the blue moon

The sun had already started to set when Ian awoke, but the darkness was not quite complete. A few stubborn embers of daylight still seeped through the crack between the curtains and straggled dully across the room. With a yawn that became a sigh, Ian raised himself up on to his elbows, drew back the corner of the curtains and looked out at the street.

A dirty orange glow clung to the rooftops of the houses across the road. It was like a grimy version of the Ready Brek glow thought Ian. like in those old TV ads where a couple of kids walked to school in duffle coats, rim-lit with a garish luminescence as if they'd eaten a bowl of weapons grade plutonium for breakfast rather than just hot porridge.

You didn't see those adverts anymore. Not surprising really. Hey, who wanted radioactive porridge when you could have honey-coated, banana puff pops and be whizzed to school in a giant yellow space rocket piloted by a cartoon giraffe called Jeffrey. Honestly, thought Ian, the shit they come up with these days, just to charm a bit of early-morning tooth-rot down the greedy throats of a few gullible kids? It made him glad that all he ever had were coffee and cigarettes.

Down on the street a bus stopped, with a hiss of brakes, headlights illuminating ash grey gardens. A man in an anorak got off the bus and wandered through the shadows. One hand dangled, the other clasped a plastic carrier bag of nothing in particular. Subconsciously, the opening stanzas of Nowhere Man by the Beatles flitted through Ian's head. He felt slightly guilty. Wrong to judge people on appearances. Still, what odds that the man didn't collect postcards of trains and have some frightful fetishistic wank mag in that plastic bag of his. The sad bastard.

Half-way down the street a sleek-faced kitten played with the remains of a pork chop that it had discovered in rubbish bags, spilled over by a broken fence. As the man walked past - his limp arms swinging as if he were a puppet whose strings needed tightening - the kitten took the chewed bone in its mouth and ran beneath a Cortina parked nearby. The car had no rear wheels and was supported by bricks. It had been left there like that for weeks.

As Ian continued to gaze drowsily out of the window, his digital alarm clock, perched on the bedside table, began its persistent wake-up call, warbling like some distressed robot-bird. Ian ducked out from under the curtain and reached over to cut short the shrill beep-beeping.

5: 14 PM, 5:14 PM. The numbers on the clock flashed luminous green onto the pale shade of his bedside lamp.

Ian decided that he would get up at six. That would leave him enough time to snatch a shower, get dressed, have breakfast and get to the club, which was only fifteen minutes walk away, by seven. It was a Tuesday always a quiet night at the Blue Moon. It wouldn't matter if he were a few minutes late. He sank back into the warmth of the duvet and let waves of drowsiness lap over his chest.

When Ian next opened his eyes, the green numbers on the clock were flashing 6: 13 PM. Shit, he thought, time to get moving. He switched on the bedside lamp and, after a count of three, in one slow zombielike movement - as if any lapse in momentum might cause him to collapse back onto the mattress - he sat up. He swung his legs out of the bed and flinched as bare feet met cold floor boards. He wandered around the room on tip toe, wading through socks and jumpers, LPs and paperbacks and almost-empty coffee mugs, searching for his slippers.

Over the years, Ian had lived in a succession of rented rooms. Some were big, some were small. Some were dirty, some were clean. Some had peeling paper on the walls, others fresh paint. But it made no real difference. The idiosyncrasies of each room he moved into were soon submerged by his belongings: the valve amp and brandless bass guitar he'd brought from a junk shop for ten pounds a piece and had never quite got around to learning to play properly; the scratchy Fidelity record player that used to belong to his sister; his limp-winged inflatable spitfire; a battered black and white TV set with the contrast knob missing; a succession of ripped posters; and that ever-deeper scatterings of books, clothes, mugs and LPs. Although Ian had moved at least a dozen times, in the last half-dozen years, the infectious familiarity of all his stuff, made it seem as if he had lived permanently in the same, single room.

The latest incarnation of Ian's room, was situated in a Victorian comer terrace, which he shared with Charlie an unemployed artist, Terry who dabbled in interior design and bought and sold bakelite collectibles, and Sue who did some kind of promotional work which seemed to involve having endless, bullshitty phone conversations with men called Jeremy or Dominic.

Terry and Sue were a bit posher than the people he normally shared with, but they were both very nice.

Charlie was the same as all the other would-be artists/musicians/writers Ian had ever known; a talented, but directionless, middle-class misfit who, if he'd spent as much time painting as he did mountain biking and tending to the weed plants on his windowsill, might actually have got somewhere, rather than 'being forced to slum it' on meagre handouts from the state (and somewhat more substantial handouts from his doting parents.) Ian felt guilty sometimes, guilty that he didn't have a car or his own house or a proper job, guilty that by having spent so many years doing shit work, taking up seats in public transport and living in crap houses, he was somehow depriving people who lived in even shittier houses, did even crappier work and couldn't afford to waste money on bus fares, the opportunity to step into his shoes, move up the ladder, make some kind of life for themselves.

