‘Yes, Frank, I could tell straight away that’ – Justine peered at her scrawly A4 list on the worktop and read the top name on it – ‘Sharmayne Round was going to be a superstar.  As soon as she climbed on to that stage at the Hare & Talent Night in me dad’s pub, I knew that I’d made a wonderful discovery.

‘And so, Sharmayne, you owe all your international success and fame to Justine here!

‘Oh yes, Frank, without question!  Thanks to her, I landed my record deal, went to Number One – and have never looked back since.’

Justine was buoyantly slicing onions in the Hare & Tortoise’s glistening kitchen while conducting this latest one-sided Frank Skinner interview.  Her voice, typically strident, was audible to all the bar customers.  But then they were accustomed to Justine’s monologues – in fact, the cabaret was the main reason some of them chose the ‘Hare’ as their lunchtime haunt.

‘Justine is my mentor and inspiration.  Without her, I’d still be working the tills at Aldi.’

Back on planet Earth, this mentor of tomorrow cheerily arranged some grated cheese and sprinklings of onion on to two Hovis doorsteps, and wedged the sandwich into the Breville.

This one o’clock sarnie rush had always been a feature of the day – but nowadays the pub was liable to be chock-a-block at other periods too.  Justine, with her offbeat enterprise and drive, had done wonders for trade overall.  Word of mouth, and of a sparky write-up in the Express & Star, was enticing burgeoning throngs to the Thursday band nights, and these regulars began popping in at other times – with their friends.

Maurice’s takings were rocketing.  Who’d have thought he’d have his little girl to thank, with her wacky ideas about introducing music to his sleepy old local?  He was so proud of his bright little wench.

The dazzling white kitchen where Justine partook in her imaginary chat shows was new, the greasy old units having been ripped out last month.  The ‘Hare’ menu was more adventurous now, and this too had helped popularise mealtimes – though the pies and toasties of old remained the prime sellers.

Justine prayed her cornily labelled ‘Hare & Talent’ nights would be similarly well patronised.

She’d rallied ten contestants for tonight, and these were the names she was now trying to memorise from her sheet of paper on the worktop.

The competition pieces were going to alternate with turns from Chantal & Justine – ‘because why,’ as she put it, ‘waste an opportunity to get ourselves out there and noticed?’

Staunchly proud of her Wolverhampton roots, Justine had advertised her venture in a deliberately parochial poster campaign, because she wanted to draw on raw local talent.  In truth, the emphasis was liable to be on the ‘raw’ rather than the ‘talent,’ but she had idealistic hopes of nurturing a future Britney or Robbie amongst the amateur warblers in the city of ‘Wolvo.’

Justine adored showbiz, and was adoring adding these strings to her showbiz bow – humble though they might be at present.  She was actually still uncertain whether her ambitions lay in singing or in becoming the next Cat Deeley.  Cracking the charts was a dream – but then so was the idea of ‘Tonight, Justine, I’m going to be…’ becoming a national catchphrase.

Justine was definitely not the sort of girl whose dreams ceased when she woke up.  She could very effortlessly float out of her humdrum surroundings and into the glitz.  Even now, in an I LOVE LANZAROTE pinny, with her hair hoicked up in bunches, and Spanish onion-induced tears raging down her tiny face.

‘Two ham and cheese toasties for table three, Just,’ Joe yelled, tugging her back down to earth, ‘oh, and there’s somebody here to see you.’

Curious, Justine swilled her oniony fingers under the hot tap, wiped them down her smeary apron and hurtled out into the bar.

‘Faith!  What brings you here this early?’

It’s easy to see what’s keeping you here, though!

Faith was sitting at the bar, laughing animatedly at something Joe had just said, and looking flushed and beautiful in the way only a girl who is smitten can look.  She had clearly been there a while before Joe announced her presence – she was halfway down a Chardonnay already, and looked settled for the day.

Justine smirked.  Good old Joe, eh!

‘I was passing,’ Faith explained.  ‘I’ve been shopping,’ she indicated an Everest of carrier bags next to her barstool as evidence, ‘and thought I’d just pop in and say hiya, see what I’ve got to do tonight, that sorta thing.’

