Sat now, alone at the party, my can empty in my hand, dented in several places where I had absently crushed my thumb and fingers into it, I considered getting another one, scanning the crowd for either an opening I could push through, or someone worth talking to, and was just about to stand when an unfamiliar girl threw herself down onto the sofa next to me.

“Hi,” she said.

Her face was thin and sharp, with a narrow nose and green eyes that looked away as I met them; cheeks rose-tinted, vasodilated; hair the colour of dry leaves, or of beer held to the sun, sticking out like straw, jagged and uneven because she cut it herself. In her hands, which rested on the patchwork fabric lap of her dress, she held two slim bottles. I did not think she was pretty.

“Hey,” I said, smiling, pressing the lager can between my fingers until it clicked and crinkled.

“I’m Remi,” she said, laughing nervously. Her laugh was not musical. “My name’s kind of a joke.” She looked down at her hands, tapped her fingers on the glass of one of the bottles.

“Is it?”

She nodded and asked my name. After I told her there was a silence and we both looked down at the open bottles she held, I taking sideways glances at her, noticing that her body was thin, thinner than mine, slight, boyish, until she looked up at me, saw me looking and held out the nearest bottle.

“You want another beer?” she asked, “it’s better than a can.”

I took the bottle, finding the lightly-coloured liquid inside sweeter and less chemical than the lager. We began to talk, the people surrounding us, the party and the music, the bright light, dying away as she told me how she went to the same university as me, studied art, liked painting and bright colours, action and movement, mentioned Futurism, piquing my interest. In exchange, I told her about my writing, about Virginia Woolf and James Joyce and Marcel Proust, worried I would sound pretentious, even as I took self-satisfied pride in reeling off their names, but she had not heard of them so could not judge me. She did not read much, or “enough”, she said, but would like to read something of mine some time, if I would show her. Of course I would, I said. She smiled against the rim of her bottle and looked over at two girls a few metres away, who giggled when they saw me looking and turned away. I felt embarrassed suddenly, back in the party, among all the other people, but separate, on the outskirts, with a stranger, an unknown girl who had brought me a beer and started a conversation. I caught a glimpse of Simon through a gap between two people, looking serious as he discussed something, a game probably, judging by who he spoke with, and I felt annoyed, annoyed that Remi should have watched me and spoken to her friends and come over here and sat by me with two beers in her hands and started talking to me. It annoyed me even as I appreciated the gesture, hypocrite that I am, because obviously, drunkenly, she had decided she had a crush on me, on the person sat alone on the sofa across the room of a party, she had said as much, when I made a joke, said that she “liked” me, though she did not, could not, know me, know where I had come from or who my past lovers had been, whether I was single or my girlfriend was absent, what I liked or disliked, whether I drank coffee or preferred cinnamon tea, whether I would rather have come to a party or stayed in tonight, whether I thought verisimilitude was more important in fiction than plot and dramatic event.

There was a break in our conversation, Remi reddened again, I silent, conflicted, looking blankly out across the crowd until I saw a face that was familiar but through several months’ absence had drifted beyond the bounds of immediate recollection, creating a brief pause before a name emerged: Nick. He called to me and came over, asked how I was, looked over at Remi. His hair was longer than when I had last seen it, and dyed black, though he still dressed in the same tight black band t-shirts and skinny-fit black jeans, broken only at his waist by a silver-shining belt buckle shaped like an audio cassette. I asked if he was here with Mike but, no, he said, Mike wasn’t there, they were no longer together but, seeing my face contort into condolence and regret, they were still friends, still hung around together, and it was weeks since they had broken up; they were both over it. I felt Remi’s awkwardness next to me, her sense of alienation, imagined empathetically her desire that I would turn to her and say truthfully, with conviction, “Nick, this is my girlfriend, Remi; Remi, this is Nick,” felt simultaneously still annoyed with her, or with myself, promising myself, as Nick continued to talk, that I would not fall in love with her, not right now, not straight away, not because she had shown some interest in me, whoever she was, adamant because of the beer, for which I had no tolerance, drinking it as rarely as I did, already tipsy and distrustful of my own perceptions, even after only one can and one bottle.

That I might already be falling for her, reciprocating her obvious feelings for the simple act of her coming over and bringing me a beer, disgusted me, but after Nick left, taking with him his great enthusiasm for everything and his overbearing laugh, I continued to talk with her and, as the party began to die down around two, as the hosts began to usher people towards the doors, Simon being lost in the crowd or outside already, Remi’s friends being abandoned or having abandoned her, we collected our coats and walked out together. Perhaps from the shock of the cold night air, or from moving after sitting and talking for so long, Remi suddenly went pale and darted out across the concrete forecourt of the house towards the kerb where she immediately bent over and vomited into a drain. Several people who still lingered in groups, some smoking, others waiting for stragglers still inside, watched the girl with mild interest and surprise, but did not move to help her, perhaps assuming that, because I had been stood with her, I would be the one to go over. When I did she stood and her face flushed, though the bright red of her cheeks was harder to discern in the street-light than the glistening of the watery sick across the bars of the drain cover. I asked if she was alright.

“I am now.” She wiped her mouth with a tissue pulled from her coat pocket, then held out and squinted at strands of her hair to see if they had been caught in the sudden cascade. They shone in the light but appeared to be dry.

“It’s cold,” she said, letting the hair fall back into place and pulling from her pockets some fleece mittens with cats-paw designs on their underside.

“I didn’t think you’d drunken that much,” I said.

She shrugged, “I didn’t eat before I came out,” then she added, quickly, for she had seen her friends come out through the front door, “will you walk me home? It’s not far, just a couple of streets away.” She gestured vaguely in the direction opposite to my house and my mind flashed to the walk home alone, to Simon walking alone also, unless anyone else went that way, then to Don Quixote, to the chivalric knights-errant he idolised, briefly to the characters of my novel, meeting for the first time in a café, spontaneously striking up conversation, embarking so easily, with so little provocation, implausibly even, at the behest of the author, for the convenience of the narrative on the same ‘quest’ together. It must happen, I thought, that people meet at cafés and strike up conversation, just as they do at parties, and that Remi came over and talked to me was proof of that, for which I should thank her.

“Sure,” I said, feeling for my mp3 player and headphones in the inside pocket of my coat. Music, the music of Dashboard Confessional perhaps, who I enjoyed, I told myself, ironically, would be my companion home, while chivalry, ‘being a gentleman’, served as an excuse to walk her home. Remi smiled and introduced me to her friends when they reached us, a blond-haired girl named Alice and the other with dark hair called Helen, who said they were going to a club, did Remi, or both of us, want to come? No, said Remi, she was going home and I would walk her. There was a note of pride in her voice, and the look she shared with Alice was meaningful and private, as if she had said something further telepathically. I watched the two girls leave and looked for Simon but did not see him because, as I discovered later, he had already left.

“Shall we go?” Remi asked.

I turned away from the people outside the house, abandoning my search for Simon and nodded at the girl in the red coat who stood with arms folded against the cold, breath coming in small bursts from between her colourless lips. My hands in my pocket clutching, but not wearing, my leather gloves, we began our walk, in silence, along the monochrome pavement, legs lit up, casting dancing shadows in occasionally passing headlights. I wondered if she understood the thrill of walking down nocturnal streets where the only sound was the distant whoosh of night-time traffic and leaves skittering and stepped-on on the pavement, the thrill of being here rather than anywhere else, at night, moving between amber pools in the darkness, thinking about the people warm and asleep in the passing houses, about the students and workers rowdy in the city centre, drinking, revelling, Helen and Alice gone too, dissatisfied with the party, insatiable, to join them, while Remi and I were neither asleep nor dancing, but here, frosty air on our skin, bodies warm beneath our coats, sharing a silent walk. I could not know what she was thinking, whether she longed only for her bed, in a room I had never seen, if she was too nervous to speak, her confidence and conversation having evaporated with the end of the party, no longer having the people around, her two friends, to support her. Perhaps she still felt sick, I thought as I looked at her nose and saw in her profile a kind of sharp prettiness. I asked her, but she said she felt fine, had “got it all out,” now felt sober and cold. The final word, spoken as she looked at me, as we passed beneath the full glare of a street-light, sounded like an invitation to pull her close and put my arm around her, but I did not.

We passed only two other people on our walk: a man in his twenties with shoulders hunched beneath a black hoodie, who caused me to draw close enough to Remi to brush against her shoulder so he could go by, and an older man, on the other side of a different street, who had a pipe in his mouth and held, at the end of a lead, a darkly-coloured Labrador. To my observation that it seemed late to be walking a dog, Remi smiled and said “this city is full of strange people.” I replied that anywhere you go has strange people. Remi nodded and was silent, ending our brief, meaningless conversation, though with no regret on my part because no longer, now that we had passed who we were, what we did, what we liked, was our conversation forced, instead could come and go as it pleased, comfortably, and was free to be entirely pointless, even if as banal as pointing out that it was late to walk a dog. I supposed we would be friends.

“Here’s my road,” Remi said regretfully as we came onto an even quieter terraced street further away from the main road than the house-party house had been. “I’d invite you in, but my parents will be asleep.”

“Don’t you live with those girls from earlier?” I asked.

