'Right! Well I'd love to, but I don't want to leave Mum alone . . .'

'Of course not, but you could come after Christmas, the day after Boxing Day or something. And my parents pretty much keep themselves to themselves, so it would just be me and you most of the time' - she thinks I need persuading - 'we can just hang out and walk and read and talk and stuff . . .'

'Okay,' I say.

'Fantastic! It's a deal then. I'm cold now. Let's go home.'

It's gone midnight when we get back to her halls of residence, but there are still a few people padding to and fro 131.

along the parquet corridors, the swots and the insomniacs and the stoners. They all say 'h.e.l.lo Alice' and then glance at me sceptically, but I don't really mind. I'm too busy thinking about how we say goodbye, the mechanics of it. At her door, she says, 'I'd better go straight to bed, I've got a nine-fifteen lecture.'

'Right. On . . . ?'

'"Stanislavski and Brecht, the Great Divide, question mark".'

'Right, because they're not actually that different in many ways, though people tend to think that their philosophies are mutually exclu . . .'

'Actually, Brian, I really ought to go to bed.'

'Okay. Well, thanks for agreeing to come out with me.'

'Brian -1 didn't agree to. I wanted to,' and she leans forward very quickly and kisses me just near my ear. It's pretty quick, like a cobra strike, and my reflexes aren't really up to it, so I just have time to make that smacking noise with my mouth too loud in her ear, and then the door's closed and she's gone.

And once again, I'm walking up the gravel driveway, on my way home. So it was okay in the end. I think it was okay. I've been invited to a cottage, and I think she finds me 'interesting' now, even if 'interesting' wasn't really what I was going for. I'm a little uncomfortable about the reasons why, but still . . .

'Oi, Jackson!'

I look around.

'Sorry, I mean Brian. Brian, up here . . .' It's Rebecca, leaning out of the first-floor window, ready for bed in a long black T-shirt.

'So, how'd it go, lover-boy?'

'Oh, you know. Alright.'

'So is love in the air?'

'Not "love". "Like".'

'"Like" is in the air. I thought so. I sensed it. Like is in the air. Well done, Brian. And you hang in there, pal.'

132.

On the way home I go to the all-night garage and treat myself to a Picnic and a can of Lilt with the money I saved by bursting into tears. When I get home to Richmond House it's nearly two o'clock. There are three handwritten notes pinned to my door . . .

7.30 Brian - your Mum rang.

10.45 Spencer rang. Says he's 'bored out of his skull'. He's at the petrol station all night. Call him.

Brian, can you please not use my Apri without asking?

133.

17.

QUESTION: What precisely does Dorothy Gale have to do to return to Kansas? ANSWER: Click her heels three times, whilst thinking 'There's No Place Like Home'.

Mum's still out at Woolworths when I let myself in, so I make a mug of tea, flop on the sofa, pick up a pen and methodically mark up my Christmas television viewing in the b.u.mper edition of the Radio Times. I feel completely exhausted, which unfortunately owes more to Josh and Marcus' home-brew than any academic fervour. The last few weeks of term have pa.s.sed by in a blur of spa.r.s.ely populated parties in strangers' houses, or drinking games in the kitchen with Josh and Marcus' pals; big, burly sporty boys, and hearty, perma-tanned girls from the lacrosse team, all with their shirt collars turned up, all doing French, all from the home counties, and all with the same flicked-back blonde hair. I've made up a pretty good joke about this kind of girl, i.e. that they're all from Surrey-with-a-fringe-on-top, but unfortunately have no one to tell it to.

Anyway, whatever else they teach them at those private schools, they certainly know how to drink. I feel poisoned and grey and malnourished, and glad to get home, lie on the sofa, watch telly. There's nothing good on this afternoon, just some Western, so my eyes wander up to the school photo of me on top of the telly, taken just before Dad died. Is there anything more grizzly and joyless than an old school photo? They say 134.

the camera adds five pounds, but here it seems to have been added exclusively to my acne. I look positively mediaeval, like a plague victim, all gums and boils, and I wonder what Mum gets out of it, having me grimacing out at her while she's trying to watch the telly.

