the Marlene postcard

"What a load of old crap," said Ian.

He leaned back against the bed as the picture on the battered 1V set faded - gyrating dancers in lycra body suits shrinking, with a high pitched hiss of static, to a small white blob in the centre of the screen.

"It wasn't even a proper song. Just a load of tarts prancing around to a seventies disco bass riff that some techno twat's sampled onto his Korg one afternoon because he couldn't be bothered to think up anything for himself. I mean, who actually goes out and buys that shit?"

"How the fuck should I know?" asked Rich.

Rich sat in the comer of the room, propped up against the wall, legs akimbo. Between his knees was an old valve amplifier, face down, its back removed. He poked a pair of pliers into the guts of the amp, all wire and glass and rows of brightly coloured resistors and capacitors connected in some mysterious pattern like a scale model of an alien city. As Rich poked around he discovered a wire that flopped uselessly across the confusion of components. He held the wire against a nearby lump of solder and hopefully squeezed the two together. Ian sighed dramatically.

"There's only about three decent songs in the chart at the moment," he moaned. "It gets worse every week."

"Why the fuck do you watch it then?" asked Rich, continuing to fiddle around with the amps innards.

"Well, I live in hope," said Ian, "that maybe one day I'll hear a song I actually like. Something with a proper tune and lyrics. Something that doesn't need dancing and flashing lights and screaming school girls and all that to make it sound good. Just someone with a guitar or something, you know, singing like they really mean it."

"Oh yea, great," said Rich, his voice soured by sarcasm. "That'd be really fucking exciting." He dropped the wire he was holding and with an exasperated sigh laid down the pliers. He blew a gypsyish tangle of dark hair from his eyes and picked up his fag from where it was perched, smouldering, astride the rim of a half drunk can of Four X. He dragged long and slow and exhaled a stream of smoke through each nostnl like a lazy dragon. A long nose of fag-ash dangled precariously over the. carpet. Rich flicked the ash toward a crumb-strewn, aluminium tray which, not long before, had encased the family-size apple and custard pie he'd nicked when they'd gone down to the Spar for beer. Most of the ash missed the tray and was scattered across the flowered carpet.

"Don't drop it allover the place," said Ian. "It stinks."

"You know your problem?" said Rich with one of his stabbing blue-eyed stares. "You take life too fucking seriously."

"Maybe," muttered Ian gloomily.

"Oi," said Rich. He picked up an unopened can of Four X and tossed it toward Ian's feet. "Drown your sorrows." The can landed with a thump beside Ian and rolled beneath the bed. He reached back and trailed his fingers through a thick fur of dust until they touched the cool metal. He retrieved the can and tugged off the ring pull. A fountain of foam erupted, splashing onto his T-shirt, the bubbles of beer rapidly melting to form dark patches on the black cotton.

"You shook it up, you bastard," said Ian.

Rich laughed.

"Serves you right, you miserable cunt!"

*  *  *  *  *  *  

Rich sat in the kitchen stuffing his face with spicy chicken wing and chips from a grease-sodden, red and white cardboard carton. Ian was grilling three MeXIcan style beanburgers. The grill pan was inch-deep in meat fat so Ian had lined it with a charred piece of silver foil he had found in the cupboard beneath the sink.

"What you put that on there for?" asked Rich, his mouth full of chicken, as Ian lifted the foil from the grill and tipped the beanburgers onto his plate.

"That grill's disgusting," said Ian. "It's not been cleaned for weeks."

"Bloody clean it then," said Rich.

"It's not my mess," said Ian. "There's all bacon and shit in there."

"So what?" said Rich and helped himself to a big handful of Ian's chips.

"Hoi, leave them alone," said Ian. "I'm starving."

Rich stuffed some of the chips in his mouth and dropped the rest back on to Ian's plate.

"They're bloody cold anyway," said Rich.

Ian moved the plate out of Rich's reach and swamped the chips and beanburgers in tomato ketchup.

"What you doing Saturday?" asked Rich.

"Nothing speacial," said Ian.

"I'm meeting a couple of mates from Pompey," said Rich, "up in Camden. Going to a rave down Hammersmith after. Fancy comin' along?"

"Yea, great," said Ian. "There going to be any bands down there or just DJs?"

"Dunno," Rich shrugged. "The usual crap probably. Should be a laugh though."

