the cremation

A third of a bottle of Smirnoff and two empty cans of Diet Pepsi on the floor by his feet, John sat shitfaced and shirtless on the sofa, in flat 4a of Sidmouth Court. The sofa was a thirty-year-old beige affair filled with the type of foam that would poison you within five minutes were it ever to be set alight. John had been meaning to get rid of the thing for months.

However it remained in the centre of the lounge, camouflaged in a huge sheet that was decorated with a green and red pattern of Indian design.

The brash ethnicity of the sheet seemed to clash with the other furniture in the room which like the hidden sofa were all of post-war European design and, hence, comparatively conservative. The furniture included a forties dresser, an oval sixties coffee table and two much newer Scandinavian-style bookcases of unvarnished pine.

On one of the book cases was a neat row of well-thumbed English Uterature texts. The books were all hers (as John always explained to any visitor to the flat who happened to examine them (not that they had many visitors any more - nor ever really did for that matter). On the shelf beneath the books was a portable CD player, sandwiched between twenty or so CDs and about fifty cassettes. The CDs were also all hers. John only ever listened to records.

It wasn't that he had anything against digital recordings per sae. I Ie didn't care whether they sounded better or worse than the traditional analogue output of vinyl. He just liked them. He could understand how they were worked; how a malleable lump of black vinyl was flattened against a template in a heavy press to form a flat grooved disc; how the needl(' vibrating on the grooves, in turn, caused the air to vibrate.

He liked the fact that if he lifted the lid on his turntable and put his ('ar close to the spinning disc he could actually hear the song that was recoru('u on it. He liked the way the amplifier and the turntable and the speakers

were all separate, and the archaic brittleness of the grey cables that connected them all.

He could see no joy in inserting a disk that resembled a slice of glass salami into some black plastic box that as if by magic did everything for you.

It was so soulless. But when he tried to explain this to people the argument always reverted to sound quality, the efficiency of track selection, and the supposed eternal durability of the laser disc.

John didn't care about those things. The click of a dusty needle, the pop of the speakers and the crackle of a poorly insulated connection, to him only added to the enjoyment of the music. And as for efficiency. he was never keen on that. Evidence of this was to be found on the shelves beneath the cassette player, which were scattered (rather petulantly) with a mess of magazines on football, classic cars and record collecting. Among the magazines were half-a-dozen cheque books (all half used), a wallet, several envelopes, his car keys and various bills.

Most of the bills were red and unpaid. It wasn't that John didn't have the money. He just resented giving it to the shareholders of privatised monopolies. He always paid them in the end of course. For, like everyone else, he relied on tap water, electricity, gas and telephones. But, despite her protestations, that it 'really made no difference' he always waited until the last possible moment before giving anything to those 'stuck-up fascist parasites.

The things on the second pine bookcase and the dresser were all hers decorative boxes, vases and ornaments interspersed with a few sickly pot plants that just about managed to survive in the dim daylight which struggled in through the flat's grime-encrusted north- facing window.

The second bookcase (although much tidier than the first) was much dustier. Basically because she had not dusted it. John enjoyed cooking and did probably more than his fair share. He knew how the Hoover worked and he even squirted a bit of Toilet Duck round the lavatory bowl occasionally. But to expect him to dust or polish was basically taking the piss. After all, he always sorted out the car and the electrics and the like. Those were things that she was supposed to do.

When they'd first moved into the flat she had cleaned all the time. ~t was the first time she'd lived in her own place (apart from the house she d shared for a couple of terms at college - which didn't really count), and she'd become terribly domesticated. But after a while, what with the new

job and everything, her interest in polishing had scrubbing had waned. 'She hadn't the time,' she said. 'She'd sort it out eventually,' she said. But she was never at home. Not anymore.

John drained his glass of vodka and tortuous images squirmed like frying snakes in his head. He knew, as he sat there alone, she was with him, whoever he was, even now his fingers creeping up her thighs, his palms flattening her breasts through her sheer black silk bra, the bra she claimed she wore because it went better with her dark dress, but which John knew she really only wore for him, the slimy bastard.

