Do You Remember the First Time?

for a minute. ‘She always did love chips, your mum.’
    ‘Go on. It’ll be good.’
    He sighed. ‘All right, then. But if she gets annoyed at me, I’m blaming you.’
    ‘She won’t,’ I said, fervently hoping this was true.
    ‘OK. I’m picking you up here. And here …’ He held out his hand. In it was a tenner and – bliss – a top-up card for my phone.
    ‘I’ll be outside,’ he said gruffly. ‘Be careful. Don’t take any drugs.’
    ‘Darius says no to drugs,’ said Stanzi.
    ‘Good for him. And I’ll see you right here at ten thirty.’
    I sneaked a look at my Swatch. It was six p.m. The support acts, of whom there appeared to be about nine hundred,started at seven thirty. The man himself didn’t appear to be turning up for about three hours. Christ, half of this lot would be asleep by then.
    ‘This is great,’ said Stanzi.
    ‘I can’t believe people are queuing three hours early.’
    ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I wanted to come down at four, but Mama wouldn’t let me. Cow.’
    We passed one of the many stands dedicated to branding all things. Stanzi was in bliss.
    ‘Look at this!’
    ‘Who would pay twenty-five pounds for a T-shirt?’ I asked, being a sixteen-year-old version of my mother, without thinking. ‘Oh. You.’
    ‘I work hard Saturdays,’ said Stanzi. Then she picked up the baggy, cheaply made shirt. ‘Mind you – I don’t know. Do you think he’s really going to like me better in a big T-shirt than in my Zara fishnet lace tops?’
    ‘No, definitely not,’ I said. ‘And it’s going to make it harder for you to play it cool. You know, with his name and face printed on your front. Almost makes you look a bit easy to get.’
    ‘By having his picture on my front?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘My big baggy front.’
    ‘Yes.’
    She thought about this and concurred.
    ‘Come on,’ I said, as the queue inched forward infinitesimally. ‘I’ll try and scam you a beer.’
    ‘Beer is horrid.’
    I took a mad stab in the dark from remembering my own sweet tastes. ‘A Snowball, then.’
    ‘Voddy Red Bull more like.’
    ‘Oh yes. Yum.’
    From inside the booming arena came a muffled thudding.
    ‘Ohmigod! It’s starting!’ wailed Stanzi, grabbing me hard on the arm.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’ll just be the PA. They’ll be putting on some music just to cheer everything up.’
    ‘How do you know, smartie pants?’
    She was right, I thought. I might as well just get in the scheme of things.
    ‘I’m making it up to make myself look clever.’
    ‘It’s not working!’
    I stuck my tongue out at her and marched through the doors.
    We passed two girls even smaller than us, wearing Atomic Kitten-style white cheap synthetic tops and matching cowboy hats. They were carrying a big sign that said, ‘Darius – MARRY US!’
    ‘Sluts,’ said Stanzi.
    ‘Stanzi!’
    ‘Well, they look like sluts.’
    ‘So do we!’
    ‘We do not. We look like sexy, legal women of the world.’
    One of the girls turned round. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘Nothing,’ I said hastily.
    ‘God, look at those sluts,’ said the other cowboy-hatted girl.
    I grinned and wandered on.
    Stanzi was hopping from foot to foot, looking at the line snaking on round corners we couldn’t even see.
    ‘There’s too many people here! We’ll never get to the front.’
    ‘We’re bigger than most of them. I’m sure we will. Smack ’em with their own lightsticks.’
    ‘Yeah!’ said Stanzi, looking as if she was up for it.
    The vast cavern of Earls Court looked massive, partly, of course, because everyone was so small. But I hadn’t been to anything on this scale for a very long time.
    The air was heavy, weakening, with the smell of hairspray and something I couldn’t quite place. Then … yes, there it was. I didn’t know they hadn’t changed it. If anything could make me feel sixteen again, the smell of Impulse would certainly do it. I inhaled deeply, suddenly thrilled. Impulse, source of exotic dreams from the ages of fourteen to fourteen and a half, when my dad said if I didn’t stop smelling like a seraglio he was going to stop taking me to school.
    ‘Bunch of BO babies,’ said Stanzi sourly. ‘Look at them all. What did you do, sleep here last night?’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get us up the front.’
    Stanzi mutely followed me as I did my time-honoured push-to-front-of-bar, head-held-high strut. She looked at me with, I thought, new respect as I pushed my way