“you remember that girl from school? the one with the hair and the eyes?”

Scarily, I did. Mother keeps me up to date with all the latest from the old home town, most of it depressing. I was expecting a story about treacherous adultery or painful disease.

“well, she was asking for you the other day. Says you really have to get together and do something next year”

This was a bit out of the blue. Clearly, as a woman, my old schoolmate would have struggled to resist my charms but like so many of the women in my life, she had managed up until now.

“what with it being twenty years since you left school”

Ouch.