It's 3am. Not normally a time you would be loading the washing machine.

I went with Wilma to her appointment with the alcoholism clinic. There's normally a three-month waiting list to get referred -- this is how pissed we all are in Lancaster -- but she's in a bad way and her doctor has fast-tracked her an early first appointment, which consisted of being her given a bottle of Librium pills and a chart of how she's got to dose herself with them.

Back at mine, we had a couple of bottles of wine, the last hurrah before she has to stop drinking at midnight. Everything's going fine and we're chatting away. She's the size of a studio flat but she has got quite nice tits, and with a preamble I cannot recall, she takes her top off and I start fondling them and sliding my hands inside her black bra. We both enjoy it and it gets a bit kissy.

We go to bed, where we do not have sex. I don't fancy her, and I have this idiotic but tenacious idea in my mind that I don't want to be unfaithful to Wendy. The knowledge that we will never have sex does nothing to dislodge my pointless fidelity. Wilma and I are sexlessly spooning, and I am nodding off, when I notice that peculiar form of warm wetness that comes from embedded piss. I am outraged that she has done that, on my futon mattress. I get up, wash myself, change my clothes, and stomp off downstairs. I write her a note.

Wilma. You have pissed in my beautiful lovely futon mattress. You are never coming round here again, ever. You just piss piss piss. On my floor I can cope with, but in my bed, NO. I will always be your friend but I am never ever going to have you in my house again.

I sat in my kitchen, twisting my clasped hands in resentment, then thought "why the fuck am I sitting here?" I went up to my piss-scented bedroom and roused her and told her she's got to leave and that she's never coming back. "You've overstepped the mark, you really have Wilma." Not a word of apology, but "where are my clothes?"

You can't wash futon mattresses, part of the reasoning being that you're supposed to not fucking piss on them. They're heavy enough without the addition of a couple of pounds' worth of a friend's urine, but I manhandled it down from the second floor to the cellar and out into the yard, where I've hooked it over the line.

Earlier, in the pub, Lancaster's Most Unconvincing Transsexual was droning on about the death of her (his?) former boyfriend, with that draining expectation that others are going to be interested in a long recitation of the details of the distress caused by a stranger's demise. Vic was equally boring about some ludicrous scheme to grow and sell pot, into which he has wasted two grand. I was reminded of something that a man in a pub in Glasgow said to me the other week: "They see people like you as easy meat."

No-one was listening to anyone. I was trying to tell the story about Wilma pissing on my kitchen floor, and never got to the end of it, constantly interrupted with the immediacy of the drunkard's chat. "Oh, are you off?" said Unconvincing Transsexual. "Yes, you're not listening to me, so I can't be arsed. I'll see you soon."

I'm tired of all this drunken, pubby, mutual self-examination. I'm tired of my own voice and that of my friends. I want to go to Newcastle and do this course and be busy and tested, and make sociable, tasty meals for me and Kim, and amuse myself at night by making my stories about unzipping Wendy more elaborate, and to write over-sexualised postcards to her and then rip them up in the morning.

The application for the CELTA course which will further such hopes is quite difficult. The grammar and the vocabulary sections are easy enough with a bit of Googling to aid my extensive knowledge of English, but the pedagogical sections are more testing. "How would you teach the difference between 'skinny' and 'thin', bearing in mind that your students' command of English is limited?"

Monday morning. As I was making my useless canapés, Wilma rang. "Have you got any wine? I really need a glass of wine. I've got the DTs." It was a quarter past nine. I had a bottle of red, intended for Wendy. "Well, I'm cooking for Wendy at the moment." The hint flew over her head. "It's just I'm really shaking."

I crooked the phone and opened the fridge: half a bottle of the lodger's Pinot Grigio. I suppose that's replaceable, so I said she could pop round. "Wilma, don't piss on that chair will you? Wendy's coming round in a bit." She drank the wine, continently, then got in her car, because even a five-minute walk is beyond her.

Wendy arrived. We got stoned, drank Prosecco, ate my useless canapés. She said that her ex was vile towards her after she'd got back from her being out with me -- and, as he was lied to -- Kitty -- slinging insults at her in front of his daughter. In another scheme to isolate her from me, he told her that he is not allowing his daughter to be around anyone (me) who takes drugs. "OK then, well, you'll have to have The Little Dictator more often." He agreed, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Male jealousy and possessiveness were also rampant in County Durham last weekend. Kim rang and told me she'd ended it with her boyfriend. In the latest of several incidents of its kind, he'd gone on and on at her at an outdoor rave when a bloke started talking to her, pulling faces behind his back and not letting it drop when she was trying to brush it off.

