‘Just made a tea for Dad, do you want one?’

‘We should be making tea for you, the traveller from London. The TV star!’

‘It’s really not a big deal, it’s only work, you know?’

‘Well, everyone at work thought you were wonderful. Nice and clear, you really spoke up. Just like when you were the narrator in the nativity!’

‘Everyone…at…work?’ Oh, God.

‘Yes, Andrea found it online, we watched it on her laptop. We all had a little tea break in the staff room. Lovely trousers you had on! And you put that bossy so and so in her place!’

‘Ah, and did anyone, say anything about the…website?’

‘The what, love? They all want to know what Chuck is really like—Candace thinks he’s really handsome, and she says next time, can you get his autograph? And Andrea wants your autograph!’

Usually, I’m infuriated by my mum’s utter inability to comprehend reality. Mum could find a way to look on the bright side during a total solar eclipse. But she appears to have managed the ultimate in compartmentalising. She’s thrilled that I was on the telly—but she’s somehow been able to blank out the fact that I was talking about my sex life.

I squeeze her again, out of sheer relief, while Dad asks what’s for tea.

‘Your favourite, love!’ says Mum, and for half a second I dare to hope that she has managed to get hold of some bao buns. We have chops, chips and peas, in my honour.

As I’m on my second slice of my other ‘favourite’, Viennetta (Dad: ‘You’ll want to watch that, you’ll get porky. Men don’t like fat girls’) Mum makes a suggestion. ‘I expect you’ll be going out with Jen tonight? Early birthday celebrations?’

I shake my head. ‘She’s busy.’ Sliding a spoon across the bottom of my bowl, I scrape up the last dribble of ice cream.

‘There’s plenty more, love. Do you want another slice?’

I really don’t, and the reason there’s plenty more is that my mum hasn’t had any. She has always claimed she doesn’t ‘have a sweet tooth’, but I don’t believe her.

‘Anyway,’ Mum adds, ‘I saw Su in Tesco and she said Jen was going to the Wheatsheaf tonight, with that other girl from school, Leanne.’

‘Oh. Right.’ The shock hits my body, before it hits my brain. Leanne. Pain pulses in the pit of my stomach. I will not cry.

‘In fact,’ says Mum, beaming, ‘here’s a tenner, buy a round on us! I want you to celebrate your big success.’ She’s reaching into her pocket. I know that she’s in no position to give it—any more than I’m in any position not to take it.