Walking on Glass

ROSEBERY AVENUE

On the bridge which carried Rosebery Avenue over Warner Street, there was a smell of paint. Black dust lay on the pavement, collecting in the spaces of the bridge's primed balustrade. Graham hoped they would paint the bridge tastefully. He looked into the cradle the painters were using to paint the outside of the balustrade from, and saw an old radio so spotted with paint it could have been an exhibit. The man in the cradle was whistling to himself and coiling a length of rope.

Graham felt oddly satisfied at seeing life go on around him like this; he felt almost smug at walking past people and them not giving him a second glance, at least not now he'd got rid of Slater. He was like some vital cell in the bloodstream of the city; tiny but important; a message bearer, a point of growth and change.

She would be waiting for him now, getting ready, perhaps only now getting dressed, or still in the bath or shower. Now at last it was coming out right, the bad times were over, Stock deposed. It was his time, his turn.

He wondered what she thought of him now. When they had first met she thought he was funny, he guessed, though kind too. Now she had had time to get to know him better, see other sides of him as well. Perhaps she loved him. He thought he loved her. He could imagine them living together, even marrying. He would make a living as an artist - probably just a commercial artist at first, until his name became known - and she could do... whatever she wanted.

On his left were more buildings; light industrial and office premises topped by flats. Outside an open door of something called the Wells Workshop, at the kerb, stood a large American sports car. It was a Trans Am. Graham frowned as he passed it, partly at its loud white-lettered tyres and obtrusive styling, but partly because it reminded him of something; something to do with Slater, with Sara even.

Then he remembered; appropriately enough it had been at the party when Slater had first introduced Graham and Sara to each other. The coincidence amused Graham.

A smell of new shoes from another workshop wafted around him as he looked up at the old, stopped clock jutting out, two-faced, over the pavement from the first floor of the workshop, hands frozen at twenty-past-two (he glanced at his watch; it was actually 3:49). Graham smiled to himself, and recalled that night, another of Slater's never-to-be-written plots.

"Right. It's Science Fiction. There's this -"

"Oh no," Graham said. They were standing by the mantelpiece in the front room of Martin Hunter's large house in Gospel Oak. Mr Hunter - Martin, to his students - was one of the lecturers at the Art School, and was giving his customary late Christmas party, in January. Slater had been invited, and had persuaded Graham he would not be gate-crashing if he came along too. They took along a box of wine they bought between them, and were drinking the red vin de table from plastic half-pint glasses. Apart from some salty garlic bread, neither of them had had anything to eat for some hours beforehand so, despite the fact that the party was hardly properly underway yet, they were both feeling the effects of the drink.

Music played loudly from the dining-room next door, where the carpets had been rolled back so that people could dance. Most of the people in the front room were sitting on couches or beanbags. Martin Hunter's own paintings, large gaudy canvases which looked like close-ups of minestrone soup seen under the effects of a powerful hallucinatory drug, adorned the walls.

"Just listen. There's this lot of weird aliens called the Sproati and they decide to invade Earth -"

"I think this has been done before," Graham said, taking a drink. Slater looked exasperated.

"You won't let me finish," he said. He wore a pair of grey shoes, baggy white trousers and what appeared to be a red tuxedo. He took a drink and went on, "Okay, so they're invading Earth, but they're doing it as a tax dodge so that -"

"A tax dodge?" Graham said, leaning forward and looking Slater in the eye. Slater giggled.

"Yeah, they have to spend so much of the galactic year out of the Milky Way or the galactic tax federation hammers them for gigacredits, but instead of paying for expensive inter-galactic travel they camp out on some backwater planet still in the galaxy and just hide, see? But: something goes wrong. They're coming in on a starship disguised as a Boeing 747 so that the locals won't suspect until it's too late, but when they land at London Heathrow their baggage gets lost; all their heavy weaponry ends up in Miami and gets mixed up with the luggage of some psychiatrists attending an international symposium on anal-fixation after death, and: Freudians take over the world with the captured high-tech, arms. The Sproati all get interned by the British immigration authorities; thanks to a false reading on a spectograph when they were planning the operation they've all taken too many tannin pills and they're almost black. Usually they're light blue. One -"

"What do they look like?" Graham interrupted. Slater looked confused, then waved his free hand dismissively.

"I don't know. Vaguely humanoid, I suppose. Anyway, one of them escapes and sets up home in an abandoned but working car-wash in Hayes, Middlesex, while the rest die of starvation in the internment cells."

"Doesn't sound like there's all that many of them, for an entire species..." Graham grumbled into his glass.

"They're very shy," Slater hissed. "Now will you be quiet? This one Sproati - we'll call him Gloppo -"

A couple of girls entered the room from the hall. Graham recognised them from the Art School; they were talking and laughing. He watched to see if they would look over at him and Slater, but they didn't. He had on his new black cords for the first time (they were a Christmas present from his mother. He'd told her what to get; she'd been going to get him flared jeans!), and he thought he looked pretty good in his snow-white shirt, black jacket, white trainers and lightly blonded dark hair.

"Look, stop looking at those females and pay attention; you are following all this, aren't you?" Slater put his face towards Graham's, leaning forward along the mantelpiece.

Graham shrugged, looked at the red wine in his glass, and said, 1 don't know about following, feels more like I'm being pursued."

"Oh, tres droll." Slater smiled artificially. "Anyway, Gloppo installs a brain in the car-wash so he can have sex with it- all those brushes and rollers and foam and stuff, you know? - while in Florida the Freudians are tightening their grip; they ban all phallic symbols including gear sticks, Jumbo jets, submarines and rockets and missiles. AH motorbikes have to be ridden side-saddle and bondage is right out: rolled umbrellas, stretch jeans and fishnet stockings are banned, on pain of having a Sony Walkman taped permanently to your skull playing a looped tape of Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits... except for Barry Manilow fans, who get John Cage instead."

"What about," Graham said, pointing one finger at Slater, who pursed his lips and tapped his foot impatiently on the fire-surround, "those people who like Barry Manilow and John Cage?"

Slater rolled his eyes. "This is Science Fiction, Graham, not Monty Python. Anyway, Gloppo discovers the car-wash has been unfaithful in his absence with a metallic-blue Trans Am -"

"I thought that was an airline."

"It's a car. Now be quiet. Gloppo finds the Trans Am has been screwing the car-wash -"

"And the car-wash's been riding the car," Graham sniggered.

"Shut up. Gloppo disconnects the low-fidelity car-wash. Now then..."

There were more people in the room now; groups of men and women; most of them young, about his age, stood and talked and drank and laughed. The two girls he had noticed earlier were standing talking to some other girls. Graham hoped they all realised that just because he was standing talking to Slater, that didn't mean he was gay too. He looked back, nodding appreciatively, as Slater, talking quickly, waving his arms about, eyes glittering, seemed to approach the end of the story.

"... shit-scared because he's about to be blasted into particles even smaller and more radioactive than Ronald Reagan's brain, goes to the loo; by sheer coincidence the crap he does solidifies in the intense cold of outer space and the pursuing spaceship runs into it at about half the speed of light and is totally destroyed.

"Gloppo and his pal discover the joys of oral sex, the Freudians blow up the world, but that was going to happen anyway, and our two heroes live comparatively happily ever after." Slater grinned widely, took a deep, panting breath, then a drink. "What do you think? Good, isn't it?"

"Well..." Graham said, looking at the ceiling.

"Don't tease, you young blaggard. It's terrific; admit it."

"You've been reading that book," Graham said. "You know; that book by that guy

"Specific as ever, Graham. What an incisive mind; straight for the capillary. I stand in awe."

"You know the one I mean," Graham said, looking down at the blocked-off fireplace and snapping his fingers. That one that was on the telly

"Well, we're narrowing it down," Slater said with a thoughtful nod. He took another drink.

"Earth got blown up in that one too... ah..." Graham kept snapping his fingers. Slater was silent for a second, gazing disdainfully at Graham's snapping fingers, then he said tiredly,

"Graham, either concentrate on searching for the title of the book you're talking about or devote your full energies to practising calling for a waiter; I'm not convinced you possess the RAM for doing both at the same time."

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Universe!" Graham exclaimed.

"Galaxy," Slater corrected dourly.

"Well, it sounds like it."

"Nothing like it. You just don't recognise real talent when you meet it."

"Oh, I don't know..." Graham grinned, looking over at the two Art School girls, who were now sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, talking to each other. Slater slapped his forehead.

Thinking with your gonads again! It's pathetic. Here I am, yours for the asking; talented, handsome, lovable and affectionate, and all you can do is gawk at a couple of brainless broads."

"Not so loud, you idiot," Graham - feeling somewhat drunk -scolded Slater. They'll hear you." He took a drink and looked at the other young man. "And stop going on about how wonderful you are. You can be very boring, you know. I keep telling you I'm not gay."

"My God," Slater breathed, shaking his head, "have you no ambition?"

Now, on this June day, Graham smiled at the memory. It would have been a good party anyway, even if he hadn't met Sara, he thought. The people were friendly, there was plenty to eat if they'd wanted it, and from what he'd seen there were quite a few unattached girls around. He'd been thinking of asking one of the two who had entered the front room during Slater's monologue -the more attractive of them - for a dance even as Slater was telling him how desirable Richard Slater was.

It was funny, Graham thought; the party seemed so long ago, but the memory was more fresh and real for him than things that had happened even just last week. He breathed deeply as he thought about it, passing postal workers from the Mount Pleasant sorting office standing talking just outside a small cafe. A big red Italian car was parked at the kerb. Slater would have liked it. Graham smiled and crossed the road to the sorting office, smelling its new coat of paint.