Whilst he was away for a few minutes she rang her brother asking him to meet her when they got back, the ripples of a former boyfriend turning violent when she left him extending even unto now. All these insecure men, wrecking relationships with intelligent, gorgeous, well-dressed, witty, sparky, younger women none of whom are interested in me.

Kirsty said the other day, "surely, one of your friends must be able to put you up for a while if you're stuck. What about Kitty?"

Kitty said the other day, "surely, with all the people you know, you're not going to end up homeless?"

Wendy said the other day, "in extremis, couldn't you stay with Kirsty for a while? It is your family after all." No-one in my coterie is in a position to help me. They all think someone else will.

However, I have had two offers. Wilma said that I could live in her spare room for free. I imagine a urine-soaked immiseration, piss and bleach fighting against each other for supremacy. The other was from Helen in Norway, which I will decline for the reasons I set out in a letter I sent today to the newly-single Kim.

Hello pet

I would like to make you a decent proposal (for once). I can't remember how much I've told you about the house, but I have to be out by 4th June. I'm in a bit of a pickle and it's thickening every day. My friend Helen suggested I go and live with her in [---] in Norway, which is a much more attractive prospect than staying with my mother in Middlesbrough, but a pauper like me might struggle a bit in the world's most expensive country.

Then, Kirsty made a suggestion the other day about something called the Advanced Learners Loan, which has the great advantage of not depending on any credit checks. I could use this to do the modern version of the TEFL certificate. I did my TEFL cert twenty years ago and anyway it's been superseded by the new CELTA qualification.

At the moment I'm applying for minimum wage jobs, and recently attained a new nadir in being rejected for a job in a pie shop. It does seem a bit of a waste for someone with a degree, an MA, a PGCE, and a Tufty Club certificate in crossing the road right.

So here we go -- the CELTA is offered at [a college in] Newcastle and the next course runs full-time from 5 - 30 June. I wondered if you fancied having a well-trained, domesticated house guest for a month. It's quite a demanding course so I wouldn't be under your feet, although I'd be very happy prancing about your kitchen in my fetching Orla Kiely pinny.

I thought I'd put this in writing so that you could consider it at your leisure. Whatever happens, I hope we can meet up soon. I'm sorry it didn't work out with...but men like that only get worse over time. Nil desperandum! X

There was rejoicing in the House of Kirsty on Friday. My middle daughter, the actress, has been accepted onto the BA in Professional Acting, at Bristol Old Vic. Three interviews and auditions, a thousand applicants chasing thirty places. It all started when she was one year old, when she painfully winded me and Kirsty by bouncing onto our stomachs at 5am, arms akimbo, announcing "I, awake! I, awake!"

I've been at the girls' house all weekend. In the garden, chatting with them as Lancashire v Somerset burbles away on the radio. Back here, the private tears again. I'm worried about what's going to happen in a few weeks' time, when I won't have anywhere to live. I can't afford anywhere here. I have no money for the deposit even on a room, and I'll have to give away all my furniture and white goods. I am trying to get a job but time is running out. There is no council housing round here for a single man.

Wendy is coming round tomorrow morning and I want to welcome her with some nice things to eat. I have set my alarm for 7am -- a pointless precaution, since I'll be worrying wide awake long before then, and I'll look worn out, dark-ringed, panda-eyed for her -- not that how I look will ever alter her total lack of sexual and relationship interest in me.

I will go to Sainsbury's and get the things I need so that I can make something to present to her. The sadness knowing that all effort with her is useless. I want to make one of the last times we'll sit uselessly distant at this house, knowing that we will always be distant wherever we will be, uselessly nice for her. My useless canapés. Forty useless pounds left in my account. A successfully useless smile tomorrow, thanking her uselessly for our little factory-stamp clamp-release hello. My useless cooking for her. My useless love, which she doesn't want. My useless knowledge of this. My useless efforts at resigning myself to this.

Me and Trina went to a friend's boat party in Chester, dancing down the River Dee to superb music, with subcultural people in the stylish know, then onto a little nightclub in town. Twin beds in the hotel; a worry that Trina would climb in next to me which wasn't allayed until she started her semi-snoring rasp.

The following day she had to change trains in Wigan, but being in no rush we spent a few hours in a couple of pubs. She turned, soured by drink, dragging the mood down with the precise details of how I am so thoughtless and unkind. I went to the loo, partly to escape the dissection of my failings. When I came back she had gone. I didn't text or ring her, knowing that a drunkard's apologies are the most reliable thing about them.

I fell asleep on the train home and missed my stop, ending up in Oxenholme instead. The last train back to Lancaster had gone, and I spent a freezing cold night in a phone box. I texted Trina. "Missed my stop. Quality night in a phone box coming up!" I was hoping she might get her brother to come to collect me. "You idiot! You can't expect people to bail you out with taxi fare for doing that." "I'm not after your money! Anyway, you have a nice night in your warm bed. Night night."