"Yea," said Ian smiling, flattered that Rich has asked him along.

"Hey, what time are you meeting your mates?" he asked.

"Dunno," said Rich, "'bout six, I suppose. Why?"

"Well, maybe, if you want, we could catch the train to Paddington in the afternoon," said Ian. "Go down Kensington High Street and all that before you meet your mates."

"Maybe," said Rich, "maybe. See what happens on Friday night first." He winked. "I might have a lie in on Saturday."

"Seeing Xandra?" asked Ian (her real name was Sandra, but she did this fortune-telling thing with tarot carts to supplement her income support, hence the exotic X).

"Might be," said Rich. He picked a piece of chicken from between his teeth and wiped it on the table.

"Still seeing that Julia as well?" asked Ian.

"Might be," repeated Rich.

"And that whatsername who was round here the other night?" asked Ian.

"Who?" asked Rich, feigning innocence.

"The one you was in the shower with?" said Ian.

"How the fuck do you know that?" asked Rich.

"I'm not deaf," said Ian. "I should think the whole bloody street heard you."

He simulated heavy groaning.

"Oh fuck off," said Rich. "What about you and Chrissy then?"

"What?" asked Ian.

"I can always tell when you're about to have it away coz' she starts laughing," said Rich. "It's always the bloody same. One minute she's having hysterics, the next you're bonking the bed springs off." Rich made a rasping sound in his throat vaguely like the creaking of bed springs, followed by a lewd slurping noise.

"That's disgusting," said Ian. "Anyway, you don't have to listen."

"I ain't got no bloody choice the way she laughs. She sounds like a fucking donkey," said Rich. "You got a funny shape cock or what?"

"You're only jeaulous 'coz you've worn yours out," countered Ian. "You want to watch out. You're going to shag yourself to death if you're not careful."

"I'm careful," said Rich, frowning. "I'm not fucking stupid."

Ian took a big bite of Mexican beanburger to stop himself saying something Rich might make him regret.

*  *  *  *  *  *

As they waited on the platform for the Paddington train, two girls giggled their way over to Rich. The girls couldn't have been more than fourteen-years-old, but were dressed like ten-quid tarts. The taller of the two girls wore a lot of sky blue eye liner and a black bomber jacket. She had bare legs, white stilettos and a short denim skirt with a split reaching right up to the knickered crack of her arse. She asked Rich for a light. Rich gave each of the girls a cigarette. They giggled away again and stood a short distance down the platform looking over at Rich, as they smoked his fags.

"My mate wants you to shag her," shouted the shorter girl.

"Shut up you dirty cow," said the taller one.

"She wants to suck you off," shouted the shorter girl.

"Piss off Janine yer fuckin' slag," snarled the taller one.

Although Ian dismissed the two girls as 'nothing but a couple of foul mouthed kids' he was a bit disappointed that they hadn't shouted anything at him. No girl ever looked his way when he was down the pub, or smiled at him when he was walking through town, the way they always did at Rich. But then, as Devon Kevin (who lived down the street) used to say in his broad West Country accent, 'that Rich is a fanny magnet.' It was true. There was something about Rich that girls seemed to find irresistible. He was tall and, although Ian had never seen him exert any effort to keep fit, he was lean and muscular, his complexion always slightly tanned.

Rich's head was shaved almost bald except for a long psychobilly quiff at the front. But despite the severity of this hair cut, Rich still looked handsome. Sometimes when he had just washed his hair he would brush his quiff back over his scalp. His chiselled features made him look like a tough private eye from a black and white fifties detective movie. Chrissy once told Rich he should grow hishair a little at the sides and leave it in that swept back style. But Rich just stared at her with his piercing blue eyes in such a way that Chrissy nervously mumbled that she had only been joking.

Rich didn't take any shit from anyone. He had tattoos. The southern cross was emblazoned on his right shoulder and a black panther prowled down his left arm. A spider's web was spun on his neck and on his right arm was a small blue swastika and an encircled A for anarchy. A happy face smiled from one elbow. A sad face frowned from the other. The legend 'F OFF' was self-inflicted between the knuckles on the back of his left hand.

That particular tattoo was useful for getting served in crowded pubs.

