As the number seventy-two bus pulled into the stop, Lawrence had whispered in her ear, ‘You’re special, Bessie, and so cool. I think about you before I fall asleep.’

Bessie had thought her heart might burst through her chest. Her first thought was that she couldn’t wait to tell Michelle. His wonderful admission had been almost as intoxicating as their physical act. Turning to him, she had beamed, and he had leant in with his end-of-day breath and the whiff of sweat clinging to his skin and said, ‘We should keep this between ourselves. Let’s not tell anyone.’

‘No one?’ she had questioned, wondering initially how she might keep such a thing from her friend.

‘No one.’ His eyes had bored into hers.

‘Okay.’

They made a pact and it had given her the confidence to repeat the act eight more times over the coming months. And what was the harm, if no one was ever going to find out? She and Lawrence secretly passed notes; these too sent a frisson of joy through her core. The messages were always simple, scribbled in pencil on scraps of paper – Tonight after school or Thursday at six. No need to state a venue; Bessie knew where: the garage step in the alleyway, where they would meet, giggle, and she would hurriedly kick off her underwear. For the fleeting minutes of their union, nothing in the whole wide world existed . . . She could escape, free from all the small worries that sat in her mind like tiny thorns in her shoe: Would her mum drive her dad away with her nagging? Would Bessie ever feel as confident as a girl like Melanie Hall? Would an airline want to hire her? How could she make herself prettier?

She too now thought of him before she fell asleep each night, which meant actual sleep was delayed, as she tried in vain to tamp down the explosive bomb of excitement that bounced in her gut. To be liked in that way felt wonderful. A secret! That was what they had, and the fact it was a secret gave their liaisons a whole other heightened element of joy. It was a special thing indeed between the two of them.