‘You are not my wife’s conscience so leave the child alone.’ He held up a pointed and trembling finger to my face. ‘And don’t forget that.’

  I frowned at him the way you did to scolding parents and teachers when you were young; your frown both as a submission and a sceptical criticism, blinking slightly in case you are struck.

  ‘Me or Aoife have a right to pick Lily up at this moment. To walk out. Not you.’ He repeated with violent emphasis, ‘Not you, Douglas. I won’t be judged that far by you.’

  I was going to bother to say that I wasn’t judging him at all, but I found myself looking at Lou’s naked body. I’d never seen him completely naked before. His slim, girlish body was pale and hairless; he was minutely nippled and he had no belly at all, despite the constant drinking; he was tenderly toned – not muscled. A dark-haired young man with five o’clock shadow, yet utterly hairless all over his body apart from a neat, vibrant pubic gathering; the paleness seemed to make him actively glow in the dark, into which his eyes vanished like a vampire’s – or an angel’s. I found him as physically beautiful as any woman – his body full of erotic variation and novel possibility which I hadn’t even considered in life before. But for the one blemish. My eye was overwhelmed by that scar, from below his neck to above his stomach. Now it was narrower and string-like; it was such a mesmerising destruction upon his perfect beauty. I thought, the scar looked like this angel had grown a mutant third wing which had since been amputated.

  ‘You must have Japanese blood.’

  ‘Japanese?’

  ‘You don’t have any body hair, hardly.’

  ‘Oh, my old father was quite like that, I’m told. Went bloody bald then the drink killed him. Bet I go bald.’

  Perhaps for the sake of speaking but implying some sort of helpless compulsion which excused her, Abby told me, ‘His skin is unbelievably smooth.’

  I nodded and I held out my finger and touched the scar at its very summit, then I slowly drew my finger down and frowned.

  Silently Abby watched from the bed and then blurted out, ‘Are you going to tell Aoife, sausage?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Lou.

  My finger was halfway down his scar and my finger had vibrated from his diaphragm when he’d spoken.

  I took my hand away and looked him in his face. ‘You’re okay now, aren’t you?’

  ‘This?’ he dipped his chin. ‘This can’t open again. It’s healed. I was a broken man and now I’m whole again.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not meant to be drinking, though; was drinking a week after the op.’ He chuckled.

  ‘But your heart is okay? You’re not going to die? You never really tell me or even talk about it. As if I don’t care, Lou, and I do care. Of course I do.’

  He nodded. ‘I was very afraid for a year before the op, when I was ill. I was scared of going to Hell. But look at me. I don’t even have fear of death as an excuse any more.’ He nodded over to Abby in his bed.

  ‘Lou,’ said Abby. ‘Why are you always demeaning women? Well, actually not women. You’re always demeaning me. Or Eeef.’

  ‘Oh fuck off. It’s not the moment for you to get protective about her.’ He turned to Abby as if explaining a movie plot. ‘That’s what I’m saying to him. Before my operation, I’d have slept with you because I was sure I was going to die. Fair enough. Now I know I’ll live but I’ve still gone and done it. It’s bloody inexcusable.’

  Abby shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, I’m very sorry about that.’ She tutted.

  I said, ‘Have you done it before?’

  They didn’t look at me. She stared at him so it was a giveaway.

  Lou said hollowly, ‘That time you and Eeef sent me to Fulham Road to get that money from fucking Hanson. I was round at hers all day.’ He was cold so, reasonably enough, he climbed back into the bed with his knees drawn up and he tugged the covers to his chin. He reached out for his pack and went to remove a cigarette, remembered Lily was in the room then tossed the pack back down by the books again.

  I nodded.

  Abby called to me, ‘Douglas. If you and me’d done it the night of the wedding, sausage, then I wouldn’t have done it with Lou. Would I? You’re not very good at the signals.’

  ‘Oh, I see. My fault, is it, Abby?’

  ‘Frankly? Yes. I’m Catholic. I’m only going to do it so many times before I marry.’

