Grab a cuppa - it's time for my next instalment in the lives of that fabulous girl band All the Rage...

Justine was sure she recognised the girl near the front of the buffet queue, but couldn’t for the life of her recall where from. 

She herself was at the tail end of the line – patting her rumbling tummy, and half listening to Chantal moan about her work woes – and, being on the short side, had to peer on tiptoe past the straggle of wide-hatted aunties to see her mystery friend.

‘I never thought I’d hear myself say this,’ Chantal was going on, ‘but I’ll actually be glad when Charlotte gets back from Ibiza next week.’

‘Mmm?’

‘At least then I’ll no longer be stuck doing vile reception duty.  I tell you what, she’s welcome to all the arseholes we get coming into the office!  Just because you’re the first point of contact, they treat you like everything is your fault.’

‘Mmm?’

‘We had this one guy in yesterday.  Right bombastic twat, he was.  Came for a meeting with Gary, practically ordered me to make him a cup of coffee, and then spent ten minutes having a right go at me about our front door being a bit stiff!  As though he expected me to whip out a spanner and start mending it!  I mean, some people really have nothing better to do with their lives, do they?  He asked my name, and then he kept using it – Chantal this, Chantal that – as if to say “Right, I know your name, now I’m gunna wear it out!”  And then on Wednesday – hey, what’s up with you, chuck?’  She had to steady Justine who, still craning, had toppled over on her Posh Spice heels.

‘Sorry, mate, it’s just that girl up there looks ever so familiar.  The dark-haired one in that lovely purple dress – there – by the sausage rolls – look – oh, she’s going back to her table.  I know I’ve met her before, but I can’t place her.  Do you recognise her, Chantal?’

Chantal caught the briefest glimpse of amethyst silk and cascading hair as their owner swanned past.  ‘Never seen her before in me life.’

‘I can’t have met her anywhere I’ve been with you then.’  Justine did a frustrated little jiggle on the spot, like a four-year-old who needed a pee.  ‘Ooh, that’s gunna really bug me now!’

‘Why don’t you ask her?  You could go up and say “Excuse me, but where do I know you from?”’

‘Yeah right – she’d probably think I’m some loon!’

‘Then she’d have made a very accurate assumption!’

‘Cheeky cow!  Is that the thanks I get for coming along and rescuing you from an evening of family boredom?’

Chantal smirked.  She was grateful to her friend, whose presence here at cousin Karl’s wedding reception did indeed feel like a ‘rescue.’

Karl and his very vivacious bride Zoe had married in a civil ceremony here at the vast Fairlawns Hotel in Aldridge – a village between Sutton Coldfield and Walsall – that afternoon. 

Chantal, despite herself, couldn’t help but find it all very cute and romantic – but could have well done without the excruciating comments with which long-lost great-aunties and cousins spent the day bombarding her.  Comments which were, without exception, variations on either ‘Ooh, haven’t you grown!’ or ‘Ooh, you’ll be next!’

Chantal was certain she wouldn’t ‘be next’; she didn’t rate her marriage prospects at all highly.  But reference to the subject evoked disturbing visions in which she was the one sporting the ivory train and a shadowy young man who was most definitely not her current boyfriend wore the penguin suit.

So she was relieved when Justine – who’d scrubbed up well in her ‘Victoria Beckham on a budget’ outfit – appeared in time for the evening reception.  Chantal had invited – nay, begged – her best friend along as her guest, in lieu of a boyfriend.

‘It’s a real shame Ross couldn’t make it, though,’ Shirley had lamented earlier during the night.  ‘Such a lovely, hardworking lad.’

She was not so tactless as to add ‘unlike your last one,’ but Chantal knew full well she was thinking it.  Neither of her parents had ever acknowledged Kristian’s occupation as a ‘proper’ job. 

Chantal had been curtly vague with them about her reasons for parting from Kris, but Shirley and Ken had exchanged self-satisfied snorts of the ‘Told you he was a bad ’un’ variety.  They were misguidedly delighted about the shock replacement of him, by Ross Froggatt, in her life.  Ross was clean-cut, tattoo-free and not in a band – therefore an eminently more suitable catch for their daughter.

Justine, however, on hearing Shirley’s remark, was forced to turn her cynical snort into a cough.  She thought her friend had made the most inane error of judgement where Kris and Ross were concerned.  She had met Ross once or twice, and been less than impressed. 

Chantal, meanwhile, miserably recalled last Saturday’s conversation with him.

‘How many times have I told you not to bother me at work, Chantal?’ he’d snapped into the mobile at her.

Alone and sorry for herself in her dark bedroom, she felt suddenly shaky.  She knew shouting was necessary to be heard over the hissy, clattery kitchen din at Martino’s, but the vicious tone of Ross’s shout was completely uncalled-for.

Don’t be a total wet and start crying, Chantal berated herself as she felt the threatening prickle behind her eyeballs.

It was eleven o’clock on the first Saturday night she’d spent at home for several months.  Bored and lost without Justine, who was working in the pub, she’d spent the evening on her bed, mardy teenager-style, in her Hello Kitty nightshirt, devouring a family-sized bag of kettle crisps, watching Talent Scout and trashy game shows.

I wish I’d gone to the ‘Hare’ – at least I could have chatted to Justine and Joe while they served people.  I almost regret losing touch with Jess and Lindsey – even going bowling with them would have been more fun than this.  It’s all a far cry from the weekends I used to spent with…no, Chantal, don’t go there!

So she’d decided to phone Ross, with the idiotic idea that it might cheer her up.  Instead, his reaction to her call left her wondering cynically what she’d interrupted.

‘You still haven’t told me whether you’re coming to our Karl’s wedding reception next Saturday,’ she pointed out during the course of the dismal little call.  ‘Mom’s phoned Karl to ask, and he’s said I can bring you to the evening do.’

She wouldn’t have gone to such efforts for Kris, thought Chantal peevishly, she’d have just told me I couldn’t bring him, tough shit – even if he wasn’t in the Isle of Wight.

‘Aw, babe, I’ve got to work.’  Ross’s voice noticeably softened.  In fact, during this great charade of regret, he was twiddling with the napkin in his pocket upon which Becky the boozed-up bridesmaid had scrawled her mobile number.  Next Saturday was the night he’d arranged to meet her.

‘Couldn’t you get the night off?’  Chantal, sensing he was mellowing, tried her wheedly, pouty voice on him.  The voice which – she remembered with an unwelcome pang – had never failed to win Kris over.

‘Which one’s “our Karl” again?’ Ross asked, playing for time.

‘My second cousin,’ Chantal replied, just a touch impatiently.  ‘I told you.  Aunty Avril – my mom’s cousin’s – son.  You won’t have met him.  I haven’t seen him myself for about five years.’

