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certainly play.
    Elfish hung up and rang Marcia.
    â€œHey, Marcia. I heard you had another minor disagreement with Casaubon. He is a nice guy, however, and he loves you. Why don’t you get back together?”
    Marcia informed Elfish that they would not get back together because last week Casaubon stole her girocheque, got a female friend to cash it, used the money to get drunk then pushed Marcia down a flight of stairs.
    â€œIs this really so bad?” said Elfish. “Surely you could talk things over?”
    â€œDon’t phone me up about him again unless it’s to tell me he’s dead.”
    â€œRight,” said Elfish.
    She waited a decent interval, strumming her guitar beside the phone, then called Casaubon back.

    â€œMarcia is wavering,” she told him. “She thinks she’d like to get back together with you but needs a little more time to think about it. She says she’ll come and see us if we play on Saturday and discuss it with you then. How about it?”
    Casaubon, his crushed spirit rekindled, agreed happily. As soon as Elfish rang off he went immediately to reconstitute his drum kit out of the pile of junk he had reduced it to by kicking it furiously around the hallway after Marcia departed.
    Elfish hurried over to Aran’s flat, just round the corner. There was no answer when she rang the buzzer but she was used to this, and kept on ringing it till her brother appeared, looking gloomy.
    â€œWell?” she demanded. “Have you thought of anything?”
    â€œYes. I have. You must lure Mo into a trap. Use sex as the bait. Mo will be unable to resist.”
    â€œWhat sex? You want me to fuck him?”
    Elfish spat on Aran’s rug. Aran said no, or at least not right now. He told Elfish of his idea, which involved Elfish pretending to be Amnesia, who had once been her friend.
    â€œA very attractive young woman, Amnesia, I remember. Mo would like her. And she has not been around for a long time.”
    Elfish drank some beer and listened to Aran’s scheme. At the end, she was satisfied. Her brother’s plan seemed not unreasonable.
    â€œWould you like to hear about my video game?” said Aran, and Elfish nodded.
    â€œWell, Botticelli the painter, Cleopatra the Egyptian queen, Ben Jonson the dramatist and Mick Ronson the guitarist are adrift on a raft, heading towards the edge of the world. They want to get back to the shore but all these things get in their way and they never make it. Meanwhile, their dreams, hopes and ambitions fly up to the moon.”
    â€œWell, I’m glad you’re avoiding easy symbolism,” said Elfish.

    â€œDo not mock,” said Aran. “After all, it was you who told me to get on with it. Look, I’m just doing level two where they are joined on the raft by Pericles, the great Athenian statesman. He gets washed overboard from a passing trireme. He saved Athens in the first war against the Persians but then things went badly for him and he had to flee the country.”
    â€œWhat happens next?”
    â€œThey’re still trying to get back to land but they can’t because a huge sea monster keeps knocking them off course. Meanwhile they drift closer and closer to the edge of the world and if they reach the edge they’ll fall off and be killed. Or possibly just set adrift to wander hopelessly forever in endless space. I haven’t decided yet.”
    Elfish tried level two, struggling to avoid the huge sea monster, but it was too difficult. The puny weapons possessed by the voyagers seemed to have no effect on it at all.
    â€œHow do you beat it?” she demanded.
    â€œYou can’t,” said Aran. “It inevitably pushes you further towards your doom.”
    â€œWell, what use is that? You can’t have a video game that you can’t win.”
    Aran did not see why not. To him it seemed entirely appropriate.

thirteen
    SO ELFIS H, PRETENDING to be Amnesia, took to