But, at least, he comforted himself, held always done some kind of work, paid his own rent. And thus he was able to subdue those occasional twinges of guilt by sneering at lazy sods like Charlie who seemed to spend all their time lounging around in elitist, alternative arts venues, funded by the local authority using money which, thought Ian, would be far better spent on schools and hospitals and other worthy causes.

It wasn't that Ian had anything against artists and poets and musicians.

Not the ones who actually got off their backsides and genuinely achieved something, like holding an exhibition or producing a record or acting in a play or something. But how many of those, genuine artistes, did you ever actually meet? Not very fucking many.

Certainly, none of the pretentious bullshitters he'd ever lived with could be classified in that category. Mind you, thought Ian, (with a belated pang of rather hollow humility) who, if they were a genuine artiste, would possibly want to share a house with him?

The house Ian shared with Charlie and the others was very tall and narrow and his room was perched up at the very top of it, like some lofty architects afterthought. It was reached by dangerously steep stairs which opened out into the middle of the room so that the living space was reduced to a wide C-shaped corridor, umbrellared by low-sloping ceilings and full of hushed comers. Some people found it spooky and claustrophobic, but not him (at least not under normal circumstances).

Ian had once taken some acid at one of the Blue' Moon's Friday night raves. He didn't know why he'd taken it. He was totally against that kind of stuff, pills and powders and shit like that. It wasn't that he was a total kill joy. As far as he was concerned, an occasional spliff or two never hurt anyone. But that shit....he knew only too well how that could fuck people up. Only too well. The trouble was it was all so easy.

That night he'd dropped acid (as they say) was around the time that the Batman movies were all the rage. He'd been collecting glasses towards the end of the evening. And some bloke, he couldn't remember who had offered him a joker.

"A what?" he'd asked.

"You know," the bloke had said reaching into his pocket with a conspiratorial grin, "a Joker!" The bloke had opened his palm to reveal a tiny square of cartridge. paper, with the smiling face of Batman's arch enemy printed on it. "Its like an E only a bit stronger. Go on mate. Hey, it's not like I'm going to fucking charge you for it or nothing." He winked.

Ian should and would normally have told the bloke to fuck off. But there was something sordidly exciting about the offer. Dealer bribes barman in club with free sample. It was like something out of a low-life, gangster movie. He felt, momentarily, like the neatly aproned, crime-blind barman who works in a den of thieves, a man who sees nothing, hears nothing, and is thus (as the credits roll) still casually pouring drinks and polishing glasses whilst the rest of the cast lie dead or dying from gunshot wounds. And suddenly, as if he were merely an actor playing that part, Ian had found himself reaching out for the little square of paper. And before he'd really thought about what he was doing he'd taken it and put it in his pocket.

That night when he'd got home, he'd found the joker among his loose change and his door key. And in a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness had popped it in his mouth. At first he'd thought the tab had had little effect other than to make him feel slightly light-headed as fell asleep. But he'd woken up later that day to see huge purple lobsters crawling from the comers of his bedroom. There were loads of them. Their pincers seemed to balloon out towards him as he pulled the duvet over his face. He lay there holding his breath for what seemed like hours as they crawled all over him, an endless army of lobsters, scuttling from the ceiling across the bed and out of the window.

After the last of the lobsters had finally gone, he'd lain there, veiled in the duvet, for ages. Scared to lower his protective mask of cotton in case a lingering pincer should suddenly stab at his eyes. When he did eventually peek out from under the duvet, of course, the room looked totally normal, not so much as a shrimp in sight. He'd gone out for a walk that afternoon and felt a lot better. However, a couple of evenings later, after Charlie'd come back from the Chinese with a bag of spicy Sezchuan king prawns, he'd dreamed of the lobsters again. They weren't quite so voluminous or so garishly purple, but they'd certainly given him the creeps.

However, apart from that one rather regrettable episode he'd never found the attic room particularly unsettling. In fact, he positively enjoyed being surrounded by all those mysterious slopes and shadows. They made him feel sheltered, And besides, the room was very cheap.

After a few moments of searching, Ian eventually found his T-shirt beneath the battered civil-service desk that served as a makeshift stand for his record player and his 1V set, its latest coat-hanger aerial Sellotaped to the back of a nearby chair.

There was no wardrobe in the room and Ianls shirts and jeans hung from hangers on nails that had been knocked into a roof beam. In one comer stood an old hat-stand, shortened to fit beneath the low ceiling, on which hung no hats, but, instead, two second hand blazers, a frayed blue denim jacket and a black bomber jacket which had zips in the sleeves and a tartan li ni ng .

When Ian had moved into the room, the mould-peppered walls had been decorated with lurid orange-flowered wallpaper, redolent of stack heels, flares, beads and caftans. Ian had painted the walls pale blue, but the flowers still showed through in places. He kept meaning to paint the walls a darker blue, but it was one of those things he'd never quite got round to doing.