Ross grimaced, and dodged out of the doorway as Matt cannoned in with a tower of dessert plates and an accusing scowl.  If anything, he’d rather be here than at that wedding.  He’d met – and charmed – Chantal’s parents once, at one of her excruciating karaoke nights, but didn’t make a habit of the ‘mingle with the whole family’ thing.  It tended to give girls the idea that he sought something more serious from them than idle sex.

‘I doubt very much that I’ll be able to get the time off.  It isn’t as though he’s my cousin after all.’

Chantal droopily swept a few crisp crumbs off her bed.  Ross had this maddening knack of making statements she couldn’t dispute but phrasing them in such a tactless, couldn’t-care-less way.

‘But I was looking forward to showing you off,’ she tried one final fruitless sulk, ‘and I hate being a wallflower at parties.’

‘Take Justine with you then.’

‘Knowing my relatives, half of them’ll probably see us together and think we’re a pair of lezzies!’

Ross had had enough now.  ‘Well that’s their problem then, ain’t it!  Look, babe, I can’t talk anymore.  I’m busy at work.  I’ll call you in the week, yeah?’

Chantal sat frozen with the dead-toned phone in her hand for a minute or two, deeply unhappy and mistrustful.

She’d been given to a lot of self-delusion this last month.  There were facts she wouldn’t face: that she’d blundered into the most inappropriate on-the-rebound fling ever, with a chav cad who was unbelievably laddish and arrogant compared with Kris, despite having a good deal less going for him; that said chav cad had zapped away much of the self-assurance with which Kris had so effortlessly imbibed her; that she missed Kris so much it physically ached, like an amputation wound that hadn’t quite sealed up. 

It had been – not that she was counting, or anything – four weeks and two days since she’d seen him.

I expect he’s packing his case for the Isle of Wight now.

Gary had been really shit-stirring about that lately.  ‘Good job you’re not with that guy in the band anymore,’ he’d said cheerfully only yesterday, ‘else you’d have been cheated on this week!  I expect he’ll be marking off all those Isle of Wight girls on his shag sheet – him and the other lads’ll probably be having competitions to see how many notches they can carve into their Travelodge bedposts!  Still, that’s not your problem anymore, eh, Chubs?  It’s good to see you’ve found someone more on your level.’

The Sorrell & Genge mob – like her parents – seemed strangely satisfied now she was going out with a lad who worked in a restaurant.

Work continued to be the loneliest place in the world for Chantal.  She had nobody there with whom to share her hopes and fears about the band; her heartbreak at losing Kris; her burgeoning distrust of Ross.  The other girls bitched about her with Charlotte, and Mark was hardly the kind of lad one could gossip with.  He had few passions in life, from what she could gather, beyond West Bromwich Albion and accountancy.

‘Were you really seeing that singer chap?’ he’d asked recently.

‘Yes,’ she snapped, irked that even a friend couldn’t believe her.

I suppose it was pretty unbelievable, though, really, Chantal thought now, as she shook the final rubble of crisp crumbs into her mouth and lobbed the packet across her room, missing the waste-bin by a good metre.  She was behaving with untypical, self-pitying slobbishness.

I mean, look at me!  I can hardly play the role of ‘rock star arm candy’ now – though perhaps I never could.

She had gained a bit of weight, due to a growing reliance on comfort food and a rather immature, nobody-cares-about-me-so-why-should-I-care-about-myself attitude she’d adopted since the loss of Kris.  She tended to wear jeans more now, actually venture outside the front door sans make-up and reserve her slinky dresses for the pub stage.

Her deluded side argued that this new lax state showed Ross was a boyfriend with whom she could be more natural; that with him she had no cause for pretending to be something she wasn’t.

But the truth was that Ross was not a person she could be arsed to make an effort for.  She’d adored glamming up for Kris.  He noticed everything, and was always so appreciative.  He’d made her feel – she might as well admit it – like a star.

Ross, by contrast, had an unashamed and belittling lack of interest in her music, her job, her tastes – and anything above her neck.  Chantal learned very early on in their association that Ross was, as the cliché went, After One Thing.  Or rather, since Ross was a breast man, Two Things.

‘Ladies and gentlemen – Karl and Zoe Corbett are about to take to the floor for the first time as husband and wife!  The number they have chosen for their first dance is Crazy for You by Madonna, and here to serenade them with it, and to entertain you for the evening, is a lovely young lady by the name of Faith!’

Very showbiz, thought Chantal, applauding.  Like all the best singers, she has no surname.  Like Madonna!  Cher!!  And Chantal & Justine!!!

(Faith in fact never used ‘Jephcott’ for showbiz purposes, considering it lacked the cool ring required for a stage pseudonym.)

The lissom babe who swished up to the small stage turned out to be none other than the mysterious purple Buffet Girl. 

It was rare for Faith Jephcott to still be wearing outfits – particularly stage outfits – which were as ancient as five months old, but tonight she was in the River Island favourite.  Its clingy shimmer, and her swarthy curls, were a stunning combination.

Chantal, who took a keen professional interest in singers’ technique and repertoire, watched Faith rather than her smooching cousins on the dancefloor.  And this closer study confirmed that she, unlike Justine, had definitely never met the girl, on the circuit or elsewhere.

They were unlikely, mind you, to orbit similar circles.  Faith, with her smoky beauty, grace and la-di-da frocks, looked far too cool for pubs whose walls bore peeling, hot-pink ‘KARAOKE NITE’ posters.  She probably did modelling in her spare time, or something.

And her talent put her miles out of the league most karaoke wannabes ever hoped to attain.  Her voice reminded Chantal of chocolate: smooth and rich, oozing out the slinky ballad lyrics.  And then on the earthier numbers, like Anastacia’s Left Outside Alone and I Drove All Night by Cyndi Lauper, the chocolate acquired a bit more bite as she upped the feistiness.

Faith – the amazing musical Galaxy bar!!

The girl reminded Chantal inexplicably of Charlotte: she was very attractive, in a hard sort of way; she sailed across the stage with a Look at me, I’m gorgeous air that Chantal outwardly despised but in fact secretly wished she could emulate.

Bet she’s dead stuck-up!  Chantal, already nauseated by all that bloody smug shimmying, rudely pivoted her whole body round so she could concentrate on her drink and ignore Faith.

She was further irked when a volley of nudges and whispers from Justine then almost toppled her out of her chair.

‘I know who she is now!  I know who she is!’

‘Who?’  Chantal responded grumpily. 

‘She’s that girl who gave me a fiver when I was busking once – didn’t I tell you about that? – oh no, I didn’t know you then, did I!  It was just after Christmas, and I was busking in the town centre – Wolverhampton – cuz I was a bit boracic, like – and she gave me a fiver!  I didn’t know she sang herself, of course, but I suppose it figures – there must have been a spot of fellow feeling there for another artiste!’

It was at exactly that point that Faith recognised the squirming girl in the child-sized black dress, kneeling on her chair and maintaining a very shaky grip on a glass of Tia Maria with a straw in. 

