Emma Morley eats well and drinks only in moderation. She gets eight good hours sleep, then wakes promptly and of her own accord at just before six-thirty and drinks a large glass of water -- the first 250ml of a daily 1.5 litres, which she pours from the matching glass and carafe set that stands in a shaft of morning sunlight by her double bed.

The clock radio clicks on and she allows herself to lie in bed and listen to the news headlines. The Labour leader John Smith has died, and there's a report on his memorial service at Westminster Abbey; respectful cross-party tributes, "the greatest Prime Minister we never had", discreet speculation on who will replace him. Once again she reminds herself to look into the possibility of joining the Labour Party, now that her CND membership has long since lapsed.

Leytonstone and the Isle of Dogs

More of the endless World Cup news forces her out of bed, throwing off the summer duvet, putting on her old thick-rimmed spectacles and sliding into the tiny corridor of space between the bed and the walls. She heads towards the tiny bathroom and opens the door.

"One minute!!" She pulls the door closed again, but not fast enough to prevent herself from seeing Ian Whitehead doubled over on the toilet.

"Why don't you lock it, Ian?" she shouts at the door.

Emma turns, pads back to bed and lies there listening grumpily to the farming forecast and, in the background, the flush of a toilet, then another flush, then a honking sound as Ian blows his nose, then another flush. Eventually he appears in the doorway, red-faced and martyred. He is wearing no underwear and a black t-shirt that stops a little above his hips. There isn't a man in the world that can carry off this look, but even so Emma makes a conscious effort to keep her eyes focussed on his face, as he slowly blows air out through his mouth.

"Well. That was quite an experience."

"Not feeling any better then?" She removes her spectacles, just to be on the safe side.

"Sorry!"

"Not really," he pouts, his hands rubbing his stomach. "I've got an upset tummy now." He talks in a low, martyr's voice and even though Emma thinks Ian is terrific there's something about the word "tummy" that makes her want to close the door sharply on his face.

"It's not your fault," says Emma, sitting up.

"Well maybe it's that bug that's going round. They've all got it at school, maybe I gave it to you."

"I can't, can I? It feels like I've got two pints of mucus right here." He spreads his hand across the width of his forehead. "Two pints of thick phlegm."

"But I've got to go."

"Diarrhoea on top of catarrh --"

"I know you do, sweetheart."

"I told you that bacon was off, but you wouldn't listen to me --"

He doesn't contradict her. "Been up all night. Feel rotten."

"I feel so…" Fists clenched, he searches for the word that sums up the injustice of it all. "So -- bunged up! I can't go to work like this."

"I reckon it's gastric flu," he says, relishing the pairing of words.

"So go."

"Well there's an image to carry me through the day."

"It's not that --"

"It's a winning combination. Like moonlight and music."

"So don't."

"Sounds like gastric flu."

"I think it's a virus --"

"Oh no, bacon doesn't go off you say. Bacon's cured."

"And I hate having summer colds."

It's a big day for Dexter Mayhew too. He lies in a tangle of damp sheets, eyes wide, and imagines all of the things that might go wrong. Tonight he is appearing on live national television in his very own TV show. A vehicle. It's a vehicle for his talents, and he is suddenly not sure that he possesses any.

"Sorry, but that's how I feel." He squeezes round the edge of the bed to his side, and with another martyred sigh, climbs beneath the duvet.

She gathers herself before standing. Today is a big day for Emma Morley, a monumental day, and she can do without this. Tonight is the premiere of Cromwell Road Comprehensive School's production of Oliver! and the potential for disaster is almost infinite.

The previous evening he went to bed early like a small boy, alone and sober while it was still light outside in the hope of being fresh-faced and quick-witted this morning. But he has been awake for seven of the nine hours now, and is exhausted and nauseous with anxiety. The phone rings and he sits up sharply and listens to his own voice on the answering machine. "So -- talk to me!" the voice says, urbane and confident, and he thinks Idiot. Must change message.

"I don't know what time I'll get back, you know how wild these school plays can get. This crazy business we call show. I'll call later. Good luck, Dex. Loads of love. And by the way, you've got to change that answering machine message."

And she's gone. He contemplates calling straight back, but feels that tactically he ought to sulk a little longer. They have argued again. She thinks that he doesn't like her boyfriend, and despite his passionate denials there's no getting over the fact that he doesn't like her boyfriend.

The machine beeps. "Oh. Okay then. Hi there. It's me." He feels the familiar relief at the sound of Emma's voice, and is about to pick it up when he remembers that they've argued and he is meant to be sulking. "Sorry to call so early and all that, but some of us have proper jobs to go to. Just wanted to say, big night tonight so really, really good luck. Seriously, good luck. You'll be fine, more than fine, you'll be great. Just wear something nice and don't talk in that weird voice. And I know you're annoyed with me for not coming but I'll be watching and cheering at the TV like some idiot --"

He is out of bed now, naked, staring at the machine. He contemplates picking up.

He has tried, really he has. The three of them have sat together in cinemas and cheap restaurants and dingy old boozers, Dexter meeting Emma's eyes and smiling his approval as Ian snuffles at her neck; love's young dream with a pair of pints. He has sat at the tiny kitchen table of her tiny Earls Court flat and played a game of Trivial Pursuit so savagely competitive that it was like bare-knuckle boxing. He has even joined the blokes from Sonicotronics at The Laughter Lab in Mortlake to watch Ian's observational stand-up, Emma grinning nervously at his side and nudging him so that he knows when to laugh.