Slater saw Sara standing at the door of the room. His face lit up, he put his plastic tumbler down on the mantelpiece. "Sara darling!" he called, and went over to her, through a couple of groups of other people, and put his arms round her. She didn't respond, but when Slater drew back her face held a slight smile. Graham was staring, and saw the woman's eyes flicker his way for a moment. Slater led her past the other people, over towards the mantelpiece and him. Graham felt frozen. People were still talking, chattering away. Hadn't anybody else in the room seen her?

She was slim, quite tall. Her hair was black and thick and looked tangled, as though she had just got out of bed and not brushed it. Her face, all her exposed skin, was white. She wore a black dress, an old thing with slightly tattered lace which filmed about her like some black froth. On top of the thin dress she wore a brightly coloured, predominantly red, Chinese padded jacket; it seemed to sparkle in the room's dim lights. Black tights, black low heels.

She was taking off her gloves as she approached. Her upper chest, exposed for the breadth of a hand by the black dress, showed a strange white mark, like a sort of ragged and wide necklace settled loosely over her shoulders. As she came closer he saw it was a scar, the scar tissue even more white than the skin around it. Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life; instantly, in less than the time it took her to walk from one side of the room to the other, he knew he loved her.

"This is the little ingenu I keep trying to seduce, Sara," Slater said, presenting Graham with one delicate roll of the hand. "Mr Graham Park, this is Mrs Sara ffitch. Quite the most gorgeous and elegant thing to come out of Shropshire since... well, me."

She stopped in front of him, her head lowered just a little. His heart was beating too hard. He must be shaking. She was looking at Slater through the black web of her hair; now her head tilted, she turned to face him, put her small hand out. A Mrs! She was married! He couldn't believe it. For the merest instant, some final, irreducible unit of desire, he had glimpsed a feeling, an urge within himself he had not imagined himself capable of, but now this tiny, standard piece of information, these few letters, had switched his hopes off like some cheap lightbulb. (Two summers ago, on holiday in Greece with a school pal he had since lost touch with, he'd been on a small, crowded, ramshackle train heading out of Athens over a scrubby plain in blistering heat. Parched ochre land and scrappy shrubs moved monotonously by. The rattling carriage was full of rucksacks and hikers, and black-dressed Greek ladies with chickens. Then his friend Dave shouted "Look!" and when he turned, for a few moments only he glimpsed the Corinth canal; a sudden gulf sliced in the landscape, blue space sparkling, a ship in the deep distance; fathomless light and air. Then the barren plain resumed.)

"Hello," she said, and from his own eyes, hers flickered down to where her hand was held out to him. He was aware of Slater drawing in a breath and putting his head back the way he always did when he was rolling his eyes, but before Slater could say anything, Graham quickly nodded, switched his glass to the other hand, and took the woman's small hand in his, shaking it formally.

"Ah... hello." Her hand was cold. How old was she? Mid-twenties? He let her hand go. She was still looking at him. Her figure even looked good; he wanted to weep, or throw her over his shoulder and just run. What was she? How could she do this to him? She was still looking at him. Such calm, steady eyes, the iris and the pupil almost one. Arches of deep dark brows like some perfect mathematical line. He could smell her; a cold sharp distant sort of musk, like a window on to a forest of winter pine.

"You mustn't worry," she was saying, smiling at him, "Richard hasn't said very much about you." She looked at the other young man, who had retrieved his glass and was watching Sara and Graham with a smile on his face, almost a smirk. He shrugged.

"He's never even - " Graham swallowed, tried to stop himself sounding too amazed," - mentioned you." She smiled at that, first at him, then Slater. She stuffed her black gloves into a pocket in the padded jacket.

"Well," she said, looking at them in turn again, lifting her face to gaze directly at Graham, "if I may make so bold, chaps, how about a drink? I was bringing my own but I put it in the wrong pocket of my coat and it fell through the lining and smashed." Her eyebrows arched suddenly. Slater laughed.

"What a wonderful story, Sara. I'm sure none of us would mind if you just didn't bring any at all." He turned to Graham. "Mind you, Sara does dress in the early Oxfam style, so she might be telling the truth." He looked at the woman, patting her shoulder and putting his glass on the mantelpiece again, "Allow me ma'm." He walked off through the press of people now all but blocking the way to the door. Graham suddenly noticed the room was crowded, and getting hot. He was alone with her, though, Slater gone. She stooped, brought one foot up, fiddling with 9 strap on her shoe, then started to over-balance, tipping towards him! He put one hand out; she put out hers and gripped his forearm, looked up briefly and made a noise which might have been "thanks', and went on working at the strap of her shoe.

He could not believe this was happening to him. He actually tingled where she touched him. His heart seemed to be beating in some huge dry place, an echoing cavern. His mouth had gone dry. She let go of his arm, lifting the shoe she had taken off, showing it to him and smiling. She laughed, "Look," she said. "See? Wine."

He gave a small dry laugh of his own - all he could manage - and looked at the small black shoe. The hourglass shape of white leather inside it, raked from toes to low heel, was stained pale red, and still looked damp. She pushed it closer, laughing again and lowering her head as though shy, "Here, smell, if you can stand it." Her voice was deep, slightly hoarse.

He did his best to laugh, said heartily, nodding his head, bobbing it from side to side, achingly conscious of how stupid he must look, "Yup, looks like wine to me."

A terror seized him. He couldn't think what to say to her. He found himself looking round for Slater as she put one hand on the mantelpiece and slipped her shoe back on, fastening the strap again. A wine box appeared above the crowd of heads by the door. He watched it come closer, relieved.

"Ah... here comes your drink, I think," he said, nodding to where Slater was pushing through the crowd, lowering the wine box and a glass he was carrying; smiling at them when he saw Sara and Graham.

"I've been proving to Graham I really did have some wine and it smashed," Sara said as Slater, turning briefly to greet somebody he had just passed, came over to them. He set the wine box on the white mantelpiece, held the fresh glass beneath the little tap, and filled the container almost to the brim.

"Indeed. I trust he was suitably impressed,"

"Bowled over," Graham said nervously, then wished he could gulp the words back somehow. Neither of the others seemed to think anything of it though. But he felt bowled over, and could hardly believe it wasn't obvious to every single person in the room. He took his plastic tumbler up again and sipped at the wine, watching Sara over the lip of the tumbler.

"Well then, Sara," Slater said, leaning one-elbowed on the shoulder-high wood of the mantelpiece, smiling at the pale-skinned woman, "how are we, then? How's the old home town?" Slater meant Shrewsbury, if Graham recalled correctly. Slater glanced at Graham, "Sara and I were next-door neighbours for a while. I do believe our parents may even have intended us for each other at one time, without actually saying anything about it, of course," Slater sighed, looked Sara up and down. Graham's heart, or his guts, something deep inside him, ached, as Slater went on, "Not for me, of course, though looking at Sara I almost wish I was a lesbian, sometimes,"

Graham laughed, biting the sound off the instant he thought he was laughing too long. He hid behind the wine glass again, putting his lips to the liquid but not drinking despite his dry throat; he would get too drunk. He couldn't disgrace himself in front of this woman. Was she as old as he'd thought? Was Slater serious about them being some sort of childhood sweethearts, or even just close enough in age for their parents to think...? He shook his head for a second, trying to clear it. The room seemed suddenly stuffy and close. He felt claustrophobic. There was a scream from somewhere in the house; the chatter of voices quietened briefly and he could sense heads turning to the open door leading from the room.

"That, I suspect, is Hunter," Slater said unconcernedly, waving one hand. "His idea of a party trick is to tickle his wife until she wets her knickers. Sorry, Sara, I interrupted you..."

"Nothing," she said, "I was just going to say it's dull and horrible. I hate the winter there,"

"So you're here," Slater said. The woman nodded.

"I'm... staying in Veronica's place for now, while she's in the States," He heard something strange in her voice.

"Oh God, that awful place in Islington," Slater looked sympathetic. "You poor thing,"

"It's better than where I was," she said quietly. She was mostly turned away from him; he could just see the curve of her cheek, the line of her nose, and as he watched she put her head down very slightly, and her voice altered again. Slater tut-tutted to himself, looking into his glass.

"Finally left him, then?" Slater said, and Graham felt his eyes widening, that pulling back of the skin towards the ears he thought he had seen frozen on her face. Left? Separated? He stared at her anxiously, then at Slater, and tried hard not to look as interested as he felt. She was looking down, into her glass. She hadn't drunk very much.

"Finally," she said, bringing her head up, shaking her head not in negation but a sort of defiance, so that the tangled black hair bobbed once.

"And the other one?" Slater said. His voice was cold now, expression deliberately blank. Something about his eyes was hooded, making his eyes, briefly, resemble hers. Graham felt himself leaning forward, wanting to catch her reply. Had she started talking? Both their voices were low; they didn't really mean to include him in the conversation, and it was noisy in the room; people laughed and shouted, the music next door had been turned up.

"I don't want to talk about it, okay, Richard?" she said, and to Graham her voice sounded hurt. She turned fractionally away from Slater and drank deeply from her glass. She looked at Graham, not smiling, then her lips trembled and a small smile did appear.

Park, you idiot, Graham told himself, you're looking at this woman as if she was ET. Get a grip of yourself. He smiled back. Slater giggled briefly, then said to Graham, "Poor Sara married a cad who had the ill taste to become manager of a sewage works. As I've told her, now that she's left him and his personal life's in such a mess, perhaps he'll do what these managerial types usually do in such circumstances, and throw himself into his work."

Graham started to smile, though he thought the joke itself might be in rather poor taste, but then he was aware of Sara turning quickly, putting her glass on the mantelpiece and looking straight at him, coming closer, her face set in strange hard lines, eyes bright, taking him by the elbow and turning her head as if to emphasise that she was talking to Graham, ignoring Slater, saying,

"You do dance, don't you?"

"Oopsie-doopsie, me and my big mouth," Slater said quietly to himself as Sara took Graham's plastic tumbler and put it on the mantelpiece beside her own glass, then led him, stunned, unprotesting, through the crowd towards the room where the music was.

