Peter woke up on Monday wishing that it was friday... and it was! The next day Alan turns up at his house and it's Tuesday. Alan is wearing invisible clothes and Peter is trying to find out what happened to Monday. It will make sense when you read the whole book!
Peter turned and looked out of the window to the small back yard. Above the roofs of the houses across the alley the sky was grey. He carried on talking mainly to himself. ‘And then the gym instructor phoned me.’
Something was starting to occur to him but he could not yet place exactly what it was, an idea, a memory. He worked it through. ‘The gym instructor rang me, yesterday and said, “see you last Tuesday”. It was as if he’d known something was happening to me. It must have happened to him too. I mean how did he know my number? I only spoke to him once. He was a Chelsea fan.’
‘Yes, that’s right!’ Alan stood up now and came to look out of the window too. ‘And he was really homophobic, slagging off gays and wanting to have them all shipped off to an island to be gassed or something.’
‘And your point is….?’
‘I dunno.’
Peter continued, shrugging. ‘He rang me and he seemed quite sparky. Not sarcastic or nothing. It took me a while to work out who he was because he sounded like a different person to the thug I remembered. Anyway the point is….’
‘I wish you’d get to it.’
‘The point is, he said he would see me today. And I don’t even know him.’
‘So?’
‘It was a clue.’
‘Right, sure!’ Alan went back to the table. If Peter’s train of thought was going anywhere it certainly hadn’t pulled in at his station yet.
‘No listen up,’ Peter turned back to the room. ‘What if he was trying to tell me to contact him today?’
‘I dunno.’
‘That’s it!’
‘It is?’
‘Yes!’ Peter clicked his fingers excitedly. ‘He wasn’t trying to wind me up he was trying to help. So that’s what we’ll do.’
‘What?’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘No idea. Don’t care.’
‘Your mate will know.’
‘Who?’
‘The camp tart whose party it was. He invited him.’
‘Nigel?’ Alan didn’t take offence at his friend being called a camp tart. It was uncannily accurate. ‘He invited everyone, well anyone. Actually hardly anyone as it turned out. He probably doesn’t know him either.’
‘Yes he does. I asked him two things. What was his team? Chelsea, puke, puke. And what he did. I remember him saying that he was the camp tart’s personal trainer. Your mate Nigel works out at this guy’s gym,’ Peter clarified. ‘Though you wouldn’t believe it to look at him.’
‘I agree with you there,’ Alan smiled. ‘But Nigel doesn’t go to work out, if you see what I mean. Like most of the people who go there he only goes to watch Dean in action. And to be seen with him.’
‘Dean! That’s it. At last you’re catching on,’ Peter sat at the table again. ‘What gym does Nigel go to?’
‘It’s somewhere off Western Road I think. Castle something?’
‘Ring him and check. In fact ring him and tell him what’s going on, see if anything weird has happened to him.’
‘I tried ringing him today already, his phone’s off,’ Alan remembered. And then another thought struck him. ‘I should turn mine on,’ he said. ‘I told Nigel to call me back.’
‘Good idea,’ said Peter as Alan found his mobile and turned it on. ‘C’mon then, let’s go.’ He tapped the table with excitement.
‘Pardon?’
‘Let’s go and find Dean,’ he stood up again, his mind made up. ‘We’ll ask him what he knows.’
‘Knows about what?’
‘This,’ the dark haired guy tried to gesture to explain what he meant but couldn’t work out how to do it. He pointed to Alan’s nudity. ‘That.’
‘You think that he will have the answer?’ Alan asked, crossing his legs.
‘Well we don’t, so it’s worth a try. And after that we’ll go to Judith’s and then your mate’s place.’
‘I can’t go out side,’ Alan protested. ‘Everyone will laugh at me.’
He had a Carrie flashback. ‘They’re all gunna laugh at you.’ He pictured himself on stage, receiving his degree in the nude as a bucket load of pig’s blood fell from the sky. But then he saw himself walking through the burning halls, rugby thugs running for their lives, his tutor being sliced in two by a piece of falling ceiling, and he felt much better.
Peter was double checking his strategy. It was true, if clothes, or anything for that matter, didn’t work on Alan he would have to stay in. He couldn’t very well cross town with a naked man in tow without arousing suspicion.
‘You best wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and come back with the news. Castle Street you say?’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to find.’
Alan followed him into the bedroom where Peter was starting to change.
‘Do you mind?’ Peter said indignantly when he realised the student was staring at him.
‘Sorry, habit,’ Alan turned away.
Peter pulled on his jeans. They smelled of stale cigarette smoke, still hanging around on the material from the party. He sniffed his shirt. That stank too so he pulled a clean white one from it’s hanger where he lad left it on Sunday. When he had dressed he turned back to Alan. The blonde guy was eyeing him up again.
‘While I’m gone you stay out of sight yeah? And don’t make holes in anything,’ he ordered. Alan followed him into the front room.
‘Got any porn mags?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Leave it out. Do you think about anything other than sex?’ Peter was pulling on his shoes.
‘No,’ Alan replied wriggling into the beanbag. ‘Why, do you?’
Peter stopped in his tracks. He didn’t. ‘Fair dos. Hey. How do I know I can trust you?’ he asked, a rational thought occurring to him at last.
‘I’m not exactly going to steal your furniture am I?’ Alan replied indicating the bare room. ‘Can’t see myself doing a moonlight flit with a beanbag and a telephone. Not in the nude.’
‘O.k.’ Peter conceded. ‘But don’t answer the door, or the phone. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Hopefully with an answer.’ Then another thought occurred to him. ‘Do you want to ring anyone, I mean, do you have someone who might be wondering where you are?’
‘No, there isn't anyone. Thanks.’ Alan appreciated the unexpectedly kind thought. Maybe he could get to like the ladish poser whose life he had invaded.
‘Right then,’ Peter tightened the belt on his jeans. ‘I’m shooting off. Don’t go outside yeah?’
‘Oh, as if!’ |
