My boss at the Plague Attenuation Centre asks me how I'm getting on with the unpaid online study we're expected to do.

Despite several deadening hours on Infection Control and Paediatric Resuscitation, I can't get the pass marks required in the tests. I resent being expected to do this unpaid. Neither do I look forward to self-suffocating every day in my clothy breath, in a job where I couldn't care less whether anyone gets better or worse as a result of my actions, an attitude which might not be that expected of NHS employees.

I send her an email saying I've been offered another job. I hadn't, but the agency offers two days' work on a badly drawn estate on which its architects would never live. We're cleaning flimsy student-occupied houses. I like the physical effort, sweating, and banter with my colleagues. At the end of the first day, my supervisor says "I'm going to ask if I can have you on my team again tomorrow. You just crack on with it." I feel boyish, the pleasure of pleasing.

It's the third hottest day on record in Bristol. I make three salads and serve them up for Cath and Richard. Everyone woofs them down, which is the best reward one can get from cooking.

Cath asks me to take some pictures of her for her profile on a dating site. She had just criticised me for pointing out a woman walking past our house, of whom I said "that woman there, she works in the newsagents. Don't you reckon Cath, if she did her hair and had a bit of make up and some better clothes, she'd be quite a looker?" She didn't like me saying that.

"So hang on, you're telling me that it's an unfeminist thing to say to someone to get some make-up on, then you ask me to take some pictures of you for a dating site? I'm not saying that the newsagent woman should get some nice clothes just for lascivious attention from blokes." "I'd love some lascivious attention from blokes."

We laughed and had another glass of wine. I scratched my head and looked at the table for a few seconds, because if Cath is in need of lascivious attention, she wouldn't have to look far to get it.

The pubs are allowed to re-open on Saturday, but I'm having second thoughts about going. It'll attract all the part-time drinkers who can't handle it, shouting and screaming their heads off as they gobble multinational lager and order food to smear on the table and floor.

I want to drink with chronic, dedicated drinkers, those who continue to compile a long list of regretted pointless arguments, cruel and unjust put-downs to others, friendships strained to breaking point or final severance, missed appointments, trains, work days and birthdays, yellow-flowered bed-wetting incidents, hours spent slumped against a wall, disciplinaries and sackings, getting in at 7am and crashing loudly against objects which normally go untouched, mornings spent apologising, well-intentioned, unsatisfying and sometimes comical sex, lucky journeys home, long seconds desperately trying to remember who the fuck is the friendly, chatty person who comes up to you and remembers you from Friday --a day of which your recall stops around 11am, and muddy bruises and scabbed-over wounds which caused not the slightest pain at the time.

These are my people. A weekday afternoon sesh is when we might commune, in the latte-free places for the unravelled and dishevelled, where no-one talks about work because no-one does any.

It's just me and landlady Cath in the house. We're a little stoned, and I'm laughing a lot. She's lifting and arching her foot towards pointe. She's undoubtedly attractive.

She tells me that Richard, our housemate, is buying a house with his girlfriend. I'm crestfallen, thinking of the search for a new co-tenant, the anxiety about whether they'll fit in, but Cath asks me what I'd think about her daughter moving back in. This cheers me up.

"So," she says, referring to the time when it looked as though we'd be joining in a Civil Partnership, "we'll be a little family after all." I felt all cosy and a bit wet-eyed.

In a leafy square, a young man coiffured from the Toilet Brush School of Hairdressing has one arm round a girl, while the other rests on a big speaker which loudly dominates the square with an ugly rap music, all braggadocio and misogyny. Me and Hayley are separated on the bench by the deadening presence of her well-meaning boyfriend. Hayley is looking exceptionally sexy. "Are they new tights?" I'd asked her earlier when we were alone. "Yes, do you like them?" "Mmmm."

He's sent back to the house to fetch some keys. She's hard on him, when she wants him to be hard on her. I feel a bit sorry for him. He tries to join in with our ping-pong verbal sparring, always arriving that second too late. I've been him so often, the awkwardly-positioned third party, the laggard gooseberry. She tells me that, really, she likes women. "Basically, men, to me, are business."

