London, June 1993

Katrina had wanted to watch it in secret—Mick's TV debut. She wanted privacy to see him on screen for the first time, or that's what she insisted to herself. Perhaps her biggest fear was that he would be absolutely...shite.

It was difficult to watch a TV programme, knowing that everyone you knew was tuned in at the same time. Up and down the UK, people would be switching on their tellies, consulting their TV guides and pressing the remote—Channel 4, Friday 8.30pm, The Rock 'n' Roll Chef.

The Friday night slot was a bold move on Channel 4's part. Did people seriously want to watch cookery on a Friday? Weren't most folks either in the pub, or too old or too young to be interested in what was being promoted as the zeitgeist for Generation X?

Channel 4 took the chance, anyway. The poster campaign that had targeted mainly London, but also Edinburgh as a nod to Mick's Scottish heritage, had given enough positive feedback for them not to pull the show from its prominent position.

Debbie and Tony wouldn't hear of letting the occasion go unmarked. They insisted there must be a party, albeit a small one. She supposed she owed it to Tony. Thanks to him, Mick was in the position he was in now. Once upon a time, Tony had invited a food critic to the town where they lived and pointed the critic in the direction of the Star Tavern where Mick worked. The critic had raved about the food. As a result, Mick had got a job in Edinburgh where Dee found him.

She'd never have discovered him in Kirkcudbright. Not in a million, billion, zillion years.

"I'll do some food," Tony said, his face lighting up. "Invite your friends round! And Daisy can do the same. We'll all watch it together. It'll be fun."

In the end, the thought of watching it in company seduced her. So what if he was shite? No-one knew about their relationship. She'd taken that request seriously, deciding after a while that it helped her as well as him. Daisy, she knew, would scrunch up her face, and talk about Mick's terrible reputation. If and when Katrina split up from him, Daisy would be jolly and kind, and mutter lots of 'plenty more fish in the sea' type clichés, but would she ever be able to resist 'I told you so'?

She could watch the programme surrounded by people and know it wasn't as if they would all be muttering to themselves when she left the room. 'God! That was terrible, wasn't it? I don't think anyone will bother watching the next episode, do you?'

They'd do that in front of her. And if Mick turned out to be the world's worst TV presenter, she'd wholeheartedly agree with them.

In the end, they were a smallish party—Debbie, Tony, Daisy and the Ghastly Graham, Matthew, and two of Debbie's work friends.

Tony had made canapés. He'd spent his afternoon consulting Delia Smith and coming up with tiny bits of baked bread spread with little smears of pate, cranberry sauce and goat's cheese. He'd also done something with quail's eggs. Everyone was given a glass of Cava and invited to choose their viewpoint—the sofas, armchairs or the beanbag that Katrina opted for.

When it got to half-past eight, the chat stopped, and Tony stood up. "Right! Here we go! The Rock 'n' Roll chef!"

The TV screen flickered, and everyone held their breath. Tonight was not the night for electrical histrionics. Then, to a collective sigh of relief, the screen came to life. An advert for sofas finished, and the announcer told the audience that a new show was about to start. It was cooking, but not as you know it...

The music started up, an up-and-coming band singing about free time and the deliciousness of life. It played out over a backdrop of a man fast-forwarding his way around a kitchen, back and forth from a sink to the counter, up and down to shelves and cookers, and then at the end, he slowed to a normal pace, turning to grin at the camera.

"Oh my lord!" Debbie's work colleague, a divorcee called Miriam in her early 40s, mimed fanning herself. "He can cook for me any day!"

Mick's accent was softer than usual, its traces of Scottish-ness smoothed out Sean Connery style. Dee had told her she'd hired him a voice coach. Regional accents were acceptable on TV these days, but y'know, not that acceptable.

He spoke directly to the camera a lot, the eyes mesmerising when they were seen so close up. There was lots of encouragement, too. "I want you to try this. I promise it's so easy to do, and you will never buy shop-bought again." "This is my favourite sauce for steak. It'll be your go-to one, too."

Miriam had obediently scrabbled around in her large handbag and taken out a notepad. She scribbled down the instructions for the sauce.

