Engleby. Part 16

s.h.i.+t. I was actually out of London on the day in question, in Birmingham, and didn't get back till about seven. I had a bath and put Steely Dan on the record player. I ought to explain that I don't like new pop music any more. I'd always liked the latest thing, sequentially: rock'n' roll, pop, soul, psychedelia, hard rock, progressive, glamour, punk, then: whooaaah! I remember the day I suddenly stopped. A deejay played a song that started 'I was working as a waitress in a c.o.c.ktail bar,/That much is true...' When it finished, he banged on about how brilliant it was, how it was the future and everything. And I thought that that pathetic sound, those gutless hairdressers with a toy kazoo pathetic sound, those gutless hairdressers with a toy kazoo that that is the inheritor of Hendrix and Dylan and Stevie Wonder and the Beatles and Cream and... Dear G.o.d. I lowered the top half of the sash window, took careful aim and hurled the small radio out as hard as I could: over the street and into the gra.s.sless 'garden square', where it landed noiselessly. I liked to think of them warbling on till the batteries died, face down in the dog mess. is the inheritor of Hendrix and Dylan and Stevie Wonder and the Beatles and Cream and... Dear G.o.d. I lowered the top half of the sash window, took careful aim and hurled the small radio out as hard as I could: over the street and into the gra.s.sless 'garden square', where it landed noiselessly. I liked to think of them warbling on till the batteries died, face down in the dog mess.

So for five years or more I've just listened to old stuff. I always liked Steely Dan. They must be two of the strangest men ever to imagine they were pop stars. You'd have had them down for maths professors or computer programmers. 'Dr Donald f.a.gen at nine on Statistical a.n.a.lysis; Professor Walter Becker at ten on Boolean Algebra.' Except they were rockers, and so were the others in the picture: Jeff 'skunk' Baxter, responsible, I gathered, for the fret-shattering guitar solo on 'Bodhisattva', Jeff Porcaro and the others.

That night, before Stellings's do, I was listening to the melodious, early Can't Buy a Thrill Can't Buy a Thrill. I thought its sweetness of nature would put me in the mood. I must have heard it a thousand times, but there's always something new there. I was humming along to 'Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)' when I noticed with a jolt that I must always have misheard the lyrics. For a decade or more I'd had it as 'A race of angels/Bound with one another,/A dish of dollars/Laid out for all to see,/A tower room at Eden Roc/His golf at noon for three:/Brooklyn owes the charmer under me.'

Now this had always bothered me because in my limited experience of golf, a three-ball is frowned on. Some clubs you even have to get the secretary's written permission. But here was Donald f.a.gen, and maybe some girl he's singing to, or possibly Walter Becker anyway, that makes two: but who was the third, and how were they going to swing it with the caddymaster? Maybe Don had the secretary's ear, and with a back catalogue like that, who's complaining? But it bothered me. Christ knows what Jeff 'skunk' Baxter's short game was like.

Then, as I lay in the steaming water, it struck me that the words in fact were 'A tower room at Eden Roc/His golf at noon for free free' and it all made sense. I got out of the bath, laughing with relief.

Why was I having these peculiar thoughts and chuckling to myself? My mental processes, I believed, could sometimes include humour, but they weren't normally facetious. What was going on?

I suppose I was nervous.

I'd bought a suit some time ago for going to Fleet Street, but it wasn't very new or very fas.h.i.+onable or very clean. I didn't have much else apart from jeans. It took me only a minute to glance through my 'wardrobe'. I picked a tan seersucker jacket that Margaret had once said she liked, some fairly new straight-leg trousers and a clean s.h.i.+rt (there was only one: it was a sort of maroon colour. It didn't quite go with the jacket, perhaps, but there was no time to wash and iron another one). I wasn't sure about ties. Most of mine were a bit on the kipper side. Then I remembered I still had a cowboy bootlace thing that Julie had given me one Christmas (it was one up on the Donny Osmond tee s.h.i.+rt. Where the h.e.l.l did that go, by the way?). I put the tie on and I thought it did a job. If they were all wearing ties, well, so was I; if not, mine was a joke. My newest shoes were a pair of rubber-soled caramel-brown lace-ups, so on they went.

At the weekend I'd bought a pricey bottle of Montrachet to amuse Stellings and I got some flowers (dahlias, I think; I'm not good on flowers orange jobs anyway) at 8.22 from the garage on Westbourne Grove for 'Clarissa'. I was keeping a tight watch on the time because I didn't want to be late. I walked on briskly.

