a strawberry in the u-bend

Howard, as always, took his socks of before he began his meditation. He locked the bedroom door and lay on his back on the double bed, eyes closed, arms at a slight angle to his body, the palms of his hands facing upward. He rested the bare soles of his feet against the cold brass bed rail.

The touch of cold metal against his skin made it easier for him to imagine water, crystal clear, slightly bubbly, filling his toes.

He pictured chill water pour from the cold tap of the kitchen sink and splash into a clear glass. He did not see the tap or the glass, or the sink or the kitchen that held them. Nor did he see the house that held the kitchen or the town that held the house or the world that held the town. He concentrated only on the image of cool fresh water, rising through his narrow ankles and lapping inside his shins.

Water pure crystal clear, water pure crystal clear, water pure crystal clear.

Silently, inwardly, he chanted the words and felt the water explore his hollow knees then gurgle slowly up through his thighs. He felt his legs soften, the water within him stretching the flimsy transparency of his skin until it dissolved and the waters flowed out all around him, his legs disappeared and he floated, indefinitely immersed in a crystal clear sea.

The water's chill shocked as it rose through his balls, unleashing liquid butterflies which fluttered about his cavernous belly. Teasing wingtips sprinkled spray inside of him. Then, with a soda-fizzing, the butterflies melted into the water foaming up between his ribs.

Howard felt waves flow through the water within him, the water he was within. The waves lapped through his chest - the rise and fall of his slow breaths in harmony with the endless ebb and flow - evoking a new chant.

Feel the waves, feel the waves, feel the waves.

Water flowed over his shoulders and cascaded in foaming streams down his arms, rapidly filling his fingers. His arms melted. His body swayed back

and forth, up and down. A liquid sheet rose up through his neck washing that day's tension away into the bubbling haze. Wash away, wash away, wash away.

The water swooshed around the inside of his head, scouring any lingering thoughts which still clung to his skull, like they were no more than mud caked on a wheel arch. Hosed out through the top of his head, diluted until they no longer existed, he no longer existed, except as a whispered chant within the water.

Am nothing, feel nothing. Am nothing, feel nothing. Am nothing, feel nothing.

"Howaaaardd!!" The yelling voice was followed by an almighty banging and rattling of the door handle. "Howard, why's the door locked? What on earth are you doing in there?" It took a moment for his eyes, ears, mouth and the various other parts of his nervous system to return from their watery detachment and collect again into a co-ordinated team. As they did so, he felt all the tension he had so painstakingly expelled from his body pour back into it.

"What do you want now?" snapped Howard.

"Howard, it's an emergency!" The urgency in the voice alerted his pacified brain waves. His pulse immediately quickened. He was no longer a limbless soul floating in a spiritual sea, but Howard the distressed husband. With a surge of adrenaline he raised himself hurriedly on hairy, muscular arms, stood up and strode quickly across the room. His sweaty fingers fumbled with the key, unlocking the door. He flung it open. There stood his wife Deirdre obviously highly agitated. Her hands, clad in a pair of pink rubber gloves, held a carving knife, its blade dripping red.

"What have you done to yourself?" Howard asked, imagining that she had sliced off a finger or severed some vital artery whilst chopping onions.

He saw the onion slip beneath her hand, her wrist moving beneath the blade

"There's nothing whatsoever wrong with me," said Deirdre curtly.

"Then what...?"

A terrible thought formed in his mind like a tumour - it slid down through his neck and dropped leaden into the pit of his stomach. It was one of the boys. Of course. They had been fooling around with the knife. One of them, probably Stephen the eldest had slipped and ...

"Howard, why aren't you wearing any socks?" his wife pointed to his naked feet with the knife. Howard ignored her question. His attention was focused on the blade.

"It's covered in blood," he said hoarsely.

"No Howard," said Deirdre, "it's juice. A large strawberry has dropped down that stupid sink. It's stuck in the U-bend and the water won t drain. I'd be grateful if you'd stop whatever it is that you're doing in there, put your shoes and socks back on and come down stairs and unblock it for me."