But even on his best behaviour the hostility is tangible, and mutual too. Ian takes every opportunity to imply that Dexter is a fake because he happens to be in the public eye, a snob, a fop just because he prefers taxis to night buses, members' clubs to saloon bars, good restaurants to take-away. And the worst of it is that Emma joins in with the constant belittling, the reminders of his failings. Don't they appreciate how hard it is, staying decent, keeping your head on straight when so much is happening to you and your life is so full and eventful? If Dexter picks up the bill at dinner, or offers to pay for a taxi instead of the bus, the two of them mumble and mope as if he has insulted them in some way. Why can't people be pleased that he's doing so well, grateful for his generosity? That last excruciating evening -- a "vid night" on a decrepit sofa, watching Star Trek: Wrath of Khan and drinking "tinnies" while a curry leaked fluorescent ghee onto his Dries van Noten trousers -- that was the last straw. From now on if he's going to see Emma, then he's going to see her alone.

Irrationally, unreasonably, he has become -- what? Jealous? No, not jealous, but resentful perhaps. He has always expected Emma to be there, a resource he can call upon at any time like the emergency services. Since the cataclysm of his mother's death last Christmas he has found himself more and more reliant on her at exactly the point that she has become less available to him. She used to return phone-calls immediately, now days go by without a word. She's been "away with Ian" she says, but where do they go? What do they do? Buy furniture together? Watch "vids"? Go to pub quizzes? Ian has even met Emma's parents, Jim and Sue. They love him, she says. Why has Dexter never met Jim and Sue? Wouldn't they love him more?

Most annoyingly of all, Emma seems to be relishing this newfound independence from Dexter. He feels as if he's being taught a lesson, as if he's being slapped round the face with her newfound contentment. "You can't expect people to build their lives around you, Dexter," she has told him, gloatingly, and now they've argued once again, and all because she won't be there in the studio for the live broadcast of his show.

"Can't you come along afterwards?"

"What do you want me to do, cancel Oliver! because you're on telly?"

"No! It's miles!"

"I'll send a car!"

"I need to talk to the kids afterwards, the parents --"

"Dexter, be reasonable, it's my job!"

After a long shower he feels a little better and pulls on a light v-neck cashmere sweater worn with no shirt, some pale linen drawstring trousers worn with no underpants, steps into a pair of Birkenstocks and bounds down to the paper-shop to read the TV previews and check that Press and Publicity have been doing their job. The newsagent smiles at his celebrity customer with a due sense of occasion, and Dexter trots home with his arms full of newspapers. He feels better now, full of trepidation but exhilarated too, and while the espresso machine is warming up, the phone rings once again.

And he knows he's being churlish, but it would help to see Emma in the audience. He's a better person when she's around, and isn't that what friends are for, to raise you up and keep you at your best? Emma is his talisman, his lucky charm, and now she won't be there and his mother won't be there and he will wonder why he's doing it at all.

"Why do you?"

His father has gone. He has set the timer on the explosives then hung up, and Dexter looks across at the pile of news papers, now full of menace. He tightens the drawstring on his linen trousers and turns to the TV pages.

"So -- talk to me!" says the idiot on the machine.

Even before the machine picks up something tells him that it will be his father and that he will screen the call. Since his mother's death the calls have become more frequent and more excruciating: stuttering, circular and distracted. His father, the self-made man, now seems defeated by the simplest of tasks. Bereavement has unmanned him and on Dexter's rare visits home he has seen him staring helplessly at the kettle as if it were some alien technology.

Don't pay any attention to the what? Dexter grabs at the phone.

"-- Goodbye!"

"Hello, Dexter, it's your father here." He uses his ponderous phone voice. "I am just phoning to say good luck for your television show tonight. I will be watching. It's all very exciting. Alison would have been very proud." There's a momentary pause as they both realise that this probably isn't true. "That's all I wanted to say. Except. Also, don't pay any attention to the newspapers. Just have fun. Goodbye. Goodbye --"

"Oh yes, good luck for that. Sorry we can't come down to see it. It's just London's so expensive…"

"The school production."

"He is, Mum."

"I've got to go to work now, Mum."

"Now, why was I calling? I've completely forgotten why I was calling."

She waits patiently for Ian to tear himself away. "Bye, Mrs M. Yeah I hope so too. It's just a summer cold, I'll pull through. Bye, Mrs M. Bye." Emma takes the receiver as Ian, mortally ill once more, shuffles back to bed.

"I hope you're looking after him."

She was calling to talk to Ian. "Was it to wish me good luck?"

Her mother is flushed and giddy. "Such a lovely lad. Isn't he a lovely lad?"

"Good luck for what?"

When Emma steps from the bathroom, Ian is on the phone and she can tell from the flirty, larky tone of his voice that he is talking to her mother. Her boyfriend and Sue have been conducting a borderline affair ever since they met in Leeds at Christmas: "Lovely sprouts, Mrs M" and "Isn't this turkey moist?" It's electric, the mutual longing between them and all Emma and her dad can do is tut and roll their eyes.

"If you don't think you can come to the show tonight --"

Emma ends the phone-call by pretending that the toaster is on fire then goes to see the patient, sweltering beneath the duvet in an attempt to "sweat it out". Part of her is vaguely aware of failing as a girlfriend. It's a new role for her, and she sometimes finds herself plagiarising "girlfriend behaviour": holding hands, cuddling up in front of the television, that kind of thing. Ian loves her, he tells her so, if anything a little too often, and she thinks she may be able to love him back, but it will take some practice. Certainly she intends to try and now, in a self-conscious gesture of sympathy, she curls herself around him on the bed.

