‘No, Larn, I don’t think so, do you?’

‘Just hear me out,’ Lana’d said, unfazed by her response. ‘You can’t stay at your mother’s, you’ll go insane. Me and Cat are worried about you.’

‘I’m fine,’ Judith nodded. She obviously wasn’t.

‘And anyway, I’ve already asked Gar and he’s cool with it.’

This wasn’t strictly true. When Lana had first asked him, he’d refused outright. ‘You’re kiddin’, aren’ you?’

‘But she’s one of my—’

‘Even if she is your best friend. I mean, what happens when you come home for the weekend and I want to … y’know?’

‘Shag me up against the bathroom wall wearing nothing but my black stilettos? Me, that is, not you.’

‘Well yeah, that kinda thing.’

‘We’ll stick a lock on the door!’

‘No, sorry, Larn. I just couldn’t handle it.’

So she’d left it a couple of days and then resorted to emotional blackmail. She knew she’d have to play her trump card and aim for his Achilles heel: Gareth had not had a great upbringing himself. He and his sister had been pretty much raised by their grandparents, their mother being ‘otherwise occupied’ and their dad never having been on the scene.

‘Thing is, you’ll know more than anyone what it feels like to be rejected,’ she’d said earnestly one evening during an overnight visit, persuasively stroking his arm as they lay in her single student bed. He paused. And in that pause she knew she’d won.

‘Oh for God’s sake, OK!’ he’d finally relented. ‘But she’ll have to pay me something – and I can’t be feeding her as well.’

‘Well, I can’t pay him much,’ Judith had said to Lana when she’d reluctantly agreed.

‘I know!’

‘Sorry if I sound ungrateful. It’s just, y’know, me and Gareth, we’re … well, we’re not exactly each other’s cup of tea. And at least at Patricia’s I don’t pay rent.’

‘Oh, it’ll be fine. You’ll both be at work in the day, doin’ your own thing at night – you’ll hardly see each other.’

However, despite Lana’s optimistic outlook, she did wonder if she’d made a terrible mistake. After all, Judith was right. She and Gareth weren’t each other’s cup of tea. Judith thought he was a bit common (even though she denied it) and Gareth thought she was a bit up herself.

So the weekend that Judith moved in, Lana had come home, just to smooth things over as the new flatmates grew accustomed to each other. The atmosphere was far from harmonious: Judith and Gareth barely spoke to one another or remained in the same room for more than a couple of minutes, and Lana found herself overcompensating with hysterical, meaningless conversation. It was then that she had the lightbulb moment.

Lana had never played pool in her life, but both Judith and Gareth were top-notch players, Judith having been taught to play by George and Gareth having learnt from his granddad. So the night before Lana headed back to Guildford she suggested a game in the Coach and Horses. At first they both said no, so Lana goaded Gareth that he was scared of being beaten by a woman, and teased Judith that she’d probably forgotten how to play. Their innate competitiveness saved the day. After six games, Lana was yawning with boredom and declared the tournament a draw, grateful to get out of the dingy, smoky pool room, but even more grateful that the two new flatmates seemed to have found some common ground and developed a grudging tolerance of one other.