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you should have been pals with a guy who is headmaster at one of the chi-chi schools in Chelsea or somewhere, ideally a fee-paying school. Those mothers tend to have time and money enough to keep up appearances. Largely, here, we specialize in being bothered about the children, and I find the mothers are more concerned about their kids’wardrobe and grades than their own wardrobe and calorie intake,’says Craig primly.
    I wait until the lecture is over and comment, ‘Big career black hole, mate. I mean, you’re a single man. You should have gone in for the job at the private school if that’s the case
and
you’d have a chance at poking the odd nanny then. I bet that lot,’I nod through his window towards the school gate, ‘are all working hubby to an early grave and yet still can’t afford a nanny. Disappointing though. I’d thought there would be a few women worth a once over. They can’t all be lazy cows.’
    ‘John, please.’Craig pulls his lower lip into this funny straight line when he’s offended or upset. He is easy to read and even easier to wind up. ‘I don’t think it’s right to think of my pupils’mothers in those terms.’
    ‘No wonder you’re still single,’I mutter. ‘They are
women
, mate. How else are you going to think of them? Unless you don’t think of them at all. You bender.’
    Craig isn’t homosexual, but as heterosexual mates we are duty bound to accuse each other of dirt-digging on a reasonably frequent basis. At least that’s the code I play by.
    Craig sighs heavily. I’ve been a disappointment to him for so long now; you’d think he’d accept it. But he’s a teacher, right? He always believes I could try harder. Perhaps I’d improve if only I wanted it badly enough. I’m not a total womanizer. Actually, I am. But I do think of other things and can hold conversations about other things. It’s just that we fall into these roles, right, when we are together. Craig is the straight one and I’m the laugh, the lad. He was a virgin until he was twenty-one. Twenty-one. Fuck, man, can you believe it? And we went to a school where some girls would shag you for a bag of chips and a croggy home. Still, Craig never saw opportunity, even when it hammered really loudly on the door, which is why our respective roles were written long ago.
    ‘Come on, Sir. Get your coat. There are pubs serving bitter at this very moment. We have an obligation.’
    I let Craig lead me to his local watering-hole, which is a shabby pub not old enough to be charming, notnew enough to be trendy. It’s OK. I don’t mind. I didn’t expect him to pick one of the millions of cool bars in Notting Hill, even though there’s wall-to-wall totty in most of those places. While I have a radar for that sort of thing, Craig is oblivious, possibly even repelled. But this pub serves draught and so serves its purpose. Normally when we meet up Craig comes into town and I choose the venue. This works because I work significantly longer hours than he does (I spit when I think of his holidays, but then he probably spits when he thinks of my pay packet), plus, our mate in common, the third side to our triangle of trust and all that, Tom, works at Wapping so it makes sense to meet in town. But tonight Tom isn’t meeting up with us, although he is the reason we have to get together.
    ‘I can’t believe Tom jumped,’I say as I stare at my pint. I shake my head morosely.
    ‘Well, he has been seeing Jenny for five years now, they do live together, own a flat together, it’s not what you’d call out of the blue, is it?’reasons Craig. He’s drinking coffee, says it’s too early for alcohol.
    ‘I know, but mate, marriage? It’s so big.’
    ‘You did it.’
    ‘That’s right, and he should learn from my mistake. It’s such a commitment.’
    Craig laughs. ‘How is it that you pronounce commitment with the disdain that most of us reserve for, well, the other C word, the one that rhymes with runt?’
    I start to