Bad idea, I argued, hating that I had to play devil’s advocate, but knowing I’d no choice. You can get to know so much about a person online, but the one thing you can’t ever gauge from a computer screen are the mysteries of human chemistry. Supposing you meet and within five minutes you realise you don’t fancy him. Then what? You end up bored stupid and yet still having to get through a two-hour meal that could end up costing you a week’s wages, that’s what. Or worse, and really I hated saying this, but someone had to; suppose he stands you up and you’re left in a swishy restaurant on your own with a glass of tap water in front of you? No, far, far better to meet in a coffee shop for the first date. That way, it’s only half an hour and if you do get on, then it’s a doddle to arrange to see each other again. But if you don’t, then you’ve only wasted thirty minutes and the price of an Americano.

‘Then there’s the other huge advantage of a coffee date,’ I added smugly.

‘Namely?’

‘You can tell a lot about a guy from the way he drinks. Example: if he blows on a coffee, chances are he’s ultra-cautious in bed. And if he slurps, then you can bet he’s a sloppy kisser.’

‘Jeez, you should do this for a living.’

So before we knew it, Sharon was going to loads of bother getting ready for her big date. I took full charge of her makeover, something I’d been itching to do for a long, long time, and even bullied her into making an appointment at Joan’s salon to get something done with the awful hair. As if that wasn’t enough, I also plucked every single excess hair from her eyebrows and amazingly, managed to talk her into tackling her moustache, which, after much whinging about how painful it would be, she eventually did. She even treated herself to a brand new pair of jeans and I found a cute little vintage Whistles twinset lurking at the back of Joan’s wardrobe which fitted her perfectly. Then we jointly raided all my stuff in the garage and rummaged out one of my Birkin bags, as well as some costume jewellery earrings and a necklace for her.

Overall effect? Complete transformation.

Maggie’s comment? ‘I think you need more accessories. Like a pimp and a lamp post, for instance.’ Then, when Sharon was out of the room, Maggie turned on me, snarling, actually snarlingthat if anything happened to hurt Sharon, she’d hold me personally responsible. I got defensive, muttering something about how it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all (it’s all the Danielle Steel I’ve been reading), and Maggie’s response was, ‘Oh please. Just look at the state you have her going out the door in. Why don’t you just drop her down the docks in a pair of hotpants?’

I said nothing to Sharon about this exchange, just silently reminded myself that people always want you to reflect their status in life so they can feel good about themselves. Which has to be the only reason why Maggie’s so threatened by all this. She’s single and therefore wants the whole house to keep her company.

Joan, on the other hand, was completely fantastic about the whole thing. I actually think the thought of one of her daughters out dating might even have propelled her into one of her good moods. The only slight problem being that a lot of her well-intentioned dating advice clashed violently with mine. Example: me gently guiding Sharon to be funny and warm but still to keep something in reserve, on the grounds that it’s never any harm to cultivate a bit of mystery around guys. Whereas Joan told her, ‘Put on your available face and remember you’ve just had about a twelve-year dry spell, so best to grab whatever you can get your hands on.’

Then, I was coaching Sharon to keep a close eye on the time, and after about forty minutes, to let on she had to leave. To say she’d a pressing engagement elsewhere, on the showbiz principle that it’s always best to leave ’em wanting more. Whereas Joan told her she was more than welcome to bring him home, so she could get a decent look at him for herself and furthermore, if he fancied staying overnight, she’d even cook him a big fry-up for brekkie the following morning.

‘Jeez, could you imagine that?’ Sharon muttered to me on our way out the door. ‘Me bringing the poor eejit back here for the first time and Ma waiting here for us? And you know what she’s like; the nicer she’d be to him, the more she’d frighten him off. Like some kind of giant dating scarecrow.’

Anyway, I borrowed Joan’s car and dropped Sharon off at Starbucks in Dame Street, right in the middle of town; her nervous as a kitten and me fully immersed in my role as relationship guru, calmly assuring her that I’d dropped a lot of babies in the bathwater in my time and that they’d all been absolutely fine.

I was so full of high hopes that it all might go somewhere but…disaster. I hadn’t even made it back to Whitehall when my mobile rang. Sharon, in tears, wanting to be collected. Now if she’d been stood up it mightn’t have been quite so bad, but what happened was far, far worse. Your man arrived in, took one look at Sharon, then said he’d forgotten to feed the meter back where his car was parked. And never came back again, the bastard.

‘I’ve never felt so humiliated in my whole life,’ she sniffed in between fags on the way home. ‘And I flip fecking burgers for a living. It was like his lips said no and his eyes said read my lips. Useless gobshite.’

So, basically, it’s one-nil to Maggie.

I’ll never forget the row that night. Mainly because, for once and most unusually, it didn’t happen to involve me. In fact, I was innocently loading the dishwasher in the kitchen when, from the TV room, I heard the highly unusual sound of Maggie having a go at Sharon. ‘You see? This is what happens when you turn a gobshite like Cinderella Rockefeller into your new best friend. Bet she’s having a right laugh for herself over this. Getting you done up like a dog’s dinner and all for some fella who took one look at you and then ran.’

‘Leave Jessie out of it, will you? This wasn’t her fault. How could it have been? Just back off and give the girl a break, will you?’

‘And, unsurprisingly, you’re sticking up for her. My my, we’re very matey these days, aren’t we? Sharing the same room, all gossip and chats and trawling the computer together looking for complete tossers you’d run a mile from if you met them down the local. She’s playing you like a violin and you can’t even see it. She’s wormed her way into your life purely so she can get what she wants. And she’s succeeding too; she’s got you to share your room with her and now she has you and me at each other’s throats.’

‘You know something, Maggie?’ says Sharon, sounding stronger than I think I’ve ever heard her before. ‘When Jessie first moved in here, we gave her all of our shittiest jobs to do, totally on purpose. And she did them and she never moaned or complained. Not once.’

‘Oh please, Jessie Woods and manual labour lead mutually exclusive lives.’

‘Would you listen to yourself? Why don’t you just stop being so down on her all the time? And while you’re at it, you can bloody well stop being so down on me too. Because I’m fed up being on my own—’

‘You’re not on your own…’

‘I’m fed up doing nothing but watching TV night after night and most of all, I’m fed up of being single. I’m only thirty-two for feck’s sake and I’m sick of Ma having a better social life than either of us. I don’t want you and me to end up being two weird old ladies who the kids on the street all call names at and play knick-knock on our door then run away.’

‘What is going onwith the pair of you?’ I can hear Joan yelling down from the top of the stairs.

‘NOTHING,’ they both yell back up in perfect unison.

‘Well can’t you keep it down then?’ Joan shouts back. ‘And if there’s blood spilt on a carpeted area, you’ll have me to answer to.’