She thought at first it was a trick of the disco lights.  That couldn’t possibly be the One-Girl Spice Girls Tribute – she must have a doppelganger.  Wasn’t everybody purported to have one? 

Faith had the uncanniest sense, though, that this was indeed the character she’d childishly dreamed about being friends with for the past five months.  She was desperate to prove her exciting instincts correct.  She became fixated by the girl: trying to study her. 

It wasn’t exactly easy, though, when you happened to be engaged entertaining an audience. 

And crooning soppily about being crazy for someone.  Faith was starting to get some odd looks.

Faith was professional enough not to dither anchored to the spot squinting at the girl – she must address the total party.

And then she recalled the bubbly busker’s distinguishing mark.

Check for tattoos, Faith!  Slither over to that side of the stage, and have a dekko at what’s on her arm! 

And of course there it was – that unique and ludicrous David Beckham design.

Faith would always say later that when that first astonished smile flashed between her and Justine, she felt the cosiest tingle of kinship; of coming home.  And that, buoyed up with this cosy feeling, she gave Karl and Zoe’s wedding guests the most stunning performance of her life.

‘And so, Frank, that was where the three members of All the Rage first met.  At Chantal’s cousin’s wedding in Walsall.  Chantal and I were friends already, and Faith and I had met – fleetingly – once before. But Fate intervened that night.  If it wasn’t for Chantal’s boyfriend not being able to attend the wedding reception, I would have just spent another night at home, serving in the family pub, and the three of us would never have been brought together.  Ooh, I had this feeling in my ovaries that we were on the verge of something special!  And now…’

‘Now you’re the biggest girl band since the Spice Girls.’

‘Well I was far too modest to put it like that, Frank, but yes!’

In months to come, Justine would dream about having this conversation on The Frank Skinner Show.

To her, Faith was the final jigsaw piece she hadn’t known was missing.  Her brief duo ‘career’ with Chantal would always be remembered as a fun, naive time – but she felt that a trio just had the edge.  It was like being twins but then discovering late in life that you in fact had a long-lost triplet.

Chantal, on the other hand, subscribed to the cliché about three being a crowd – at least in the beginning.

As the final straggle of wedding guests hugged Karl and Zoe goodbye, and helped themselves from the mountain of napkin-wrapped cake wedges, Faith and Justine were gassing away like old cronies.  Chantal, across the table, picked moodily at her Smirnoff Ice bottle label, as though trying to give off ‘I’m not even with them – of course I don’t feel excluded’ vibes.

Faith was completely elated.  Hadn’t she always known she and Justine would be instant kindred spirits?

She had been all too quick in the past to bemoan her uni friends for not sharing her interests or understanding her ambitions.  But it hit her now just how selfish she’d been: surrounding herself with people who adored her instead of bothering to seek out like-minded souls.  She’d lazily expected the world to come to her, and almost lived up to her name – becoming a figure of worship, with her awed mates as the Faithful.  She was a large fish in a small pond.  The others looked up to her because she had a car and trendy clothes, and flocks of boys fancied her, but she shared not one square millimetre of common ground with any of them.

Justine wasn’t an arse-kisser – she was simply warm and encompassing to all – and after five minutes in her company, Faith decided she far preferred Justine’s animated chat to the obedient giggles of girls with no opinions who merely hung on to your every word.

Faith knew that the One-Girl Spice Girls Tribute, AKA Justine Oliver, was going to be the comrade, and the kick up the bum, she had been needing for far too long.

There was absolutely nothing stilted about their conversation.  They were practically falling over each other to express their bubbly sentiments, interrupting, and darting from subject to subject the way real friends do.

‘I can’t believe what a fabulous coincidence this is,’ Justine clucked for the twelfth time.

‘Nor me!  I am so happy to have met you again, Justine.  I nearly had an opportunity to do so once, but – ’

‘I mean, I wasn’t even invited tonight – not technically.  I’m only here tonight as a stand-in – ooh, eh up, Faith, another fan!’

Admiring guests from varying age groups had been trickling up to Faith for the last half-hour – a common compliment was that her potpourri of songs from the sixties to the present day held mass appeal for all age brackets.  Justine too took all these praising comments on board.  It was research.  It was enlightening to learn what audiences liked.

Now it was Chantal’s Aunty Freda who tottered over, breathing whisky gusts in her face.  ‘Jussht wanted to sshay I thought you were ssmashing, love!  Bessht do I been to in years.  I cor remember the last time I had a good old jig like that – ooh, you did them Dusty Springfield numbers justice, and no mistake!  Ta-ra an’ all, Chantal, me flower.  S’pose the next time I see you will be at your wedding, eh!’  Freda squeezed her wincing niece’s cheek, and vamoosed in a cloud of Bells and BHS mauve.

Faith giggled sympathetically to Chantal.

Bloody patronising cow!

Chantal found so much about Faith to resent: her smooth stage presence; her tall glamour, which made shorter, voluptuous girls feel stumpy – and the fact her set had tonight featured the Kylie hit In Your Eyes, a painful song for Chantal as it was to it that she and Kris had enjoyed their first dance on New Year’s Eve.

‘As I was saying,’ Justine went on, ‘I’m only here tonight as a stand-in for Chantal’s boyfriend, who couldn’t come because he’s working.’

‘Oh, what does he do?’ Faith asked pleasantly.  She sensed Chantal was shy, and wanted to draw her into the conversation.

Chantal, narked by the heavy irony Justine placed on the word ‘working,’ snapped: ‘He’s a catering student – and a part-time waiter at Martino’s Diner.’  It didn’t have quite the same ring as ‘He’s in a band,’ but she had long resigned herself to the probability of never being able to make that boast again.

‘Hope he wasn’t that dickhead who chatted me up in there last Saturday!’

Faith instantly wished she could bite her tongue right off.  She’d spoken flippantly, not intending to wallop the nail so smartly on the head.  But it was obvious from Chantal’s hurt blush that she strongly suspected her absent chap of being ‘that dickhead.’

‘His name wasn’t Ross, was it?’ Chantal asked in a falsely glib tone.  Last Saturday, last Saturday…that was the night he’d been stroppy with her when she phoned!

Embarrassment was a rare emotion for Faith, but right now she was clenching every clenchable body part.

‘No,’ she lied, ‘I think he, er, said it was, er, Darren.’  She wondered, though, if she perhaps ought to have dropped that Ross Stir-Fry, or whatever he called himself, in it.  It would serve him right if he got dumped – a pretty girl like Chantal deserved a thousand times better.  Even if she did seem a bit mardy.

Chantal couldn’t recall any Darrens at Martino’s.  She ticked another irrational black mark against Faith’s name – the girl was clearly a leader-on of boyfriends!

Faith tossed her dark long hair and took a hasty gulp of red wine.  They were nervous gestures – which Chantal misinterpreted as the exact opposite.  To her, they just made the girl look even more hatefully arrogant and glamorous.