Originally the walls had been hung with all his old posters: Joy Division, The Cramps, a helmet on a cross of guns beneath the word WHY? But, somehow, those posters seemed past it, (like himself) relics of an earlier decade. So, he'd replaced them with two glossy art reproductions; Irises by Van Gough and Marc Chagall's Field of Mars. Ian knew nothing about art. He had bought the posters from the closing down sale of a gift shop in town for no better reason than they were cheap, large and colourful.

Considering the randomness of his selection Ian was amazed when the posters were greeted with murmurs of approval by his occasional visitors who would invariably compliment him on his good taste. One of Terry's arty antique dealer freinds said that the Chagall was 'Just right jor the room,' whatever that meant. Terry had a lot of friends who said things that Ian did not fully understand.

Although dealling in bakelite collectables was Terry's main source of income, he also dabbled in intetior design. His current bent was Japanese Minimalism and subsequently his room was as bare as Ian's was cluttered. There was no furniture in Terry's room, except for a hi-fi system (which Ian guessed only stayed there because it was too complicated to disconnect, dismantle and then reassemble every time Terry wanted to use it).

The flimsy futon Terry slept on was stored in a cupboard until night when he unrolled it on the floorboards. He'd even removed the plasterboard that housed the piping beneath the sink, the U-bend poking like an exposed, plastic bone. Above the sink was a white framed photo of a single water drop curled up on an oily white background, hanging lonely op the white walls. Terry's room reminded Ian of a roped off room in an art gallery, stripped bare between exhibitions, or a ward for the terminally ill, a receptIon lounge for an elevator ride to heaven.

Ian didn't know how Terry could live in such emptiness. Ian liked clutter. He enjoyed having to dip his head to avoid low beams and dodge an obstacle course of clothes and records on his floor.

"It's no wonder you look so haggard all the time," Ian would tell Terrry. A room needs clutter. It needs to look lived in. Your room's like a ward. Anyone who lived in there would look ill."

But Terry just ignored Ian's jibes. He was impossible to provoke. No matter what Ian said to him, Terry would show no reaction. His sullen eyes, half-buried in their sockets, always remained expressionless - repressing his thoughts as if his head were as free from emotion as his sterile room. He seldom expressed an opinion on anything, and when he did it was normally in a solitary phrase. I like that. That's good That's better. That's not to me taste. He often said that. Ian could not remember when he had heard Terry string more than six or seven words together in a row.

"You should talk more," Ian would tell him. "All those hidden emotions are sucking your skin in. That's why you're so wrinkled. You'll be wizened like a prune if you don't let it all out soon." But Terry would ignore the warning, and just stare coldly back at him, saying nothing.

Ian sometimes wondered how Terry could bear to live in the same house as him. For he was as verbose and temperamental as Terry was quiet and self-assured. Ian babbled on constantly like a talking robot with a short circuit. He had an opinion on everything from drugs to dunkin' doughnut machines, from football to Ferraris. Ian could talk and talk and talk. Still, thought Ian, if Terry didn't want to listen to me he would get up and walk away. Terry never did, so Ian assumed that he didn't mind the constant chatter.

The lights on the clock flashed 6:22 PM. Ian stood in his boxer shorts and looked out through the window, watching the street fade to blue-grey monochrome as dusk deepened. Ian liked the greyness of autumn. Other seasons created different shades of grey. There was the yellow-greyness of midsummer nights, the green-greyness of misty spring mornings, the spun-silver-grey of a late winter afternoon. But this blue-grey of autumn dusk was Ian's favourite. It promised moonlight.

Still groggy from sleep, Ian draped a towel over his shoulder, ducked through the low doorway as he left his room and stumbled down the steep stairs to the bathroom on the floor below.

In the unheated bathroom the cold raised goose pimples on his arms and shoulders as he stood naked waiting for the spray, which spattered against the plastic shower curtain, to start steaming. When it did, Ian tested the water's warmth with his right foot.

"Bloody hell!," he muttered, hopping backwards. The water was scalding hot. And he spent what seemed like ages adjusting the temperature of the spray, intermittently cursing the sensitivity of both his skin and the screw thread on the mixer tap. But, eventually, he managed to achieve a perfect blend of hot and cold, the spray feeling so warm and soothing, he could not resist basking beneath it for several minutes.

Unfortunately, the shower curtain only reached round two-and-a-half of the three open sides of the shower, so by the time Ian had finally forsaken its comforting warmth, the bathroom floor was awash with soapy water. Ian stepped gingerly across the puddled lino, grabbed his towel from the rail by the door and hurried back up to his room leaving a trail of soggy foot prints in the dust on the stairs.

It was a chilly evening, and Ian dried himself quickly, shivering as he hoisted on a clean pair of pants, a pair of black socks, jeans and a T-shirt.

