You're with us now

In The Shipbuilders Arms, the dwarf, who has attached himself to the group of darts players with a degree of camaraderie slightly in excess of that with which he is welcomed, shows his hurt too openly on his face when the landlady brings out drinks for the darts team, of which he is not a member. In the toilets, men lean against the wall as if exhausted, sighing as they stare down at their penises.

Kim came over for the Bank Holiday weekend and stayed here for three days. I can't think of anyone else who could be in my house that long without me inventing lies to get rid of them early. We got up late, took picnics out, went to Morecambe and had chips and Sauvignon Blanc and trawled the secondhand bookshop.

Back at home, we had the comfortable silences that are the mark of closeness. Reading. "It'd never have worked out between us looby. You don't realise how much I want to be dominated."

In the pizza takeaway, an acquaintance is looking at his watch, asking why his order is taking so long, histrionically sighing, the breath of his own self-importance adding to the heat in which the employees were working to serve privileged people like ourselves. A burn of class consciousness lit the alcohol in me.

"Why are you moaning at them? Give them a break -- they're doing their best." "I just want to know exactly how long it'll be." "For fuck's sake Kevin, do you think they're not trying hard enough? This is the difference between working- and middle-class life. You have absolutely no fucking idea about how most people live. They're doing their best. They're on the minimum wage, so fucking leave it."

He's a stuck-up prig, and this is but an extract from a rant I had at him, of which I regret not a syllable. When he passes me in the street now I make a point of looking at him with disgust. The satisfaction of severing relations.

Kitty said that Wendy and her daughter were coming round for tea; the little twisting hurt of my exclusion, the looming of her ex. Today, she texted me saying that her and Wendy were going out for lunch. "Can I tag along?" I asked. "Yes! No Little Dictator!" (her daughter), both events driving home how obedient Wendy is to her ex's controlling, jealous command that she must never meet me when her daughter is with her.

I told them that I had worked out at the weekend that I was being paid about £5 an hour in my new job, and that I was going to ring a local business development agency who can offer help to start-ups, because I am being exploited to an extent that marks a new nadir in even in my own tatty career. Wendy's gorgeous smile as she suggested a pun on my name for my business.

I had to get back to work. "I want..." and I dipped a finger at Wendy, alarm and the moral imperative to be sympathetic struggling for supremacy on her face, "...well, you know what I want Wendy, but failing that, another dinner date would be great." She smiled and concurred. No woman, apart from Trish when she ended it, has ever made me feel so rejected.

Spending my £5 an hour in advance of receiving it, I went to Manchester for my techno fix. Everyone my age thinks their raving days are gone -- which is a decision, not some kind of chronological inevitability. It always works out OK at Hidden though, as I always get adopted by someone. Last night it was these two lads from Stockport, one an accountant and the other on the dole, brothers. I sometimes feel like a bit of a curiosity at techno nights, but they were charming. "Who are you with?" "Well, no-one." "Right, you're with us now," and we all danced together and sat on the settees together.

I love nights like Saturday, even despite the constant wish that Wendy could be with me. An 8am finish. E'd up people dancing and chatting and flirting and stroking. A cool black security guard at the afterparty who couldn't resist dancing with us, a pleasant change from the ones in the main venue, who couldn't resist imposing themselves on the most harmless group of people. As I was talking to the brothers from Stockport, a group of people were crowded onto one of those sofas which has an extendible foot rest. A "security" guard came over and kicked down the footrest. Once he had turned his back, we all looked at each other and laughed.

Afterwards, a stagger to Piccadilly Wethers and a veggie sausage roll and a pint of Mordue at 9am, where I wrote postcards to Wendy and Kim. A disappointing pie and chips in Wigan at midday waiting for my train home. I got into bed at 2pm, a distaste at my own sweatiness, but too tired to shower; the drive of fantasies and stories with a compliant and desirous Wendy.