He sits up, alarmed. "No! No, no, no, I'm definitely coming --"

"I'll understand --"

She smiles. "Good. I'm pleased." She leans and kisses him antiseptically with closed lips, then picks up her bag and pads out of the flat, ready for her big day.

"-- if I have to come by ambulance."

"It's only a silly school play, it's going to be so embarrassing."

"Emma!" She lifts her head to look at him. "It's your big night! I wouldn't miss it for the world."

The headline reads: IS THIS THE MOST ODIOUS MAN ON TELEVISION?

With the tiny espresso cup pinched tight between finger and thumb, he reads on.

- and for a while Dexter thinks there must be a mistake, because beneath the headline they have accidentally printed his picture, and beneath that the single word "Smug" as if Smug were his surname. Dexter Smug.

Is there a more smug, self-satisfied smart-arse than Dexter Mayhew on TV today? A subliminal burst of his cocky, pretty-boy face makes us want to kick the screen in. At school we had a phrase for it: here's a man who clearly thinks he's IT. Weirdly, someone out there in MediaLand must love him as much as he loves himself because after three years of largin' it (dontcha hate that lower case? So 1990) he's now presenting his own late-night music show, the Late-Night Lock-In. So

He should stop reading here, just close the paper and move on, but his peripheral vision has already glimpsed a word or two. "Inept" was one. He reads on -

Tonight's TV

So if you really want to see a public schoolboy trying to be a new lad, dropping his aitches and flirting with the ladeez, trying to stay hip with the kidz unaware that the kidz are laughing at him, then this one is for you. It's live, so there might be some pleasure in watching his famously inept interviewing technique, or alternatively you could brand your face with a steam iron set to "linen". Co-presenter is "bubbly" Suki Meadows, music from Shed Seven, Echobelly and the Lemonheads. Don't say you weren't warned.

Tall poppy syndrome that's what it is, the British Disease, he thinks. A little bit of success and they want to knock you down well I don't care I like my job and I'm bloody good at it and it's much much harder than people think balls of steel that's what you need to be a TV presenter and a mind like a like a well quick-thinking anyway and besides you mustn't take it personally critics who needs critics no-one ever woke up and decided they wanted to be a critic well I'd rather be out there doing it putting myself on the line rather than be some some eunuch being spiteful for twelve grand a year well no-one ever built a statue to a critic and I'll show them I'll show them all.

Dexter has a clippings file, a Patrick Cox shoebox in the bottom of a wardrobe, but he decides to let this one go. With a great deal of clatter and mess he makes himself another espresso.

Variations of this monologue run through Dexter's head throughout his big day; on his trip to the production office, during his chauffeured drive in the saloon car to the studio on the Isle of Dogs, throughout the afternoon's dress rehearsal, the production meeting, the hair and make-up sessions, right up until the moment when he is alone in his dressing room and is finally able to open his bag, take out the bottle he placed there that morning, pour himself a large glass of vodka, top it up with warm orange juice and proceed to drink.

Forty-five minutes to go before curtain up, and the chanting can be heard the whole length of the English block.

"Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight --"

"I'm sure it'll be fine. You go and rehearse the band."

"Fight, fight, fight --"

"Thank you, Mrs Grainger, I'm sure I can handle it."

Hurrying up the corridor, Emma sees Mrs Grainger stumble from the dressing room as if fleeing a fire. "I've tried to stop them, they won't listen to me."

"Should I get Mr Godalming?"

"WHAT is going on here, people?"

"I said this was a mistake." She hurries away, hand to her chest. "I said it would never work."

The Victorian mob turns. "Get her off me, Miss," mumbles Oliver into the lino.

Emma takes a deep breath, enters and sees the mob, thirty teenagers in top hats and hooped skirts and stick-on beards shouting and jeering as the Artful Dodger kneels on Oliver Twist's arms and presses his face hard into the dusty floor.

"They're fighting, Miss," says Samir Chaudhari, twelve years old with mutton chop sideburns.

"I can see that thank you, Samir," and she pushes through the crowd to pull them apart. Sonya Richards, the skinny black girl who plays The Dodger, still has her fingers tangled in the flicked blond bangs of Oliver's hair, and Emma holds onto her shoulders and stares into her eyes. "Let go, Sonya. Let go now, okay? Okay?" Eventually Sonya lets go and steps back, her eyes moistening now that the rage is leeching away, replaced by wounded pride.

"I mean it, Sonya. Enough!" Emma stands in the centre of the circle now, holding the adversaries by the elbows like a boxing referee, and she realises that if she is to save the show she is going to have to improvise a rousing speech, one of the many Henry V moments that make up her working life.

"That's enough now, Martin."

Martin Dawson, the orphan Oliver, looks dazed. Five feet eleven and stocky, he is bigger even than Mr Bumble, but nevertheless the meaty waif looks close to tears. "She started it!" he quavers between bass and treble, wiping his smudgy face with the heel of his hand.

"Look at you! Look at how great you all look in your costumes! Look at little Samir there with his massive sideburns!" The crowd laugh, and Samir plays along, scratching at the stuck-on hair. "You've got friends and parents outside and they're all going to see a great show, a real performance. Or at least I thought they were." She folds her arms, and sighs, "Because I think we're going to have to cancel the show…"

"Yeah, shut your face, Dawson…"

"So who was shouting fight, fight, fight, Rodney?"

