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down, but then I saw how muchthey were offering me: £21,500 plus a performance-related bonus. That stopped me dead. It was enough to run my own car, something nice too. I might even insure it.
    Only it was a complete betrayal of everything I believed in. I’d be working for the enemy. I’d be one of them. Or would I? Maybe I could subvert the company from the inside and wreck their plan. No, it was a ridiculous idea. I either worked for them or I didn’t, and if I worked for them it meant becoming part of everything I hated. On the other hand, there were my catalogue bills, which were getting well out of hand, and Mum kept hinting that it was time I started paying something towards the house.
    Maybe I could keep the job for just a few months, enough to get some money in my pocket and enough experience to let me move onto something else, something that paid OK but didn’t compromise my principles, or rather, my lack of principles. Turning down the job wasn’t going to stop the cameras going up anyway, and with me on the inside at least I could make sure everyone knew what was going on.
    That had to be the best choice, surely? I was still feeling intensely guilty as I wrote out a letter of acceptance with Mum peering over my shoulder, a sensation that reached a peak as I pushed my envelope into the postbox at the end of the road. I’d done it, sold my soul in a way I’d told myself I would never do, had never even imagined myself doing. Me, Fizz, who’d always said that working as a check-out girl or flipping burgers was selling out, and I was a Management Support Operative with a security company. How was I going to tell my friends? What was I going to say to the girls in the band?
    Not that there was much of a band, at least, not one with anywhere to play. Having been kicked out of the Dog and Duck there was nowhere closer than Thetford who were going to book us, let alone pay. Rubber Dollies was dead, to all intents and purposes, except possibly for winding up Josie’s neighbours. In was no surprise either, because the council had had it in for us from the start, objecting to everything from the noise to us taking our tops off, as well as the general mayhem that tended to follow our gigs. Still, we’d never compromised, which was something.
    I was going to have to tell Josie and Sam and as many other people as I could before they started talking about me behind my back, which was inevitable. It was tempting to put it off until after the weekend, but I was supposed to start work on the Monday and there really wouldn’t be time. I had to get it over with and hope they’d realise that it was better to have me on the inside than somebody else.
    As I walked over to Josie’s I was dragging my feet, and the moment I saw her I was wondering if I could go through with it. She was outside the garage, messing about with her bike, in tatty jeans and a leather jacket, shades pushed up on top of her head and a cigarette sticking out from the side of black-painted lips. I hadn’t seen her since the night at the Dog and Duck, and when we’d spoken on the phone I’d avoided any mention of my change of look. Inevitably it was the first thing she commented on.
    â€˜Shit, Fizz, what’s with the hair? You look . . . I don’t know, like something out of one of those weird adverts where they drink bacteria.’
    â€˜Thanks, Josie, you’re looking good too.’
    I bent to kiss her, triggering the usual contradictoryemotions as her lips touched mine. However much I tried to treat her like any other friend it was impossible to forget that she preferred girls to men.
    â€˜I hear you’ve been to France. Got any vodka for me?’
    â€˜Yeah, but everything’s with Steve. Look . . .’
    â€˜Great. Could you hold the bike while I sort this?’
    I wasn’t really dressed for oily motorbikes but I helped steady the thing while she