When I first came to London, Notting Hill was full of squatters, potters and banjoists; but the tide seems to be turning. Many rooms have gone to flats, the flats back into houses and the houses have been bought by people in American banks who wouldn't know a Bacon from a xylophone.

At 8.29 I punched the front doorbell in Elgin Crescent. It was opened by a small oriental woman in a white ap.r.o.n. She showed me into a large, empty sitting room with an open fire and a couple of huge oil paintings. One was of an old bloke in Gainsborough style (a Stellings or Clarissa ancestor, perhaps) and the other a more or less random splosh-and-twirl in grey and tangerine that seemed designed to trigger a sequence of soph.o.m.ore thoughts about 'art'.

I was still shuddering at the ba.n.a.lity of my own responses when Stellings breezed in.

'Christ, Groucho, you're punctual. Or Gaucho, we'll have to call you with that tie. Have a drink. Champagne? Wine? Scotch?'

'Yeah, Scotch.' I thought it would sit better on the three Johnnie Walkers and the blue pill I'd already had in my flat.

'Clarissa's just saying goodnight to Alexander. How's things? Any good scoops lately?'

I told Stellings a bit about the work I'd done. He was wearing jeans with an open-necked white s.h.i.+rt, espadrilles and no socks. He hadn't made much of an effort, I thought.

My drink was brought to me by the Thai or Filipina in the white ap.r.o.n.

A woman appeared in the doorway: tall, fair-haired, dressed all in black, so I wondered if she'd been to a funeral, down to the thin black tights on her long legs. She had rather more mascara than you'd expect for a wake, though, and reddish-pink lipstick. Also, she didn't look tear-stained or sad. I felt her eyes flicker over me, pausing for a moment at my feet.

'Darling, this is Mike Engleby. Mike, this is Clarissa the old trouble and strife.'

Clarissa's soft hand entered mine and withdrew almost before it had made contact; it was more of a stroke than a shake. 'James has told me so much about you. Come and sit down. James, you're not looking after Mike properly. Have an olive.'

'Is it all right if I smoke?'

'Of course it is. Let.i.tia, would you mind getting an ashtray?'

Clarissa's large blue eyes fixed on my face as she perched next to me on the sofa, s.h.i.+fting away only a few inches when some of my smoke seemed go up her nose. I felt swaddled by the intensity of her interest.

'And tell me more about your family,' she was saying. 'Are they still in... Reading? I had a friend who lived not far from there once. In Stratfield Saye. Do you know it?'

Her expression had the life-and-death curiosity of someone needing only one more score-draw for the pools jackpot.

'No. My mother's in the hotel business.'

'How interesting. I believe it's awfully hard work.'

'Yes. Yes. And... Er, my sister's in brewing.'

'Which side of it?'

'Accounts.'

'It's such a volatile market, isn't it, wines and spirits? There are so many conglomerates, aren't there, but I believe many of the independent breweries have done well recently.'

'Yeah, well I think the real ale thing's helped a bit. And you know-'

'Of course. How clever of your sister. And is she married, did you say?'

'Not yet. She-'

'Sensible girl. Career first. And are you a Berks.h.i.+re family on both sides?'

I did my best to make Mum and Julie's life worthy of this apocalyptic degree of interest. After a while, I half began to believe it myself, as the Englebys, in my account, emerged as yeomen of Mercia, devoted to their victualling heritage. Still, I was relieved when at about nine-fifteen some more people arrived.

I didn't catch many names, but there were I think four more couples, making eleven people in all, with only Engleby unpartnered. The men all had the same haircuts: shorter than mine, with straight edges, dark gloss and burnish. They had suntans and made candid eye contact with one another. Most wore suits and apologised for having come straight from work; they loosened their ties and showily threw the first drink down their necks presumably to prove they were at home chez Stellings and no longer in the office. They talked mostly about sport and cars. The women were without exception good-looking. All were thin; most were in dazzling colours puce and amber and lilac as though they were stating some primal confidence. Their hair, too, smelled of salons and looked brittle and dry, though gleaming. They all had slim legs covered with some fabric I'd never seen before: like nylon, but finer. I orbited round with a B&H on the go, and occasionally got a word in.