‘No uni today then?’

‘Broke up last week,’ she replied, with the airy flippancy of a responsibility-free student.  ‘I couldn’t help hearing you in there.  That was quite some conversation you were having with Frank Skinner!’

Justine wasn’t in the least embarrassed to be overheard talking to herself.  ‘Yeah, yeah, gotta get some practice in for when I’m a real star.’

‘Joe’s been telling me all about your childhood ambitions.’

‘Yes, I can see Joe’s been keeping you company!’ She nudged her brother mischievously.  ‘Good looks run in the family, as you can tell!’

Faith had never been a blusher or a giggler, but she broke with tradition on both counts.

The reason she had cut short her shopping to call at the ‘Hare’ so early was to have a friendly gossip and further her acquaintance with the fascinating Justine.  The very last thing she envisaged today was to meet her soul mate.  For Faith was positive already that Joe Oliver was precisely that.

He was refreshingly different to her usual prey: shy, besotted lads who fluffed up her ego.  He brought out a coyer, more flirtatious side to her personality – though without reducing her to tittering blancmange status.  Faith felt like a woman around Joe – but gone was her usual compulsion to put on a haughty act; to get a man vaulting through hoops for her.  She simply found Justine’s brother comfortable company and tremendously easy to talk to.

The pair of them conversed without airs or pretence.  Joe was meeting Faith with an entirely open mind, free from preconceived awe of the ‘class babe’ status she’d attained right back in her first year at comp school.  Here, therefore, was a chap who would not fawn or feel honoured merely to be addressed by the great Faith Jephcott – and Faith loved that. 

Just as she’d found with Justine that she preferred to be liked than sucked up to, so she was desperate for Joe to fall for her real self, not the role she now realised she’d been playing right through school and university.

Faith was learning so much about herself; she felt she’d spent this last week viewing her soul with unforgiving X-ray vision.  It dawned – and appalled her – that for years she’d been just living up to her reputation rather than allowing her loving, gifted, deep persona to shine through. 

It was lazy and easy – particularly in a uni environment, where folks were naturally grouped off and pigeonholed – to behave according to type; conform to people’s expectations of you.  Changing was too much like hard work because it involved challenging those deeply-established stereotypes. 

Faith now despised the shallow, vain self-parody she’d become: flitting from man to meaningless man, and carrying on like she was J-Lo or someone.  Joe was now acting as a magnet, drawing out the real Faith, the girl she wanted to be but whom she’d suppressed so long she almost forgot she existed.  Meeting him made her promiscuous, ‘cool’ life seem so empty and joyless.

Faith had secretly long despaired – and felt conceited for holding this view – of finding a man who was her equal.  A man who could match her quick wit and never bore her.  She certainly never imagined she’d find him in the shape of the ‘fit barman’ she had mocked Sophie for fancying.

‘A lard-arsed dork who reeks of beer’ had been Faith’s cutting vision of what he’d be like.

She could remember that very lunch in the canteen, when she’d been sucking her Cadbury’s Flake off because she knew she had an audience of lads at the next table – ugh, cringe – and having a go at poor Soph for wanting to come here on a Thursday music night.

She could hear her own voice in her head now, sounding so shrill and snotty.  Anyone would think Sophie had suggested the girls attend a chicken molesters’ convention, such was Faith’s disgust.  But she’d been all about image then; about being seen in the right places.  Now here she was about to judge at one of these derided music nights.

Had someone tried to tell her then how welcomed and at-home she’d feel in a horse brass-decorated inn quaintly named after an Aesop’s Fable, whose tables bore tomato-shaped squelchy ketchup bottles, her contempt would have known no end.

Now she loved this place, already, because it was Joe’s home.  Just as Chantal had rashly declared a year ago that there would be nobody for her but Kristian Savage, so Faith knew after five minutes with Joseph Oliver that she would never want another man.

There was a slickness about him which she, as a performer, shared and admired.  Like her, he believed life was a stage and one must always look one’s best – and what was wrong with that?  He wasn’t a cocky bastard, though.  He was funny, genuine and family-orientated too, with his warm stories about Justine and their childhood at the pub.  Faith might not have believed them were she not already acquainted with Justine and the eccentricities she was capable of.

