 
### Single To Morden

Copyright 2014 Spike Evans

Published by Spike Evans at Smashwords

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edgware

'So you actually want me to beg?'

'I want you to go.'

'Right. I'm begging. I'm begging you – on my knees – to tell me where Sarah is.'

'Get up, Tim, for God's sake.'

'Not until you tell me where Sarah is.'

'I'm sorry, Tim, but Sarah's left. She's gone. Now just get up, will you? You look ridiculous down there.'

I did look ridiculous, of course. Ever since I'd dropped to my knees, I'd been horribly aware that I appeared to be on the verge of giving Sarah's mum some weird, inverted form of blowjob. I tried to look as dignified as possible, hoping no stray blowjob-related vibes had been detected by Mrs Benson. 'Please, Mrs B. I just need to know where she is.'

'All you need to know is that she's left,' she replied, 'and she won't be coming back. Sarah doesn't want to see you.'

'But why?'

'Seriously, Timothy – use your common sense.' I didn't care for the way Mrs Benson emphasised the word 'common', nor for the scarcely-concealed contempt with which she'd peered down at my Sexy Puffs t-shirt. 'Maybe it's time you started thinking about your future. You're nearly twenty-six. Isn't it time you tried making something of your life?'

I've no idea what she meant by that. I was making something of my life, wasn't I? She should have been thrilled to have the man voted Vinyl Bitch's 'Dealer Of The Year' (North East Region) for a future son-in-law. It was a point I was about to raise in my defence, when the doorbell rang and Sarah's mother – possibly fearing another near-fellatio experience – fled the room.

For a second, I hadn't known what to do – whether to make a semi-dignified exit via the French windows, or hang around for a further bout of self-debasement – when suddenly something at eye-level attracted my attention. A couple of dozen words in Sarah's angular handwriting, scribbled on the pad by the phone. Across the top of the paper she'd written 'LONDON'. Underneath, vigorously crossed out, were a couple of addresses – one in Kentish Town, one in Balham – and a handful of figures; rent prices, telephone numbers, a few others I couldn't read. And there, at the bottom of the sheet, quite separate from the rest and accompanied by a large tick: 'Flatshare – £630 pcm incl. – nice area – one month deposit – handy for Northern line.' Well, that was it, then. That was where Sarah, my girlfriend of the past eight years, had gone.

London.

I've never had much time for London, myself. You tend not to, when you're from the north. My father, who'd lived down south for a couple of years, had always pictured London as a terrifying combination of Sodom, Gomorrah and Barnsley – only with a superior bus network and better access to whelks. He'd loved shellfish, my dad. It was one of the reasons he'd moved to Whitby with mum, back in the seventies.

Shellfish killed them both in the end, mind. According to the Coroner's report, a half-eaten tray of cockles had been discovered in the driver's footwell of the rental car they'd been touring the Trossachs in – and a small plastic fork, clenched in dad's left hand. He probably died happy, then, hurtling round a blind corner with a mouthful of cockles – although if there is an afterlife, I don't imagine he's thrilled about how I'm deploying the last of the inheritance money. Unlike my mother, he never thought much of Sarah ('a bit flighty for you, son'), and I doubt whether he'd think much of Jeremy's plan to bring her home.

Ah yes. Jeremy's Plan. Well, I was a bit sceptical about The Plan myself, actually – mostly because Jeremy, despite being my closest friend, has never been noted for the quality of his strategic thinking. But as summer turned to autumn, I found that three Sarah-free months had started taking their toll on my capacity for rational thought – and that, plus the considerable quantity of beer I'd consumed on the night in question, somehow conspired to make The Plan seem almost... feasible.

'It's easy,' Jeremy had said, passing me my fifth pint of the evening. 'I mean, we know she's living in London, right?'

'Right.'

'Near the Northern Line.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Well, that shortens your odds, doesn't it? I mean, how many stations are there on the Northern Line? Twenty-five? Thirty, tops.'

I'd drawn deeply upon my beer, weighing Jeremy's words. They generally acquired a greater depth and clarity around the fifth pint, but here I found myself struggling. 'Yes, mate, and that's all very well, but what am I supposed to do? Go from house to house, knocking on doors?'

I closed my eyes and tried imagining myself doing it – yanking open door after door like a nightmarish, life-sized advent calendar. 'London's a big place, you know – really big,' I finally muttered, hoping this would both close the subject and establish beyond doubt my expertise in all matters London-y.

Jeremy extended a baboon-like arm, gently clamped my right shoulder and cooed into my ear. 'Look, you soft bugger. She's gone somewhere near the Northern Line, right? So she can commute. She wants to be handy for the Underground.'

'So?'

'So. So. So chances are, every day – twice a day – five days a week – she'll be using her local Tube station. All you've got to do' – and here he drained his pint in silent triumph – 'is get yourself an Oyster Card, a great big bunch of roses and a Tube map, and wait for her to shimmy along. One day at every station should do the trick. And then, hey presto, instant tearful reunion. You could start writing that novel you're always banging on about, while you're down there. London might inspire you. Whitby hasn't, has it?' He regarded me darkly for a moment. 'I wouldn't go if I were you, though.'

'Why not?'

'Well, for a start, Tooting's on the Northern Line.'

Jeremy's one of the few people who knows about my fear of Tooting; about the way the mere mention of the place has caused me uncontrollable facial tics since the age of twelve. 'Oh yes. Tooting's there twice – Bec and Broadway. And if you're down in London, you'll miss the darts league. It starts again in a fortnight.' Dave the barman, who had been following our conversation intently, nodded in silent agreement. The honour of the Fat Ox rests, to no small degree, on its regulars' prowess at the oche. 'Your round, isn't it?'

The regulars all came out, though – pints in hand – to wave me off. Dave the barman, Wes, Tall Paul, Lenny Jones, Fat Arthur, Lakey-Boy. Even Big Rob. Then Jeremy ran me to the station in one of his dad's furniture vans. For someone whose emotional range normally extends no further than 'lust' – or occasionally 'drunken lust' – he'd seemed unusually sentimental. 'I'll miss you while you're down in the Smoke,' he'd announced, pulling the van round on to Belle Vue Terrace.

'Cheers, Jez. I'll miss you, too.'

'I'll make sure no one sits on your stool at the Ox.'

'Thanks.'

'And I'll sign on for you, at the Job Centre.'

I'd winced, as I had every time Jeremy had mentioned this element of The Plan. 'I'm still not happy about pretending to be unemployed. I've got a job. I deal in rare and exquisite vinyl from the post-punk era.'

'From which you barely scrape a pittance,' Jeremy had added. 'And you're hardly going to be brokering any major deals while you're trolling round the Smoke, are you?'

'Maybe not, but–'

'So you'll need me to sign on for you. So your rent gets paid while you're away.'

'But it'll make me a benefit fraudster,' I heard myself whine. 'I'll be forever checking under my bed for Dominic Littlewood and Gloria Hunniford.'

Jeremy had shrugged. 'A small price to pay, mate.' He brought the van to a squealing halt in front of the station. 'And it won't be for long. You'll probably find Sarah within the week. And if it's longer, I'll get some time off work and come help.'

'Cheers, Jez. I appreciate that.'

I did appreciate it, too – particularly since Jeremy's never really seen eye to eye with Sarah. Then again, being six foot three and fond of sunglasses, he doesn't see eye to eye with many people.

'And if we still can't find her, we can always get our ends away with a few horny southern lasses.' He leered his most wolfish leer and jumped down from the cab. 'She likes a bit of Yorkshire rough, your average London female.'

I suppressed a further wince. It's different for Jeremy, of course. He's never been in love. And I've no intention of 'getting my end away' with anyone – not when I've sworn to forsake all others; not when there's still a chance I can get Sarah back. I mean, it's hardly the first time we've broken up and true love, the real thing, will always find a way. This belief, of course, like most of my 'mental deficiencies', is something Jeremy attributes to three years of 'brain-softening' university education. But he kept his more trenchant observations to a respectful minimum as we waited on the platform. And then the train whistle had blown, he'd passed me my bags – and a 'surprise' four-pack of Löwenbräu, for the trip – and that was it. I was gone – en route for London, Sarah, and life-long happiness.

London, Sarah, and life-long happiness. Well, I've already found one of them. London. I've found the first bit of it, anyway – Edgware, right at the top of the Northern Line – and I can't exactly say I'm bowled over. I didn't see much of it when I arrived last night, but even if you ignore this morning's insidious drizzle, it's obvious that Edgware's a bit of a dump – a decaying low-rise sprawl of shops and houses, inhabited by a grim-looking assortment of souls, none of them Sarah. I cast an eye over the damp commuters elbowing their way through the heavy doors of the Underground station, but not one of the girls walking past remotely matches the image of Sarah in my mind.

It doesn't help that I happen to be picturing Sarah naked and in bed, toying with a family-sized bag of Maltesers. It's eight years since we started going out, but every time I imagine Sarah undressed I still find myself going weak at the knees – and I imagine her undressed a lot. There's something about her, and it's not just the way she looks – her almost Nordic colouring, her cobalt eyes and trim, athletic figure. No, it's her presence, too. It's as though she's got a tiny gyroscope inside her somewhere, constantly adjusting her disposition to a state of perfect, shaggable equilibrium.

'Sang-froid, the French call it,' Jeremy had once declared, swirling the last quarter-inch of lager around the bottom of his glass. 'Composure. Chilled-out-ness. Very sexy, in the right lass. Of course, it literally translates as 'cold blood' – a point you'd do well to remember when considering your future happiness, young Timothy.' It didn't matter, though – and it still doesn't. I still want to shag Sarah all the time – including here, now, on a wet Monday morning in Edgware. It's a state of affairs probably exacerbated by the relatively small quantity of shagging we managed when we were an item. No – the sex never lost its novelty, even if the arguments and recriminations and Sarah's random fits of pique eventually wore a bit thin. I'm trying my best not to think about them, though, as I watch the rush hour's final stragglers converging on Edgware's unlovely little Tube station. Then I turn and stare along Station Road, past the nail bar and Paddy Power, both closed, facing the oncoming rain. No Sarah there, though. My stomach grumbles and I pat my coat pockets. And no Maltesers either.

I sigh inwardly. I should have thought of Maltesers when I was packing my 'Sarah' bag two nights ago. It was another of Jeremy's ideas – to bring a little goodie bag with me, something to break the ice with Sarah when I run into her. 'Nothing slushy,' he'd counselled. 'And nothing that'll make her think you've become a certifiable mentalist since she gave you the elbow.'

Eventually we'd settled on Scoobs (the stuffed Scooby-Doo toy I've had since I was five), a framed photo of me and Sarah at last year's T In The Park, and a handful of specially compiled CD's. 'You don't reckon she'd prefer some Thin Lizzy, do you?' Jeremy had asked, the tip of his Rothmans casting a malevolent glow over my musical selection. Ever since the age of fifteen, Jeremy's been unhealthily devoted to the memory of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy, believing their output to be a musical reinterpretation of the Kama Sutra, the Anarchist Cookbook and the Book of Common Prayer – all rolled into one. 'At least she'll know you still want to shag her, if you slip her a bit of Phil. Christ knows what she'll make of Morrissey. It's not exactly a love song, is it – Every Day Is Like Sunday?'

'It's how I feel, though, Jez. When she's not around. Depressed. Isolated. Sunday-ish.'

'What about Scoobs, then? Sarah never struck me as the 'teddy bear' type.'

'Scoobs isn't a bear,' I said, retrieving the threadbare hound from Jeremy's non-cigarette hand and gently bedding him down at the bottom of my bag. 'Sarah's always had a soft spot for him. She kidnapped him once and made me buy her a bottle of Calvin Klein's Eternity as a ransom. She threatened to cut off one of his ears if I didn't come up with the goods.'

'So she's sentimentally attached to the little chap, is she?' Jeremy had said, wedging my iPod charger between Scoobs' legs. 'Well, with wee Scooby on the team you're bound to get her back, aren't you?'

Looking down, I discover that I've been unconsciously fondling Scoobs' ear through the top of the carrier bag. I check my watch. Nine o'clock exactly. Well, if Sarah lived in Edgware – and if she was going to work by Tube – then I guess she'd have commuted by now. And if she'd come within fifty yards of the Tube station, then I'd have spotted her – with or without Scooby's help.

I pull my coat – rain-sodden and twice its normal weight – further around me. It's a daft one to be wearing; an East German border guard's coat, the one I usually reserve for Manchester record fairs so that Joy Division diehards will accept me as part of the brotherhood. Jeremy thought I should bring it down to London so I'd 'look tasty – or at least off-puttingly eccentric' and prevent anyone hassling me as I lurked outside a succession of suburban Tube stations. I don't look 'tasty', though, a quick glance in HSBC's window assures me. No – I look like an escaped mental patient. I sigh and glance at my watch again. One minute past nine. By my reckoning, it'll be another eight or nine hours before this morning's commuters will start wending their way – shagged out, hungry – back through the Tube station ticket barriers and home. Therefore, I can reckon on getting back to the hotel in, what, around eleven hours? Eleven hours – assuming they've got a free room when I get there. Bloody hell.

'Get yourself a room at a Happi-Lodge or something.' That'd been Jeremy's advice when we were discussing cheap hotels in his dad's workshop last week. 'They're a bit plastic-y, but they've all got bars. And you can get proper porn on the telly. Plus, they're dead cheap and they're not too bothered if the odd towel goes walkies. Big Rob stays in them all the time when he's touring with bands. It's all he's given me for Christmas, these last three years – Happi-Lodge towels and dressing gowns.'

I suppose it was the tacit approval of Big Rob, Jeremy's über-cool older brother, that had made me choose the Happi-Lodge hotel when I arrived in Edgware last night. And, true enough, they'd found me a comfortable room on the fifth floor with an unrivalled view of the Peugeot dealership on the southbound A5 – in addition to looking after my bags after I checked out this morning, just in case I needed a room again tonight.

Even more remarkably, the pretty, dark-haired Scottish lass sitting at the Reception desk actually seems to recognise me when I stagger across the foyer shortly before eight o'clock in the evening, despite the fact that I'm drenched from my evening vigil outside the Underground. 'Hello, Mr Howden,' she says brightly, as my rain-sodden elbows descend on to the counter. 'How was your day?'

How was my day? My cold, wet Sarah-free day of trudging the streets of Edgware; of greasy, lukewarm pasties from Greggs The Bakers; of aching feet, crushing tedium and suspicious glances. Quite possibly the first of many such days, friendless and disconsolate and quietly going bananas in a town that's always given me the heebie-jeebies. I struggle to find the appropriate words. 'Mm. Not fabulous.'

'Oh, I'm sorry about that.' The receptionist does look sorry, too. 'Will you be wanting room 51 again tonight? I made sure it wasn't given to anyone else. And I've kept an eye on your bags.' She reaches behind the desk and retrieves them. 'If you're staying, we've also got a nice room overlooking the car park, if you'd prefer?'

'No. Thank you. But if room 51's free, that'd be great.'

The receptionist taps something into her computer, possibly consulting the Happi-Corporation's policy on the rooming of vagrants, and glances up again. 'No problem. Is it just one more night you'll be wanting?'

For a second, an image of the Underground map flashes before my mind's eye – Edgware and High Barnet at the upper reaches of the Northern Line, the fleeting conjunction of tracks at Camden Town, dividing again for the Bank and Charing Cross branches before colliding at Kennington and racing down beneath Clapham and Tooting to Morden in the deep south. I shiver, a few drops of water falling from my rain-ravaged hair on to her desk. Please let me find Sarah tomorrow. I try my best to smile politely at the receptionist, despite the fact that naked Sarahs and football-sized Maltesers are now ricocheting around my brain. 'Can we start with just one night, and see how it goes?' I glance out of the window into the inky London night. 'Although it might be a bit longer than that, actually.'

burnt oak

'Whitby', we were informed in primary school, means 'white settlement' in Old Norse. It's a fact that vaguely troubled me at the time, and it still does today. Indeed, as a liberal youth with a fondness for Bob Marley and the Wailers, I'd spent most of my secondary school years impatiently waiting for the first black kid to join our class.

He – or she – never arrived.

Had they done so, however, they'd have had no fiercer local advocate for their civil rights than Timothy Anthony Howden. It's a point I feel like having printed on my t-shirt as I undertake a fourth circuit of Burnt Oak's main drag, passing Afro Cosmetics, Reggae Spice and the Lekki Kitchen (offering 'Food of Black Origin' – including the 'Family Bucket' and the 'Solid Dish' – to anyone adventurous enough to sample them). Whitby, I find myself reflecting, still has some way to go before it can consider itself truly multicultural. It's a thought that does nothing to relieve my feelings of self-consciousness as I weave my way though the dregs of the commuter rush.

In one respect, however, I feel completely at home in Burnt Oak: I'm beginning to look semi-destitute, and so does pretty much everyone else round here. It's a puzzling discovery. Wasn't London meant to have been revitalised by the Olympics? Spruced up, nipped and tucked, and sent strutting along the global catwalk? Isn't it supposed to be overrun by Saudi princes and émigré Russian oligarchs? If so, they haven't found their way up to Watling Avenue yet – which, on a damp Tuesday in late September, looks more like a postcode-sized branch of Cash Converters than the millionaires' playground that Jeremy had described.

Jeremy was right about the Happi-Lodge, though – which, as predicted, offers a decent night's kip at a bargain price. The Edgware Happi-Lodge is nothing to look at from the outside, though – an ugly rust-coloured edifice squatting on the edge of the A5, a good half-mile or so from the town centre, hemmed in by a car rental franchise and a Lidl supermarket. But inside – well, it's not so bad. The breakfast bar has an 'all you can eat' policy regarding croissants, and there are two double beds in my bedroom – plus a minibar, which I'll open in the event of a major lottery win. I've also got a decent-sized bathroom and a functioning telly, and a radiator that was big and hot enough to dry out my rain-soaked ex-border guard's greatcoat overnight. I only wish that the people at Happi-Lodge HQ hadn't chosen turquoise as their corporate colour, and daubed everything in varying shades of Harpic – even the pillowcases.

It's the first thing I mention, actually, when I give Jeremy a lunchtime call from a phonebox on Burnt Oak Broadway. 'It's like sleeping in an aquarium. Everything's blue-y green.'

'Must be very soothing, though, eh? Particularly given your fragile state of mind.'

'Me? Fragile?' I try sounding incredulous, but we've only been speaking for twenty seconds and Jeremy's already hit a nerve. He knows I've never been particularly fond of my own company and – yes – I've already had a couple of minor frets about the possibility of going a bit peculiar. 'Don't know what you're on about.'

'Fragile. You know – mentally unstable. Morbidly introspective. Lacking the calming influence of your uncle Jez.'

'I'm completely fine. Anyway, I reckon I'll be running into Sarah soon. Then we'll be coming home.'

There's a pause as Jeremy lights a cigarette at the other end of the line. 'If you say so. I'll be down there in a couple of weeks if you're not, mind. Dad reckons there's a quiet patch coming up at work.'

'Cool. You'll like it down here. They do food of black origin.'

'Nice. You should find a local lass and take her out for dinner. Get back up to speed on the 'talking to the opposite sex' front.'

'I don't think so.'

'Could be a life-saver, mentally speaking – filling the emotional void with a bit of meaningless shagging.'

'It was just dinner and talking, a second ago.'

'Both perfectly natural precursors to shagging, mate.'

'Not for everyone. Not for me.'

Jeremy sighs. 'So it's just you and young Scoobs 'til I get there, then.'

'Me, Scoobs and Sarah, with a bit of luck.'

'Oh yes.' He draws deeply on his cigarette. 'And Sarah.'

He's right to be sceptical, though. Sarah would never live anywhere like Burnt Oak – even if it did mean unfettered access to the 'solid dish' and the 'family bucket'. I put the phone down and head back down Watling Avenue, Jeremy's words still gnawing at the back of my mind. He thinks I can't do it. He thinks I'll go bonkers. 'He's wrong, though, isn't he, Scoobs?' I murmur, inclining my head towards my 'Sarah' bag. 'Oh yes. He's totally wrong.' Oh God. I need to get Jeremy out of my brain. And I need to do something more mentally absorbing than wondering what might be contained within the 'family bucket'. I need... yes, that's it. I need the thing that always levels me out. I need a couple of hours' complete immersion in ancient vinyl – inspecting, grading, valuing – maybe even a little light alphabetising, time permitting...

Thirty seconds later, sanctuary is in sight. I've registered a handful of charity shops on my wanderings around Watling Avenue, all pretty downmarket, but I'm in no mood to be picky and I bundle unceremoniously into the first I come across – a small independent one, seemingly devoted to the welfare of cats. Sanity ahoy! Even before the door has swung shut behind me, I realise that I'm unlikely to unearth a mint pressing of Trout Mask Replica or Sergeant Pepper, but that's cool – I'm here for the sake of my mental wellbeing, not business. I begin making my way through the mêlée of bustling pensioners within, now vainly trying to expunge the word 'business' from my mind.

Business – my business, the buying and selling of rare and exquisite vinyl from the post-punk era – is not something I currently care to dwell on. When I started doing record fairs and internet mail order during my last year at university, I decided to specialise in the kind of music I liked. Big mistake. When I'd finally worked out that I needed to actually sell records – heaps of records – to make a living, it was too late; I'd already established my niche in the least lucrative of all the vinyl markets. The serious money, as I now know, is in psychedelia, early rock'n'roll, northern soul, and ancient shellac from long-defunct US labels. Not in the Rezillos or the BMX Bandits or The Mighty Lemon Drops.

Shuffling sidelong past the queue for the till, I manage to catch the eye of one of the old dears who's minding the shop. 'Is it okay to leave this here?' I ask, nodding from my bag to the space on the floor next to the counter. 'I just need a quick look at your records.'

'Oh, yes. Of course, sweetheart.'

'Thanks.' I tuck my 'Sarah' bag close into the counter and proceed unencumbered towards the rear of the premises.

It's a bit of a disappointment when I get there. Clearly the Ebay vultures have already descended and stripped the carcass bare. There's nothing released after 1974, anyway, except for three Leo Sayer LP's and a handful of those Top Of The Pops albums with half-naked lasses on the cover. One of them – wearing a minuscule denim waistcoat and a pube-defying pair of hotpants – bears more than a passing resemblance to Sarah, and I'm considering a potential purchase when my silent reverie is shattered by a squeal of childish pleasure from behind. I look round on impulse, seeking out the source, only to be met with a sight that makes me leap to my feet, the LP cover falling to the floor. 'Scoobs!'

'Is that his name, dear?' calls the more birdlike of the two ladies behind the counter, bending down towards the grubby-looking toddler who now has Scooby's left ear jammed into his mouth. 'Your new toy's called Scooby! What a silly name! What a silly name!'

'Ooby, ooby!' echoes the small boy, attempting now to force the whole of Scoobs' head into his drooling maw.

'No, no,' I manage, at length. 'Not Scooby...'

'Not Scooby?' The lady turns once again to the small boy. 'Maybe it's 'Doggy'. Can you say 'Doggy'?'

'He loves him, anyway,' says the boy's mother, steering Scoobs' abductor towards the door and addressing me over her shoulder. 'We're so grateful you brought him in.'

I try summoning a response, but my throat feels uncommonly dry. In today's world of pound shops and TK Maxx, how poor must you be to buy your kids toys in a charity shop? I shrug and attempt a smile. 'No worries,' I say, now trying to locate the bag from which he was snatched. It's nowhere to be seen – but the photograph of me and Sarah is all too clearly visible at the other end of the counter, in the hands of the other shop assistant, a thick-set woman with dark hair and the early onset of a goatee. 'What are you doing with that?' I manage to utter, hoping the dry rasp of my voice won't frighten her into a foolhardy course of action.

'Just getting rid of the photograph, dear,' she smiles and, with a practised hand, slips the Polaroid from the hardboard backing and crumples it into a ball. 'We might get a pound for the frame. And we might get fifty pee each for your CD's. We don't get many donations from young people.'

For a fleeting moment, I consider explaining the whole 'Sarah' situation to the two larcenous cat fanatics who've just divested me of my most cherished possessions, but I know I'll only feel even shittier if I do. Scoobs, I note with a heavy heart, has already left the building – and back home, in Whitby, there are other CD's and other photos. Most of them with Sarah looking pretty mutinous, admittedly – but still. I manage another wan smile as I retreat towards the door. 'You're welcome. Always happy to help a good cause.'

I glance outside into the street. Leaden clouds have once again rolled across the sun and a few heavy raindrops spatter the pavement. From somewhere beyond the Tube station there's a sudden, livid bolt of lightning, followed some seconds later by a low rumble of thunder – a rumble that echoes between the tired-looking shopfronts of Watling Avenue like deep, mirthless laughter. I pull up my collar and head outside.

'Déjà vu.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Déjà vu. The feeling you've been somewhere before,' says the Scottish receptionist, apparently intent on extending our conversation beyond the bare necessities. 'In this case, you collecting your bags from me and then spending another night up in room 51.'

'Ah, yes. Sorry.' I try my best to smile at her. She has, to her credit, been unfailingly pleasant to me since I got here on Sunday night and is clearly making an effort to be engaging. 'I'm a bit tired. Long day. Very long.'

'Nothing bad, I hope?'

An image of Scoobs springs obligingly to mind and I sneeze – something I've done a lot of, today – causing the mental picture of my one-time companion to quiver alarmingly. 'Nothing a good night's sleep won't cure.'

'And is it just one more night? With the option to extend, if circumstances change?' The receptionist's fingers hover over the keyboard. 'I don't mind looking after your bags during the day.'

I try concentrating on what she's saying, but my mental picture of Scooby has now become Sarah – only this time she's not frolicking with giant Maltesers. No, this Sarah's more like the real thing – fully dressed, sulking about something indeterminate and staring accusingly in my direction. 'No, no. I think I'll be staying for a bit longer than just the one night, if that's okay.'

'Sure. Shall I book you in for the week, and take it from there?'

'That'd be grand.'

The receptionist taps away at her computer keyboard for a moment. 'That's done, then.' She hands me the key card for my room. 'Have a good night, Mr Howden.'

'Good night.' I take the card, but somehow find it impossible to walk towards the lift. Since leaving Whitby, my three most meaningful interactions have been with the dark-haired Scottish receptionist, and something – I'm not sure what – makes me want to prolong this one just a little longer. Besides, as someone who actually lives in London, she could be a valuable asset in tracking Sarah down. I clear my throat. 'Actually, I wonder if you'd mind helping me with something?'

She looks up from her screen and smiles. 'Sure. What's up?'

I frown. What, precisely, do I want to know? I wrack my brain. Something that might make London a bit less bewildering. More mentally manageable. 'Well, this might seem like an odd thing to ask, but you don't know what Morden's like, you do?'

'Morden?' The receptionist looks crestfallen. 'No idea, actually. Never been down there. Sorry.'

'Oh.' The fact that she might not know anything about Morden hadn't really occurred to me. It is, after all, a suburb of London. I pull out my A-Z and glance at the Tube map on the back cover. 'Okay. Well, what's...' – I cast my eye swiftly down the Northern Line – '...Goodge Street like, then?'

She perks up visibly. 'Goodge Street? Oh, it's not too bad. There are some decent pubs and restaurants behind it on Charlotte Street.' Yes, she's definitely Scottish. Glasgow, I'd guess. You can tell by the way she makes the 'r' sound in 'Charlotte'. It's a nice sound.

'Ah. Right. Thanks.' We're finally getting somewhere. Charlotte Street sounds promising – a better bet than Edgware or Burnt Oak, anyway. Pubs. Restaurants. Feminine-sounding. The sort of place Sarah might want to live. 'Popular with the young ladies, is it? Because I'm hoping to find a girl.'

'Oh.'

'That's why I'm here, actually. In London.'

'To find... a girl?'

'Uh-huh.'

There's a momentary silence, during which the receptionist's eyebrows rise just a fraction of a inch. 'Couldn't really help you with that one, I'm afraid.' Then she turns away and resumes tapping lightly at her computer keyboard.

'I see.' Our discussion appears to have ended. I shuffle my feet for a moment, hoping another conversational gambit will spring to mind, but it doesn't, and so I turn from the desk and head for the lift. 'Thanks anyway.'

She doesn't look up. 'No problem.'

In my hotel bedroom, I abandon my clothes in a single waterlogged heap and stumble into the shower. Something about the expression on the receptionist's face still troubles me as I towel my hair dry and crawl into bed.

The next time I'm aware of being fully conscious, the luminous hands on my watch are telling me it's half four in the morning. The damp towel still lies next to me on the pillow. I suddenly sit bolt upright in bed. Bloody hell! She thought I was trying to score, didn't she? That I was down here on the pull. I groan in the darkness, trying – and failing – the recall the exact words I used. Maybe – worse still – she thought I was asking about prostitutes. Oh, God – please don't let it be prostitutes. Anything but prostitutes. Anything but that.

colindale

Prostitutes. Oh God. That's all I need – the only person I've really spoken to in London thinking I'm a sex tourist. Smooth moves, Tim. Very smooth. And imagine if I were to take Sarah back to the Happi-Lodge – well, the receptionist would probably think Sarah was a prostitute too.

'This is my girlfriend, Sarah,' I'd say.

'Of course she is,' the receptionist would reply, discreetly making a note to have the entire room sluiced down with Toilet Duck immediately after my departure. Oh God.

Somehow it feels like I'm being punished for having abandoned Scoobs without more of a struggle. I'm freezing for a start, having forgotten to put my army greatcoat on the radiator before I went to bed. I needn't have worn it to Colindale, anyway. You don't need to look 'tasty' to survive Colindale, I think. You just need a golfing umbrella the size of Surrey. I drive both hands into my coat pockets and stare out into the grey north London morning. For the first time since I bought this coat, back when I was a student in York, I find myself empathising with the East German border guard who first owned it. The poor sod must have frozen his knackers off, tramping along the Berlin Wall with only a layer of threadbare gabardine between him and the elements.

I take out a croissant, biting its end off as I walk. It's my third of the morning, its predecessors having been consumed on the southbound Tube platform during the previous couple of hours, more to alleviate the tedium of my vigil than anything else. Sarah, needless to say, was not amongst this morning's crop of commuters; AWOL once again from the ranks of yawning automata shuffling wordlessly along the platforms and on to their trains. I silently curse Jeremy and his stupid plan and, hunching my shoulders against the drizzle, trudge off along Colindale Avenue.

A couple of minutes' exploration is enough to convince me that Colindale is a very different proposition from Edgware and Burnt Oak. It's still noticeably short on charm, but bleakly suburban rather than apocalyptically grim – more On The Buses than Blade Runner. It also appears to get by almost entirely without the benefit of shops.

This is bad news. One of the few things that made Edgware and Burnt Oak bearable was the fact that they both possessed a cheerful variety of retail outlets. Yes, admittedly, one of them effectively stole a bagful of my most treasured possessions, and most of the others weren't particularly welcoming... and some were actively hostile (I think it's the coat) – but they were still somewhere warm where I could hole up when the weather turned nasty. I glance skyward, registering only scudding clouds beyond the stark roofline of a building claiming to be the British Library Newspaper Archive. Not good, I think. Not good at all.

I manage to make it a further hundred yards along the street before the heavens open and a vicious, squalling downpour begins. My feet pick up the pace, falling into step behind the pair of smartly-dressed young women that I'd followed out of the Tube station; the two of them skitter over the drenched pavements beneath hastily folded copies of Metro. I lower my head until only their shoes are properly visible beneath my sopping fringe, stopping only when they suddenly scurry off down a short driveway towards a modern, campus-like cluster of buildings set back from the road. I peer at the sign on the low wall. Public Health England – 61 Colindale Avenue.

Unbidden, I find my eye drawn toward the ticker tape patterns of strip-lit windows beyond. Something about the main building – a tiered, isometric elevation of brick and glass – reminds me of my old university hall of residence at York. Slowly I begin walking towards the pedestrian entrance at the side of the driveway. I don't think I possess a specific intention, or a plan, until I'm almost at the security booth next to the gate. And then, suddenly, everything is perfectly clear. It's just a big office, I think. A large, weatherproof building full of hard-working public servants. An anonymous haven of warmth and shelter, with communal areas and comfortable seating and clean toilets, maybe even a canteen or a small coffee shop or something. I glance back at the street. And if I stay out here, there's every likelihood that I'll drown.

The guard in the bright blue security booth scrutinises me as I approach. 'Hi,' I say, positioning myself under the side awning and shaking the worst of the deluge from my arms and hair. 'Hello.'

'Good morning.'

'Good morning, yes.' I wipe little more water from my face, conscious that I haven't shaved for some days. 'I'm, uh, here for an interview.'

The guard – clean shaven, dry – frowns visibly at the suggestion. To an extent, I understand his scepticism. After all, you'd probably only choose to dress like me if you were hoping to join a particularly laissez-faire branch of the SS, or possibly snag the lead in an all-homeless production of The Eagle Has Landed. His eyes narrow. 'A job interview?'

'Sure.' I nod hopefully at the main building, now a mere hundred yards away. 'I'm actually a bit late, so if you could just let me–'

'Department?'

'Pardon?'

'Which department – your interview?'

For a moment my mind is a blank. 'Uh... policy?' I manage at length, now nodding vaguely at some indeterminate point beyond the guard's left ear. Rainwater lightly spatters his hi-viz vest. 'The policy department?'

'What have you got there?'

'What?' I glance down at where the guard is now pointing. 'Oh, this? It's a kind of bag.' I find myself clutching it to my chest. I don't want to discuss it. I wonder, vaguely, whether this might be a good moment to try out my Jedi mind tricks. This is not the bag you're looking for, I think, staring at a spot just above the man's spectacles. I may forego a bag check.

He leans forward and firmly relieves me of my cargo. 'Let's just have a look inside, shall we?'

Bollocks.

A moment later, six or seven rather ravaged-looking croissants tumble on to the wet counter. The security guard fixes me with the steely eye of officialdom. 'This isn't a bag. It's a pillowcase. A pillowcase full of croissants.'

'Mm.'

'You can't come in with those.'

'Can't I?'

'No.'

'Even if I'm diabetic?'

His gaze doesn't waver for a second. 'Are you diabetic?'

'Well, not in any formally diagnosed sense, no.'

The guard shakes his head. 'Then you can't bring them in.' He nudges one of the croissants a couple of inches across the counter with the rubber tip of his pencil. 'You weren't planning on selling these, were you?'

'No.'

'Because you've got a lot of them.'

'Ah, well, you can pick up as many as you want in the hotel where I'm staying. Only I couldn't find a bag this morning, so I borrowed a pillowcase from the housekeeping trolley.'

He transfers the tip of his pencil to the pillowcase, lifting up the flap to peer inside. 'Would that be the Happi-Lodge? The one up the A5?'

'They've got an 'all you can eat' policy for the breakfast bar.'

'Of course they do.' He leans back in his chair and regards me over the rims of his glasses. 'You haven't really got an interview, have you?'

'Not as such, no.'

'Then you'd best be on your way.'

I acknowledge the security guard's suggestion with the tiniest of nods, but say nothing. Over the past thirty seconds or so, I've started feeling seriously peculiar – faint, light-headed, other-worldly. My fingers grip the edge of the counter until the moment passes. This is Public Health England. I'm a member of the public. My health is at stake and I'm English, I reflect. It would be very bad publicity – and pretty bloody ironic – if I dropped dead on their doorstep. 'Can't I come in for a little while?' I manage at length. 'Just until the rain's stopped? Get a coffee from the canteen or something?'

The security guard's head shakes slowly. 'No. No, you can't.'

I sneeze on the counter, sending a small shower croissant crumbs down the front of his hi-viz vest. He doesn't react.

Out in the Colindale monsoon, I struggle to catch my breath. Alarmingly, it appears to be escaping from my mouth in thin ribbons of weak, vaporous mist. God, I need to sit down. I make my way over to one of the low bollards to the right of driveway and lower myself on to it. I find myself wondering whether or not the security guard, having heartlessly dispatched me back into the downpour, is now observing me via one of the CCTV cameras mounted high above my head. I hope so. I flick V's at all the cameras I can see, and am just forming my left hand into the 'wanker' shape when a disturbing thought occurs to me. I totter back to the security booth window.

'It's me again.'

Zilch.

'Erm... you haven't been watching me on the CCTV, by any chance, have you? While I was sitting over there – on your bollard?'

'Maybe. Why?'

'No reason.' My fingers drum lightly on the counter. 'I just wondered whether you were planning on telling anyone about our little croissant-y misunderstanding, earlier? You know, out of spite?'

'Who would I tell?'

'Oh, I don't know. The Happi-Lodge?'

His eyes narrow.

When I return to the Happi-Lodge, I waste no time in approaching the attractive Scottish receptionist, since I don't know how much longer I'll be able to remain conscious and there are two critical issues I need to resolve before abandoning myself to recuperative sleep. I clear my throat. 'Hello.' The receptionist doesn't look up from her computer screen. 'Hello. I was just wondering whether there'd been any phone calls this afternoon?'

'No calls for you, Mr Howden.'

'Right. Good. No phone calls about me, either? From, say, Public Health England?'

The mention of Public Health England briefly appears to trouble the receptionist. Then she shakes her head. 'Er, not that I recall.'

I breathe a sigh of relief. At least I haven't been shopped to the Happi-Corporation for my croissant pilfering. I smile at the receptionist, who glares back with tight-lipped disapproval.

'Was there anything else?'

'Mm, well, yes actually. I just want to clear something up about yesterday. When you mentioned Charlotte Street. And I asked whether it was popular with young ladies. Well, I wasn't asking if they had lots of... erm, you know – prostitutes there.'

There is a pause. It can only be described as 'weighty'. 'That's okay.'

'I'm not interested in prostitutes.' I try to look friendly, in a way that only someone utterly disinterested in prostitutes would do. I fancy I've a whiff of Nelson Mandela about me. Scoobs would be proud of me – 'unthreateningly sexless' is a look he always did particularly well. There's a further momentary pause.

'That's okay.'

'You see – I'm down in London looking for a friend. Who happens to be a girl. A very specific girl.'

'That's okay.'

But clearly it's not okay. Clearly, with every passing moment I'm becoming more firmly etched into the receptionist's mind as The Prostitute Man. I take a deep breath. 'Maybe I should tell you about Sarah.'

* * *

So I tell her about Sarah. Well, I start telling her about Sarah – and about the Friday afternoon geography lesson shortly after my thirteenth birthday when, as I sat idly colouring Norway a delicate shade of pink, my childhood ended and I inadvertently became an adolescent love slave. I don't use the words 'adolescent love slave' in front of the pretty Scottish receptionist, of course – I am, after all, trying to shed my image of Sir Whoresalot – but I feel it's important to start right at the beginning, and get some facts out in the open.

'Timothy, this is Sarah Benson.' They seem such innocuous words now, but even though it's over a decade since I heard them, I can still recall the guilty jolt I felt as Miss Langstaff shattered my cartographical reverie. 'Sarah will be joining us from now on. She's new to the school so try making her feel welcome. You'd better move your things off the desk.'

Maybe it was Miss Langstaff's abrupt intrusion into my mental siesta that made me drop my pencil, but it was a slim, blonde girl who leant over to pick it up, glancing momentarily at the writing on the side before passing it back. 'Oooh. 'Flesh'. Good choice, Timothy,' she whispered.

And that was it, of course. No one's got any defences for that kind of thing when they're thirteen. 'I was doing Norway,' was all I could think to say. 'I thought it would, you know, contrast nicely with Sweden.'

'It does, Tim, it does. Beige. Tasteful.' She quickly mimed the 'vomit' gesture in the direction of my exercise book, and her victory over me was complete.

I remember hearing somewhere that the basic dynamics of any relationship, no matter how long it lasts, are indelibly defined by the way its first few weeks play out. With Sarah and me – well, I'd have to say that it was pretty much down to those first fifteen seconds. If I'd somehow managed to take just a little more initiative around about, say, the sixth or seventh second – well, who knows where we might be now? But having failed to assert myself – or even speak – until around the thirteenth second, I was basically 'pissing in the wind from the get-go' (as Jeremy has so frequently reminded me over the years). I'm still not one hundred per cent convinced by Jeremy's analysis – but having established an early pecking order, Sarah wasted no time in laying down some ground rules for our fledgling friendship. My homework quickly became our homework. Her opinions became our opinions. My emotional wellbeing became her punchbag. And together we became a minor social curiosity on the Whitby teenage social scene.

Not that I abandoned Jeremy, of course. Abandoning Jeremy would've been like tossing your Christmas kitten in a wheelie bin, but since he conveniently languished in the lower ability classes for most subjects (whereas Sarah and I were both top-set boffins) it was generally possible to keep the two of them apart – Sarah in school, Jeremy outside. He was sceptical about Sarah from the start.

'What's she like, then? Your new girlfriend.'

'She's not my girlfriend.'

'Your friend who's a girl, then. That Sarah. The posh one from Harrogate.'

'She's very nice. Thank you.'

'She takes the piss out of you a lot.'

'That's the way we talk to each other. Mates don't have to put each other on pedestals. You wouldn't understand.'

'That's what she told you, is it?'

'At least she's capable of talking about things other than Duke Nukem and Gwen Stefani's backside.'

'She's getting you trained up as her lapdog.'

'Bollocks.'

'You've got all the disadvantages of going out with her, but none of the perks. If you know what I mean.' He leered at me horribly.

'Bollocks.'

'She'll never shag you, you know.'

'I wouldn't want to.'

'Ha.'

'Ha.'

Jeremy gazed into the middle distance. 'I'd give her one, mind.'

Trust bloody Jeremy to voice the things I'd been thinking for the previous half a term. And trust me to listen to him, allowing his words to seep into my subconscious and take up residence. Because I did fancy Sarah, and would've been gutted if Jeremy had ever managed to sleaze his way into her affections.

I guess that's why I made a special effort the first time Sarah came round to my house, when we had to prepare a history presentation on Life In The Trenches. It was typical, then, that she yanked the CD I'd spent days compiling out of the stereo within thirty seconds of entering my bedroom. 'Oh God,' she'd said, holding up the track listing for inspection. 'Radiohead. I really love this band. Just love them. They're just so angry, aren't they?'

'I suppose. I don't really know.'

'Oh, they are. Are you angry? Is that why you like them?' She tossed the CD over into the corner of the room, where it clattered against the skirting board. 'It just a pity I can't listen to them, because unfortunately they give me acne. So we'll just have to listen to this instead.' She produced a Mötley Crüe CD from the depths of her schoolbag. 'I think you'll find this actually clears your acne up, Tim.'

'Always thinking of me. Too kind, too kind,' I'd responded, sensing I'd lost the initiative somewhat.

'I am, aren't I?' She wrinkled her nose. And cranked up the volume.

Within five minutes of opening our books, my mother had noiselessly materialised bearing an enormous tray of tea and biscuits. 'To help you work!' she'd breezily declared, as though small gestures of selfless assistance to her son's academic career were just something she habitually did – whereas in fact this was the first glimmer of interest she'd taken in my educational wellbeing since abandoning me on the steps of Whitby's 'Little Tykes' nursery a decade earlier.

'Thanks Mrs Howden. Ooh, tea. And biscuits. This is really lovely.'

'Oh, Sarah, you're so polite,' my mum had simpered. 'If you two want anything else, anything at all, just come to the top of the stairs and shout. Or maybe I should just leave the two of you alone. To work!' And, backing out through the door, she'd winked at me. Openly. Chummily. In front of Sarah. I almost died, then and there.

'Your mum's so lovely, isn't she?'

'Shut up.'

'No, but she is. So lovely.'

'Shut up.'

'Lovely, lovely mum.'

'Shut up.'

Our presentation on life in the trenches was, of course, a towering triumph, and set the pattern for a working relationship that (despite being responsible for inflicting chronic insomnia upon my delicate teenage years) muddled along happily enough for quite a while.

I did – once – ask Sarah out, though. Sort of. Shopping. It was on Jeremy's advice and so I hold him entirely responsible for its failure. The essence of his argument was 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' – although its expression ('eventually you're just going to have to put your balls on the table and see if she tickles them') was rather more to the point.

'You can't go wrong with shopping,' he'd advised. 'You'll be bored out of your skull, but you might get a snog or a grope or something, and if it turns out Sarah's a lesbian – which I suspect she is – then your self-respect won't be down the tubes. I mean, all you've done is take her for an innocent trot round Dorothy Perkins, or wherever lesbians get their dungarees from. Win-win situation.' Jeremy had taken up smoking by this point, and had punctuated his final observation with an insouciant flick of his tab end – a gesture that somehow seemed make any objection seem pointless.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sarah had almost laughed out loud when I skillfully worked the offer of a gripping Saturday afternoon in Darlington into our essay planning on crude oil extraction at Sullom Voe. 'A date? You and me, shopping? Oh, Timothy, no. That way madness lies. Madness!' And then, gathering up her books, she reached over to gently scratch the back of my neck, and was gone. Which was about as intimate as we got for quite a while.

* * *

'Sounds like she was a wee bit of a handful, your Sarah.'

I consider this for a moment. It's probably the most opinionated thing that the Scottish receptionist – whose name, it transpires, is Claire – has said in the last hour or so. 'I suppose she was. Still is, really.'

'And that's why you've come down to London. To track her down.'

'Yes.'

'Your old school friend.'

'Yes.'

Claire drains her coffee and toys for a moment with the remains of a sugar sachet. One of its predecessors, now fashioned into a tiny paper stick figure, regards us mutely from her saucer. 'Couldn't you contact her through Facebook or something?' she says at length.

'She closed her account.'

'Send her a text?'

'She changed her number.'

'What about through her family? Or mutual friends?'

'They won't talk to me. You know how it is when couples spl–' I begin. 'When friends have issues. People take sides.'

'So,' says Claire with a palpable note of satisfaction. 'You did become a couple, then?'

'We started going out in the sixth form. We were an item until about six months ago. On an on-off basis.'

'Wow. That's certainly devotion. Have another garibaldi.' Claire slides the packet towards me. I take a biscuit and dip it into the mug of coffee – my second – that she made for me a quarter of an hour ago. Claire glances towards the Reception area, where her colleague, Tara, is silently filing her nails. She slips the biscuit packet back under the bar and leans over confidentially. 'Best not be too obvious about the biscuits. The manager counts them every morning. They're only meant for conference guests, really.'

'Oh. Okay.' I try to chew a bit more discreetly, but it's getting hard. The fever I've been fighting since yesterday has, over the past hour, decided to make its move south from my head to my lungs. Drawing breath, even minus the garibaldi, is getting difficult. 'Sorry. And thanks again for the coffee. And listening. And pretending not to mind when I sneezed all over your blouse.'

'Forget it. Really.'

I finish my coffee. Despite the double dose of caffeine, I feel utterly drained. My head's started to throb, and unusual sensations – painful, aching sensations – are beginning to emanate from around three inches above my buttocks. Across the bar Claire is suppressing a yawn and I realise it's time I headed to my room. 'Well, I should probably be getting to bed, anyway.'

'Okay. Well, it's been good, talking.' She smiles. 'Sleep well.'

'Thanks.' I get up from my stool, the ceiling cartwheels around my head, my knees buckle and I fall to the ground.

hendon central

'So she's still there now?' gasps Jeremy when I phone him three nights later. 'In your shag pad?'

'In my bedroom,' I murmur, shielding the mouthpiece. 'She fell asleep.' I glance down at Claire's head, resting gently against my shoulder. 'We'd just started watching Mad Men and she nodded off.'

'Your hotel receptionist popped round to watch Mad Men?'

'Not really. She was bringing me some Lemsip and a banoffee cheesecake from Sainsbury's. I made her a mug of darjeeling and put the telly on. Then she fell asleep. She worked a double shift today. She's completely knackered, poor lass.'

'You didn't put anything in her darjeeling, did you?'

'Just milk. That UHT stuff that passes for milk, anyway. I don't think it's got Rohypnol in it.'

Jeremy's silence suggests that profound contemplation is taking place, two hundred and fifty miles up the A1. 'Still, though – she must be pretty... well, relaxed in your company, mate – to actually pass out.'

'Well, it's not the first time she's been here. She's popped up a few times in the last few days. She was really worried when I fainted on Friday night, and I couldn't get out of bed on Saturday or Sunday.' Claire stirs in her sleep, and for a moment I think she's about to wake – but after a few seconds' gentle burrowing against my arm, her snoring resumes. 'Maybe it's Happi-Lodge policy, Jez – to stop guests snuffing it on hotel premises. It'd be pretty lousy PR if they just left me here to decompose.'

'Maybe. It's probably not Happi-Lodge policy for employees to hang around for Mad Men, though, is it?'

I don't know how to answer that. 'Claire's just being friendly, that's all,' I eventually mutter.

'How friendly are you being, though? Wouldn't a friend just wake the poor lass up and send her packing? You could watch the end of Mad Men by yourself and tell her what happened in the morning.'

'Mm.'

'The longer she sleeps, the more embarrassed she'll be when she wakes up.'

I allow my gaze to stray to where a few strands of Claire's dark hair have fallen across my bare forearm. 'But she looks so peaceful. Like a little cat.'

'Christ, Tim. You're enjoying it, aren't you? You bloody perv.'

'No. Well, maybe a bit. It's all perfectly innocent, though. We're just friends. We've been getting on really well, these last few days.'

'I bet you have. I just wouldn't get too close to her, mate.'

I fight the urge to squirm guiltily against the Happi-Lodge cushions, acutely aware of the proprietorial way that Claire's hand has installed itself around the crook of my left elbow. We couldn't get much closer if we tried. 'No?'

'Not when you're supposed to be looking for Sarah, no.'

Typical bloody Jeremy. Just because he can't be friends with a girl without having ulterior designs on the contents of her underwear, it doesn't mean I can't. 'I can still be friends with Claire, Jez.'

'You can't be friends with anyone when you're dead, kid.'

I stick my tongue out at the receiver. Jeremy often thinks he's being amazingly deep, just because he can quote the entire canon of Thin Lizzy lyrics from memory. I don't recognise the 'no chums for the dead' reference, though. 'Obviously. But I'm not dead, am I?'

'Ah, well, that's where you're wrong.' Jeremy clears his throat, a new note of triumph entering his voice. 'Because you are dead. Good as dead, anyway.'

'As good as dead?'

'Yeah. In a coma. It's all been decided. You're about to buy the farm. In fact, you've already invested in a smock and put a down payment on a muck-spreader. You're dying.'

I retrieve the remote control from beneath my buttock and mute Mad Men. 'You've got the wrong end of the stick, Jez. I only caught my chin on the edge of the bar when I fainted. And bumped my nose on the floor. And I've obviously got a touch of 'flu. But I'll be right as rain in a day or two.'

'No you won't.'

'No?'

'No, mate. You'll be dead. You'll be Stiffy McDead of Deadtown, dead as dead can be.'

I turn the telly off. Clearly this exchange will require my full attention. 'And why will I be dead?'

'Because there's a new plan to get Sarah back. Me and Wes worked it out last night in the Ox. It's brilliant, and it involves you croaking.'

I extend both legs and wiggle my toes. 'But I'm feeling a bit better.'

'Yeah, yeah. But Sarah needs to think you're dying. She's not completely heartless, despite appearances. So if someone – like, say, her mother – tells Sarah that you're about to kick the bucket, she'll crawl straight out of the woodwork, won't she?'

My throat tightens and I thrust my free hand towards the Strepsils box, suddenly fighting for breath. 'You've got to be joking.'

'Certainly not, kid. Wes has put up a special memorial page on Facebook. And last night we went on a little pub crawl, spreading the news. We were at it again today.'

'You've been going round Whitby, telling people I'm in a coma?'

Jeremy sounds hurt. 'God, no, mate. That'd be lying. I've been going round Whitby intimating that you're in a coma. Dropping little hints. Saying what a decent bloke you were before the accident, how much I'll miss you, how much cash you owed me, that sort of thing.'

'Oh God.'

'We reckon you'll have Sarah back within the week. Either you'll run into her down there, or – more likely – she'll turn up back here, looking for your corpse. It's a twin-pronged attack. There's no way we can fail.'

'God, no.'

'It's a brilliant plan. Flawless.'

For a moment, my stunned brain struggles to find words that can convey exactly how offensive the plan is. To me. To Sarah. To everyone. 'And you don't think you're being just a bit bloody insensitive? Given that my parents died less than two years ago?'

'Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that, kid. But me and Wes reckon it's worth it. And Wes did some psychiatry on his course. He says you'll pull through.'

'I was dying, a minute ago.'

'You're still dying, mate. That's why we didn't consult you. No point – what with you about to pop your clogs, and all.'

'So I'm in a coma from a cut on the chin?'

'You never know. You've not had it looked at, have you?'

'It's only a little cut.'

'That's what Bob Marley said when he sliced open his toe, playing footie. And it killed the poor sod. Dead at thirty-six.'

'It was drugs that did for Bob, wasn't it?'

'Common misconception. Untreated toe injury.'

I digest this. 'Well, cheers, Jez. Thanks a bunch.'

'No probs, kid.'

Reaching to replace the receiver, I feel Claire stirring at my side. In the midst of my weighty medical discussion with Jeremy, I'd forgotten she was there. I try replaying the previous two minutes' conversation in my mind. Did I say anything careless? Any gratuitous swearing or references to bodily fluids? I hope my face doesn't betray my guilty terror, but thankfully Claire seems almost oblivious to my presence – yawning and stretching out her arms and legs, lost in a drowsy little world of her own. Then she turns to face me. 'Did I just fall asleep?'

'Only for a minute.'

'I'm always doing that. Sorry.' Claire levers herself off the sofa and smiles. 'You're lucky I didn't drool all over you. I didn't drool on you, did I?'

'Not really, no. How much do I owe you for the cheesecake and the Lemsip?'

'Forget it. It wasn't much. You can buy me a drink when you're capable of standing up unaided.'

'Might be tomorrow. I think I'm on the mend.'

'Good. That'll be a large amaretto in the Happi-Bar when you get back from... where is it, tomorrow? Hendon?'

'Yes, Hendon. What's it like?'

Claire pauses in the doorway. 'Well, some of it's okay. Suburban. But the bit near the Tube's pretty horrible. It's just a massive crossroads, really.' She smiles again and steps out into the corridor. 'Yes. Horrible, I'd say.'

brent cross

I wish I'd had Claire's company in Hendon, because it was horrible – fourteen hours of seething road junctions, stinking subways and filthy, feg-encrusted pavements. And fourteen hours of contemplating my own imminent demise, of course. The whole 'Stiffy McDead' situation must be loosening my delicate grip on sanity, I've decided – and all the unfamiliar chemicals in the London water supply can't be helping, either. Those chemicals do terrible things to your brain. Whitby water comes straight off the Yorkshire Moors, whereas Jezzer reckons the southern stuff's already been through six Londoners before it even gets to the tap. Six Londoners. 'I'd have Keira Knightley, Gemma Arterton and Rachel Weisz in my six, if I had the choice,' he once told me. 'I never been mad about Rachel Weisz's films, but I've always thought she had a mind-blowing bum. Peachy. Seriously peachy.'

Jeremy would like it in Brent Cross, I reckon. There are plenty of 'mind-blowing' bums entering its tidy, suburban station this morning – mostly attached to smartly-dressed young women, many with smartly-dressed young men in tow. Smartly-dressed young men. I thrust my hands deep into my trouser pockets and hunch my shoulders against the cold. For the first time since coming down to London, the possibility that Sarah might not be alone crosses my mind. I mean to say, Sarah likes men – men other than me. Usually men with executive cars, fashionable hairstyles and toned physiques – London types. Brent Cross types. It's just one of her little kinks that I've tried to ignore, over the years.

It's not a comforting thought, I reflect, as I shiver in the stiff breeze that's belting along Highfield Avenue. Please don't let Sarah turn up – not with another bloke. When she does turn up, though, it'll definitely be somewhere like this. Sarah would like Brent Cross just as much as Jeremy. She'd like its larger-than-average semi-detached houses, its expensive Swedish cars and its atmosphere of smug self-assurance. She'd like the fact that – according to the map I picked up in the Tube station – you can walk from here to the Brent Cross Shopping Centre in ten minutes. Oh yes – she'd like Brent Cross.

I find it all just a bit vulgar, of course, and would happily spend the rest of the day standing outside its Underground station, projecting studied indifference at everything in sight. In fact, I'm so absorbed by this task that I scarcely notice the bloke who's emerged from one of the houses I'm surveying until he's standing right in front of me – and it's not until he addresses me that I realise quite how vigorously my hands have been jiggling around in my trouser pockets, fending off the cold.

'Can I help you, pal?'

'I'm sorry?' I stop jiggling. It's clearly troubling my new companion, who's probably in his forties and obviously takes a very dim view of my efforts to stay warm.

'I was wondering if I could help you. Because you've been hanging around here for the past twenty minutes, the last five of which have been spent staring at my teenage daughter's bedroom window.'

I'm aghast – genuinely aghast. If it was Jeremy he was addressing, I could understand his concern. But I'm here to find Sarah; I have a calling. I draw myself to my full five foot eight. 'Actually, I'm waiting for my girlfriend.'

'Ungh,' he grunts. 'If you say so.'

I don't care for his tone, but decline to mention it on the grounds that he's a big lad and looks to be spoiling for a fight. 'She'll be along any minute. We're going shopping.' I try desperately to think my way into a 'Brent Cross' mindset. What do these people do? 'Then I expect we'll have a couple of skinny frappuccinos in Starbucks.'

He looks me up and down, his eye lingering much longer than necessary on my nose – my nose which still looks pretty bruised from when I fainted on Friday. He wouldn't win any beauty contests himself, mind, with his lazy eye and vast, fleshy ears. He rubs one of them, perhaps fine-tuning it to the signal from the mothership, and glances down the street. 'Look, I've no idea what you're up to, but I don't like you hanging around outside my house. So I suggest you just fuck off, and if I see you here again I'll be phoning the police. Understand?'

It's almost eleven o'clock, so I don't really mind fucking off for a few hours, since if Sarah lives around here she'll probably not be using the Tube station until the end of the working day. Still – I could really do with being here this evening. 'I understand. But I'll be coming back later, if that's okay. About five-ish.' I smile my most winning smile. It makes my nose hurt.

'No. Fuck off.'

I reconsider my options. He's a sizeable lad and, if I'm being honest, there are other useful things I could be doing in the Brent Cross area – replacing my ravaged East German border guard's coat, for a start. My hand slips into my trouser pocket, seeking out the map that'll direct me to the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. I smile, but don't jiggle anything. 'Cool.'

It starts out okay. I trot gamely down Heathfield Gardens towards the North Circular, hacking left for a few hundred yards up on to the footbridge. After that, though, it's an unnerving, poorly signposted walk through grey underpasses and beneath thundering flyovers, before emerging into some neglected scrubland across which a dusty path has been worn. And there, at the end of the path – long, low, and hunkered to the ground like a vast concrete dog turd – lies the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. I scurry through the door at the back of Fenwick's.

Inside it's just as horrible, though for different reasons. There's less concrete, but considerably more migraine-inducing neon signage and the tortured strains of intermingling shop muzak. It also alarms me that I'm virtually the only bloke here, apart from the odd security guard and a few silver-haired British Legion types, steering their antique wives around the M&S food hall. Is this what it'll be like, when the women take over? Brent Cross, on a global scale? Terrifying.

I wander further into the belly of the beast, my eyes guiltily panning left and right in search of affordable new threads. It's all a bit frustrating; after all, back in Whitby I own a wardrobe that's absolutely stuffed with recent-ish Ted Baker and Paul Smith. Without Sarah's firm guidance, however, I've never really had much fashion sense – and I abstain from lingering anywhere too sartorially challenging until I reach the entrance to Top Shop. The only reason Top Shop calls to me is because Jeremy once said they did 'decent-ish retro stuff, not too steep' after finding some vintage Thin Lizzy t-shirts in the Oxford Street branch. I peer through the window, trying to see if there's anything similar here in Brent Cross, but the view is obscured by the milling throngs of young women inside. There's some pretty lasses in there, mind – plenty of attractively-proportioned Sarah-alikes, actually – and I'm beginning to slip into a pleasant Sarah-and-Malteser-based daydream when I'm suddenly, quite unexpectedly, jabbed in the spine.

I spin round and there, only a foot away, is a face I vaguely recognise. It's not an attractive face, nor a happy one, and it takes a moment to recall who its owner is. I find myself instinctively attempting to edge backwards, but the way is blocked by Top Shop's plate glass window. 'Oh. Hello. Small world.'

'Too fucking small, by the looks of things,' growls the face's owner. It's not a happy voice, either – even less happy than it was this morning.

'Yes, well – my girlfriend's just wandered up to French Connection, and I thought I'd pop by Top Shop and have a quick gander at coats.'

'Top Shop, eh? Where my daughter just happens to be trying on party dresses?'

I turn back to the window and there, sure enough, is a miniature female version of my companion. She's inherited Dad's ears, unfortunately, and peers back at me like a startled lemur. Shit. I turn around again, hands raised in a pathetic gesture of self-defence. 'It's coincidence, I swear. I'm just browsing for a new coat.'

'A dirty mac, more like.'

'No, honestly.' I pull open my coat to reveal its ravaged lining, and for a split second he flinches, as though expecting to catch a glimpse of exposed genitals below my Half Man Half Biscuit t-shirt. 'Time to pension off the old girl, see?'

'Bollocks. You're eyeing up my bloody daughter, you bloody nonce. Just like you were this morning.'

And then, in the time it takes him to pull back his fist for the first swing, I'm gone – racing past Hugo Boss and Hilfiger Denim as fast as the protesting flaps of my greatcoat will allow.

I don't look back.

I'm still feeling jumpy a whole ten hours later, when the phone rings in my Happi-Lodge bedroom. It's Jeremy, and he sounds worryingly perky. 'Hey, Stiffy,' he trills. 'How's tricks?'

'I don't know, Jez.' I suck my teeth as tetchily as possible. 'You tell me.'

'Well, there's no way I can sugar-coat it. Your condition's deteriorating. Sorry, kid.'

'So how long have I got, then?'

'Mm. Couple of days, I reckon. It's not all bad news, though.'

My heart leaps. Sarah – it has to be. 'No?'

'No, mate. You're getting lots of pressies, for a start.'

'Presents?'

'You know – teddies, mostly. Luxury massage oils from Argos. And Jonesy's mum's given you a Boyzone CD. She reckons that if they play it at your bedside, it'll drag you out of your coma.'

'Just give it back to her. Give everything back. To everyone. Please.'

'Mm. Can't really do that, mate.'

'Why not?'

'Well, lots of it's cash, and I don't know who it came from.'

'People have been giving cash?'

'Yeah, yeah. We had a whip-round at the Fat Ox. And one at the Black Horse. And the Jolly Sailors.'

'What for?'

'A decent send-off, when you snuff it. Or – in the unlikely event that you pull through – nudge nudge, wink wink – a little trip-ette to Disneyland. Holiday of a lifetime. You could take Sarah.' There's a pause, followed by the unmistakable sound of a Rothmans being lit. 'Or me, if you wanted to say thank you for getting the ball rolling, financially speaking.'

With considerable effort of will, I release my grip on the bedside table and steady my voice. 'So you've still heard nothing from Sarah, then? Or her mum?'

'Nah. It's been a bit quiet on that front. She'll turn up soon, though – either down there or up here. And it's Golders Green tomorrow, isn't it? You'll like Golders. I met a Golders lass last year at a party in Hampstead. Ruth, her name was. Lively girl. Lots of lively lasses in Golders. Very horny-porny place, actually.'

'I'll be looking for Sarah, mate. My girlfriend.'

'I know, I know. Still – you'll like Golders for cultural reasons. On account of you wanting to be Jewish, and everything.'

'I don't want to be Jewish.'

'Rachel Weisz is Jewish. Lovely bottom.'

'Yes, yes – peachy, I know.'

'Peachy enough to make you convert?'

'Jez, I don't want to be Jewish. I just like Woody Allen's films, up to – but not including – Everyone Says I Love You.' I consider the issue for a moment. 'And those Jewish hats. I do like the hats.'

'We'll get you one with the whip-round money. If you pull through. But remember that if you do convert, it'll put a real crimp in your Friday night jollies. And they snip the end off your knob.' And on that stinging note, he puts the phone down.

golders green

I can see what Jeremy meant about Golders' lasses. The Underground station's clearly somewhere girls flock en masse in the morning; pretty, smartly dressed, sussed-looking girls. Girls with nice clothes and make-up and hair. Girls like Sarah – but not, alas, Sarah herself. And so, at half past nine, I wander out of the station to see what else Golders Green has to offer – and, I suppose, to test whether Jeremy's hypothesis is true. Do I, deep down, secretly want to be Jewish? Golders Green should be the place to tell me.

And Golders Green is a marked improvement on Brent Cross – a bustling little town centre with some decent-looking shops and cafés, and the cheerful roar of wet rubber on tarmac from the bus station outside the Tube. What's more, no one tries to beat me up or accuse me of mentally undressing their loved ones. Best of all, though, is its large clutch of upmarket charity shops – just the ticket for a bored, vinyl-obsessed Yorkshireman. 'They're mostly Jewish. Best in north London,' Claire said last night. 'A perfectly reasonable option for sprucing up your wardrobe on a budget. Spend your pennies wisely, and I reckon you could brush up quite nicely.'

I couldn't tell whether she was taking the mick about me 'brushing up nicely', but Claire was certainly right about the shmatteh on sale. The first shop I enter is rammed with decent shirts and suits (mostly from Jermyn Street and Saville Row), and mad-looking vinyl from the 1970's slathered with lurid photos of Israeli peasants. There's also a shedload of cheerfully insane Judaica (mostly dedicated to starting housefires, by the looks of things – there seem to be a lot of candles involved in being a good Jew), and a couple of tidy-looking Robyn Hitchcock LP's. I pick out I Often Dream Of Trains – a 'thank you' to Claire for her charity shop tip – inspect it for scratches and take it to the counter.

Oddly, neither the elderly gent nor the old dear behind the counter seem particularly keen on serving me, despite the shop being almost empty. Is there bacon on my breath? I wonder, attempting to recall my frenzied attack on the Happi-Lodge buffet bar this morning. I don't think I had bacon, actually – or sausages – although I did scoff a couple of fried eggs. Were they done in lard? Oh God – what if my lifetime of enthusiastic bacon consumption has resulted in me acquiring a permanently pork-y ambience, a whiff of something smoky and lightly grilled that follows me round all the time? It's the only explanation. I direct my piggy breath through the side of my mouth as the old lady shuffles to the desk and nods at my record. 'Ah,' she says, with a certain sourness. 'Found something you like the look of, have you?'