John reached down and gripped the neck of the Smirnoff bottle in a white-knuckled strangle hold. He raised the bottle to his lips and swigged again, shivering as it blazed down his throat and rushed through his head.

What excuse would the bitch dream up this time? Circus elephants escaped on the ring road. Car whisked up by a fucking flying saucer. Or just another bloody inter-departmental meeting.

There was always something. If she looked flushed and sweaty then she'd been photocopying a hundred page report. If she came home smelling of liebfraumilch with mayonnaise spilt on her skirt, then she'd been entertaining a client. Entertaining a client? He knew what that bloody meant. Stopping off in the darkness of some country pub car park for a mutual hand job in the back of his Mondeo. Whoever the bastard was, he was bound to drive a Sierra, or a Cali bra, or possibly a bottom of the range BMW. That type always did.

What hurt him most, what really pissed him off was the way she pretended nothing was wrong. She breezed in each night without so much as a trace of guilt - tired but cheerful as if she really had been doing all that overtime to help them build up their wedding savings. Well, he'd had enough. The pretending was over. Tonight he would make her tell him who the bastard was, go round and beat the shit out of him, then walk out on her. That would put an end to her innocent smiling, the two-timing cow. Maybe, when it was all over he'd see more of Jenny again. She was a nice sort of girl, the cuddly, caring type, the type you could trust. That's what he really needed, a girl like her. He knew Jenny still fancied him. She'd made that pretty obvious at Tony's party that night, when the almost-wife had been away at one of her overnight marketing conferences, up North somewhere in a hotel, no doubt getting pissed at the bar and getting up to God knows what. She claimed she'd rung him that evenin~. Got no reply.

Asked where he'd been, the cheeky cow (faking concern, of course, to hide her own guilt). .' John heard a key turn in the lock, the door opemng, the almost-Wife stooping to pick the free paper from the mat. Brief butterfli.es fl~ttered through him and he could not help but imagine for a moment lYIng With her Sunday morning naked in snuggled-up bliss beneath the soft warmth of a king-size duvet. Keys dropped in the kitchen shattering happy Peacocks and Cabbage Whites.

He heard her turning the tap on, pouring cold water into the kettle.

"John," she called out.

And suddenly he felt so angry he could scream. Trembling slightly, he took a long swig of vodka then quickly returned the bottle to the floor as he

heard her shoes clattering closer along the passage way.

The almost-wife poked her head round the door.

"Hi," she greeted him cheerfully. "Want a coffee..."

At the sight of him slumped over his bottle, her smile faltered and her spirits sank, torpedoed by the stench of Smirnoff.

"Oh God," she groaned raising her hand to her brow. "Not again."

John sat still and silent as a guilty schoolboy, arms-crossed, staring at the

carpet. . . .

"Jesus Christ," she said picking up the bottle and sloshing the remalmng vodka round and round. "You can't have drunk all this?"

"Yea," said John.

"You can't of," said the almost-wife.

"Why the fuck not?" asked John staring through her, eyes cold green and crazy.

She sat down in the armchair opposite him.

"This can't go on," she said, gazing back at him with so much molten misery he had to look away.

"What?" he said.

"What's wrong with you? she asked. "Why do you keep on doping this? I just don't understand!"

"Oh don't you?" he asked. "Don't you?"

"No I don't," she said.

"Christ fuck," he snapped. "You make me sick you do carrying on like nothing's wrong."

"What the hell is wrong?" asked the almost-wife.

"I know what's going on," muttered John.

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked the almost-wife.

"You and him," muttered John.

"Who?" asked the almost-wife.

"God, I don't know," said John. "Whoever it is, I suppose...I suppose you think it doesn't matter. That it's all just a bit of harmless fun, eh? Well it fucking matters to me."

The almost-wife stood up shaking her head, chalk white and speechless, as she left the room.

"That's right, just fucking walk away from me. Just fucking walk away," shouted John. His head spun messily as he got uneasily to his feet like a new-born foal and staggered down the corridor after her.