  I shrugged, and spoke in a softer voice. ‘Don’t think I’m judging you both or that I believe for a moment I’m any better than you two. I certainly don’t.’ Academically I asked, ‘You don’t happen to have any booze, do you?’

  Lou nodded encouragingly, and as he did, his arm went down to the floor at the bedside and up it came again with a half-empty bottle of white wine. ‘Good stuff from the off-licence by The Bells. She brought it back with her.’ He flicked his head at Abby. I felt a bit sorry for her.

  ‘Huh,’ she went.

  I had to cross to the bed to take it from his hand, so I loomed above them both as I guess doctors and nurses must have stood over Lou when he was helpless in a hospital bed.

  Lou said, ‘Are you going to tell Aoife?’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’

  ‘Why did you come back, boyo?’

  For a moment I wondered if I should tell him I was in love with his wife. ‘She was uncomfortable with me there. She was very nervous about the interview so I just came back.’

  ‘Bloody hell. And left her in town, dressed like that?’

  I gave him a reprimanding look. ‘What was that about this not being the moment to be protective about her? Christ sake.’ My voice rose in volume and anger. ‘The three of us aren’t worthy of her. Look at us. She’s better off out on the streets of London.’ I swung round and ridiculously gestured at the photo of Aoife, semi-naked on the beach in Dittisham. We all turned to look at the portrait. ‘The harm is being done here.’ Then my voice trailed off. But Lily woke up and immediately began screaming.

  ‘Oh for fuck sake. You and your sermons,’ Lou groaned.

  ‘I’d better get out of here.’ Abby suddenly hurled back the bedcovers, showing me her breasts, then turned and sat on the edge of the bed with her spine visible down the long bare back as she retrieved and put her knickers on. She came off the bed and kneeled, picking amongst her bundled clothing. I walked through to the front room so I wouldn’t have to watch her dressing. I looked out over the view.

  Lou had put on his tracksuit and he carried Lily up the corridor into the room and handed her to me without a word. I took her gently and without the slightest hesitation or objection. She stopped crying in moments as I shoogled her. He soon came back through from the kitchen with a made-up bottle for Lily and she filled her gob with it immediately as I helped her hold it.

  When Abby came up the corridor I called, ‘It’s deemed in the national interest that you give me and Lou a tenner to get drunk on.’

  Without resistance she said, ‘Okay, then.’

  I announced, ‘I’m going to the Co-op.’

  ‘Good.’ He nodded sincerely.

  ‘What will I get us?’

  ‘Demolition juice.’

  I handed the baby back.

  Abby and I descended the stairs of Almayer House again that day. The sound of a screeching, clanking Tube train came through the top lobby and we moved down the steps to the third floor. Mr Linton’s ferrets scrabbled in their hutches. As spring approached you could smell them more.

  We were in the stairway between the second and third floor lobbies when Abby said, ‘I’ll give you your pocket money, sausage.’ We stopped on the stairs between the blank walls and the long-worn brass banister. She was still carrying the make-up folio and she had thrown on some kind of wool-and-mohair poncho with innumerable holes, gaps and flaps on the patterned fabric. She reached into her leather bag, took out her purse and peeled a tenner, which she passed to me with a cynical, bitter expression.

  ‘Fuck you, Abby,’ I said to her face, forcing the money into the pocket of my jeans. She was standing there, each tan boot of Cordovan leather placed on a different step. She backed herself against the concrete wall first. The make-up pack landed on one step with a dramatic slap. I put both my hands in under her poncho and placed them on her shoulders; she was so slim it was like holding two billiard balls in each hand. I put pressure against her body so she flattened and I kissed her on the lips, turning my head to the side and forcing my tongue far into her mouth. She put both her hands down and rubbed my cock through the annoyingly thick denim of my jeans.

  I knew what my tongue was searching for in Abby’s mouth: the tobacco taste of Llewellyn. I was weary of being taken by surprise by my own self.