'Oh yes. Robyn Hitchcock. Big fan.'

'I see.' She holds my gaze for several seconds. 'We don't get many Robin Hitchcock fans in here.' There's something distinctly odd about the way she says 'Robyn Hitchcock fans', like she's put inverted commas around the words – or would prefer to replace them with 'evil' and 'bastards'. Weird.

'Well, you haven't got many Robyn Hitchcock records,' I smile, handing over my tenner. 'And we're a very picky bunch.'

She stares at me with ill-disguised loathing. Maybe I smell of something worse than bacon. I drop half my change into the collection tin on the counter, just to show there are no hard feelings, and make for the door. I look back for a moment, just as I'm turning for the street, trying to read the expression on the old lady's face, but she's already deep in animated conversation with her elderly companion. Strange.

Even stranger, I get pretty much the same reception in most of the other shops I visit. I find myself considering the possibility that the bloke I offended yesterday might've been some sort of undercover rabbi who's circulated my description to all the local businesses, but it seems unlikely. Gentlemen of the cloth rarely go round calling people 'nonces'.

Stopping at a phone box, I decide to give Jeremy a buzz. Having seduced 'the lovely Ruth', I reckon Jeremy knows more about Judaism than anyone else I know – and anyway, I could also do with an update on my medical condition. I've decided that I don't want to be Stiffy McDead any more – that the whole 'Tim's about to snuff it' scenario has absolutely got to stop. The phone rings for a long time before he answers. 'Ah, Stiffy. It's you.'

'Hey, Jez. How's tricks?'

'Well, just between you and me, kid, things haven't been going quite to plan.'

'You've not heard from my itinerant girlfriend, then?'

'Strictly speaking, no. But I know why her parents haven't contacted her.'

'Why's that, then?'

'Because they don't know you're dying.'

'Don't they?'

'No, mate. Because they're on holiday in Magaluf. It's dead cheap, out of season. Classy, too – the Saint-Tropez of the Balearics, so Dave reckons. No one's been able to contact them, anyway. They're not due back for a week and a half.'

I slump against the phone box window. 'So the new plan – your brilliant new plan – has been an unmitigated failure, then?'

'I wouldn't say that, mate.' Jeremy actually has the nerve to sound injured. 'Just a victim of unfortunate timing.'

'But you're calling it off now, aren't you? We're reverting to the original plan, right?'

'Well, I'd like to, mate. Really. But everyone here really likes the new plan. They want to see a body. Ideally yours, and ideally dead. Of course, I could always get myself an urn and some ashes...'

'Call it off.'

'It's not so easy...'

'Call it off.'

Jeremy ums and ahs for a second or two. 'I'll think about it.'

The moment I put the phone down, I realise that I completely forgot to ask Jeremy about Jewishness. Would his advice regarding the fair sex be any more reliable if he, himself, was Jewish? I try to imagine a Jewish Jeremy as I wander through the Tube station ticket barrier and back to the northbound platform; it's easy to picture him wolfing down chopped herring, but harder to coax words from his fish-laden mouth. Come on, Jezzer – what would you say? I close my eyes, concentrating hard. Nice girls like big hats, perhaps. Or Don't judge a woman by the size of her bagels. Or Really long, curly sideburns – chicks dig them! No, it's no good. I need advice from someone who's not a congenital knobhead. I need Claire.

'Do you think bacon's an attractive smell?'

Claire looks mildly confused, but decides to humour me. 'I'd say so.'

'And do I smell of bacon?'

She leans across the Reception desk and obliges me with a discreet sniff. 'No. Why?'

'No reason.' I lift the lapel of my greatcoat and attempt to smell it myself, but my nose still refuses to cooperate. 'I've had a funny day, that's all.'

'Hampstead?'

'Golders Green.'

Claire appears to tense momentarily, but quickly regains her composure. 'Of course – the charity shops. Have a good rummage?'

'Not bad.' I pull I Often Dream Of Trains out of my rucksack. I've recently discovered the stuff Robyn Hitchcock did after the Soft Boys, and I'm keen to win converts. 'I got this for you. A present. It's to say thank you for being so kind to me over the weekend.'

Claire leans over the desk again and kisses my cheek. 'Thanks, Tim. There was no need, but it's really kind.' She glances at the sleevenotes, then looks up, clearly pleased. 'Find anything for yourself?'

'A few dozen records, mostly for stock. A shirt. But the people weren't very friendly. Some were quite rude, actually.'

Claire bites her lip. 'You don't think it was because of your... appearance, do you?'

'What, this?' I gently touch my bruised nose.

'Not that, no.' She makes an airy gesture in the general direction of my torso. 'I was thinking about your coat. Your greatcoat.'

I glance at where she's pointing. My coat is looking quite shabby, I suppose – but after my visit to Brent Cross yesterday I'm almost pleased that it makes me stand out from the herd. It's part of my cultural heritage, this coat; it's a badge of my 'outsider' status, like Zorro's mask or Frank Sidebottom's inflatable head. 'Ian Curtis from Joy Division had one of these, you know. So did Ian McCulloch from Echo And The Bunnymen.'

'He probably wouldn't have worn it in Golders Green, though, would he?'

'Why not?'

Claire's eyes narrow. She appears to think I'm taking being wilfully obtuse. 'Can't you tell? Seriously?' She gestures at my midriff again. 'Look at yourself.'

'What? I don't get it.'

For a second, Claire is mute. Then she laughs, disbelief and exasperation mingling on her face. 'Right. I'll show you.' She slips round the side of the Reception desk and leads me to the plate glass window next to the entrance. Then she seizes the ends of my scarf, evens them up and ties them in a smart knot below my chin. 'Stay put,' she says, disappearing behind me.

'What are you doing?'

'Arms up,' she commands. I look round, bemused, but this is clearly the wrong thing to do. Claire's hand darts round in front of me, finds a vulnerable spot between the two dangling swathes of scarf and subjects me to a brief but fierce tickle.

'Whoa, there...'

'I told you to put your arms up. I won't tell you again.'

The new note of authority in Claire's voice is unexpectedly stirring, and I raise my hands in surrender while Claire's arm snakes around my chest. She unfolds the left lapel of my coat and pulls it taut across my shoulders. 'Arms down.' I drop my arms and Claire takes my chin in her free hand, gently pulling it round until it rests halfway along my collar bone. 'Stand up straight. Ankles together.'

Incapacitated by my receptionist-shaped limpet, I've no choice but to comply. 'Now look at your reflection,' Claire says, 'and repeat after me: We have ways of making you talk.'

It's hard to think, in Claire's vertical half-nelson – but I clear my throat and address myself as boldly as I can. 'We have ways of making you talk.'

'Now in a German accent.'

'Vee haff vays of making you tock.' And then I see it. The boots. The scarf. The long, grey greatcoat with its stark military insignia. The bold, Aryan cheekbones and fresh facial scarring – enhanced by a pose that makes me look like I should be in the 1939 Matalan catalogue... under 'Invasion Wear'. 'Oh shit.' My vivid blue eyes stare back at me, horror struck, from beneath a fascistic mop of blonde hair. 'I look like a member of the Gestapo, don't I?'

'Just a bit.' Claire appraises me afresh for a moment. 'You big Nazi.'

'Nazi-hugger.'

Claire gives me a last quick squeeze, withdraws her arms and skips back behind the Reception desk. It's been a while since anyone's given me a hug, and I find myself mentally filing away the sensation of where her arms and hands touched me. The other bits, too. I know it's wrong, but I want to remember just how it felt – the warm imprint of her body against my back. You can go too long without a hug, I think. You can go too long without lots of things.

Given the confused nature of my thoughts, it's probably for the best that Tony, the Happi-Lodge barman, chooses this moment to materialise around the far end of the Reception desk – and Claire wastes no time in regaling him with an account of my sartorial faux pas.

'Keith Moon nearly got himself hacked to death with a meat cleaver for doing what you've just done – parading up the Golders Green Road dressed as an SS officer, back in the 1970's,' Tony eventually announces. He sucks his breath over his few remaining teeth. 'You're lucky to be alive, mein Kapitän.'

I stare into my amaretto. Oh God. What've I done? They'll never let me become Jewish now – not after this. What'll I say if I ever meet Rachel Weisz? Compliments regarding her peachy bottom could only mask my latent anti-Semitism for so long – and then what?! Do I need to apologise to a whole suburb of north London? 'Oh arse.'

hampstead

Before phoning Jeremy last night, I'd already decided not to tell him about the Golders Green incident. I'd also decided not to broach the subjects of My Imminent Demise, Bob Marley's Toe, or Who I'm Taking To Disneyland. They're Jeremy's problems, not mine, and he'll have to deal with them alone.

As it turned out, there was only one subject Jeremy wanted to talk about anyway – Hampstead. 'A sort of gay free-for-all,' was his most coherent description of the place. 'Oh yes, they're all at it. Like rabbits. Whoopsie rabbits. Shameless – especially on the Heath. Steer clear of the Heath, lad – don't be tempted on to the Heath. Just setting foot on the Heath could turn a lad's head...'

I don't think Hampstead's going to turn me gay, though. If nothing else, Claire's hug left me in no doubt regarding which side my scones are buttered. Lying in bed last night, I found myself having some very un-gay thoughts about Claire's hug, actually – and I can't help feeling that I must be projecting a force field of robust, joyous heterosexuality in all directions this morning. And anyway, my overwhelming impression of Hampstead is that it's all rather... civilised. Just the sort of place you could easily forget that you're lying in intensive care, moments from death, with only a mentally defective best friend to arrange the funeral. Oh yes – Hampstead's very nice. Indeed, the large numbers of relaxed and impassively good-looking young men and women converging on the Underground only confirm that I've surfaced from the sweaty Tube train into Sarah Heaven. What I don't see, however, are obvious signs of the wild, unfettered homosexuality that Jeremy so relished telling me about. No one's mincing; dapper young dandies aren't openly addressing each other as 'duckie'; no one seems on the cusp of bursting into an impromptu medley of show tunes – it's most confusing. Am I missing something obvious?

I try recalling any hints or tips that society has fed into my mental gaydar – things like the occupations of the Village People. It's not easy though. Only the red Indian's a certainty. After that, I vaguely recall a GI and a traffic cop. I've no idea who the others were – bus conductor, milkman, lollipop man? I glance up and down the street; no red Indians, there, and precious few lollipop men – although just down the hill from the station entrance, one of the buildings is being renovated by a bunch of construction workers, stripped to the waist and laughing amongst themselves. Are they gay? I observe them from a discreet distance, but at no point do they seem like they're about to choreograph a blistering new set of moves for YMCA. Who can say, though?

Sarah would know, of course. She's always had a nose for people's more intimate proclivities, capable of detecting gayness at fifty yards, and a wide range of sexual preferences (frequency, position, endurance, kinks) at around twenty-five. And she just loves gay men. I often wonder, in fact, whether we'd have made a more successful couple if I'd been gay – or, at the very least, a competent dancer with a readier line in withering quips.

I think about my closest male friends – Jeremy, Wes, Lenny Jones – as I meander down Haverstock Hill. All of them – even Lenny Jones ('Whitby's hottest acting talent in a generation!') – are about as heterosexual as it's possible to be. And what have they taught me about women? I reflect. Absolutely bugger all. If I understood women better, I think, I'd be able to come up with a better plan for getting Sarah back. And twenty minutes' conversation with a gay man of even moderate emotional intelligence would undoubtedly be more useful than fifty drunken nights of blokesy banter in the Fat Ox.

If I'm going to make any new friends while I'm down in London, I think, I should try making one of them a gay one. It's so obvious: I need to learn the ways of the gay. I need to become mates with one, earn his trust, get a visitor's pass into his big gay world. And then shamelessly exploit him for all his mind-expanding insights into the female psyche. Not that it need be a one-sided friendship. Oh no, no – it'd be a healthy, mutually enriching, symbiotic relationship. In exchange for his gay wisdom, I could offer my new friend insights into a few of the heterosexual arts – rugby league, elementary motor mechanics, the Record Collector vinyl grading system. And then – brilliantly – when the two of us had tracked her down – I could introduce him to Sarah.

Sarah, sweetheart! Allow me to present my new friend, Kenneth. 'Kenneth' sounds like a nice gay name, doesn't it? I met him in Hampstead. He's gay. Kenneth would say outrageous things, amuse her for hours, regale her with tales of sordid encounters with D-list celebrities in airport toilets. Sarah would simply love him and consequently, for no other reason than my daring new friend, she would love me again. Perfect.

It's settled, then. I clearly need to treat my day here as an educational opportunity, observing the young, liberated Kenneths of Hampstead, learning their methods, blending in amongst them. And since I'm still not 100% sure the construction workers are gay enough for my purposes, I decide to wander down to the Heath.

Frankly, I'm starting to doubt that anyone in Hampstead is gay. Certainly, the only sizeable group of people strolling over the Heath today are young, affluent-looking mothers with pushchairs, and their toddling, waddling offspring. It feels good to be out in the open, though, and I'm quite enjoying the exercise. It's good to see water too, although the ponds I pass on my way up Parliament Hill are a bit on the torpid side. According to my A-Z, there are supposed to be men's and women's bathing pools up here somewhere, but the oily sheen on the first pond I come across doesn't invite an impromptu paddle any more than the stiff breeze encourages the removal of underpants. Where do Hampstead's randy Kenneths do it, then?

I'm still pondering this as I emerge on to Wellgarth Road, up in Golders Green's nether reaches. Geographically, this looks like the place you'd live if you were both gay and Jewish, so as a heterosexual Nazi impersonator I suppose I should feel a bit edgy. However, no one tries to thrash me to a pulp, and I'm relieved to make it to Golders Green Tube station unmolested.

So my day's been a failure – no Kenneths to be found. On the plus side, though, it's good to see that my one-man re-enactment of the Third Reich didn't make it into this evening's Jewish Chronicle. I flick through its pages as I wait for a train back to Hampstead. It's absorbing stuff – particularly the photos of bar mitzvah boys trying to look like miniature Harvey Keitels – so absorbing, in fact, that it takes me a couple of minutes to register that I'm no longer alone on my bench. In fact, it's not until I overhear the words 'divine' and 'fabulous' being spoken by a man – to another man – that my rudimentary gaydar begins pulsing weakly, and it's two more minutes before I summon sufficient courage to steal a glance over the top of the Chronicle. And there he is, sitting right next to me – toned, revealingly attired, and entertaining his equally muscly friend with a tale about his sister's over-sexed chihuahua – Kenneth. Two Kenneths, in fact, for the price of one. Awesome.

What's less than awesome, though, is my utter inability to think of a credible conversational gambit with which to engage my Kenneths. Jeremy wouldn't have hesitated; he'd have asked them whether Bank trains stopped at Leicester Square, or if Kenneth's iPad was the 4G version, or the whereabouts of a decent bar... but I just can't. And for some reason, my introductory lecture on The 'Record Collector' Vinyl Grading System now seems a less than entirely attractive swap for Two Gay Men's Combined Thoughts On The Secrets Of Womankind. Even the simple act of sitting next to them is making me feel faintly inadequate – like an absurd retrosexual dinosaur that's somehow wandered into a GQ photo shoot.

It's not an entirely unfamiliar sensation. Many of the arguments that Sarah and I had during our last few months together made me feel the same way – like I was stuck in some ludicrous pre-Millennial timewarp. I shiver in spite of myself. In my mind's eye, it's all too easy to picture Sarah, standing on the Tube platform in front of me and the two Kenneths. Which of us, I ask myself, most closely resembles Sarah's ideal man? I glance again over the top of the Jewish Chronicle, and it's suddenly depressingly obvious. Obvious I'll never be as slim as Kenneth. Obvious I'll never have Kenneth's natty taste in clothes, or his razor-sharp wit. Obvious I'll never know as much as Kenneth about fashionable bars, Swedish furniture, the films of Doris Day, how to marinate tofu or where to buy lemongrass. Kenneth will always be more emotionally honest with both himself and his loved ones; he'll remember birthdays and send cards. And I'll never have Kenneth's tact or panache or his ability to cut a rug in a trendy nightclub (do they even call them 'nightclubs' down here? Kenneth would know).

Admittedly, I'll never have Kenneth's preoccupation with other men's willies, either, but that, at the moment, seems like a very small tick in my 'plus' column. I feel terrible. In my quest to get Sarah back into my life, I've been defeated by a pair of unknown homosexuals. If it's Kenneth that Sarah wants – and it clearly is – then what hope have I got of winning her back? And to imagine I'd had the audacity to think I could befriend my own Kenneth and exploit him as my hip badge of urban cool. I've been an idiot. The train pulls into the station and we – the two Kenneths and the thick northern dinosaur – get on board.

If I was thinking straight, I suppose I should have just set my Kenneths free and taken a seat in a different carriage entirely. But I've warmed to the pair, in spite of everything. And so I sit down opposite them in the empty front carriage as the train pulls out of Golders Green... before stopping dead in its tracks, a mere hundred yards down the line. A moment later, the driver's voice crackles along the carriage. 'I'd like to apologise for the delay,' it announces. 'I've just been told we might be here some time. There's signalling failure on the track ahead.'

My heart leaps. It's my only chance and I seize it. I lean forward and address the two Kenneths. 'Signalling failure? You know what that reminds me of? Me and my girlfriend.'

Kenneth Number One smiles back politely. 'Really?'

'Oh yes.'

And I tell them all about Sarah.

'Sometimes people just aren't right for each other,' Callum eventually concludes, as the train begins moving again (neither of my companions was actually called Kenneth, as it turned out). 'Sex can only keep you together for so long.'

Bloody hell – just look at me – talking to a gay man about sex. How cool's that?

'That's right,' adds Nathan. Nathan's the butch one – a real man's man. 'It'll hurt in the short term, but eventually you'll realise you've been flogging a dead horse. And when you've moved on, you'll feel a million times better.' This is gold dust – gay gold dust. 'And the other thing is – well, I don't know if Sarah's going to find your plan to track her down as romantic as you think. It might be best to pretend it's a coincidence, when you run into her. Try not to look like a stalker.'

Callum nods sagely. 'I had a stalker, once. It was awful.'

If only I had my notepad, I could write all this stuff down – the sound advice, the profound insights into the female mindset, the tips on the importance of nice shoes. But there's no time, anyway – Hampstead's just around the corner; my destination, but not Callum and Nathan's. And there's still so much to ask them. The train slows, and I realise I've only got time for one last question, and it can't be anything trivial about lemongrass or Swedish furniture. We pull to a halt in Hampstead's brightly-lit station and the doors open. 'If there was one single thing I should do,' I say, 'something practical that'd help get her back, what do you reckon it would be?'

'Oh God, Tim, lose the greatcoat, please,' implores Nathan. 'Show Sarah you're prepared to make changes, and there might be some hope. And good luck!'

'Thanks, lads!' I call through the closing doors. 'Thanks a million!' And then they're gone.

As I make my way to the lift, I realise I feel better than I have for weeks – since before Sarah left, in fact. Talking to Nathan and Callum has really helped me resolve some issues. What's more, I feel I've really achieved something today; I went looking for a gay man, and while I didn't exactly adopt one, I ended up finding two, and gleaned some invaluable advice from them. Result! Today, too, I've wandered off the beaten track for the first time, been master of my destiny, and felt properly physically fit again – and no one's told me that finding true love necessitates feigning my own death.

The lift doors open, I pass through the ticket barriers and out into glorious late afternoon sunshine. I will find Sarah; maybe not today, and maybe not in Hampstead – but soon. Soon. I have The Plan, now bolstered by some top-notch Gay Wisdom. What can possibly go wrong?

'Tim! Mate.'

I reel around. That voice – so horribly familiar. A voice whose owner should be three hundred miles away. The low sun glances off the windscreen of a passing taxi and I'm momentarily blinded. Then my vision clears. 'Jez? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at work?'

'Nah. Decided to take a few days off.' Jeremy's enormous arm extends around my shoulders, and he begins steering me down Haverstock Hill. 'Besides, I was under a bit of pressure to come down and have a peek at the patient.'

'How so?'

'Well, no one could understand where all the news about your valiant fight for life was coming from. So I'm down here lending much-needed credibility to our little 'coma' scenario.'

'Your little 'coma' scenario.'

Jeremy grins and shrugs. 'Whatever, Stiffy. I foresee a bright light at the end of that particular tunnel, anyway. A light I fully expect you to walk towards.'

'I'm not faking my own death, Jez. And I'm not growing a beard and pretending to be my own long-lost brother, either.'

He regards me with an expression of good-natured admonishment. 'It's highly unlikely that the beard will be necessary. But don't worry about that now. After all, I'm mostly here to help you look for Sarah, aren't I?' Jeremy gives me an appraising look and consults his watch. 'I'm going to look for her in here, first,' he says, disappearing through the door of a dingy-looking off-licence.

Three minutes later he emerges bearing two bulging carrier bags. He drops them on the pavement, reaches inside the first and extracts two cans of Löwenbräu, one of which he passes to me. He opens the other with a flourish, tips half its contents into his mouth, wipes the lager-y froth from his grinning lips. Finally he nods back towards the shop. 'She wasn't there.'

belsize park

'I really like that Claire,' Jeremy had announced on Sunday afternoon, when we finally found a pub in Muswell Hill that met his exacting requirements.

I grunted noncommittally and dabbed up the last few crumbs in the crisp packet. I really liked Claire, too – though probably not in the way Jeremy meant. I certainly didn't want a Guinness-soaked discussion about how 'peachy' her bum was, anyway – or any speculation regarding how experimental she'd be in bed.

Weirdly, though, Jeremy seemed less than averagely keen on pursuing this line of enquiry himself. 'She's bright, isn't she? You can tell. Sharp. But nice, with it.'

'Mm.' I fleetingly considered telling Jeremy that Claire had graduated top of her year in Spanish and Art History at UCL, but opted not to. Every detail gets filed away, with Jeremy – and the last thing I want to hear is Jezzer letching his way into Claire's pants with a few daft quips about Salvador Dali. No, no, no. I think he picked up on the 'Spanish' thing, anyway, when she took us to Bradley's Spanish Bar, just off Oxford Street, on Saturday night. He was banging on about it for most of Sunday morning, screwing his eyes closed and reminiscing about the large quantity of Thin Lizzy on the jukebox – 'the vinyl jukebox, Timothy – no rubbish' – and the laudably high alcohol content of Spanish beer.

It's generally a bad sign when Jeremy closes his eyes. It means he's mentally undressing someone – in this case, Claire. My friend Claire. Lovely Claire. 'Yeah, Claire's nice.' I glanced sidelong at Jeremy, watching the rhythmic movements beneath his still-closed eyelids. The best time to tell a little white lie. 'Don't get any ideas, though. She's spoken for.'

'Maybe, Stiffers. She was on about her 'mate' a lot, wasn't she? That DJ bloke? I don't reckon she's shagging him, though. You can tell by the way a lass talks, if she's shagging someone.' He smiled wolfishly. 'I can tell, anyway.'

The disturbing thing is that Jeremy usually can tell. It's his unique super power – and, yes, he is known, north of Scarborough, as The Shagfinder General. 'She could be gay,' I ventured, somewhat desperately. Anything to distract him from making an outright declaration of interest in Claire. 'There's loads of it around, down here in London. You said so yourself. And you used to think Sarah was gay, remember?'

He shook his head. 'Claire's not gay. And I don't think she's going out with anyone, either.'

'Mm.'

Jeremy scanned the horizon like an overgrown meerkat, evidently wondering where his scampi and chips had got to. As he strained upwards, the print of Phil Lynott's face on his t-shirt appeared over the edge of the table. For a moment, Phil appeared to be eyeing me balefully, and I was glad when Jeremy sat down again, hiding his spiritual mentor from view. 'Although you'll have to do your own research on that front, mate, because I'm heading up north again tomorrow.'

I hoped my voice wouldn't betray my relief. 'Sorry to hear that, Jez.'

'Yeah, well. Dad's getting a load of old G-Plan delivered on Monday, so he wants me back. Big job for a big lad, he said.'

'Shame, though.'

'Aye.'

The news had come as a surprise, actually. When he materialised in Hampstead on Friday, I fully expected Jeremy to be staying for a week or two. After all, extended jollies are simply the little treats he awards himself for a couple of good, solid hours' graft. He'll freely admit that he's not a workaholic, describing his current employment status as 'semi-retirement'. This is only possible because he works for his dad, of course, savaging old bits of furniture and selling them on to upmarket pubs and bars.

'Still, if you're heading home you'll be able to set the record straight about my non-existent coma, won't you?'

Jeremy shrugged. 'We'll see, kid.'

'You said you would, in Bradley's.' I pressed home my attack. 'Claire reckoned you should. She said your scheme was....' – I struggled to recall the exact words – '...an affront to my essential human dignity and a sorry reflection of your debased moral sensibilities.' I smiled inwardly at the memory. Claire, it'd transpired on Saturday night, looks quite fetchingly flushed when emotionally roused.

'Claire said that?' Jeremy scratched his belly absently, just behind Phil Lynott's ear. I couldn't work out whether he looked proud or embarrassed. Both, possibly. 'Well, I still think it's a mistake. Because you dying – albeit temporarily – would definitely make Sarah show up. And she's always looked good in black, mate. Seriously horny – and mentally unbalanced, what with the emotional anguish. Ripe for you to make your move.' He drained his pint. 'That's what you're throwing away, if we call it off.'

'Call it off. Tomorrow. Soon as you get back.'

Jeremy stared morosely into his empty glass. 'It'll just have to be a miracle recovery, then. From your coma.'

'Fine.'

'But you'll have to play along with it. Back me up on the whole story. No saying it was all your uncle Jezzer's idea. I mean – you were in a coma, right?'

'If you say so, yes. Fine.'

'And it was Jonesy's mum's Boyzone CD that made you wake up, yeah? It'd mean the world to her. The poor lass has been trying to get Ronan Keating to sing at your bedside, but he's an evasive sod.'

'Okay.'

'Right. Good. So it looks like we'll be switching to Plan C, then.'

My heart sank. 'What?'

'Plan C.'

'And what the hell's Plan C?'

Jeremy grinned and leaned back in his chair. 'Plan C's brilliant, mate. A stroke of Jezzer genius – guaranteed to reunite you with your runaway ex, in three weeks' time, in Brixton.'

'The Northern Line doesn't even go to Brixton.'

'I know. But Mötley Crüe are playing there on the twenty-ninth, at the Academy. And what's Sarah's all-time favourite band? Ever since school?'

Suddenly, Jeremy's plan became clear. 'Mötley Crüe.'

'Aye. And it's their only UK date. Sarah won't want to miss them. I'll get us a pair of tickets as soon as I get home.'

'Good lad. And you'll remember to sign on for me, back in Whitby, won't you Jez?'

'Yeah, yeah.'

'Because otherwise my Housing Benefit won't get paid.'

'Mm.'

'And you know what a git my landlord is. He'd have my Ikea bookcases on the pavement before you could say 'squatters' rights'.'

'No worries. So where is it tomorrow, then?'

'Belsize Park.'

'Belsize Park, eh?' Jeremy scratched his chin reflectively. 'Well, you'll not find Sarah there. Not unless she's shacked up with a stockbroker or a drug lord. It's basically still Hampstead, kid. Only with less shops and tackier houses.'

Jeremy's words still echo around my head as I trudge across the Happi-Lodge foyer. I've had a joyless, Sarah-less time – and Claire's smile is the first I've seen all day. Its owner produces two mugs from the desk drawer and helps me off with my coat. 'How was Belsize Park?'

'A bit like Hampstead, but with less shops and tackier houses. Lots of posh restaurants. Yummy mummies and baby buggies.'

'No Sarah, though?'

'Nah. Did Jeremy get off okay?'

'Away by lunchtime. He said he'd be phoning me, though. Every day, apparently.'

'What? Why?'

'Because he finds me a uniquely fascinating creature, naturally,' Claire smiles, making an airy gesture in the direction of her turquoise Happi-Lodge blouse. 'He also said he wanted daily status reports on your mental decline.'

'He's thoughtful like that.'

I feel an ominous stirring in my stomach. This is how the process begins, with Jez. Charm. Friendship. A feigned interest in neo-Mudéjar architecture. Tapas for two at Cambio de Tercio. Then three bottles of cheap Cava, half an hour in the Happi-Lodge laundry room and a complimentary pregnancy test, if you're lucky. I manage a wan smile as I try working out how much progress he's likely to have made before he left. Not much, hopefully.

Claire smiles back, reaching beneath the Reception desk for the kettle. 'I don't think he was being serious. About phoning me.'

Oh, I think you'll find he was. 'Well, you never know.'

'He said he was appointing me as your personal psychiatric nurse. Apparently I should be catering to your every whim.' Claire spoons instant coffee into the mugs and leans over the desk. 'So, what are your whims, Tim? Apart from twenty-four hour access to the Happi-Lodge croissant repository?'

I consider the offer for a second. 'You're not a member of a library, are you?'

'No. Why?'

'Well, I could really do with borrowing some books. Audiobooks really. CD's. Stuff to pass the time when I'm out. I think I'm going a bit peculiar, with the boredom.'

'I'll ask Seb. He's got a library card.'

'Who's Seb?'

'Oh, one of the many men in my life. Massive Barbara Cartland fan. Seb won't mind doing you a favour. He'll sort you out with something improving.'

Improving? I wonder, for a second, whether Claire might have religion. They like that kind of thing in Scotland. 'Not improving in the sense of, say, the Bhagavad Gita or anything, though. Or Linguaphone CD's for learning Swahili.'

Claire looks disappointed. 'Not a languages man, eh? I always had you down as a bit of an intellectual.'

'Well, I did German at school. GCSE. Failed it, though.' I pull a face. Somewhere at the back of my mind is the vague, guilty notion that pretending to be sniffy about languages might elicit the ardent, almost thrilling disapproval from Claire that Jeremy received at the weekend. 'Hated every minute, to be honest.'

'Why'd you take it, then?'

'Sarah was doing it.'

* * *

Sarah was doing it. Actually, German wasn't the only subject I chose because of Sarah – but it was certainly one of my more recklessly lust-based decisions. Admittedly, it meant three periods of guaranteed Sarah Time every week, but the fact that they were supervised by Jeremy certainly took the shine off them.

It wasn't too bad to begin with, though. We were taught by Herr Grimshaw, who was young and enthusiastic and dressed like an émigré bomb manufacturer from the Baader-Meinhof Group. And when he'd first mentioned an exchange trip to the class, it'd struck us as a brilliant idea – a fortnight off school and a holiday to boot. But as the moment of departure approached, I found myself feeling less certain.

For a start, few of us had bothered acquiring more than a smattering of German. I was also becoming alarmed at how far Germany appeared to be from Whitby. Howden family holidays generally consisted of two weeks in a hired Fiat Uno, descending on a succession of rain-lashed shanty towns with names that began with 'Kirk', 'Loch' or 'Glen'. I'd never felt the urge to go abroad, and didn't particularly want my first overseas experience to be in a country best known for starting world wars.

Nor did my feelings regarding my exchange partner, Helmut, fill me with confidence. He'd sent me a couple of letters in the months preceding the trip, and a photo of himself wearing a banana-coloured shell-suit and an abundance of weighty-looking jewellery. He was tall, blonde and chiselled-looking, and appeared to be standing to attention.

'Blimey! Looks like he gobbles up his sauerkraut, doesn't he? Probably a right bloody Nazi,' Jeremy had remarked when I showed him the snap. He didn't have a picture from his own exchange partner, Otto – just a letter written in green biro, smelling strongly of patchouli oil and featuring several badly drawn peace signs. Unfortunately, 90% of it was written in German, so it was a bit tricky to decipher. The 10% in English mostly was comprised of words such as 'Coooooooool..!!' and 'Yeah, Yeah, Okay..!!!', so they weren't much help, except for imbuing it with a certain mad Teutonic bonhomie.

Still, things could've been worse. Brilliantly, Herr Grimshaw insisted that we had to sit in the same pairs on the coach as we did in his classroom, which meant I was looking forward to four whole days – two there, two back – sitting next to Sarah. Even better, Sarah seemed just as pleased about the arrangement as me. As soon as we boarded the coach, she allowed herself a good-natured grope through my bag for snacks. Then she took her seat and grabbed my knee. 'Oh darling – our first holiday together – how romantic!'

It wasn't romantic, though. Not for me, anyway – not when Sarah dropped me like a week-old kebab the moment we set foot aboard the Spirit of Hull. 'Not to worry, old son,' Jeremy had reassured me as Sarah minced off towards the duty-free shop with a gaggle of female cronies. 'You're coming to get bladdered with me, Jonesy and Wes instead.'

It wouldn't have been the first time, of course. Evenings in the Fat Ox getting quietly blotto on lukewarm Tetley's were already regular fixtures on our social calendar. It was a shame, then, that Dave the barman's laissez-faire attitude to underage drinking wasn't shared by his weaselly-looking counterpart on the Spirit of Hull.

'Jonesy should try getting them in,' Jeremy had declared, looking around the table for approval.

'Why me?' Jonesy squeaked, his features turning ashen at the prospect of trying to get served by The Weasel.

'Because you, Leonard, are doing GCSE Drama,' said Jeremy, pushing our collective funds across the table. 'And you want to be an actor, don't you?' He hooked the heel of his Greek army boot under Jonesy's barstool and gently extended his leg until the unhappy lad overbalanced and stood up. 'Pretend to be Clint Eastwood. We'll have a pint each, please.'

Lenny Jones didn't look much like Clint, though, as he took his lonely walk towards The Weasel; and he didn't sound much like Clint when he got there, his voice piping out over the hubbub of the churning bar like an overwrought mynah bird. 'Four pints, please.'

There was a momentary pause as The Weasel appraised him. Even the other three of us, now squatting behind the fruit machine, could sense it wasn't going well. The Weasel cocked his head. 'Four pints... of what, exactly?'

Jonesy's left leg actually buckled a little at this point, and his head swivelled in the direction of our freshly-vacated table. He panicked. 'Erm... I don't know.'

The Weasel leaned low over the bar. 'How about orange juice, son?'

'Okay. Orange juice will be fine. Thank you.'

Half an hour later, tension caused by the lack-of-alcohol situation was still running high. 'You're an idiot, Jonesy.'

'Four pints of orange juice – I ask you.'

'I got crisps, too.'

'You can shove your crisps up your backside. I wish you would.'

No one had touched the crisps, though. None of us felt like eating; not now the Spirit Of Hull – several miles from port – had hit choppy waters, and was lurching in slow, rhythmic arcs from side to side. I stared out of the window, but darkness had fallen over the restive ocean and – deprived of the sight of land – I felt woozily cut adrift from reality, timeless and rudderless.

It was into this trance-like state that Stuart Pocklington burst some moments later, careering around the fruit machine, then bracing himself against it and straining to catch his breath. 'Get this,' he finally wheezed, 'Sarah Benson's getting felt up by some Geordie student she met in the disco!'

My stomach lurched and all the vague, nagging feelings of fatigue and dizziness coalesced into a sensation of insistently rising nausea. I gripped the edge of the table and fought for unpolluted air. Surely this couldn't be true? Not Sarah.

'Get away.'

'Felt up? Like, really felt up?'

'I swear on me mam's life. He bought her half a cider an hour ago, then they started snogging. Then they went up on deck to get a bit of, you know, privacy.' He laughed. Then everyone else started laughing – although whatever Jeremy saw in my eye made him stop a moment later. He put his hand on my shoulder.

'Need some fresh air, kid? You look a bit green.'

'Wouldn't mind.'

Once on deck, the stagnant atmosphere of the smoky bar was obliterated instantly in a violent rush of sea spray and engine noise. Jeremy leant on the railing next to me and, with a practiced hand, fired up a fresh Rothmans.

'She's bad news, that Sarah Benson.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'Have a fag.' He proffered a ciggie. Jeremy knew I didn't really smoke, but it was a companionable gesture and I appreciated it.

'Nah.' And then, quite without the warning twitches and twinges I was accustomed to, I was sick, sick over the railings and into the ocean, an anarchic plume of orange fluid spattering against the hull of the ship.

Jeremy never flinched. He was a man already familiar with life's multicoloured array of bodily fluids. 'Loads of lasses fancy you, you know. There's plenty more fish in the sea.' He stared over the railings, where the last remnants of my lunch clung tenaciously to the hull of the ship. Then he turned round and smiled. 'Plenty more fish. And vomit, obviously. Fish and vomit.'

* * *

'Blimey,' says Claire, when I reach my story's heart-wrenching dénouement. 'Why did it put you off German, though? The bloke was a Geordie, after all.'

'Because a week later she was at it again with my exchange partner, Helmut. I caught him groping Sarah in his dad's garage during the Goodbye, Englanders! barbecue.'

Claire seems momentarily lost for words. 'She wasn't like that when you were going out together, though, was she? Later on?'

I grunt noncommittally. Claire probably knows the answer already, if she's been talking to Jeremy. 'When the urge took her. I've got tales that'd make your hair curl.'

'You should try writing them down. Get some psychological closure on it all. You want to be a writer, don't you?'

'Well, I don't want to be doing record fairs for the rest of my life. But I haven't written anything yet. Too traumatised.'

'That's no excuse,' Claire snorts. 'Every decent writer's a neurotic mess. You should document your decline into madness. Write about Sarah. Or London. Exploit your misery while you can.'

'Yeah?'

'Definitely. I mean, your luck's bound to change, romance-wise, and then you'll be completely stuffed. You'll have loads to write about, but no time to write it. You'll be too busy being, you know... romantic.'

I raise a sceptical eyebrow. 'And you reckon that my demise from sexual exhaustion is just round the corner, do you?'

Claire smiles sweetly and stirs my coffee with her Happi-Lodge biro. 'You never know.'

I shake my head sadly. Clearly Jeremy's told Claire less about my relationship with Sarah than I'd thought. Marathon shagathons haven't been a feature for quite a while. 'Anyway, assuming I did manage to get a few words on the page, who'd read them?'

'I would.'

I think about this for a second. It could be just what I need. And Jeremy's been trying to get me to write a screenplay for a story he's been tinkering with. 'Okay, cool. I'll let you know when I've got something worth looking at.'

'Good man.' Claire slides my coffee over the desk. 'So where are you going to be documenting the human condition tomorrow, then, Mr Writer?'

'Chalk Farm.'

'Oh, the top end of Camden – near the Stables Market?'

'That's the one.'

'I might tag along for a couple of hours. There's some shopping I need to do.'

chalk farm

'This is a real treat for me,' announces Claire as we meander down the Chalk Farm Road. 'I don't get much time off during the week – and I hate Camden at the weekend. Too many prepubescent goth wannabes, trying to freak you out with their weirder-than-thou hairstyles.'

I smile to myself. Jeremy's always considered Camden Town to be his own personal lebensraum, ever since discovering it at the age of fifteen and – despite living in Whitby – refuses to consider it anyone's stomping ground but his own. He's actually been known to growl, loudly, at sulky teenagers trying to stare him down. You can growl at whoever you like if you're six foot three, though.

'You don't mind trotting on down to Mornington Crescent, do you?' Claire hooks her arm through mine, and we fall into step with each other. 'Lots of vintage-y shops down there. Lots of knackered vinyl for you to rifle through.'

To be honest, I'd been hoping for a little 'vinyl' mooch – but I'm glad it's Claire who's suggested it. My experience is that lasses often go slightly mental when they're shopping, and any deviations from their strict personal itineraries tend to result in harsh words, lengthy sulks and – in extreme cases – frenzied attacks with the pointy ends of coat hangers.

Maybe that's because nearly all my mixed-gender shopping trips have taken place with Sarah, though. And while Claire's spent almost as much time lurking in changing rooms as Sarah would, she's had the good grace to emerge with a theatrical flourish every time – as Marilyn Monroe in Collectif, Siouxsie Sioux in Punkyfish, and Vivienne Westwood in Spank. She still hasn't actually bought anything, however – and I'm beginning to think she never will, when she suddenly pulls me to the side of the pavement.

'Wow.'

I follow her gaze through the shop window. There, on the other side of the glass, is a dress – a close-cut, flippant little thing, in a purple so deep it's almost black.

Claire looks at me expectantly. 'What do you think?'

'Nice.' Maybe it's the half bottle of Chianti I drank at lunchtime, but I'm already imagining Claire slipping into the dress. It's quite an arresting mental image – the sort of image that'd reduce any bloke's capacity for eloquent sartorial analysis.

'Just nice? Nothing else?' Claire gently tugs at the sleeve of my coat. 'Your dad was a tailor, wasn't he? Something must've rubbed off. And you've had a recent injection of gay wisdom, from Callum and Nathan.'

'Well, it's proper silk,' I venture. 'And it's at least thirty years old, so it'll be delicate. It'll be a swine to launder. And it'll crease like buggery.' I glance down at Claire's enraptured face. 'But it is nice. Seriously nice.'

Claire considers this for a moment. 'I'm going to try it on.'

I flick through the records at the back of the shop, but my mind's not on the job. I've already almost let a copy of Bill Pritchard's Jolie drift beneath my radar, and I don't even bother inspecting the vinyl on Microdisney's Crooked Mile before moving it to the Tim's Records – Hands Off! position at the back of the racks. It's hard to concentrate, though, with Claire only two yards behind me in the tiny, curtained-off changing room – and difficult not to think about how happily we'd bantered over our bottle of Chianti in Marine Ices. Is it wrong, I wonder, to have such a laugh with Claire when I should be looking for Sarah? It doesn't feel wrong – although I shudder to think what Sarah would have said if she'd have seen us having lunch, or how Claire had blushed when the waitress had asked what my girlfriend wanted to eat.

I glance over my shoulder at the changing room curtain – beneath which, I notice, Claire's discarded t-shirt can just be seen. Claire's discarded t-shirt. Probably still warm. It's a good job I'm not Jeremy, I reflect. He'd probably snatch it as a trophy. I imagine him legging it down the middle of Camden High Street, laughing manically and waving the t-shirt above his head. Pathetic. That's why he can never be friends with a lass, of course – whereas I'm turning into quite the expert. It doesn't happen so much, back in Whitby – this 'being friends with lasses' arrangement. I guess it's a 'city' thing – like Nando's, or tuberculosis, or Spearmint Rhino.

Suddenly, my reverie is shattered by a voice from behind. 'Tim.' I turn to find Claire's face protruding through the changing room curtains. 'Come here,' she whispers. 'Quickly.'

I sidle over to the face. 'What's up?'

'I need your help with the buttons. I can't reach.'

I'm on the verge of blustering out an excuse, when an unseen hand grasps my forearm and pulls me through the curtains into the minuscule changing room beyond. Claire briskly closes the curtains behind me and turns to face the mirror – a manoeuvre that involves gently pushing me into the corner of the cubicle with her bottom. 'I need the buttons fastened up to see if the dress fits properly.'

Claire flicks her hair up and bunches it deftly in one hand, letting the other drop lightly to her side, exposing a tract of pale skin, bare from the nape of her neck to a point midway between her shoulder blades. At either side, the fabric of the dress hangs open, drawing the eye into the dark crevices where silk meets skin, inviting investigation like the contents of two illicitly-opened envelopes.

For a second, my hands hover indecisively behind Claire's back. Then I tentatively set to work on the buttons. They're fiddly; small and almost spherical, each with its own tiny inlaid pearl, more decorative than practical. Each requires several seconds of mildly inebriated manipulation before slipping through the delicate silk loops that begin criss-crossing Claire's back like the lacing on an antique corset.

It's not easy to concentrate, though, in such a confined space, and I'm finding the gentle rhythm of Claire's breathing – and the effect it's having on her semi-clad bosom – disconcerting. The realisation that Claire must be acutely aware of my own warm breath on the nape of her neck is also making me butterfingered, and it's a relief when my work is finally done.

'Last one?' asks Claire, smiling at me in the mirror.

'Last one.'

Claire lets her hair drop, and for a moment it cascades over my hands before I hurriedly withdraw them. Then she gently brushes the fabric flat over her stomach and down the sides of her thighs before examining the results in the mirror.

'You look good. It really suits you.'

'Thanks.' Claire pouts at her reflection, then half turns and regards herself sidelong, catching my eye as she does so. 'Sorry for posing. I can't help it. It's the spirit of Audrey Hepburn. It's in the dress.' She strokes the silk flat again. 'It's the only explanation.'

I nod sympathetically. Jeremy's often expressed the opinion that Phil Lynott lives in his underpants, although I decline to mention this to Claire as I reach for the curtains. I'm just about to pull them open, when Claire makes a sudden grab for my hand. 'Just a minute,' she whispers, peering through the thin fabric into the shop beyond. She leans in close, her mouth an inch from my ear. 'I think someone's out there. The assistant, probably. You'll have to wait until she's gone.'

Sure enough, a moment later a soft shuffling can be clearly heard from the other side of the curtain, somewhere over near the records. 'What would Audrey do in a situation like this?' I whisper.

Claire closes her eyes for a second, as though consulting the dress. 'I think she'd wait until the coast was clear,' she eventually breathes. 'Audrey wouldn't want to a get a reputation for being discovered in changing rooms with strange men. Although it'd probably be okay if he was a nice man.' She squeezes my hand and bites her lip.

'You're probably right.'

I try closing my own eyes. Compromising situations like these are best endured in a state of glorious denial, I find. Even as a child, I could only cope with the saucier bits of Carry On films with my eyes wedged shut, filtering every 'Matron!' and 'Oooh, you are naughty!' through a comforting veil of darkness.

Amazingly, the technique doesn't seem to have lost its magic – because while Claire and the changing room are still here when I open my eyes, the shop assistant has obligingly trotted off to another part of the shop entirely – although in the two minutes since my improbable confinement with Claire began, she hasn't yet relinquished her grip on my hand. In fact, she's holding it tighter than ever and staring at me unblinkingly, her lips slightly parted, her expression unfathomable.

'What would Audrey do now?' I ask.

'I don't know,' Claire breathes. Only the rapid pulse in her fingers and the dampness of her hand give any indication that she might be remotely nervous. 'What do you think we should do?'

I swallow hard. Maybe it's an after-effect of the Chianti, but blood seems to be rushing to every limb and extremity, and for a moment I find myself wondering whether Phil Lynott might've taken up residency in my underpants as well as Jeremy's. They certainly feel unusually cramped, but not unpleasantly so, and when Claire gently squeezes my hand it feels like she's gently pulling an invisible cord attached to my boxer short elastic. For a second, my mouth doesn't seem to know what it should be doing, and it when it finally speaks, the words it utters are almost the complete opposite of the ones ricocheting around my brain. 'I think I should probably go.'

'Oh.' Claire releases my hand and turns back to the mirror. 'Okay. It sounds like it's all clear outside.'

I pull open the curtains and totter back into the light, gasping for breath. Claire clearly had no idea how close she came to being kissed – and God knows what that would've led to. I'd have to find a new hotel for a start. I mean, you can't stay at a hotel where you've sexually harassed the receptionist, can you? And Jeremy would kill me. He's already made it perfectly clear that he's interested in Claire. He couldn't have made it clearer if he'd plastered a sign saying Property Of The Shagfinder General across the poor girl's backside. Oh God.

The dressing room curtain opens and Claire emerges, the dress folded neatly over one arm. If she detects anything of my embarrassment, her face doesn't betray it. 'I really like it,' she smiles, making her way purposefully towards the counter. 'I think I'm going to get it.'

camden town

'Skonk? 'Ash? Weed?' enquires the black gentleman by the Lock.

'Hash, please,' I reply politely, and accompany him down a series of ever-narrowing alleyways by the side of the canal. He takes twenty quid from me and disappears, promising to return in five minutes – which, remarkably, he does.

'Have fon, now, d'j'hear?' he intones drily over his shoulder, loping off up the towpath, leaving me to discreetly examine my new purchase. It's in the sort of little bag that dope normally comes in, and feels reassuringly familiar, but who knows? Jeremy once bought half a bourbon biscuit from an ageing hippie in a Coventry pub, who'd claimed it was 'an 'enry of red Leb.' Jeremy insisted on smoking it anyway, insisting its taste was 'you know, mellow... rich. Chocolate-y. Biscuit-y. Pretty good, actually.'

My dope stays secreted in my pocket until I'm within sight of London Zoo, where I cross up and over the canal bridge into Regent's Park. It's almost too cold to skin up, and when I do, it's a raggedy job that flares briefly and goes out after a couple of drags. I keep trying, though, anxious to blot out yesterday's 'changing room' embarrassment – and twenty minutes later, I'm zigzagging through the crowds in the Stables Market in a light-headed haze of spliffy euphoria.

For the first time, I see Camden for what it really is – a colossal pinball table, pulsating with bright lights and sounds and vibrations; and me, a gleaming ball bearing, rebounding off the flippers and ramps and slingshots. I feel spontaneous and brilliant. I love Camden, and undertake a swift review of the day.

Admittedly, things began pretty pessimistically. Even at seven in the morning, it was difficult finding a Sarah-spotting vantage point near the Underground, with a worrying number of stray and itinerant weirdos and oddballs staring at me, asking me for money and quite possibly debating who was going to mug or bugger me first.

But now – well, things look very different now, largely thanks to Camden's high quality, spirit-lifting, mind-altering herbage. And as for this morning, I only wish I'd known then what I know now – that those apparent weirdos and oddballs were, in fact, just fellow-travellers on a universal journey, my brothers and sisters under the skin. My People.

I stop walking. So abruptly, in fact, that two of My People (a crusty-looking lass in her thirties, and an ageing mod) stumble into me. But my feet will no longer respond to my brain because it's suddenly occurred to me that I am – when I allow myself to be – a very special person. And incredibly special things happen to me when I'm receptive to them.

I want to phone Jeremy and tell him about my revelation, but decide not to. He'd only bring me down. He always says I shouldn't smoke dope because I can't handle it, because I get too paranoid – but he's only jealous because he's never had a spiritual revelation outside – what's this place? – outside a tattoo parlour. A tattoo parlour. Nick's Needles – Tattoos And Body Art. I allow my eye to be drawn into the intoxicating window display and – oh, God – there she is!! Sarah – lovely Sarah. Tattoo-sized, and... well, there – in the window. Naked and staring out at me, her eyes boring into the core of my soul. It's a sign – a sign that after yesterday's unforgivable 'near miss' with Claire, I should re-pledge my commitment to the girl I love. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

'We don't normally do tattoos on a first visit,' says Nick. We both know he's lying, of course – but I'm glad he's making this gesture towards professionalism. It bodes well for the work of art shortly to be emblazoned on my upper arm. I wouldn't want it done by just anyone.

'Ah, well, I did pop in a couple of weeks ago actually. You weren't here, though. I spoke to the other bloke.' God, I'm brilliant. Spontaneity, see?

Nick's brow furrows. 'What, my wife? Paula?'

Shit. Think spontaneous. 'Ah. Is she the one with the... erm... the tattoos?'

'Yes.'

'That was her, then. Paula. Lovely girl. We talked through all the issues. About the... erm... needles? She seemed to know her stuff.'

'Mm.'

Nick eyes me up and down. I hope the minor misunderstanding regarding his missus won't translate into a sloppy job, tat-wise. I smile brightly. 'I know what I want. It's in the window. I'll show you.' I point to the design in question. Seeing it again, even from this unusual angle, is making my heart throb in my ears. God, she's gorgeous.

'What, the one with the snake?'

'That's the one.'

'The giant snake? The snake that's being, you know, straddled. By the naked blonde?'

I can't take my eyes off her. After all, the resemblance is uncanny – absolutely uncanny. Sarah. 'She's quite something, isn't she?'

'Well, yes. But I have to say... you don't seem like the sort of bloke who'd normally go for that kind of thing.' The burly tattooist gently leads me back towards the rear of the shop. 'That sort of thing's reckoned to be a bit old-fashioned, these days. More the kind of thing your biker crowd might go for. Bit sexist, if you know what I mean. Younger people tend to go for something a bit more... subtle. Maybe a nice celtic band. Or an ankh.' Nick pulls up his sleeve. Lo and behold, there's an ankh.

I like this bloke. He's trying to do his best for me, and I appreciate it. Under any other circumstances, I'd be delighted to discuss ankhs with him over a lovely fat doobie. But incredibly special things only happen to me when I'm receptive to them – I need to stay receptive. Seeing Sarah in the window was a sign, and I need to respond to her, here and now. Yeah, Sarah, I need to say. Uh-huh, babe. Let's do this thing.

'Well, I like the girl on the snake. She reminds me of someone.'

My tattooist-in-waiting leans back in his chair. 'Who's that then?' And I almost fall into his trap. Because that's what they're not allowed to do, isn't it? According to the Tattooists' Code – the unwritten rulebook governing what may (and may not) be tattooed on the upper arms of the headstrong, rash and foolhardy. And girlfriends' names and likenesses are – according to Jeremy – an absolute no-no. On account of the high post-tattoo 'dumping' quotient. I open my mind to the cosmos. An answer will come.

'She reminds me of...' Woman. Snake. Naked. Breasts. '...my late mother. God rest her soul.'

There's a weighty pause. 'And whereabouts are we putting mummy, then?'

To be honest, I'm surprised the preparation takes quite so long. For a start, you'd think Nick would know his designs backwards, but apparently not – hence, presumably, the much enlarged copy of the image that's now bulldog-clipped to the board next to his chair. And then there's the outlining of the image on my arm, breaking out new needles and inks, adjusting the lighting, more rubber gloves than you could shake a stick at, and sifting through a stack of CD's for 'something appropriate.'

'Does it have to be Slayer?' I ask hopefully. It's my tattoo, after all. 'You haven't got any Bob Marley or anything, have you?'

'Just Slayer.' Nick grins at me. 'It helps me concentrate.' I wonder, deep down, whether it's actually meant to drown out the yelps of pain. It could've been worse, though. It could've been Queen. 'Ready?'

'All set.' I know this'll hurt. I grit my teeth and stare at the picture on the board. Sarah's eyes stare back. Sarah's beautiful blue eyes – soft, upturned, inviting – and situated two inches above the most absurd breasts I've ever seen. I gently pull my arm away from Nick's gloved hand. 'Actually, I'll be ready in just one minute.'

Nick turns down Slayer a fraction. They're singing something about an axe plunging through a shield. 'Not having second thoughts, are you?'

'God, no. I just wanted to talk to you about the... erm... about the lady's assets.' I indicate the relevant area on the picture. Sarah's nipples stare accusingly back at me.

'What about them?'

'Well, they're a bit... bigger than I'm totally happy with. Have you never heard the expression, 'more than a handful's a waste'?'

Nick considers this carefully. 'It's 'more than a handful's a treat', isn't it?'

'Mm. To some, yes. But in this case... not. And it is a tattoo dedicated to my mother.' I look at Nick with pleading in my eyes. 'My late mother. And hers were perter.'

'Perter?'

'Mm. Perter. More pert.' I gesture the kind of shape I have, very clearly, in mind. 'Perky, even.'

And so, with some reluctance, Nick begins re-sketching the offending bosoms in more Sarah-like proportions on my upper arm.

But the ten minutes he takes to do so are troubling for other reasons. I don't know whether to say anything – especially since Nick's been such a gentleman about the impromptu breast reduction he's just given my girlfriend – but something about seeing her there, clipped to the board at Nick's elbow, is still worrying me. Something's still fundamentally wrong with the image. I try to open my mind, to be receptive to whatever the universe is telling me. After all, today has taught me that special things only happen when I'm receptive to them.

Somehow, though, there's less clarity than before. I feel tired and a bit nervous. My thoughts are also severely clouded by my desire to consume a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Or a King Size Twix. Or a couple of Lion bars. Do they still make Lion bars? I must investigate ASAP.

'So. Smaller tits.' Nick leans back to admire his handiwork. Now he's staring at Sarah's perfectly formed breasts, and not some gargantuan mammary monsters of his own devising, I feel compelled once again to pull my arm away an inch or so. 'There isn't anything else you need to tell me about your dear old mum, is there?'

'Well, actually, Nick – and I'm sorry to be a pain in the neck, here – but there is, yes.'

'What?' I'm surprised he's sounding so belligerent. You'd have thought customer satisfaction would have been his paramount consideration.

'I've got to be honest with you, Nick. I'm not totally happy about the fact she's naked.'

'What?'

'Well, it's a bit demeaning, isn't it? Straddling a giant snake in the buff?'

'What? What're you talking about?'

'She needs clothes.' I try to think about Sarah's favourite outfits. 'Something nice. Maybe by Armani. Mum was always big into designer stuff. And while we're at it, I've never actually seen her riding a snake. She never liked snakes. Or spiders. So how about making it something like... a bicycle?'

Nick regards me, open-jawed, with something approaching contempt. I don't care for the way he's gesturing with the needle in the approximate direction of my jugular. 'You're taking the piss, aren't you?'

'I assure you I'm not.'

But there's more conviction in my voice than in my heart. I want to tell him I'm a very special person and that special things happen to me – but the very special person who was convinced that a tattoo of Sarah would somehow bring us closer together... well, he's no longer here. He's fucked off, and taken his self-confidence with him. And oh, dear Lord, I need a Crunchie bar. Or one of those boxes of Maltesers they used to sell in cinemas. Or – oh God, yes – a Curley-Wurley. Suddenly, Nick snaps me out of my chocolate-y reverie. 'What the hell. It's your tattoo. You want her dressed in up in a posh frock and riding a pushbike. Fine. Let's do it. Why not? It'll be a challenge.'

I smile, but I'm finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. I'm also starting to feel unsure of my recent decisions. The bike, for instance – good choice or bad? I wonder what sort of 'posh frock' Nick's sketching on my arm, but all can see is the original design, clipped to the board at his side. I shiver. For the first time, I take a really good look at the snake. There's something horribly malicious-looking about it – about the way it's poised to strike – the way its head arches back towards Sarah's, its fangs hovering menacingly above her soft, unprotected thighs. Oh God. And now I realise – it's happening. Just like Jeremy always says it does. I'm getting... The Fear.

'There. All done,' Nick announces. And while I want nothing more than to look at the sketch on my arm, to see if it's the 'real' Sarah he's finally managed to capture – I can't tear my eyes away from the snake.

'Why's she on a snake?' I hear myself whisper.

'She's not, mate. She's on a pushbike. Like you asked for. Now let's get her inked in.' Nick deftly picks up the needle and flicks a switch on the power supply. A loud, aggressive buzz fills the tiny room. 'This'll sting a bit, but you're a big lad. You can take it.' He reaches across me and turns up the volume on the stereo. Slayer are screaming something about a blood-spattered wall – and there, behind the snake's head, I can see it. I can see the blood-spattered wall! The blood-spattered wall and the serpent of death!

And then... I feel its bite. I leap from the chair, grab my jacket and stumble through the bead curtain towards sunlight and freedom. I can hear Nick's voice behind me, raised in surprise and indignation, above my own wail of pain. 'Come back, for fuck's sake. I've only just started!' But I'm already running down the street, oblivious to his cries and curses, towards the Underground, the Happi-Lodge, Claire, and safety.

high barnet

I realised it'd been a mistake to phone Jeremy almost as soon as the conversation started. 'I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with N,' he'd announced, as soon as he picked up the phone.

'Is it Notting Hill?' The reason Notting Hill sprang to mind was because Jeremy – who has a highly advanced dislike of Hugh Grant – wants us to collaborate on an alternative version of the Notting Hill screenplay. Kentish Town, it'll be called – a 'blistering exposé of life on the city streets'. Jeremy reckons a 'little project' could stop me going 'all peculiar'. We thrashed out some initial ideas over pints of Guinness in Muswell Hill last weekend.

'Good guess. Excellent guess, actually, because I've watched it again, and it's still shite. But it's not the 'N' I'm looking at now. And this 'N' is far more horrible than Notting Hill.'

I'd wracked my brain. 'You're not looking at your knob, are you?'

'Knob begins with a K, Timothy.'

'Are you looking at your knob, though? I don't want a conversation with someone who's looking at their knob. It's not nice.'

'I'm not looking at my knob.'

'I give up, then. What is it?'

'Nazi.'

A chill ran down my spine. 'So you're looking at a Nazi, are you? Running amok in the streets of Whitby, are they?'

'I'm looking at an old photo of you, actually. Trying to see whether I could detect the latent anti-Semitism in your youthful countenance.' Jeremy's grin was audible as he pressed home his attack. 'Claire told me all about the diplomatic incident in the Golders Green Road.'

I don't approve of Claire telling Jeremy things. Partly because it's me she's supposed to be friends with, and partly because... well, she just doesn't know him like I do. Then again, given their burgeoning 'friendship', maybe she's started telling Jeremy everything. Maybe they've become... intimate. I shivered at the thought. 'That was a mistake, Jez.'

'Well, I don't know. This photo I'm looking at – it's got you and Lisa Salt in it. From when you were lovebirds. And there's a distinct whiff of Adolf and Eva. Definitely.'

I remember the afternoon when the photo was taken, just before the Christmas holidays, back in the sixth form. We'd twagged off school for the afternoon – me, Lisa, Jeremy and Erica. Gone down to Scarborough in one of Jeremy's dad's vans, about a week before me and Lisa parted company. I'd always regretted the messy way it ended with Lisa. She'd deserved better. 'Well, thanks for mentioning Lisa, Jez,' I said, imbuing my words with as much bitterness as possible. 'You've really cheered me up.'

'That's what I'm here for, kid. So – you didn't make an arse of yourself in Camden, too, did you?'

I felt my tattoo – my tiny, quarter-inch tattoo – begin to itch accusingly beneath my sleeve. My tattoo which represents, as far as I can make out, one of Sarah's eyebrows. 'What, me? Make an arse of myself? No way, Jez,' I said in hurt indignation. 'Absolutely not.'

When Jeremy failed to lift my spirits, I spent the rest of the evening vegging out in front of the telly, comfort-eating Maltesers. I woke up this morning with two of them stuck to the side of my face. God knows what the maid will think when she changes the pillowcases. Probably the same as I think of High Barnet – not much.

Sarah would like High Barnet, though. Oh yes, she'd definitely appreciate the reassuring presence of a Bentley dealership just off the High Street – and the fact that at the far end of the Spires Shopping Centre, revealing itself only to the truly devout, is a branch... of Waitrose. Oh yes – a real-life branch of Waitrose, with a range of vintage port, three types of organic pesto and dried vanilla pods in aluminium cigar tubes. Up yours, Edgware!

Sarah worked part-time in a supermarket when we were in the sixth form, and a well-stocked freezer or attractively presented cheese counter still has the ability to arouse faint stirrings of lust within me. She's not hiding among the baked beans or aubergines, though – and despite the mild erotic frisson I experience as I pass the tinned olives, I can't detect the lingering aura of my runaway sweetheart. Nursing my disappointment, I find myself crouching at the end of the confectionery aisle, attempting to retrieve a family pack of Crunchie bars from the back of the bottom shelf, when an strange chill creeps across my shoulder blades and I'm suddenly aware of being... observed.

Very slowly, I turn my head – and there, no more than a couple of yards away, is a tiny boy, no more than two years old. He stares with the unselfconsciousness of youth, his fierce eyes trained unblinkingly upon me. For a second, I find myself wondering whether he's the same little tyke who relieved me of Scoobs, exactly a fortnight ago – but he's slimmer, his eyes an uncommon blue, his skin paler and somehow more... ethereal-looking.

I shiver again beneath his gaze, unable to turn away. There's something undeniably creepy about this kid, and I'm in the middle of considering what to say to him when the weirdest thing happens: he points at me. Right at me. Right at a spot above my eyebrows, with an outstretched hand and an expression of mute madness. It's a while since I last saw The Omen, but I've no difficulty in recognising the whiff of demonic possession that's emanating from my new companion – and I stay rooted to the spot as he slowly moves towards me, his hand still outstretched in the direction of my forehead...

'No, Andrew!'

I reel backwards. As if from nowhere, a woman – clearly the Antichrist's mother – has appeared. She seizes his hand and drags him back towards Fresh Fruit & Veg.

'Andrew, no. That's disgusting.'

The child stares back at me with keen longing in his eyes; his mother regards me with equally keen contempt, although the words she speaks are addressed to the struggling child at her feet. 'We never pick Maltesers out of strange men's hair, do we? Do we, Andrew? No we don't. Never, never, never.'

Claire's face breaks into a wide grin as soon as she catches sight of me approaching the Happi-Lodge entrance. 'Bloody hell, Tim – what happened?'

'Haircut. In High Barnet.' It's all she needs to know. No need to mention the whole Omen incident.

'No kidding.' She leans over the desk, the better to goggle at my freshly shorn head. 'You didn't offend the barber, did you? Because – and I'm being frank, here – he took quite a lot off.'

'Bit severe, isn't it?'

'Just a bit.' Claire has now come round the front of the Reception desk and is stroking the back of my head, upwards against the grain. I now know why Wolfgang, Sarah's dachshund, liked having his belly tickled so much. 'God, I love that feeling. I mean, you look mildly psychopathic – but it feels great. Any reason for getting it so short?'

I really want to explain about Antichrist Jr., but Claire's clearly not to be trusted with the information – not since she told Jeremy about Golders Green. I close my eyes and for a moment her fingers continue their exploration of my scalp. Then I swallow hard and gently pull away. After the 'almost snogging Claire' situation in the changing room, maybe I'm not to be trusted either. Not when I'm still feeling a bit off-kilter from yesterday's drugfest. 'I needed a change, that's all.'

'Aspiring writers usually have flowing locks, don't they?'

'Mm. Usually.' I look away, ashamed at what I have to say next. 'But the barber found a bit of chocolate stuck in it. Had to cut out a big chunk of hair to shift it. Then he evened it up all round.'

Claire seems impressed by the logic. 'As you do.'

'It wanted cutting, anyway, and I thought it'd help me fit in a bit better. Short hair's pretty fashionable, down in London, isn't it? That whole 'metrosexual' thing?'

'I'm not usually a fan. But I think you can carry it off.'

'Thanks, kid. I'm nipping upstairs for a shower, anyway. I've still got loads of little bits of hair stuck down my collar.'

Claire nods, but I nonetheless register the look of quiet longing in her eyes. It's not a million miles away from the look that Antichrist Jr. had, just before he attempted to de-Malteser me. I sigh. 'You want to stroke it again, don't you?'

Claire's shrug is almost imperceptible. She averts her eyes and bites her lip. 'I'm a simple girl, Tim. I've got simple needs.'

I incline my head so that Claire doesn't have so far to reach, and watch her try suppressing a guilty smile as she gently strokes from my neck to the crown of my head. After a moment, she closes her eyes. Then I close mine.
totteridge & whetstone

Here be trees. Not many, but enough of them on the open ground opposite the Tube station to give the area a village-y feel. This little zone, in fact, brings to mind the country rather than the city; with a little imagination, you could easily envisage Totteridge being the setting of some horrific BBC costume drama about goat-worrying in the Cotswolds. This thought cheers me momentarily as I wander back through the pocket-sized ticket office, and I've a passing urge to share my mental image of goats being shamelessly groped with Jeremy – except I can't, because it's nine in the morning and he'll be fast asleep, in his lovely warm bed, up in Whitby. The git.

