not made of silicone.  Here – have a feel if you don’t believe me!’

No!  The safest option by far was to stay put and pee quietly so as to not even advertise her presence to ‘Nat’ and her pal.

‘Mind you, her’s a right lucky bitch!  I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for farting, would you?’

The cackles became muffled by the roar of the hand drier.  Then the slutty clack of stilettos on tile told Chantal that Nat and friend had gone – probably in search of fresh meat they could tear to pieces.

This was not an atypical scene for Chantal Brown nowadays.

I guess I should be grateful that after all those insults they called me a lucky bitch, rather than just a bitch, she philosophised, wrenching the rusty bog chain.  Anyway, I am lucky.  Most girls would probably quite like to be envied for being stacked and having a horny boyfriend!

She tugged the bolt across the flaking door and went to the sink.  Come on, girl, you’re due on stage in half an hour.  Best top up your lippy and get your hands clean.

A petite, pretty girl who smelled of Olbas Oil had just emerged from the adjacent cubicle, and was fishing out a cigarette from a pink handbag that looked too small for a Barbie doll.

Chantal was sure she recognised her, but was too polite to stare to try and place her.  But a subtle sideways look, as she scrubbed her hands with the brittle, lather-free soap, confirmed her companion was a fellow contestant in tonight’s karaoke competition.

Taking a gratified drag, Olbas girl lolled against the dingy basin and grinned.  She wore a strappy black mini dress, a diamanté belt, and rather lethal-looking heels to redress her lack of height.  Her silky straight golden hair was scrunchied up into a swingy ponytail – with which her shoulder-length diamanté earrings swung in perfect time.

And what was that down her arm?  A tattoo, of – Chantal had to look twice and remind herself she hadn’t had a drink yet – David Beckham!  Well, she supposed, it lent some logic to the fact her outfit had distinct Posh Spice overtones.

‘You won’t let on to me mom that you caught me sneaking a crafty smoke, will you?’ the girl said, as though Chantal was an old friend who might feasibly know her mother from Adam.  ‘She’s with me tonight, and thinks I’ve given up.’

She had such an infectious, conspiratorial charm, that Chantal couldn’t help smirking back.  ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’  Chantal had few close girl-friends.  She seldom clicked easily with members of her own gender, who were often hissy and defensive around her.  Kris said they were just jealous – but she was too modest to accept such a fact.  Yet, here in a freezing Black Country bog, she’d sparked an instant bond with a blunt-speaking karaoke rival whose name she didn’t even know yet.  ‘You’re singing tonight, aren’t you?  I saw you registering earlier.’

‘Sure am.  Now I know what you’m thinking,’ the David Beckham fan grimaced comically at her smouldering fag, ‘that we artistes have to look after our voices, and I’m doing a hopeless job of it.  I’m guessing you’re a non-smoker – would I be right?’

Chantal shook her hands free of drips and gave them a blast under the scorching hand drier which she noticed bore the graffiti’d legend NAT IS A SLAG.  ‘Yes,’ she yelled over it.

‘Sensible girl.  You’ll probably win this competition, whereas I’ll start coughing halfway through the chorus and have to be stretchered off the stage.  That’s why I keep promising myself each packet will be my last.’  She then tilted her small body towards Chantal and said, in more confidential tones, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing them two slappers carping about you.  At least, I presumed it was about you.  You don’t wanna let the likes of them get to you.’

‘Oh, I don’t,’ Chantal replied nonchalantly, and was surprised to find she meant it.  She usually took the mildest insults to heart, but suddenly her new friend put them into perspective; she bolstered Chantal by disparaging Nat.  The girl had a ‘You’re with me now, everything’s gunna be all right’ air about her.  As long as Chantal had her cheering influence, and Kristian’s love, she had armour against the world.  Sod Nat and her petty bitchery!

‘Is it true, though, your chap sings with Colonel K?’

‘Yeah, Kris.’  Chantal’s face turned peach, and she felt all happy and pretty, the way she always did when she spoke of him.  ‘Kris with a K!  I’ve been with him two months now.  And those lads out there with him are the other members of the band.  Kris’s mom and sister are here too.  I’m dead chuffed they’ve all come to cheer me on.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Have you ever seen the band?’

Olbas shook her head and took another puff.  ‘Their posters are always up and about – that’s why they looked a bit familiar to me – but I’ve never managed to catch them live.  They look good fun, though.  D’you get on well with all the guys?’

