I have a ‘life meeting’ with Roz in the pub after mum’s. It is only ten minutes walk from hers to The Goose (the only pub I can still afford to drink at), but after an afternoon of being steadily infuriated, by the time I this short hike is done my tongue is practically hanging out of my mouth in desperation for a gin and tonic. It is five pm - this cannot be healthy. I think I am beyond caring. Roz is late, as usual, but I am not too bothered. I have Heat magazine and the prospect of booze. So long as there is a booth that doesn’t reek too horrendously of piss and is well away from the old Glaswegian men with gold teeth that offer to buy me ale, I am sure I will be OK.
"Double gin and diet tonic please,"
"Ice and lemon in that?"
"Lime please," she gives me a look that says ‘you are a posh bitch aren’t you, if you weren’t watching me making this I would be spitting into it.’ I don’t care though. If no one has trained this girl well enough to know that gin means lime she can piss off with her pretty little nose stuffed up the boss’s pretty big arse. "That’s two seventy-nine then." A bargain, I love The Goose. I can live with the piss and even with the rudeness with booze this cheap. "Thanks."

I wonder round to the back section where the pool table is and the Middlesex performing arts students hang out, as well as a handful of the less well off Mountview first years, discussing sexual politics. I remember being classed as sexually Conservative because I preferred doing it with those I loved and because I’d screwed an Argentinean. Roz got sexually Green because she hardly ever managed to remember to use condoms and therefore was technically saving the environment from the hazard of dirty latex. I remember pointing out that the morning after pill was probably tested on animals and therefore Roz was not the planet friendly sexer that she seemed. However Darren, (sexual Lib Dem on account of his bi-sexuality and the fact he said he would do Charles Kennedy providing they were both drunk - we reminded him that both he and Charles Kennedy were always drunk, he shrugged and said, ‘well, looks like I’ll be doing Charlie boy’) said that Roz was definitely Green, despite and because of my protestations, on account of her hypocritical and confused ethics. Fran had been our Labour representative because she would sleep with anyone who bought her red roses, and Raj was Monster Raving Looney because he didn’t believe in sex before marriage. The drama school days.
Darren is now swing in Footloose, Raj has got himself a role in Holby City, lucky bastard, Fran decided to get married to a banker ten years her senior and is now pregnant. She spends a lot of time with the Muswell Hill mums having coffee. As for Roz and I? Well we are still coming to The Goose on Sunday nights and working front of house; although for different reasons. Roz is rich. She is having her time out I reckon before finding her way into an unhappy marriage with some fat Lord; Roz herself is not as skinny as she might be, though I am not one to talk. I on the other hand, am poor and not really suitable for any commercial shows and the other stuff is dead hard to get into when your agent is an emotional mess. And I am thinking about the fact that I should probably search for a new agent when Roz walks in.

