'No, course not. That's why she was asking if we knew any good record shops. She just wants to come in and waste our time.'

I know I'm being stupid, but I don't want her coming to my shop. If she came into my shop, I might really get to like her, and then I'd be waiting for her to come in all the time, and then when she did come in I'd be nervous and stupid, and probably end up asking her out for a drink in some cack-handed roundabout way, and either she wouldn't catch my drift, and I'd feel like an idiot, or she'd turn me down flat, and I'd feel like an idiot. And on the way home after the gig, I'm already wondering whether she'll come tomorrow, and whether it will mean anything if she does, and if it does mean something, then which one of us it will mean something to, although Barry is probably a nonstarter.

f.u.c.k. I hate all this stuff. How old do you have to get before it stops?

When I get home there are two answering machine messages, one from Laura's friend Liz and one from Laura. They go like this:

1) Rob, it's Liz. Just phoning up to see, well, to see if you're OK. Give us a ring sometime. Um . . . I'm not taking sides. Yet. Lots of love, bye.

2) Hi, it's me. There are a couple of things I need. Can you call me at work in the morning? Thanks.

Mad people could read all sorts of things into either of these calls; sane people would come to the conclusion that the first caller is warm and affectionate, and that the second doesn't give a s.h.i.t. I'm not mad.

Five

I call Laura first thing. I feel sick, dialing the number, and even sicker when the receptionist puts me through. She used to know who I am, but now there's nothing in her voice at all. Laura wants to come around on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when I'm at work, to pick up some more underwear, and that's fine by me; we should have stopped there, but I try to have a different sort of conversation, and she doesn't like it because she's at work, but I persist, and she hangs up on me in tears. And I feel like a jerk, but I couldn't stop myself. I never can.

I wonder what she'd say, if she knew that I was simultaneously uptight about Marie coming into the shop? Laura and I have just had a phone call in which I suggested that she'd f.u.c.ked up my life and, for the duration of the call, I believed it. But now - and I can do this with no trace of bemus.e.m.e.nt or self-dissatisfaction - I'm worrying about what to wear, and whether I look better stubbly or clean-shaven, and about what music I should play in the shop today.

Sometimes it seems as though the only way a man can judge his own niceness, his own decency, decency, is by looking at his relationships with women, or rather, with prospective or current s.e.xual partners. It's easy enough to be nice to your mates. You can buy them a drink, make them a tape, ring them up to see if they're OK . . . there are any number of quick and painless methods of turning yourself into a Good Bloke. When it comes to girlfriends, though, it's much trickier to be consistently honorable. One moment you're ticking along, cleaning the toilet bowl, and expressing your feelings and doing all the other things that a modern chap is supposed to do; the next, you're manipulating and sulking and double-dealing and fibbing with the best of them. I can't work it out. is by looking at his relationships with women, or rather, with prospective or current s.e.xual partners. It's easy enough to be nice to your mates. You can buy them a drink, make them a tape, ring them up to see if they're OK . . . there are any number of quick and painless methods of turning yourself into a Good Bloke. When it comes to girlfriends, though, it's much trickier to be consistently honorable. One moment you're ticking along, cleaning the toilet bowl, and expressing your feelings and doing all the other things that a modern chap is supposed to do; the next, you're manipulating and sulking and double-dealing and fibbing with the best of them. I can't work it out.

I phone Liz early afternoon. She's nice to me. She says how sorry she is, what a good couple she thought we made, that I have done Laura good, given her a center, brought her out of herself, allowed her to have fun, turned her into a nicer, calmer, more relaxed person, given her an interest in something other than work. Liz doesn't use these words, as such, I'm interpreting. But this is what she means, I think, when she says we made a good couple. She asks how I am, and whether I'm looking after myself; she tells me that she doesn't think much of this Ian guy. We arrange to meet for a drink sometime next week. I hang up.

Which f.u.c.king Ian guy?

Marie comes into the shop shortly afterward. All three of us are there. I'm playing her tape, and when I see her walk in I try to turn it off before she notices, but I'm not quick enough, so I end up turning it off just as she begins to say something about it, and then turning it back on again, then blushing. She laughs. I go to the stockroom and don't come out. Barry and d.i.c.k sell her seventy quid's worth of ca.s.settes.

Which f.u.c.king Ian guy?

Barry explodes into the stockroom. 'We're only on the guest list for Marie's gig at the White Lion, that's all. All three of us.'