“No, I liked my room here too much to leave,” Remi said, leading me now up the path towards a front door overhung with ivy, lowering her voice as if it would rise up through the windows and wake everyone inside. “And I’d rather save on rent and spend the money on art supplies.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Wait here a moment,” she said, disappearing into the dark hallway, fumbling around at a desk for a moment and then returning with a pen in her hand. “I couldn’t find any paper,” she said, “so give me your arm.”

I asked why and she said that she wanted to give me her phone number. When I suggested why not just type it into my phone she giggled, covered her mouth to stifle the sound and said that perhaps she was not as sober as she had thought. I handed her my phone and the keys lit up beneath her jabbing thumb.

“Text me sometime when you’re bored,” she said, handing the phone back to me.

When I had typed in her name and put it back in my pocket, she stepped back out onto her front step, in her socks because she had already kicked her shoes off, and hugged me, tightly, but genuinely, without desperation, so I could feel her arms through my coat, and thanked me for walking her home. I left, mind blank, filled only with the echoing hollow music from my headphones, feeling nothing as I walked, barely thinking about Remi or the night or anything. Back at my own house, through the black metal gate that creaked and the wooden back door that had swollen with the cold, filling the frame so that it caught and protested when pushed open, I found Leo and Simon in the kitchen, both in night-clothes; one in shorts, the other in baggy tartan trousers, both wearing faded t-shirts and flushed with the heat from the radiators. Simon, who leant against the worktop waiting for the kettle to boil, shivered in the blast of cold air from the open door, while I recoiled against the wall of heat.

“It’s hot in here,” I said, squeezing through the doorway into the adjacent living room, past Leo who stood against the frame, noticing, as I pulled off my scarf, let my long coat fall onto the sofa, the wry smile the two of them directed at me, realising that they had been talking. I looked at them quizzically, waiting for an answer.

Leo broke the silence: “I hear you’ve been chatting up girls,” he said.

I pushed past him again, pulled a mug from the shelf and placed it next to Simon’s, dropping, a moment later, a single round teabag into it. Then I leant against the draining-board, opposite and diagonal to Simon, and shrugged. Simon stared attentively at me while Leo pressed the matter, asking who she was, but I said I did not know her. The kettle shook, then clicked, and Simon turned to fill the two mugs.

“You were talking to her for a long time,” he said, looking sideways at me as he swirled the bags around in the darkening liquid, “you must have learned something about her.”

“If you were curious, why didn’t you come over?” I said peevishly. Simon did not answer, instead scooped the limp teabag from his mug and dropped it into the bin, returning the spoon to the counter to allow me to do the same while he reached down to retrieve a bottle of milk from the fridge. I moved over to pick up the spoon and asked him in a less defensive way why he had left so early without telling me. He replied, straightening up and pouring the white liquid into his tea, that it was firstly because he had had the opportunity to walk most of the way home with his friend, and secondly because he had looked over and I was still talking to “that girl”. He passed the milk to me while Leo, bored and impatient, interjected a question about her physical attractiveness.

“She’s more Simon’s type,” I replied, again surprising myself with the defensive tone in my voice. Simon shrugged and sipped his tea. “She was sick after you left,” I volunteered, the ceramic side of my mug hot against my enclosing fingers, wanting again to compensate for the harsh tone that seemed to spring up from the inexplicable and vague annoyance thoughts of Remi created within me. “She threw up in the street, so I walked her home.”

“Did you kiss her?” Leo asked, stretched up now and swinging with his fingertips on the top of the door-frame like a bored child.

“With the taste of sick in her mouth? I already told you I don’t like her.”

Leo shrugged and left, no longer interested in our company, while mine and Simon’s conversation turned briefly to another subject before we each went to our bedrooms. I was tired, and so did not stay up long, but as I lay in bed I thought of Remi’s arms tight around my shoulders, and that brought to my mind my first embrace with Lila, by the creaking black gate on that cold September evening. That had been more than a year before, and had filled me with warmth and optimism, expectation, while Remi’s embrace, genuine as it was, felt insubstantial, inspired in me nothing more than indifference and mild resistance, had been even mildly uncomfortable, squeezing my chest, my lungs, causing me to gasp silently the cutting air. It had barely registered in this gasp how scentless her body was, though I realised now I had noticed only the faintest aroma of shampoo when she pressed against me, no lingering perfume like Lila had worn, no smell of alcohol or clothes or anything, but perhaps that was the cold, blocking up my nose or suppressing all scent so that I could not smell and be repulsed by her vomit on the drain, could observe it detachedly as I now recalled the hug. And yet I wondered why I was thinking about the hug from this girl at all, this girl who I had claimed already to my housemates that I did not like, why I would compare it with my first embrace of Lila, whom I had had strong feelings for at the time. True it did not happen every day that a girl would so blatantly flirt with me, would hug me, but I would not fall in love with her for that, I would not fall in love with her, I was adamant, though it seemed inevitable, and I fell asleep nursing that thought: I would not fall in love with her.

Willowy, slight as one of the twigs bristling at the end of her nostalgically-fashioned broom, camouflaged against the day, she stood, sweeping. In her ears, as if straight into her conciousness, music played through tiny white earphones. Her hips swayed with the rhythm of music and sweeping, her eyes down-turned towards the sodden leaves that plastered the concrete. A black plastic sack rustled next to her, its crumpled surface rippling in the November breeze. It was a warm day, the first after two of wind and rain.

She did not see how it happened, heard only, above the sound of her earphones, the cry of surprise, the sharp scrape of metal on concrete: the sound of a bicycle losing its traction on the decaying leaves and throwing its rider to the floor. She looked up, pulled out her earphones, saw a student lying in the road, curled into the foetal position. She gasped, dropped her broom, ran towards him. There was no one else around. Already the student was picking himself up, assessing the damage. He wore an open chequered shirt over his t-shirt, the sleeve of which had been ripped by the fall.

“Oh you poor dear,” the woman exclaimed, seeing the blood running from his elbow, his knee, the side of his finger.

The student looked up at her, pale, shaken, saw a woman also pale, with freckles across her nose and straight, reddish-brown hair down past her shoulders, helping to move his bike off his leg. The cardigan she wore was tight around her thin arms. She put her hand on his shoulder.

“Did you hit your head?” she asked. “Do you need an ambulance?”

“No,” the student said slowly, stretching and contracting his limbs.

“Are you alright to stand?” the woman asked, helping him up. “Come inside, I’ve got a first aid box.” In the shock of the moment she had forgotten her usual shyness.

The student seemed about to protest but, looking down at the rent in his jeans and the blood seeping into the denim, allowed himself to be lead into the small front yard of the woman’s small terraced house. While he stood there, feeling awkward. a cold numbness that was worse and more mysterious than pain gnawing at his injuries, she went back to pick up his bike and bring it through the gate.

“I think the wheel’s gotten bent,” she said as she brought it through, but he had seen that before she said it. He frowned and she looked regretful as she opened the front door.

She lead him through a short hallway and asked him to take a seat in the living room while she went to fetch her medical box. He perched on the edge of a red settee and plucked a few tissues from a box on the low Ikea coffee table, nervous of dripping blood on the carpet or furniture. Through the window, the weak autumn sun, filtered by the remaining yellowed leaves on the nearest of the trees that lined this street, illuminated a silent sitting room that smelled faintly of furniture polish and pot pourri. In the corner near the window stood an inexpensive, though quite large, flat-screen television, in the opposite corner a tall lamp, in another corner, set into one of the alcoves either side of the fireplace, a bookshelf half filled with books and half with DVDs and a few old VHSs. The student did not have time to read the titles of many of these before the woman returned, holding a white plastic box, a beige towel, and a matching flannel that steamed in what the student now realised was the cold air of the room.

The woman sat down next to him, her knees together, turned towards him, the lower half of her legs bent away from him against the front of the sofa. She put the folded towel down on the cushion between them.

“Take your shirt off,” she instructed.

Self-consciously the student slid his arm out through the sleeve, lay the shirt down, bloodied side up, over the arm of the settee, allowed the woman to lift his arm with her slender cool fingers. The warm touch of the flannel against his elbow raised goose-pimples in the surrounding skin. When the woman had dabbed a few times and removed it, an uneven circle of the beige had been stained a watercolour-red. The woman looked up at his face.

“Sorry,” she said, “the house is always cold.”

The student smiled thinly, still looked concerned, said nothing as the woman dried the damp skin with a corner of the towel. This too absorbed some of the redness.

“Oh, don’t worry about these,” she said, “they’re old and I never use them anyway.”

With the blood gone they could both see that the injury was just a scrape; some torn and grazed skin. The woman reached in the box for a pack of sterile gauze padding, tore it open in a quick, neat motion.

“Do you live here alone?” the student asked as she pressed the gauze against his skin, reached for surgical tape and scissors.

She looked up again, surprised at the question, her fingers still clasped lightly around his arm.

“Yes,” she said.

The student thought he detected a sadness, a loneliness, in her eyes, but then felt that, no, it was not located there but seemed to hang permanently around her like a shroud, making her seem older than she was. He worried that the one thing he had said to her had been wrong, so he quickly said,

“Thanks for doing this. I don’t think we even have Elastoplasts at home.”

“Where do you live?”

“A few streets away, near the cemetery.”

The woman put her hand on his wrist and gently bent his arm. The student felt the tape pull tight against his skin, but it did not tear or come away.

“Shall I do your knee or your finger next?” she asked.

The student twisted his hand round to look at the side of his smallest finger. It ached when he flexed it, but did not seem badly cut or damaged.