"Hello!" A young female voice from behind me. It's someone from the group of people sitting near us outside the pub last weekend when the football landed in my pint. She's on a high from a first date. Hayley doesn't like us talking together, and Davina has to insist on talking to me over her interruptions. "No, I know, it's just I want to talk to looby for a moment."

I engineer an escape to the offy with Davina. She's an underwriter, which is interesting enough, but I want to know about her date. She shows me a picture of the woman concerned. "Phwaor, Davina, she's a fittie!" Has she got a sister? Because my friend's just told me she's mainly gay.

We swap numbers, and later that evening, I text her saying that I want to be her friend and to know how the second date went.

Hayley wants me come with her to her dealer's house. I'm reluctant. "I will, because you've asked me to, but I can't stay long. I've got this interview tomorrow at nine." Hayley talked incessantly, burning up the coke into a stream of consciousness. A man whom everyone else knows walks in and sits down next to me. I try to talk to him but he opens his hands and gestures to Dealer Man, me, and Hayley. "I'm just gettting three conversations here." I stop talking.

On the tail end of three big, free, lines of coke, and as many hours of attempted sleep, I am Zoomed into two people's houses, and interviewed for an admin job with the Department for Naughty Boys. I improvise stories about "situations", "responses" and "outcomes", that never happened.

I am more worried about the loss of my bank card, and more seriously, the erroneously-issued rail pass from which I have had thousands of pounds' worth of free travel. After cancelling the less valuable one with the bank, I find them in the shoes that I was wearing that night. I'd cycled home with them in my shoe.

I cycle to a tree-shaded public square. White people in their twenties are doing yoga. It looks ridiculous and striving, but it's peaceable, and I don't feel frowned upon for drinking beer at 11am. My reading gives me an insulating warrant of harmlessness.

Hayley and Tammy are going to Primark on its reopening. We meet afterwards in Castle Park. Azimuth sun. Hayley likes the speed, and says she'll chip in towards the next lot. "No, no. You'll never pay for yours." They complain about boyfriends and the tactics needed to keep them, and the provider of sexual enjoyment, separate and keen. I'm the honorary girl again, but I like it, being included, and not as a favour. It's a feeling as warm as the sun is upon us.

Harry turns up. Me and Tammy have been advising her to keep him on, despite his sexual failings. The air between them is a lot easier than at the weekend. Hayley's probably had some sleep, because apart from not being able to fuck her, it wasn't ever his fault that I saw.

Tammy, who is affected by the long tail of a stroke, but whose greater impediment at this moment is her narrow dress, levers herself up on her stick to go home. The first attempt doesn't work. "Come on Tammy," I say, "you're looking like an old spaz." It's been an unselfconscious, friendly afternoon. The girls are gorgeous, Hayley especially, who looks a bit like a London raver c.1998: unzipped black jacket pushed open by her tits, bare legs, and trainers.

I walk Hayley home. The men scanning her, a mirror of my own looks. At my house, thrust into respectability, I suddenly feel much more drunk than I did in the park, and betray it during a ham-fisted explanation, involving C18th architecture, of where I've been. I feel like a naughty boy.

Next day, I am up bright and early, put on my costume for work. Not an inkling of any ripples from the day before.

I cycle to the wrong pick-up point. The works van picks me up from my erroneous location. As soon as I climb in, I start feeling sick. I force sociable sentences out. We lurch twelve miles to a village hall, where I can't fake it any more, and someone asks me if I'm OK. They lay me down on the floor with my feet up. I vomit. They call an ambulance. They do tests and stay with me a long time, before I convince them that I'm OK. The nurse in charge has to cancel the session, sending all the donors away.

They put me and my bike in the van to run me home, but a minute in the van and I am vomiting again. The ambulance picks me up and I'm taken to hospital. "How are you feeling now?" says the ambulance man, and I immediately convulse another stream of vomit up. I am put into a draughty back-revealing gown.