In the last half-hour, I have humiliated myself in front of somebody I'm interested in, and found out, I think, that my ex was having an affair. I don't want to know about the guest list at the White Lion.

'That's really, really great, Barry. The guest list at the White Lion! All we've got to do is get to Putney and back and we've saved ourselves a fiver each. What it is to have influential friends, eh?'

'We can go in your car.'

'It's not my car, is it? It's Laura's. Laura's got it. So we're two hours on the tube, or we get a minicab, which'll cost us, ooh, a fiver each. f.u.c.king great.'

Barry gives a what-can-you-do-with-this-guy shrug and walks out. I feel bad, but I don't say anything to him.

I don't know anybody called Ian. Laura doesn't know anybody called Ian. We've been together three years and I've never heard her mention an Ian. There's no Ian at her office. She hasn't got any friends called Ian, and she hasn't got any girlfriends with boyfriends called Ian. I won't say that she has never met anyone called Ian in the whole of her life - there must have been one at college, although she went to an all-girls school - but I am almost certain that since 1989 she has been living in an Ianless universe.

And this cert.i.tude, this Ian-atheism, lasts until I get home. On the windowsill where we put the post, just inside the communal front door, there are three letters amidst the takeout menus and the minicab cards: a bill for me, a bank statement for Laura . . . and a TV license reminder for Mr. I. Raymond (Ray to his friends and, more pertinently, to his neighbors), the guy who until about six weeks ago lived upstairs.

I'm shaking when I get into the flat, and I feel sick. I know it's him; I knew it was him the moment I saw the letter. I remember Laura going up to see him a couple of times; I remember Laura . . . not flirting, flirting, exactly, but certainly flicking her hair more often, and grinning more inanely, than seemed to be strictly necessary when he came down for a drink last Christmas. He would be just her type - little-boy-lost, right-on, caring, just enough melancholy in his soul to make him appear interesting. I never liked him much then, and I f.u.c.king hate him now. exactly, but certainly flicking her hair more often, and grinning more inanely, than seemed to be strictly necessary when he came down for a drink last Christmas. He would be just her type - little-boy-lost, right-on, caring, just enough melancholy in his soul to make him appear interesting. I never liked him much then, and I f.u.c.king hate him now.

How long? How often? The last time I spoke to Ray - Ian - the night before he moved . . . was something going on then? Did she sneak upstairs on nights when I was out? Do John and Melanie, the couple in the ground-floor flat, know anything about this? I spend a long time looking for the change-of-address card he gave us, but it's gone, ominously and significantly - unless I chucked it, in which case strike the ominous significance. (What would I do if I found it? Give him a ring? Drop round, and see if he's got company?) I'm starting to remember things now: his dungarees; his music (African, Latin, Bulgarian, whatever f.u.c.king world music fad was trendy that week); his hysterical, nervous, nerve-jangling laugh; the terrible cooking smells that used to pollute the stairway; the visitors that used to stay too late and drink too much and leave too noisily. I can't remember anything good about him at all.

I manage to block out the worst, most painful, most disturbing memory until I go to bed, when I hear the woman who lives up there now stomping around and banging wardrobe doors. This is the very worst thing, the thing that would bring anybody (any man?) in my position out in the coldest and clammiest of sweats: we used to listen to him having s.e.x. we used to listen to him having s.e.x. We could hear the noises he made; we could hear the noises she made (and there were two or three different partners in the time the three of us - the four of us, if you count whoever was in Ray's bed - were separated by a few square meters of creaking floorboard and flaking plaster). We could hear the noises he made; we could hear the noises she made (and there were two or three different partners in the time the three of us - the four of us, if you count whoever was in Ray's bed - were separated by a few square meters of creaking floorboard and flaking plaster).

'He goes on long enough,' I said one night, when we were both lying awake, staring at the ceiling. 'I should be so lucky,' said Laura. This was a joke. We laughed. Ha, ha, we went. Ha, ha, ha. I'm not laughing now. Never has a joke filled me with such nausea and paranoia and insecurity and self-pity and dread and doubt.

When a woman leaves a man, and the man is unhappy (and yes, finally, after all the numbness and the silly optimism and the who-cares shrug of the shoulders, I am unhappy - although I would still like to be included somewhere in the cover shot of Marie's next alb.u.m) . . . is this what it's all about? Sometimes I think so, and sometimes I don't. I went through this period, after the Charlie and Marco thing, of imagining them together, at it at it, and Charlie's face contorted with a pa.s.sion that I was never able to provoke. and Charlie's face contorted with a pa.s.sion that I was never able to provoke.

