‘So let me get this straight,’ Gary leaned back in his tycoon-ish padded swivel chair so that his small legs dangled off the floor in a comically un-macho fashion, ‘you’re knocking a stable full-time job on the head so you can follow your pipe dream of pop stardom?’

Gary’s manner was typically belittling, but Chantal didn’t bristle.  She was much too jubilant.  Nothing could hurt her today.

‘They’re not pipe dreams, Gary.  And, frankly, my career with the band shows a great deal more promise than the one I have here.’

‘You’re doing pretty well then – All the Rage?’  He pronounced the group’s name with irksome amusement.

‘We’re doing three gigs a week, we’re all booked up until well beyond Easter.  Been going great guns since we signed up with Light & Sound – that’s the agency Faith’s been represented by for years.  Kev Light, the agent, loved us as soon as he heard us.’

Gary skim-read again the eloquent resignation letter on his desk – then studied more carefully the girl sitting across it from him.  Chantal looked very different today from his timid ‘Chubby’ – in fact she had done ever since that concert at Russ and Owen’s school four months ago when, he had to admit, she’d been a revelation.

He – and Charlotte – had gone along that night expecting some crow-like singing that would provide them with enough piss-taking material to keep them going until Chantal’s retirement.  He’d had no idea his modest secretary possessed such a pure and passionate voice.

Not that Gary Genge would ever stoop to telling her so.  His superior manner never let up.  Until today.  He wasn’t exactly feeling very superior right now.  Chantal looked so poised and womanly.  She wasn’t tall, but her bold new fuchsia dress, the straight set of her back, and her hair, which she’d fastened in a ballerina-style bun at the nape of her neck, made her appear so.  She looked like a star in waiting.

Gary’s eyes lowered again and lingered on her voluptuous chest, their favourite resting place in moments of contemplation.  For all Gary’s cosying to Charlotte, Chantal was actually more his type physically (a preference Chantal would have been monstrously un-flattered by had she known of it).  He nurtured Charlotte’s corrosive wit, they were accomplices in piss-taking, but her figure was too bony to turn him on.  Chantal had curves to die for – but her soft, gauche personality unfortunately made her fair game for mockery.  Or rather, it had.

‘We’ve come a long way since that school concert you saw us at,’ she said, pointedly drawing his eyes up from her bodice.

All the Rage were currently averaging at least two or three gigs a week, with repeat bookings at, among others, the Bulls Head at Gornal Wood, the Old Horns in Great Barr, the Shed in Brierley Hill and Brannigans in Broad Street, mecca from Birmingham’s barflies. 

This was in addition to the odd work do and birthday party, and their regular residency at the Hare, where they were well in demand as the house band.  Justine was still running occasional Hare & Talent events too, which continued to lure not so much the cream as the curds of Wolverhampton singing ‘talent.’

They were also, on Kev’s recommendation, applying for TV shows.  Their goal was to compete on ITV’s new and popular Talent Scout.

Faith’s, and Kris’s, recommendations about Kevin Light had proved correct: he had such drive, yet almost paternal concern for his acts.  He was delighted that his lazy, talent-wasting Faith had found such a wonderful team to motivate her, and he used all his trusted contacts to secure good gigs for them (he was a diplomat too, never so much as mentioning Colonel K, by now his most profitable clients, in Chantal’s earshot). 

All the Rage were anything but lazy.  Their rehearsals had become more frequent and intent.  The hairbrushes in the mirror were increasingly superseded by real microphones, at the Feel the Noize studios, which in turn replaced Justine’s bedroom as their practice room.

They also laid down six of their favourite tracks – Spice Up Your Life, Man I Feel Like a Woman, It’s Raining Men, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Only You and Whole Again – on a short demo CD at Feel the Noize, which they sold at gigs and dished out to would-be venues.

And then there were the fans.  The groupies.

Justine’s prophecy about infatuated blokes setting up lustful websites had proved rather unnervingly true.  Joe ran an official one, which was very professional-looking and, to his credit, not adoringly Faith-biased.  The photos, profiles and live dates calendar made the girls feel like pop stars.  It was stardom on a low key – at the moment – scale.

