The next day dawned a windless sun-starved grey. A fine mist hung over the streets as I trudged towards the town centre and I felt pretty down. In fact, I was bloody miserable. The day before, as I had strolled through the sun, the town had been like some place out of a dream. But that morning, what with my mood and the gloom and everything, the dusty colours of the houses seemed no longer delicate, just dull.

Sure, the town was still foreign and interesting, but the magic and romance were gone. The whole place seemed little more than a backdrop, unlit scenery, a huge grey screen onto which the previous day's sunlight had projected a shimmering facade, a flimsy cinematic fantasy which had been clicked-off by some huge and invisible remote control.

To make my mood worse, in the middle of town I saw something horrible. In the piazza with all the cafes near the market was a war memorial dedicated to young soldiers who'd died in the 'fight against fascism' (so the guide book said). Only it seemed those young men had died in vain, because right across their names carved in pale stone some moron had spray-painted loads of graffitti. I couldn't understand what the graffiti said but the message was made pretty clear by several huge red swastikas that dripped like blood onto the flagstones.

I can't understand why people have to do things like that. I mean, what kind of ignorant bastard does to a war memorial?

Right on top of the war memorial, mercifully out of reach of the aerosols, a bronze angel trumpeted and held a laurel wreath aloft from a tower of four white arches. Beneath the brilliance of the day before the bronze statue had gleamed like a real angel. And below, on each of the tower's four corners, white robed figures in various philosophical poses had stood chalked liked gods against the clear sky's cornflower blue. But that morning, through scrunched up eyes, the angel faded ashen into the grey, like there was nothing there at all.

I'd been trudging round the town in a bit of a mood for a while when I came across a pavement artist - a girl about twenty, I guess. She was wrapped up from the cold in an old blue quilted anorak and knelt over a huge piece of paper taped down to the square. Greasy wisps of hair straggled across the girl's face and her skinny fingers were smudged black by the pastel cloak of a bearded warrior who reached a muscular but weary arm up to a pale, chubby goddess in a see-through gown.

The girl must have spent days doing that picture. It was about six feet by four feet and virtually identical to the original painting that she was copying from. A small photo of the painting was taped down to the flagstones beside her, alongside the artist's name, freshly scrawled in swirly pink and yellow pastels.

I know I was feeling pretty cynical that morning, but I honestly wasn't impressed by that picture. I admit that the girl had all the technique and stuff that Miss Thomas at school used to go on at me about. Technically, that gir

l, knelt there with her anorak and pastels, was a million times better at drawing than me. However, I still thought her picture was a complete waste of time. What's the point of just copying something. Why not just take a photograph?

OK, so the girl was raking in the cash. Her cap was overflowing with thousand lire notes. But if I'd spoken the language, I'd have gone right up to her and said - look, here's the name and address of a colour printing shop. I think they might save you some time.

It's not that I begrudged that girl her talent. But it seems such a waste to just be a human camera. If I had talent like she had, I'd use it to draw something worthwhile like pictures of all the weird things I think.

Sometimes I wish I could stick a camera in my head and film my imagination because I have some great ideas I really do. But I just can't get them down on paper. No matter how hard I try. That's why I felt so bitter when I saw that girl knelt on the street with her pastels and her stupid coat. I wasn't really jealous. It was just so frustrating.

To be fair though, there aren't many people who can actually turn their thoughts and dreams into something more solid. Personally, I've only ever met one person who could really do that. And that was my mate Dominic's kid brother, Tim.

Dominic Kingsley-Cross was a pretty good friend of mine right through school, because he was into art and stuff like I was. And his brother, Tim, was an artistic genius. I'm not just saying that. He was a real genius, an absolutely brilliant artist. I mean, he could paint or draw anything straight out of his head.

Unlike Dominic (who always reminded me of a farmer's son) Tim always seemed very frail. Dominic always looked as if he should be driving a tractor round a muddy field. He had a haystack of mother-cut hair and rather fleshy features, and would have added some welcome weight to the scrum of the school rugby team had he been the least bit interested in sports (which he wasn't, except for a bit of table tennis now and again).

Tim, on the other hand, was so slight I cannot imagine him playing any sport (not even something like badminton). Even in his teens he seemed to have the hands and features of an infant. His hair was always very childlike too - dark and wispy (yet somehow brittle like the candy floss hair of a doll). Put it this way, it was no surprise when he was chosen to play the part of Tiny Tim in the school production of a Christmas Carol (although he later dropped out of the rehearsals after catching an unusually severe cold).