"It's a fucking sham," said John. He gestured round the tiny kitchen where they had sat and breakfasted together each day for all those months. "All this, everything. It's a fucking sham."

"Please John," she started to say. "Just sto..."

"No, you fucking listen to me," he said pointing his finger at her and raising his voice by a couple of decibels. "You fucking listen to me. You want to know what's wrong? Huh? I'll tell you. life is a piece of fucking shit. Our life locked away in our cosy little flat, it's just shit."

"Please John," she said putting her hand on his arm. "They'll hear next door...

"So? Why the fuck should I care?" asked John. "They don't fucking care about anything. Nobody fucking does. You don't. I don't. Take a look at the world there's starvation out there, little kids dying, millions of them, and all we fucking care about is making the best of things. All we care about is what new clothes we're going to buy, what we're going to watch on TV, what the neighbours might fucking think. That's all we care about. We don't care about anything important. Nobody fucking does."

The almost-wife dumbly shook her head.

"You and me," said John. "We've always been at arms length. We never let ourselves love each other. Because love makes us vulnerable, and we're both too fucking scared to admit it. That's what's wrong, we're fucking scared. The only way we can face life is to pretend that nothing really matters. But it does matter. It does."

The almost-wife got up, mumbling that she "didn't want to hear all this."

John pushed her back down into her chair.

"No, you listen to me," he raged. "Two years we've shared this house, shared this sham, but we've never lived together, only ever survived. Because we've never let ourselves love each other, have we? Two years and nothing to show for it."

"What about this flat then?" asked the almost-wife "What about all this?" She gestured at carefully piled plates and bowls stacked on shelves and bluebell-patterned cups and saucers gleaming on the draining board by the sink. "What about the TV and the stereo and your precious records? Don't they count as anything?"

"OK, I'll show you what fucking counts then," said John. He gathered up an armful of crockery, part of the tea service her mother had recently bought them. "I'll show you what fucking counts," he said.

"What on earth are you...?" the almost-wife started to ask, but her remonstrations were cut short by the sound of breaking china as John flung the cups and saucers to the floor.

"Oh my God! Look what you've done," said the almost-wife. "How could you? What do you expect me to tell mum?"

But there was worse to come. John ripped open the fridge door. Inside were pints of milk and fresh orange juice, streaky bacon rashers, yoghurts, kiwi fruit and Red Leicester Cheese, and in the freezer compartment a ready-to-cook leek and potato flan, frozen peas, crinkle cut oven chips, toffee ice cream with pecans and pistachios.

"Look at all this fucking stuff," he yelled. "Just fucking look at it. We don't need this."

The almost-wife grabbed him from behind, finger nails clawing his shoulder blades crying: "No John. No!"

But he was too strong for her. He tipped the fridge forward, unleashing an avalanche of food as the plastic-coated wire trays slipped off their moulded supports. Egg shells crashed and smashed onto the floor. A bowl of cold lasagne splashed into a puddle of orange juice. Cottage cheese silently oozed from a split tub. The dregs of a tipped-over bottle of French-style salad dressing dripped into a mound of margarine.

The almost-wife glared at John.

"Pathetic," she snapped. "You don't frighten me, with your little tantrums. You're nothing but a spoilt child."

"Bollocks," snarled John, his tantrum far from finished.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "It's only food. It doesn't matter. We can clear it up, wipe the floor clean. Go shopping tomorrow. Replace it all. So, it doesn't matter. That's what you're thinking isn't it? That I'd smash a bit a food, a few cheap cups and saucers, but I'd never hurt something I really cared about like my records, eh? That's what you think, eh?" He grabbed the almost-wife by the wrist.

"Get off. You're hurting me," she said.

"Come on," said John, cheerfully, tugging her down the hallway. "You don't want to miss the fun do you?" He dragged her into the spare room. On the wall in clip-framed monochrome a bespectacled Buddy Holly strummed a Telecaster and Elvis, all slick black quiff and sideburns, moodily pouted.

