‘They’ve all turned up to hear people talk about their worst days at school. As far as I remember it, school was fucking awful. If you had to live through your worst day and they only have to hear about it, in the name of entertainment, I’d say they got off lightly.’

I nod, slowly.

‘I should just hit them with it?’

‘Yeah. Pull no punches. Why the fuck should you? Why is it your fault that your worst day was that bad?’

With Karen saying that, something clicks.

‘Yes. OK. Thank you. You’re right. I’ll write it my way.’

‘Right. Glad that’s sorted. I’ve had the worst train journey of my life and when I got halfway, my mum calls to say they’ve been snowed in and to turn back round. Pile of piss.’

No one is as wedded to the using of swear words as Karen, and I include myself here.

‘Karen,’ I say. ‘Thank you. You’ve really helped.’

‘Have I? OK.’

She looks nonplussed and a little self-conscious.

I offer to make some Ovaltine, and a newfound camaraderie settles between us, until Karen screams: ‘WHY IS THAT CREEPY TERRAPIN WANDERING ABOUT, PUT IT BACK IN ITS BOX!’

When she goes up to bed, I spend an hour writing, barely pausing to take my pen from the paper. The words flood out of me.

Mrs Pemberton taught me the word for what I’m feeling. Catharsis.

Now all I have to do is find the courage to read it.

41

A stage. A microphone. A long walk to the stage. A quiet in the room that feels greater and more intimidating than any quiet in any room I’ve ever known. I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it.

I can do it. I have to prove it to myself by starting speaking. Deep breath. Jump.

‘When I first tried to prepare something for tonight’s show, I knew what my worst day at school was, without a moment’s hesitation. But I didn’t write about it. Instead I was going to tell you about the time me and my friend Jo drank a bottle of Malibu and pineapple and pierced each other’s ears with ice cubes and safety pins. Jo got a staph cocc infection, hers swelled up to the size of The BFG and I was grounded for a month. Only one of mine actually worked so I went around wearing a single large hoop, like a pirate.’

A ripple of laughter. And breathe.

‘I’ve never told anyone about my worst experience at school. Not my best friend, not my sister, not my mum, not any boyfriend, then or since. Not the counsellor I saw in my twenties. But I’m going to talk about it now.’

I glance up. I shiver when I see Lucas, standing against a wall by the bar, eyes fixed upon me with intensity. I knew he might watch, knowing the subject matter, but the confirmation gives me a thunderclap of the heart. I have no time, no space, to be more terrified.

‘It was the night of the sixth form leavers prom. I went to that do on a cloud of excitement and hormones, shoe-horned into a red dress I’d saved up for. It cost £55, which seemed a fortune at the time. I was reeking of vanilla and tonka beans, whatever they are, having snuck three large squirts from a perfume bottle in my older sister Esther’s bedroom. And I had Durex in my handbag, hidden in the zipped compartment. I bought them in a pub vending machine, and had never felt so grown up in my life. I hadn’t told anyone but I’d started seeing a boy, another pupil. We planned to stay together after the party, for the first time.’

I glance up at riveted faces and gather myself, careful not to look at Lucas this time. I see Jo, her eyes glued to me, frowning. Talking about condoms feels so personal that I question whether I should be doing this. Too late. I turn the page.

‘I wasn’t popular, exactly, at school. I was popular enough. I didn’t get picked last for netball, I wasn’t bullied, the cool kids knew my name. I felt as if popularity was something you had to work for, and rigorously maintain, and I spent every day aware of it. I clowned around when I thought it would win me approval, I didn’t always admit to knowing the answer in lessons. I made sure if I got A grades, I didn’t show off. I knew who not to cross. And I knew who I had to impress.

‘At the party, at first, it felt as if those years of striving were paying off. The most popular boy at school told me I was “fit”. He was That Boy – I’m guessing every school year has one – who carries himself like he’s Jim Morrison. He is revered and desired. His word is God. When it came to girls, he only consorted with queen bees, the handful deemed attractive enough to be worthy of him. I didn’t fancy him, and I didn’t expect him to fancy me in a million years, but I wanted his approval, above all others. Everyone did. His opinion of you could make you, or break you.