‘They’re like brothers to me,’ Chantal responded fondly.  ‘As I say, I’m that touched they’ve all turned up.  I thought just a couple of them might come – if they had nothing better to do, like – but I didn’t know it’d be the lot of ’em!  When I said that, though, they were like: “Am you kidding?  We couldn’t miss it!  Kris has told us how much your karaoke means to you, and you’ve supported us enough these last few months, so the least we can do is cheer you on your big night.”  They’re dead genuine.’

Justine’s tiny face puckered into an ‘Ah’ expression.  ‘I think that’s really lovely.  And what about your future mother-in-law?  Is she nice?’

‘Mother-in-law indeed!’ Chantal scoffed, colouring up and giving Justine a little play-thump, though in fact she rather liked the sound of the words.  ‘Rose is ace.  She’s welcomed me with open arms.  I wish I could swap her for me own mom, to be honest with you!’

‘Sounds like you got it made, girl.  Your Kris-with-a-K is gorgeous anyhow, and that pair of cows that were in here are obviously well jealous of you – hence their comments.  That type always have to try and drag folks down to their level.  Pay no attention to ’em!  You’re much more to Kris than a great pair of boobs.  He seems totally besotted with you.’

Chantal grinned.  He was.  Goofily, soppily besotted.

She used to presume all musicians were serial one-night-standers, but Chantal’s courtship with Kris had surprised her by becoming serious early on.  Was it really only February?  It felt like they’d been a couple forever.  Her pre-Kristian life now seemed so dark and immobile, like a monochrome photograph.

They’d graduated by now to the stage of meeting every other evening.  Nights in were a thing of the past for this former home-bird.  She went to all his weekend gigs, and most of his weeknight ones too, provided they were local-ish.

Saturdays were sacred, for they spent the entire day – and, of late, the entire night also – together.  Those twenty-four hours were designed for lovers; she couldn’t not spend them with him.

On the Saturdays when Kristian was gigging (i.e. the vast majority of them), he picked her up early, they’d have a leisurely pub lunch somewhere before trundling off to the evening’s venue, singing to tapes on Kris’s temperamental car stereo and holding hands between gear changes.

Then Chantal would entrench herself with a Breezer and a magazine while Kris and his bantering bandmates uncoiled miles of adder-like amp cable, assembled drum kits, tuned guitars and finally soundchecked.

She was never bored while this lengthy and meticulous process was going on, nor did she mind that Kris had to largely ignore her during it.  She sometimes had company, in the shape of either his mother Rose or one of the other lads’ intermittent girlfriends, but even in their absence she was never lonely.  There was a great sexy pleasure to be had from watching Kris do the job he loved and was so good at.

Chantal had always found him a fascinating showman, but now there was a pride to the way she watched him; a ‘that’s my chap up there’ thrill that flickered through her stomach. 

He was porn on legs.  True bodice-ripper hero material.  Swoon-worthily beautiful.  Chantal had to sit on her hands to stop herself snaking them all down that tattooed torso and then hauling him into the pub bogs for a quick, rough one up against the cistern.

The old Chantal would have blushed from such slag-ish urges.  The old Chantal had spent woozy days and damp-sheeted nights dreaming ludicrous pipe dreams about being his girl.  Whereas the new Chantal actually was.

She still pinched herself, with arm-bruising regularity, to check she really wasn’t partaking in a dream sequence in the sitcom of her life.

‘Am this lot any good?’ a curious sound engineer once enquired of her as the boys rigged up their equipment.

‘Yeah, they’re ace,’ she enthused, then couldn’t help namedropping, ‘but then I am a bit biased, seeing as how my boyfriend’s the lead singer!’

Her boyfriend was a lead singer!  She loved saying it.  It made her feel glamorous and important, like Yasmin Le Bon or somebody.

She couldn’t believe that, as recently as December, she had taken Kris for just another up-himself rock star.  He was the most down to earth person she had ever met, with not a speck of vanity about him.   He had lovely humour.  In fact, the ability to take the piss out of oneself was part of the Colonel K ethos.

In a daft kind of way, it had been a revelation even to discover he had a mom and a sister, lived in a draughty three-bed semi, and had to clean his room from time to time.  She’d at one point pictured him as some conceited hedonist with a villa in Barbados and a different woman in his hammock every night.  His background, though, was very similar to her own.  There was no edge to him whatsoever.

Chantal knew she was in love with him.

Shirley and Ken, her parents, had trouble these days remembering what their only daughter looked like without the aid of photographs.  They were less than chuffed about her ‘infatuation’ with this ‘mop-haired, tattooed musician type,’ and uncharitably discouraged it.  They cited any excuse, from the mega-predictable ‘the likes of him’ll have girls all over the country,’ to ‘he’d best not be involved in no drugs, our Chantal,’ to ‘you’ll get bored of each other dead quick, living in each other’s pockets like you do.’

