There was really no point in trying to explain to her the difference between, on the one hand, extra extra virgin Tuscan cold-pressed prime olive oil and, on the other hand, vegetable oil that had been recycled about ten times and had little bits of blackened, charred french fries floating in it.

I might be unnecessarily pretentious when it comes to food, but goddammit, you can go too far in the other direction too.

"Right!" I said. "For my next trick, I will, without the aid of a safety net, grate the Parmesan cheese."

I took the hunk of cheese out of the fridge, where it was obviously terrorizing everything else in it. The packets of sliced plastic cheese were shrinking against the back wall of the fridge, frightened out of their wits by this exotic newcomer.

But grating the cheese was easier said than done.

I searched high and low but there wasn't a grater to be found.

Eventually I located a grater of sorts, though it barely belonged to the genus "grater." It wasn't even one of the round ones that at least stand by themselves, never mind an electric one. It was just a little piece of metal with ridges on it. And you would have to be a more dexterous person than I am to be able to maneuver the lump of cheese and grate it successfully on this contraption. My hands kept slipping and I would grate a goodly portion of my knuckles along with the cheese.

Mum tut-tutted as I blasphemed and then she started sniffing in alarm as the characteristic aroma of the Parmesan cheese filled the kitchen.

A commotion broke out in the hall. The sounds of voices and laughter.

Mum glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall.

She did this although the clock hands had stood at ten to four since the Christmas before last.

"They're home," she said.

Dad brought Helen home from college most evenings, so they arrived together. He did this in spite of the fact that he had to drive about ten miles out of his way to get her.

Helen burst through the door, looking absolutely beautiful. In fact, even more beautiful than usual, if that could be possible. There was a kind of radiance around her. Even though 99.she was just wearing jeans and a top she looked exquisite. Her hair long and silky, her skin translucent, her eyes glowing, her perfect little mouth in a charming smile.

"Hi everyone, We're home," she announced. "Hey, what's that awful smell? Phew! Did someone get sick?"

We could hear the sounds of people talking in the hall. Dad was talking to someone with a male voice.

We obviously had company.

My heart did an involuntary little somersault. I still hadn't stopped hoping for James to arrive unexpectedly on the door-step. However, the male voice was more likely to belong to one of Helen's friends.

Although it would be more accurate to call them Helen's slaves.

Even though I knew I was being silly to think that James might just appear out of the blue I still felt a pang of disappointment pierce me when Helen said, "Oh, I brought a friend home with me. Dad's showing him where to hang his coat up."

Then she looked at me. "Hey!" she shouted. "What are you doing wearing my clothes? Get them off this minute."

"Sorry, Helen," I stammered. "But I had nothing else. I'll buy new ones and you can borrow them all."

"You can be bloody sure of it," she said darkly.

And she left it at that.

Thank God! She must be in a good mood.

"Who's this lad that you've brought?" asked Mum.

"His name is Adam," said Helen. "And you have to be nice to him because he's going to write my essay."

Mum and I started to assemble our facial features into expressions that were both welcoming and compassionate. Another poor boy had fallen for Helen. Like a lamb to the slaughter, we were both thinking.

I went back to grating the cheese and my knuckles.

"That's Mum," said Helen's voice, obviously introducing the doomed Adam to Mum.

"And that's Claire over there," continued Helen. "You know, the one I told you about. The one with the baby."

Thank you, Helen, you little cow, I thought, for making my life sound like some kind of dreary inner-city kitchen sink drama.

100.I turned around, ready to smile kindly at Adam, and extended my hand, reeking of Parmesan and with its pulped knuckles.

And got a bit of a shock.

This wasn't one of Helen's usual callow youths.

This one really was a man.

A young one, I grant you.

But undeniably a man.

Over six feet tall and very sexy.

Long legs. Muscley arms. Blue eyes. Square jaw. Big smile.

If we had a testosteroneometer hanging on the kitchen wall the mercury level would have gone through the ceiling. And I was just in time to see him giving Mum the firmest hand-shake of her life.

He then turned his attention to me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mum shaking her crushed hand and surreptitiously inspecting her wedding ring to see if it had been bent out of shape.

"Er, hello," I said, feeling flustered and confused. It was a long time since I had encountered such a strong concentration of manliness.

"Nice to meet you." He smiled at me, holding my mutilated hand gently in his huge one.

My God, I thought, feeling a bit overwhelmed, you know you're getting old when you start noticing how young-looking all the gorgeous men are.

I could hear Helen's voice, but it seemed to be coming from a long way away. It was drowned out by the roaring sound of all the blood in my body rushing to my face to make me blush in a way that I haven't done since I was fifteen.

"Seriously," she was saying. "There's an awful smell of puke."