"But she just went completely ape-shit, Miss!" warbles Martin Dawson, and now Sonya is straining to get at him. "Oi, Oliver, do you want some more?"

"But we didn't do anything, Miss!" protests Fagin.

There's laughter, and Emma pulls out the old triumph against the odds speech. "Enough! You lot are meant to be a company, not a mob! You know I don't mind telling you there are people out there tonight who don't think you can do this! They don't think you're capable, they think it's too complicated for you. It's Charles Dickens, Emma! they say, they're not bright enough, they haven't got the discipline to work together, they're not up to Oliver!, give them something nice and easy."

She's bluffing of course, but the effect is perfect, a great communal groan of protest.

"It doesn't matter who said it, it's what they think. And maybe they're right! Maybe we should call the whole thing off!" For a moment, she wonders if she's over-egging it, but it's hard to overestimate the teenage appetite for high drama, and there's a great moan of protest from all of them in their bonnets and top hats. Even if they know she's faking, they are relishing the jeopardy. She pauses for effect. "Now. Sonya and Martin and I are going to go and have a little talk, and I want you to continue to get ready, then sit quietly and think about your part, and then we'll decide what to do next. Okay? I said okay?"

"Who said that, Miss?" says Samir, ready to key their car.

She talks to Sonya first. "So. What happened?"

The dressing room is silent as she follows the adversaries out, bursting into noise again the moment she closes the door. She escorts Oliver and The Dodger down the corridor, past the sports hall where Mrs Grainger leads the band through a fiercely dissonant "Consider Yourself" and she wonders once again what she is letting herself in for.

Evening light slants in through the large reinforced windows of 4D, and Sonya stares out at the science block, affecting boredom. "We just had words, that's all." She sits on the edge of a desk, her long legs swinging in old school trousers slashed into tatters, tin-foil buckles stuck onto black trainers. One hand picks at her BCG scar, her small, hard, pretty face bunched up tight as a fist as if to warn Emma off trying any of that seize-the-day crap. The other kids are frightened of Sonya Richards, and even Emma sometimes fears for her dinner money. It's the level stare, the rage. "I'm not saying sorry," she snaps.

"Yes, Miss!"

"Why not? And please don't say 'he started it'."

"Well." Emma sighs and looks at the floor. "The first thing to say is that it doesn't matter what anyone says, ever, you can't just hit people." Sonya Richards is her project. She knows she shouldn't really have projects, but Sonya is so clearly smart, the smartest in her class by some way but aggressive too, a whip-thin figure of resentment and wounded pride.

"He said --" She stops herself.

Sonya makes a calculation, weighing up the dishonour of telling tales against her sense of injustice. "He said the reason I could play the part was 'cause it wasn't really acting because I was a peasant in real life too."

Her face opens with indignation. "But he did!"

"S'what he said, so I hit him."

"What did he say? Sonya?"

"That's what Martin said?"

"A peasant."

"Sonya!"

"Sonya, please, don't!" she says, though a little part of her thinks that Sonya has a valid point about Martin Dawson. He treats the kids, the teachers, the whole comprehensive system as if he were a missionary who has deigned to walk among them. Last night at the dress rehearsal he had cried real tears during "Where is Love?", squeezing the high notes out like kidney stones, and Emma had found herself idly wondering what it would feel like to walk on stage, place one hand over his face and push him firmly backwards. The peasant remark is entirely in character, but even so -

"But he's such a little prick, Miss!"

"Yeah."

Sonya's face tightens again, and Emma is startled to notice that she seems as if she might cry. "You wouldn't do that."

"I might have to."

"It is, Miss --"

"If that is what he said --"

"Miss!"

"We can!"

"We can't do the show, Sonya."

"I'll talk to him and find out, but if it is what he said it just reveals how ignorant he is, and how daft you are too, for rising to it." She stumbles on "daft", an Ilkley Moor word. Street, be more street, she tells herself. "But, hey, if we can't settle this… beef, then we really can't do the show."

"What, with you bitch-slapping Martin during 'Who Will Buy'?" Sonya smiles despite herself. "You are smart, Sonya, so so smart, but people set these traps for you and you walk right into them." Sonya sighs, sets her face and looks out at the small rectangle of parched grass outside the science block. "You could do so well, not just in the play but in class too. Your work this term's been really intelligent and sensitive and thoughtful." Unsure how to deal with praise, Sonya sniffs and scowls. "Next term you could do even better, but you've got to control your temper, Sonya, you've got to show people you're better than that." It's another speech, and Emma sometimes thinks she expends too much energy making speeches like this. She had hoped that it might have some kind of inspirational effect, but Sonya's gaze has drifted over Emma's shoulder now, towards the classroom door. "Sonya, are you listening to me?"

"Beard's here."

"Evening all," he calls, in his jaunty out-of-hours voice. "How's it going? Everything alright, Sonya?"

Emma glances round and sees a dark-haired face at the door's glass panel, two eyes peering through like a curious bear. "Don't call him Beard. He's the headmaster," she tells Sonya, then beckons him in. But it's true, the first, and second words that enter her head whenever she sees Mr Godalming are "beard". It's one of those startling full-face affairs: not straggly, cut very close and neat but very, very black, a Conquistador, his blue eyes peeping out like holes cut in carpet. So he is The Beard. As he enters Sonya starts to scratch at her chin and Emma widens her eyes in warning.