‘Anyway, Faith,’ Justine was anxious to defuse the tension, ‘you’ve obviously been doing this performing lark for years.  Me and Chantal would love to be as good as you, wouldn’t we, mate?  How do you go about getting bookings like this?’

‘It helps if you get yourselves on the books with an agent.  I’m with Light & Sound in Birmingham.  I’d recommend them, they’re – ’

‘Light & Sound?’ Chantal blurted unthinkingly.  ‘That’s who Colonel K are with.’

Justine glanced up anxiously at her friend.  Chantal, catching her eye, did a defensive little shrug, as if to say ‘I can talk about him, you know!  I am mature and have moved on!’

Faith greeted what she thought was an opportunity to steer Chantal away from the subject of slimy boyfriends.  ‘That’s right.  Well, funnily enough, Kev – Kev Light, that’s the agent – gave your cousin the choice of having either me or Colonel K to do this tonight.  But then Colonel K got the Sandown Festival instead – lucky buggers!  So how do you know them?  Have you performed together?’

In a manner of speaking!  ‘Well, I, er, kind of – used to go out with one of them.’

‘Really?  Which one?’

Chantal tore the dog-eared label off her bottle and scrunched it rattily into the ashtray.  ‘Kristian,’ she murmured, ‘the lead singer.’

‘Him?’  Faith’s eyes glowed like mirrorballs.  ‘But he’s gorgeous!  Never actually seen the band live myself, but he looks nice on the posters.  And you dumped him for a waiter?’  Faith couldn’t help but sound snobbish – but then she couldn’t exactly say what she really meant, which was: ‘You dumped him for Ross the tosspot?’

Chantal twisted her fingers in her lap, and blushed.  She possessed the kind of complexion that turned childishly crimson when she felt ruffled or picked-on.

‘It’s a long story.’

Faith, sensing now might be a good juncture for a subject change, commented: ‘I’m a bit surprised Karl didn’t get you pair to sing tonight, actually, seeing as you’re his cousin, Chantal.’

‘I’m only his second cousin,’ Chantal responded tartly.  ‘And he wouldn’t know I do sing.  I don’t see Karl that often.’

Faith was starting to wonder if she could do anything right.  Elated as she was to have found Justine again, she’d reckoned without the girl having a nose-pushed-out-of-joint mate.  Perhaps Faith ought to butt out.  She was, after all, the alien here.

‘Look, I’d better get going,’ she announced reluctantly, and started to prise back her chair.  Even the way she did that was demure and irritating to Chantal.

‘Bye,’ said Chantal churlishly.

Justine shot a little glower at her friend, whose rudeness was really starting to grate.  Honestly, it was like primary school!  You can’t be mates with her if you’re mates with me, and all that!

Justine could see through Chantal’s rudeness at the childish feelings of jealousy and being threatened that it masked.  She was herself free of such catty emotions, and had never quite understood them.

‘Are you free Thursday night, Faith?’ she asked, ignoring Chantal’s petulant expression.  Tough – I can invite who I like to my own dad’s pub!

She couldn’t let this girl disappear again.  She saw Faith as someone from whom she and Chantal could learn; a valuable potential asset to their ambitions; a potential mentor; potential bandmate; potential best friend.

‘Think so.  Why?’

‘Fancy coming to see me and Chantal at the Hare & Tortoise – that’s me dad’s pub?  I’m hosting me first talent night there.  We’re having a karaoke competition, and then we’re doing a few songs in between the acts.  Should be an ace night.’

‘Your dad owns the Hare & Tortoise?’  Faith chuckled to herself at the irony of it.  ‘Are you sure you want me to come?’ she asked, with a subtle little nod towards Chantal, who still had her head up her arse.

‘Course I am.  We’d love to have you there, wouldn’t we, Chantal?’

Asked so pointedly, Chantal had no choice other than to reply ‘Yeah.’  Faith probably wouldn’t turn up anyway.  It wouldn’t be her scene.  Far too common.

‘Right then, Justine, I will,’ Faith beamed decisively, with a little ‘like it or lump it’ shrug to Chantal.  ‘To tell you the truth, I’d like to come and see what you do.  It sounds more fun than these parties and work dos Kev keeps giving me.  I’d like to get out there into the more public arena myself.’

‘Hey,’ Justine nudged her, hitting on a smart plan, ‘why don’t you help judge the contest?  We’re actually a judge short, cuz that drummer from Triple Decker can’t make it now.’

‘Can’t he?’  Chantal piped up, irrationally miffed at not being privy to this news.

‘No.  Didn’t I mention it?  His mom’s in hospital.  We need somebody young, with decent taste.  You don’t have to say anything – just give scores out of ten. It’ll be fun.’

‘You’re on!  See you Thursday then, girls.  I can’t wait.  Can anyone smell Olbas Oil, by the way?’

Chantal dreamed of Kris that night.  It was rather natural that he’d be on her mind, what with all that talk about him earlier, and the inevitably romantic atmosphere of the day as a whole.  (Funny, though, how being in a romantic atmosphere never evoked thoughts of Ross.)

Little did she know that, alone in the spartan Isle of Wight hotel room he should have been sharing with her, Kris was dreaming about her too.  Bitter dreams.

Contrary to Gary Genge’s scaremongering, no jailbait groupies came within a mile of Kris’s bed that weekend.  He was still much too hung up on his departed love.

He’d enjoyed a triumphant afternoon with the band in Sandown.  An entire field had literally jumped to Colonel K’s tune, and the festival organisers were already eager to rebook them for next year.  Kev was rubbing his fat palms with delight at all that lovely commission.

‘This is our Woodsshtock, lads,’ Kris toasted with his tenth pint in the beer tent that night.  ‘I feel like Jimi Hendrixssh!’

But it was difficult for triumph to mean anything when the person whose love he once prized above all else had buggered off before she could share in it.

He’d made an almighty error of judgement where Chantal Brown was concerned, that was for sure.  As he aggressively brushed his teeth at three in the morning, he damned himself for being such a besotted prat.  Even falling for her ‘virgin’ act.  For he was sure now that it was an act.  She was no virgin – she was a deceitful, calculating, heartbreaking little slut.  And he felt like the most disappointed man in the world.

I guess I should have known a stunning looking girl like her wouldn’t stick with me for long before she got bored.

Still, better – as Kara said – that he discovered Chantal’s true colours now than after the many years he’d naively planned on spending with her.  Though Kris had never thought he’d see the day when he took advice from his baby sister.

He slung his toothbrush into the plastic mug on the basin side, and shuffled across the soulless beige bedroom in his boxers.  It was a muggy night, so he eased up the little window to admit some bracing seaside air.  Rock ’n‘ roll, he thought, lonesomely collapsing back against his boulder-hard hotel pillow, glad that at least he was pissed.  It numbed the pain.  Slightly.

