Текст книги "One Day"

Автор книги: David Nicholls

Соавторы: David Nicholls
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‘I’m not on holiday, I’m working!’

‘What about journalism? Didn’t you talk about journalism?’

He had mentioned it in passing, but only as a distraction and alibi. It seemed that as he ambled through his late teens his possibilities had slowly begun to narrow. Certain cool-sounding jobs – heart surgeon, architect – were permanently closed to him now and journalism seemed about to go the same way. He wasn’t much of a writer, knew little about politics, spoke bad restaurant-French, lacked all training and qualifications, possessed only a passport and a vivid image of himself smoking beneath a ceiling fan in tropical countries, a battered Nikon and a bottle of whisky by his bedside.

Of course what he really wanted was to be a photographer. At sixteen he had completed a photo-project called ‘Texture’, full of black and white close-ups of tree bark and sea-shells which had apparently ‘blown’ his art teacher’s mind. Nothing that he had done since had given him as much satisfaction as ‘Texture’ and those high-contrast prints of frost on windows and the gravel in the driveway. Journalism would mean grappling with difficult stuff like words and ideas, but he thought he might have the makings of a decent photographer, if only because he felt he had a strong sense of when things looked right. At this stage in his life, his main criterion for choosing a career was that it should sound good in a bar, shouted into a girl’s ear, and there was no denying that ‘I’m a professional photographer’ was a fine sentence, almost up there with ‘I report from war zones’ or ‘actually, I make documentaries.’

‘Journalism’s a possibility.’

‘Or business. Weren’t you and Callum going to start up some business?’

‘We’re giving it some thought.’

‘All sounds a bit vague, just “business”.’

‘Like I said, we’re giving it some thought.’ In truth Callum, his old flatmate, had already started the business without him, something about computer refurbishment that Dexter didn’t have the energy to understand. They’d be millionaires by the time they were twenty-five, Callum insisted, but what would it sound like in a bar? ‘Actually, I refurbish computers.’ No, professional photography was his best bet. He decided to try saying it out loud.

‘Actually, I’m thinking about photography.’

‘Photography?’ His mother gave a maddening laugh.

‘Hey, I’m a good photographer!’

‘—when you remember to take your thumb off the lens.’

‘Aren’t you meant to be encouraging me?’

‘What kind of photographer? Glamour?’ She gave a throaty laugh. ‘Or are you going to continue your work on Texture!’ and they had to stop while she stood in the street laughing for some time, doubled over, holding onto his arm for support – ‘All those pictures of gravel!’ – until finally it was over, and she stood and straightened her face. ‘Dexter, I am so, so sorry. .’

‘I’m actually much better now.’

‘I know you are, I’m sorry. I apologise.’ They began to walk again. ‘You must do it, Dexter, if that’s what you want.’ She squeezed his arm with her elbow, but Dexter felt sulky. ‘We’ve always told you that you can be anything you want to be, if you work hard enough.’

‘It was just a thought,’ he said, petulantly. ‘I’m weighing up my options, that’s all.’

‘Well I hope so, because teaching’s a fine profession, but this isn’t really your vocation, is it? Teaching Beatles songs to moony Nordic girls.’

‘It’s hard work, Mum. Besides it gives me something to fall back on.’

‘Yes, well, sometimes I wonder if you have a little too much to fall back on.’ She was looking down as she spoke and the remark seemed to rebound off the flagstones. They walked a little further before he spoke.

‘And what does thatmean?’

‘Oh, I just mean—’ She sighed, and rested her head against his shoulder. ‘I just mean that at some point you’ll have to get serious about life, that’s all. You’re young and healthy and you look nice enough, I suppose, in a low light. People seem to like you, you’re smart, or smart enough, not academically maybe, but you know what’s what. And you’ve had luck, so much luck, Dexter, and you’ve been protected from things, responsibility, money. But you’re an adult now, and one day things might not be this. .’ She looked around her, indicating the scenic little back street down which he had brought her. ‘. . this serene. It would be good if you were prepared for that. It would do you good to be better equipped.’