The receiving nurse arrives and pulls the curtains round. Instantly, she does magic on me. She checks my details against my wristband, but even before she says anything I know I can tell her. She's stylish and attractive in her concave-waisted black tunic, unbound straight black hair just short of shoulder length, dark eyes, black-rimmed glasses. I wonder if such an ensemble is deliberate.

"Probably about six, seven pints of cider, and several lines of speed. And sitting in the sun for several hours," I add, hoping to encourage the diagnosis of sunstroke which had been floated earlier. "Any water? Or food?" "No." "So, what's the earliest time you would have a drink?" And "do you take other drugs, Mr looby? Recreational drugs?" She knows already.

An older woman arrives to put a cannula in. I'm impressed at her efficiency in seeming to go under my vein and then into it. I'm put on drips of saline solution, vitamins and minerals, and an anti-emetic. "Drugs and alcohol," I hear my black-clad seer say to my venepuncturer.

A few hours later the consultant comes round. "So, have you any idea what that was?" he asks. "Well, possibly sunstroke, in my uneducated guess." We have an amiable chat about his experience of la peste and I am sent home, with a referral to the alcohol and drug services, and an exhortation to drink more water, every day. At home, my housemates' friendly curiosity makes me feel interviewed. I tell them that the session overran a bit and try to look bright.

I tell Hayley all about it first. She sends me solicitous texts, suffixed with kisses. "Come back to mine. Stay here. I want to know you're better." "I'd love to but that'd cause problems here. I can't my love." "Well, [pet name], let me know if I can help. Even in a thunderstorm I'd come and help you xxxxx".

I cycle to a tree-shaded public square. White people in their twenties are doing yoga. It looks ridiculous and striving, but it's peaceable, and I don't feel frowned upon for drinking beer at 11am. My reading gives me an insulating warrant of harmlessness.

Hayley and Tammy are going to Primark on its reopening. We meet afterwards in Castle Park. Azimuth sun. Hayley likes the speed, and says she'll chip in towards the next lot. "No, no. You'll never pay for yours." They complain about boyfriends and the tactics needed to keep them, and the provider of sexual enjoyment, separate and keen. I'm the honorary girl again, but I like it, being included, and not as a favour. It's a feeling as warm as the sun is upon us.

Harry turns up. Me and Tammy have been advising her to keep him on, despite his sexual failings. The air between them is a lot easier than at the weekend, probably connected with the fact that Hayley has taken the untoward step of going to sleep in the interim.

Tammy, who is affected by the long tail of a stroke, but whose greater impediment at this moment is her narrow dress, levers herself up on her stick to go home. The first attempt doesn't work. "Come on Tammy," I say, "you're looking like an old spaz." It's been an unselfconscious, friendly afternoon. The girls are gorgeous, Hayley especially, who looks a bit like a London raver c.1998: unzipped black jacket pushed open by her tits, bare legs, and trainers.

I walk Hayley home. The men's scanning looks at her, a mirror of my own. At my house, thrust into respectability, I suddenly feel much more drunk than I did in the park, and betray it during a ham-fisted explanation, involving C18th architecture, of where I've been. I feel like a naughty boy.

Next day, I am up bright and early, put on my costume for work. Not an inkling of any ripples from the day before.

I cycle to the wrong pick-up point. The works van picks me up from my erroneous location. As soon as I climb in, I start feeling sick. I force sociable sentences out. We lurch twelve miles to a village hall, where I can't fake it any more, and someone asks me if I'm OK. They lay me down on the floor with my feet up. I vomit. They call an ambulance. They do tests and stay with me a long time, before I convince them that I'm OK. The nurse in charge has to cancel the session, sending all the donors away.

They put me and my bike in the van to run me home, but a minute in the van and I am vomiting again. The ambulance picks me up and I'm taken to hospital. "How are you feeling now?" says the ambulance man, and I convulse another stream of vomit up. I am put into a draughty back-revealing gown.

The receiving nurse arrives and pulls the curtains round. Instantly, she does magic on me. She checks my details against my wristband, but even before she says anything I know I can tell her. She's stylish and attractive in her concave-waisted black tunic, unbound straight black hair just short of shoulder length, dark eyes, black-rimmed glasses. I wonder if such an ensemble is deliberate.