Sleep didn’t, though.  Two-hundred miles apart, in dreams, Kris and Chantal reeled back through the events of a certain portentous evening at the end of April…

‘Babe, I’d like us to go for a nice quiet meal somewhere Saturday night.  There’s summat I need to chat to you about.’

Chantal felt suddenly ill when Kris announced this in the car at the end of what had been a confusing night for both of them.  His voice wasn’t harsh, but so formal and absent; his expression abnormally serious.  She instantly imagined the very worst.

‘But I thought you had that gig in Brierley Hill on Saturday,’ she said in a brave but wobbly tone.

‘It got cancelled at short notice, so I’m free now.  This is more important anyway.  I really do need to talk to you.  I’ve been meaning to for ages, to be honest.  Where d’you fancy going?’

He was leaving it up to her, as usual.  Even now.  A gentleman right to the last.  Very touching, thought Chantal, but I don’t particularly want to get all poshed up and go somewhere swanky just to get dumped.

She gulped hard and, in her most detached, I’m-trying-not-to-cry monotone, replied: ‘Oh, I don’t mind.  Any old pub’ll do fine.’

Kris was miffed by her apparent indifference.  ‘I had something a bit better than that in mind really.  We spend our life in pubs.  I thought maybe we could venture a bit further, out of town for a change.’

‘We could always stay home?’  It was more of an entreaty than a suggestion.  A ballsier girl might have insisted her chap tell her now where she stood, and advise him that she’d really rather not parade their domestic woes in public.  But Chantal wasn’t one to make life easy for herself.  She just sat motionless, gluing her sagging eyes to the street lamps that were distorted by the flecks of rain on Kristian’s windscreen.

‘To be honest, sugar, I don’t really fancy that.  We’d get no privacy round our place, what with Mom and our Kar – and I hardly think your folks would be chuffed about sharing their Saturday night with me.  Nah, I’ll take you out.’

‘OK then,’ Chantal snapped despairingly, flicking her hands in the air, ‘how about Martino’s Diner?  That new Italian place just outside Dudley?  It’s supposed to be good there.’

Kris looked at her in surprise, but didn’t rise to her pique.  He was the most aggravatingly laid-back, un-provokable person in the world.

‘Just down the road from the zoo?  Yeah, I know it.  You wanna go there, do you?’

Well, as much as any girl wants to go to a place where her boyfriend is going to tell her, in front of a load of nosy, sniggering diners, that he’s leaving her for a skinny tart with a website!

‘Mmm.’  Chantal whipped her gaze round to the tedious side-window view: partly because the repetitive swish of the windscreen wipers was grating on her already guitar string-taut nerves, but mainly because she didn’t trust herself to look at Kris.

She knew if she did, she’d be reminded of the warmth that was once in his eyes; the grin that used to be permanent before he so patently lost interest in her.  And then she’d demean herself with pitiful tears.  Which wouldn’t assist any ambitions she might harbour to win him back.

‘You don’t fancy going somewhere a bit more…’

‘A bit more what?’  Chantal’s voice was foggy as she kept her unseeing eyes on the reel of Wolverhampton scenery. 

Kris slammed his brake on as a drunk lurched out of the chip shop and across Willenhall Road, with pissed disregard for safety.  He automatically glanced at Chantal, checking she was unruffled by the emergency stoppage.  It was a caring habit he’d unconsciously adopted.  Had Chantal been looking at Kris and not out of the window, she might have felt more reassured of his unwavering dedication.

‘Classy, I suppose.’

‘No!  Martino’s will do fine.’

This discourse took place on a Thursday – the night of Colonel K’s first Hare & Tortoise gig.  Kris was giving Chantal a lift home.  They had both, it must be admitted, displayed their insecure, stubborn streaks tonight.

Chantal had had a vile week at work, her period was due and she felt generally blobby and vulnerable.  Therefore Nat and Em’s inevitable presence at the pub – in fanny-skimming skirts, and tailing Kris like a pair of praying mantises – had got her back up even more than usual. 

Her reaction was to spend the evening flirting with a nonplussed Jim, showering him with extravagant praise for his guitar work and all but ignoring Kristian.

A jealous Kris in turn wreaked revenge for this by being especially friendly – in other words, as polite as he could bear to be without puking – to Nat and Em.  Of course Chantal saw this and fumed, and flirted some more with Jim, and so it continued in a childish cycle all night.  Had they been a pair of five-year-olds, a frustrated adult might have intervened and threatened to bang their heads together.

Now, frozen, blinking determinedly at the light flecks, Chantal felt as though her heart had been ripped out.

This was it then.  Curtains.  Well it was bound to happen someday, she supposed.  She had sampled life as the lover of a semi-pop idol, and it was not, it seemed, a life a plump wench from Willenhall could realistically hope to inhabit.  Their romance was bound to be the first casualty of Kris’s ascent to the stardom which was surely his birthright. 

Chantal felt she ought to ‘do the decent thing’ and offer him an escape route.  She was grimly sure he would be only too grateful to take it – regardless of how fired up she may be keeping him in bed.

Kris had been pretty out of character for weeks, but she’d presumed he was just uptight about the Isle of Wight trip.  Clearly, though, he had other issues to get off his bushy chest.  He must have grown pissed off with her and decided that a girl who didn’t worship him enough to dedicate a website to him was unworthy of his love.  He was probably about to announce that those two acidic slags Nat and Em were taking her place on the Sandown tour bus.

Chantal supposed it was only natural that he should prefer to bed groupies on the rock highway than maintain his monogamous life with her – nonetheless, she had her pride and would not be cheated on.  She must extricate Kris from this relationship that was clearly boring him.  She must face this feared Saturday with dignity, and bear stoically his decision to separate from her.

But when he delivered her home that night – chaperoning her to the door as usual – squeezed her in his leather-jacketed arms for a hot if slightly brisk kiss, and said ‘See you Saturday then, I’ll pick you up about six,’ she knew she was simply not that strong.

The front door had not been closed behind her a minute before the torrents of tears she’d suppressed all evening came sploshing out.

Saturday was torment.  Chantal woke up, at first enjoying that calm, cosy moment in between dreams seeping away and reality kicking in with a vengeance.  And then she remembered what would be happening tonight, and suddenly felt like her heart had sunk out of her body, down through her mattress and into the earth’s crust.

It was like a school morning all over again: the worms in her stomach; the way she torturously watched her alarm clock, promising she would get up ‘in another five minutes’ – until quarter-past nine, when she finally heaved up the duvet.

She could easily have remained buried all day in the hermitic den of her bed, were she not due at Justine’s for a rehearsal at ten.  A lesser person might have called it off, but Chantal was at least professional enough – in outlook if not in status – to live by the old Show Must Go On adage.

