She moves things on the sideboard.

I wish like h.e.l.l I could think of something new to say instead of this silence and eating alone, with her in the room, not watching, but listening.

I should tell her I like being mothered by somebody who isn't my mother, that I like the way she puts her finger between her teeth when she can't find something, that I like that she's spending a lot more time in here than she needs to. I'd like to tell her she's got one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen and that I love the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s don't wobble even though they're big.

'You could open your own restaurant,' I say.

'Thank you,' she says. 'But this is enough cooking for me.'

I should ask if she'll have a drink with me. And why not right here? We don't need to go out to the pub. Flindall's gone and Welkin's leaving soon. We can stay here, just the two of us.

She's finished stacking the plates on the sideboard.

'Do you have everything you need?' she says.

I've a mind to rush to my feet and kiss her on the neck.

'Yeah,' I say.

'I'll leave you to it then.'

'You don't have to go.'

'I've some things that need doing.'

'Right,' I say. 'Busy as a frog in a sock.'

'That's it.'

She leaves.

No matter.

We'll soon be alone.

I could go out to the off-licence and buy a nice bottle of sherry or port for us to share. I'll bet she likes sherry and port.

After I've eaten the pie, I go up to my room to wait for Welkin to leave. I finish hanging my clothes in the cupboard and tidy my toolkit. When everything's in order, I put the kit back under my bed, but leave it sticking out a bit, like I always leave it, with the handle facing out, ready for me to pick up in the morning.

It's half-seven when I've finished doing these things.

I should've got a newspaper. I don't know what to do to kill time indoors. I've never been good at it, have always been bad at doing nothing, even worse at waiting.

I lie on the bed a while and look up. I keep on looking even though there's nothing to see but a freshly painted white ceiling.

It's eight o'clock.

Welkin's still in the house and the pipes in the wall are squealing.

I go out.

The bathroom door's wide open.

He's not here, but the hot tap's running. The bath's near full and the air's full of steam. He's got it working and I can't.

I turn off the tap and go back down the hall to my room and sit on the bed and do nothing but listen to the pipes clicking and groaning.

Welkin's door opens and closes.

I go back out, pa.s.s his room, down the hall to the bathroom.

He's leaning against the sink and he's got the bath plug in one hand, the other hand down the front of his pyjama bottoms.

He takes his hand out.

'h.e.l.lo, Par-trick,' he says. 'How go things?'

He's waiting for the bath to empty.

'h.e.l.lo,' I say. 'Things go well.'

I've made my voice posher like his.

He takes a clean towel from the linen closet and spreads it across the tiled floor and stands his dirty feet on it.

'Why didn't you take that bath? I say.

'The water went a bit cold. I like it nice and hot.'

I say nothing.

'Well, then,' he says. 'I'll see you tomorrow. I've got a date.'

'Yeah?'

'She's about six foot tall and she's got the best pair of pins I've ever seen and the most gorgeous olive skin. A Spaniard, I think. We're going to a flashy restaurant.'

Georgia?

I've got short of breath, like I've been running.

'But what about the girl outside? The one I saw you with earlier.'

He laughs. 'She had to go back to school. She's a bad girl and she's got detention.'

'What kind of hair does she have? The girl you're seeing tonight?'

'Who cares what colour hair she's got? She's tall as an Amazon and she's got great pins.'

'Right.'

He pa.s.ses the bath plug from one hand to the other.

'But I must admit,' he says. 'I usually prefer the shorter ones. Nice and portable.'

'Right.'

He throws the bath plug at me.

I catch it neat.

'Good catch,' he says.

I throw it back.

He catches it neat.

I leave.

On the way back down the hall, I stop to look inside Welkin's room. It's bigger than mine and he's got two single beds, pushed together but made separately.

At the end of one of the beds he's got a white screen like doctors have in surgeries, made of a thin and papery material.

I go back to the bathroom.

'Have you got anything to drink?' I say.

'Sure, my friend. In my bar fridge. Help yourself.'

My friend.

'Right,' I say. 'Thanks.'

'And I've a few bottles of the hard stuff in the cupboard under the sink. We'll settle the bill later.'

He's got a half-dozen bottles of beer in his fridge, a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates. In the cupboard, three bottles of whisky and two of gin.

I take two bottles of beer and the champagne to my room and put the champagne in the sink after I've filled it with cold water, then bring the beer down to the sitting room.

I take a copy of yesterday's newspaper from the magazine rack, but I can't concentrate. My legs are hot and restless. I change to the armchair by the window, but all I can manage is a short article about a snooker tournament. John Pulman's won again.

I finish the first beer fast and it's doing a good job of getting rid of the pains in my neck and I'm starting to feel better about the night.

The phone in the hallway rings.

Welkin runs down the stairs and answers it.

I've got the door closed and can't hear what he says.

He hangs up, comes into the sitting room.

'Oh,' he says. 'I was going to turn on the TV.'

Bridget's coming down the hall and neither of us speaks while we wait for her.

She comes in, but she doesn't look at me, only looks at him. She's got her hair out loose and she's got red lipstick on.

She speaks to Welkin. 'I thought you were going out on a date, love?'

'She just cancelled,' he says. 'And she fed me a rotten lie about a sick cousin.'

'Maybe it wasn't a lie,' she says. 'It's the second time she's cancelled.'

'Were you keen on her?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'Ah, love,' she says. 'What a shame. And you were looking forward to going to that lovely new restaurant.'

Welkin pouts.

'I won't cry,' he says, 'unless you tell me there're plenty more fish in the sea.'

'Well, there are.'

'I don't want fish.'

'Poor dejected monkey,' she says.

Welkin laughs, then stands, goes to her.

'Want to hug a monkey?' he says.

She thinks on it.

'A poor dejected monkey?'

They go ahead and embrace, and me sitting right here.

Bridget's got her back to me and Welkin's facing me and he's got his eyes open with a hard stare and, when he pulls her in tight, he's looking right into my eyes, one hand high on her back, one down the bottom of her spine.

'Mmmm,' he says.

He takes hold of her hair like it's a piece of rope.

'Mmmm,' he says. 'You're a lovely one for hugging.'

'Okay,' she says. 'That's enough.'