"Bit hairy, sir," says Sonya, "but I think we'll be okay."

Emma snuffles, and Mr Godalming turns to her. "Everything alright, Emma?"

"Sonya and I were just having a little pre-show pep-talk. Do you want to go and carry on getting ready, Sonya?" With a smile of relief, she pushes herself off the desk and saunters to the door. "Tell Martin I'll be two minutes."

"Oh, just bravado."

"Well."

"Well he's been in character for the last six weeks. He's taking a Method approach. I think if he could he'd have given himself rickets."

"Well!" he smiles.

"Bitch-slapped was the phrase I heard."

"Youthful high spirits. And I don't think Martin was completely innocent."

"I heard reports of a fight."

"I heard your protégé has been laying into our future head-boy."

Emma and Mr Godalming are alone.

"You seem very well informed."

In a fit of informality Mr Godalming goes to sit astride a chair, showbiz-style, appearing to change his mind halfway through the action before deciding that there's no going back. "Bit of a handful, that Sonya."

"Well I am the headmaster." Mr Godalming smiles through his balaclava, and Emma wonders if you looked long enough, would you actually be able to see the hair grow? What's going on under all that stuff? Might Mr Godalming actually be quite good-looking? He nods towards the door. "I saw Martin in the corridor. He's very… emotional."

"That was nothing. Pre-show nerves." Straddling his chair, he really does look fantastically uncomfortable.

He shifts uneasily on the chair. "What can I expect tonight, Emma?"

"Is he any good?"

"God no, he's awful. An orphanage's the best place for him. You're welcome to jam bits of the programme in your ears during 'Where is Love?'." Mr Godalming laughs. "Sonya's great though." The headmaster looks unconvinced. "You'll see."

"No idea. Could go either way."

"Well it's a musical about prostitution, so…"

"Personally I'm more of a Sweet Charity man. Remind me, why couldn't we do Sweet Charity?"

Once more Mr Godalming laughs. He does this a lot with Emma, and others have noticed it too. There is gossip in the staffroom, dark murmurs about favouritism, and certainly he's looking at her very intently tonight. A moment passes, and she glances back towards the door where Martin Dawson peeks tearfully through the glass panel. "I'd better have a word with Edith Piaf out there, before he goes off the rails."

"Of course, of course." Mr Godalming seems pleased to dismount the chair. "Good luck tonight. My wife and I have been looking forward to it all week."

"At the after-show drinks --"

"God, no, just boyfriend. Ian --"

"Teaching, eh? --"

"Beaker of dilute squash --"

A moment passes, and he looks towards the door. "I'll send Martin in, shall I?"

"I hear rumours of mini kievs --"

He heads to the door, then stops and turns. "I'm sorry, have I broken some sort of professional code? Can I say that to a member of my staff? That they look nice?"

Emma holds her arms out to the side. She is wearing make-up, just a little lipstick to go with a vintage floral dress which is dark pink and a little on the tight side perhaps. She looks down at her dress as if it has taken her by surprise, but really it's the remark that has thrown her. "Ta very much!" she says, but he has noticed her hesitation.

"Course you can," she says, but both know that "nice" was not the word he had used. The word was "beautiful."

"You look beautiful, Emma, by the way."

"Please do."

"And people say it's not glamorous --"

"Cook's been to the cash-and-carry --"

"I don't believe that for a second."

"It's true! You must meet her afterwards. Perhaps Fiona and I can have a drink with your… fiancé?"

"Ah, le mot juste!"

"Nice come-back, superstar," says his co-presenter. "So you saw the previews then?"

"Nope."

"I think you'll find that that's you who you're looking for, not me," says Dexter, concise speech suddenly beyond him.

"Fuck off, Toby."

"To wish you luck." He crosses, places his hands on Dexter's shoulders and squeezes. Round and waspish, Toby's role on the show is a kind of irreverent, say-anything jester figure and Dexter despises him, this jumped-up little warm-up man, and envies him too. In the pilot and in rehearsals he has run rings around Dexter, slyly mocking and deriding him, making him feel fat-tongued, slow-witted, doltish, the pretty boy who can't think on his feet. He shrugs Toby's hands away. This antagonism is meant to be the stuff of great TV they say, but Dexter feels paranoid, persecuted. He needs another vodka to recover some of his good spirits, but he can't, not while Toby's smirking at him in the mirror with his little owlish face. "If you don't mind I'd like to gather my thoughts."

"Just one bad write-up, Toby."

"Excuse me, but I'm looking for the most odious man on television?" says Toby Moray from the doorway, in that whiny, pinched little voice of his. He's wearing a tartan suit and his on-screen make-up, his hair slick and oiled into a jokey quiff and Dexter wants to throw a bottle at him.

"Because I can run off some photocopies for you --"

Dexter pretends to be studying his running order. "No-one ever built a statue of a critic."

"Why are you here anyway?"

"True, but no-one built a statue of a TV presenter either."

"You didn't read the Mirror then. Or the Express, The Times…"

"See you out there, yeah?"

"I understand. Focus that mind of yours."

When Dexter's sure he's alone he pours himself that drink and checks himself in the mirror. Bright red t-shirt worn under black dinner jacket over washed out jeans over pointed black shoes, his hair cut short and sharp, he is meant to be the picture of metropolitan male youth but suddenly he feels old and tired and impossibly sad. He presses two fingers against each eye and attempts to account for this crippling melancholy, but is having trouble with rational thought. It feels as if someone has taken his head and shaken it. Words are turning to mush and he can see no plausible way of getting through this. Don't fall apart, he tells himself, not here, not now. Hold it together.