People seemed to get nervous when Rich rested his hand on the qar beside them. They would recoil from his hand as if it were a poisonous five-limbed spider. Rich wasn't a violent person though. Although Ian had heard a rumour that Rich had spent a spell in a juvenile detention centre for beating the shit out of a 'foreign gentleman' who had allegedly touched up his auntie as she'd queued in a burger bar.

When the train arrived, Rich helped a lady with a baby lift her push chair up the steps into the carriage. Ian fumbled in his pocket for his ticket and elbowed a polystyrene cup of coffee out of a bald man's hand. When Ian had finished apologising, he and Rich found four empty seats and spread themselves across them.

Rich leaned back with his boots up on the seat opposite, smoking and fixing Ian with his piercing eyes. Ian leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and fiddled with the buttons on his collared jumper. They shared a four pack of Special Brew and argued about the merits of various bands. It was a futile argument. No matter what Ian said, Rich would simply dismiss it by alternately muttering bollocks or crap. Although their taste in music overlapped in places, generally Rich favoured a chaotic thrash of noise, the faster, the louder the better, and anything that you could get out of your head to. Ian preferred moody songwriters who slowly strummed guitars and wallowed self-indulgently in their own impenetrable deepness.

Rich gave Ian a favourite tape to listen to on his Walkman. Ian listened for a few seconds, his bland smile twisting slowly into an exaggerated grimace.

"What do you reckon to it then?" asked Rich.

"I can't see the point of songs that don't say something," said Ian cautiously. "I mean a song should tell some sort of story or something."

"Read a fucking book then," said Rich, snatching the Walkman back from him and putting the headphones on.

When they got to Paddington, Rich refused to compromise his street-cred by stopping to look at the underground maps.

"I know where I'm bloody going," he insisted, even though he didn't.

As a result, they got onto the Bakerloo line instead of the Circle line and had to get out at Oxford Circus change tracks and return to Baker Street.

Later, after missing two trains by being on the wrong platform at Earls Court, they gave up with the tube and walked to High Street Kensington. Along the High Street people stood thrusting leaflets into the hanus of shoppers who took them, glanced briefly at what they said and then dropped them. The gutters were filled with muddied squares of garishly coloured paper, like psychedelic leaves thought Ian. But he didn't mention it to Rich.

Rich would only think Ian was trying to be clever and get in one of his moods.

After they'd had a quick look round Kensington Market at the weird and trendy clothes shops, Ian saw a poster on a wall - the face of Marlene Dietrich in soft focus. The poster was advertising an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of photos of thirties movie stars.

"Do you fancy going to have quick look?" asked Ian, who liked to watch old black and white movies in the afternoons. Rich shrugged and nodded.

But when they arrived at the gallery Rich decided he didn't want to see the exhibition after all.

"It looks fucking boring," he said.

It started to pour with rain.

"Come on. Its only a quid," said Ian. "We'll get soaked if we stay out here."

Rich reluctantly agreed to go in with him.

Rich seemed uncomfortable in the gallery in his tattered leather jacket, and stared belligerently at the attendants. He was a bit paranoid aboul people in uniforms. Probably because of that spell at the detention centre, thought Ian. They soon left the gallery (pausing briefly to buy a postcard of Marlene) then walked to the Wimpy burger bar at Picadilly.

They sat in the window of the Wimpy munching beanburgers, slurping vanilla milkshakes and watching people hurry through the rain past the statue of Eros and down to the underground. When the rain stopped, Rich said that he wanted to have a quick wander round Soho.

Ian and Rich meandered past the few remaining peep shows and sex shops, glancing furtively through half-open doors at racks of fleshy magazines and videos. The chill in the air and the yellow-boxed neon signs and coloured lights reminded Ian of Christmas.

They lingered at the entrance to a topless bar and watched a tarty lady with a spiky black wig and false red nails attempt to entice a fat German tourist and three Japanese business men with matching suits and cameras. The tarty lady winked at Rich. Ian thought she looked like a man in drag, but said nothing.

Between the massage parlours and adult video shows were wine bars, galleries, music and camera shops. They were all jumbled together, thought Ian, in the same way that Men Only and Rustler magazine sometimes get mixed in with Antiques World and hi-fi News on the top shelf of a small newsagents. Down a narrow street full of stalls selling fruit and vegetables, Ian bought four nectarines, He and Rich ate two each on the tube up to Camden.

