Not just for CHRISTMAS

Four years ago, I started to lie to her

I feel forgotten. Obliterated

Hello, anyone at home?’

I recognise my best friend’s voice, of course. Diane and I have been besties for 33 years. We met on our first day at the local comprehensive. Thrown together through a lottery of names, we stayed together because we made each other laugh until we felt sick. Even now. Sometimes.

She has a key to my house and has let herself in. I hear her drop her handbag on the hall floor. I know her habits as well as my own. Next, she’ll hang her long, multicoloured scarf on the banister (it makes her look eccentric, which she likes), she’ll shrug out of her bulky coat, throw that over the banister, too, then she’ll walk into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

She’ll talk to me throughout, yelling up the stairs, assuming I’m in the loo. I have about three minutes or else she’ll come up and start banging on the bathroom door asking if I have an upset tummy. We don’t have many boundaries.

I push the duvet off my body and force myself to sit up, perching on the side of the bed, I quickly turn my head upside down and then speedily slap my face.

This is the nearest I get to a beauty routine nowadays.

I hope my hair might have a bit of body and my face a bit of