Chantal didn’t give a toss.  All that mattered to her was that, for the first time in her life, she felt special.   She was adored, she meant something to someone – and, six weeks ago, twenty years as a citizen of Virgin territory had come (as it were) to an end.

She had ‘popped her cherry,’ as she put it, on the first Saturday that Kris invited her home overnight. 

Rose had always been broad-minded about girlfriends stopping.  This was fortunate, as Shirley and Ken conversely took the view that their daughter was welcome to have a sex life – even with her disapproved-of ‘musician type’ – so long as she conducted it under roofs other than their own.

The night this sex life began was the best of Chantal’s entire life, and it followed one of Colonel K’s best performances, at the Robin in Bilston, a renowned Midlands venue which they always sold out.  It was the night that Kris added Stand and Deliver, a 1981 Adam and the Ants Number One, to the set list to surprise her – purely because it was one of her favourites. 

About three songs in, he’d hollered ‘Here’s one for all you New Romantics out there!’ and then, with a very open wink at Chantal, slapped on an unashamedly foppish pirate hat (a recent fluke find for two quid in Oxfam) and launched, with typical vim, into the song.

Chantal cheered and danced with a lack of reserve that until very recently would have astounded those who knew her well.  She, Rose and Kara, such proud champions of man, son and brother, had been on their feet right from the opening number, but those first ten or so minutes of a gig were always a self-conscious time, when you bobbled gauchely around the barren dancefloor, clutching your handbag for protection and pretending you knew what you were doing.

Chantal – who had never been exactly Royal Ballet material – had developed her own technique, which basically involved standing still but shuffling her shoulders and her blancmange-like chest to create the illusion of movement.  This proved especially useful while she was still too sober to attempt any livelier movements, in those moments before the inhibition-loosening alcohol kicked in.

But the second Kris started yodelling on about dandy highwaymen, her inhibition dissolved like Alka Seltzer.  She suddenly didn’t care that her unique boob-jingling choreography, and extrovert belting out of lyrics written before she was born, were amusing people – or that Kara (whose bedroom was a shrine to Justin Timberlake) was gawking at her as though she had never seen anything so weird.  She truly didn’t.  She was, to quote Sister Sledge, ‘lost in music.’

A good tune moved Chantal like little else.  When she heard a song she liked, her body was not her own.  The beat seemed to take over, hypnotising this shy clerical assistant into believing she was goddess of the disco.

God, she loved Adam Ant!  And how freeing it was to finally mix in company where she could express that without fear of derision.  Most modern icons had nothing on him, she decided.  They had no sense of the camp; of the tongue in cheek.

Chantal had long felt she was born about fifteen years too late.  Had she been a teenager not a foetus in the early eighties, she liked to think she’d have festooned herself in androgynously frilly livery, striped her face with pirate make-up, frittered her Saturday job wages in The Blitz (or whatever Willenhall’s counterpart to this famed London club might have been), got deliciously bombed on vodka, snogged punks and given her parents nightmares.

Then again, had that been the case she would never have met Kris. 

It was a good job no genies had been listening, all those times when Chantal wished she’d been born in the late sixties.  Had her wish been granted, she could have gone to a few Adam Ant concerts, but her world would have been forever Krisless.  She shivered at the very idea.

He was her lover now.  Following this Robin appearance, he drove her home, via a brief detour to an all-night chippy (their Saturday dinners were always fish and chips, Chinese or McDonalds – depending on what happened to be the handiest takeaway – devoured in the rattly Datsun, usually with rain drumming on the windows).

Then, at the Savage family semi, Kris had led a tremulous Chantal upstairs (Rose and Kara, who always travelled independently to venues, were asleep already, so they’d had to tiptoe), where he made love to her on his narrow adolescent bed, overlooked by a giant, peeling Blues Brothers poster.

It hurt, Chantal bled (even though she’d assumed that only happened in old wives’ lore), Kris’s bed creaked, and his mother was in the next room.  In other words, it wasn’t quite a Danielle Steel deflowering scene – but to Chantal that was half the charm.  It was loving, real and cosy, and she would forever remember and cherish every second of it.

But once the first night nerves and initial slicing pain were over with, Chantal surprised herself by proving a natural seductress.  She may have flowered relatively late – but, way-hey, how she flowered!

At first, she was so coy about Kris seeing her naked – protesting that she was ‘flabby’ and would ‘turn him off’ – but he taught her to love her body as much as he did.