‘And he’d complimented me. This was unprecedented. This was a coronation. It was like being in a daytime soap, and being nominated for an Oscar. Then he added: You look like a high-class prozzy. “That’s your thing, right?” Everyone laughed. I laughed too, to show I wasn’t stuck up. If I laughed, I was part of the joke, not the object of it. I wanted to believe he meant I looked seductive, when in fact I knew he wasn’t paying me a compliment at all. He was making it clear I was viewed as a girl hopeful for that sort of attention, and that I was actively inviting being treated a certain way. He was saying you’re cheap, and I was enthusiastically agreeing.

‘He told me he wanted to “show me something”. When I think back to that moment, much as I wanted to believe me and this boy were friends, I knew I was being mocked. Remember those times in life, when you sense everyone is on something, and you’re not? The holding of breath while they see if you fall for it, the murmuring, the giggling they catch in the throat, so they don’t ruin the prank? It was that. Nevertheless, I said “Ooh OK …” with a stupid grin on my face, wanting them to accept me, wanting to be game Georgina who was up for anything and so, so likeable. Above all, be likeable. Never stop smiling. Keep smiling, laugh along, and you can’t go far wrong.’

The room is so still, I could hear a pin drop. I continue.

‘Onlookers outside his gang watched in envy and wonder as he led me away from the party, by the hand. A huge public gesture, being prepared to be seen with me like that. I was being anointed by the king. Georgina Horspool just got a major promotion. If he wants her, then she’s made it.’

I shuffle and turn my sheets of paper and in the now sepulchral silence, the rustling sounds painfully loud in the microphone.

‘The Boy took me into the disabled toilet. He locked us in before I really comprehended where we were, and put himself between me and the door, a smirk on his face. Suddenly, I knew I was out of my depth.

‘“What are we doing here?” I said. He pushed me roughly against the wall and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away and tried to laugh it off. I heard the noise as if it had come from someone else, strangled and false-sounding.

‘“What’s the problem?” he said. “You like me.”

‘It wasn’t a question.

‘“I do like you,” I said, quickly, because I wanted this boy to think that, and I wanted him to like me.

‘“Then what’s the problem?” he said.

‘He pushed his mouth against mine again. It was sloppy and aggressive, teeth first, and tasted of Strongbow. But he was That Boy. This was an extraordinary honour, if he wanted to kiss me. So how could I stop him?

‘Nothing in my life so far had equipped me for this. School teachers, my parents, getting on and fitting in – my experiences had taught me nice girls say yes please and thank you, we oblige people, we meet their expectations, we don’t hurt feelings or offend. We don’t say no. This boy wanted something from me, so I should reciprocate.’

I glance up again and see Jo, tears now coursing down her face, her hands gripping Clem and Rav’s on either side of her, both of whom look pale and shocked. I look away again before I catch Jo’s tears, still not able to look back to where I know a man with dark hair and dark eyes is watching me.

‘He went to kiss me again, and tugged at the front of my dress, trying to wrench me out of my bra. Fortunately the fact my dress was a size too small meant it was tight as sausage skin, and he barely moved it a centimetre. “Don’t!” I said.’ Here, my voice breaks for the first time. I swallow it down and continue.

‘But I tried to say it in a light, playful, coy way. A don’t that was supposed to translate as: Don’t, but of course DO another time, only maybe not right now, because I am a Good Girl. An instruction, that was begging.

‘“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he said. I hated myself for not succeeding in deflecting him. I was funny, cool Georgina, and I wanted to prove I could cope. I wanted it to turn out well. I didn’t want to upset him. That shouldn’t be beyond me. Yeah, what the fuck WAS wrong with me?

‘He might not have managed to pull my clothing down, but he was exposing a terrible truth. I wasn’t what I seemed. I tried to fool everyone I was this bouncy fun girl who nothing fazed. But I was inexperienced, and scared, not at all cool. I still thought that this being found out was the primary threat. I had been plunged into the psychological warfare of trying to work out how to reject him, without him thinking I’d rejected him, because rejecting him would go very badly for me. He wasn’t worried about how this story would play, but I was. He would be the storyteller.