  I moved my hands down and round her breasts in a manner that seemed obvious and conventional but then at the front of her jeans I pulled the zip down. It was almost impossible to get my hand in far as the jeans were so tight on her and we were standing, suspended there on a ridiculous stairway high above the earth, writhing at each other, precarious on precast concrete, all imprisoned in tight denim, cool airs blowing upwards around us with hostility.

  I took a step back and drew her forward off the wall by the waistband of her jeans. She let her hands drop to her sides, away from my crotch. I bit my lip in concentration and used both hands to snap open the top button and fold the waistband of her jeans apart. I put my hand in behind her purple underwear and straight on down between her legs. She stood there baring her teeth like she was leaning back on a water ski, eyeing me with resentment but clucking at the back of her throat two or three times as she tipped her lovely freckled chin up. We both stood very still, the only movement was my hand. This went on for long minutes until a door closed down on the first floor with an echoing bang. I pulled my hand out, leaving her there. I said, ‘Eeef could come back.’

  She nodded, still looking at me.

  Then I added, ‘Lou is watching from the window, waiting for us to come out together.’

  ‘I know,’ she hissed.

  ‘He can time how long it takes to get down these steps.’

  ‘I know. So what? Make me go to my orgasm thing.’

  I licked my two main fingers while looking her in the eye, then I walked on down the stairs ahead.

  I waited at the bottom by the bin huts until she sauntered out too. We walked side by side on the pavement, up Bollo Lane.

  ‘Thanks for the money.’

  ‘Thanks for not making me come. You oaf.’

  ‘Aoife could be back any minute.’

  ‘We’d have heard her boots coming up the stairs, you Scotch chicken. Anyway, so what? God. You boys.’

  ‘How’d we explain you being back at the flat?’

  ‘Silly sausage, we’ll tell her the truth. You’re just crazy about me and you were taking me back there.’

  ‘Did she tell you about our night at that drunk man’s house?’

  ‘No?’ she said, quick and genuinely curious.

  ‘Another time. Have to go this way to the Co-op.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘See you.’

  ‘Douglas? Don’t tell her. Please.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You promise, sausage?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Say it.’

  ‘I promise, Abby. People act on their passions, do daft things. That’s okay. That can be forgiven. But passions are different from trying to fuck someone up deliberately.’

  ‘I’m not trying to hurt her. I just got curious and put my toe in the water a bit. Have you never done that?’

  A key went in the lock as Aoife came home before two o’clock that afternoon. Me and Lou had been drinking two bottles of Blue Nun, and a bottle of Black Tower in the front room. We were so drunk I had changed Lily’s nappy when it was clean and then Lou had also, twenty minutes after.

  Aoife wasn’t fully in the door when Lou nervily started yelling, ‘How was it?’

  In a voice soaked in normality, she replied, ‘It was good. They were nice.’

  ‘They took you on?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, putting her head in the door. She had the wool coat draped over her arm.

  ‘Course they did.’ Lou nodded.

  I was sat defensively inside Lily’s penned-off play area, my back against the wall on a dining chair. I was looking at her but Aoife moved the benediction of an equal smile over us all, then stepped to Lily, leaned in, lifted her and kissed her, using the same smile.

  And which of us deserves that smile, I thought.

  ‘You’ll bollix your back one day doing that, love,’ Lou grumbled.

  ‘Where’d you get the money for that?’ she said softly and nodded at the empty bottle of Blue Nun on its side.

  ‘Cunningham found a bloody tenner. Never mind, dear one, you’ll be bringing the bacon home soon enough, from la-la land.’

  She tutted and handed Lily to Lou. ‘Don’t drop her.’

  Aoife went through to the bedroom. Lou and I looked at each other, plunged in misunderstanding. Aoife came back in just a few minutes, her make-up and hair the same but in a tracksuit. She sat down and watched the television. Sometimes she stood to go and play with Lily. I couldn’t detect any change in her and I found it erotic that she’d let me touch her leg. I was fearful I would make the mistake of thinking it granted me some huge future permission.

  When she phoned Abby, Aoife spoke in front of Lou and me as we watched the telly with the sound considerately turned down a bit. Aoife described the whole interview to her best friend in detail and both Lou and I could distinguish Abby’s tinny, normal voice far in, through the earpiece.