He towelled his bleached blonde hair (which when left to dry naturally, would sprout from his head like the crown of a pineapple) then scooped up a three finger splodge of strawberry scented, firm-hold gel and dolloped it, all pink and sticky, on his head, and combed it through his hair, until it lay tight to his scalp in dark lines like that of a fifties centre-forward.

When he'd finished, he reached for his black jumper (which was curled up in a ball on the chair like a fat sleeping cat) slipped it on and checked his watch. It was gone twenty to seven, but he decided there would just be enough time for him to have a coffee and a quick fag before he left for the Moon. He collected his cigarettes from on top of the TV and, thrusting them into the pocket of his jeans, hurried downstairs to the kitchen two floors below.

The house was silent. Neither Sue nor Terry had arrived home from work yet. Sometimes Ian met one or the other of them coming in as he was going out. But that night they were both evidendy working late. Normally Charlie was about in the evenings, but he had been to a party somewhere at the weekend and hadn't been home since.

On the table which dominated the large, cold kitchen were the remains of hurried breakfasts, which had been left there that morning. Cornflakes pasted by dried milk and sugar to the bottom of a bowl, sat next to a cup of cold tea with an oily film of rancid milk on the surface. The cup sat on a pale blue plate sticky with jam and margarine and littered with charred toast crumbs.

Ian clicked on the, kettle in the hope that it might have miraculously mended itself. It hadn't. He half-filled a small pan with water and lit the back ring of the gas cooker. The draught through the kitchen door made the blue fingers of flame wave like a hungry sea anemone. He put the pan on the lit ring and the anemone roared.

Ian found his Westing United mug in the sink, rinsed it out and added a large spoonful of coffee from the jar on top of the fridge. Granules spilt on the draining board melting out into a liquid brown spider. He went over to the rain-streaked kitchen window and peered up and out at the clouds.

There won't be many at the Moon tonight, thought Ian, not if it keeps pissing down like this. But maybe Charlie would turn up later, when the pubs shut, for a chat and free vodka, as he sometimes did.

The water boiled and Ian carelessly sploshed it into his mug, scalding his wrist on the edge of the pan. He cursed and cooled the bum on the cold glass of a milk bottle fresh from the fridge. Without shaking the botde, he flicked off the silver cap and poured a swoosh of cream into his coffee and gave it a quick stir. Then he popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, and returned the bottle to the fridge, which smelled strongly of Sue's garlic and vegetables on the turn.

By the time Ian noticed the smell of burning, his toast was totally ruined. He dropped it, all black and britde, into the bin and swigged a final mouthful of tepid coffee. He left his mug among the bowls and plates on the table, and hurried upstairs to finish getting dressed, wondering, as he went, why even the nicest of people were so intensely difficult to share a kitchen with.

In his room he changed out of his jumper and into a blue denim shirt with little mock mother-of-pearl buttons, his faded denim jacket and a pair of brown Doc Marten shoes. He took his lighter and a cigarette from the crumpled packet in the pocket of his jeans and lit up.

Robert always smoked a single cigarette before leaving for work. In the summer, if the weather were good, he would smoke, sitting on the steps outside the house, beneath the pot of scarlet-flowered geraniums which hung from the porch. He would shield the match flame from the breeze with a cupped hand and puff away, relishing the comforting smell of tobacco on his fingers each time he raised the cigarette to his lips. When Ian had finished his daily fag he would stub it out, almost ritualistically, on the step, leaving a dark circle of charred ash on the stone, before flicking the concertinared fag end onto the street. Now it was too cold and dark to smoke outside, so he had his fag in the kitchen. Then he set off for the club.

By midnight only a handful of punters were left in the Blue Moon. Most of them were perched on stools beside the long bar sipping cheap cocktails or overpriced bottled beers. At a comer table a balding man, all gold rings and cigars, sat with a blonde girl. She was often in the club on a Tuesday night. Sometimes she called herself Sharon, sometimes Suzy and she was always with a different man.

By the fire doors another couple sat, sheltered beneath the foliage of a large, artificial rubber plant. The man was bearded and wore a shiny suit and a red leather tie. Throughout the evening he'd made regular forays up to the bar for drinks (singles for him, doubles for her), while his lady friend (in the obligatory coal-black cocktail dress) smiled nervously across the deserted dance floor. Computer dating, concluded Ian. Typical Tuesday nighters.

Earlier (and quite unexpectedly) a gaggle of pissed-up girls on a hen night had been in, all perms and stilettos and shrieks of laughter. In their midst, was a redhead with freckles and an L-plate taped to the back of her blouse. The girls had spent most of the evening blowing up coloured condoms - yellow, red and green - then letting them go, giggling hysterically as air rasped rudely out of the deflating rubber. 'Just like a fanny fart,' he heard one of the girls cackle.