And so they danced. He couldn't remember a single record, track or tape played. Her body was warm through the layers of clothing they wore, when they danced slow dances. They talked, but he couldn't remember what about. They danced and danced. He was hot, sweating, his feet hurt after a while and his muscles ached, as though they were not dancing but running, pounding through a strange, noisy jostling forest of soft, moving trees in darkness; just the two of them.

She kept looking at him, and he kept trying to hide what he felt, but when they danced together, holding each other, he kept wanting to stop and just stand there, mouth hanging open; express through sheer immobility something he possessed no dynamic for. To touch her, hold her, smell her.

They went back to the other room eventually. Slater had gone, so had the wine box and Sara's glass. They shared Graham's glass, taking turns. He tried not to stare at her. Her skin was still white, though a sort of heat seemed to radiate from her now, something which he caught and felt, became infected by. The room seemed darker now, and smaller than it had. People moved and pushed and laughed and shouted; he was vaguely aware of them. Around her neck, the white-on-white semi-circle of scar tissue seemed to glow in the dim light, like something itself luminous.

"You dance well," she said.

"I don't -" he began, cleared his throat, "I don't usually dance all that much. I mean..." his voice trailed off. She smiled.

"You said you draw. You're at the School?"

"Yeah. Second year," he said, then bit his lip. Was he trying to prove how old he was? People sometimes said he had a baby face. He'd been questioned about his age in pubs several times. What age was she? What age did she think he was?

"What sort of things do you draw?" she said. He shrugged, relaxing a little; he had dealt with this sort of question before.

"What they tell me to. They give us exercises. What I really -"

"Graham, who is this lovely young thing?"

Graham looked round in despair at the sound of Mr Hunter's voice. Their host was a huge, lugubrious man, who reminded Graham of Demis Roussos. He was wearing some son of brown caftan. Graham closed his eyes. Mr Hunter was what he resembled: a refugee from the sixties. His fat hand squeezed Graham's shoulder. "You are a dark horse, young man." He swept forward towards Sara, almost hiding her from Graham. "Graham's obviously so speechless with you he won't introduce you to me. I'm Many Hunter - " (Marty? thought Graham) " - and I just wondered if you'd ever thought of doing any mod-"

At that point the lights went out, the music groaned in a deepening bassy slide, and people made appreciative animal noises.

"Oh fucking hell," Graham heard Mr Hunter say, and then something huge squeezed past him in the darkness saying, "that's Woodall; he always finds the mains switch at parties

Matches flared, lighters grazed sparks, just as, with a hiss, Sara came forward, hugged him. The lights flickered on before Graham could do more than put his arms round her. She pushed herself away again as soon as the lights came on, shook her head, looking down, her perfume still spiralling away between them. The music started again, people went "Aww..."

"Sorry," he heard her say, "I'm silly. I get frightened at thunder... too." She looked around, distracted, for the glass, but he was holding it, and handed it to her. Thanks," she said, and drank.

"Don't be sorry," he said, "I quite enjoyed it." She looked up briefly then, smiling uncertainly, as though she didn't believe him. He licked his lips, moved forward, put one hand out and touched hers where it gripped the glass. She kept looking at the empty glass, avoiding his face. "Sara, I -"

"Can we...?" she began, then looked quickly at him, put the glass on the mantelpiece, shook her head, saying, "I don't feel all that well..."

"What?" he said concernedly, taking her by one hand and a shoulder.

"I'm sorry, can I..." she motioned towards the door, and he helped her through the packed people, using his elbow to get them out of the way. In the hall they found Mr Hunter again, holding a slack, bored-looking black cat. He frowned when he saw them.

"You look rather pale," he said to Sara, then, to Graham, "Your friend isn't going to throw up, is she?"

"No, I'm not," Sara said loudly, raising her face. "Don't mind me; I'll just go and lie down in the snow or something..." She started as though to make for the front door, but Mr Hunter held up a hand to stop her.

"Not at all. I do beg your pardon. I'll find you... here, come with me." He put the cat on top of an old sofa which had been shoved against the hallway wall, and led Graham and Sara towards the stairs.

On the far side of Farringdon Road, Graham passed Easton Street, where another painter's or window-cleaner's cradle lay on the pavement, up-ended for some reason, neat coils of rope around it. Summer; the season for painting and scaffolding. Getting things done after the winter cover-up. He found himself smiling, recalling yet again that first meeting, that strange, almost hallucinogenic evening. He stepped past an old lady, standing still in the middle of the pavement, seemingly looking across the road at a man in elbow-crutches waiting to cross the street. Graham, almost automatically, tried to imagine drawing the scene.

"I saw Slater heading out the door with some rug-chested young Romeo," Mr Hunter said as they got to the second-floor landing in the big house. "I hope you weren't depending on him for a lift, were you?" he asked Graham. Graham shook his head. Slater didn't even drive, as far as Graham knew.

Mr Hunter unlocked a door and opened it, switching the room light on. "This is our little girl's room; you lie down, young lady. And take good care of her, Graham; I'll send my wife up to make sure you're all right." He smiled at Sara, then Graham, then closed the door behind them.

"Well," Graham said awkwardly as Sara sat down on the small bed, "that's us told." He bit his lip, wondered what he was supposed to do now. Sara put her head in her hands. He stared at the sooty-looking ball of black chaos that was her hair, wanting her, terrified of her. She looked up at him. He said, "Are you all right? What's wrong? I mean, do you... are you hurting?"

"I'll be okay," she said. "I'm sorry, Graham; you go back to the party if you want. I'll be fine."

He felt himself tense. He went forward, sat on the end of the bed with her. "I'll go if you want... but I don't mind just sitting. I don't want you... sitting here by yourself, all alone. Unless you want to be. I wouldn't enjoy myself anyway, I expect, I'd be thinking of you. I -"

He had been going to touch her shoulders with his arm, but she came towards him anyway, her head on his shoulders so that the perfume of her hair enveloped him, made his head feel light. She seemed to slump; it was not an embrace and her arms seemed heavy and slack. Her hands stayed in her lap, limp as puppet limbs. He held her, felt her shiver. He swallowed hard, looked round the room, at Snoopy posters, posters of horses in sunlit meadows, posters of Adam Ant and Duran Duran. A small white dressing table in one corner looked like something from a doll's house, gleaming and bright with tidy arrangements of bottles and jars. She shook again in his arms, and he realised she might be crying. He lowered his head to her hair instinctively.

She brought her head up, and her eyes were dry. She put her hands on the bedspread, looked into his eyes, an anxious searching as her gaze shifted about his face, first focusing on his right eye, then his left, then slipping to his mouth. He felt inspected, plumbed, and like a moth in front of some anti-lighthouse, casting a shadow-beam, making him want to pull back, fly away from the intensity of those black, searching eyes.

"I'm sorry, Graham, I don't want to be a tease," she said, lowering her head again, "I just need somebody to hold right now, that's all. I'm going through... oh," she shook her head, dismissing whatever she had been about to explain. He put his hand on hers.

"Hold me," he told her. "I know what you mean. I don't mind,"

Without looking at him, she slowly came closer again, then leant against him. Finally her arms went gently round his waist, and for a long time they sat there, while he listened to the sounds of the party, and felt - against his side, and within the perimeter his arm made around her - the gentle ebb and flow of her breath. Please, please, don't come now, Mrs Hunter. Not now, not in this perfect, fragile moment.

Steps thudded on the stairs, and his heart seemed to try to echo them, but the steps and some laughing voices went away. He held her, wrapped in her smell, warmed by her nearness. He felt drugged, by her perfume and her presence; he felt... like he had never felt in his life before.

This is absurd, he told himself. What is going on here? What is happening to me? Right now I feel more happy, more satisfied than in any post-coital daze. Those Somerset nights, in friends" cars, other people's houses, once in a moonlit field; my carefully scored and compared encounters to date; they all mean nothing. Only this matters.

God, you fool.

In a rambling old house in Gospel Oak, in London in January I lose my heart. What are the chances she'll ever love me? Christ, to be like this for ever, to live, to be together, to hold her like this in bed some night when she's afraid of the thunder, when I'm there to hold her, to be held by her.

She stirred against him, and he mistook it for something like the small movements of a child asleep, and smiled down at her through the slow current of perfume rising from her black, turmoiled hair; but she was awake and brought her head up, drawing away from him a little, looking at him, so that he had to hide his smile quickly, because it wasn't something he had meant her to see.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him. He took a deep breath. "I was thinking," he said slowly, conscious of her arms still round his waist (no; one hand went to her brow, smoothed her hair away from her eyes; there, though, it went back again, clasped lightly behind him!), "about... whether you could tell from the wine on the inside of a shoe what type it was. The wine, I mean; the vineyard and vintage... um... whether it was south slope or the soil had been especially acidic that year."

A broad smile, slackening her tensed-up, vulnerable face, filled the white space in the dark mass of hair. His heart seemed to leap inside him, at the sheer beauty of her now, and the realisation he had produced this change. He felt his mouth open involuntarily, and closed it again, speechless.

"Or you could have champagne-tasting competitions from ladies" slippers," she said, laughing. He grinned, nodded. She sighed, her expression changed again, and she took her arms away from him, bent over as though hugging herself round the middle. "I think I'd better go to the loo," she said, then looked at him. "Will you wait?"

"I'll wait," he said, too solemnly, he thought. He smiled, touched her hand again, "You sure you're okay?"

"Just nerves." She shook her head, looking down at his hand. Thanks for... well, thanks. I'll be back." She got up quickly, went to the door and out. He collapsed back on the bed, eyes wide and staring at the white ceiling.

All his life he had not believed anything could be like this. You stopped believing in Father Christmas, tooth fairies, paternal omniscience... and in the sort of over-the-top crazy heart-thudding happy-ever-after love they told you was the ideal. Life was sex, infidelity, divorces. Infatuation, yes, but love at first sight, smell, touch? For him? Where was that carefully nurtured fine cynicism now?

