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already pointing out a slightly overweight woman with a sensible haircut who was trying to push her way back through the shop, managing to convey how furious she was at the standard lamp in her hand, and deliberately kicking out at trolleys.
    ‘Couples shouldn’t really talk about “going to Ikea”,’ said Arthur. ‘They shouldn’t even say, “Hey – let’s go to Ikea!” They should just say, “Hey – let’s have a fight!”’
    ‘Well, I think it’s rather sweet,’ said Siobhan. ‘I used to love it when Patrick and I came here.’
    Everyone stood and stared at her. She shrugged. ‘You are all just immature.’
    Two hours later in the lighting section, all jollity had gone. One man Ellie could see from her vantage point, hidden behind a desk unit, was actually crying.
    Siobhan was marching Arthur round the bathroom cabinets for the fifteenth time.
    ‘For the fifteenth time,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s horrible. It’s all horrible, and this is it put up properly. You and Patrick make tons of money between you. Why don’t you just use some of the stuff you import?’
    ‘Because it’s made out of gold.’
    ‘Anyway, it’s only bathrooms,’ said Julia.
    ‘Yes, only somewhere where you spend the most intimate times of your life. With this rubbish.’
    ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Siobhan, getting red and hot and agitated. ‘Stop being such a poseur. It’s only some fucking bathroom shelves.’
    ‘Shit!’ said Julia. ‘I forgot Loxy’s shelving!’
    She tried to turn the trolley around. They were completely trapped. Ellie groaned loudly as they backed up four hundred people around the shop; people who showed their horror at this transgression by muttering very loudly and immediately falling out with the person they were with.
    ‘Sorry!’ Julia was saying. It was suddenly about 200 degrees in the store.
    ‘Why don’t we just cut our losses?’ said Arthur. ‘Dump the trolley and run like hell.’
    ‘God, this place drives me crazy,’ yelled Elliesuddenly. ‘I think it’s some sinister rat/maze type experiment. Giant creatures are peering in through the corrugated roof, making notes on us.’
    She looked at the crowds, backing up like panic-buyers at a petrol pump.
    ‘There’s no way back,’ she said suddenly, in horror, staring around her and breathing hard. ‘There is no way back. Don’t you see? Guys, don’t you SEE?’
    They all looked at her.
    ‘We’re on a one way trek through Ikea. This is it. This is our lives. There’s no way back.’
    ‘Ehm … are you freaking out?’ said Arthur, as Julia manoeuvred herself out of position. Ellie was still fixed to the spot and staring straight ahead.
    She thought about it. ‘Yes. YES I AM.’ And she stormed off against the flow of traffic, leaving a chorus of disgruntled middle class tutting in her wake.
    Ellie sat in the car park, thinking furiously. That was it. She was getting off this track right now. The poster in her bedroom came back to her. All those dreams. All those teenage nights. For what? Andrew had disappeared. Emilio; Judd; Anthony. All gone. ‘I’m disappearing too,’ she thought to herself, sadly. ‘I’m getting older, and giving up and fading into the background. And if I don’t run away now, then I’llrun away to Plockton in twenty years and that really will be a disaster.’
    By the time her friends finally emerged ninety minutes later, red-faced and cursing, she had it all figured out.
    ‘Okay, everyone pay attention to me,’ announced Ellie loudly.
    ‘Well, that will be a new experience for us all,’ said Siobhan.
    It was the following Monday night. Ellie had summoned everyone to a council of war round at her flat, much to Big Bastard’s disgust. She had been putting out bowls of crisps when he’d grunted, ‘I’m going to the pub. All your friends are morons.’
    ‘Okay, no, hang on, why are my friends morons when your friends moon out of the back of coaches every week and think it’s always