I spend all summer with Shane in his shed.

From then on, my toenails are always perfect. Every Sunday night I remove the week’s colour and apply a new one. Hard Cherry. Frostbite Pink. Orange Daze. Each nail is totally covered, and absolutely even. Sometimes it takes me an hour, locked in the bathroom, Mum knocking at the door as I stroke the brush over, blow, and wait.

I also buy a pink pencil skirt.

Mum calls it a ‘hobble skirt’. So tight you can’t walk, only hobble.

I buy it in the new Top Shop in Oxford. Mum pushes a twenty into my hand while we’re in C&A. ‘If you hate everything I pick, just get something yourself.’

I run straight out of C&A and I’m in Top Shop before she can breathe out.

The skirt’s cerise. The assistant tells me that means bright, shocking pink. ‘Cerise has been our biggest seller,’ she says, and I know I’ll have it.

I cradle it into the changing room. Older girls stand about in their pants and bras, looking at themselves like they’re something. I’m glad I’m wearing my pink knickers with the spaghetti straps at the sides. I like running my finger along the crease the side strap leaves indented on my hip.

The skirt is lined with shiny stuff. It sticks to my thighs in the heat of the changing room spotlights. A little pleat at the back kicks out as my legs move, flashing a slice of white calf. There’s a big pink button on each of the front pockets. I flick them against my hipbones, smile at myself in the mirror.

‘You haven’t got the arse to fill that,’ Mum says when I show her. ‘And I bet you can’t bloody wash it.’

I love it.

I arrive at Shane’s wearing the pencil skirt. A choking smell of creosote comes up from the warm wood of the shed. I think of Shane’s dad painting the walls with it, black treacly stuff dripping down his arms and onto the concrete path. Shane hasn’t seen his dad since the accident, five years ago. Derrick left before Sheila could chuck him out, Mum says. Who could bear to have him in the house after what he did? No one believes he wasn’t drunk.

Shane looks at the skirt. He looks at me in the skirt. I run my hands over the creases where the material’s tight around my thighs. He swallows and wriggles his toes.

‘It’s new,’ I say.

He nods, still staring at the skirt. Taking in every stitch. Every corpuscle of material.

‘Shall I turn around?’

He catches my eye for a moment, then ducks his head.

I turn to face the door. Spend a few moments studying a knot in the wood. Then turn back to face Shane.

He licks his big lips, says nothing.

‘Do you like it?’ I ask.

He keeps his eyes on the hem of the skirt. I wonder if he’s labelling each part in his head. Drawing a straight line and using neat capitals, like we do in Biology. HIPS. LEFT THIGH. RIGHT THIGH. NICE ARSE.