Another interesting point Dee had made was that she didn't see her programme as an educational programme. They went out on Mondays and Tuesdays, she said. The Rock 'n' Roll Chef was pure entertainment, and if people actually cooked what Mick promoted, she'd eat her hat.

A fitting metaphor, perhaps.

Maybe Miriam and all the other 40-somethings drooling over the blonde-haired, blue-eyed god before them would prove her wrong. God knows, middle-aged divorcees had little else going on in their lives, Katrina told herself as Miriam read out her list and asked everyone if there was any ingredient for the sauce she'd forgotten.

Bitchy. But fair.

There were lots of other little touches thrown in, unfamiliar to viewers of all the cookery programmes that had gone before this one. Mick made a point of sticking his finger into any sauce he made and then licking it slowly off. The first time he did it, he winked at the camera at the same time. After the ad break, he was shown buttoning up chef's whites over a naked and gleaming torso.

Miriam just about fainted at that.

At the end, the programme had mocked up an informal dinner party. Mick's alleged friends, all beautiful and all actors Katrina knew as she had made them up, gathered around his table chatting and drinking wine, while he served up his food. He leant over the table as he did so, laughing and joking with the women, one of whom ruffled his hair.

The theme tune started up once more, and the credits rolled. Out of loyalty to Katrina, they watched till the bitter end, Tony, Debbie and Daisy shrieking with excitement when they saw her name under the words 'hair and make-up artist'.

Ghastly Graham, as per usual, looked contemptuous, muttering about the dumbing down effects of television.

"Well," Tony said, getting up so he could offer everyone more of his canapés. "I think we've just witnessed the birth of a new star. What did you think, Katrina?"

"Aye, it was alright," she said, taking three of Tony's pate toasts. The others burst out laughing at that.

"What?"

"It's just you," Debbie said. "You're so Scottish. It's against your religion to be enthusiastic about anything, isn't it?!"

She screwed up her face at that, resisting the temptation to poke her tongue out, which Debbie would tell her was the worst way to argue. Maybe they were right, but years of Calvinism latterly filtered through the Jehovah's Witnesses made it hard to break the habits of a lifetime.

The phone rang, its peals sounding out from the hallway. There was the usual Walker response as everyone apart from Matthew looked at each other in the 'is that for you, are you expecting a call' way.

Katrina got to her feet. "I'll get it."

It was Mick. He sounded outrageously drunk.

"What did you think?" The words were slurred, and behind him, she could hear a party going full throttle.

Thanks for the invite, Mick.

Remembering Debbie's words, she told him she thought it had been 'good'. Maybe he'd been expecting her to rave on and on about it, and no doubt the folks around him at the moment had done so. Or maybe he'd phoned her because he wanted her honest reaction.

"Aye, really? You didnae think I looked like a total twat?"

"Well, obviously. But an alright twat. Your mammy will be proud of you."

She thought of Morag then, Mick's mum and manager of the Star Tavern. Morag had always been scathing of Mick's 'fancy' cooking, and had only eaten once at the restaurant in Edinburgh. What would she think of the programme, and more importantly, what would her opinion be of her son's new relationship?

Katrina longed to know.

Mick started muttering then about needing to phone Morag, and there was a clunk. He must have dropped the phone. About to hang up, Katrina paused, hearing someone calling her name at the other end.

"Katrina? Is that you?" Dee.

"We're having a small celebration here. Sorry, I would have invited you beforehand, but I was just a bit worried that..."

So, Dee too had feared that Mick and the programme might be a total embarrassment.

She'd tuned out a bit, before realising that Dee was asking her something. Jump in a taxi. Come over here. We'll pay...

"Can I bring Daisy?" she asked, crossing her fingers that Dee would say 'yes, but only bring one person' which would give her the excuse to brush off Ghastly Graham.

"The more, the merrier!" Dee trilled. She must have thought the show went well. "Bring anyone you like!"

Now, there was an invite and a half.

She put the phone back in its cradle and returned to the living room.

"Anyone want to go to a party? Seems like we're all invited along to celebrate Mick's big night."

And, she decided, Dee or not. The world was going to be telt that she and Mick were officially an 'item'.