‘You look how a woman should,’ he told her as he’d slid away the cover she was clutching self-consciously over her torso, ‘I don’t want some scraggy greyhound sharing me bed!’

Now Chantal had no such reticence in said bed, and shagged like a little porn star.  She walked with a permanent bow-legged gait to rival John Wayne’s – while Kris counted himself lucky to possess a supple body, which could shape itself into whatever yogic positions his surprising partner requested.  He loved her (and Nat’s crack about his mouth bearing stretch marks was not actually far wrong).

‘Jeez – they say it’s always the quiet ones,’ he’d panted after one particular round of hot athletics quite early on in their sexual relationship.  Every inch of his long body was on fire; his hot sheets sodden in sweat and assorted fluids.

Chantal, straddling him, looked triumphant: flushed and pert, with tassels of her lovely soft hair tickling those pendulous breasts. 

‘See – I’m not frigid after all,’ she breathed, as though addressing herself.

‘Why – who said you were?’ Kris asked, with instant concern, propping himself against his pillow to look at her.

Chantal stretched herself down on top of him and rolled over to her side, so that they lay holding each other on the puckered sheets.

‘Oh, just lads at school, and some of the morons I used to go out with.’

‘Don’t talk about them.’  He placed his finger to her lips, hating the thought other blokes might have had access to her.  ‘What happens between us is all that matters now.’

Chantal tousled his sweaty hair and cuddled his face to her cushiony breast.  The gesture, and his words, made her feel powerful and protective.  It was funny, she was used to feeling so vulnerable and girly with him – mainly due to their height difference – yet in bed she was queen.  He let her take the lead.

He looks so beautiful, I want to cry.  He isn’t so invincible after all.  He gets jealous too.  He really cares about me.  I want to spend the rest of my life with this man.

‘I know,’ she said softly, ‘but now I can see I was only frigid with them because I didn’t want to do it with them – I was waiting for the right man to come along and unlock me!  And now he has.’

‘Really?’  His face, in her bosom, was so cute and boyish.

‘Too right!  You’re special, and well worth waiting for.  I must admit I never intended to stay a virgin quite this long, though.  Like most teenagers, I was impatient to Do It.  We used to talk about nothing else in my class at school, and I got picked on because I still hadn’t had my cherry popped by the grand old age of sixteen.  The school bikes used to say I was too ugly and fat to get men, or they’d say “Am yow religious, or summat?  Wanna save it for your wedding night like a nice little girlie?  Well you’ll seal up if you leave it too long!”  And I actually believed I would!  It seems laughable now, but they made me feel such a freak, Kris.

‘That’s why I was determined to do it with the first bloke who tried,’ she continued, despite his uneasy expression.  He let her talk this time, though, sensing her need to share these intimate thoughts.  ‘That’s how desperate I was.  But then after a few failed attempts, I thought: Sod it!  I don’t care that I’m nineteen now.  This obviously isn’t working, so I might as well keep my legs together until I meet someone special who I genuinely want to sleep with – not someone I don’t fancy, who just wants to get his end away.  And if I never meet Mr Wonderful, and end up dying a virgin, I don’t care!   But then I met you!’

She brushed his forehead with the lightest of kisses.  ‘Now I’m so glad I waited.  It meant so much, having my first time with someone like you.  It wasn’t seedy and over in five minutes in the back of some lad’s car, like most of my mates’ experiences.  I actually had some idea about what I was supposed to be doing.  With you, it’s more than just a shag.  I feel like a real woman.’

Kris was touched.  Caught-off-guard, lump-in-the-throat touched.  A few months ago, he’d have laughed off such sentiment as cheesy talk.  But that was BC – Before Chantal – before this amazing girl had blessed his life.

You’m getting’ soft in yer old age, mate, he thought, sniffing away a tear and devoting himself to the earthier task of nuzzling into her bust.

Chantal shared Kristian’s bed every Saturday night now.  Soon, she might be sharing it for a fortnight – for they had spoken tentatively of holidaying together, during Colonel K’s short summer break (a development about which she did not intending enlightening Mom and Dad until she was almost at case-packing stage).

Chantal had voyaged no further than Guernsey, with her family.  The thought of basking on a Canary Island beach next to Kris’s lissom, swimming-trunked form made her hornier than…a French horn orchestra.

‘I’m Justine, by the way.  Justine Oliver.’

‘Sorry?’  Chantal blinked and blushed, embarrassed to have drifted off mid-conversation with a new friend who was far from boring.  ‘Oh – er – I’m Chantal Brown.’

