'Why, what else did he say?'

'Well, he was pretty p.i.s.sed, but he said that you were a really good guy, and well, his exact words were that you could be a bit of a t.w.a.t sometimes, but that you were really loyal, and decent, and that there weren't many blokes out there like you and if I had any sense I should ... go out with you.'

'Spencer said all that?'

'Uh-huh,' and I have this fleeting image of Spencer standing under the streetlight, in the drizzle with his eyes closed, the heel 279.

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DAVID NICHOLLS.

f of his hand pressed against his forehead, and me walking the other way.

'What are you thinking?' says Alice, facing the wall again.

'Um. Don't know, really.'

'I a.s.sume it's true though, yeah? I mean, I had an idea that it might be true.'

'Is it really so obvious?'

'Well, I suppose I have caught you looking at me every now and then. And then there was our dinner date . . .'

'Oh, G.o.d, I'm so embarra.s.sed about that . . .'

'Don't be. It was nice. It's just . . .'

'What.'

She's silent for a moment, and then sighs deeply and squeezes my hand, the kind of gesture that lets you know your hamster's died, and I brace myself for the good old 'let's-be-friends' speech. But then she flips over to look at me, pushes her hair behind her ears, and I can just about make out her face in the pulsing orange glow of the radio-alarm clock.

'I don't know, Brian. I'm really bad news, you know.'

'No, you're not . . .'

'I am though, really. Every relationship I've ever had has ended up with someone being hurt . . .'

'I don't mind . . .'

'You would though, if it was you. I mean, you know what I'm like . . .'

'I know, you've told me. But like I said, I don't mind, because isn't it better to try? I mean, wouldn't it be better to give it a go, see how we got on? It would be up to you, obviously, because you might not like me in that way . . .'

'Well, I've thought about it, obviously. But it's not even to do with you. I haven't really got time for that whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing, what with playing Hedda, and the team and everything. I value my independence too much . . .'

'Well, I really value my independence, too!' I say, though this is of course a lie of absolutely epic proportions, because 28O.

what am I supposed to do with independence? You know what 'independence' is? 'Independence' is staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night with your fingernails digging into the palms of your hand. 'Independence' is realising that the only person you've spoken to all day is the man in the off-licence. 'Independence' is a value meal in the bas.e.m.e.nt of Burger King on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. When Alice talks about 'independence' she means something completely different. 'Independence' is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old 'lonely'.

And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and a.n.a.lyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so ba.n.a.l, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.

Well, I've been lonely as a snake all my life and I'm sick of it. I want to be part of a team, a partnership, I want to sense that audible hum of envy and admiration and relief when we walk into a room together - 'thank G.o.d, we're all right now, because they're here' - but also to be slightly scary, slightly intimidating, sharp as razors, d.i.c.k and Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night, glamorous and s.e.xually enthralled with each other, like Burton and Taylor, or like Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, except stable and sensible and constant, without the mental breakdowns and infidelity and divorce. I can't say any of this out loud, of course, because there's nothing at this moment that would scare her more, short of producing an axe, and I certainly can't use the word 'lonely'

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because it does tend to make people uncomfortable. So what do I say instead? I take a deep breath, and sigh, and put my hand to my head, and finally this is what I come up with.

'All I know is that I think you're absolutely amazing, Alice, and stunningly beautiful of course, not that it matters, and that I just love being with you, spending time with you, and I think that, well I really think that we should . . .' and then there's a pause, and that's when I do it. I kiss Alice Harbinson.

And then I'm kissing her, actually kissing her properly, on the mouth and everything. Her lips are warm but dry at first, and very slightly chapped, so that I can feel a little hard, sharp spur of dead skin on her bottom lip, which I contemplate biting off, but wonder if maybe that's perhaps a bit audaciously sensual, biting, within the first few seconds. Maybe I could kiss it off, might that be possible? Can you kiss off dead skin? What might that involve? I'm just about to try when Alice pulls her head away, and I think maybe I've blown it, but instead she just smiles and reaches up and pulls the little flap of dead skin off her own lip and drops it down the side of the bed. Then she blots her lip with the back of her hand, glances at it to check she's not bleeding, licks her lips and we're kissing again, and it's heaven.

