“Yes I would,” said Jim. “It’s Suzy, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, but how did you know my name?” Jim took her most politely in his arms and, as the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies (right on cue) went into a slow and smoochy number, began that slow and dreamy turning round in circles dance that people such as Jim who can’t otherwise dance at all always seem to be able to do when holding on to someone really wonderful.

“What were you saying?” asked Jim, who even through the haze of cigarette smoke could smell the beauty’s hair.

“I said, how did you know my name?”

“Ah yes. Well, very odd thing. Someone put this hallucinogenic drug onto a council table and I got some on my fingers and started tripping. And I hallucinated you.”

“Was it a good trip, or a bad trip?”

“Oh, a good trip,” said Jim. “A very good trip.”

“You can hold me a little closer, if you want.”

“Oh. Yes please.”

“You are a very beautiful woman,” said John Omally. The very ugly woman he was dancing with laughed in a manner that was not unknown to Sid James.

“Now your standard engine,” said Paul, who had crawled back in through a hole beneath Jim’s back fence, “your standard warp-drive engine, functions through the ionization of beta particles creating a positronic catalyst, which bombards the isotope with gamma radiation, giving rise to galvanic variations and the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter.”

“I only asked you what the time was,” said a young woman from the windscreen wiper works. “And you start coming out with all this Zen mind-boggling mystical all-encompassing trip into cosmic infinity.”

“That’s all right,” said Paul. “We’ll never remember it in the morning.”

“And then I fell into the hole and broke both my legs,” said Jim.

“Incredible,” said Suzy. “And do you still have the Porsche?”

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies thrashed back into Death Metal, and two police officers instantly knocked on the front door. “Turn that bloody noise down,” they said. Upstairs someone else was sick in Jim’s wardrobe and yet another couple who were making love told him to do it elsewhere.

“You are a very beautiful woman,” said John Omally. “Leave it out,” said Old Pete.

22

By three o’clock in the morning the PARTY began to thin. But this was three o’clock in the morning of the PARTY’S second day, so no one felt too embarrassed about that.

Paul strummed upon an acoustic guitar, but it was after three in the morning and he was strumming the blues (in A minor), so that was permissible.

Professor Slocombe had long said his goodbyes and left with two of the young women from the windscreen wiper works. These would later know such exquisite pleasure as to leave them smiling for a week.

Old Pete was asleep in the shed. And the lady in the straw hat was asleep on the sofa with Suzy’s uncle Rob.

Suzy and Jim were nowhere to be seen.

John Omally awoke in Jim’s bed to find himself gazing into a face that looked like a bag of spanners. “Oh dear,” said John. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

Suzy and Jim sat upon the canal bridge staring down into the moonlit waters.

“You could have made love to me, you know,” said Suzy.

“I know,” said Jim. “But actually I couldn’t. I never can the first time and often not even the second or the third. It puts a lot of women off. But it’s the way I am. Too emotional, I suppose.”

“You’re a good man, Jim. I like you very much.”

“And you’re a very beautiful woman.”

Suzy flicked a pebble into the canal waters. “What do you want to do with your life, Jim?” she asked.

“Just experience it, I suppose. When I was young I promised myself that I would experience everything I could. Travel the world, see exotic places, take it all in. As much as I could, before time ran out.”

“So, what stopped you?”

“What stops any of us? Habit, I suppose. You get into habits. They’re hard to break away from. But what about you? What do you want to do with your life?”

“Something wonderful,” said Suzy. “I think something wonderful is about to happen. I can feel it in the air. Can’t you?”

Jim put his arm about the beautiful woman’s shoulder and gazed into the stunning amber eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Oh yes, I can.”

The sun rose slowly from behind the windscreen wiper works and two young women crossed the bridge. Both were smiling broadly.

Jim took Suzy in his arms and kissed her fascinating mouth. “I hope I’ll see you again,” he said.

“You will,” said Suzy.

John and Jim munched upon egg and bacon at the Plume Cafe.

“I thought I might find you here,” said John, thrusting buttered toast into his mouth. “There’s no food left at your place.”

“You look a little, how shall I put this, shagged out, John.”

“I barely escaped with my life. If the woman hadn’t tripped over this bloke who was being sick in your wardrobe, I don’t think I would have made it.”

“I suppose a wardrobe full of vomit is not too high a price to pay.”

“Someone set fire to your shed. Old Pete, I think.”

“It was only a shed.”

“Sorry about the front windows. The lady in the straw hat woke up and threw Paul out through them. Something to do with key changes, I believe.”

“Windows can be replaced.”

“A cruise missile then demolished the entire house.”

“Such is life,” said Jim.

“Jim, you’re not really paying attention to me, are you?”

“Yes I am.”

“No you’re not. You’ve gone all vacant.”

“No I haven’t.”

“Then why are you stirring your tea with your toast? And you’re glowing, Jim. You have a definite glow on. You’re not…”

“I am,” said Jim. “I’m in love.”

“No, no, no.” John shook his head fiercely. “You don’t want to be in love. You really don’t.”

“I do, John. I really do.”

“No, trust me, you don’t. Love is… well, love is – love is marriage, Jim, marriage and babies and a mortgage and not going out with your mates and having Sunday lunch at home instead of the pub and it’s mowing the lawn, Jim, and cleaning the car and having respectable friends round for dinner parties and…”

“Turn it up, mate,” said a married man at the next table. “We all know what it’s like, don’t rub it in.”

“Marriage doesn’t have to be like that,” said Jim. “Not if you’re married to your best friend.”

“I’m not marrying you, Jim.”

“No,” said Jim. “You’re not.”

“But I’m your best friend.”

“I used to have a best friend,” said the married man wistfully. “My wife soon put a stop to that.”

“Listen to him, Jim. The man knows what he’s talking about.”

“John, I’m in love. I can’t help it. I don’t have any control over it. I’ve fallen in love.”

“No.” John shook his head once more. “No, Jim, no, Jim, no.”

“I’m sorry, John, but there it is.”

“Another best friend gone,” said the married man. “What a tragedy.”

“Quite right,” said John. “Listen to this poor wretch, Jim. You don’t want to end up like him.”

“Steady on,” said the poor wretch.

“Ground down, henpecked, under the thumb.”

“I said steady on!”

“A shadow of his former self, doomed to hoovering and babysitting, while the wife goes out to her story circle and…”

“I said steady on and I meant it.”

“See that? Hair-trigger temper, brought on by too many nights of walking the baby up and down while his wife snores away in her hairnet.”

“Right, that does it.” The married man had possibly been quite an accurate puncher in his youth, before he got all ground down and henpecked and under the thumb. He took a mighty swing at John.

And he hit Jim right on the nose.

Jim went down amidst tumbling crockery, two eggs, bacon, sausage, a fried slice and half a cup of tea with a bit of toast in it.