Chapter Two

My friend Charlene is the poshest girl I’ve ever known. Her father is a bank manager and her mother has a genuine Liz Claiborne handbag. We first met when my mam enrolled me in Brownies when I was six. Once a week we’d meet up at the school hall and do our best to pretend that we were upstanding and conscientious girls. The Brownie phase was over by the time I turned ten, but my friendship with Charlene endured.

I wish I was more like her, and almost always tried to be. It wasn’t just her fancy clothes or stylish perm that made her classy. Her accent was dead posh too, and that was the thing I tried hardest to emulate. I was never going to live at Buckingham Palace, but I could at least pretend that I did.

My friend Gill didn’t give a hoot about sounding posh. Accents didn’t matter in reform school, and Gill would know. She’d been sent down twice before – once for joyriding in a stolen car and again for shoplifting a few months later.

To her credit, she’s stayed out of trouble for a while now. Once we turned eighteen, the threat of a stint in Borstal no longer applied. Riding in stolen cars with boys would now earn her a stint in proper jail, and not even Gill was that tough.

She pulled her head in and signed up for a secretarial course at the local college, and after failing twice, she was finally gearing up to graduate. That was the reason for tonight’s celebration. The three of us met up at one of our usual haunts – the playground at the nursery school on Grove Road.

Gill was there when I arrived, dragging her Doc Martins through the dirt as she slowly spun on the roundabout.

“Hiya. You alright?”

She lifted her head and smiled. “Better than alright.” She waved something at me. “I just found 50p in the sand. Rich little bastards at this school.”

I giggled my way over to the swing. “Keep digging. I have a honeymoon to pay for.”

Gill grimaced at the reminder. “A waste of time and money,” she muttered.

To her, getting married at twenty was the most ridiculous idea on earth. No matter how many times I defended the decision, I never managed to convince her otherwise. There wasn’t time to try today. Charlene appeared, tottering across the yard in her white stilettos carrying a big green bottle.

“About bloody time,” said Gill, jumping to her feet. “A girl could die of thirst.”

“You each owe me 30p,” replied Charlene, handing it to her.

Green Totty Cider was hardly top shelf, but we were skint and it was cheap.

The bottle hissed as Gill twisted the lid. “Last of the big spenders, aren’t we?”

Spending Saturday nights drinking in the playground in summer was nothing out of the ordinary for us. As far as behaviour went, it was as top shelf as our drink of choice, but old habits are hard to break.

“Do you think we’ll still come here when I’m married?” I asked. “It’s probably not the done thing, right?”

I directed the question at Charlene, but Gill jumped in. “As if Andrew will care,” she scoffed. “Where is he tonight anyway?”

“Stretford,” I replied. “With Trevor.”

She handed me the bottle. “Ugh! Bloody Trevor.”

“Have you seen him lately?” asked Charlene. “He has a moustache now. It looks like a giant bat flew up his nose.”

“It’s his Magnum P.I. look,” said Gill, cackling.

Trevor Hillman – and blokes like him – were the main reason we stayed out of the pubs on a Saturday night. He was a creep. He also happened to be my fiancé’s best mate.

“He’s going to be best man at my wedding.” I pulled a face, slightly horrified by the prospect.

Charlene sat down next to Gill on the roundabout, seemingly oblivious that her pristine white stilettos were digging into the sand. “Make sure he gets rid of the ‘tache.”

Gill leaned, taking the bottle from my grasp. “Just call it all off.” She threw her head back and took a giant gulp before speaking again. “Getting married is stupid.”

More than once, I’d wondered if her negativity stemmed from jealousy. I had a lot to be envious of, and for the first time ever, I called her out on it.

“You think I’m jealous?” she asked, eyes wide. “I think you’re a knob for even considering it. You’re throwing your whole life away.”

“I love him, Gill.”

“Love is overrated,” she shot back.

“Maybe you’ve just never been in love,” suggested Charlene.

Gill handed her the bottle of cider. “Tell me what it’s like then,” she demanded. “What’s the big fuss about?”

Charlene looked across at me, rapidly blinking as if she had sand in her eye. “I don’t know what it’s like,” she admitted. “I’ve never been in love either.”

I wasn’t good with words, but I liked them. I grabbed my bag and reached for the tatty Mills and Boon novel that I kept hidden in the side pocket.

I thumbed through to the chapter I was looking for and geared up to enlighten them both. “At that moment, Perdita knew that Mario was the only man she’d want for the rest of her life,” I read out loud. “As she looked into his chestnut brown eyes, her heart began thumping. Her body trembled, overcome with pure wanton desire.”

“What the flippin’ ’eck is wanton desire?” interrupted Gill. “And Perdita is a naff name.”

Charlene bumped her with her shoulder. “Shut up and let her read.”

I cleared my throat and continued. “Mario leaned closer, touching his warm lips to Perdita’s ear. ‘I must go,’ he breathed. ‘But when you hear the cold wind howling in the distance, know that it is I, whispering your name.’”

Gill groaned as if her belly hurt. Charlene stretched the bottom of her grey knitted dress to cover her knees. “That was lovely, Fi,” she praised, almost sincerely. “Is that how you feel about Andrew?”

I felt my shoulders sag as I silently answered her question. The only thing that ever made my body tremble was cheap Green Totty Cider. But I was a realist. My mother had told me a hundred times that life is not a fairy-tale.

I wasn’t Princess Di. There was no Prince Charles on my horizon. My prince was an apprentice bricklayer from Denton.

Andrew was no wind-whispering Mario, but he was real and he was good and he loved me. That had to be enough.

Never drinking again. Cider is poison. Threw up in the pot plant near the door on the way in.

Charl is in worse shape. Gill asked her if she felt ok and Charl told her to sod off. Charlene never says sod off.

Book of the week: My Darling Lover

Honeymoon fund: £63.20