She shook Justine’s proffered hand, and the two girls giggled.

‘Chantal’s a dead pretty name.  Unusual.’  She nudged Chantal.  ‘You were miles away then, weren’t you?  With the lovely Kris, I bet!  What song are you doing tonight, mate?’

‘Only You by Yazoo.  It’s a bit of an oldie,’ she explained with an apologetic laugh as Justine contorted her little features into a quizzical expression.  ‘One of my faves, though.  I’m an eighties freak, I’m afraid.’

‘I like some eighties – Whitney and Kylie mainly.  And The Weather Girls.  Don’t know that one, though – sorry – but I’m sure you’ll do it dead well.  Mind you, there’s not an awful lot I do know, apart from the Spice Girls.’

‘I thought from your clobber that you might be a bit of a Posh fan.  I like your tattoo.’ 

Actually Chantal wasn’t sure that she did, strictly speaking, like it.  Kris had tattoos (a guitar on his upper left arm, a geometricy squiggly thing on his right arm – which he informed her was the Chinese symbol for happiness – and a lion near the small of his back) and she found those very sexy, though the idea of undergoing such adornment herself made her quite poorly.  And she privately thought Justine’s was a tad on the brash side.

‘Great, innit?’ Justine lovingly stroked the indelible footballer.  ‘It took two hours.  I thought me dad’d skin me when he found out I’d had it done.  I wore long sleeves for three days before I let him see it.  I was cacking meself, but in the end he was fine.  “Your arm’s your own, me wench,” he said.  He’s ace, my dad is.’

‘I wish my olds were like that,’ Chantal said stiffly.  ‘They’re with me tonight, meeting Kris for the first time.  Don’t think they’re too impressed!’

‘Oh dear,’ Justine grimaced.

‘They’re doing my head in at the moment, to tell you the truth.’  Chantal was amazed to find herself confiding such detail in a stranger.

‘Ever thought about getting a place of your own?’

‘Seen the property prices lately?  Kris started to look for somewhere – he’s at home too, see – then had to give up cuz what he earns from the band would just about buy him a scutty old bedsit in Cradley Heath.  Not all rockers are millionaires, y’know!’

‘Couldn’t you get a place together?’

‘It’s early days yet.’  Chantal’s wistful blush, however, indicated she would like nothing more in the world.  She briskly changed the subject.  ‘Did your tattoo hurt?’ 

‘Not hurt as such.  Just made me arm go a bit numb while the guy was doing it.  As soon as he took the needle away, I felt nothing.  It was all worth it anyway.  Gave me a gimmick.  I’m kinda known round Wolverhampton way for me Spice costumes.’

She then proceeded to rivet Chantal with a whirlwind of anecdotes about her busking, TV auditions and screwball dress sense.  In those minutes, Chantal quite forgot her less than ritzy surroundings and was whisked off to another world.

‘You’re the kind of girl who makes other people feel their lives are boring in comparison,’ Chantal chuckled with amused awe.  She cringed at herself, because it sounded a very arse-licky comment, but it was true – she had never had such a fascinating friend.

Chantal felt rightly guilty that she had neglected her old playground comrades Jessica and Lindsey of late.  It was, regrettably, easily done when you were in love.  Relationships often had casualties, particularly in their besotted, honeymoony stage, and particularly where either of the parties lacked experience and maturity.  There was a tendency to drop everything for the partner – a tendency which more seasoned lovers usually grew out of.

The time Chantal was spending with Kris’s friends was far outweighing the time spent in the company of hers.

But then, she surmised, not entirely unjustly, his mates were more fun.  Had she greater attachment to and common ground with Jess and Lindsey, she might have made more effort to maintain her association with them.  She wasn’t too heartbroken that their phone calls and texts had dried up.  In fact, it barely registered with her that they had.  She took it as a signal to abandon infant friendships and move on with her life.

But in Justine she’d now found a kindred spirit whose company she genuinely wished to share.  Chantal really admired the girl’s bouncy, unapologetic nature.  She knew what she wanted from life, and she bloody well went for it.  Jess and Lindsey had little ambition, and no sense of daring.  Chantal needed someone who could draw her out of herself.  If she had a friend like Justine, she would make time to see her – boyfriend or no boyfriend.

‘Your life’s hardly boring, sweetheart,’ Justine pointed out.  ‘Not with your chap and his mates out there.  I’ve just always believed in following my dreams, and having a lot of fun on the way.  I like becoming these characters.  Tonight I’ve decided to be Victoria, cuz I haven’t worn this dress for a while.  The Geri gear is all very well when I’m out busking and want attention from passers-by, but as I’m on a proper stage tonight, I thought I’d dress a bit more sophis.’