The same girl spent ages trying to persuade the bride-to-be to delve baby-oiled fingers into the leopard skin posing pouch of a well-built, black stripper, who the bouncers, Clive and Martin, had had to eventually let into the club, to prevent themselves being flayed alive by scores of scarlet varnished finger nails. Thankfully, soon after the stripper had escaped the girls' clutches they decided to leave; cursing as they endlessly queried the bill, finally paying up and flouncing out, swearing never to return, praise God.

As the evening slowly wound to a close, Ian chatted to one of his midweek regulars, Trudy. She was wearing a clinging red dress, bright as the petals of a poison flower. Trudy always dressed and acted as if she were on the game, thought Ian, although he'd never seen her pick anyone up at the Moon. So, maybe she just came to the club for a drink on her nights off.

Trudy, as she often did, was telling him about California, where she claimed to have lived for several years. Ian suspected that, in truth, Trudy'd probably really only ever been to the States on holiday for a couple of weeks if she'd ever been there at all). But, to keep her happy, he feigned impressed belief as she told him all about how she'd shacked up with some Hollywood producer, who'd owned his own helicopter and a luxurious penthouse overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

"He had a garden full of tangerine trees, all the way down to the beach," said Trudy, "and a pink telephone in the bathroom. I used to fill the tub with bubble bath and lie there for hours ringing all my friends. Ohh, I though I was it." She giggled as if to say, how silly I was then, but I'm sensible now.

"So, how old was this bloke you shacked up with?" Ian asked her.

"Oh he was really nice. All tanned and elegant," said Trudy. "Very, very good looking."

"How old?" repeated Ian.

"I don't think age is important in a relationship, do you?" she asked provocatively.

Ian frowned.

"Depends how easy it is to get the wheelchair in and out of the bedroom," he said.

"You're awful you are," said Trudy. "you really are. People don't stop having sex when they get past the age of thirty, you know."

"It can't be quite so exciting though can it," said Ian.

"You'd be surprised," said Trudy, with a wink.

Ian raised his eyebrows and smirked politely then hurriedly moved down the bar to where another regular, Brian, was nursing what must have been his fourth or fifth double whisky.

"How's it going?" asked Ian.

"Don't ask, don't ask," said Brian miserably, peering down bleary-eyed into the depths of his Southern Comfort.

"Trouble with the ex?"

"Silly bitch!" muttered Brain, shaking his head. "You wouldn't believe what she's done now." He glared at Ian, his gaunt, stubble-peppered jowls twitching. "The bitch's trying to get a court injunction to stop me seeing Jamie."

"She can't do that," said Ian. "Can she?"

"Reckons I'm not fit to have him," he muttered, eyes moistening. "She doesn't want him to come round to the flat anymore."

"Well it's not up to her, surely," said Ian sympathetically. "He's your son as well."

"She reckons I'm endangering his welfare," said Brian.

"I only gave him half a can. The lad enjoyed it. I mean, he's nearly a teenager now. Mind you, she still treats him like a little kid."

"Don't worry about it," said Ian. "It'll all turn out all right. I'm sure."

"It bloody better had," said Brian raising his voice. "It bloody better had. Coz if she stops me seeing Jamie. I swear I'll bloody go round there and kill the bitch. I will, I'll bloody kill her."

"Yea, right," said Ian. He edged back down the bar, slowly shaking his head and raising his hands to Martin and Clive to indicate that the situation was under control, as they approached flexing biceps, straightening bow ties and tugging at shirt cuffs in a businesslike manner.

"It's all right lads," said Ian with a placatory wink. "No bother." He lowered his voice. "Brian's just been through a bit of a messy divorce. It just got to him a bit tonight, that's all. He's calmed down now, OK?"

Clive and Martin reluctantly nodded, but stood at the end of the bar for a few moments staring at Brian huddled over his glass to hide the tears dribbling into his Southern Comfort.

"You better keep an eye on him," said Martin.

"Otherwise we will," said Clive.

"He'll be all right," said Ian and wandered back up the bar.

"What's up with laughing boy," asked Trudy with a derisory nod at Brian.

"HHe's just a bit upset about his son," explained Ian. "His ex-wife's not going to let him see him anymore."

"Can you blame her?" asked Trudy. "The miserable piss-artist"

"I know what you mean," said Ian. "But I can t help feeling sorry for the poor sod. Lost his job, lost his wife, lost his driving license, lost most of his friends. God knows what'll happen to him after he's drunk his way through his redundancy money. He'll probably be out on the street."

"We'll he'll be where he bloody belongs then," snarled Trudy.

"Come on," said lan."That's a bit harsh isn't it?"

"Well, look at the state of him," said Trudy. "What can you do with someone like that?"

"I don't know," said Ian. "But I hope he pulls himself together before he ends up in a cardboard box beneath a bridge somewhere."

"I used to think it would be quite fun to live in a box," said Trudy. "My dad used to work down on the docks. Sometimes he'd bring home empty fruit boxes, proper wooden ones, smelling of oranges. I used to get in them and pretend they were castles, somewhere I could hide all snug and safe."