For dinner, we went downstairs to a long table with a floor-length white cloth, candles and bowls of tall h.e.l.lebores at intervals. I know they were h.e.l.lebores because I heard Clarissa say so when one of the women asked.

I was put between someone called Laura and someone called Cecilia. The layout of the table meant that I couldn't really see through the flowers to anyone opposite and in any event they would have had to shout. So I talked to Laura for about twenty minutes, then to Cecilia for about twenty. Then when I swivelled back to give Laura her ration, she'd turned to her left. I switched back to Cecilia, but she too had turned the other way. So I stared straight ahead while the first course and the main course came and went and the maid filled and refilled my gla.s.s with white burgundy, then claret.

Then I had another right-and-left stint.

What did they say?

One had three children and told me about the schools they attended and the schools they hoped to send them to after that. She asked if I had any children and I said no. Then she told me which of her children were good at which subjects and which were having extra tuition. One of her daughters was also good at the violin, whereas her son was mad about football. Then she talked of the reputations of various schools that her children were not going to but which friends of hers had children at. She also talked of a new school that had just been started somewhat too late for her elder children, and her youngest couldn't be moved because he was happy where he was and how she thought it might be a great success because there would always be a need for good schools.

I agreed with her emphatically as though she'd been only halfhearted in her own belief that there would always always be a need for good schools. be a need for good schools.

Something odd was happening in my head. Although I was receiving a large amount of random information, I didn't feel I knew any more about anything. On the contrary, I felt that, as far as data in the brain were concerned, I had suffered a net loss.

'And where did you go to school yourself?' she said.

'What?'

'Where did you go to school?'

'Eton.'

'Really? My brother was there. What years were you?'

'Sixty-six to seventy.'

'Which house?'

'Collingham.'

'I mean, who was your housemaster?'

'You wouldn't have heard of him. Which house was your brother in?'

'H.R.T.'s.'

'Right. I didn't know anyone in that one.'

'No one! Gosh, I thought only the scholars didn't mix.'

'Well, I was a scholar, you see.'

'So why weren't you in College?'

'I...' I took a long pull of white burgundy.

'I know. You were an OS, weren't you?' know. You were an OS, weren't you?'

'Yeah, that's right. An OS.' I had a brainwave. 'And I met Stellings James, I mean, at university. We were in the same college.'

I thought I'd got away with it. I don't know why I told a lie. Maybe I couldn't face talking about Chatfield. Or perhaps my brain had just been scrambled by the occasion. As soon as I could, I turned to the other side.

This neighbour, she told me, had only one child, but had had six au pairs. She herself had returned to work at a bank which was where she'd first met Clarissa, as it happened, when she was working in the mergers and acquisitions department and so it was very important that the au pair should be a good one, since neither she nor her husband (who was sitting next to Clarissa and talking far too loudly as usual, she was sorry to say) was at home very often. He (the husband) had taken a bath, by all accounts, over some long term financial guesswork that hadn't come off, but had turned it all around in the last six months to the extent that he'd been headhunted and was now on 'gardening leave'. In his new job, he was going to be remunerated on an 'eat what you kill' basis.

So, I ventured to suggest, the au pair crisis must have eased off a bit.

Far from it. Things had gone from bad to worse. The Latvian was lazy, the Czech was greedy and the Pole took money from Laura's (possibly Cecilia's) purse. We tried a bit of a Czech/cheque/check thing here, but it didn't really catch fire, possibly because it was the Pole who'd been the tea leaf. So we quickly got back to the child, who was now at a nursery school, which was a blessing.

Was it the new place, I wondered, the one that had just started?

It turned out that it was indeed the new one, and it was every bit as good as they'd hoped. They took such a lot of interest in the children. And it gave them a head start at big school. Talking of which, there were any number of possibilities for the little fellow possibilities which we went on at some length to review.

My head cranked from side to side, ten minutes here, ten minutes there, like watching Wimbledon in slow motion. I began to feel that I was no longer making sense. The more I heard, the less I knew. Someone had put their fingers in my brain and uncoupled the trucks.

When the au pair one came back for a fourth knock I could see the dumb pain in her eyes.

I had imagined that at a 'dinner party' you talked to your friend, the one who'd invited you, and maybe his wife, and who knows, a couple of others and the whole thing became a sort of convivial, pooled chat. Like a pub or a cafe.

I hadn't thought it through.

