It was like she’d been unplugged from something.

It was like she’d been liberated from something.

She was still feeling out of sorts on Monday morning when she went into college for her Shakespeare tutorial. Passing her pigeonhole, she saw an envelope sticking out. She didn’t recognize the writing and it had been hand-delivered. She tore it open, expecting it to be from one of the tutors.

Hi Lana – blast from the past. You said to get in touch when I was working over here. So here I am, getting in touch. Am staying at the Collingwood Guest House on Westbourne Road. There most nights. Or the Fox and Vivian pub. Come and see me! Let’s reminisce.

See ya!

Damian Magill (Damo)

Lana stood stuck to the spot. Jesus. The builder from Belfast.

It all came flooding back. That night in Athens. A memory she’d hoped to erase, now brought sharply into focus.

‘I’m working over in Guildford later in the year! Big new shopping mall,’ he’d shouted over the music in the club.

‘Brilliant. Come and see me!’ she’d shouted back. ‘I’ll be wafting around drama school being an unbearable luvvie. I’ll need a bit of rough to remind me of my roots.’ And she’d laughed and they’d carried on dancing.

She folded the note and put it inside her pocket, disturbed by the thrill it had given her to read.

17

Catrin

They’d waited. For six weeks. They hadn’t needed to, but seeing as it was going to be Catrin’s first time, she wanted to make it memorable. ‘We’ve only really done kissing so far. And a bit of boobs an’ stuff …’ she’d written to Judith in a letter, followed swiftly by ‘don’t tell my mother’ in brackets.

‘Take as long as you like!’ Judith had written back. ‘It’s not a race. And to be honest, the whole thing’s a bit over-rated if you ask me, though I’m sure our dear Lady Lloyd would disagree!’

In the same way that Catrin approached most things in life, she built up to losing her virginity with a positive outlook and a one hundred per cent cast-iron level of preparation. Sol teased her that the amount of research she’d put into it would put an Arctic expedition to shame. But she said she just wanted all the boxes ticked, the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, so that ‘I can properly enjoy myself’. She’d been to her GP and asked to be put on the Pill, not wanting to rely entirely on condoms ‘just in case’. She took it bang on eight o’clock every morning without fail and stuck with it, even though it made her feel a bit sick at first. She wasn’t sure if this was something to do with the old Catholic guilt plaguing her for using contraception. But either way, she knew that removing the risk of getting pregnant was worth any amount of conscience attack. And anyway, she reminded herself, she wasn’t a practising Catholic any more! She couldn’t afford to buy sexy underwear, but dug out the best pair of pants she could find, and the bra that looked least tired.