I should say, even though I do not feel like saying it (I want to run myself down, feel sorry for myself, celebrate my inadequacies - that's what you do at times like these), that I think things were OK in That Department. I think. But in my fearful imaginings Charlie was as abandoned and as noisy as any character in a p.o.r.n film. She was Marco's plaything, she responded to his every touch with shrieks of o.r.g.a.s.mic delight. No woman in the history of the world had better s.e.x than the s.e.x Charlie had with Marco in my head.

But that was nothing. That had no basis in reality at all. For all I know, Marco and Charlie never even consummated their relationship and Charlie has spent the intervening decade trying - but failing miserably - to recapture the quiet, undemonstrative ecstasy of the nights that we spent together. I know, however, that Ian was something of a demon lover; so does Laura. I could hear it all; so could Laura. In truth, it p.i.s.sed me off; I thought it p.i.s.sed her off, too. Now I'm not so sure. Is this why she went? Because she wanted a bit of what was happening upstairs?

I don't really know why it matters so much. Ian could be better at talking than me, or cooking, or working, or housework, or saving money, or earning money, or spending money, or understanding books or films; he could be nicer than me, better-looking, more intelligent, cleaner, more generous-spirited, more helpful, a better human being in any way you care to mention . . . and I wouldn't mind. Really. I accept and understand that you can't be good at everything, and I am tragically unskilled in some very important areas. But s.e.x is different; knowing that a successor is better in bed is impossible to take, and I don't know why.

I know enough to know that this is daft. I know, for example, that the best s.e.x I have ever had was not important; the best s.e.x I have ever had was with a girl called Rosie, whom I slept with just four times. It wasn't enough (the good s.e.x, I mean, not the four times, which were more than enough). She drove me mad, and I drove her mad, and the fact that we had the knack of being able to come at the same time (and this, it seems to me, is what people mean when they talk about good s.e.x, no matter what Dr. Ruth tells you about sharing and consideration and pillow talk and variety and positions and handcuffs) counted for nothing.

So what is it that sickens me so much about 'Ian' and Laura? Why do I care so much about how long he can go on for and how long I could go on for and what noises she made with me and what noises she makes with him? Just, I guess, this in the end: that I still hear Chris Thomson, the Neanderthal, testosterone-crazed, fourth-year adulterer, calling me a spastic and telling me he has k.n.o.bbed my girlfriend. And that voice still makes me feel bad.

During the night, I have one of those dreams that aren't really dreams at all, just stuff about Laura f.u.c.king Ray, and Marco f.u.c.king Charlie, and I'm pleased to wake up in the middle of the night, because it means stopping the dream. But the pleasure only lasts a few seconds and then everything sinks in: that somewhere Laura really is f.u.c.king Ray (maybe not exactly now, because it's 3:56 a.m., although with his stamina - his inability to climax, inability to climax, ha ha - you never know), and I'm here, in this stupid little flat, on my own, and I'm thirty-five years old, and I own a tiny failing business, and my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost. And if I went back to sleep and slept for forty years and woke up without any teeth to the sound of Melody Radio in an old people's home, I wouldn't worry that much, because the worst of life, i.e., the rest of it, would be over. And I wouldn't even have had to kill myself. ha ha - you never know), and I'm here, in this stupid little flat, on my own, and I'm thirty-five years old, and I own a tiny failing business, and my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost. And if I went back to sleep and slept for forty years and woke up without any teeth to the sound of Melody Radio in an old people's home, I wouldn't worry that much, because the worst of life, i.e., the rest of it, would be over. And I wouldn't even have had to kill myself.

It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. If I lived in Bosnia, then not having a girlfriend wouldn't seem like the most important thing in the world, but here in Crouch End it does. You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and n.o.body to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge. in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge.

'Have you got any soul?' a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.

Six

Exactly one week after Laura has gone, I get a call from a woman in Wood Green who has some singles she thinks I might be interested in. I normally don't bother with house clearance, but this woman seems to know what she's talking about: she mutters about white labels and picture sleeves and all sorts of other things that suggest we're not just talking about half a dozen scratched Electric Light Orchestra records that her son left behind when he moved out.

Her house is enormous, the sort of place that seems to have meandered to Wood Green from another part of London, and she's not very nice. She's mid-to-late forties, with a dodgy tan and a suspiciously taut-looking face; and though she's wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the jeans have the name of an Italian where the name of Mr. Wrangler or Mr. Levi should be, and the T-shirt has a lot of jewelry stuck to the front of it, arranged in the shape of a CND sign.