"What were you hiding from?" asked Ian.

"My dad mostly," said Trudy. "He used to drink a lot."

It was drizzling slightly when Ian finally left the club shortly after three.

The streets were damp and gloomy, rain streaming beneath sodium street lamps like showers of orangeade. He turned his collar up and walked beyond the bus station, past illuminated advertising hoardings with bold brightmessages Drink This, Smoke That, Save Here, Spend There. What a waste of electricity thought Ian. Who was going to read billboards at this time of night? The couple of drunken students he'd passed staggering along the street dragging a Give Way sign? The skinny, tarts in flimsy tops and skimpy black leggings, who jiggled about to keep warm on the street comers behind the shopping centre? The mentally ill man with unlaced shoes and a permanent grin who pushed a supermarket trolley full of empty boxes, through the darkness?

Ian crossed the wooden slatted bridge over the canal. During the day he would have had to stop to let cavalcades of mothers and pushchairs pass, but now he went on unhindered his hollow footsteps bouncing back and forth between deserted shops and offices.

Beyond, in the brightly lit window of the fancy dress shop was a display of inflatable animals; frogs, parrots, dinosaurs. In the midst of them was a gorilla suit, which had obviously been draped over some kind of mannequin.

The gorilla stood in a threatening pose, one arm raised clutching an inflatable banana, as if it were a spear. Strewn at it's feet (which were absurdly hairy with ridiculous clawed toes) were a collection of latex monster masks - the gruesome heads of it's victims. Ian managed a wry smile and continued on past the multi-storey car park.

The car park was roughly hexagonal in shape, with steps leading up at every comer. The two main sets of steps nearest the pathway were both strewn with empty lager cans and fag ends, and stunk of stale exhaust fumes and steaming-fresh piss.

On the comer by the taxi rank, three Asian men stood talking loudly, the orange pinprick glows of their cigarettes burning into the darkness. They ignored Ian as he passed them and walked on towards the industrial estate.

He crossed the main road, traffic lights turning from red to green to red, oblivious to the fact that no car had driven through them for at least the last ten minutes. Then he walked under the railway bridge at the back of the station and past the post office depot where red vans gently idled as the night shift sleepily unloaded grey sacks onto a rusty cage.

Ian took a short cut across the wasteland round the back of Westlake Avenue, where the silhouettes of discarded shopping trolleys and heaps of rubble loomed through the semi-darkness like derelict graves.

Half way along, the makeshift footpath was briefly flooded with light from the open back doors of the Breadbasket Bakery. As Ian stepped into the light he paused - as if he had just entered stage left and were about to deliver a soliloquy - then lingered for a while savouring the smell of freshly baked loaves before scuttling on, startled by the sudden clatter of trays into ovens.

Soon he reached the new industrial estate. The estate had been built up over the previous five years on derelict land surrounding the old canal, which had been drained and replaced by a petunia-bordered stream. Ian followed the stream as it meandered toward an extravagant fountain surrounded by weeping willow saplings and mirror-glass offices. He liked the industrial estate at night. It was like a film set. As he walked past the fountain he felt like a movie star, as if the towns distant roof lin,e, biting into the sky, were two-dimensional, painted on a huge cloth stretching up to outer space.

Before heading home, Ian stopped off at the forecourt of the 24 hour garage for a packet of chewing gum and some Extra Strong mints. Some nights, if someone near enough his own age was sat alone behind the security window he would stop to briefly chat about the weather, but that night a grumpy old man was there, propped up on his elbows, chin in hand behind a day old copy of the Daily Star.

The man seemed pretty pissed off about having to interrupt his reading for thirty pence worth of business, muttering vague obscenities beneath his breath as he reluctantly fetched Ian his gum and mints, then slammed them down on the counter. The mints had probably all been shattered, thought Ian, but he didn't risk asking for another packet, in case the miserable git decided he couldn't be bothered to serve him again.

As he left the garage Ian dodged the dripping comer of the canopy which covered the petrol pumps and walked round the edge of a large puddle past a line of second hand cars, which shone rain-polished in front of the showroom. The cars included a burgundy three litre Capri with a black vinyl roof, which looked in very good nick for a P-reg. A few years earlier, when everyone had a bloody Capri, they were considered the ultimate in bad taste, the lager louts Porsche. But now, certain models were almost considered to be vintage cars. Strange, though Ian, how half-a-dozen years can turn a crass old banger into a collectable classic.

Ian went up to the Capri and peered in through the rain streaked window. Immediately, a blinding security light snapped on, glaring down at him, and an alarm began to shriek. He hurried away from the garage and

down a side street and squatted, heart thumping, in the shadows of a chestnut tree. The alarm stopped and after a while he continued home, with several nervous over-the-shoulder glances.

Ian was almost home when he saw Mad Sam ahead of him. Sam, who a generous person might politely describe as a gentleman of the road, was up to his elbows in a litter bin by the bus stop, scavenging for half-eaten sandwiches and crisps with which to placate the voracious appetites of his two enormous dogs.