It had never crossed my mind that I'd spend three hours talking to the wives of people I'd never met. It was like being stuck in a stalled Tube train, trying to make common cause with the strangers in the next seat, but without the Evening Standard Evening Standard for respite. for respite.

Coffee arrived at one o'clock. By then, I was no longer capable of thought. All that once I'd known, I had forgotten.

At one-thirty, I stumbled upstairs. I must have drunk at least a bottle of Stellings's Meursault and a bottle and a half of La Dominique (I noticed he was still keen on the 'poor man's Petrus', or whatever he'd christened it). I was well into a second packet of B&H.

A couple of men were standing in front of the fireplace.

'Ah, h.e.l.lo, er...'

'Mike,' I said.

'Mike. Of course. We were just talking about this new school that's started in Cambridge Gardens. Do you know it?'

I felt a curious rage begin to swell in me... But I was tired and drunk and the blue pill swirled the last of its gentle magic through my veins as I sucked in deep on good Virginia tobacco.

'You bet,' I said. 'I gather it's fantastic.'

Back home that night, I restored some sense of sanity with a diary session. I lay in bed in the darkness and selected a special date, one of my favourites: the first ever.

T THURSDAY 25 M 25 MAY, 1972 I've decided to keep a diary. My name is Jennifer Arkland and I'm 19 years old. I'm a first-year history student and I've just done my preliminary exams, or 'prelims'. They don't give you grades, but they tell you your marks and I did better than I expected. I've decided to keep a diary. My name is Jennifer Arkland and I'm 19 years old. I'm a first-year history student and I've just done my preliminary exams, or 'prelims'. They don't give you grades, but they tell you your marks and I did better than I expected. I've never kept a diary before, so I feel a bit odd writing this. Should I introduce myself? Why?! I'm not going to show it to anyone. And to herself, Jennifer surely needs no introduction. I've never kept a diary before, so I feel a bit odd writing this. Should I introduce myself? Why?! I'm not going to show it to anyone. And to herself, Jennifer surely needs no introduction. If not to show it, then why write it? Do I have a 'deep subconscious' desire to be read to reveal and be shamed? Doubt it. If not to show it, then why write it? Do I have a 'deep subconscious' desire to be read to reveal and be shamed? Doubt it. I'm writing it for two reasons or two that I'm aware of. One, so I can read it in old age, or middle age. Always regret so few photos of us as children. You think: what's the point, today like any other day, nothing special, not worth recording. But it is, it was. Why? Because I'm writing it for two reasons or two that I'm aware of. One, so I can read it in old age, or middle age. Always regret so few photos of us as children. You think: what's the point, today like any other day, nothing special, not worth recording. But it is, it was. Why? Because it's all there is it's all there is. Don't mean that to sound morbid, like typical first-year: 'birth, copulation and death, that's all there is when you come down to it...' No. Key word is 'all'. And that 'all' is plenty. Don't mean that to sound morbid, like typical first-year: 'birth, copulation and death, that's all there is when you come down to it...' No. Key word is 'all'. And that 'all' is plenty. What I mean is that I don't have teleological view (great new word from Dr Abraham seminar on Puritans. They v definitely What I mean is that I don't have teleological view (great new word from Dr Abraham seminar on Puritans. They v definitely did did have tel. view). I believe that the living and the breathing and the being with people you are fond of and the friendly exchange with them of ideas and stories and encouragement and love is the totality of what we are and of what we can do. Don't believe those exps can be forced into meaningful 'shape' or 'journey', as per tel. view. have tel. view). I believe that the living and the breathing and the being with people you are fond of and the friendly exchange with them of ideas and stories and encouragement and love is the totality of what we are and of what we can do. Don't believe those exps can be forced into meaningful 'shape' or 'journey', as per tel. view. Do Do believe that the richness available in those exchanges is definitely enough. believe that the richness available in those exchanges is definitely enough. Enough for what? you may ask, Hypothetical Reader. Without tel. view there is no framework, no criteria by which the experience of being alive can be deemed 'sufficient' or 'insufficient'. So: illogical question, dear HR! Enough for what? you may ask, Hypothetical Reader. Without tel. view there is no framework, no criteria by which the experience of being alive can be deemed 'sufficient' or 'insufficient'. So: illogical question, dear HR! I suppose I just mean 'enough to make me happy, curious and full of excitement'. That's the way I feel. Agnostic but happy. (I sound like a puppy. Do believe