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looking at me like that, Justin Clarke.’ I started to fiddle with the beer mat.
    ‘Josie, you’re looking great at the moment. Any man in his right mind would be mad to turn you down.’ He picked up his drink and took a gulp quickly.
    ‘You think?’ I was fishing for another compliment.
    ‘I mean it.’ He looked gratefully at my flat shoes. ‘But don’t wear high heels, makes me feel insignificant.’
    By the age of twelve I was five foot nine and still growing, with what seemed to me abnormally large feet. ‘I had to go to a specialist shoe shop,’ Mum would remind me. ‘Honestly, darling,’ she’d say, holding my face between her hands, ‘you are going to be lovely and tall so stop hunching those shoulders and be proud of your height.’
    ‘You are going to have such straight teeth.’
    ‘You are going to be beautiful.’
    I was always ‘going’ to be something. Thankfully I had stopped growing by now at just under six foot. Clarky was five foot ten – ‘and a half’ he liked to point out. My teeth were straighter. My feet were in proportion to my height at size nine. It was as if I had finally stopped stretching and all the bits were falling into place. I had long dark hair that was healthy and thick with a natural curl. When I was working I coiled it into a ponytail and stuck a hairpin or pen through the middle to make sure it didn’t get in the way, but long strands always strayed and fell across my eyes. They were large and grey-blue, the colour of the sky before a storm broke, my father always told me.
    ‘You’ve lost weight too,’ Clarky observed before asking me if I wanted another drink. He walked to the bar with a confident stride. He also had changed since being in Cambridge. The patterned jumpers, stiff starched shirts, and all the strict formalities imposed upon him, were things of the past now. I had finally got over my phase of thinking I was in love with him when I was just sixteen. The closer we became, the stranger it would have been to go out with each other. A best friend was much better, I’d decided. I loved talking to him and getting the male perspective. I would never trade that friendship for a love that could go wrong. Love was fragile. Friendship was for life.
    When he returned with drinks I asked him if there was anyone he liked.
    ‘Possibly,’ he told me. ‘Sandy. Might ask her out.’ He started to tell me about her but all I could think about was Finn. I wasn’t sure what he had started but I had this longing to see him again, as if we had unfinished business.
    I knew there was a reason I’d chosen to work at Momo’s, I decided. Tiana would tell me it was all part of my destiny and I was beginning to agree.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Finally the buzzer rings. I open the front door. Justin is carrying his violin and a canvas bag holding music books. ‘I’m sorry you had to miss rehearsals,’ I say.
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’ We walk into the kitchen. Rocky’s food is still on the table, along with the old blue flower-patterned breakfast plates with toast and jam on them and a couple of dirty mugs in the sink. I start to wash up manically. ‘This place looks like a Tracy Emin creation! I ought to stick a label on it, send it off to the Tate and at least make some money out of our mess.’
    Clarky steers me away from the sink. He takes off his cord jacket and hangs it neatly on the back of a chair. I sit down and then jump up again, asking if he wants a drink. ‘Thirsty? Hungry?’ I open the fridge and pinch a cold roast potato from the bowl. ‘These are so good. I love the crunchy bits. Want one?’
    ‘Cold potatoes? No, thanks. Sit down, will you?’
    ‘I’ll put the kettle on. GEORGE! Turn Kylie down! Sorry, won’t be a minute.’ I go upstairs.
    I find George in his bedroom, lying face down on the floor building a farmhouse with a windmill out of Lego. He’s so absorbed in it, ‘hyper focusing’ is what it’s called, that he doesn’t notice me coming