Camden was full of kids in Adidas sweat shirts, baggy jeans and loosely-laced trainers. Everybody seemed to be eating something; hot dogs in white napkins oozing relish, or burgers out of polystyrene boxes. A girl with a blonde bob, red lips and big tits strutted past. She was eating a half-melon, scooped out and stuffed with strawberries and cream and emerald slices of kiwi fruit.

"Wouldn't say no to a piece of that," said Rich.

"Yea, those strawberries looked good," said Ian.

They headed past clothes boutiques, take-aways and galleries towards the market. Although it had started to get dark, the market was still open.

They wandered through the maze of trendy clothes stalls where the beats of a hundred ghetto blasters merged into a cacophony of competing rhythms.

Then they made their way to the lock. Rich's mates from Portsmouth were waiting by the bridge, peering down into the slow black canal and a deserted cafe courtyard where umbrellaless tables and stacked plastic chairs collected rain. Ian stood by meekly as Rich enthusiastically greeted his mates.

"Yo, Mickey, Darren. All right you old bastards?" Rich slapped Darren on the back and hugged Mickey with a familiarity Ian had never seen him show before. Ian felt slightly jealous.

Mickey had short bleached blonde hair and a sand papery growth of stubble on his chin. He wore a dirty black bomber jacket over a red and blue checked-shirt, baggy jeans and Airwalk trainers. His eyes were pink and he smelled heavily of stale dope.

"All right mate," he said to Ian, grinning wildly.

Ian smiled and nodded.

Darren, his companion, had long black hair tied back in a pony tail. He wore a faded denim jacket over a Fred Perry T-shirt, a pair of Adidas tracksuit trousers and scruffy Pumas. He dismissed Ian's greeting with a disinterested scowl and raised eyebrows.

"Where did you find him?" Darren asked Rich sullenly with a derogatory glance at Ian.

"He's all right," said Rich "He's a good mate, OK?" Darren reluctantly nodded his head.

"How did you manage to get up here so quick, anyhow?" asked Rich.

"We scored a motor," said Mickey.

"Nice one," said Rich.

Ian had been expecting Rich's mates to be driving a beaten up old Cortina or a rusting old-style Escort. It turned out that they had a brand new top of the range Rover.

"Where did you nick that from then?" asked Ian with a nervous laugh.

Darren looked at him scathingly and chewed an imaginary piece of gum.

"We hired it," said Mickey. "From fucking Rent-car."

"Oh right, yea, nice one," said Ian.

Darren spat on the pavement. Rich and Mickey laughed and got into the front of the car. Ian got in the back next to Darren who leaned away from him and wiped the condensation from the window so that he could look out.

Mickey put a cassette on, deafeningly loud - some years-old acid house anthem with a speaker-tearing bass beat and a sequenced synth theme which fell like electronic rain as polyphonic strings whooshed in the background punctuated by fanfares of backwards trumpets and a heavily-processed voice shrieking, Ohh You're Ecstasy, Ahhh You Set Me Free.

Mickey switched on the Rover's interior light and opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a plastic bag full of what looked like Junior Disprins and turned to face Ian. Mickey's red-rimmed eyes made him look slightly manic as he winked and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and said persuasively, "Fancy doing yourself a favour? There's fifty notes in it for you if you help us shift this gear. We've checked this rave out, and everything's cool. Plenty of punters and no hassles."

"Thanks, but no thanks," said Ian.

"Come on man. It's easy money," said Mickey.

"No way," said Ian shaking his head.

"Tell you what," said Mickey. "I'll make it a ton, all right. And you can have a couple of Es for yourself later on."

"Look sorry. I'm just not into that kind of stuff," insisted Ian.

"Why not?" asked Mickey. "Don't you like making people happy?"

"I'm not interested. All right?" said Ian.

"What a fucking twat," muttered Darren. "Where the fuck did you find him."

"Just leave it," said Rich.

"Sure man," said Darren sarcastically.

"Piss off," I muttered.

"You fucking what?" asked Darren, fists clenching.

"Just shut it both of you," snapped Mickey. "We'll sort it out later. Now lets get going."

Mickey turned the music up even louder, then flicked on the Rover's headlights and revved the engine before rapidly reversing into the space behind him. He slammed the brakes on, expertly spinning the steering wheel with one hand as he pushed the gear lever into first with the other.

Without looking in his mirrors he put his foot hard down and screeched out into the traffic, cutting up a BMW which flashed its twin headlights and angrily blasted its horn.