With the almost-wife's wrist still manacled by gripping fingers, John's free hand tugged open the cupboard where his record collection was carefully catalogued. He started to strip out his treasured seventy-eights, tossing them over his shoulder. Elvis and Buddy bounced off the carpet, followed by Eddie Cochrane and the Platters. Chuck Berry and Bill Haley were flung like Frisbees. See you Later Alligator shattered like a clay pigeon as it ricocheted off the ceiling.

The almost-wife burst into tears and John released her. She knelt sobbing in the comer of the room as he crawled across the floor on all fours, snapping black vinyl: Jailhouse Rock, When My Blue Moon Turns to Cold Again, Sweet Little Sixteen reduced to a slag heap of wasted black nothing.

John turned to the almost-wife with a self satisfied grin. He grabbed handfuls of broken vinyl and let them spill through his fingers, smeared with blood which dripped in dark patches on the carpet.

"See," he said. "See? They're nothing. Nothing."

"But why?" asked the almost-wife, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"You've always loved your records."

"You, my dear," said John, "are confusing love with desire. I don't love anything," he shouted and threw a handful of black bits into the air. They showered down like demonic confetti, roof slates in a hurricane.

"You're mad," said the almost-wife.

"I know," said John. "The whole world is mad. Come and see." He grabbed her wrist and limply she let herself be led into the lounge.

"Sit there," said John. He pushed the almost-wife down into her armchair in front of the telly. "Sit there and watch."

John picked up the remote control and flicked on BBC1. Ten past nine and the news was in full swing. In the darkness they watched the dull glow of a girl caught up in a riot in some far away city. She was being brutally horsewhipped by the batons of three burly policemen. Hands hid her face as the men beat and kicked her to the ground and beat and kicked her and beat and kicked her. Then they carried her away. One man gripped her long dark hair in both hands, another held an arm and a breast, whilst the last man held her legs apart, an ankle in each hand. The girl was thrown struggling into a van. Military blue doors slammed shut behind her.

"Look," screamed John. "Look! This is our world. This is where we live."

"But that's not here," cried the almost-wife. "That's got nothing to do with us."

A local news item flickered onto the screen. The body of a man recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital had been found frozen to death down an alleyway besides a hostel he once stayed in. There was a photograph of him taken at a party at the hostel the previous Christmas. He wore a purple crepe paper hat and a crazy grin.

"Look, look," screamed John. "That's here. Why did he have to die?

Look at us with our passion fruit yoghurts and our colour televisions. We don't need all this shit."

"Just turn it off," pleaded the almost-wife. "Please John."

"Why should I?" asked John. He picked up the paper and flicked through to the TV listings. "Look. There's some alternative comedy on in a minute. Wouldn't want to miss that for the world. Laughing ourselves silly watching a lot of right-on, shit-for-brains, graduate arseholes making out life's a big joke, as if laughing at all the shit things going on and putting ourselves down makes everything OK. Fancy a bit of middle-class guilt relief do you?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about," said the almost-wife. "Your politics mean nothing to be."

"Politics," shouted John, his rage intensifying. "Politics? I'm not talking about fucking politics. I'm talking about you and me, that girl getting the shit kicked out of her, that bloke frozen to death in his purple party hat. Can't you see? I'm talking about real live people, not fucking politics!"

"You're completely off your head and you're talking crap," said the almost-wife. "I'm not listening to any more of this."

"Well fuck you then," said John. His foot smashed through the face of a weatherman and an arrow-covered map of the British Isles. Slivers of silver screen covered the carpet. Some unhappy electrical components sparked and crackled briefly. And a voice sounded out loud and clear: 'Tomorrow will be cloudy but dry in most places, with this band of low pressure slowly moving in bringing some showers to parts of Ireland and Northwest Scotland later in the day, spreading into Wales and the West Country tomorrow evening'.

The almost-wife stormed out of the flat, slamming the door behind her.

John drew back the curtains and watched her emerge from the lobby downstairs. She clutched her handbag to her chest as she hurried away past parked cars, lit briefly by street lamps and light from bedroom windows before disappearing into the shadows of bushes, fences and walls.