am a I suppose I just mean 'enough to make me happy, curious and full of excitement'. That's the way I feel. Agnostic but happy. (I sound like a puppy. Do believe am a fraction fraction deeper than that...) deeper than that...) How so? Well, maybe the love generated between people who behave well and kindly adds somehow to the available pool of existing good feeling in the world, and lives on after them. (Now sound like drippy hippy, but actually it's true and easy to prove.) Without good example such as preserved in literature, there would be nothing to live up to, no sense of transcendence or of our lives beyond the Hobbesian. So these feelings do endure and I believe they also survive through memory, orally and in families as much as in written word. So while living may have no How so? Well, maybe the love generated between people who behave well and kindly adds somehow to the available pool of existing good feeling in the world, and lives on after them. (Now sound like drippy hippy, but actually it's true and easy to prove.) Without good example such as preserved in literature, there would be nothing to live up to, no sense of transcendence or of our lives beyond the Hobbesian. So these feelings do endure and I believe they also survive through memory, orally and in families as much as in written word. So while living may have no meaning meaning in any teleological sense, it does have practical in any teleological sense, it does have practical purpose purpose in the way that how we live can improve the experience of others alive and yet to be born; and thus, a bit more contentiously (because harder to define scale on which it's measured), it also has in the way that how we live can improve the experience of others alive and yet to be born; and thus, a bit more contentiously (because harder to define scale on which it's measured), it also has value value. This seems so obvious to me as to be almost axiomatic. But brings me to second reason for starting diary. First is for future reading pleasure, period quaintness, as described above. Second is because I feel so happy. Haven't always been this happy and know I won't always be so in future; so wanted to pickle and preserve, not just for historical interest but as possible future store to draw on in leaner years. Contentment as chutney or sauerkraut. But brings me to second reason for starting diary. First is for future reading pleasure, period quaintness, as described above. Second is because I feel so happy. Haven't always been this happy and know I won't always be so in future; so wanted to pickle and preserve, not just for historical interest but as possible future store to draw on in leaner years. Contentment as chutney or sauerkraut. Why so happy? What so great, Jen? Live in rather horrid modern room in college. Small metal-framed window overlooks back delivery yard with bicycle rack, kitchens and rubbish bins. Bed-c.u.m-sofa, window seat, desk, chair. Pantry and bath down landing. Bathroom always occupied. Not nearly as nice as my room at home. Why so happy? What so great, Jen? Live in rather horrid modern room in college. Small metal-framed window overlooks back delivery yard with bicycle rack, kitchens and rubbish bins. Bed-c.u.m-sofa, window seat, desk, chair. Pantry and bath down landing. Bathroom always occupied. Not nearly as nice as my room at home. Friends... Yes, but no one as close as family or Susan and Becky from school. Molly down corridor v nice and think Anne cd become friend. Emma M? That Indian-looking girl Malini, is it? Bit scary. So not exhilaration of fab friends.h.i.+ps making me so happy. Friends... Yes, but no one as close as family or Susan and Becky from school. Molly down corridor v nice and think Anne cd become friend. Emma M? That Indian-looking girl Malini, is it? Bit scary. So not exhilaration of fab friends.h.i.+ps making me so happy. Work is interesting, but, despite what Mum and Dad think, have never really been a swot. True, did well at school, but not hard, not v brainy school so not much compet.i.tion yet good teachers. In final term three of them teaching three of us univ candidates. What staff/pupil ratio! Work is interesting, but, despite what Mum and Dad think, have never really been a swot. True, did well at school, but not hard, not v brainy school so not much compet.i.tion yet good teachers. In final term three of them teaching three of us univ candidates. What staff/pupil ratio! Anyway, work here is fine, though I don't think that in the appointment of dons to college or university positions the ability to Anyway, work here is fine, though I don't think that in the appointment of dons to college or university positions the ability to teach teach was considered at any stage. Most v ungifted in that dept, and manifestly more into their own work than ours. was considered at any stage. Most v ungifted in that dept, and manifestly more into their own work than ours. I like work, but not carried away by it, not like some people. I like work, but not carried away by it, not like some people. Am not 'in love' either. Don't have boyfriend. Am