'Sorry. I meant Nina. And who am I?'

'You're Spence-a.' She ground an emphatic forefinger into his chest.

Nick wheeled the buggy into the living room. 'We'll only be a couple of hours. We'd take her with us but you know what IKEA's like on a Sat.u.r.day she'd have to stay in the buggy the whole '

'It's fine. Really.'

'OK.' Nick's perpetually anxious expression relaxed a little. 'Giant teddy coming over.' He slalomed a huge blue bear into the arms of his daughter, and Spencer's field of vision was reduced to a narrow slit. He shifted the solid little package in his arms.

'What's your teddy called?'

'Teddy.' She leaned over and bit one of the bear's ears.

'What do you want to do while you're here?'

'Look at the photo book,' she said, her mouth full.

'Spencer ' said Nick, tensely ' have you...?' he raised his eyebrows, by way of finishing the sentence.

'Yes, I've taken it out.'

'It's not that I disapprove or anything, it's just that she kept talking about them in nursery, and you know how people '

'It's gone. It's in a drawer. Honestly.' The man with nipple rings had been well in the background of a perfectly innocuous beach shot, but Nina had spotted him immediately.

'Fine.' Nick nodded. 'I don't want to be the fussy parent but, you know...'

'Hey, Nina, what about feeding the animals?' suggested Spencer. 'You like doing that, don't you?'

'The big spider.'

'Is he the one you like best?'

'Yes.' She and the bear swung round to check on her favourite and there was a clatter as the blue legs whacked the top of the lizard's tank.

'I've got it.' Nick restored the lid to its usual position.

'b.l.o.o.d.y bear,' said Nina.

'Now then,' said Nick, warningly, 'we don't say that, do we?' He hefted his daughter from Spencer's arms and lowered her to the floor.

'b.l.o.o.d.y bear,' said Nina again, to test the effect.

Nick shook his head repressively. 'It's Niall's fault,' he said to Spencer, sotto voce. 'I keep telling him but he claims it's cultural so he can't help it. You know his whole family swears? Even his granny uses the ' he leaned forward and mouthed ' f word the entire time. It's a nightmare when we visit, and of course I'm the one who has to be the bad-language policeman, doling out the disapproval. It's not a role I enjoy...' He folded his arms prissily, looking rather like Hilda Ogden. Spencer bit back a smile.

'No swearwords here,' he said. 'I promise.'

'Thanks. Hear that, Nina?' She gave him an unfathomable look. 'Why don't you go and say h.e.l.lo to the spider while me and Spencer have a little chat.'

'OK.' She moved away a couple of steps. 'b.l.o.o.d.y spider,' she said, very, very softly.

With a visible effort Nick ignored her. 'So, Spencer. How are you doing?'

'I'm all right.'

'Are you?' Nick looked at him searchingly. 'Are you looking after yourself?'

'Yes Mum.'

'You know what I mean. We never see you now. I wish we could get you out of the flat sometimes we miss you, you know.' He curled an affectionate hand round Spencer's neck. 'I mean, what do you do in here of an evening?'

'Oh you know sleep, study, watch TV.' Lie on the sofa. That was the correct answer; lie on the sofa with his mind revolving around a single fixed point, a dismal satellite stuck perpetually on the dark side.

'And look after Mark's zoo, I suppose.' Nick rolled his eyes.

'They're no trouble,' said Spencer, trying not to think of the hundred and thirty-seven occupants of death row, sitting in their bucket in the kitchen.

'And the list? How's the list going?'

'Oh.' He could hardly bring himself to answer. 'I'm still a bit behind on that. I did the Changing of the Guard last week.'

'What was that like?'

'Freezing.' He had got there late and seen nothing but a row of heads and an occasional bobbing bearskin. 'I don't know that it really counted. I might have to do it again.'

Nick looked troubled. 'You know, Spencer ' He paused awkwardly.

'What?'

'Well... it's just that the list doesn't really seem to be... helping you. I mean, you've given it a good shot and I honestly don't think that Mark would've minded if you didn't do it all.'

'I'd mind though,' said Spencer. 'It's important to me.'

'But why is it?'

'Because...' He reached for a reply. It was important because Mark had measured his life in lists: lists of work to do, holidays to book, presents to buy, films to see. And he had gone on making them, even when life narrowed so much that every tick was a triumph and the item 'load washing machine' took a whole morning to accomplish. His last list had read 'phone Mum, drink half litre of fluids, watch Neighbours' and he had accomplished all of them. 'It's about finishing things off,' said Spencer.

'Yes, but he wouldn't want you to make yourself ' Spencer felt his face set into a mulish rejection of any argument, and Nick gave up. 'Never mind,' he said.

There was a tattoo of beeps from outside and he looked at his watch.

'OK, I'd better go. Nina, are you going to be all right with Spencer?'

'Yes.'

'We'll be back before the little hand's on the two.' She looked at him blankly. 'Early days on the time front,' he said, apologetically, to Spencer. 'Niall thinks I'm pushing it.'

They waved him off at the window and watched till the red camper van disappeared round the corner.

'Gone,' said Nina, dispa.s.sionately, clambering backwards off her chair.

'Only to the shops; they'll be back soon.'

'I know.' She wiped her nose on the teddy's head and smiled unexpectedly. 'I like it here.'

'Good. So what do you want to do first? Feed the animals?' She shook her head. 'Go to the park? Play a game?' He groped for ideas. 'Make a... er... cake?'

'Look at the photo book,' she said impatiently.

