Divorcing Jack Read Free Page B

help. I've never been carried.'
    'You don't look much like your picture in the paper.'
    'Disappointed?'
    'You don't look as hungry in real life.'
    'It was taken on a particularly bad day. You like the column? Be honest. I'm not fishing for compliments, but if you don't answer in the affirmative I'll break your nose.'
    ‘I like it. Sometimes. Better than the other crap.'
    ‘I like that. Better than the other crap. Put that on my gravestone.'
    A lank, dank guy ambled up to her and offered her a pull on a joint. She shook her head. After a moment's hesitation he begrudgingly offered it to me. I shook my head as well. He moved off into the shadows.
    'Friend?'
    She shrugged. 'I know him to see. It's nice of him to offer. I don't mind a smoke actually, but not here, the half of them are probably undercover anyway. You should know that.'
    'Aye, I know.'
    'And when I say I don't mind a smoke I'm not talking to you as Daniel Starkey, journalist, but Dan Starkey, drunk. All strictly off the record.'
    'Of course, of course. I will have no memory of this in the morning.' Or I would remember it all, or remember it all wrong. It varied.
    It didn't start out as anything more than a few quiet drinks with a stranger, but the drink and the time flew in. Patricia would already be out on the town. It was a Friday night tradition. Eight or ten of our friends would call round to our house after tea, have a carry-out and a smoke and then head out to a bar. Patricia was accustomed to my occasional non-appearances. If I didn't meet them in one or other of the bars we favoured with our custom I'd see them back at the house later where the drinking would continue. It was teenage partying on adult paycheques.
    By 1 a.m. the bar was closed and Margaret started to make vague noises about going home, but I took her by the arm and gently insisted that she come back to the house for a drink. She should meet my friends. She'd maybe meet a nice man. You never know who might be there. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
    ‘I know your wife would be there. What would she think you turning up with me?'
    'Nothing. She's used to it.'
    'Thanks a lot, like, you make me sound so special.'
    'Don't be silly, I mean she doesn't mind me bringing people home for drink, man or girl. She likes meeting people and she trusts me. She's no reason to mistrust me. And I don't mess around.'
    She looked unconvinced. 'Unless you get the chance.'^
    'Come for one. What harm's it going to do? It's only up the road.'
    'And you promise you won't write about me in the paper?'
    'Don't be so paranoid.'
    She hemmed and hawed for a while, but I won her over, using charm and drunken logic. We went up Botanic Avenue and turned into the Holy Land, a tangle of terraced streets off the university that had mostly fallen under student occupation. It was late, but there was still plenty of life about, most of it drunk. We were home in five minutes.
    There was music booming out of the house, barely muffled by wood and brick. It was a big house, three floors and an attic. We'd had it for three years and it still smelt like the student flats it had been, kind of musty and unshaven, an air of potential about it stifled by laziness. I opened the front door. Directly ahead of us in the kitchen Mouse was piling food into the microwave. He was thirty-two, powerfully built, an old mate. He turned as the door opened.
    'BOUT YA, DAN!'
    'Hi, Mouse. Pat here?'
    He pointed towards the lounge. I could feel the throb of a bass through the door and people jumping up and down. I opened it and led Margaret in. The Rezillos' 'Flying Saucer Attack' was blasting out of the speakers. Half a dozen of my friends were bouncing around to it, wearing album covers on their heads. They looked like druids. It was a tradition. There was a stack of cans in the corner. I grabbed two and gave one to Margaret. She sat down on the arm of a ripped leather armchair. Immediately Gerry and Dawn pounced on her and had her up dancing. I