He lay on the bed like that, waiting for her. He got up after a while and paced round the high-ceilinged room, looking at the layered posters and the soft toys, the two old wardrobes, the small ring-tree on the window ledge, hung with little cheap, colourful rings. He touched the long, dark green curtains, looked out into the garden and over it at the house beyond, tall and dark. A dim sodium-yellow glow filled the sky; patchy snow blemished the garden. The door opened. He smiled and turned.

A tall, drunk-looking woman in a red jump-suit swayed in the doorway, holding on to the outside of the jamb. Her face was thin, hair yellow. "You all right, dear?" she asked Graham, looking round the room. Graham made a small smile.

"I'm fine, Mrs Hunter. Mrs ffitch is ah... in the loo."

"Oh," the woman said. He didn't think she remembered him; he had seen her, he recalled, at the end-of-term dance. "Right, then. Well... don't mess up the bed." She withdrew, closing the door. Graham was left frowning at the door, wondering exactly what she meant. It opened again and Mrs Hunter re-appeared "You haven't seen my husband, have you? I'm Mrs Hunter, Marty's wife."

He shook his head. He felt unfairly urbane; almost contemptuous of the drunk woman. "No, Mrs Hunter," he said, "not for a while."

"Hmm," she said, and was gone. He watched the door for a bit, but nothing more happened. The party sounded loud behind it. He thought he could smell dope; grass or resin fumes. He went back to looking out the window, sometimes watching the reflection of the room in it. He looked at his watch, wondering how long she'd been away. It seemed like ages. Should he go and check? Would she want him to? What if something had happened; she'd fainted?

He didn't even know where the toilet was up here. He'd been once to the one on the ground floor, that was all. Should he go looking for her? It might look like nosiness, he might open the wrong door, embarrass people. He paced the room, then lay down for a while, hands clasped behind his head. He got up and went back to the window, willing the door's reflection to move.

It moved; he turned, just in time to see it start to close as a male face disappeared after a brief inspection. "Oh, sorry," a voice said. A girl giggled outside, steps sounded. He faced the window once more.

Finally, a sick feeling in his belly, as though something there was twisted, pulsing pain, he left the room. He found the toilet a floor down. He thought: I'll try the handle; the door will be open and the room will be empty. She's gone. I mean nothing to her.

He tested the handle. The door was locked.

It'll be a man's voice, he told himself. It was a woman's.

"Won't be long; sorry."

"Sara?" he said, uncertain, his voice shaking. There was silence, and his eyes smarted. It isn't her. It wouldn't be her. It wouldn't be her at all.

"Graham? Look, I'm really sorry. I'll be out soon. God I'm sorry."

"No, no," he said, almost shouting; he had to lower his voice,

"That's okay. That's fine. I'll wait... in... the room, all right?"

"Yes. Yes please. Five minutes."

She was there! He went bounding up the stairs, three or four at a time, praying to himself the room hadn't been taken over by some amorous couple while he'd been away, cursing himself for doubting her. Now she'd think he didn't trust her.

The room was empty, as he'd left it. He sat down on the bed, his hands in his lap, his heart thumping in his chest. He stared at the bottom of the door. I go into ecstasies because a woman is in the loo, he thought. This is enough to make me feel like I own the world. Can I tell anybody about this? Can I tell Slater? Can I tell mum? Did she and dad ever feel like this?

She came back. She looked whiter than ever. Her breath was ragged and faint, pulsing. She lay down on the bed, not speaking to him. She made him feel frightened, but as she lay down, eyes closed, on her side and facing him, something else in her, some frail, scavenging eroticism made him shake with desire. Oh my God, I feel like a rapist. She's ill.

"Are you -" he choked on the dry words, began again. "Are you really poorly? Should we get an ambulance?"

" 'Poorly'," she said, and smiled, her eyes still closed. "That's a nice word." She opened her eyes, looking at him; she blinked in the light. "I'm fine, really. Really I am. Just nerves; I'm a weepy female and I should probably be on valium, but fuck it. I'm riding it out, you know? I've things to get over. Sorry to be a bother."

"It's no bother," he said, and was at last pleased with the way he had said something; warm, strong, not patronising, but caring. Did she hear it that way, though? She nodded at him, eyes closing. She sniffed at the top of her dress, over her breasts.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, eyes open again. "I stink of some horrible aftershave." Graham realised that indeed there was a strong smell of cologne from her. She smiled wanly at him and shrugged. "I threw up. This was all I could find to cover the smell. I've brushed my teeth too, but I still taste it... God, this is awful, Graham. I'm using you like a nursemaid. I didn't mean to."

"Don't... worry about it," he said weakly.

Her eyes closed again. "You wouldn't get the wrong idea if I asked you to put that light out, would you?" she asked. "My eyes hurt."

"Sure," he said softly, and went to the door.

With the light off, cold yellow bands of light spread from the window. She was a black pool of shadow on the bed, a space of darkness. He sat down by her, and she raised one of her arms; he sat down beside her, muscles trembling. Her arm pulled him gently down. Her face was opposite his; close, indistinct.

This is terrible, Graham," she said, almost too softly for him to catch. "You've been lovely and I'm leading you on but I can't deliver at the moment. You'll hate me."

"I - " he began, but gulped that precipitous, too instinctive and glib statement back. Too soon. "No," he insisted, "not at all." He put one of his hands out and took both of hers in his. They were warm. "Just this is..." he shook his head, not knowing if she could see, or maybe feel the bed bounce slightly,'... it's really nice," he gave a tiny, self-depreciating laugh on the last word, acknowledging its inadequacy. She squeezed his hands.

"Thanks," she whispered.

They lay like that for a long time. His thoughts were in a strangely distant turmoil, as though they were no more the workings of his own mind than the far-below hubbub of the party was his own voice. In the end he gave up trying to analyse his own feelings, or even totally understand them, and lay there relaxed, listening for the slow, regular breathing of sleep, and wasn't sure if he detected it or not. The door opened briefly at one point and a young man's voice said "Shit," but Graham didn't even turn to look; he knew it could be nothing which would disturb them.

He held her in his arms, still and warm, and after a while in that darkness he felt as though he held nothing at all; it was like when a limb, having been left in the same position for too long a time, somehow loses all reference to the body, and for those instants before some willed movement the very location and attitude of that arm or leg is quite unknown. He held her, but he felt nothing; she was there, and in his consciousness distinctly other and different, but she was also like some relaxed part of himself; a silent mix of identities cancelled out, like the pale skin, white scar, dark clothes and black hair being equated and combined, and the resulting coalescence being clear, invisible... nothing.

Eventually she stirred, kissed him quickly on the forehead, and levered herself up, sitting on the side of the bed. "I feel better now," she said. She turned to look at him in the darkness; he stayed looking at her. "I'd better go home," she continued. "Could you ring for a taxi? Come; we'll go back down."

"Yeah," he smiled.

The light was very bright when he switched it back on. She yawned and scratched her head, messing her hair still further.

In the hallway he called for a cab for her, going to Islington.

"Where are you going?" she asked him. "Can you come as far as Islington, do you want to take the cab after that?" The party was slightly quieter, but there were still plenty of people about. A man and woman in punk gear lay asleep in each other's arms on the couch in the hall. Graham shrugged.

"Islington's a bit closer, I think," he said. Was she inviting him back? Probably not. She looked pained.

"I can't invite you in or anything, I'm sorry." He hadn't thought so, but his insides still ached briefly.

"That's all right," he said brightly. "Yeah, Islington's a bit closer. I'll pay half."

She didn't let him pay half; he didn't protest too much. They got to the place where she was staying, a quiet cul-de-sac. The taxi drove off; he couldn't afford taxis. She looked at a big BMW bike parked by the kerb, then up at a darkened row of tall houses. In the yellow light, her face was like a ghost's. "I keep saying I'm sorry this evening," she said, coming closer to him. He shrugged. Would they kiss? It seemed impossible. "I wish I could invite you in."

"Not to worry," he said, grinning. His breath made a cloud between them.

"Thanks, Graham. For staying with me, I mean. I'm such a bore; do you forgive me? I'm not always like this."

"Nothing to forgive. It's been great," She laughed quietly when he said it. He shrugged again, smiling hopelessly. She came to him, put her gloved hand behind his neck.

"You're lovely," she said, and brought her face to his, kissing him; putting her lips to his just like that, soft and warm and wet, better than any kiss, better than his first real kiss, making him dizzy with the feel of it. He hardly knew what he was doing. His mouth opened slightly, her tongue touched his upper lip once, then slipped away again; she kissed him quickly on the cheek and turned, walked to a doorway, fumbling for a key in a small purse she took from her old fur coat.

"Can I see you again?" he croaked.

"Of course," she said, as though it was a silly question. The key slipped in, she opened the door. "I can't remember the telephone number here yet; Slater's got it. Ciao." She blew him a kiss; her last few words, with the door open, had been whispered. The door closed quietly. He watched a light go on above, go out again.

It took him five hours to walk back to Leyton, where he had a bed-sit. It was cold, it rained once, lightly, then turned to sleet, but he didn't care. That kiss! That "Of course'!

The walk had been an epic. Something he would never, ever forget. One day, or night, he would do that walk again, retrace his steps for the sake of nostalgia. One day, when they were together and he had a good career, when he had his own house and a car and didn't need to walk and could afford taxis if he wanted them; he'd take that same route just for old times" sake, try to recapture the uncertain ecstasies of that dark, early morning trek.

Nearly half a year later, in the summer heat, he could still recall the feeling of the cold air on his skin, the way his ears became numb with the freezing cold, the way he kept bursting out laughing, holding up his arms to the cloudy dark orange sky.