Then a spindly pervo by the name of Neville logged on, posted a lascivious entry in their guestbook, then began turning up at every gig copiously photographing the girls.  Neville later branched out by starting his own, unofficial site which was a pictorial shrine to the trio.  There were lots of worrying close-ups of their breasts – particularly, of course, Chantal’s – and crotches.

So Chantal at last realised what it was like to be slavered over by a lusting fan.  It was over a year since she’d followed Kris around – a year which had changed her beyond recognition.

A silly part of her hoped Kris might read Neville’s sicko site and rave with jealousy, the way she did over The Kult of Kris.  In her heart, though, she knew Kris had moved on to another girlfriend and forgotten her entirely.

Of course the girls weren’t polished straight away.

‘This isn’t Dirty Dancing,’ Faith sagely warned Chantal and Justine.  ‘We’re not going to achieve professional standard in the space of an ad break.’

They weren’t trained.  They had to work hard – particularly on their choreography.  In the early days, sprained ankles and stitch were regular testament to their inexperience. 

Joe videoed some of those first shows on his camcorder, and only a few months later the girls were already cringing at how clod-hopperish their dance routines looked.  These filmic records were useful, for they allowed the girls to examine – albeit through their fingers to start with – their techniques and mistakes.  Even of nights when they might have been feeling all sexy and dominant up on stage, they’d unconsciously slipped into klutzy habits like watching their feet to check they were doing the right steps.

There was an occasion when Justine slipped over.  She went arse-over-tit in a pond of lager – and, naturally, Neville was on hand with his camera poised to capture thong exposure.

Then came a time when Chantal’s dress ripped, displaying her new pink bra to a drooling pack of Wednesbury lads – and to Neville’s omnipresent lens.  Once, she’d have sobbed the night away over such a mortifying gaffe, but the new toughened  Chantal could laugh about anything.

On yet another infamous night, a punch-up erupted between rival Wolves and Baggies – Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion – fans.  The girls were terrified to get on the tiny stage, and with good reason for they became yob-targets too.  The Tampax and condoms some of the brawlers had been lobbing at each other now became missiles in a ‘let’s see how long the band can last being pelted with the toilet machine contents’ contest. 

Ten minutes, was the answer.  A fist whistled past Faith’s nose at one point, as its orange-shirted owner swung a punch at a Baggies-supporting man’s face.  The girls and Joe ducked out through the toilets, not even caring to wait for their fee.  They doubted they’d be paid for a ten-minute show in any event.  That was a petrifying evening.  But still the fun times vastly outnumbered the grim ones.

These concerts were netting them a hand spot of pocket money.  Faith was used to it, of course, but the other two loved the novelty of it.  They’d been able to stretch to more lavish than usual Christmas presents for each other and their families.

Not that they were entirely altruistic with their purchases.  Faith had taught Chantal and Justine the importance of cultivating a saleable image.  The foxy dresses in their respective favourite hues were becoming an All the Rage gimmick, and they loved having an excuse to splurge their wages on sexy clothes.  Even Justine scrubbed up well when she abandoned her Spice gear.

‘The One-Girl Spice Girls Tribute is my alter ego,’ she would explain, ‘a different image.  I keep her for the daytime.’

Chantal didn’t abandon her aspirations for an OK magazine spread.  Though it might be more likely to feature her one-bedroomed apartment and menagerie of cats than mansion shared with her sexy husband and angelic brood of bizarrely-monikered children – for one quest Chantal had abandoned was for a Kris substitute.  She’d found no chap she liked as much, despite one or two random snogs and flirtations in clubs.  The pursuit of heart-thudding romance was no longer her be-all-and-end-all.  If it happened, it happened.  Justine and Faith were all the company she needed nowadays.

She’d sacrificed past friendships for the sake of ‘love,’ and she no longer subscribed to the juvenile view that her life was incomplete without a man.

When she socialised now, it was for the sole purpose of enjoying girl-friends’ company rather than scouring for potential boyfriends.  Chaps barely featured in her thoughts; they no longer controlled her.  Chantal used to think being unattached meant being lonely, and had never realised how it could make her feel more rather than less confident.  She was independent; she could be herself without having to compromise to fit in with the plans of others.

Justine was similarly single.  She didn’t look around too much – she’d always been more focused on her hobbies and career than on sex – and the men she met tended to find her a bit too wacky.  Added to that was the fact she still wouldn’t settle for less than a David Beckham lookalike.