Howard's relief that there had been no domestic tragedy soon gave way to annoyance, annoyance that she should have interrupted the precious fifteen minutes he had to himself each day over such a trifling matter, when he had expressly asked not to be disturbed. A measly quarter of an hour of peace. That was all he claimed. Was it too much to ask for? Was It?

Howard's annoyance almost amounted to anger, but not quite, because, you see, Howard never got angry. Instead of slamming the door and returning to what he was doing, as some men would have done, he muttered meekly, "OK dear, I'll be down in a moment."

He sat on the bed and started to put his socks back on. At least there had been no accident, he comforted himself. He should be pleased. There was no sense in getting irate, that would only provoke more nagging and female bitterness. He'd read about that in the library in a book called A Fully Illustrated Guide to Female Sexual Behaviour. The pages with pictures appeared to have been removed but it was still an interesting read, especially the chapter on, what was it called? Oh yes, penis envy.

He couldn't imagine Deirdre doing some of the things that the, book suggested most women indulged in. Maybe she was one of the one s that didn't. Wvhat was it that the book had said? That women get angry because they feel guilty about doing those things to themselves....Deirdre was certainly tense and angry. The author of A Fully Illustrated Guide to Female Sexual Behaviour, Dr Jerry Cockburn, who was supposedly a leading expert on marital relationships, claimed that sexual frustration was at the root of all marital strife. His advice to any man who couldn't pluck up the courage to talk to his wife about such things was to buy her one of those vibrating devices for her next birthday. According to the book, 'She may be shocked at first but she'll thank you for it in a big way later I!!' Dr Cockburn obviously hadn't met a woman like Deirdre. Howard could imagine her reaction to such a gift. She'd probably faint with horror.

Good grief, she had only to see a pair of bouncing bosoms or a naked backside on TV, and she would reach for the remote control with such self-righteous indignation it made him fell unclean. Even if she left the room, Howard found it impossible to switch back onto the offending show or film and watch it without feeling guilty.

Howard never watched what he wanted. He never argued with his wife or insulted her. Other men didn't care. They swore at their wives and got away with it, called them terrible things, and in public too. Take the couple he had heard arguing in the supermarket car park just last weekend. He couldn't help but listen as they'd openly spat expletives at each other, using obscenities that he would never even dare to think, let alone utter, in front of his wife. It wasn't that he was scared of Deirdre as such. He was just wary of what hurt he might cause were he ever to disturb her carefully constructed prissiness.

Howard followed his wife into the kitchen. The sink was filled to the brim with water on which floated strawberry stalks and a couple of peeled grapes. As he stood looking down into the sink, the plug hole gurgled and belched a big bubble, followed by a stream of smaller bubbles which rapidly rose to the surface and burst.

Although it was against his better judgement, Howard couldn't stop himself from asking, "Couldn't you have unblocked it yourself?"

Howard sighed as his wife started to explain in a soprano whine precisely why it was he who must be the unblocker. Because, of course, it was his fault that the strawberry had become stuck. Because, as his wife now rather fiercely reminded him, theirls was the only sink in Britain without a grill thingy over the plug hole to stop objects such as large strawberries, dropping down to the U-bend. And why? Because Howard was a penny-pinching, cheap-skate.

Held been promising for years to replace the chipped old, china sink with a new aluminium one. But, of course, when he eventually got round to doing so, he had to try and save money, didn't he. Rather than going to a reputable DIY store like any sensible man would have, Howard had to buy the sink cheap from the closing down sale of that cut-price bathroom suppliers the Atlantis Showroom. And why had the sink been cheap? Because there was no grill thingy over the plug hole.

Howard interrupted his wife's ranting to remind her that he had promised and indeed tried on several occasions to rectify the problem (although as yet he hadn't succeeded).

"Seven weeks we've had that sink," she whined, "seven weeks and still it's no better than the day you bought it." In fact it was only six weeks since Howard had purchased the sink, and he had the receipts to prove it. He decided, however, that it was an inappropriate moment to draw Deirdre's attention to this minor detail.

OK, yes, six weeks sounded like a long time. But it wasn't as if he hadn't made any effort to solve the problem of the missing plug thingy.