'All right then.' He sat her on the sofa and put the alb.u.m on her lap. 'Here you go.'

She flipped it open and looked at the first print, which sat on a page of its own. 'Spencer,' she said, squashing a finger against the transparent sheet that covered it, 'Daddy, Mark, Daddy, Dog.'

The photo showed the four of them coming down the slide at Kingdom of Water, Ibiza's primary aquatic theme park. Mark was in front, screaming hysterically, eyes half-closed against the spray. It had been taken long enough ago for Nick to have a fringe and Mark a small pot-belly. The dog was just visible as a dot beyond the chain-link fence.

Nina turned the page. 'The seaside.'

'That's right. It's a place called Brighton and it's got stones instead of sand on the beach. Do you like your Daddy's beard?'

'No I don't', said Nina firmly, covering Niall's experimental goatee with one hand and attempting to turn the page at the same time. 'I like this.' She pointed at a rucksack Spencer was wearing on the next page, the smallest object in a vast panorama of the western isles.

'Can you remember what country it's in?'

'London.' She turned over again.

The rapid progression through the pages was like watching a film on fast forward. Nick's hair lengthened, shortened, went blond, red, blond again and finally receded so far that he shaved it off altogether. Niall started off stocky, became stockier, got to a point where he realized that the correct description was 'fat' and then strenuously dieted back to stocky again. Others lovers and friends joined the group for a while, stayed for a holiday or two, reappeared at a party and then disappeared from the alb.u.m. Mark lost his pot and gained a second earring and a red blotch on his nose, and started wanting to take the photos rather than appear in them, so that Spencer saw more and more images of himself, and fewer and fewer of Mark.

'Horse riding.'

'Yup, that was in Wales and we were all staying in a big orange tent.' It had been their last proper holiday and a rotten one to boot. He and Mark had had a stupid running argument about a bloke that Spencer had been seeing, it had poured for most of the week and the tent had been invaded by the most revolting, slimy He stood up. 'I've just remembered I've got to do something in the kitchen, OK? We can keep talking.'

'OK. Spencer, Daddy, Horsey, Horsey, Daddy, Horsey, Lady...'

'The lady was the riding instructor and she was called Ann,' said Spencer, over his shoulder. He opened the door of the kitchen and stepped on something that squashed crunchily.

'What names are the horseys?' asked Nina, from the living room.

They were everywhere. In shock, he took half a step backwards and there was another viscid crunch. From the bucket on the draining board, a web of shining trails showed their escape routes: up the wall, across the window, over the fridge, along the floor; every surface was studded with snails. There were snails on the toaster, snails lodged in the folds of the tea towel and so many snails on the chopping board that it looked like a solitaire set.

'What names are the horseys?'

'Oh, er, the white one was called s...o...b..ll and the brown one was called Star because he had a little white mark on his head. Like a star.' He fumbled to open a drawer and a snail came off in his hand.

'On his head?'

'Yes, right in the middle of his forehead.' He tried again, and this time located a bin liner. 'Can you see it?'

'No. Can I have a biscuit?'

'In a minute.'

He shook open the bag and reached for the Marigolds, his mouth continuing to operate with a normality that amazed him.

'The two black horses were called Castor and Pollux.' b.a.s.t.a.r.d and b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, Mark had called them. He had been too thin by then to find riding comfortable. 'They were a bit frisky. One of them bit me.' For the hundred and thirty-eighth time that day, he picked up a snail.

'What are you doing?'

'Just some washing-up. Very boring.' With none of his earlier care, Spencer started grabbing handfuls of escapees and shoving them into the bin liner. 'What's on the next page?'

'It's a party.'

Mark's thirtieth, held in hospital. 'How many candles does the cake have?'

'One, two, seven, five....'

He threw the tea towel and its cl.u.s.tered occupants straight into the bag and followed it up with the cutting board.

'Fifty!' announced Nina.

'Very good. And who's that I'm holding in the picture?'

'Me!'

'And what's your Daddy Niall wearing?' He crouched down and used his special omelette spatula to sc.r.a.pe up the two snails he'd trodden on.

'A hat.'

'A pirate's hat, isn't it?'

'No it's not, it's a stupid hat.'

Ruthlessly, he dumped the spatula in the bag and then straightened up and started to pull the snails off the ceiling. There were only four pages of the book left, and during the scant couple of minutes that Nina allocated them, stretched by as many questions as he could think of, Spencer became a snail-disposal machine, grimly closing his mind to the noise and texture of the task, and to the near-clinical disinfection that the kitchen would require afterwards.

'Spencer, Mark, Daddy, Daddy, Lady,' said Nina.

'The lady's a nurse called Cheryl,' said Spencer, picking what seemed to be the last snail out of the soap drawer of the washing machine, and then spotting another one in the softener compartment. He heard the book snap shut.

A moment later Nina and the bear appeared at the kitchen door. 'What you doing?'

'Just tidying up a few things.' He nonchalantly knotted the bag, and then dropped it into a second bag and knotted that. Then he shook open a third bag and encased the first two. The bin men didn't come till Tuesday and he wanted to prevent a ma.s.s breakout; Fran might read about it in the local press and then there'd be h.e.l.l to pay. Just to be on the safe side he put the bundle into a fourth bag.

'Do you want some juice?' he asked casually.

'No,' said Nina. 'Look.' She pointed towards the gap between the top of the washing machine and the work surface.

'What?' He peered into it, expecting to see a couple of strays, but it was empty.

'Greeny thing. There.' This time she pointed at the toaster. It was patterned with a sort of slime version of noughts and crosses.