But an hour is an impossibly long time on live TV, and he decides that he might need a little help. There's a small water bottle on his dressing table, and he empties it into the sink then, glancing at the door, takes the bottle of vodka from the drawer once again and pours three, no, four inches of the viscous liquid into the bottle and replaces the lid. He holds it up to the light. No-one would ever tell the difference and of course he's not going to drink it all, but it's there, in his hand, to help him out and get him through. The deceit makes him feel excited and confident again, ready to show the viewing public, and Emma, and his father at home just what he can do. He is not just some presenter. He is a broadcaster.

"See you, handsome. Good luck." He pulls the door closed then opens it again. "No, really. I mean it. Good luck."

"I am a little nervous, yes."

"AWWWW! COME HERE YOU!" She wraps her arm around his head and holds it like a football. Suki Meadows is pretty and what used to be called petite, and fizzes and bubbles like a fan-heater dropped into a bath. There has been some flirtation between them recently, if you can call this flirtation, Suki pushing his face into her breast like this. Like a head-boy and head-girl, there has been some pressure for the two stars to get together, and it does sort of make sense from a professional, if not emotional point of view. She squeezes his head beneath her arm -- "YOU'RE GOING TO BE GREAT" -- then suddenly holds onto his ears and jerks his face towards her. "LISTEN TO ME. YOU'RE GORGEOUS, YOU KNOW THAT, AND WE ARE GOING TO BE SUCH A GREAT TEAM, YOU AND ME. MY MUM'S HERE TONIGHT AND SHE WANTS TO MEET YOU AFTERWARDS. BETWEEN ME AND YOU I THINK SHE FANCIES YOU. I FANCY YOU, SO SHE MUST FANCY YOU TOO. SHE WANTS YOUR AUTOGRAPH BUT YOU HAVE TO PROMISE NOT TO GET OFF WITH HER!"

"HOW ARE YOU, SWEETHEART? SHITTING BRICKS, I EXPECT!" and this is Suki's other great talent as a TV presenter, to hold every conversation as if she's addressing the Bank Holiday crowd on the sea-front at Weston-super-Mare.

The door opens. "WAHEY!" says Suki Meadows, his co-presenter. Suki is the nation's ideal girlfriend, a woman for whom bubbliness is a way of life, verging on a disorder. Suki would probably start a letter of condolence with the word "Wahey!" and Dexter might find this relentless perkiness a bit wearing if she weren't so attractive and popular and crazy about him.

"I'll do my best, Suki."

"YOU GOT FAMILY IN?"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS OUTFIT?" She's wearing a clubby top and a tiny skirt, and carries the obligatory bottle of water. "CAN YOU SEE MY NIPPLES?"

"No --"

"FRIENDS?"

Is she flirting? "Only if you look for them," he flirts back mechanically, smiling weakly, and Suki senses something. She holds out his hands to the side and intimately bellows, "WHAT'S UP WITH YOU, SWEETHEART?"

"No --"

He shrugs. "Toby's been in here, winding me up…" and before he can finish she has pulled him to his feet and her arms are round his waist, her hands twanging the waistband of his underpants in sympathy. "YOU IGNORE HIM, HE'S JUST JEALOUS "CAUSE YOU'RE BETTER AT THIS THAN HE IS." She looks up at him, her chin poking his chest. "YOU'RE A NATURAL, YOU KNOW YOU ARE."

The floor manager is at the door. "Ready for you now, guys."

"WE'RE GREAT TOGETHER, AREN'T WE, ME AND YOU. SUKI AND DEX, DEX AND SUKI? WE'RE GOING TO KNOCK EM DEAD." Suddenly she kisses him once, very hard, as if rubber-stamping a document. "MORE OF THAT LATER, GOLDEN BOY," she says in his ear, then picks up her bottle of water and bounds out onto the studio floor.

Suki waits for him at the edge of the immense set, taking his hand and squeezing it. The crew are running round, patting his shoulder and punching his arm matily as they pass, and high above their heads ironic go-go dancers in bikinis and cowboy boots stretch out their calves in their ironic cages. Toby Moray is doing the warm-up, and getting big laughs too, until suddenly he's introducing them, a big hand please for your hosts tonight, Suki Meadows and Dexter Mayhew!

Dexter takes a moment to look at his reflection in the mirror. Golden Boy. He sighs and presses all ten fingers hard into his skull and tries not to think about his mother. Hold it together, don't foul this up. Be good. Do something good. He smiles the smile that he keeps especially for use on television, picks up his spiked water bottle, and heads out onto the studio floor.

He doesn't want to go. Music thumps from the speakers: "Start the Dance" by The Prodigy, and he wants to stay here in the wings, but Suki is tugging on his hand, and suddenly she is bounding out into the bright studio lights, bawling: "ALLLLLLLLLLRIGGGGGGHHHHHT!"