I take a seat on the southbound platform and rummage through my rucksack for some restorative munchies. My Happi-Lodge pillowcase is devoid of croissants, however – there'd been nothing but fossilised Bran Flakes on the breakfast bar this morning – and the only edibles I can find are half a salt beef sandwich and two lamb samosas that I bought in a moment of post-Omen desperation, yesterday afternoon. I eat them anyway.

Thus fortified, I head off for an exploratory trot around Whetstone. Today's the day I've pledged to buy a new coat. The morning rush hour may have been Sarah-less, and my ears are freezing beneath my newly-shorn scalp, but I don't care. Today, I've decided – in spite of everything – will be A Good Day.

It's around two in afternoon when I first suspect something mutinous may be occurring in my stomach – but, like an idiot, I ignore the warnings. Anyway, when the danger signs come, I don't want to be warned. After all, the day's been looking up – my wanderings have yielded a small but promising crop of gents' outfitters, and I'm already heavy-laden with new possessions; a rather natty SuperDry jacket (very 'Sarah'), a merino wool sweater and a box set of Frasier on DVD.

What's more, I've just stumbled upon a charity shop containing what appears to be someone's entire vinyl collection, clearly discarded in a moment of 'upgrading-to-CD' insanity. Someone with a taste for angst-ridden indie-pop and leftfield electronica, by the look of things. 'Them old records are two for a pound,' calls a disembodied voice from behind the counter, as I kneel and assume The Position before the hallowed vinyl. 'They're on offer.'

When the churning, grumbling stomach ache strikes again, I'm still revelling in the good fortune of my find. These records must have lain here, undisturbed, for years. And who else in Totteridge or Whetstone would be interested in a near-mint Pastels album? Ouch, ouch. Or a load of early Cabaret Voltaire? Or a French pressing of the first Only Ones LP? There's some New York Dolls for Jeremy – ouch – some Jimmy Cliff for Dave the barman, some more Robyn Hitchcock for Claire, and an imported Kris Kristofferson compilation for Big Rob. Oooow. Ouch. There aren't even any stray Queen albums to spoil my day. This is Christmas all sewn up – at a price that's right!

But elsewhere things are going wrong – and it's only when a drop of perspiration falls from my forehead on to the Three Johns album I'm examining that I realise how profusely I'm sweating, on a chilly October afternoon in an under-heated charity shop. With some discomfort I move my small pile of vinyl treasures to my designated Tim's Records – Hands Off! position at the rear of one of the boxes, and shuffle to the counter.

'Excuse me, I couldn't use the loo, could I?' I look at the elderly shop assistant with my best 'I'm not a crack addict' face. It's got better since I tried it at Public Health England in Colindale – heavier on the puppy-dog eyes – but it's now competing with my new 'I am a crack addict' haircut. And the shop assistant's too low down to really appreciate what an honest and sincere-looking young man I am – perched, as she is, about a foot off the floor on a child's stool, and fully absorbed in sorting coat hangers. 'Please?'

The lady behind the counter doesn't even look up. 'No toilet here, sweetheart.'

I glance past her into the shop's stockroom. A door, tantalisingly ajar, is visible just beyond a pile of black bin bags. 'Are you sure?'

'Quite sure, dear.'

'Then... how do you relieve yourself? During the day? If you need to?'

'Well, there's a staff loo, yes...' Sort, sort. Re-arrange. Sort.

'Ah, well, could I use it, please? It's an emergency.'

Finally she looks at me, her eye passing over my angelic visage and up towards my demonic scalp. 'Well, I'm not sure. You're not a member of staff, you see.'

I think quickly. 'Well, I'd like to volunteer. I've always had an interest in...' – I glance around the place, trying to work out where on earth I am. Finally my eye alights on the collecting tin on the counter – '...the provision of bible tracts for the scripture-starved people of...' – I squint at the small print on the tin – '...Tajikistan.'

'Well, that's lovely.' With great care she puts down the coat hangers, stands, and orientates herself towards the counter where her hands bob around uncertainly for what seems, to my aching bowels, like an eternity. 'You'll just have to fill in an application form...'

'I want to start now. Right this minute. Take me on. I'll let you have my coat as a goodwill gesture.' I slip off my East German border guard's coat and place it on the counter. Farewell, old friend – parting is such sweet sorrow. 'It's antique, that.'

She smiles uncertainly at my impromptu striptease. Clearly it's been a while since anyone's been quite so interested in the taming the wayward spirit of the godless Tajik. 'Well, I don't know...'

Seismic movements are taking deep in my stomach. I don't want to sound menacing, I really don't. But I do really want to use the toilet. I lean in low over the counter and emit a low moan. 'Let me use the toilet. Now.'

Her eyes open wide with fear. It's obvious, now, what I'm really after – access to the only private enclosure in the building, there to slake my unnatural lusts – possibly solo, possibly with her. I can't imagine what gives her this idea – although maybe it's my soft moaning, or the way I'm rolling my eyes. Her voice grows shrill as she turns towards the stockroom door, terror shrouding her features. 'Derek... Derek, I need you out front. Derek...'

I'm already out of the door by the time Derek reaches the counter, though, and as I hobble down the street, it's only the echo of his parade-ground rasp that rings in my ears. 'Hey, you! Stop there! You, sir! Yes, you, sir!'

Three agonising minutes later, I round the corner of the Tube station ticket hall and swipe my Oyster card across the sensor, and lurch down the platform towards the gents' – the one with the jaunty, handmade sign on its door. The gents' that's... out of order. I try to convey this news to my lower intestines as frankly as possible. 'Intestines?' I begin, in a firm, authoritarian tone. 'There's something we need to talk about...' But they're not listening. They're stirring ominously; they're moving.

I glance around the near-deserted station. I've only one option left...

'I'm not stroking that,' says Claire, gesturing towards my new sweater with her Happi-Lodge biro. 'Not after the shameful way I behaved with your hair, yesterday. Whatever can you think of me?'

'Nothing terrible, I promise.'

Claire switches off her computer monitor. 'So you're not having me sacked for unbecoming conduct?'

'I don't think so. You generally behave yourself quite well.'

Wracked with indecision, Claire's fingernails tap the desk in agitation. 'Well, I'll just give it a little stroke, then.' She leans over and gently rubs my sleeve between her thumb and forefinger. 'Ooh. Am I getting a hint of cashmere, there?'

'Fifteen per cent.'

'Classy,' she smiles, reaching for the kettle. 'Why are you back so early, anyway? It is just to taunt me with your hip new threads?'

'Only partly. I had a bit of a tummy ache in Totteridge and Whetstone.' See what I did there? Always tell them part of the truth. There'll be caring professionals to divulge the whole truth to, later – the truth about my shameful, gender-bending lavatorial explorations. The truth about me using... the ladies' loo on the southbound platform. But not Claire. Not now.

'Poor you. Is it still hurting now?'

'A little bit.'

'You should be more careful about what you eat. You never get a decent meal inside you. Listen, Jeremy's not coming down this weekend, is he?'

Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy. It's all they're interested in. 'Not this weekend, no. He needs to spend a bit more time convincing the inhabitants of Whitby that I'm not dead.'

'So what're you doing? Any plans?'

'None especially.'

'Why don't you come over for your supper on Sunday?'

I'm momentarily taken aback. Only my stomach seems to know how to react, as an almost forgotten sensation – not quite hunger, not quite pain, and far more pleasant than either of them – begins stirring deep inside. 'What?' I eventually utter. 'Supper at your place?'

'It's not far. I thought you'd appreciate some proper home cooking.'

'God, yes. I'd love to. Thanks.'

'Come over around seven-ish, then.' Claire smiles sweetly. 'I'll draw you a wee map.'
woodside park

Claire didn't know where Woodside Park was when I mentioned it on Sunday evening. Neither of us did, until we'd fished out the A-Z and followed the Tube track down from Totteridge and Whetstone. 'Kind of between Barnet and Finchley,' was the best description we could come up with. Claire, as it turned out, lives somewhere equally indefinable – a basement flat tucked beneath a vast, decaying semi-detached house, lost in Queensbury and Burnt Oak's shared hinterland.

Utterly unable to find it, I'd finally called Claire from a phone box outside a parade of run-down shops in what looked like the outskirts of Beirut. I gabbled a description of my location. 'You're only about two minutes away,' she'd reassured me. 'I'll come and find you. In the meantime, why not pop into the shop behind you. It belongs to Mr Gupta. Buy me something nice to say thanks for cooking your supper. Something red and intoxicating.'

Something red and intoxicating. That was just what I needed, actually – something to steady the jangling nerves that'd plagued me all afternoon. After all, I hadn't broken bread with a real, live human being for weeks – Jeremy notwithstanding – and now I was about to have supper with a girl, someone other than Sarah, in her own flat... frightening.

I didn't know how much actual eating I'd be doing, though. Not when the feeling I'd had on Friday night – the weird, churning sensation – hadn't gone away all weekend. If anything, it'd grown more defined and intense over the course of Saturday, and on Sunday I'd found myself phoning Wes for a consultation. There'd been a lots sniggering at the other end of the line (I could hear his girlfriend, Gabi – also a final year medical student – braying in the background), and eventually they'd agreed that it was probably 'stress-induced gastric ulceration – or morning sickness.' Either way, I'd been so busy pacing and fretting in front of Mr Gupta's shop, that I entirely failed to hear Claire materialise beside me.

'Oh, a bottle of wine!' she cried, craning upward to kiss my cheek. 'What a lovely surprise! You shouldn't have.'

'Oh – well, I just sensed it'd be the right thing to do, you know.'

'Intuitive. I like that.'

'I got Chianti, like we had in Marine Ices on Tuesday. It's got the raffia bit on the bottom. You can pop a candle in it when it's empty.'

'Did you get the candle as well?'

'Erm, no.'

'Never mind. You can bring one next time.'

It turned out that Claire's basement flat was one that I'd blithely trotted past twice in the previous hour. Not that I'd have found anything as conventional as a house number, since tenacious ivy from an upper storey window had obscured the top of the doorframe and much of the door. In the gathering gloom, the only sign of life was the warm red glow from its two frosted windows. Claire opened the door, and warm air from within enveloped us both.

I don't know what I'd expected when we got inside – but certainty not the petulant, distinctly male voice that rang up the stairwell as the door creaked on its hinges. 'Did you get skins? You've missed the good bit, the sword fight.'

'I've seen it before,' said Claire, leading me, slightly shell-shocked, down into the sitting room. 'I like the bit at the end, with Peter Cook as the priest.' She noisily cleared her throat, compelling the creature within to tear its eyes from the television. 'Seb, this is Tim.'

Artfully draped over a two-seater sofa, itself deeply shrouded in layers of ethnic fabric, lay a body that might kindly be described as 'elegantly wasted'. Seb. Not just another of the 'men in Claire's life', then. Not a young man, either – he must've been at least forty. I gawped at him, lost for words. Then his half-closed eyes swivelled in my direction – although when he spoke, his words were directed to Claire. 'Who?'

'You know perfectly well who this is – Tim. Tim, this is Seb, who's currently trying to give you the creeps by being a twat. Seb, play nicely. And turn the telly off.' Claire turned crisply on her heel, leaving the two of us alone. When pots and pans began clattering in the kitchen a moment later, Claire seemed a very long way away.

'So you're Timothy.'

'Tim, yes.'

'Take a seat, Timothy.' A sizeable spliff had materialised in Seb's hand, and he waved it with studied nonchalance towards a thick rug in the centre of the room.

'Thanks.' I nodded towards the extremely elderly TV in the corner of the room. 'The Princess Bride.'

'A fine film, Timothy. A fine film.'

I stared at the fine film. It was, after all, my only friend in the room, and doing sterling work by filling what would otherwise have been an unbearable silence.

'Robyn Wright turns in a compelling performance, do you not think, Timothy?' Seb eventually enquired, extending the roach end of his spliff towards me.

'She does.' I stared intently at Robyn Wright as I gingerly inhaled. Robyn Wright stared intently at Cary Elwes. Seb stared intently at me. It'd got to the bit where Buttercup and Westley have their first kiss before Claire came in again. My legs had already developed pins and needles from sitting cross-legged on the floor, and the back of my neck felt it was about to break into spasm having been rigorously probed by Seb's laser vision. If Claire noticed my discomfort, she said nothing, instead handing me a brimming glass of Chianti.

'Supper time. I thought you were turning the telly off, Seb?'

'I was going to... but Tim, here, wanted it on. I think he's erotically fixated by the young Robyn Wright.' He cast me a malicious glance.

'You boys,' Claire exclaimed, plucking the smouldering roach from Seb's fingers. 'Time to eat.'

It was a fine supper, too – which I managed to consume in its entirety, thanks to my stomach pains disappearing about thirty seconds after meeting Seb. I can't say I was sorry to leave, though, when the plates had been cleared and the Scrabble board folded away. Seb had been a shock to the system – although I couldn't really see what his 'boyfriend' appeal would be, despite his considerable prowess at word games.

Maybe that's why Claire seems so taken with Jeremy, I thought, putting on my jacket and casting a departing eye over the sofa's recumbent occupant. Young, dumb, and full of Thin Lizzy trivia – that's Jez. What woman could resist? And to think – for a moment, while I was standing outside Mr Gupta's, I'd almost imagined that Claire might have invited me over for... well, more than supper. What a relief to discover that she had a bloke. And if she did fancy a change of scene, romantically speaking – well, nothing about the evening altered my opinion that Jeremy's bed would be the one she'd hop into. Not mine – thank God.

Claire gently shook her snoozing boyfriend's shoulder as I put my shoes on. 'Hey, Seb. Wake up. Remember I asked if you'd pick up some audiobooks at the library? For Tim?'

'No.'  
'Ignore him, Tim. He remembers fine well. He's just being an arsehole, aren't you, Seb?'

'Yes, I'm just being an arsehole.' Seb half opened an eye. 'What can I get you, Timothy?'

'Well, anything, really. John Grisham, Frederick Forsythe. Anything like that'd be grand.'

'Johnny Grisham, Freddie Forsythe. I'll see what I can do.'

'Thanks, Seb. Good meeting you.'

'You too, Timothy. You too.'

On the doorstep, out of earshot, Claire gave me a goodnight hug. 'Sorry about Seb,' she whispered, as her bare arms sought warmth within the folds of my jacket.

'He was fine. Really.'

I felt Claire's cheek move against my chest as she smiled. 'Mm. He's a bit funny when anyone comes to the flat. But it's good for him to meet new people. He doesn't get out much.'

'Does he work?'

'Not much. He made pots of money as a DJ in the nineties. These days he just does a couple of nights at a club in Farringdon. Another basement. And then a couple of residencies a year in Goa and Ayia Napa. Apart from that, and going to the library twice a week, he won't leave the flat. He says being above ground level brings on his vertigo.'

'Right.'

I felt Claire smile again. 'And he seems to think every bloke I meet is going to run off with me.'

'Oh. I see.' I gently extricated myself from Claire's arms and turned to go. 'He's not getting me mixed up with Jeremy, is he?'

I think about my evening at Claire's as I wander around Woodside Park, mulling over the things that were said. I hadn't wanted to get into a conversation with Seb about the ups and downs of the second hand vinyl business, so I'd rashly mentioned that I was a hoping to make it as a writer. He took the piss, naturally, but something about saying it out loud has somehow strengthened my resolve, and I've decided to fill my time between the morning and evening rush hours working on the Kentish Town screenplay that I'm writing with Jeremy.

I'm back at Woodside Park station just before five. By half past, the evening rush has begun, and by six o'clock, a steady stream of homebound commuters is passing through the ticket barriers. Personally, I actually find myself gagging in disbelief that anyone would willingly get off the train here. That's how boring the place is.
west finchley

Oh God. Well, my worst fears have been confirmed – Jeremy has started seeing Claire behind my back. Behind Seb's back too, I guess. I didn't even know he'd come down from Whitby, but when I got home from Woodside Park last night, there he was, large as life – lurking guiltily behind the Reception desk with Claire.

I reckon they must've been talking about me when I walked in on them. There was a real atmosphere, anyway, and I realised something weird was happening when Jeremy didn't even take the mick out of my new haircut. He just nodded at me, exchanged meaningful glances with Claire and muttered 'Yeah, I see what you mean.' Then the two of them dragged me down the pub, one of the grotty Irish ones with sticky carpets in Hendon.

It wasn't until two pints later, though, that I discovered I hadn't quite got the picture. I'd assumed – wrongly – that they intended giving me all the gory details about their fledgling 'bunk-up' situation. After all, Jeremy had taken me to one side at the bar and said there was 'something we need to talk about – all three of us.' But the actual subject he'd wanted to discuss couldn't have been more different – or more disturbing.

'I needed to talk to you, face to face,' he'd said, as we returned to the table with three pints of Guinness. 'And we both thought you'd need a drink.'

'What's the big revelation?' My stomach lurched as I composed the question I dreaded asking. 'Is it something about... you two?'

Then Claire had spoken, very quietly. 'No, Tim. It's something Jeremy feels he needs to say about you.'

'What about me?' My mind raced. 'It's not Mr Dale, is it? It's nothing to do with the house, is it?' Mr Dale, my landlord in Whitby, is a constant source of anxiety. Even when I'm on the premises and up-to-date with the rent, he still conveys the impression that I'm only a hair's breadth away from eviction. 'It's not Sarah?'

'Nothing like that,' Jeremy had said. 'I wish it was that simple. But it's not.'

And then he told me about Dave the barman's new girlfriend.

Jeremy, it transpired, had met Dave's new girlfriend Jennifer for the first time on Sunday night in the Fat Ox, just around the time I was pricing up Chianti in Mr Gupta's shop. As they'd chatted, Jeremy had told Jennifer a few 'harmless' stories about me, about how I'd come down to London to look for Sarah, and how not finding her was turning me into 'even more of a kitten-brained halfwit than normal.'

By the end of the evening, Jennifer hadn't laughed once. Apparently she'd just listened attentively, sipping her Britvic 55, and it was only when Jeremy told her about my haircut in High Barnet that she'd revealed she was some sort of clinical specialist working in a psychiatric unit in Durham, and that she was 'seriously alarmed about the state of my mental wellbeing.' Seriously alarmed – her actual words.

Then, after Dave had locked up for the night, she'd kept Jeremy behind for another two hours, explaining how my behaviour revealed 'all the symptoms of a classic personality disorder.' Apparently, 'unable to cope with rejection' I was 'living out a warped fantasy existence' and liable to become a 'danger not only to myself but also those around me' – the sort of deranged nutter who could at any time 'express his feelings of impotence and self-loathing in an outburst of concentrated pathological rage.' Then she'd asked if I had access to knives or firearms. She'd even suggested coming down here to sedate me herself, then having me 'committed to a place of safety' until a full diagnosis of my long-term needs could be undertaken.

'We all thought she was kidding at first,' Jeremy said, placing a third Guinness in front of me. 'But when she pointed out the symbolism attached to the haircut, your search for meaningless homosexual congress on Hampstead Heath – that's how she described it – and the sublimation of your Oedipal desires into a quest to become Jewish... well, it started making sense. There's a fully trained-up and highly respected shrink out there who's convinced you're a certifiable mentalist, mate.'

'I only got my hair cut this short because the barber found a Malteser in it,' I'd pleaded.

'But who put the Malteser there, Tim?'

Bloody hell. I'd never thought about that. 'Well, me, I suppose.'

'Precisely. You're a loony, see? Jennifer thinks so, and she's got certificates. Dave's seen them.'

'Thanks, man. I needed that.'

'We tried to tell her you were just a harmless eccentric – a mooncalf, an idiot,' continued Jeremy, clearly cheered at having conveyed his ill-tidings without me running amok with a socket wrench, 'but she still wants you Sectioned. You big nutjob.'

Thinking about it, I reckon Jennifer might be on to something. Because I have been feeling off-colour, recently – lying awake at night, tossing and turning, grappling with... well... things. Brain fever's the only possible explanation for the light-headedness I've started feeling when, say, Claire's around. At least I now know the reason for it – which, I suppose, is some comfort.

Not that I'm feeling particularly mental this morning. In fact, under the slowly lightening skies of a West Finchley rush hour, last night's Guinness-drenched discussion almost seems like a bad dream. If it wasn't for the binoculars now hanging from my neck and the lingering symptoms of a hangover, I could almost believe I'd imagined it all. The binoculars were Jeremy's idea (as was the hangover, I suppose), although they come with Jennifer's explicit seal of approval.

Jennifer's idea, anyway, is that if I insist on continuing my 'Sarah' quest, then I shouldn't allow myself to spend too long engaged in 'dangerously high levels of introspection.' That's the killer, apparently. You spend too long wallowing in your own despair, and the next thing you know you're pricing up cheese wire in John Lewis and lopping off strangers' kneecaps. 'You're walking a tightrope, according to Jennifer,' Jeremy said as he packed me off this morning. 'And a half-decent hobby could be only thing that saves you from your own morbidly self-destructive impulses.'

So – for today at least – it's birdwatching. It wouldn't have been my first choice of hobby, I'd have to say, and although it's been several hours since I first lifted my binoculars to eye level, the embarrassment's still making my neck itch. The problem is that people stare at you when you're birdwatching on a Tube station platform. It could just be my 'latent paranoia manifesting itself as a tangible neurotic persecution complex' of course – Jennifer says I'll suffer a lot of that sort of thing. I do, after all, possess personality traits bordering on the psychopathic. I just wish that the large numbers of cheery middle-aged blokes who approach me to ask if I've seen 'anything good' could see me for the deranged sociopath I apparently am.

Actually, if you look hard enough, there are some pretty interesting birds to be spotted out there. I've seen two types of seagulls already, a pigeon with a gammy leg, two magpies having a barney, a jay (although it might've been a pigeon – it was hanging round with the pigeons), some starlings in the distance, and a couple of what looked like ravens.

Birdwatching must be doing me some good, too, because I haven't had a single psychopathic urge since a German backpacker accidentally smacked me in the face with his rucksack two hours ago, and I'm so absorbed by the manic interplay between the ravens that I don't hear the approaching station manager until he's right next to me.

'Spotted anything good?'

He seems friendly enough, and I since I don't feel the bloodlust rising within me, I lower my binoculars and put the rubber tip of my pencil to my lips in the manner of the seasoned professional. 'A few interesting specimens. Are you a birdwatcher yourself?'

'I was a bit of a twitcher when I was your age, but I can't find the time these days. The missus isn't keen. Reckons I ruined too many holidays in the Cairngorms by continually pulling out my Leica. Can't say I've seen anything interesting while I've worked here, though.'

This seems a bit harsh. 'Oh, I don't know. I saw a jay, earlier, you know. A big fat one. He was pecking a bit of bread, but then a pigeon with a gammy leg flapped off with it. It's jungle law out there, you know.' He smiles at me benignly. Still no bloodlust. 'And then you've got your gulls. Real characters. And there's been a raven or two. Not to mention the black redstart. You don't see as many of them around as you used to.'

Suddenly his voice shifts up half an octave. 'You've seen a black redstart? Seriously?'

'Two, actually. Over there.' I gesture in the direction of the shrubbery beyond the barred wooden gate at the platform end. 'They're still hopping around, somewhere. They don't seem to mind the trains too much.'

'What did they look like?'

I point at the picture in Jeremy's birdwatching encyclopaedia. It's still open on the page where I first identified the little fellers. 'Like that. We don't see too many of them up in Whitby.'

'You don't get many of them anywhere, son.'

'Maybe I'm just lucky. I wish I was as good at keeping tabs on my girlfriend. I haven't seen her for months.'

'A twitcher, is she?'

I try to remember the last time I saw Sarah doing any really active twitching. It seems, sadly, a very long time ago. 'Not recently with me, no. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.'

'Have you been birdwatching long?'

I'm on safer ground, here. 'Oh yes. Quite a while.' And I have, actually – nearly two hours. Almost time for a little snack, in fact. 'But I'm going for a break, now. Spot of lunch. I'll be back later, though, if that's okay.'

'Sure.' He peers into the thick foliage beyond the wooden gate. 'I'll keep an eye out for those black redstarts.'

By the time I get back to the Tube station, it's quite a different place from when I left. For a start, I'm now no longer the only one with a pair of binoculars round his neck – there are loads of us, twelve or thirteen at least, some with cameras and all clustered on the southbound platform, peering into the hedge near where I was standing this morning.

I amble up to one of them and nod in the direction of the gently milling crowd. 'What's happening?'

'Sighting of some black redstarts this morning, down near the track. They're nesting, apparently. Never been seen round these parts before.'

I don't want to look smug, but I can't really help it. 'Ah, yes. I saw them. There was a pigeon, too, with a gammy foot.'

As he looks me up and down, I can't help noticing the glint of madness in his eye. We're sensitive to that sort of thing, we psychotics. 'You saw them?'

'Uh-huh. And some ravens.'

He turns round, suddenly animated, and tugs the sleeve of a ruddy-faced feller in a waxed jacked. 'Alec! This youngster reckons he was here this morning – reckons he saw the pair of them!'

Alec, when he turns to face me, looks even more deranged than his mate. He has unnaturally pale eyes, one of which is distinctly wonky and appears to be staring over my left shoulder. 'Where were they? Show me!' he rasps, seizing my elbow and gently propelling me through the crowd. 'Where were they, boy?'

But it's only when we reach the end of the platform that my nagging, gnawing sensation of guilt blossoms into a fully-fledged premonition of doom. Because there they are – clear for all to see – four of them, now, fluttering merrily around – four lovely, plump little black redstarts, just like in Jeremy's encyclopaedia. Or so I'd thought, when I first glanced through its pages this morning. 'Erm... there. Just over there, see?'

'What, somewhere behind the sparrows?'

Sparrows. Oh shit. I've been looking at sparrows. 'Mm. Yeah, yeah. Behind the sparrows.'

Then the avalanche of questioning begins, a babble of voices that rises to a tumult as it struggles to compete with the squealing brakes of an approaching train. What were their markings like? Were they males or females? Can you describe the plumage? Was there a nest? I have, of course, no words of wisdom for them. In fact, I feel oddly faint, and increasingly distant from the throng of manic birdwatchers who clamour around me. Heaven knows what we look like to the handful of passengers in the train that now rests stationary next to the platform. I smile wanly at them. Then, fighting his way through the crowd, the station master makes his way towards me, calling out, 'He'll tell you – he saw them! He's the man of the moment!'

It's more than I can handle, though, and I've only inches to spare as I duck between the closing train doors, leaving the birdwatchers of West Finchley standing on the platform, their mouths hanging agape at my untimely disavowal of avian expertise.

'You're back early,' says Claire. 'Good day?'

I think about this for a second. 'Well, I didn't liquidise any hamsters or anything. But I don't think I should be spotted on the Underground with a pair of binoculars again.'

'Birdwatching didn't work out?'

'Not really.' I glance over Claire's shoulder in the direction of the Happi-Bar, trying to ascertain whether Jeremy's around. Frankly, I hope he's somewhere else entirely, so I can spend the next hour or so having my customary one-to-one debriefing session with Claire. She's an excellent listener, and often bites her lip very fetchingly when I get to the exciting bit in a story. 'Any sign of Jez?'

'In your room. He was out most of the afternoon. He was very cagey when he got back, actually. Had some sort of package under his arm.'

My heart sinks. 'Drugs?'

'Too big.'

'Dead body?'

'Not unless he's murdered a dwarf. He wouldn't tell me, though.' Claire looks suddenly coy. 'He did say I should ask you about Lisa Salt, though.' Lisa Salt. Now there's a name to send a shiver down your spine. 'He reckoned that if I could get you talking about Lisa Salt, whoever she is, it'd be a good part of your therapy. Jennifer's been on the phone, apparently. She said you need to systematically confront the sources of your insecurities. It'll stop you murdering people and parcelling their limbs up in carrier bags.'

I think about this for a second. 'Telling you about Lisa will quell my murderous rages?'

'I'm only repeating what Jeremy said.' Claire leans back in her chair and begins swivelling gently from side to side. 'So who is this mysterious Lisa Salt, then?'

* * *

Lisa Salt. Even at the time, I knew Lisa wouldn't help me get Sarah out of my system. Nothing could, of course – not when we were homework buddies with enhanced flirting privileges. Not when our thighs sat only inches apart during four sociology lessons a week. Not when I loved her. But Lisa, it was clear, was offering something that Sarah wasn't – fleshy new experiences that were becoming increasingly difficult to resist. And Lisa was pretty, too – tall and blonde, with an engaging tendency to wear inappropriately short skirts and tight, stripy tops.

We'd become friends through our A Level English class, where I'd kept her amused for half a term by drawing a tiny winking 'knob' motif in the margin of her Coleridge anthology every time we came across any phallic imagery in the text.

'God, Tim, what'll people say?' she'd squeal, waving her anthology under the noses of half the sixth form common room.

'You should be grateful, Lise. I'm helping you revise.'

'But God, Tim. I mean, really.'

The problem was that despite my itching compulsion to engage Lisa in increasingly salacious chit-chat, I didn't really fancy her. She was impossible to fancy, actually, with her daft little sayings, and legendary teddy bear collection. But she was highly effective as a litmus test for my nascent womanising techniques, resembling a kind of dim but tolerably attractive focus group, more than willing to provide swift and candid feedback on my suggestive lines and dubious jokes. 'God, Tim, you're outrageous!' she'd say, wrinkling her nose. 'Whatever will you say next?'

And all around our daft little pantomime, our friends were starting to have sex. In thirty year-old Datsuns. On geography field trips to Nidderdale. In static caravans on the outskirts of Filey. Of course, Jeremy had done it ages ago, and was prepared to answer questions on the subject that would've shamed a gynecologist. It'd first happened, as he'd patiently inform anyone who'd listen, on holiday in Majorca with a Danish au pair (an experience he described as 'like pushing the segments of an orange apart – with your willy'). And since Sarah was now breaking more homework dates than she was keeping, attributing her absences to an infirm (and entirely spurious) maiden aunt in Guisborough, the pressure to prove myself a potent, thrusting example of Whitby manhood was proving almost unbearable.

I was pretty sure, then, even before I arrived at Lisa Salt's eighteenth birthday party, that I'd end up in bed with her. After all, there were only so many variables and parameters to play with. We'd been bantering, increasingly provocatively, for months; we'd both be drunk; and we'd have access to somewhere secluded and dark. And in the previous few weeks, something about the way Lisa had spoken, and moved, and laughed at my jokes, had changed. There was an undeniable subtext to it all, something that was growing more tangible by the day.

'You should watch yourself, there, mate,' Jeremy had said when I mentioned that Lisa had invited us to her party, 'or you'll end up shagging her. And God knows where that'd land you.' That was the scariest thing; the more we'd joked about it, the more horrific a prospect it'd become – Shagging Lisa Salt. But despite all my efforts to belittle the situation with Jeremy, I knew the entanglement had drifted beyond my control. And as we slogged up the hill from the cheapo off licence to the party, carrier bags heaving with unbranded cider, I knew there was little I could do to stop it.

Lisa met us at the door, of course, pulling it open with such zest that it strained at the hinges. 'Tim! Jezza! I knew you wouldn't let me down. Come here.' She hauled me over the threshold while Jeremy looked on, smirking, and danced backwards with a lopsided shimmying motion into the mass of frugging bodies in the darkened sitting room. 'Dance, Tim, dance!' she'd yelled over the White Stripes, and taken both my hands, bending my fingers into her damp, warm palms and holding on tightly. My face a rictus of terror, I'd had no choice but to mutely cooperate.

What happened in the hours that followed is a blur – although fragments of memory, many too embarrassing to fully recall, can just about be coaxed into my mind's eye. There was a lot of dancing, certainly – dancing and drinking. Then a moonlit stroll round Lisa's dad's rhubarb patch. And after that – kissing, perched at the top of the stairs. Lots of kissing. And then I remember being led into a bedroom – Lisa's sister's dreadful, girlie bedroom – and the door closing behind us. And then..? Darkness. Just darkness.

Oddly, my recollection of the following morning is crystal clear. I awoke with a mouth drier than a camel's armpit to find Lisa, propped coquettishly on one elbow, gazing down upon me with the eyes of love.

'Hello, Tim.'

'Hello.' I looked around the room. It was even more sinister in daylight, a riot of pinks and purples, like being slapped around the head with someone's intestines. 'This is your sister's bedroom, isn't it?'

'Yes, Jeremy spent the night in mine with my cousin Erica. He's downstairs now, making himself a bacon sandwich.'

'And your folks?'

'Gone to the Lakes for the weekend. They trust me with house, now I'm eighteen.'

'Right, right.' Something was wrong, though – very wrong. What was it? 'How'd you feel?'

Lisa leaned over and kissed me lightly on the forehead. 'Great. You?'

'Fine. Bit dehydrated, but otherwise fine.' But something wasn't fine. My eyes darted around the room, eventually alighting on a small row of teddy bears and other stuffed atrocities sitting on the windowsill. Orange teddies. Pink teddies. Powder blue teddies. 'Your sister likes teddies, then.'

'Mm.'

I looked closer. 'What does that one say on it? On its stomach?' Getting warm.

'Lisa.'

'And why's your sister got a teddy with 'Lisa' embroidered on it?' Warmer still.

She kissed me on the forehead again, and began working her way down towards my mouth in a series of tiny pecks. 'It's not hers. These are all mine. I brought them in while you were sleeping to say hello to you when you woke up.'

Ah. That would be it then. Bingo. I'd just lost my virginity to a lunatic, and was now lying naked in her sister's bed while her teddies said hello. 'Hello, teddies.'

'Good morning, uncle Tim.' You'd never have known Lisa could do a passable impression of Brian Blessed, to look at her. Amazing, really. And then she pulled back the duvet, scrambled to her feet (affording me the briefest opportunity to gasp at her terrifyingly knickerless bottom), dashed naked to the window and with a practiced hand turned all their tiny teddy faces in the direction of her dad's rhubarb patch. 'They can't see us, now,' she said, jumping back into bed. 'Let's do it again.'

* * *

The first thing I do when I get back to my bedroom is apologise to Jeremy. 'Jezzer, mate – I think I might have blotted your copybook with Claire. I told her about you and Lisa Salt's cousin, Erica. Sorry.'

'Erica?'

'Big lass, dark hair. Lots of energy. Adventurous type.'

'Oh, Erica.' He smiles reflectively. 'How did she come up?'

'Well, Claire said you wanted her to ask me about Lisa Salt. So I told her.'

Jeremy considers this for a second, emptying the last few drops from a whisky miniature into one of two soiled-looking glasses by his bed. 'Well, I mentioned Lisa to Claire. She seems to have an unholy appetite for tales of your misspent youth, that lass.' He grins wolfishly. 'Having said that, I mention you and Lisa to pretty much everyone. It's generally good for a laugh.'

'Cheers, Jez.'

He drains his glass and nods at the binoculars, which I've abandoned in the laundry pile. 'Birdwatching didn't work out, then?'

'Nah.'

'No problem. I've got something else for you. Guaranteed to prevent psychotic episodes, this.' He reaches under the bed and withdraws a large, roughly triangular parcel. 'This'll be right up your street.'
finchley central

I can barely understand half of what he's saying – which is odd, given how accustomed I've become to Claire's soft Scots inflections over the last few weeks. Maybe they come from different parts of Glasgow, I think, glancing sidelong at my new companion. Maybe he'll go back there soon. It seems like a forlorn hope, though. After all, he's been enthusiastically bending my ear for the past ten minutes, but clearly still feels there's much to say on his topic of choice: How I Ended Up In Finchley.

'Aye, aye. Ah jumped the wrang bus hame lasht neet. They wus, y'knaa, washin' it oot when ah woke up. And fer a minute, ah thought I wus hame. Glasgae. 'Cus there's this wee guy, y'know, Scottish, and he's talkin' to me. An' then we're oot, on the shtreet like, and he takes me back to his place, only when we get there, ah'm settin' aboot 'im, hittin' 'im, 'cus he's gettin' fuckin' cheeky, y'knaa. Fuckin' cheeky wee bastard. What time is it?'

'Nearly eleven.'

'Fuckin' 'ell.' He grins wickedly and waves his can of Tennent's Super Strength in my face. 'And look at me, at it a'ready.'

I do look at him. He is, as he has observed, at it already.

'Where is this place again?'

'Finchley Central.'

'Finchley fuckin' Central, eh? Centre of the fuckin' universe, eh? Ha!' I don't feel able to comment on whether Finchley fuckin' Central's the centre of anywhere other than Finchley, but nod in a noncommittal way which I hope suggests I'm not gettin' cheeky, y'knaa? It seems to do the trick; possibly more than I'd like, because my new companion now turns to me in a manner that seems to be inviting intimacy. His non-Tennents hand alights on my shoulder. 'Whit's yer name, pal?'

'Tim.'

'And are y'native to these parts, Tim?' He waves his can in an extravagant but vague gesture that could be intended to encompass anything from Finchley station to the entire northern hemisphere.

'I'm from Yorkshire.'

He considers this for a moment. 'Yorkshire, eh? Well, I shall call y' ...Yorkie.'

And I shall call you... Drinkie, I think, toying idly with the idea of shoving him – or possibly myself – under a train. It seems to be the closest he's likely to get to one, since several have pulled into the station and he's shown no inclination whatsoever to step on board. It'd be an uncomfortable manoeuvre for me too, since Drinkie's hand now clasps my shoulder in a steely grip, and I've begun to suspect that he deals badly with rejection. If only some manner of distraction would obligingly appear – a nun for him to leer at, or a pair of humping dogs, or a representative of Scottish And Newcastle Breweries distributing free samples – so I could extract myself from his arm and make good my escape.

I feel Drinkie's hot breath on my neck as he gives me another companionable squeeze. He grunts contentedly, clearly pleased with his new pal. From the corner of my eye, I follow Drinkie's gaze as it passes over my coat and scarf, eventually alighting on the brightly coloured item now lying half-exposed on the bench next to me. I furtively try to pull the bottom of my coat over it, but it's too late. Drinkie's grip on my shoulder tightens in excitement. 'Whit's that ye've got there, pal? Is it a wee guitar?'

'What, this? No, no.'

Drinkie's voice clouds with threatening overtones. Maybe the slapping he administered last night began with an innocent discussion regarding what does, and what does not, constitute a wee guitar. 'It looks like a wee guitar.'

'It's a ukulele,' I finally concede. His grip tightens again.

'It's a whit?'

It was exactly the question I'd asked Jeremy last night, when he first produced it from beneath his bed. 'It's a ukulele, mate.'

'I can tell it's a ukulele, Jez. I was trying to convey my confusion regarding why you've given it to me. It's not like I've been pining for one, is it?'

'True enough. But the great thing about ukes is their portability and relative cheapness. It's a real go-anywhere axe, your uke.'

'It can go back where it came from, for all I care.' Its fuchsia-coloured body actually suggested it might've come from the same place they make Blackpool rock. Blackpool, presumably. 'It looks daft.'

Jeremy cradled the ukulele defensively, stroking a fingernail over its strings. 'Maybe so, but it's not what it looks like that's important. It's what it can do for your troubled psyche. Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast and whatnot. That's William Congreve, that. Wrote plays. Clever bloke. Claire's a big fan.'

'I know who Congreve is, actually – and I don't think he was talking about ukuleles. I do have a degree in English, you know.'

'Only got a third, though, didn't you?' A minor chord.

'Well, I was depressed. And at least it's a third from York, Jez – a proper university.'

For the first time, I noticed that Jeremy was quietly and inexpertly strumming Sweet Jane. 'Touchy touchy, Tim.'

I caught my breath and looked at him. It was an argument we'd had before, and one which I couldn't win. We both knew Jeremy had finished school with better A' levels than me – God knows how – before deciding university was a far less appealing prospect than defiling barstools for a living. 'And you reckon my breast's a bit on the savage side, do you, professor?'

'Well, it's not me who's got a few loose toys in his attic.' He'd hit the second verse of Sweet Jane by now, the one about Jack being a banker and Jane being a clerk, and was motoring through the chords. He smiled at me. 'And it could be a winner with Sarah, too. If music be the food of love, blah blah. Shakespeare, that.'

I looked at the ukulele again. Its colour aside, it did have a certain itty-bitty charm. 'So what do you want me to do with it, then?'

Jeremy stopped strumming and handed it, neck first, to me. 'Learn to play it. Use it to relax. Caress yourself with it. Take it with you tomorrow and when you get stressed, just grab your uke and knock out a few tunes. That's all.'

'On the platform?'

'If that's where you're stressed, yes. Channel the energy from your anxieties into your playing. It's what Jennifer suggests. She wants you to unleash yourself.'

'On a pink ukulele?'

'The pinker the better.'

'And what am I supposed to play?'

'I got you a little songbook.' He'd rifled deep in his rucksack and produced a dog-eared, ring-bound volume of sheet music. 'It was secondhand.'

One glance at the cover was enough to explain why Jeremy was now beaming from ear to ear. 'It's Abba, Jez.'

'Aye. Tara said she loved it.'

I'd met Tara, the Happi-Lodge's deputy receptionist, on a number of occasions. A pleasant enough lass, certainly – but I wasn't surprised she was an Abba fan. I mentioned Talulah Gosh to her a fortnight ago, and she hadn't given even a flicker of recognition – nothing – despite the fact they're arguably the finest band Oxford has ever produced. 'And you reckon there'll be something I'll like in there, do you?'

'Don't see why not. It's the complete Abba, Tim. Everything they recorded. B-sides, the lot. Even the really deranged, fucked-up stuff from their last album. There's something for everyone in there. And it could've been worse – I was going to get you a Queen one. A Kind Of Magic. It was a third the price.'

I'd shivered. My feelings regarding Queen are legend. The preening. The strutting. The interminable bloody guitar solos. 'Thanks, Jez.'

'No worries, mate. You'll enjoy the Abba, I swear. And Sarah likes Abba, doesn't she? It could be the key to your future happiness, that ukulele. And it's guaranteed to keep you sane.'

'It's a ukulele.'

Drinkie regards me inscrutably for a moment. Perhaps he feels me begin to tense under his arm, and suspects his newly-acquired minstrel may be about to bolt. But then he smiles, a horrible drunken leer of broken teeth, receding gums and pestilent breath. 'Ye'd best gee us a wee tune, then, pal.'

'I'm not very good.'

He taps me encouragingly on the side of the face with his lager can. 'Ga'an, Yorkie. Shing me somet'n. Ay'thing.'

If I had room, I'd squirm in embarrassment. But I don't. Squirmers are probably pretty much synonymous with cheeky wee bastards in Drinkie's eyes, and I suspect both might find themselves in line for a hearty shoeing. 'I don't feel very confident. Not here on the platform, with everyone looking.'

'Nae-one's lookin', Yorkie. 'S jusht y' an' me.' He's right. As though sensing the imminent horror, all the other passengers have quietly deserted our end of the platform, and are clustered a safe distance away in front of the ticket barriers. Drinkie leans in close. 'Sing, Yorkie. Sing.' And this time it's a command, and there's palpable menace in his voice, in his grin, maybe even a new note of sulphur in his rasping exhalations. So I pick up my ukulele, find my note, and – as quietly as my trembling fingers will permit – begin to play one of the tunes I've been working on during the morning.

Three minutes later, and my shoeing seems to be a certainty rather than a possibility. It would be an understatement to say that Drinkie didn't approve of my musical selection. 'Whit the fuck wis that?'

'Dancing Queen.' I'd genuinely thought that the mental image of a nubile sex kitten shimmying the night away in a Stockholm discotheque might've appealed to Drinkie's depraved sensibilities, but apparently not.

'Dancin' Bastard, more like.' He's literally foaming at the mouth as the spits the word in my face. 'It wis shite. I could barely fuckin' hear it. Is tha' all ye can dae, Yorkie?'

'I can do Fernando.'

'Shite.'

'What about Money, Money, Money?'

'Whit's tha' aboot?'

I'm on the verge of saying 'Money', but the dangerous glint in Drinkie's eye stops me. 'It's erm, about wanting more cash. Not having enough. I suppose it's an implicit critique of rampant capitalism in post-industrial society.' I wince as I say it.

'It's a whit? Are y'taking the piss, pal? 'Cus if y'are, ah'll gee'y'a fuckin' slap.'

He puts down his can and raises his hand as if to strike me. Would we have reached this insane impasse if I'd just played him some Queen instead? We'll never know. I put down my ukulele and get to my feet as my own blood, finally, begins to rise (having spent twenty minutes slopping ineffectually around my bladder area). 'You want to watch yourself, you know. I'm a dangerous psychopath. They want to lock me up. God knows what I'm capable of, if I'm riled.'

Drinkie now takes somewhat unsteadily to his own feet and squares up to me, leaning in close. 'Ye're full o'shite,' he spits, his face inches from my own. Then, with a surprising turn of speed, he leans down to where I've just been sitting. 'An' ah'm tekkin' yer fuckin' guitar.'

When I arrive back at the Happi-Lodge, Claire's keen to hear about how I got on in Finchley. I don't want to unnecessarily besmirch the upstanding reputation of expatriate Glaswegians, though – particularly since Claire's such a lovely Glaswegian – so I diplomatically opt to make Drinkie a Welshman in my account of the day's adventures.

'And this drunk Welsh guy, he nicked Jez's uke?'

'Yeah.'

Claire points to the ukulele – Jeremy's ukulele – that I carefully placed on the Reception desk not ten minutes ago. 'This ukulele?'

'Uh-huh. He pegged it out of the station and took it to a pawnbroker's on Ballards Lane. I followed him and got it back.'

'You confronted him? Even though he was a violent Welsh nutter?'

'Not quite, no.'

'What happened, then?'

'Well, I waited until he'd cleared off, then went in and told them he'd nicked it off me.'

'And they believed you?'

'After I'd played them Dancing Queen and Fernando, yes.'

'Wow. So – no psychotic episodes today?'

'Not really. No thanks to Abba, though.'

'Mm. I expect telling me about Lisa Salt last night helped. How did it all end, then – you and Lisa? Did she end up joining a nunnery?'

'Mm... not that I'm aware of, no.' I scan Claire's face for clues as to where her line of questioning might be heading. It's true what Jeremy says, you know – Claire does have a morbid interest in my romantic disasters. It's her way of taking my mind off my current psychological trauma, I guess. 'Lisa got back in the saddle remarkably quickly, actually. With a chap called Gary.'

'Must've been a rebound thing. Nowhere near as meaningful as what she had with you. You probably ruined her for all other men.'

'Thanks, Claire. That really helps.'

'Hey, what am I here for?'

* * *

Of course, I didn't ruin Lisa for all other men, even if our relationship did end pretty abysmally. It probably didn't help that I'd been trying to wheedle my way out of it from day one. But going out with Lisa was like being force-fed candyfloss by an insane but well-meaning five year old. She treated me with the same brand of affection she'd spent the previous eighteen years lavishing upon her extensive collection of stuffed animals – bearhugs, and cooing, and enthusiastic tugging at certain delicately-attached appendages. It wasn't that the latter, in moderation, didn't represent a pleasant break from doing the onerous wristwork myself – it was just that Lisa's constant enquiries of 'Does it feel nice?' (and occasionally 'Does it still ache?') lent the experience all the erotic charge of a wet weekend in Gilberdyke.

And it didn't help that Lisa was, by anyone's standards, a decent person. She had lots of friends, and enlightened, modern parents who were painfully kind and polite to me. But I wanted out. A voice in my head kept telling me so – and not a quiet, nagging voice, but the tortured wail of a lunatic, screaming its doubts and fears through my dreams and waking hours. 'It's doomed,' yelled the voice. 'Dooooomed!'

I think I knew the end was in sight when Lisa chucked our Durex Extra Safe in the bin. It was a Sunday afternoon and her parents, for the third week in a row, had elected to honour the Sabbath with a lengthy trek up the North York Moors. I'd just retrieved our rubbery chums from inside Lisa's teddy-shaped pyjama case when she firmly extracted the box from my grip and tossed it carelessly across the room. 'No need for those, Tim,' she'd breathed in my ear. 'No need.' Then she kissed me. I must confess that this hadn't been entirely unexpected. For the previous couple of weeks, Lisa had been coyly hinting at 'a nice surprise' she had in store for us.

I sat up in bed. 'Do you mean you're on the pill?'

'We're safe from today. I've been crossing the days off on the calendar.' I looked at the calendar on the wall. Blotchy pink zigzags adorned the majority of November and the first week of December. 'I did it for you, Tim.'

'Wow. Thanks.'

Swinging a knee over my stomach, Lisa assumed the squatting position that heralded our increasingly predictable sexual interludes. Her head was already beneath the covers when the next muffled revelation drifted up from between my thighs. 'Anyway, I talked it over with mum.'

I paused to assess this new information. 'What?'

'She came with me to the doctors.'

I did a little mental reasoning. Towering icebergs of cold logic were slowly colliding in my mind and when I finally spoke, it was with appropriately glacial deliberation. 'So your mum... knows we're shagging.'

'We're very close.'

'And she took you to the doctors so you could go on the pill.'

'She wanted to come. And now we don't have to use those nasty...' (and here she gestured vaguely in the direction of the bin) '...thingies any more.'

'Right. All of which is fine. It's just I'm not so thrilled about the whole 'your mum having intimate knowledge about our sex life' aspect of things, that's all.'

'It's okay, Tim. She's totally cool about it. So's dad.'

'What do you mean, your dad's 'totally cool' about it?'

'Well, he says I'm a grown woman now, and if I want to have a mature relationship with someone I love, then he'd rather I did it with his knowledge and consent than behind his back. In nightclub toilets or the back seat of Thick Brian's Datsun.'

'In nightclub toilets... or Thick Brian's Datsun?'

'Yes.'

I gazed heavenward where tiny snot-coloured plastic stars had been stuck to the ceiling, for picking out softly luminescent constellations when the lights went out. I remembered Lisa telling me about them the second time we'd shared her bed ('My dad stuck them up there when I was about five. To keep me company if I woke up in the night.') And then I looked across at Lisa, knowing our glorious run of teenage shagging was drawing swiftly to a close. I kissed her softly on the forehead. 'Never mention your father to me while you're naked again.'

She nuzzled closer and ran a hand over my chest. 'Oh, Tim.'
mill hill east

I'm not particularly smitten with my new shirt, but weirdly it does rather suit the ambience of Mill Hill East's odd little station. There's a Victorian feel to both of them (pre-Victorian in the case of the shirt, actually, with its absurdly voluminous sleeves) – the indefinable whiff of a Merchant Ivory film. In fact, if I hadn't arrived by Tube this morning, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the Flying Scotsman pulling in and a young Helena Bonham-Carter taking a brisk canter round the car park. It's that sort of place.

Jeremy reckons the dinky little Hornby-esque station will also be 'culturally compatible' with my new shirt. 'It'll encourage the muse,' he declared last night, 'and the muse will hopefully fend off the mania for another few days.' There's no way he'd have got me into it, though, if he hadn't booked all the rest of my clothes into the Happi-Lodge laundry. It's not just the insanely baggy sleeves that are problematic – it's the stains, the smell, and the seemingly random distribution of buttons. I asked Jeremy about the stains last night, an enquiry he blithely brushed aside with the words, 'Oh, it's probably just dried blood or spunk or something. It's a poet's shirt, Tim. It's seen a bit of life.' And the reason for my poet's shirt? 'Because tomorrow you're going to be battling for your sanity through the medium of poetry, my boy. Since you've so royally screwed up with birdwatching and the ukulele. Besides which, you're always banging on about wanting to be a writer, but you've done bugger all about it since you've been in London.'

'I wanted to talk to you about that. I've been working on the Kentish Town screenplay...'

'And that's supposed to help you stay sane, is it? No, mate. It's got to be poetry.'

I sighed. 'So what sort of poetry am I going to be writing, then?'

'Whatever you like. After all, it's your mental breakdown, kid – not mine.'

I wave a modest hand over a couple of my poems-in-progress. I've written about a dozen in the last hour, and I'm pleased that someone's finally taking an interest in my efforts. 'They're haikus,' I explain. 'It's a Japanese form of poetry. Very ancient. You do one line with five syllables, one with seven, then another with five. It's supposed to capture... something. A moment, a feeling, something like that.'

'Wonderful, wonderful.'

I love the way he says this. From the moment I noticed his dog collar, I'd hoped he'd talk this way – soft and gently lilting. And he makes a pleasant change from the crazed Glaswegian dipsomaniacs I generally seem to attract these days.

'Is there any particular reason you're using the haiku form?' asks the vicar.

'Well, partly because it represents a... an effective... distillation of my sentiments regarding the subject... and partly because of the... expressive discipline and, er, rigour they demand... but mostly I'm writing haikus because it's the shortest type of poem I could think of.'

'I see.'

'It's part of my therapy. Jennifer, my psychiatrist, reckons poetry'll help curb my violent tendencies.'

He stirs a little in his seat and, perhaps involuntarily, adjusts his dog collar. 'Do you frequently succumb to these tendencies?'

'Never have, actually. But apparently I'm just a ticking bomb if I don't actively challenge my neurotic impulses and break my cycle of introspection and morbid self-loathing.'

'So what are your poems about?'

'Well, I decided to start off by writing about things I like. Things with positive associations. I did this one at seven o'clock this morning. It's called Croissants.' I turn my notepad round so he can better negotiate my semi-legible scrawl:

Tasty flaky treat

Butter content high – so what?

The French: not so daft

'That's rather good.' He smiles at me. 'I'm partial to the occasional pastry myself.'

'Thanks. I'd planned to carry on with a series about other things I like – CSI New York, the Fat Ox, Sofie Gråbøl's jumpers in 'The Killing', Morrissey, the novels of Louise Wener, Clint Eastwood's 'Dirty Harry' films. Oh, and Jesus, obviously. Only I couldn't think of anything to say about them, and ended up knocking out little verses about my friends instead. They're at the roots of my neurosis, I reckon.'

The vicar leans in, conspiratorially. 'Do you need to talk about them?'

'Do you do confessions?'

'As long as you don't tell me you've killed anyone.' He fingers his dog collar again. 'You're not going to tell me you've killed someone, are you?'

'No. There might be some, uh... sexual intercourse, though.'

He smiles warmly and glances up at the departures board. The next train to Kennington isn't due to leave for seven minutes. 'Then I think we'll be fine.'

I get an odd sense that, ideally, he'd like me to cut to the chase (sexually speaking) as swiftly and explicitly as possible. But since his train leaves in seven minutes, I think it's critical to maximise the 'emotional quest' element of my narrative at the expense, if necessary, of the 'porn' component. So I start at the beginning. 'Well, the reason I'm down in London is to look for my girlfriend, Sarah. We've been together for years, but it's never been plain sailing.'

'Sexual problems?'

'Not really, no. Anyway, about six months ago we got a place in Whitby, a little rented house on the edge of town. I was going to build up my second hand vinyl business and start writing a novel, and Sarah was going to make jewellery. It was her idea, actually, but she never moved in. She spent ages prevaricating, putting it off, making excuses. Then she came down here instead, just upped and left. All I know is that she's living somewhere near the Northern Line, so I'm going from station to station, trying to find her.' I flick through my notepad to where my Sarah haiku resides, and pass it to the vicar.

The tunnel of love

Is long and dark. Do you wait

Somewhere down the line?

'I like the metaphors,' observes my clerical companion, passing back the notepad.

I'm not completely convinced, myself. The opening's a bit orifice-y for my tastes, but I decline to mention it, in case he starts probing for the lurid details of our dysfunctional sex lives again. 'Mm. I'm not sure it captures her, to be honest. She's a bit... erm, flightier than the poem suggests. And I'm not sure you're allowed to stretch a sentence over the end of a line.'

'Is that what they call enjambment? Maybe you subconsciously wished to convey your difficulty in restraining her?'

I regard my dog-collared confidant with new respect. They clearly teach you more in vicaring college than just that stuff about loaves and fishes. 'Could be. Actually, I've done something pretty similar with the two haikus I've written about my friend, Jeremy. He's a bit of a wildcard, too. He was the one who reckoned I should come down to London to find Sarah in the first place. He's not her biggest fan, truth be told, but likes sticking his oar in wherever women are concerned. This is the first.' I flick through the pages to Jeremy #1.

Heart? In the right place.

Your brain, alas, is often

In your underpants.

'I see. An all-too-common complaint with certain young men.'

'Well, normally it's not a problem. But he seems to have taken a shine to Claire, the receptionist at the hotel where I'm staying. And she's... well, she's too good for his type of mucking about. She's just a really sweet girl, smart and funny and bright... just lovely, really. She's always there when I need her, and I can say stuff to her I could never tell Jeremy. A couple of nights ago I found myself telling her about the first time I... well, the first time I was intimate with a girl.'

'You mean, the first time you had sex?'

'Erm...yes.'

'Was that wise?'

'What, to have sex?' He's angling again. Dirty vicar. 'Well, it seemed the polite thing to do. We were both naked, and I didn't want to give the poor girl a complex.'

He looks perplexed. 'That's not quite what I meant. I was actually asking whether it was wise to tell Claire about it.'

'Why do you say that?'

'No reason, really. Maybe I'm being old fashioned. I just think it's sometimes possible to divulge too much to the people we really care for. I blame Jeremy Kyle.'

I ponder this momentarily. 'I don't know. Claire seemed curious. And the sex was a complete disaster, anyway. Her name was Lisa Salt. She collected teddy bears.' I find the page with Lisa Salt on it, and hand over my notepad again.

Though your lips were sweet

Too much Salt in your diet

Is bad for your health

'So incompatibility drove you apart?'

'Sort of. Partly it was the teddy bears, and partly it was the fact that Sarah... well, Sarah finally came on the market, so to speak. And at least with Sarah I didn't have to put up with teddy bears. Years of infidelity, yes, but never teddies.'

'Ah. A sexual problem.'

'Depends on your viewpoint. Sarah never found it problematic.'

'And Sarah's the reason you're in London.'

'She's also the reason I'm going insane. According to Jennifer, anyway.'

'Your therapist?'

'Not technically. I've never actually met her. She's more like a friend of a friend.'

'Really?'

'Yes. She's going out with Dave, the barman at the Fat Ox. It's a pub in Whitby. Heaven knows what the attraction is, mind. He's not much of a talker.' I flick through my notepad as the train pulls up to the platform edge in front of us. Eventually, I find Dave The Barman scribbled down next to a doodle of a very overweight cow.

Vodka Martini

Would have you shaken and stirred

Tom Cruise you are not

'I think your intertextual references work well, there. I'm a Bond fan myself. I always thought Timothy Dalton was quite seriously underrated.'

'You're not wrong, vicar.' I don't know if we should be talking about Bond, to be honest, and wonder whether my sordid confession is inadvertently dragging my new friend's spiritual stock down to my own bargain basement level. I scour my mind for some morally uplifting bon mot regarding Timothy Dalton's portrayal of the mighty 007. 'He shagged around a bit less than Roger Moore, too.'

For a moment, we're both lost in our own 007-related thoughts – and I only remember that I'm in the middle of an informal confession when my clerical companion gently clears his throat. 'So Jennifer – the barman's girlfriend, your therapist – has telephone consultations with you?'

'Not with me, no. She always talks to Jeremy on the phone, and he passes on what she's said.'

'So you've never actually spoken to her?'

'Not yet.'

The vicar rubs his chin. 'You must both trust Jeremy implicitly.'

I consider this for a minute. Jeremy's my closest friend – but do I trust him? For someone who's privy to the fact that I'm a potential axe-murderer, he's been remarkably cavalier in his treatment of my all-too-fragile psyche. And he did tell quite a lot of people that I was in a coma. 'Well, vicar, he's certainly a bit of a joker.' I flick through my notepad for my last haiku. It's surrounded by ominous dagger-y doodles.

If someone re-makes

Carry On Up The Khyber

You could be Sid James

I watch the vicar's eyes scanning the words on the page. When they come to the final line, his eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly. He closes the book with a gesture of gentle finality and hands it back. 'Very telling, I'm sure.' He begins gathering this things; the departures board is telling him there's only a minute until his train goes. 'I wish you well with your affairs of the heart. I'm sure it'll work out for the best. And I shouldn't worry too much about your mental welfare. You seem sane enough to me.'

'Thanks.'

He boards his train, but before taking his seat, the vicar turns to me one last time. 'I enjoyed your poetry too. What strikes me as really odd, though, is that you haven't written one about Claire.' He smiles as the doors beep and slide shut. 'Goodbye!'

I open my notepad and stare at a double page with the word Claire in the middle. The only other things on the page are a scattering of small question marks surrounding Claire's name. Weird to think that for each and every one of them, there'd been a separate question in my mind – and not a single answer. And I doubt whether my clerical chum would've been so confident about my sanity if he'd known what the questions were, I reflect, closing the notepad and stowing it my rucksack.

I wonder, thinking about it, whether writing haikus has really had such a beneficial effect on my psyche. Birdwatching and playing the ukulele didn't. And bugger knows what Jeremy's got in store for tomorrow. Whatever it is, though, I'm not doing it. I've had enough. Sod Jeremy – and sod Jennifer, for that matter. It's going to be my newly-acquired Frederick Forsyth audiobook, The Day Of The Jackal, for me. Cheers, Seb – you're a mate. I take a last peek into my rucksack to make sure Jeremy hasn't surreptitiously kidnapped Frederick, but he's still there, next to my Walkman. Oh yes – roll on, East Finchley!

east finchley

It's late when I get back to the Happi-Lodge, but I feel better than I have all week. There had been a moment, shortly after arriving at East Finchley, when I did think I was going to have a major psychotic episode (the moment when I'd opened the box for The Day Of The Jackal and found it to contain six CD's entitled So You Think You're Gay?), but apart from that... well, it's been not been such a bad day.

The main reason for my high spirits is that I didn't even look at Jeremy's package until I was on the train home. I'd spent half the afternoon waiting for it to ring – or vibrate – or both – convinced that Jeremy'd bought me a mobile phone. He knows how I feel about mobiles – about my creeping fear of being silently castrated or lobotomised by the microwaves – but it wasn't a mobile, as it turned out. No. It was a pair of knitting needles, six balls of cabbage-coloured wool, and the pattern for a man's cardie from 1962. It would've driven me over the edge, it really would.

I put So You Think You're Gay? on the Reception desk as soon as Claire comes off the phone. 'You can say thanks to Seb for me. It was most illuminating.'

Claire slides the box around. 'Ah. The Day Of The Jackal. Any good? Not really my cup of tea, Frederick Forsyth. Too cloak and dagger.'

'It wasn't Frederick Forsyth.'

She glances at the box again. 'Wasn't it?' I flip open the cover, and extract the first CD. Claire's eyebrows shoot heavenward. 'Oh. Blimey. So You Think You're Gay?'

'Not now I don't. I'm not even bi-curious.'

'God, I'm so sorry. Seb is such a bad boy. I'll have words with him about this.' Claire pops the CD back in the box. 'So – homoerotic self-help guides aside, how was your day? You didn't while away your time doing any, say, knitting?' She bites her lip.

'Oh, Jeremy told you about that, did he?' I pull the untouched needles and wool out of my bag and deposit them on the desk. 'Oddly enough, no. It just felt too...'

'Stupid?'

'Uh-huh. Call me a cynic, but I just couldn't work out how knitting a vomit-coloured cardigan was supposed to help me fight my pathological tendencies.'

Claire seems palpably relieved. 'Well, thank God for that.' She picks up the phone and begins dialling. 'At least it's over, now.' For a second, I'm silent. What did she mean – it's over now? Then the call is connected. 'Jeremy? Claire. You'd better come down to Reception. Tim's back, and he didn't do the knitting. I think you've got some explaining to do.' Then she leans over the desk and hugs me. Well, the top of my head, anyway, which is as far as she can reach. 'I just want you to know that I was very unhappy with the whole idea, I wanted nothing to do with it, and I'm very relieved it's all over. Okay?'

'Okay. What's over, exactly?'

'It's best if Jeremy explains.'

'Explains what?'

Claire shifts her weight from foot to foot. 'Why you had to take a ukulele to Finchley and write poetry in Mill Hill. Why Jeremy sent you off to knit him a cardigan today.'

'Well, it's because I'm borderline psychotic. You know that.'

Claire stares at the edge of the desk. 'You're not borderline anything, Tim. Well, borderline naïve, perhaps.'

'That's not what Jennifer says.'

Now she takes a deep breath. 'Jennifer doesn't exist, Tim.'

'Of course she exists. She's going out with Dave the barman.'

'No she's not. She's a made-up character. The only reason she's called Jennifer is because that was the name of the psychiatrist in The Sopranos.'

None of this is making sense. Of course Jennifer exists. 'But Jeremy phoned her from my room on Wednesday night.'

'No, Tim – Jeremy phoned Dave. In the Fat Ox. Apparently, they put the whole conversation on speakerphone.'

I'm holding on to the edge of the desk, now. Somehow the walls seem to be gently swaying and I'm feeling slightly seasick. 'But why make Jennifer up?'

'To see how many days it would take before you twigged you weren't actually insane. I'm really sorry, Tim. They had a sweepstake on it in the Fat Ox.'

'A sweepstake?'

'Yes. Ten of them put fifty pounds each in the pot. Every day Jeremy had to give you a different 'therapeutic' activity to do – they made a list – and it was Jeremy's job to report back on whether you'd done it or not. They wanted to see how long it'd take before you saw through the wind-up. Everyone in the sweepstake got a different day. Whoever's down for three days is set to win five hundred quid.'

'And who was down for three days?'

'Only Dave knows. The list's in the cash register behind the bar in the Fat Ox. If they hadn't got it locked away, Jeremy could've cheated by telling you all about it and cutting you in.'

If I hadn't gnawed my fingernails down to the quick during the past three days, I'd be gouging holes in the desktop by now. 'So I'm not mad at all?'

'No.'

'And this whole thing's been a total wind-up?'

'Yes.'

I really don't know how I feel about this. I'd almost liked being mad. I was certainly looking forward to discussing my fascinating character quirks with Jennifer. 'Why didn't you tell me?

Claire's eyes drop, her discomfort becoming obvious. 'I never thought you'd fall for it in the first place.'

I don't know whether I should feel embarrassed or angry. My fingers do, though – they're rapidly turning white at the knuckle as they attempt to drive their way into the desk. 'So why didn't you just tell me?'