“I don’t think my finger’s too bad,” he said.

The woman wiped it with another part of the flannel.

“No, it’s not too bad,” she said, “I have a small plaster if you’d like.”

“I think it’s stopped bleeding, it should be alright.”

The woman felt a strong urge to kiss the finger, or the back of his hand, but she resisted.

“Shall we look at your knee then?” she asked.

They both looked down at the bloody patch on the knee. The strangeness of the situation, of being suddenly in this woman’s house, tended by her, had begun to dissolve, but now he felt awkward again. She mustn’t kneel down in front of me, he felt.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

He guessed she was fifteen, at most twenty, years older than him. If she was twenty years older, that would make her twice his age. She seemed sort of faded, he thought, as if she had spent her life in autumn days; like a violet pressed between the pages of a book.

He bent forwards to pull and roll up his jeans. The friction of the denim, soft as it was from years of wear, rubbed against the cut, renewing its pain and smearing the inside of the material with a thin line of red. It would have been easier to just pull them down, but it would have been too awkward to sit there with this stranger in just his t-shirt and shorts.

“It doesn’t look as bad as your elbow,” she said, leaning forwards to inspect it, “bring it up here and I’ll put a pad on it.”

She moved the towel and patted the cushion next to her. He pulled off his shoe, brought his bare knee up next to her and held his shin with clasped hands. Their heads came close together and a curtain of her hair fell forwards, parallel with his knee. She reached up to tuck It behind her ear and continued to dab with the cooling flannel. Neither spoke nor looked at the other while she worked, only at the knee.

“All done.”

He ran his finger over the dressing, felt the strangeness of its unfeeling mass against his skin.

“Thank you,” he said, putting his foot back on the floor.

“It’s a shame about your jeans,” she said.

“Most of my jeans have holes in anyway.”

“Oh,” she said. The tone of the utterance expressed both concern and sympathy.

“I like them that way, in summer they’re cooler than shorts.”

There was a pause, a silence that stretched beyond the small living room, beyond the cold house, right down to either end of the street.

“Do you have any more injuries?” Her voice was quiet.

“I don’t think so, I suppose I –”

She reached up suddenly and stroked the side of his jaw, feeling beneath her fingers the soft stubble.

“Sorry,” she said, drawing her hand back.

He said nothing. She was looking at him, but he could not read her expression.

“You might stay a few minutes more,” she said, almost as a question, “wait a few minutes before you put a strain on the cuts.”

From his silence she assumed acquiescence, and reached up again, this time to his neck. He allowed himself to be pulled towards her, and downwards, until his head rested on her lap. He could see, sideways now, the coffee table, and beyond it the unlit fireplace, and before it the blurred horizon of her knees, and he could smell the scent of her dress; the faintest aroma of cotton and perfume and dust. On the lower shelf of the coffee table lay a DVD case with the title ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, and on the top of the coffee table was a paperback he had not noticed before, the underside, or topside, of its splayed pages facing him so that he could see neither its title nor author. The woman began to play with his hair, twisting its short tufts around her finger and then tracing winding patterns through the haphazard strands. She was not so very old, but she felt that she had lived here for a very long time.

“Do you read much?” she asked, “does anyone your age read any more?”

“I read,” he said, “but probably not as much as I should.”

His hands were down by his thighs, his fingers and thumbs moving and twisting against each other. He was tempted to reach up and run his hand along her calf, feel the plastic friction of her tights beneath his palm, reciprocate the familiar way with which she had touched the damaged parts of his body and now played with his hair, but he did not.

“In the book I’m reading,” she began, “a man and a woman make love, and start to fall in love, but the man does not like her hands. Her fingers are too short and fat and inelegant. He says they are ugly, calls them child’s hands. He thinks she’s beautiful, but he can’t help but focus on her hands. It’s a really big deal for him, so big that he calls off the relationship, though it’s not yet explained why it was such a big deal. I don’t know if it will be.”

Her voice was quiet, demure, yet passionate and honest. He could imagine, as he lay there, the warmth of her lap rising up through his cheek, her reading a bed-time story to a child.

“Later on, years later” she continued, “the man finds the woman all wasted in a street in Milan. He broke her heart, ruined her, and she turned to drugs and prostitution. Her skin is all grey , her face is drawn, her eyes are dull; he can’t see the spark of life and love that once was there, only a murky cloud of despair. He’s moved to tears as he kneels down in front of her, and she seems only dimly to recognise him, but he takes her hands and holds them and apologises to her. Then he realises that her hands haven’t changed, they’re still just the same, as he remembered them, and now he thinks they’re beautiful. He kisses them and falls in love with them, and with her, and promises he’ll look after her.”

Outside, the sun had disappeared beyond the roofs of the houses opposite and the breeze had become stiffer, causing the black bag with leaves in it to shudder and crinkle loudly.

“That’s as far as I’ve got,” the woman finished, apologetically. “I suppose it sounds trashy.”

A car drove by the house, its tires creating a wet, sticky sound as they rolled over the fallen leaves.

“I’ve always thought I have nice hands, that they’re my best feature. I used to be able to play the piano.”

In the stress she put on the I, there seemed implicit the statement that no one else had ever said so. The student felt that he should reach up and enclose her fingers within his own and tell her that she did have nice, soft, delicate, feminine hands, but instead he was thinking about something else:

“The other day,” he said, “there was this insect on the glass of our back door, which is the one we use to come in and go out by. I think it was some sort of grasshopper, but it might have been a cricket. It was brilliantly, intensely green. It had long elegant legs. I was a little afraid of it. I wondered what it was doing there, and especially at this time of year, but then I closed the door and thought no more about it.”

He could feel the woman’s eyes on him, but did not turn to look. Her hand was now still, fingers curled against the bone behind his ear.

“The next day I noticed it lying on the doormat inside our kitchen. Someone had trodden on it and it was squashed into the material, its long legs sticking out pathetically. Over the following couple of days I noticed it getting more and more trodden in, and soon it had lost its bright green and become brown with dirt. I don’t suppose anyone else noticed it, or they just ignored it. It’s still there now, looking just the same as a piece of chewing gum stuck to a pavement.”

His words trailed into silence, and then he suddenly sat up and looked at his watch. His hair was flattened on the side he had been lying on, but stuck out where the woman had been playing with it.

“I’d better go,” he said, “I was supposed to have been at my girlfriend’s house by now.”

He pulled his shoe back on. The spell of spontaneous intimacy had been broken. Now he stood, and the woman escorted him to the door, watched as he wheeled his bicycled out the front gate. There was grating sound as the distorted part of the wheel passed the break pads, but the sound was only slight. He mounted the saddle.

“You be careful,” the woman warned.

“Thank you,” the student said.

Their final look into each other’s faces was brief. Twilight suited her, he thought, and she was quite beautiful. He pushed down on his pedal, lifted his other foot from the ground, and began a cautious journey along the pavement. The woman watched him until he disappeared at the end of the street, and then fetched in her broom and dropped the half-empty black bag into the bin. She realised, as she went back into the living room to retrieve the towel and the flannel and her white medical box and switch on a light, that she had never asked his name, nor given hers, but felt that somehow it was better that way. As she bent to pick up the towel she noticed on the coffee-table, next to the tissue box, a few crumpled blood-stained tissues; his blood, discarded like leaves from a tree.

Superficially, Tom’s Midnight Garden is a story about a boy, Tom, who is forced by his brother’s outbreak of measles at the start of the summer holiday, to stay with his aunt and uncle in their small city flat. Philippa Pearce wrote the book in 1958, and it is set around about then though, like all the best books, it is timeless. The only reason a reader would know the book was set in the late fifties / early sixties rather than at any other time, if they did not know when it was written, is from certain events near its end, and from Tom in the second line on the first page being said to have “looked his good-bye at the garden, and raged that he had to leave it.” Obviously this is a time when children were more inclined to play outside, to ‘make their own fun’; a time before videogames, or even widespread television, when being shut up inside a small flat for hours on end was torture rather than a preference.

For the first few days at his aunt and uncle’s Tom is bored and restless, and resents that, on the way, his aunt did not take him up Ely tower. He writes a postcard from the tower to his brother Peter, expressing his dissatisfaction at his situation, though, as an afterthought, counter-balances his complaints, “in fairness to Aunt Gwen,” by underlining on the last line of his postcard “the food is good.” From the first night, he is unable to sleep, and from boredom gets up and wanders into the kitchen. For this he is reprimanded by his uncle, and instructed that he is not to get up before morning. Though occassionally the character of his Uncle Alan comes across as something of a caricature, he is never the overbearing tyrant of, say, a Roald Dahl story. James, from James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda, were both thoroughly opressed by the adults that governed their lives; a reflection of Roald Dahl’s own unhappy childhood. Tom, on the other hand, is merely bored, much like Milo is in The Phantom Tollbooth (another of my favourite children’s books), and I think this make’s Tom’s story more believable and Tom more relatable. After all, everyone knows what it is like to have been bored at some point in their childhood, kept somewhere against their will, but fewer children, thought they may have felt unfairly treated at times, have been in the truly desperate situations of James or Matilda. I have nothing against Roald Dahl’s children’s books, they are a wonderful form of escapism for children, but I feel myself less inclined to reread them now than I do Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Phantom Tollbooth or the Moomintroll books.