Initially he had tried to return the sink to the Atlantis Showroom. That, as it turned out, had been impossible. He had bought the sink in the shop's closing down sale on the Saturday and left it in the garage overnight. It was only on the following day, after he had fitted the sink (with some clever modifications to the outlet pipe), that he discovered that the plug-grill was missing.

Howard had dismantled the sink, repackaged it, returned it to the boot of his car and driven it back to the Atlantis ShoMoom. But when he arrived he

saw that the shop's sign had been painted over, and the huge plastic bust of Neptune, God of Water, which the day before had dominated the street, had been taken down. The doors of the building were secured by a huge padlock and chain. And when he peered through the newly whitewashed windows he saw that the place was empty, but for a cracked pink bidet, a couple of pine toilet seats and several boxes stuffed with short lengths of tarnished piping.

Howard had returned home and refitted the sink minus the plug-grill thingy, assuring his wife as he did so that the situation was only temporary.

Subsequently, he had searched everywhere for an appropriate thingy. But to no avail. None of the plumbers, DIY stores nor ironmongers he visited were able to provide the kind of thingy he sought.

"Sorry sir, we don't sell those separately," said the ironmongers.

"Are you sure that's cms not inches," suggested the plumber with a wink. "I've never seen one that size before." "No, you won't find one like that anywhere," a fresh faced young salesman in the DIY superstore said with glee. "I'm afraid you'll have to buy a completely new unit. And if you step this way, l'll show you the wide range of top-quality integrated kitchen systems and fittings we have available for immediate delivery on interest-free credit." Howard had thanked him, but declined the offer, and wearily returned home empty-handed to face Deirdre's rancour.

It turned out that Howard had purchased a continental sink designed without a grill thingy. He offered to improvise a solution with a piece of wire mesh, but Deirdre was adamant. She wanted a proper thingy in her plug hole.

Finally, in desperation, Howard'd called the phone number that had been posted on the whitewashed door of the Atlantis Showroom after it shut down. The pretty-voiced receptionist who answered the phone listened patiently as he explained his predicament. She suggested that if he wish~d to make a formal complaint in writing they would endeavour to forward It to the shop's former proprietors. However she warned him that it might take some time to reach them as they were now living in a villa somewhere near Marbella. In the mean time she had suggested that he use a plastic bowl to wash up in.

"WVhy don't you use a bowl?" Howard asked his wife.

Deirdre was not amused by his suggestion.

"I don't want to use a bowl," she said. "I just want a proper sink."

"It is a proper sink," said Howard.

"It is not a proper sink! It is useless," said his wife. "Look, look - it doesn't drain."

She turned both taps on and splashed her rubber-gloved hands agitatedly on the rapidly rising surface of the water. With a deep sigh, Howard hastily turned the taps off as the water started to overflow onto the kitchen floor.

"All right dear, calm down," he said. "Why on earth did you keep running water into the sink when you knew it was blocked?"

"I ran the water to try and wash the strawberry away," she snapped. "But it wouldn't budge"

"Well now," said Howard with a little chuckle. "That was a bit stupid wasn't it?"

"Stupid? Is that all you can say?" screamed Deirdre furiously. "I'm stupid am I? It's my fault that the sink's blocked is it?"

"No dear, I was just trying to make the point that..."

"Right, that is it." Deirdre tugged off her rubber gloves. She slapped them down on the draining board, pulled off her apron and threw it on the floor.

"If I'm so stupid then you had better make your own fruit salad!" So saying, she turned her back on him and flounced out of the kitchen.

He heard her enter the lounge where the two boys were watching TV.

"Turn that racket down now Michael. Get your feet off that chair Steven," he heard her shout. "This isn't some kind of doss house." Howard heard no response from his eldest son. He was not surprised. Steven was like him. At the first sign of an argument he would clam up.

The sound of the TV abruptly stopped.

"Ohh mum I was watching that," he heard Michael whine. Michael was a year younger than Steven. A very noisy nine. "That's not fair. Turn it back on," Howard heard him say.

"The television is off, and its staying off," Deirdre snapped. "Now, both of you can go to your rooms.

"But mum we never did nothink," whined Michael.