He could smile at it now. He'd had more time to think, to get used to this slightly absurd rapture. He could accept it now. He still couldn't entirely believe it, in the sense that he could not believe that it was happening to him, that he was so vulnerable to such a common, almost hackneyed feeling. But it was there; he could not - in any sense - deny it.

Graham passed an abandoned workshop on Rosebery Avenue; posters advertised bands and their singles and albums. The traffic roared and the sun beat, but he remembered January, and shivered with the memory of that long walk.

Half Moon Crescent, he had repeated and repeated to himself as he'd walked that night. She lived in Half Moon Crescent (he had checked the number and the street before he'd started out on his trek, so that even if Slater had lost or forgotten her number, she would not be lost to him). It became like a chant, a mantra for him; Half Moon Crescent, Half-Moon-Crescent, Halfmooncrescent...

A chant.

A litany.

CLERK STARKE

Unemployed!

He sat in a plastic chair in a Job Centre. The chairs were all the same in these places; in every Social Security office and Job Centre he'd ever been in. Not exactly the same as each other; he'd seen different types, but they were all the same types. He wondered if any of the chairs provided protection against microwaves.

A woman had been talking to him, but she had gone away. She didn't seem to be able to cope with him. Probably they hadn't expected this. They hadn't prepared properly.

He had decided not to go straight home, or to go to the pub yet. That was what they would expect him to do. Just sacked, or rather resigned, with all that money; of course, the obvious thing to do would be go home to his room or to have a drink. They wouldn't expect him to go to a Job Centre and sign on. So when he had seen the sign ahead of him in the street, he'd walked right in and sat down and demanded to be attended to.

"Mr..?" a man said to him. Light suit, short hair, spotty face, but looking in charge. He sat down opposite Grout and clasped his hands on the large white blotter which almost covered the top of the small desk.

"What?" Grout said suspiciously. He hadn't been listening.

"Your name is...?" the young man said.

"Steven," Grout said.

"Ah... that's your first name?"

Grout leaned forward, put one fist on the table and stared into the man's eyes, his own narrowed and glinting as he said, "How many do you think I've had?"

The young man looked confused and concerned. Steven folded his arms and leant back, feeling triumphant. That had floored him! Steven put his safety helmet further back on his head. This was quite good really. He felt he had the upper hand for once, and they hadn't been able to set up the Microwave Gun yet, either; he felt cool and relaxed. Of the two of them the young Job Centre man looked the more hot and worried.

"Can we start again?" the young man said, taking out a pen and tapping the end of it on his lower teeth. He smiled impatiently.

"Oh, yes," Steven said cunningly, "I'm an expert at starting again. Let's."

"Fine," the young man said. He drew a breath.

"What's your name?" Grout said suddenly, leaning forward again.

The young man looked at him for a while. "Starke," he said.

"Are you staring, or..."

"Look, sir," the young man called Starke said seriously, putting his pen down, "I'm trying to do my job here; now... are we going to approach this in a sensible manner or not? Because if not, there are plenty of people -"

"And you look, clerk Starke," Grout said, and tapped one finger on the small desk. Starke looked at the finger, so he withdrew it when he remembered how dirty his fingernails were. "I'm unemployed, you know, ,'don't have some nice safe little civil service job with pensions and... and things. I'm a victim of the recession. You may think it's all a joke -"

"I assure you - "

" - but I know what's going on, and I know why I'm here and why you're here. Oh, yes. I'm not stupid. You can't pull the wool over my eyes like that. I know what the score is, like they say. I may be thirty-sev - thirty-eight, but I'm 'switched on' all right, and I know everything isn't 'hunky-dory' the way people think it is. You may think it's easy for you, and it might be, but I'm not so easily fooled, oh no." He sat back again, nodding emphatically. He didn't always express himself perfectly, he would be the first to admit that, but it wasn't what you said, it was the way you said it. Somebody famous had said that.

"Well, sir, I'm not going to be able to help you unless you let me ask you some questions."

"Well then," said Grout, throwing his arms wide and opening his eyes wide, "get on with it. On you go; I'm ready. Ask away."

Starke sighed. "Right," he said. "What's your name?"

"Grout," Steven said.

"That's your surname?" Starke said.

Grout thought about this carefully. He always got confused with this. Which was surname and which was Christian name? It was like nett and gross; he always got them mixed up. Why didn't people just say first and second? Just to confuse him, no doubt. There was a way of working it out though. If you were a "Sir" then the name just after that was your first name, so that must be the surname... and Christian name was easy because Christ had been Jesus Christ, so obviously therefore the Christian name was the second name... and that was how you could tell.

That seemed logical, but now he thought about it he wasn't sure that that wasn't the way to remember the way it wasn't, not the way it was. He decided to play safe.

"My name is Mister Steven Grout."

"Fine," Starke said, writing, " 'Grout' as in that stuff you put between tiles and bricks and things, right?" He looked up.

Steven's eyes narrowed. "What are you trying to insinuate?"

"I'm... I'm not -"

"I will not be insinuated against," Steven said, and tapped the front of the desk. "What business is it of yours to make insinuations against me, I'd like to know, eh? Answer me that."

"I -"

"No, you can't, can you? And I'll tell you why. Because I'm not here because I want to be, that's why. There. I'm not one of your scroungers. I've never taken the easy way out, I'll have you know. It hasn't always been easy but I've always kept my self-respect, and I haven't let anybody take that away. I'm my own man and that's very important in these times, even if you haven't had the problems I've had, and you haven't, because that's perfectly obvious, you're sitting there and asking me the questions. You've got to realise, clerk Starke -"

"I'm not -"

" - that we're on opposite sides of the desk, as it were." He tapped the desk to show what he was talking about. "This is a symbol, you know." He sat back to let this sink in. Starke looked at the desk.

"It's a desk, Mr Grout."

"It's a symbolic desk," Grout said, jabbing his finger at it. "It's a symbolic desk because we're sat on opposite sides of it, and that's the way things'll always be. Like that. You can't tell me any different. I know the score, like they say."

"Mr Grout," Starke sighed, laying the pen down again, "I'm afraid this interview isn't really getting us very far. You talked to my colleague Ms Phillips when you first came in -"

"I didn't find out her name," Grout waved one hand dismissively.

"Well you didn't get very far with her either, did you? And now-"

"I didn't get very far?" Grout said, "I didn't get very far? It's not my job to get very far; it's yours. You're supposed to get far with me. You're the people who get trained in this sort of thing, not me," Steven said indignantly, and tapped the desk once more, for emphasis. "How often do you think I do this, eh? Answer me that. Do you think I make a habit of this sort of thing, is that it? Are you making insinuations again?"

"I'm not trying to insinuate anything, Mr Grout," Starke said as he sat back in his chair, resigned. He shook his head, "I'm trying... I was trying to conduct an interview, and now I'm trying to explain to you that you're not making it at all easy. First you made my colleague distressed -"

"I could tell she didn't like me. She was contemptuous. I won't have that," Grout explained. Starke shrugged.

"Whatever. Now you've made it impossible for me to carry out an interview despite the fact I've been extremely patient -"

"I'm not stopping you from carrying on your interview," Grout said, shaking his head. "I'm not. You ask your questions, I'll answer. On you go. Just ask what you want. I'm very cooperative. I'm just not prepared to be contemptuated against or be the object of insinuations, that's all."

The young man sat looking at him for a moment, then raised his eyebrows, sat forward and took up his pen once more. "Very well. We'll try one more time. Your name is Mr Steven Grout -"

"Correct," Steven nodded.

"You've just left your previous employment, is that right?"

"Yes."

"And you wish to -"

"Not," Steven said, sitting forward and tapping the desk as MrStarke sat back, slumping down with a sigh in his seat and shaking his head, smiling slightly, "because I wanted to, either. They were out to get me from the start. They wanted rid of me all the time. I was hounded out. They forced me to leave. But I left of my own free will. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. I resigned. I have my pride, you know. They can't kick me around."

"Ah," Mr Starke said, sitting forward in his seat and looking more interested, "you resigned?"

"I certainly did. I wasn't going to let them -"

"Well, you do realise, Mr Grout, that by resigning you have made yourself ineligible for Unemployment Benefit for a period of -"

"What?" Steven said, sitting forward. "What's this? I did the only decent thing I could do. If you think I was going to stand there and -"

"I'm sorry, Mr Grout, but I thought I ought to mention it. You still have to register as unemployed, but for the first -"

"Oh no," Steven said, "I'm sorry, that's just not good enough. I've paid my stamps. I've paid as I've earned. I'm not a scrounger or one of these social misfits. I'm a working man. Not just now, perhaps, but I am, I certainly am. I just wasn't going to let them sack me. I was not," he tapped the desk, "going to give them the satisfaction, you see?"

"I appreciate that you would rather terminate your employment yourself, Mr Grout, but the rules are that if you do then you have to-"

"Well, that's just not good enough, I'm sorry," Grout said. They'd found him. He was starting to heat up. His collar felt itchy and he could smell some strange tense body-smell coming from his armpits. Mr Starke was shaking his head.

"Nevertheless -"

"Don't you 'nevertheless' me, young man," Grout said, raising his voice. People were looking at him. The sunlit Job Centre was quite crowded, he saw now. The sun was slanting in through the windows and heating the place up. But there was ordinary heat and there was microwave heat. He knew the difference well by now. Ordinary heat didn't itch the way microwave heat did. Ordinary heat didn't come from inside the way microwave seemed to, affecting you all at once. He decided to try ignoring it, and said, "Don't you 'nevertheless' me, oh no. I'm not having it,"

Starke gave a small laugh. A laugh! Just like that! "I'm sorry, Mr Grout, but what you're not having is Unemployment Benefit. You get Supplementary Benefit instead for the first six -"

"You're sorry?" Grout said. "Well, you don't suit your sorrow like they say. I want to know why I'm being victimised against."

