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Tilly Turner was not sure wearing a wire was such a good look. The strip of duct tape securing it just beneath her left breast pulled uncomfortably every time she moved - and this evening, she was moving a lot. But if the mini-microphone was uncomfortable, the wretched three-inch sparkly heels were ten times worse. True, they gave her much-needed height and stature, and they made her booty sway inside its thin covering of glitzy nylon like animated peaches, but a peachy butt was not acceptable compensation for a broken ankle.

"Oh God, sorry," she muttered once more to the suave elderly gent guiding her around the sprung floor of the Colliton community centre.

"Take it easy," he said again. "Rome wasn't built in a day, you know. It takes time to master the tango."

He had that right. Who would believe that Tilly 'Two Left Feet' Turner would ever be spotted at an evening class devoted to the Argentine tango? Certainly not her old school friends, who couldn't even prevail upon her to do some freestyle flailing to the Arctic Monkeys at Indie Night in the local nightclub.

"I don't do dancing," she always told them. "Dancing is for people who sway. I lurch. Lurchers should never dance."

"Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow," dictated the teacher from the front of the hall, directing the crumpled hordes of would-be passionate lovers of all ages, sexes, heights, weights and social profiles. Tilly's gent was one of the more fragrant members of the group; her first partner had been a sweaty man in a soaked football shirt. It had come as a massive relief to find that partners were swapped every ten minutes or so, to give each dancer the opportunity to shimmy with an expert.

"I'm okay with the slow, it's the quick that floors me," Tilly said.

"Just concentrate." His smile was polite but frosty.

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From the wings of the Teatro dell'Opera, Julia indulged the secret thrill that hearing the dramatic opening chords of Tosca always elicited. Even now, six months after the audition, she had to remind herself that hard work and dedication had got her here, not the fairies. And no, it was not a dream either. Starring opposite two of Italy's most celebrated male singers was no longer an ambition. It was reality. Or, at least, it had been, until yesterday.

"Have you seen him yet?" Liddy, a chorus member and Julia's closest friend here in Rome bustled through the safety curtain, eyes bright.

"Seen who?"

"Tempi's replacement. The new Cavaradossi."

"Oh, is he here? I didn't think he'd get here so soon. Thought Rolando was going to understudy for the rest of the week. Who have they got?"

"Nobody knows him. Apparently he's on loan from some company out in the boondocks, if they have boondocks in Italy."

"What's his na- "

A man barged through them and out onto the stage. He turned to face the auditorium, which was empty but for the orchestra and director, before opening his mouth and setting free the most perfect sound Julia had ever heard.

"Who…is that?" The words fell quietly from her stunned, slack jaw.

"See! I told you!" Liddy grasped Julia's elbow, urgent fingers dimpling the skin.

"You didn't tell me anything. Seriously, this is Tempi's replacement? Who is he?"

"His name is Luca."

"Does he live on the second floor?" Julia referred to the Suzanne Vega song.

"What?"

"Don't worry. I'm raving. He's…well, for one thing, he has a stupendous voice."

"And for another," Liddy said, "he could stunt-double for Adonis."

"Yeah. He's…nice."

"You don't go for handsome men, do you, though?" Liddy sighed. She had spent the last few months of rehearsal trying to fix Julia up with a selection of Rome's most eligible bachelors.

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The old place still smelt the same, like over-boiled vegetables sealed in varnish, and the zigzag of the parquet was like an old friend, but there were different, newer, more golden names on the Honours Board now. Hers was still there, if you looked hard enough...'1995 - Head Girl - Elyssa Bradshaw'. The names that accompanied hers still gave her that little thump-thump of the heart when she didn't look away quickly enough. 'Head Boy - Jay Marriott'. Oh dear, what a blow that had been to 'Captain of Sports - Patrick Robertson'. At the time, she'd thought their strange friendship would never recover. And in a way, it hadn't.

"Do you think Jay and Patrick will come?" asked her old friend Juliet, helping her lug the punch bowl across the hall to a white-clothed table. "Do you still hear from them?"

"Oh, no. I haven't heard from them since, um, I think it must be at least ten years. I used to see Jay a bit, what with going to the same university, but we kind of drifted. You know how it is. Life gets in the way."

"It sure does. Let's not let it get in the way again, eh?"

Elyssa smiled. She would not have guessed that Juliet, the raver of her year, would be an interior designer and mother of four at the age of thirty-three. Juliet, though, would probably have accurately predicted Elyssa's path in life, she realised with an odd jolt of depression. Single, career-focused, travelling the globe from conference to conference, unable to commit to even a cat - it had been exactly what she'd wanted at twenty-one, but now…no point getting despondent. Life had got in the way of...life. That was what it did.

"No. I mean, everyone has email now. Facebook. No excuse to lose touch again."

"I'm holding you to that."

"Do you remember our first day?" Elyssa looked around at the handsome, spacious hall, taking herself back to the shy eleven-year-old hiding behind her fringe in the welcome assembly. "I thought this place was so huge. So scary."

"I remember old Vickers asking that question about how many pupils there were in the whole school. And Jay and Patrick's hands going up like a shot. Then Patrick got sent out for elbowing Jay in the ribs when he got chosen to answer."

Elyssa laughed, but there was a wistful pang behind the laughter, closing up her throat. "And they were like that for the next seven years." "You were just as bad."

"I wasn't!"

"Oh, come on! You tore up that history essay you wrote when Patrick got a better mark."

"I didn't! Did I? Oh, actually, I think I did. God, we were donkeys, weren't we?"

"Asses! But clever ones."

"That's an oxymoron. I'm more of an Oxford moron." "Morons don't get into Oxford."

"I don't know. I did. Anyway, let's change the subject! Did you or did you not snog Robbie Whitman at the Year Eleven disco? You never did confess."