Chantal & Justine has two further bookings – one back at the ‘Hare,’ the other at a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday bash.  No more did they feel like little girlies in the mirror.  They were a duo without airs and graces, their rehearsal venue was hardly Abbey Road, but no-one could fault them for being intense and dedicated.  When it came to music, they were perfectionists, honing every note until it was just so.

The girls were determined to slicken up their act and become so in-demand and well-paid as to render day jobs unnecessary.  To Chantal, the thought of quitting Sorrell & Genge to perform full-time was a tremendous incentive for all this diva drill.

Singing was the loveliest escapism.  She could drown out the world for a few hours while she focused on her octaves and resonance – until lunchtime, when singing had to give way to talking, and a short visit to the real world was required.

The girls took a breather from being divas to squish up on to Justine’s bed, swig tea and eat gigantic cheese and onion cobs off a catering-sized tin platter.  Chantal’s tastebuds normally went into ecstasy at this combination of soft white rolls, eye-watering cheddar and crunchy onion which, for some inexplicable reason, only backstreet pubs seem able to accomplish.  Today, however, she merely picked at her food.

This – coupled with the fact she’d been too edgy to manage breakfast that morning – appalled Justine, who stacked Chantal’s plate high with rolls and rebuked that ‘No man is worth getting malnourished over!  You need to keep your strength up for our campaign of pop-chart domination.  When we get famous, the press will have a field day if they think you’ve got any kind of eating disorder.  Just look at what they did to poor Posh!’

Chantal couldn’t help but smile.  She, as usual, found her friend a comforting mishmash of garish clothes and blunt advice.

‘Personally, chuck, I think you’m being paranoid anyway.’  Justine pulled a Nicorette patch out of her drawer and slapped it on, so that it resembled a blindfold across David Beckham’s face.  She was Sporty Spice today, in a shocking (in every sense of the word) pink tracksuit – in keeping with the ‘health kick’ she was currently on, which also involved quitting smoking.  ‘Kris ain’t the type of shit who’d get you all keyed up for a nice evening out, only to say “Piss off out of my life, girl, you’re history!”  He’s more likely to propose actually.  I can imagine him hiding the ring in your pizza, or summat.  And if he does, you’d best leg it right round here, young lady, cuz I wanna be the first to see your rock!’

Chantal wasn’t convinced, though, and when she drooped home at four to reluctantly get changed, she could hear a ticking, taunting clock in her head.

Tick tock.  Ha ha.  You’re dumped!  You’ll never see Kris again after tonight!

Everything seemed significant and different.  Even mundane preparations like showering reminded her poignantly of their early love life.  Chantal’s pre-date ritual used to involve singing along to the shower radio, under blasts of water that zinged her skin to life, but tonight Beacon Radio’s fizzy disco anthems grated rather than invigorated her.  Not so long ago, she’d felt part of their target audience: the happy-go-lucky; the wanted; whose night out was very liable to culminate in a shag.  Now, they seemed like the soundtrack to a fabulous party to which everyone but she had an invitation.  Chantal wished she could swoosh herself away down the plughole with the pubes and soap bubbles.

Next, once she was clean and no longer smelled of rehearsal-sweat, there was the small matter of what she hell one wore to get chucked.

Chantal tore open her wardrobe and groaned.  She scrabbled at hangers, tugging out jeans and dresses and strappy tops, manically modelling them in her mirror and dividing them into heaps on the bed: Yes.  No.  Don’t know.  Typically, the latter two piles were by far the most mountainous.

How should she pitch it?

Dignified and gracious; accepting of the break-up and mature enough to move on?

Tartily sexy, in gear that screamed ‘You’d be mad to dump me!’?

Or would that in fact scream ‘desperate’? 

On the other hand, perhaps she ought to go casual, in faded jeans and a T-shirt she’d washed her car in?  As if to say: ‘I don’t care what the outcome of this discussion is – you won’t be that great a loss anyway!’

Chantal tizzed around for an hour in silent hysteria, before arriving at a shortlist of two dresses, and then eventually declaring her cornflower blue New Look number the winner.  She was on such a downer, she thought she resembled a Teletubby in everything at present, but in fact she had made a spot-on choice.  The dress flattered her – blue was definitely her colour – yet the style wasn’t too OTT for the calibre of restaurant. 

Where hair was concerned, she took the simple approach, wearing it loose and pretty on her shoulders.

Chantal was halfway into the dress when her mobile started trilling out Fame.  KRIS, proclaimed the screen.  He rarely used her home number, anticipating – and usually getting – a less than joyous response from Ken or Shirley.

‘Babe,’ he sounded exhausted and pissed off – again most unlike him, ‘I’m ever so sorry, but I’m running horrifically late.  Been sitting in a snarl-up in Brum for an hour.  Nasty accident, by the looks of it – cop cars and ambulances all over the place.’

Chantal, clasping the little phone, felt wobbly and dry-throated.  She wondered what Kris was doing in Birmingham but – typically – didn’t ask.  In fact, he had his reasons for keeping vague as to his precise location, which was the area of the city known as the Jewellery Quarter.

The contents of their short and rather strained conversation were the reason why Chantal had to then interrupt Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway to ask: ‘Mom, would you mind moving your car so I can get mine out the garage?’

‘Loverboy not picking you up tonight?’  Shirley, naturally, could not resist a little barb. 

Chantal gritted her teeth.  ‘He was, but he’s rung to say he’s stuck in traffic in Birmingham somewhere and won’t have time to come all the way over here first.  That’s why he’s asked if I can meet him at Martino’s instead.’

‘What’s he doing in Birmingham?’

‘I don’t know,’ Chantal snapped, hating hearing her own question voiced in such loaded tones.

She watched her mother faffing in the kitchen for her car keys, despising the woman’s nosiness and fluffy bunny slippers.

Dear God, please never let me end up like her!

‘I never had to make my own way to dates,’ Shirley tutted, at last unearthing the keys from beneath the Wolverhampton Chronicler.  ‘The lads were gentlemen in them days.’

This comment was passed jokingly enough, Shirley was smiling and meant no true malice, but Chantal could have well done without it.  She resented having to permanently justify her boyfriend; she hated her mother’s smug compulsion to remark upon everything Kris did – or didn’t do.  Especially on a night like this, when her mind already contained so many seeds of doubt she could have topped a burger bun with them. 

She hadn’t dared confide her current dreads in Mom or Dad, whose reactions to her inevitable rift with Kris were bound to be of the ‘Good riddance’ or ‘Plenty more fish in the sea’ varieties.  Such clichés were of scant comfort.  After all, as Justine would say, who needs fish when they can get a sperm whale?

By seven-thirty, Chantal might as well have had a neon sign flashing ‘I HAVE BEEN STOOD UP’ welded to her head.  She flipped through the Martino’s menu for the fourth time, trying to convince herself to be hungry, studiously avoided looking at her watch, smiled in a serene, ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up soon’ way whenever anybody shot her a pitying glance, and had never felt so painfully self-conscious in her life

Is this part of his plan – to humiliate me by getting me to arrive early and sit in the middle of the restaurant like a victim on Trigger Happy TV?  Perhaps I’m being filmed for some ‘hilarious’ hidden camera stunt that all these other folk in here are in on?