"The word is nothing Michael, not nothink. There isn't a 'k' on the end of it," snapped his mother. "I don't know where you pick these things up from, but I'm getting rather tired of it. And that goes for you too Steven. Honestly you're like a pair of pigs. Just look at the state of this room. Just look at It. I shouldn't have to spend my whole life clearing up after you."

"Sorry mum," whined Michael. "If I help clear up, can I just watch Inspector Gadget. Please, mum. I'll turn it off after, promise..."

"No you've been fooling around in here all afternoon. And I've just about had enough of it. You can go up to your own rooms now, the pair of you," snapped Deidrie.

"But mum, it's Inspector Gadget," repeated Michael.

"No, Michael. How many times do I have to tell you?" she shouted.

"Rooms. Now!"

"It's not fair..."

"Now!!"

Howard heard the sound of the boys' unlaced trainers thumping on the stairs as they traipsed up to their rooms. He sighed and turned his attention to the sink. He stared down into the water. It reminded him of the peaceful meditation from which he had been so rudely disturbed a few minutes earlier.

He smiled ruefully at his rippled reflection and shook his head in despair, confounded by his utter failure after all those years to understand even the simplest machinations of the female mind. He peered down into the depths of the plug hole which belched again into his face.

"Say what you like," he told the plug hole. "I'll soon sort you out!"

Howard unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves and pondered the problem. Trust a woman to get hysterical over such a simple thing. All it needed was a plunger. Unfortunately, he'd lent his plunger to Bob Jackson at number 28 a few months ago. And Bob had moved taking it with him. So, that was no good.

However, he wasn't helpless, he could improvise. What he needed was something long and thin. A knitting needle perhaps. No, that was no good either. He knew Deirdre would have a fit if he so much as looked at her knitting basket, let alone actually stuck one of her treasured needles down a filthy plug hole. No, an unwound wire coat hanger, that was the solution.

He could bend the end of the wire a little to reach the base of the U-bend.

That would dislodge the troublesome strawberry and all the other accumulated bits and pieces that were doubtless lurking down there. There was bound to be a spare hanger in the bedroom wardrobe he could use.

In the hall, Howard discovered Deirdre and the two boys putting their coats on by the open front door.

"Where are you lot off to?" he asked, slightly worried.

"Mum's taking us to get Chips," Michael answered cheerfully. "She says I can have two battered sausages. What are you going to have?"

"Ask your mother," said Howard. She makes all the decisions around here." Deirdre sniffed.

"Have you done the sink?" she asked.

"Don't worry. I'm working on it, dear," he said.

"Can I stay and help?" asked Steven, the eldest.

"I don't want to stay. I want to go to the chip shop," said Michael.

"You're both coming with me. Now hurry up and button your coat Stephen," said Deirdre.

"It look stupid," muttered Stephen sullenly.

"We're not going anywhere until you button it," said Deirdre.

"I don't on t want to go, anyway," muttered Stephen.

"Suit yourself then," said Deirdre. "Stay here with your father and go without chips. She took Michael by the hand and dragged him out of the front door with her. Stephen followed fumbling with his buttons.

"I do want to go really. Look, mum. Ive done them now. Look."

Howard shut the door behind them, and basked for a moment in wonderful silence. As it turned out, Howard could not find any wire coat hangers in the bedroom wardrobe. They were all plastic. He took one from the rail and turned it thoughtfully in his hands for a few moments. Then, holding the hanger as if were a racket, he swiped at an imaginary tennis ball, narrowly missing the lamp shade above the bed.

"Thirty love," he murmured, and mimed a gentle backhand lob.

"Well you're not much good are you," he said to the coat hanger, bending it back and forth. "I could tear you apart with my bare hands." That gave him an idea. If he broke the hanger in half lengthways it would probably fit down the plug hole. All he needed was something sharp to cut it with. Now what could he use? Of course, there was that the penknife the boys had given him for Christmas last year, or was it the year before?

He looked through the cluttered contents of the top drawer of his bedside bureau, which included a multitude of drawing pins, a tennis club diary for 1983, a half-empty box of stale throat lozenges, old cheque books and insurance forms, a set of spare car keys on a Sierra key fob, various pens, a pair of wire strippers and yes, there, still in its box, the red, Swiss penknife.