If you had only ever seen Tim and Dominic separately you would most probably never have guessed that they were brothers. But when they were together I did notice certain similarities between them - the way they brushed their hair from their foreheads every few seconds when they were talking, the way they always leaned wildly over to the right when they were drawing or writing, their constant politeness and the way they always nodded (like their heads were on springs) when they smiled.

They were a really nice, close-knit family, Dominic's family. Maybe it's just me, but I always half-expect someone with a double-barrelled name to be a bit of a tosser. I kind of assume that they will walk around in a green wax coat all the time and enjoy blasting hand-reared pheasants to bits and say they're into opera when they can't really stand it, go skiing every Spring and be a fully paid up member of the local Tories and all that shit. But Dominic and his family weren't like that at all. Mind you, his parents were well loaded.

They had a swimming pool in the back garden of their home, which was a massive place. They had a gravel drive and one of those sit on lawn mowers to cut the grass, mock pillars either side of the door and those leaded windows, criss-crossed like fishnet stockings.

There was a massive kitchen at Dom's house with loads of matching wooden cupboards with brass fittings. Everything was in a cupboard - even the fridge! If you wanted a glass of coke, or a bit of milk for a mug of tea or something, it used to take about ten minutes to find it among all those hidden microwaves and dishwashers and ironing boards.

Dominic's dad was an unusually nice bloke. Like Dominic he was quite tall and massively wide, but also very polite and affable (what you might call a gentle giant). He was the managing director of some firm or other that had something to do with computers they use in the city. I'm not precisely sure what that entailed, although he did try to explain it all to me once.

As far as I could make out, the main part of his business involved producing software that people used when buying and selling currencies from different countries. The software calculated various statistics relating to these long lists of numbers which Dominic's dad showed me at the back of the Financial Times.

It was something to do with buying stuff that doesn't exist at the price you reckon it might be worth if it did exist in six months time (or something like that). To be honest, I didn't have a clue what he was on about.

But I tried to look as if I understood and nodded in what I thought were the right places. And Dominic's dad acted like he'd thought I'd understood him, even though he knew that I hadn't really. Yea, he was a nice bloke.

Even though he was busy at work most of the time, Dom's dad used to do a load of stuff for charity. He was the chairman of some local group that raised loads of money for sick kids and people with cancer and all that. He was always organising fetes and concerts and fun runs. Almost every week he was in the paper wearing one of his cheerful jumpers, handing over a huge cheque, with a handshake and a smile, to some brave, bald-headed kid in a chemotherapy unit.

Me and Dominic used to help him sometimes with those charity things, but Tim never did. He was always up in his bedroom drawing. Sometimes Dom's dad tried to make Tim join in with us. You'd hear him shouting at Tim in the bedroom. And then Dom's mum would go in there and shout at his dad to leave Tim alone.

After a few minutes things'd calm down again and Dom's dad would skip downstairs smiling as if nothing were wrong at all. He'd just say something like, 'well it seems Tim isn't going to join us today,' and then he'd hand us some carrier bags full of tombola prizes to load into the back of his Range Rover.

Although Dom's dad always looked happy and full of life you could tell he wasn't. Sometimes you'd catch him sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands (wrists flexing like his brains were full of lead). But the moment he saw you he'd smile and go back to being 'Mr Bright and Bubbly' again, bouncing up from the table like he was suddenly made of balloons. I guess he was worried about Tim and all those other kids.

Whenever I used to go round to Dom's place, Tim was always painting. That's all he ever did; sit up in his room and paint these fantastic pictures of monsters and amazing alien landscapes. They were brilliant - like Salvador Dali, only better. And me and Dom would often go and stand there for ages just watching him at work.

Sometimes I'd say to Dominic's dad: "Wow! Have you seen that picture that Tim's just done? It's superb! There's this kind of purple space monster on this strange like alien planet. It's like a big purple octopus or something, with little suckers and one huge horrible eye. It's holding loads of laser gun things and it's blasting all these little space ships. They're like really detailed and shiny, you know. It looks as if they're really made of metal, like you expect them to fly right off the paper and round the room. It's magic!"

But Dominic's dad never even pretended to be impressed. He'd just smile indifferently, lips tight, teeth clenched, and slowly nod his head.