Joe was finding himself mutually taken with the gorgeous, witty Faith.  Like her, he’d had lots of fun in his twenty-two years, but very little activity on the Serious Relationship front.  The idea of being fixed up with one of his twin sister’s mates had never occurred to him, but he and Faith clicked the minute she’d come coolly in and asked whether Justine was about.  He’d bought her a drink to stall her; so keen was he to keep her there and chat.

He loved her laid-back style and confidence.  She looked casual and lovely today, in a cerise cheesecloth top, flowing boho skirt, pink zirconia nose stud, cork sandals, a cacophony of bangles, and a purple bakerboy hat beneath which her glorious hair spilled down her back in glossy mahogany waves.

She had a lovely figure too: fit and rangy, not too boyish but not with acres of tit on show either.  Joe disliked slutty, obvious girls, and Faith was miles away from the thigh-and-cleavage, three-Bacardi-Breezers-and-they’re-anybody’s types who Macarena’d past him at every party he DJ’d.

Joe wasn’t yet to know, but this more approachable, studenty look suited Faith far better than the slick, brittle image she cultivated for the stage.  She was less untouchable like this – and thus far more attractive.

A few miles away, Chantal was also experiencing a lustful lunch hour.

Ross had called her at the office that morning.  ‘Fancy meeting up the Beacon at lunchtime?’  It was his code for ‘Fancy a screw?’  They’d taken of late to trysts at Barr Beacon, a hilly beauty spot in Aldridge roughly equidistance between Chantal’s workplace and Ross’s college which was often dotted with cars that had steamed-up windows and sticky-bodied occupants.

Ross had to have sex at least once a day.  And on some of these days, he had it with Chantal.  It was fair to say that the unique suppleness of her vaginal walls had bolstered his already mighty libido in the last couple of months.  But he wasn’t sufficiently attached to her to renounce his shag-around ways.

Chantal was irked at first by Ross’s presumption that she would drop everything – literally – to bomb it to Aldridge.  She was about to snap that she was busy; that she was not some empty-headed doormat who served no other function than to willingly spread her legs when he happened to be in the mood for a fuck.  But Sorrell & Genge had far too many ears.  Charlotte was deliberately dawdling by the photocopier near Chantal’s desk, smirking and radar-eared, while Mark was punching intently at his calculator but blushing schoolboyishly at the prospect of sexy phone talk.

Another reason Chantal felt disinclined to refuse Ross’s carnal wants was that she saw – with untypical guile – a way she could use them to her advantage today.

So she bit back a torrent of ripostes, grinned sweetly and replied with a discreet ‘Yeah, see you at half-one.’

‘Booking yourself in for another service, Chubs?’ Charlotte smirked, clopping away with her stack of photocopying.  Chantal’s lunchtime adventures were no secret.  Charlotte – herself a Beacon frequenter for years before she’d bought her own apartment – had noticed the rumpled state of Chubby’s hair and blouse on these afternoons.

Chantal had been mulling what Faith said at the wedding, about ‘that dickhead.’  There was a good chance it wasn’t him, of course – Martino’s had a whole troop of garishly-liveried waiters – but something inside was telling her it was Ross.  It was his style – she of all people ought to know that.  If he used these pulling techniques to such effortless effect on her, what was to stop him using them on other girls?  During every shift that he worked.  That was a hell of a lot of girls – but in her heart she knew he was capable of juggling them.

Chantal was pissed off with Ross.  She was getting pissed off with a lot of things: work; her parents; Faith usurping her position as Justine’s number one buddy; God knew who usurping her position in Ross’s bed.  Well she had plans to test Ross – and if he failed, he was chucked!

Maybe she would quit the band too?  Justine was dying to ask Faith to join.  She kept blethering on about trios being ‘more commercial and aesthetically pleasing than duos – think of Atomic Kitten, Bananarama, the Sugababes, Destiny’s Child!  At least let her come to a rehearsal.  If you hate her that much, we don’t have to ask her to join permanently.  I just think we could learn a lot from her – you know, technique and stuff.’

