The automatic switch on the kettle didn’t work, of course, so it was nearly dry by the time I remembered that I’d left it on.

“Thank you, God,” I said to the ceiling as I refilled it. If I burned out one more kettle my mother would kill me.

While the second kettle was boiling, I lit some candles and incense (to help me relax), and picked out a CD to play while I was in the bath. My nan sent me a voucher for Tower Records for my birthday. My nan loves music. She stopped listening to anything new in about 1948, but she was in favour of it as a general principle. I got two new CDs with her token: the soundtrack to Titanic and the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. I put on Titanic. Titanic was my favourite film that year.

I lay in the bath with the light out and the candles flickering, and forgot about school and my mother and my dreary, boring life. I rewrote Titanic in my head. Instead of Jack dying in the sea and Rose ending up as an old lady who could hardly walk, they both drifted off on a door and ended up on a deserted island. The water was blue-green and palm trees swayed in a gentle breeze. We ate coconuts and bananas and Jack caught fish with his bare hands. It was paradise. Just the two of us, with no one else to push us around. I closed my eyes and I was making love to Jack on the white sand in the moonlight. Since I’d never been out with anyone, I’d never actually made love, of course, but I’d seen enough films to get the general idea. His kisses were electric. He looked down at me in the cool white shine of the moon. My body glistened with sand.

“You don’t need jewels, Rose,” Jack whispered. “You’re beautiful as you are…”

The moist, full lips, soft as cotton balls moved towards mine.

A sudden furious banging on the bathroom door interrupted our kiss.