The photo depresses me so much that I have to turn the telly off, and go out to the kitchen to boil the kettle and make more tea. While it boils, I look out at the backyard, a shadowy patch the size of a double-bed that Mum had paved over when Dad died, to save bother. I make the tea, and take my bag upstairs to my bedroom. Mum's turned the radiator off, to save on heating, and it's icy cold, so I get into bed fully clothed and stare at the ceiling. The bed feels smaller for some reason, like a child's bed, in fact the whole room does. G.o.d knows why, it's not as if I've got any bigger, but already, after only three months it's started to feel like someone else's room. All that's left here is the kid's stuff - the piles of comics, the fossils on the window-sill, the Brodie's notes, the model aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling covered in a fur of dust, the old school-shirts hanging in the wardrobe. I start to feel a bit sad for some reason, so I think about Alice for a while, and then I fall asleep.

I haven't spoken to her properly for ages. The Challenge team meetings broke up two weeks ago, and since then she seems to have been swallowed into her own little clique, a tight, noisy gang of cool and beautiful boys and girls that I've seen in the student bar, or driving round town, seven or eight of them stuffed giggling into her smoke-filled bright yellow 2CV, pa.s.sing a bottle of red wine between them and listening to Jimi Hendrix, then all going back to someone's Georgian flat to share interesting drugs and have s.e.x with each other. In fact the nearest I've got to Alice was in the student bar a couple of nights ago. I approached and said 'hiya', and they'd all said 'hiya' back, bright and smiley, but unfortunately there weren't 135.

enough chairs at the table for me to actually sit down with them. Also, Alice was having to crick her neck uncomfortably to turn and talk to me, and there's only so long you can stand at the edge of a group like that before you start to feel as if you should be clearing the empties off the table. Of course I have nothing but contempt for cool, self-satisfied, privileged cliques like that, but unfortunately not quite enough contempt to not want to be part of it.

But we did manage to talk long enough for Alice to confirm the cottage trip was definitely on. I don't have to bring anything except lots of books and a jumper. In fact she laughed at me when I asked if I had to bring a towel. 'We've lots of towels,' she said, and I thought, yes, of course you have. 'Can't wait,' she said. 'Can't wait either,' I said, but I really meant it, because I know that at college I'm never really going to be able to take up much of her time, there are too many distractions, too many lanky boys with bone structure and money and their own flats. But when we're finally away, just me and her, then that'll be my chance, my big opportunity to prove to her the absolute inevitability of us being together.

It's Christmas morning, and the first thing I do when I get up is eat a big bowl of Frosties and turn the telly on. It's about ten o'clock, and The Wizard of Oz has already started, so I put it on in the background while Mum and I open each other's presents. Dad's there too, in a way, like Jacob Marley's ghost, dressed like he was in an old Polaroid I have of him, looking weary and sardonic in a burgundy dressing gown, black hair slicked back, wearing new slippers and smoking the packet of f.a.gs that I bought and wrapped up for him as a present.

This year Mum's bought me some new vests and the Collected Works of e.e.c.u.mmings that I specifically asked for, and which she had to order specially. I check the price on the fly-leaf and feel a twinge of guilt at how expensive it was, a day's wages at least, but I thank her and kiss her on the cheek, 136.

and give her my presents in return - a little wicker basket of smellies from the Body Shop, and a second-hand Everyman edition of Bleak House.

'What's this then?'

'It's my favourite d.i.c.kens. It's brilliant.'

'"Bleak House"? Sounds like this house.'

And that just about sets the tone for the day, really. d.i.c.kensian.

We're joined for Christmas dinner by Uncle Des. Uncle Des's wife left him for a bloke from her work a couple of years ago now, so Mum invites him round for Christmas dinner every year because he doesn't have much family of his own. Even though he's not my real uncle, just the bloke from three-doors-down, he thinks he's somehow got the right to ruffle my hair and talk to me as if I was twelve years old.

'How ya' doing then, brainbox?' he says, in his children's entertainer voice.

'Fine thank you, Uncle Des.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, don't they teach you how to use a comb at university!' he says, ruffling away. 'Look at the state of you!' - ruffle, ruffle, ruffle - and it occurs to me that this is all pretty rich coming from a forty-five-year-old man with a tight blond perm and a moustache that looks as if it's been cut out from a carpet sample, but I keep quiet because Mum doesn't like me back-chatting to Uncle Des. So I squirm bashfully and count myself lucky that at least this year he isn't pulling fifty-pence pieces out from behind my ear.

