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I’m mysterious.’ She sat on Carol’s bed. ‘Your mum says she’ll bring up coffee and biscuits.’
    Carol’s mum was Nell’s idea of a perfect mum. She was pretty and always cheery. ‘Carol’s in her room, love. Just pop up. I’ll bring you coffee in a while,’ she’d said. It always touched Nell somewhere in the depths of her to be treated so affectionately. There was no tenderness in her own home. In the evenings, they watched television in silence. Then, at half-past ten her mother would make a pot of tea and bring it through to the living room. After that, and after the cups had been washed and put away, it was bedtime. Fire tamped down, lights out and upstairs they all went. Nell would lie in bed, blankets over her head and listen to Radio Luxemburg. It was her favourite time of day – her dreaming time – listening to songs on the radio.
    ‘And what do you say,’ asked Carol, ‘when men think you’re French?’
    Nell was sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her. ‘I don’t say anything. If I did they’d find out I’m not French and I’m not mysterious at all. They’d find out that I’m just me.’
    ‘So what do you do if you don’t speak?’
    ‘I have this little smile. Took ages to get it right. But I look sort of pleased and knowing.’ She demonstrated the smile.
    ‘Great smile,’ said Carol. ‘I don’t know why you do it, though. What’s wrong with being you?’
    ‘I need to be more than just me,’ said Nell. ‘Being me isn’t enough.’ She turned to gaze at herself in the dresser mirror, and did the smile again. When she turned back, Carol had hitched up her skirt and was running gentle fingers down a row of savage blisters on her legs.
    ‘Jesus, your legs are all burned,’ Nell looked at them in horror.
    ‘I did it in the bath. The blisters on my bum are the worst. Johnny held me in while he kept the hot tap on. I didn’t feel it at the time on account of being drunk on gin. Didn’t work.’
    ‘Didn’t you use anything, you know, when the pair of you … you know?’
    ‘Johnny won’t. He says it spoils it. It’s like washing your feet with your socks on.’
    Nell said that was plain stupid. ‘You can’t take chances.’
    ‘I’ve tried everything,’ said Carol. ‘I’ve been lifting heavy boxes at work. I’ve jumped off park benches. Then last night, in Johnny’s house, I sat in a boiling hot bath drinking gin. I drank almost a whole bottle. And I was so drunk and hot I couldn’t get out of the bath. My head was pounding. I was in that bath for two hours. Burned my legs it was so hot.’
    ‘Carol, that’s awful.’ Nell was glad this wasn’t happening to her.
    ‘So,’ said Carol, ‘I was crying and crying and screaming out. But Johnny kept telling me to stay put while he added more hot water. Then, when I did get out, all blistered and drunk and crying, I had to clean up the bathroom. It was all steamy. My hair went lank and my mascara ran. After that we had to drive about with the roof down in his car, so I’d sober up. It was freezing… And I’m still up the spout!’
    ‘So now what are you going to do?’
    They heard the soft fall of Carol’s mum’s footsteps coming up the stairs with a tray of coffee and biscuits. Carol pulled her skirt down, jerked her head in the direction of the door. Time to shut up.
    Mrs Anderson shoved the door open with her hip, stepped into the room and looked at the two. ‘Guilty faces. What have you two been doing?’
    In unison they answered, ‘Nothing.’
    Nell took the tray, as it would have been painful for Carol to stand up, and set it on the floor. She desperately wanted Mrs Anderson to go away; she was, after all, in the middle of the most fascinating conversation of her life. Mrs Anderson obliged, but the two remained silent, staring at one another, bursting to talk, until they heard the living room door downstairs shut.
    Carol leaned forward, whispered, ‘I’m going to see this man