When it comes to kissing, I'm obviously no connoisseur, but I'm pretty sure that this is good kissing. It's very different from the Rebecca Epstein experience; Rebecca's a great person and a lot of fun and everything, but kissing Rebecca Epstein was all hard edges. Alice's mouth appears to have no edges at all, just warmth and softness, and despite the ever-so-slight tang of hot, minty bad breath from one of us, me probably, it is pretty much heaven, or it would be if I wasn't suddenly aware that I don't know what to do with my tongue, which suddenly seems to have grown ma.s.sive and meaty, like something you see shrink-wrapped in plastic in a butcher's. Is a tongue appropriate here, I wonder? And then in answer I feel her tongue just tentatively touching my teeth, and then she takes 282.

my hand and moves it on top of her T-shirt, Snoopy lying on his kennel, and then underneath her T-shirt, and then after that I have to confess that everything starts to get a little bit blurred.

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32.

QUESTION: What was the more familiar name of the Hungarian rabbi's son Eric Weisz, famed for his feats of escapology and disappearance?

ANSWER Harry Houdini.

The next morning we kiss some more, but with less of the ardent erotic abandon of the previous night, now that we're in daylight and she can see what she's up against. Also Alice has got a 9.15 Mask Workshop, so just after 8.00 I'm holding on to my mud-caked shoes, and heading for the door.

'Sure you don't want me to walk in with you?'

'No, no, that's okay . . .'

'You're sure?'

'I've got to get my stuff together, have a shower and everything . . .' I'd be very happy to hang around for that, and feel in some indefinable way that I've earnt it, but it's a communal bathroom, which obviously makes things difficult, and besides, I've got to remember, play it cool, play it cool...

'Well, thank you for having me,' I say, trying for a kind of saucy swagger that I don't quite pull off, then I lean in and kiss her. She pulls away a little too quickly, and for a moment I wonder if I should be offended, but she immediately provides a perfectly rational explanation; 'Sorry, bad breath!'

'Not at all,' I say, even though her breath actually does smell 284.

really, really bad. I don't care though. She could be breathing fire and I wouldn't mind. 'You could be breathing fire and I wouldn't mind,' I say.

She makes a sceptical 'hmmm' noise and rolls her eyes delightedly, and says, 'Yeah, well, you'd better go, before anyone sees you. And Brian?'

'Uh-huh?'

'You're not to tell anyone. Promise?'

'Of course.'

'Our secret . . . ?'

'Absolutely.'

'Completely?'

'I promise.'

'Okay - ready?' and she opens the door and peers down the corridor to check that the coast is clear, then gives me a loving little shove out of the door, as if pushing an unwilling parachutist from a plane, and I turn around just in time to see her beautiful face disappearing behind the door, smiling, I'm pretty sure.

I sit on a radiator in the corridor, and tap my ruined shoes together, flaking mud all over the parquet floor.

I float home. I've not really eaten anything except crisps and peanuts for twenty-four hours, so I'm starving hungry, and I've managed to pull a muscle in my neck while kissing Alice, which has got to be a good thing. I also have that dizzy, hollow, drugged feeling that you get when you've stayed up all night, and am pretty much running on adrenaline, elation and someone else's saliva, so I stop in the garage and get a can of Fanta, a Mars bar and a Mint Aero for breakfast, and start to feel a little better.