Faith and Joe, in contrast, were even more seriously, yuckily in love than Chantal and Kris used to be.  They were saving up for a house.  Joe was continuing to audition at radio stations, and doing less and less work in the pub as his DJ-ing started to take over.

Faith had taken him home several times to meet Ron and Pam – a privilege never extended to any of her previous squeezes.  She’d always cringed at the thought of parental introductions, feeling ashamed and cheesy.  She cringed now – but only at how ashamed she used to be of her working class origins; the semi she lived in which was so far from the glam image she liked to cultivate.

She didn’t care, though, what blemishes Joe saw – she wanted him to see, and love, the real her.  He did – and the pair of them were dementedly happy.

While Chantal’s personal life was whizzing itself into a hectic spiral, her work was plummeting new depths of tedium.  She had grown progressively sick to the proverbial back teeth with Sorrell & Genge generally and Gary and Charlotte in particular.

She wanted out.  The wages were diabolical, the company was run by out-of-their-depth incompetents, assisted by their arse-licking flunkeys, she had no friends there, and now she was earning respectable money from the gigs there was absolutely zero inducement to keep her there.

Her abundant applications for alternative employment within the secretarial field had borne no fruit.  The last thing she wanted was to reach retirement age and look back upon the remnants of a wasted life and an unremarkable career.

Moreover, although the band bookings – especially midweek ones – were mostly in the Midlands, due to work and studying commitments, the odd ones further afield were starting to filter in.  And the girls were a little hampered about accepting these offers due to their daytime ties.  Hence Chantal’s desire now to quit work.

Despite her inevitable apprehension about what her future may or may not hold now, nothing would deter her from this impulsive course of action she was plotting.  She was still determined to quit the only job she’d ever held.  She felt elated about it.  Elated tinged with terrified, but elated nonetheless.

The time had come to place her trust in the hands of Fate.  She could play it safe and remain at Sorrell & Genge until she found a new job, but that could take months – years even – every day of which would be a day she could spend earning a wage from her beloved music.

The morning she decided to tender her notice was a jittery one.  Chantal sat there eking out her coffee for an hour as she procrastinated about when best she should sail into Gary’s office and deposit her letter on to his desk, among the office toys and hypocritical forest of wife-and-kids photos.  Chantal despised this ‘I’m such a family man’ pantomime – as though Gary was too loyal and moral to dream of perving at his secretaries.

So she contemplated how best to break her news so it would cause maximum annoyance to Gary and maximum satisfaction to her.  She mentally rehearsed breezy lines a hundred times but in the end couldn’t bring herself to be too malignant. 

She rapped the door, walked in, saw this small man in his oversized chair, and wondered how the hell she’d ever been intimidated by him.  He reminded her of Ronnie Corbett about to deliver a rambling monologue.  All she could blurt out was: ‘I’ve got some news for you.  I’m leaving.’

‘Gary, if I don’t take these opportunities that are coming my way now, while I’m still young, I’ll miss the boat.’

Gary nibbled the end of his biro, watching her.  He had never heard Chantal speak so eloquently, or seen her body language so open.  She looked him square in the eye; her hands were mobile and expressive.

‘Are the other girls doing the same about their day jobs?’

‘They’re not so tied down as me.  Justine helps her folks in the pub when they need her, but they’re pretty flexible about her doing gigs and rehearsals.  And Faith’s at uni.  She graduates next year, and I know she’d quit like a shot, but Joe persuaded her to stop on and get a qualification to fall back on.  Joe’s a good influence on her.’  Chantal spoke without resentment.  She was happy and independent; content (most of the time) that she had no man to influence her – for the good or otherwise.

‘What do your parents think about your decision?’ Gary pried, thinking he was chiselling at a weak point.

‘They couldn’t be more supportive.  Six months ago, I’d have told you a different story, but now they’ve seen how much this group means to me, how I’ve gelled with the other girls.  They just want me to be happy.’

They had got their wish, if Chantal’s serene confidence was anything to go by.  Gary could tell she spoke truth, because she wasn’t defensive the way she used to be on the subject of her folks.  But he wouldn’t let up in his sneery cynicism.  ‘So you really think you three Black County wenches are going to become superstars?’

‘Well there’s been a gap in the market since Atomic Kitten split up,’ Chantal said facetiously.

