Friendship

Research shows - as most women already knowthat the quality and number of our friendships has a profound influence on both our health and happiness. But what does it mean to be a good pal? From fictional relationships and literary diaries to her own experiences, Rachel Cooke examines the nature of the female bond

- RACHEL COOKE

MY OLDEST FRIEND has the same name as me: Rachel. But I call her Kitty, a variation on her surname. We have been close for more than 40 years. She and I will, I believe, know each other now until one of us finds ourself at the other's funeral, where she will, perhaps, be required to tell funny stories to a crowd of unfamiliar people. Kitty, if you're reading this, please don't bring up that school trip to Normandy during which I famously disgraced myself.

We were 14 when we met at our Sheffield comprehensive; I wonder now how we found each other, because the school was unimaginably vast. But then I remember that it was the 1980s. Our teachers were often on strike: lessons began with a long wait for substitute staff to turn up, and in those minutes the gossip, like the bad behaviour, was frantic, everyone squeezing in as much as they could before the door opened and some slightly desperate figure tried to bring us to attention. Stuck in the same stream for maths, we spoke in those snatched moments about makeup and music - and, of course, about boys: about who we liked, and who we thought liked us.

And somehow, we never ran out of things to say: when the day was done we would go home and promptly ring each other. Telephones were in the hall in those days. There was no privacy. Your brother would make annoying noises to distract you. Your mum would walk past, clicking her tongue in irritation, a finger tapping her wristwatch. But we were not to be put off. The daily unpicking was as vital as air. We could wring drama from anything, though very often no squeezing was required. A certain Miss X appeared to be dating a physics teacher and the hairy bloke who taught geography. A boy in history kept falling asleep, the result of his addiction to glue. There were the sex lives of those girls who were so much more daring and sought after than us. Their daily soap operas, loudly and melodramatically performed.