Sleepyhead

PART TWO

Not spoken to Anne for a couple of days. Not really spoken, I mean. Well, let's get this straight. Perhaps I'm making these conversations sound like bouts of non-stop banter, full of juicy gossip and cracking gags. Let's not be stupid. Basically she spills her guts and I just blink occasionally. Don't get me wrong, they're fucking dynamite blinks, but I don't think I'm chat-show material just yet.

She's probably spending every free moment she's got getting it from her tame copper and his trusty truncheon. There are so many jokes I could make about taking down her particulars and policeman's helmets but I am far too classy.

'Tits first, I'm not a slag: That's me.

My head is full of corny jokes but, come on, what else have I got to do? I've got shitloads of time on my hands and I'm hardly up to my eyeballs, am I?

I can't even kill myself.

I hope she hasn't lost faith in me. Anne, I mean. I'm not exactly sending the doctors scurrying about with talk of medical miracles. I know that. There's days when I feel so together it's just like I've got pins and needles or something, and as soon as they wear off l can get up and get dressed and go and call Tim. And there's other days.

I used to do this thing years ago when I'd lie in bed and try really hard to think of a new colour. One that didn't exist. Or a completely new sound that you've never heard before. I think I read about it in some wanky women's magazine thing about inner calm or some such crap. It's really weird. You start to get dizzy after a while and then feel a bit stoned. I feel like that quite a lot now. Or sometimes I'd lie on my back and stare for ages at the ceiling and try to convince myself that it was the floor. If you concentrate really hard you can actually do it and you start holding on to the sides of the bed in case you fall. It's like that in here, only all the time. And I can't hold on to the side of the fucking bed, can I?

I'm falling…