"Sounds grim."

"It wasn't actually," said Becky. "It's just the way Tony tells it."

"I thought your parents chucked him out. After that thing with him and..."

"Carl. Carl Waller. Yeh. But Tony wanted to get chucked out."

"Really?"

"Being gay was a G.o.dsend." Becky lit a cigarette. "Meant he could be an outlaw without having to mainline heroin or steal cars."

Jamie digested this slowly. A thousand miles between them and he felt closer to Tony than he'd ever done. "But you and Tony. You were sort of estranged, too, weren't you. And now you're flat-sitting."

"We met up when I moved down to London. A few weeks back. Suddenly realized we liked each other."

Jamie found himself laughing. Out of relief, really. That Tony could make the same kind of mistakes he'd made himself.

"What's so funny?" asked Becky.

"Nothing," said Jamie. "It's just...It's good. It's really good."

Everyone's luck really did seem to be turning. Maybe there was something in the air.

When he reached Katie's place the following evening the door was opened by her and Ray together, which seemed symbolic, and he found himself saying, "Congratulations" with the sincerity he wasn't able to muster the first time round.

He was ushered into the kitchen, getting the tiniest grunt of greeting from Jacob who was deeply involved in a Fireman Sam Fireman Sam video in the living room. video in the living room.

Katie seemed a little giddy. Like those people you saw interviewed on the news who'd been winched out of something ghastly by a helicopter.

Ray seemed different, too, though it was hard to tell whether this was just because Jamie felt differently about him now. Certainly he and Katie were getting on better. They were touching each other, for starters, which Jamie hadn't seen before. In fact when Fireman Sam Fireman Sam finished and Jacob pottered through in search of a carton of apple juice, there was definite Oedipal tension ("Stop hugging Mummy," "I want to hug Mummy"). And the thought occurred to Jamie that Katie and Ray had fallen in love only after going through all the c.r.a.p that most people saved for the end of their relationship. Which was one way of doing things. finished and Jacob pottered through in search of a carton of apple juice, there was definite Oedipal tension ("Stop hugging Mummy," "I want to hug Mummy"). And the thought occurred to Jamie that Katie and Ray had fallen in love only after going through all the c.r.a.p that most people saved for the end of their relationship. Which was one way of doing things.

Jamie asked about an invitation for Tony, and Ray seemed unnaturally excited by the possibility that he might be coming.

"It's a bit of a long shot," said Jamie. "He's incommunicado in Greece. I'm just hoping he gets back in time."

"We could track him down," said Ray with a can-do gleefulness that felt not quite appropriate.

"I think we have to leave it in the lap of the G.o.ds," said Jamie.

"Your call," said Ray.

At which point Katie yelled, "Jacob," and they all turned round to see him deliberately emptying his apple juice carton onto the kitchen floor.

Ray made him apologize, then dragged him out to play in the garden, to show him that stepfathers had other uses besides monopolizing mothers.

Jamie and Katie had been chatting about the wedding for ten minutes when Katie got a phone call from home. She reappeared a few moments later looking slightly troubled.

"That was Dad."

"How is he?"

"He seemed fine. But he wanted to talk to Ray. Wouldn't tell me what it was about."

"Maybe he wants to be manly and pay for everything."

"You're probably right. Well, we'll find out when Ray rings him back."

"Not that I rate Dad's chances," said Jamie.

"So, now," said Katie, "what are you going to write to Tony?"

91.

George's mistake was to stand naked in front of the mirror. to stand naked in front of the mirror.

He had paid his last visit to the surgery. The wound had granulated and no longer needed daily packing. Now he simply removed the previous day's dressing after breakfast, slipped into a warm salt bath for ten minutes, got out, dried himself gently and applied a fresh dressing.

He was taking the tablets and rather looking forward to the wedding. With Katie and Ray running the show there was very little for him to do. Making a brief speech seemed a very simple contribution to the proceedings.

The mirror was foolish bravado in part, a celebration of the fact that he had put his problems behind him and was not going to let them restrict his behavior any longer.

Not that the reason mattered much now.

He got out of the bath, toweled himself dry, sucked his stomach in, pulled his shoulders back and stood to attention in front of the sink.

It was the cloud of red dots on his bicep which caught his attention first, the ones he had seen in the hotel room and managed to forget about. They seemed larger and more numerous than he remembered.

He felt sick.

The obvious thing to do was to back swiftly away from the mirror, get dressed, take a couple of codeine and open a bottle of wine. But he was unable to stop himself.

He began examining his skin in detail. On his arms. On his chest. On his stomach. Turning round and looking over his shoulder so that he could see his back.

It was not a good thing to do. It was like looking at a petri dish in a laboratory. Every square inch held some new terror. Dark brown moles, wrinkled like sultanas; freckles clumped into archipelagos of chocolate-colored islands; bland flesh-colored b.u.mps, some slack, some full of fluid.

His skin had become a zoo of alien life forms. If he looked closely enough he would be able to see them moving and growing. He tried not to look closely.

He should have gone back to Dr. Barghoutian. Or to another, better doctor.

He had arrogantly thought he could solve his problems with long walks and crosswords. And all the time, the disease had laughed and spread and tightened its hold and given birth to other diseases.