"You're not being victimised, Mr Grout," Starke said. "The rules are that if you leave your employment voluntarily you have to wait six weeks before you can claim Unemployment Benefit. If you are eligible, which I imagine you will be, you may claim Supplementary Benefit during the interim."

"And what about my dignity?" Steven said loudly. "What about that, I ask you? Eh? Supplementary Benefit, indeed! I've paid my stamps. I've paid my taxes. This isn't good enough."

"I appreciate your position, Mr Grout, but I'm afraid that is the way things are set up. You probably will be eligible for Supplementary Benefit; first you have to register -"

"Well, it's not good enough," Grout said, sitting straight up in his chair and fixing Starke with one eye, trying to turn the tables again so that he would stop feeling uncomfortable and Starke would go back on the defensive. "I'm being victimised against and that's all there is to it. As though I haven't got enough crisises to have to put up with. But this won't be the last straw; they won't get rid of me that easy. I'm just not -"

"Well, if you feel you've been unfairly dismissed," Starke said, "you can go to the -"

"Ha!" Grout said, "I'm unfairly everything. Employed, unemployed, housed, treated; everything. But you won't catch me complaining. I've learned better. Doesn't get you anywhere. I'd rather keep my dignity." He was trying to explain, but he got the impression he was losing out now. Clerk Starke had the upper hand. It was so unfair. Those devils! They hadn't said anything to him at the depot; they hadn't told him anything about not getting unemployment money. They'd let him resign, just when they'd been on the point of sacking him. Maybe just a few more seconds and they would have fired him and he wouldn't be in this position now. Just a few more seconds! The swines!

"Well," Starke began, and started talking about what Steven should do about registering as unemployed.

Grout wasn't listening. He watched the young man's face, now set in the sort of bored, practised, professional expression Grout had seen a hundred times before.

He heard the words "P45" in Starke's speech, and his heart sank. That was what he'd dropped, wasn't it? Or was it? Ashton had shouted something which sounded like that, when he was running away from the depot. Oh-oh. A new salvo of microwaves hit him; he felt a rush of uncomfortable warmth slide all over his body, and he felt his face going red. His skin prickled and itched. Damn! He'd felt so pleased, victorious even, after leaving the depot, that he'd quite forgotten about dropping the form. But of course; Dan Ashton had chased after him with it.

Or at least, that was what they wanted him to think, he suddenly realised. He didn't remember being given that form; they had probably not even given it to him in the first place. If it was all that important then they almost certainly hadn't. It was like when his Giro cheques from the unemployment people hadn't turned up the last time he'd been out of work; it was all done to wear him down. They could talk all they wanted about incorrectly filled-out forms, wrong addresses and the like; he knew what was really going on. They were slowly trying to destroy him.

They probably didn't have to refer back to their superiors - those mysterious Controllers, be they human or not - for instructions, they probably had their contingency plans all ready and prepared. So even when he'd got the drop on them they could still count on messing him around somehow. Devious bastards!

Sometimes, he had to admit, he wished they would just leave him alone and let him live out this petty, pointless, insignificant life in peace. It might not be all that much, but it might be almost bearable if they didn't keep tormenting him. It was an ignoble, unworthy thought, he knew, but he was - now, anyway - only human, and therefore prey to human weaknesses, whatever sort of superhuman he'd been during the War. It was a measure of how well they had done that he even considered such an awful thing. They had so oppressed his higher thoughts, his own belief in himself, that he would almost trade the chance to return to his previous, glorious existence for some peace.

But he wouldn't give in! They wouldn't win!

All the same, he wished he'd paid a little more attention to what had gone on when he'd been leaving the depot, so that he could have spotted when they carried out that trick with the form he was supposed to have dropped. He wondered if they had some other sort of beam they could train on him, which would make him forget things, or make his attention wander. The trouble was, he thought, as Starke talked on, that it would be very difficult to spot when they were using such a subtly fiendish device. This needed more thought. But what to do now?

There was always Revenge. He could get back at them in some commando-style way.

Ever since he had been at high school he'd found some enjoyment and relief by getting back at them in ways they obviously didn't expect. He'd thrown rocks at windows of offices and works they'd sacked him from, he'd defaced buildings, scratched officials" cars and mutilated bonnet mascots (though that was largely for his own safety) and he'd made bomb-hoax telephone calls. It wasn't much, and they would take it in their stride, no doubt, but apart from the fact these revenge raids certainly did upset his Tormentors a little, making life and their cruel purpose just that little bit less easy for them, the greatest effect was on him. He relieved his frustration, he vented his anger and hatred. If he'd tried to bottle it up he would have exploded one way or the other long before now. They'd have been able to certify him insane, or he'd have done something so terrible and criminal they could have put him in prison, where he'd be sodomised and knifed; quietly disposed of without any fuss because the rules were different in there. At least out here they had to play according to some sort of standard of fairness, even if it was a standard they could change as they went along according to how it suited them (like doubling the bus fares just after he'd found that job way out in Brentford), but in prison, even more so than in a mental hospital, there were no real limits to what they could do to him.

Starke was still talking, taking bits of paper out of the drawers in the desk and showing them to Grout, but Steven wasn't looking or listening. His eyes were glinting as he thought about the revenge he could have on the Islington people. He could go and dig up the roadworks during the night, and get some cement made up in a small container and cement up the holes in manhole covers you used to lift the things up by. If he filled those in they'd have a devil of a job lifting them! And he could attack the filled-in holes they'd done in Upper Street earlier this morning. He'd leave the ones he'd done, so they'd eat their words about his way being inferior; that would be satisfying!

He stood up and pulled his hard hat down firmly over his head. Starke was looking up at him; "Mr Grout?"

"What?" Steven said, looking down and seeing the young man again. He frowned and shook his head. "Never mind. Sort it out later. I've got things to do." He turned and walked away. Starke was saying something behind him.

He'd show them. He'd get back at them. He bumped into some people waiting to join the queue for the seats in the reception area (ha ha; he'd got in just before the rush!), and went out through the doors back to the street and the bright sunlight.

He'd sort this unemployment stuff out later. He should have gone to his local Job Centre anyway, where they knew him. Never mind. He at least had some ideas for Revenge. He'd go back to his room and change and wash, then... then he'd have a drink and think further about how to get back at them all. Maybe he would even mount a punitive expedition tonight, striking while the iron was hot, and all that. It was risky, especially considering he'd been out just that previous evening, putting sugar in car and motorbike petrol tanks, but it might be a good idea anyway. He'd have to think about it.

He drew a deep breath and headed for the nearest parked car.

OPEN-PLAN GO

It took Quiss longer than he had expected to get to the castle kitchens; they'd changed some of the corridors and stairways en route from the games room to the lower levels, and Quiss, taking what he thought was the usual way, had found himself making an unexpected left turn and coming to a windy, deserted, echoing chamber which looked out over the white landscape to the tall wooden towers of the slate mines. He had scratched his head and retraced his steps, then followed his nose to the chaotic kitchens of the Castle Doors.

"You," he said, and grabbed one of the kitchen helpers who was passing by carrying a heavy bucket full of some steaming liquid. The tiny scullion squealed and the bucket clattered to the floor, staying upright but letting some of its glutinous contents slop over the side. Quiss heaved the small attendant up by the scruff of its neck until its face was level with his. Its mask-face stared back at him with empty eyes. The green brim round its stained, spotted hood was like a giant washer, or a ring round a rather grubby planet.

"Put me down!" It yelped and struggled, the green cord round its waist waggling to and fro. "Help! Help!"

Quiss shook it. "Shut up you... spirochaete," he said. Tell me where I can find the seneschal in all this racket." He jerked the attendant's whole body and his own head to indicate the kitchen around them.

Quiss was standing at the foot of a flight of steps, on the outer edge of the pandemonium that was the castle's kitchens. The kitchens were buried deep in the structure, far from any outside wall. They were huge; there was a high ceiling, vaulted with cut slate on iron pillars, and standing where Quiss was, all the walls save for that immediately behind him were invisible, concealed by the rising steams, smokes and vapours from hundreds of pots, pans, vats, stoves, kettles, skillets, grills, tubs and cauldrons.

Light came from prisms hung in the roof; great cut slabs of crystal reflected light from the outside walls through long, empty light corridors and then down into the tumultuous kitchens. Also strewn across the complicated ceiling with the prism ports, obscuring whole sections of the barrelled structure, fume ducts writhed like immense square-flanked metal snakes, their grilled, barred mouths sucking the kitchens" vapours away to be vented high in some converted turret. The seneschal had told Quiss that the air circulation system was powered by one of the lowest ranks of the castle's diminutive attendants; they walked round inside treadmills linked to big watermill-like fans. Quiss felt his eyes start to smart in the fume-laden atmosphere, and as he peered through the grey, yellow and brown clouds of rising steam and smoke, thought of suggesting to the seneschal - if he ever found him - that he somehow persuade the scullions powering these airwheels that they should run rather than walk. It was, also, rather warm. Quiss could feel himself starting to sweat already, despite having left most of his furs lying at the top of the steps he had just descended.

"I don't know the way! I've never heard of him!" the squirming attendant said. Its little green-booted feet made running motions, though they were about a metre off the kitchens" slate-tiled floor.

"What?" Quiss roared, spraying spittle into the scullion's mask-face. He shook the thing roughly. "What, you excretory wretch?"

"I don't know the way to the seneschal's office! I've never even heard of him!"

"Then how," Quiss said, bringing the blank, sorrowful face closer to his own, "do you know he has an office?"

"I don't!" came the yelped reply. "You told me!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"No," Quiss said, shaking the attendant roughly so that the crownless brim round its cowl fell off, "I," he shook it again, sending the thing's hood flying off its head and revealing the smooth continuation of the mask over the creature's skull, so that its little arms waggled, trying to put the hood back on again as Quiss finished, "didn't."

"Are you sure?" the scullion said groggily.

