Jones and Led Zeppelin and Donovan and Bob Dylan - even though she was sixteen in 1982, there's definitely something very 1971 about Alice. I watch as she jumps around the room to 'Crosstown Traffic' by Jimi Hendrix, then when she's out of breath and tired of changing records every three minutes she puts a crackly old Ella Fitzgerald LP on, and we lie on the sofa and read our books, and steal glances at each other every now and then, like that bit between Michael York and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, and talk only when we feel like it. And, miraculously, for nearly a whole afternoon I manage not to say anything fatuous or pretentious or priggish or unfunny or self-pitying, I don't break or spill anything, I don't slag anyone off, I don't whine or moan or flick my hair back or pick at my face while I'm talking. In fact, I'm just about the best person I'm capable of being, and if that person's not quite /ofeable, at least he's fairly likeable. And then at about four o'clock Alice lolls over and lies with her head in my lap and falls asleep, and for the time being at least, it does seem true, she is absolutely and entirely perfect. We're listening to Blue, side 2, track 5 now, and Joni's singing 'The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '681 and he told me all romantics meet the same fate/Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe . . .' and when the record finishes, and the room is silent except for the sound of the log fire, I just sit very, very still and watch her sleeping. Her lips are slightly parted and I can feel her warm breath on my thigh, and I find myself staring at the tiny raised scar on her lower lip, white against the red, and have this overwhelming desire to run my thumb across it, but don't want to wake her, so instead I just look at her, look and look and look. In the end I have to wake her up though, because I'm worried that the weight and warmth of her head on my lap will get me over-stimulated, if you know what I mean, and let's face facts, no one likes to be woken up that way. Not with that in their ear.

And then, would you believe, it gets even better. Her parents 173.

DAVID NICHOLLS 1.

are out for the evening, eating more vegetables at someone's converted mill in Southwold, so it's just me and Alice alone in the house. As we stand drinking large beakers of gin and tonics in the kitchen, I'm ashamed to say that I entertain myself by fantasising that we live here together. We turn out all the lights in the house and play Scrabble by candle-light, peering hard at the letters, and I win, by quite a long way as a matter of fact, but with modesty and good grace. 'Foxed' and 'amazed' on triple letter scores, incidentally.

Supper is brown-rice-stir-fry, which looks and tastes a little like we've stir-fried the dust-pan sweepings, but is just about edible if you add enough soy sauce. Besides, by the time we get around to eating it, we're fantastically drunk, and talking over each other and laughing and dancing around the living room to old Nina Simone songs, then seeing how far we can slide along the varnished wooden floors in our socks. Then when we're lying in a crumpled, giggling heap, Alice very suddenly takes me by the hands, smiles mischievously and says, 'D'you want to go upstairs?'

My heart pops up into my mouth.

'Well, that depends. What's upstairs?' I say, foxed and amazed.

'Come with me and find out,' and she scrambles up the stairs on all fours, shouting behind her, 'Your bedroom, two minutes - bring the wine!'

Concentrate. Just concentrate.

I go to the kitchen sink, move the soaking wok to one side, run the cold tap, and splash my face, partly to sober up, partly to check I'm not dreaming, then holding the wine bottle and the half-filled gla.s.ses precariously with the tips of my fingers, I follow her upstairs.

Alice isn't in my room yet, so I go to the sink and very I quickly brush my teeth, listening out for her footstep so that she doesn't catch me at it and think I'm taking things for granted. Then when I hear her coming along the corridor, 174.

I rinse and spil, and turn off the oveihead light and arrange myself nonchalantly on the bed and wait.

'Da - daaaaa!'

She's standing in the doorway, arms out-flung like an Oscar winner, but I can't tell what I'm meant to be looking at. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s maybe? Hoping against hope, I wonder if maybe she's put on special underwear, and then I spot the Rizlas in one hand and the tiny cling-film pouch in the other.

'What is it?'

'Skunk, man. Wick-ed skunk. We can't do it downstairs - Michael's like a sniffer-dog. That Bohemian Dad thing only stretches so far.' She grabs a copy of Richard Scarry's It's a Busy, Busy World from the bookshelf and starts rolling the joint on it.

'What about your mum?'

'Oh, Mum actually gets it for me, from this creepy guy in the village. What can I say! Housewife's ruin. Still, she's got to fill her days somehow, I suppose. It's amazing stuff. Amaaaaazing!' G.o.d help me, she's putting on a West Indian accent, Jamaica-c.u.m-Aldeburgh, and for the first time ever I find myself really embarra.s.sed by her. 'Really strong ganja, mon, reeeeeally nice weeeeed . . .' Please, stop that Alice, please? Now she's lit it, and is inhaling deeply, and holding the smoke in her lungs while her eyes roll back in her head, then she pouts and blows the smoke out towards the paper lampshade, and I wonder if marijuana is an aphrodisiac.

Alice looks at me with one lazy eye, and offers me the joint, as if it were a challenge. Which it is.

'Your turn, Bri.'

'Actually, I don't think I can, Alice.'

'Why not? Why don't you want to get high, Bri?'

