The story so far: For the past seventeen weeks Janet has been on a fantastic package tour to Malaga trying to forget Ron, tall blonde photographer’s assistant, whom she thinks is having an affair with Olga, her vivacious Russian flatmate. On the beach at Torremolinos (Spain) summer romance has caught up with her in the shape of Renaldo, a hairy wop waiter from the local café. Beguiled by her English freshness, Renaldo has asked her to spend the night with him on some rush matting behind the Spanish National Tourist Office, but she can’t help thinking of Ron and wondering where he is... Now read on.

Tenderly Renaldo took me in his arms and pressed his hot Italian lips into my reluctant Reigate ear.

“Now, now, Chérie,” he murmured, his warm body responding roughly to my gentle caresses. But it wasn’t Renaldo who occupied my thoughts. My mind and body cried out only for Ron. Ron, Ron, Ron. When I thought of those intimate moments in his dusty darkroom as our relationship developed I could hardly believe the evidence of the photographs I’d found. Had that really been Olga? It was hard to tell on those grainy prints, with her face so far away from camera. But those socks were definitely Ron’s. Perhaps I should have given him a chance, faced him with the evidence instead of running for the sun with only the tarnished memory of a shattered love and some WRAC pamphlets in my suitcase. In many ways I was still a schoolgirl.

‘Now, now, mon amour,’ Renaldo was panting. But my mind was far away. I was dreaming of the playing fields at Maytown School, and those glorious summers when youth blossomed like an oleocanth, and Jack the groundsman from the local pub filled my adolescent dreams with forbidden desires. Many a time we’d run to the secret place at the back of the Science Lab., dreaming love’s dreams and melting into a thousand embraces.

“Now, now, I beg you,” Renaldo pleaded, his hot brown body locked against mine in the warm shade of sunny Spain. But my mind was far away from the pizzas, plane trees, and zabaglione of the Costa del Sol. I was dreaming of Mr Robinson my first maths master, and how he’d taught me all he knew and showed me something wonderful; the rosy path of love. I yearned to be there now, in that crazy ramshackle little shed of his, far away from the false values of fourteen days of fun with the inevitable return to the reality of Luton airport. This was only a fleeting affair, just a holiday romance. Oh, when would I grow up?

‘Now, now,’ Renaldo shouted but my mind was far away, thinking that this too would all too quickly end and I should return to the flat in Gloucester Road, and the problems of working as a Temp for Mr Bigglesworth, the famous film producer. Why would he never look at me? Why would he never speak to me? Who was the mysterious Giles who was always with him? Why did he never look at me? Was it something to do with me?

“Now, now,” Renaldo screamed, his hot body furiously close, but my mind was miles away. A million miles away in San Francisco, L.A., where Tony the drummer had gone with “The Maybe.” He told me he’d write, perhaps he was too busy being successful to remember a little secretary like me. I thought of the intimate atmosphere of his dressing-room in those five minutes when we’d met backstage. I tried to think of his face, but could only remember his belt, and that crazy zip.

“Oh damn,” said Renaldo. “Look, you wait here I’ll have to go and clean up.” But I hardly heard him. My mind was far away, dreaming of Bobby the dress-designer and wondering whether he would ever return from Hamburg....

To be continued