And when they’d decided to see Lana in her show, Sol had booked a room at the Collingwood Guest House in Guildford, run by the ultra-efficient Mrs Daniels.

‘I’ve given you the Sid James suite!’ she announced as she showed them to their room. ‘Named after Sid James. Carry On? All my rooms are named after famous Carry On actors. I find it makes people feel special. Breakfast is eight till ten, no dogs, no curries, and please limit use of the toilet flush to once during the night. Enjoy!’ And she’d opened the door to the Sid James suite with a flourish, standing back to let them pass and shutting it behind them.

They stood for a few moments till they heard the creak of the stairs as Mrs Daniels withdrew, then fell on to the bed, laughing.

Eventually they stopped, turned and looked at each other. Neither saying anything, both thinking the same.

‘Shall we get it over with?’ whispered Catrin.

‘You’re such a romantic,’ he smiled back, running his finger along her cheek.

‘You know what I mean … I just don’t want to make it a thing.’

‘D’you mean you want it to be …’ and he started kissing her neck, ‘… uneventful?’

Catrin giggled. ‘No, but just, y’know …’

‘No?’ The kisses went lower, and her breathing speeded up. Sensations she’d never felt before began flooding through her entire body. Did she feel sick? Or dizzy? What did she feel, exactly?

‘I’m scared, to be honest, Sol.’

He stopped for a moment, hid his face in the crook of her neck and whispered, ‘Would it help at all to know that it’s my first time too?’

She sat bolt upright in the bed.

‘Is it? But you never said!’

‘Well, you never asked.’ He smiled back awkwardly. ‘And I wanted you to think I knew what I was doing – like, the guy is meant to know, isn’t he …? And I’m half Jamaican! I’m meant to be cool … but in truth, I haven’t the first idea.’

‘Oh, well that makes me feel loads better!’ She beamed, as if she’d just solved a complicated puzzle. ‘’Cos if I get it wrong you’ll be none the wiser, and the same goes for me!’

‘Great!’ Sol laughed. ‘So let’s both mess it up together!’ And they kissed and laughed some more. And then stopped laughing and just kissed. And then … did everything. Apart from mess it up.

18

Lana

She’d spent the whole day thinking about the note. And it had distracted her. To such an extent that her Shakespeare tutor had had to take her to one side in the sonnet class and ask if everything was all right.

‘Yeah, fine,’ she’d lied, ‘just winding down after Guys and Dolls, y’know.’

‘Look, Lana, we may be near the end of term,’ said the tutor, ‘but you’ve still got a fully timetabled fortnight of classes, remember. You’re not in school any more, we don’t wind down. So concentrate and start again.’