Chantal very grudgingly acquiesced – Justine was a persuasive sort – but failed to see how the three of them could coexist in bithchery-free harmony.  She and Faith were quite obviously never going to be friends.

She felt like quitting everything.  Seeking out a new job, new friends, a new boyfriend – or maybe not bothering with the latter and attempting to live it up in singledom.

What had she to lose, after all, now that Kris was gone?

They parked their cars in their usual, discreet spot and Chantal slid into Ross’s passenger seat, which he’d already thoughtfully levered back so she was lying down straight away.  Ross didn’t bother with greetings and overtures – they ate into his precious shag-time.  With his jeans already at half-mast, he instantly clambered on top of her – no mean feat for such a lanky chap in a cramped space – yanked her thong off with one hand and unpeeled a Durex with the other.

Chantal’s earrings went astray in the ensuing tussle – the third pair she had lost in the same way since their fling had started.  Ross never gave them back, though, and Chantal would subsequently wonder what he did with them.  Or, more to the point, who was the recipient of them.

‘Wanna come and watch me at the talent show tonight?’ she asked as she tugged her knickers back up afterwards, and shuffled her bum into them beneath the voyeur-proof mantle of her Jane Norman skirt.

She hadn’t properly mentioned the show to Ross before now, because there was never any point in affording him more than twenty-four hours notice for anything – it only gave him time to make excuses or alternative arrangements.

But she had learned also that the way to this man’s heart was through his underpants.  Give him a dick-tingling fuck and he’d say yes to anything.

‘Yeah, OK,’ Ross acquiesced instantly, still panting as he zipped up his Levis.

Chantal smiled wryly in the misted visor mirror as she re-plaited her disordered hair.  There’s someone I’d like you to meet, she thought but didn’t say.

‘There’s not much to it really,’ Justine was explaining to Faith much later, ‘you just give ’em all marks out of ten for the three categories: voice, performance, and song choice.  Just hand your form to Dad at the end and he’ll tot the scores up.’

The girls had just spent an hour cooing their way through Faith’s cache of purchases and had now advanced to discussing the evening ahead.

‘What’s the prize?’ queried Faith.

‘A session at a recording studio.  The Feel The Noize one in Wolverhampton.’

‘Cool!  Who are the other judges?’

‘Glenn Turner from Feel The Noize.  And Lance Cooper from the Express & Star.  Lovely lad, he is, gave us a bostin’ write-up a few weeks ago – here, have a look!’  She un-sellotaped a newspaper cut-out from the wall next to the card display of salted peanuts and placed it reverentially before Faith. 

It was an ad-feature: a forest of excited copy about Justine’s schemes and business zeal, sandwiching a smiley photograph of her, in Baby Spice mode, pulling a pint.

‘This is fab, Just.’  Faith was hugely impressed, and even more ashamed of her own lack of get-up-and-go.  ‘This article was all your idea?  You really know how to get your name out there, don’t you?’

‘Always pays to cultivate good media contacts.  Crucial to get them on your side in this game.  You never know who they might pass your name on to either.’

‘I bet you’ll be famous in no time.’

‘Hope so!  Now if you’ll excuse me, Faith, I’ll just have to nip up and get changed before Chantal gets here.’

‘She doesn’t like me, does she?’ asked Faith pointedly, grateful of an opening to raise this topic.  ‘I bet she’ll hate me being here tonight.’

Justine did a little shrug and wiped the bar top, not meeting Faith’s eyes.

‘I know she doesn’t,’ Faith persevered.  ‘You don’t have to lie to save my feelings.’  She was not normally a girl who worried about people liking her – she’d always rather arrogantly tended to just assume they would – but for some reason it mattered to be accepted into this gang.

Justine dabbed the bar towel at another imaginary beer spillage.  She wasn’t used to being torn between friends; as a rule, she rose above the catty scraps that many girls liked to indulge in.  She loved Chantal dearly, but had been very irritated at the wedding by her hostility to Faith, who she herself thought would be a massive asset to their ambitions.  And all because of Ross Froggatt!  If ever there was a guy not worth falling out over!