‘What will you be singing?’

‘Who Do You Think You Are.  I thought maybe a dancey kind of number would go down well with the punters.  I don’t know really, though.  It’s actually the first time I’ve done one of these competitions.’

‘Is it really?  I’m sure you’ll be great up there, though.  You seem to be brimming with confidence.’

‘To be honest, Chantal,’ Justine stage-whispered, ‘I’m bricking it!  Hence this emergency fag was called for!’

‘It can be quite nerve-wracking.  I’ve took part in this one before – the Red Lion do karaoke nights every Thursday – and I still get the butterflies.’

‘You do a fair bit of the old singing lark then?’

‘Yeah, I love it.’

‘Ever won anything?’

Chantal shook her head, without resentment.  ‘But they do say the taking part matters more than the winning, don’t they?’

‘We ought to form a double act!’  Justine spoke jokily and impulsively, yet found that the idea held appeal.  She thought Chantal was lovely, and bound to have a marvellous voice.  A girl so obviously shy would never submit herself to the daunting pursuit of singing in public unless wholly confident she had a bostin’ pair of lungs on her.  The only individuals who got up and warbled away without talent were drunks, or lairy types with no sense of embarrassment and delusions that people wanted to hear them.  Empty vessels, and all that.

‘You haven’t even heard me yet,’ Chantal laughed self-deprecatingly, ‘I’d never have the guts to try busking in any case.’  But she too was liking the idea.  She had never before contemplated bringing her talents to bear in a band – or utilising them to serious intent at all – but Justine was firing up latent ambitions.

‘Oh, I’m jacking in the old busking game,’ Justine said jauntily.  ‘I’ve got plans!  With a capital P.  In fact, I have to admit I’ve got ulterior motives for entering this tonight.  I want folks to hear me voice, of course, but I’m also checking out the opposition.’

‘Opposition?’

‘Yeah.  Me parents run a pub, y’see – the Hare & Tortoise in Wolverhampton.  Bit of a cheesy name, but there you go!  Anyway, Dad’s hoping to get a public entertainment licence soon, so we can have bands on and that.  You should get your Colonel K booked in – they’d go down a storm there.  Anyway, I also wanna start running me own talent nights, and I thought I’d come here to see how it’s done.’

‘That sounds great.  I’m sure you’ll succeed, Justine.  You’ve got plenty of drive.’

‘Oh, but that’s not all I wanna do.’  And she was off again – this time taking Chantal on a whistle-stop tour through her fantasy future, the one in which she would conquer the pop charts and revolutionise telly.  Chantal felt quite drunk from it all.

‘But turning to more down to earth subjects – who d’you reckon’s gunna win then, seeing as you’m a bit of a regular here?  Them two chaps who are doing Robson and Jerome, perhaps?’

‘They are quite popular – all the old aunties go mad for ’em – but it’s Len, the Elvis guy, who goes down a real storm here.’

‘Elvis?’ 

Chantal giggled at Justine’s dubious expression.  ‘We’re dead modern round here, you know!’

‘I’m glad I brought me mom then!  She’ll love it.’

‘Len has to be seen to be believed, though, Justine!  Did you notice that little scraggy chap smoking roll-ups by the bar, with the greasy hair and ‘LOVE’ and ‘PEACE’ tattooed on his knuckles?  Well, that’s him!  He’s not much to look at now, but you should hear the place erupt when he comes on in his white jump suit!  He got it from a charity shop and it’s his absolute pride and joy. The collar’s right out here – and his flares flap so much, I keep expecting him to take off any minute!  I tell you what – you haven’t heard Elvis ’til you’ve heard him sung in a Black Country accent!’

‘I bet he thinks he sounds just like ‘The King,’ though, eh?’

‘More than that – he thinks he is the reincarnation of him.  He’s a scream to watch.’

‘I can imagine!  What song does he usually do?’

‘The Wonder of You – I think that’s the only one he knows, to tell you the truth.  He’s hopeless at memorising lyrics.  He has them scrawled on a bit of paper that he keeps down by his feet, cuz he says “I cor remember the words if they ay writ down!”  It’s a good job he doesn’t write them on his hands – he’d start singing his tattoos instead!’

Justine hooted, and ripped off some scratchy bog roll to dab her eyes.  ‘I cor remember the words if they ay writ down!  Oh, that’s killed me, that has!  You’ll ruin me mascara.’  While dabbing, she caught sight of her watch and gave a little start.  ‘Hey – come on, our Chantal, we’m on in a bit.  Last minute lippy!’  She hurriedly stubbed her dog end into the scummy soap dish that everyone used as an ashtray, and reached for her dinky handbag.