Dom's mum was always more enthusiastic about Tim's painting. She did a bit of sketching herself (mostly pastel landscapes of the cow and copse covered countryside surrounding Dom's house), and was rather small and anxious like her younger son.

Once she asked me: "Does Tim have many friends at school?"

"Yea, of course," I said. "Everyone loves his pictures. He's always drawing things for people."

I see," she said, brushing a wisp of dark hair from her brow, and smiled and nodded in the way Dom and Tim always used to.

One day I went round to Dominic's expecting to see Tim upstairs painting away as usual, but he wasn't. He was downstairs, slumped on the sofa watching TV. The crumpled shabbiness of his clothes (which I'd never really taken much notice of when he was drawing) seemed strangely out of place against the smartness of the beige and blue upholstery.

"Hi Tim," I said. "Having a break from your pictures then?"

But he didn't say anything. He just sat there staring at the telly. I was a bit put out by that. I mean, Tim never used to talk much, but normally he'd at least say hello and maybe (with his shy nodding smile) mumble some brief pleasantry. But that day it was like he was completely ignoring me.

"What's up with him?" I asked Dom.

Dom shrugged his shoulders.

"Dunno," he said.

I never saw Tim draw again after that. He was just always sat there in front of the box. It didn't matter what was on. It could be a programme on Chinese cooking or snooker or some years-old Australian soap opera, all flares and medallions and girls with straight hair and big bums. It didn't seem to matter to him. It was like he was just staring at the TV anyway, not really watching it at all.

After he'd stopped painting Tim seemed to loose interest in life. Not at once, but kind of gradually like a football with a slow puncture. Every time I saw Tim he'd deflated a bit more. Sometimes I used to try and talk to him.

I'd kind of suggest he should go and do some painting, and occasionally he would mumble some barely comprehensible response, but mostly it was like he hadn't heard a word I'd said. After a while it just felt like I was preaching to him and he was deflating right there in front of me. I felt like booting him. Except you had the feeling that if you gave him a big kick or tried too hard to pump him up he might just go bang.

His parents were dead worried. His dad even bought Tim this huge set of paints, about a hundred little acrylic tubes in rows, like a rainbow in a wooden box. But Tim wouldn't touch them.

Once when we were going off in the Range Rover to pick up some pot plants to decorate the stage of the village hall for some charity beetle drive I said to Dom's dad, "Shall I go and ask Tim if he wants to come?"

And he said to me, "Do what you like."He said it quite nastily, speaking with a harshness in his voice I'd never heard before.

So, I said to him, "I just thought he might like to come with us. That's all."

And Dom's dad really shouted at me then - I mean, really shouted.

"Frankly Eddie, I don't care what he bloody does, OK?"

Then he stormed out of the Range Rover with a face the colour of beetroot, leaving me sitting there with my seat belt on, a small tear of shock and sorrow spilling from one eye. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and followed Dominic back inside the house. We sat in the kitchen and watched his dad walk around the garden with his hands in his pockets pretending to look at shrubs and stuff.

"Don't worry," Dom's mum said. "He just gets like that sometimes."

Afterwards, when I'd returned home, Dominic's mum rang me to see if I was all right and kind of thanked me for coming round to see Dominic and for talking to Tim and everything, like I'd done her a really big favour. I told her, I've always liked Tim."

"I know you have," she said.

You could tell she really wanted to mend that puncture.

Quite often after that, when I'd been round to Dom's house his mum would ring me and chat about Tim. She kept on thanking me for going and saying hello to him, and asking me how I thought he looked, and telling me how much they all appreciated my little visits, like I'd done something special. It pissed me off a bit. I mean, the reason I used to go and say hello to Tim wasn't becuase I felt I should, like it was my duty to or something. No, I liked him. I really did. Anyway, Tim went off somewhere then. To stay with relatives, his mum said. And I didn't see him again. Not for a long time.

II

Shortly after Tim had gone away I was put into a different tutor group from Dominic at school. Initially, we saw each other as much as ever. But as the year went on, Dominic became so busy revising for his exams and everything, it was like he didn't have any time for me anymore.

That summer I left school and started painting and decorating. Dom stayed on because he was going to university. And inevitably we began to drift apart. We did go down the pub a couple of times with a load of other people from school. But I never went round his house for tea or anything again. Still, I guess we were getting a bit old for all that stuff.