What I like about Tom’s Midnight Garden, or rather, one of the things I like about it, is the subtlety and strength of its central idea: In the hall of the large house in which the aunt and uncle’s flat is situated, is a grandfather clock that never strikes the correct hour. One night the clock strikes thirteen times, and Tom is so annoyed by it as he lies in the dark, listening to its defiance of time, that he resolves to get up and see what time the hands say. When he gets downstairs, it is too dark to see they clock, so he opens the back door to let in the moonlight. This is when he discovers that, rather than the small concrete yard with bins, a car and a creosote-covered fence, there is a great moonlit garden out there: his midnight garden. He plans to visit it the next day, but discovers it is gone, and only reappears at night. From then on, he visits it every night, secretly, and within it meets a young girl called Hatty.

She is not the only other person who frequents the garden, but she is the only one who can see him, and so they become friends. This is the real crux of the story: their friendship. Time moves differently in the garden, and so sometimes Tom visits it at earlier, and sometimes later, points in its history. He goes every night, but the seasons and Hatty’s age changes. Tom realises that this must be the garden of the house from the previous century and so Hatty must be a ghost, creating this constant tension and mystery about what became of Hatty: how and where and when she died. Having previously read the book, I remembered how it ended, but it does not end with a Fight Club-style twist that lets you read it once, read it again to see the clues that lead to that ending and then never bother with it again; Tom’s Midnight Garden has exactly the sort of resolution you want, though I shan’t say more than that.

In a way, Tom’s Midnight Garden is similar to David Almond’s Skellig. Both are built around a single, fantastical discovery that in turn leads to self-discovery, becomes a catalyst for growing-up, and both feature a strong friendship that is formed between a boy and a girl, a mutually beneficial union. But Skellig, although it has a good story, is not particularly well-written: it lacked the spark, for me, of Philippa Pearce’s work. It’s hard to say exactly what that spark constitutes, but it feels like Pearce never compromised her vision just because she was writing a ‘children’s book’. She uses semi-colons every now and then, for example, which I don’t recall being common in many other children’s books, and words such as ‘obstinate’. There is also in her work the occassional hint of authorial intrusion, which I think has generally been discouraged since the start of the twentieth century, though I believe it is quite prevalent in the nineteenth-century literature of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Here, rather than invoking the god-like narrator that exists beyond the ontological plain of the fiction, her asides such as “but what can children do against their elders’ decisions for them, and especially their parents?” gives the impression of a kindly aunt relating to you this story.

There is also an economy, an efficieny, to the structuring of the plot in this story. Every single event, however minor, is relevant, and has an importance to the story as a whole, even if it’s importance is not immediately obvious. These minor details help to create a more vivid and cohesive world, and also reminds me of another book I love: To Kill a Mockingbird. That novel similarly invokes the essence of childhood, but juxtaposes it with various other more adult themes, such as racism and morality, denying it the single-minded clarity of Tom’s Midnight Garden. Though the two books obviously have very different goals, I feel that comparison is justified because I don’t think children’s book, in terms of quality, should be judged on different terms to books written for adults. A good ‘children’s’ book is one that is suitable, enjoyable and understandable for children, but equally so for adults. Winnie-the-Pooh is a good example because, although those books are written for children, are about children’s playthings, the inherant emotional charm of a living, breathing teddy bear that exists in his patch of the world called The Hundred Acre Wood never loses its magic. Another good example of what I mean by a good children’s book being for adults as well is George Orwell’s Animal Farm. An adult can read it as a satire of corrupt communism; a child can read it as a story about some animals who took over a farm and started out with good intentions for running it, but some of the animals eventually were consumed by power and greed.

Of course, emotional response to a work of fiction is highly subjective. Tom’s Midnight Garden gripped me in a surprising way that I have not experienced for a long time, and with a ferocity I might never have before experienced. Perhaps it’s because of the way I’m feeling at the moment, the best analogy for which I can come up with at the moment, having been playing Forza Motorsport a lot recently, is like when, in a motor-race, you’re on the final lap, in first place, with your nearest rival less than a second behind you. You know that, at this point, none of the other laps mean anything: that you were in pole position for the first seven laps, and then for three-quarters of the final lap, means nothing if you don’t cross that finish line first. So you’re on edge for this final lap, shaking with its intensity, and you know that, although spinning out on a corner would be disastrous, would dash your chances completely of first place, missing the apex of a bend, losing traction for even a second, would be equally detrimental to your chances of winning because your rival will use the opportunity to overtake, and then all the work of the first seven laps would be gone in an instant. In the final year of my degree, with my plans for next year uncertain, and no chance to redo this year if I don’t acheive well enough, that’s how I feel. And so perhaps that’s why Tom’s Midnight Garden, with its evocation of time and memory and childhood, in many ways similar to Proust’s great work, but obviously far, far shorter and without the pomp and pretense and cleverness of high literature, affected me so deeply. I once read an aphorism that said a good book should leave room for the reader, and that’s exactly what Tom’s Midnight Garden does; with immediately identifiable characters and an uncomplicated plot it invites you to step out into the garden of your youth with the wonder of a child and the experience of an adult.

I don’t feel that’s entirely my fault: I was called into work unexpectedly and have only just, fighting through post-work, food and shower drowsiness found the time to make the final edits of this story, which I fear might not actually stand up to any hyperbolic statements I may or may not have made about it (I’m really too tired to remember what I said about it, if anything). Regardless, it is a good story, possibly a great one, and I think there’s a fair bit going on in it, which I hope will come across in subsequent re-readings of the story, if not the first time through.

So, yes, I am proud to have this as my one hundredth post, and I hope you all enjoy it,

Henry.

The New House

“Hey,” said Kate, “hey, stranger.”

She grabbed Jay’s arm, brought him to a stop in the cloying heat of an August Saturday as he picked his way through the crowd. People continued to push past, making little, if any, concession.

“Hey,” he said, looking at her, surprised.

“You nearly walked right past me,” she said.

Large sunglasses obscured her eyes, and she had cut her hair into a neat bob since the last time he had seen her, a few weeks ago, just after the start of the summer holidays.

“I didn’t know you were back yet,” he said.

“The weather wasn’t great, so we came back a few days early.”

“Didn’t you enjoy it much then?”

“It was okay, but we just ended up going in the arcades and stuff every day. It was too rainy and miserable to go on the beach.”

She pulled off her sunglasses, revealing blue eyes. Jay grimaced sympathetically.

“It rained here last week too,” he said.

He paused awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, which was slick with sweat.

“Hot today though,” he continued, “stuffy.”

“Yeah, it is kinda. Anyway, how are you?”

She reached up to rub the side of his arm.

“I’m okay. Sick of town; too many people and I couldn’t find -”

A man bumped into him and carried on walking, but did not say anything. Jay watched the man disappear back into the crowd, shook his head.

“We should probably get out the way,” Kate said.

The two moved aside, against the white stone wall of a bank.

“What were you looking for?” Kate asked.

“A desk,” said Jay, “for my new room.

“Doesn’t it come with one? I thought student rooms always came with desks.”

“Yeah, well it does, but it’s not a nice one. I don’t like it.”

Kate nodded, then squinted as a momentary break in the clouds illuminated the wall behind Jay.

“Have you moved in yet?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand.

“No, not yet, I picked the keys up yesterday, but I’m just moving my stuff across bit by bit at the moment.”

He reached up to brush his hair away from his forehead.

“So what you up to now?” Kate asked.

Jay shrugged.

“Nothing really, I was just going home.”

“Shall we go get a cup of tea somewhere?”

Jay looked around, felt sweat in the lines of his palms. He liked Kate’s eyes.

“Okay,” he said.

In the café, cold drinks stood in neat lines on the shelves of a glass and metal cooler, condensation clinging to their slender-necked bodies. Jay grabbed a bottle of sparkling pear juice. Kate ordered a latte. All the outside tables were taken, so they sat opposite each other at a small round table by the window, and their knees brushed against each other as Kate told Jay about her family holiday in Cornwall. When she had finished they both took a sip of their drinks and there was silence between them. Jay looked around, thinking of something to say. He could feel his t-shirt sticking to his back with every movement he made.

“It really is hot today,” he said.

“Yeah,” Kate said.

Jay scratched at a scab on his elbow, his fingers curled into claws.

“How’d you do that?” Kate asked.

“Basketball,” said Jay, “I tripped.”

Kate leaned in close to examine the wound. It was only small, but stood out vividly against his pale skin, accentuated by a salmon-pink halo. Jay watched her, felt too hot. Once outside, he pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. Kate looked at him.

“Wanna see my new house?” he said, finally.

“Sure,” Kate said.

The cloud-bank shifted uneasily in the sky and let out a few drops of rain. Jay felt their coolness on his skin and smiled. Kate was looking at him, smiled.

“I hope it rains,” Jay said.

Kate frowned.

“I’m sick of rain after last week.”

“I love summer rain,” Jay continued, “it’s so refreshing.”

“I like summer to be hot and sunny,” Kate said.

Jay looked at her. He still felt sticky with sweat. He wondered if she had noticed.

“Here it is.”

They stood outside a terraced house with a blue front door and a gated alleyway leading up the side. Dirt clung to the walls, clumped together in irregular veins on the white-painted walls. At the back there was a concrete yard, divided by four timber steps halfway along its length, which ran up to a gravelled rectangle with regularly placed slabs like uniform islands in a gravel-sea. A couple of small trees with sharp yellowish leaves brought colour to the yard.

