Movie stars

It must’ve been twenty-five years since I saw her last – longer since we spoke. We’d cleared our plates of buffet-table small talk when suddenly she offered,

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‘Everyone on the estate thought your mum and dad were so glamorous.’ Years reversed at her words, exposing you both in our council house garden:

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stripped for the sun, basted in tan oil; magazines and massive sunglasses. Smothering, sun-burned, coconut air. Those vicious, foldaway sun loungers.

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You were movie stars to our neighbours. The arrogant couple. The ‘posh sods’. Acting as though you believed your own hype, till your bad press hounded us all.