'I wanted to,' she cries, her voice now thickening. 'But Jeremy said that if I let the cat out of the bag, then he'd go back to Whitby and never come back. He said it'd be too difficult, seeing me, the woman who'd betrayed his trust – particularly where 'big money' was involved. His words, not mine.'

I'm acutely aware of how awkward Claire must be feeling, but my fingers simply don't care. You'd need a crowbar to prise them out of the woodwork, now. 'So you didn't tell me because you wanted to carry on seeing Jeremy?'

'No.' Claire seems, for some reason, genuinely angry. 'I didn't tell you because if you don't find Sarah until Clapham or something, you'll be down here – alone – for another month. And a month down here without Jeremy would send you mad, you know it would.' She swallows hard and composes herself. 'I care about you, Tim. More than you know.'

An electronic chime heralds the arrival of the lift. I turn, as far as the vice-like grip of my fingers will permit. It's Jeremy. 'Tim, mate! Claire tells me you're cured!' My fingers release themselves from the desk.

highgate

Looking back on it, even Tony, the Happi-Lodge barman, said it had been 'a chilling experience, man – chilling.' He's a big lad, Tony – an ageing scooter boy with a fondness for bomber jackets and The Specials – but despite twenty years' committed service as a licensed victualler and nightclub bouncer, he reckoned he'd 'never seen that kind of bloodlust outside a Cockney Rejects moshpit.' It'd eventually taken the two of them, Tony and Claire, working on one hand each, to pry me away from Jeremy's throat. Jeremy could've done it himself, of course, if he wasn't already semi-asphyxiated from laughing so hard.

'I couldn't believe you'd fall for it,' he'd croaked, nursing a restorative amaretto in the Happi-Bar. 'I mean – Dave the barman, with a girlfriend? And then to make her a doctor working in a psychiatric unit? Can you picture it? Seriously?'

Admittedly, thinking about it, the whole scenario did seem quite unlikely. 'So it was your idea, then?'

'Not mine, kid.' Jeremy fished an ice cube out of his glass and popped it in his mouth. 'Wes's, actually. He got the idea after you phoned him about your gut-rot on Sunday.'

'The sod.'

'He's got a dark side, young Wesley. He was convinced he was going to win. He came up with all the posh-sounding medical words and everything.' Jeremy drained his amaretto and nodded to Tony for a refill. 'Same again?'

'Go on, then. My shout.'

'No, no.' Jeremy extracted a tenner from his wallet. 'It's the least I can do, considering the psychological trauma I've inflicted on you.'

I waved his tenner down. 'No, I insist. Tony – put these on my bill. And have one yourself.' I turned to Jeremy. 'After all, I've just become five hundred quid better off.'

'Four-fifty. I'm keeping my stake. But I reckon it's only fair to let you have the rest, since you're probably a bona fide mentalist by now.'

I was quite looking forward to it, actually – opening a parcel containing four hundred and fifty quid in cash. Dave had reckoned it should be at the Happi-Lodge by Monday. It'd been the luck of the draw, of course, that Jeremy'd had the 'three days' slot in the sweepstake. He's always been a lucky sod.

'Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if you'd lost? How were you planning on salvaging our shattered friendship if someone like Jonesy or Lakey-Boy had won the money?'

Jeremy reached down, pulled a bulging carrier bag from the floor, and with one fluid gesture spread its contents across the bar. Peeping out from between minty-looking copies of the Go-Betweens' Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express and The Fall's Frenz Experiment, I could just spy the corner of The Three Johns' Atom Drum Bop. My records – all of my records – from the charity shop in Whetstone. The ones I'd had to leave behind when my bowels mutinied. 'Aw, mate.'

Yorkshire is the Texas of England. That's what Jon Langford of the Mekons said between songs, the last time I saw them play. That must make me a Texan, then – cool, laconic and aloof. But if I am a Texan, why don't I feel like one? I square my shoulders as much as my jacket will allow, narrow my eyes and set my jaw on 'stun'. I must look pretty fearsome – and can't understand why gentle hands have started propelling me towards one of the station's three exits. 'You can't chuck me out. It's just not fair,' I whine. 'I've got a valid Oyster card.'

'Which entitles you to travel, sir. It's not a permit to loiter.'

I glance sidelong at my captor, trying my best to sound incredulous. 'I wasn't loitering. Far from it. I was just waiting for my girlfriend.'

'It didn't look like it.'

'No?'

'No. It looked like you were doing that Gangnam Style dance. I was watching for ages.'

Outrage grips me. Gangnam Style? Hardly. I'd actually been discreetly practising a few tai chi moves down at the platform end, when I'd been apprehended. I'm slightly anxious to know how I'd been so closely scrutinised, though. Surely my captor doesn't possess the second sight? He doesn't look the type. 'How?'

'On CCTV. All of us have been watching you.' The station attendant smiles guiltily as we reach the top of the stairs, and the rain begins pouring down my neck. 'Pissing ourselves laughing, mostly.'

For a moment, I consider what might happen if I decided to hurtle back down the stairs and into the station – but opt not to bother. I can't imagine I'd evade Big Brother for long – not in the totalitarian dictatorship they call Highgate Station. 'You'll regret this,' I eventually splutter at the attendant's retreating back.

He turns to face me from halfway down the steps. Even from twenty yards away, he still looks like a sizeable feller. 'Yeah?'

'I'll be reporting you to a higher authority.'

'My supervisor?'

'Higher than that.'

'Boris Johnson?'

'Higher than him.'

'Good luck,' he grins.

'Fascist.'

It takes me about forty minutes to find the 'higher authority' that I have in mind. Karl Marx – the capo di tutti capi. Admittedly, sharing my grievances with Karl probably won't be much practical help in the long run, largely on account of him being dead, but I've wanted to visit his grave for years and this seems like the ideal opportunity. I discover the colossal bust of his head after a lengthy meander through Highgate's rain-sodden cemetery.

How would Marx would feel about being buried in Highgate, I wonder? Not thrilled, if his expression's anything to go by. I'm busy considering the logistical problems of having him shipped to Cuba, when the sound of laboured footsteps further along the path alerts me to the fact I'm no longer alone – and a moment later, I'm joined by a short, elderly chap with pleasingly gnarled features and a walking stick. I grunt affably in greeting. Ah, I think. An old socialist.

It takes him a few seconds to get his breath back, during which time I feel his eyes passing over me, appraising my appearance. I hope he doesn't think I'm a Tory – or, God forbid, a champagne socialist like Ed Miliband – just because I've got my new SuperDry jacket on. Why didn't I just keep my East German border guard's greatcoat? What an idiot. I clearly have to do something demonstrating my commitment to The Cause. I try making my voice sound as gruff as I can, and nod curtly at my companion. 'Good morning, brother.'

His regards me with a sidelong glance. 'All right.'

Damn! Why didn't I think of saying that? I must admit that I've always been a bit panicked by old socialists. It's the fear of being exposed as not being political enough, I suppose. I also fear that old socialists – proper, dyed-in-the-wool lefties like my companion – may one day want to take away my beloved Gibson Thunderbird bass guitar and give it to The People (what, with all property being theft and all that). My bass, I'd have to inform them, isn't a guitar of The People – and when the revolution comes, I'm bloody well hanging on to it. I stare furiously at Marx's head, trying to work out whether any of these thoughts have accidentally leaked out of my brain and into my silent comrade's – but when he finally speaks again, there's no sign that they have. 'Karl Marx.' He nods respectfully. 'There was no one like him, was there? No one.'

Oh shit. A conversation about Marx – to which, it appears, I'm now expected to contribute. What do I know about Marx? Not enough to sustain a lengthy chinwag. I wrack my brains for Marx-related factoids. 'Ah yes. Marx. Marx – and Engels. Marx's mate.' Brilliant, Tim – brilliant.

'Oh yes. Engels too. 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.''

'Quite right.' Bollocks! If I'd known we were going to start quoting at each other, I'd have feigned laryngitis five minutes ago. Marx, Marx, Marx – what did the bugger say? Think socialist, Tim. Ah yes. Yes. ''Workers of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but your chains.'' I feel a bit uncomfortable saying it. I am, after all, a practising benefit fraudster of almost four weeks' standing. Hopefully we'll be able to leave the whole 'quoting Marx' thing, now.

My new chum nods sagely. 'True enough.' He clears his throat. ''The theory of communism can be summed up in one sentence – abolish all private property.''

Bastard! Stop quoting Marx at me! I'd completely forgotten how bloody competitive socialists can get. You're not going to let it lie, are you? Are you? Well, sod you, mate – I've just thought of another one. Not a great one, I'll admit – but I'm pretty sure it's Marx. I look heavenward. ''Religion is the opium of the people.''

It's the best I can do, but he's back at me like a shot.

''Capitalist production develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth – the soil and the labourer.''

How the hell did he remember all that? That's got to be his trump card, though – he can't have anything else up his sleeve. No way. And what's more, I've got another one myself. I pull myself up to my full height and let my eyes fall once again on the bust of the great man. Somehow, from beyond the grave, I sense him willing me on. I recite the quote once in my mind, making sure I've got the wording right, then address my companion. ''A man is only as old as the woman he feels.''

Slowly, the old socialist looks away, disdain twisting his features. He shakes his head in disgust. 'That's Groucho Marx.'

I turn it over in my mind. Groucho? Karl? Both good for the odd pithy aphorism. Both got quality moustaches. Both dead. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' he hisses. 'Quite sure, brother.'

'You deserved to be embarrassed,' Claire laughs, when I tell her about my graveyard encounter. 'Two grown men, getting their willies out in public like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.'

I glance around the Happi-Bar, anxious not be overheard – but equally anxious to set the record straight. 'We did not do that, Claire.'

'Not literally, no. But that's what you were doing metaphorically. It's a 'bloke' thing. Getting your willies out and seeing whose is biggest.' Claire takes a sip of her cider, replacing the glass on the bar with quiet finality. 'And his willy, despite its considerable age, was clearly bigger than yours.'

I lower my voice so Tony can't earwig what I'm about to say, and narrow my eyes. 'There's nothing – nothing – abnormal about the dimensions of my... anatomy,' I whisper. 'Nothing abnormal at all. I've always received a highly satisfactory service from it.'

'I don't doubt it for a minute.'

'Many cherished moments.'

Claire holds her hands aloft in mock defeat. 'Absolutely, Tim. No question.' She pours half her remaining cider into my empty glass and pushes it towards me. 'On which note, you might like to take this opportunity to divulge how you eventually got it together with Sarah. I've scarcely been able to sleep since you spilled the beans about Lisa Salt.'

In a way, I'm actually quite glad that Claire's raised the subject of Sarah. When I was in the throes of Crazy Psycho Barking Dog Syndrome (as Jeremy has decided to name my fictitious period of mental illness), it'd been a bit awkward, talking with Claire about... well, sex. And emotions. And how shoddily I treated Lisa Salt. After all, while I was insane, I think I developed a bit of a minor crush on Claire. I can admit it to myself, now – but with hindsight, I can also see that it was just a little crush. A passing infatuation with someone who played the role of confessor during my time of need. And now my need has gone... well, so have any awkward feelings I may have had for Claire. Totally disappeared.

What's more, I think I've just proved it. After all, we've just had a lengthy – and rather edgy – discussion regarding my physical assets, and I haven't found it remotely arousing. Barely, anyway. And the chances that I'll spend any time at all replaying it over in my mind tonight are... well, virtually non-existent. No more than fifty-fifty, anyway. I take a sip of my cider and regard Claire with fresh resolution. 'I'll tell you about Sarah on one condition: no more casting aspersions on my...'

'Your willy.'

'Yes, that.'

'I promise. Honestly.'

'Even if I did whip it out in Highgate Cemetery this afternoon.'

'A confession I shall take with me to the grave.' Claire crosses her heart. 'So. How did it all start with Sarah, then?'

* * *

Thursday afternoons in the upper sixth were a drag. Thanks to the nervous stress brought on by a gouty ankle, Miss Chatterjee's double period of sociology had been cancelled indefinitely – leaving me only the prospect of an hour or two spent pestering Sarah to save me from the ravages of teenage ennui. Sarah worked part-time at a local supermarket and my little pilgrimages to her deli counter could usually be relied on to provide me with an assortment of illicit nibbles. It wasn't just the food, though. Thursday afternoons were a rare opportunity to have some Lisa-free 'Sarah' time, like the old days, and on this particular Thursday afternoon – as usual – she pouted theatrically the moment she spotted me sneaking round the corner of Pet Food and Household.

'Why, Timothy. What brings you to my humble delicatessen? No Lisa in tow, I notice.'

'She's in bed with a cold. Her teddies are looking after her.'

'Poor Lisa. And the trusty Jeremy?'

'On his way to Paris, the lucky sod. Punk weekender with Big Rob.'

'Aaw. Poor Tim, all alone.' Sarah reached forward into the chiller cabinet, pretending to straighten the plastic tubs of anchovies and taramasalata. 'It's delightful to see you anyway, darling. Here.' She discreetly slid a jumbo sausage roll over the counter top. 'Pop this in your pocket for later. Free sample.'

'Oh ta. Nice gloves, incidentally. See-through. Très chic.'

'Like them? A little man in Beijing rustles them up for me. Highly exclusive.'

I glanced around, just on the off-chance that some members of Lisa's extended family might be within earshot. 'What time do you hang them up for the day? I thought you might fancy a wander round the shops.'

'Well, aren't you the gentleman? About twenty minutes. Get yourself a brew from the café and I'll see you outside.' Suddenly her voice dropped half a register. 'Only not just yet. My supervisor's coming over. If he thinks you're not a real customer, I'll get a serious bollocking. You'd better buy something. Quick.'

My eyes flitted feverishly over the tiered tubs and bowls. What would a legitimate, adult, definitely-not-a-friend-of-Sarah customer buy? And what on earth was holoumi? I didn't have time to ask, since a moment later a balding forty-something with a wiry ginger moustache had rounded the end of the counter and approached Sarah. Coming to a halt six inches from her left elbow, he regarded her balefully. I almost twitched in sympathy as he quietly addressed the back of her neck.

'Any problems, Sarah?'

'All fine here, Mr Thomas.'

Then he turned his watery little eyes on me. But having spotted something I recognised, I was prepared. Never had anyone ordered from a deli counter with such self-possession and confidence. 'I'd like some olives, please.'

'How many would you like, sir?'

For a second, I just grinned idiotically from Sarah to Mr Thomas and back again, shuffling gently on the spot. Then my brain reactivated itself, and began frantically assembling everything I knew about olives into a handy mental fact file. It didn't amount to much. After all, I'd never eaten an olive in my life. What unit of measurement did olives come in? I peered down at the little plastic flag protruding merrily from the bowl. 'I'd like... erm... a kilo, please.'

Sarah's eyes narrowed to slits. 'A kilo? Are you sure, sir?'

'Yes please. A kilo of olives.'

'Right.'

It took three of the little plastic bowls to get them all in.

Half an hour later, Sarah appeared from the staff exit, now in civvies and with her hair down. She kissed me lightly on the cheek. 'Have you had coffee?'

'Couldn't afford one – not after buying a kilo of pigging olives.'

She regarded me incredulously. 'What? You didn't actually buy them, did you? You should've dumped them in the frozens or something.'

'I couldn't. Not with your boss trailing round after me. He followed me all the way to the checkout.'

Sarah laughed. 'No wonder he didn't hang around to flirt with me. He's normally like one of those horrible little dogs that won't stop humping your leg.'

We meandered onwards in companionable silence – me trying to mentally veto 'humping Sarah's leg' from entering my list of Fun Things To Do Before I'm Thirty. Eventually we arrived at the seafront. 'Don't fancy an olive, do you?'

'Don't like them much.'

'Shall I bin them, then?'

'Six quid's worth of olives? God, no.' Sarah paused for a second, staring out beyond the harbour, seemingly deep in thought. 'Maybe we should take them back to my place. Make Martinis with them.'

'Right. Cool.' I transferred the bag from one hand to the other, noticing for the first time how damp my palms had become. I'd only been allowed across the threshold of Château Benson a couple of times, and the thought of being there with Sarah – alone – was causing my stomach to somersault wildly beneath my Fritz The Cat t-shirt. 'Martinis it is, then.'

We didn't rush, though. Instead we sauntered through the streets, stopping every few hundred yards, loitering in bus stops and on park benches, flicking olives at each other and performing unlikely olive-related experiments on Whitby's indigenous wildlife – discovering, as a result, that herring gulls don't eat olives, no matter how many you lob at them, and that Wolfgang, Sarah's dachshund, wasn't very keen either (although he made a noble effort, half-chewing about a dozen before hawking a sort of chunky doggy tapenade down his front legs). And when we finally got to Sarah's house, we also discovered that neither of us knew how to make Martinis.

'Well, it's got Martini in it.'

'Obviously. And ice.'

'And tonic water.'

I wasn't too sure about the tonic. 'Just a splash. We don't want to drown it.'

'What about vodka?' Sarah picked up a bottle and lightly tapped me on the nose with the metal cap. 'Mitigate the effects of the tonic water.'

'Go on, then. What's Cointreau?'

'Coffee. Or apricots.' Sarah bit her lip as she examined the label. Then she thrust the bottle towards me. 'Whatever. Pour it in.' Sarah leaned across me to dip the tip of her finger into the mixing bowl. 'Yummy.'

Sandwiched between Sarah and her mum's butcher's trolley, breathing was becoming difficult – speaking even more so. 'Yes?'

'Oh yes. Now all we need is the olives.'

I eyed them with suspicion. 'Not for me.'

Sarah sighed, casting her eyes heavenward. 'You've got to have an olive. The whole point of us being here is to use up your olives.'

'But it'll spoil the Martini. Make it taste like a Greek salad.'

'Well, don't put it in the Martini, then. Just try one on its own.'

'But I don't like the look of them. Nothing edible should be that colour.'

'Then close your eyes.' Sarah's expression suddenly became serious. 'I told you: close – your – eyes.'

I closed my eyes.

'Are you ready?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Eyes closed?'

'Uh-huh.'

'Okay. Open wide.'

And then – very, very gently – Sarah placed an olive in my mouth. I just hadn't expected her to use her own lips to put it there.

* * *

After relaying the edited highlights of the Olive Incident to Claire, I head upstairs. When I get there, I find the television switched on and tuned to a satellite channel. Naked, thrusting buttocks fill the screen. Lots of them, pumping in syncopated rhythm against a soundtrack of porn-saxophone. I switch it off. Jeremy is snoring deeply, an anthology of PG Wodehouse short stories cradled affectionately under his arm. I try prising it from his grasp, but his grip tightens. 'Mine...' he grunts a couple of times, before waking.

I gesture at the regiment of empties surrounding his feet. 'Busy day, honey?'

'God, yes. It's been hell.' Jeremy props himself woozily against the headboard. 'Went into town. Went to the Prince Charles cinema and saw The Elephant Man. Then went down Berwick Street and bought a few records. Went book shopping' – he waves Wodehouse at me – 'then adjourned to the pub. Stopped off at Highgate on the way back, actually, but couldn't see you. Then came back here, had a chat with Claire, then Tara, then a wee drinkie, read some stories about golf and had a snooze. Oh – your cash arrived from Dave. I've counted it, because Dave's not so hot with figures. It's all there, though – four hundred and fifty quid. How was Highgate?'

'Got hoyed out of the Underground. Got bollocked by an elderly Marxist. And I couldn't even look for Sarah outside the station, because it had three entrances. Three.'

Jeremy glances at the television, presumably wondering where the porn's gone. 'Sounds rough.'

'Too right. I wandered down to Archway, too. That's got two entrances.'

'Oo-er.' He grins. 'Oh, sorry, right.'

'Which made me wonder. Would you mind coming with me, tomorrow? We could thrash out some ideas for Kentish Town on the way.'

Jeremy ruminatively rubs his chin. 'Well, I am the Shagfinder General, mate.' He turns and grins. 'And if Sarah's there, then El Shagfinder's going to sniff her out.'
archway

When we get to Archway (half an hour later than planned, thanks to Jeremy's lengthy sojourn in the bath), plenty of trim young Sarah-alikes are already dashing into the Underground from the drizzle-strafed streets. I position Jeremy at one of the entrances, where he immediately fires up a Rothmans, rubs his hands together and begins nodding systematically at anyone single, female and under thirty who crosses his line of vision. He smiles and wishes some of the prettier lasses a good morning. 'Off you go, Timothy. Your uncle Jezzer's playing Sexy Sentry, and it's strictly a one-player game.'

'You're supposed to be keeping an eye out for Sarah.'

'Aye, aye. That too.'

'Good lad.' I punch his shoulder with considerably more conviction than I feel, and trot round to the other entrance.

Within thirty seconds, I've decided I don't like Archway much. Even in the chaotic rush hour bustle, there's a palpable ambience of decay about the place – a duck-arse roughness that makes Burnt Oak look like Biarritz. On the map, Archway almost looks like Camden's distant cousin, but it's not – it's a hairier beast altogether, with wider streets, more traffic, less elegantly wasted punters; beady-eyed types who make me acutely conscious of the cash-stuffed envelope in my coat pocket. The fact that it's also wetter than an otter's pocket, and barely even light at this hour of the morning, doesn't help. Nor does the fact that, after two hours of kicking my heels in front of its Underground station, Archway conspicuously fails to produce Sarah.

Leaving Jeremy to sort out something bacon-y for breakfast, I head off in search of a Barclays, hacking down through a short underpass towards a bleak parade of shop fronts, mostly firmly steel-shuttered and derelict-looking. They line one side of a small, pedestrianised piazza – entirely deserted, even now it's gone nine – beneath a concrete tower that looms ominously overhead. I'm peering in through the feg-encrusted window of what might once have been a shoe shop when I hear a voice behind me.

'Lend us a quid, mate?'

The voice is quiet, but something about it – the note of nervous desperation, perhaps – makes me turn around.

Its owner is probably about my age but looks older, his wet hair already thinning above a whiskery face and close enough for me to smell stale tobacco on his breath. I'm about to make an excuse and walk off, when he quickly brings his right hand level with my face. Pressed into the palm, with his thumb hooked over the handle, is a stubby little kitchen knife. Then, without hesitation, he pushes my right shoulder hard against the shop front, pressing the tip of the knife into the soft flesh just above my left kidney. For a second I'm not really frightened, feeling more uneasy about the presence of his face, inches from my own, than the knife. And then I'm very frightened indeed.

Over his shoulder, beyond the grey pedestrianised area, Archway goes about its business. A young, knackered-looking mum pushes one of those old-fashioned Dairylea-shaped prams in front of Planet Kebabs while two bawling toddlers drag their heels behind her. Then the knife moves, its tip now probing between my lower ribs, puckering small folds of soft flesh as it inches up my body. I've a sudden urge to tell my attacker to start again, because he's doing it all wrong – that he should threaten to stab me before he actually starts drawing blood – but no words come.

'Where's your wallet?' He's northern. Manchester, I'd guess. I've never liked Mancs – a belligerent bunch of sods at the best of times. 'Give us your wallet, pal, or I'll fucking cut you.'

But I can't move, and for a second we're locked in a bizarre embrace, before he realises he'll have to find it himself. His left hand slips from my shoulder, disappears inside my jacket, ferreting round for some moments before finally closing over my wallet. The twist of his arm required to retrieve it brings his face within half an inch of my own while the knife blade plays dangerously over my skin. It takes him a second to appraise his find – my four hundred and fifty quid. My sanity money. 'Fucking hell. My lucky day.' He smiles. 'Phone. Gimme your phone.'

And for the first time, I'm able to speak – a breathless whine that sounds strange to my ears. 'Haven't got one.'

I feel the fingers stir restlessly underneath my shirt as he tries to get a stronger purchase on the knife handle. There's more control in the way he handles it, now; more resolve in the way he presses the tip home. 'Give me your fucking phone. Now.'

'Haven't got one. I don't like them.' I want to tell him why I don't have a mobile, about my complex phone phobia and fear of having my testicles irradiated. I want to explain that I feel the same way about mobiles that some people feel about syringes, or spiders, or the Chuckle Brothers – but this isn't the time or place. 'Honestly, I swear. I haven't got one.'

He grabs my chin in his left hand and glares directly into my eyes. 'Don't follow me.' Finally, he withdraws the knife, holds it momentarily in front of my face again, turns briskly on his heel and strides off towards the street. He walks assertively, hands thrust into his pockets, for about thirty yards, before suddenly breaking into a run as he rounds the corner of the shopping parade by the Post Office. Only then do I realise that I haven't drawn breath for nearly a minute, and that my legs are no longer capable of holding me up. My back slides down the metal shutters until I find myself almost squatting, shivering against the cold, incapable of movement and terrified beyond words.

tufnell park

The telephone rings at seven in the morning. It's Jeremy. 'I just wanted to let you know I'm at Tufnell Park, mate. Everything's fine, but no sign of Sarah yet.'

'Thanks, Jez.'

'Right. I'll talk to you later.' Pause. 'Grab yourself a bit more sleep, kid.'

'Cheers, Jez. I will.'

I turn back on my side and pull my knees to my chest. As it happens, I haven't been asleep for hours. I wasn't asleep when the alarm clock woke Jeremy up at half past five. In fact, the first time I remember checking the time was shortly after two in the morning, when I'd woken from bad dreams, jumbled memories of yesterday vivid in my mind.

'I don't think you should go out tomorrow,' Jeremy had said as we left the police station in Kentish Town. 'Tell you what, I'll play 'Sexy Sentry' for both of us.' And so he had.

It feels strangely illicit, being in bed at ten o'clock in the morning, and I almost jump out of my skin when Jeremy Kyle is suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door. Ah – the maid. 'Not today thanks. Thank you.' The knocking continues with increased vigour. I shout a little louder, reluctant to leave the warmth of the duvet. 'No housekeeping today. There's a sign on the door. Not today.'

Then there's a voice – quiet, urgent – alongside the knocking. 'Tim! Open the door, for God's sake.'

'Claire?' I half scramble, half fall out of bed, and yank on my trousers. Zipping up my fly with one hand, I open the door.

'Tim. How are you? Jez told me about yesterday. Poor you, mate. I reckoned you could do with some company.'

'Claire. Hello.' I glance along the corridor. Empty. 'Not working today?'

'I've swapped days with Tara. I'll wait downstairs while you put some clothes on. Wrap up warm.'

'Erm... okay. I'll be down in ten minutes.'

'I got croissants. We can eat them on the Tube.'

'Where are we going?'

'Golders Hill Park. We're going to say hello to the donkey.'

'Is that a drug thing?'

'No.'

'It's not a sex thing, is it?'

'You wish,' snorts Claire. 'Actually, it's a 'equine' thing.'

'Okay.'

We sit side by side on the train down to Golders Green. I'm so jittery I can scarcely compose my thoughts into speech, but Claire doesn't seem to mind. She chats away, filling awkward pauses with softly spoken observations about our fellow passengers and the stations we're passing through, and occasionally attempting to force-feed me bits of croissant. It's a pity I've no appetite, actually, since they're 'proper' croissants, from a bakery, fresh this morning. Claire knows I'm a butter junkie, of course, plundering the breakfast bar every morning, then grazing on my liberated goodies throughout the day like a pastry-fixated manatee. For some reason, though, it feels like my whole digestive tract's shut for business today. Shame.

'You've probably had your faith in humanity knocked, so I thought if you got straight back out there, the quicker you'd get back to normal. And I didn't want you spending the day on your own. Hence – the park. It's a bit late in the season, but there's a little Italian caff at the top that does fantastic ice creams. Or there's the Bull and Bush, if you need something a wee bit stronger' – she drops the croissant bag in a bin – 'since each and every one of my croissants has been so heartlessly rejected.' She takes my arm and, despite the fact that several layers of fabric divide us, warmth somehow begins to emanate from the spot where our bodies connect. 'But first let's do the donkey.'

And so we trek out along the path. Golders Hill Park, it turns out, is an astonishingly pleasant place, by far the nicest park I've set foot in – the sort of park that you really ought to take girls like Claire to. What's more, we've arrived in optimum park weather. Autumn is underway, and it's cold enough for our breath to hang momentarily in the air with each exhalation. If only I didn't feel so edgy, so keen to avoid the eyes of passers-by, I'd be having a really fine time.

'He's called Steve,' says Claire when we arrive at the donkey enclosure.

'How do you know?'

'You can just tell.'

I peer at the donkey. He seems to be peering back, but his eyes are on either side of his head so it's hard to tell. Good wide-angle field of vision, I think. But no depth of field. Just like Jeremy. Steve meanders a few yards closer. With eyesight like his, he probably can't work out how big we are and might have us pegged for a mid-morning snack – but after a moment's consideration he clearly rejects the idea and gives the patchy grass a ruminative chew instead.

Claire makes one of those soft, cooing 'girl' noises and slips an arm through mine – the position it's occupied for most of the morning. I don't think Jeremy would mind, given the circumstances. Nor could Sarah. I reach across with my other hand, and give Claire's frozen fingers a quick squeeze. She smiles. 'Pint? Bull and Bush?'

'Go on, then. My shout.'

Claire pivots me round and begins heading up the hill towards the park's other exit. 'Good. You can sit me down by the fire and tell me all about how it went horribly wrong with you and Sarah. Bye, Steve.'

'Bye, Steve.'

Steve cocks his head to one side, perhaps acknowledging our departure – but says nothing.

* * *

Two days after The Olive Incident, I officially ended it with Lisa. Not that I started seeing much more of Sarah in Lisa's absence – and not that Sarah would admit that sleeping with me meant we were having 'a relationship'.

The problem, as I saw it, was that our previous closeness inhibited our transition from 'friends' to 'boyfriend/girlfriend'; that Sarah felt intimidated by my emotional intensity; that the pressure of our impending A Level mocks had put insurmountable strain on our fledgling union. The problem, as Jeremy saw it, was that Sarah wanted 'a gullible and non-threatening fuck-buddy to blag her class-notes from' whereas I was 'already naming the grandkids.' Dave the barman sided with Jeremy, possibly because he was drawn to the term 'fuck-buddy' (and fuck-buddies were seldom drawn to Dave).

Ultimately, however, the explanation for Sarah's non-committal attitude came from another source entirely. Whitby's a small town, and it was obvious I'd bump into Lisa eventually. I only wish it hadn't been a fortnight after I'd dumped her. I also wish I hadn't just spent three angst-ridden, lager-drenched hours with Jeremy in the Fat Ox when I ran into Lisa on the harbourside – and that she hadn't been parading her new beau, a trainee pastry chef called Gary, at the time.

Lisa's voice, when she eventually found it, betrayed the fact that she, too, had spent an evening on the pop. 'So. Tim.'

'Hello, Lisa. Gaz.' I nodded to Gary, an acquaintance of Jeremy's and an unfailingly amiable chap. He nodded back affably enough. Lisa glowered at us both.

'All by yourself, then? On your lonesome?'

'Seems that way.'

'No... Sarah?'

'No. She's finishing an essay on the divine right of kings in Henry V.'

Lisa smiled. 'Oh, I don't think she is, Tim.' She waggled a finger under my nose. 'I don't think she is.'

'No?'

'No, Tim. I don't think you'd call it... finishing an essay.' And she smiled her terrifying, drunken smile again.

'Right. Well, I'd best get home. I've my own essay to write.'

'You know what I'd do first, Tim?' Lisa called after me.

'Goodnight, Lisa. Gaz.'

'Know what I'd do first, Tim? I'd drop by the Crow's Nest. Drop by there, and see how Sarah's getting on with her essay. That's what I'd do, Tim.' And then she laughed – the sort of manic cackle normally associated with broomsticks and the unexplained death of cattle. Even Gary winced at that, I noticed.

I did 'drop by' the Crow's Nest on my way home, of course. I'd no choice – not really. It was a forty minute detour to a pub I'd never entered, largely due to its leathery clientele and reputation for bare-knuckle dust-ups in the car park – and it was the car park that I stood, cloaked in darkness, gazing through the open fire escape door into the billiards room beyond.

Sarah was there, of course – though I didn't recognise her for a second, perched astride a denim-clad figure with close-cropped hair, her lips locked on to his like some sort of deranged, Bacardi-addled succubus. I watched, horror-struck, as she rearranged herself on his lap, as his hands wandered over her bare legs, as she kissed him in ways she'd never kissed me – blinded by savage tears, and scarcely able to stop myself retching in disgust.

* * *

'So who was he?' asks Claire. 'Mr Denim?'

'A bloke called Colin. He was a fireman who played bass in a Queen tribute band.'

Claire tries keeping a straight face, but after two pints she's clearly struggling. 'You had a romantic nemesis called... Colin? Who played in a Queen tribute band?'

'Uh-huh. He'd started seeing Sarah about six months before The Olive Incident. It was an on-off thing. Mostly because he was married, I think.'

Claire meets my eyes over the top of her glass. While I was telling her my sorry tale, she kicked off her shoes and is now curled up in the corner of the chocolate chesterfield, legs tucked beneath her, exercising the Small Girls' Prerogative to look frighteningly cute in large chairs. I'm convinced that she must've been a cat in a former life. Something photogenic with whiskers, anyway. 'So you actually shared Sarah with another bloke, then. Wow.'

'Tragic, isn't it?'

The resolve in Claire's voice surprises me. 'Not at all. It's very liberated.'

'I didn't think so. I was heartbroken. I just wish I'd had the guts to end it.'

She shrugs. 'You were in love. Obviously you'd be heartbroken. But retrospectively, I think you should put a different spin on it.'

'You think?'

'Certainly.' Claire untucks her legs, puts her glass down and has a little stretch. It's a quiet afternoon in the Bull and Bush, and we've got the fireside to ourselves. 'Some people might say that you had a very enlightened, modern set-up – revealing a very sexy, free-thinking mindset.'

'Sarah was shagging a fireman called Colin. Who I'd willingly have castrated, given half the chance. I was near-homicidal with jealousy.'

'No, no,' says Claire, shaking her head. 'You've got it all wrong. You were a romantic adventurer. A libertine. You were a teenage Lord Byron. You know it's true, if you think about it.'

I sigh. 'You're just saying that to make me feel better, aren't you?'

Claire shrugs again and gazes into the fire. 'Perhaps a wee bit.' Noticing my expression, she sits up, reaches across the table and takes my hand. 'Only a bit, though. Mostly, I think you've got a pretty sexy CV. Nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing whatsoever.'

'Seriously?'

'Certainly.'

She's lying her arse off, of course. But it's one of the nicest lies anyone's ever told me.

It's late when Jeremy returns from Tufnell Park bearing a bulging bag of Indian food. He played Sexy Sentry outside the Underground nearly all day, as it turns out – without once catching sight of Sarah. 'Can't do it tomorrow, mind. I phoned home – dad needs me for a job. We're clearing some old coffins from a funeral directors in Darlington and turning them into novelty wallbeds. You'll be alright by yourself, won't you?'

'I reckon.' I drain my lukewarm lager. 'Thanks for going to Tufnell Park, mate. And the curry.'

'No problem. And if we ever find the bastard who mugged you, I'll have his tripe out.'

'Thanks, Jez.' Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. 'When do you reckon you might be coming back down?'

'Couple of weeks, probably.'

'So you'll not be around for Mötley Crüe?'

'I'd forgotten about it. When is it, again?'

'Next Wednesday.'

Jeremy's eyebrows furrow with concentration. 'No way. You should ask Claire to go with you instead.'

'You don't mind me taking her?'

'Why should I?'

'No reason. No reason at all.'

I mop up the last smear of saag aloo with my naan bread and chew reflectively. Is Jeremy actually lending me his girlfriend for the evening? Maybe it's because he feels sorry for me, following the Archway unpleasantness. Maybe it's because he feels the same way about sharing girlfriends that Claire claimed to feel about sharing boyfriends, this afternoon in the Bull and Bush. Not that I'd want to share Jeremy's girlfriends – no way. Not even Claire. Certainly not Claire.
kentish town

I lower my voice so that the café's other punters won't be alarmed by what I have to say. 'You mean you've never even heard of Mötley Crüe?'

'I swear,' says Claire. 'I've never been friends with a dealer in rare and exquisite vinyl from the post-punk era before. I'm no so familiar with, you know, old people's music.'

'I'm amazed.'

Claire shrugs. 'Well, you only know about them because you're their biggest fan.' She sips her coffee. 'And because you want to be their private sex bitch, and live with them forever in their sex castle.'

'Hm,' I grunt, trying not to look shifty. After all, I hate Mötley Crüe, and I only know so much about them because Sarah's got such an incomprehensible fondness for them. I haven't divulged this to Claire, though. And it'd be awkward, mentioning the whole 'Sarah' thing now – since for some reason, Claire appears to think that I've actually asked her to come with me to see Mötley Crüe as... well, a private little soirée for the two of us. It's a good job I've got over my little 'Claire' crush, I reflect. Otherwise, if I did run into Sarah, there could be some pretty confusing vibes. 'They, uh, put on a good show, Crüe.'

'What night are they playing?'

'Wednesday. Brixton Academy.'

Claire closes her eyes, her lips moving silently as she counts off the days. 'Wednesday's fine. Tara should be back. She's having a long weekend off.' She leans conspiratorially over the table. 'Tony reckons she's seeing someone up north – as well as her boyfriend, the squaddie. I think Tony's got a bit of a soft spot for Tara, himself.'

I fleetingly wonder whether I could get Jeremy interested in Tara, too, instead of Claire. It seems unlikely. I glance around the café, anxious to purge myself of the ghastly Claire-Jeremy scenario currently playing on a loop in my mind. Mario's Café is a surprisingly decent place, actually – good food, friendly staff – and I'm impressed by the way they've turned the walls into a miniature art gallery. 'So this is the Mario's Café, then? The one in the St Etienne song?'

'The very same. Do you know it?'

'Certainly do. It's my second favourite 'café' song actually, after Bill Pritchard's Gustave Café.'

'Well, I've always wanted to come here and see it. And when I realised you were spending the day in Kentish Town, I saw the opportunity for a wee pilgrimage. I've never fancied coming down all on my own. Bit sad, you know.'

'Wouldn't Seb come?'

'No chance. He only leaves the flat under cover of darkness.' She dabs lightly at her new – rather fetching – coffee moustache. 'Get it out, then.'

I reach into my rucksack and retrieve the sheaf of papers I assembled last night. I don't hand the screenplay over, though. 'I think I should give you a bit of background, first.'

'Okay.'

'Well, you told me to write about London, so that's what I've done. It's a sort of updating of the film, Notting Hill. But less saccharine, less sentimental. Edgier. And it's set in Kentish Town. Hence the title – Kentish Town.'

Claire looks suitably impressed by this brilliantly incisive choice of name. 'Okay. So you've still got the basic loved-up Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts characters?'

'Well, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are actually in the film. Very briefly, at the start. But the main story's about another couple, Mitch and Joanna. They've been together for years, but it's all gone a bit sour. Joanna's seeing other blokes and Mitch is secretly in love with Kathy, the girl who works Saturdays in his guitar shop. Only Mitch won't leave Joanna because...'

'Stop, stop,' Claire interrupts. 'I'll read it for myself.' She stretches across the table and takes a corner of the screenplay.

I find myself hanging on, quite firmly, to the opposite corner. 'It's a work in progress. I haven't decided how it ends. And since it was you who told me to write about London in the first place, it's your fault if it's crap, okay?'

Claire arches an eyebrow. 'Certainly not. Hand it over, filmboy.'

The only way I can tell that Claire's reached the end of the script is because her eyes stop moving, and her jaw drops a further quarter-inch from its already gaping position. I'm beginning to fear the worst. 'Any good?'

She pulls an expression a bit like the one I had in mind for Mitch's short-haired schnauzer, T-Bone. 'Interesting, Tim. Definitely interesting.' Well, that's a relief. For a moment, I was worried she'd think it was rubbish. 'I've just got a couple of questions.'

'Fire away.'

'Well... Jeremy didn't help you, did he?'

Typical. Claire's just read my screenplay, but she only wants to talk about her bloody fancy man. I try to look wounded. 'Only a couple of times. Why?'

'Some bits seem quite Jeremy-ish, that's all.'

'Like what?'

Claire flips back through the screenplay. 'Well, the bit at the beginning. Where the Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts characters are seen, skipping hand in hand down the Kentish Town Road, laughing about how much money they've got. Your idea or Jeremy's?'

I shuffle in my seat. 'Jeremy's.'

'And what about when the number 214 bus careers off the road, mowing them down and reducing them to two bloody smears on the pavement?'

'Erm... Jeremy's idea too, come to mention it. He thought it was important to show that we're not just making a follow-up movie. We're symbolically bursting the bubble of security and privilege represented by the dénouement of the original.'

'By running a bus over Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts?'

'It's a potent proletarian symbol, the bus. There aren't any buses in Notting Hill.'

'I see.' Claire flicks through a few more pages. 'I never realised Jeremy was quite such a class warrior.'

'Only when he's drunk.'

'And was he drunk when he was helping you?'

I think back to the late night phonecalls, the script development meetings in Room 51 of the Happi-Lodge, and last weekend's intensive schedule of brainstorming and storyboarding. Alcohol of some description had been involved in all of them. 'Well, he's partial to the occasional sweet sherry, as you know.'

'I see.' Claire bites her lower lip. Everything seems to make sense to her now. 'So I suppose Jeremy came up with the fire-bombing campaign by the lesbian terrorist group?'

'He likes lesbians.'

'And the fact that about a third of it's written in rhyming slang?'

'Ah, well, yes. But there's a reason. It's supposed to be satirical, like a parody of Shakespearian verse. It celebrates the poetry of the common man, that.'

'Jeremy's idea?'

'Uh-huh. He's got A' level English. He's not as thick as he pretends to be.'

'Mm. I'm just worried that somehow' – Claire gathers up the stray bits of screenplay and hands them back to me – 'it undermines the realism of the thing. And it just seems irrelevant to the main plot – which, by and large, I really like.'

Ah. The main plot. My bit. 'Oh? Go on.'

'Well, the whole 'unrequited love' thing between Mitch and his assistant, Kathy, works pretty well.'

'Cool.'

'I like the fact that despite Mitch secretly loving Kathy, he won't leave Joanna – even though she's a nightmare – because he blames himself for her drug habit and the way her career fell to bits. I think you've captured the tragedy in Mitch's misguided loyalty – when he turns a blind eye to Joanna's gambling, the way she sleeps around, the way she spends his money.'

I find my grip tightening on the pages. 'Reckon it'll make me a millionaire?'

'Hard to say. I don't really know if it'd work as a film, because so much of it takes place in Mitch's head. Maybe you should try writing it as a novel. I don't know if film's really 'you'. Perhaps you need to spend some time finding your milieu.'

'My what?'

'Your milieu. Your thing. Maybe not screenplays. And certainly not in collaboration with Jeremy.' She has a final flick through Kentish Town. 'Definitely ditch the 'Jeremy' bits.'

'He won't be happy. He spent ages working out all the different ways he could bump off Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.'

'Mm.'

Claire heads to the counter to pay for our lunch, and we meander back up the road towards Kentish Town station, discussing the more subtle symbolism of Jeremy's Kentish Town Lesbian Liberation And Firebombing Society as we walk. It's not until we arrive at the Underground that the conversation drifts back to the film's main plot. 'So if you take out the homicidal lesbians, how will you finish it off? Comedy or tragedy? Will Mitch end up with Kathy, or stuck with Joanna? Or will you let Jeremy run a number 214 bus over the lot of them?'

'Still not sure. What do you reckon?'

'Well, your audience would probably want Mitch to end up with Kathy.' Claire retrieves her Oyster card from her back pocket and swipes open the barriers, turning to give me a quick squeeze before passing through. 'But we can't always have what we want, can we?'

mornington crescent

Where does the guy pee? It's the question that's been nagging away at me since seven o'clock this morning. After all, there's only one of him, he can't leave his newsstand unattended and there are no obvious lavatorial boltholes nearby. And I guess he's here all day. He can't just pee where he stands, can he? Mornington Crescent's certainly got a whiff of the gentleman's laundry basket about it – the ripe, gutter-y tang of dodgy nightclub toilets – but I don't think it's coming from the newsstand, or the swarthy-looking bloke within.

Incontinence pants? A catheter of some description? Or maybe an improvised urinal, tucked away behind the Monster Munch and Frazzles? I'm still weighing up the alternatives when – quite unexpectedly – the newsstand's occupant exits his booth and begins shuffling slowly towards me. Possibly incontinence pants, then. Or hollow legs.

'You look at me,' he finally announces, coming to a halt at my left elbow.

'Yes. Sorry about that. I'm waiting for my girlfriend, you see. She should be along any minute.'

'Sure, sure. Wait for girlfriend. Look at me. Is all same.'

This isn't going as I'd anticipated. Recent experience informs me that Londoners have usually threatened you, mugged you or purloined your ukulele by this point in the proceedings. Clearly, Mornington Crescent's local nutter contingent prefer a little psychological foreplay first. Fortunately, my new companion is shorter than me, and his squat frame almost certainly renders him incapable of much beyond a waddle. 'You look at... magazines,' he eventually hisses, his cheek now gently touching my left shoulder.

'Not especially.'

'Yes,' he hisses, nodding back towards his stall. 'Magazines.' He glances around and, having assured himself that the coast is clear, seizes my arm. 'I watch you. Your eyes speak to me. You like... dirty girls?'

'Erm... no, not particularly.'

I'm shocked, actually. I've mostly been thinking about yesterday afternoon and Claire – and I'm sure he can't have read anything in my eyes about Claire being a 'dirty girl' – can he? Surely not.

I glance down at my pornographic companion, whose mouth breaks into a sloppy, conspiratorial leer, full of chipped teeth and the remnants of savoury snack products. I can definitely see the radioactive glow of a Cheesy Wotsit in there. 'You want dirty girls. I have dirty girls. Many dirty girls. You want.'

By its tone, I'm given to understand that the latter isn't a question, but rather a professional diagnosis of my onanistic preferences.

'I show,' declares Mr Cheesy Wotsit, ambling playfully back towards his booth.

Whatever he produces from the nether recesses of the newsstand, however, I'm never to discover, for as soon as his back is turned, I take to my heels and hurtle down the street, back towards Camden Town. There are pubs in Camden – huge, anonymous pubs like The World's End. Pubs where I fully intend to blot out my encounter with Mr Cheesy Wotsit. I'll quite happily write the rest of the day off, having satisfied myself that Sarah doesn't live in Mornington Crescent. No one lives in Mornington Crescent, except for a pornographic hobbit who never goes to the toilet.

euston

I catch sight of the dog – a spaniel, all brown but for a white flash on his muzzle – a moment before I'm apprehended in the ticket hall. Ah, look, I think to myself. A little doggie. Hello, little doggie! I'm surprised they're allowed to walk you while they're on duty. And then his tail's wagging furiously, he's straining at his lead, and the policeman's hand is alighting gently on my shoulder. 'Would you mind stepping this way, sir?'

In an instant, my canine reverie is shattered. Can you be arrested for making friends with a copper's dog? Not in Whitby, certainly – I'm on pretty good terms with PC Mannion's dog – but London's a strange and inexplicable place. 'I only wanted to say hello to him. It's not against the law, is it?'

'Just step inside the office, please.'

I follow meekly. Experience informs me that the police like things to be done meekly. I've little choice on the 'meekness' front, anyway – as if from nowhere, three more sizeable coppers have materialised and are distributing themselves around the small control room in which I find myself. None of them look meek, and one of them's staring intently at me while whispering into his radio.

'Is there a problem, officer?'

'Put the bag on the chair, please, sir.'

'This bag?' Actually, it's the only bag in the room – the rucksack I bought for a fiver in Camden – but I want to make sure I'm doing exactly what's required. Policemen have short tempers, no imagination, and are likely to respond to any bag-related transgressions by administering a vigorous beating.

'Yes, sir. Your bag.'

'Right.' I unshoulder the bag and put it on the chair. Meekly. 'What now?'

'Could you list your bag's contents, please.'

'Everything?' I realise this sounds a bit evasive, but I have my reasons. I try staring at my shoes as a sympathy-winning tactic; it's a gambit that paid dividends in primary school. It's not me you're after. A bigger boy made me do it.

'Yes, sir. Everything.' Bugger.

I'm aware that the dog is trying to catch my eye. Do it, he seems to urge, jerking his nose pointedly in the direction of the bag. Tell them what's in the bag. I'll look out for you if things turn nasty. His tail thumps on the floor a couple of times and he does that 'smiling' thing that spaniels do so well. Maybe this is a new version of 'nice cop, nasty cop' – where they've replaced the 'nice cop' with a spaniel. There are another couple of encouraging wags.

'Well.' Deep breath. 'I've got a CD player in there. A Walkman.'

'A Walkman.'

'A Walkman...' echoes the second copper, into his radio. The other two just stand there, looking faintly edgy.

'And..?'

'And an audiobook.'

'An audiobook?'

'On CD. Sort of self-help type thing.'

'What's it called?'

'The title, you mean?'

'Yes, sir, the title.'

'Of the audiobook?'

'Yes.' The dog, inexplicably, now looks worried. Its eyebrows see-saw up and down as it glances from policeman to policeman. What does it know that I don't? Maybe I'm reading too much into its facial expressions. It is, after all, just a dog.

'It's called So You Think You're Gay? It's not mine, though. A friend of a friend got it for me. From the library.' One of the younger policemen near the door sniggers quietly, and the one on the radio begins whispering urgently into his handset. I have visions of being deported back to Whitby, accused of a suspected interest in other men's bottoms. A moment later, two middle-aged men in suits quietly enter the room and nod in acknowledgment to the senior copper. One of them sits down next to the dog, whose eyes are now closed as though laughing at some private doggie joke.

'Is there anything else in the bag, sir? Aside from the Walkman and the CD's?'

'Some croissants, I think.'

'Croissants, sir?' The copper's eyebrows shoot up about an inch. This isn't because of the whole 'croissant' misunderstanding in Colindale, is it? I swallow hard, now wondering whether 'croissants' is some sort of criminal euphemism for 'Semtex' or 'fake Swiss watches' or 'donkey porn'. Oh God, don't let it be porn. Not after yesterday. Thank heavens I chucked the screenplay for Kentish Town in the bin. Hang on – they couldn't have found it, could they? 'Sir? Croissants?'

I snap back to reality. 'Mm? Yes, sorry. Croissants, yes.'

'How many, sir?'

'A few. Around about a dozen, I should say. And a little bit of butter.'

'Butter, sir?' The suit on the chair glances quickly at the senior copper, who nods, almost imperceptibly. The spaniel whines quietly to itself and shuffles on its doggie behind, glancing from me to the bag and back again.

'Individual portions. Lurpak, I think.'

'How many portions of butter?'

'Mm. Fifteen?'

The man in the suit speaks for the first time. He's less brusque than his colleagues; I'd imagine that if things turned violent, he wouldn't be in the thick of it. 'I hope you don't mind me asking, but what are fifteen portions of Lurpak doing in your bag?'

I have to think quickly. After all, I don't want to go to prison for the sake of some liberated butter. Then again, asking for a solicitor would probably appear to be the reaction of a guilty man. 'Well, I'm staying at a hotel in Edgware. A very nice hotel. And in the morning, you're allowed to help yourself to the contents of the breakfast bar.' The main copper's doing that thing with his eyebrow again. 'I know what you're thinking, officer, but it's not, strictly speaking, theft. They've got an all-you-can-eat policy, you see. They just don't explicitly state how long you've got to eat it in. Or where you're allowed to take it in order to eat it...'

'I think I understand where you obtained the butter.'

'I wasn't planning on selling it.' This comes out far too loud, and the dog stops what it's doing, nuzzling the underside of my bag, and fixes me with a look as if to say: Be quiet, Tim! You're almost off the hook, mate!

The resultant silence is broken by the elder of the two men in suits. 'Have a look in the bag, will you, Simon?' And within two minutes, the entire contents of my bag are strewn across the table – the small regiment of croissants, the butter (mostly quite squidgy-looking, by now), the Walkman, CD's, last Friday's Evening Standard and some purloined Happi-Lodge stationery.

'No explosives, then,' says Simon, addressing his observation – somewhat oddly, I feel – to the spaniel, who appears to have just found something tremendously exciting to lick in the region of his genitals.

'I think we can put this one down to Charlie's sweet tooth,' says the elder of the two plainclothes coppers, making for the door. Charlie cocks his head at the sound of his name, and thumps his tail on the floor.

One of the younger uniformed policemen helps me re-pack my rucksack. 'On holiday, are you?'

I take it my rucksack and shoulder it. 'Not really, no.' And I tell them all about Sarah.

'Well, at least it explains why you were hanging around the ticket machines,' says Simon. He's just put four mugs of tea on the table – one each for me and my new policeman pals, Amit, George and Carl.

'Yeah. We never had you down for a terrorist, Tim, but Carl reckoned you looked like a bit of a nutter. Then when Charlie took an interest in your bag... well, we had to pull you in.'

Charlie looks up at the sound of his name, and wags his tail against the floor where it stirs up a miniature whirlwind of pastry crumbs and butter wrappers. He's devoured three of my croissants, and dismembered most of the remaining eight. His expression – proprietorial, relaxed, like some high-up member of the canine mafia – seems to suggest he'd gladly share the remainder of his snaffled booty with me, if only I was prepared to join him on the floor, kiss his paw and call him Dogfather. Amit gazes down at the dog indulgently. 'Butter's what he goes for. He's obsessed, aren't you, Charlie-boy?' Wag, wag.

'You can't train them to find girlfriends, then?'

'Not really. But to be honest, your Sarah sounds like a bit of a liability.'

Carl, the senior officer who first hauled me in, appears to be considering the matter gravely. He is, I have decided, The Deep One. Finally he speaks. 'I reckon Amit's right. I mean, I know you love her. But it seems you've got nothing in common. And Sarah left you, Tim. If she's feeling guilty about it, why hasn't she been trying to track you down? Her parents must've heard about your coma when they got back from Magaluf. Maybe you should accept the situation. Let her go. Move on.' The ensuing silence is filled with the noisy, somewhat self-conscious, slurping of tea. Carl has spoken. His words must be considered. I wonder if Carl's gay? I wonder. He's very wise.

'You know what you should do?' says Amit, eventually. 'You should find out what the score is with Claire.' There are grunts of agreement. 'It's obvious you like her from the way you talk about her.'

'As a friend, yes, as a friend.' There are more grunts and slurping, although this time I sense a whiff of unspoken amusement about my protestation. Typical blokes. It is possible to be friends with a girl. Even a girl who, if you were unattached, you might find attractive. And Claire is, objectively speaking, attractive – what, with her wide, brown eyes, her soft Glaswegian burr, her slim figure. I feel a momentary flush of embarrassment. 'Anyway, she's living with this bloke called Seb. And I think she's seeing Jeremy, on the side. He's certainly got a thing for her.'

'Oh yeah. I forgot about Jezzer.'

'He should learn to value people as people. Not just pieces of meat,' says Amit. I'll mention this to Jeremy, when I see him. It's virtually an official police caution for his libido.

As Carl and George escort me from the control room some minutes later, Carl offers me a few parting words of advice. 'Right, if you're going to be looking out for Sarah, I think you should stay on the concourse. There's only one exit from the Underground, so you can keep watch from there. There's a few places you can stock up on croissants, too. And if you don't find Sarah before Waterloo or King's Cross, or any big station, really, try looking less like a terrorist.' He smiles paternally. 'Oh – and if we catch you lurking down here again, I'll have George do an internal cavity search on you. Okay?'

The big Welshman grins at me, and I manage to return a watery smile. As George extends his hand for me to shake, I notice for the first time how enormous it is. 'Don't worry, Timothy,' he smirks. 'I'd be very gentle.'

warren street

'You've not been working, have you, Mr Howden? Because it's the second time in two months that you've failed to sign on.'

'Well, I've been ill, you see. Very poorly. I'm at the doctor's now, actually.' I try shielding the phone from the noise of motorcycle couriers screaming up the Tottenham Court Road.

'What's been the problem?'

My eyes flit over the postcard-encrusted phonebox walls. Most of the cards are advertising services like French Oral Lessons or Exotic Massage. 'Erm... whiplash?'

'I hope it's not serious. If it's ongoing, we'll need to move you over on to DLA. Either way, we'll need to review your claim.'

'Right. When?'

'Soon as possible. This afternoon, ideally. Two o'clock?'

'Right, right. Although that might be a bit of a problem.'

'Why's that?'

'I'm in London. Seeing a specialist.' I glance at the phonebox wall. 'Dr Goodbody.'

'Are you sure you're not working, Mr Howden?'

'With my neck? I don't think so.'

'But you're actively seeking work?'

'Diligently.'

'In London.'

'Yes.'

'And what steps are you taking to find work?'

'I'm... networking quite heavily.' The wall. Look at the wall. The answers are all on the wall. 'I've got my feelers out. I'm, you know, keeping abreast of things.'

'You're aware that if you leave the Whitby area, you're supposed to inform us?'

'I'd no idea.'

'There's a form to fill in.'

'I will, I promise.'

'Before you go.'

'Ah. Right. Sorry.'

'I'm suspending your case, pending a review. Pop in to arrange an appointment next time you're north of Watford, Mr Howden.'

'Erm... actually, I was wondering if...' But the line has gone dead. Bureaucratic tosser.

'You called him a bureaucratic tosser?' says Claire, incredulous, as I end my account of Warren Street's Sarah-less trials and tribulations. 'You're one tough benefit cheat. I'll have to watch out for you, tomorrow night, when we're in Brixton. I don't want you pouncing on any Mötley Crüe fans.'

I shuffle uneasily on my Happi-Bar stool. 'I didn't actually call him a tosser. He'd put the phone down by that point.'

'Ah. What a bureaucratic tosser.'

'My point precisely. It's no picnic, unemployment.' I swirl the last drop of amaretto around my glass, drain it, and try catching Tony's eye for another. 'It's no picnic at all. Especially when you've had your case suspended.'

Claire nods, although it's hard to gauge her level of sympathy. 'Well, I'll be joining you soon enough.'

'Really? You're not getting the sack, are you?'

'No, I'm leaving.' Claire drains her own amaretto. 'Quitting. Moving on.'

I don't like to think of Claire disappearing. In fact, the thought makes me feel profoundly queasy, and for a moment I'm lost for words. 'Oh,' I eventually say. 'Well, I won't let you. I have abandonment issues. You're not going back to Glasgow, are you?'

'Spain. Barcelona.'

'Oh, right.'

'I reckon I'll be heading over around Christmas time. I've an old uni friend out there, and she's offered me somewhere to stay while I look for a job. I'm just biding my time here until I've got enough money to go. Then Seb, bless him, will be looking for someone else to share the rent with. Not something he's looking forward to. It's probably why he's being such a pain in the arse at the moment.'

Or maybe it's because of all the phone calls from Jeremy you get, I reflect, gazing into my empty glass. 'So, it's a sort of trial separation, then?'

Claire looks equally amused and impressed at my analysis of the situation. 'If you say so.'

'Seb doesn't mind me taking you out tomorrow night, does he?'

'Hardly. It'll be good to get out for the evening, actually. I'm really looking forward to it.'

Claire smiles and I smile back. I don't feel so good inside, though – partly because I still haven't told Claire that the only reason we're going to see Mötley Crüe is because I'm hoping Sarah will be there, and partly because of Claire's 'Barcelona' revelation. I try telling myself that it'll make no difference to me – that I'll have left London by December, with or without Sarah. But somehow, I still feel jarred by her news, and struggle to change the subject. 'I've never been much of a traveller, myself. This is only my third or fourth visit to London. And I've never been further afield than Germany.'

'The ill-fated exchange trip?'

'Uh-huh. Although we did plan to go to New York, Sarah and me. Before university.'

'But you never got there?'

'Never even got to the airport.'

'Oh dear.'

* * *

'It's doomed, mate. I'd call it off now if I were you,' Jeremy had advised. 'Uncle Sam won't let you drink till you're twenty-one, and even if you do get served, your rhythms'll go out of kilter with the unfamiliar weakness of the ale. Come camping with your uncle Jezzer instead, and I guarantee – guarantee, mind – you'll have major organ failure before the week's out. Liver, kidney or lungs – you have my word.'

'I'm going to New York, Jez,' I countered, nursing my sickly-sweet bottle of Budweiser, 'with Sarah. I'll send you a postcard.'

'You won't, kid,' he said, shaking his head. 'Because you'll never get there.'

Thinking about it now, I suppose I knew he was right. After all, I'd missed my opportunity to show Sarah I was 'the big dog in the relationship' (as Jeremy described it), and seemed destined to spend the rest of my life scavenging round Sarah's bowl for her discarded morsels of Chappie. Not that I necessarily wanted to be 'the big dog', mind – a whippet or a nice friendly scotty dog would've been fine – anything but the chihuahua Sarah saw me as. 'You'll not change her now. Best jack her in as a bad job and get fixed up with something a bit more amenable,' Jeremy would sagely counsel, usually with a nod towards some vision in white stilettos and a sunbed tan. I just kept myself busy, getting a part-time job at a petrol station and saving every penny I could.

Significantly, though, I never told my parents what I was saving for. It would've been too embarrassing if, for some unforeseen reason, it all fell through – so I kept quiet about it until the last possible moment. Which was a good job, as it turned out.

'I can't go, Tim.'

'Where?'

'To New York, with you, in July.'

'Why not? We're going. Everything's planned.' I pointed at the dates on my wall planner with the words 'HOLIDAY WITH SARAH – NYC!!!' inked in over the top. 'See?'

'I can't go, Tim' – Sarah walked over to the window – 'because the money's gone.'

'Gone?' I stared at her, incredulous. Incredulous stares were becoming a speciality, although this one was somewhat wasted on the back of her head. 'Gone where?'

'I bought a car.'

'What, with the holiday money?'

'With my money, yes.'

'You bought a car – just like that?'

'No, not just like that. I've been thinking about it for ages. But there was never a good time to mention it. You were so obsessed by the whole New York thing, you never gave me the chance to express my feelings on the subject.'

Incredulous stares were clearly getting me nowhere. It was time to do some blurting. 'But it was your idea to go,' I blurted.

'And we will go. Just not this summer. I'm saving you some money, too. You should be grateful.'

I took a moment to process this. 'Why a car, though?'

'Well, I ran into Colin in town, and he told me about this Audi A3 his friend was selling. So we had a look at it, Colin checked it out, I liked it too and so I bought it.' Sarah returned to the window and stared out into the gathering gloom. 'I thought you'd be pleased.' She turned and smiled. 'Just think how much easier it'll make visiting each other when we're at uni.'

'But why didn't you talk to me? Why go with him, of all people?'

'Because Colin knows about cars. Obviously.'

This was a revelation. Colin's technical expertise, to the best of my knowledge, extended no further than the fingering of Fat Bottomed Girls and Radio Ga Ga. I drew myself up to my full height. 'I know about cars.'

'Look, Tim – even if you did know about cars – which you don't – I'd still have taken Colin. Because unlike you, Colin doesn't try controlling my every action. He treats me like an adult, and he's not constantly hassling me to conform to some petty little agenda of his own devising.' Sarah backed away a step, her eyes searching my face for evidence of further despotic schemes. 'This isn't about New York at all, is it?'

'Yes it is.'

'No it's not. It's about you trying – and failing – to control me.'

I sat down on the end of the bed. I'd just had a revelation. 'Jeremy's right, you know. He thinks you're the big dog and he's right.'

For a moment there was silence. 'Jeremy thinks I'm a dog?'

'Not a dog. The dog. The big dog. In our relationship. It's a figure of speech.'

'He's telling everyone I'm a big dog? And you think he's right?'

'He's not saying you're a dog. He's using the idea of the 'big dog' as a metaphor. It's like being, I don't know, the leader of the pack or something.'

'A pack of dogs.'

'It's just a metaphor.'

'It's a metaphor that compares me to a dog. And if that's how you talk about me, I'm glad New York's off. It's a lucky escape as far as I'm concerned. And to think – I actually came over to apologise. I've been so blind. You're a selfish, small-minded bastard, Tim Howden.' And with that, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

She was halfway down the garden path before I managed to wrench open my bedroom window. 'What did you mean – 'it'll make it easier when we're visiting each other at uni'?'

* * *

'And what did she mean?' asks Claire, leaning over the desk.

'She meant she didn't want us going to the same place.'

'And that'd been the plan?'

'Initially. But Sarah pointed out that everyone we knew who'd ever gone to uni as a couple had split up in the first term. Then they'd had to spend three years of misery, watching each other revenge-shagging the arse off anything with a pulse. So our plan – well, Sarah's plan – was that we'd go to two universities near each other, but not actually in the same town. Just in case things went wrong. Wronger. Whatever.'

'And you chose York?'

'Well, Leeds would've been my first choice – home of the Kaiser Chiefs, the Three Johns, the Wedding Present, and all that. But Sarah wanted Leeds too. And York was the furthest Sarah was prepared to drive at weekends to see me.'

Claire stares at me with rank incredulity. As the master of incredulous stares, I'm impressed. 'And that's why you went to York?'

'Yes.'  
'And did you like it?'

'Can you name one decent music venue in York? Just one?' Claire shakes her head. 'Well, there you go, then. Three worst years of my life.'

'You had Sarah visiting you at weekends, though.'

'Not often. The cambelt on the Audi snapped two weeks after she bought it. It never made it out of Whitby.'

For a minute, neither of us speaks – each lost in our own cambelt-related thoughts. Then Claire gently elbows me in the ribs. 'Cheer up, you. It was a long time ago. And anyway, it's Mötley Crüe tomorrow night, isn't it? Your second favourite band. You should be bristling with excitement.'

'Oh, I am.'

'Really bristling?'

'God, yes.'

I'm not quite sure what constitutes bristling, but I give my shoulders a little shake and try curling my lip, Clint Eastwood-style. It seems to satisfy Claire. 'Good lad,' she says. 'I'm looking forward to it too. Can't wait, actually.'

goodge street

'How was Goodge Street?' asks Claire, meeting me off the Tube at Brixton.

'Not too bad. There were some decent pubs and restaurants round the corner, on Charlotte Street.'

For a second bemusement plays over Claire's features. Then she smiles. 'Oh, very good. Very clever.' She gently prods my shoulder. 'That's what I told you, isn't it?'

'Over a month ago. When you thought I was the Prostitute Man.'

'The what?'

'The Prostitute Man. A sex tourist, down from Whitby on the prowl. Attempting to lure innocent Glaswegian hotel receptionists into my web of vice.'

'If only!' she laughs, taking my arm at the top of the staircase and leading me out on to the Brixton Road. 'Although that's what you're doing tonight, isn't it? Vice and debauchery – your secret motivation for asking me out.'

Not really, no. You're actually here because I reckon we might run into Sarah, and I didn't want to want to hang around a Mötley Crüe gig all by myself, looking like a complete saddo. 'Well, sort of.'