“Nice garden,” Kate said.

Jay was flicking through the unfamiliar keys to find the one for the back door. He raised a gold-coloured key and tried it in the lock, but it did not fit. The keys jangled. He tried another and the door came open. They stepped into a small kitchen which had black and red tiles across the floor and faux-marble worktops. He was not used to the smell of the place, did not yet identify the smell of dust on the static air with home. He felt like an intruder, a stranger.

Next to the kitchen was the bathroom.

“I need to go wash my face,” Jay said.

He closed the bathroom door behind him and took his t-shirt off. In the mirror he saw himself, skinny, nervous. He had always thought Kate beautiful. The water ran off his face, dripped into the basin. The sky looked washed-out through the frosted glass. Jay wondered if it would rain more as he reached for a towel, dabbed at his face and under his arms. He put his t-shirt back on. It smelled of sweat.

He opened the bathroom door. Kate had walked through to the living room.

“Have your house-mates moved in yet?” she asked.

“No, Andy’s home this weekend and Neil’s working so they’re moving in on Monday, and Tom’s gone home for a few weeks, so I’m not sure when he’s moving in.”

Kate nodded.

“You going to give me the tour then?” she asked.

Jay showed her round all the rooms, mentioning who would be taking each one, finally ending with his own, which was furthest along the corridor at the top of the stairs. The room was smaller than the rest, though not by much. Against one wall stood a small computer desk with a silver-grey plastic covering. In a corner was a chest of drawers, opposite which was a wardrobe. On the same wall as the wardrobe were some shelves, which had a few books and DVDs piled haphazardly across them. The bed stood by the wall with the window in it. Kate went over to this first, and knelt on the bed so she could see through the glass.

“It’s a good view,” she said, pulling off her shoes so she wouldn’t get them on the bare mattress.

She turned back round to see Jay at the wardrobe changing into a clean t-shirt. Jay was conscious of her watching him.

“It’s so quiet here,” she said.

Jay turned round.

“Yeah,” he said.

They looked at each other across the room.

“Come here,” said Kate.

Jay sat down on the bed next to her and she kissed him on the mouth. She drew back, smiled, and kissed him again. Their tongues met and moved against each other. She put her arms around him and held him close, then their lips parted and she pressed her cheek against his neck. She began to kiss his neck, but felt his shoulders tense beneath her palms. She pulled back and looked at him.

“I must stink of sweat,” he said.

“No, you’re fine,” she said, moving close to him again, kissing his neck, his cheek, his lips.

She swung her legs up over his knees so she could move closer to him and continued to kiss him passionately, almost desperately. Instinctively Jay’s hand moved to her waist and then up her back as they kissed, then it began to move around the front, pushing her away almost, even as he pulled her closer. Her lips smiled against his, and so he continued, rubbing gently at first, then grasping her breast more firmly, with the same awkward desperation of their kissing. Apart from her bra, he could feel nothing through her t-shirt, so he pushed his hand up under the cloth and pulled down the cup. He reached back up and felt beneath his open palm her nipple, hard and round and firm as a blackcurrant. He continued to massage the warm flesh.

In response she moved her hand down from his waist to his crotch, where the head of his penis strained against the thick denim. As with her breast through the t-shirt, the sensation was muted. Still, Jay felt a twinge of raw physical pleasure with every movement she made, but he did not smile: his expression remained serious, almost pained with concentration. Kate did not notice; her eyes closed as her lips moved between his neck, his cheeks and his mouth, her fingers dancing towards the zipper on his jeans.

“Wait,” he said, pulling his hand out from her top.

“What?”

Their eyes locked, stayed locked as a second passed.

“The bed’s not made… it doesn’t feel right.”

Kate looked down at the bare mattress.

“Really?” she asked, adjusting her bra.

Jay shrugged and stood. There was still a ridge in his jeans and his heart pounded as he moved towards the chest of drawers to pull out some sheets. Kate got off the bed too and watched Jay spread a bottom-sheet over the mattress. He took a long time smoothing the sheet out, so she began to stuff the duvet into its cover. He helped her, and their hands brushed against each other, then she pulled him close, wrapped him up in the duvet and pushed him back onto the bed.

“Happy now?” she asked.

Jay shrugged. She lay down on top of him and kissed him again, then rolled under the duvet herself and pulled off his shirt. She kissed his stomach and Jay felt again, inevitably, the tightness in his jeans. Kate felt it too and, covered by the duvet, pulled off her own top. She lay back on top of him again. Jay felt her breasts against his chest and her crotch against his. The heat of her body was irresistible. He pushed her onto her side, unhooked her bra and kissed her breasts as his hand slid into her pants. His fingertips came against the short-trimmed pubic hair, at once familiar and alien, and then pushed further down, following the curve, closing around a warmth that was delicate and internal, distinct in the dirty, muggy heat of the air.

Meanwhile, Kate was already fiddling with his belt, pulling his waist-band apart so she could reach inside. He felt her fingers close around the shaft and pull once towards her, as if trying to take it for herself, and then push down, pulling the skin back. He bit his lip, felt his heart race, felt sick with excitement. There was a pause, a momentary lull balanced on a knife-edge, as they both looked into each other’s eyes and lay perfectly still, her hand closed tightly around his penis, his fingers inside her pants cupping the soft flesh of her labia, before he suddenly pulled his hand away and yanked her jeans and her pants down to her ankles in one feverish movement. She kicked them the rest of the way off and sat up to pull down his jeans and boxer shorts.

Then he was on top of her, kissing her all over, pressing against her even as she pulled him close and dug her fingers into his back. She had to fight against herself to push him away even for one moment, just to ask in a rapid whisper,

“Do you have any condoms?”

Concern clouded Jay’s face, made him pause.

“No,” he said, “they’re back at the old house.”

The passion in his body, the erection of his penis, began to ebb. He felt oppressed by the stark walls, by the haphazard books on the shelves and a crumpled plastic bag on the floor. The silence of the small room, like the heat of the day, was all around, inescapable, smothering. Jay pushed himself up on his hands and Kate leaned up to kiss him once on the chest, before falling back to the pillow and staring at his troubled face.

“I don’t care,” she said, “I can’t wait, I’ll get a pill later, I want you.”

She tried to pull him back down, but he resisted, as if teasing her. He had suddenly become again concious of the ugly computer desk that loomed by the bedside on its skeletal silver legs. Kate mirrored his concern in her own features and shifted her feet against his under the duvet. A question trembled at her lips, but was held back by a shapeless fear. She squeezed his arms and he looked down at her, at her eyes, at her nipples, offset by the weight of her breasts like two cherries on swirls of melting cream. Whatever the internal conflict that had raged inside his brain during those seconds of hesitation, lust had emerged dominant, and now gorged itself on the sensation of her breath on his cheek, of her thigh against his penis, of the sapphire shine in her eyes.

When Jay pushed inside her, Kate gasped and pulled him closer and further up as if she wanted the entry to go on forever. It could not and so, reaching the apex of his thrust, he stopped and pulled back slowly, savouring each second, each minute tingle of sensation. The fear that had been embodied a moment before in the ugliness of the computer desk now hovered ghost-like beyond the moment of ejaculation, obscured by distance but drawing ever closer as Jay pulled down, down, almost until he came free, and then again up inside of her. Kate gasped, kissed him, rubbed her breasts, jerked her hips, and he gradually went faster and faster, until his loins burned with the strain of holding back the release. In a final attempt to avert the cataclysm of his climax, to outwit the nameless dark spectre, Jay pulled out and his semen sprayed over the bed-sheet and the inside of Kate’s thigh.

For several seconds, Kate was oblivious to the warm liquid running down her leg, and continued to crush Jay against her, aching to have him back inside her, demanding that it would not end like this, so soon, that she would not be denied the final wrenches of pleasure when she was so close to orgasm. But he was spent, hollowed out, and, as the waves of ecstasy rippled away into nothing, she became aware of the semen cooling on her skin. It did not disgust her, as she lay beneath Jay’s hot body, but he felt sticky and wanted to shower. Both of them were panting, and could feel the other’s hot breath, but they did not kiss. Jay’s fingers clenched the loose cover on the pillow. He wondered how many people had had sex on this bed before, wondered if it mattered. Slowly he allowed his muscles to relax and slid down by her side.

“I hope nobody saw us,” Kate said, remembering the window.

“Mm,” said Jay.

He realised that his elbow was raw, so he propped himself up to inspect it. At some point in the throes of passion, Kate had caught the scab, and now an edge of it had been separated from the skin beneath. He picked at it gingerly.

“Did I do that?” Kate asked, “sorry.”

Jay nodded absently and continued to pick.

“Hey, don’t do that,” Kate said, “it doesn’t look ready to come off.”

She put a hand up to his, but too late: Jay yanked off the crystalline skin with a grimace. A crescent sliver of blood shot to the surface, but did not pool up enough to run down. They both looked at the irregular circle of taut pink skin that had been revealed, then Kate lay back down to look out the window at the first heavy drops of rain which had begun to fall. Jay lay down behind her and wrapped his arm across her chest, so that his hand rested across her collar-bone. Past the side of her head he could see the indifferent backs of the houses opposite, which rose high above his bedroom window and stretched up towards the low grey sky. He wondered who his neighbours were and felt the wet patch on the sheet against his leg, the curve of her buttocks against his hip, the weight of her breast across his arm.