  That night I lay straight out on my camp bed; unknown to each other they both performed a theatre for my benefit – the mattress sighed and even the bed head thumped repeatedly before a fist suddenly grasped and secured it, or maybe Aoife folded both of her hands up against it, elbows sharply pointed forward. I imagined Llewellyn’s glabrous being, palely repositioning itself around her in symphonic variations of one grander ecstasy, the little silver crucifix wetted between her breasts, his fringe touching on the mole of her neck as she bent forward.

  19

  Lily was sleeping down in their bedroom and there was nothing to drink except tea. Aoife was on the sofa next to Lou, swinging those legs about as I watched them cross and then re-cross like purposeful weaponry. She was talking about Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World and how they had to read these books in school.

  I claimed, ‘They teach dystopias at school so you refuse to imagine a better society.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Lou nodded. ‘Animal Farm too. We had to do that.’

  Aoife said, ‘I remembered being frightened by the drug in Brave New World: Soma.’ She sighed and suspended her foot way up in the air and left it there, surveying her left leg, then it was lowered. Aoife said, ‘See the drug things down in the basement. Do you think we should try them? There’s no way they are going to be Soma, are they?’ She humped up a swampy, singular giggle, like a hiccup, and she covered her mouth with straightened fingers. She looked excitedly at Lou as if he gave final permission on all things.

  I said, ‘I don’t think you should do that.’

  ‘How come?’ Lou turned to me, touchy to be refused anything.

  I shrugged, ‘Different personalities react in different ways to LSD. For some it’s benign, for others, no. A baptism of fire. Till you’ve taken it, you don’t know how you’ll react and by then there’s no going back.’

  ‘And you’ve taken it, you fiend. I suppose you had a Presbyterian revelation?’ Lou chuckled.

  ‘Yes, but it’s deeply unpredictable. Depends on personality.’

  Aoife suddenly demanded. ‘How do you think my personality would react?’

  ‘Can’t predict. There’s no set rules. You’re sweet and a calm personality so you should have a benign experience.’

  ‘What is benign?’

  ‘Good,’ Lou snapped at her.

  Aoife twisted her lips. ‘Is it like when you swallow the worm in that tequila drink thing? Cause that didn’t affect me. That was just disgusting.’ She turned to look at my eyes. ‘He made me do that on our second date in a Mexican bar in Covent Garden. How did you find such a place, Lou? And he was talking with them all in Mexican.’

  ‘Spanish.’

  ‘And he made me drink it. Didn’t know it was a worm. They said it would make you hallucinate but all it made me feel was so repugnant. I sobered up in a minute. I thought it was clung on inside of me.’

  Lou changed voice to an intimate register he would only use on her when I wasn’t present. I recognised that tone from sudden murmurs through walls, from beyond doors which stood fractionally ajar. ‘Come on. We’re bored stiff. Me and you do it, Cunningham will keep an eye on us and Lily. There’s no booze to drink so I shall turn to drugs in that grand tradition.’

  I looked at Lou as if something had changed in him; as if he was already restlessly tugging at all the ropes which held him together.

  He went off down to the cellar. I told him to check on Lamborghini while he was there. When he came back up it was two tabs of Superman LSD – like I had bought at Glastonbury that time.

  ‘But it has a little man on it,’ said Aoife.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, how cute.’

  ‘Will we go for it?’ Lou looked at her.

  As I placed a tab of LSD in each of their palms I felt a guilty relish at the psychic turbulence it would bestow on them both. I imagined it as an electrical force shooting to the ends of their limbs. I said to them, ‘You won’t feel a thing for maybe an hour. Just try to remember this drug can in no way harm you physically; you cannot overdose; everything you’ll experience is psychological. If you both stay around me you can come to no harm.’

  They placed the small squares of card on their tongues.

  I said, ‘The body and blood of Christ.’

  Both of their eyes only flickered, their voices briefly and helplessly muted. They swallowed the drug down, sharing from the same sloshing glass of milk.

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘Amen. Bloody hell, boyo.’