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his own bedroom in his own flat, formed a briefly reassuring backdrop. But in the foreground there was a sinister, dissonant presence that caused him instant angst. Something was in his bed that shouldn’t be. He tried to bring the object into focus, but his pupils would not contract sufficiently. His nostrils twitched as they felt a distinct tang. The smell was acrid and intrusive. His eyes flickered and crossed uncomfortably. He closed them firmly, squeezing until it hurt, and then opened them again. There!
    It was a bottle of whisky. Not the ancient and delicious single malt, though. This was one of those ‘whiskies’ which shared only flammability as a characteristic in common with the quality of Scotch Claypole usually drank. This sort of whisky tended to be popular in hot countries, labelled with lurid tartan and symbolised by birds of prey very far removed from anything that might actually be found in Scotland. Its top was missing,and when Claypole spasmed the bottle slopped a little more of its contents onto the sheet in the direction of his face. Claypole instinctively recoiled. Then he jumped. His left foot had touched warm human flesh.
    So rare was it for him to have anyone else in his bed that Claypole instantly screamed, at first spluttering, and then hard and high. A moment after Claypole began his scream, scrambling his wispy legs and arms to panic stations and bolting upright, the other warm body in the bed squirmed and also sat up. Witnessing Claypole screaming, in all his crumpled and sweaty horror, his lank hair frighteningly distributed, the person sharing the bed with him – a woman, in fact – also screamed. Her scream was unlike his. There was less terror to it, and it contained more of a note of concern. This despite the fact that Claypole, with his arms waving about his pale-grey torso, appeared like nothing so much as an upturned woodlouse. For a couple of seconds Claypole and the woman sat shouting at each other, marooned on the bed. His surprise at being in bed with a woman was then overtaken by his surprise at being in bed with a woman he recognised as Coky Viveksananda, the niece of Peregrine MacGilp of MacGilp, and his thirty-fifth Facebook friend.
    Her hair was thick and untidy, possibly self-cut. Her skin was a lighter shade of brown than it had appeared in the photograph on Facebook, and she was not as thin as that image had suggested. Her nose was long and asymmetrical with a curious knobble on the end of it. Her front teeth were white, but the rest yellow and the canines more than a little fanglike. Her upper lip had vestiges of dark hair at the corners, and her lips were thinnish and slightly cracked. Were it not for one aspect of her, she might have been described asconventionally unattractive. Her eyes, though, were extraordinary. A little tired-looking and quite deep-set, but of a violent blue – like a Mediterranean summer sky. Claypole had no time to decide that she was in fact unconventionally attractive, or to attempt to remember why or how she had got there, because he saw, with an extra fizz of panic, that she was wearing one of his t-shirts.
    Except during his occasional and testy brushes with pornography, and when watching Wimbledon, Claypole had no time for thinking about sex. He was, after all, a fat, balding man, and very busy, so sex had no time for him. Women could not be expected to be interested in him, and if he had ever raised an enquiring eyebrow at one, disappointment (not to say rejection in the strongest possible terms) had been the inevitable result. Now though, as he found himself looking at Coky’s breasts, bra-less but clothed by his own t-shirt, logic told him that these breasts must at some point have been naked in his flat. Sweat began to form on Claypole’s upper lip and at his temples, and he suddenly felt as if he had too many arms.
    â€˜Guh. Brr,’ said Claypole, and saw the expression of concern on Coky’s face