‘Chantal is a little, erm, misguided, at the moment.’  In typically pithy Justine-speak, she gave Faith a crash course in the subject of Chantal’s unfortunate love life.  ‘So you see, she’s not thinking straight at the moment.  But rest assured you’ll be around a lot longer than Ross Stir-Shit.’

‘Poor girl,’ Faith empathised.  ‘No wonder she’s mardy at the moment.’

‘Yeah.  Now I must go and change.’

‘Who are you going to be tonight?’  Faith had heard all about Justine’s ‘different Spice Girl a day’ apparel, and thought the girl had a wonderful way to live her life.  Waking up each morning and deciding which character she was going to star as.  Yanking open her wardrobe and choosing between Union Jack or leopardskin; tracksuit or baby doll.  It was like being an actress in a permanent play.  Brilliant!

‘Geri,’ Justine replied in all earnestness.  ‘I’ve got this wicked new green dress with bum-high slits like the ones she used to wear, and I’ll have my hair down.  Want me to take your shopping bags upstairs for you?  I could keep ’em in my room, save leaving ’em down here where someone might nick off with your new clobber or spill beer on it.’

‘That’d be a good idea, Just, thanks.  Here – let me.’  Faith sprang to her feet.  Justine looked too puny to lift the brimful carriers.  But the girl possessed a strength that belied her size.

‘I can manage!  You stay right here and keep my brother company!’

Justine gave Faith a very loaded wink and disappeared upstairs.  She was really enjoying today.  She had always wanted a sister.  And one as cool as Faith would be excellent.

Faith was well on her way to becoming Justine’s sister by the time Chantal arrived, with Ross in tow, at six that evening. 

By now the pub was rigged out with fluorescent orange banners that blared: ‘HARE & TALENT 2NITE – TOP PRIZES,’ which Faith and Justine had spent the afternoon draping across the walls and bar.  The sandwich board on the pavement bore this same announcement, chalked by Faith in florid pink calligraphy.

Faith, clearly fagged from the exertion of all this decorating, was now back on her stool enjoying a snog break.  She was leaning luxuriantly across, elbows on bar, breasts on elbows, mouth gummed to Joe’s.

You don’t waste much time, thought Chantal scathingly – and hypocritically bearing in mind the velocity of her own association with Ross.

She hated walking in on couples like this – it made her feel like a jealous interloper.  In this case, she was a bit jealous.  She wished her own love life was as blissful – and this trendy, beautiful pair looked so narcissistically well matched, it made her sick. 

To stand there unnoticed, though, would just be stupid, and faintly voyeuristic.  So she said ‘Hiya,’ and the new lovers cleaved apart.  In doing so, they made a sucky, vacuumy noise which reminded Chantal of a fluffy Garfield falling off a car window.

‘Oh all right, bab,’ said Joe, though snog-swollen lips.  ‘All set for tonight?  You know Faith, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ she replied, with rude apathy.

‘Hi Chantal.’  Faith was, to her credit, persistent in her unrewarded efforts at friendliness.  But Chantal remained totally inanimate – unlike her boyfriend.

When Ross clocked Faith, his granite-chiselled face registered a tableau of reactions: first ‘where do I know you from?’ bewilderment, then shock – and finally slappable smugness.

‘Hello – again,’ he greeted her cheekily, with typically Ross-ish disregard for either his girlfriend or the guy whose face Faith had just been eating.  It confirmed everything Chantal needed to know. 

If Faith, meanwhile, was unimpressed in Martino’s two weeks ago, she was positively repulsed now.  This bloke had such a nerve, with his tawdry jewellery and gross lack of shame about cheating on his poor other half.

‘Let me get you some drinks,’ Joe offered in a somewhat tight voice.  ‘I’ll bring them over, Chantal, if you want to sit yourselves down somewhere.  Our Just’s still upstairs, changing into her Geri gear.  She’ll be down in a bit.’

‘He’s just some waiter who once served me in a restaurant,’ Chantal heard Faith whisper as she marched Ross away to a table.

It was very uncharacteristic of Faith to feel the need to explain herself.  She normally loved to play blokes off against each other – it made her feel desirable.  But Joe was different – and Faith was embarrassed.

