thirty-three

Mrs Barley and her husband had already shifted a load of stuff by the time I arrived at Target's offices, but she didn't seem too bothered that I was half-an-hour late. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and was much more relaxed than normal. I guess it was quite nice for her to be able to potter around the office without constantly being harassed by Chris, Angela or the telephone. And I always got on well with her husband (Steve) which also seemed to please her.

Steve Barley was bland and tanned - not really tall, not really short, not really fat and not really slim. His skin was smooth and polished like reproduction furniture and his hair looked as if it had taken two hours for some expensive stylist to cut. But he was OK.

In his tracksuit trousers, hooded top and trainers, Mr Barley (who looked like he was probably rather good at one or more racquet sports) seemed much younger and livelier than his wife. I guess his job - whatever it was - must have been less stressful than hers.

After we'd emptied one of the filing cabinets, Mr Barley suggested we should have some music on and went out to his car to get a tape to listen to on Angela's portable radio/cassette player. The tape turned out to be the greatest hits of Dire Straits. It wasn't something I'd necessarily go out and buy myself, but from a guitar playing point of view, it was all right to listen to.

Even though I felt like shit, I was OK moving boxes of stuff about. But when it came to manoeuvring a rather heavy desk (its drawers still packed with files), I began to feel slightly dizzy and dropped it on my foot.

"Are you OK?" asked Mrs Barley, looking concerned.

"Great, just great," I said, half-smiling, half-wincing.

Mr Barley suggested that we should have a break and went to MacDonalds to buy a burger and a milk shake, something which Mrs Barley, with mock disapproval, told me he did every Saturday morning.

Mr Barley bought me some chips and a cheeseburger, which, being a vegetarian, I couldn't eat, so Mrs Barley had it instead. Even though the smell of the burgers made me feel even sicker than I already did, I forced a few of the chips down so as not to hurt Mr Barley's feelings.

"I had a big breakfast," I lied, as he finished them off.

Mrs Barley gave me twenty quid for my morning's work (or rather Mr Barley gave me twenty quid, peeling off a couple of tens from a thick roll of notes in the pocket of his tracksuit trousers - handing them to me more like they were some kind of personal gift than wages.) As I walked down the corridor out of the office, I could hear Mrs Barley having a go at him. I guess she objected to him interfering in her business by paying me like that (and I knew she wouldn't have given me more than a tenner).

I'm generally quite careful with money. I never borrow it and always pay bills on time (another curse-cum-blessing of my class I guess). However, I have to admit, loose cash (when I've got it) does tend to pass through my pockets like water through a sieve. And, on the way home I decided I might as well pop into Restless Records and buy an album or two.

At that time, Terri was working in Restless on Saturday mornings (an additional incentive for going in there - especially as Debbie wasn't with me). I caught Terri's eye as I entered the shop and waved enthusiastically, then browsed for quite a long time through the new releases in the Indie section. I couldn't find anything I really wanted and in the end, decided to buy a second-hand copy of Off the Bone by The Cramps. Basically I only bought the album because of the cover (a blur of red and green skulls and skeletons that appeared three-dimensional if you looked at it with special glasses.) However, it's actually become one of my favourites.

As I went up to pay for the album, Terri grinned at me. She had dyed her hair blonde (like Stewy's only shorter) and wore a skimpy, black vest, showing off the dolphin she'd had tattooed across her right shoulder. She'd put on a little more weight (thank God) and looked more fucking gorgeous than ever.

"All right?" I asked, handing her a tenner.

"Yea," said Terri. She slipped my album gently into a bag. "How about you?" she asked and smiled again.

"Yea great, just great," I said, bashfully looking down at the album chart taped to the counter. She tapped open the till.

"Haven't seen you in here for a while?" she said.

"Ah well, I've been you know..." I shrugged, marvelling at how soft her fingers felt as she handed me my change. She nodded understandingly as if mysteriously able to unravel some precise meaning from my vaguely strung together words. I looked up from the album chart and smiled stupidly, not wanting to leave, but unable to think of anything sensible to say.

"Tony was in earlier," said Terri. "I thought he looked a bit down."

I shook my head and sighed despairingly.

"He's all right. He's just pissed off because we didn't have time to do a proper sound check at the gig we did on Wednesday night."

"The one down in Exeter?" she asked.

"Yea - to be honest the sound was pretty shit, but everyone was so pissed it didn't really make much difference," I said. Terri scrutinised my bleary eyes and corpselike complexion (which frankly wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of the album I'd just bought).

"You look as if you're still recovering," she said.

"Yea, it was fucking wild. You should have come."

"No one asked me," she said, with a sad smile.

"Yea, sorry about that. I would have asked but it was really only a few of Stewy's mates who came down with us in the van and I thought you'd probably be doing something else anyway."

"I was just at home," she said.

"Oh well, next time, I'll definitely giving you a call," I grinned. "As long as you don't mind spending two hours bumping about with me in the back of my transit."

"I wouldn't mind?" she said, smiling.

I blushed, uncertain as to whether she meant what I thought she might.

"I don't think Debbie would like that too much," I mumbled with a nervous laugh.

"No, I suppose not," said Terri.

She abruptly broke off the conversation to ask a man browsing through the thrash metal section if he could find what he was looking for. The man, who had incredibly long hair (and presumably a rather limited vocabulary) just grunted. Terri stared at a weeks-old hand-written order for some obscure deleted LP, which was Sellotaped hopefully to the side of the till.

At that moment, I felt like telling Terri that I didn't give a shit about Debbie (even though I wasn't certain whether that was really true) and that I could think of nothing better than spending an evening with her in the back of my van (or anywhere else that might take her fancy). But I couldn't think of the right way to say it. I didn't want to make it sound just as if I was joking or like I was just chancing my arm with some corny come on. There was just so much I wanted to tell her - so much I'd wanted to tell her for so long - too much to tell her.

I guess if I'd been less ugly and Terri had been less beautiful I might have plucked up the courage to at least say something. But instead I just guiltily traced the outline of her dolphin tattoo in my mind, and coughed pathetically, the taste of prawn korma again returning to my mouth (like some kind of punishment).

"Going down the Asylum tonight?" I asked.

"Maybe," she mumbled moodily.

"Might see you later on then," I said (even though I'd vowed not to go out).

Terri shrugged.

"Oh well," I said, collecting my record off the counter. "I guess I'd better get going."

Terri nodded, without really looking at me.

As I wandered off down the street, a thousand thoughts swirled messily in my skull like a badly mixed cocktail.

Why did Terri always get so moody when I mentioned Debbie? Was she jealous of Debbie being with me instead of her, or just jealous because I was in a steady relationship and she wasn't? Maybe it was just that she didn't like Debbie. But then why had she said that thing about us getting together in the back of my van? Was that just a joke? Or was she trying to tell me something?

I paused to assess myself in the window of the betting shop, to see if there was even the slightest possibility that I could be of interest to someone as beautiful as Terri. I stared for quite a while at my potato-man features reflected against the wonky flank of a poorly painted race horse. But the only conclusion I came to was that I could seriously do with a hair cut.