Oh Chantal, you dozy tart, why couldn’t you have just waited for him in your car?

‘Can I get you a drink while you’re waiting, chick?’

The figure approaching her was not Dom Joly, as she half expected, but the lanky waiter who’d so attentively shown her to this table.

‘Yes, please,’ she answered glumly, but then looked up at the lad and actually smiled.  Though hardly breathtakingly dishy, he had the kind of easy, gregarious manner to which Chantal couldn’t help responding.  She imagined a lot of girls would probably fancy him.  ‘I’m driving, though,’ she demonstrated by doing a little ‘steering wheel’ mime in the air, ‘so best make it a spritzer.’

‘Coming right up.’

Chantal risked a peek at her watch.  Kris was now half-an-hour late for their table booking.  It was good of the waiter – his lapel badge bore the ticker-taped name ‘ROSS’ – to let her keep it, especially as there were packs of newcomers waiting with pointed impatience to be seated.  She was wise enough to guess that this special treatment was only because Ross was attracted to her and hoped her absentee date would not show up.

At least someone’s showing interest, she thought, while grabbing her handbag and covertly sliding out her mobile.  Meanwhile, I think it’s time to give my so-called boyfriend his last chance.

Kris was engaged.  Chantal cut the call and smashed her phone down next to the parmesan shaker, the noise drawing yet more unwelcome attention.  Who the hell was he talking to during what was supposed to be their night – albeit their last one? 

He’d been trying to talk to her.  After fuming and cursing in two hours of claustrophobic traffic, Kris was finally diverted past the accident scene in Hockley – whereupon his first task was to phone and profusely apologise to poor Chantal.

Except when he tried to connect to his beloved, his battery promptly died.  The one remaining square of power on his monitor winked then vanished with an unheroic little bleep.  It was untypical of Kris not to keep the thing charged, but then he had been so distracted recently.

He snarled, and then had to brake hastily as his illegal phone use had temporarily distracted him from the looming sight of a red traffic light. 

Bloody typical of the thing to conk out tonight.  Fate was being a right bastard: chucking all manner of obstacles in the way of his romantic designs.  He felt terrible enough already about not being able to collect Chantal; he’d have agreed with Shirley that expecting a young lady to make her own way to a rendezvous was hardly gallant.

The poor wench is probably doing her fruit right now – especially as she never runs late by a nanosecond.  She probably thinks I’m the biggest shit in the world.  And I’ll bet she’s been trying to phone me but getting the dead tone.

Hunting for a telephone box was a fruitless mission.  The few Kris encountered on his travels were either smashed up, and surrounded by rainstorms of glass, or out of order – sad anachronisms in the mobile phone era.  Besides, pulling up, farting around with change and calling Chantal would only waste more minutes that could be spent actually reaching her.  So Kris did the only thing he could: he slammed his foot down and bombed it to Dudley.

It was gallingly ironic that he’d planned this as a special evening; an evening of promises and declarations; when he hoped to atone once and for all for his recent head-up-arse behaviour.  He and Chantal had been together for the grand total of four months, and Kris knew what he was doing would be considered slushy and impulsive by certain folk, but he didn’t care.  He knew she was The One – and tonight he’d intended telling her so.

Now he wouldn’t blame her if she’d given up waiting for him and sodded off home.

She was on the verge of doing just that, in fact, until Ross loped over with her drink.

He’d watched this girl covetously while mixing her wine and soda.  She was prime Ross meat: a combination of vulnerability, prettiness – and the most impressive pair of tits he’d seen outside of his Jodie Marsh calendar.  Her face looked so sweet and disappointed when she slammed the phone down on what was obviously her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. 

He was sure she’d be susceptible to a touch of the old Ross charm.  He could tell she was a shy type, though, so an opening gambit slightly more tactful than ‘Been stood up, love?  What a bummer!’ was called for.

Luke, the assistant manager, who had no time at all for Ross, hissed to him: ‘Before you drag that poor little lamb off to the slaughter, get her to order some food will you?  We’ve got hungry punters here, waiting to sit down!’

‘Yes, boss!’  The tone Ross reserved for superiors was insolently sarky, and he pulled a comic grimace at Chantal behind Luke’s back as he delivered the spritzer to her.  ‘I couldn’t take an order from you, could I sweetheart, only Hitler over there’s getting a bit arsey?’

Chantal was instantly all affability and dimples.  ‘Yeah, sorry, hope I haven’t got you into any trouble.’

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ said Ross nonchalantly.  She was gorgeous.  And even more of a looker when she smiled.  ‘Now what can I get you?’

‘Oh, right, I’ll have the, er,’ she glanced flusteredly at the menu and chose the first dish on that page, ‘Hawaiian pizza, please.’

‘Coming right up.  And your – friend – can order when they arrive, yeh?’

‘I don’t think my “friend” will be coming now, but thanks.’

As she waited for the pizza, Chantal caught Ross nudge his rather sour-looking colleague – Matt – several times and pointedly pivot round to stare her up and down.  His actions were way too noticeable to put down to her imagination.  It was a measure of how Chantal had grown in confidence that she didn’t automatically assume he was either laughing at her for being stood up or giving some bird at the table behind her the once-over.

Chantal wasn’t the same girl as on New Year’s Eve, when she’d flinched from eye contact with Kris.  She knew a few tricks now.  Maintaining the look for just that second too long, then toying coyly with her drink or a tendril of hair.  Yes, she liked that.  It was weeks since she’d felt fancied.

What was she doing, though?  Did she really want to be encouraging this stranger?  He was pleasant enough looking, but he wasn’t Kris.

On the other hand, perhaps that was a good thing, since he was still conspicuous by his absence!

‘One Hawaiian for Madame.’  Ross set the pizza affectedly before her, as though it were a Brit award.  Then he leaned down, to both get a perv’s eye view of her cavernous cleavage and whisper to her: ‘This is on the house.’

Chantal giggled: partly guilty at leading him on, and apprehensive at what Ross might seek in return for this free food – but also partly thinking Sod it, I deserve this!

‘There is a tiny favour I’d like to ask of you, though,’ he went on.

‘Yee-ees?’  Here we go…

‘You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been able to take me eyes off you all evening.  Well I’ve got a night off next Saturday, and I’d like to take you out for a drink.  Would you do me the honour of accompanying me?’

‘I’ll let you know after I’ve eaten me pizza!’  This retort came from nowhere, and Chantal thought she was being terribly clever and enigmatic.  To say yes too readily would mark her out as easy – and technically unfaithful, since Kris had not yet officially dumped her.