This strikes her as very, very funny, and while she bangs her head against the headboard I say, 'No, I'd love to, it's just I never learnt to smoke, not even tobacco, I'm useless, I can't take it back, not without coughing my lungs up 175.

anyway.' Actually, smoking was one of the things I hoped to do at university, like reading Don Quixote, growing a beard and learning to play the alto sax, but I just haven't got round to it.

'You're a strange one, aren't you, Brian Jackson?' she says, suddenly very serious. 'How can you not smoke! Smoking's pretty much the thing I do best. Or second best anyway . . .' she says, winking the other lazy eye. Marijuana must be an aphrodisiac. 'Okay, we'll try something a little more provocative. But first, some music!' And she stumbles over to the clunky, flat-deck, childhood tape-recorder, which has 'Alice's' written on it in Tippex, then digs around in her old desk drawer for a tape, jams it in and presses play. It is, I believe, Brian Cant, singing 'A Froggy Went A Courtin'.'

'Wow - Proustian Rush!' she says. 'This song is my childhood. I f.u.c.king love and adore this song! Don't you? Right, come here, young man, sit up straight. . .' We kneel up on the bed, facing each other, and she brings her face up to within a couple of inches from mine.

'Okay, put your hands here . . .' and she takes my wrists, and pushes them behind my back'. . . and purse your lips, like this.' Her mouth is just inches away, I can smell the sweetness of the soy sauce and ginger on her breath. Then she takes her hand and pinches my cheeks together into an exaggerated pout.

'Froggy went a courtin', be did ride, uh-hum . . .'

'Now, what you are about to receive, Mr Brian Jackson, is called a blow-back, and no, it's not what you think it is, so nooo sauciness please. I'm going to blow the smoke into your mouth, and you are to inhale deeply and hold the smoke in your lungs and you will not cough, d'you understand? I forbid it! Instead you will hold your breath for as long as physically possible, and only then will you exhale. Is that clear?'

'Perfectly clear.'

'Okay then. Here we go!'

She places the joint between her lips, and inhales deeply, 176.

then smiles, raises her eyebrows as if to say 'ready?', and I nod, yes, I'm ready. She brings her lips right up to mine so that they are centimetres, millimetres away, surely not even that, surely they're touching, and then she blows, and I suck in my breath, which is only natural really, given the circ.u.mstances, and I want the moment to go on forever.

'Froggy went a courtin', he did ride A sword and pistol by his side A Froggy went a courtin' he did ride, ub-hum . . .'

Finally, when my lungs are about to burst, I exhale and she flops back and asks, 'What d'you think?'

Once I've worked out how to operate my mouth, I say, 'Okay!'

'Feel anything?'

'Not ma.s.sively.'

'Want to go again?'

Oh, G.o.d, yes, Alice, do I? More than anything in the world . . .

'Yeah, yeah, all right . . .'

'Are you sure? It's very strong.'

'Really, Alice, trust me. I can handle it.'

When I regain consciousness, Alice has gone, and I'm under the duvet, and Froggy's still going a-courtin'. The tape's on auto-reverse. I've no idea how long I've been under, so I jab at the stop b.u.t.ton and look for my travel alarm clock. 1.30 a.m. I'm suddenly desperately thirsty, but thank goodness there's still half a bottle of refreshing red wine by my bed, so I sit up and drain most of the bottle. I check to see if Alice took my trousers off before she put me to bed, find that she didn't, but am too stoned to know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

Besides, I'm too busy thinking about food. I have never been hungrier in my life. Even courgettes seem appealing. Then thank G.o.d, I remember I am the possessor of Cold Meats, 177.

I.

bless you Muni. I dig the foil parcel out of my suitcase, tear a ribbon of fat off a piece of boiled bacon, and stuff the lean into my mouth. It's good, but something's missing. Bread. Need sandwich. Must have bread.

Walking is less easy than I remembered, and getting downstairs seems almost impossible. I don't want to turn any lights on, but it really is pitch black here, so bracing myself against the walls on either side I take fairy steps along the hallway and down the stairs into the kitchen. Time stretches, and the journey seems to take maybe several days, but I get there eventually and begin the physically demanding task of chiselling myself two slices of home-made wholemeal bread. The resulting sandwich is the size, weight and texture of a household brick, but I don't care any more, because it contains Cold Meats. I settle down at the table and pour myself some milk first, to try and make the bread less gritty, but the milk I has curdled and separated, and I'm about to cross to the sink to spit it out, when the landing light clicks on and I hear a creak at the top of the stairs.

Maybe it's Alice! Maybe we can carry on from where we left off. But it isn't. It's Mrs Harbinson. Rose. Naked Rose. I swallow the curdled milk.