It's a beautiful crisp winter morning, and there are crowds of school kids holding hands with their parents, strolling to school. Standing eating the Mint Aero at a pelican crossing I catch the eye of the little girl stood next to me, who's glancing 285.

curiously at my shoes and trousers which are still caked in mud, so that it looks as if I've been dipped in milk chocolate. This strikes me as the kind of quaint picture-book image that little kids respond to, so I smile at the little girl, bend down and say aloud, in a J.D. Salinger-ish kind of way: 'I've actually been dipped in milk chocolate!'

But something happens to the words between my brain and my mouth, and it suddenly sounds as if this is the strangest and most disturbing thing that anyone has ever said to a child. Her mum seems to agree too, because she scowls at me like I'm The Child-catcher, picks up her child and hurries across the road before the lights have even changed. I shrug if off, because I'm determined not to let anything spoil this morning, because I want to keep hold of this feeling of slightly queasy elation, but there's something else bothering me, something that I can't quite shake off.

Spencer. What do I say to Spencer? Apologise, I suppose. But not too solemnly, I won't make a big deal about it, I'll just sort of say, hey, sorry about last night, I think things got a bit out of hand, mate, and then we'll just sort of laugh it off. And I'll tell him about how Alice and I made love, except I won't call it that, I'll call it 'got off with each other', and then things will be back to normal. Of course it's probably best if he does still leave today, but I'll make an effort, I'll bunk off lectures and patch things up and escort him to the train station.

But when I get back to Richmond House, he's not there. In fact the room seems exactly the same as when we left it yesterday afternoon - the bed frame, the mess of duvets and cold, damp towels, the smell of ammonia and Special Brew and Calor gas. I wonder if he's left any possessions here, and then remember that he didn't actually have any in the first place; just a thin plastic bag with a three-day old Daily Mirror and a stale meat pasty in it, still beside my desk where he left it. Anxious, I pick up the plastic bag, and head out to the kitchen, where Josh and Marcus 286.

die eating poached eggs and cheeking then share prices in The Times.

'Did either of you see Spencer last night?'

'No, 'fraid not,' says Josh.

'Isn't he with you?' grumbles Marcus.

'No, we got split up at a party. I thought he'd make his own way back.'

'Why? Where have you been then, you dirty stop-out?' leers Josh.

'Just staying over at a friend's place. My friend Alice's actually,' I say, and then remember that I'm not meant to tell anyone.

'Whooooooooooo,' they say in unison.

'Well, you know how it is, you've either got it or you haven't!' I say, put Spencer's stuff in the bin, and leave. I haven't got 'it' of course, I've never had 'it', never will have 'it', am not even sure what 'it' is, but there's no reason why I shouldn't let people think that I do have 'it', even if it's just for a little while.

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Round Four Rosemary stood up and leaned down and said her most sincere thing to him: 'Oh, we're such actors you and I.'

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night 33.

QUESTION: In his article of 1926, published in the review 'Lef by the poet Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein proposes a new form of cinema that relies less on the static, logical, linear unfolding of action, and more on a stylised juxtaposition of images. What is Eisenstein's name for this new cinematic form?

ANSWER: Montage of attractions.

There's a generic convention, recognisable particularly from mainstream American film, where the hero and heroine fall in love with each other during a protracted, wordless montage sequence, inevitably underscored by some sort of lush orchestral ballad, usually with a sax solo. I'm not sure why falling-in-love should be wordless - maybe because the actual business of sharing your most intimate thoughts and secrets and desires is a bit of a ch.o.r.e for those not immediately involved. But anyway, this sequence ill.u.s.trates all the various fun things that young lovers are meant to do - eating popcorn at the movies, giving each other piggy-backs, kissing on a park bench, trying on goofy hats, drinking gla.s.ses of wine in a foam-filled bath, falling into swimming pools, walking home arm-in-arm at night whilst pointing out the different constellations etc. etc. etc.

