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shrouded in mystery. Mrs. Montague gave us a quick tour of what would be my room, as well as the kitchen and bathroom we would share. My room was pokey, eight feet by six and a half, only room for a narrow little bed and quitedim, the ground being level with the windowsill. The bathroom contained a tub but no shower. I also couldn’t help noticing a threadbare toothbrush whose handle was in the shape of a naked man with an erect penis. The kitchen was painted a weak yellow and boasted thick, dusty cobwebs wherever possible.
    The whole afternoon was just a formality; I knew that Mrs. Montague’s pad would be perfect for my plan to waste precisely the right amount of my parents’ time and money.
    The following week, as my parents drove off home after delivering me and my personal effects to Golden Court, I started to wonder why they didn’t once ask me if I was sure that I’d be okay living with some wild-eyed old bat. They thought either that living with a relic would be somehow character-building, were agreeable with her bargain asking price, or had gotten wind of my ill-fated plan and were fixing on teaching me a lesson of my own.
    My going to college garnered me only pity from my school chums, who couldn’t fathom why I had agreed, albeit under duress, to go. They wanted fast cars, sharp clothes, booze-fueled vacations in warm climates, and, a couple of years down the road, enough for a down payment on a house in or around Corringham. Uni would just be putting that all off for another three or four years, slowing down the fags and booze-fueled march to a plot in a local cemetery.
    My farewell drinks do at the White Lion Pub was more like a wake.
    â€œWell, looking on the bright side,” said John, who, despite being two years younger than me, was already pulling down a good salary at the Bank of England, “you might actually get your balls wet, for once.”
    My friends were always riding me about my status as a sexual nonstarter. Every Friday night a group of four or five of us would drive to some obnoxious super-club to “pull birds.” John, Martin, John, Matt, and the other John would invariably snog a handful of birds and probably get their hands in their knickers on the dance floor, a maneuver we called feeding the pony a sugarlump. I, on the other hand, ended up as the designated eunuch. I would have loved and appreciated an anonymous tug-job in the parking lot of the Pizzazz! nightclub. Itseemed that normal sexual experiences like that were being doled out willy-nilly to my crew, while the only visceral pleasure I could count on was rounding out the night with a gyro from Memet’s Abra-kebabra.
    If any of us could have benefited from three years of undergraduate bacchanalia, it was probably me.
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    I’LL BE ASKING you to make yourself scarce every second Wednesday,” said Mrs. Montague with what I was beginning to realize was a permanent phlegmy rattle.
    She watched me stack cans of baked beans and pasta onto my end table, windowsill, and under my bed.
    I was told that all of the real estate in the refrigerator was accounted for and that I should also stick to “nonperishables” that I could store in my room.
    â€œYou can stay in your room on these occasions if you’ve nowhere to go but you may not use the bathroom, as movement can be distracting.”
    She went into the other room to watch the omnibus Sunday screening of EastEnders but carried on talking to me in her haughty, horsey tone. “On those occasions, you ought not to drink a lot of fluids. Bridge tournaments, don’t you know. Distractions. We have our home games here. We play Putney next week. Putney! They are awfully good but oftentimes late.”
    And then, with a drag on her cigarette and a heavy sigh, she added, “To the victors go the spoils, I suppose.”
    She stopped for a long, loud slurp of tea. When it came to imbibing hot fluids, she had this interesting