Naturally, Gary saw none of her irony.  ‘And you think you’re the fillies to fill it?’

Realistically, Chantal didn’t, but she was having too much fun playing him up.

‘We’ve got as much chance as any group of hitting the big time.  We’re talented singers, got oodles of personality…’

‘I’d have thought those would be distinct disadvantages in the modern pop world,’ grunted Gary uncharitably.

‘Well, whatever, we’re going to do our best.  We’re sensible enough not to expect to be Number One tomorrow, or headlining the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.  But we’re doing OK, making money.  If we can get enough steady work to start commanding higher fees and earning a respectable living from singing, I’ll be ecstatic – even if we don’t become household names overnight.’

Thrown by the girl’s self-assurance, he resorted to pathetic, jokey tactics.  ‘How can you even think about leaving poor young Mark, though?  He’ll be gutted.’

‘He’ll get over me,’ said Chantal crisply.  This was another thing she wouldn’t miss about Sorrell & Genge: Mark’s irksome ‘love’ for her, fuelled – or fabricated – by Gary.

‘Well I think you’re being a bloody fool.’  Gary, petulant and cross, slapped down his pen so hard it ricocheted and did a little back flip across the desk.  He hadn’t succeeded in belittling Chantal – and, above all, he was going to miss having those lovely tits to goggle at all day.

His stroppy face was a comical sight.  It only made Chantal’s look more serene and lovely.

‘I don’t care what you think, Gary.  This is my Titanic moment.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You know that bit in Titanic where Kate Winslet announces that “when this ship docks,” she’s leaving with Leo rather than her snooty family and that haughty fiancé of hers?  Leo says “That’s crazy,” and she replies: “I know, it doesn’t make any sense – that’s why I trust it!”  Well I trust this.’

‘Sorry, I don’t go in for soppy bollocks like that.  Wendy dragged me to see it, but I fell asleep in me popcorn bucket.’

‘Anyway, I’m always reminded of that scene whenever I have the urge to do something impulsive.  I normally like to plan everything miles in advance – well now I feel like taking a bit of a gamble.’

Gary, admitting defeat, dropped his eyes to her letter again.  ‘Four weeks notice then,’ he read, ‘so that takes us up to – what – December the third?  So you won’t be wanting a place booking at the Christmas do?’

‘Doing a gig that night,’ Chantal said, carelessly and untruthfully, for she didn’t even yet know the date of the Christmas do – the annual schmooze- and small-talk-a-thon at the Hardwick Arms in Streetly.  The only Christmas do she cared about was the band’s, on the eighteenth of December – a charity shebang at a pub called the Ferret & Whippet in aid of Acorns Children’s Hospice.

Gary soon recovered his arsey composure.  He tossed Chantal’s letter into his in-tray.

‘Right, four weeks notice it is then.  Now I’m a busy man, Chantal, so if you don’t mind – ’  He made a ‘get out of my office’ flap with his sausagey hand. 

So that was it.  No good luck tidings; no suggestion that Gary in any way appreciated her five years of thankless service.

Just the inevitable snide cracks during the days as she served out her notice period.

‘Don’t forget us when you’re a megastar.  If things don’t work out on that front, you’ll be needing a job, and you’ll be grateful to have your old Sorrell & Genge pals to fall back on!’

Chantal enjoyed a good snigger with Faith and Justine about that one.  ‘No chance!  Not. A. Chance.  Even if I wind up unemployed and starving in some rat-infested garret, I’ll joint the queue at the Toilet Cleaner Recruitment Office before I plead with Genge for another ‘crack’ at working for his poxy firm.  Pride will never allow me to go cap in hand to that muppet as long as I live.’

Charlotte, meanwhile, treated Chantal in her last month with something that bordered, amazingly, on respect.  She didn’t totally unbend, but she stopped badgering Chantal, and actually asked interested questions about All the Rage.  Chantal sensed the girl admired her sense of ambition and adventure.

Their roles were almost reversed: Chantal was the glamorous escapee, leaving Charlotte trapped in a dead-end clerical job.  Chantal saw Charlotte for what she was, and suddenly felt no longer intimidated by her.  She wondered how she had been so for the last five-and-a-bit years.  If Charlotte was as sensational as she made out, why did she scrape a living at a cheap-jack Walsall accountancy outfit?