She doesn't smile, or offer me a cup of coffee, or ask me whether I found the place OK despite the freezing, driving rain that prevented me from seeing my A-Z in front of my face. She just shows me into a study off the hall, turns the light on, and points out the singles - there are hundreds of them, all in custom-made wooden boxes - on the top shelf, and leaves me to get on with it.

There are no books on the shelves that line the walls, just alb.u.ms, CDs, ca.s.settes, and hi-fi equipment; the ca.s.settes have little numbered stickers on them, always a sign of a serious person. There are a couple of guitars leaning against the walls, and some sort of computer that looks as though it might be able to do something musical if you were that way inclined.

I climb up on a chair and start pulling the singles boxes down. There are seven or eight in all, and, though I try not to look at what's in them as I put them on the floor, I catch a glimpse of the first one in the last box: it's a James Brown single on King, thirty years old, and I begin to p.r.i.c.kle with antic.i.p.ation.

When I start going through them properly, I can see straightaway that it's the haul I've always dreamed of finding, ever since I began collecting records. There are fan-club-only Beatles singles, and the first half-dozen Who singles, and Elvis originals from the early sixties, and loads of rare blues and soul singles, and . . . there's a copy of 'G.o.d Save the Queen' by the s.e.x Pistols on A&M! there's a copy of 'G.o.d Save the Queen' by the s.e.x Pistols on A&M! I I have never even seen one of these! I have never even seen anyone who's seen one! And oh no oh no oh G.o.d - 'You Left the Water Running' by Otis Redding, released seven years after his death, withdrawn immediately by his widow because she didn't . . . have never even seen one of these! I have never even seen anyone who's seen one! And oh no oh no oh G.o.d - 'You Left the Water Running' by Otis Redding, released seven years after his death, withdrawn immediately by his widow because she didn't . . .

'What d'you reckon?' She's leaning against the door frame, arms folded, half smiling at whatever ridiculous face I'm making.

'It's the best collection I've ever seen.' I have no idea what to offer her. This lot must be worth at least six or seven grand, and she knows it. Where am I going to get that kind of money from?

'Give me fifty quid and you can take every one away with you today.'

I look at her. We're now officially in Joke Fantasy Land, where little old ladies pay good money to persuade you to cart off their Chippendale furniture. Except I am not dealing with a little old lady, and she knows perfectly well that what she has here is worth a lot more than fifty quid. What's going on?

'Are these stolen?'

She laughs. 'Wouldn't really be worth my while, would it, lugging all this lot through someone's window for fifty quid? No, they belong to my husband.'

'And you're not getting on too well with him at the moment?'

'He's in Spain with a twenty-three-year-old. A friend of my daughter's. He had the f.u.c.king f.u.c.king cheek to phone up and ask to borrow some money and I refused, so he asked me to sell his singles collection and send him a check for whatever I got, minus ten percent commission. Which reminds me. Can you make sure you give me a five pound note? I want to frame it and put it on the wall.' cheek to phone up and ask to borrow some money and I refused, so he asked me to sell his singles collection and send him a check for whatever I got, minus ten percent commission. Which reminds me. Can you make sure you give me a five pound note? I want to frame it and put it on the wall.'

'They must have taken him a long time to get together.'

'Years. This collection is as close as he has ever come to an achievement.'

'Does he work?'

'He calls himself a musician, but . . . ' She scowls her disbelief and contempt. 'He just sponges off me and sits around on his fat a.r.s.e staring at record labels.'

Imagine coming home and finding your Elvis singles and your James Brown singles and your Chuck Berry singles flogged off for nothing out of sheer spite. What would you do? What would you say?

'Look, can't I pay you properly? You don't have to tell him what you got. You could send the forty-five quid anyway, and blow the rest. Or give it to charity. Or something.'

'That wasn't part of the deal. I want to be poisonous but fair.'

'I'm sorry, but it's just . . . I don't want any part of this.'

'Suit yourself. There are plenty of others who will.'

'Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying to find a compromise. What about fifteen hundred? They're probably worth four times that.'

'Sixty.'

'Thirteen.'

'Seventy-five.'

'Eleven. That's my lowest offer.'

'And I won't take a penny more than ninety.' We're both smiling now. It's hard to imagine another set of circ.u.mstances that could result in this kind of negotiation.