"Stupid bitch," muttered John. He yanked the TV's power lead from the wall, breaking the plug. A bronze-coloured pin was left poking from the wall socket. He Picked the TV up and hurled it through the window down onto the street below where it landed with a loud crash like two cars colliding.

"Oi," shouted John. He peered out through a mane of jagged glass, the night's coldness breezing through his sweat-sodden shirt. "Oi! You've forgotten the telly." But the almost-wife had already gone.

The nelghbours started thumping on the wall.

"You bastards can fuck off an' all," shouted John.

He sat down on the sofa and gulped down the last of the Smirnoff then casually tossed the empty vodka bottle through the smashed window. He heard smash on the pavement below with a satisfying crack. He crossed his legs, rested his nght ankle on his left knee, and picked a splinter of shattered TV screen from the sole of his foot. After a while he got up, drew the curtains, staggered to the bedroom and fell asleep on the bed, his arms and legs spread-eagled like a free-falling sky diver.

John stumbled round the flat hung-over and headachy despite the six paracetamol he had rather recklessly taken. The dose was dangerously high and (along with all that alcohol) had probably done irreversible damage to various mternal organs. However, in his current frame of mind he didn't really give a shit.

He cursed continually as he searched through the cupboard by the front door. The cupboard was a mess. It was full of mop handles and tin boxes, which once contained selections of chocolates and biscuits long since devoured on late December afternoons, and various carrier bags of crap. In one bag he found his old football boots. The bag rattled with broken studs and crumbly dried mud, and he briefly relived the excitement of the last game he had played, a friendly at work some eight months ago. They'd worn red and black striped shirts borrowed from a proper Saturday league team, and with one twenty-five yard effort held just clipped the top of the bar. He shook his head glumly, knotted the top of the bag and tossed it into the back of the cupboard, where perished white-spot squash balls nestled in the folds of earthy potato sacks.

Beside the potato sacks (which had been in the cupboard since they or, rather, she - had bought the flat) was a bin-liner full of old clothes. In addition to an unbelievably uncool, rig-zag patterned tank-top and an old combat jacket was a many-holed blue jumper dappled with crusty white emulsion, her old aerobics leotards and a once-worn blue satin dress, disfigured by a large oil stain (for which the taxi driver had never refunded her). And finally there, stacked at the back of the cupboard behind the bags of clothes and his old fur-collared parka, was the cork notice board he'd once found discarded between dustbins down the street and scavenged, imagining that it would one day serve some useful purpose.

John, put on a pair of canary-coloured, rubber gloves he'd found in the kitchen (or what remained of the kitchen). He carefully knocked the jagged edges of broken glass from the window frame with the handle of a floor-brush, and caught the falling shards in a matching plastic dustpan.

Then he cut the cork board to size and fixed it with short strips of masking tape all round the frame, then closed the curtains.

The TV was still lying smashed on the pavement below. He wondered if he should quickly go down and collect it. But in the end he decided not to.

One of the neighbours would be bound to notice if he did. What with the broken window it wouldn't take too much imagination to guess where the TV had come from. Fortunately most of the neighbours lacked imagination.

John comforted himself with the notion that because humans have never had any aerial predators (prior to the advent of the Sopwith Camel) they have no natural inclination to suppose that what they find on the ground has fallen from the sky. The neighbours would therefore, he hoped, be most likely to presume that the TV had been dumped in the road by a passing van, then possibly hit by another vehicle. That would account for it being in somewhat less than perfect working order.

John wandered through the house, filling a grey bin liner and a couple of empty cardboard boxes (which he had found in the cupboard) with the debris of his previous night's destruction. He constandy expected the door bell to ring. It seemed impossible that such destruction could go unpunished. He was still worried that the neighbours might have called the p~lice. And he wished he hadn't told them to 'Fuck om' quite so loudly.

Mmd you, they had only heard his voice through the wall. Maybe he could pretend he'd been listening to a film on Channel Four with the volume turned up, or a violent video.

