After our last song, plus a repeat of one from the first half as an encore, I jumped off the stage and leaped into Pete’s arms, as the DJ put on some James Brown to indicate that we were done. Pete blushed crimson to the tips of his ears, but he whirled me around self-consciously and allowed me to ruffle his hair and bestow smacking kisses repeatedly on his cheeks.

‘My bro!’ I called to the watching audience, who were taking breathers from the dancing to crowd around me and the other band members. ‘My twin, believe it or not! All the way from Salisbury. Come on, Pete, let’s get to the bar. Leave your rucksack at the back of the stage, it’ll be fine.’

Pete did as he was told, nodding at Webbo, who was beginning to dismantle his borrowed drum kit. I took drinks orders from the guys and, linking arms with Pete, headed towards the bar. ‘I can’t wait for you to meet Samantha,’ I enthused. ‘You’ll love her, she’s just so cool.’

How was Pete going to react when he learned I’d become a lesbian? As far as I knew, he was still a virgin. There was something very square about him as a teenager.

As I handed him a pint – ignoring his protests – I regarded him with fondness, his tufty hair, ruddy cheeks and farm-boy jeans. You could tell a mile off he wasn’t from London.

‘Let’s go shopping tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you to Flip and we should get you some decent gear. They do awesome checked shirts and stuff; vintage, you know?’

‘Awesome checked shirts?’ he mimicked. ‘Why have you gone all American? Watching too much Cagney and Lacey are you?’

‘Samantha’s from Kansas. I spend a lot of time with her. It’s obviously rubbed off on me. Where is she, anyway?’

I looked around the bar, and then out in the garden, but there was no sign of her. While Pete went off to the loo I asked the barman if he’d seen her. ‘Pretty girl with long curly red hair. Blue-and-white spotty dress, American?’

‘Oh her,’ he said, his hand inside a tea towel rotating in a tankard. He was a mean-looking skinhead. ‘Yeah, hard to miss her. She took off about twenty minutes ago – said something had come up. You Meredith? She told me to tell you she’d see you back at the squat later, and well done.’ He said the last two words with a sneer, as if it pained him to pass on the message.

‘Oh. Thanks,’ I said, hauling myself up onto a bar stool and picking at a beer mat, until he reached forwards and removed it from my fidgeting fingers. Pete came back and joined me at the bar.

‘Samantha’s pissed off somewhere,’ I said. ‘You’ll meet her back at the sq— er … house, though.’