Dexter frowned. ‘What, a career you mean?’

‘Partly.’

‘You sound like Dad.’

‘Good God, in what way?’

‘A proper job, something to fall back on, something to get up for.’

‘Not just that, not just a job. A direction. A purpose. Some drive, some ambition. When I was your age I wanted to change the world.’

He sniffed ‘Hence the antiques shop,’ and she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

‘That’s now, this was then. And don’t get smart with me.’ She took hold of his arm and they began walking slowly again. ‘I just want you to make me proud, that’s all. I mean I’m already proud of you, and your sister, but, well, you know what I mean. I’m a little drunk. Let’s change the subject. I wanted to talk to you about something else.’

‘What else?’

‘Oh – too late.’ They were in sight of the hotel now, three stars, smart but not ostentatious. Through the smoked plate glass window he could glimpse his father hunched in a lobby armchair, one long thin leg bent up to his knee, sock bunched up in his hand as he scrutinised the sole of his foot.

‘Good God, he’s picking his corns in the hotel lobby. A little bit of Swansea on the Via del Corso. Charming, just charming.’ Alison unlooped her arm and took her son’s hand in hers. ‘Take me for lunch tomorrow, will you? While your father sits in a darkened room and picks his corns. Let’s go out, just you and me, somewhere outside on a nice square. White tablecloths. Somewhere expensive, my treat. You can bring me some of your photographs of interesting pebbles.’

‘Okay,’ he said, sulkily. His mother was smiling but frowning too, squeezing his hand a little too hard, and he felt a sudden pang of anxiety. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want to talk to my handsome son and I’m a little too drunk right now, I think.’

‘What is it? Tell me now!’

‘It’s nothing, nothing.’

‘You’re not getting divorced, are you?’

She gave a low laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course not.’ In the hotel lobby his father had seen them, and was standing and tugging on the ‘push to open’ door. ‘How could I ever leave a man who tucks his shirts into his underpants?’

‘So tell me, what is it?’

‘Nothing bad, sweetheart, nothing bad.’ Standing on the street she gave him a consoling smile and put her hand in the short hair at the back of his neck, pulling him down to her height so that their foreheads were touching. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing. Tomorrow. We’ll talk properly tomorrow.’

CHAPTER THREE. The Taj Mahal

SUNDAY 15 JULY 1990

Bombay and Camden Town ‘ATTENTION PLEASE! Can I have your attention? Some attention if you don’t mind? If you could listen? Don’t throw things, listen please? Please? ATTENTION, PLEASE? Thank you.’

Scott McKenzie settled on his bar stool and looked out at his team of eight staff: all under twenty-five, all dressed in white denim jeans and corporate baseball caps, all of them desperate to be anywhere but here, the Sunday lunch-time shift at Loco Caliente, a Tex-Mex restaurant on the Kentish Town Road where both food and atmosphere were hot hot hot.

‘Now before we open the doors for brunch I’d just like to run through today’s so-called “specials”, if I may. Our soup is that repeat offender, the sweetcorn chowder, and the main course is a very delicious and succulent fish burrito!’

Scott blew air out through his mouth and waited for the groaning and fake retching to subside. A small, pale pink-eyed man with a degree in Business Management from Loughborough, he had once hoped to be a captain of industry. He had pictured himself playing golf at conference centres or striding up the steps of a private jet, and yet just this morning he had scooped a plug of yellow pork fat the size of a human head from the kitchen drains. With his bare hands. He could still feel the grease between his fingers. He was thirty-nine years old, and it wasn’t meant to be this way.

‘Basically, it’s your standard beef-stroke-chicken-stroke-pork burrito but with, and I quote, “delicious moist chunks of cod and salmon”. Who knows, they may even get a prawn or two.’

