Letters from the LEVER ARCH FILE

TWO FRIENDS CO-WROTE LOVE YOU MADLY, A NOVEL ABOUT TWO SISTERS WHO FOLLOW THEIR HEARTS IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AND FALL IN LOVE. THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW THE NOVEL MATERIALISED.

- DAISY JONES AND LUCINDA HOOLEY

The two of us became unlikely friends in high school - and we've been writing to each other ever since. But it wasn't until recently that we realised our scribbled notes and heartfelt letters had the potential to be a novel.

The year was 1985. The place was Pinelands High School, Cape Town. More specifically, Mrs Gammon's Standard 7 maths class. At the end of the lesson, one of us (the popular one) strode to the back where the withdrawn-and running-late new one was stuffing books into her bag.

'Hi,' the confident one said.

'He asked me to give you this.'

So it started: with a note. The note didn't lead to a high-school romance (the boy wasn't kind). Instead, it led to two very mismatched girls becoming friends.

In the Eighties we'd walk down the road in our school uniforms, pushing our bikes. There were plays (one of us the lead, the other in minor roles). There were Outdoor Club hikes.

We pounded up and down pools and netball courts (in teams separated by several digits). The one would smoke out of the other one's bedroom window, which got us both into trouble. We had sleepovers, and we made each other laugh.

As students, one had a crush on a someone who looked like a young Bob Dylan, the other fell hard for a surfer. One liked playing pool in Observatory; the other liked The Lounge, where she'd occasionally fall into a passionate conversation about grammar with men on the balcony.

In the Nineties, in Yeoville, we shared a succession of flats. We were a kind of double act. On Rockey Street and at parties, people mixed up our names even though one had a mane of curly hair and wore a black faux-fur coat whereas the other preferred denim and biker boots.