He stopped looking into the mirror only when his vision blurred and his knees buckled, pitching him onto the bathroom floor.

At which point the picture of his own naked skin, still vivid in his mind's eye, mutated into the skin of that man's b.u.t.tocks going up and down between Jean's legs in the bedroom.

He could hear them again. The animal noises. The wrinkled flesh being wobbled and swung. The things he had not seen but could imagine only too clearly. That man's organ going in and out of Jean. The sucking and the sliding. The pink folds.

In this house. In his own bed.

He could actually smell it. The toilet scent. Intimate and unwashed.

He was dying. And no one knew.

His wife was having s.e.x with another man.

And he had to give a speech at his daughter's wedding.

He was clinging to the bottom rung of the heated towel rail, like a man trying not to be swept away by a flood.

It was like before. But worse. There was no floor beneath him. The bathroom, the house, the village, Peterborough...it had all peeled back and shredded and blown away, leaving nothing but infinite s.p.a.ce, just him and a towel rail. As if he had stepped outside the s.p.a.ceship and found the earth gone.

He was mad again. And there was no hope this time. He thought he had cured himself. But he had failed. There was no one else he could rely on. He was going to remain like this until he died.

Codeine. He needed the codeine. He couldn't do anything about the cancer. Or Jean. Or the wedding. The only thing he could do was to dull it all a little.

Keeping hold of the towel rail he started getting to his feet. But as he straightened himself the soft flesh of his stomach was exposed and he could feel it itching and squirming. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it round his abdomen. He transferred his hands to the rim of the bath and stood up.

He could do this. It was a simple thing. Take the pills and wait. That was all he had to do.

He opened the cabinet and took the packet down. He swigged back four tablets with water from the bath tap so as to avoid the mirror above the sink. Was four dangerous? He had no idea and did not care.

He staggered into the bedroom. He dropped the towel and somehow managed to slip into his clothes, despite his shaking hands. He climbed onto the bed and put the duvet over his head and started reciting nursery rhymes until he realized that this was where it had happened, right here, where his head was lying, and he felt like vomiting and knew he had to do something, anything, to keep himself moving and occupied until the drugs started to work.

He threw the duvet off and got to his feet and took a string of deep breaths to steady himself before heading downstairs.

a.s.suming Jean was busy elsewhere, he planned to grab a bottle of wine and head straight out to the studio. If the codeine did not work he would get drunk. He no longer cared what Jean thought.

But Jean was not busy elsewhere. He was halfway down the stairs when she appeared round the banisters brandishing the phone receiver saying, exasperatedly, "There you are. I've been calling you. Ray would like a chat."

George froze, like an animal spotted by a bird of prey, hoping that if he remained motionless he might blend into the background.

"Are you going to take it or not?" said Jean, waggling the phone at him.

He watched his hand rise up to take hold of the phone as he walked down the last few steps. Jean was wearing a rubber glove and holding a tea towel. She handed the phone over, shook her head and vanished back into the kitchen.

George put the phone to his ear.

The pictures in his head toggled giddily from one grotesque image to another. The tramp's face on the station platform. Jean's naked thighs. His own sick skin.

Ray said, "George. It's Ray. Katie tells me you wanted a chat."

It was like those phone calls that woke you up at night. It was hard remembering what you were meant to do.

He had absolutely no idea what he had wanted to chat to Ray about.

Was this really happening, or had he tipped over into some kind of delusional state? Was he still lying on the bed upstairs?

"George?" said Ray. "Are you there?"

He tried to say something. A small mewing noise came out of his mouth. He moved the receiver away from his head and looked at it. Ray's voice was still emerging from the little holes. George did not want this to carry on any longer.

Carefully, he put the phone back onto the receiver. He turned and walked into the kitchen. Jean was filling the washing machine and he did not have the energy for the argument that would ensue if he walked out of the door with a bottle of wine.

"That was quick," said Jean.

"Wrong number," said George.

He was halfway down the garden in his socks before he realized why Jean might not have fallen for this brilliant piece of subterfuge.

92.

Jamie sat down with a mug of tea and his best pen and some writing paper he'd found in the bottom of the desk drawer. Proper paper, like the stuff he was made to use for thank-you letters when he was a kid. with a mug of tea and his best pen and some writing paper he'd found in the bottom of the desk drawer. Proper paper, like the stuff he was made to use for thank-you letters when he was a kid.

He began writing.

Dear Tony,I love you and I want you to come to the wedding.I went up to Peterborough last week. Dad was having a nervous breakdown and ended up in hospital after chopping bits off himself with a pair of scissors (I'll explain later). When I was at the hospital I b.u.mped into the man Mum is having an affair with (I'll explain that, too). Katie and Mum had a blazing row about the wedding. It was off. But now it's on again (I'll explain...

He tore off the sheet of paper, crumpled it up and began again. Tony had expended a lot of energy getting away from his own family. This wasn't the moment for Jamie to brag about the shortcomings of his own.

Dear Tony,I love you and I want you to come to the wedding.I went up to Peterborough last week and realized that you were my family...

Too mawkish.

Dear Tony,I love you.The wedding was off. Now it's on again.G.o.d knows what's going to happen on the day, but I want you to be there with me .

Christ. Now he was selling it as a spectator event.