After that, the months zoomed by and for a long time I didn't see Dominic at all. I guess I should have called him and maybe he could have called me, but the longer time went on, the more remote that boyhood friendship became, and the more false and awkward any contact would have seemed.

Then, just over a year since I had last seen Dominic, I got a painting job up in a village near where he lived. They'd partitioned one of the big places up there into three flats and one of my mates, Nigel, had got the contract to redecorate the lot of them and needed a hand.

On the way to the flats I used to have to drive my van right past Dom's house. Every time I got near the place I'd tell myself that I should stop and go in see him. But when I actually got there I'd chicken out. I'd think to myself - well, he hasn't ever taken the trouble to call, so he obviously isn't particularly bothered about seeing me, and anyway he probably isn't even in - and stuff like that.

But, on the way home I'd start to feel dead guilty that I hadn't bothere'd to contact him for so long. I'd say to myself - go on, just pop in and say hello for a minute, there's no harm in that. If he isn't in you can go and say hello to Jim. You might as well, seeing as you're passing. But then l'd think - what's the point? He probably wouldn't want to speak to me, and it'd be embarrassing seeing his mum and dad after they'd been so kind to me and I hadn't even bothered to send them a Christmas card even though they'd sent me one.

In the end, it got so I was starting to worry about driving past Dominic's house about an hour before I finished work. And by the time I got in the van I was trembling and sweating allover. Nigel thought I had the flu. It's nothing, I told him, I've just got a bit of a cold. You should wear a jumper or something, he'd say. Yea, probably, I'd reply, my hand trembling on the handle of my roller, spraying primrose white emulsion onto the floor boards.

After a few days I started to really put my foot down when I got near Dom's place, and drove the van past as fast as I could (which wasn't that fast as the van I had then was even more of a clapped-out heap of shit than the one I've got now). After I'd done that a couple of times, I thought - this is ridiculous. I decided what I would do was just stop once and break the ice.

And if they were cool to me because I hadn't bothered to contact them, it wouldn't matter because they hadn't really bothered to contact me either. So, one evening, after I'd been working late, I took a few deep breaths, slowed down as I got near the house and told myself - right this is it. I drove in through the gates and parked my van on the gravel driveway. I knew someone was in because Dom's dad's Range Rover was parked outside and there were lights on upstairs and downstairs.

I sat there for a moment, then I got out of the van and started to walk towards the front door and the big porch with the fake Georgian pillars.

Well, I must have been about three steps from that door when suddenly my nerve broke. It were as if one or Tim's monster's had leapt out at me or something, and I just turned and ran, I jumped back into the van, my heart pounding like mad and my hands shaking so as I could hardly turn the key in the ignition. When I eventually got the engine started, I accelerated out of the drive so fast I wheel spun on the gravel, clipped the edge of the gate post and smashed one of me rear indicators. I didn't stop though. I just drove off down the lane like a madman. And that was one hell of a roller coaster ride I can tell you.

Fortunately, I knew the road pretty well, but even so I totally mistimed the braking on one comer and practically ended up in the hedge. Honestly, I had two wheels up on the verge and one foot over the grave. I'm not kidding you.

I must have been doing about eighty miles an hour or so as I hurtled past the old railway sidings near the edge of town, when I suddenly saw something flash in the headlights. There was a terrible thump and I slammed on the brakes, swerving all over the place. My first terrible thought, as the van screeched to a halt, was that I must have hit a child walking along the edge of the verge.

I scrambled out of my seat, ran round to the back of the van and peered up the road. But my battery was knackered, and in the weak, red glow of the rear lights I couldn't really see anything properly. So, I got back in the van and reversed slowly up the road with my hazard lights on until I saw what I thought was a sack of broken bottles, glinting in the on-off orange flashes.

I stopped the van and once again walked up the road. And as I got nearer I realised (with a bittersweet mix of relief and regret) that what I'd run-over wasn't a child, or a bag of bottles, but a huge rabbit, which squirmed against the tarmac with bright frightened eyes. Uncertain quite what to do, I knelt down beside the rabbit and stroked my fingers across the it's back. The fur was very soft and warm and the rabbit trembled slightly as I probed its smashed up hind legs with the tips of my fingers, then suddenly recoiled as they sunk into wet, ripped flesh.