Maybe the almost-wife's mother had called the police after she had arrived home so unexpectedly late, tearful and alone. He could imagine her mother, one arm wrapped protectively round her sobbing little girl's shoulders, barking down the telephone.

"That hooligan attacked my daughter. The new tea service I gave her was smashed to smithereens. She was lucky to escape with her life." But surely if the silly cow had called the police they would have come round last night. Perhaps they had when he was asleep. Maybe he had been too drunk to hear them ringing the bell and banging on the door with their truncheons. But if they had come round wouldn't they have taken the 1V away as evidence?

Maybe they had merely made a detailed description of the scene, taken a few measurements and then moved the TV to the side of the road for the Council to clear away. Perhaps the officers concerned would reappear later that morning to take a statement. He imagined the knock on the door.

Them standing there shrouded in the smell of boot polish and filing cabInets, spray starch and pencil sharpenings, lock oil and truncheon rubber.

One nervous tall and skinny with a crew cut, the other older, with a beer gut and beard.

"John Arthur Spooner? I'm Sergeant Peter Lees and this is PC Lee Peters from Westing nick. We'd like to ask you one or two questions about events that allegedly occurred on these premises last night to wit:

The ejection of a twenty one inch Sanyo colour television set through an unopened second floor window, causing considerable glass shattering and scattering not to mention denting and cracking of a public pavement.

A violent and damaging attack on certain items of crockery forming part of a not inexpensive china tea service recently purchased and given as a gift.

The wanton destruction of various chilled and frozen foodstuffs despite the fact that the majority of them were well within their best before and sell by dates (all clearly labelled).

Bizarre and threatening behaviour directed toward a young lady also residing at this address, including; inflicting a bruise resembling a Chinese bum on the unfortunate young ladies left wrist; repeatedly showering her with pieces of broken vinyl, many with dangerously sharp and pointed edges;

and forcing her to watch several television news items of a particularly disturbing nature, causing considerable distress likely to lead to permanent emotional scarring.

And lastly, the use of unacceptably offensive and abusive language aimed at all and sundry in the locality at the time of the aforementioned anti-social activities.

Now, if you wouldn't mind inviting us in sir, we prefer not to talk on doorsteps, most inclement for us and indiscreet for yourself." In a stage whisper to the nervous PC. "Get the cuffs on him quick Peters. He looks a loony like she said."

John imagined the almost-mother-in-law standing garishly frocked in the public gallery of the Crown Court with matching hat and handbag and a satisfied smile as he was led away from the witness box to a psychiatric institution, all long corridors and locked rooms, to be detained at her majesty's pleasure, strapped to a table whilst men in white coats did that electric shock thing to his brain and pumped him with syringefuls of mind-numbing drugs that would turn him into a suicidal imbecile.

Better a mental home than prison though he thought. His buttocks were far too pert for a prison. Or was all that being buggared by Mr Big in the shower stuff exaggerated? Surely there would be prison officers watching the showers. Mind you he'd read that bit in the paper about those prison officers who had opened the door of some kid's cell and let the queers in for a gang bang and then the kid had hung himself and they'd conveniently lost his suicide note. Mind you the kid was a child rapist. Maybe they'd just been getting their revenge on him. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and all that. Maybe his sphincter would survive intact if he wasn't put away for too long and he was able to buy the friendship and protection of some burly, straight cell mate with a crateload of smuggled-in ciggies. Christ, he wished he hadn't told them next door to 'Fuck off'.

John wiped up egg yolk and orange juice, took another four paracetarnol. He hadn't meant to do all this. It just sort of happened. Maybe he should ring the almost-wife and talk things through with her. At least if he apologised they might still ....No, best just to leave it alone.

He decided to ring Jenny instead.

"Hi John," Jenny brightly greeted him. "How are you?"

"Yea, not too bad," he lied. "Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while."

"0h don't worry," said Jenny. "I've been up to my ears lately. You know how it is."

"Sure," said John.