Chantal throbbed with glee as she levered her Renault Clio out of its tight parking spot and glided away from that detested building for the final time, on the third of December.  Even Clio would be history soon – Chantal was trading this baby in for a new Toyota Yaris on Monday.

On to the back seat were slung the insincere ‘good luck’ card and piss-takey gifts which the Sorrell & Genge mob had pooled their pennies to buy her.  A karaoke CD, a toy microphone and a lurid pink ‘rock chick’ wig from a cheapo fancy dress shop. 

Chantal had decided to depart her hated job in a low-key fashion, not bothering with a leaving party.  She gave work events a wide berth at the best of times, and couldn’t bear a shower of hypocritical back-slapping from people who had never liked her telling her how sorely she’d be missed. 

All the Rage were performing that night anyway, and afterwards they went for a curry and piss-up in Brum.  Chantal wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate in any other way.

She wore the already moulting pink wig to the Indian restaurant.  One or two folks stopped her to ask: ‘Is it your hen night, love?’

‘No,’ Chantal giggled enigmatically, ‘tonight is my first night of freedom, not my last!’

‘I’ve got some fab news, girls,’ Faith breathlessly announced in the Ferret & Whippet a fortnight later, ‘Kev rang me today.’  She was the band’s unofficial spokesgirl; since she already knew Kevin and was still looked up to as a kind of leader, it was she whom he tended to call with news and messages.

‘And…?’

The gang were bunched around a small table awaiting the complimentary meals which the pub were providing to all participants in this fundraising event.  Lard all round was in store, since the menu at this place could have been lifted straight from the Monty Python ‘spam’ sketch – though replacing the word ‘spam’ with ‘chips.’  Sausage, egg and chips; sausage, beans and chips; fish, chips and peas; scampi and chips....

When attempting to paint a picture of this boozer, two adjectives just have to be used: ‘rough’ and ‘ready.’  (Another two might be ‘spit’ and ‘sawdust.’)  The landlady – though the suffix ‘lady’ ought to be used loosely – was Brenda, who had a face like a Staffordshire bull terrier and a voice that could scour non-stick pans.

The girls were obviously grateful that said landlady was at least generous enough to feed them on the house tonight, though, ever mindful of their figures, they had hoped to eschew the grease in favour of sandwiches or toasties.  Faith got Joe (because she was too chicken to do it herself) to ask brawny Bren whether she had any jacket potatoes.

A loaded hush descended on the bar.

‘No!’ the woman barked, clearly outraged by these musicians’ poncey ideas.

‘What sandwiches do you do?’  Faith squeaked.

‘Chip ones!’

‘Chip butties it is then, please!’

‘Thanks Bren,’ Faith said boldly now as Brenda plonked a towering chip sandwich in front of each girl, while simultaneously sucking on the fag that drooped unhygienically over their food.

‘I’m never gunna manage all that!’  Chantal baulked aghast at the layers of fries and bread.

‘It’s scrummy actually,’ Faith exclaimed after slathering hers in mayonnaise and taking a voracious bite.  Faith was one of those blessed folks who could eat like an elephant without ever gaining a miligramme.

The Ferret & Whippet cuisine was surprisingly delicious, despite its less than refined presentation and the fact each meal was probably packed with more calories than a family of four’s recommended daily maximum.

‘Come on, Faith,’ Justine yelped, bouncing on her seat again, ‘don’t keep us in suspenders!  What’s Kev’s fab news?’

Faith built some drama by chewing, deliberately lingeringly, the chippy, mayonnaisey mouthful she’d just taken.  This love of putting her acting skills to use in everyday life had never left her.  Finally, she swallowed – not for the last time that night – and revealed: ‘We’ve been offered the Sandown Festival!’

There was a collective gasp and dropping of jaws.  ‘No?’

‘Yup!  The biggest event for unsigned bands in Britain – and we, me dears, are gunna be there!’

‘How did Kev manage that?’ Justine asked, still boinging away like a toddler.

‘He’s pally with the organisers, isn’t he?’  Chantal remembered this from her time with Kris.

‘Yeah.  Apparently they usually call on him to supply a few acts.  Well this time he’s put forward his two most popular at the moment: us, and, er – ’  She trailed off, very awkwardly.