‘That’s just. . awful,’ laughed Paddy from behind the bar, where he sat cutting limes into wedges for the necks of beer bottles.

‘Bringing a little touch of the North Atlantic to the cuisine of Latin America,’ said Emma Morley, tying on her waitress’s apron and noticing a new arrival appearing behind Scott, a large, sturdy man, fair curly hair on a large cylindrical head. The new boy. The staff watched him warily, weighing him up as if he were a new arrival on G-wing.

‘On a brighter note,’ said Scott, ‘I’d like to introduce you to Ian Whitehead, who will be joining our happy team of highly trained staff.’ Ian slapped his regulation baseball cap far back on his head and, raising an arm in salute, high-fived the air. ‘Yo, my people!’ he said, in what might have been an American accent.

‘ Yo my people?Where does Scott findthem?’ sniggered Paddy from behind the bar, his voice calibrated just loud enough for the new arrival to hear.

Scott slapped a palm on Ian’s shoulder, startling him: ‘So I’m going to hand you over to Emma, our longest serving member of staff!—’

Emma winced at the accolade, then smiled apologetically at the new boy, and he smiled back with his mouth closed tight; a Stan Laurel smile.

‘—She’ll show you the basics, and that’s it, everyone. Remember! Fish burritos! Now, music please!’

Paddy pressed play on the greasy tape deck behind the bar and the music began, a maddening forty-five minutes loop of synthetic mariachi music, beginning aptly enough with ‘La Cucaracha’, the cockroach, to be heard twelve times in an eight-hour shift. Twelve times a shift, twenty-four shifts a month, for seven months now. Emma looked down at the baseball cap in her hand. The restaurant logo, a cartoon donkey, peered up at her goggle-eyed from beneath his sombrero, drunk it would seem, or insane perhaps. She settled the cap on her head and slid off the bar stool as if lowering herself into icy water. The new guy was waiting for her, beaming, his fingertips jammed awkwardly into the pockets of his gleaming white jeans, and Emma wondered once again what exactly she was doing with her life.

Emma, Emma, Emma. How are you, Emma? And what are you doing right this second? We’re six hours ahead here in Bombay, so hopefully you’re still in bed with a Sunday morning hangover in which case WAKE UP! IT’S DEXTER!

This letter comes to you from a downtown Bombay hostel with scary mattresses and hot and cold running Australians. My guide book tells me that it has character i.e. rodents but my room also has a little plastic picnic table by the window and it’s raining like crazy outside, harder even than in Edinburgh. It’sCHUCKING IT DOWN , Em, so loud that I can barely hear the compilation tape you made me which I like a lot incidentally except for that jangly indie stuff because after all I’m not someGIRL . I’ve been trying to read the books you gave me at Easter too, though I have to admit I’m findingHowards End quite heavy-going. It’s like they’ve been drinking the same cup of tea for two hundred pages, and I keep waiting for someone to pull a knife or an alien invasion or something, but that’s not going to happen is it? When will you stop trying to educate me, I wonder? Never I hope.

By the way, in case you hadn’t guessed from the Exquisite Prose and all theSHOUTING I’m writing this drunk, beers at lunch time! As you can tell I’m not a great letter writer not like you (your last letter was so funny) but all I will say is that India is incredible. It turns out that being banned from Teaching English as a Foreign Language was the best thing that ever happened to me (though I still think they overreacted. Morally Unfit? Me? Tove was twenty-one). I won’t bore you with all that sunrise over the Hindu-kesh prose except to say that all the clichés are true (poverty, tummy upsets blah blah blah). Not only is it a rich and ancient civilization but you wouldn’t BELIEVE what you can get in the chemists without a prescription.

So I’ve seen some amazing things and while it’s not always fun it is an Experience and I’ve taken thousands of photographs which I will show you very very slooooooowly when I get back. Pretend to be interested, won’t you? After all I pretended to be interested when you banged on about the Poll Tax Riots. Anyway, I showed some of my photos to this TV producer who I met on a train the other day, a woman (not what you think, old, mid-thirties) and she said I could be a professional. She was here producing a sort of young people’s TV travel show thing and she gave me her card and told me to call her in August when they’re back again, so who knows maybe I’ll do some researching or filming even.