"Probably about six, seven pints of cider, and several lines of speed. And sitting in the sun for several hours," I add, hoping to encourage the diagnosis of sunstroke which had been floated earlier. "Any water? Or food?" "No." "So, what's the earliest time you would have a drink?" And "do you take other drugs, Mr looby? Recreational drugs?" She knows already.

An older woman arrives to put a cannula in. I'm impressed at her efficiency in seeming to go under my vein and then into it. I'm put on drips of saline solution, vitamins and minerals, and an anti-emetic. "Drugs and alcohol," I hear my black-clad seer say to the venepuncturer.

A few hours later the consultant comes round. "So, have you any idea what that was?" he asks. "Well, possibly sunstroke, in my uneducated guess." We have an amiable chat about his experience of la peste and I am sent home with a referral to the alcohol and drug services and an exhortation to drink more water, every day. At home, my housemates' friendly curiosity makes me feel interviewed. I tell them that the session overran a bit and try to look bright.

I tell Hayley all about it first. She sends me solicitous texts, suffixed with kisses. "Come back to mine. Stay here. I want to know you're better." "I'd love to but that'd cause problems here. I can't my love." "Well, [pet name], let me know if I can help. Even in a thunderstorm I'd come and help you xxxxx".

Two mornings at the hospital, training sessions under suffocating mouth and nose masks which provoke the very face scratching that we are to avoid. We are issued with gaily coloured lanyards; I wonder when they'll turn black. To my relief, we are told that we won't be involved in inserting the needles into the patients' veins. I stand around as it's explained to me, all meaningless. I mean, having a value. I don't care about it.

We are told the job might not be full time. That might be handy, if I can work out how much I could get on Universal Credit. I don't want to work at all, really.

I ring Hayley, but disturb her as she is going to bed, at half past nine in the morning. Later, she dances up to me in the street, shouldering her tits and switching her miniskirted arse. She hands over the the fifty pounds I lent her a fortnight ago. I stop in surprise. Back at hers, the table is dotted with lumps of crack of varying sizes. Wasn't expecting Harry though. Face control to look pleased to see him.

Harry doesn't last long and goes off to deal with some commerce. Hayley starts on a recitation of some injustice in the division of the drug that will form the chronic leitmotiv of the ensuing hours. She's endlessly generous with me though, pipe after pipe of the grey clouds going gratis into my brain.

There's a phone call which snaps Hayley into action. She has been trying to persuade her dealer to come out to the woods for a "bike ride". She washes and half-dries her hair, changes her miniskirt, applies mascara, and puts her long brown boots on.

He's an amusing, voluble Irishman, who possesses that welcome trait in a drug dealer, of not hanging around. "Love you lots! Ring me!" she says, following him out.

"Do you think he fancies me?" We're suddenly at the school disco, but on crack and speed. I hadn't noticed anything, but I tell her that she's very fit and no man's going to turn her down if she showed an interest in him.

She rakes her hair. One splayed frond curves across her cheek and under her chin, the greater mass a corrugated approximation of a bob. She's back-lit against the window. We swap first time masturbation stories. She says that Harry filmed her masturbating from a tiny camera inside the telly. "You're heading for the loony bin you are."

I don't want to go, but I am aware of Cath's yanking leash, like Flo greeting Andy Capp. "I think we're stuck with each other now, don't you?" I say. "For life," she says.

A green light paints the pavement. A tiny cafe, converted tonight to a party venue. Six people were dancing inside, two more outside. "You're the family I never had," she texts, as I'm at the bus stop. A black man comes to the shelter and stands outside it. I'm a bit nervous, wishing he would sit in the shelter with me.

The following day, we're all down the park, and Hayley is one boring stream of complaints against Harry, who is doing his best, fetching Doritos and cider and reduced price sandwiches from Tesco. "He keeps saying he loves me. Means fuck all. You can love your cat."

I wish he could have stood up then, to give her a good verbal bollocking, followed later by an equally good rodding over the settee, instead of using that reasoning voice of a soft-cocked vicar that she finds so irritating.