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looked surprised. ‘I can’t help it. Zoos are smelly places.’
    She went immediately to run a bath. I gave her a drink thinking how I disliked her clothes and the way she switched on the radio as soon as she got in.
    Grimly I began to prepare our dinner. What would we do this evening? I felt like a bandit who hides a gun in his mouth. If I spoke I would reveal everything. Better not to speak. Eat, smile, make space for Jacqueline. Surely that was right?
    The phone rang. I skidded to get it, closing the bedroom door behind me.
    It was Louise.
    ‘Come over tomorrow,’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’
    ‘Louise, if it’s to do with today, I can’t … you see, I’ve decided I can’t. That is I couldn’t because, well what if, you know …’
    The phone clicked and went dead. I stared at it the way Lauren Bacall does in those films with Humphrey Bogart. What I need now is a car with a running board and a pair of fog lights. I could be with you in ten minutes Louise. The trouble is that all I’ve got is a Mini belonging to my girlfriend.
    We were eating our spaghetti. I thought, As long as I don’t say her name I’ll be all right. I started a game with myself, counting out on the cynical clock face the extent of my success. What am I? I feel like a kid in the examination room faced with a paper I can’t complete. Let the clock go faster. Let me get out of here. At 9 o’clock I told Jacqueline I was exhausted. She reached over and took my hand. I felt nothing. And then there we were in our pyjamas side by side and my lips were sealed and my cheeks must have been swelling out like a gerbil’s because my mouth was full of Louise.
    I don’t have to tell you where I went the next day.
    During the night I had a lurid dream about an ex-girlfriend of mine who had been heavily into papier-maché. It had started as a hobby; and who shall object to a few buckets of flour and water and a roll of chicken wire? I’m a liberal and I believe in free expression. I went to her house one day and poking out of the letter-box just at crotch level was the head of a yellow and green serpent. Not a real one but livid enough with a red tongue and silver foil teeth. I hesitated to ring the bell. Hesitated because to reach the bell meant pushing my private parts right into the head of the snake. I held a little dialogue with myself.
     
ME    :
Don’t be silly. It’s a joke.
I :
What do you mean it’s a joke? It’s lethal.
ME :
Those teeth aren’t real.
I :
They don’t have to be real to be painful.
ME :
What will she think of you if you stand here all night?
I :
What does she think of me anyway? What kind of a girl aims a snake at your genitals?
ME :
A fun-loving girl.
I :
Ha Ha.
    The door flew open and Amy stood on the mat. She was wearing a kaftan and a long string of beads. ‘It won’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘It’s for the postman. He’s been bothering me.’
    ‘I don’t think it’s going to frighten him,’ I said. ‘It’s only a toy snake. It didn’t frighten me.’
    ‘You’ve nothing to be frightened of,’ she said. ‘It’s got a rat-trap in the jaw.’ She disappeared inside while I stood hovering on the step holding my bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. She returned with a leek and shoved it in the snake’s mouth. There was a terrible clatter and the bottom half of the leek fell limply on to the mat. ‘Bring it in with you will you?’ she said. ‘We’re eating it later.’
    I awoke sweating and chilled. Jacqueline slept peacefully beside me, the light was leaking through the old curtains. Muffled in my dressing gown I went into the garden, glad of the wetness sudden beneath my feet. The air was clean with a hint of warmth and the sky had pink clawmarks pulled through it. There was an urban pleasure in knowing that I was the only one breathing the air. The relentless in-out-in-out of millions of lungs depresses me. There are too many of us on this planet and it’s beginning to