Slowly, he reached up and flipped a clasp behind his shiny, silver ear. The mask popped open and, all of a sudden, I was face to face with a teenage boy. He had blue eyes and blond hair and a scattering of acne on his left cheek. Above his top lip was the slightest hint of a wisp of a moustache and it took all my self-control not to lick my thumb and rub it right off his face.

‘You can call me Max, if you want to,’ he said with a shy smile.

‘This is all very sweet but can we get this show on the road?’ Veronica called as Max snapped the mask back shut. ‘They won’t let me smoke in here and I haven’t had a cigarette in twenty-three minutes. If I don’t get one soon, everyone’s going to look as rough as you.’

I looked into the robot’s face, hoping I was making eye contact with Max. I’d done the best I could but he was either going to do it or he wasn’t, it was like trying to explain a logical decision to a cat.

‘OK. So that’s that. Now, I’m going to make sure everything is where it needs to be on stage,’ I told Veronica while Max pulled a tiny gaming device out from behind his back and started zapping things, seemingly happy for the moment. ‘It’s all fine.’

Stepping through the curtains into the empty arena, I gazed out at the rows and rows of empty chairs. It was such a lot to put on a child, I couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling.

‘He’ll be fine,’ I muttered to the empty room, trying to convince myself. ‘He’ll be absolutely fine.’

On the third row from the front, I saw four white pieces of paper with my name on them. The seats I’d reserved from Adrian, Lucy, Sumi and Patrick.

‘Lucy will appreciate the extra room,’ I whispered, nodding mechanically. This wasn’t the time for my breakdown. That would come after the podcast. And Mum and Dad’s ceremony. And the reception. And lunch with the family on Sunday. But it would have to be before work the next day. So early hours of Monday morning. Perfect scheduling.

Before I had a chance to laugh in my own face, the security doors at the back of the room opened and people began to pour into the arena, racing to snag seats right at the front. Before they could see me, in all my torn-shirt glory, I slipped back through the red velvet curtains, grabbing a Snazzlechuff Says T-shirt as I went.

‘Five minutes to showtime,’ I told everyone as I skipped across the room. ‘Looks like you’ve got some very excited fans out there. Everyone’s going to love it.’

As I slipped into the backstage bathroom, I really hoped I was right.