"Actually," said Jenny. "I was just about to call you."

"Oh?" said John, glowing with instant happiness.

"Yea, I was going to invite you to a party."

"Great," said John, the glow growing.

"My engagement party," said Jenny.

"Your. engagement party?" said John, the glow all gone, his fingers tightly entwined in telephone cord. "You're getting engaged?"

"I know. My mum was shocked too," said Jenny. "It's just that Chris has got this new job as a personnel manager in Manchester, and he's buying a house up there. So it just seemed a good time to..."

"Chris?" muttered John suddenly feeling as if he had merged with the grey bin liner of rubbish beside him. "Who's Chris?"

"Oh, of,course you don't know him," said Jenny. "I thought you'd met him at Tonys party....He was up in Manchester that night."

"Ahh," said John. "Well, congratulations to you both. I'm sorry if I sounded a bit funny. It's just a bit of a shock. I mean, I didn't realise that you... Well, I hope you'll both be very happy."

"Thanks," said Jenny "So, have you two set a date yet?"

"Uhmm, not exactly," said John. "Actually, to be honest, things aren't going too brilliantly at the moment. I'm not really sure what's going to happen now."

"Oh, I am sorry," said Jenny. "When did all this start?"

"Just recently," said John.

"I shouldn't worry. I expect she's just got cold feet," said Jenny. "It often happens Just before. She'll get over it. You'll see. She'd be a fool to loose you."

"Oh, I don't know," said John.

"Really," said Jenny. "She'd have to wait a long time to find another guy as nice as you. Believe me."

"That's very kind of you," said John. "But..."

"No buts," said Jenny. "Give her time. Everything'll turn out all right."

"Thanks," said John.

"Anyway, I'd like to see you both at the party," said Jenny. "It wouldn't be the same without you both there. I'll pop an invitation in the post."

"Thanks" said John.

"Well, nice to hear from you again," said Jenny.

"Yea," said John. "And look, congratulations, really. I wish you both every happiness...he's a very lucky man!"

"That's sweet of you," said Jenny. "Don't you worry. I'm sure things will turn out OK"

"Thanks," said John.

"Well, I best be going," said Jenny.

"Yea," said John.

"Thanks for calling," she said.

"No problem," mumbled John.

"I'll see you soon then," she said.

"Sure," said John.

"Bye then."

"Bye."

John, still clasping the receiver in his yellow rubber-gloved hands, slumped down the wall and sat beside his rubbish bag, not feeling very much at all like finishing the clearing up.

John decided to burn Jenny's letters and things among the trees where they had often walked and once, years back, almost made love in the darkness, crushing bracken beneath her laid-out duffel coat. He retrieved the bag of stuff from where he'd hidden it at the back of his clothes cupboard and walked towards the wood. When he arrived he left the main path and walked briskly through the trees, clambering over brambles and wading through twigs and leaves.

In a clearing, well hidden by willow and wild apple trees, he knelt and emptied the carrier bag, creating a mound of the stuff he'd kept all those years - tickets for concerts, films, trains and buses (even a boat trip up the Thames); wrapping paper from gifts given for Xmas, birthdays and no particular reason; letters and cards; and a small teddy bear they'd named Johnson.

He spent some time screwing-up the letters until he was left with a pile of paper snowballs (mostly white, some pink and scented) which he then attempted to set fire to. However, after several minutes and burnt-out matches, he conceded that they were not going to burn, and he had to unwrap each of the letters again. He looked away, so as not to read a single word in that familiar hand, and shredded the crumpled sheets into tiny pieces, which (to his relief) ignited at once.

As his makeshift pyre blazed, he chased stray shreds of paper and returned them to the flames until every last word was burned. Then, having covered the ashes with handfuls of wet leaves, he used the butt of a nearby branch to grind the mixture into a blackened mulch. When he was sure the mulch had cooled, he scattered it among dead bracken and brambles, before finally hurling the charred teddy toward a distant clump of trees.

When he arrived home the almost-wife was waiting for him.

"Your jumper smells of smoke," she said.