rather freaked out by s.e.x ratio imbalance. You feel quite self-conscious in lectures being one of sometimes four girls among 50 boys. Also, many of the academic girls or women as we call ourselves are not that glamorous, to be frank, and attract zero interest from boys so others of us feel need to show solidarity with them rather than flirt vacuously. Am not 'in love' either. Don't have boyfriend. Am rather freaked out by s.e.x ratio imbalance. You feel quite self-conscious in lectures being one of sometimes four girls among 50 boys. Also, many of the academic girls or women as we call ourselves are not that glamorous, to be frank, and attract zero interest from boys so others of us feel need to show solidarity with them rather than flirt vacuously. Boyfriend thing is certainly one to take very slowly. Unless bolt from blue. Am romantic enough to hope a Boyfriend thing is certainly one to take very slowly. Unless bolt from blue. Am romantic enough to hope a tiny tiny bit for such a thing. Also realist enough to know that I couldn't feel much happier anyhow, so to some extent: what wd be point of Prince Charming? (Listening to Miles Davis at Jazz Club last week, earnest boy from St John's said that most touching part of 'someday My Prince Will Come' was 'slight illiteracy' of first word of t.i.tle, suggesting uneducated girl in Harlem standing on tenement balcony looking wistfully over broken neighbourhood... Could be.) bit for such a thing. Also realist enough to know that I couldn't feel much happier anyhow, so to some extent: what wd be point of Prince Charming? (Listening to Miles Davis at Jazz Club last week, earnest boy from St John's said that most touching part of 'someday My Prince Will Come' was 'slight illiteracy' of first word of t.i.tle, suggesting uneducated girl in Harlem standing on tenement balcony looking wistfully over broken neighbourhood... Could be.) So where's it coming from, this feeling, this funny low euphoria? A little bit from the town, I think. I do love the dirty brick of the miniature terraces and the mist from the river and the cold mornings, even now in May. And then the sudden huge vista of a great courtyard of King's or Trin or Queens', when everything that's been pinched, and puritanical and cold and grudging and sixpence-in-the-gas-meter is suddenly swept away by the power and scale of those buildings, with their towers and crenellations and squandered empty s.p.a.ces, built by men who knew that they'd calculated the mechanical laws of time and distance and that there was therefore no need whatever to build small. So where's it coming from, this feeling, this funny low euphoria? A little bit from the town, I think. I do love the dirty brick of the miniature terraces and the mist from the river and the cold mornings, even now in May. And then the sudden huge vista of a great courtyard of King's or Trin or Queens', when everything that's been pinched, and puritanical and cold and grudging and sixpence-in-the-gas-meter is suddenly swept away by the power and scale of those buildings, with their towers and crenellations and squandered empty s.p.a.ces, built by men who knew that they'd calculated the mechanical laws of time and distance and that there was therefore no need whatever to build small. Also... What? As Dad often says, I'm a 'lucky girl' by which he means I have a good 'temperament'. By this Jane Austeny word, he means that I am 'naturally at home in the world' while some people are 'all across it'. Don't know how scientific that is, but perhaps something in it. Also... What? As Dad often says, I'm a 'lucky girl' by which he means I have a good 'temperament'. By this Jane Austeny word, he means that I am 'naturally at home in the world' while some people are 'all across it'. Don't know how scientific that is, but perhaps something in it. I think I could put it more simply. I like being 19. I wasn't that keen on being a child because I always felt I was missing out on things; and I know I'll be no good at all at being 35 or 40 or G.o.d help us 50! But 19, 20 and so on seems to me wonderful. There's nothing 'they' won't let me do, and I occasionally think there's almost nothing I couldn't do. I think I could put it more simply. I like being 19. I wasn't that keen on being a child because I always felt I was missing out on things; and I know I'll be no good at all at being 35 or 40 or G.o.d help us 50! But 19, 20 and so on seems to me wonderful. There's nothing 'they' won't let me do, and I occasionally think there's almost nothing I couldn't do. Sometimes in my cramped room am so excited when I turn the light out by prospect of coming days and weeks that I can't sleep. Must be careful. Pride before fall, Johnny Head in Air and so on. But can't Sometimes in my cramped room am so excited when I turn the light out by prospect of coming days and weeks that I can't sleep. Must be careful. Pride before fall, Johnny Head in Air and so on. But can't help help being happy and am b**ed if will pretend to fas.h.i.+onable gloom. being happy and am b**ed if will pretend to fas.h.i.+onable gloom.