What’s happening with you work-wise? Are you doing another play? I really, really enjoyed your Virginia-Woolf-Emily-whatsername play when I was in London, and like I said I think it showed loads of promise which sounds like bullshit but isn’t. I think you’re right to give up acting though, not because you’re not good but because you so obviously hate it. Candy was nice too, much nicer than you made out. Send her my love. Are you doing another play? Are you still in that box room? Does the flat still smell of fried onions? Is Tilly Killick still soaking her big grey bras in the washing-up bowl? Are you still at Mucho Loco or whatever it’s called? Your last letter made me laugh so much, Em, but you should still get out of there because while it’s good for gags it’s definitely bad for your soul. You can’t throw years of your life away because it makes a funny anecdote.

Which brings me to my reason for writing to you. Are you ready? You might want to sit down. .

∗ ∗ ∗

‘So, Ian – welcome to the graveyard of ambition!’

Emma pushed open the staffroom door, immediately knocking over a pint glass on the floor, last night’s fags suspended in lager. The official tour had brought them to the small, dank staffroom which overlooked the Kentish Town Road, packed already with students and tourists on their way to Camden Market to buy large furry top hats and smiley face t-shirts.

‘Loco Caliente means Crazy Hot; “Hot” because the air-conditioning doesn’t work, “crazy” because that’s what you’d have to be to eat here. Or work here, come to that. Mucho mucho loco. I’ll show you where to put your stuff.’ Together they kicked through the mulch of last week’s newspapers to the battered old office cabinet. ‘This is your locker. It doesn’t lock. Don’t be tempted to leave your uniform here overnight either because someone’ll nick it, God knows why. Management flip if you lose your baseball cap. They drown you face down in a vat of tangy barbecue relish—’

Ian laughed, a hearty, slightly forced chortle, and Emma sighed and turned to the staff dining table, still covered with last night’s dirty plates. ‘Lunch hours are twenty minutes and you can have anything from the menu except the jumbo prawns, which I believe is what’s known as a blessing in disguise. If you value life, don’t touch the jumbo prawns. It’s like Russian Roulette, one in six’ll kill you.’ She began to clear the table.

‘Here, let me—’ said Ian, gingerly picking up a meatily smeared plate with the tips of his fingers. New boy – still squeamish, thought Emma, watching him. He had a pleasant, large open face beneath the loose straw-coloured curls, smooth ruddy cheeks and a mouth that hung open in repose. Not exactly handsome, but, well – sturdy. For some reason, not entirely kind, it was a face that made her think of tractors.

Suddenly he met her gaze and she blurted out: ‘So tell me, Ian, what brings you down Mexico Way.’

‘Oh, you know. Got to pay the rent.’

‘And there’s nothing else you can do? You can’t temp, or live with your parents or something?’

‘I need to be in London, I need flexible hours. .’

‘Why, what’s your stroke?’

‘My what?’

‘Your stroke. Everyone who works here has a stroke. Waiter-stroke-artist, waiter-stroke-actor. Paddy the bartender claims to be a model, but frankly I’m doubtful.’

‘Weeeeeell,’ said Ian, in what she took to be a Northern accent, ‘I suppose I’d have to say that I’m a comedian!’ Grinning, he splayed his hands either side of his face and gave them an end-of-pier waggle.

‘Right. Well, we all like to laugh. What, like a stand-up or something?’

‘Stand-up mainly. What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Your stroke? What else do you do?’

She thought about saying ‘playwright’ but even after three months the humiliation of being Emily Dickinson to an empty room still burned bright. She might as well say ‘astronaut’ as ‘playwright’, there was as much truth in it. ‘Oh, I do this—’ She peeled an old burrito from its carapace of hardened cheese. ‘This is what I do.’

