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bolted some widget or other back onto the engine. She was completely absorbed in what she was doing and I waited until she’d finished, only for her to speak before I did.
    â€˜I have got the best gig lined up, at the Yankee airbase at Hockwold.’
    â€˜You are joking? How did you pull that one off?’
    â€˜Easy. Sam’s knobbing a fly-boy.’
    â€˜When did this happen?’
    â€˜After you fucked off with that council guy’s car. We were all out in the street, and him and his mates came past. She stuck her thumb out, climbed on the lap of the one she liked best and now they’re an item.’
    â€˜OK, so when’s the gig?’
    â€˜Saturday week. You have to do something about your hair though, Fizz.’
    â€˜Never mind my hair. I let my mum do it so I could go to a job interview. You know she’s always nagging me, only . . . only this time I got the job.’
    â€˜Cool. How much?’
    â€˜Twenty-one K.’
    â€˜Fuck me! What are you doing?’
    â€˜Oh, it’s this new firm on the Hereward Trading Estate. They do security, that sort of stuff.’
    â€˜Cool. You’ll be able to get a new kit, yeah?’
    â€˜Yes. I was thinking of a car.’
    â€˜Get a bike and a van. That way you can ride with me and we won’t need Steve to haul our gear everywhere.’
    â€˜That’s a thought.’
    I’d meant to tell her more, but she didn’t seem bothered and I decided to put it off, perhaps until the cameras started to go up. She’d been peering at the innards of the bike, then gave a satisfied nod and began to wipe her fingers on an already oily rag before she spoke again.
    â€˜So what’re you doing tonight?’
    â€˜Going out, I suppose. I’ve got some money from the booze cruise.’
    It was, maybe, my last chance for a really wild night out. From Monday I’d be working, and if the cameras went up I was going to have to be on my best behaviour. As I put the first ice-cold mix to my lips in Buzz Shack I was wondering what I could possibly do to top all the nights before. The only trouble was, it felt forced. Everything I’d ever done had been spontaneous, never planned, always the result of an on-the-spot, generally alcohol-fuelled decision. Now nothing seemed right; either childish, or tame, or not worth the risk. I was still thinking about it, brooding really, and had begun to play with my bottle on the bar top and pick bits off the corners of the label when a voice sounded from directly behind me.
    â€˜Felicity?’
    I nearly fell off my bar stool. Nobody calls me Felicity, except Mum, and the voice was very definitely male, deep and gravelly, also familiar. Sure enough, there was Stephen English, looking faintly surprised in a smart pale-grey suit with a tie to match. Quite a fewof my friends were around, and I found myself struggling for a suitable remark. He got in first.
    â€˜So it
is
you. I thought I saw you through the window. I’m a bit surprised to see you here.’
    â€˜I, um . . . well, you know, just dropped in for a drink. Er . . . would you like one?’
    Somehow I was very sure he didn’t drink premixed vodka and lime, let alone use the condensation on the bottle to wet the label and pick little bits off. I found myself blushing, then realised and my cheeks were getting hotter still as he glanced around the bar. Everybody was looking at us, including Pete, who’d already been flirting with me, and Dave Shaw, and what suddenly seemed like everybody I knew or had known in the last twenty years. Finally Stephen English decided to answer me.
    â€˜Not here, perhaps, but would you care to join me at Cuatro Cortado?’
    It was a tapas bar at the other end of the High Street, Mum’s favourite watering hole and not a place I’d normally be seen dead in, but at that moment I’d cheerfully have joined him at Croxton Landfill Site if