"Right, I am sooo sorry I am late, I got a call from daddy on the way out of the flat, and of course I just had to take it. He thinks Pudding is ill again, I told him that Pudding being off her food is not an abnormal thing when he does insist on changing her diet so often. He said that the damned dog couldn’t go on living on lamb-chops, I said look daddy, you know Pudding as well as I, and the day she stops eating better than you do daddy, is the day you both die. I mean honestly. My Pudding just cannot stand for less. Oh and then of course I had forgotten my wallet darling so I had to go back." "No worries."
"Oh, you have a drink, great, well I am just going to go and grab one." I watch her go to the bar, start talking to everyone around her, manage to work her way to the front of the queue without seeming rude, and secure a free gin and tonic with automatic lime while avoiding the left hand of her bum-pinching drink buyer. She returns boldly, slides into the booth with me, and continues from where she left off. "I think am dying Angie, no joke, I am sure of it. I mean look at this, she stretches her arms out in front of her, "does this arm look bigger than this one to you? I am serious, I am sure it is swollen, I think I have that long distance fliers illness,"
"Thrombosis,"
"Yes, I think I have that, it is definitely swollen."
"Have you been on any flights?"
"No, But then I was on the train a very long time the other day some selfish bastard had killed themselves between Vauxhall and Clapham. Of all the things!"
"Yes,"
"And the other day, I was on the bus and my chest went all funny. I swear, I had to breathe into a brown paper bag, it was so lucky I had been at the supermarket and had bought some mushrooms. But I was shaking and I just could not breathe right it was horrific, totally horrific, I mean this lovely young man helped me out, but I felt like such a fool. What do you think Angie?"
"You should go to the doctor?"
"No!" She sips G and T through the straw and looks aghast. "Never go to doctors Angie, they are programmed to tell you, you are fine, because it saves the government money, I read that somewhere,"
"Really," I swirl my drink so the ice-cubes crunch, "that makes things tricky,"
"Yes your right it does. I am dying, I am sure of it, and there is simply nowhere to turn, "Yes,"
"How the hell are you? Have you walked your way into the RSC yet" she laughs, "Oh my God I meant to tell you, Terry Johnston as in, the Terry Johnston, wants to put my photo up outside of the Royal Court, how exciting is that? I know he likes blondes. Maybe I could arrange for you to meet him - yes?"
"Wow," I am excited for Roz, and jealous, but I am only these things if she is, in fact, telling the truth. I have a sneaky suspicion that behind her words there is a hefty amount of bullshit.
"And, oh my God, you will never believe this, I met the most stunning guy you have ever seen in your life, oh my word. He was just at the RC when I went down there to look at the picture, and my life you would have died. I almost died and I do not do dying. Wow!" "Did you speak to him?"
"Speak to him? Hell no! This guy was some sort of God, I was not even half made up," Roz is permanently fully ‘made-up’, "I am totally going back though!" She takes a large swig of gin. "Oh my god, you should so totally come with! I mean two beautiful blondes and I am sure we can turn his head."
"He might not even be there."
"You are such a pessimist!"
"Realist,"
"Whatever."
"I can’t just afford to run round London in search of ass."
"Everyone can afford to run round in search of that; that is what life is all about silly!" "Sure."
"I am thinking of auditioning for Wicked, what do you think?"
"How are you going to manage that?"
"I just have to find the right person to sleep with," she looks serious. "No, I am sure I can swing something, but I mean, look at me, I was simply born to play Galinda!"
I cannot help but think she may have been born to play Miss Piggy; she really has put on a lot of weight recently. I wonder if I should tell her to watch it but decide this is just rude.
"Yes, you would make an excellent Galinda,"
"You could play the other one, the miserable one,"
"Yes." Musical theatre is not my forte. "Or I could not,"
"Oh cheer up...what have you on the cards?" At the moment, a hangover, I do not think this hair-of-the-dog gin is working for me.
"I am trying to persuade my mum to reignite an old and useful flame to find me work, but she is stubborn as hell. She doesn’t understand convenience flirting."
"Sexual politics," she swigs, "speaking of which, the Green Party MP this year, have you seen him? Stunning, honestly, stunning, I nearly died, and you know me...Green eyes, tall, big shoulders, my life..." and she is off again. I begin wondering if she will ever shut up. I am wondering if Alex is still on my sofa. I am wondering where one finds love. I look at my phone. It is seven ten. She is still talking.
"Roz love, I am gonna have to cut this one short I need to get to the internet place before it shuts."
"Don’t you worry about it! I am meeting Geoff in like, twenty minutes here; he is taking me to dinner." Geoff is Roz’s latest toy. "And, I have GOT to make that phone call to Terry." "Good luck."
"I am taking you to the RC with me!" I down the dregs of my G and T.
"Sure, we’ll fix it." We won’t. I work my way out of The Goose. I do not feel the world has been quite set to rights. I shrug and head off to the Kennedy Fried Chicken. I can stand the smell of frying fat for the 50p internet.

I hold my nose and go in.