Chantal had sudden trouble ingesting her sarnie bite.  In a dry throat, it became as bulky and flavourless as the old blanket she used to chew on as a baby.

‘Colonel K,’ she said, overly calmly.  ‘Colonel K are doing it, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, Chantal, I’m sorry.’

Faith and Justine exchanged anxious glances.  Their friend had been doing well for the last few months.  They thought she’d long patched up the crack in her heart, but now the ashen pallor of her face quite alarmed them.  Chantal was a tad concerned herself.  She’d had colds that endured longer than her liaison with this guy; they’d been apart now far longer than they were together – so why did he still have such a grip on her?  Could it be that Kris was that elusive figure known as The One – or had she merely constructed a kind of halo around his memory, so that his romanticised image meant more to her than his mortal self?

Well, going on this trip would, if nothing else, equip her with the answer.  It might even exorcise Kris from her system.

‘We don’t have to do it, Chantal,’ Faith said caringly, but with great effort, squeezing her friend’s manicured hand, ‘not if you don’t want to see him again.  We wouldn’t mind, would we, Just?’

Justine had never been skilful at hiding her feelings.  The tiny jiggle she made with her pigtailed head was too imperceptible to be called a ‘shake.’  Chantal couldn’t take it as a no.  It was quite obvious that Justine and Faith would mind.  Chantal would also, if she was honest.  Of course she would.  The Sandown Festival was a huge deal – they were privileged to even be offered it, especially so early on in their collective career.  They’d have to be airheads to turn it down, especially for such a petty reason as not wanting to bump into an ex-boyfriend.  Saying no could automatically class them as ungrateful and uncommitted – and jeopardise their prospects of future offers.  And Chantal would feel pretty wet knowing her girlish lovesickness was to blame.  No, she had to be professional now.  All the Rage was her hobby no longer, it was her occupation, and it must take priority.

‘When’s it taking place, Faith?’ she gulped.

‘First weekend in June, same as ever.’

So it was just over five months away yet.

That gave her almost half a year to get herself well and truly over him; even meet another chap, who was possibly twice as sexy and wonderful.  And if Kris was to take the svelte and lovely Sarah to the Isle of Wight, Chantal would be able to socialise with her civilly and not harbour any urges to push her off Sandown Pier.

Or whack her over the head with a stick of rock.

Or bury her in a mound of coloured sand.

‘I’ll do the gig.  Of course I will.  This is precisely why I gave up work.  I can’t go refusing lucrative work just because I might encounter Kristian bloody Savage.’

Faith and Justine were in instant celebratory mood.  Chantal could tell they’d genuinely worried she might decline to go. 

Justine made one their famous toasts: ‘Here’s to the Isle of Wight then!’

‘It’s slap bang in the middle of my finals, Faith sniggered, ‘but who gives a shit?  We’ll only be away the weekend – it’s not as though I miss any exams.  My lecturers can’t really do a lot, can they?  Anyway, what’s more important at the end of the day – getting a degree or following our dreams of stardom?’

Chantal got sprawlingly drunk that night, after the charity show.  She didn’t usually revel, but it was Justine’s turn to drive, and Chantal ended up disarrayed and maudlin in the furry dice-decorated Ford Ka.

‘Why couldn’t I have just waited for Kris to ssshow up that night?’ she bawled.  ‘I could have been engaged by now, instead of ssshingle and lonely!’ 

‘Now don’t start all that saft talk again, lovey,’ Justine chided, gnashing the gearstick as she changed into fifth, ‘you know that was just Kara being spiteful.’

‘New Year would have been mine and Kris’s first anniversary, you know – ’

‘Yes, I know!’  Justine signalled right into Chantal’s road, trimming the corner typically erratically.

‘If I hadn’t been such a ssshelfish, immature cow, I could have celebrated it with my fiancé!  Fiancé,’ Chantal did one of those hysterical tinkly giggles girls only seem to manage when hammered out of their heads, ‘what a strange, grown-up word that is!’

‘Mmm.’

Chantal then went off into a reverie, cocking her head and body gormlessly to one side.