That's my girl. Interesting how she started off with all that show-offy stude stuff 'teleological', 'Hobbesian' etc. but her later entries were much more about s.e.x and drugs. You grow up fast over those years.

But as Jen's writing got cruder, I can't help noticing, when I look back, that my own style has poshed up a bit. 'I miss the eruptive blue ballpointed handwriting squeezed in so tight between the red feint rules.' 'The expanding town of Basingstoke seethed like Laoc.o.o.n within its concentric ring roads.'

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

I see the blue pencil of Dr Gerald Stanley making a sarcastic wavy line under those sentences... Actually, come to think of it, he didn't use blue pencil or red ballpoint, but black ink indistinguishable from that used by me and three-quarters of his students. A small thing, that lack of consideration and common sense, but in fact unbelievably irritating. It looked as though you'd scrawled graffiti on your own stuff.

The reason that my style has become less cramped, more expansive is pretty obvious, I imagine.

I'm happier. It took me a long time to recognise that that was the name of this feeling happiness. It, as they say, 'crept up'. By this I mean that when I first acknowledged to myself that there was a fundamental change in the way I viewed the day ahead, the way I looked at myself and my life, the mood that had become established as my default I simultaneously admitted that the change had been in place for some time. That's what's meant by 'creeping up', I think.

Margaret and I had a party last week to celebrate our officially moving in together. It was her idea. She wanted to make some sort of 'statement', I think; she wanted to be respectable and show her friends that she wasn't a discard.

I thought it was a bad idea. For a start, I'm keeping my flat in Bayswater; I'm only moving a few s.h.i.+rts and a toothbrush up to Holloway. Second, I thought that if husband Derek gets wind of it, he'll stop the payments for his daughter.

I pointed this out to Margaret and it went down very badly indeed. The sincerity of my interest in her was called into question. She more or less implied that if I ended up footing the bill for someone else's kid so what? That's what you did if you were 'serious about a relations.h.i.+p'.

It was our first argument, but obviously a big one. I went off and thought about it for a few days (the paper had sent me to Manchester anyway). One of the things about never having any money as a child is that you really want to hang on to it when you do finally get some. I didn't think I was particularly mean as a rule, but paying for wife-beater Derek's kid... That just didn't seem right to me.

On the other hand, I was happy with Margaret and I did like Charlotte. She reminded me of Julie at that age obviously though, to be brutal, she was not quite so gormless. She had a variety of friends from the local comprehensive whom I also Christ, I must be 'mellowing' or something rather liked. They tore through the flat, stripped out the fridge, took my cigarettes, misfired round the toilet, 'borrowed' Margaret's videos, grabbed tins of beer and left. But I felt there was no harm in them. I admired their rush.

As for Charlotte... I think I liked her clothes as much as anything. The effort she put in to looking good each day: the ribbons and the torn jeans, the lace mittens, the combat gear from Lawrence Corner at the foot of Hampstead Road, the black-rimmed eyes, the puffed-out nylon skirts and coloured basketball boots... And she was fun to talk to, when she could be bothered. She was very forthright, swore like a hooker and was experimenting with some sort of consonant-free London dialect. I went for her in quite a big way.

So I said yes to Margaret: yes, I'd take the consequences of a move and yes, let's have a party. We cleared most of the stuff out of the living room into Charlotte's bedroom and set up the record player. Margaret bought food from the large supermarket near Highbury Corner and got to work: sausages, pate, French bread, stodgy stuff to soak up the cases of Spanish wine I got from Oddbins.

Margaret asked about fifty people, many from the office. Tony b.o.l.l.o.c.k, of course; the woman's page staff en ma.s.se; her sister Brenda and her obese husband from Little Chalfont. Lots of people I knew by sight from various pubs and bars in Fleet Street.

We had invitations printed with some embarra.s.sing words devised by Margaret. Something about 'shared life' or 'new beginning'. I honestly forget.

I invited a few people from my old mag: Jan, Wyn Douglas, Bob Nixon the crime reporter; s.h.i.+reen Nazawi, the EFL-speaking interviewer. I thought about asking Stellings and Clarissa, but I knew they'd hate it.

Then I wrote off to some of the friends I'd made through interviewing. Naim Attallah, for instance. (I did find out who he was in the end. He was a Palestinian steeplejack who'd chanced into a jewellery business called Asprey, then bought a run-down publis.h.i.+ng house.) He wasn't free to come, but he sent a card and a gift voucher to Margaret from his shop for 100.