'Thought so. We Glaswegian girls are highly intuitive.'

'Mm.' I keep my eyes down and stare at the pavement. I'd meant to tell Claire about the whole Sarah/Crüe situation before tonight – but now I just can't. Not with Claire looking so happy – virtually skipping up to the traffic lights, oblivious to the fact that I feel almost sick with apprehension, aware that this could be the moment I run into Sarah. I try changing the subject. 'You wore the dress, then.'

'I thought it deserved an outing.' Claire trots ahead a few yards, stops in the middle of the pedestrian crossing and does a little twirl. 'Nice?'

'Nice.' I remember the afternoon Claire bought it, and how close I'd come to snogging her in the changing room – and for a moment, the recollection of her hair falling over my hands obscures Sarah's image in my mind's eye. 'Really nice. Bit risky, though, wearing silk to a Mötley Crüe gig. Things might get a bit... well, a bit lively.'

I think of all the alarming things Sarah's let slip about Mötley Crüe gigs, over the years. The sight of so many large, leathery herberts – and their equally leathery girlfriends – converging on the Brixton Academy is making my scalp twitch. From beyond the neon-lit dome above the entrance, the full-throttle guitar assault of the support band can clearly be heard.

'So what are Mötley Crüe like, then? Tara said they were similar to Bruce Springsteen.'

I scan Claire's face for any sign that she might be taking the piss. Nothing. 'Maybe a bit louder than Bruce. And less saxophones.'

'I'd absolutely no idea, I swear,' I yell. Normally this would be something I'd discreetly whisper, but here I can't – not in competition with the agonised wail of Mick Mars' guitar solo. It sounds like a sack of kittens being dropped into the gearbox of a Sherman tank. 'I'm just as embarrassed as you are. More so.' Out of the corner of my eye, through the sea of thrashing bodies and flailing hair, I glimpse the source of my discomfort. I shudder. 'It's just not on. It really isn't.'

Claire continues to stare at the stage, speechless.

'I think it's meant to be ironic. A sort of post-feminist... erm, thing. A celebration of womanliness. In all its many forms.'

Claire still doesn't speak. She hasn't spoken for quite a while – not since we made our second trip to the bar and took up positions at the rear of the moshpit. Not since we started paying attention to Crüe's stage show. Not since we noticed – pretty much simultaneously, I guess – the bevy of near-naked rock chicks writhing around in the spotlights, just to the left of Nikki Sixx's bass stack. I allow my eye to stray momentarily in their direction. They appear to have turned up to the Brixton Academy in bikinis – bikinis made from discarded Quality Street wrappers. A tiny pink Vanilla Fudge wrapper strains to cover each pert young nipple, while nothing but a minuscule Green Triangle protects each girl's modesty from the gaze of four thousand slavering Crüe fans. I tear my gaze away from the exposed flesh, and turn to the still-gobsmacked Claire. Only the frantic movement of her eyes gives any indication that she's still conscious. 'It's just so... demeaning, isn't it?'

'Well, it's... it's indescribable,' she finally replies.

'Mm.' My hands are now wringing themselves abjectly. I wince, returning my attention to the band. Despite being squarely in the throes of middle age, they still cut a dash on stage – Nikki Sixx, in particular. Every pelvic gyration, every thrust of his bass guitar, seems to be undertaken with almost pornographic glee, like he's madly exercising some rock star's droit de seigneur over the entire audience. He's shagging us all, I think. With his bass. I close my eyes and, for a second, the band's silhouettes are seared onto my retinas like a set of disturbing Rorschach blots. What do they remind me of? I think. A bunny rabbit? A chainsaw? A bunny rabbit wielding a chainsaw? I turn to Claire once again. Maybe she'll have the good grace to slap me in the face, so we can just leave the premises and never speak of the evening again. 'I'm really sorry.'

'It's just unbelievable. Totally unbelievable.'

'I know. Sorry.' Slap me. Slap me now. Give me a Chinese burn, if necessary. Sod Sarah, sod Mötley Crüe – I'm ready to go home.

'It's... well, kitsch. Amazing. Bizarre. I mean – it's like stepping through a time warp back to 1983. It's incredible. It's so wrong... so awful... but it's all done with such conviction... well, it's brilliant.' She nods towards the band. 'I can see why you like them.'

'You can?'

'God, yes. I mean – you just get your second drink inside you, and suddenly... well, it just makes sense, doesn't it? Total escapism.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. I mean, I know you really love all those indie bands. Half Man Half Biscuit and all that. But coming to Mötley Crüe concerts is clearly your way of indulging in a little harmless role play.' Noting my anxious expression, Claire gives the back of my neck an affectionate scratch. 'It's perfectly healthy, Tim. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's just fantasy.'

'What fantasy?'

'That you're a thrusting rock god.'

I feign deep concentration. 'But I am a thrusting rock god.'

'Sure you are.' Claire takes my hand and drags me into the massed battalion of die-hard metalheads. She weaves sinuously between half-ton greasers while I trail behind her, apologising for all the feet I'm treading on, relieved beyond words when Claire finally finds a spot she's happy with. 'Are we dancing, then, or what?' she shouts.

'Technically it's moshing.'

'Moshing. Right.' Claire screws her eyes shut and bites her lower lip, looking for all the world like a piglet being force-fed Swarfega.

'What's with the face?' I venture. 'Have you bitten your tongue?'

Claire opens her eyes. 'It's my guitar face. Obviously. If you're listening to a metal band, you have to put your guitar face on. It's the rules. I thought everyone knew.'

I look around. A few other people, indeed, do seem to be wearing guitar faces. I rearrange my features accordingly, hoping that Sarah doesn't choose this moment to make her grand entrance.

Claire winces in admiration. 'Ooh, yes. Now that's a guitar face. Good man.'

Navigating back from my second toilet visit – no Sarah – I glance again at the dancing girls. An hour under the spotlights hasn't done much for their allure. Clearly bored, their bootylicious frugging now seems virtually mechanical, while their come-hither smiles have hardened into vapid leers. It must be tiring, pretending you're perpetually gagging for it, I think. And their feet must ache like buggery in those stilettos. Actually, though, it's the first time I've noticed them for a while – because in spite of the fleshy distractions on stage, most of my attention's been focused on Claire.

Initially, I just kept half an eye on her as she blithely wandered through the heaving mêlée. But when it'd became obvious that Claire wasn't going to be abducted by a posse of randy metalheads – when I finally started relaxing – well, I suddenly found that I'd become pleasantly attuned to her presence at my side. Sensitive to her proximity. And when I caught her eye at the end of Smokin' In The Boys Room, I realised for the first time how closely our movements had synchronised to the driving, chaotic rhythm. Two bodies, one rhythm – squeezed together in the churning darkness of the mosh pit. A good feeling.

There's a lot to be said for a decent mosh pit, I reflect, resuming my position behind Claire and trying to concentrate on the music. Oh yes – it's got to be healthy for you, an hour or two's moshing. All that friction must be marvellous for your circulation – no question. Her eyes never leaving the band, Claire takes my hand and guides it around her waist, locking us together in the darkness. You should be able to get Mötley Crüe tickets on the NHS. Or Aerosmith. Or Motörhead. It's no good, though. I just can't think of any more heavy metal bands – not with Claire's shoulders sinuously rubbing against my chest. I can't think about anything but Claire, in fact – and I don't really want to. And it's not even as though I particularly fancy her. She's lovely, obviously – but just as a friend. And while she abandoned her guitar face an hour ago – thank God – it's not as though scarlet cheeks and a tangle of sweat-drenched hair really suit her. No – only someone like Jeremy would find Claire's shallow breathing and the feel of her soft, slippery skin sexy. Not me, though. No, no, no.

It must be the beer. I hold up the dregs of my drink and stare deep into the inscrutable fluid. Maybe they sell some sort of super-potent beer at Mötley Crüe gigs. Beer that makes you indiscriminately horny. I glance down at where Claire's dress, slightly damp from her exertions, clings tenaciously to her still-gyrating hips. Perhaps aware of my gaze upon her, but presumably oblivious to what's behind it, she turns round and smiles. 'What was that last song called?'

I wrack my brains for the answer, but it's not easy – not with Claire's expectant eyes so close, and the special libido-enhancing Mötley Crüe beer slopping round inside me. Punched In The Teeth By Love? Piece Of Your Action? I scour my memory of Sarah's CD collection, and eventually it comes to me. 'Treat Me Like The Dog That I Am.'

Clare processes this information for a second. 'Now that is subtle,' she eventually concedes. 'Works on lots of levels. Most of them fairly disgusting, but hey.' She takes my arm and begins propelling me up the gentle slope towards the back of the auditorium. 'I need some air. I'm moshed out.'

We only get fifteen yards closer to the foyer, though, before Claire stops in her tracks and wheels around. On stage, Mick Mars has begun strumming something soft and melancholy on a twelve-string acoustic guitar. Claire squeezes my arm, clearly enraptured. 'What's this one called, then? 'LA Girls Are Particularly Naughty'? 'Let's Make Amateur Porn'?'

'Home Sweet Home, I think.'

'Aw.' Claire wrinkles her nose. Down in the mosh pit, a hundred flickering Zippos are being held aloft with flagrant disregard to the Academy's fire prevention policy. 'It's cheesy, I know, but I'm a real sucker for this kind of thing.' She holds out her hand. 'Shall we?'

My fingers mesh with Claire's, her free hand slips around my neck, and we begin dancing. Slow dancing – at the back of a Mötley Crüe gig. Although it's actually Claire who's doing most of the dancing, since for some reason – quite possibly the cocktail of guilt, paranoia and lust currently coursing through my veins – my joints have become locked in a passable imitation of rigor mortis. I only hope Claire doesn't notice.

'Tim?'

'Uh-huh?'

'You seem tense.' Claire's nose gently brushes against my neck.

'It's the whole 'rock ballads' thing. I'm not very comfortable with the genre.' And the whole 'slow-dancing with Claire' thing. That's troubling me, too.

'Close your eyes. Pretend you're listening to the Mekons or something.'

'It's not easy...'

'Shhhh.' Claire's grip gently tightens. 'Close your eyes, relax. Pretend you're listening to the Mekons, don't say anything, and dance. Okay?'

'Okay.' I want to explain that the Mekons don't do ballads either, but with Claire's cheek now firmly pressed against my neck, I can't find the words. I close my eyes, and try working out which bits of my body are pressed against hers. It's a terrifying inventory of limbs and appendages, most of which I don't want to name – not even in my head. I try putting them from my mind, but a couple of them won't be so easily dismissed – particularly now that Claire's own limbs are gently rubbing against them, and her lips have started brushing against my throat. Her lips. My throat. Which, although intimate, isn't technically a kiss. Oh, no. Because a kiss involves lip movement, doesn't it? And a little bit of suction. And while I can feel Claire's lips softly investigating the tendons on my neck, I can't feel any real suction. Very, very little, anyway. So it's definitely not a ki...

'Tim? Tim, mate? Open your eyes, you daft bugger. It's me.'

Claire's hand releases my neck at the moment my eyes open. Standing behind her is a familiar figure – like Jeremy, only half as big again. 'Big Rob? What are you doing here?'

'Sarah was here. Down the front.' Big Rob nods in the direction of the stage. 'I saw her coming out of the toilet, just after the support band cleared off. Then I saw you, about five minutes later, by the bar. I mean, I thought you must be with Sarah, didn't I? But then I saw that other lass. The one in the purple frock.'

'Claire.'

'Oh. So that's Claire, is it?' He looks impressed. 'I wondered, actually. Jez won't stop banging on about her. Phones her up all the time. Big mates, he reckons.'

I'm suddenly queasy. Hearing about Jeremy's interest in Claire from a third party somehow makes all my fears seem justified. 'Yeah?'

'Oh yeah.' Big Rob registers my expression and appears to change tack. 'But you've got to remember that he talks a load of shite, my brother.'

'Right.'

For a second, neither of us speaks. Then Rob nods at the stage again. 'Anyway, I tried finding you at the bar, but you'd gone. I've been trying to find you ever since. I looked all over, but... well, you're not such a big lad, are you?' Big Rob gazes diplomatically into the middle distance. 'Hard to pick out, like. In a crowd.'

I struggle to make sense of what he's telling me. It's not easy. 'But what're you doing here? I never knew you liked Mötley Crüe.'

Big Rob shrugs. 'I don't. I'm strictly Johnny Cash. But I'm old mates with Crüe's lighting guy. We've rigged together a few times.'

'Ah.'

'Anyway, I thought you'd want to know about Sarah.' He bends a little closer. 'That's why I came over. Even though you were... well, dancing... with that Claire. Wasn't interrupting, was I?'

'God, no.'

Big Rob looks palpably relieved. He has a laudable tendency to take things at face value, bless him. 'Excellent.' He extends a hand and clamps my shoulder in a quick, tight embrace. 'Because I know how you feel about Sarah. Why you're down here.'

'Sure.' I nod towards the stage, my stomach flip-flopping at what I have to ask next. 'She's not still down there, is she? Sarah?'

'Sorry, mate. She left about ten minutes ago. A big gang of them did.'

'Ah.' In many ways it's a relief. I try telling my stomach, but it doesn't seem to be listening. 'Oh well. Another time, eh?'

'That's it. Chin up, kid.'

For a second we're both silent, lost in our own thoughts. Then Claire – who'd hurriedly made for the loo as soon as Big Rob had appeared – materialises once again, weaving through the departing crowds of sweat-drenched moshers. Nothing on her face betrays any hint of what may have been occurring between the two of us only minutes ago. 'So,' she says, smiling from Big Rob to me. 'What have you boys been talking about, then?'

tottenham court road

'Hey, who's the big guy? The guy with the big heart. C'mon, now, big man, gimme a smile, that's all I'm after. Just a smile.'

I leer at him horribly, but it's clearly the wrong thing to do since, within a moment, the chugger has matched my stride and is proceeding up the street with me, jiggling his clipboard manically. 'I haven't got any money,' I tell him, 'and I don't give my bank details to strangers.'

'Good for you.'

'So you might as well just go back to your lamppost and jump out at some other poor sod.'

'Will do, will do.' He continues trotting alongside me. 'In about five minutes' time. Where are we going?'

I stop, and attempt to compose my features into something uncompromising-looking and impenetrable. 'We?'

'Uh-huh. You and me.' I look him up and down. His weathered-looking face, unblinking blue eyes and dreadlocked hair conspire to convey an impression of infinite savvy and self-confidence, like a Socialist Worker version of The Fonz. 'We must be going somewhere.'

'Well, I was thinking about getting some breakfast.'

'And that's a fine subject to be thinking about. But think about this.' He raises a calloused digit to the tip of my nose. 'How would you feel if getting breakfast involved trekking twenty miles across a hostile mountainside while being pursued by gun-toting killers?'

I'm trying to think about it. I really am. But all I can see is the manic accusation in his eyes as he awaits my reply. I wonder whether these gun-toting killers might be members of his immediate family. 'I'd feel bad?'

'And how would you feel if your home was destroyed, your family murdered, and the only safe place you could hope to live was solitary confinement in a caged enclosure?'

'Still bad.'

'And if you knew this was happening, and there was something you could do to help, wouldn't you want to help?'

I try not to whine. Mr Clipboard isn't whining, and I don't want to be the one to start. 'Financially?'

'Answer the question.'

'Well, there are so many people you'd like to help...'

'Would you want to help, or not?'

'Mm.'

'Well' – and here he produces a laminated photo of the cutest-looking thing I've ever seen – 'I've just described the plight of the giant panda. A plight you can help end.'

Half an hour later, I'm still trying to make sense of the encounter – and trying to work out how the hell Mr Clipboard managed to wheedle my bank details out of me. Fifteen quid a month – that's how much those bloody pandas are going to cost. Nearly two hundred quid a year, thanks to one moment of panda-y madness.

I put it down to my weakened mental state. After all, I barely slept last night – and most of the sleep I did manage was haunted by disturbing demons from the moshpit of my mind. There's no denying it, though – like it or not, dancing with Claire did cause distinct firmness to occur in an area of my anatomy that's normally characterised by its carefree, almost insouciant floppiness. Aye – there was firmness. Stiffness, really. But I really don't know how much I should read into it – if anything. After all, lots of things have caused a similar stiffness in the past, and I haven't lost sleep thinking about them. Sitting on the back seat of the bus, for instance. Or the smell of the fantastic lamb kleftico they serve in Andy's Greek Taverna in Camden Town. Or Dame Judi Dench as 'M' in Skyfall. Utterly meaningless, all of them – and scarcely erotic.

So – it can't just be my Claire-related anxiety that's mucking up my mental equilibrium, then. And, glancing into the sky above me, I think I've just worked out the other reason I was so easily tapped for my bank details this morning: Freddie bloody Mercury. He was the first person I saw when I arrived here this morning, his colossal statue gazing out from the Dominion Theatre like a giant glam dictator – and no one's got a coping strategy for that kind of thing before their first croissant of the morning.

Of course, I'd heard there was a Queen musical playing somewhere in town, but the sheer phallic magnitude of Freddie's effigy was an unexpected jolt to the system. 'WE WILL ROCK YOU!' barked the neon sign beneath his jackboots, and although Freddie's eyes were fixed firmly on the heavens, I couldn't escape a creeping fear that he might, at any moment, spring from his lofty perch and attempt to 'rock me' in person.

I wanna rock you, Tim, he'd say. I wanna rock you 'til the morning light. C'mon, Tim – let's rock, behbeh! Let's rock 'n' roll the whole night through...

I tear my gaze away from Freddie and glance down the street. No Sarah. It's been, I reflect, a bad morning. Two bleak, lonely hours in the bowels of a chaotic Tube station; the horror of discovering a giant Freddie Mercury upon escaping my underground vigil; and then falling prey to a bunch of clipboard-toting panda-huggers. All on less than two hours' sleep... with no breakfast. I feel unusual. I feel lightheaded, and it's not due to my newly acquired financial commitment to pandakind. I need to sit down. I need to sit down here – here on the steps of the Dominion Theatre, fifteen yards beneath Freddie Mercury's crotch. And I need to close my eyes. Yes – I need to close my eyes.

'It isn't him.'

'It is, you know.'

'Well if it is – and I'm not saying it is, mind – what's he doing here?'

'Oh, Ada, you can be dim, sometimes. Look at him.'

'I'm looking, dear. But I don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing.'

'Well, the clothes for a start. Filthy. And that vacant expression. And all his lovely hair shaved off. They probably did that in hospital, when he was in his coma. Suicide attempt, Mildred reckoned. He'll be off his head on drugs now, I expect. Crack, most likely. And he's probably crawling with lice. And STD's.'

'What's one of them, when it's at home?'

'They're like VD, only worse.'

'Well... he always had a romantic streak.'

'Not any more, he hasn't. He's homeless, dear. He's on the street.'

'He can't be.'

'He is, Ada! I saw a documentary on More 4. They come down here for a better life. Streets paved with gold, and all that.'

'Streets paved with dog dirt, more like.'

'Oh, Ada.'

'It was that lass of his. Broke his heart. He was never the same, always mooning round after her. And then both his parents dying – tragic. After that, he spent most of the time drunk out of his senses with that Jeremy Sykes.'

'Oh yes. Him.'

'Hm.'

'Hm.'

I open my eyes a fraction. Freddie's crotch is being obscured by something. Two woman-shaped somethings.

'Oh, he's awake, look.'

'Aye. He is. Timothy! Timothy, love!' A hand reaches downwards towards my face and seizes my cheek in a firm thumb-grip. 'Timothy, love! It's us!' And the woman-shaped somethings slowly resolve into two well-remembered figures of my childhood.

'Hello Mrs Stapleton. Hello Mrs Rolph.'

'Timothy, pet.'

'Erm... So. Wow. I didn't expect to see you, here. What brings you to London?'

'We're on a coach trip down from Whitby, Muriel and me.'

'To see We Will Rock You. We're ever such big Queen fans, aren't we Ada?'

'Love them.'

'Such a shame when the skinny one died.'

'Such a shame.'

I stare at the point just above Mrs Stapleton's left ear, and she stares back at mine. London carries on its business around us, while the ground makes no effort whatsoever to swallow me up. 'Well, I'd best pick up the tickets,' says Mrs Rolph, at length. 'It's been lovely seeing you, Timothy,' she calls over her shoulder, tottering up the stairs to the box office.

Mrs Stapleton waits until her companion is out of earshot before pressing a banknote into my unresisting hand. 'Here's five pounds, dear.' Oh good, I think. Lunch. She leans in confidentially. 'It's for crack.'

'I'm surprised you had a miserable time.' Claire is tapping idly at her keyboard. 'I really like Tottenham Court Road, especially the Underground. What they've done with the little mosaic tiles. It's really psychedelic, except nobody stops to look. The best bit's when you go down the escalator from the ticket hall. It's like heading back in time to 1973.'

'Everyone in Whitby now thinks I'm a crack whore.'

'Not a crack whore, Tim – just a crack addict.'

'Uh.'

'Maybe it'll improve your image. Some girls find the whole 'bad boy' thing very exciting.'

'Do you?'

She regards me appraisingly. 'It's not what I find most appealing about you, no. Tara loves all that 'bad boy' nonsense, though.' Claire lowers her voice to a whisper. 'She's back, by the way. From her highly-extended weekend away. Heaven knows where she's been.' As if on cue, Tara breezes round the end of the desk and disappears into the office. Claire's voice switches back to its normal register. 'Maybe Sarah goes for that whole 'bad boy' thing too. Maybe it's the USP you've been looking for.'

'USP?'

'Unique selling point. Bad boy Tim.'

I try suppressing a tiny sigh. I can never tell whether Claire's taking the piss when she's in one of her daft moods. Looking back, I suspect she might've been taking the piss last night, too, with the guitar face and slow-dancing and... well, everything else. What had she called it? Harmless roleplay. That was it. I don't think it's right, anyway – mucking about with people's feelings, just for fun. I had enough of that from Sarah. Maybe Claire – like Sarah – needs to be reminded where her commitments lie. I rearrange my features into an expression of Judge Judy-ish seriousness. 'So what's Seb's USP, then?'

'Don't ask me. He puts the loo seat down, I suppose. Otherwise he's a domestic nightmare.'

'Not for much longer. Do you think it'll drive a wedge between the two of you – when you move to Barcelona?'

'We'll keep in touch, I expect.'

I can't believe how blasé Claire's being. If all women are as callous as this, no wonder Sarah found it so easy to leave me. 'No more than that?'

Claire leans over the desk and indicates I should do likewise. She speaks only when my ear is an inch from her mouth. 'You know Seb's gay, don't you?'

She might as well have told me Seb was a migrating wildebeest for all the sense it makes. I just can't process it, though I try to prevent my incredulity affecting my speech. 'Well, of course he is,' I squeak.

'And twice my age.'

'That's true.'

'He's just my flatmate. A friend of a friend from back home, in Glasgow.' Claire smiles broadly. 'You didn't think I was seeing him, did you?'

'Of course not. Although...' – I affect a nonchalant wave of the hand – '...Tony the barman seemed to think you and Seb were an item.'

'Tony? Really? I can't imagine why.' Claire shrugs and smiles sweetly. 'Well we're not, anyway. I'm not seeing anyone.'

'No one?' Not even Jeremy?

'No one at all.'

'Claire's not going out with anyone, mate. No one at all. She just said so, five minutes ago.'

Jeremy grunts at the other end of the line. He can't seem to work out why I'm telling him. I don't really know, either – I just felt I had to share the news with someone. 'I said she was single, weeks ago,' Jeremy eventually mutters. 'I am the Shagfinder General, mate. I know when a girl's spoken for.'

I grudgingly concede the point. I'm still surprised, though – after all, I'd been convinced that Claire had been emanating a distinctly loved-up vibe ever since I introduced her to Jeremy. 'I was sure she was besotted with someone, though.'

'Ah, well, that's a different story, mate.' Jeremy draws deeply on his cigarette and sighs contentedly. 'I never said she didn't have feelings.'

'And you think she does? Have feelings for someone, that is?'

'Oh yeah. And I don't think she'll be single for long, mate.' Jeremy lowers his voice conspiratorially. 'I think you know what I'm talking about. Am I right, mate? Am I right?'

'Mm.'

'I mean, she might seem like a cerebral lass, but she's only human,' Jeremy continues, his tone suggesting that his mouth is now little more than a sloppy leer. 'She's got needs, kid – just like everyone.'

'You reckon?'

'Uh-huh,' he grunts. 'Oh yeah.'

I feel sick.

leicester square

I should like Leicester Square. I should like the way it represents 'proper', old-fashioned London, with red buses and black cabs rushing by on the Charing Cross Road. I should like the fact that when you emerge from the Underground, you're slap bang in the middle of (what the tourist maps would have you believe is) 'Theatreland'. I should like the fact that Leicester Square is mentioned in one of my favourite Madness songs, Victoria Gardens. But Leicester Square – chaotic, touristy, outrageously overpriced Leicester Square – gives me the heebie-jeebies. Everything about it seems to be devoted to parting you from your money, as swiftly and brutally as possible. There must be something to enjoy here, I reflect, trotting off from the Underground. Something that's free.

It takes me approximately five minutes to find it – a large, square clock of modernist design, perched on top of a slim steel tower and surrounded by a small, somewhat bemused-looking cluster of people. It's not the clock itself that has everyone transfixed, though. No, it's the bizarre tree of bells just beneath it, seemingly announcing the arrival of The Fondue Hour with a bizarre clockwork cover version of Smoke On The Water. Some yards behind it, a sign on a further steel tower (some sort of gibbet? Who can say?) informs passers-by that the whole bonkers affair was erected by the Swiss – possibly some of its more medication-dependent citizens – 'as a token of lasting friendship between Switzerland and the United Kingdom'. I turned back to the bells, which now appear to be clattering their way towards some manner of grisly climax.

'Swiss time, eh?' I turn around again. From nowhere, a stocky bloke in a leather porkpie hat has suddenly materialised. His face is round and pink – so chubby, in fact, that his eyes are scarcely more than fleshy slits, trained unblinkingly on the marvel of unrestrained kitsch above.

'Yeah, it's good,' I grunt non-committally.

'It fucking should be. It's a work of art, pal.' He nods approvingly in the general direction of the clock. 'It's five hundred years old, that.' I'm starting to harbour genuine doubts regarding this man's clock-related expertise, but it's clearly an area where he feels a need to establish his credentials. 'I deal in timepieces, myself. I'm, you know, a rep.'

'Really? Well, there you go.' I stare back at the clock, but the bells have stopped chiming and the crowd is beginning to disperse. Shit.

'Yeah, yeah. I've just come from a conference. Earl's Court. Big event, all the top names.'

'Great.'

'Anyway, I was going back to the office' – he nods in the direction of – where, exactly? Minsk, possibly – 'when I noticed you standing here, admiring the clock. Smart-looking geezer, I thought. So I decided to show you something. Something a little bit special.' Oh no. He's going to show me his cock. Evidently I've stumbled into a well-known cruising ground. He wants sex, and he looks like the kind of bloke who won't stop until he gets it, even if it's not in his orifice of choice. 'A watch.' Oh thank God. He glances around the Square and, seemingly satisfied that no one who's not an admirer of special somethings is within sight, pulls back the sleeve of his jacket. And there, just as predicted, is a watch.

'Nice watch.'

'Too right,' he breathes. Actually, it's not a nice watch. It's more like a piece of chromium-plated body armour for the wrist, so chunky that the mere act of putting it on could dislocate the wearer's arm. 'Unfortunately, I've got to get rid of it.'

'Oh, that's a shame.'

'Yeah. It's no good to me.' He looks disconsolate. I wonder if it's because he can't tell the time. 'I took half a dozen of these out of the safe this morning. We give them to clients. In the trade. You know, as samples. Whatever I don't get rid of goes back in the safe at the end of the day.'

'Right.'

'So if I take it back to the office' – he's nodding in an entirely different direction, now – Caracas? Addis Ababa? – 'you'll never see it again.'

Blimey. I genuinely have no idea what to say to this lunatic. No one's ever tried to exploit my emotional connection to a watch before. I try to look grave. 'Gosh.'

'Yeah, yeah, it'll just go straight back into stock.' Suddenly he perks up. 'Tell you what, how much would you reckon to pay for this? In the shops? Full retail?'

I glance again at the watch. It's really, really horrible. 'I don't know. Forty? Fifty?' This appears to be the wrong answer – I may just as well have offered to sexually service his grandmother for the same fee.

'You're a fucking joker, aren't you?' he spits. Oh no. I've inadvertently managed to offend yet another Londoner. This would never happen in Whitby. Bridlington, maybe – but never Whitby. 'Have a proper look.' He thrusts it under my nose again.

'Erm, a hundred?'

'In the shops, mate – in the shops.'

'More than a hundred? I don't know.'

Finally he seems appeased. 'I should fucking say so. This watch – in the shops, mind – four hundred shits.'

I process what he's just said. Four hundred shits. He did just say that, didn't he? I try visualising them – four hundred shits – but I just can't. Even picturing one solitary shit is difficult – my mind resists the image, and the lumpy mass dissolves and coalesces into a lovely, warm fondue.

'Four hundred... shits, eh?'

'Four hundred shits. But I can let you have it for a hundred and fifty... no, no... since it's me last one, and I want to get off home, you can have it for... a hundred shits.' I'm slightly worried that while he was saying this, he appeared to be performing some complex feat of mental arithmetic. He's counting shits, I think. He's also started to gently pant.

'Ah, well, it's a lovely watch. But alas' – tiny shrug – 'I haven't got a hundred shits. Thanks, though.' I turn to walk away, but his porky little fingers seize my sleeve.

'This watch, for a hundred shits? I'm fucking giving it away.'

'I know, but I haven't got a hundred shits on me.' I try pulling my arm from his grip, but his fingers hold on tight. Maybe this is some elaborate preamble to showing me his cock after all.

He lowers his voice. Suddenly I feel like I'm back in Archway, a blade pressed into my ribcage. He leans in close enough to smell his breath. It's not fondue. 'How much have you got?'

There's no way I'm getting my wallet out to check, and I pull away sharply. 'I don't know. Ten, twenty perhaps.'

'Twenty shits? Twenty shits? I can't believe you made me get it out in the first place. Fucking hell. Look, there's a cashpoint over there. I'll do the watch – and the presentation box – for sixty shits.'

I try to remain calm, but it's getting harder. 'Look – I don't want your watch, I've said nothing that could possibly indicate that I wanted your watch, and there's no way I'm shelling out sixty quid for the bloody thing.'

'Fifty shits.'

'I don't want it.'

He waggles a stubby digit inches from my nose. 'You said you'd pay four hundred shits for this in the shops. That's...' – his face creases in thought – '...six times as fucking much.'

'That was you.'

'You should make your fucking mind up.'

'I have. I don't want your watch.'

He turns and waddles off in the direction of the Tube station, before unexpectedly wheeling around in my direction and screaming at me in accusation. 'Wanker!' Pigeons scatter. Passers-by stop passing by and regard me with understandable curiosity as the dying echoes of the curse reverberate around the Square.

The rest of the afternoon passes in a paranoid haze. I patrol the now-sodden Square as much to keep warm as anything else, but steer well clear of the Swiss clock. I can still see the Watch Goblin plying his dubious trade – apparently with some success. He only departs when a fresh downpour begins and the few remaining tourists flee undercover.

Eventually I head back to the Charing Cross Road for the evening shift, but with hoods, hats and umbrellas raised against the spattering rain, it's difficult to distinguish faces as they flit through the illuminated portals of the Underground. I'm surprised, then, that Claire and Jeremy manage to spot me in the shop doorway where I've been loitering since the shutters came down at seven. Momentarily my heart leaps – then sinks in recognition of what their joint appearance means. Claire and Jeremy – together.

Less than a day has elapsed since I phoned Jeremy in Whitby and broke the news of Claire's singleton status – and now he's here, arm around her, having evidently spent the afternoon subjecting the poor lass to his silver-tongued charm offensive. The Shagfinder's trademark Seduction Process is clearly approaching endgame – to be swiftly followed by The Avoidance Process, The Dumping Process, and The Shagging Someone Else Process. I try smiling but – given the feeling of rising nausea I'm currently struggling with – it probably looks rather wan.

'Tim, mate. You're soaked.'

'Yeah. I think it's starting to rain. It's been spotting for hours.' I gesture at the monsoon that's strafing the Charing Cross Road. Oily torrents flow down its gutters. 'Good to see you, Jez. What brings you down?'

'Oh, you know. Thought I'd have a weekend of sophisticated conversation and sexual excess in the Smoke.' Of course – it's Friday night. Friday nights are like a religious sacrament to Jeremy. 'Let's get you out of those wet clothes and into a nice warm pub.'

I glance at Claire, who gazes levelly back at me, then at Jeremy again. I really don't know if I could stand watching him sleazing over her in full, beer-drenched technicolour. 'Well, tempting as your sluttish offer undoubtedly is, I think I'll pass. I'm shattered. Why don't you two go somewhere? I might just head home and get a shower.'

Claire hooks her free arm through mine. 'We only came out to find you, you daft sod. Come and have a drink. It's Friday night.'

And so, because it's Friday night, we go for a drink.

'I'm Jewish, you know. I shouldn't be here. Not after sunset. Not on the Shabbat.'

'Tim. Mate – I've told you a million times – you, Tim – are not Jewish.' Jeremy prods me playfully on the shoulder. He's on his sixth pint in four hours. 'Just because you like... Woody Allen... and Leonard Cohen... doesn't make you Jewish.'

'Leonard Cohen's a Buddhist,' observes Claire, over the top of her near-empty pint glass.

Jeremy regards her with a mixture of suspicion and respect. 'Really?'

'Uh-huh. He's a Buddhist Jew. Or a Jewish Buddhist. So I reckon if Leonard decided he wasn't going to have a laugh on a Friday night – with his mates –' (and here, Claire eyes me coolly) 'then it'd be because he didn't want to, not because he wasn't supposed to.' She drains her cider. 'I'm off to the bar. Same again?'

Jeremy inspects his almost-full pint glass. 'If you insist.'

'Tim?'

'Nah, I'm good.' I stare into my remaining inch of lager, undrinkably warm by now. 'Thanks, though.'

Jeremy's the first to break the silence that's materialised between us. 'So, Tim. You're telling me the reason you're in a crap mood is because some bloke tried flogging you a hooky watch, then called you a... what was it? A wanker?'

'Yes,' I lie. Being called a wanker isn't why I'm in a crap mood. The painful anticipation of Jeremy drunkenly snogging Claire on the train home is why I'm in a crap mood. 'Only he didn't just call me a wanker. He shouted it to the whole Square.'

'But the bit you object to – the bit that's getting you down – is the 'wanker' bit, right?'

'I found it very distressing.'

He stares into his beer. 'It's not so bad.'

'Everyone looked at me. Everyone. If you put me in an identity parade, then asked anyone who was in Leicester Square this morning to identify the wanker, they'd finger me. I'll be known as the Leicester Square Wanker.'

'I shouldn't worry about it,' Jeremy declares. He's holding his pint glass far too low down, and beer slops happily over the brim, down his wrist and on to the lower reaches of his Dick Dastardly t-shirt. Some of the more enterprising beer actually makes is as far as his jeans, though in his cheerful inebriation Jeremy seems not to notice. 'You see, a wanker... the word, wanker... is clearly derived from the verb, to wank. I wank. You wank.' He looks at me in momentary admonishment. 'He wanks, she wanks... we wank... they wank... and so on. Wank. A verb.' He pauses to collect his thoughts. 'And a verb is what, Tim?'

'It's a doing word, Jeremy.'

'Precisely!' he exclaims, pointing at my right ear in a gesture of mad triumph. More beer slops out of the glass. 'A doing word. A doing word, Timothy. So, a wanker is... is...' Jeremy's lost for words. He suddenly seems aware of the lack of beer in his glass, and regards me with suspicion. 'Erm... a wanker is... reprehensible... a reprehensible person... because of what they do. What they do, Tim.'

'I see.'

'But a twat. A twat is different. And why? What sort of word is 'twat', Tim?'

'It's a noun, Jeremy.'

'Yes, a noun. A naming word. A word for a thing. As in... oh, goodness me, where did I leave my twat? Oh, look, here comes your twat. Jesus, look at that twat over there.'

'Uh-huh...'

'So if you're a twat... then I think we can safely assume you've earned that particular... accolade... because of what you are.'

'In this case, a twat.'

'Yes!' Jeremy rocks alarmingly on his stool, his head thrown back victoriously. 'Because you are a twat.' Despite all the other distractions of the heaving bar – the shouting, the music, the fruit machines – I notice that Jeremy's attracting the increasingly rapt attention of its clientele. 'Of course, the distinction between, say, an arse...'

'Noun...'

'Yes, noun – an arse – noun – and, say... a twat...'

'Noun, again...'

'Yes, another noun – well, the difference is much more... subtle. There's not a lot, technically speaking, separating an arse from a twat. And I want you to think about that...' – he waggles a finger under my nose – '...while I have a little wee-wee.'

I don't think about it, though. I think about Claire, who's somehow managed to fight her way through the scrum at the bar and get served. She takes her change from the barman, then turns and smiles at me. And then she's edging towards the table with three pints held boldly aloft. There aren't many lasses who can manage that, I think to myself.

Then, just as she's working her way through the crowd, Claire disappears from view. The well-built bloke who's obscuring her doesn't seem to be trying to get past her, though. In fact, from his body language it looks like he's engaged her in animated conversation. And then, a second later, I hear a distressed female voice over the hubbub of the bar.

'Keep your fucking hands to yourself!' I get to my feet so I can get a better view of what's happening. That was Claire's voice, wasn't it? 'Get the fuck off me, you sleazy bastard!' My heart leaps in panic, and I start weaving my way frantically through the indifferent crowd – but Jeremy, having just emerged from the gents', gets there first.

I think it's interesting that Jeremy smacks the guy before speaking. In films, it's always the other way round – a couple of minutes' feisty banter before the first punch is landed – but not here. Jeremy just pulls him around, then plunges a fist through his nose. He's got big hands, Jeremy – and he works with them for a living. One second, the guy's nose is in the regulation 'nose' position, and the next it's halfway along his cheek, having tossed a good half-pint of blood over the bar. Claire's cargo of cider and beer crashes to the floor and she screams. Then everyone seems to be screaming.

Jeremy's still got a handful of the bloke's shirt in his hand when two policemen burst through the door a few moments later. As they drag Jeremy outside, he manages to raise a hand to Claire's assailant, who's crouched on the floor of the bar, hands cupped protectively around the place his nose used to be. 'You should learn some manners, pal.'

charing cross

Thinking back, Friday night seems almost unreal – like one of those films, where you can't remember whether you actually saw it or just glimpsed the trailer. It wouldn't have been a great film, anyway – not unless you liked ultra-violent splatterfests with Dolby Surround Sound and Ken Loach dialogue. And who'd enjoy a film like that? Oh yes – Jeremy.

Ironically, of course, Jeremy missed all the gory highlights; Claire tumbling into the minefield of shattered pint glasses; the slick of blood on the pub floor; the white-knuckle slalom of the ambulance ride; five hours in A&E. And then the emergency operation on Claire's leg, with doctors pulling inch-long shards of glass from her calf and thigh, like some obscene lucky dip. Even Jeremy would've baulked at that, I reckon. I can scarcely bear to recall the sickening hours in the waiting room, trying not to think about the abominable Claire-shaped hole that would be left in my life if she didn't pull through; wondering how I'd tell her mother; wondering how I'd tell Jeremy.

I filled him in on the bits he'd missed as we left the police station on Savile Row. After that, neither of us had much to say until we reached the gates of the Royal Free Hospital; less still when we got to Claire's bedside, where we crouched like two penitent gargoyles, our clothes still stiff with dried blood from the pub brawl.

Rhoda, the ward nurse, said Claire had come round from her anaesthetic only five minutes after we left on Saturday. She'd been delirious for a couple of hours, and spent most of the evening 'asking to see Tim'. Rhoda couldn't help, of course – no 'Tim' had visited – and when I arrived on Sunday, Rhoda told me Claire'd had a fitful night, unable or unwilling to believe that 'Tim' still hadn't materialised.

I knew the main reason why Claire had wanted to see 'Tim', of course. Because 'Tim' could tell her what'd happened to Jeremy. Because 'Tim' could reassure her that Jeremy was okay. So it wasn't surprising that Claire was glad to see me at her bedside when she woke up late on Sunday morning.

'Tim? Tim, is that you?'

I put down Crime And Punishment and passed her a carton of Ribena, twisting the straw so it faced her lips. 'Shhhh.'

'Thank God you're here, Tim.' Claire's voice grew hoarse as she squeezed my hand. 'I thought you weren't coming. The nurse said you hadn't visited. I couldn't understand it.'

I glanced around the ward. There didn't seem to be any nurses within earshot. 'Well, there's been a slight misunderstanding. And you probably shouldn't call me Tim. Not in front of the nurses, anyway.'

Claire flopped back on to her pillow. She clearly thought I'd lost my mind, but seemed prepared to humour me. 'Okay, Tim. I won't call you Tim, Tim. Is that okay, Tim?'

'Excellent.' I pointed towards the sizeable bulge beneath the bedclothes. 'How's your leg feeling?'

Claire squinted downwards. 'Like it's had half a dozen smashed-up pint glasses pulled out of it, then stitched back together.'

'You remember what happened, then?'

'It's a bit patchy.'

'That's because you passed out. You almost severed an artery. Lost lots of blood.'

'Oh.'

'You're type AB, by the way. Very handy if you need a transfusion. Highly compatible blood, that.'

'And have I had a blood transfusion?'

'Few pints.'

'Oh. Right.' Claire glanced around the room. 'Where's Jeremy?'

I tried avoiding her gaze, now levelled in my direction. 'Erm, Whitby, actually. He came to see you, though. Yesterday. Before going down to King's Cross. He's been worried sick.'

Claire tried to sit up, winced in pain, and slumped back against her pillow. 'Why's he gone back to Whitby?'

'To sort out a solicitor.' I lowered my voice. 'He's been charged with Actual Bodily Harm. For what happened in the pub.'

When Claire next spoke, her voice was wobbly with tears. 'But he was defending me.'

'Aye, he was. Over-enthusiastically. With the leg off a barstool, by the time the police arrived.'

'Oh. Shit. Right.' Claire's eyes closed as she processed this information. 'So you were both here yesterday?'

'Yes.'

She opened her eyes and quickly brushed away a tear. 'The nurses said you hadn't come. I couldn't understand it. You weren't arrested too, were you?'

'God, no. I came with you in the ambulance. I was with you in A&E. Then I waited until you were out of the operating theatre before I went to collect Jeremy. We were here for about three hours, yesterday afternoon. Rhoda said you woke up just after we left.'

Claire's voice choked with tears again as she reached for my hand. 'Thanks, Tim.'

'Not Tim.' I leant forward and lowered my voice. 'Angus.'

'What?'

'Just call me Angus.'

'Why?'

I found myself shuffling awkwardly, searching for the best way to explain the situation. 'Because... well, everyone here seems to think Angus is my name.'

'Why?'

'I've been, erm, pretending to be your... er, husband. I had to. Otherwise they wouldn't have let me into the ambulance on Friday night.'

For a second Claire looked stunned. Then, for the first time since waking up, she smiled. 'So everyone thinks we're married?'

'Mm.'

'And you told them your name was Angus?'

'I thought it'd sound more believable if we were both Scottish.'

'Oh God,' Claire chuckled, not altogether drily. 'Occasionally, Scottish girls do end up with English boys, you know. If the clan leaders give their blessing. Yes, it has been known – Angus.'

'I realise that now. But I was a bit pissed at the time.'

She flopped back against the pillow and closed her eyes, a half-smile still playing at the corners of her mouth. Then she turned to face me again. 'So where are our wedding rings then, Angus dearest?'

'We don't wear them. We don't believe in ostentatious symbols of our union. We have a very modern relationship.'

Claire gasped with mock incredulity. 'You mean that in your little fantasy world, we're swingers?'

'No. God, no. We have a very committed and loving relationship, you and me.' I cleared my throat, struggling to remember everything I'd rashly divulged to Rhoda. 'And a highly fulfilling sex life. We're the envy of all our friends.'

'And kids?' Claire's eyes narrowed. 'Have we got kids, yet, Angus?'

'Not yet, no.' I stared out of the window, hoping my discomfort wasn't too obvious. 'But we've been trying for nearly six months.'

'You've told the nursing staff that we're trying to...' – Claire lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper – '...to make a baby? You and me?'

'It's not my fault. It slipped out, in conversation.'

'In conversation?'

'Yes. Dr Chapman wanted to know if you were pregnant, before she did the blood transfusion, and we got talking.' My stomach lurched as I realised for the first time what I'd done. 'Oh, God – you're not pregnant, are you?'

'No.' Claire closed her eyes and nestled back against the pillow. 'And I think we should put the baby-making on hold, at least until I've had my stitches out. A highly fulfilling sex life – ha!' She opened one eye and regarded me coolly. 'You're a naughty man, Angus. Very naughty indeed. I've really no idea why I married you.'

'Sorry.'

She opened her other eye. 'Did I have a white wedding, then?'

'Uh-huh. In Glasgow. Very traditional. Your mother insisted.'

'Good.' Claire's face clouded with anxiety. 'She doesn't know I'm here, does she? Mum?'

'No. I tried getting her number from Seb, but he's not been answering the door.'

Claire relaxed. 'He's away for a couple of weeks, deejaying. Ayia Napa. Thank God.' She pointed at her leg. 'Never let my mum hear about this. She'd go mental.'

'Okay.'

'Right. Well, since you're now my lawful wedded husband, I've got a wee job for you.'

'Okay.'

Claire beckoned me closer and lowered her voice. 'There's a few things I'll need if I'm staying here a while. A toothbrush. Toothpaste. Half a dozen trashy novels. T-shirts. Knickers.'

I fished out a notepad and pencil from my pocket. 'So – novels, a toothbrush, toothpaste, t-shirts, knickers.' My pencil paused momentarily over the list. 'What sort of knickers?'

'Just knickers.'

'Okay. I'll get it all tomorrow, while I'm doing Charing Cross.' I turned round. Rhoda had entered the room, and was absently flicking through some paperwork near the doorway to the main ward.

Claire seized my shoulder and pulled me close. 'Is there anything else you've told Rhoda about the two of us? Anything else I need to know?' she whispered.

'No.'

'Nothing, Angus?'

'Nothing. I swear.'

Rhoda cast an eye over Claire's chart and smiled at the patient. 'Well, you're looking better,' she declared. 'Don't you think, Angus?'

I cleared my throat, preparing my very best Scots' accent and bracing myself for Claire's incredulous stare. 'Och, aye. Aye. A wee bit better, aye.'

Rhoda turned back to Claire. 'So, Angus tells me you're kayaking down the Nile in the Spring?'

It's now nearly twenty-four hours later, but my face still reddens every time I think about it – kayaking down the Nile with Claire. It's probably a good job I didn't give Claire or Rhoda any further information about the fantasy lifestyle I'd constructed in my mind. The lavish dinner parties. The second home in Llandudno. Our two Irish wolfhounds, Peaches and Pixie.

We'll have to put them in kennels while we're kayaking, I reflect, making my way back to street level after a final circuit of the two Northern Line platforms. Unless they make little doggie kayaks, of course. The thought cheers me as I amble down Villiers Street towards the phone box outside Embankment station. The streetlights are burning orange against the sky and a warm yellow glow spills out into the road from the restaurants and bars. There are lots of places to eat, mostly Italian. Lots of places to investigate as potential 'Sarah' venues. But just now I've a more pressing issue to deal with. I open the phonebox door, squeeze inside and begin dialling.

'Jez?'

'Ah, Angus. How's our girl?'

'On the mend, mate. But she's knickerless.'

'What? Nicholas who?'

'No, mate. She's knickerless. Without knickers. Lacking underwear. And it's my job to get her some more. Tonight.' I stare out into the darkness. 'Right now, in fact, before I go and visit her in hospital. I was going to get them earlier, but I forgot.'

'Oh, right. A significant moment, that, kid – the first time you buy a lass some knickers.'

'I know. But the thing is...' – I take a deep breath – '...well, I don't know what size she is. For clothes, and suchlike. And I thought I'd ask you, because you understand that sort of thing.'

For a moment, all I can hear is the noise of the Fat Ox. Then Jeremy speaks. 'Well, for t-shirts, she's either a large small or a small medium. For knickers, she's a small. Shoes, I'd reckon she's a 5. Tops and frocks and suchlike, she's between an 8 and a 10 – it depends where she's shopping. Bras, she's 34B.' Jeremy lowers his voice. 'Do you need to know what kind of underwear she likes?'

My stomach lurches. Jeremy's already given me far more information than I'm comfortable with. 'You don't know, do you?'

'Of course I know.'

'You've not actually seen Claire's underwear, have you?' It seems unlikely, given Claire's recent singleton revelation – but you never know with Jeremy.

'Don't need to, mate. I'm the Shagfinder General. I can just tell.'

I hope Jeremy doesn't hear my sigh of relief. 'What sort of underwear should I get her, then?'

'Marks and Spencer. Either a bikini or high leg brief. Doesn't matter, as long as it's all cotton. Nothing with too much bum coverage, though, or she'll think you reckon she's fat or forty. Don't get her g-strings or anything black, either, or she'll think you've got her pegged for a slapper. Stick to white, or something with a little pattern on it, and you'll be fine.'

I wince. This is exactly the sort of bad news I'd been fearing. 'Well, I've got a slight problem, then.' I glance back along Villiers Street. 'It's late, mate. Marks and Spencer's closed. Almost everything's closed.'

'Almost everything?'

'Well, there's one place selling knickers, just up the street. Near the station. It's not really a shop, though. It's more of a stall.'

'A stall? What – like a market stall?'

'Sort of. One of those tourist-y ones. The kind that sells Big Ben mugs and Union Jack umbrellas and policemen's helmets. They had some knickers – novelty knickers – tucked away at the back.'

'Novelty knickers, eh?' Jeremy sucks his breath over his teeth. It's not a sound that inspires confidence. 'Well, they'll have to do, won't they?'

embankment

It doesn't matter how brightly the sun's shining, or how perfectly it glints off the abnormally azure Thames – I can't remember a time when I felt worse. Three consecutive nights without Claire welcoming me back to the Happi-Lodge has made the place seem like... well, like a hotel, really. I'm even missing Jeremy, in a way. Not his banal Phil Lynott-y anecdotes, perhaps – but the reassuring presence of the lad, and his insane conviction that it's possible to shag, drink and smoke your way out of trouble.

Claire must be missing him too. The poor lass has spent the past two days pretending to be my wife, and while Jezzer and Claire have both put a brave face on it, it's got to be messing with their heads – it's just got to. After all, you could see what was on the cards, that night in Leicester Square. Claire and Jeremy – lovebirds. Claire and Jeremy – about to leap into bed together. I find myself shivering as I turn my back on the Houses of Parliament and head back towards the station. Jeremy and Claire – two hundred and fifty miles apart.

Well, maybe there are compensations to the situation. And at least Jeremy's got his solicitor sorted out. His court appearance is in three weeks – 'long enough for me to grow a massive 'tache and buy a one-way ticket to Bolivia,' he'd observed last night, when I phoned him from the hospital. I smile, climbing the stairs to the Hungerford footbridge for the last time. Staring over the railings, it's impossible not to notice the almost maritime choppiness of the water beneath my feet, the almost coastal stiffness of the breeze that's whistling through the bridge's steelwork. It could almost be Whitby, I think. If only I was there now – supping a pint in the Ox with the Shagfinder General. I turn my back to the railings and allow my head to hang back over the swiftly-flowing Thames. Far away, on the river's distant bank, the London Eye spins languorously on its axis. Maybe I'll bring Claire here, when she's better, I think. As a little treat. And as an apology for buying her those terrible novelty knickers.

I spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to think about Claire's knickers, but they're still the first thing I ask about when I arrive at the hospital.

'Did they fit? I didn't know your size.'

Claire continues staring out of the window, although I've no idea what she's looking at. After all, it's pitch black outside and we're six storeys up. 'There's no problem with the size. The size is absolutely fine.'

'That's a relief. Have you been wearing them, then?'

Claire turns and raises a warning eyebrow. 'Are you asking me what underwear I've got on?'

'God, no.' I smile my most winning smile. It doesn't seem to help. 'Not in so many words. I just wondered whether they were okay. The knickers. Or whether you wanted me to buy you some different ones. Maybe from Marks and Spencer.'

'My knickers – the knickers you gave me yesterday – have got Prince Harry's face printed across the backside.'

'Hm.'

'And the words 'fit for a prince' written just above the gusset.'

'Is that what it says?'

'Yes, Angus, dear. With an arrow pointing towards my knees. At least I hope it's pointing towards my knees.' Claire fixes me with a stony eye. 'So why on earth would I ever wish to possess any other knickers? I shall be giving all my old ones to the Salvation Army just as soon as I get home.'

'Fair point, fair point.' I nod at the inch or so of exposed fabric that's visible between Claire's neck and the top of her bedding, anxious to change the subject. 'And is that one of the t-shirts I got you?'

'It is.'

'Which one?'

'It's the one that informs people that I'm a Chief Inspector in the Metropolitan Love Police.'

'Ah. The one with truncheons and helmets on it?'

'The pink truncheons and pink helmets, yes. And the 'fluffy handcuffs' motif around the neck.'

I glance at Claire's neckline. I can't see any handcuffs, fluffy or otherwise. 'You're not wearing it inside out, are you?'

'I am.'

'Why?'

'Because people have been visiting me from other wards, just to laugh at it.'

I force a little smile. 'Laughter's the best medicine, so they say.'

'Do they, Angus? Do they?' Claire turns towards the window once again, and for a moment she seems lost in thought. 'I'm filing for divorce, you know.'

She's joking, of course, but my stomach lurches anyway. I grip the metal bar underneath the mattress. 'You're not serious?'

Claire turns round and for a moment her expression is unfathomable. Then she puts her hand over mine and smiles. 'No. Silly boy. But if you pass a Marks and Spencer in the next day or two, you could always buy me some normal knickers. Anything white and cotton will be fine.'

'No problem.'

'Thank you. So – the Happi-Lodge – has it collapsed in my absence?'

'Not quite. But it's not the same, without you,' I add, noting the flicker of disappointment on Claire's face.

'Sweet. And how's Tara coping?'

'Seems fine. She's coming to visit you tomorrow morning. She keeps asking about Jeremy, actually. Wanting all the gory details about the fight. How many times he hit the guy with the barstool, that sort of thing.'

'She's always liked physical fellers, young Tara.'

I pass Claire a fresh carton of orange juice. 'And what about you?'

'Oh, it's cerebral blokes for me. Cerebral blokes with terrible taste in knickers.' She takes a long sip of juice. 'That's why I married you, Angus, dear.'
waterloo

When Jeremy jumps me from behind – just as I'm paying for a bag of hot chestnuts from the vendor beneath Hungerford Bridge – he almost knocks me off my feet. 'Tim! Bloody good to see you, mate. Bloody good.'

I try disentangling myself from his arms, but it's no use – he just maintains his demented bear hug until I stop struggling, then squeezes me some more. 'Good to see you too, Jez,' I finally gasp. 'How'd you find me?'

'Well, when you weren't at Waterloo, I thought you might've had a trot up to the river.' He steers me over to the wall. 'It's gorgeous, isn't it? Really gorgeous.'

'Mm.' I fish a chestnut from the bag and pop it in my mouth. Most of its companions are conspicuously AWOL, scattered on the walkway behind us – further innocent victims of Jeremy's high spirits. 'What brings you down, then, Jez?'

He looks momentarily affronted. 'I wanted to see you, mate. Because it's your first day south of the river, isn't it?' Jeremy turns his back to the water and stares along the South Bank, past the Royal Festival Hall towards the open-air book stalls in front of the National Film Theatre. Even though it's only mid afternoon, the winter sky looks bruised and blotchy. 'You want to watch yourself, you know. They're a wily bunch of sods, south of the river.' He eyes the oblivious passers-by with suspicion. Most of them, I feel, look reasonably civilised. 'Aye, they might not look like wily sods – but they are.'

'I'm back up at King's Cross tomorrow. You've not come down just to give me two hours' protection from the patrons of the Royal Festival Hall, have you?'

'Not really, no.' He looks suddenly serious. 'I'm mostly here to see the invalid. How's our lass?'

'Bored. On the mend, though.'

'Cool.'

Jeremy leans back on the wall and begins investigating the chestnut bag. 'Actually, I wanted to apologise, too. Face to face. For Friday night.'

'What for?'

'Oh, you know.' He takes the bag from my unresisting grip and empties its contents into his hand. 'Freaking out.' For a moment, he gazes sidelong across the river, seemingly lost in thought. 'Big Rob and Long Tall Sally came over last night. We had a big chat. About me. About what I'd done – the whole ABH thing. Sally always talks sense.'

Long Tall Sally. Big Rob's hyper-sophisticated long-term squeeze, nightclub promoter and Susan George lookalike. 'I see.'

'I felt I'd let the two of you down. I could've handled things differently.' Jeremy stares down at his Greek army boots.

'How'd you mean?'

'Well, I could've taken that bloke to one side and explained why his behaviour was unacceptable. How he was objectifying women, how it ultimately demeaned both himself and Claire.'

These sound very much like Long Tall Sally's words, but I decline to say so. This is, after all, a remarkably enlightened departure from Jeremy's normal problem-solving modus operandi. 'And if that hadn't worked?'

'Why, I'd have punched the bastard's lights out, of course.' He tips the last of my chestnuts into his mouth and grins wolfishly. 'Are we off to see Claire, then, or what?'

'I'm not getting involved, Jez. No way,' I whisper, anxious that no one else in the hospital cafeteria can eavesdrop on our conversation. 'They think I'm her husband.'

'It'll be a laugh.'

'No.'

'Please.'

I push my chair back so that I can better appreciate the New Mature Jezzer – who looks, despite what I've just been told, very much like The Same Old Jezzer. Except for the addition of the stethoscope, of course. 'No. And where did you get the stethoscope from, anyway?'

'This?' He swings the offending instrument around on its tubes, stopping only when it knocks his styrofoam coffee cup off the table. A couple of the cafeteria's other customers stare balefully in our direction, but Jeremy doesn't appear to notice. 'It's from your Uncle Jeremy's dressing-up box, this.'

'And does it work?'

He shrugs. 'Depends what you want it to do.'

'And what do you want it to do?'

'Well, it's been very handy for affecting introductions with the ladies.' He smiles an alarmingly beatific smile. 'Because everyone trusts a doctor, don't they?'

'Jez, no.'

'Oh yes. I made four introductions today, actually. Two at Tibshelf services on the M1, and two at the Watford Gap.'

'Seriously?'

'Uh-huh.'

'All women?'

'Naturally. Although two of them were about fifty years older than the kind of girls I usually go for. Lovely old ducks, though – Annie and Thelma. I think they just wanted a chat, really.'

'And the other two?'

'Oh, much younger. Quite tasty, actually. Got both their phone numbers. One of them lives in Aberdeen, though, so she's a bit doubtful.'

I drain my coffee and gather my things. I'm highly uncomfortable about the fact that Jeremy's shamelessly sauntered into the Royal Free Hospital while – entirely fraudulently – sporting a stethoscope. 'And this is supposed to represent the new, über-moral Jeremy, is it? Impersonating the medical profession?'

'My conduct's been impeccable. I've told all my patients – every single one, mind – to visit their GP when they get home. One of them had a really nasty rash on her leg, and she was just going to let it fester. I've probably saved her life.'

We make our way over to the lift.

'So you won't back me up, if I get rumbled?'

'You're on your own, mate.'

'Okay. Just so I know where I stand.' Jeremy hooks the stethoscope around the back of his neck and presses the button for the sixth floor. 'But Claire's going to think it's funny. And then she'll probably get all affectionate and emotional. And if you're after a slice of that affection...'

'I do perfectly well for affection, thanks.'

'There might be some friendly tussling, on the bed.'

'She's ill, mate. Just try to be gentle.'

'Tussling and affection.'

The lift door opens, we walk to the ward, and Jeremy creeps over towards Claire's room, stethoscope at the ready.

'It was cold,' says Claire for the third time. 'Really cold.' She cuffs Jeremy lightly over the head with her copy of A Street Cat Named Bob – the copy I bought her on Monday afternoon.

'It made you laugh, though.'

'Hm.'

And she had laughed, of course – just as Jeremy'd said she would. Then Claire had grabbed hold of the lad's head, hauled him down to 'bed' level and – yes, I admit it – there'd been some friendly tussling.

Eventually it'd taken Rhoda's intervention to halt Jeremy's impromptu examination of Claire's left buttock. 'Stethoscopes aren't normally used down there,' Rhoda had remarked drily, fixing Jeremy with a granite look and firmly wresting the instrument from his grip. 'And heaven knows what you'd hear, if you tried.'

Rhoda hasn't given back the confiscated stethoscope, either – nor has she left the room, where she clearly feels the two idiots either side of Claire Campbell's bed require constant supervision. It doesn't seem to bother Claire, though, who's been happily holding both our hands and talking ten to the dozen for the past hour.

'I've very lucky, Rhoda,' she finally declares, when the nurse reminds us that visiting time's over. 'I've got you and my two boys looking after me.' Then, for a second, it looks like she's about to cry again – just as she did when Jeremy told her about his night in the cells – but she blinks back her tears, squeezes both our hands, and kisses our cheeks in turn.

'Right,' says Jeremy, standing. 'If you're getting all gooey, I'm nipping outside for a ciggie. See you tomorrow, eh?' He jams an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and winks chummily at me over Claire's head. 'I'll leave you two newlyweds to say goodbye properly. Eh, Angus?'

'Och, aye, aye. I'll be down in two minutes.'

'See you tomorrow, Claire.'

'Bye, Jeremy. Thanks for coming.'

I turn my back on Jeremy's receding footfalls and glance momentarily towards Rhoda, whose only concession to our privacy has been to gaze diplomatically out of the window. Then I meet Claire's eyes. She squeezes my hand again, the tip of her thumb tracing a route across the palm to the base of my fingers. Then she nods meaningfully in Rhoda's direction, flicks her left eyebrow heavenward and gently bites her lower lip. Rhoda doesn't want to leave us alone, her eyes seem to say. Terrified of what we'd get up to.

I nod in agreement and clear my throat. 'Well, Jez doesn't seem too worried about the 'ABH' thing, does he?'

'No, Angus.'

We both stare at Rhoda's back. Then Claire turns towards me and leans in close. 'Kiss me,' she whispers.

If Rhoda overhears Claire's urgent entreaty, the broad expanse of her back doesn't betray it. I edge nearer to Claire, reducing the distance between us to a couple of insignificant inches. I can scarcely believe what I've just heard. Nor can the frenzied salsa class that's taking place in the pit of my stomach, itself engaged in urgent communication with my brain as to what this might mean. 'What?'

'Kiss me goodbye, you idiot,' Claire whispers again. 'You're my husband, remember?'

Suddenly Claire's plan becomes clear – a plan that's guaranteed to maintain our standing as North London's Most Happily Shacked-Up Couple, despite Jeremy's insistence on stethoscoping Claire's bottom only an hour ago. A plan that involves pretending to kiss Claire. Clever. Very clever.

'Okay,' I say, and the two inches that had separated us disappear. I close my eyes, and for a second my dry mouth searches for Claire's. And then, magically, her lips slowly part and meld with my own. My hand seeks out Claire's – partly on instinct, and partly because I feel like I'm falling into something strange and terrifying, and might never be able to climb out. Then our lips separate and my eyes open.

'Thank you,' Claire whispers, releasing my hand. 'See you tomorrow, Tim.'

'Angus.' We both turn and stare at Rhoda, silhouetted against the window. 'Angus,' repeats the nurse, looking from Claire to me with slowly dawning suspicion and disbelief. 'Your husband's name is Angus.'
king's cross

You can't tell me that Meg Ryan actually fancied Billy Crystal when she snogged him in When Harry Met Sally. Or that Renée Zellweger wasn't thinking about the pay cheque when she found Colin Firth's hands all over her backside in Bridget Jones's Diary. And as for Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman... well I'm sorry, but no way. Not possible. Not with his smug, 'please punch me' face and sleazy whoremonger's drawl. Ugh.

And you'd be an idiot to think that what happened between me and Claire yesterday actually meant anything. Because nothing did happen – which is why I haven't been thinking about it. And why I wasn't thinking about it all last night, or this morning, when I forgot to fill my Happi-Lodge pillowcase with croissants from the breakfast bar. Or when I stepped out in front of the number 340 bus on Station Road. Or when I forgot to change Tube at Camden, and ended up emerging at Warren Street instead of King's Cross. No, no, no – it's scarcely crossed my mind. And I'm still not thinking about kissing Claire as I head back through the ticket barriers for my second stint down on the southbound platform. Good job, too, because I'll need all my wits about me this morning. After all, big interchange stations like King's Cross are almost impossible to keep tabs on at the best of times – too many exits, too many people, none of them Sarah.

I step on to the escalator and close my eyes. It's probably a bad move, but strangely hard to resist – because when my eyes are closed, all the things that didn't happen yesterday somehow seem clearer, more real. In fact, if I concentrate hard, I can almost smell the flowers at Claire's bedside, the lingering note of coffee on her breath. I breathe deeply and grip the rubber handrail. And when I open my eyes, twenty yards from the end of the escalator, I'm so lost between the worlds of yesterday and today, dreams and reality, that for moment I don't even recognise what my eyes are showing me – the girl on the opposite escalator. The girl with cobalt eyes and a tiny, perfect frown, lost in her own little world. My girlfriend. Sarah.

The man in front of me raises his briefcase defensively, panic playing over his features as he tries making sense of the situation. 'What the hell do you..?'

''Scuse me, I need to get through, sorry...' I gently push him aside and he yields without further resistance, presumably relieved to be rid of the insane Yorkshireman who doesn't understand the concept of escalators. I press forwards into the uncomprehending phalanx of faces looming above me, stealing furtive glances across to where Sarah, oblivious to the chaos I'm causing, glides serenely upwards. 'Sarah!' I yell. 'It's me!'