"Wanker," muttered Mickey, as he overtook a queue of cars ahead of him by driving up an empty bus lane, then accelerated through a red light almost broadsiding a passing van.

"OK, stop the car I'm getting out," said Ian.

"Don't be bloody daft," said Rich.

"Well you can stay in this death trap if you like," said Ian. "But I'm getting out before this nutter kills us."

Darren turned to him and said, "If you want out you can have out."

Before Ian knew what was happening, Darren had reached across him, opened the door and given him a shove. Ian saw the road passing rapidly underneath him as he hung out of the car. He imagined his skin grated along the tarmac like a chunk of cheddar cheese. Heart pounding wildly, he threw himself back into the car and pulled the door to.

"Stop the fucking car," he screamed.

Darren laughed hysterically. Mickey slammed his brakes on in the middle of the traffic. The cars behind screeched to a halt. Ian clambered out of the Rover.

"Come on Rich, let's go," he said. Rich stared stonily ahead. "Come on Rich," repeated Ian. But Rich just sat there. "Oh, piss off then," said Ian and slammed the door.

He stood in the middle of the road and watched the Rover roar away.

The car behind him beeped its horn. Ian turned round and kicked the car's bumper, raised his middle finger, then walked to the side of the road where he stood trembling in the rain.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Ian sat in his train at the station platform. There was an announcement over the tannoy; the station master apologising for a further delay. A tree axed by the storm had blocked the track, the one track Ian wanted to travel home along. The train seemed to shiver and fidget with Ian, shuddering and rattling as if about to depart then becoming still with an impatient sigh of its engine.

The rain continued to surge through the station. Passengers without a train to shelter in huddled by the coffee stand as the pattering of drops on the leaky roof of the platform canopy rose to a torrential roar, threatening to crack open the glass and pour through in bucketfuls.

Through the rain-streaked carriage window Ian watched the wind pick up a newspaper discarded on a sheltered window ledge. It tossed the paper high into the air like a cat toying with the carcass of a bird. The pages fanned out and then were pulled apart and blown into the open above the track.

The downpour rapidly soaked the separated sheets and they plummeted like shot pigeons to the oily, grey stones between the rails.

When the train eventually arrived back home, shortly before nine, it was still raining. As Ian walked from the station, the wind crept spitefully under the collar of his jacket and down his spine. Ian shuddered and hunched his shoulders so that his neck sunk deeper inside his sodden jacket.

Ian walked up through the town and past the bingo hall. He saw two fat ladies run from a taxi. Tottering on the heels of their stilettos, they splashed through the flooded gutter, shrieking with laughter and clutching hats, then clatter-waddled up the steps and into the coDly-carpeted warmth of the bingo hall.

Ian sheltered beneath the dripping tarpaulin of a news agent's for a while. He sniffied and snuffied and shuffied next to the soggy remains of disintegrating cardboard boxes and looked inside at the sweets and crisps and cigarettes and magazines. He read the newspaper headlines and the small ads scribbled in blue biro on rows of lined cards, displayed in the window: GARDENER available, reasonable rates. TO LET, two rooms, share kitchen and bathroom, satellite TV socket and pay phone, two months rent in advance, professionals only. WANTED all old washing machines, twin tubs and tumble dryers, best prices paid. RELAX with Mandy attractive brunette, offers complete body massage, call now. FRESH Manure delivered to your home, with bonus bag of peat-free mushroom compost.

The rain relented and Ian slowly jogged home. In his room he peeled off his clothes and climbed into bed. He watched TV for a while - a seventies science fiction film featuring a blonde actress he recognised from an American detective series but could not put a name to. He turned the film off before it had finished and put on a cassette. He lay in bed and, with a bittersweet mixture of glee and regret, imagined Rich getting soaked.

Maybe he'd get a lift home, thought Ian, or crash out in the car with those dumb friends of his. Either way, he'd patch things up with him tomorrow.

Tomorrow they'd swear at each other a bit then laugh about it all. And with that thought he drifted asleep.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Ian woke up late on Sunday morning. He lay snug and warm beneath the bedclothes listening to the drizzle outside and a distant hammering somewhere down the street. He was wondering whether Rich had returned yet and what he could have for lunch when there was a knock on the door.

"Yea?" he said and sat up in bed.

