Serenade

Trina is here for a couple of days and we are fucking and eating and drinking. She helps me make the food for our Thatcher party. She bends over to get something out of the fridge and I put my hand on her back to keep her there for a bit. "You're going out with a pensioner," she said. Rock buns in the shape of lumps of coal, my sextastic quiche (I'm good at pastry), cucumber sandwiches, and Prosecco.

It looks good all set out on the tablecloth. The Girl Who Only Wears Secondhand Clothes turned up in moss green flatties, orange tights, a greeny-blue kilt, a thin brown and creme patterned top, with her lovely naturally curled hair scaffolded with hairgrips. I was hoping people might comment on my new cushions but they didn't do so, so I drew their attention to them, then instantly regretted displaying my taste at the cost of their indulgence.

We raise a glass not to Thatcher, but to David Gareth Jones, killed at the age of twenty-six by a blow from a policeman's truncheon during the Miners' Strike. It could have been me. I was there.

This morning, early, Trina leaves, fucked. She's left her watch on for some reason. Like when my hand brushed against her earrings the other day, I find the silver jewellery makes me think of her as a slovenly, dirty slut, only good for a fuck until I come, which she will get whether she wants it or not. Combined with an aesthetic thrill of the glint of silver, it turns me on.

On my own, I compose myself for my singing lesson and go through the Schubert song for the hundredthtime. I am nervous, the mixture of performance anxiety and that of a complicated social task, like going on a date. Will he like me? Will I be good enough?

As I leave, I notice an envelope pushed through the door, which I am relieved to have intercepted before anyone else. I let myself out through the back door, in case he's watching the house.

In my lesson, I am nervous and distracted, gabbling to my new teacher about how relatively warmer it has been this week, worrying about whether my neighbour's car had been clamped or impounded.

Afterwards, I walk home and back along my street, trying to simulate the gait of a man who doesn't have to explain to his neighbours why their car has been towed away. To my relief, the car is untouched, and I go inside to read the letter more closely. It's a cunning attempt to get me to sign a Walking Possession Order, which would give the bailiffs unhindered access to my house and possessions.

Wilma rang, asking if I fancied a drink. Having educated myself a little about the meagre rights of bailiffs in English Law, I relaxed with both the beer and her self-orientated babbling, equally welcome. I was in the mood for a friend who doesn't want to know every detail.

Everything is going to be alright. I am going on holiday in a month's time with Kirsty and our girls with money, which I have promised to her, that I will earn from the County Council Elections. I am, and little do they know, Presiding Officer for a Tory-voting village up the valley. I will wear a tie and work twenty-seven hours in two days, be polite and collared with the men, and flirt with the middleaged mums to the extent to which I like how they dress.