Colonel K would be playing this New Year’s Eve, no doubt.  Chantal had no idea where, since she firmly avoided their website, and funnily enough had found herself struck off their gig guide mailing list.  They weren’t making a return visit to the Dilloway Club, though – she only knew this because she lived five minutes from the place and her daily route took her past its unavoidable fluorescent poster which advertised the appearance of a band called Third Bass.  So she’d have been safe going there had she no better way of celebrating January’s dawning – but the girls had a gig of their own this time.  At their special place – the Hare & Tortoise. 

What a difference a year made.  Twelve months ago, Chantal was a quiet virgin, starstruck about even talking to the great Kristian Savage.  Since then she’d set free latent talents for both singing and sex, and often had starstruck men stuttering as they talked to her.

‘But I’m just a normal girl,’ she wanted to reassure them, ‘I’m not J-Lo.  You may have just watched me up on a stage, but I’m not a star.  Yet.’  It was weird to think now what a revelation it had been to discover that Kris was similarly down to earth.

In her muzzy state, Chantal thought of Ross too.  Involuntarily, she wondered what he was doing that night – getting bladdered, no doubt, or giving some unfortunate wench one in the back of the Mondeo.

It saddened Chantal that she couldn’t seem to keep anyone.  She and Ross met, dated, shagged and split up within two months – and she hadn’t fared a fat lot better with Kris.  She tried to dismiss such unhappy thoughts, reminding herself she was no longer on the look-out.

An underlying pain remained.  Much as she tried denying this to herself, she missed having a chap to go out with and dress up for; she missed having someone to fancy her (gawpy Neville and his camera didn’t count).

She wondered incongruously whether she was abnormal for wanting more than just a casual sexual liaison.  Ross had clearly given her self-esteem more of a battering than first thought.  Her experience with him had really made her question whether it was she or he that was weird.  Were all men like him?  Would she ever find one who actually did want a serious monogamous relationship, or had she no choice but to spend the rest of her life being unsatisfied by strings of meaningless flings with blokes she barely liked?  Was there such a thing as commitment these days, or did all chaps shag around like rabbits on Viagra? 

‘Home James,’ Justine declared, breaking bumpily to a halt outside Chez Brown.  Her massive heart bled at the sight of Chantal, who made such a vulnerable drunk.  She looked completely pathetic, all smeared in mascara like a drowning drag queen, her plump thighs spread ungainly wide in the passenger seat.  ‘Come on, lovey, I’ll get you up to your room before I head home.  Don’t want you passing out on the stairs, do we?  Got your key?’

Chantal nodded catatonically, waving it.  Justine eased it from her and, not trusting her friend’s hand-to-eye co-ordination, took charge of front-door-opening duties. 

She ushered Chantal upstairs, all gentle and capable like a fireman – whereupon the girl collapsed on her bed, too leaden and insensible to remove either clothes or make-up.  Never mind, thought Justine, she can sleep in them just this once.  It wasn’t as though Faith was around, to be appalled (going to bed without the full cleanse, tone and moisturise rigmarole was heinous in her beauty-conscious eyes).

Justine parcelled Chantal up in her duvet.  ‘Get that round you, mate, it’s a bit parky tonight.’

‘Am I abnormal, Jussht?’ Chantal demanded, with boozy sibilance.  Her face, above the quilt, was like a sad little girl’s.  One mascara-drizzled eye was lopsidedly closed, as though she’d been punched.

‘Don’t be saft!’  Justine dismissed the surreal question, thinking the drink was talking far too much.

‘No, really.  Am I a snob?’  It was a topic that had bothered Chantal since her rift from Ross and resultant analysis of not only that affair but her more significant one with Kris.

Since her friend clearly needed humouring, Justine gave a more considered response – though one she doubted Chantal would remember in the morning.  ‘No – you’re an individual.  There’s nothing wrong with being a bit of a snob sometimes, if it just means having standards.  As long as you’m not snotty to folk.  And you’m certainly not snotty with me and Faith.  Now off to sleep, there’s a good wench!  I’d best be getting home.’

‘You know what, Jussht,’ Chantal slurred.

‘What?’  Justine, backing towards the bedroom door with her car keys, smiled with priestly patience.

‘Friends are more important than stinking, lowlife, lecherous, faithless men!’

‘Couldn’t agree more!’

Chantal made a feeble stab at punching the air; the spirit was willing but the arm muscles were weak.  ‘Friendsssh are for life.  Men are just for Chrisshtmas!’