Ahead, the crowd begins parting in anticipation of my frenzied charge, and I lunge forward through the bewildered stares of tourists and businessmen, clearing two steps with each stride, summoning strength to my liquid knees. 'Sarah!' I shout, my voice quavering as if contending with the tiny orgasm of each heartbeat. 'Sarah!' But Sarah stares impassively ahead, deaf to my calls. Her iPod. She's listening to her bloody iPod. 'Missus!' I yell to the woman behind her. 'Tell her to turn round. The girl with the blonde hair.' I gesticulate manically at Sarah. 'Tell her I need to talk to her. Please.' But the young woman, regarding me with terror and incomprehension, stands rigid, turns away and stares straight ahead, blanking me furiously. And then, at the very moment Sarah crests the summit of the escalator and slips from view, my own progress is abruptly halted by a hand on my shoulder.

Its owner, stocky and balding in a grey pinstripe suit, looks me up and down. And then he smiles, a smug, implacable Richard Gere-ish smile that any sane man would want to punch. 'Whoa, whoa.' He raises an admonishing finger. 'You're going the wrong way.' I almost gag in disbelief. He's a Yorkshireman.

'I need to get past. I'm sorry.' Move out of the way. Now, you fat git.

'Sorry nothing, sunshine. Turn around, go down the escalator, change at the bottom and go back up if you need to. It's that simple, pal.'

'It's an emergency. Pal.' I push the palm of my hand squarely into his pudgy nose, forcing his head back towards the handrail. Then he overbalances and collapses on to his fat, pinstriped arse. Good. He makes a cack-handed swing for my foot as it sails past his face, but I'm gone. I leap over the top of the escalator. 'Sarah!'

And there she is, just passing through the ticket barrier. In three bounds, I'm there myself, careering through an astonished queue of tourists and groping for my Oyster card. My shoulder's to the gates even before the machine has responded... but it doesn't open. I throw my weight behind it, my stomach lurching with each assault. 'Sarah! Sarah!' And then two hands, more expert in restraint than the fat Yorkshireman's, seize my arms and hold them still. The voice accompanying the hands is resolute, and insistent, and will brook no disagreement.

'Calm down, sir. I need to check your card.'

'Sarah!'

It's only when the café's swarthy-looking proprietor comes over to my table and stares pointedly at my untouched bacon butty that I realise how long I've been sitting here. I peel back the top layer of bread and stare at the congealing mass inside. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the face of the lardy tyke I met on the King's Cross escalator this morning. Ugh.

That was nearly two hours ago, though, and despite the unpleasant scene in the ticket hall – the shouting, the scuffling – I'm feeling a lot more sanguine about the whole 'Sarah' situation now. After all, if Sarah was in King's Cross today, who's to say she won't be back again tomorrow – same time, same place? It's not just a possibility, but a likelihood. Because that's what commuters do, isn't it? They commute. Same place every day, regular as clockwork. And when Sarah arrives in King's Cross at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, she'll have me waiting for her. Prepared.

I stare out of the window, a faint echo of this morning's adrenaline rush stirring again in my stomach. Back again tomorrow. And then my reverie is shattered as the café's toilet door clatters open and Jeremy emerges, adjusting his belt and steering an erratic course back towards our table. 'That was last night's mutton faal,' he announces loudly, settling back in his chair and tearing my discarded bacon butty into two ragged halves. 'It was still kicking. You're not eating this, are you?'

'Help yourself.'

'Ta.' He tosses a fist-sized lump of bread and bacon into his mouth. 'It's the least you owe me, anyway. I'm not used to getting phone calls in the middle of the night telling me to drag myself down to King's Cross.'

'It was half eleven in the morning.'

He eyes me sceptically. 'Well, I'm not best pleased that you expect me to do it again tomorrow. Bit of a liberty, that.'

'It's to look for Sarah, mate. I reckon she works round here, and we're bound to run into her with two of us scouting around. And I phoned you so we could make preparations.'

'Preparations?' Jeremy spoons a small mountain of onion relish into his saucer and plunges the bacon butty into its epicentre. 'What... preparations? Why?'

I take a deep breath. 'Well, Jez, perhaps it's a blessing that I didn't catch Sarah's eye this morning.'

'Because you've finally twigged that she's an evil mentalist who eats men's souls?'

'No, Jez. Because if she had seen me, then she'd have realised that I've not grown as a person since she left.'

Jeremy considers this for a moment. 'You got rid of that stupid greatcoat. And got a sensible haircut. What more could she want?'

I think back to what my gay guru, Nathan, had said. Show Sarah you're prepared to make changes, and there still might be some hope. 'I need to show her I'm making changes, Jez. I need to think about what she values. What she wants from a life partner. And I need to do it today, so when I see her tomorrow – or whenever – she'll realise, straight away, that I'm the person she should be with.'

For a second Jeremy's mouth hangs open, his face a mask of incomprehension. 'It's not what Phil Lynott would do,' he finally mutters, pocketing the remainder of the bacon butty.

'I don't care about Phil Lynott, mate. I only care about making myself irresistible to Sarah.'

I take a moment to reflect on all the things I've done over the past few weeks. Sarah wouldn't have found some of my activities 'irresistible'. Some of them – generally activities involving Claire – might actually have earned me a friendly knee in the groin from my absentee sweetheart.

For a second, I try imagining Sarah lavishing a more affectionate brand of punishment upon my lower portions. It's an alarmingly diverting thought, and Jeremy has to snap his nicotine-stained fingers an inch from my nose to regain my attention. 'So what are you going to do, then? To get Sarah back?'

'I need to smarten up my act. Show her I'm a completely different person from the one she left in Whitby.'

'You'll be pushed to do a full conversion job on yourself before tomorrow,' Jeremy grunts. 'Especially since we're visiting Claire tonight.'

'Well, I think we'll have to skip Claire, mate. We won't be able to fit her in. We'll need to go clothes shopping for a start – Golders Green, fantastic for bargain suits. Claire'll understand when we tell her why.'

Jeremy looks sceptical but says nothing.

angel

'I'm not wearing it. No way.'

I proffer the tie again, but Jeremy cowers at the sight of my outstretched hand, refusing even to look at the slim strip of orange silk. 'But you bought it, Jez. Why'd you buy it if you weren't prepared to wear it?'

'I thought I was buying it for you. On your instructions – because you were too pansy to go to Golders yourself.'

'I just didn't want to get lynched. My description's probably been circulated to Interpol and Mossad since I was last there. I'm still an unreconstructed Nazi impersonator as far as they're concerned.'

'Well, you're a knobhead as far as I'm concerned. I mean – why do I have to wear a suit when it's your girlfriend we're looking for?'

'Because you've got to show her that you've changed, too.' I eye Jeremy warily. He might be dressed in nothing but his Spongebob underpants, but he's still a big lad and you wouldn't want to cause offence. 'I've never told you this before, but... well, Sarah's always seen you as part of the problem.'

'What problem?'

'The problem with me and her. She's always seen you as a bad influence. Ever since school.'

Jeremy mulls this over, shifting his weight so that Spongebob's face disappears into an unspeakable crevice between his inner thighs. 'Yeah?'

'God, yes. You're Jeremy Sykes, the Shagfinder General.'

'Aye.' He rubs his chin. 'That's true enough.'

'And lots of lasses – not just Sarah – they really go for a bloke in a suit, these days. And it'd be a day off for Phil, wouldn't it?' I nod at Jeremy's beloved Thin Lizzy t-shirt, hanging in its cellophane cover above his bed. Despite Jeremy's painstaking attempts to preserve the print of Phil Lynott's face, it's seen better days.

'I s'pose.' He takes the tie from me, holds it up to the light, discards it, then picks up the other one, the blue one – the one I'd earmarked for myself. 'I could always wear this one, at a push. Aye – this one matches my eyes.' He takes the larger of the two suits from the wardrobe and disappears into the bathroom. 'I wouldn't look too much of a prat in this one.'

By the time we leave Angel station at ten o'clock, Jeremy has asked me why I'm 'being no fun' on at least a dozen different occasions. Twice on the platform; once on the escalator; twice in the ticket hall; three times while we took 'motivational ciggie breaks' against the railings outside; and five times in the swanky Italian coffee shop on Upper Street.

I keep telling him that 'being no fun' is essential for getting into a 'seeing Sarah again' mindset – for both of us. It's not easy being The Responsible One, though. The po-faced killjoy. Not when my stomach's turning cartwheels at the prospect of seeing Sarah. But being The Responsible One is like training a labrador – you can't expect it to stop humping the postman's leg if you're forever giving it one yourself.

'But postmen have got two legs. We could hump one each,' Jeremy observes as we draw to a halt under the King's Cross canopy.

'I've no desire to have a ménage-à-trois with the Shagfinder General, Jeremy. No way.'

'You don't think it'd bring us closer together? As mates?'

'No, Jez, oddly I don't. It was bad enough when I was going out with Lisa Salt and had you banging away at her cousin Erica in the bedroom next door.'

Jeremy leers to himself in silent reverie as I straighten his tie and fold down his jacket collar. I glance at my watch. Quarter to eleven. Only fifteen minutes until... Sarah Time. With me in the ticket hall and Jeremy outside on the pavement, there's no way we can miss her. No way. I straighten my own tie, tuck in my shirt and take a deep breath. I'm feeling positive.

I just can't believe Sarah wasn't there. Not on the platforms, not on the escalator, not in the ticket hall. But worse than that, I can't believe Jeremy deserted his post within ten minutes of me leaving him. 'Ten bloody minutes, Jez. Ten. That's how long it took you to forget you were looking for Sarah.'

'I didn't forget I was looking for Sarah.' Jeremy shakes his head indignantly. 'I just saw the opportunity to assist a damsel in distress.'

'A damsel in distress?'

'Sure.'

'And just how distressed was she, this damsel?'

Jeremy stares along the Pentonville Road, clearly weighing the matter deeply. 'Erm... moderately distressed, I'd say.'

'Because she couldn't find the British Library?'

'Uh-huh.'

'And you felt that in order to alleviate her distress, you actually had to take her there?'

'You can't leave job half done, kid. It's the furniture restorer's code.'

'A code that also obliged you to buy her a coffee?'

'Aye.'

'Then take her for a stroll around Bloomsbury?'

Jeremy shrugs and jams a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. 'She wanted to know where the old British Library had been. The one where Karl Marx wrote all his plays. She was very grateful to have a guide. She bought me lunch in the Brunswick Centre, to say thank you.'

I've long given up trying to control the exasperation in my voice, and my next utterance emerges as a strangled croak. 'But you were supposed to be looking out for Sarah.'

He smiles in bemused supplication. 'I kept my eyes peeled, mate. While I was wandering round with Mounisha. She kept hers peeled too.'

'For Sarah?'

'Aye, aye. I gave her a detailed description. She's a very capable lass, you know. She's doing a Ph.D. in vulcanology.' Jeremy leans in close. 'That's volcanoes. Just between the two of us, I don't think I'd have got anywhere with Mounisha if I hadn't been wearing the suit. Aye – I reckon wearing a suit could be a real asset when it comes to impressing the ladies. And it's all thanks to you, mate.'

I stare into the middle distance. A small convoy of buses trundles past me towards Upper Street, and I can't think of a single reason not to shove Jeremy under one of them.

'Hey, the suit might have the same effect on Claire, kid.' Jeremy nudges me playfully in the ribs with his non-cigarette hand. 'We'll find out when we see her tonight, eh?'

'I'm not going. I'm going back to King's Cross for a few more hours. Looking for Sarah.'

'You don't fancy testing out the 'suit' theory on young Claire?'

'No. I'd rather test it out on Sarah. My girlfriend.'

Jeremy sighs, releasing a plume of evil-smelling smoke. Then he turns to face me and gives my lapels a friendly little tug. 'Suit yourself, mate. Suit yourself.'

old street

It's gone three o'clock by the time I get round to phoning the hospital. There didn't seem much point calling earlier, though – not when Jeremy'd made such a fuss about the fact that he'd be taking Claire her lunch ('I'll get her something a bit fancy from Marks. Something to cheer her up. A decent bottle of red. Nice bit of cheese from the deli. And some of them little French chocolates for afters – the ones with bits of marzipan and nuts stuck on top...'). And I didn't want to interrupt Jeremy's bedside banquet when I phoned. Not after the argument we had in Bradley's last night.

Anyone would think I'd asked to borrow his kidneys, for the flap he got into – when all I'd done was to try finding out if he was coming back to King's Cross today. 'I'm not doing it,' he'd declared, tossing back the last pork scratching in the packet. 'I'm off to see Claire instead. You should too. We missed visiting her tonight because you wanted to do another two hours at King's Cross – God knows why, given that it's a Sunday. So I reckon we should make a bit more effort tomorrow. We're supposed to be her mates.'

'We are her mates,' I'd countered. 'Which is why we popped in to see her on Saturday. And why she'll understand that we can't see her tomorrow.'

Jeremy'd just pulled a face at that.

'So you're not coming to Old Street, then?'

'Nope.'

'What about King's Cross, later? Just for a couple of hours?'

'No. I'm going to be getting drunk, with Claire, in hospital.' Jeremy regarded me with an expression of the utmost piety. 'Just like I'd get you drunk, if you were ill.'

'Fine, then.'

'Fine.'

'Right.'

And we'd left it at that.

Jeremy's words are still ricocheting around my mind as I dial the hospital from the phone booth in the Old Street ticket office. 'Good afternoon,' I say, as breezily as I can manage in my ersatz Scots brogue. 'Is that Springer Ward?'

'It is.'

'Well, it's Angus Campbell. Claire Campbell's husband.'

'Oh.'

I can tell from the nurse's voice that she's not happy – presumably because she knows what's coming next. Frankly, though, she can keep her sighs of disapproval to herself. I've already spent three lousy Sarah-less hours in King's Cross, and Old Street is no more cheering – a sprawling concrete rabbit warren of tunnels and passages beneath a roaring urban roundabout. I adjust the phone under my chin and clear my throat as Scottishly as possible. 'Anyway, I was just wondering how Claire was. Because I won't be able to see her today. And I wanted to send her my love.'

There's a weighty pause at the other end of the line. 'Claire's gone, Mr Campbell.'

'Gone? Where?'

'Home. This morning. She was discharged just before lunch.'

'Seriously?'

'Seriously. Your... your friend took her home in his van. He turned up with two bottles of sherry just as Claire was phoning for a minicab.'

'Oh. Right.' Even by myself, alone in an underground phone booth, I don't know where to look. Behind me, from one of the tunnels' mouths comes the frenzied barking of an unseen dog, and the incoherent shouts of two or more men, their voices slurred with drink. I slump against the wall. 'Well, thanks for letting me know.'

The line goes dead.

Long before I get back to the Happi-Lodge, I've decided that I don't want to talk to Tara – but despite my best efforts to sneak past the Reception desk, she manages to spot me.

'Can you come here for a second, Tim? I need a quick word.'

'What's up?'

Tara glances around the deserted foyer, seemingly unwilling to meet my eye. 'You don't fancy a weekend back at home, do you?'

'Not particularly.' Tara wouldn't ask, I reflect, if she knew how thoroughly horrible my house in Whitby was – cold, and damp, and Sarah-less. 'Why?'

'No reason.' She taps idly at her keyboard. 'Except that we've a big conference party coming in on Friday, and they won't be leaving until Monday.'

I release a small involuntary sigh. That's all I need. 'So I'll need to look sharp on Saturday, if I want any breakfast?'

'Ah, well, no. Because they've actually booked out the whole hotel. Including your room. I'm so sorry. It's only just come up on the computer.' Tara turns the monitor so I can see the screen.

I stare at the blinking text in numb incomprehension. 'What's it mean?'

'It means you're going have to check out on Friday and check back in again on Monday. It also means' – she winces – 'you'll have to settle your bill.'

'You mean... you're evicting me?' Claire would never evict me. Claire cares about me.

'I'm not evicting you, no.' Tara twists uncomfortably in her seat. 'The Happi-Corporation's evicting you. Or, by proxy, a two hundred-strong party of mortgage advisors from Didcot. I'm really sorry.'

Imagining what two hundred demob-happy mortgage advisors could get up to in my room is enough to give me palpitations. Off the leash and running amok – in Edgware. 'Well that's just great, isn't it?' I stagger towards the lift. 'Thanks for that.' Tara's face is still a mask of anxiety as the lift door closes and I'm noiselessly conveyed to the fifth floor.

Jeremy's face – looking almost as contrite – is the first thing I notice when I open the door of room 51. The second thing I notice is the fact that he's wearing his coat, and the third is the rucksack at his feet. 'All right, kid?' he asks, a note of forced cheerfulness in his voice.

'Marvellous. Yourself?'

'Good, mate. Good. Tara told me about your eviction. Very bad form, that.'

'Yeah. It's all I need.' I kick off my shoes and drop on to my bed. 'Claire got discharged, then?'

'Aye. At lunchtime.'

I nod. 'I phoned the ward. They said you'd picked her up in your dad's van.'

'We'd a heck of a job getting her into the cab,' Jeremy laughs nervously. 'Because it's quite high up, that cab – if you've got iffy pins, you know. I said we should chop Claire's legs off and shove them in the back – as a joke, like. Dr Chapman didn't find it very funny.'

'Claire'll be having a few days off work, then?'

'Apparently not. She wants to come back as soon as she can. Soon as she's got her dressings off. Wednesday afternoon, probably.'

'So soon?'

'Aye, aye. Claire reckons she'll go mad if she's stuck at home. And she can do nearly all the Reception stuff sitting down. I can help out a bit, too. Unofficially, you know. Tara won't mind.' Jeremy lowers his voice. 'Just between the two of us, I reckon Claire was a bit miffed when you weren't there. When they discharged her.'

'I was in King's Cross. It was unavoidable.'

'No Sarah?'

'What do you think?'

'Ah. Well, there's always tomorrow, isn't there, kid?'

'Mm.' I swing my legs over the side of the bed, suddenly overwhelmed by the weird atmosphere in the bedroom. 'Look, you don't fancy slipping downstairs for a couple of pints, do you?'

'No can do, mate. I'm off out, as it happens.' Jeremy looks weirdly sheepish as he waves a hand vaguely in the direction of his Greek army boots. Well, I think he looks sheepish – it's not an expression I've seen him do before. 'I'm off round Claire's, actually.'

'What, now? It's nearly nine o'clock.'

'I know, yeah.'

'When are you coming back?'

'Ah, well. I'm not.' He continues inspecting his boots. 'Well, I am, obviously. But not until tomorrow. I'm spending the night there.'

I slump back on the bed as a wave of nausea washes over me. What's he talking about?

'It's only because she needs someone to look after her, mate. That's all.'

I stare at Jeremy, dumbfounded, recalling the numerous occasions when Jeremy's used the term 'looking after someone' to mean 'shagging their brains out.' I can think of five or six off the top of my head. 'What? Why?'

'Because she's just come out of hospital, mate. Seb's not back from Aiya Napa until next week. Claire needs someone to take care of her for a couple of days. Drive her to work and back. Do a bit of cooking. Help with washing and dressing and that.'

'Dressing? As in, the putting on, and removal, of clothes?'

'That's what 'dressing' means, yes, mate. She'll not be able to bend her leg until she's had her bandages off. After that, I'll head back up to Whitby. Dad's got some work lined up. Should keep me out of mischief until my trial.'

I take a moment to reel back through the conversation. 'But, in the interim period, you're actually going to be helping Claire undress?'

'Among other things.'

'And can you see why some people might find that a slightly worrying idea?'

'Not really, mate, no.'

'Well, let me put it this way.' I struggle to keep my voice steady. 'On Wednesday – this last Wednesday – you spent the night with that nurse, Alison.'

'Aye.'

'And then you met Mounisha on Friday. And you went out with her on Saturday night.'

'Aye.'

'And shagged her?'

Jeremy looks briefly wrong-footed, then sighs. 'Aye, maybe the once. Just to be polite. There's no law against it, you know.'

'You were out Sunday night, too. Mounisha?'

'Erm, no.'

'You were seeing someone, though? A lass?'

'Perhaps.'

'Was shagging involved?'

'Mm.'

'And now you'll be spending two nights at Claire's.'

'Yes.'

'Claire – also a girl.'

'Yes, mate.' He takes a cigarette from the packet, clearly tiring of my line of enquiry. 'I had noticed. It's the two bumps in her sweater – they're a dead giveaway.'

For a moment, I'm speechless. 'You see? That's the problem. You can't switch it off, can you? You just can't stop being the Shagfinder General. And now your libido's going to be spending two nights at Claire's. You must understand it's the last thing the lass needs, mate – finding herself locked in basement flat with your libido scampering round the place like a starving rat. You staying with Claire... well, it's like putting Hannibal Lecter in charge of the Blood Transfusion Service. It's insanity.' Suddenly, another thought springs unbidden to mind. 'Where were you planning on sleeping, anyway?'

'On the sofa, I expect.'

'You expect?'

'Aye.'

'You're too big for a sofa.' I try to visualise Jeremy curled up on Claire's sofa. Even in my mind's eye, he can barely squeeze himself in, and keeps gazing wolfishly down the corridor towards Claire's bedroom door. 'You're rangy, you are. You won't fit. You'll find yourself pacing around all night. Then you'll start getting your urges.'

Jeremy lights his cigarette and inhales deeply. His eyes close, and when he next speaks it's with obvious self-restraint. 'Look, Tim – despite what you think, I've really no intention of shagging Claire. We're friends. Like you and me are friends, only she's a lass and you're not.' He takes another drag on his ciggie. 'And if you're not happy about me staying with Claire, you've only got to say so. But please, be honest about it – about the way you feel – so we can discuss it like adults.'

I try, but I can't meet his eye. Because I do want to tell him about my feelings – and I would, if only I could put them into words. I feel myself deflate. 'You should probably go.'

Jeremy shoulders his rucksack and opens the door, turning only as he steps into the corridor. 'You don't think much of me, do you?'

'Course I do. I just don't understand why she asked you to go, that's all. Why not me?' I feel suddenly sick again. 'Is she angry with me?'

Jeremy sighs. 'Not angry, mate. Disappointed, perhaps. I mean, you weren't there when she was discharged, were you? Anyway, you're going to be up at half five every morning, off looking for Sarah. And it's not exactly a glamorous job, is it? Helping someone on with their drawers, getting them washed, and all that. I reckon Claire'd be less embarrassed about doing it in front of me than you.'

'But why?'

'Try working it out, kid.' Jeremy smiles, shaking his head sadly. His cigarette looks like an admonishing finger as it waggles from left to right. 'Try working it out.'

moorgate

I try working it out on the Tube down to Moorgate. I try working it out as I emerge from one of the station's half-dozen exits, into the deep blue of a damp city morning. And I'm still trying to work it out, long out after the rush hour's passed, as I follow the painted line on the pavement away from the Underground, up on to the elevated concrete walkway, leaving Moorgate's chaotic streets far behind me.

I still don't get it, though. Why would Claire prefer to be undressed by Jeremy than me? The way Jeremy said it – 'try working it out, kid' – made it sound really profound. But I can only think of the blindingly obvious reasons. Because she fancies him. Because she's fallen victim to his vapid charms. Because he's six foot three, with pecs you could grate cheese on. Bastard. Not that it's any of my business, of course. And it's hardly as though I want to undress Claire myself – God, no. I only want them both to be happy. Separately. Claire doesn't need someone like Jeremy. She needs someone sensitive. Someone who really loves her.

I stop and gaze at the housing estate I'm about to enter – the Barbican estate – a vast, sprawling citadel of weirdly angular concrete and glass. Claire needs someone who can appreciate this sort of stuff, I think. Architecture. Buildings and design and all that. Someone like me – but not me. I put my head down and walk.

Two minutes later, my destination hoves into view – stark and shining and lovely. The place that'll help me get back into Claire's good books. The Barbican Centre. I take a deep breath and push open the door.

Jeremy would never bring Claire here, I think, making my way towards the box office. And that's why she'll forgive me. I approach the desk.

'Can I help you?'

I peer at the name badge on the attendant's blouse, then upwards towards her face. It's a friendly face – the sort of face you could readily confide in. 'Can I be frank with you – Melinda?'

'I think so.'

'Well, recently I've hurt someone's feelings. Someone I care about. And I want to take her somewhere nice, to apologise. To see something she'll really enjoy. And – because she's quite, you know, arty – I thought this'd be a good place to come.'

'I see.'

'So I wondered what you'd recommend.'

'That's not much to go on.' Melinda leans back in her chair. 'What was the last thing you took her to? The last thing she really enjoyed?'

'Erm... Mötley Crüe, actually.'

'Music fan, then?'

'Yes.' Jumbled memories of the night begin stealing into my thoughts. Sweaty memories. 'But I think she was probably a bit tipsy, that night. They sell extra-strong beer at Mötley Crüe gigs, and she came over a bit peculiar. Generally she's a bit more avant garde. Jazz and suchlike.'

'Modern? Traditional?'

'Just, you know... jazz, I think.'

'Mm.' Melinda takes a thick What's On? guide from under the desk and flips to a double page of listings. 'Well, there should be something here she'll like.'

My eye runs down the list of events. There doesn't seem to be much for less than thirty quid a ticket. Having checked my current account balance only last week, it's clear I'll have to lower my sights. 'You've not got anything... well, anything cheaper, have you? I'm a bit strapped, at the moment.'

Melinda reaches beneath the desk again, producing a slim leaflet. 'Why not bring her to this? The Rude Mechanicals. They're really good.'

I examine the leaflet closely. There's a picture of a cartoon bloke with his tongue sticking out, but nothing suggesting the kind of music they play. 'What sort of stuff is it?'

'Oh, they're fantastic. They're like a mixture of the Dave Howard Singers and Captain Beefheart. Really wild. They do all sorts of deranged stuff on stage. Mad cabaret things.'

'No half-naked dancing girls or anything?'

'God, no. And if your friend likes jazz, she'll love them. Honestly.' Melinda leans forward an inch or two. 'I'm friends with the guitarist, actually. He's called Cos. He's a really lovely bloke.'

A really lovely bloke? That's the last thing I want to do – introduce Claire to another 'really lovely bloke'. 'Good-looking feller, is he? Young?'

'He's in his early fifties.'

'Tall?'

'About your height.'

'Easy on the eye?'

'Quirky, I'd say. He doesn't shave very often.'

I try picturing the guitarist. He seems a safe enough bet – half jazzman, half goat. There's no way Claire would want someone like that helping her undress. 'Cool. I'll have two tickets, then, please.'

'Actually, it's a free event in the foyer. Just turn up on the night.'

'Perfect.'

I pocket the leaflet, thank Melinda, and head back across the central atrium in search of a payphone. Claire will be really chuffed to hear about the Rude Mechanicals gig – and two minutes later, I'm dialling her number.

I don't immediately recognise the voice that answers the phone, though. 'Campbell residence,' it intones in a butler-ish drawl. ''Ow may I 'elp you?'

'It that you, Jez? It's me. Tim.'

'Oh. Hey, kid. How's it going?'

'Fine. No Sarah, but otherwise fine.' I stroke the Rude Mechanicals leaflet in my coat pocket. 'Actually, I was wondering if Claire was there.'

'She's in the bath, mate.'

'The bath?'

'Having a little dip.' Jeremy lowers his voice. 'Just between the two of us, it was a bit of a pain in the arse getting her leg propped up, out of the water. She's not meant to get the dressings wet. She had to sit at the end with the taps. Poor lass. It's horrible, sitting on the plug, isn't it?'

I can't bring myself to speak. She's in the bath. That's exactly what Sarah's dad used to say, whenever I phoned to make up after one of our arguments.

'Tim? You still there?'

'Uh-huh.' I attempt to steady my voice. It doesn't help that I'm now imagining Jeremy wearing a butler's tailcoat, sleeves rolled up and soapy to the elbows. 'So. Right. Claire's actually in the bath right now, is she?' Wet and naked?

'Aye, aye. Splish, splash, and all that.'

'And you put her there?'

Jeremy's voice becomes serious. 'Hey, I didn't look at anything, mate, I swear. She had a towel wrapped round her 'til the last second, and then I just stared at her feet. You've probably seen more of her than me, actually.' His voice acquires an odd, faraway quality. 'Although I must say, she has got nice feet. All soft and pink.'

All soft and pink – oh God. 'Well, just let her know I called, Jez. I've got to go. Got to get back up to King's Cross.'

There's a long pause at the other end of the line. 'Ah. I was hoping to talk to you about that, kid.'

'Best make it quick, then. I'm heading back up there in a sec.'

'There's actually not much point going.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've, erm, got some news about Sarah...'

'What about Sarah?' I feel suddenly sick. Please don't let it be anything terrible.

'Well, you've been hanging round King's Cross because you saw Sarah on the escalators...'

'Yes.'

'...assuming she worked nearby.'

'Yes.'

'Ah, well. She doesn't.'

'Doesn't she?'

'No. I've just found out that the reason you saw her in King's Cross last Thursday is because she was getting a train. Up to Whitby. Seems she went home for the weekend.'

'Sarah spent the weekend in Whitby?'

'Aye. Dave sent me a text saying he'd seen her – only I didn't find out until today because my phone had run out of battery.' His tone becomes sympathetic. 'If you'd been up there instead of down here, you'd have run into her. Dave reckoned she was wandering around in front of the Fat Ox for half an hour on Saturday.'

Shit, shit, shit. I cradle the receiver, unable to speak. What was Sarah doing in Whitby when she's supposed to be avoiding me? She can't have finally heard about my 'coma', can she? I feel like a vast chasm has opened in my stomach. I need to sit down – right now. 'Right. I see. Well, thanks for letting me know, Jez.'

'Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, kid.'
bank

Bank, according to Jeremy, was built over a plague grave – and there's certainly a hint of the living dead about the swarms of burnt-out salary drones emerging into the half-light of the City this morning. Not that I actually see many of them. With nine exits, the station's virtually impossible to keep tabs on – even more so, since almost everyone's wearing the same identikit outfit. Given that the architecture resembles some kind of 'Ancient Rome' theme park, you'd expect at least a few people to be meandering around in togas – but it's sober suits all round, apart from the ubiquitous motorcycle couriers and a handful of bewildered-looking tourists. And while some of the buildings are pretty impressive when you first emerge from beneath ground, there's really very little to do when you finally tire of ooh-ing and aah-ing at the monumental edifices of our glorious financial institutions. Very little to do but sit down on the Royal Exchange steps, sip overpriced coffee and try to spot Sarah among the small knots of young businesswomen motoring past.

Ah – these London women. There really is something uniquely purposeful about the way they zip around with their iPads and Blackberrys and don't-fuck-with-me hairstyles. Jeremy's a real sucker for that kind of thing, of course. I reckon it must be the logical extension of his policewoman fetish – his unconsummated lust for women in power – although I've never really seen the attraction, myself. Until today.

A couple of hours' close observation settles the issue. There's no denying it – a decent heel on a woman's shoe has an undeniably pleasing effect on the way she walks, simple as that. And there's something cheerfully frisky about a nice tight skirt, whoever's wearing it. I'm even beginning to appreciate Jeremy's fondness for sternly constrained hair and stiff, starchy collars, when one of my svelte young women suddenly breaks ranks from her stridently perambulating sisters and begins walking towards me.

It's odd, but there's something familiar about her – something I can't put my finger on. Is she famous? Someone off the telly? I sip my coffee and try working out where I've seen her before. She walks briskly, the fluid scissoring motion of her legs causing her short skirt to pull taut at the thigh and her hips to pitch and yaw hypnotically. So captivating is their motion, I scarcely register that she's heading straight for me until her shadow's fallen across my face. Her fingertips come gently to rest an inch above a trim waist. I crane my neck upwards, but a diaphanous veil of hair has fallen down the sides of her face and the halo of sunlight behind her head obscures her features. It's only when she speaks that I realise whose small, perfectly-proportioned shoes have come to a halt barely six inches in front of my Doc Martens. 'Well, well. Tim Howden. Long time, no see.'

I raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sun, and finally her face resolves into the once-familiar arrangement of eyes, nose, mouth – that latter, bent at one corner into a wry-looking half-smile. I smile back with as much confidence as I can muster. 'Hey, Lisa. How's it going?'

Half an hour later, I'm still struggling to comprehend the fact that I'm sitting in Starbucks... with Lisa Salt. Even harder to process is just how different she is from the Lisa I knew at school. It's not just physical, either, although the self-assurance with which she now carries herself has no analogue in the awkward teenager I remember. She stretches back in the brown leather tub chair and eyes me appraisingly over her cappuccino. 'I'm really sorry about your parents, by the way. I always liked them. I was going to write, but I wasn't sure where you were living.'

'That's okay.'

'Are you back at your parents' place, now?'

'No. The house wasn't theirs. It was rented. Dad rented everything, on principle. I'm renting my own place now. It's horrible.'

'Oh. Well, I'm glad you're not in a coma, anyway. Or homeless and on crack. Mum couldn't believe it when she ran into old Ma Rolph in town.' Lisa sips her coffee and allows herself a little smile.

I glance at the soft leather satchel now resting against her leg. 'And what is it you do, again?'

'I'm in bonds.'

'Jeremy would like that.' I regret saying it even before the words leave my lips. We're not really on friendly enough terms, yet, and double entendres hardly seem appropriate given the manner of our parting. 'Sorry.'

'It's okay.' She rearranges herself in the chair. 'So I hear young Jez is having a fine time down in London? My sister's boyfriend hangs around with Lenny Jones, so she gets all the gossip from the Ox.'

'Well, it depends what you've heard.'

'Something about Jez having his evil way with the receptionist at your hotel. All sorts of lurid tales. Apparently she's very... erm... keen.'

My stomach lurches. It's true, then – Jeremy and Claire. Even Whitby is rife with tales of their unrestrained shagging. 'I really don't know. Seeing anyone yourself?'

'No one special. Not for quite a while. Too busy at work. I've got a whole department to run.' She smiles again and leans forward conspiratorially. 'Just between the two of us, I'm doing rather well. All your fault, of course.'

'How so?'

'Well, if you hadn't dumped me – very callously, I may add – then I'd never spent so much time revising for my A' levels. And if I hadn't wanted to avoid running into you in Whitby at the end of my first year at uni, I'd never have applied for an internship at the bank. And after two summer holidays' worth of work experience, they offered me a fast-track management traineeship. Turned out I had quite a head for figures.'

I put my coffee down, stunned. 'You didn't come home for the holidays because you were avoiding me?'

'Well, you and Sarah Benson.'

'Seriously?'

She laughs. 'Yes, seriously. I was devastated when you dumped me. I mean, looking back, I shouldn't have gone out with you in the first place. Deep down, I knew what you thought about me. That I was ridiculous. You and Jeremy thought I was a joke. But I just wanted you. I loved you, you see.'

It's the matter-of-factness in her voice that makes me feel so guilty. 'I'm so sorry.'

'You should be. You treated me like shit.' For a moment, Lisa's expression is unfathomable, and then she smiles again and drains her coffee. 'But it doesn't matter now. It's all worked out for the best. And you're still in love with Sarah, right?' I nod, mutely. 'Even if there's a few issues you need to address. Like where she lives. Let's hope it's not in Tooting, eh?' Lisa gathers up her things, and leans forward to kiss me goodbye. For a moment, I can feel the warmth of her cheek pressed against mine, and then it's gone. Lisa glances at her watch, and hurriedly takes an iPhone from her bag. 'I've got to go, but we should catch up properly. What's your number?'

I give her the Happi-Lodge number. 'It's room 51, or you can leave a message with Claire or Tara if I'm out.'

'Haven't you got a mobile?'

I really don't want to remind Lisa about my fears regarding mobile phones and the damage I firmly believe that owning one would inflict upon my testicles. She's one of the very few people who's intimately acquainted with them. 'Not a big fan.'

Lisa smiles again and extracts a business card from an inside pocket. 'Keep in touch, Tim.'

So. Claire's 'very keen', is she? Clearly more has been taking place in her bathtub than just a little light scrubbing with the loofah, then – and I can't deny that part of me, a tiny, shameful part of me, wants to punish Claire for failing to see beyond Jeremy's transparent charms. You could always blame Jeremy, of course, but he's only doing what the disembodied spirit of Phil Lynott tells him to do. Claire should have more sense. And yes, part of me wants to punish Claire for... well, her keenness. I find myself shivering at the mere thought of the word, and perform a final circuit of the Happi-Lodge car park, bracing myself for the moment I pass through the sliding double doors and into the warm, brightly-lit foyer. Claire's clearly visible from out here, her face radiant with silent animation as she talks on the phone. To whom? Jeremy, probably. Arranging my features into a mask of studied nonchalance, I saunter into the foyer and approach the Reception desk. Claire puts down the phone and smiles at me. And, in a split second, all my bitterness evaporates.

'Hello.'

'Hello, you.'

'Sorry I wasn't there when you came out of hospital.'

'Sorry you didn't find Sarah in King's Cross.'

'Sorry I'm such a colossal knobhead.'

'Sorry we're evicting you in two days' time. Knobhead.'

Claire comes round the front of the Reception desk – with quite a pronounced limp, I notice – and for a minute, we just hold each other. I only begin breaking away when thoughts of Jeremy, who must have held Claire dozens of times, begin intruding on Our Moment. 'How's the leg?'

Claire shrugs. I'm quite pleased that I haven't completely let go of her yet, because having someone shrug against you is a very pleasant sensation. 'Not too bad, now the dressing's off. How's yourself?'

For a second, I try thinking of any response that might make Claire shrug again – or, possibly, perform some manner of gentle, squirming motion. Nothing, alas, springs to mind. 'Champion. You'll never guess who I ran into today, though.'

Claire stiffens ever so slightly (it's not nearly such a nice feeling as when she was shrugging), and steps back behind the Reception desk. 'It wasn't Sarah, was it?'

'Weirder.'

'That bloke who tried showing you his willy in Leicester Square?'

'Weirder still.'

'Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, the original Odd Couple?'

'Not quite so weird. But you're in the right 'weirdie' ballpark.' I lean over the desk for conspiratorial emphasis. 'Lisa Salt.'

For a second, Claire looks stupefied. Not quite stunned, I'd have to say – not the way that I was stunned when I saw Lisa this morning – but... well, stupefied. After a moment, she speaks. 'Wow. Your old girlfriend. Was it a cordial reunion?'

'Totally. I had a really good time, actually.'

'And what's she doing now?'

'Something in a bank. Massively high-powered. Earns wads of cash. She's a totally different person from school.'

'Uh-huh?'

'Totally different. In fact, I didn't recognise her at first. She's become quite the looker.' Claire doesn't respond – although she's finally had the good grace to look just slightly stunned – so I seize the opportunity to press on with my revelation. 'Weirdest of all, she's heard all about you.'

'Me?'

'Aye. Apparently Jeremy's mentioned you in the Fat Ox.' I try saying it as airily as possible, but I think that Claire can detect a hint of the moist, sweaty subtext.

'What did Jeremy say?'

'Oh, you know.' I try hard not to think about the word 'keen', but every time I manage to evict it from my mind, it's replaced by a hideous vision of Jeremy, bouncing merrily away on top of an ecstatic-looking Claire. Bounce, bounce, bounce – keen, keen, keen. My smile, when I finally coax it on to my face, probably looks a bit wan. 'Stuff. Nice stuff, I'm sure.'

'Oh. Gosh. Small world, eh?'

'Small world.'

london bridge

Everything I was ever taught in school has turned out to be untrue. This is my bitter realisation having spent ten minutes wandering around London Bridge. Actually, quite a lot of things we learned might have had some basis in fact, but they're not important right now. What's important is that one of the core lynchpins of my education has just been decimated. I need to phone Jeremy; I need to phone him now.

'Jez?'

'Ah. Timothy.' He sounds terrible, hungover. He was probably asleep until ten seconds ago. 'You're sounding a bit stressed, there, mate.'

'I am, Jez. There's something I need to ask you, and I want you to think very carefully before answering. It's about primary school.'

'Uh-huh.'

'About that project we did for Miss Richardson, on London Bridge.'

'Yeah, yeah. I remember.'

'Ah, yes, Jez – but what do you remember? About London Bridge, that is?'

A cigarette is lit, and I can almost feel my ear being drawn into the receiver as Jeremy tugs deeply upon it. 'Well, kid, it's a while ago. Might be sketchy.'

'Doesn't matter. Just give me the basics.'

'Right. Okay.' Another deep inhalation. 'Well, I remember that it had loads of buildings on it. Houses and shops and that, all leaning out over the river, so they could chuck out their chamber pots. We did a big wall display.' I'm relieved to hear him say it – I remember the wall display vividly. 'And on my bit, I had someone emptying their toilet out the window. And I got told off for it. So I had to pretend it was pea soup instead. Pea soup that'd gone manky.'

'Anything else?'

'Yeah. We did a model, too. Everyone put their own building on the bridge. And you made a hat shop, because you'd got a really gay-looking leather cap for your birthday, which you were totally obsessed with. And we all called you a gaylord, but you didn't mind because you didn't know what it meant.' Jeremy chuckles quietly to himself. 'Fine times.'

'But what happened to the bridge, Jez? In real life?'

'Well, it got flogged to some mad American billionaire, didn't it? But because he was American, and not especially bright, he thought he was getting Tower Bridge. And he took it, brick by brick, over to Arizona or somewhere, where he rebuilt it as a tourist attraction. And everyone told him he was mental, but he told them to sod off and mind their own business, and eventually loads of people started going to see it and he made even more money.'

I'm so relieved. I'd thought I was going off my chump. 'So, let me just check, here – as far as you know, where exactly is London Bridge now?'

'Arizona. Miss Richardson told us.'

'And what'd you expect to find at London Bridge Tube station, then? Bridge-wise?'

I can almost hear Jeremy frown at the other end of the line. 'Well, nothing, mate. Because it's in Arizona, isn't it?'

'Right, right.' I know I should tell him about my discovery – my awful, awful discovery – but he seems so proud to have remembered so much. 'Sorry for waking you up.'

'No probs. Always good to chew the fat about the old days. Oh – and take care now that you're in south London, yeah? It's jungle law down there. A bit like Wakefield. Aye, they're a wily bunch of sods, south of the river.'

He's not wrong, I reflect, putting the phone down – they're wily enough to have nicked another bridge to replace the one they flogged to the Yanks. I head out of the station, and back up to the main road for another look at the supposedly non-existent bridge and yes, there it is, bristling with buses, with motorcycle couriers and black cabs blithely trundling across it. And then I look around me, assessing the people, these south Londoners who surround me. They look normal enough – cold, depressed, morally void – but then they would, wouldn't they? I've met south Londoners before. I've had experiences with the residents of Tooting. A wily bunch of sods, indeed.

I consider the wily nature of the south Londoner as I pursue my afternoon's business – the absolutely vital business that I can't avoid any longer. The business of... finding another hotel. Aye – I need to find another hotel today. If I don't, I'll be homeless by Friday night – forced on to the streets by some mortgage advisors from Didcot.

Fortunately, there are quite a few hotels nearby. No Happi-Lodge, alas, but there's a Hilton at Tower Bridge, a Mercure, the London Bridge Hotel, a Novotel, the Southwark Rose Hotel, a Holiday Inn Express... all within trotting distance of London Bridge station. One of them should be able to meet my requirements, surely? After all, I just need a place to rest my head, a civil welcome and a few modest creature comforts – nothing more. I take my A-Z from my rucksack and, list in hand, head off in search of a couple of nights' budget accommodation... in south London. How hard can it be?

The G****n P***a Hotel

I'm already liking this place. It's a bit more expensive than the Happi-Lodge, but still affordable, and it's less than three hundred yards from a variety of fast food outlets (fish and chips, a kebab shop and a curry house). It's hardly the Ritz, of course, and the surly git behind the Reception desk clearly isn't Claire, but it's ticked lots of the essential boxes and I've only got a couple more questions to ask before sealing the deal. And so I smile at Mr Surly Git, who's just come off the phone, my pencil poised above my notepad. 'Well, we're nearly there. I'd just like you to go through the breakfast options with me, please.'

'Well, you can either have a full English, the continental or – if you prefer to eat in your bedroom – the breakfast box.' He indicates a slightly dog-eared cardboard sign hanging above the desk. 'It's twelve pounds, whichever option you choose.'

I crane upwards to read the small print. 'Continental?'

'Yes. A croissant, a pain au chocolat, a hot beverage and a glass of fruit juice.'

'So, I can have croissants. Good.' I tick the final point on my list, and stow my notepad back in my pocket. 'That's all I needed to know.'

'Right. Except it's not really croissants. It's more like one croissant, singular.'

'And what if I wanted more?' Where's that bloody notepad?

He shrugs. 'How many more?'

'I don't know. Four or five? Maybe more. It sets you up for the day, a decent breakfast.'

'If you wanted four or five croissants, you'd have to buy four or five breakfasts. Sir.'

I try scribbling the figures into my notepad, but my biro's given up the ghost. 'And how much would that cost me? If I let you keep the fruit juice?'

'Twelve pounds per breakfast.'

I attempt to do the maths in my head, but the numbers keep getting obscured by dancing fragments of soft, flaky pastry. Very expensive pastry. Wily south Londoners – forewarned is forearmed.

The M*****e G***d Hotel

I was getting an iffy vibe from this place even before I crossed the threshold, and even though their breakfast policy seems reasonable, there are still a few niggling issues that need ironing out. I fix the receptionist with my steeliest gaze and press on with my interrogation. 'So what you're essentially saying is that you've no twin rooms at all?'

'Just doubles, sir.' He appears to be breathing through his teeth, in between sentences. 'With one bed.'

'And would there be any possibility of getting an additional, smaller bed into one of the rooms?'

'I'm not sure I'm following you.'

'Well, what'd happen if someone visited me? Could they stay in my room?'

He shrugs and sucks on his teeth again. I really don't care for his attitude. 'Someone like your partner?'

'Partner?'

'Girlfriend' – suck, suck – 'or wife, perhaps.'

I consider Jeremy's role in my life – the moments we've shared; the laughter, the tears. 'Not really my wife, per se. More like a mate.'

'And what might be the purpose of this' – suck – 'mate's visit?'

I sigh inwardly. There's generally little point in sugaring the pill where Jeremy's concerned; most people generally appreciate a little advance warning of the Shagfinder's little quirks and peculiarities. 'He's got a court appearance coming up for Actual Bodily Harm.'

'No.' He backs an inch or so away from the desk. The sucking, I notice, has stopped. 'No, I don't think so.'

The A*******s Hotel

This is getting a bit desperate. I mustn't let my feelings show, though – that's been the problem in the previous places. I just need the facts – a general impression of the place. A simple Tim/hotel compatibility test. I scratch my chin and try a different tack. 'Well, would you describe it as a... a lively sort of a hotel?'

'I'm sorry, dear?'

She's such a sweet old lady. Despite the fact she's a south Londoner, I think you'd have to say that if either of us was a wily sod, it'd probably be me. Best be honest, then – the honour of the north rests on my shoulders. 'Well, put it this way – is it the sort of hotel where the other guests might object to something of a 'party' atmosphere?'

'A party atmosphere?'

'Yes. You know – drinking. Smoking. Loud music. The occasional bang in the middle of the night. Maybe the fire alarm going off. That sort of thing.'

She backs wordlessly towards the door.

The S******n Hotel

There's something about her that almost – almost – reminds me of Claire. I mean, she doesn't seem particularly friendly, or clever, or funny, or even particularly nice... but they're around the same age, and height, and she's even got a slight hint of Claire's Scottish accent. It's clearly a sign.

Yes – it's finally occurred to me what I need in a hotel; what's made the last seven weeks at the Happi-Lodge bearable – Claire, Claire, Claire. I need someone who can do the things Claire does, who can say the things Claire says, who can give me the things Claire gives me – even if it's only for a long weekend. I put on my most open, friendly face and ask the question – the only question that really matters. 'If I took the room, do you think you'd be available for little chats, if I needed them?'

'You what?'

'Little chats. Me and you. In the evenings. If I got lonely.'

'Fuck off.'

The Happi-Lodge, Edgware

Claire can barely believe what I'm telling her. 'You honestly thought London Bridge simply didn't exist? That some American squillionaire had just wandered off with the old one, and no one'd bothered to replace it?'

'I don't know. Maybe. We'd spent so long doing London Bridge at primary school, I assumed we'd been given the salient facts. Was it too much to expect from the education system?'

'Well, it was a system that let Jeremy get away with drawing someone emptying a toilet out of a window,' says Claire, getting up from her seat and reaching for her coat. 'So, now you're au fait with the customs and rituals of south London, have you fixed yourself up with another hotel for tomorrow night? Are you all set to pay up and look big?'

I smile as bravely as I can. 'Oh yes,' I lie. 'No worries. No problem at all.'
borough

Honestly, I don't think I appreciated the seriousness of my situation until I closed the door of room 51 behind me last night. Since arriving in Edgware, I've just acquired so much stuff – books, a ukulele, a family-sized George Foreman grill, sackloads of secondhand vinyl – stuff that, like me, will be effectively homeless within a matter of hours.

I'm still a bit edgy now, actually, although mostly about the bill I'll be getting when I check out of the Happi-Lodge tonight. I've still no idea how much it'll be. The cost of my room will be in the low thousands, of course – but then there's the phone calls, the midnight club sandwiches from room service, the cost of a new Corby trouser press (I told Jeremy you couldn't warm up pizza in it – but would he listen?). God, how it'll all add up. And however much it adds up to – well, I'm pretty confident I won't be able to pay it.

I'm not even sure how much money I've got. We Howdens are a bit like the aristocracy – we reckon that knowing your bank balance is just a bit... well, vulgar. My parents had bugger all, as it turned out. And I've spent most of my meagre inheritance while I've been down here, looking for Sarah. I just never thought finding her would take so long.

Nearly two months – that's how long I've been at the Happi-Lodge. Two months. And I don't even want to think about what the Happi-Corporation does to you if you can't settle your bill. I've a horrible suspicion that it might involve things like writs and bailiffs and small, incriminating articles in the Whitby Gazette.

Whatever happens, it's obvious I'll have to make financial cutbacks. Economies must be made and here, on the wrong side of the river, is the place to make them. I realise now that I must adopt the ways of the wily south Londoner. I must live by my wits. I must duck, and if necessary dive, in order to make ends meet. And my new 'bargain basement' lifestyle must begin here, in... what's this place? I crane my neck upwards at the sign. Yes, it must start here – in Borough Market.

Or maybe not. Because Borough Market, it turns out, is unlike any other market I've seen – selling the most bizarre, upmarket wares imaginable, and rammed to the gunnels with middle-class punters. What's more, these people are properly middle-class. Wrapped up in their cashmere coats and scarves, they're the kind of middle classes who start riots in restaurants when their Chateau Mouton Rothschild is half a degree too warm; the kind of middle classes that drive German cars to UKIP fund-raisers and have Croatian nannies called Svjetlana; the sort of middle classes who'd think nothing of spending a tenner on a walnut-sized loaf of organic rye bread. Oh yes, they're middle-class all right – and not the 'grateful just to be invited' middle class we've got back home. And so I scuttle between them, trying to avoid eye contact, hoping no one will 'out' me as a social pretender, a country cousin with aspirations above his station.

I manage to glance at the stuff on offer as I scuttle past, though – at the mountainous blocks of parmigiano reggiano, cascading piles of artichokes and asparagus, the guy griddling up ostrich burgers and a stall selling Specialities From Italian Monks and – like some hideous, X-rated outtake from Watership Down – half a dozen rabbits, dangling by their back legs from a wire mesh. Terrifying.

And then something catches my eye – something jaunty and unexpected, high above the heads of the market throng – a cheeky model fisherman, the sort they put in the windows of tourist-y shops back home, leering down insanely from the back of a wet fish stall. He's togged up in proper nautical gear and clutching a ship's wheel, and standing next to a small blackboard upon which the following words are boldly emblazoned: INSHORE WHITBY DAY BOAT. My heart leaps.

I approach the counter. 'So, it's fresh from Whitby, then, your fish?'

The fishmonger, a stocky chap in a stripy apron, regards me with evident respect. He's clearly registered the Yorkshire accent. 'That's right. We get most of our cod, haddock and turbot from up north. The turbot and lemon sole are fresh down from Whitby this morning. So's the mackerel.'

I smile at it approvingly. 'Whitby fish.' I imagine a giant mackerel propping up the bar of the Fat Ox, a pint of bitter clasped in one fin, regaling the regulars with tales of its undersea adventures. 'Proper Whitby fish.'

It's a second before the fish man breaks into my reverie. 'Well, it was landed in Whitby. It didn't actually live there.'

I've no idea why he's telling me this, trifling with our embryonic friendship. I mean, obviously the fish didn't live in Whitby – that'd be ridiculous – but it'd clearly wanted to hang out around Whitby, hadn't it? It had evidently, at some point in its brief piscine existence, fallen prey to Whitby's indefinable allure – as opposed to, say, Reykjavik or Gdansk, or somewhere like that. 'Still, this is the real deal, fish-wise.'

'It's fresh, if that's what you mean.'

'Mm. Lovely fresh Whitby fish.' I nod in the direction of the stall selling ostrich burgers – the most alarming southern affectation I've yet come across – then back to the fish. 'Nothing pretentious about this at all.'

The fishmonger now looks, I notice, mildly anxious – but he nods in a kindly way and smiles. 'Quite right, sir. Quite right.' His casts a hand over his mound of salty corpses. 'And what is it you're after?' For a moment, his question stumps me. We were talking about the innate superiority of all things northern, weren't we? 'I've got a lovely bit of lemon sole.'

'Have you? Oh, well. Good.' My eyes flit over his fishy wares, trying to pick it out. It'll be yellow, I assume. Lemon-y. 'I'll have a bit of that, then.'

'Certainly. How much would you like?'

'Erm... couple of kilos?'

'Two kilos?'

His tone worries me. It worries me a lot. 'Erm, yes?' Oh God. This is Sarah's deli counter all over again, isn't it? The Olive Incident. I hope he doesn't invite me back to his parents' place for a drunken fumble.

'Right.' He hauls a mighty handful of wide, flat fish from the bed of crushed ice and drops it on the scales. 'That'll be thirty-two pounds and sixty pence, then, please.'

Oh God.

Claire notices the smell straight away, of course – you can tell by the way her eyes begin watering – but given that she's about to present me with my bill for seven weeks' residency at the Happi-Lodge, she's too diplomatic to mention it. That, or she just assumes it's the smell of fear. After all, it's going to be a truly massive bill. I lean over the Reception desk to see whether I can glimpse the figures on the monitor. 'What's the damage, then?'

'You don't want to know.'

She's right. I don't. 'Is it bad?'

'Well, it's a lot. The biggest bill I've seen, actually... by, ooh, about eighteen hundred quid.'

'Really? Shit.' My heart's racing, now. 'How much is it?'

'Three thousand five hundred and ninety-eight pounds.' Claire swivels the monitor round so I can see it in figures. Then, noticing that the blood's drained from my face, she swiftly swivels it back again.

'I don't think I've got... however much it was.'

'Hm.'

'Actually, I don't think I've got very much at all. It's all Jeremy's fault. If only he'd remembered to sign on for me, back home...'

A glance from Claire silences me. She taps away at her keyboard, gently humming under her breath. Then she speaks. 'Well, Tim, it seems we've got a problem.'

'Yes we do.'

'And since you appear to lack the requisite funds to pay your bill, I can only think of one way to solve it.' Claire inserts the tip of her biro between her teeth, surreptitiously glances left and right, then fixes me with unblinking eyes.

For a second, I almost kid myself that I can tell where this is heading. There's no way Claire's actually asking me to settle my bill in the form of... personal services, is she? Is this the corrupting effect that London has on well brought-up Glaswegian girls? And if it is... well, I'm not sure I could reasonably turn her down – not when you consider the alternative, anyway. And Sarah couldn't really object – given that I'd be doing it to save our relationship. 'What I'm about to do for you I have never, ever done for anyone else.'

'Okay.'

'And the only reason I'm doing it for you, Tim Howden, is because I like you, and because I think you're a sweet and strangely noble person. I'm also doing it because I'm about to leave the country and – fingers crossed – no one will ever find out.' Claire looks at me with a mixture of compassion and sternness which makes me realise that I am, at this very moment, fully prepared to be debauched – making what she says next quite surprising. 'Right then, Tim. Concentrate. As a point of Happi-Lodge policy, I'm obliged to ask to you the following question on your day of departure, but' – and here she regards me with her very flintiest expression – 'I want you to think about your answer very, very carefully.'

'I understand.' I don't understand at all. Has this got anything to do with personal services? 'At least I think I do.'

'Good. Now then – firstly – have you enjoyed your stay at the Happi-Lodge? Think carefully, Tim. Carefully.' Claire is very deliberately shaking her head at me, and finally her scheme – a scheme that won't involve me becoming Claire's private one-on-one gigolo – becomes clear. 'So. Have you enjoyed your time as a Happi-Lodge guest?'

'Ah. Erm... no? No. No, I don't think I have.'

Claire smiles. 'Good man. So what specific problems have you encountered during your stay?'

'Well, there's been... erm... oh, the cockroaches.'

Claire's eyebrows twitch. 'Cockroaches? Why, that's terrible.'

'Yes, cockroaches – big as cats, some of them. They've been a bit of a bugger.'

'And how long have cockroaches been an issue?'

'Pretty much since I arrived.'

'So. Every night of your stay in the Happi-Lodge, you've been beset by cockroaches.'

'Uh-huh.'

Claire types vigorously into her computer. 'And have there been any other problems?'

'God, yes. I should say so.'

'Like?'

'Subsidence.'

'Subsidence?'

'Oh, it's been hell. The whole room's on a thirty degree angle. I have to climb up a one-in-three hill every time I go to the bathroom.'

'How awful.' Claire types into her computer. 'Anything else?'

'Just one thing, yes. I've reason to believe this Happi-Lodge may have been built on the site of an ancient abattoir.'

'An abattoir?'

'Yes, an abattoir. A slaughterhouse.'

'And why do you believe this?'

'Because herds of spectral cattle stampede through my bedroom every night. I don't mind the cattle per se – in fact, I quite enjoy the company – but I must admit that the constant mooing tends to keep me awake.' I lean forward to see what Claire's typing into her computer and, sure enough, I can just about make out the words 'spectral cattle' and 'mooing' on the screen. Claire smiles. I smile too.

'And are you a Happi-Lodge Friend?'

'Erm... I'm your friend. Does that count?'

'Alas, our own degree of intimacy is neither here nor there. Are you a member of our corporate loyalty programme?'

'Erm... no.'

'Well, let me ask you another question. Do you feel loyal?'

'God, yes. Really, really loyal. In spite of the spectral cattle.'

Claire returns to her computer. 'That's close enough. And have you, at any time during your stay, availed yourself of either the cripplingly expensive contents of the minibar, or the extortionately priced breakfast buffet? I urge you to consider the potentially devastating consequences of your answer.'

I feel worse lying about the croissants than the non-existent cows, although I've no idea why. 'No. No breakfasts, no booze.'

Claire taps away at the 'delete' key for what seems like an eternity – then visibly stiffens. Her eyes have come to rest on something only she can see. Something that seems to knock the jocularity out of her voice. 'And finally, Mr Howden, can I confirm that you've only utilised the Happi-Lodge's pay-per-view adult entertainment service once?'

'Adult what?'

'Entertainment service. On your television. Films and suchlike.'

'Adult films? What, porn? Erm... no. No, I don't think so.'

'On Saturday 4th October.'

'Doesn't ring a bell.'

'Shortly after midnight.'

'Erm... no. I really don't think so.'

'Anals With Dirty Faces.'

Suddenly realisation hits me. 'Christ, no, that was Jeremy. He wanted to watch it. He'd really liked Anal of Harlem, but apparently Dirty Faces was pretty much the same. Highly derivative, he said.'

Claire stares at me. 'As a representative of the Happi-Corporation, I must insist your complete honesty on this point. Otherwise your case for compensation will become, in every way, null and void. I'll also think less of you as a person, which is far more important.'

'It was Jeremy. Honest.'

And then the voice – the happy voice – the trusting, kind, money-off-my-bill voice – is back. 'Well, I'm pleased to inform you, on behalf of Happi-Corporation, that I'm able to arrange a discretionary reduction to your final bill. Let's have a look at the computer. Gosh. Look at that. It's just gone down to four hundred and fifty-eight pounds.' She turns the monitor to face me again.

'Thanks, Claire.'

'Have you got four hundred and fifty-eight pounds?'

'I don't know. You'd better try my card.' I rootle through my wallet for the terrified rectangle of plastic, and hand it to Claire.

She turns off her monitor. 'So, Tim. Now you're leaving us – temporarily, I trust – where were you planning on staying? The Ritz? The Dorchester?'

'Well... I was hoping I could spend a couple of nights at your place, actually.' I smile as winningly as I can. 'I've got us a lovely bit of lemon sole for supper.'

elephant & castle

'The Elephant? It's basically just a bloody big roundabout. You might as well not go. There's no way Sarah lives there.' Claire gazes at me over her tea mug. She's still in bed, knees pulled up to her chest beneath the duvet. Her room smells indefinably of something soft, drowsy and comforting, and even from the doorway, five yards from the epicentre of its sleepy fug, I can sense the gravitational pull of a warm bed. It's chilly, standing on the threshold, and I feel a breeze around my ankles as the warm air snakes out of the room and into the hall. 'Seriously. You'd be better off getting another couple of hours' kip, then watching Judge Judy with me on the sofa. Seb was DJ-ing last night – he won't be up till teatime. And Sarah's more likely to be on Judge Judy than living in Elephant and Castle. Lovely warm sofa. Lovely tea and biscuits. Mm?'

'I can't, mate. You know that.'

Claire sighs. 'Well, Casanova. If you're leaving, you'd better just go ahead and do it. Go on. Off with you.'

'I've straightened out the blankets on the sofa.'

'I'll see you back at the Happi-Lodge, then.' Claire throws the duvet over her head.

She's right, of course. Elephant and Castle is a bloody big roundabout – a desolate concrete sprawl of roads, underpasses and vast, brutal buildings. It's also a jarring shock to the system after a weekend of slouching around London with Claire. She'd managed to get Tara to cover both days at the Happi-Lodge, and on Saturday morning she took me to Camden Passage in Islington. 'Pre-emptive Christmas shopping,' she'd declared, hauling me into the happy mêlée of antique dealers, bargain hunters and drifting Islington itinerants. Later we'd hopped on an 83 bus and pottered round the Oxfam record shop in Ealing, then back to see The Skin I Live In at the Phoenix in East Finchley. Claire'd spent most the film with her hand hovering just below eye level, 'to keep the subtitles covered up. I need to practice my Spanish so I'm ready for Barcelona.' Then on Sunday, we'd gone for a couple lunchtime Estrellas in Bradley's, then on foot to the Barbican for the Rude Mechanicals gig.

It was the best night out I'd had since I came to London. The Rudies rocked. I don't know if they were, strictly speaking, jazz – not with all the banshee wails and lyrics about stolen jumpers and mice who are secretly aliens – but Claire loved them. She loved the support act, too – a guitar-playing lad called Nick Rosenthal, who'd sung wistful, clever little songs of heartbreak and despair.

It was a relief, though, that Miss Roberts, the Rudies' chanteuse – a scary-looking goth with a peroxide Eraserhead 'do' – didn't sing anything you could slow-dance to. It just made things simpler, particularly after all the weirdness at the Mötley Crüe gig. Not that I think anything similar could ever happen again. Claire and me... well, we've both moved on, emotionally. I think we now know what's really important about our friendship – and Claire's 'very keen' scenario with Jeremy has actually helped clarify matters. And I'm very happy for the two of them – I really am.

I can see why the whole 'being friends with lasses' situation doesn't happen much, though. You can lose a lot of sleep when you're mates with a pretty lass. And the sleep you do get – well, that can be a bit wobbly, too.

Still, I don't think it's wrong to enjoy spending time alone with Claire. As friends. The very best bits of the weekend were when we were by ourselves, actually. Both mornings, Claire had joined me on the sofa with toast and coffee, pulling the duvet behind her from the bedroom and draping it over the two of us. And if there's anything easier on the eye than a pretty lass padding round in just an oversized t-shirt and her pants, I'd like to know what it is. I'd tried to avoid glancing at Claire's bare legs as she emerged from the kitchen bearing mugs and plates, but I think she caught me at least once. 'Time to get dressed,' she'd smiled, disappearing into her bedroom and closing the door behind her.

kennington

I cultivate a harmless little daydream on my journey down to Kennington. It begins as the germ of an idea as the train crawls into Golders Green, and by the time I'm hurtling under Hampstead Heath it's grown into a full-blown scenario, rendered increasingly vivid and plausible in my imagination as my destination grows closer. It involves an elderly Japanese couple on holiday in London.

In my little fantasy, I'm standing outside Kennington station, minding my own business, when a Japanese man – let's call him Mr Nakatomi – approaches me. He is short (naturally), wears a beige checked jacket with gargantuan lapels, and is weighed down by a colossal camera. He looks like an oriental Ronnie Corbett, and – again, in my fantasy – he has a jaunty walk and the implausibly polite manners of a 1950's diplomat.

'Hello,' he says, bowing deeply, 'please to tell me where is Natural Historical Museum? Big dinosaur!' Then, unbidden, he proceeds to dance a little jig, perhaps indicating his belief that once inside the Natural History Museum, it's actually possible to ride the big dinosaur.

I return the bow. 'Ah, yes,' I say, speaking slowly and clearly. 'The Natural History Museum. It's in South Kensington.'

Mr Nakatomi gazes around, blinking, as though by thus clearing his vision he expects the naughty, errant museum to pop into view. He clearly has very poor eyesight, bless him – it's becoming apparent that despite having glasses the thickness of a Kitkat, he can't focus on anything more than three or four yards away – and is now evidently struggling with the notion that he and Mrs Nakatomi may be in the wrong place. He hands perform a series of small but precise movements; emotions play across his features. Like a one-man kabuki theatre, Mr Nakatomi seems intent on distilling the entirety of all human experience into a sequence of stylised motions and gestures; gestures of profound existential angst, gestures of despair, gestures expressing the futility of all human endeavour and finally – his fingers spreading beneath his chin like a opening bud – a gesture of wondrous, childlike optimism. At length, clearly exhausted, he speaks. 'Is Kensington, yes?'

'No. This is Kennington. Not Kensington.'

In my imagination he now cocks his head quizzically at me. Then a wide smile lights up his whole face. 'Yes, yes! Kensington! Very good! Natural Historical Museum – very good! Big dinosaur! Yes!'

I smile back indulgently. 'No, this isn't Kensington, you see – it's Kennington. Look – they're spelt differently.' And here I gently take his A-Z, point to South Kensington on the Tube map, and then to the sign for Kennington station above our heads. 'Kensington, Kennington. Kensington, Kennington. See?'

Finally realisation dawns. Mr Nakatomi's eyes twinkle like twin suns rising and he scampers over to his wife, jabbering madly and flapping the pages of his A-Z under her nose.

