Not that a little lunacy would have been noticeable in such a heady atmosphere. Norman Kellaway's ambition for his daughter's wedding day seemed to have been upped a notch for every inch her waist-line had swelled. The ceremony had been grand, but necessarily decorous; the reception, however, was a triumph of excess over good taste. The hall had been decorated from floor to ceiling with streamers and paper lanterns; ropes of coloured lights were looped along the walk and in the trees out at the back of the hall. The bar was supplied with beer, spirits and liqueurs sufficient to intoxicate a modest army; food was in endless supply, carried to the tables of those content to sit and gorge by a dozen harassed waitresses.

Even with ail the doors and windows open, the hall soon grew hot as Hell, the heat in part generated by those guests who'd thrown inhibitions to the wind and were dancing to a deafening mixture of country and western and rock and roll, the latter bringing comical exhibitions from several of the older guests, applauded ferociously from all sides.

At the edge of the crowd, lingering by the door that led out behind the hall, the groom's younger brother, accompanied by two young bucks who'd both at some point courted Teresa, and a fourth youth whose presence was only countenanced because he had cigarettes, stood in a litter of beer cans and surveyed the talent available. The pickings were poor; those few girls who were of beddable age were either spoken far or judged so unattractive that any approach would have been evidence of desperation.

Only Elroy, Teresa's penultimate boy-friend, could lay claim to any hint of success tonight. Since the ceremony he'd had his eyes on one of the bridesmaids, whose name he'd yet to establish but who'd twice chanced to be at the bar while he was there: a significant statistic. Now he leaned against the door and watched the object of his lust across the smoky room.

The lights had been dimmed inside the hall, and the mood at the dancing had changed from cavortings to slow, smoochy embraces.

This was the moment, he judged, to make his approach. He'd invite the woman onto the dance floor, then, after a song or two, take her out for a breath of fresh air. Several couples had already retired to the privacy of the bushes, there to do what weddings were made to celebrate. Beneath the pretty vows and the flowers they were here in the name of fucking, and he was damned if he was going to be left out.

He'd caught sight of Cal chatting with the girl earlier on; it'd be simplest, he thought, to have Cal to introduce them. He pressed through the crush of dancers to where Cal was standing.

'How you doin', mate?' Cal looked at Elroy blearily. The face before him was flushed with alcohol.

'I'm doing fine.'

'Didn't mach like the ceremony,' Elroy said. 'I think I'm allergic to churches. Do us a favour, will yer?'

'What is it?'

'I'm in lust.'

'Who with?'

'One of the bridesmaids. She was over by the bar. Long blonde hair.'

'You mean Loretta?'

Cal said. 'She's a cousin of Geraldines.'

It was odd, but the drunker he got the more of his lessons on the' Kellaway family he remembered.

'She's a fucking cracker. And she's been giving me the eye all night.'

'Is that right?'

'I was wondering . . . will you introduce us?'

Cal looked at Elroy's panting eyes. 'I think you're too late; he said.

'Why?'

'She went outside-.'

Before Elroy could voice his irritation Cal felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned. It was Norman, the father of the bride.

'A word, Cal, m'boy?' he said, glancing across at Elroy.

'I'll catch you later,' Elroy said, retreating in case Norman nabbed him too.

'Are you enjoying yourself?'

'Yes, Mr Kellaway.'

'Less of this Mr Kellaway shit, Cal. Call me Norm.'

He poured a generous measure of whisky from the bottle he was armed with into Cal's lager glass, then drew on his cigar.

'So tell me.' he said. 'How long before I have to give my other little girl away? Don't think I'm pushing, son. I'm not. But one bride in labour's enough.'

Cal swilled the whisky around the bottom of his glass hoping for a prompt from the poet. None came.

'I've got a job for you at the works; Norm went on, unfazed by Cal's silence. 'I want to see my baby live in a little style. You're a good lad. Cal. Her mother likes you a lot, and I always trust her judgment. So you think on it . . .'

He transferred the bottle to his rigor-wielding right hand, and reached into his jacket.

The gesture, innocent as it was, brought a drill of recognition. For an instant Cal was back in Rue Street, gazing into the enchanted cave of Shadwell's jacket. But Kellaway had simpler gifts to give.

'Have a cigar,' he said, and went off to his duties as host.

2.

Elroy picked up another can of beer from the bar then head out into the garden in search of Loretta. The air was considerably cooler than inside, and as soon as it hit him he felt sick as a flea in a leper's jock strap. He tossed the beer aside and beaded towards the bottom of the garden, where he could throw up unseen.

The coloured lights stopped a few yards from the hall, where the cable petered out. Beyond was a welcoming darkness, which he plunged into. He was used to vomiting; a week in which his stomach didn't rebel through some excess or other was poorly spent. He efficiently discharged the contents of his belly over a rhododendron bush, then turned his thoughts bade to the lovely Loretta.

A little way from where he stood the leaf-shadow, or something concealed by it, moved. He peered more closely, trying to interpret what he saw, but there was not sufficient illumination to make settee of it. He heard a sigh however: a woman's. There was a couple in the shelter of the tree, he decided, doing what darkness had been created to conceal. Perhaps it was Loretta, her skirt up and her knickers down. It would break his heart, but he had to see.

Very quietly, he advanced a couple of paces.

On his second step, something grazed his face. He stifled a cry of shock and put his hand up to find strands of matter in the air around his head. For some reason he thought of phlegm - cold, wet threads of phlegm - except that they moved against his flesh as if they were a part of something larger.

A heart-beat later this notion was confirmed, as the matter which was adhering now to his legs and body, pulled him off his feet. He would have let out a cry, but the filthy stuff had already sealed up his lips. And then, as if this were not preposterous enough, he felt a chill around his lower bell. His trousers were being torn open. He started to fight like fury, but resistance was fruitless. There was a weight bearing dower on his abdomen and hips, and he felt his manhood drawn up into a channel that might have been flesh, but that it was corpse cold.

Tears of panic blurred his vision, but he could see that the thing astride him had a human form. He could see no face, but the breasts were heavy the way he liked them; and though this was far from the scene he'd pictured with Loretta his lust ignited, his little length responding to the chilly ministrations of the body that contained him.

He raised his head slightly, wanting a better view of those sumptuous breasts, but in doing so he caught sight of another figure behind the first. She was the antithesis of the ripe, gleaming woman that rode him: a stained, wretched thief, with gaping holes in her body where coat and mouth and navel should have been, so large the stars showed through from the other side.

He started to fight afresh, but his thrashings did nothing to slow his mistress' rhythm. Despite his panic he felt the familiar tremor in his balls.

In his head half a dozen pictures collided, becoming one monstrous beauty: the ragged woman, a necklace of coloured lights hanging between her sister's breasts, raised her skirts, and the mouth between her legs was Loretta's mouth, flicking its tongue. He could not resist this pornography: his prick spat its load. He howled against the seal at his mouth. The pleasure was short, the pain that followed, agonizing.

'What's your fuckin' problem?' somebody said in the darkness. It took him a moment to realize that his cry for help had been heard. He opened his eyes. The silhouettes of the trees loomed over him, but that was all.

He started to shout again: not caring that he was lying in the muck with his trousers around his ankles. Just needing to know he was still in the land of the living.