Chantal too was staggered at how rapidly time had advanced.  Both girls dived for their lipsticks and had a final little titivate in the grubby mirrors.  Then Justine hauled out a bottle of Olbas Oil and took a deep sniff.

Chantal gaped with mirth.  She’d thought nothing about this eccentric girl could surprise her now.  ‘What you trying to do – stink out your opponents?’

‘It’s my drug.  Want some?’

‘Nah, think I’ll give that a miss, thanks.’  Chantal swept her brush through her rich blonde hair.  She struck a pop babe pose against the sink.  ‘How do I look?’ 

Usually she was wary of asking girls such questions, fearing catty answers, but with Justine she felt joyously unguarded.  This, she realised, was how friendship was supposed to be – not like the empty, convenient association with Jess and Lindsey, or the two-faced sufferance she endured with her workmates.

‘Stunning,’ came the reply.  It was true.  Chantal looked like a GQ centrefold, with her hourglass body poured into that slinky sky-blue dress – yet her face was so innocent and pretty.  Justine felt scutty and underdeveloped beside her.

‘So do you.  Now may the best girl win!’

Len won.  The second his backing tape tweaked to life and he scuffed across the stage, rasping ‘Anyone feeling suspicious?’, no other contestant stood a chance.

It mattered not that Justine was in such feisty voice, or that Chantal sounded so heart-crackingly sweet – all the Red Lion regulars wanted was little Len, in his nylon jump suit the colour of dirty snow, with his boot-polish hair greased into a quiff.

The fact that he’d now doubled his repertoire by learning the lyrics to Suspicious Minds (though he still had to have them ‘writ down’) added a fresh edge for his easily-pleased, matronly fans.  The Cinzano-soaked biddies wet their drawers every time he treated them to a wiggle of his little hips, or one of Elvis’s ‘sneers.’

Justine was indignant at the clap-o-meter result – not for her own sake, but for her new friend, who possessed the most exquisite voice she had ever heard.

‘You pissed all over everyone else in that competition, Chantal – myself included,’ she praised, with typical refinement.  ‘You ought to be downing that Champagne now, not that little squirty Elvis guy – he was shite!’

Chantal was amused, touched, yet philosophical too.  ‘Oh well, such is the fickle world of showbiz!’

She herself never minded not landing the prize Brut – for her, the buzz was all the performance – and was too used to Len’s victories to begrudge him another one.  She had to admit he was a character.  He had a quite mystifying belief that his Elvis Presley impersonation was close-your-eyes-and-it’s-him accurate, despite his voice having a raucous, down-the-market-place pitch that was actually not unlike Justine’s.  But he could hold a note – just – and was comical to watch, with his ‘LOVE’ and ‘PEACE’ tattoos winking under the pink and blue ‘disco’ lighting as he darted about the little stage in his lurid costume, squinting to read the lyrics by his feet.

‘When I start running me talent nights,’ Justine was going on, ‘remind me to introduce a rule – banning Elvis impersonators called Len from taking part!  We’re far too good for this place anyway,’ she joked, in an airy, superstar accent.

She was right, though.  In this low-budget pub talent show, these two vastly different girls were the sole exponents of what might be termed ‘star quality.’ 

Justine was the rough diamond: the streetwise little belter who’d spent her life in pubs, loved an audience and sang without a shudder.

But while Justine may have cornered the market in zany, ladette charm, Chantal was in Fantasy Girlfriend League.  She was almost painfully beautiful – with the dress Kris had bought her enhancing the fairy-like brightness of her eyes, and the cheapo lighting casting a haunting glow on her English-rose skin.  There was an innocence about her, which some blokes suspected, but only Kristian Savage knew, belied porno-star bed skills.

She invested the lyrics of the Yazoo ballad with such purity and poignancy.  Kris, who was hearing her sing ‘properly,’ as it were, for the first time, was mesmerised.  It was like falling in love with her afresh: in love with a new facet of her deep character.

Chantal was usually the one playing the ‘proud partner who can’t believe their luck’ role.  Tonight, though, the tables had been well and truly turned.  Kris’s thoughts as he gazed with rapture at her were of the ‘What the hell is this crystal-voiced princess doing with gawky old me?’ variety.

It struck Kris that being the ‘fan’ for once was actually good for him.  He was used to adulation – OK, it wasn’t exactly of Robbie Williams heights, but it was adulation nonetheless, and he realised guiltily that he’d grown too used to it.  Being admired was an easy to thing to take for granted.