In the minutes that follow, we laugh. We cry. Mr Nakatomi takes my photograph, and I his. Then his wife takes one of both of us. We exchange addresses and telephone numbers and promise to look each other up if we're ever in town. I vow to name my unborn children after the two of them. Finally, Mr and Mrs Nakatomi retreat into the Tube station, still dancing their little jig; smiling, waving and bowing.

It's a delightful little scenario and thinking about it, reinventing it, altering little details here and there, keeps me mentally occupied all the way down to Charing Cross. In fact, it's only when my train pulls into Waterloo that I first entertain the possibility that I have – entirely inadvertently – become a colossal racist, and I spend the remaining five minutes before arriving at the 'real' Kennington wracked by guilt at having been entertained by such a monstrous parade of stereotypes. Even as the lift rockets me back to surface level, I find myself desperately trying to think of positive Japanese role models. Only Yoko Ono and the bloke who plays 'Tiger' Tanaka in You Only Live Twice spring to mind, and I can't remember his real name. Come to think of it, I'm not a massive Yoko Ono fan, either.

Oh God. I'm becoming a racist.

'You went where, mate?'

'The Natural History Museum.'

'That's what I thought you said. Why, exactly?'

'To see the big dinosaur.'

I hear Jeremy light a cigarette at the other end of the line. 'Any particular reason?'

I close my eyes. There, in the darkness of my mind's eye, is Mr Nakatomi – still dancing his deranged little jig. 'I don't know. I think I might be cracking up a bit. I'm under a lot of stress. I don't think I can cope any more.'

'Well, you're only half a dozen stations from Tooting, aren't you? And still no Sarah.'

'Mm.'

'You should talk to Claire. She'll sort your head out for you.'

I wince. Mr Nakatomi has only been half the problem today. The rest of it the time, it's been Claire dancing in my mind's eye – and not the same kind of dance as Mr Nakatomi. Not the same kind of dance at all. 'Actually, mate, I wanted to talk to you about Claire.'

'Aye?'

'Mm. Well, when I got back to the Happi-Lodge tonight, she said she was coming with me tomorrow. To Oval station. Only she wouldn't tell me why.'

'Intriguing.'

I feel terrible, telling Jeremy this – particularly given the way he feels about Claire. Then again, if he speaks to Claire as often as I think he does, he probably knows already – and he's the only person I can really talk to. My best friend. 'Right, right. All she'd say was that there was something she'd wanted to do before leaving London, that she wanted to do it with me, and that Oval would be as good a place as any.'

There's a pause at the other end of the line. 'Bloody hell, mate.'

'I'm a bit worried it might have something to do with cricket.'

oval

'In the film, her actual name's Yolanda.'

Claire stirs her hot chocolate and frowns. 'I thought she was called Honeybunny. Tim Roth always calls her Honeybunny.'

'Ah, yes, at the start of the film she's Honeybunny. But at the end, when John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson are there – and there's all the business with the wallets and the binbag – we find out she's really called Yolanda.'

'Right.' Claire looks nonplussed. She's grown attached to the whole 'Honeybunny' thing over the past ten minutes or so. She even did comedy 'bunny ears' with her hands a couple of minutes ago, to the delight of the Madeira Star Café's other clients. 'So if I'm supposed to be Yolanda, who are you?'

'I'm not sure. Amanda Plummer – who plays your character – just calls him Pumpkin.'

'All the way through? Even at the end?'

'I think so.' I lower my voice and lean forwards. After all, this is Kennington, not LA. 'It could be worse, mind. She calls everyone else a prick or a motherfucker.'

'Nice. But I still don't think I could get away with calling you Pumpkin, even if that is his name in the film. Not in front of strangers.'

'Samuel L Jackson calls him Ringo a couple of times.'

'Ringo?'

'Maybe it's because he's English or something.'

Claire wrinkles her nose in contempt. 'That's almost as bad as Pumpkin. You could always just be Tim. After Tim Roth.'

'I can't be Tim. Tim's my real name. It totally defeats the object of doing it under an assumed identity if I go in as Tim.' I attempt to recompose my features so I look just fractionally more like a Bad Motherfucker. 'You'll have to call me Ringo. Although you can still call me Pumpkin when we're by ourselves, if you want.'

'Okay, Pumpkin. Anything you say, Pumpkin.' Claire pulls an imaginary pistol from an imaginary holster, holding it just below the level of the table where only I can see it. 'I love you, Pumpkin.' Oh yes - very Amanda Plummer.

'I love you too, Honeybunny. And if any of those fucking estate agents give you any shit, I'll execute every last motherfucking one of them.'

Claire leans across the table and, very lightly, kisses me on the forehead. 'Thank you, Pumpkin.'

'Hi, I'm Yolanda.'

'And I'm Ringo.'

I hold my hand out for him to shake, but it takes the youthful estate agent a moment to regain his composure in the face of what appears to be an outright fiction. 'Ringo, eh?' Then he takes my hand and pumps it purposefully, as if to compensate for his earlier slack-jawed incredulity. 'You probably get this all the time but that's a really unusual name.'

'My parents were massive Beatles fans, and I was their fourth son.'

He holds on to my hand while he works it out; you can almost see the cogs turning. Maybe I overdid the Scouse accent – who can say? Eventually he smiles, regardless – satisfied, if bewildered. 'Right. Cool. Excellent. Well, you'd better come in and look the place over. I'm Guy, by the way.'

Claire squeezes past him as he holds open the front door. 'Hello, Guy. Good to meet you.'

'Yolanda.' Guy extracts a business card from his inside pocket. 'I operate out of our Kennington office, but you can get hold of me any time on my mobile.'

'Right. Thanks.'

'And this is Hanover Gardens.'

Claire takes my hand and hauls me over the threshold and into the hall, her head craning to absorb every last detail of the ceiling's fiddly-looking cornicing and the stripped-back woodwork. 'It's lovely,' she breathes, her upturned eyes seeking out mine for confirmation. 'Isn't it lovely, Ringo?'

It is, as it happens, a really nice house. 'It's great. Yolanda.'

Guy sweeps past us both and begins climbing the stairs. 'Well, let me give you the once-over, then I'll let you have a little wander by yourselves.' I almost feel this would be an opportune moment to confess everything, to tell him there's really no point showing us round the house since we've neither the means nor the intention to buy it, but then Claire tugs urgently at my sleeve and I find myself drawn into Guy's aftershave-flavoured slipstream.

Three bedrooms, a kitchen and several outrageous lies later, the tour's nearly over. 'It's an up-and-coming area. You're handy for Tesco's, of course, and you've got some lovely shops and cafés on the Kennington Road. You're literally a minute from the Tube, and only two minutes from a really excellent primary school.' Guy gently steers Claire through the door on the top landing, treating her backside to a surreptitious half-leer. 'If you're anticipating the pitter-patter of tiny feet.'

'All in good time, Guy.' This sounds far cooler in my new Scouse accent than it would've done in my normal, stodgy Yorkshire burr. 'All in good time.'

Guy hangs back in the doorway while Claire gazes down into the verdant little square of garden behind the house, and I make a big show of counting the room's electrical sockets.

'So, have you viewed many properties in the area?'

'No, this is the first.' Damn. I wish I'd let Claire answer that one, now – I'd no idea how you say 'first' in Scouse. It came out sounding like the name of a sofabed from the Ikea catalogue. I glare furiously at the decorative arrangement of snot-coloured onyx eggs in the fireplace and tap the chimney breast in a manner which I hope will be interpreted as both purposeful and blisteringly masculine.

Guy relaxes against the door frame and cocks a conspiratorial eyebrow in my direction. Obviously my chimney-fondling has had the desired effect. 'Well, there's been a lot of interest in this place. A lot. They don't hang around, these Georgian terraces. You should snap it up if you're keen, Ringo.' And then, nodding knowingly at the oblivious Claire (who's still gazing into the garden), he winks chummily at me and mouths the words 'She loves it.'

Bloody hell! We've male-bonded – me and Guy – just like that! What would a canny scouser do at a time like this? Maybe just headbutt him playfully on the nose and wrestle him to the ground. I'm in the middle of mentally debating the best hold with which to incapacitate a slippery young estate agent when Claire turns round. 'It's a great room, Guy. And I'm getting really positive vibes about the whole house.' She lowers her eyes momentarily, and for the first time I notice she's toying with something secreted in her left hand. 'Actually, Guy – would you mind doing us a wee favour?' She bites her lip.

'Unbelievable.'

'What?' Claire smiles to herself, leans back on the bench and stretches her legs out.

'Totally unbelievable. That's all I'm saying.' I regard her warily from the corner of my eye. 'I can't believe you didn't tell me you'd brought a disposable camera before you gave it to Guy.'

She pulls the corner off her Tesco egg sandwich and flicks it into the congregation of pigeons who've assembled at our feet. They've been doing fairly well for a damp Wednesday lunchtime, and have evidently raised Claire to the status of a minor pigeon deity. She regards her feathery worshippers fondly and lobs a couple of cheese and onion crisps into their midst. 'If I'd told you about the camera – Pumpkin – you'd never have come with me, would you?'

'Probably not.'

'Well, there you go, then.' She abandons the remainder of her sandwich to Kennington Park's avian luncheon club and seizes my arm.

I glance sideways at Claire, quietly delighted to realise that she can still surprise me. After all, there aren't many people who could persuade a slick young bugger like Guy to take a whole film us mucking about in a complete stranger's million pound townhouse. 'God knows what he'll say to his buddies when he gets back to the office.'

'He'll tell them he's just shown a staggeringly affluent young couple around a very nicely-appointed house, and then took a few helpful snaps of them imagining their new Kennington lifestyle together.'

'In the bath, Claire?'

'In the bath, Honeybunny. And we did have our clothes on.' One of the pigeons has somehow managed to wrest an entire slice of bread from its companions, and flaps triumphantly off over the wall at the back of the Flower Garden. 'Anyway, that was only the last couple of shots on the film. Most of them were fairly sensible.' Claire puts her head on my shoulder and gives my arm a little squeeze. I feel her smile as her cheek presses gently against my neck. 'Thank you for indulging me. And, even though she's not here, my mum thanks you, too.'

'Your mum?'

'She's the reason I bought the disposable camera. So I can go back to Glasgow and show her some pictures of my fantastic London lifestyle, in my swanky house with my wonderful Yorkshire boyfriend, Ringo.'

'Including the one of us together in the bath?'

'I don't see why not.' She squeezes my arm again. 'You're not such a bad-looking bloke, and she's very liberal-minded.'

In the companionable silence that follows, the pigeons devour the last fragments of Claire's lunch and dissipate in search of further bounties. 'How long until we can collect the prints from Tesco, then?'

'About twenty minutes.'

'We should probably go, then. It'll take twenty minutes to get back there.'

We hoist ourselves off the bench and, still arm in arm, make our way towards the park gates. 'There was an interesting gents' toilet, you know. In Tesco.'

Our feet strike half a dozen unison beats upon the asphalt before Claire can resist no longer. 'Am I going to regret asking why the gents' toilet was interesting?'

'It wasn't anything horrible. Just interesting. For a start, they had that weird blue strip-lighting in there.'

'I've seen that. In pubs, mostly.'

'Jeremy reckons it's meant to stop heroin addicts finding a vein. That wasn't the weirdest thing, though. The really odd thing was the vending machine selling Trojan condoms. Condoms which they also, presumably, sell in the main bit of the shop. I mean – why sell them in the toilets? It's not like you go to Tesco's on the pull, is it?'

'Just gets curiouser and curiouser, doesn't it?' Claire presses the button on the pedestrian crossing and turns to face me, her expression unreadable. 'Did you get any, then?'

'Condoms? God, no.' I stare straight ahead, appalled and thrilled in equal measure at Claire's boldness. 'Certainly not. Should I?'

'Well, you've only half a dozen more stations before Morden. You're bound to run into Sarah at one of them, aren't you?'

'I suppose.'

To be frank, I feel oddly queasy that Sarah should so suddenly materialise in the midst of our conversation. There's no reason why I should, though – it's not as if I haven't discussed Sarah with Claire dozens of times before. Maybe it's the Tesco coronation chicken sandwich I've just eaten. I've never got on with coronation chicken. Sarah used to hold very forthright views on the smell, for a start. 'Although I can't imagine we'll be leaping into bed, the moment we clap eyes on each other.'

Claire gives my arm a little squeeze. 'What's so special about Trojan condoms, then?'

'Erm... don't know, actually. Although the logo's a bit like the Trojan Records one. So you've got a nice whiff of Bob Marley, there.'

'Bob Marley – sexy?'

'Definitely. And then there's the whole 'Trojan' name thing. Which, thinking about it, is quite a sexy metaphor.'

'Uh-huh?'

'Don't you reckon? It's like your Trojan horse, isn't it? Sneaking something naughty in under cover of darkness.'

Claire considers this for a moment. 'Of course, the Trojan horse did rather spectacularly spill its contents in the middle of the night, causing everyone all sorts of grief. Not such a great marketing point for a condom.'

'Fair point.' She's right, you know. That's a terrible thing for a condom to do. 'You should write them a letter about that.'

'I fully intend to,' Claire murmurs. 'A stiff one.'

Five minutes later, we're back at Tesco. While Claire goes off to get the photographs, I pop back into the gents and get her a packet of Trojans so that she's got the right address to write to. I vaguely consider buying a packet for me and Sarah, too – but something stays my hand before I drop any more coins in the machine. I'll buy Sarah something nice tomorrow, in Stockwell. A reunion present. Something meaningful. Something she'll want to keep forever.
stockwell

If Stockwell had a slightly better range of retail outlets, this wouldn't be happening. If it had, say, a branch of John Lewis – or even Argos – then I wouldn't be standing here now with an obscene novelty mug in my hand. I'd have bought a set of fish knives or a tasteful piece of Elizabeth Duke jewellery instead – something nice. Something Sarah might actually appreciate. I might also be experiencing a warm glow of consumer satisfaction, instead of the bad-tempered intransigence that this entire shop seems to be beaming in my direction. The proprietor – a cheerless old sod with a comb-over and watery little eyes – peers at me over the counter.

'What do you mean, you want a refund?'

How hard can it be to get a refund on an item of pornographic crockery? I grit my teeth, fixing the shopkeeper with my most uncompromising stare. 'I mean I'd like my money back, please.' I place the mug on the counter, the offending picture facing the shopkeeper. 'I bought it about two hours ago, but I've changed my mind and I don't think I want it any more.'

'Why don't you want it?' He gingerly extends a hand, turning the mug round with only the tips of his fingers. 'Is something wrong with it?'

'It's... well, it's not what I thought it was.'

'No?'

'No. You see the photo of the bloke on the front?'

'Yes.'

'The bloke in the leather underpants?'

'What about him?'

I try keeping my voice as level as possible. 'Well, I made a cup of tea in the mug, and his underpants disappeared. I was shocked.'

I was shocked. Now, that's not strictly true. If I'm being brutally honest, I did know the guy's underpants would disappear. I may not have been prepared for the improbable dimensions of the organ lurking beneath – it's a big one, even by my standards – but I did know it'd be there. After all, the mug was advertised as being an 'ALL-NUDE Male Stripper! Adult Novelty! Just Add Hot Liquid And WATCH HIM STRIP!' item. I push it another inch or so closer to the shopkeeper. 'I'd no idea I'd get to see all his... bits.'

The shopkeeper regards me with a sidelong look – the same one he gave me two hours ago, back when I bought the mug. I was a different person back then, though. For a start, I was a person who – however fleetingly – thought an 'ALL-NUDE Male Stripper!' mug might make an appropriately humorous, ice-breaking reunion present to give Sarah. Not the very best present, perhaps – but the best I could find in Stockwell, a suburb of south London where a bottle of Cillit Bang is clearly regarded as an exotic, upmarket purchase. I now wish I'd bought the mug in one of Stockwell's 'pound' shops. At least then I'd only be angling for the refund of a quid, instead of the fiver I actually paid. 'I've never been so disgusted in my life.'

'You couldn't guess that his underpants would disappear?'

'Didn't have a clue.' I compose my features into what I hope is a credible façade of innocence. 'I just liked the picture of the bloke on the front.'

Confusion and anxiety play over the shopkeeper's face. He picks up the mug and examines it once more, before turning the semi-nude Adonis towards me. I try not to flinch. 'But he's all... well, wet and oily. And half naked.'

'Yes.'

He thrusts the mug towards me. 'So you liked him like this' – I nod – 'but not like this.' He subjects the front of the mug to a vigorous rubbing, causing the leather underpants to become dangerously translucent.

I wince. 'That's right.' I know what I'm admitting to, of course. Some weird, 'vanilla' form of homosexuality with all the genitals airbrushed out – or neatly parcelled up in leather underpants. Heaven knows what I was thinking when I bought the bloody thing.

Claire's to blame, clearly. If I hadn't had such a lovely day yesterday, then I wouldn't have felt so distracted and disorientated this morning. And why did 'yesterday' happen at all? Shouldn't Claire have been sitting at home, pining for Jeremy? After all, everybody in Whitby's been receiving blow-by-blow accounts of their porny shenanigans, according to Lisa; free DVD's of their sweaty sexploits are given away weekly with the Whitby Gazette. Ugh.

'You could always use it for cold drinks.'

I glance up at the shopkeeper, suddenly aware of his presence again. 'What?'

'Cold drinks. The underpants won't disappear if you put cold drinks in it. You know – lemonade. Orange squash. You like orange squash?'

'Mm.' I just don't want to associate orange squash with leather underpants, that's all. Orange squash might become an integral element of my future life with Sarah – particularly if we have kids. Claire clearly sees me as a virile young thing, otherwise she wouldn't have suggested that I needed to buy pre-reunion condoms. 'No, I don't think so. Orange squash doesn't taste the same out of a mug. It has to come out of a glass.' I step back from the counter and fold my arms. 'So, can I have my money back?'

The look of bland unflappability on the shopkeeper's face clearly suggests we've come full circle. 'No.'

'No?'

'No. You bought it, there's nothing wrong with it, it's yours. You've already made a cup of tea in it, so I can't sell it as new. And if you don't like his...' – he waggles a playful finger over Mr Adonis's leathery goodies – '...bits... then don't look at them.' He smiles for the first time and leans low over the counter, addressing me in a conspiratorial whisper. 'Or you could give it to someone who would like looking at his bits.'

I try thinking of the all the people I've met who might, possibly, be interested in looking at Mr Adonis's 'bits'. Callum? Nathan? Seb? I line them up in my mind, mentally offering them the mug. They all look pretty nonplussed. Nathan actually looks slightly nauseous.

The shopkeeper puts the mug into its presentation box and pushes it back over the counter. 'You know who'd really like this? A young lady.' He leers horribly, tapping the side of his nose with a calloused finger. 'You should give it to your girlfriend.'
clapham north

'Are you from the Council?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Are you from the Council, dear?'

She's elderly, eighty if she's a day, and wears a tartan headscarf that's seemingly been made from the kind of material normally reserved for golfing umbrellas. I focus my eyes on the middle distance and stare resolutely ahead. 'No, not from the Council. Sorry.'

'Hm.' Her gaze drops and she appears to appraise the pavement. Then it alights once more on my face. I can almost feel her eyes as they pass over my features, all of which are now seized by a mad urge to twitch. She quietly addresses her next remark to my chest. 'It's what you're doing about the drains, that's what I want to know.'

I carry on peering at the horizon. If I do this for long enough, she'll go away. Or possibly expire. Hopefully she won't expire here.

'I said it's the drains. Terrible state they're in. Terrible.'

Go on, dammit. Go away. Expire. She does neither. I try humming a tune in my head. It's the theme from The Good Life. I try imagining the cartoon bird circling the cartoon sun in the title sequence. I try conjuring up Felicity Kendall's face. The old lady's headscarf bobbles menacingly at the bottom of my line of vision.

'Terrible, they are. Terrible.'

'Are they?'

'Oooh, yes. Terrible.'

'That's a shame.'

She looks at me incredulously. 'A shame? A shame? You from the Council, and you're telling me it's a shame?'

I try my 'staring' trick again. I try conjuring up Paul Eddington's face in my mind's eye, but I keep getting Geoffrey Palmer. Da da da, da-da-da-da. Nothing. Oh Gerry, where are you in my hour of need?

'What's that?'

I glance down at the brown paper package under my arm – the package that has now caught my companion's interest. I want to tell her it contains a novelty mug with a enormous self-exposing penis on it. I want to tell her that Claire thought that giving it to Seb might be misconstrued and that if the conversation with Sarah seemed in danger of drying up, then nothing would re-lubricate it quite like the image of a forearm-sized shlong. I also want to ask my companion whether she thought – as another woman – that Claire might've been taking the piss. But 'old lady' protocol prevents me from doing any of these things. 'It's a present. For my girlfriend,' I manage, at length.

I've seldom seen anyone look quite so sceptical. 'Oh, girlfriend, is it?'

'Yes. She should be along any minute now.'

'A likely story.'

Suddenly, I have a flash of genius. 'I can show you her picture, if you like.'

Now I realise that Claire isn't technically my girlfriend, but my 'Sarah' photo was purloined in Burnt Oak two months ago. So I take the photo of me and Claire, wrapped in each others' arms in Hanover Gardens, and hand it over. 'She's called Claire.'

The old lady appraises the picture for a good five or six seconds and when she finally speaks, she's a transformed character. 'Oh, she's pretty. And she must be keen on you,' she murmurs. 'See the way she's looking at you.' And when I glance again at the photograph, I notice for the first time that it's true – Claire isn't really looking at the camera at all. Odd. 'Does she work for the Council too?'

Five minutes later, I'm a free man. Admittedly, obtaining my freedom involved telling a minor porky about a lightning attack of cystitis, but I reckon my karma can handle it. The way I see it, I had a straight choice between a fake urinary tract infection and bludgeoning my companion to death with my rolled-up copy of Private Eye – and I chose life. All I have to do now is kick my heels for half an hour on Clapham High Street, and with a bit of luck she'll have buggered off by the time I get back to the Underground.

Unbelievably, however, when I get back to Clapham North, the old lady is still there, peering like a lynx up the Clapham Road towards Stockwell. My eyes scan the horizon for an old lady-free bolt hole.

As luck would have it, the stout-looking pub on the corner of Landor Road is just opening its doors for business. Holding Private Eye defensively over my face, I make a run for it and – around fifteen seconds later – I'm standing at the bar ordering a restorative pint of Guinness. I take my magazine and my pint over to the window and assume a vantage point from which all movements in or around the Tube station may be discreetly observed.

In the half hour that follows, I divide my attention between the Eye and the street outside, but have come to the conclusion that Clapham North isn't really much of a 'Sarah' kind of place. Not far enough away from grotty Stockwell. I'm just contemplating the possibility of a third pint and settling in for the day, when suddenly – terrifyingly – she's there, staring through the window at me, a mere three feet away, her eyes burning into me like the reanimated corpse of Lucrezia Borgia. The Old Lady.

'Gnugh!' I ejaculate, snorting into my beer, loudly enough for the barman to turn away from the football highlights and cast a withering glance in my direction.

'Friend of yours?' he enquires acidly. I try to think of an equally acid response, but am wrong-footed, not being used to this kind of cunning metropolitan gamesmanship. Dave the barman has never said anything acid. I turn back to the window. The old lady's breath has begun misting up the glass.

'She thinks I'm from the Council.'

The barman looks me up and down. 'Of course she does.' He returns to his football.

Outside, I try reasoning with her. 'I'm not from the Council. Honestly I'm not.'

'I'm supposed to believe that, am I?'

'Yes you are.'

'Just like I'm supposed to believe you've got cystitis.' She glances witheringly at my lower portions. If they were capable of squirming, they'd be squirming now. 'That cleared up pretty quickly.'

'Hm.'

'And I can't see any sign of Claire. I've been keeping an eye out for her, you know. I was going to tell her you were looking for her, if she passed by.'

I don't know where to look. Traffic roars past us up the A3. 'Thank you.'

'Hm.'

We've clearly reached an impasse. I'm the first to crack. 'Look, would you like me to phone the Council for you?'

'Oh, would you, dear?' Her face breaks into a radiant smile. 'Just tell them about the drains.'

'The drains, yes. You'd better give me the full picture. I think there's a phone in the pub.' I take her arm and gently steer her towards the bar. 'I'll get you a drink.'

By the time I get back from the payphone, my lady companion has already polished off her double gin and orange, and is leafing vigorously through Private Eye. I cough loudly to attract her attention. 'I got through to them. They'll be round Wednesday.'

'Thank you, sweetheart.' She lifts her empty glass all the way to her lips before feigning surprise at the apparent absence of gin.

I gently take it from her, and head back to the bar. 'Another drink?'

'Ooh, yes please, dear. You're a proper gent.'

I'm exhausted – and not a little tipsy – when I get back to the Happi-Lodge, but not to the extent that I'm insensible to the mix of emotions on Claire's face as I approach the desk. 'Tim. Hi.' She comes out from behind her computer, her eyes probing mine for something I can't detect, a glass of an amber liquid in her hand. 'You didn't run into Sarah, did you?'

'No. Why?'

'You've not got your mug with you. The one you were going to give her if the conversation dried up.'

Oh God. 'Ah, that. Yes.'

'You didn't give it someone else, did you?'

Arse, arse, arse. 'No. Not really.'

'Where is it, then?'

'I left it in a pub. The Clapham North.' I realise this sounds like I've started frequenting the kind of watering holes where novelty items of ceramic porn are accepted in lieu of payment, and attempt to clarify matters. 'By mistake.'

'Ah.' Her eyebrow twitches almost imperceptibly. 'Was it all wrapped up, or were you using it at the time?'

'Wrapped up.'

Claire she bites her lip, trying not to smile. 'Probably for the best. Of course, it's likely to be mistaken for a bomb or something. A suspicious package, abandoned in a pub by a shifty-looking Yorkshireman.'

'What?'

'They'll do a controlled explosion, and when the Bomb Squad finally put the pieces back together, they'll probably think they're dealing with some sort of gay Unabomber. You'll be famous. You'll be on Crimewatch.'

I consider this for a moment. 'Bugger. Everyone in Whitby already thinks I'm a crack whore. Now they'll think I'm a gay terrorist crack whore.'

Claire holds out the glass to me. I sniff the contents. Amaretto. 'Actually, Tim, I've got some bad news for you. They'll actually think you're a homeless gay terrorist crack whore. You'd better sit down.'

'Why?' I think of dear old room 51, and the hassle of being evicted only a week ago. I also think of the weekend – the lovely weekend – I spent with Claire as a consequence. The best weekend I've had in London. The best weekend I can remember, actually. 'You haven't got another conference party coming in, have you?'

'It's worse, Tim. Jeremy called this afternoon. He said to tell you that your landlord's been round your place in Whitby and changed the locks.'

'What? Mr Dale told Jeremy that he'd changed the locks on my house?'

'Not quite, no. Jeremy only found out about it because your landlord was selling your stuff in the garden.'

The room begins spinning and I feel my way along the bar to the nearest vacant stool. Claire follows me, waits until I've put my glass down and then seizes me in a tight embrace, burying her face in my neck. 'I'm so sorry, Tim.'

I put my arms around Claire, somehow fearing that she, too, might be taken away from me. I don't think I could bear it, if she was. I think it'd finish me off.

clapham common

Later on Friday night – after Claire had done her best to calm me down – I gave Jeremy a buzz in the Ox. It turned out that after he'd phoned Claire, Jeremy had called Big Rob, who'd motored up on The Mighty Kawasaki from a rigging job in Bristol. Then they'd both gone round to Mr Dale's house and retrieved as much of my stuff as they could – including a few boxes of vinyl, my signed copy of the Mekons' Hello Cruel World book, and my Gibson Thunderbird bass guitar (my only memento of The Jammy Arabs, mine and Jeremy's teenage band). 'We've shoved it all in one of dad's lockups,' Jeremy told me. 'And when you come back up north, mam'll have your bed made up in the spare room. Stay as long as you want.' I'll buy those lads a pint when I see them.

'You're buying me a pint?' Jeremy had said. 'Good lad. That'll be on Monday night, then,' he added, his account of the evening's shenanigans drawing to a close. 'I'm heading down to London after work. Then we'll go out and have a proper drink on Tuesday. Last night of freedom before I'm up before the beak, and all that.'

I'd winced. Tonight – Monday night – is when I'm having dinner with Lisa, and I'd hoped not to mention it to Jeremy. 'Monday might be a bit tricky, Jez. I'll be out quite late. And it's Claire's night off. There'll be no one to let you in the room.'

'Tara'll let me in. She's very accommodating. Where are you taking Claire, anyway? An intimate little dinner à deux?'

'Sort of. But you've no worries, mate – it's not with Claire.'

Suddenly he grew serious. 'You've not found Sarah?'

'No. Not her either. It's someone else.' I twisted the telephone cord around my fingers. 'I'd really rather not say.' After all, I don't want another lecture on The Long-Term Risks Of Shagging Lisa Salt.

'Oh. Right.' Jeremy tried to disguise his pique, but with little success. Heaven knows why he sounded so put out, though – he should've been pleased that I wasn't taking Claire out. 'Mystery woman, eh? So where are you taking her?'

'Place called The Ivy. We've a table booked for eight. She booked it, actually. She's quite posh.'

'I see. Well, have fun. And I'll see you at the Happi-Lodge when you get back. If you get back. Dirty boy.'

'So today was Clapham Common?' says Lisa, slipping off her coat. 'Zone 2. Very upwardly mobile. Très cool, très desirable. Well, I'd say Sarah might want to live there, but it'd probably be out of her league, price-wise. Unless she's won the lottery, married a record producer or decided to take up residence in a shoebox.' She raises an eyebrow. 'And Sarah Benson, from what I recall, isn't really a 'shoebox' kind of girl, is she?'

'Not unless there's a shiny new pair of shoes in it.'

'Quite.'

Lisa's right, though – Sarah probably would like Clapham. I'd quite liked it myself, actually. There'd been several places to stock up on croissants on the Hampstead-y periphery of the Common, and a short trot up to the corner of Edgeley Road had revealed the Socialist Party's UK headquarters, where friendly lefties had provided me with tea and sympathy. I'd shared my views vis-à-vis the class struggle in the Whitby area with a small but riveted audience, and even managed to obtain some photocopied leaflets from my new chums outlining how property is basically theft, and how emancipation of the working classes can only be achieved when the resources essential to existence (like my house) are no longer commodified by lackeys of the ruling elite (like Mr Dale, my former landlord). Then I'd left to come here – the Ivy – to have dinner with my bond-trading, Prada-wearing ex-girlfriend. Vive la revolution!

I allow myself a wistful glance at Lisa's deep blue backless dress as the waiter leads us to our table. If only I'd run into her earlier. She certainly knows a lot more about London than Jeremy does (Lisa's analysis of Waterloo; 'the principle terminus for trains from Kent and the south London suburbs'; Jeremy's analysis of Waterloo: 'Well, it's where Napoleon did surrender, isn't it? And I, kiddo, have met my destiny in quite a similar way...'). Lisa's prettier than Jeremy, too – and takes less obvious pleasure in scratching herself. And unless she's undertaken a radical reconfiguration of her sexual preferences since the sixth form, Lisa also seems less likely than Jeremy to harbour an unwholesome interest in Claire's undergarments. She even manages to say the word 'Sarah' without an obvious sneer of contempt. Quite an achievement.

'So what's the plan, then? Find Sarah and try to coax her back up to Whitby?'

I pull the same face as I did at Socialist Party HQ this afternoon. 'It was originally. But I've just been made homeless, back in Whitby.'

Lisa looks appalled. 'No way.'

'Seriously. My landlord changed the locks last week. Jeremy's brother's trying to get my stuff back off him.'

'Big Rob? Blimey. You wouldn't mess with Big Rob.'

'Mm.'

Lisa leans towards me as the waiter returns. 'How do you feel about a splash of the Pouilly-Fuissé?'

My eyes skim down the wine list – quite a long way down the list – before coming to rest on the lavishly-worded description of Lisa's chosen tipple. My hands fight the urge to break into spasm. 'I don't think I can afford it.'

'Tonight's my treat. I'm due a pretty big bonus at Christmas, so I think we can push the boat out.' She smiles at the waiter. 'We'd like a bottle of the Pouilly-Fuissé, please. And a couple of large vodka and tonics while we look at the menu.'

Some hours later, having finished our Bannockburn rib steak (me) and Gressingham duck (Lisa), we're both cheerfully inebriated. I'm never much good with wine. I think it's because my quaffing mechanism's calibrated for beer, and anything stronger tends to get hurled back with the same casual abandon.

As the waiter departs with our plates, Lisa smiles and leans forward over the table. 'It's a shame we didn't stay friends, you know. I don't suppose it was on the cards at the time.'

'I suppose not.'

'I miss people from home. I really do.' She sips her wine. 'Because most of the people I work with now are these... terrible... public school types. Terrible. Men, mostly. If I wasn't firm with them – very firm – they'd walk all over me. So it does me good to see someone real. Someone from back home. To touch base with reality.' Lisa reaches across the table and briefly strokes my hand. As she does so, a few stray strands of hair fall in front of her face. She winds them lightly around her finger. 'And seeing you tonight has resolved some issues for me... that have been playing on my mind for quite a while.'

'Yes?'

'Yes.' She nods. 'Oh yes.'

'Like... what?'

Lisa leans forward on her elbows. 'Well, Tim. Well. I'm very pleased to announce that you're considerably less desirable than you were at seventeen. Not nearly so pretty.' She picks up her wineglass, but seems more interested in toying with its stem than drinking from it. 'Still cute, of course...'

'Thank you. As are you.'

'Thank you, Tim. Yes. Still cute, but not worth chucking out your teddy bears for. And it's a source of great comfort to me that after all these years, you're still in dogged pursuit of the intoxicating... but thoroughly unworthy... undeserving... Sarah Benson. It's nice to retain these little continuities in life. Something you can base your own humble expectations on.' She takes a small sip of wine. 'Mm.'

I'm trying to work out how best to respond, when suddenly both of us – and most of the Ivy's other diners – are distracted by a commotion at the door. It takes me a second to work out what it is. 'Oh, God. Not him.' It's at times like these I wish my buttocks had the ability to burrow through furniture. 'It's Jeremy.'

'So it is.' Lisa smiles. 'Why's he got a rucksack on?'

'Because he's just got off a train from Whitby. He's come to check out who I'm having dinner with.'

'Didn't you tell him it was me?'

Jeremy's now caught my eye, and is explaining something – with the assistance of expansive hand gestures – to the small battalion of waiting staff gathered around him. Over the restrained congregation of voices, I can just about make out the words, 'my mate, Tim, over there.' Eventually I feel compelled to intervene. I beckon one of Jeremy's newly-acquired entourage over to the table and explain that yes, the tall gentleman with the rucksack will be joining us for a small digestif, if the management doesn't object. Jeremy approaches, dragging a chair from an adjacent table over to ours.

Lisa is the first to speak. 'Hello.'

'Enchanté.' Jeremy takes her hand and lightly kisses it.

'So. The infamous Jeremy.'

'My reputation precedes me.' Without taking his eyes from Lisa, he seizes the wine bottle and sluices half its contents into Lisa's empty highball glass. He takes a long draught. Jeremy's quaffing mechanism, I recall with a small shudder, isn't calibrated at all.

'And accompanies you, by the look of things.' She smiles inscrutably. 'So what brings you down to London, Jeremy?'

'Court appearance, the day after tomorrow.' He raises his voice just enough so that a passing waiter can hear. 'Actual bodily harm. It's a stitch-up, of course. I was defending a lady's honour. It's a travesty that I'm on trial at all. A bloody travesty.' Jeremy empties his glass and picks up the menu. 'Decent drop of plonk, that. Are we having pudding?'

'Not for me, Jez.'

'Nor me.'

'Mm.' He examines the menu closely. 'I had a corned beef sandwich on the way down. And the odd light ale. But I could just do with something sweet, you know?' Against the odds, he manages to catch our waiter's eye. 'Yes, mate, you. We'll have one baked Alaska with griotte cherries, here. And three spoons.' He beams at Lisa. 'Just in case you change your minds.'

It's only when Lisa retires to the bathroom that Jeremy's boorishness evaporates. 'Am I allowed to swear in here, Tim? I'm a bit pissed. My social barometer's all shot up. All that Löwenbräu on the train.'

'Occasional swears are okay. Quietly, though.'

'Right. Because I didn't want to cause offence.' He nods in the direction of the ladies' toilet. 'She's gorgeous, though, isn't she? I mean, seriously gorgeous.'

'Aye.'

'And it's almost like... it almost seems like she knows me.'

I can't work out whether he's taking the piss. 'She does know you, mate.'

'Where from?'

'Whitby, Jez. From back home.'

'Whitby? What are you on about?'

'You were at secondary school with her. And primary school, come to think of it. She's Lisa, Jez.'

'Lisa?'

'Lisa Salt.'

Jeremy's brief burst of laughter causes heads all around the room to swivel in our direction. Then he's suddenly serious. 'But she's gorgeous.' He raises an obscene spoonful of baked alaska to his mouth. 'You're not, you know, seeing her again, are you?'

'No. She's not interested. Nor am I. It's just mates, me and Lisa, now.'

'Oh.' He mulls this for a moment as he chews his pudding. 'Excellent.'

clapham south

When I left Jeremy this morning, he still had the incredulous trace of a 'bugger me!' expression lingering on his sleeping face – the bit of it I could see, anyway. Most of it was buried in the pillow he'd wrapped his arms around, muffling his intermittent sighs and grunts. The latter had woken me up three times during the night; two of them had sounded suspiciously like 'ee-sah'. Ee-sah? Lisa.

The idea that thoughts of A Woman should pursue Jeremy into his dreams is quite, quite alien to the lad's nature. Women in general? Oh God, yes. When he talks in his sleep it's normally like listening to the soundtrack of a gratuitously story-free porno. But Jeremy grunting sweet nothings to one specific, almost certainly unobtainable woman? Unheard of. This whole 'ee-sah' situation is an unusual occurrence and must be monitored closely – for the emotional fallout that's bound to engulf Claire, if nothing else.

Clapham South Tube station must also be monitored closely, although my heart's not in it this morning. From my A-Z, I've worked out I'm about a mile further down the A24 than yesterday, but it's still basically Clapham Common and it's still Sarah-less. Clapham South's got a dinky little station, though – easy to monitor from outside, and (like much of Clapham) positively swarming with the brand of perky, young, upwardly-mobile Londoners who Sarah would identify with. But she's not among them, and when the rush hour peters out there's very little to keep me hanging around the place. By eleven o'clock, I'm traipsing back across the Common, towards friendlier turf.

I get as far as Eagle Pond before taking a short, recuperative break. I choose this particular spot because it's clearly a hotspot for waterfowl, whose merry antics seem guaranteed to soothe my troubled mind. Waterfowl, I've decided, are unjudgemental friends to the friendless on life's lonely journey. Canada geese, for instance, just like chilling out with people – it says so in Jeremy's birdwatching encyclopaedia. They gather around places like airports simply because they enjoy human company, which is why they keep getting sucked into the engines of Boeing 747's and dying unimaginably hideous deaths. There's a bunch of them mucking about with the ducks, a mere ten yards in front of where I now sit. They look happy enough; I like it here.

I toss a chunk of sandwich in the direction of the pond. The chaotic splashing of bread-addled ducks is cheering, but the crumbs and rejected crusts lingering in my plastic sandwich container only remind me of Jeremy's frenzied assault on last night's baked Alaska. I need to put him from my mind. I also need to catch up on some of the sleep that his pornographic grunting deprived me of, last night. I close my eyes and try relaxing the muscles in my shoulders. There.

Ah yes, that's nice. Just the spot. Maybe little bit higher – yes, that's it. Has anyone ever told you that you've got magic fingers? No? Well, you have. Pure magic. Just one of your many talents. That feels really good. Only maybe a bit too firm. Don't pinch. No, really, don't pinch. Ow! Easy, now. Ouch! Seriously, stop it. Shit, that really hurt!

'Shit! That really hurt!' I wake with a crick in my neck and a jabbing pain in my left thigh. 'Shit! Shit, shit. Ow, ow, ow.'

It takes me a moment to collect myself, to work out where I am, how I got here and – most importantly – the source of the pain in my upper leg. The latter is immediately obvious, and comes in the form of the scrummage of Canada geese noisily jostling around my park bench – specifically the black-headed bugger who's gamely hoovering up the sandwich-y fragments that have fallen between my thighs and around my groin. In an instant, I'm stiff as an ironing board – fascinated and appalled by this winged leviathan, its powerful beak snapping with merry abandon a mere inch or so from my crotch.

'Sod off! Go on – sod off and fly away!' I urge, as chummily as possible, making ineffectual shooing gestures above its head. 'Please sod off!' Mr Canada Goose pauses a moment, raising his head from my lap, clearly attempting to ascertain whether my fingers are edible, and then twists his neck to address the few remaining sandwich-y fragments on my trousers. A few of his companions, however, haven't dismissed my fingers so quickly, and a handful cluster closer around my knees. My toes curl into tiny petrified fists inside my Doc Martens. 'Bugger off, the lot of you! Sod off! Sod off!'

I try running through my mental card index to the entry on 'Geese', but it's not easy with a bona fide horde of the beady-eyed brutes swarming around my knees. Geese, geese, geese – they're not the ones that can snap your arm with a single blow, are they? No, that's swans. But people use geese instead of guard dogs, don't they? The big white ones? Ah – hang on – big white geese – that's swans again. Shit! This is what happens in South London when you let your guard down – and I'm still miles from Tooting. Well, this is it, then, isn't it? The geese are clearly clustering for the kill – and I've no sandwich left with which to distract them. I've only one choice left.

'You did what?'

'Impersonated a Boeing 747.'

'But why?'

'It was the only natural enemy I could think of. No goose has ever done battle with a Boeing 747 and lived to tell the tale.'

Jeremy and Claire regard me with what I sincerely trust is unalloyed admiration. The leer forming around the corners of Jeremy's mouth, however, hints that this might not be the case. 'You wouldn't care to demonstrate, would you?'

Claire jabs him sharply in the ribs. She's clearly wrestling with her own urge to smirk, but her self-control clearly outstrips Jeremy's and she manages, for a moment, an expression of appropriate concern. 'Shut up, Jez. Geese can be really scary. Can't they, Tim?'

'These were. Hulking big sods, they were.'

Jeremy drains his pint and leans back in his chair. 'I want to see you do it. I want to see you impersonate a Boeing 747.'

'You don't have to, Tim. Not unless you want to.'

'Of course he wants to. Don't you, Tim? Re-live your moment of triumph.'

My eyes dart around the bar. It's probably a good job it's only a Tuesday night. Bradley's would be heaving if it was the weekend. 'What, now? Here?'

'Yeah. Go on,' urges Jeremy.

'Go on, Tim.' Claire squeezes my knee encouragingly, under the table. It's got more urgency to it than the 'sympathy' squeezes she gave it when I was telling her about my avian assault. 'Please.'

I take a final glance at the other drinkers in the bar. They're all engrossed in their own conversations, which are mostly being drowned out by Dean Martin on the jukebox anyway. 'Okay then.' I stretch my arms out, aeroplane-style, as far as our little alcove will allow, and subject Jeremy to the same mad rictus I used on the geese this afternoon. 'Nnnneeeeaaaarrrrggghhhh!!! Nnnneeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrrggghh!!!'

For a second Jeremy and Claire appear incapable of speech. Then Jeremy's hand gropes across the table for his glass, lifts it, finds it empty and seizes Claire's instead. He drinks deeply, leaving a circle of beery foam around his disbelieving grin. 'And that worked, did it?'

'Certainly.'

'My God.' He picks up his empty glass and squeezes his way around the table towards the bar. 'You should remember that move, mate. For when we're in Tooting on Thursday.'

'You're coming, then?'

'I said I would, didn't I?'

'Well, yes. Assuming you're acquitted tomorrow.'

Fleeting anxiety passes over Jeremy's features. 'Assuming that, yes.' Then he picks up our empties and carries them to the bar.

Claire watches him retreat out of hearing distance, then leans over the table towards me. 'So, what's the deal with Tooting, then? You've never said.'

Tooting. A place I've never been, that nonetheless fills me with unimaginable dread. I glance round the room. It's unlikely that any of Tooting's dipsomaniac contingent choose to slake their thirsts in Bradley's Spanish Bar. 'It's a long story. Goes back to when I was a kid.'

'A deep-seated childhood trauma. I knew it.'

'Sort of. It all came about because I wanted to go on one of those adventure holidays. You know the sort – rock-climbing, canoeing, fencing. For years I'd nagged my parents to let me go. They were never keen, but when I was twelve they eventually decided it was okay for me to go off by myself, while they went off to Bruges.'

'And you went on an adventure holiday to Tooting?'

'Not Tooting. Tooting comes in later. The holiday itself was at boarding school in the Lake District. Sedbergh. I was excited, because I'd always really wanted to go to boarding school. The second Harry Potter book had just come out, and I was a bit obsessed with the whole 'Griffindor Common Room' thing, so I took along a catering-sized box of Crunchie bars for midnight feasts. Anyway, I got put into this dormitory with all these other boys. One of them – a massive lad, he was – came over and asked my name. He said he was called Darren and came from Tooting. Well, I'd never heard of Tooting, and I thought he was trying to be funny. I mean – it sounds like a joke name, doesn't it? Tooting. So I said – what, Tooting? Like Farting? Or Trumping?'

'Oh God.'

'He didn't laugh, anyway. Then he said, well, where do you come from then? So I said Whitby. And he said – what, Shitby? Then he did laugh. And punched me in the face.'

'And this was your first day there?'

'Yes. It was the first time anyone had really hit me in the face, actually. And it bloody hurt. That wasn't the main problem, though.'

'No?'

'No. Because it turned out that Darren was there on a two-week school trip. He'd already been there a week, so he knew the lie of the land. And I reckon his school must've been some sort of institution for the criminally demented. So it wasn't just him – Darren – who I was in the dormitory with. It was all his unhinged mates, too.'

'Oh God.'

'So after that, they all called me Shitby. They chewed up all my Crunchies and spat the bits into my bed. They beat me up at night, and Darren peed all over my clothes in the wardrobe. I didn't have anywhere to wash them. It was horrible.'

Claire squeezes my hand in sympathy. 'That's awful. How did it end?'

'Eventually I was saved by this heavy metal fan called Jason. He had long hair and wore a bandanna and these sawn-off Megadeth t-shirts. He reckoned this Darren was a twat, and got him to back off. I've never been so grateful to anyone in my life. I've been a bit wary of southerners since, mind. And I've always had a morbid fear of Tooting. I mean, it's not so long ago, is it? They'll still live there, won't they? Darren and his mates.'

Claire shrugs. 'I don't know. People move on. He sounds like he'll probably be in prison by now,' she adds brightly.

'Prison?'

Claire and I both look up. Neither of us had heard Jeremy's approach with three foaming pints of Estrella. 'Not you, Jez. We were talking about the guys who terrorised Tim when he was on holiday in the Lake District.'

'Ah, the whole 'Shitby' business. Very nasty. That Darren bastard would've got himself a proper slap if your uncle Jez'd been there.' In the silence that follows, Jeremy draws deeply on his pint. 'I know, I know. ABH and all that. Sorry. It's just the way I look at the world. Sometimes it gets me into grief. But I'll be fine, tomorrow. I've nowt to worry about. I did nothing wrong, and no judge on earth is going to convict me. A toast.' He raises his glass. 'To the British legal system.'

'The British legal system.'

We drink.

balham

If I said my head was throbbing, it'd give a false impression. 'Throbbing' suggests that in between individual throbs, however fleetingly, there's respite. 'Throbbing' implies a sense of animation. Of life. Of hearty, lusty pulsation. But this is different. This feels like a fishhook's become lodged in my brain and attached to a medicine ball located somewhere between my knees. Ouch.

I totter from the still-dark sitting room to the kitchen, and run a little cold water over my fingertips. I regard the water warily, suspecting instinctively that if I drink it, I'll be violently sick. I rinse cigarette ash out of a mug and half fill it. In the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath, I drink. I'm sick. I glance into the depths of the bowl before flushing away its contents. It's purple – a deep, fruity purple.

My first memory of last night steals unbidden to mind. Wine. Red wine. Vats of the stuff, purchased in Mr Gupta's shop. I wait for five minutes, content to probe no further into the past, propped upright between the bath and the toilet bowl, an arm on each, waiting for the hot flush of detoxifying sweat to subside. Then I go back to the kitchen, wash the sick out of the mug and put the kettle on. I pour boiling water on to two tablespoons of instant coffee, stirring it gingerly as I navigate back to the bathroom. 'Paracetamol,' I find myself muttering, my fingertips playing lightly over the contents of the bathroom shelves. 'Paracetamol. Somewhere.' Where the hell does Claire keep her paracetamol? 'I know, I'll ask her.' I stagger towards Claire's bedroom door.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by the sight that greets me, but I can't help feeling a fresh wave of nausea as I collapse mutely against the doorframe. Claire's head rests against Jeremy's chest. He's snoring softly; her hair, some of which has fallen across his mouth and chin, quivers slightly with each breath. Claire smiles in her sleep. She's wearing Jeremy's jumper, and is holding his hand, which she's pulled around her neck and now rests gently on her breast. Jeremy's also smiling – the smile of freedom. Oh, no, hang on – it's the smile of just having enjoyed a night of rabid sexual intercourse. I pull the door gently closed behind me.

It's weird, but for a second I experience a state of complete mental silence. Then comes a question I can't answer: Is it possible to scream and vomit at the same time? My stomach seems to think so. My brain vehemently disagrees. And my throat, the key organ in both operations, has very wisely tied itself in a choking knot while it considers the available options. For some reason, my eyes also seem to want to get in on the act, and I find my vision quivering horribly as I feel my way back along the wall to the sitting room. Oh God. Jeremy and Claire. Seeing it – the two of them, together – changes everything. Everything.

I sip my coffee and wait for the moment to pass before allowing a few more fragments of memory to slouch uneasily before my mind's eye. I'm happier in the past than the present – events make more sense there. The earliest one I can recall with any clarity is the magistrate's summing up. Ah, yes – that had been a tense moment. There'd been something almost Dickensian about the way he'd loomed over the proceedings, casting a rheumy eye over the sorry examples of humanity who'd been dragged before him. Looking back now, though, I don't think there was any real likelihood that the magistrate would actually convict Jez. And despite his professional histrionics – the grunting and sighing, the finger-shaking and lapel-tugging – I think he'd developed a soft spot for the lad. It was probably Jeremy's occupation that clinched it, though. 'So you're a furniture restorer, young man?'

'Yes, sir. Family business. Been in the trade for generations, sir.'

'Good,' the magistrate had smiled, making a quick note on the papers in front of him. 'Good, good.'

It turned out afterwards that the old boy had wanted some of his wife's bedroom furniture – currently a quarter inch deep in magnolia emulsion – stripping. Jeremy's going to be spending a couple of weekends at his house in Blackheath, doing it at mates' rates. Mates with a magistrate? Brrr.

After that, the memories get fuzzier again – albeit louder and more luridly tinted. I blame the booze, myself – the mad, celebratory consumption of booze – first in Camden, then up in West Hampstead. We'd phoned Seb and Tara, and they'd joined us for a couple of hours, the latter downing several large glasses of chardonnay before passing out on Jeremy's lap. Finally, when Tara had been poured into a minicab, we'd come back to the flat, via Mr Gupta's, and – judging by the salty, post-coital fug still lingering in her boudoir – Claire and Jeremy had enjoyed an inebriated shagfest while I dozed on the sofa. Oh God. I feel sick again. My head aches, and so does my stomach, but so too does something deeper down. Far deeper down. I lie back on the sofa and reach for the telephone. 'Hello? NHS 111?'

'Yes.'

'I think I've got kidney failure.'

'And why do you think that?'

'I had too much to drink last night. And it's done for my kidneys. They've had it.'

'And what colour was your urine this morning?'

'What?'

'Your urine. Your pee. Your wee-wee.'

'Erm... wee-wee coloured.'

'Still normal wee colour now?'

'Pretty much. Last time I looked.'

'Then you haven't got kidney failure.'

'Oh. It's just... well, I feel weird. Bad. Not just hungover. Just really... bad. Why do I feel so bad?'

'Why do you think you feel so terrible?'

I stare through the open doorway and down the corridor towards Claire's bedroom. 'I don't know. I really don't.'

'Take two paracetamol, drink plenty of fluids and get some bed rest.'

The line goes dead. Suddenly I realise that my head isn't hurting quite so much, that the fishhook's been carefully extracted from my frontal lobe, and that all I can now feel above the eyebrows is a gentle, throbbing ache. I must be on the mend. Can they do that – the medical profession – just by talking to you? Amazing. But then I realise that the other pain – the deeper pain – well, that hasn't gone away at all. No. That pain's still there. I look at my watch. Almost six o'clock. Time to go to Balham.

The lunchtime drinkers in the Bedford are the cleverest people in the world – fact. Not that you'd think so to look at them, with their cord jackets and unshaven faces and half-supped pints of bitter. I was fooled myself, when I first crossed the threshold and pulled out my notepad and Happi-Lodge biro.

I'd decided to come in here after four hours of Balham's damp streets. All morning, my head had been filled with thoughts of Jeremy and Claire lying in each other's arms – horrible thoughts that needed to be expunged with alcohol at the earliest opportunity. My choice of the Bedford had been purely coincidental, and my decision to spend lunchtime jotting down some ideas for a song dedicated to south London was simply an expedient means of taking my mind off Jeremy and Claire... doing it. Little had I known at the time, then, that I'd soon be mentally locking horns with the crème de la crème of Balham's intellectual elite.

'Writing a poem?' had been the man's cheerful enquiry as he glanced over my shoulder at the bar.

'A song, really. A song about south London. It's called (I Don't Want To Go To) Tooting. I scanned his leathery countenance to see if I'd need to explain further. 'After the Elvis Costello song. The one about not wanting to go to Chelsea.'

'1978. This Year's Model.' He held out his hand. 'Barney.'

'Tim.'

'So. Why don't you want to go to Tooting, Tim?'

'No real reason.' I regarded him warily, not wanting to go into the whole 'Shitby' thing. 'It's just I'm a writer, and I felt there was a lack of songs about south London. They're all set north of the river.'

'You reckon?'

'Gerry Rafferty, Baker Street. The Jam, A Bomb In Wardour Street. Microdisney, Singer's Hampstead Home. Bill Pritchard, Susan's Soho Parties. Anything by Madness or St Etienne or Ian Dury – north London.'

Barney had shaken his head sadly. 'Guns of Brixton, pal – a classic. And what about Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine?' Barney had pulled an old click-wheel iPod from his satchel and fiddled with the controls. 'Loads of songs about south London, all brilliant. The Only Living Boy In New Cross. 24 Minutes From Tulse Hill. Here – listen to this. It's their version of Rent by the Pet Shop Boys. Twice as fast as the original version, and set in Tooting Broadway. Bit of a gem.'

I'd taken the earphones, keen to expand my knowledge of Tooting by whatever means available. Then Barney had called over to his friends Bev and Pat and asked them which Carter song had mentioned Elephant and Castle, and that'd been it – I was inducted into a fraternity of wisdom to rival that of the Fat Ox.

That was nearly three hours ago, now – and it occurs to me, as I draw deeply upon my fourth hair-of-the-dog pint, that perhaps I've become too reliant on people like Jeremy, with his foul, Claire-defiling ways. And maybe I've over-valued Claire's company, too – a one-in-a-million girl, certainly, but one who's nonetheless allowed herself to be pawed into submission by the Shagfinder General. I'm happy here, with Barney and Bev and Pat, drinking beer and vigorously debating whether or not Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks is a contender for 'Best Song About South London – Ever'.

'It can't be. It doesn't qualify,' says Bev, sliding his empty pint glass towards Pat and reclining in his chair. He's still grumpy because Pat wouldn't allow any of Pink Floyd's Animals album to go on the list, even though Battersea Power Station's on the sleeve – and a helium-filled pig. 'Because in the third verse, Terry and Julie cross over the river. They don't stay in Waterloo. So it's not, strictly speaking, a song about south London at all.'

'Bollocks. It's called Waterloo Sunset, for God's sake. And it's not written from Terry and Julie's point of view, is it? It's written in the first person – and Ray Davies says, pretty specifically, that when he gazes on a Waterloo sunset, he's in paradise. Paradise, Bev. Paradise.'

'Yeah. Ray Davies who was from Muswell sodding Hill.'

I watch these academic behemoths with rapt attention, utterly incapable of joining their heady discourse thanks to my unaccustomed intake of lunchtime alcohol. It's true what Jeremy says, though – that people who spend their lives in the pub really do know everything. A decent pub's like a university for the long-term unemployed. And people like Dave the barman, men of ineffable insight and uncompromising judgement, are like the professors.

I smile at my new friends – my new friends who have yet to desecrate the sanctity of our friendship by shagging any of my other friends. New friends. It feels strangely illicit just being here. I mean, Jeremy won't normally let me even mention Pink Floyd because they're purveyors of 'art wank, for tossers'. But like I said – perhaps it's time I broke free from Jeremy. Perhaps it's time.

Barney turns to me. 'You see, Tim – there's loads of good songs about south London. Your problem, as I see it, is that you jump to conclusions about things. You can't see what's right underneath your nose.'

'I can't see what's right underneath my nose, Jez. That's my problem.' I try saying it as meaningfully as possible so Jeremy gets the hint, picking up the TV remote and lowering the volume to a background level. 'I mean – I've been totally blind to what you've been doing. But I know what the score is now.' Jeremy doesn't respond for a moment; he's been totally fixated by a wildlife programme about penguins since I came out of the shower five minutes ago.

I needed that shower – partly to sober up, but mostly to wash away any lingering scent that may reveal where I've been, what I've been up to. I still feel a bit slutty, though. I have, after all, been drinking with other men – drinking with them, laughing with them and talking about music. Talking about Pink Floyd, even. I almost feel I've been cheating on Jeremy. I almost feel he deserves it. I glance across at him reproachfully, and eventually he speaks. 'Right, right.' He flicks absently through the other channels, then back to the penguins. 'So. You noticed last night that... well, someone was being a bit over-affectionate.'

'Mm.'

Jeremy puts a Rothmans to his lips but doesn't light it. 'Just between the two us, mate, that's been going on a while.'

'Has it?'

'Yeah.' He turns to me. 'You didn't suspect anything?'

'God, no,' I lie. Images of Claire and Jeremy doing it fill my mind. In every scene, Claire's being... well, 'keen'. Oh God, no. 'Well, perhaps a little bit.'

'I'm going to end it.'

'What?'

'I'm ending it.'

I can't believe it. It is, after all, less than twenty-four hours since Jeremy celebrated his acquittal for Actual Bodily Harm by engaging in some Actual Bodily Shagging. With Claire – lovely, trusting Claire. 'You are?'

'Yeah. It was just sex.' Yes – sex with Claire, you callous shit.

I gaze, agog, at the man who, until ten seconds ago, I thought was my oldest friend Jeremy. I don't know what to say to him. I mean, obviously I don't want him to be shagging Claire – but I don't want Claire to be a heartbroken wreck, either. 'But you like sex, Jez. In the same way as, say, the Cookie Monster likes cookies. You're the Shagfinder General. The Rene Descartes of the erect nipple – I fornicate, therefore I am.'

Jeremy shakes his head, sadly. 'There's more to life than shagging, Tim.' Then he takes the unlit cigarette from his mouth and flicks it tetchily at the penguins. 'I'm ending it tonight.'

'Seriously?'

'Seriously. You see, I think I'm falling for someone else.'

I'm suddenly aware that I'm wearing nothing but my underpants, the last lingering droplets of water from the shower still glistening upon my supine form. 'It's not me, is it?'

Jeremy casts a withering look in my direction. An exploration of his latent homoerotic tendencies seems far from his mind. 'No, mate. It's not you.'

'Probably for the best.'

Suddenly, he swings his legs off the bed and reaches for his boots. 'I'm off for a little walk. Clear my head.'

'At this time of night? In Edgware?'

He stands silhouetted in the open doorway as though reconsidering. Then he turns to go. 'I'll not be long. I'm not going far.'

On the TV, battalions of plucky penguins are hurling themselves into the thrashing waves. Claire likes penguins, I think. She's got a fluffy one on her keyring. I cruise the adjacent channels for a few seconds, but nothing grabs me. When I get back to the penguins, they're attempting to haul themselves back on to the ice floe. Time and again, a handful of the smaller penguins try making it to the safety of the ice, but keep falling backwards into the churning sea. No hands, I think. Nothing to grip with. I can't help feeling that the smallest one has something indefinably... Glaswegian about it. I cruise again, but by the time I've satisfied myself that there's really nothing on, the end credits are rolling on the penguin documentary. Then the door opens and Jeremy strides wordlessly into the room. He kicks off his boots and throws his legs on the bed, extending his hand for the TV remote control. He flicks through the channels methodically, unseeingly.

'I've ended it.'

'Just now?'

'Just now. I'm a free man.' He sits up suddenly. 'Tim. You've got to do me a favour. I need to see Lisa again. Before I go back, tomorrow night.'

'Back where?'

'Back up north. I can't really hang around the Happi-Lodge any more. There might be a bit of an atmosphere.' He's not wrong. I can't imagine it'll be all smiles at the Reception desk, now Jeremy's just ditched Claire. 'Phone her, Tim. Phone Lisa for me.'

'I don't know...'

But Jeremy's snatched the wallet from my jacket pocket, pulled out Lisa's card and begun dialling her number on the bedside phone. I can hear the sound of the ringing tone in the earpiece, even from three yards away. Jeremy looks imploringly at me, waggling the receiver in my face. 'Please.' I hear the tiny click as Lisa picks up, then the far-off, pixie version of her voice. 'Hello? Hello?'

I take the phone, hoping the frown I'm giving Jeremy won't be detectable in my voice. 'Hey, Lisa. It's Tim.'

'Oh. Hello. It's late, you know.'

'Sorry about that.' Lisa makes a little moaning sound at the other end of the line. 'I just wanted to thank you for a really good time on Monday.' Jeremy nods frenetically at me from his bed. 'And I wanted to know if you fancied meeting up again.'

'Erm, yeah. Okay.'

'Tomorrow?'

'Hm.' Lisa tries to suppress a yawn. 'Fine. When?'

'Lunch?'

I can hear Lisa quietly sucking the breath over her teeth at the other end of the line. 'Mm. Okay. Cool. That'd be nice.'

'Actually, Jeremy's with me tomorrow, keeping me company in Tooting.' I glance at Jeremy, who's joyously waving his fists in the air. I sigh inwardly. The things I do for my friends. And my former friends too, apparently. 'And I wondered if I could bring him along?'

tooting bec

'Is that him?'

'No, mate. That's not him.'

'What about him? That bloke there?' Jeremy points at an elderly Asian chap who's seemingly fixated by the deranged display of flowers, helium-filled balloons and miniature thrones in the Bina Wedding Shop window.

'No. That's not him either. The guy you're looking for is white, remember? About our age. I'll tell you if I see him. Relax, Jez. Please.'

But Jeremy doesn't relax. And while I'm grateful for him coming here – to Tooting, to look out for me – it's taking every ounce of self-control not to shove him under a number 355 bus. It's a good job he's heading back to Whitby after our lunch with Lisa. Only a few more hours to endure.

'I don't think Sarah's here, Jez,' I eventually announce, around ten o'clock. 'We should have a little gander up the street. If she lives hereabouts, she might be out shopping.'

Actually, there's no way Sarah would shop round here. Most of Tooting's shops are the kind that have their stock spilling out on to the pavement, where everything's made of injection-moulded plastic and costs exactly a pound. Jeremy stops outside several of them, pointing at most of the male customers and asking me if they're Darren.

'Remember, Jez, if we see Darren, you're here in a protective capacity only. It's not a vendetta or anything.'

'Right, right.'

I'm pleased to note that he's visibly panting, now – lugging his bags along the street, unaided – although the image only reminds me that it's less than thirty-six hours since his night of breathless, sweaty abandon with Claire. The sod.

'And it's Sarah we're looking for.'

'Got you, kid. Sarah.' He draws to a standstill outside a fine-looking pub called the King's Head, unceremoniously drops his bags and consults his watch. It's not yet opening time, however, and after a moment he resumes his forward trudge. 'Although I don't reckon there'd be any bother if I did give that Darren a slap. From the police, or anything.'

'How so?'

'That bloke, on Wednesday. The judge chap.' Jeremy lowers his voice conspiratorially. 'Well, he gave me the nod.'

I turn and face him, keen to see whether Jeremy's expression will shed any light on this unlikely claim. 'What do you mean, he gave you the nod?'

'Well – you know. I'm in, there.'

'What, buddies with the magistrate? Just because you're off round his house to strip the paint off his wife's dressing tables?'

'It's more than that. It's almost like he said, you know – Jez, mate. You're all right, you are. You're one of the good guys. You're one of us. I feel like I've joined the Freemasons. Or the mafia. I'm a made man, me – untouchable. Selected by a higher power to fight for the forces of righteousness. I'm like Samuel L Jackson at the end of Pulp Fiction. Only white and from Yorkshire.'

'He could just as well have sentenced you to six months in prison.' And if he had done, you wouldn't have jumped out of the dock and straight into Claire's bed – you smug git.

'I don't think so, kid. There'd be no point, anyway. Not with me being a reformed character, sworn to the ways of honour and decency.' And as if to illustrate his point, Jeremy stops once again in the tide of pedestrians and looks wistfully along the street, his gaze eventually inclining heavenward over the flat, faintly deco-ish roof of the Tooting Islamic Centre.

I catch my breath for a second, momentarily insensitive to the obstruction we're creating on the pavement, stunned by the lad's self-delusion. And then, as Jeremy's beatific smile slowly turns to shine down upon me, something that's been building up inside me for months snaps. 'Bollocks, Jez. Utter bollocks. Reformed character, you? My arse. Maybe it takes a mate to put you straight on this one, Jeremy, but whatever else you are, you're not sworn to the ways of 'honour and decency'. Because, frankly, you've done some pretty shoddy things recently. And yes – you might've put yourself out for me this last couple of months, but it doesn't alter the fact that you are, and always have been, a self-serving git who indiscriminately shags anything with a pulse – regardless of the consequences. And while Jeremy the self-serving git is someone I've learned to tolerate, Jeremy the latter-day saint is a bit much for even me to swallow. Mate.'