He flipped open the biggest blade, still greasy with the oil it was packaged in. He wiped the blade between the pages of the old tennis club diary and quickly sawed through each end of the hanger. He put the penknife back in the drawer, hung the top half of the hanger back in the wardrobe and took the other half downstairs.

To Howard's relief, the half-hanger fitted perfectly down the plug hole.

As soon as he had mashed the obtrusive strawberry with the end of it, the sink immediately started to empty. Howard watched the last trickle of water drain away, and, congratulating himself on a job well done, disposed of his home made unblocker in the flip-top bin by the back door.

Howard decided to nip upstairs and have a quick bath before the rest of his family arrived back home with the take-away. Hopefully they'd be gone quite a while. It was a Friday evening, so, with any luck, there'd be a nice long queue in the chip shop. He wished he'd asked for a piece of battered cod. He could guess what they'd buy him; a Spam fritter. He hoped they hadn't gone to the Happy Haddock at the top of Abbott's Lane. Happy Haddock Spam fritters were all spicy and invariably gave him an upset stomach.

Howard undressed in the bathroom as the bath was running. He admired the upper half of his body reflected in the mirror. He wasn't in bad shape, considering. Certainly there was no-one his age at the tennis club who could match his on-court fitness - or for that matter the quality of his game. He had a strong, consistent serve, he was an accurate placer of the ball, and could lob and volley with equal panache. He could have gone professional his coach used to tell him if he'd been a little more determined.

It was a shame, he'd just never had the necessary hunger for success, that streak of aggression, that desire to win. Still at least the game had kept him fighting fit.

Howard poured a generous measure of Radox into the bath, and watched it slowly turn the water green and bubbly. He pulled off his Y-fronts, stepped into the steaming froth and gingerly sat down. He winced slightly as the heat crept up the crack between his buttocks. But the discomfort rapidly gave way to soothing warmth, and he lay back in the water and blissfully shut his eyes.

Howard thought back to the final of the club tennis championships in nineteen seventy-three. The girls with their short skirts and long boots, screaming at him like he was Mark Bolan as he smashed the v.inning shot past Pete Hampton. Although they were rivals on the court, Pete and he had been the best of friends back then. And even though Howard hadn't been in touch with Pete for years, not since he got that job with the Water Board up in Leeds, Howard still used to think about him and his sister Julie - the talk of the boys changing room.

Not only was Julie easily the best girl tennis player in the club, she was also by far the most beautiful, and she knew it. Julie used to wear incredibly short skirts (even by early seventies standards). And you could always tell when she was playing, by the line of male spectators who stood at the end of the court, waiting for her to bend down and pick up a ball. Howard could never understand how a brother and sister could be so different: Pete so awkward v.ith his acne and his hook nose; Julie so graceful and gentle-faced like a gazelle. Different fathers perhaps. In those days it happened more than people liked to admit.

He suddenly recalled that time just after the final, where they had found themselves alone together in the shed behind the changing rooms where they kept the rollers. Julie, much to Howard's surprise and delight, had suddenly grabbed him, and he had uncertainly grappled v.ith her in the semi-darkness, made dizzy by her insistent kisses and the aroma of stale grass clippings, motor oil and her own pungent perfume.

Howard opened his eyes slightly disturbed by the vividness of the memory. After all he'd not seen Julie for years, not really, not since that time he thought he saw her in the multi-storey car park. It had been raining and she was putting a blue and white umbrella into the boot of a Morris Minor. When he'd got home he'd looked up all the Hamptons in the phone book. God knows why he'd done it. Deirdre was already pregnant with Stephen, and Julie...well, she was doubtless the pride and joy of some other lucky sod by then. He smiled, remembering how he'd guiltily torn the page names from the phone book and shoved it in the bin.

Harold lathered soap between his fingers and washed his wrinkled balls, which felt satisfyingly heavy in the palm of his hand. He held his foreskin proudly between his thumb and forefinger and slipped it back to wash beneath. He tightened his grip, as if he were holding the sweaty handle of a tennis racket, closed his eyes and slowly began to move his fist back and forth.