'He could afford to come home then, you see, and that's the last thing I want.'

'I'm sorry, but I think you'd better talk to someone else.' When I get back to the shop I'm going to burst into tears and cry like a baby for a month, but I can't bring myself to do it to this guy.

'Fine.'

I stand up to go, and then get back on my knees: I just want one last, lingering look.

'Can I buy this Otis Redding single off you?'

'Sure. Ten pee.'

'Oh, come on. Let me give you a tenner for this, and you can give the rest away for all I care.'

'OK. Because you took the trouble to come up here. And because you've got principles. But that's it. I'm not selling them to you one by one.'

So I go to Wood Green and I come back with a mint-condition 'You Left the Water Running,' which I pick up for a tenner. That's not a bad morning's work. Barry and d.i.c.k will be impressed. But if they ever find out about Elvis and James Brown and Jerry Lee Lewis and the Pistols and the Beatles and the rest, they will suffer immediate and possibly dangerous traumatic shock, and I will have to counsel them, and . . .

How come I ended up siding with the bad guy, the man who's left his wife and taken himself off to Spain with some nymphette? Why can't I bring myself to feel whatever it is his wife is feeling? Maybe I should go home and flog Laura's sculpture to someone who wants to smash it to pieces and use it for sc.r.a.p; maybe that would do me some good. But I know I won't. All I can see is that guy's face when he gets his pathetic check through the mail, and I can't help but feel desperately, painfully sorry for him.

It would be nice to report that life is full of exotic incidents like this, but it isn't. d.i.c.k tapes me the first Liquorice Comfits alb.u.m, as promised; Jimmy and Jackie Corkhill stop arguing, temporarily; Laura's mum doesn't ring, but my mum does. She thinks Laura might be more interested in me if I did some evening cla.s.ses. We agree to differ or, at any rate, I hang up on her. And d.i.c.k, Barry, and I go by minicab to the White Lion to see Marie, and our names are indeed on the guest list. The ride costs exactly fifteen quid, but that doesn't include the tip, and bitter is two pounds a pint. The White Lion is smaller than the Harry Lauder, so it's half full rather than two-thirds empty, and it's much nicer, too, and there's even a support act, some terrible local singer-songwriter for whom the world ended just after 'Tea for the Tillerman' by Cat Stevens, not with a bang but a wimp.

The good news: 1) I don't cry during 'Baby, I Love Your Way,' although I do feel slightly sick. 2) We get a mention: 'Is that Barry and d.i.c.k and Rob I see down there? Nice to see you, fellas.' And then she says to the audience, 'Have you ever been to their shop? Championship Vinyl in north London? You really should.' And people turn round to look at us, and we look at each other sheepishly, and Barry is on the verge of giggling with excitement, the idiot. 3) I still want to be on an alb.u.m cover somewhere, despite the fact that I was violently sick when I got to work this morning because I'd been up half the night smoking roll-ups made with dog-ends and drinking banana liqueur and missing Laura. (Is that good news? Maybe it's bad news, definite, final proof that I'm mad, but it's good news in that I still have an ambition of sorts, and that Melody Radio is not my only vision of the future.) The bad news: 1) Marie brings someone out to sing with her for her encore. A bloke. Someone who shares her microphone with her with an intimacy I don't like, and sings harmony on 'Love Hurts,' and looks at her while he's doing so in a way that suggests that he's ahead of me in the queue for the alb.u.m shoot. Marie still looks like Susan Dey, and this guy, she introduces him as 'T-Bone Taylor, the best-kept secret in Texas', looks like a prettier version of Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates, if you can imagine such a creature. He's got long blond hair, and cheekbones, and he's well over nine feet tall, but he's got muscles too (he's wearing a denim waistcoat and no shirt) and a voice that makes that man who does the Guinness adverts sound soppy, a voice so deep that it seems to land with a thud on the stage and roll toward us like a cannonball.

I know my s.e.xual confidence is not high at the moment, and I know that women are not necessarily interested in long blond hair, cheekbones, and height; that sometimes they are looking for shortish dark hair, no cheekbones and width, but even so! Look at them! Susan Dey and Daryl Hall! Entwining the naked melody lines from 'Love Hurts'! Mingling their saliva, almost! Just as well I wore my favorite shirt when she came into the shop the other day, otherwise I wouldn't have stood a chance.

There is no other bad news. That's it.

When the gig finishes I pick my jacket up off the floor and start to go.