‘It’s OK,’ Joe was placating, ‘don’t worry about it, babe.’ 

It was then that Justine fortuitously emerged from upstairs, greenly attired in her new Halliwell glad rags.

Chantal knew better than to cause a scene in public, especially prior to going on stage when focus must be the key.  She would deal with Ross after.

‘You, mate,’ she made do with hissing, ‘have got some explaining to do later!’

Sharmayne Round did not look likely to ever grace Frank Skinner’s interview sofa.  She was not the new Britney Spears.  Her sole distinction was polling possibly the lowest score ever in a West Midlands talent contest.

Sharmayne was sixteen years old, sixteen stone, sported more gold chains and T-bars than Mr T, and hollered Baby One More Time – to rapturous whistles from her chain-smoking, velour-clad family and lacklustre claps from everyone else.

Second from bottom came Len, the scrawny, tattoo-knuckled, roll-up-smoking, hopeless Elvis from the Red Lion.  He was still banging out Suspicious Minds – peering down at the lyrics on his scrap of paper, having still failed to commit them to memory four months on.

Justine joked previously that ‘All Elvis impersonators called Len are banned,’ never dreaming the poor man’s Presley would actually put his name down.  She ultimately lifted the ban for fear of being lynched by his Cinzano-loving ‘bitches.’

‘Go on, have him,’ Audrey urged, ‘I thought he was a hoot when we saw him, and if he brings all those old biddies with him at least it’ll boost our takings.  They drank like fish that night.’

Tonight’s vote was at any rate marginally fairer – being non-clap-o-meter-based.  Though there was very nearly mutiny when Len failed to make the top three – or indeed the top eight.  His fans’ Cinzano-fuelled gripes were virtually audible in Elvis’s home city of Memphis.

The studio session prize went deservedly to a pleasant young Ronan Keating-a-like called Paul Passey, whose blue eyes sent the female clientele into pant-dampening delirium.  He wasn’t exactly dynamite, but at least he was in tune.  Which rather distinguished him in this competition.

Runners-up were Kerry and Kayleigh, high-pitched seventeen-year-old twins in short skirts, who had silk blonde hair and hardly an inch of tit between them.  Despite massacring a Celine Dion track with their ultrasound wailings, the girls scored well with Glenn and Lance on the ‘totty’ front – to the distaste of Faith, who awarded them a spiteful six out of thirty.

In third place was an insane bespectacled chap called Loz, who punctuated his surreally rocked-up version of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough with jumping, press-ups and microphone-twirling, like a smacked-up aerobics instructor.  Loz was clearly as mad as a ferret, his voice was shouty and tuneless, but he garnered high marks for entertainment factor.

The remaining five contestants were so mediocre, it was a good job Chantal & Justine sang in between – without the promise of some decent entertainment to interrupt the flow of cack, one or two punters might well have walked out.

Justine, though, took an almost maternal pride in her role as MC, jollying her ‘charges’ not to be nervous, ‘we’re all mates here.’  Her rousing words were a tad redundant, however – most of these vocal bods were as devoid of nerves as they were of skill.

Faith wasn’t as interested in the turns (though thought Len was hilarious) as in Chantal & Justine themselves, whom she watched with her virtuoso eye.

The girls did two solo spots apiece – Spice Girls for Justine, of course; big-hair ballads for Chantal – and five together, as Chantal & Justine.

Faith felt absurdly proud and excited – as though, by having seen the plucky little busker freezing in a January market place, she had somehow discovered her and played a part in her transition to accomplished pub-gigger.

Chantal was a revelation too, in that Faith was seeing for the first time how radiant and animated she could look when she didn’t have a face on her like a bucket of hot poo.  She had an impressive voice: a well projected, musical theatre voice.  Faith was glad she and Chantal hadn’t been schoolmates – there’d have been some pretty catty rivalry for the musical lead roles Faith, in the absence of any competition, bagged year after year.

Together, they were electric to watch; they harmonised and contrasted beautifully.  Faith, who knew the difference between a good performance and a brilliant one, felt a wobble in her tummy.