“I love you,” she said suddenly, after several minutes of silence.

She took his hand and kissed it and waited for a reply. Jay said nothing, but stopped thinking about the neighbours.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, twisting round to look at him.

Jay shrugged and did not look at her eyes for a long time. Eventually he did look, and she was still watching him, so he said,

“I was wondering if we should break up.”

Kate’s face went pale and she looked away.

“Why? Because I…?” she paused, “that was months ago.”

Jay moved so he was not lying on the semen patch any more.

“I told you about it straight away, said I was sorry.”

Kate waited for him to respond, but Jay continued to stare at the backs of the motionless houses opposite.

“It was one time. We were both drunk,” she pleaded, wide-eyed, “you said you forgave me.”

Jay looked at her, felt a pang of guilt, thought he was stupid, knew he had gone too far, shrugged. He had never asked her about her past lovers, and she had not told him.

“You never did, did you?”

When he did not answer, she hit his shoulder with her palm and drew the duvet tight around herself, then she started to cry, silently, and rubbed her leg. Jay watched her. She had taken most of the duvet and he began to feel cold and disgusted.

“So what was this?” Kate demanded, semen cold and sticky against her fingers, “one last fuck before you dumped me?”

“I don’t know,” Jay said, “I didn’t expect to see you today, I thought you were still in Cornwall.”

“Maybe if you texted me once in a while you’d have known. I missed you, you know, even though… I felt guilty about our fight, but it was your fault, you started it. You. Oh, just fuck you. Give me my clothes.”

Sheepishly Jay gathered up her bra and t-shirt, and then dragged up the crumpled pair of jeans with her pants still inside them from the bottom of the bed where she had kicked them off. They both got dressed, lying sideways under the same duvet, in silence, then Kate crawled awkwardly past Jay, who drew in his legs to let her pass. She stood.

“Why didn’t you just say you couldn’t forgive me, instead of pretending everything was fine and never talking to me about it?”

“I didn’t want to keep making you feel guilty since there was nothing you could do about it.”

“Yeah, well I did feel guilty about it, for ages, but I thought we were getting over it. I thought I’d go away and come back and everything would be like it was before, better even, we’d be stronger for it.”

Jay shrugged apologetically.

“Fine,” Kate said, “I’m going. I hope you’re happy here.”

She opened the door.

“I’m sorry,” Jay said before she walked through, “I couldn’t help it.”

Kate turned round and looked at him hard for several seconds, still sat on his bed. She could still feel the warm wetness inside her and the way it made the cotton of her pants sticky and tingling when she moved. She shook her head.

“You weren’t even drunk.”

She turned away and Jay watched her leave, heard her close the back door, which was below his window. He rubbed his elbow. For a while afterwards he lay there, looking at the rain, and at his new room. It was bare, almost stark, and very silent. Jay breathed in. The air was fresh and cool from the rain. He closed his eyes and saw the room with a new desk, with his books and films all neatly on the shelves, with posters on the wall. This room belonged to him now. It was his room. He stood up and stretched out, then went downstairs to shower. He could have been anyone.

Harry enters hesitantly from SR and looks around.

HARRY: (To himself) I’m pretty sure I didn’t write anything about Lucy running off crying. What happened? Guess I’d better set up the next scene.

Harry drags TABLE 2 over to CSR and places it on its side to represent Esmerelda’s bedroom wall. He also moves one of the chairs a little way behind the table and faces it towards the audience. Then Harry exits SL. Esmerelda enters SR. She sits in the chair and mimes combing her hair as if looking in a mirror. Horatio enters SL and mimes throwing stones at Esmerelda’s bedroom window. Hearing the sound Esmerelda rises, walks to the table, and throws open the ‘window’.

HORATIO: Oh beauty! Oh Emma-

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: Oh Esmerelda! I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I had to see you again. Can I come in?

ESMERELDA: My parents are asleep and I’m getting ready for bed.

HORATIO: Do they despise me, your parents, like Juliet’s despised Romeo’s? Can they not see the beauty of our love?

ESMERELDA: I have not yet told them. It’s all happening so fast (aside) without any real plot development.

HORATIO: Love strikes quickly without warning, and when it does we are as puppets to its will.

TRENT: You are. She’s not.

HORATIO: Though others (Looks at Trent) may bring their slings and fire their stones, together we shall prevail, our love shall come through.

EMMA: Woah, Horatio, Harry -

HORATIO: Shh, you need not speak; I see it all in your eyes.

TRENT: What do you see? Contempt? She doesn’t fancy you, deal with it.

EMMA: Wait a moment. Harry, just listen to me for a moment, I think this has gone on long enough -

HARRY: You’re right. You. (points to Trent) You’ve been sat there this whole time criticising, making snide comments. You think it’s easy writing, directing and starring in a play? You think you could do any better.

TRENT: (Shrugging) yeah, I’d give it a shot.

HARRY: (With a sweep of his arms) Then be my guest.

Trent puts down his notepad, rises from his seat and gets up onto the stage.

TRENT: Ok, (To Harry) you go stand over there out the way. (Harry moves US. Trent moves TABLE 2 to one side out of the way then returns to CS. To Emma) Emma – it is Emma, isn’t it? You come over here by me.

Nervously Emma walks over to Trent and stands next to him, both of them facing out towards the audience, but Emma occasionally looking over at Trent to follow his lead.

TRENT: Look at the stars. (He places a hand on Emma’s back, drawing her closer. With his other hand he points outwards and upwards.)

EMMA: They’re.. beautiful.

TRENT: (With exaggerated, powerful, electric acting) I have travelled. I have travelled. I have roamed this world, always seeking but never finding and I have seen so much: Lights dancing like fire over the ice of the North, men killing each other in the Arabian deserts, children running naked and crying through the streets of India, stone triangles scraping the skies of Egypt, and yet always those stars have hung over me, unchanging, pitiless and beautiful. Everyone who ever lived gazed up at those stars: Caesar, Galileo, Newton, all the peasants and the gentry, the kings and their servants, all the poets, and the writers and the lovers. They all looked up at those pitiless beautiful stars. And how do you think they felt, those people looking to the sky? (He looks into Emma’s eyes, holds her gaze.) Some of them saw God, some of them saw eternity, but most of them just felt alone.

EMMA: (Still lost in his eyes) Do you feel alone?

TRENT: (Nods sadly and looks down) It’s hard not to (Pause. Looking up with sudden passion) Kiss me.

Placing his hand behind her head, with the other resting on the small of her back he leans into kiss her. Their lips are centimetres apart. They can feel each other’s breath.

EMMA: What is your name?

TRENT: Trent.

He kisses her, long and passionate, as if no one is watching. When they pull away he takes her hand and they both bow twice to the audience. Trent and Emma exit SR, hand in hand.

SCENE SIX

Harry is left alone on stage shattered. Even the props are at opposite sides of the stage, leaving its centre the same as it was at the play’s opening. With a slow despondency Harry moves DS and sits on the edge, looking out to the audience, perhaps with his head in his hands and his knees drawn against his chest.

HARRY: This isn’t how it was supposed to be. This isn’t how I wrote it. I thought plays were different from real life: I thought people could get what they want, even if it was all make believe. Isn’t that what plays are about? Dreams? Fantasies? Sad people playing happy characters, lonely people falling in love? I always loved Emma, but she never noticed me. I was always sidelined by everyone else, all those confident people who talked with her and made her laugh. I thought maybe if I cast myself as the hero she would finally see me, and even if it wasn’t actually me she was seeing, it was someone I could be. I guess everyone has their own scripts though, their own motivations, and they rarely fit together so easily. (Lucy hesitantly enters USR)

Maybe I didn’t pick the right words to make her fall in love with me. Maybe I’m not a good enough writer, or I’m not a good enough actor. I wish I could be confident like that Trent guy, but I can only act confident, not be it in real life. (Lucy takes a few silent steps towards Harry. HARRY sighs.) I suppose any happy ending for me at this point would be a deus ex machina, but still, that’s all I ever wanted: to be the hero and win over my leading lady.

Lucy is almost directly behind Harry now. Harry sighs again then suddenly becomes aware of Lucy stood behind him. He turns his head, still sitting and looks up at her. She looks down at him. Their eyes lock. Neither speak. Save for the rise and fall of their chests, neither move, Lucy holding herself almost on tip-toe as if drawn up my invisible strings. Count five. Slowly Lucy holds out her hand. Harry takes it and stands up, their eyes never losing contact. For a moment they are level, then she turns away and leads him off stage by the hand.

The Curtain comes down.

SCENE THREE

Extra 1 and Extra 2 sit on the two US chairs. Horatio and Esmerelda enter SR, Esmerelda’s arm linked somewhat uneasily through Horatio’s.

HORATIO: Here we are, at (with strong emphasis for the audience’s benefit) the theatre.

ESMERELDA: What are we going to see?

HORATIO: A play.

TRENT: Obviously.

Emma stifles a snicker.

ESMERELDA: What play, Horatio?

HORATIO: William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’, a classic love story about two starcross’d lovers who desperately want to be together, but cannot be because their families are at war and they do not have the benefits, the freedoms, of our modern- day life where there is nothing to keep two people who love each other apart.

EMMA: (Momentarily breaking from character to question the script) Are you sure ‘Romeo & Juliet’ is appropriate for a first date?