"Positive."

"Oh, heck."

"So where is he?"

"I can't tell you; it isn't allowed. I - oh! Don't shake me again, please!"

"Then tell me where I can find the seneschal."

"Waaah!" the small attendant said.

"You scrofulous tapeworm!" Quiss bellowed; he turned the attendant upside down and plonked its head into the bucket it had been carrying. The steamy yellow gruel in the bucket splashed out on to the kitchen floor. He let the minion struggle and kick for a little while, then hoisted it back out, shook it, and turned it the right way up again. His hands were getting messy; he wiped them on the creature's cloak.

"Now then," Quiss said.

"That was horrible!" the attendant wailed.

"I'll do it again and leave you there unless you tell me where the seneschal is."

"The who? No! Don't! I-"

"Right!" Quiss said, and dumped the scullion's head back into the now half-full bucket. He dragged it back out. The small creature's head lolled slightly on its shoulders and its arms flopped by its side.

"Tell you what," it said, breathing with some difficulty, "Let's both find somebody we can ask -"

"No!" Quiss shouted. He held the weakly struggling thing by one leg this time. He considered: surely things weren't so utterly disorganised in the kitchens that the scullions no longer knew who was in charge of them, or where his office was? Had things come to such a pass? It was a bad show, Quiss thought, shaking his head. The attendant had stopped struggling. He looked down, remembered what he was doing, said "Oh," and yanked the limp scullion out, dripping gruel. He shook it for a while until it gurgled and moved its head weakly. "Are you willing to talk yet?"

"Oh, shit, all right," the attendant said weakly.

"Good." Quiss walked over to a large range of working surfaces, hotplates, sinks and racks; he sat the scullion down on a flat surface, only for steam to issue suddenly from its rear; it squawked and jumped up. Quiss apologised for setting it down on a hotplate, put it on a draining board instead, and splashed some water over its mask-face.

"It's like this, you see," the scullion said, wiping its mask. "We've started this new regime to make things more interesting down here. When people ask us a question some of us always tell the truth and some of us always tell the opposite. Some of us give correct answers and some of us give incorrect answers, but we're always consistent, you see?"

"No I don't see," Quiss said, looking into the face mask. Sitting on the tall range, its small legs sticking out over the bright brass rail which acted both as a safety barrier round the hotplates and as a place to hang grubby kitchen towels, the small attendant's face was almost at the same level as the human's. Quiss waited for the scullion to draw breath, and looked round the kitchens again as it did so.

There were very few attendants visible. He was sure there had been more when he first arrived; they had been scuttling about all over the place, carrying implements, standing on stools stirring steaming mixtures, chopping things and throwing bits and pieces into cauldrons. Some of them had been mopping the floor; some washing plates and cups; some just running, not carrying anything, but speedy and purposeful all the same.

Now he could see only a few shadowy figures half-glimpsed through the mists of the cooking fumes. He wrinkled his nose at the smells, thinking that the cowardly little wretches were trying to keep out of his way. He hoped their cooking burned. The scullion on the draining board started talking again.

"Well, it means that you've got to approach the problem in a logical manner, you understand? It's another sort of game. You have to work out the right questions to find out what you want to know, see?"

"Oh," Quiss said sweetly, smiling pleasantly, "yes, I see."

"You do?" the scullion said brightly, sitting up. "Oh, good."

Quiss picked up the small attendant by the front of its cloak and brought its blank face up to his own, scraping the creature's green boots over the surface of the draining board with a rattling noise.

"You tell me how to get to the seneschal's office," Quiss said evenly, "or I shall boil you alive, understand?"

"Strictly speaking, that isn't a well-formed question," the scullion croaked, choking as Quiss's fist tightened the material round its throat.

"Strictly speaking, you're going to be dead very soon unless you give me the right instructions." Quiss grabbed the scullion from the range, tucked it under his arm, and walked away from the entrance, straight ahead towards the centre of the kitchen.

The noises of the place went on around him, muffled only slightly by the mists and vapours; he could hear shouted instructions and curses, the clanking of ladles and giant spatulas, the hiss and splutter of frying, the sloshing of water and soups, the grating of giant pans being moved, the machine-gun chatter of chopping knives. Overhead, apart from the whispering air ducts, he heard a creaking noise, interspersed with a light clinking and clanking. Quiss looked up to see an overhead cable-car system of what looked like lengths of knotted string and bits of chain, running through little metal wheels set in the ceiling and carrying, on small hooks, cups and mugs and plates (so that was why they had a hole at the edge), forks and spoons and knives of every description. They sailed overhead and swayed with the slightly erratic action of the cableway holding them, bumping into each other now and again and so producing the clinking noise just audible over the din.

Quiss heard rapid footsteps approaching through the racket, and ahead of him he saw two small scullions running towards him out of the mist. The hindmost attendant was holding what looked like a large loaf of bread, and was using it to hit the minion in front, which was running almost doubled up, its little gloved hands held over its head, where the pursuing scullion was raining blows with the loaf.

Three metres in front of Quiss they saw the tall human and skidded to a stop, in unison. They looked intently at him, then at each other, then executed a smart about-face; the scullion with the loaf threw it at the other, who caught it and started to hit the other minion over the head with it as they ran back into the mist the way they had come, their figures - one crouched almost double, one striking out with the loaf of bread - and their running footsteps quickly absorbed by the rolling mists.

Quiss shook his head and marched on, the scullion tucked under his arm, not struggling. He caught sight of a few others, but they turned tail and vanished when they saw him through the mist. He called out to them, but they didn't come back. There must, he thought, be thousands of these small attendants, waiters, scullions, masons, miners, mechanics and general helpers and dogsbodies in the place and around it; he knew something about provisioning and logistics, and the castle's kitchens could have provided ten-course meals every few hours for an army of tens of thousands. It all seemed too large, too over-provided-for to feed them and the stunted attendants, even if there were a few more of them than they'd seen until now (and they were always complaining about being short-staffed, anyway).

Even the scale looked wrong. The kitchens appeared to have been designed for human use, judging from the height of the working surfaces and the sheer size of the ladles, pots and pans and other pieces of equipment. Hence the scullions having to use small stools to stand on when they wanted to do anything like wash up dishes, stir soups or work controls. They seemed to have their own stools, Quiss had observed; they carried them on their backs as they made their way from one range to another, and Quiss had seen quite violent fights and rows breaking out over the disputed ownership of one of the small three-legged platforms.

They came to a sort of crossroads in the kitchens. They were well out of sight of the broad flight of steps Quiss had entered the kitchens from, at a point where he could continue ahead into the mist, or turn either right or left, past huge fat stoves holding great rotund cauldrons of some bubbling, frothing liquid. The soot-black metal of the stoves was carved with grotesque faces from which a dark heat beat out at Quiss. A yellow-red light jetted out from the eye-holes of the distorted faces, like a bright beam shining through a keyhole in a door. Leaking wisps of smoke wormed their way out from the sides of the stoves" doors, adding a pungent aroma of something like burning coal to the medley of smells produced by the man-high vats bubbling away on top of the bulging, flattened-looking stoves.

Quiss looked around. He could see a few of the other scullions nearby, standing on their stools stirring pots, wiping stoves, polishing stove-fronts. They were all studiously avoiding meeting his gaze, though he thought they were watching him out of the sides of their eyes. He brought the minion he had under his arm out, lifted it up to look into its blank face. "Which way?" he asked it. It looked about, pointed left.

"That way."

He stuffed it back under his arm, marched off to the left past the heavy black stoves, through their radiated heat. The scullions ahead of him got down off their stools and waddled away, disappearing in the kitchens" foggy wastes. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to ask more complicated questions?" the small attendant said, muffledly, from his side. He ignored it. "I mean, 'Which way?' is a bit basic, wouldn't you agree?"

"Now which way?" He brought it up, let it look about as they came to another junction, the cauldrons at their backs, great stone tubs set in the floor and covered with some sort of green scum on either side. The attendant shrugged.

"Left."

Quiss went that way. The attendant under his arm said, "That wasn't exactly what I meant; just adding a 'now' on to the start doesn't really make much difference. With respect I don't think you've got the idea of the sort of questions you have to ask. It's quite easy once you get the hang of it. Really, I'm surprised you haven't encountered puzzles like this before. Think carefully."

"Which way here?"

"That way." The scullion sighed and pointed with its arm. It said, "I'm probably saying more than I should, but as I'm giving you the information without you asking for it, I don't think it's covered by the rules. All I'd say is that what you have to do is to ask questions which although are apparently about what you want to do... where you want to get to, should really be telling you about the person you're -"

"Where now?"

"Left again. Do you see what I mean? What you're really finding out is the truth-telling status of the person you're getting the information from, so that - " Quiss half listened to all this as he watched, suspiciously, the same cableway of cutlery and cups squeak and rattle its way overhead," - you can find out two things... no, wait a minute, come to think of it you're finding... hmm. Let me think about this."

Quiss looked at the black stoves, the strange faces cast in hot metal, the giant vats of liquid. He made a rising, growling noise at the back of his throat and brought the scullion out from under his arm, looking into its mask-face again. "We're back where we started, you lice-brained dwarf!"

"Well, I did warn you."

"Cretin!" Quiss screamed into its face. He saw a cauldron to one side with its lid hanging above it, suspended on a pulley. He hoisted the scullion up and threw the creature into the huge vat. The scullion's whines and yelps disappeared in a series of gruelly splashes which spurted from the top of the big tub. Quiss slapped his hands together and turned. Almost immediately he was surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of the small attendants. They flowed from every avenue of the kitchen, a waist-high tide of grubby, grey-cowled figures rushing in towards him, their coloured boots, sashes and hat-brims swirling out of the mist. Quiss experienced the tiniest moment of fear, then savage anger, and was about to go down fighting - take as many of the little bastards with him as he could - when he realised that they were bowing and wringing their hands and making apologetic noises, not howling angry ones. He relaxed.