I wiped me fingers gently down the rabbit's flank, then, shutting my eyes, I slid my hand beneath its limp head like a kitchen slice scooping up a burst pasty. Scrunching my eyes tighter shut, I wrapped my fingers round the rabbits neck and started to squeeze. The rabbit flinched slightly, a claw weakly scratching the back of my hand. I shut my eyes harder still as my fist (like that of a robot) crushed flesh and bone to nothing.

I'd almost got back into the van before I decided to return to the rabbit just to make sure. Mter another lengthy squeeze, when I was certain I'd finished him off, I lifted the body with the toe of my trainer and lobbed it into the hedge, where it hung half way down, caught in the brambled shadows.

I never did mend that broken indicator. The van was knackered anyway and the bulb still worked OK, so I just covered over it with some waterproof tape. I left it like that until I sold the van for spares a couple of months later.

Mter that business with the gatepost and my close encounter with the hedge and that rabbit and everything, I felt like chucking in the job at the flats. But I couldn't let Nigel down and I needed the money. So, I just used to make a big detour to avoid going anywhere near Dominic's house again. I was really relieved when I got a job in quite the opposite direction, I can tell you.

The ironic thing was, about a week after me and Nigel and finished decorating the flats, I saw Jim walking up through town. Actually, I hardly recognised him. He seemed much older somehow and he was wearing much smarter clothes than I'd seen him in before - crisp Chinos, brogues and a dark overcoat, like some kind of Sloane. I kind of caught his eye and was just about to say - Hit how are you doing? - when he walked right past me as if he didn't know who I was. I did think about going after him, I really did. But, in the end, I just stood there and watched him walk away.

A couple of weekends later, on a Sunday, me and this girl, Denise, who I used to got out with back then, went for a bit of cruise in the country. We were chatting and listening to tapes and everything and for some reason (probably something to do with the distracting shortness of the skirt that Denise was wearing) I ended up driving right past Dominic's place. I wouldn't have stopped, except Denise remarked on it being a lovely house.

So, I told her I knew the people who lived there.

"Oh yea?" she said.

"I do," I said.

"OK, then," she said. "Go back and say hello to them."

I stopped and backed up the road and parked on the verge outside.

Then (pausing briefly to check for dents on the gate post) I went up the drive to see if anyone was in. When I'd rung the bell, I heard someone inside and felt a bit nervous, but not too bad. And then Dom's mum answered the door.

She looked quite pleased to see me and said how kind it was of me to come round, really polite. She did seem kind of strained. And I guessed she was a bit off with me for not having sent her a Christmas card or calling round ever or anything.

"I'm sorry I haven't been to see you sooner," I said.

She smiled quite sadly and nodded.

"Is Dominic in," I asked.

"Oh I'm afraid you've just missed him," she said. "He's gone to the church."

I thought he must be helping his dad set up some stalls for a jumble sale or something.

"Oh well, never mind," I said. "How is he anyway?"

"He's coping," she said, with another sad smile.

"Right," I said. "All that studying and stuff must keep him busy."

Dom's mum nodded.

"I hear you're doing interior design now."

"Yea, sort of. Just decorating and stuff at the moment really."

"Well, there's always work for decent decorators. People are always grumbling that they can't find anyone reliable."

"Yea," I said.

We stood in silence for a couple of seconds, Dom's mum suddenly seeming a million miles away, as if she were trying to remember the answer to some tricky question. Then, as if she'd just noticed I was there again, she said:

"Anyway you're enjoying working life?"

"Oh yea. It's nice to earn a bit of money, you know. And I get out and about. Actually I was working on a place just up the road there, Swallowfields ."

"Oh yes. Major Stone's old place. I understand they've turned it into flats now haven't they?"

"Yea, luxury apartments. They're pretty nice actually. I wouldn't mind swapping one of them for my old dump."

"You're not living at home anymore."

"No. Well, it was getting a bit of a pain getting in from work and having my mum and dad go on at me all the time, you know. So I thought I might as well get myself somewhere."

"I expect your parents were sorry to see you go."

"It's worked out OK, actually. I mean, I get on much better with them since I moved out and the rent in this new place isn't too bad. It's shared kitchen and bathroom, but the bloke in the other room is out most nights so it's almost like I've got the place to myself. The landlord's a builder so he's always leaving a load of roofing felt and stuff allover the place downstairs, but I spend most of my time up in my room anyway, so it doesn't really bother me."

"So long as you're happy," said Dom's mum.