HORATIO: Oh, uh, I thought you’d say “oh, Horatio, you are so romantic, what a perfect choice?” (pause) Then I would have said, “yes, I thought you would like to see it, beautiful ESMERELDA, I could tell just by the your eyes lit up as you read the pages of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ in the library” and then you would have said -

ESMERELDA: The play’s about to start.

HORATIO: Oh, uh, yes, you would have said that, um, later.

Horatio and Esmerelda sit in the two vacant seats.

ESMERELDA: The stage looks pretty small from here.

HORATIO: Sorry, these were the only seats left.

EXTRA 1: Shh, you two love-birds can talk when the play’s finished.

For the next couple of minutes, they react to ‘the play’ they’re seeing: gasping, and laughing, perhaps leaning forward in their seats. Horatio, however, is less involved with ‘the play’, and instead keeps looking at Esmerelda, reaching his hand or his arm out as if to touch her, then drawing back. Eventually he stretches out his arm and lays it across her shoulders, only for her and Extra 1 and Extra 2 to rise from their seats in standing ovation at the end of ‘the play’. Horatio, a little out of synch, also rises and claps, and is the last one to stop. Horatio and Esmerelda move away from their seats. Esmerelda sighs.

HORATIO: That was so beautiful, so poetic and tragic.

ESMERELDA: A little old-fashioned though. (sceptically) Do you really believe love like that still exists, or ever even did?

HORATIO: (Taking her hands in his) Yes. Yes I do.

ESMERELDA: (Turning away from him and putting a hand to her forehead) I’d like to believe that.

Horatio moves close behind her and puts his hands on her waist. Emma tenses.

HORATIO: You can.

Horatio leans in to kiss the back of her neck but Emma moves away.

ESMERELDA: Walk me home.

The two walk around the stage while Extra 1 and Extra 2 move TABLE 1 to SL, TABLE 2 to CS, two of the chairs either side of TABLE 2 and two of the chairs to SR. Emma becomes increasingly nervous as Horatio moves towards the kiss scen she knows Harry has written.

HORATIO: Oh, Esmerelda, I know I have known you only a short time, but I feel already attracted to you in ways I can barely describe. When I am around you it is as if a thousand butterflies flutter at my breast; as if my very bones -

EMMA: (Breaking from her ‘character’ to avoid kissing Harry) We’re here.

HARRY: Where?

EMMA: My house.

HARRY: Are we?

EMMA: Yep, we are. (pause) Well, see ya. (begins to walk away)

HARRY: Hey, wait.

EMMA: What?

HARRY: The script says we’re supposed to kiss at the end of our first date.

EMMA: (Imitating herself as Esmerelda) Oh noble sir, I cannot lead you on, I cannot follow this ‘script’ of which you speak, for a lady doth never kiss on the first date. (Esmerelda exits SR)

HARRY: (calling after Emma) But, but, I was meant to say some more stuff. It was poetic and beautiful. It was meant to make you fall into my arms so that I would kiss you, and then we could move towards our happily ever after…

TRENT: Too bad she doesn’t want to.

HARRY: It’s in the script. There’ll be a happy end, she’s just… improvising.

SCENE FOUR

Extra 1 and Extra 2 enter SR.

HARRY: Hey, hey, what are you doing? Our scene isn’t over.

LUCY: But Emma- (Kevin coughs) I mean Esmerelda came backstage.

HARRY: Well go get her back out here, we have to finish the scene.

Lucy looks unsure about what to do, Kevin is resolutely still in character, but visible annoyance beginning to spread across his face.

LUCY: I think she went to the toilet.

HARRY: Well then, we’ll wait.

LUCY: She might be a while.. I don’t think she really wants to act any more.

HARRY: What do you mean?

LUCY: I think she only agreed to be in your play because you kept asking her.

TRENT: Ha!

HARRY: I wrote the part for her, she had to be my leading lady.

LUCY: I’m sure she’ll come around if we just give her some time.

HARRY: Yeah, we’ll wait.

Kevin coughs again, frustration bubbling under the surface of his character’s visage. Lucy looks at him, as does Harry.

KEVIN: Can we please get on with our scene now?

HARRY: No, we’re waiting for Emma so we can finish off our scene with the kiss at the end.

KEVIN: And do you expect the audience to wait? They’ve sat through ten minutes of this amateurishness already. My God! I knew I was the only professional in this play, but I thought the rest of you might at least be able to learn your lines, however poorly written they were!

LUCY: Kevin!

KEVIN: My name is Extra 1, it’s not the name I would have chosen, but I am but an actor, subject to the whims of the writer and the director, (Looking at Harry) however incompetent that person may prove to be. (He pauses to control his anger) Now, Horatio, please leave, that I may complete my date with Extra 2.

HARRY: But your scene isn’t important. It isn’t even relevant. I only wrote it in because you refused to be in my play if you couldn’t have a more significant role and a scene dedicated to you. This play’s supposed to be about me kissing… I mean, about the love of Horatio and Esmerelda, and that last scene was integral to the plot.

TRENT: What plot?

EXTRA 1: (Booming) Horatio! (Lucy and Harry jump) Leave!

Harry looks dejected. Harry exits SR. Lucy looks concernedly after him as Extra 1 moves to behind one of the seats at TABLE 2. Extra 1 coughs to draw Lucy’s attention, then pulls the chair out for her to sit on. She moves over and takes the seat, allowing Extra 1 to push it in behind her. Extra 1 then takes the other chair and sits opposite her. In this scene Lucy slips almost imperceptibly in and out of character in criticism of Kevin, eventually forcing him out of character as well.

EXTRA 1: Have you done something different with your hair?

EXTRA 2: I had it cut.

EXTRA 1: It looks beautiful.

LUCY: Actually, I had it cut last week. You’ve seen me since then.

EXTRA 1: Oh, I, uh, what will you have?

EXTRA 2: A banana split, extra chocolate sauce.

EXTRA 1: You always have that.

LUCY: I like it. Why should I change?

EXTRA 1: I’m, uh, not saying you should? (pause) I’m going to have a raspberry ripple. (Kevin looks around for a waiter) Isn’t there supposed to be a waiter?

LUCY: I don’t think Harry could find another actor.

EXTRA 1: Who’s Harry? What do you mean about ‘another actor’?

LUCY: You know perfectly-

EXTRA 1: Just a minute, I’ll go order for us. (He gets up and moves to SL where he calls offstage) One raspberry ripple, one banana split, extra chocolate sauce, and a strawberry milkshake with two straws, please. (With exaggerated acting he hands over invisible money from an invisible wallet he pulls from his pocket. He then returns to his seat)

EXTRA 2: Didn’t you get them?

EXTRA 1: Well they’ve got to make them first.

LUCY: How long does it take fictional cooks to make fictional sundaes?

EXTRA 1: You sure are acting weird tonight, Lu – Extra 2. So what did you get up to last night?

LUCY: So are you.

EXTRA 1: So am I what?

LUCY: Acting weird. Don’t you think you were a bit harsh on Harry?

EXTRA 1: Who is Harry? (Lucy looks sternly at him, folds her arms) Oh, you mean, Horatio. (Kevin puts his hand across the table for Lucy to take, but her arms remain crossed) I only asked him to leave so that we could be alone together for our date.

For five beats the characters remain frozen, Lucy with arms crossed, Kevin with hands open across the table. Kevin closes his fingers.

EXTRA 1: Ice cream’s ready.

He gets up again and returns to the ‘counter’ SL, picks up two invisible bowls and brings them over to the table. He puts them down. Lucy moves her bowl towards herself and picks up an invisible spoon. She takes a bite and then plays with the ice cream, poking the spoon into it and twisting it round. She continues to do this for the next fourteen lines.

EXTRA 1: (Still standing) I got us a strawberry milkshake as well.

He goes over to fetch the ‘milkshake’ and brings it back to the table. He sits down, then takes a bite of the ‘raspberry ripple’. Kevin looks up at Lucy. She is looking down at the ‘banana split’. Kevin moves the ‘strawberry milkshake’ towards himself and leans down to suck on the straw.

EXTRA 1: Do you want some? (He offers the milkshake to LUCY. She shakes her head. Pause.) What’s wrong?

LUCY: (Looking up) You owe Harry an apology. You know he’s put a lot of himself into this play and I think you really hurt his feelings.

KEVIN: It’s his own fault though. Emma’s not an actress, and he’s not an actor. You know as well as I do that the only reason he wanted her in this play is because he fancies her. And we also both know that she doesn’t fancy him.

LUCY: She might do. Why shouldn’t she?

KEVIN: Why should she? (Lucy looks back down at her banana split) Now can we please get back to the script?

LUCY: No, not until you promise to apologise.

KEVIN: (firmly) The script. We’ll talk about this later.

LUCY: Christ, Kevin, is that all you care about? The script?

KEVIN: Right now, yes. I am an actor, and, no matter how badly written it is, no matter how amateur my fellow performers, I am duty bound to follow the script to the end.

LUCY: Amateur? Is that how you see me?

KEVIN: Well, if you can’t follow a script…

LUCY: Well of course I can’t after the way you were to Harry. I can’t just hold ‘the script’ above all else like you do, Kevin, life doesn’t just stop just because we have to read a few lines from a piece of paper and pretend to be someone else. Oh sure, maybe it does for you, but I’m not a fucking actress.

KEVIN: Ha, don’t I know that.