Dexter follows on, the suave and urbane half of the presenting duo. As always the set involves a lot of scaffolding, and they climb the ramps until they're looking down at the audience below them, Suki chattering all the way: "LOOK AT YOU, YOU'RE ALL GORGEOUS, ARE YOU READY TO HAVE A GREAT TIME? MAKE SOME NOISE!" Dexter stands mute on the gantry next to her, the microphone dead in his hand as he realises that he is drunk. His big break on live national television and he is sodden with vodka, dizzy with it. The gantry seems impossibly high, far higher than in rehearsals, and he wants to lie down but if he does this there's a chance that two million people will notice, so he assumes the manner and offers: "Elloyoulothowareyouallfeelingalright?"

A single clear male voice sails up to the gantry. "Wanker!"

Dexter seeks out the heckler, a skinny, grinning twerp with Wonder Stuff hair, but it gets a laugh, a big laugh. Even the cameramen are laughing. "My agent, ladies and gentlemen," replies Dexter, and there's a ripple of amusement, but that's all. They must have read the papers. Is this the most odious man on television? Good God, it's true, he thinks. They hate me.

Thirty seconds to air. She has picked up the wrong bottle. She is holding it in her hand now, a clubby little accessory.

Suki has his bottle.

"One minute everyone," shouts the floor manager, and Dexter suddenly feels like he's standing on a scaffold. He searches the crowd for a friendly face, but there are none and once again he wishes Emma were here. He could show-off for Emma, be at his best if Emma or his mother were here, but they're not, just this leering, jeering crowd of people much, much younger than himself. He has got to find a bit of spirit from somewhere, a bit of attitude and with the laser logic of the drunk he decides that alcohol might help, because why not? The damage is already done. The go-go dancers stand poised in their cages, the cameras glide into place, and he unscrews the lid of his illicit bottle, raises it, swallows and winces. Water. The water bottle contains water. Someone has replaced the vodka in his water bottle with --

"Are you keeping hold of that?" he squeaks.

Twenty seconds to air. She is unscrewing the lid.

"SO? WIPE THE TOP!"

"THAT'S ALRIGHT, ISN'T IT?" She bounces on her toes like a prizefighter.

Ten seconds to air and the audience starts to cheer and roar, the dancers hold onto the bars of their cages and start to gyrate as Suki raises the bottle to her lips.

Roll titles.

"I've got your bottle by mistake."

Four, three, two…

Seven, six, five…

He reaches for the bottle, but she knocks his hand away laughing. "GET OFF, DEXTER, YOU'VE GOT YOUR OWN!"

"But it isn't water," he says.

She gulps it down.

And now Suki is coughing, red-faced and spluttering as guitars crash over the speakers, drums pound, go-go dancers writhe and a camera on wires swoops down from the high ceiling like a bird of prey, soaring over the audience's heads towards the presenters, so that it seems to the viewers at home as if three hundred young people are cheering an attractive woman as she stands on scaffolding and retches.

The music fades, and all you can hear is Suki coughing. Dexter has frozen, dried, dead on air and drunkenly crashing his own vehicle. The plane is going down, the ground looming up to meet him. "Say something Dexter," says a voice in his earpiece. "Hello? Dexter? Say something?" but his brain won't work and his mouth won't work, and he stands there, dumb in every way. The seconds stretch.

"Sorry about Suki there --" he says. "The bottle's got vodka in it!" and he does the little comic wriggle of the wrist that suggests a secret drinker, and there's another laugh, and he feels better. Suki laughs too, nudges him and raises a fist, says, "Why I oughta…" Three Stooges-style, and only he can see the glint of contempt behind the bubbliness. He latches onto the safety of the autocue.

But thank God for Suki, a true professional, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "WELL PROOF THERE THAT WE'RE GOING OUT LIVE!" and there's a relieved little flurry of laughter from the audience. "IT'S ALL GOING VERY WELL SO FAR, ISN'T IT, DEX?" She jabs him in the ribs with a finger, and he springs to life.

"-- AND I'M SUKI MEADOWS!"

"Welcome to the Late-Night Lock-In, I'm Dexter Mayhew --"

And they're back on course, introducing the Friday night feast of great comedy and music, appealing and attractive like the two coolest kids at school. "So without further ado, let's make some noise please --" He flings his arm out behind him, like a ring-master "-- and give a big Late-Night Lock-In welcome to Shed! Seven!"

The camera swoops away from them as if it has lost interest, and now the voices from the gallery are chattering in his head over the sound of the band. "Everything alright there, Suki?" says the producer. Dexter looks at Suki pleadingly. She looks back, eyes narrowed. She could tell them: Dexter's on the booze, he's drunk, the man's a mess, an amateur, not to be trusted.

"We'll send someone to fix your make-up. Two minutes, people. And Dexter, keep it together, will you?"

Yes, keep it together, he tells himself, but the monitors tell him there are fifty-six minutes and twenty-two seconds to go, and he's really not sure if he can.

Applause! Applause like she has never heard, rebounding off the walls of the sports hall. And yes, the band were flat and the singers sharp, and yes there were a few technical problems with missing props and collapsing sets, and of course it's hard to imagine a more forgiving audience, but still it is a triumph. The death of Nancy leaves even Mr Routledge, Chemistry, weeping and the chase over the London rooftops, with the cast in silhouette, is a spectacular coup de théâtre met by the kind of cooing and gasping that usually greets fireworks displays. As predicted Sonya Richards has shone, leaving Martin Dawson grinding his teeth as she soaks up the largest round of applause. There have been ovations and encores and now people are stamping on the benches and hanging off the climbing apparatus and Emma is being dragged on stage by Sonya who is crying, God, actually crying, clutching Emma's hand and saying well done, Miss, amazing, amazing. A school production, it is the smallest imaginable triumph but Emma's heart is beating in her chest and she can't stop grinning as the band play a cacophonous "Consider Yourself" and she holds the hands of fourteen-year-olds and bows and bows again. She feels the elation of doing something well, and for the first time in ten weeks she no longer wants to kick Lionel Bart.

