3

      ‘How do I look in these?’ Loveday had struggled into a pair of lime-green leggings, her face flushed and perspiring.

      Greer, sitting neatly on the edge of Loveday’s unmade bed, wondered what to say. Should she tell her friend that she looked embarrassing? That the hideous leggings were pulling at the seams and clearly revealing the revolting cellulite clinging to her thighs. Could she tell her that she needed to lose a lot of weight and learn how to dress properly? Though on the plus side – and Greer did feel slightly guilty about this – Loveday did make Greer look great by comparison.

      ‘You look like Loveday Carter,’ she managed.

      Loveday turned back to her reflection in the mirror that hung off the back of her bedroom door. ‘I like the colour. They didn’t ’ave ’em in the next size, but I’m gonna lose a bit of weight before the summer comes.’ She turned sideways and looked at herself from right and left. ‘If I put on my orange T-shirt, that’ll cover me bum.’

      Greer looked down at her own slim legs in their perfectly fitting Pepe jeans. The orange T-shirt might cover Loveday’s bottom, but it wasn’t going to disguise the two rolls of fat wobbling between the bottom edge of her bra and the elastic waist of the leggings.

      ‘There. What d’ya think?’ Loveday asked a few moments later. Greer looked up.

      She wanted to say, ‘Loveday. You look ghastly. You couldn’t be wearing a less flattering outfit. Your breasts are too big, your stomach is enormous and your derrière huge.’

      Instead, she said, ‘It’s very you.’ She stood up and smoothed her hands over her own trim derrière, brushing off imaginary flecks. Loveday was now at her dressing-table mirror. The dressing table itself was strewn with several used cotton wool balls and a large amount of ancient make-up; a cold, half-drunk cup of tea and an empty Diet Coke tin. Hanging from a glass hand with curved upright fingers were strings of gaudy beads and a worn pair of knickers.

      Greer pulled the collar of her crisp white shirt up at the nape of her neck and checked that the cuffs of her sleeves were turned back as the models in her mother’s monthly Vogue magazine did. She wanted to get out and see Jesse. ‘Come on. The boys will be waiting for us.’

      Loveday took one last look in the mirror and smacked her matte red lips together. Recently she’d been copying Madonna’s make-up, even adding the beauty spot above her lip with an eye pencil. ‘I can’t find my black pencil so I’ve used the green one. I rather like it. What do you think?’ she said, turning to Greer. ‘It shows off me green eyes, don’t it?’

      Greer blew her cheeks out and thought for a moment. ‘I think you look … unique.’

      Loveday hugged her uptight friend. ‘You are so sweet. Unique? Really?’

      ‘Really.’ Greer extricated herself from the miasma of Giorgio Armani’s Beverly Hills rip-off scent, bought in Truro’s pannier market.

      ‘And what does that mean? Sounds posh,’ bounced back Loveday, reaching for her heavily fringed and studded, stone-washed denim jacket.

      ‘It means you are a one-off.’

      *

      Jesse was first to spot the girls walking up towards the sheds. Loveday’s marmalade hair with its wash-and-wear perm gleamed in the sunshine; her beautiful body was gently undulating towards him in skin-tight green leggings, her large breasts swinging to the rhythm of the fringes on her jacket. He thought often about those breasts. Sometimes, when she wore her white T-shirt, he could see the outline of her nipples. He turned his back on the girls, feigning disinterest, and called over to Mickey, who was checking his quiff in the wing mirror of the Honda moped. ‘The girls are coming.’

      Mickey smiled in the mirror at his own cheeky face. ‘I’m going to give Loveday a night to remember.’

      ‘Oh, yeah? When’s that then?’

      ‘Tonight.’

      ‘Never. She won’t touch you with a barge pole.’

      ‘She won’t need to. I’ve got me own barge pole to touch her with.’ Mickey ducked swiftly out of reach of Jesse’s punch and together they locked the precious motorbike in its shed.

      ‘All right?’ Mickey raced to get ahead of Jesse and be first to walk by Loveday’s side.

      ‘Yeah.’ She smiled at him and, for him, the sun seemed suddenly to be shining extra bright. Then he frowned.

      ‘You’ve got something on your lip.’ He lifted a finger to wipe at the mark on her face. She grabbed his wrist before it got to her.

      ‘It’s me beauty spot. Like Madonna’s. It’s unique.’

      ‘Oh. Looks like you’ve drawn on yourself.’

      Loveday stopped and waited for Greer, who was a couple of steps behind with Jesse.

      ‘How does my beauty spot look?’

      Greer and Jesse both looked at the green blob on Loveday’s sweating lip.

      ‘Well, it’s smeared a bit,’ said Greer.

      ‘Oh shit. Badly?’

      ‘A bit.’

      Jesse looked through his pockets and found an old, dried-up tissue. ‘Shall I wipe it off for you?’ he offered.

      ‘Yes, please. Get it all off.’

      He lifted the tissue to Loveday’s mouth. ‘Spit.’

      She did so and, tenderly, he wiped all trace of the green pencil away. Standing so close to her, Jesse could sense the rise