‘And do you like it?’

‘ Likeit? I love it! I mean I’m not made of wood.’ She wiped the day-old ketchup onto a used napkin and headed for the door. ‘Now, let me show you the toilets. Brace yourself. .’

Since I started this letter I’ve drank (drunken? dronk?) two more beers and so am ready to say this now. Here goes. Em, we’ve known each other five or six years now, but two years properly, as, you know, ‘friends’, which isn’t that long but I think I know a bit about you and I think I know what your problem is. And be aware that I have a lowish 2.2 in Anthropology, so I know what I’m talking about. If you don’t want to know my theory, stop reading now.

Good. Here it is. I think you’re scared of being happy, Emma. I think you think that the natural way of things is for your life to be grim and grey and dour and to hate your job, hate where you live, not to have success or money or God forbid a boyfriend (and a quick discersion here – that whole self-deprecating thing about being unattractive is getting pretty boring I can tell you). In fact I’ll go further and say that I think you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it’s easier, isn’t it? Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it. Is this annoying you? I bet it is. Well I’ve only just started.

Em, I hate thinking of you sitting in that awful flat with the weird smells and noises and the overhead lightbulbs or sat in that launderette, and by the way there’s no reason in this day and age why you should be using a launderette, there’s nothing cool or political about launderettes it’s just depressing. I don’t know, Em, you’re young, you’re practically a genius, and yet your idea of a good time is to treat yourself to a service wash. Well I think you deserve more. You are smart and funny and kind (too kind if you ask me) and by far the cleverest person I know. And (am drinking more beer here – deep breath) you are also a Very Attractive Woman. And (more beer) yes I do mean ‘sexy’ as well, though I feel a bit sick writing it down. Well I’m not going to scribble it out because it’s politically incorrect to call someone ‘sexy’ because it is also TRUE. You’re gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of Confidence. Either that or a scented candle.

I know from your letters and from seeing you after your play that you feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that’s okay that’s alright because we’re all meant to be like that at twenty-four. In fact our whole generation is like that. I read an article about it, it’s because we never fought in a war or watched too much television or something. Anyway, the only people with oars and rudders and aims are dreary bores and squares and careerists like Tilly-bloody-Killick or Callum O’Neill and his refurbished computers. I certainly don’t have a master plan I know you think I’ve got it all sorted out but I haven’t I worry too I just don’t worry about the dole and housing benefit and the future of the Labour Party and where I’m going to be in twenty years’ time and how Mr Mandela is adjusting to freedom.

So time for another breather before the next paragraph because I’ve barely got started. This letter builds to a life-changing climax. I wonder if you’re ready for it yet.

Somewhere between the staff toilets and the kitchen, Ian Whitehead slipped into his stand-up act.

‘Have you ever been in, like, a supermarket, and you’re in the six items or less queue, and there’s an old lady in front of you, and she’s got, like sevenitems? And you stand there counting them, and you’re like, soooo angry. .’

‘Ay caramba,’ mumbled Emma under her breath before kicking open the swing doors to the kitchen where they were met by a wall of hot air that stung their eyes, acrid and infused with jalapeno peppers and warm bleach. Loud acid house played on the battered radio cassette as a Somalian, an Algerian and a Brazilian prised the lids off white plastic catering tubs.

‘Morning, Benoit, Kemal. Hiya, Jesus,’ said Emma cheerfully and they smiled and nodded cheerfully back. Emma and Ian crossed to a noticeboard where she pointed out a laminated sign that showed what to do if someone choked on their food, ‘as well they might’. Next to this was pinned a large document, ragged at the edges, a parchment map of the Texas – Mexico border. Emma tapped it with her finger.