Mum pops her head round the door and says, 'Sprouts are on!' A waft of warm chlorophyllic air confirms her warning, and I feel a little wave of nausea, because I can still taste the Frosties caught between my back teeth. Then she heads back to the kitchen and Uncle Des and I sit and watch The Wizard of Oz with the sound turned down low.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, not this rubbish again!' says Uncle Des. 'Every Christmas, the b.l.o.o.d.y-Wizardofb.l.o.o.d.y-Oz.'

137.

'You'd think they'd find something else to put on, wouldn't you?!' I say. Then Uncle Des asks about college.

'So what do you actually do all day, then?' It's a fair question I suppose, and one I've asked myself a couple of times.

'Lots of things - go to lectures, read, write essays - that kind of thing.'

'And that's all? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l - all right for some . . . I'

Change the subject. 'How about you, Uncle Des, how's your work?'

'Oh, bit quiet, Bri, bit quiet at the moment. . .' Uncle Des is in the building trade - conservatories, porches and patios - or at least he was until the divorce and the recession. Now the van sits idly in front of his house, and Des spends most of the time dismantling the engine, and then rea.s.sembling it again, not quite correctly, then dismantling it again. 'People don't seem to want extensions, not in a recession. It's a luxury really, porches and conservatories . . .' and he smooths his moustache down with his finger and thumb, and stares mournfully at The Wizard of Oz, those vaguely disturbing monkeys with the wings growing out of their backs, and I feel bad for asking him about work when I know it isn't going well. After a moment or two of staring blankly at the flying monkeys, he pulls himself out of it, with a visible physical effort, sitting up as straight as the settee will allow, and clapping his hands together. 'Right, how about a drink, then? It's Christmas after all. What's your poison, Bri?' then, conspiratorially '. . . apart from Brussels sprouts!'

I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece - it's 11.55. Till have a lager please, Des,' and he bustles off into the kitchen, almost as if he lives here.

Over dinner, which we eat in the kitchen with Radio 2 playing, I decide to break the big news.

'By the way - I've got an announcement to make . . .'

Mum stops chewing. 'What?'

'Something that happened at university last term . . .'

138.

'Oh, G.o.d, Brian . . / says Mum, hand in front of her mouth.

'Don't worry, it's nothing bad . . .'

She glances at Uncle Des, then says nervously, 'Go on . . .'

'Well, I'm going to be on University Challenged 'What, that thing on telly?' says Uncle Des.

'Yep! I'm on the team!'

And Mum starts to laugh and laugh, and looks at Des, who's laughing too. 'Congratulations, Bri,' he says, and he puts his fork down to free up his hair-ruffling hand. 'That's brilliant news, really brilliant . . .'

'G.o.d, and what a relief,' says Mum, and takes a big swig of wine, and puts her hand on her chest to calm her heart.

'Why, what did you think I was going to say?'

'Well, to be honest sweetheart, I thought you were about to tell me that you were a h.o.m.os.e.xual!' she says, and starts to laugh again, and looks at Uncle Des, who starts to laugh again too, laughing so hard that I'm afraid that he's going to choke on his sprouts.

In the afternoon, after our attempt on the turkey, Uncle Des pours himself a large scotch and lights up a slim-line panatella, and Mum lights up a Rothman's, and we peer through the caramel fug at Top of The Pops. Uncle Des makes a growling noise every time the camera finds a scantily clad backing singer, and Mum laughs indulgently and slaps him on the wrist. She's methodically working her way through a large box of traditional chocolate liqueurs, biting the caps off the little chocolate bottles and trickling the various different spirits into her mouth, like a particularly dainty wino. This is a bizarre new development in Mum's boozing, and I'm not sure what to make of it, but keen not to be left behind, I continue work on my four-pack of lager. Because I'm a young hep-cat, and up with the current popular music scene, I help out in identifying the more obscure faces in the Do They Know It's Christmas? video, then we watch the Queen's Speech, then Uncle Des goes 139.

off to see his old mum up the road, but promises to be back at six o'clock for some leftovers and our traditional, infinitely long game of Monopoly, which Uncle Des will inevitably win, but only by nominating himself as banker and embezzling.