"All fine," she says. "Just went down the wrong way, that's all."

Unlike most showbusiness parties it's all over by nine forty-five, and instead of a stretch limo, Emma and Ian take the 55, the 19 and the Piccadilly Line home. "I'm so proud of you --" says Ian, his head resting against hers "-- but I think it's settled on my lungs."

At the drinks afterwards, own-brand cola flows like wine, and there are also five bottles of sparkling perry to share among the adults. Ian sits in a corner of the sports hall with a plate of mini kievs and a plastic cup of Beecham's Powders that he has brought to the party specially, and he massages his sinuses, smiles and waits patiently as Emma soaks up the praise. "Good enough for the West End!" someone says, somewhat unrealistically, and she doesn't even mind when Rodney Chance, her Fagin, boozy on spiked Panda Pops, tells her that she's "pretty fit for a teacher". Mr Godalming ("please, call me Phil") congratulates her while Fiona, ruddy-cheeked like a farmer's wife, looks on, bored and bad tempered. "We should talk, in September, about your future here," says Phil, leaning in and kissing her goodbye, causing some of the kids, and some of the staff, to make a "whoooo' noise.

"Not from me," he mumbles.

As soon as she enters the flat she can smell the flowers. The vast bouquet of red roses lolls in a casserole on the kitchen table.

"Oh my God, Ian, they're beautiful."

Forty-five minutes later, as the final credits roll, she frowns and tries to make sense of what she has just seen. She doesn't know much about television, but she is pretty sure that Dexter hasn't shone. He has looked shaky, actually frightened sometimes. Fluffing lines, looking at the wrong camera, he has seemed amateurish and inept and as if sensing his unease the people he has interviewed -- the rapper on tour, the four cocky young Mancunians -- have responded with disdain or sarcasm. The studio audience glares too, like surly teenagers at a pantomime, arms crossed high on their chests. For the first time since she met him he appears to be making an effort. Might he be, well, drunk? She doesn't know much about the media, but she can recognise a car crashing. By the time the last band plays out her hand has come to cover her face, and she knows enough about TV to know this is not ideal. There's a lot of irony about these days, but surely not to the extent that booing is good.

"Oh. Who then?"

"Golden Boy, I expect. They came this morning. Completely over the top if you ask me. I'm going to have a hot bath. See if I can shift it."

She removes her coat and opens the small card. "Apologies for sulking. Hope it goes well tonight. Much love Dx". That's all. She reads it twice, looks at her watch, and quickly turns on the TV to watch Dexter's big break.

She turns the TV off. From the bathroom comes the sound of Ian honking into a flannel. She closes the door and picks up the phone, moulding her mouth into a congratulatory smile and in an empty flat in Belsize Park the answering machine picks up. "So -- talk to me!" says Dexter, and Emma goes into her act. "Hey you! Hiya! I know you're at the party so just wanted to say, well first of all, thank you for the flowers. So beautiful, Dex, you shouldn't have. But mainly -- Well! Done! You! You were fantastic, just really relaxed and funny, I thought it was fantastic, just a really, really, great, great show, really." She hesitates: don't say "really". If you say "really" too often it sounds like "not-really". She continues. "I'm still not sure about that t-shirt-under-suit-jacket-thing, and it's always refreshing to see women dancing in cages, but Dexter, apart from that, it was just excellent. Really. I'm really so proud of you, Dex. In case you're interested, Oliver! went alright too."

She senses her own performance is losing conviction now, and decides to bring it to a close.

Dexter is unconvinced but they chink glasses just the same. "Sorry about that… booze thing. I owe you an apology."

At the party afterwards Dexter stands alone at the bar, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. People cross to congratulate him but no-one lingers long and the pats on the shoulder have come to feel like consolation or, at best, well done on missing that penalty. He has continued to drink steadily but the champagne seems stale in his mouth and nothing seems to lift the sense of disappointment, anti-climax, creeping shame.

"Wahey," says Suki Meadows in a contemplative mood. Once the co-star, now clearly the star, she sits next to him. "Look at you, all mean and moody."

"So. There you go. We've both got something to celebrate! Thanks again for the roses. Have a good night. Let's talk tomorrow. I'm seeing you Tuesday, is that right? And well done, you. Seriously. Well done you. Bye."

"So! That went well, I thought!"

"Yes you do."

"Hey, Suki."

"Still, we should talk about it. Some other time."

"It was just something to loosen me up, you know."

"Okay."

"Because I'm not going out there again with you off your tits, Dex."

"Next week?"

She leans her shoulder against his, and puts her chin on his shoulder. "Next week?"

"Buy me dinner. Somewhere expensive, mind. Next Tuesday."

Her forehead is touching his now, her hand on his thigh. He was meant to be having dinner with Emma on Tuesday, but knows that he can always cancel Emma, she won't mind. "Okay. Next Tuesday."

Suki Meadows leans over and kisses his cheek, then puts her mouth very, very close to his ear. "NOW COME AND SAY HELLO TO MY MUUUUUUM!"

"I know. You won't. And I'll make it up to you."

"Can't wait." She pinches his thigh. "So. You gonna cheer up now?"

"I'll try."