She could see flaws, inevitably.  It wasn’t boasting to concede that they were nowhere near as glossy as herself – but then she’d learned there could be a fine line between glossy and bland.

Chantal & Justine’s most important asset was passion.  These were girls who cared more about pleasing an audience than about bagging their fee for doing so.

Their material entirely comprised cover versions – some of which had admittedly been flogged to death by singers of a similar ilk – but this pair were no Mariah parrots.  They shot these classic tunes through with ad libs and sassy personality.  (Though the fact was never openly acknowledged, because Chantal’s Kris-inflicted wounds were still far too raw, their aim was to create a female Colonel K.)

And they enjoyed one another so much.  Faith envied their friendship; their almost psychic harmony, which was so obviously not an act.  They had a connection; a unique trust.  They were continually grinning and winking at each other, as if to say ‘Yeah, you’re great!  We’re great!’

The life of a soloist seemed lonely in comparison.

I am lonely, Faith realised with a depressing jolt.  All this time I’ve kidded myself about enjoying my own company as much as that of others.  I’ve been so far up my own arse, I hadn’t noticed just how empty and crap my life was.

That was changing now, though.  In the space of a week, she’d bagged herself Joe, the most gorgeous and funny man she’d ever met, and acquired the precious friendship of Justine, who’d asked her to join this pop band.  Chantal was still anti, but Faith hoped she could win her over.  She had to.

Yeah, I’m gunna be in their gang!  Oh, we could be dynamite together, I can feel it in my water.

Being honest rather than smug, Faith felt the addition of herself in the act presently known as Chantal & Justine would slicken them up; add a touch of polish.  But there were lessons she wanted to learn from them also.  They generated precisely the kind of raw buzz that Faith wanted from a crowd – and which she would never derive from polite great-aunties and office parties.

It depended very much on the occasion, but there were functions at which Faith felt like background music; the backdrop to a disco and cop-a-feel-of-the-secretary-fest.  The party would swirl on in front of her, and she’d be left wondering whether anybody would notice if she actually left a CD player running and bogged off early for a Chinese.

Faith wanted greater interaction, greater immediacy, with her audiences.  The party lot were too safe and happy; singing to them no longer presented a challenge to Faith.  She wanted the edgy risk of pub gigs, where people would pay to see her and not be shy about letting her know what they thought of her.

‘So, Faith,’ Justine, back in barmaid mode, poured three drinks – with a slightly unsteady hand for she was anxious to hear Faith’s opinion, ‘what’s the verdict then?’  She’d noticed the girl studiously watching herself and Chantal, and sensed she’d be the kind to speak her mind.

It was after last orders, and the bar was thinning out.  The girls, exhausted and grubby with pubby sweat, were congregating over a cheeky ‘round for the road.’  Stragglers swarmed around them as they drained their glasses, delivered their post-mortems on the competition outcome and started to lag their way home.

Faith was feeling totally jubilant, for more than one reason.  Joe had asked out her tomorrow, his night off.  ‘Well, first off – ’

‘Cracking night, Justine,’ Lance, the Express & Star reporter, called across on his way out, ‘see you again.’

‘Yeah, thanks for helping out, Lance.’  Justine waved at her friend in the media.  ‘Sorry, Faith, you were saying?’

‘Right, first off,’ Faith chinked her glass – lemonade, since she was driving – against the other two, ‘I’d like to say cheers and thanks for a wicked evening.  Now, performance-wise, Chantal – ’

‘Yes?’  Chantal folded her arms defensively.  She could see Ross in the opposite corner, chatting up Kerry, one of the skinny-rib Barbie twins, and her eyes flitted between them and Faith with equal distaste.

‘You looked beautiful up there.  There is not a man in here who would not have fallen in love with you tonight!  When you did that Phil Collins song – ’

‘Against All Odds,’ Chantal murmured grudgingly, caught off guard by the accolade but too mulish to act grateful.

‘Against All Odds.  You climbed right inside that song and you owned it, girl!’

‘You sound like a Fame Academy judge,’ Chantal carped.