LUCY: (Standing) How can you say that? I only did this for you, oh sure, it was Harry who asked me to be in his play, but I did it so we could be together. I thought it would be something fun we could do as a couple. But fuck it, I quit.

In a passionate rage Lucy picks up the ‘banana split’ and hurls it into Kevin’s face. An actor to the end, Kevin jerks back in surprise as if physically hit with ice cream, bananas and chocolate sauce. Kevin begins to wipe the invisible mess from his face with his fingers as Lucy storms off towards SR. Before she exits however, Lucy stops and turns round to shout one final insult at Kevin -

LUCY: I may not be an actress, but I can name at least one place where I can act and you can’t even perform – the bedroom. (Lucy exits SR)

TRENT: Burned!

Kevin looks at Trent, at the audience in general, with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Kevin exits SL. The stage is left empty.

Horatio & Esmerelda

SCENE ONE

The Stage is empty and illuminated with white artificial stage lighting. HARRY walks out to the front of the stage. TRENT is sitting, as he will be for much of the play, in the first row of the audience, writing in a notebook.

HARRY: Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Harold Singer, writer, actor and casting director, and I would like to welcome you to the first performance of my first play, ‘Horatio and Esmerelda’. Tonight I shall be playing the part of Horatio, a shy young man who overcomes his insecurities when he meets the girl of his dreams in a library. Slowly, as their love blooms, she brings him more and more out of his shell, bestows him with that lustre that only love can-

TRENT raises his hand, a pen between his fingers, as if in a classroom

HARRY: (To Trent) Um, yes?

TRENT: What are you doing?

HARRY: Introducing the play, like Brecht did. (He looks at Trent, as if expecting further interruption.) Okay? (Trent nods) So, as I was saying, this is my play, and, well, we’ve had some troubles you know, it’s not that easy making a play, but it’s come a long way from the university project it began as and, as I’ve been told, “a bad rehearsal means a good performance”, so hopefully it should go down okay, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Harry looks nervously around the audience for a few seconds as if seeking their approval, then Harry exits SL.

SCENE TWO

Extra 1 and Extra 2 enter SR bringing with them two tables and four chairs. TABLE 1 they place DSR, TABLE 2 USL. They put two chairs facing each other either side of TABLE 1 and two chairs next to each other and facing the audience behind TABLE 2. The props set up, Extra 1 and Extra 2 exit SL. Esmerelda enters SR and sits in the closest chair on TABLE 1 and mimes reading a book. When Esmerelda walks on, Trent whistles. Horatio and Extra 2 enter SL.

EXTRA 2: So I just started reading that book you lent me, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. (They sit next to each other at TABLE 2) It’s pretty weird, how he keeps talking to you as if he’s there, y’know? Hey, are you listening?

HORATIO: What? Oh yeah, French Lieutenant’s Woman, yeah.

EXTRA 2: What were you thinking about?

HORATIO: That girl over there. She’s beautiful.

EXTRA 2: Yeah, I suppose. Do you know her?

HORATIO: I wish I did. I’ve seen her here before, but I don’t know her name. I bet it’s beautiful though.

EXTRA 2: Her name?

HORATIO: Yeah.

EXTRA 2: How can a name be beautiful?

HORATIO: What do you mean? Of course a name can be beautiful? Haven’t you ever read Lolita? The guy in that talks about how Lolita’s name is beautiful because it is lilting and just rolls off the tongue. That’s how a name can be beautiful, and I bet hers is.

EXTRA 2: If you say so. So are you going to go talk to her?

HORATIO: I don’t know.

EXTRA 2: Go on, you obviously want to.

HORATIO: Of course I want to, but what do I say? What do people say to each other? What does anyone say to anyone? If only I could work that out, if – do you think there’s a magic combination of words, and if you say the right words you can make anyone fall in love with you?

EXTRA 2: I’m not really sure…

HORATIO: There must be. It must be in the words people say to each other, because that’s all we have: words.

EXTRA 2: Seventy-five percent of communication is non- verbal.

HORATIO: But it’s the other twenty-five percent that’s the most important. Oh, what do I say to her?

EXTRA 2: Just say that you’ve seen her around and wondered what her name was. Something like that.

HORATIO: Anyone could say that.

EXTRA 2: What?

HORATIO: Anyone could say that, I could be anyone.

EXTRA 2: And?

HORATIO: And I’m me, I want her to know that, and if I just go over there and say some cliché pick-up line then she’ll just dismiss me without ever getting to know the real me.

EXTRA 2: Well you can’t just go there and spill your life story.

HORATIO: No, but I can’t just distil myself into a handful of adjectives, a neat little synopsis: I’m not some character in a play who you can just label. If only I knew the right words, the right combination.

EXTRA 2: Forget the words. Just go talk to her.

HORATIO: But I know not what to say.

EXTRA 2: Say anything.

HARRY: (Looking unsurely over at Esmerelda, then back at Extra 2, Horatio’s confidence slipping away from Harry) How did you and Kev- I mean Extra 1, get together?

LUCY: Um… (aside, as if the audience wouldn’t notice) was this in the script?

HARRY: (Also aside) I’m ad-libbing, work with it.

LUCY: He was in a play I went to see, he, uh, he moved with this kind of intensity, this absolute confidence, with the spotlights highlighting all his features. He looked so handsome. Then, after the play was over, me and the friend I was with went to the theatre’s bar, and he was there too, with the rest of the cast members.

During this scene Emma looks up occasionally, expecting Horatio to have come over by now.

HARRY: And what? You just went over and asked him out?

LUCY: Not exactly. I drank half a bottle of wine trying to work up the courage to go talk to him, but by the time I felt ready, he had left.

HARRY: Oh. So then what?

LUCY: I bought tickets for the next night’s performance, and sat alone in the bar just wishing he’d come over and talk to me.

HARRY: And did he?

LUCY: No… Not that night.

HARRY: You went again?

LUCY: I went four nights in a row. On the fourth he came over to me and said “you’ve been here for the last three nights, either you really like this bar, or you really like this play.” I didn’t say anything. All that time waiting for him to come speak to me and I just clammed up. Then he offered to buy me a drink.

HARRY: So you never did go over and talk to him, but it still worked out for you.

LUCY: Well, yes, I suppose, but… only because he came and talked to me, and that’s why you’ve got to go over and talk to Em- the girl over there.

HARRY: What play was it?

LUCY: You’re just trying to avoid talking to her, aren’t you?

HARRY: No, I just want to know.

LUCY: Jack and the Beanstalk. Now go talk to her, Horatio.

TRENT: Yeah, Horatio, go talk to the girl, this bit’s dragging on.

EXTRA 1 enters SL with an armful of invisible books.

HARRY: (Ignoring Trent) Wait. You went to see Jack and the Beanstalk three times?

Extra 1 gives Extra 2 a kiss on the cheek.

EXTRA 1: I’m going to get these books.

LUCY: Okay, just a minute. (To HARRY) Four times. I saw it four times. Now go talk to the girl.

Lucy gives Harry a look of encouragement, then Lucy and Extra 1 exit SR together. Harry still seems unsure, so a spotlight is placed on him and another on Esmerelda. The other stage lights fade away.

HARRY: (Standing) Okay, I shall overcome my shyness and go speak to this angel.

Trent claps sarcastically. Horatio strides towards Esmerelda, at first purposefully but becoming more hesitant as he approaches her. He stands before her.

HARRY: (Nervously, not entirely in character as Horatio) Hi, I noticed you’re reading Virginia Woolf, and I – God, you’re beautiful – I – I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. I’m going to come over again.

EMMA: (In a whisper to Harry) You’re meant to say about seeing me across the library making your heart beat quickly, then you ask my name. Just carry on.

HARRY: Oh yeah. I’ve admired you from across this library many times, my heart quickening with each second I behold you. I must – No, I can’t do it, I’m going to have to start again.

EMMA: Harry, we’re in the middle of a performance. Just carry on and they might not notice.

HARRY: No, I want this to be perfect. I’m going to do it again.

Harry turns away and returns to CS. Emma looks exasperated, but shrugs and gets back into character. Harry returns, striding with the more confident attitude he adopts when he ‘becomes’ Horatio.

HORATIO: I’ve admired you from across this library many times, my heart quickening with each second I behold you. I must ask you, for often I have wondered: What is your name, fair lady?

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: As I thought, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. My name is Horatio. Might I be so bold as to ask you on a date?

ESMERELDA: A date? So soon?

HORATIO: It is soon, but why wait? Does Cupid wait when he lets fly his arrow?

ESMERELA: Sir, you speak so beautifully, yes, I shall go on a date with you. Where to?

HORATIO: The theatre perhaps, so that we may exalt in the electric atmosphere of a play performed live.

ESMERELDA: Yes, I love the theatre. The theatre’s brilliant. (Emma grimaces after delivering this line)

HORATIO: In that case, fair lady, I shall pick you up at eight.

Horatio exits SL. Esmerelda exits SR.

TRENT: (As the two walk OS) You only just met her, you don’t know where she lives. How do you know where to pick her up from? Amateur.

Trent’s questions are ignored: Horatio and Esmerelda have already gone and Extra 1 and Extra 2 have already begun to rearrange the set, moving the four chairs into a row USR and pushing the two tables together DSL to represent theatre seating and a miniature stage. Trent shrugs and writes some notes in his notebook.

Read Part Two