"Yea, that's right," I said. "Oh yea, by the way, I guess Tim's back home now is he?"

Dom's mum look puzzled.

"I saw him in the town the other day," I said. "I thought he looked quite well. I guess the break must have done him good."

For a second her jaw dropped open like a gargoyle.

"I think you'd better come in," she said.

"I better not," I said. "I've got someone in the car, a friend."

And then she said, "Dominic's father hasn't rung you yet has he?"

"No," I said, "I'm not on the phone."

"You haven't heard about Tim then?"

I shook my head.

"I'm afraid Tim died last Tuesday," she said. Just like that.

I felt like I'd been hit on the head with a sledge hammer.

"What happened?" I gasped.

"You knew he took tablets for his nerves," she said in a matter of fact kind of way.

Actually I didn't know, seeing as no one had ever bothered to mention it to me. I guess that explains why Tim sometimes used to sit there in front of the TV like a zombie. Maybe that was why he hadn't recognised me in the street, I thought. And I was sorry for getting angry with him then after he'd just walked past me. I really wanted to say something. To tell Dom's mum how sorry I was. But I couldn't speak. So I just pretended I knew all about his pills, and listened as she explained how it had happened.

"He really seemed to be getting better," she said. "He was cutting down the dose. The doctor said he should. I used to chop the tablets up for him and he really did seem to be getting better. He'd enrolled at the college so that he could take some of the exams he'd missed and he'd even started painting again. We were so pleased. He seemed so much happier."

Her face went all red and she started to sob.

"He'd gone up to his room early. I thought he was going to paint for a while before he went to bed. He said, I'm going now, and I didn't think anything of it at the time. I made him a cup of tea - he always used to have a cup of tea with his tablet before he went to bed - and then I said goodnight to him. That's all I said to him, goodnight."

She took a crumpled handkerchief from her sleeve and dried her eyes.

"In the morning, it was about ten, he hadn't got up so I went into his room. I thought he was still asleep and I thought I'd leave him for a while longer. Then I saw the tea hadn't been drunk. I picked up the cup and I noticed his arm was hanging out over the side of the bed. I tucked his ann back into the bed and I thought oh, he's very cold. Then I realised he was as cold as the tea cup. I pulled back the duvet and he was so pale..."

Her voice trailed away, her eyes so red it looked as if she were crying blood not tears.

"I'm really sorry," I mumbled.

"Dr Harrison said he must have been saving the pills for weeks."

She shook her head and raised her handkerchief to her mouth, biting into her forefinger beneath the sodden cotton. She looked as if she might start sobbing again, but blew her nose and regained her composure.

I couldn't stop myself asking:

"Did he leave a note?"

I felt terrible when I'd just said that. But Dom's mum didn't seem bothered.

"No, just his paintings."

Then suddenly she perked up.

"Maybe you'd like to have one of them," she said. "I'm sure Tim would have wanted you to."

"No, I don't think so," I said.

I don't know why I said that. Of course I should have said - yes, that would be lovely, I'd love to have one. That's what I should have said. But I didn't. God knows why.

"Oh well," said his mum, looking ever so sad but still smiling, "if you change your mind..."

Then I remembered Denise was still sat out in the car, like a turkey waiting for Xmas.

"Sorry, I better go now," I said, and mumbled how sorry I was and everything.

"you must come round and see Dominic some time," his mum said. " We'd all love to see you again."

"Thank you" I said. "I'll give him a call."

But I never even made it to the funeral.

When I got back to the car, Denise was in a bit of a mood. In fact, she was well fed up.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "I've been sitting here for ages."

"He wasn't in," I said.

"What have you been doing then?" she asked.

"Just chatting to his mum," I said.

"Oh great," said Denise.

We drove off then. I couldn't tell Denise about Tim. I don't think I would have been able to drive if I had. And anyway I didn't want to cry in front of her. We drove in silence for about half an hour. I kept on thinking of that last time I'd seen um and the way he walked past me and those pictures he used to draw. I didn't feel upset, I just felt like I was floating.

Denise thought I was in a mood because she'd been cross with mc, because I'd been up at Dominic's house so long and left her in the car by herself. I apologised and said I was tired because I'd had a hard week at work. And she said, why don't we go home then, so we did. We went home and went to bed and made love. Actually it was just a shag really. I mean, I couldn't feel a thing and it took me bloody ages to come. But, anyway, Denise seemed to enjoy it.