Often, as Ian walked home during the early hours of the morning he saw Mad Sam wandering the streets or lying in a doorway with a couple of homeless teenagers by his side curled up in sleeping bags and duffel coats.

On Saturdays sometimes Mad Sam could be seen lolled across the High Street in town like some mangy, sackcloth lion, his tangled grey mane dangling over love poems scrawled in coloured chalk on the pavement.

Some people reckoned that Sam once was (and possibly still was) a very rich man who had taken to drink in despair, after discovering that his fiancee, with whom he had been very much in love, only wanted to marry him for his money. Others said that years back he had killed a man and was forever a fugitive, constantly fleeing retribution, never escaping his own guilt-ridden remorse. Ian guessed Sam was just an ordinary man, like Brian at the club, to whom some everyday sadness had seemed insurmountable, and who, in drowning his sorrows, had eventually lost everything, including his sanity.

As Ian approached the bus stop, Mad Sam extricated himself from the litter bin and stood in the middle of the pavement, blocking Ian's path.

"Morning to you young sir," said Mad Sam. "I would say good morning, but for this wretched downpour."

"Hi," said Ian, flinching from the investigating sniff of two huge canine snouts in his nether regions.

"Don't mind them," said Mad Sam, patting his dogs on the head. "They only wants to know if you're friend or foe."

"Oh friend," said Ian with a nervous laugh. "Definitely friend." The dogs sniffed at him again and barked.

Ian stepped back.

"They're not sure, you see," said Mad Sam, tightening his grip on the dogs' chains. "Though perhaps if you could see your way to lending me eight pence that might settle them down."

"Right yes, no problem," said Ian.

Not wanting to remove his wallet which contained a pay packet full of tenners, he searched through each of his pockets in turn, but could discover no change.

"I'm afraid I don't seem to have anything on me," said Ian.

The dogs snarled, baring sharp ivory fangs.

"Oh dear," said Mad Sam, wrapping a further length of dog chain round his hand. "Oh dear, oh dear. They're not at all happy about that."

"I'm sorry," said Ian with a glum smile. "But I really haven't got any change on me."

"Don't apologise to me," said Mad Sam. "I don't mind. It's just these great hulking brutes I'm worried about. They've got a mind of their own, see. I can hardly control them when they gets like this." The dogs barked and strained at the end of their chains, wide brown collars cutting into jugulars, eyes, savage and bloodshot, bulging like gobstoppers.

"I'll have another quick look," said Ian.

"Good idea," said Mad Sam.

Ian took his wallet from his pocket, delved in his pay packet and removed a small handful of silver.

"Aha" said Mad Sam. "Now we're getting somewhere." One jerk of the lead and the dogs sat down, gently wagging tails. "See they're happy now." Mad Sam took a ten pence piece from the change in Ian's outstretched hand.

"God bless you," he said standing to one side and letting Ian through. But before Ian had taken so much as a couple of steps away, he felt the tug of Mad Sam's hand at his shoulder, pulling him back. He stumbled and instinctively lowered his head, shielding his face with his fore arms, elbows drawn tight into ribs, eyes scrunched shut.

Of course! Now he understood why Mad Sam had put him through that whole mad-cap rigmarole of finding eight pence - to terrify him with the dogs and make him reveal where his wallet was. Very cunning. Now he would either have to let Mad Sam snatch his wages or risk being ripped to shreds by those razor-fanged beasts of his. Trembling slightly, Ian continued to crouch down, doubled-up in an almost foetal position, and waited to be mauled.

He waited...

And he waited...

But nothing happened.

He remained, wallet intact, unharmed by so much as a single scratch or nip.

Tentatively, (and feeling more than a little foolish), Ian gradually straightened up. He slowly opened his fingers and peeped between them at Mad Sam, who had backed away, looking bemused.

Mad Sam held out his hand, revealing a two pence piece in the centre of his palm. Ian lowered his fingers from his face and stared down in puzzlement at the coin.

"You forgot your change," said Mad Sam.

"What?" asked Ian.

"Ten take eight leaves two," said Mad Sam impatiently. "You gave me ten, so here's your two."

"Ah yes, of course," said Ian nodding. "Thanks very much." He reached out and very quickly snatched the coin, as if it were cheese in a mouse trap.

Mad Sam gave Ian a quizzical look and then turned his attention back to the bin and continued to sift through the empty cans, bags and wrappers, searching for anything edible, murmuring to his dogs: "There's some strange ones about, eh boys? Eh? Very strange."

Ian let himself quietly into the house and crept up the stairs. He knew SUl. and Terry were in because he'd seen their cars parked outside (one on either side of the Cortina with the missing wheels). The light was on in Charlie's room and through the door he could hear the sound of the TV, some kind of war film, all gunfire bursts, bombs and helicopters. Ian toyed with the idea of going in to see Charlie for a while. He knew Charlie wouldn't mind. For, although Charlie's lifestyle was not quite so nocturnal as Ian's, he did tend to go to bed very late and he always enjoyed a good chat.