"That's not puke," Mum was saying knowledgeably. "That's the smell of the Palmerstown cheese. You know, for the presto sauce."101.

ten.

Dinner was a bit of an odd affair because we were all slightly taken aback by Adam.

Helen has always had hordes of men (although it's more accurate to call them boys) in love with her. A day didn't pass that the phone didn't ring with some stammering youth on the other end of the line.

And the house had a steady stream of male visitors. Their invitation to tea usually coinciding with the breakdown of Helen's stereo, or Helen's desire to have her room painted, or, as in this case, Helen's needing to have an essay written and Helen's having no intention of doing it herself.

And the promised tea rarely materialized on completion of the task.

But none of them had been like Adam.

They were usually a bit more like Jim, one of Helen's earliest conquests.

Poor Jim, to give him his full title.

He was lanky and skinny and went around wearing black all the time and all year round. Even at the height of summer, he wore a long black overcoat that was miles too big for him and big black boots. He dyed his plentiful hair black and never looked me in the eye. He didn't talk much, and when he did it was usually to discuss suicide methods. Or to talk about singers from obscure bands who had killed themselves. He once said "Hello" to me and gave me a kind of sweet little 102 smile, and I thought that I had misjudged him but I later discovered that he was blind drunk.

He always carried a decrepit copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or or American Psycho American Psycho in the torn lining of his black overcoat. He wanted to be in a band and kill himself when he was eighteen. in the torn lining of his black overcoat. He wanted to be in a band and kill himself when he was eighteen.

Helen absolutely hated him.

He was always calling her, and whenever he did, Mum would speak to him on the phone and lie through her teeth as to Helen's whereabouts. She would say something like "No, Helen's missing, presumed drunk" while Helen stood in the hall looking at Mum, waving her arms frantically and mouthing "Tell him I'm dead."

After Mum had hung up the phone she would shout at Helen.

"I'm not doing any more lying for you. I'm putting my immortal soul in peril. And why won't you talk to him? He's a nice lad."

"He's an asshole," Helen would reply.

"He's just shy," Mum would say in his defense.

"He's an asshole," Helen would maintain, louder this time.

On occasions like Valentine's Day or Helen's birthday, at least one bunch of black roses would be delivered from him. Handmade cards would come in the post with very graphic pictures of shattered hearts and blood, or a single red teardrop. Terribly symbolic.

There was a time when you couldn't go into our kitchen without finding Jim in there, still wearing the long black coat and talking to Mum. Mum had become his best friend. His only ally in his quest to win Helen's heart.

Most of Helen's would-be boyfriends spent far more time with Mum than they ever did with Helen.

Dad hated him. Possibly even more than Helen did.

I think he felt disappointed by Jim.

Because Dad was so starved of male company he had hoped to do a bit of male bonding with him, what with Jim being a more or less permanent fixture in the kitchen along with the oven and the refrigerator.

One evening he came home from work, and as usual found Jim sitting in the kitchen with Mum. Helen went straight to 103 her room as soon as she heard that Jim was on the premises. Dad sat at the kitchen table attempting to talk to Jim.

He said, "Did you see the game?"

Jim just looked at Dad completely blankly.

So that was the end of that: now Dad also thought Jim was a dead loss.

He said that Jim should put his money where his mouth was and stop just talking about killing himself and actually get on with it.

Mum said that Jim was really a little pet, once you got to know him. And that it was a sin to encourage someone to take his own life.

It felt as if Jim was always around. Whenever I came home from London he seemed to be drooped over the kitchen table, with a little black cloud hovering over his head. But I always said "Hello, Jim" to him. At least I was polite.

Even if he totally ignored me.

Then I discovered why he had been ignoring me.

On my second day home from London the doorbell rang and I went and answered it and found a haircut wearing a big long black coat standing on the front doorstep. I wasn't sure whether he had come to see Helen or Mum, but Mum was out so I called Helen.

"Helen, Jim's at the door."

Helen came down the stairs looking puzzled.

"Oh hello, Conor," she said to the gloomy youth on the step.

She turned to me.

"Where's Jim?" she asked.

"Well...here...isn't he?" I said, a bit startled, indicating the boy in the long black overcoat.

"That's not Jim, that's Conor. I haven't seen Jim in about a year. I suppose you'd better come in Conor," she said ungraciously. "Oh, and by the way, that's my sister Claire. She's home from London because her husband left her."

"Nice one, Claire," she hissed angrily at me as she herded Conor into the sitting room. "I've been avoiding him for the last month."

There is no doubt but that she will burn in Hell.

At least that explained why Jim ignored me every time I said "Hello, Jim."104.

Because it wasn't Jim at all.

But it looked just like him.

Then every time I saw Jim, I would say "Hello, Conor."

Apparently I was still wrong.

His name was William.

But he was the absolute image of Jim and Conor.