A bearded face appeared round the door. It was the Captain.

The Captain had been in the house a long time, way before either Ian or Rich. His nickname was short for Captain Hook. Years before, at a notoriously dangerous T -junction, he had embedded his customised Triumph Bonneville in the wing of a Vauxhall Viva with dodgy brakes. The stem of the bike's home-welded handlebars had sheared on impact. A jagged rod of metal had pushed up through his hand leaving it half-severed and hanging from his mangled forearm by a couple of tendons. Although the surgeons managed to mend the Captains arm, his hand had to be amputated. Over his stump he wore a wire frame connected to a gripper that he could open and close by moving his arm at the elbow. There were various other detachable implements he could fit to the frame, the hook being his favourite.

"All right Captain?" asked Ian. He noticed that the Captain seemed agitated.

"Yea, yea, fine mate," mumbled the Captain, looking miserably at his feet.

"Is Rich back yet?" asked Ian. "I had a bit of a set-to with him and his mates last night so I came home by myself." Ian grinned and joked, "I suppose I'll have to buy him some chocolates or flowers or something before he speaks to me again. You know what he's like when he gets in one of his moods." The Captain seemed embarrassed and uneasily shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Ian frowned at the Captain's silence.

"What's up?" asked Ian.

"It's about Rich..." said the Captain, still not looking at him. "About why he didn't come back last night."

"Shit I knew it," said Ian, getting out of bed, "He got done for them drugs, didn't he. Christ! You should have seen those two morons we met up in Camden. I bet they'd nicked that car an' all." .

"Look, no one's been done for nothing..." interrupted Captain.

"Thank God for that," said Ian. He struggled to pull on his jeans, which he had retrieved from the soggy pile of clothes on the floor by his bed. "So when's he coming back then?" There was an awkward pause before the Captain answered.

"Look, Rich isn't coming back," he said.

"Why the hell not?" asked Ian, crouching down to search for aT-shirt among the jumble of pants and socks in the bottom drawer of his old wardrobe, the one he'd brought for a tenner from a second hand store along the London Road and Rich had helped him carry home. "Where's he gone th ?" en.

The Captain waved his hook vaguely in the air.

Ian found a relatively clean T-shirt inside out in the drawer.

"Shit, I bet he's gone back to Portsmouth with those mates of his," said Ian. He turned and looked up over his shoulder at the Captain. The Captain shook his head and bit his bottom lip.

"Where the hell is he then?" asked Ian pulling the T-shirt over his head.

"He's dead," said the Captain. Ian froze, crouched in font of the wardrobe, one arm above his head, his other arm naked, an empty sleeve flopping over his shoulder.

"Jesus," gasped Ian into the sudden stillness, "Jesus." The Captain began to speak. Ian only heard snatches of what he said, the words coming and going in waves, punctuated by the Captain's heaving sobs, as he melted from piratical biker to helpless little boy.

"I'm sorry...the car..through a barrier ..into a ditch...full ofwater...on its roof....police called...address in his wallet....in the dark...no one stopped...upside down...this morning....saw the wheels...found them all ...I'm sorry..I'm really sorry." The words were all around Ian, filling the air like a poison gas, burning down his throat. Ian raised his hand to his neck. He pinched the loose skin beneath his chin and rolled it back and forth like putty between his fingers.

"I'm sorry," sniffed the Captain. He raised the hook to his face and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his leather jacket, then backed out of the room, his huge shoulders still trembling.

Even after the Captain had gone. Ian remained kneeling on the floor with his arm above his head, one hand still clinging, white-knuckled onto the handle of the wardrobe door. The Captain's words ran through his mind, like the playground taunts of children upside down found them all, upside down found them all, upside down found them all.

Ian lowered his arm and stood up. He finished getting dressed. Outside the day drizzled lightly, spilled from gutters, dripped down windows, spat into puddles. Ian wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

Ian gulped down his grief, the same way he stopped himself being sick when he'd had too many pints, catching a sob in his throat like it was a chunk of vomit. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Nothing around him seemed touchable. It felt like he had stepped into a television; that his was the only reality amidst a mirage of projected images. He went downstairs as if in a trance.