‘This thing that looks like a treasure map? Well don’t get your hopes up, because it’s just the menu. No gold here, compadre, just forty-eight items, all the different permutations of your five key Tex-Mex food groups – minced beef and beans, cheese, chicken and guacamole.’ She traced her finger across the map. ‘So, moving east – west, we’ve got chicken on beans under cheese, cheese on top of chicken under guacamole, guacamole on top of mince on top of chicken under cheese. .’

‘Right, I see. .’

‘. . occasionally for the thrill of it we’ll throw some rice or a raw onion in, but where it gets really exciting is what you put it in. It’s all to do with wheat or corn.’

‘Wheat or corn, right. .’

‘Tacos are corn, burritos are wheat. Basically if it shatters and burns your hand it’s a taco, if it flops around and leaks red lard down your arm it’s a burrito. Here’s one—’ She pulled a soft pancake from a catering pack of fifty and dangled it like a wet flannel. ‘That’s a burrito. Fill it, deep fry it, melt cheese on it, it’s an enchilada. A tortilla that’s been filled is a taco and a burrito that you fill yourself is a fajita.’

‘So what’s a tostada?’

‘We’ll get to that. Don’t run before you can walk. Fajitas come on these red-hot iron platters.’ She hefted a greasy ridged-iron pan, like something from a blacksmith’s. ‘Careful with these, you wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve had to peel a customer off these things. Then they don’t tip.’ Ian was staring at her now, grinning goofily. She drew attention to the bucket at her feet. ‘This white stuff here is sour cream, except it’s not sour, it’s not cream, just some sort of hydrogenated fat, I think. It’s what’s left over when they make petrol. Handy if the heel comes off your shoe, but apart from that. .’

‘I have a question for you.’

‘Go on then.’

‘What are you doing after work?’

Benoit, Jesus and Kemal all stopped what they were doing as Emma readjusted her face and laughed. ‘You don’t hang about, do you, Ian?’

He had taken his cap off now, and was turning it in his hand, a stage suitor. ‘Not a date or anything, you’ve probably got a boyfriend anyway!’ A moment, while he waited for a response, but Emma’s face didn’t move. ‘I just thought you might be interested in my—’ in a nasal voice ‘—unique comedy stylings, that’s all. I’m doing a—’ finger apostrophes ‘—“gig” tonight, at Chortles at the Frog and Parrot in Cockfosters.’

‘Chortles?’

‘In Cockfosters. It’s Zone 3 which seems like Mars I know on a Sunday night, but even if I’m shit there are still some other really top notch comics there. Ronny Butcher, Steve Sheldon, the Kamikaze Twins—’ As he spoke Emma became aware of his real accent, a slight, pleasant West Country burr, not yet wiped away by the city, and she thought once again of tractors. ‘I’m doing this whole new bit tonight, about the difference between men and women—’

No doubt about it, he was asking her out on a date. She really ought to go. After all, it wasn’t like it happened very often, and what was the worst thing that could happen?

‘And the food’s not bad there either. Just the usual, burgers, spring rolls, curly fries—’

‘It sounds enchanting, Ian, the curly fries and all, but I can’t tonight, sorry.’

‘Really?’

‘Evensong at seven.’

‘No, but really.’

‘It’s a nice offer, but after my shift here I’m wiped out. I like to just go home, comfort-eat, cry. So I’ll have to give it a miss, I’m afraid.’

‘Another time then? I’m playing the Bent Banana at the Cheshire Cat in Balham on Friday—’

Over his shoulder Emma could see the cooks watching, Benoit laughing with his hand to his mouth. ‘Maybe another time,’ she said, kindly but decisively, then sought to change the subject.

‘Now, this—’ She tapped another bucket with her toe. ‘This stuff here is salsa. Try not to get it on your skin. It burns.’

The thing is, Em, running back to the hostel in the rain just now – the rain is warm here, hot even sometimes, not like London rain – I was, like I said, pretty drunk and I found myself thinking about you and thinking what a shame Em isn’t here to see this, to experience this, and I had this revelation and it’s this.

You should be here with me. In India.