Well, with Alice and me, the last week has been absolutely nothing like that at all. In fact, I haven't heard from her, which is fine because my new watchwords are Cool and Aloof, and I'm taking great care not to infringe on her precious 291.

independence, especially as she's so busy with Hedda Gabler. And I really don't mind not hearing from her. In fact, I've only telephoned her, what, five, six times during the entire week, and I haven't left messages either, so the beauty of it is that, as far as Alice is concerned, I haven't phoned her, either! Admittedly, there was one slightly sticky moment when Rebecca Epstein picked up the phone, and I had to subtly alter my voice a little way into the call, but I think I got away with it.

Instead, I've been distracting myself by listening to a lot of mid-period Bush and pouring all my feelings into a love poem that I've been working on for Valentine's Day, in three days' time, the day before The Challenge. Of course I recognise that Valentine's Day is nothing more than a cynical, exploitative marketing construct, but there was a time when Valentine's Day was a really big thing for me, and involved this huge, Reader's Digest-style mail-out. I'm a lot older now, more emotionally discerning, so now it's just a card to Mum and Alice and that's my limit. The Cool and Aloof thing to do with Alice, of course, would be not to send her a card at all, but I don't want her thinking that I've gone off her or, worse, that what happened between us was only about s.e.x.

As for the poem, it's going okay, but I can't seem to settle on the appropriate verse form, and have been experimenting with the Petrarchan sonnet, the Elizabethan sonnet, rhyming couplets, Alexandrines, haikus and blank verse, and may well end up writing a limerick.

Alice, palace, chalice, phallus, malice . . .

In the end, it turns out that Patrick's nose isn't broken at all. That's not to say it isn't red and misshapen and swollen, and it's certainly taken the edge off the Action Man good looks for the moment. There's a scar on his cheek too, appropriately enough, which I think looks pretty cool and hard, but I don't tell him this.

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'Docs it hurt?' I ask.

'Does it look like it hurts?' he scowls.

'A bit.'

'Well, it does hurt. It b.l.o.o.d.y hurts as a matter of fact,' and to prove his point he touches it to make it hurt, then winces theatrically. We're in his neat military-style kitchen, making tea before the rest of the team arrive for the last rehearsal before our TV appearance. 'You do realise that it's still going to be like this next week? When we're on television'} In front of millions of people?'

'Not that many millions, Patrick. And anyway, I'm sure they'll be able to cover it up with make-up or something.'

'Well, I hope so, Brian, because more or less the whole of my family are going to be there in the studio, and I don't want to have to explain that some skinhead c.o.c.kney oik did it just because he didn't happen to agree with my political views.'

'That's not the only reason he did it, is it though?'

'He did it because he's a wild animal who should never have been let off his leash. He's just very lucky that I've decided not to sue.'

'No point. He hasn't got any money.'

'No wonder, too. I'm not surprised he can't get a decent job . . .'

'Actually, he's very intelli . . .' '. . . not if that's how he behaves himself . . .'

'Well, you were being a bit . . .'

'A bit what?'

I contemplate telling him - pompous, ignorant, obnoxious, rude, patronising - but decide against it, because at the end of the day my best friend did beat him up, so instead I just say, 'Anyway, I got you this - a peace offering, to say sorry, on Spencer's behalf . . .' and I hand over the gift, a ma.s.sive slab of a Cadbury's Fruit and Nut, a left-over Christmas present from Nana Jackson. This feels a bit unprincipled, because of course Spencer would never, ever dream of apologising, and 293.

tor a moment I contemplate bringing the slab of Fruit and Nut down hard on the bridge of his supercilious right-wing nose, imagine the noise it would make, that satisfying loud crack, but I hand it over politely instead, because we are meant to be a team after all. Patrick mumbles a terse 'thank you very much' and stashes the chocolate on the very top of the wall-cupboards so that he doesn't actually have to share it with anyone.

The doorbell rings. 'If that's Lucy, Brian, then you should apologise. I think she was a little shaken by the whole thing, to be honest.' I run downstairs, and open the door to Lucy and her panda.

'h.e.l.lo, Brian!' she says, brightly.