'I didn't mean . . .'

'. . . no, that's all right '. . . I wasn't referring to . . .'

'No, I know you weren't.'

I decide to leave.

'So are you coming to the filming?' I say, pulling on my coat.

'What filming?'

'The University Cha . . .'

'When is it?'

'Day after tomorrow?'

'Can't. I've got tutorials, so . . .'

'. . . there's a list on the second-floor notice-board if . . .'

'. . . I know . . .'

'. . . just sign your name if . . .'

'. . . I'll see . . .'

'. . . I'd really, really like you to come . . .'

'Why?'

'. . . I just would. See you there maybe?'

'Aye. Well. Maybe.'

I swing by Alice's halls of residence, just in case, and drop my Valentine's card in; hand hovering by her mailbox, then taking 3O2.

a deep breath and letting go. Then I hang aiound, pretending to read the notice-boards, in case she comes back. But I don't want to run into Rebecca again tonight, so I soon head back home and arrive just as Josh is pinning a note to my door.

'Ah, there you are, lover boy. Message for you. From someone called. . .'Alice maybe?'. . . from someone called . . . Tone. He says you're to call him urgently.'

'Really?' I say. What on earth does Tone want? Maybe he's coming to stay too. I can't have Tone coming to stay, not with Valentine's Day tomorrow, and The Challenge and everything. I check my watch. Half eleven. I go to the payphone in the hall.

'Hiya, Tone!' I say, brightly.

'All right, Bri . . .'

'Didn't wake you up, did I? It's just I had a message to call.'

'Yeah, that's right . . .'

'Are you coming up to stay, Tone? Because if you are, it's not the best time at the mo . . .'

T'm not coming to stay, Bri. Actually I was just wondering when you were going to come down here?'

'Well . . . not until Easter, I don't think.'

'No, I mean to see Spencer.'

'Why, what about Spencer?'

'You haven't heard then?'

I press the receiver tighter against my ear, lean against the wall.

'Heard what?'

Tone exhales into the mouthpiece, and says, 'There's been a bit of an accident.'

3O3.

34.

QUESTION: At whose wedding do 'funeral bak'd meats . . .

coldly furnish forth the wedding tables'? ANSWER- The marriage of Gertrude and Claudius, in Hamlet I head back to Southend first thing on Valentine's Day, before the post arrives, and get back to the maisonette on Archer Road round about noon. I've been desperate for a pee since the change at Fenchurch Street, but the toilets on the train were spectacularly blocked, so I've waited and now have this throbbing ache in my kidneys. I take the stairs at a run, head into the bathroom, and scream . . .

'OH MY G.o.d!'.

There's a man in the bath, shampooing his hair. He starts to scream too . . .

'WHAT THE b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l . . . I'.

And then Mum's coming out of her bedroom, doing up her dressing gown, and over her shoulder I see the unmade bed in disarray, the red and white Y-fronts hanging from the headboard, the men's trousers gaping on the floor, the bottle of sparkling wine . . .

'BRIAN, WHAT THE h.e.l.l ARE YOU DOING BACK!' shouts Mum. I turn away, because she's not quite done up her dressing gown properly, and see that the man in the bath is standing up now, wiping at the shampoo in his eyes with one hand, clasping a face flannel to his groin with the other.

'What the h.e.l.l's going on!' I say.

304.

'I'm trying to have a b.l.o.o.d.y bath!' bl.u.s.ters Uncle Des.

'Wait downstairs!' snaps Mum.

'I need to use the toilet!' I say, which I do, urgently.

'BRIAN - WAIT DOWNSTAIRS!' She's shouting now, holding her dressing gown closed, pointing at the stairs. I haven't heard her shout like this since I was a kid, and suddenly I feel like a kid, so I go downstairs, unlock the back door, and pee in the corner of the garden.

I'm in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil when I hear Uncle Des and Mum sneaking down the stairs, then whispering furtively in the hallway, like a pair of teenagers. I think I hear Till call you later', then the sound of a kiss, the sound of my mother kissing Uncle Des, then the front door closes, and I hear the fizz of a match being struck, the sound of Mum inhaling, breathing out slowly, and then she's stood behind me in the doorway, wearing a powder blue tracksuit, sucking hard on the f.a.g in one hand, holding a greasy gla.s.s of sparkling wine in the other.