And this is my big idea, and it might be insane, but I’m going to post this before I change my mind. Follow these simple instructions.

1 – Leave that crappy job right now. Let them find someone else to melt cheese on tortilla chips for 2.20 an hour. Put a bottle of tequila in your bag and walk out the door. Think what that will feel like, Em. Walk out now. Just do it.

2 – I also think you should leave that flat. Tilly’s ripping you off, charging all that money for a room without a window. It isn’t a box room, it’s a box, and you should get out of there and let someone else wring out her great big grey bras for her. When I get back to the so-called real world I’m going to buy a flat because that’s the kind of over-privileged capitalist monster I am and you’re always welcome to come and stay for a bit, or permanently if you like, because I think we’d get on, don’t you? As, you know, FLATMATES. That’s providing you can overcome your sexual attraction to me ha ha. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll lock you in your room at nights. Anyway, now the big one—3 – As soon as you’ve read this, go to the student travel agency on Tottenham Court Road and book an OPEN RETURN flight to Delhi to arrive as near as possible to August 1st, two weeks’ time, which in case you’ve forgotten is my birthday. The night before get a train to Agra and stay in a cheap motel. Next morning get up early and go to the Taj Mahal. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, big white building named after that Indian restaurant on the Lothian Road. Have a look around and at precisely 12 midday you stand directly under the centre of the dome with a red rose in one hand and a copy ofNicholas Nickleby in the other and I will come and find you, Em. I will be carrying a white rose and my copy ofHowards End and when I see you I will throw it at your head.

Isn’t that the greatest plan you’ve ever heard of in your life?

Ah, typical Dexter you say, isn’t he forgetting something? Money! Plane tickets don’t grow on trees and what about social security and the work ethic etc. etc. Well don’t worry, I’m paying. Yes, I’m paying. I’m going to wire the money to you for your plane ticket (I’ve always wanted to wire money) and I’m going to pay for everything when you’re here which sounds swanky but isn’t because it is so DAMN CHEAP here. We can live for months, Em, me and you, heading down to Kerala or across to Thailand. We could go to a full moon party – imagine staying awake all night not because you’re worried about the future but because it’s FUN. (Remember when we stayed up all night after graduation, Em? Anyway. Moving on.) For three hundred pounds of someone else’s money, you could change your life, and you mustn’t worry about it because frankly I have money that I haven’t earned, and you work really hard and yet you don’t have money, so it’s socialism in action isn’t it? And if you really want you can pay me back when you’re a famous playwright, or when the poetry-money kicks in or whatever. Besides it’s only for three months. I’ve got to come back in the autumn anyway. As you know Mum’s not been well. She tells me the operation went fine and maybe it did or maybe she just doesn’t want me to worry. Either way I’ve got to come home eventually. (By the way, my mother has a theory about you and me, and if you meet me at the Taj Mahal I will tell you all about it, but only if you meet me.) On the wall in front of me is this massive sort of praying mantis thing and he’s looking at me as if to say shut up now so I will. It’s stopped raining, and I’m about to go to a bar and meet up with some new friends for a drink, three female medical students from Amsterdam which tells you all you need to know. But on the way I’m going to find a post box and send this before I change my mind. Not because I think you coming here is a bad idea – it isn’t, it’s a great idea and you must come – but because I think I might have said too much. Sorry if this has annoyed you. The main thing is that I think about you a lot, that’s all. Dex and Em, Em and Dex. Call me sentimental, but there’s no-one in the world that I’d like to see get dysentery more than you.

Taj Mahal, 1st August, 12 noon.

I will find you!

Love D

. . and then he stretched and scratched at his scalp, drained the last of his beer and picked the letter up, tapped the edges together and laid the stack solemnly in front of him. He shook the cramp from his hand; eleven pages written at great speed, the most he had written since his finals. Stretching his arms above his head in satisfaction he thought: this isn’t a letter, it’s a gift.