There were some girls from down the street in the kitchen. They had seen the police car outside and had come round to share in the tragedy, chatting in whispers and dabbing at their mascara with kitchen roll. They fell silent as Ian entered the room and poured himself a bowl of cornflakes. He hardly noticed them nervously stare at him as if he were a ghost. It hadn't even occurred to Ian that he too could so easily have been found a few hours earlier blue-skinned, underwater in an upside-down Rover.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Ian borrowed a black suit for the funeral. Most of Rich's other mates turned up at the crematorium in their usual clothes, but Ian felt more comfortable dressed smartly, especially as he had to meet Rich's mum and everything. She came round early the next morning to pick up his things. And that afternoon the landlord moved a bank clerk called Tim into Rich's old room.

On Friday evening, three days after the funeral, Ian discovered Tim prowling round the kitchen, a rolled up TV Times in his hand. Apart from the Captain, who worked in a petrol station, Tim was the only person in the house who had a proper job. Not that this actually bothered anyone except Tim himself, who wore a battered leather bikers jacket over his white work shirt and tie and faked the commonest of accents, as if this would compensate for the ignominy of being a trainee clerk at the Nat West.

"How's it going?" asked Ian as he took a couple of slices of brown bread from the loaf in the cupboard above the cooker.

"What?" asked Tim bolshily.

"Settled in OK?" asked Ian as he slotted the bread into the toaster.

"Yea," said Tim, continuing to prowl the lino with his rolled-up magazine.

Ian went over to the fridge and took out a tub of Flora and a jar of lemon shred marmalade. He twisted the lid off the marmalade and put it sticky-side-up beside the toaster. A wasp crawled out from the shadows of a small saucepan, charred by burnt baked beans, and headed for the sugary lid.

"Aha!" exclaimed Tim, raising his improimptu swatter. "Got you now, you little bastard."

"Don't kill it," said Ian.

But, ignoring Ian's pleas, Tim slammed the rolled-up magazine onto the lid as hard as he could. The wasp lay on its back buzzing, its little legs frantically pedalling in the air. Tim hit the crisp, twitching insect again and then again until it lay crushed and still.

Ian stood and stared at Tim and at the wasp and then at Tim again. Ian's face was white and he started to tremble.

"What's up with you mate." He stepped back nervously. "What you looking at me like that for?"

"I said, don't kill it," said Ian, clenching and unclenching fists, edging forward. Tim moved behind a chair.

"It was only a wasp," said Tim, choking on a nervous giggle.

"I said, don't kill it," repeated Ian, through clenched teeth.

Tim made a dash for the door but Ian got there first.

"Excuse me mate. I want to go back to my room."

Instead of stepping aside as he usually would, Ian reached out and gripped Tim's throat in his fist and screamed, "I said don't kill it! You dozy little

cunt."

"Urrrghhh," gurgled Tim. "I can't fucking breathe."

Ian let go of Tim's neck and, grabbing him by the lapels of his leather jacket, forced him back over the gas cooker.

"Get off me. You're breaking my back."

"How would you like it if I fucking beat you to death, you little bastard?" snarled Ian.

"My back," whimpered Tim as Ian lifted his fist.

Luckily, at that moment the Captain (who'd heard the commotion) bounded in through the kitchen door.

"What the hell's going on," he said, yanking Ian away from Tim.

"He's bloody mental," whined Tim, arching his spine and rubbing his back with one hand, while wiping away a tear with the other. He sniffied loudly. "He was going to kill me."

"Don't be bloody stupid," said the Captain. "Now what's this all about?"

Ian stood limply limply by the table, breathing heavily and saying nothing.

"He's mental," repeated Tim, sniffing again.

The Captain raised his hook to his brow and despairingly shook his head. Ian elbowed past him silently and went upstairs.

He sat on his bed and looked out of his third floor window at the traffic crawling past the end of the road. Drivers would occasionally roar beneath him, speeding between the parked cars, startling cats and old ladies, enjoying the brief freedom of the empty street before they joined the belching caterpillar of traffic on the main road.

Ian watched the cars, bumper-to-bumper, nosing home from work, home to fish suppers and weekend pursuits - window shopping, shrub pruning, wall paper stripping, wind surfing, disco dancing, pizza eating, Saturday night shagging, TV watching, car washing, football spectating, extension building, magazine reading, kite flying, marathon running, fund raising five course gala dinners in aid of all those hungry children.

"Wankers," muttered Ian.

He sat and watched the cars and wept.