I tried curling up, but modern phone boxes have a gap of about six inches at the bottom, so the wind blows straight through. I was shuddering with cold, and sobbing with the lack of Wendy and the weight of everything that I've got to deal with. I almost thought I could get hypothermia. I tried jogging up and down on the spot, then at about 4am I couldn't stand it any longer, and walked round and round the village for two hours until the first train. Dog-walkers interpellating you into their bracing, clubby bonhomie of morning.

I finally got into bed, still quivering with cold; and another run of tears, wishing it were Wendy. She rang just after I got up and I told her all about it. Her lovely voice. "If it were you, Wendy, there is no way I would leave you in a phone box. I don't care how much it would have cost, I'd have come and got you."

The following day, still irritated with Trina, I drafted, but didn't send, the following.

Hi Trina

I have an invite for you. It's to the next few meetings of the Let's Criticise looby Club.

It's a fab social club. There's plenty to drink, and looby will be there, ready to hear all about his limitlessly varied failings, faults,
misdemeanours, moral errors, mistreatments of others, his drinking, his neglectful and selfish behaviour, his blindness to the needs of others, and the thousand and one other ways in which he fails as a decent human being. He's a fantastic doormat and will be incredibly patient as a boringly pleasant evening is changed into something much more enjoyable -- endless criticism of him.

One thing we know you'll enjoy at The Let's Criticise looby Club, is the opportunity to terminate the evening without such tiresome things as basic manners -- which can be so burdensome when you're with others. But at the Let's Criticise looby Club you don't need to bother -- you can just walk out without saying a word.

The meetings can be arranged whenever suits you. Occasionally looby is busy with people who treat him kindly and who enjoy his company, but don't worry -- they're not there all the time.

We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.

The Secretary
Let's Criticise looby Club
branches in Lancaster, Wigan, and throughout the North

I feel overwhelmed at the moment. I'm going to lose my house soon, and I can't afford the rents in Lancaster. Even a room in a shared house here starts at about £75/week. I'm going to have to give all my furniture away, everything I've collected over the years, because I can't afford storage.

The miserable prospect looms of having to go to stay with my mum in Middlesbrough, and then when would I see the girls? How would I ever get back to Lancaster, unable to afford the train fare over here for job interviews? I'm getting rejected for minimum wage jobs. I didn't get the job in the pie shop, and the other day, failed even for one in care work. And most corrosive of all, above everything else, I can't stand the situation with Wendy, which is worse for knowing that there is nothing I can do to change it. There's a weight of water behind my eyes, every day.

It was Wendy's auntie's sixtieth the other day. Kitty had invented a story about us taking her out for a pizza, but in fact we were planning a surprise party for her at Kitty's. I got annoyingly under Kitty's feet in her kitchen.

Wendy turned up in a gorgeous dress. Desire, sadness, self-control. Don't say anything. A clamp-and-release hello, pursed lips diverted onto my cheek, an arsehole-tight kiss. Right that's your lot looby. Now sit down and don't get any ideas.

Kitty took a photo of us -- the only one of her I have. Later, she stood in the kitchen inches away from me with her back turned unselfconsciously towards me. Her slender back and the incredible curve of her arse and her legs; she's got the most beautiful waist. Her dress and her hair, and most of all -- her. The sadness of knowing it'll never be me she'll want to stroke. A touchless, one-way desire.

Wilma came round with a stolen litre of port and a bottle of white. I had a bottle of red. We drank it all. She sat there and pissed over my chair and onto my kitchen floor, twice. Doesn't matter. The lino has never seen so much disinfectant. She's the size of a baby hippo and the effort of going up to my second floor, where the loo is, is more taxing for her than you and me. I wish she hadn't done that though. I'm always the social worker with her, but I do feel for her. She grips my fingers, the more or less stated offer of a fuck. No. There's only one girl I want that closeness with.

I want to be with my girls, all the time. Kirsty asked me if I fancied coming over on Saturday to make an Easter dinner for them. My eldest was brimming, glowing with being accepted for Politics and French at a good university in the East Midlands, as we all started making plans to crash her flat when she's on her year abroad in Lyon.

We all chatted, and I started gutting parsnips, triangling their middles out. I made a nut roast, roast potatoes, honey glazed carrots, sprouts, stuffing, boiled cabbage, roast parsnips, gravy, then piled everything onto their plates. Surrey v Lancashire on the radio. Looking sideways at Kirsty, still attractive, in her 50s miniskirt and her tilting her feet upwards with her charity shop wedges. Thinking about Wendy. Unsaid, untexted: I love you Wendy, and I love my girls, as you do your daughter. You make me want to be unselfish.