Of course, I should just say something straight away, just a s.e.xless, casual 'Hullo Rose!' but the dope and the wine have made me fuzzy and muddled, and I don't want a naked woman screaming at me at two in the morning, so I just sit there, very quietly, and hope she'll go. She opens the door of the fridge, and then she bends over, and the white fridge-light and the bending-over make her look really naked. Closer scrutiny reveals she's actually wearing a pair of thick grey socks, which gives her nudity a sort of wholesome, muesli-quality, like a line drawing from The Joy Of s.e.x, and in my drug-fuddled state I find myself wondering if there is such a word as pubicy. What is she looking for? And why is it taking so long? I imagine that she 'looks-good-for-her-age' too, but then I've never actually 178.

seen a whole woman naked, not in real life and all at once, only odd bits and pieces, and even then none of them were older than nineteen, so I'm not really an authority on the subject. Still, I suppose the situation isn't without a sort of hackneyed eroticism, albeit one that's tempered slightly by the parcel of body-temperature gammon nestling on my lap. Suddenly anxious that maybe she'll smell the meat, I try to fold the foil over silently, and the resultant crackling seems to reverberate round the kitchen like an electrical storm.

'Oh my G.o.d! Brian!'

'h.e.l.lo Mrs Harbinson!' I say brightly. I expect her to cover her nakedness with her arms, but she doesn't seem that bothered really, and just reaches nonchalantly for a National Trust tea-towel, which she wraps around her waist and holds at her hip like a sarong. I can see the word 'Sissinghurst' running down her thigh.

'Oh dear, I do hope I haven't shocked you,' she says.

'Oh, not really . . .'

'But then I'm sure that you've seen hundreds of naked women before.'

'You'd be surprised, Mrs Harbinson.'

'I've told you before, call me Rose. Mrs Harbinson makes me feel so oW!'

There's a momentary silence, and I search for something to say that will rid the situation of any embarra.s.sment or discomfort, and come up with the perfect solution.

In an American accent I say, 'Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs Harbinson?!'

What did I just say? . . .

'I beg your pardon?'

Don't say it again . . .

'Are you trying to seduce me?' I say.

Quick, explain, explain . . .

'You know - like Mrs Robinson?' I explain.

Rose stares at me blankly. 'Who's Mrs Robinson?'

179.

'It's a quote. From The Graduate . . .'

'Well I can tell you now, Brian, I have no intention of seducing you . . .'

'I know, I know, and I don't want to be seduced by you . . .'

'Right, well, just as well then . . .'

'That's not to say that I don't find you attractive . . .'

'I beg your pardon?'

'What the f.u.c.k is going on down here?' says a voice, and another figure is loping down the stairs, the muscular legs and barrel chest - the muscular, naked legs and barrel chest of Mr Harbinson. He seems to be clutching a rolled umbrella between his legs but closer examination reveals it to be a p.e.n.i.s. Now I really don't know where to look. Not looking at Rose's genitals seems to bring my eye-line directly down to Mr Harbinson's genitals, and suddenly it's hard to find anywhere in the kitchen that's genital-free, so finally I pick a point on the ceiling just above the Aga, and concentrate, concentrate, concentrate.

'Nothing's going on, Michael. I just came down for a drink and Brian was here, that's all . . .' Why is she sounding so guilty? Is she trying to get me killed?

'So what were you talking about?'

Oh, good Christ, he heard me. I'm already dead.

'Nothing! Brian just made me jump, that's all . . .'

Mr Harbinson and his p.e.n.i.s look unconvinced, and I realise that he's not actually covering his p.e.n.i.s with his hand, but holding it, and for a moment I have an irrational fear that he's going to hit me with it.

'Well keep it down, will you? And Rose, come to bed!' and he thumps back upstairs, holding his rolled umbrella. Clearly deeply embarra.s.sed, Rose takes a floral, vinyl ap.r.o.n from a hook by the Aga, and puts it on grumpily, whilst I brush the meaty evidence from the table into the foil pack, and stuff it into the cutlery drawer.

ISO.

Finally she comes over to the table, and hisses, 'I think it's best if neither of us ever mention this again, don't you, Brian?'

'Okay, but I do just want to say that I really was just quoting . . .'

'Let's forget about it, shall we? Pretend it never happened ...' She's peering at my face. 'Brian, are you feeling all right?'

'Absolutely!'

'You look a bit grey.'

'Oh, this is my normal colour, Rose!'

She looks at the gla.s.s in front of me.

'Is that the milk?'

'Uh-huh.'

'So you had it all along?'

"Fraid so, Rose.'

'I've been looking for that, Brian.'

'Sorry' - she reaches for the gla.s.s - 'I wouldn't drink it though, if I were you!'

'Why on earth not?'

'It's off, it's curdled, really, it's disgusting . . .'

And she takes the gla.s.s of curdled milk, sniffs it, sips it, and looks me with utter disdain and says, 'It's soya milk, Brian.'

From somewhere in Blackbird Cottage comes the sound of hysterical laughter, an awful, mad cackle, the laughter of some pitiable, depraved child, and it takes a little while to realise that the laughter's coming from me.

When I wake up the next morning, there's the usual three second delay between knowing that I should feel deeply ashamed, and remembering the reason why. I groan, actually, physically groan aloud, as if someone had just jumped on my chest. I look at the alarm clock. It's 11.30 and I feel like I'm coming out of a coma.