Ross, though, didn’t do ‘enigmatic.’  He couldn’t even spell it.  He had the boredom threshold of a flea, and considered life too short to persevere with girls who played hard to get.  Not while the world contained so many who were fantastically eager to spread their legs for him.  He decided he’d try one last bit of wheedling with this little honey, then if that failed he’d have to have a go with one of the other young female pizza-eaters in here.

‘Aw, I’ve booked the night off specially,’ he whined.  ‘As soon as I saw you, I said to me boss “Can I have next Saturday free so as I can take that gorgeous babe out for the evening?”’

Chantal suspected this was bullshit – but it was flattering bullshit nonetheless, and the disappointed teddy bear face Ross pulled to accompany it was difficult to resist.

He wasn’t handsome at all – had he made no move, Chantal doubted she’d have noticed him – but his face was expressive, interesting and angular.  Like Kris, he was over six feet tall, with a weedy physique and the most rectangular jaw Chantal had ever seen; it could have been carved from granite.  His hair was dark and cut very short, with little spiky tufts protruding over his forehead.

He wore a touch too much jewellery for her liking.  Well, more than a touch actually – he was positively draped in gold plating.  His earrings, sov rings and rope-thick chains looked, it must be admitted, extremely fake and conman-ish.  Chantal disliked excessive trinkets on men.  Kris occasionally wore a green, African tribal type necklace (purchased in deepest Wolverhampton), but that was all, and he looked the sexier for it.

Comparisons between the two men were inevitable and poignant.  Kris, with his magnificent looks and his rock-star aura, was a unique catch.  But perhaps he was out of Chantal’s league after all?  She’d enjoyed her five minutes with him, and now she must wake up and go home to the real world.

She recalled her dad’s comment about getting what you deserve in life, not what you desire – and for the first time she recognised the bleak wisdom of it.  Her mom used to warn her too that good-looking chaps were invariably conceited womanisers – the inference being that ugly ones were safe and faithful.  Chantal had never wanted to believe that little theory – she hated the idea of making do with a geeky puppy-dog – and was elated when her experience with Kris appeared to disprove it.

But perhaps he was now proving Mom right after all?  Perhaps there was some truth in Gary and Charlotte’s taunts, and she really ought to stick to blokes within her sphere?  Perhaps someone down to earth like Ross was more on her level?

‘Personality is more important that looks.’  That was another of Shirley’s special clichés.  Well one out of two ain’t bad, I suppose.  Chantal forced herself to forget that Kris was in possession of both.

‘You’d best tell me your name if you want to take me out,’ she flirted, playing for a bit of time, even though she knew it already.

‘Oh yeah,’ Ross said, as though that wasn’t very important, ‘I’m Ross,’ he did the cheesy little point to his name badge, ‘Ross Froggatt.  As you can imagine with a name like that, I’ve got plenty of nicknames.  Some folks call me Froggy, or Crazy Frog, others call me Ross Stir-Fry.  You can choose whichever one you wish – I don’t mind.’

Chantal giggled.  What he lacked in the ‘horny’ department, he made up for with his irresistible sense of humour and gift for making a girl feel special.  He might be nowhere near as good-looking as Kris; on the other hand, neither did he seem anywhere near as moody.

‘And what’s your handle, young lady?’

‘It’s Chantal.  Chantal Brown.’  She thought it might not be a good idea to add: ‘Some folks call me Chubby.’

‘A pretty name for a pretty girl, if I might say so.’  He lifted her right hand – which had been hovering over her knife, ready to plunge into her congealing pizza – and kissed it with ludicrous gallantry.  This caused her to giggle again.

The irony was not lost on Chantal, that Ross wasn’t exactly up to the standards she had, all those years ago, set herself.  She did say she was only going to date rock stars.

Then again, where had that got her?  Kris had obviously let her down – as Mom always implied he would – and this Ross Stir-Fry was at least showing an interest.  She was lonely and vulnerable and in urgent need of a pick-me-up.  And he came across as a fun, easy-going sort of chap.

Don’t be a snob, Chantal, he seems like fun.  You don’t intend marrying the bloke, do you – what have you to lose? 

‘Yes,’ she replied before she could talk herself out of it.

‘Great,’ said Ross, relieved he had his weekly conquest sorted.  ‘Here’s me mobile number.’  He magicked a napkin from the apron pocket of his orange and green Martino’s uniform.  A napkin upon which he had already inscribed his phone number in bold biro.

This struck Chantal as very presumptuous and business card-ish, and she wasn’t sure she liked it, but she dismissed these doubts and folded the napkin into her handbag.

It was at that moment that a very fraught Kristian Savage swung into the Martino’s car park, cutting the corner so wide it was fortunate nobody happened to be driving out at that point.  He brought the Datsun to a jerky halt, wrenched on the handbrake and dashed into the restaurant.

Just in time to see his sweet and beautiful girlfriend – who he’d imagined was his and his alone – snogging a waiter who was covered in acres of Del Boy-ish jewellery.

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but Ross preferred his own version of French kissing.  When Chantal accepted his offer, he asked her for a peck on the lips – ‘to keep me warm for later’ – which, being Ross, swiftly progressed from a peck into a full-blown tongue-tennis match.

‘Get a room, you pair,’ murmured a cringing lady at the next table, ‘yo’m a-puttin’ me off me food!’

Ross’s little display of customer relations would have severely irked Luke – had Luke actually seen it and not been attending to his new customer, Kris, at the time.

‘Table for one, sir?  You’re looking at a forty-minute wait at the moment, though.’

‘No, you’re all right, mate,’ Kris backed away on foal legs, ‘I’ll, er, go somewhere else.’

Kris truly thought he might throw up.  Right there in the middle of the car park.

I may be late, but I never dreamed she’d have moved on to her next bloke by the time I got here.  Bitch! 

He felt blind and light-headed.  The world seemed to be swirling around him, as though he were diving along a psychedelic tunnel in a 1960s sci-fi film: the cars; the sky; the neon restaurant signs; the couples and girls’ nights out flocking chattily to Martino’s, with no cares more pressing than whether they should have a starter or a dessert tonight.

Perhaps she’s been having it off with that gibbon for months, though!  No wonder she wanted to come here tonight, if that’s the case.

With every numb pace towards his car, Kris was cursing himself for not swirling back, wading into that brash diner and confronting those two tongue-tied bastards.  But he’d never been a man given to fights.  Besides, he was far too devastated.  He was so crazy about that girl, he’d probably start blarting in front of all those punters, and lose whatever shred of cool he might have once possessed.

He could feel a blart attack coming on now, in fact, but he would not give way to it.  Not in public.  He would keep his dignity.  Not like Chantal and that earringed chav, eating each other like that.  It was as gross as it was traitorous.

Dignity, however, is not an easy thing to maintain when your heart is breaking.  Disobedient tears slopped out of Kris’s eyes.  He brushed them furiously away with his right fist…while squeezing his left one around the engagement ring in his pocket.