Sometimes Charlie would turn up at the club just before closing time.

At first, Ian had suspected that Charlie's frequent late night appearances at the Blue Moon were motivated more by a desire to consume a couple of free bottles of lager than any great feeling of friendship. But, after a while, he sensed that the real reason Charlie met up with him at the end of the evening (or rather the beginning of the morning) was because he enjoyed the company on the walk home. Their house was a couple of miles from the town centre, and the walk seemed much shorter if you were talking to someone.

Ian found Charlie very easy to talk to. Even though (or maybe because) they didn't have a great deal in common, they could chat for hours. Ian would tell Charlie about the people at the club and the records he'd brought and the films he'd seen and Charlie would tell Ian about the parties he'd been to, the pictures he was going to paint and the places he'd cycled on his mountain bike.

Charlie was fanatical about mountain bikes. Invariably when Ian went into Charlie's room for a chat, his bike was upside down with it's wheels off, the room littered with cycle parts, carefully laid out on oil-stained sheets of newspaper .

Most nights when Ian got home, if Charlie were in, he would make them both a mug of coffee and they would share a spliff and a chat whilst Charlie tinkered with his brakes or his gears.

That evening, as Ian paused briefly outside Charlie's door, he breathed in a couple of mouthfuls of the tempting sweet smoke which wafted out from the room and listened (through the muted uproar of jungle warfare) to the hiss and whir of a well-lubricated chain turning a bicycle wheel. But, in the end, he decided not to knock on the door and went straight up to his room.

At first, Ian wasn't quite sure what to do with the two pence piece that Mad Sam had given him. He sat on the floor, his back against the bed, watching the same war film that Charlie had had on, and slowly turned the coin beneath his fingers.

Living in a reasonably large town, Ian generally didn't get that bothered by begging and homelessness. It wasn't that he didn't care about the largely blameless people who found themselves out on the street. It was just that when you saw them every day, you somehow got used to them.

It was a bit like the introduction of mini-roundabouts. When those things were first introduced, people made a fuss about them. But after a while it was like they'd always been there and people just accepted them as the nonn.

"Oh look there's another teenage girl sleeping in a cardboard box," you'd say, with no more sensitivity than if you happened to notice they'd replaced another set of traffic lights with a mound of tarmac and some painted white lines.

The two pence piece turned faster, harder as if Ian were trying to break it in two. Then - as if the notion had been physically conjured up by the hypnotic contact of the smooth metal spinning and spinning between his fingers - he suddenly knew what to do with the coin.

He reached beneath the bed and pulled out the box. There was nothing particularly special about it. It was just an ordinary cardboard box that had originally been used to convey twenty-four tins of peach slices in syrup from a cannery to a supermarket, and more recently had been used by Ian to move various possessions from one rented room to the next. However as he touched the crumpled cardboard his hands being to tremble quite violently.

The box was half it's original height, the sides having been folded down to form a tight lid, and it was sealed with masking tape. Although Ian had not opened the box for several months, the tape was still surprisingly sticky, and peeled away smoothly after he'd lifted a comer of it with his finger nail.

The contents of the box, (although they were perhaps rather bizarre) would have seemed of very little consequence to anyone else. But, as Ian gingerly placed the two pence coin among them, his palms sweated and his heart palpitated as if he were dipping his fingers into the workings of a bomb.

Ian would have liked to have been able to shut the lid immediately.

However, having opened it, he could not help but ritualistically touch each of the contents in turn. Inside were: an inflatable spitfire; a dog's collar; the dry, discarded skin of an adder; a half-empty pack of sparklers; the stick from a raspberry rocket ice lolly; a white plastic shaving mirror with a tarnished surface; several pieces of brightly co loured plastic that fitted together to form a bubble blowing machine; a postcard featuring a monochrome photo of Marlene Dietrich; a cube of glass from a shattered windscreen; and a couple of yellowing newspaper cuttings.

There was no particular reason for this rather eclectic assortment of objects to have been collected together. The objects had no obvious link to each other, apart from the fact that they were all things that Ian, at one time or another, had brought home and hadn't wanted to throwaway. However, over the years, the things had taken on a kind of historical significance.

Rather like that burgundy three-litre Capri on the garage forecourt and the bakelite items that Terry collected, time had turned them from being unexceptional junk to important relics. And they had attained a ghostly aura, a memory-triggering spookiness, which made Ian at once afraid yet compelled to touch them.

Ian was about to reseal the box, when just such a feeling made him stop.

As if driven by some force over which he had no control, he found himself lifting the cardboard flaps, and once more delving inside to pullout one of the objects. With a feeling rather like the reverse of deja vu, he only realised what he'd taken out several moments after held done so.

It was the dog's collar.