What wasn’t so easy in this business – even for a down to earth chap like Kris – was retaining one’s humility.  The continual company of fans, friends, family and now a stunning lover too was a great ego-feeder.

But now, seeing just how stunning said lover could be made him feel lucky and grateful.  She was a revelation.  Gorgeous, serene and confident, in her element, and singing like an angel.

And she was with him!

Why wasn’t she famous – or, at the very least, earning her living from music?  The girl belonged on posters and Top of the Pops – not in some tedious office by day and dives like this by night – and Kris impulsively vowed that he would do all he could to propel her there.  The public would go bananas for her, he was sure.  She made The Corrs look like dogs, and Britney Spears like some plain Jane library monitor.

But then selfish considerations took over.  Chantal might deserve to be a star, but he couldn’t bear to lose her.  She was his ‘Babby,’ the girl who’d gifted him her virginity; who loved to cuddle him on the sofa, share midnight takeaways and crease herself laughing over old Bottom videos with him.  No-one had ever been more special to him.  He hated the thought of her being public property, in the moulding hands of Svengali producers; of not being his exclusively.

Kris knew his thoughts were hypocritical – he was a performer himself; poor Chantal bore without complaint the attentions he received from the tit-and-ciggie posse – but he couldn’t help them.

He was shocked to realise he was jealous – not an emotion he was often given to.  It suddenly hit him that Chantal could take her pick of the men in not just this room but any room in the world.  The sight of her filled him with a macho wish that he could lock her in an airtight box to which no other male could gain access.

Sitting next to him, Max, who had known Kris since they were twelve, was flabbergasted to see tears sparkling in his usually jokey mate’s eyes.

Kris, Rose, Kara, Jim, Jay, Max and Elvis were loyally squished around the table that was virtually on top of the stage in the Red Lion’s poky bar. 

They’d sprung to their feet as one to applaud Chantal (though were no match on the clap-o-meter for the Cinzano posse, whom Jay acidicly christened ‘Len’s bitches’), and when she and Justine joined them after the dubious verdict, there were more cheers.

‘Well done Chantal!’

‘Here comes the superstar!’

‘Get her a drink!’

Chantal burst out laughing with sheer love for them.

‘Thanks for your support, guys.  You’re all great!’

She was careful to say this clearly, with suitably open hand gestures, to avoid excluding and thus offending her parents, who were spread around the adjoining table with Justine’s mom Audrey, looking a little out of the fun but making each other’s tentative acquaintance.  But it was the lads she really addressed.

The affection they radiated, within themselves and for others, was tangible.  They were not merely bandmates, who turned up, entertained pissed people for a couple of hours, pocketed their cash, said ta-ra to each other and went home.  They loved and knew one other inside out; there was a chemistry to the way they interacted both on- and off-stage.  Their anarchic yet rehearsed-to-a-tee act was essentially a continuation of their everyday conduct.

A gorgeous warmth surged through Chantal’s veins just watching them.

I want camaraderie like this.  I want a band of my own.

She always had, though, hadn’t she?  It just wasn’t until Justine made that half-serious suggestion at the sink an hour ago that she’d realised she wanted it more than anything else in the world.

Kris hoicked her up right off her feet as though imbibed with He-Man strength.  Chantal shrieked with utter glee.  Let Len choke on his cheap champers!  Who needed karaoke wins when one had the love and backing of a man like this?

Nat and her scraggy friend were smoking at the bar.  Chantal could feel their citrus-sour glares upon her, but for once they failed to faze her.  Watch me and puke, you sluts!  I’m going places!  She normally only felt this ballsy and vivacious after about half a gallon of Bacardi.

‘Was that all right?’ she asked, though, with typical understatement, once she was vertical again.

‘Sweetheart, that was fucking stunning!’  Kris squeezed her and smacked a sucky, over the top kiss in the centre of her forehead, which made her shiver with glee.  ‘I’m that proud of you – ooh, I just wanna show the world you’re me girl!’

It was at this point he noticed Justine, hovering keenly with a grin that virtually filled her doll-sized face.  ‘Hello,’ he said cordially but curiously, for he’d spotted the miniature Spice Girl high-fiving matily with his girlfriend after the contest and wondered who she was.

Chantal turned in his embrace to welcome her new best friend into the group.  ‘Kris, this is Justine.’  She paused, smiling at the girl in a warm, excited, ‘we’ve got a secret’ way.  ‘Her and me are gunna form a band together.’