For a moment there's silence – not only from Jeremy, but also the small crowd of Asian schoolboys who've stopped to marvel at this free spectacle. They disperse, now, one or two of them gently slapping my shoulder in admiration. Jeremy, meanwhile, after initially rearing in injured indignation, has since adopted the expression of a wounded puppy, and it's not until we're fifty yards down the street that he speaks. 'That was harsh, Tim.'

I press on along the pavement, Jeremy struggling in my wake, his voice strained by the effort of carrying all his stuff. 'I know I've done some bad things. But I'm changing. I'm knocking the ciggies on the head. Cutting down on the booze. And as of last night, I'm a one-woman man. It's Lisa or nothing for me, now.'

But I don't want to hear it – and I don't want to spend the next two hours listening to it either. 'Well, maybe you'd better take her out for lunch by yourself. She'll be at the Lobster Pot restaurant in Kennington at half twelve.'

'What? Aren't you coming?'

'No. Tell her I'm ill or something. Tell her I'll call her at the weekend.'

'Oh. Right.'

'Okay, then.' I can see that Jeremy's trying to read my face for clues, trying to work out why I'm being so horrible. He just doesn't get it, though – he just can't see that he's done anything wrong. I only wish he wouldn't stand there looking so pathetic and miserable; it just makes it worse. 'Have fun with Lisa, then. And a good trip back up north this afternoon.'

'Cheers, kid. I'll see you when you come back to Whitby. Remember, mum says you can stay with us as long as you want. Rent-free.'

'If I don't find Sarah and bring her home.'

'That's what I meant. And maybe – if it doesn't work out with Sarah – we could get a flat together. You and me. Just a thought, mate.'

He holds his hand out and I shake it. Then he turns towards Tooting Broadway station, and is gone.

tooting broadway

I phoned Jeremy twice over the weekend – once at the Ox and once at his dad's workshop. He said he was fine and that he'd had 'a cracking time' with Lisa, but the conversation was pretty strained and we didn't chat for long. Jeremy asked after Claire both times, though – whether I'd seen her, if we were doing anything interesting over the weekend, that sort of thing. It's delayed-reaction remorse for behaving like a twat, of course. He must've finally realised he'll never see her again.

As for myself – well, I feel sick when I think about how much I'm going to miss her. And I don't think I'd realised until now that this'll probably be my last week in London. Claire's last week, too. I shiver in the damp Tooting air. Leaving London should have meant the start of something, but it feels like the end – horribly like the end.

It feels like the end for me, anyway. Claire probably feels fine. She's still negotiating her period of notice at the Happi-Lodge, but she's owed loads of holiday and her last shift's likely to be on Friday. She wants to be in Spain before Christmas, in any case, and it's only four weeks away. When she gets there, I expect she'll want to forget all about me, and Jeremy, and the Happi-Lodge. I won't forget about her, though. No way. I'll still write to her, and phone her, no matter how things turn out with Sarah – assuming that I eventually find Sarah, of course.

I'm pretty confident that Sarah doesn't live in Tooting, though. I've spent all day kicking around the Broadway, ducking into pound shops when it rained, and into Sainsbury's for top-ups of rotisserie chicken and doughnuts. I must admit that I've had a couple of ulterior motives for hanging around Sainsbury's though. Firstly, I've been assembling a little Spanish picnic for Claire – something to cheer her up following her shoddy treatment by the Shagfinder General. And secondly, I've been spying on... Darren.

Yes – Darren. The Darren. 'Shitby' Darren. The very same Darren who chewed up my Crunchies and relieved himself over my y-fronts when I was twelve. The Darren who now – incredibly – works on Sainsbury's checkout in Tooting. Bizarre. And despite the fact that he's safely incarcerated in his little alcove, I must admit that I felt a profound jolt when I first saw him. For a second, in fact, it felt like I was going to be sick – right in the middle of the Ready Meals aisle – except it wasn't food that I wanted to retch up, but memories. The past.

I could hardly believe it was him, struggling to find the barcode on an old lady's Fray Bentos steak and kidney pudding. I had to stroll past his checkout half a dozen times before I was convinced of his identity, actually – partly because he'd put on a lot of weight, partly because he'd lost a lot of hair, but mostly because of his... well, his aura, I suppose – his aura of misery, and the way he seemed to project an exclusion zone of despair on to everything within a five-yard radius. Hardly the Darren I remember, then. I still kept my distance at first, though, scoping him surreptitiously from just beyond the ciggie kiosk. It's taken hours for me to work my way closer to my childhood nemesis, and it's dark outside before I finally summon up the courage to face him, one on one.

Queasy. That's how I feel, standing in his queue. Good sense says I shouldn't be here at all, dredging up the past – but I can't help myself. Curiosity, if nothing else, is propelling me forward – curiosity about the person who's cast such a long shadow over my life. Darren. I eye him furtively as he serves the customer in front of me. He looks somehow caged, with his weighty frame squeezed into the tiny booth, but he makes the impression of captivity even more pronounced by hunching himself over the cash register like a circus elephant with a Rubik's cube. He completes the effect by accompanying each cheerful electronic 'beep' from the computer with a tiny, desperate sigh of his own.

There'll only be one beep for my shopping, though – for the multipack of Crunchie bars I've just placed on the conveyor belt. The Crunchie bars I'm staring at, willing them to trigger a memory from deep in our shared past. I don't know how I want Darren to respond when he sees them. When he sees me. But I do want a reaction – the tiniest flicker of... well, something... to acknowledge what happened between us, all those years ago.

Then ideally I'd like an apology. A few hours' wailing self-flagellation would probably suffice – followed by an account of his years of remorse; his conversion to Buddhism; his decade-long quest to track me down and make appropriate reparations; his decision to devote every free moment to campaigning for the victims of repressive regimes. Or – alternatively – maybe he'd just like to invite me over to his place, so I can take a leak over the contents of his wardrobe. Either option would be just dandy.

But no matter how hard I stare at the Crunchies, no matter much significance I imbue them with in my mind, and no matter how much I mentally implore Darren to glance up at me... nothing happens. Darren just picks up the Crunchie packet and slides it unseeingly over the barcode reader. And when my eyes finally meet his, there's no spark of recognition behind them. There's nothing behind them, actually – just the cold indifference of a loan shark on repayment day.

'Nectar card?'

'I'm sorry?'

'Nectar card, mate?'

'Oh. No. Sorry.'

Darren hands me my change, which I pocket. Then he turns to the customer behind me and I start making my way out of the shop – which is where, I suppose, I leave him. I've certainly left something behind, anyway. Something that was actually nothing. I think about all the time I've frittered away, fretting about someone who'd forgotten I even existed. And I think of all the emotional energy I've invested – gone in an instant.

It's time, I realise, to work out what really matters to me – and who really matters. I shoulder my rucksack of Spanish goodies, pass through the Tube station ticket barrier and head underground.

'This is so kind,' Claire exclaims, taking my shopping and leading me into the kitchen.

'It's Barcelona-themed. As close as I could manage, anyway.'

'Olives. Nice one,' she says, bestowing a thank you kiss on my forehead.

'Spanish olives. You should regard them as the highest token of my esteem, given how much I loathe the salty little gits.'

'And there's bread in here, too. Oh, and chorizo. And a bottle of Rioja. And what's this?' Claire holds the packet up to the light. 'Manchego cheese. I've not had this for a while. Very good melted over aubergine. This is really kind.'

'Anything to see you happy.'

She raises an eyebrow as she struggles with the wine bottle. 'I'll remember that. Let's have a wee splash of Rioja. Then you can pack these books away while I make supper. I've got an Almodóvar film for afterwards – I'm So Excited. It's supposed to be cheerfully crap.'

It really isn't Almodóvar's best, as it turns out, but I don't really care. I'm content just to be here, listening to Claire as she chats incessantly about Barcelona – the weather, the buildings, the people – topping up our glasses between breathless descriptions of the city. 'You'd love it. It's coastal, hilly, arty. Loads of bars. And a real sense of space. Good seafood as well, so not too much of a culture shock for a Whitby lad. British bands play there, and they've got cinemas that show original English language prints.' She skips out to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a fresh bottle of wine. 'I'm dying to get enrolled at the Universitat de Barcelona. Get cracking on some serious postgrad work.'

I frown into my Rioja. 'What about cash?' I ask. 'Isn't their economy in tatters?'

Claire shrugs. 'It's had a bit of a hammering, yes,' she says. 'But I've got loads of contacts out there – three or four possible jobs lined up if I want them. I might get a job in a gallery if I'm lucky. But even a workshy fop like you could get by. You can still pick up TEFL jobs in Spain.' She puts her head on my shoulder. 'An English graduate would have a head start, anyway. And it's dead easy to get a TEFL certificate, it only takes a few weeks. And Barcelona's a great city for writers. Lots of cafés for you to hang around in, pretending to be Hemingway.'

'That was Cuba, wasn't it?'

'Barcelona, too. Spanish Civil War.'

'Oh, right.'

Claire gives up wrestling with the corkscrew and passes me the bottle. 'Oh, to have a man about the house.' I yank impotently at the cork for a good thirty seconds before it finally concedes defeat. I pass it back. 'I'm really excited. Thinking about the future. Getting out of London and moving on.' She wipes a stray drop of wine from the neck of the bottle and licks her finger. 'You should think about it, too.'

It's the last thing I want to think about, though. Because wherever I am in a week's time, I can't imagine I'll be as happy as I am now.

Claire raises her glass. 'I could get used to this. Couldn't you?'

'Sitting in a room full of your dusty boxes?'

'No, you arse. This.' She nods at the wine, the remnants of the bread and cheese, the film. 'I propose a toast. To Barcelona. Waifs and strays never turned away, long or short term.' I sip my wine, and then Claire kisses me – possibly more forcefully than she means to – an inch below my ear. 'Mi casa es su casa and all that. Seriously.'

'Thanks, kid.'

We pick up our glasses and make our way through to the bedroom, where a number of Claire's boxes lie open on the floor, half-filled with books and CD's. Neither of us is really in the mood to carry on packing, though, and Claire settles the matter by ignoring her scattered possessions and pulling a floor cushion over to the wall. She plumps it into an impromptu sofa and indicates that I should sit. Then she joins me, tucking herself neatly under my arm. 'So what was it you were going to tell me? About this afternoon?'

I feel slightly awkward. From her expression, Claire looks like she expects me to produce a rip-roaring anecdote from my day in Tooting. 'Well, it's nothing, really. It's just that I saw Darren. The guy who beat me up when I was twelve.'

Her jaw drops. 'The 'Shitby' guy?'

'That's the one. He looked terrible. I've never seen anyone look so depressed.'

'Where did you see him?'

'On the checkout in Sainsbury's.'

'Did he recognise you?'

'Not a flicker.'

'Wow. That is pretty weird.' Claire gets up quickly and, in one fluid movement, is sitting astride me, pinning my legs to the carpet. It can't have escaped her attention that she's now sitting on my lap, her face only inches from mine. It certainly hasn't escaped my attention. 'There's a moral in it. Somewhere.'

'Yeah?'

'Certainly. Things like that don't just happen. They're... God's metaphors. Messages from a higher power.'

'You don't believe in God.'

'I believe in metaphors, though.'

I concede a small nod. You can't argue with that. 'So what message should I take from my encounter with Darren, then?'

'Don't ask me. I wasn't there. What do you think the cosmos was telling you?'

'How about: don't work for Sainsbury's. You'll have to wear a crap uniform.'

Claire shakes her head impatiently. 'You weren't planning on getting a job at Sainsbury's, were you?'

'Not imminently.'

'Then that wasn't the message, was it?' She leans closer. 'What did Darren's appearance in your life tell you?'

I close my eyes and try to concentrate. It's not easy, with my thighs clamped firmly between Claire's knees. And while I do want to cooperate – God knows I do – I wish Claire would set me a task that required a more physical, practical response. I gently clear my throat. 'Okay. How about this: be bold. Move on. The thing that you fear is nothing.'

'A far more astute reading of the situation.' Claire's eye passes over my face like a searchlight. It's wonderful and terrifying, both at the same time. 'And do you believe it?'

I close my eyes again, recalling the days and weeks I've spent in London. 'I think I do,' I finally say. 'Do you?'

'Definitely.'

And then I lean forward and – seized by a momentary, thoughtless compulsion – I kiss the corner of Claire's mouth. As kisses go, it's a pretty timid effort – the kind of kiss you might hope to retract if it wasn't well received – and for a second, Claire just gazes down at me, her expression unfathomable. And then I know that a poor reception won't be an issue, that the whole situation between the two of us has subtly but irrevocably altered. Claire's mouth, very gently, closes over mine.

Oh God. We're snogging – me and Claire. I close my eyes and try marshalling my mental faculties – my conscience, my desires, my guilt – but they're as stunned by the situation as me. It's just a friendly thing, I tell myself. A friendly kiss being enjoyed by two friends who've just shared a friendly bottle of Rioja. And if one of those two friends just happens to be getting a monumental erection – like he's had every time he's fantasised about this moment for the past two months – then that's simply an indication of the respect he feels for his non-erect companion. Yes. This is just a friendly kiss, I think, as Claire's tongue deftly flicks over my own. That's giving me an equally friendly erection. What a friendly way to round off the evening.

I open my eyes and – finding Claire's still closed – furtively search her face for clues as to how friendly things are likely to get. It's hard to concentrate, though, in the warm grotto formed by the twin curtains of her hair, while the gentle movement of her hips – supple and softly coercive – is making logical thought a near-impossibility. Trying to ignore Claire's breasts, or the small inverted 'v' of light that's visible at the apex of her legs, is also getting tricky. And anything below Claire's neckline is mentally out of bounds. Beyond 'friendly'. Best not to think at all, then – least of all about where this might be heading. Because the less I'm moving matters forward, and the more I just lie here and think of Yorkshire, the less I feel responsible for what's happening – and it's almost a relief when Claire's eyes finally open and she slides lightly off me, releasing a soft sigh of contentment. 'That was nice,' she says to herself. And then, to me, 'Take your jumper off.'

Yes – being told what to do definitely helps. Definitely. I scrabble with my sweater and Claire does likewise with hers, discarding it at the side of the futon. Then she lies back against the floor cushion, slips a hand – a friendly hand – around the back of my neck, and gently draws my lips down upon her own. Oh yes, I think. Kissing's still fine. Still thoroughly wholesome and innocent, despite the squeezing and the rubbing and the tiny breathless sighs. And it's not like we're undressing, is it? We're just maintaining a sensible body temperature in a manner that happens to reduce the garment-coverage of Claire's breasts by one intoxicating layer. I glance down and there they are, a millimetre beneath her white t-shirt, rising and falling as she breathes. Balanced on one aching elbow, I attempt to find somewhere neutral to rest my free hand, but when it finally alights – very diplomatically, I feel – on the warm strip of exposed skin between Claire's t-shirt and her jeans, she only wriggles lower down the floor cushion. And so a moment later, my abstinent hand suddenly finds itself at breast level, inside her t-shirt. 'Yes,' she whispers. 'It's okay.' But it isn't okay. Breasts, I think we decided, were not okay at all. And it can't be okay that my groin is beginning to ache like it's been inexpertly wedged into an unyielding denim vice. And it's even less okay that Claire, opening her eyes, has just broken her lips away from mine. Oh God – maybe, in a moment of drunken, eyes-closed insanity, she mistook me for Jeremy.

But then Claire smiles and whispers in my ear. 'Let's go to bed.' Let's go to bed. And suddenly, I don't feel guilty any more – and Claire stands, pulling her t-shirt over her head in one fluid gesture and unbuttoning her jeans, swiftly finishing the process as she sits on the edge of the futon and swivels her legs round and under the duvet. And then I'm in bed too, sandwiched between the chilly cotton of the duvet and Claire – the two of us naked but for our underwear. Our legs scissor together and we're kissing again, only breaking off when Claire's bra (which I've been wrestling manfully for a good five minutes) finally becomes a formless arrangement of straps and cups in my hand and is tossed on to the floor. Claire regards me from beneath an arched eyebrow. 'You really like doing that, don't you? You boys? That whole 'bra' thing.'

'It just didn't look very comfortable. I was only trying to help.' I glance over at the discarded bra. 'Sorry it took so long. Out of practice.'

'Perhaps I should do these myself, then.' Claire tucks a thumb down each side of her pants, and in one fluid motion is naked – totally naked. I can barely breathe. She points down below the duvet to where my own underpants are straining with my incarcerated erection. 'Although I can't help but notice you've still got your pants on, there, Tim.'

'Yes I do.' I look down. 'Well observed.' I kiss her again, and pull the waistband catapult-style over the tip of my erect knob, which springs back into position with idiotic glee. I know what it's thinking, because I've been thinking the same for the past quarter of an hour. We're going to do it. We're going to have sex – with Claire. And it's going to be amazing. I slide closer to her beneath the duvet.

'Tim. Tim. Wait a minute.'

Oh God, what? What? Oh no – we're not going to do it. We're not going to have sex. 'Uh-huh?' Without breaking eye contact, Claire reaches down next to the futon. I look where her hand's gone – the Trojans, tucked beneath the futon's slatted base. 'Oh, right. Yes, of course.'

Claire begins inexpertly grappling with the cellophane. In the breathless silence that ensues, I suddenly find myself thinking back to the afternoon a fortnight ago when I bought them from the vending machine in Tesco's – as a joke, really. And then I remember something else. 'Did you ever write that letter to the management? Pointing out the flaw in the whole 'Trojan' metaphor?'

'No. I thought we should try the product first, before making a fuss.' Claire kisses my neck, pressing the unwrapped condom – still rolled up like a sock – into my hand. I nip the end between finger and thumb and begin rolling it into position. 'And I think, Tim, this'd be an excellent opportunity for you to put one through its paces.'

And then suddenly another thought from the past springs, entirely unbidden, to mind. The sort of thought that'd cool any man's ardour. Jeremy. Jeremy in bed – Jeremy in this bed – with Claire. Less than a week ago. I mean, I know it's all over between them now – but still. He's my best friend – the Shagfinder General. And although I know it's hardly the time or place to discuss the matter, I can't help but speak. 'I'm not as good at this as Jeremy is. Shagging, that is.'

Thinking about it, it's probably remarkable that Claire doesn't choose this moment to put all her clothes back on and throw me out of the flat. I don't know how I'd take it, if she said the same to me. But all she does is kiss me again. 'Firstly, who cares? Secondly, how on earth do you know? And thirdly, that's without doubt the oddest thing anyone's ever uttered in my presence – in bed, or out. And I'll thank you for never, ever saying it again.'

I breathe a sigh of relief; Claire wriggles beneath me on the futon mattress and, as if by some strange erotic magic, I feel the life return to my freshly rubberised lower portions. 'Okay. Do you want to do it, now?'

'Oh, go on, then.'

And so we do.

It's not until five in the morning that Sarah's voice enters my mind. It doesn't say much, and it's scarcely audible over Claire's gentle snoring on the other side of the futon, but it's there nonetheless – quiet and malicious and cold. But it only repeats the words that have already been circulating in my sleep-deprived mind for the past two hours. Why did Claire sleep with me? Because I'm here, and Jeremy's not? Maybe because we were both a bit drunk – or perhaps it was a revenge fuck, getting back at Jezzer for unceremoniously dumping her? A revenge fuck. My God – I've never even thought of those two words together before. It's a 'Sarah' expression, no question, generated from the small parcel of her personality she's deposited in my subconscious.

I stare at the small window where, from beyond the blinds, the first deep blue light of morning is creeping into the room. And why did I sleep with Claire, anyway? Of course, I fancy her – more than fancy her, actually. So very much more. But what does it matter, if she's heading out to Barcelona in a few days' time? I mean, under other circumstances – any other circumstances – I'd say there'd be a future for us. A relationship. But not if she's chosen to live a thousand miles away. And what'd be the point of a long-term relationship anyway? I think I need to accept, on the basis of all I know about her, that Claire just sleeps with people who she takes a shine to – me, Jeremy, whoever. Maybe she simply likes sex; maybe she does this kind of thing all the time. Some people do – Jeremy, for instance. You shouldn't be judgmental about it, but there's no point making a fool of yourself either. None at all. And you'd end up looking pretty soft, making declarations of undying love over the post-coital Bran Flakes, only to have them chucked back in your face. I don't think I could cope.

I silently crawl out from underneath the duvet, and grope around on the floor until I find my pants. Claire turns over in her sleep, but doesn't wake. I retrieve the rest of my clothes, put them on, and pad out into the sitting room to find my shoes and coat. Before leaving, I return once more to Claire's open bedroom door and look inside. In the pale blue half-light I can see she's moved again, her face now turned to the wall. Her snoring's stopped, and an arm obscures her face. I pull the door gently closed and let myself out into the morning. I shiver and walk briskly down the road.

colliers wood

'You stupid, thick bastard. What the fuck did you go and do that for?'

'I'm sorry, mate. We were drunk. And you said you weren't interested in her. And she seemed quite... erm... keen.' I catch my reflection in the phonebox window. I'm actually squirming.

'Well, that's hardly the point, is it?'

'Right, of course. Sorry. Isn't it?' On three hours' broken sleep, my attempts to keep up with Jeremy's train of thought are foundering badly.

'Of course not. It's the fact that you're now calling me from a phonebox in Colliers fucking Wood.'

I stare at the diminishing pile of coins on the ledge and drop another into the slot. 'Right, right.' I haven't got enough coins left to prevaricate any more. 'Actually, Jez, you've lost me. What's me being in Colliers Wood' (I glance out at Colliers Wood, attempting to weigh its significance in my mind) 'got to do with anything at all?'

Jeremy sighs. This is unusual – he's not normally one to indulge in histrionic hiatuses before unburdening himself. 'You just walked out on Claire.'

Ah. Yes. That. It's difficult to make what I say next sound anything other than a whine. 'She knows why I'm down here. What I'm trying to do.'

'But you shagged her first. You shagged her, spent the night in her bed, then just got up and went looking for Sarah, like nothing had happened.'

'So... let me just get this straight. You're not actually angry because I happened to sleep with her?'

You can almost hear the words being digested. 'Why would I be angry about that?'

'Well, I thought you'd be a bit weird about it.' I take a deep breath, wincing at what I have to say next. 'Given that until last week you were seeing her yourself.'

'What d'you mean?'

'You know. Seeing her.' Nothing. 'Seeing her.' Silence. 'Like... erm... seeing even more than her gynaecologist sees of her.'

Finally Jeremy speaks. 'Bollocks. What utter bollocks are you talking, Tim?'

'Well, Jezzer – I did find you in bed with her the morning after your trial.'

'In bed with her – what? What are you on about, man? I never shagged Claire. You passed out, we carried on talking for a couple of hours. She borrowed my jumper because she was cold and we both nodded off on her futon. That was it.' A seismic shift seems to be taking place deep in my gut. The world seems to have gone strangely diagonal. 'Tim? Are you still there?'

I stare at the Esso garage across the street. Life, for everyone else, appears to be proceeding as normal. 'What? Oh, uh-huh, yes. So, you've not been having a thing with Claire, then?'

'No. Why?'

'Well, when I saw Lisa – the first time – she said you'd been bragging in the Ox about shagging the Happi-Lodge receptionist.'

'What, that? Not my finest hour, I'll admit, but I was hammered, mate. And it wasn't Claire, anyroad.' He breathes deeply. 'It was Tara. Obviously.'

I can barely take this in. 'You were seeing Tara? How long for?'

'I don't know – a couple of months? On and off.' Despite his foul mood, I can hear his mouth break into a familiar leer. 'And then sometimes on again, if I'd any energy left. She was a very physical lass, was Tara.'

'So you were shagging her for two months and didn't think to tell me?'

'I thought I had done, on Thursday night. Just before I finished it. She didn't want me telling anyone, mind. You and Claire especially. Her boyfriend's a squaddie, and she didn't want him getting any funny vibes if he popped back unexpectedly on leave.' Jeremy sighs again. That's twice in as many minutes. 'Not that it matters now, of course. Now that it's over. Now we've had the bust-up.'

'Not an amicable parting of the ways, then?'

'She wasn't best pleased, no.'

I mull this for a second, quickly doing the emotional arithmetic. 'She can't grumble, though. She's still got the squaddie.'

'Well, he's a bit of a knobhead, by all accounts. So I think Tara had me pegged as a replacement, which was never part of the plan. Anyway, that's not how female psychology works, is it? She sees herself as the woman scorned. Hell hath no fury, and all that. Which makes me wonder how the hell you're going to get back into Claire's good books.' The slight muffling of Jeremy's voice indicates that a Rothmans has been wedged into the corner of his mouth – now, when he's trying to give them up. 'I think you should spare a thought for what you've done to her feelings, anyway. And maybe work out what your own feelings are. If you've got any.'

I drop another coin into the slot. 'I'm down here looking for Sarah, Jez. You know that.'

'Yeah, but you can't ignore what's happened between you and Claire. Something like that's going to be a massive deal for someone like her. You can't just crap on her. It's not right.'

In all fairness, he's not really being sanctimonious, but this still can't pass without comment. 'What about you though, eh? What about the teachings of Phil Lynott? Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, that's the Lynott way.'

'That's Bowie, you twat. You can't compare that effete ponce with Lynott. Bowie did a song with Queen, for God's sake. And anyway, you'd never treat someone like Claire that way.' For the first time in two decades of friendship, Jeremy seems genuinely angry with me. 'You'd have to be out of your bloody mind.'

'Look, if it wasn't for Sarah...'

'Sarah bollocks, mate. Claire loves you. You know that, don't you? More than Sarah ever did.'

'What d'you mean?'

'Claire loves you. She's mental about you. God knows why, though, given the fact you're a complete and utter twat. She asked you to go to Barcelona with her, didn't she?'

'Did she?'

'Mi casa es su casa – my home is yours. She was seeing if you wanted to go out there with her, you knobhead.'

I try recalling the conversation, filtering out the bits about Ernest Hemingway and chorizo – and yes, it's true. 'I suppose she did, in a way. But if she was so interested in me, why was she always talking to you?'

'About you, you thick bastard. Always about you. Have you tried calling her today? Because I think you should.'

'Her mobile's switched off. I tried the Happi-Lodge this morning, but she wasn't there. She's not answering when I call the flat. Seb picked up once and said she was 'too ill' to come to the phone. I think she's avoiding me.'

'Look, I'll hitch down this afternoon. Claire'll talk to me. It's not me who's dumped all over her feelings. Maybe I can set things straight.'

'Thanks, mate.'

'I'm not just coming down for you, though. I'm going to see Lisa again, too.'

'Right.' I try sounding upbeat, but I'm confused. Jeremy's not normally one for pursuing the unobtainable. 'Good for you.'

'I'll get a room in town, and I'll meet you downstairs in Bradley's at ten.'

'Aren't you coming to the Happi-Lodge?'

'No, kid. If Claire's not coming into work, it'll be Tara on Reception. And it's best we don't see each other.'

'Because she thinks you're a dickhead?'

'Mm. More of an exploitative womanising spunksack than a dickhead. But still...'

I mull this for a moment. 'Probably best you get a room in town, then. See you at ten.'

'At ten.'

I stagger out of the phonebox and into the street. Across the road in the Royal Standard pub they've got their Christmas lights on, and I'm sorely tempted to take my problems over there and discuss them with six or seven pints of strong lager. I spend a moment vacillating on the kerbside with the traffic racing past before turning back to the phonebox. I need to try phoning Claire again; I need to talk to the girl I love.

I dial Claire's number and hear the ringing tone – but no one picks up. I gently headbutt the window. How did The Plan go so badly wrong? I need to get back to Edgware and talk it over with Claire. But then I think: Can't do that. Shagged her by mistake. Then went off looking for my ex-girlfriend.

Shit. Ex-girlfriend. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What have I done?

'You've behaved like a total twat,' says Jeremy, returning from the bar with two more pints of Estrella. We're lucky to have a table; it's usually rammed in Bradley's by now. 'But your uncle Jezzer's here to sort it out. And what's more, I've come equipped.' He puts the beer down and reaches into his trouser pocket. 'There.'

I stare at the object he's just placed on the table. After a moment I manage to speak, although I have little success in masking the tremor in my voice. 'What's that, mate?'

'That's the latest generation iPhone, mate. Box fresh.'

'You've bought yourself a second mobile?'

'Yup. Forty minutes ago, from a shop on the Tottenham Court Road.' Jeremy waggles it menacingly under my nose. 'It's state of the art, that.'

'It's the state of your goodies you should worry about.' I point a finger towards the region of Jeremy's trousers where I've every reason to believe his genitals reside. 'They get enough of a hammering as it is.'

'Bollocks,' he murmurs, gazing fondly beneath the table. 'Industrial strength, these, mate. Impervious to oil, fat, acid and petrol, just like your Doc Martens.'

'But now you've got two phones beaming all their sperm-mutilating radio waves directly into them. And you know how fond of them you are.'

Jeremy shuffles uneasily in his seat. 'No fonder than anyone else.'

'You're the only person I know who's given them individual names.'

He shrugs. 'That was the old Jeremy.' He leans back in his seat. 'Things are changing, Tim. I'm changing.'

'How?'

'Well, I'm giving up smoking. Lisa hates it. She said so when I saw her on Friday. She said it's disgusting.'

'Bloody hell.'

'And getting myself a new mobile is compensation for not having a ciggie to shove in my mouth. It's displacing a self-destructive manifestation of my oral fixation with a less pathological alternative.'

'Did Lisa say that too?'

'No. Freud.' Jeremy lowers his voice. 'Lisa's lending me a book on him. She reckons my behaviour exhibits an intriguing combination of both oral and anal fixations.' He gazes into the middle distance. 'No one's really taken an interest before.'

'You're not actually going to read it, are you?'

'Why not?' Jeremy leans back, tips half his Estrella into his mouth and grins. 'When a brainy lass lends you a book, you read it. It's one of their primitive courtship rituals,' he says. 'And anyway, it sounds quite horny.'

Freud – horny? I shake my head. 'Blimey. Sounds like love.' I nod at the iPhone on the table. 'So is that part of the plan, too? Showing Lisa you're not some terminal retro sadcase?'

'Partly, partly,' says Jeremy, picking it up and wiping a splash of lager from its screen. 'But for the time being, it's so I can keep track of you.' He holds it out.

'What?'

'Take it. It'll mean I can contact you without having to leave messages with young Tara.'

'You want to give me an iPhone?'

'No, I want to lend you an iPhone. Just until we sort out your little contretemps with womankind.' He finishes his drink and puts on his jacket. 'By which I mean Claire. Not the other one.'

I wordlessly pocket the phone, finish my beer and follow Jeremy out of the crowded bar and into the night, where we part on the corner of Hanway Street and Oxford Street. 'I'll pop round Claire's, tomorrow,' says Jeremy, yanking open the door of a dubious-looking minicab. 'We'll sort it out, kid. You'll see.'

south wimbledon

There should be Wombles. A few pictures on the walls would suffice. After all, they've got cricketers on the walls of Oval station, and Sherlock Holmes on all the tiles at Baker Street. So why no Wombles here? It's a bad omen. After all, a Wimbledon that can't produce Wombles can scarcely be expected to produce... the Other One.

No Wombles – no Sarah. In my sleep-deprived state, it seems perfectly logical – just like Jeremy's Stupid Plan had seemed logical, all those months ago in the Fat Ox. But the Plan has clearly failed. Failed spectacularly, in fact. And it could've been anywhere – a momentary lapse of concentration at Leicester Square, a late start at Archway, or skipping the evening rush hour at Camden Town. Anywhere.

I stand outside the Underground station and stare into the traffic. I'm not looking for Sarah, though. Not any more. In fact, I'm only here so that if Fate decides to strike me with a thunderbolt, he'll know where to look. And I can't see why the bugger wouldn't fancy taking a potshot – not after the bum hands he's been dealing me recently. I glare at south London's overcast sky. You wanna piece of me, Fate? Huh? Do ya? Huh? No answer – just like Claire, when I tried phoning her at six o'clock this morning. And at seven. And eight. And nine-thirty, ten and eleven. It's nearly midday, now, though. Time to head back to the Merton branch of Sainsbury's to stock up on essential supplies and make another futile attempt to speak to her.

Unsurprisingly it's Seb who picks up the phone. 'Claire's still too ill to talk, Timothy,' is all he's prepared to offer, 'and she doesn't want callers, so don't even think about coming here.' Maybe he'll let Jeremy into the flat when he goes over there this afternoon. You never know.

I buy Pro-Plus from the supermarket pharmacy and swallow five of them in the car park. London, I realise with a sickening jolt, has slipped through my fingers. The day after tomorrow I'll be gone forever, leaving it all behind. And what will I have altered along the way? Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I swallow hard, try to catch my breath, but there's an unaccustomed tightness across my chest and my legs feel strangely unresponsive. Steadying myself against someone's car, my eyes pan left and right, seeking out somewhere to sit down. Nothing. I need to close my eyes, blot it all out. I spot an abandoned supermarket trolley a few yards away and, in unthinking desperation, wedge it by the kerbside and clamber aboard. Tucking my knees up to my chin, I feel warm, enclosed, surrounded, safe. I close my eyes, and allow my head to fall back as far as the wire mesh will allow.

'Excuse me, sir.'

Half opening an eye, I can make out the silhouette of a figure in uniform. A supermarket Nazi – sent by my good friend Fate, presumably. He looks almost as unhappy as me. 'What?'

'Could you get out of the trolley, please?'

I close my eyes again. 'Have you been sent by Fate? Because if you have, then you can tell him I'm not dealing with a lackey. He can kill me himself, if he wants to.'

'I just want you to get out of the trolley.'

'Well, just wanting something isn't enough, mate. That's what London's taught me. So you might as well piss off. I'm busy having a breakdown.'

'Just get out of the trolley.'

'Go away.'

'Get out now, sir.' He aims a half-hearted punt at the wheel of my trolley. 'I'm serious.'

'I can't hear you. I'm sleeping.'

'Out. This minute.' The security guard begins shaking my trolley by the wire mesh and gives the wheel a couple of further kicks – more aggressively than last time.

'Sleeping.'

'Out. Out, now – or I'll tip you out.'

I screw my eyes even tighter shut. 'Do what you want. I'm not getting out. I'm sleeping, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.'

'Tim. Tim, what the hell are you doing?'

It takes my eyes half a second to adjust to the daylight as I open them; I squint at the familiar silhouette that now obscures the low winter sun. 'Oh. Sarah. Hi.'

'How did you know?' Sarah's fork hovers halfway between the plate and her expectant lips, as though stunned by disbelief.

'It was a guess.'

'Well you're right, anyway.' The fork finally reaches Sarah's mouth and she continues talking, only now through an alarming melange of spinach and chicken. It makes no difference, though. I still can't take my eyes off her. 'It wasn't that I particularly wanted to do a management traineeship. I guess I saw it as a backup plan, in case jewellery-making didn't work out. It was only ever going to be Plan B.' She takes a bread roll and absently tears it open. 'I think I just lost my nerve. About us moving in together. About being penniless. Co-habiting. Being 'a couple'.' Sarah makes little inverted commas in the air with her fingers. 'That sort of thing was never easy for me.'

'But why didn't you tell me there'd been a change of plan? That you were having doubts?'

'God, Tim. I meant to. But I knew that if we got round to discussing it, then you'd have just talked me round. And I'd never have known what it was like to do something that really mattered, just for me.' She fingers the stem of her wineglass, eyeing its contents for a moment before glancing up at me. 'You could always get me to change my mind about anything.' This is an outrageous lie, of course – but her soft, pouting mouth looks so pretty as she tells it. I feel like popping a bit of butter in there to see if it'd melt. I feel like popping a few other things in, too, but perhaps not here, in the restaurant. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. 'So what about you, then?'

'What about me?'

'What've you been up to? And what were you doing in that trolley?'

'Erm... I've been having these dizzy spells. They're a side effect of my new asthma medication.'

'Ah. Right.' Sarah glances over her shoulder, seemingly checking to see whether we're being overheard. 'I thought it might be an after-effect of your coma.'

'My what?'

'Coma. I know all about it, Tim. There's no need to pretend.'

'Ah.'

'And about Ronan Keating singing at your bedside, while you were in hospital.' She smiles, a trifle smugly. 'I hear everything through the grapevine. Mum heard the news when she got back from Magaluf.'

'Ah, right.'

'What's he like, then? Ronan?'

I try not to squirm, painfully aware that I wouldn't know Ronan Keating from Spongebob Squarepants. 'Oh, very nice. A proper gent.'

'He didn't get you into drugs, did he?' whispers Claire.

She's close enough to kiss, now, and it's getting hard to concentrate. 'Pardon?'

'I heard you'd got into drugs.' She lowers her voice still further. 'Buying, selling.'

I feign deep consideration. 'Not really, no.'

'Because my mum ran into Mrs Stapleton on the prom. She said she'd seen you, lying on the pavement outside the Dominion Theatre.'

I pretend to trawl my memory, although the two old ladies have been dancing in front of my mind's eye for the past twenty seconds. 'Mm. Oh, God, yes. I remember.' I stare at my pasta again from whence, due to my semi-hallucinogenic sleep-deprived state, the leering face of Mrs Stapleton stares back up at me. 'I was under Freddie Mercury's crotch.'

'That's it. She said you were on crack.' Sarah de-chickens her plate in one final, shovel-action forkful. 'I was worried you'd become a drug dealer.'

'Not me. She must've been mixing me up with Howard Marks.'

'Is he one of Jeremy's cronies? From the Fat Ox?'

'Not as far as I know.'

'Oh.' Sarah looks disappointed, but manages to rearrange her features into an expression of sisterly concern. It's a bit like the earlier one – the one I had a near-uncontrollable urge to insert butter into. Oh Sarah. 'I wondered whether you might've been down in London looking for me.'

I've already prepared an answer for this, and toy briefly with the notion of accompanying it with an insouciant toss of the head. It's the closest I'll ever come to Playing Hard To Get. 'God, no. No, no.' Insouciant toss. 'I just came down last night with Jeremy. For a Mekons gig, at the Windmill in Brixton. That's where I last saw him, actually. He was trying to chat up Susan Honeyman, the fiddle player.' I am the king of liars, a colossus amongst fibbers.

'Mm.' There's more than sisterly concern in Sarah's eyes, now, but I'm having difficulty putting my finger on – or putting butter into – what it is. 'Actually, I went back up to Whitby about a month ago.'

'Oh, right.' I feign ignorance. 'See anyone?'

'Only a few people. It wasn't really a social visit.' Sarah pours the last slug of wine into her glass. 'Although I did keep an eye out for you. I went to the house you'd started renting, but there wasn't anyone there. All the curtains were pulled shut.'

'I must've been out. Probably at the Fat Ox.'

'I went there, too.'

'Did you?' The thought of Sarah and the Fat Ox in close proximity to one another is almost unbearably erotic, but I decline to say so. 'But you hate the Fat Ox.'

'I don't hate the Fat Ox. I just don't see why it needs to have the word 'Fat' in its name. It's off-putting. Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to go inside. Your drinking buddies all think I'm a complete bitch.'

I consider this for a second. My friends have always been too loyal to describe Sarah as a bitch. Even Claire, after all the things I've told her about Sarah, has never said anything horrible about her. 'Not a complete bitch, no.'

'They think I'm a bitch.'

'Jonesy likes you.'

'Lenny Jones? Lenny Jones wants to fuck me.' Sarah must've noticed me wince but she presses on regardless. 'Don't act all shocked. It's true, he does. He's wanted to fuck me ever since school.' She stares out of the window. 'Anyway, Jeremy thinks I'm a bitch.'

'No he doesn't. He's just got a view of women that's broadly based on Thin Lizzy lyrics and the first two series of The Sweeney.' Snippets of Jeremy's recent paeans to Lisa Salt's wit and intelligence flit through my mind, and I wince again. 'He used to, anyway.'

'I saw him the other day, you know. The Shagfinder General.'

'Uh-huh?'

'Yes. Near my office. In Archway. He was hanging around outside the Tube station, scoping all the skirt.' Sarah smiles, rather smugly. 'When I went back to Whitby, I found out what he was doing down here.'

I feel slightly sick. 'What was that, then?'

'Well, apparently' – she leans forward over the table again, into the able-to-be-kissed position – 'he was down in London fucking a hotel receptionist.' She makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a backfiring Lambretta. It's a sound I've never heard any other woman make. I've never heard Claire make a noise like that, anyway. I think of her soft Glaswegian burr, and wonder where she is. Suddenly, I feel hopelessly alone. 'Imagine – fucking a hotel receptionist.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes.' Her shoulders shake with mirth. 'I don't know who's sadder – him or her.'

'How so?'

If Sarah notices the chill in my voice, she chooses not to respond to it. 'Come on, Tim – a receptionist, for God's sake! They probably spend half their working lives with their ankles behind their ears. One sniff of an Amex card or a Louis Vuitton suitcase and they're on their backs with their legs in the air. They'd spread them for anyone, even Jeremy. He probably told her he was a record producer or something. Stupid bitch.' I think of Claire, lovely Claire; I also think of Tara, equally lovely in her own way; but I don't recognise either of them in Sarah's description. I recognise something else, though. Something I've been trying to put my finger on for years. 'And it's a slightly downmarket fuck for him, too, isn't it? Is a hotel receptionist the best he can manage these days? He might as well just get himself a call girl and have done with it. He must be pretty desperate.' Suddenly Sarah is quiet again. 'I thought I saw you, too.'

'Me? Where?'

'Outside our flat, up in Colindale. Near the British Library newspaper place.'

'You live in Colindale?' I splutter. Less than a mile from the Happi-Lodge.

'Yes. I needed somewhere handy for the Northern Line. I share with three other girls.' Sarah leans back in her chair and, under the table, her leg touches mine. 'It was raining at the time, but I was convinced it was you. You had your old haircut. And that stupid greatcoat.'

'It couldn't have been me.'

'No?'

'No. Definitely not.' I retract my leg. Under the table I can sense Sarah's, searching it out again.

'I thought you'd come down to London to take me home.'

'No.'

'Don't you want to take me home?' Her leg finds mine. 'Because I think I made a mistake. The whole management traineeship isn't really working out for me. And I'd be willing to give it another try – me and you.' She bites her lip and, for a second – just a second – she almost has me. 'After all, you've been staring at me like a starving dog for the last half hour.'

'I don't think so. No.' I take a twenty pound note out of my wallet and put it on the table next to Sarah's empty wineglass. Sarah stares at me, speechless, confusion and anger playing over her features. 'There's someone else, you see. A girl called Claire. It's her I want to be with. And I just don't love you any more.'

Thirty seconds later, I find myself standing outside the Centre Court Shopping Centre. So – Wimbledon chooses to celebrate its association with tennis, but not the Wombles. Madness – utter madness. I switch on Jeremy's iPhone, vaguely considering composing an email to the Centre's manager, when suddenly the device begins ringing in my hand. 'Tim?' says Jeremy, his voice sounding uncharacteristically shrill at the other end of the line. 'Thank God you've picked up. I've got good news and bad news, mate.'

'What's the bad news? Claire's not really ill, is she?'

'Not, she's not ill.' Jeremy takes a deep breath. 'She's gone.'

'Gone? Gone where?'

'Back to Glasgow. To her mum's house. She went yesterday morning.'

I steady myself against a shop window, a dizzying void having opened in the pit of my stomach. 'Shit.'

'It's worse than that, kid. She's flying to Barcelona tomorrow morning.'

'Tomorrow?'

'From Glasgow International.'

'Fuck. What's the good news, then?'

'I've got the address of her mum's house. In Glasgow.'

'Not the phone number?'

'Seb wouldn't give it to me. He wasn't very happy about giving me the address, but I persuaded him. Said I wanted to send Claire a Christmas card. Clever, eh?'

'Pretty smart. Thanks for getting it.' I gaze around the shopping centre, trying to blank out the sensation of rising nausea. 'Though I don't see how it's such great news, Jez.'

'Just get yourself back to Edgware. Soon as you can. We'll be waiting.'

Even before I've passed through the ticket barriers at Edgware station, I'm aware of a commotion taking place outside. A small cavalcade of stationary black cabs encircles the tiny roundabout in front of the entrance, where something vast and grey and Teutonic is blocking the carriageway, steadfastly refusing to budge despite an onslaught of ranting cabbies and a discordant bombardment of car horns. It's only after I've trotted past the great grey beast that its passenger door flies open and Jeremy emerges. 'Tim, mate! Get inside! Quick!'

I stand, dumbstruck, staring at Jeremy and the car from which he's just materialised. 'Jez? Whose car is it?'

'It's a hire car.' He opens the back nearside door. 'Hop in.'

I duck down to climb inside, and for the moment it takes for my eyes to adjust to the darkened interior, I can't make out who's occupying the driver's seat. And then I notice a pocket-sized teddy bear perched on the dashboard. 'Oh. Hello, Lisa. What's happening?'

'We're going to Glasgow.'

'What, now?'

'Yes, now. Tomorrow'll be too late.' Lisa turns the ignition key. 'Tomorrow she'll be gone, won't she?'

Jeremy, having just disentangled himself from a heated exchange with one of the irate cabbies, leaps into the front passenger seat and pulls the door closed behind him. 'Time to go, Lise.' A grizzled face looms in at the window. 'Sharpish.' Lisa nudges the gear selector into drive and the car glides serenely forward into the traffic on Station Road.

I manoeuvre myself between the two front seats and address my kidnappers. 'Can I get just a couple of things straight, here? We're going to Glasgow, right?'

'Right.'

'To Claire's mum's house.'

'Yes.'

'In this car?'

'Uh-huh. I got it on the company account. They normally only use the big Merc for high-end corporate clients, but I persuaded my boss that it was important. Compassionate grounds.' The car lurches forward as she switches lanes, brutally cutting up a bright yellow Alfa Romeo. 'A mercy mission.'

Jeremy turns to face me. 'So it's 'farewell, Edgware', then, kid. Say goodbye nicely, because it's the last time you'll be seeing it. Oh – and I've got a little souvenir for you.'

He reaches into the footwell and produces a ravaged-looking carrier bag which he tosses into my lap. I reach inside and there – a little grubbier than when I last saw him – is Scoobs. 'Scoobs! You found Scoobs! Where was he?'

'Oxfam, on Station Road. I only went in because they had a German pressing of Johnny The Fox in the window.'

I wrap my arms around Scoobs and hold him close. 'Aah.'

We arrive at the junction with the A5. Lisa indicates her intention to turn right, even though a sign very clearly states that only buses may do so. 'So we're not going via the Happi-Lodge, then?'

'No need, mate. All your stuff's in the boot. Oh, except that George Foreman grill I bought you. Lisa wouldn't have it in the car, so Tony and Tara are getting it instead. I think they've become something of an item.'

I turn to Lisa again, whose gimlet eyes are fixed pointedly on the traffic lights. 'Don't I need to check out of the hotel, though? And pay the bill?'

'No need. I did it all for you.' Lisa jams her foot on the accelerator and corners hard, hurling me back on to the gargantuan back seat. 'Jeremy, for some reason, didn't want to talk to the receptionist, although I can't imagine why. She seemed perfectly pleasant to me.' Lisa takes one hand off the wheel and, smiling, turns to face me. 'You can pay me back when you become a bestselling author.'

'Right, right. Cool. You might have a long wait, though. I've not written anything yet. I haven't even had any decent ideas.'

We race through an amber light towards a busy-looking roundabout. 'You should write the tangled tale of your love life. About your search for Sarah.'

'You reckon?'

'Why not?' She turns and smiles at me. 'But if you mention anything about my teddy bears, I will sue you.' The smile vanishes. 'Seriously, I will.'

I settle back in my sumptuously upholstered seat and try to enjoy the ride, but it's not easy. Streets, houses and trees rush past in a hideous blur as the north London suburbs give way to farms and fields. We're approaching the motorway by the time the road seems clear enough to engage Lisa in conversation again. 'Just out of curiosity, Lise – and not meaning to sound ungrateful or anything – but why are you doing this for me?'

'Doing what?'

'Driving me to Glasgow.'

'Ah, that.' With only the palm of her right hand barely touching the steering wheel, Lisa turns to face me. Maybe she had the same driving instructor as my father, I think. It's probably a good job she doesn't like cockles. 'Well, Jeremy told me you'd fallen out of love with Sarah.'

'That's right.' Even more so since lunchtime. Completely. Irreparably. Fantastically.

'And that you'd fallen in love with this other girl, Claire.' Lisa's eyes flick briefly back in the direction of the road, and she adjusts the car's position accordingly, narrowly avoiding an on-coming Transit van.

'Yes. Claire's the one. It just took me a while to realise.'

'Well, Jez said you'd managed to mess it up between the two of you. And that Claire was going off to Barcelona and you'd never see her again if we didn't do something to get you back together.'

'Mm.'

'Well, I have to try reuniting you, don't I?' Lisa taps the brakes and gently slides between two cars in the outside lane of the roundabout, to a fanfare of horns and the squealing falsetto of traumatised tyres. 'Because I'm not having you running around, emotionally unattached and single, Tim. Dear God, no. I don't need that kind of distraction in my life. Not now I've got it back together and my career's taking off. No, no, no.' Lisa returns to the steering wheel, and directs the nose of the Mercedes up the centre of the M1 slip road. She puts her foot hard to the floor.

It should feel good to stretch my legs after eight hours' confinement in the car, but I find my knees turning to jelly as I tiptoe up the garden path towards Claire's front door. Part of me wishes I'd accepted Jeremy's offer to make the first move in patching things up with Claire – particularly now I can hear movement in the house – but abandoning Claire was my fuck-up, and it's me who's got to sort it out. Alone. I hold my breath as the door's unlocked, wondering what apology I should offer my future mother-in-law for dragging her from bed in the dead of night. Nothing, alas, springs to mind – and it falls to Mrs Campbell to make the first move when the door finally creaks open.

'So,' she says, looking me up and down with sleepy resignation. 'You'll be Tim, then.'

'That's right.' I stare up at the mother-shaped silhouette. She's not a large woman and she's only wearing a dressing gown and slippers, but she somehow fills the doorway regardless. 'I'd like to see Claire, please.'

'No way.' She speaks quietly, clearly anxious not to wake the rest of the household or alert the neighbours to the presence of the insane Englishman in her porch. It is, after all, nearly two o'clock in the morning.

'Please, Mrs Campbell.'

She shakes her head. 'Claire doesn't want to see you, Tim. I think you should just go home.'

From my vantage point at the doorstep, I can just make out the stairs, swathed in darkness at the far end of the hall. Claire's bedroom must be up there, I reason, and for a second I consider making a dash for it. The steely look in Mrs Campbell's eye seems to preclude the idea, though. She's a handsome woman, I can't help but notice. A good omen for Claire, in later life. 'I'm not going anywhere. Not until I've seen Claire.'

'Just leave, Tim.'

'Do I actually have to beg?'

'Just go.'

'Right. I'm begging.' I drop first to my left knee, then my right. 'I'm begging you, Mrs Campbell – let me see Claire. Please.'

She sighs and rubs her temple. 'Get up, for pity's sake.'

'Not until I've seen Claire.'

'You're not seeing her.'

I shrug. 'Then I'm just going to have to sleep on your doorstep and see Claire in the morning instead. It's your decision.'

From somewhere behind Mrs Campbell, a creaking floorboard betrays the fact that the house is slowly waking. Then a pair of legs appears on the half-landing, followed by a sleepy voice that makes my heart leap into my throat. 'What is it, mum? Who's there?'

'Go back upstairs, dear.'

I edge to the left, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl I love. 'Claire?'

'Tim?' Claire skips to the bottom of the stairs and into the light of the hall. 'Tim, is that you?'

Suddenly, my throat's dry, and all the things I planned to say – all the witty, brilliant things I'd run past Jeremy and Lisa in the car – evaporate from my memory. 'Yes. It's me.'

Claire covers the last couple of yards to the door, and puts an arm across her mother's shoulders. 'Go to bed, mum,' she says gently. 'Or you can wait for me in the kitchen, if you want to.'

'But...'

'It's okay, mum. Just let me have a minute with Tim.'

Her face a mixture of anxiety and confusion, Claire's mother slowly retreats into the hall. It seems to take an eternity before she disappears round the bend in the corridor. A moment later, the sound of a kettle being switched on can be heard.

'Claire, I...'

'Just shut up for a minute, will you?' After the soft words to her mother, the raw ferocity in Claire's voice comes as a stinging blow. I'm beginning to rise to my feet when her eyes narrow and she raises a warning finger. 'It's my turn to talk, Tim. And you're not getting up until I say so.'

'No?'

'Oh, no. I'd stay exactly where you are, if I were you. On your knees.'

I consider my options. 'Okay. That sounds fair.'

Claire concedes a small nod. 'Well, it's wonderful that you've found the time to pop round, Tim. I can see that unexpected appearances and departures are clearly something of a speciality.'

'Yes. And I'm really sorry about that. It won't happen again...'

'You're damned right it won't,' Claire snaps. Despite the freezing cold of the doorway, I find myself melting under her accusatory stare. My eyes drop to Claire's feet – the only bits of her that doesn't seem to be seething with the anger and hurt that she'd concealed from her mother. A moment passes, and when I next look up at Claire's face, it's softened a touch – but no more than that. 'What on earth are you doing here, anyway?'

'I've come to apologise for what I did. For leaving on Tuesday morning without saying anything.' I bite my lip, aware that my next words might be the last I ever say to the girl I love. 'I think we should maybe spend some time together. I think that if we did, then you'd see how sorry I was. How badly I wanted to make amends.'

Claire closes her eyes, as though struggling to summon the appropriate words. 'Well, that's a bit awkward, actually. Because I happen to be flying to Barcelona in the morning.'

'Yes?'

'Yes.'

'Right.' I shiver in the cold, weighing up the new set of options I've been presented with. 'Well, that's cool.'

Claire's eyebrows rise a clear inch towards her hairline. 'That's 'cool', is it?'

'Uh-huh. Totally cool.' I shrug, trying to ignore the churning in my stomach and the terror that threatens to overwhelm me. 'Because that's where I'm heading too.'

'You're going to Barcelona?'

'Soon as I can get a ticket.'

Claire shakes her head, incredulity creeping across her face. 'And why are you going to Barcelona?'

'Because that's where you're going to be.'

'You'd never find me. It's a huge city, Tim. You don't know even know my new address.'

'I'd find you.' A strange conviction seizes me and I meet Claire's eyes again. 'I'd find you.'

'And how, exactly, would you find me?'

'I'd be helping him, for a start.' My head spins round. I can make out the glowing tip of Jeremy's cigarette before his figure hoves into view from the darkness of the street. He exhales a vast plume of smoke and grins. 'I've developed a taste for Spanish beer, kid. And I don't reckon it'd take more than a month or so to track you down, with two of us looking.'

'Three of us.'

We're all staring into the darkness, now, where a slim female figure can just be discerned, emerging from behind a vast Germanic-looking car – a figure whose appearance is clearly just as surprising to Jeremy as it is to me and Claire. 'You'd come too, Lise? To Barcelona?' says Jeremy.

'If that's where you're going, yes. There are far too many pretty girls in Spain to let you go off by yourself.' Lisa steps out from the shadows, takes the cigarette from Jeremy's mouth, drops it on the pavement and extinguishes it. Then she takes his hand and leads him up the garden path and into the light from the hall, addressing Claire as she does so. 'You've got to take these men in hand, haven't you? They're really not very bright. I'm Lisa, by the way. Friend of Tim's.'

When I turn back to Claire, it takes her a moment to find her voice. Her eyes pass from me, to Jeremy, to Lisa. 'Right. I see.' Then she collects herself, clears her throat and stares levelly at the two figures behind me. 'You two – back into the shadows. This is between me and the boy.'

For a moment, Lisa looks as though she's about to remonstrate – but Jeremy catches her eye and leads her back down the path and into the street.

Finally, Claire's eyes meet mine. 'Now, you.' She lowers her voice. 'Why did you say you were going to Barcelona, again?'

Why am I going to Barcelona? I don't even have to think. The answer has been there all along – ever since the very first time I saw Claire, all those months ago. 'Because I don't think I'll ever be happy again unless we're in the same place as each other. And because I love you.'

Claire swallows hard and closes her eyes. 'I think you should get off your knees, now.'

morden

Jeremy pushes his chair back another couple of inches, stretches out his legs under the table and loosens his belt – the one with the Thin Lizzy buckle that Lisa bought him in Camden a fortnight ago. Clearly bewildered by his continuing discomfort, he peers down at his bulging stomach before sighing and undoing the button at the top of his jeans. Finally, in resignation, he unzips his trousers fully and adjusts the waistband of his underpants, only pulling his napkin over the scene of the crime when the gasps of nearby diners appear to be on the verge of alerting the restaurant's management to his activities. 'Your uncle Jezzer's piling on the pounds, kid,' he finally declares.

'So I see.'

He takes his After Eight wrapper, rolls it into a improvised toothpick and begins an exploratory excavation of his rear molars. 'You know why, don't you?'

'Three onion bhajees, two lamb samosas, six poppadoms, a king prawn puri, mutton rogan josh with pilau rice, one keema naan and five pints of Carlsberg.'

Jeremy frowns and shakes his head dismissively. Clearly I've given an idiot's answer. 'Hormones.'

'Hormones?'

'Aye, hormones. The big 'L'.'

'That's 'lormones', mate.'

'No, no. Not lormones. Love, kid. Love.' He gazes reflectively at his semi-exposed midriff. 'And you've got to keep your energy levels up when you're in love.'

'Ah.'

'How was your chicken bhuna?'

I wince at the incriminating mass of congealing curry in front of me. 'Chicken-y.'

'You barely touched it.'

You did, though, you hormonal porker. A telltale trail of meaty blobs stretches across the tablecloth between my plate and Jeremy's. For as long as I've known him, Jeremy's always considered any plate of mine to be a natural extension of his own. It's Lisa's nibbles he'll be investigating from now on, though, I suppose. That chicken bhuna was the end of an era. 'Well, I thought I fancied it,' I eventually concede, gently pushing a lump of naan bread to the edge of the plate. 'But it wasn't really what I wanted. Of course, I know what I want now. But now's too late, isn't it?'

'It's never too late, in my experience,' Jeremy murmurs. 'Anyway, this place was your choice, kid. A curry house in Morden, for God's sake – just so you could get some sort of deranged closure on the 'Sarah' affair.'

I glance around the room. Above Jeremy's head, the wallpaper is peeling away from the wall, and the tortured squeals emerging from the kitchen suggest that a sitar player has somehow become trapped in there, force-fed ketamine and made to play a perpetually-looped cover version of Love Me Do at gunpoint. 'It's not too bad.'

'We could've gone anywhere in London tonight, mate. The Ritz. The Savoy Grill. Anywhere. And Lisa would've paid.' Jeremy is suddenly wistful. 'We could've gone to that Loch Fyne place in Covent Garden. I could've had kippers. Proper kippers.'

I find myself sighing. It's a debate we've had several times since Jeremy gave up smoking and, while I really don't want rehash it, Jeremy's words can't pass without comment. 'There's no nicotine in kippers, Jez.'

'Says you.'

'There's no nicotine in bacon either. Or Bavarian smoked cheese. I know you love her, but you don't want to believe everything Lisa tells you. Women don't know all the answers, mate. You've often said so yourself.'

Jeremy shrugs and resumes picking his teeth. 'You're not still upset, are you?'

'No.'

'You are. You're brooding. Your uncle Jezzer can tell.' Jeremy waggles a finger at me. 'I've known you long enough to know when you're brooding. And you're brooding now.' He picks up the dessert menu and thrusts it across the table. Laminated photographs of a dozen neon-coloured atrocities leer up at me – items with names like Mango Mindwarp and Toffee Teaser – that appear to have been cryogenically frozen some time around 1974. 'Why not have some pudding? Pudding always cheers you up. Have a Diabetic Deathwish.'

'I don't want pudding.'

'Just have some kulfi, then. You like kulfi. It's dalek-shaped.'

I sigh and pass back the dessert menu. The fact that Jeremy's trying so hard to cheer me up almost makes it more difficult. He'd probably do his 'dalek' voice, if I asked him to – but it's not about dalek voices. Not any more. 'I don't want any kulfi. I've gone beyond kulfi, mate. Emotionally speaking. I'm not sad or anything,' I add hurriedly. 'I've got no reason to be. I've just been thinking about everything that's happened, that's all.'

'I knew you were brooding.'

I shrug. 'Well, you get attached to people, don't you? You think they're going to be around forever. And then they're not.'

'I know it's difficult, mate.'

'I'm just trying to get my head around... being apart.'

'I understand.' He reaches over the table and seizes my hand in an unyielding furniture restorer's grip. 'And you know you'll always be my special little guy, don't you? Even when I'm living with Lisa?'

'Yeah.'

'Good lad.'

For a minute, we're silent – and although it's the first time we've really touched each other since Jeremy introduced Gay Wednesday in the Fat Ox two years ago, I feel totally calm. Everything's going to be okay, I think. Everything's going to work out for the best.

'So this is what you boys get up to when we're in the loo.' Lisa's voice betrays her wry amusement as she approaches the table from the direction of the restaurant's toilets. 'I've often wondered.'

'Shh,' Jeremy chides, pulling out Lisa's chair with his free hand. 'Sit down for a second. Me and Tim are sharing some important man-feelings. He's been telling me how much he'll miss me when his daft Scottish girlfriend drags him off to Barcelona in the morning.' Now he extends his arm, catching Claire round the waist as she approaches the table. He grins at Lisa. 'Now give us a kiss, and I'll let you join our kinky gang.'

Lisa's eyes narrow as she folds her arms, the faint trace of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. 'I'm not kissing you, you vile individual. Not while you've got an arm round Claire and you're mauling poor Tim.'

Jeremy gives my mortified hand a last squeeze. 'Had enough affection, mate? Feel better?'

'Uh-huh. Thanks, Jez.'

'And you know I love you, don't you?' he asks Claire.

'Yes, Jeremy.'

'Cool.' He unhands us both, raises his arms in surrender and turns to Claire. 'Then I officially relinquish my interest in the lad. He's all yours, now. Do with him what you will.' Then Jeremy's arms snake around Lisa and he pulls her down on to his lap. 'I haven't finished with you, though, young lady. Not by a long chalk.' A moment later, all that can be heard are the breathless sounds of their kissing.

Whatever further developments occur on the other side of the table, though, I neither know nor care – because Claire's eyes have just entered my line of vision. She takes my face between her hands and I close my eyes as her lips seek out mine. Yes. Everything's going to work out for the best. I'm flying to Barcelona in the morning with the girl I love. The girl who's forgiven me for behaving like a spineless, faithless idiot. In the darkness of our kiss, I feel lost – lost and found. In fact, I'm only conscious of the restaurant again when Lisa's muffled voice drifts over the detritus of poppadoms and mango chutney.

'Jez? Sweetheart? Why on earth are your trousers undone?'

'And why were Jeremy's trousers undone?'

'Lormones, apparently.'

Claire appears to consider this as she skips from the bathroom to the bed, tiny in the outsize Happi-Lodge dressing gown. 'And did Jeremy's lormones overwhelm him before or after you started holding hands?'

'We were just having a manly moment, that's all. All perfectly normal. Nothing to be ashamed of.'

'Right, right.' Claire slips off her dressing gown, hops into bed and switches off the light. 'I seem to remember Jeremy saying something about relinquishing his interest in you.'

'Did he say that?'

'Uh-huh.' Claire's leg, still warm and slightly damp from the shower, slides across my stomach. 'Legally speaking, that would seem to suggest that I now own you.'

'You reckon?'

Claire's voice drops to a whisper. 'Mm. So, given that you're now my property, I think we should establish a few ground rules. Given that you're going to be my servant from now on, and everything.'

'Okay.'

'Firstly, Gay Wednesday is not to be observed in our new home. Spain's still a very Catholic country.'

'That sounds fine.'

'Secondly, boiling water goes on the teabag before the milk goes in the cup. Never the other way round.'

'If you insist.'

Claire's voice is suddenly serious. 'And thirdly, we have to be honest with each other from now on. Always tell the truth. Always talk. Always, Tim.'

'Okay.'

I lie motionless in the darkness as Claire searches for the words that only she is brave enough to speak. 'Because we almost lost each other. Almost.'

'I know. I'll never let it happen again.' And then we kiss, silent in the dark – and when we stop, the empty moment has passed and everything is once again right with the world. 'It's not so bad, you know – being your property.'

'I'm glad you feel that way. Because I'm a very possessive girl.'

'Are you?'

'Fearsomely.'

I gently clear my throat. 'Well, I can be pretty possessive, too.'

'Yeah?'

'God, yes.' I gently place a fingertip on the end of Claire's nose. 'This nose, for instance, is now mine.'

'Oh, really?' Claire kisses me. 'Well, these lips are mine.'

'I see.' I reach beneath the duvet, my hands searching for other bits of Claire to lay claim to. It takes me about a third of a second to find something I like. 'Ah, right. Well, this is mine. They both are, actually.'

'Then you'll need to learn to be gentle with them. They're quite sensitive.'

'Sorry.' I reach further beneath the duvet. 'What about this? Do I have to be gentle with this, too?'

'That's my bottom, Tim. We've both got one of those, and I've no reason to think that mine is any less robust than yours.'

'So you don't mind me touching it?'

'Touching is fine.'

'Good. Because it's mine.'

Claire's hand brushes past my forearm as she continues her own sub-duvet exploration. 'Well, this is mine, then,' she finally announces, with quiet triumph.

I catch my breath. 'It's all yours. Unlike this' – I release Claire's bottom and, in a daring scramble for new territory, bring my hand to rest on something altogether more wonderful – 'to which I am now, officially, laying claim.'

'And where exactly is your hand, young man?'

'I don't like to say.' We kiss for a moment in the darkness. 'Do you want me to move it?'

'Oh, no. Not particularly,' Claire replies, as airily as the situation will allow. 'Well, you can move it a little bit, if you like.'

'Like this?'

'Mm. Just like that. Yes, just like that.' Inch by inch, Claire repositions herself, pivoting around an invisible axis in the centre of the bed. 'You have very clever hands.'

'That's not just my hand, actually.'

'It's not, is it?'

'No.' I kiss the corner of Claire's mouth. 'It is okay?'

'Oh yes. It's fine,' she breathes. 'In fact, that's the one part of you which has, so far, always told me the truth.'

I wonder fleetingly whether Claire can detect the smile in my kiss. 'We're going to tell the truth all the time when we're living in Barcelona.'

'All the time.' Claire gently bites my shoulder. 'Oh yes. All the time.'

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If you've enjoyed 'Single To Morden', I'd be very grateful if you could take five minutes to review it. Many, many thanks.

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spike evans

Spike Evans was brought up in Yorkshire.

He is married and lives

with his wife, Jo, and their cat, Fred.

Single To Morden is his first novel.