Then before it gets too dark Mum and I put our coats on, and head out. Mum takes my arm as we walk the mile or so to the cemetery to lay flowers on Dad's grave. The cold damp air makes her a little bit more p.i.s.sed, and I have to lean down to hear what she's saying. She smells of sage and onion and Tia Maria.

As usual I stand with Mum for a while and say how the gravestone's still looking nice, then I go and stand a little way off and wait while Mum talks to Dad. I'm always a little uncomfortable waiting around without a book to read, so instead I try to identify the birds, but it's just rooks and magpies (of the family corvidae), starlings (sturmus vulgaris] and sparrows (pa.s.ser domesticus) and I wonder why cemeteries always attract such miserable, morbid b.l.o.o.d.y birds, and after about ten minutes Mum finishes what she's got to say, touches the gravestone lightly, and walks away, head down, and takes my arm, not saying anything until she can control her breathing a little bit, and can speak normally again. It's dark now, but a couple of the local kids from the estate are riding the new BMXs that they got for Christmas in between the graves, slamming on their brakes and performing long, low sliding skids that send up waves of gravel. Mum, still with wet eyes and a little bit drunk from all the chocolate liqueurs, gets upset about this, and starts shouting at them - 'you shouldn't do that, not in a cemetery, show some respect' - and one of them flicks the V's and cycles past laughing and shouting back - 'f.u.c.k off, mind your own business, you silly cow'. I can feel Mum starting to cry again and I suddenly have this overwhelming desire to run after him, and grab hold of the hood of his parka and yank him off the back of his new bike, put my knee in his back and rub his stupid, leering face 14O.

I.

hard into the gravel, and see how long it takes for him to stop laughing. And then just as suddenly I wish that I was a long, long way away from here, lying still with someone, in a warm bed, falling asleep.

141.

18.

QUESTION: What is the name of the cla.s.s of organic compounds with the general formula R-OH, where R represents an alkyl group made up of carbon and hydrogen, and OH represents one or more Hydroxyl groups? ft ANSWER: Alcohol.

The Black Prince is a pub that caters specifically for the under-age drinker. At school we used to call it The Creche, the rationale of the landlord being that anyone crafty enough to hide their school tie in their pocket was old enough to drink. On a Friday afternoon it looked like the set of Grange Hill, and you could barely move for satchels.

Outside of term-time, it's harder to imagine a more desolate place to meet for a drink. Brown, scabrous and dank, it's a little like sitting in someone's kidney, but at some point in the last five years it became traditional to meet here every Boxing Day night, and traditions are sacred. So here we are, me and Tone and Spencer, sat in a vinyl booth the colour of a blood clot, the first time we've met up since September. I'd been a little anxious about meeting up again, but Spencer seems genuinely pleased to see me. Tone does too, in his own special way, which basically involves rubbing his knuckles hard on the top of my head.

'What the f.u.c.k is going on with your hair?'

'What d'you mean?'

'Bit bouffant, isn't it?' Tone grabs my head by the ears, sniffs it like a melon. 'Are you wearing mousse'?'

142.

'No, I'm not wearing any mousse.' I am, m fact, wearing a little mousse.

'What's it called then, a haircut like that?'

'It's called a Brideshead,' says Spencer.

'It's called a short-back-and-sides. What do they call yours then, Tone?'

'It doesn't have a name, it just is. So what you drinking these days - port and lemon? Medium sherry? Sweet white wine? . . .' It's started, and I haven't even taken my donkey jacket off yet.

'A pint of lager please, Tone.'

'Special lager?'

'Go on then. Special lager.'

'Special lager' is lager-with-a-gin-top. Part of the landlord's educational remit here is to nurture experimentation and innovation, and he won't bat an eyelid, no matter what repulsive combination you order. Besides, lager-witha-gin top is actually pretty grown-up by Black Prince standards. Anything that doesn't taste of coconut or mint or aniseed counts as refined here.

This is the longest I've gone without seeing Spencer since we were both twelve years old, and I'm very anxious that there shouldn't be any awkward silences. But here it is. Silence. Spencer tries to fill it by flicking his beer mat up in the air and catching it, while I reach for the matchbox, in case there's something to read on the back of it.

'So. I thought you said you'd be down at weekends?' he says finally.

'Well, I was going to, but it got a bit busy.'

'Busy. Right.'

'Good Christmas?' I ask.