The kettle's still not boiling.

Finally Mum says, The thought you were going straight to the hospital?'

The missed lunch-time visiting. I'm going later.'

The wasn't expecting you.'

'No, well, obviously not. So - something wrong with Uncle Des's bath is there?'

'Don't take that tone, Brian . . .'

'What tone?'

'You know what tone,' and she drains the remains of the wine. The kettle finally clicks off. 'You making coffee?'

'Looks like it.'

'Make me one. Then come into the lounge. We need to have a little talk.'

Oh, G.o.d. My heart sinks. We're going to have a little talk, a frank discussion, a heart-to-heart, a one-to-one. We're going to talk to each other like adults. I've managed to avoid this kind of thing so far. Dad died before he could do the 3O5.

'when-a-man-and-a-lady-really-like-each-other' number, and I think Mum must have a.s.sumed that either it was never going to be relevant, or that I'd find out about the strange mystery of physical love by myself one way or another, which I did I suppose, after a fashion, up against a wheelie bin at the back of Littlewoods. But there's no getting away from this one. I pluck two mugs off the tree, spoon in the coffee powder and try to work out what to think. I try to imagine that there's some kind of innocent explanation to Uncle Des being in our bath at one in the afternoon on Valentine's Day, but can't. All that comes to mind is the obvious explanation, and the obvious explanation is ... unthinkable. Uncle Des and Mum. Uncle Des from three doors down and my mum in bed together in broad daylight, Uncle Des and Mum having . . .

Kettle's boiled.

Mum's in the lounge, drawing deeply on a Rothmans and peering through the net curtains. I hand her the mug of coffee and sit glumly on the sofa, in silence, and I find myself wondering if this is what it feels like to be told by your wife that she wants a divorce.

I notice my Valentine's card on the mantelpiece, a Chagall postcard. 'I see you got a card, then!'

'What? Oh yes. Thank you very much, sweetheart. Very nice.'

'How d'you know it was from me?' I ask, a feeble attempt at lightheartedness.

'Well you wrote "To Mum" on it, so . . .' and she tries a smile, then turns back to the window and blows smoke at the window pane, exhaling so hard that the net curtains move. Finally, she says, 'Brian, your Uncle Des and I are having an . . .' and she's about to say 'affair', but plumps for 'having an ... relationship.'

'For how long?'

'A little while now. Since last October.'

'Since I went away you mean?'

3O6.

'More or less. He came round for a curry one night, to keep me company, and one thing led to another and well, I was going to tell you Brian, at Christmas, but you weren't around much, and I didn't want to do it over the phone . . .'

'No. No, I can imagine,' I mumble. 'So is it... serious?'

'I think so. Well. . .' and she sucks on her f.a.g again, purses her lips, exhales and says '. . . as a matter of fact we've been talking about getting married.'

'What?'

'He's asked me to marry him.'

'Uncle Des?'

'Yes.'

'Marry him?'

'Brian . . .'

'And you've said yes?'

'. . . I know you don't get on, I know you don't like him, but I do, I like Des a lot. He's a good man, and he likes me, and he makes me laugh. And I'm forty-one years old Brian, I know that must seem ancient to you - G.o.d knows it feels ancient sometimes - but you'll be forty-one one day, sooner than you think. Anyway, I'm still, I still, well, I still get lonely, Brian, I still like a bit of company every now and then, a bit of . . .' she draws on her cigarette, looks at the floor, '.. . well, I'm sorry, but your dad's been gone a long time now Brian, and Des and I aren't doing anything wrong. I won't be made to feel like we're doing anything wrong . . .'

But I'm still trying to take things in. 'So you are going to marry him?'

'I think so . . .'

'You don't know?'

'Yes! Yes, I am going to marry him!'

'When?'

'Later in the year sometime. We're not in any rush.'

'And then what happens?'

'He's going to move in here, with me. We're thinking . . .'

3O7.

and she pauses, nervous again, and I can't imagine what else she could possibly have to tell me'. . . we're thinking of turning it into a B and B.'

I think I laugh at this, not because I find it funny, or any of this funny in fact, just because I don't have another appropriate response.

'You're joking.'

'No, I'm not.'

'A Bed and Breakfast?'

'Uh-huh.'

'But there's no room!'