‘Oi, sulky – listen to what the girl’s saying!’  Justine slapped Chantal’s arm with a beer mat, riled by her snappy attitude towards Faith.  ‘She knows what she’s talking about.  And she’s paying you compliments here.  She cares enough to offer you a bit of constructive criticism, so gerrof yer high horse and take on board what she’s telling you!’

‘Sorry, Faith.’  Chantal felt chastened enough to have a stab at a smile.  Justine was right – her attitude was very petulant, and Faith was only trying to help.  In the corner, little Kerry, now armed with her sister Kayleigh, was scuttling away from a very pissed-off looking Ross.  She must have more sense than me, thought Chantal – and so must Faith, come to that!

‘You sing the sad ones well, let’s say!’

‘I’ve developed a taste for them in the last few months!’  Since splitting with Kris, she added silently to herself.  Being in her new relationship had not abated this taste.  She couldn’t help a smirk as she saw Ross, knocked back, sneer at the departing Kerry and take a huffy slurp from his pint.

‘And as for you, Just – ’

Justine crossed her small arms across the Banks’s beer pump and leaned on them, listening with intent eyes, like a Eurovision hopeful waiting for the Swedish jury to deliver its crucial vote, which could mean the difference between winning and second place.

At that moment, Len, de-Elvis’d in his jeans and T-shirt, and puffing on a roll-up, passed by with his coven in tow.

‘Her doe know nuffin, that girl,’ one of them squawked, throwing a killer glare to Faith as she recognised her from the judging triumvirate.

‘Nah, yow wuz robbed tonight, Lenny, me lover.  One o’ your farts’d sound better than that Paul Passey lad’s singing.’

‘We wo’ come ’ere again, that’s fer shewer!’

‘Ar, we’m stickin’ to the Red Lion – they know a good voice when they hear it down there!’

‘What charming people,’ Faith affected the posh, wry voice she used when encountering ignorance.  ‘Well Justine, if you still want to hear the opinion of a girl who “doe know nuffin,” I think you’re fab.  You’ve got the personality.  You’ve got it in bucketloads.  And I like your voice.  Love it.  You hit all the notes.  You need to look after it a bit more, though.’

‘I’ve give up the fags,’ Justine protested.

Faith looked appalled.  ‘You smoked?  Worst thing in the world for vocal chords.  Glad to hear you’ve packed them in.  But what I meant was you need to not, well, shout so much.  You’ll be hoarse by the time you’re twenty-five.  You need to develop a bit more voice control – Chantal’s got it to a tee.  You could both study from each other.  Chantal – you could do with a wee bit of Justine’s vivaciousness.  We know you’re lovin’ it up there, cuz of the way you close your eyes and live it – but we need to see some enjoyment too.  One or two of the ballads are ace, but too many and you might come across as a one-trick pony, which I’m sure you’re not.  People might think you’re a bit of a miserable cow, you wanna bring in some uptempo numbers too.’

Patronising bitch, Chantal wanted to think – which wasn’t too easy since everything Faith said rang true.

Justine meanwhile was nodding, taking everything in.  She took a meditative slug of Tia Maria, as though gearing herself up to ask a question.  Will you join our band, Faith hoped it would be.

‘What you doing Saturday, Faith?’

Yes!!  ‘Norralot,’ Faith replied, unconvincingly casually.  ‘Singing at a silver wedding do on the night – free as a bird in the day, though.  That is unless your brother decides to invite me over!’

‘How about if I invite you over, ask if you’d like to have a bit of a jam with me and Chantal, and let you out for a quick snog with Joe every so often?’

Faith, unaware Chantal had been primed about this, glanced across to gauge her opinion.  She was not a thoughtless girl after all and had no wish to tread on toes.  But Chantal just shot her a little shrug back, as if to say ‘It’s OK, I’m not over the moon about the idea, but I’m not going to be a bitch about it.’  Faith was quite encouraged by this.  It might be the closest thing to approval that Chantal Brown was likely to grant her at present, but the girl could be worked on – especially if she gave that Ross Stir-Shit the elbow soon.

Faith downed her last lemonade drip and grinned widely.

‘Justine,’ she said, ‘that sounds fab.’