"I tell the truth! I tell the truth, honest I do!" one was shouting, and it and a few others tugged at the lower edges of the few furs he still had on and pulling on his under-breeches where they appeared out of the top of his boots. He let them lead him away, straight ahead between the rows of cauldrons. Other scullions were running in with ladders and lengths of rope, climbing up on to the big stove and scrambling up to the messy lip of the vat in which, judging by the amount of splashing and screaming, the small attendant still survived.

Quiss was led by the dwarfish scullions, through the banked ranges, past gleaming tubs, boiling vats, open fires and grills, past rows of massive, wing-nutted pressure cookers guarded by blast screens, under huge n-shaped pipes, bubbling and gurgling and leaking steam, and over the dainty, counter-sunk tracks of a narrow-gauge railway until eventually he saw a wall ahead, and was led up a rickety wooden staircase to a narrow gantry, then stopped at a small wooden door set into the wall. One of the attendants rapped on the door, then they all scampered off, a display of multi-coloured boots flashing along the wooden gantry until they vanished into the mist. The door was thrown open. The castle seneschal glared out at Quiss.

He was a tall, thin man of indeterminate age, with hairless grey skin and dressed in a long black robe without ornament save for a small silver fork with twisted tines which hung on a piece of string round his neck, and rested on the black breast of the robe. The seneschal's eyes were long, seemingly stretched out at either side as though the eyeballs within were the size of clenched fists. His right eye had two pupils in it, side by side in the grey whites. "Now what?" he barked when he saw Quiss standing there.

"Guess," Quiss said, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward, glaring back at the seneschal, who stood blocking the doorway into his office. "There still isn't any heat up there; we're freezing to death and we can't see to play this absurd game. If you can't get more heat up there, let us move the games room down a few floors."

"Not possible. The boilers are being repaired. Full power soon. Be patient."

"It's difficult to be patient when you're dying of hypothermia."

"The engineers are working as fast as they can."

"So they can reheat our corpses?"

"I'll order more furs."

"We can hardly walk for the weight of the ones we've got; what good will those do? Haven't you got any thermal underwear, or even heaters? Couldn't you build a fireplace? We could burn books. There are plenty up there."

"Shouldn't do that," the seneschal said, shaking his head. "Aren't two the same. All unique. Don't have two copies of any of "em."

"Well they still burn - they would still burn well. "Quiss had to be careful. He'd already burned quite a few wallfuls, and had come down, under protest, as much to keep Ajayi happy as anything else. She had complained about the waste, and said they shouldn't have to burn books to keep warm; it offended her. Besides, she had said, perhaps they would take more time repairing the heating system if they knew the two of them were able to keep warm without it. It was a bad precedent to set. He had grumbled but agreed. The seneschal said,

"Shouldn't be too long. I'll have some hot bricks sent up."

"What?"

"Big hot bricks; glow red hot in the stoves; I'll have some sent up every mealtime; should last until next one; you can warm hands on them. Surprising amount of heat thrown out. When they've cooled down a bit you can put them in your bed, warm it up nice. You'll be as warm as toast."

"Hot bricks? Is that all you can offer? Exactly how long until the boilers are fixed?"

The seneschal shrugged, studied the carving on the edge of the door he was holding, then said, "Not long. You'd best get back to your game now." The seneschal came out of his room, shutting the door quickly and taking Quiss by the upper arm. He led him back along the wooden gantry to the steps. "I'll show you out."

"Good," Quiss said, "there's a few questions I want answered. First of all, where does all this food go? You must make about a hundred times more than you need. What do you do with it?"

"Recycled," the seneschal said as they came to the steps and went down them.

"Why bother making it all, then?"

"Never know who might drop in," the seneschal said. Quiss looked at him to see if he was serious. One of the seneschal's two right pupils seemed to be looking at him. "Keeps them in practice, anyway," he continued, suddenly grinning at the tall old man as they walked between the levels of stoves and cookers and fires. Scullions ran about the place, carrying brooms and buckets and baskets full of hidden ingredients. They were all very careful, no matter how fast they were going and how urgent their task seemed to be, to avoid getting under the feet of Quiss or the seneschal. "Yes. Keeps them occupied. Out of mischief," the grey-skinned man said.

Quiss "hmm'd to himself. Well, he could understand that, but he still thought it was a wasteful way of keeping the lower ranks occupied, and it didn't square at all with the continual excuses the seneschal and his minions kept making about being under-staffed. He would let it pass for now. "Where does it come from? I've yet to see anything except weeds grow in this place,"

The seneschal shrugged. "Where did you come from?" he said darkly. Quiss narrowed his eyes at the pupil which seemed to be looking at him, indeed out of the corner of its eye. He thought the better of pressing on that one too.

They came to the place where Quiss had seen the inset tracks of the narrow-gauge railway. A small train, hauled by a tiny steam engine and comprising double-bogied cars carrying three sealed, hissing cauldrons each, trundled slowly by, wheels screeching and clattering over a set of points. Quiss and the seneschal stopped, watching the train pass in front of them, disappearing into the steam and smoke of the kitchens with a cacophony of rattles, hisses and clanks, and a single, strangled whistle-blast. Then they walked on, Quiss swallowing a question concerning the train's destination.

There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right, and a thick orange glow spread through the mist, like a setting sun. There was a clattering noise and some howls. The orange glow to their right faded but did not disappear. The seneschal glanced at it briefly but did not appear excessively worried, even when - after a few moments - the scullions running past and round them were all carrying pails of water and sand, fire blankets, cutting gear and stretchers.

"That's another thing," Quiss said as they came closer to where he had dumped the mendacious scullion in the cauldron. "With all this equipment for moving things about the place," he gestured up towards the moving line of clinking cutlery above their heads, looping under the assorted ducting and swivelled prisms of the kitchens" ceiling, "not to mention the clock mechanism and transmission set-up and the complicated plumbing for the floors and ceilings

"Yes?" said the seneschal.

Quiss scowled and said, "Why can't you get the food to us while it's still hot?"

They were passing the vat Quiss had thrown the small attendant into. The scullion appeared to have survived the ordeal and was sitting, quivering and bedraggled, being wiped down by some of its colleagues. An under-cook was supervising the cleaning of the stove around the cauldron and the preparation of fresh ingredients to replace those lost. The seneschal stopped, looking at the work being done with a critical eye. The scullions worked even faster. The one Quiss had dumped in the gruel saw the huge fur-clad figure of the human and started shaking so hard that little flecks of soupy stuff flew off it, like water from a dog.

"Well," the seneschal said, "it's a long way from here to there."

"So construct a dumb-waiter."

"That would be..." the seneschal paused, watching one of the apprentice chefs dipping a long ladle into the cauldron the unfortunate attendant had just vacated. The apprentice put the ladle to its mouth, then nodded appreciatively and started back down the ladder as the seneschal continued, "... going against tradition. It is a great honour for our waiters to take our guests their meals. I certainly could not deprive them of that. A dumbwaiter would be..." the apprentice chef with the ladle was talking to the under-cook now, who also tasted the ladle's contents and nodded, while the seneschal said,'... impersonal."

"Who cares if it's impersonal? These aren't necessarily the sort of... persons I want to have anything to do with anyway," Quiss said, indicating the various attendants, waiters and scullions around them as the under-cook respectfully approached the seneschal, bowing to him. The seneschal stooped slightly as the under-cook borrowed a stool and stood on it to whisper something into his master's ear. The seneschal looked briefly at the quivering attendant being looked after by the others, then he shrugged and said something to the under-cook, who quickly got back down off the stool and turned to the others.

The seneschal looked at Quiss and said, "Unfortunately there are not only your feelings to be taken into account. I have the welfare of my staff to think of. Such is life. I must go now." He turned and left, ignoring the shouts and screams of the small wet attendant as - after the under-cook had gathered the other scullions round, pointed to the cauldron, the ladle and its own belly before nodding at the wet attendant - the kicking, howling creature was grabbed by the same scullions who had recently been comforting it, hoisted up the ladder still resting against the side of the great vat, and thrown back in. The lid clanged down, rattling on its pulleys.

Quiss stamped his foot in frustration, then marched back up the steps to retrieve the rest of his furs and make his way back to the castle's upper reaches.

Open-Plan Go had turned out to be a game of placing black and white stones on a grid to claim territory on an infinite board. It had taken him and the woman two hundred days - as they measured them - to work out and play the game. Again, they were nearly finished now, and here he was yet again, trying to get the heating improved. Since their last game, the heat and light had deteriorated.

"And now I suppose it'll be my fault the heating hasn't got better immediately," he muttered to himself as he walked along the narrow passageway. She would blame him. Well, let her; he wasn't bothered. Just so long as they could finish this stupid game and get on to his answer. She might be better at thinking up things as stupid as their games (infinite pieces which were only infinite in one direction, from a point; you could hold one end but it was still infinite! Insane!), but he was certain he had the right answer, and a more direct and obvious one than hers had been. He should never have let her talk him into letting her give hers first when they had been deciding how to handle this whole situation. Her and her smooth-talking, "logical" arguments! What a fool he'd been!

"We'll get it right now though," he said to himself, as he ascended through the castle's twisted interior, and the light faded and the cold grew more sharp, and he gathered his furs more closely around him. "Yes, we'll - I'll - get it right this time. Definitely."

Muttering and talking to himself, the old, massive, motley-haired man shuffled through the darkening levels of the castle, wrapped in his furs and hopes and fears.

Quiss's solution to the problem, his answer to the riddle "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" was, "The immovable object loses; force always wins!"

(The red crow, sitting on the balustrade of the balcony, had cackled with laughter. Ajayi had sighed.)

The attendant came back after a few minutes, its little red boots ruffling the hem of its robe. "Much as I dislike being the bearer of bad news..." it began.