On the 15th of July 1993 the sun rises at 05.01 a. m. Dexter watches it from the back of a decrepit mini-cab as he returns home from a stranger's flat in Brixton. Not a stranger exactly, but a brand new friend, one of many he is making these days, this time a graphic designer called Gibbs or Gibbsy, or was it maybe Biggsy, and his friend, this mad girl called Tara, a tiny birdlike thing with woozy, heavy eyelids and a wide scarlet mouth who doesn't talk much, preferring to communicate through the medium of massage.

These days the nights and mornings have a tendency to bleed into one another. Old-fashioned notions of a. m. and p. m. have become obsolete and Dexter is seeing a lot more dawns than he once used to.

It's Tara he meets first, just after two a. m. in the nightclub underneath the railway arches. All night he has noticed her on the dance floor, a broad grin on her pretty pixie face as she appears suddenly behind strangers and starts to rub their shoulders or the small of their backs. Finally it's Dexter's turn, and he nods and smiles and waits for the slow dawn of recognition. Sure enough the girl frowns, brings her fingers close to the tip of his nose and says what they all say now, which is: "You're famous!"

Brixton, Earls Court and Oxfordshire

"I'm Tara!"

"I'm on TV. I'm on a TV programme called largin' it. I interview pop stars."

"I knew it! You are famous!" she shouts, delighted, and she cranes up on tip-toe and kisses his cheek, and she does this so nicely that he's moved to shout over the music, "You're lovely, Tara!"

"Who are you then?" he shouts over the music, taking both her small bony hands in his, holding them out to the side as if this were some great reunion.

"You're famous? Why are you famous? Tell me!"

"Tara! Tara! Hello, Tara!"

"I am lovely!" she shouts back. "I am lovely, but I'm not famous."

"But you should be famous!" shouts Dexter, his hands on her waist. "I think everybody should be famous!"

The remark is without thought or meaning, but the sentiment seems to move Tara because she says "Aaaaaaaah", stands on tip-toe and rests her little elfin head on his shoulder. "I think you're so lovely," she shouts in his ear, and he doesn't disagree. "You're lovely too," he says, and they find themselves caught in a "you're lovely" loop that could potentially go on forever. They're dancing together now, sucking in their cheeks and grinning at each other and once again Dexter is struck by how easy conversation can be when no-one is in their right mind. In the olden days, when people only had alcohol to fall back on, talking to a girl would involve all kinds of eye-contact, the buying of drinks, hours of formal questioning about books and films, parents and siblings. But these days it's possible to segue almost immediately from "what's your name?" to "show me your tattoo", say, or "what underwear are you wearing?" and surely this has got to be progress.

"But I'm strong as an ox," she shouts back over her shoulder and flexes a neat bicep the size of a tangerine. It's such a great little bicep that he is moved to kiss it. "You're nice. You're sooooo nice."

"You're lovely," he shouts, as she grinds her buttocks against his thighs. "You're really tiny. Like a bird!"

"What?"

"A BIRD THAT YOU PUT IN A MATCHBOX YOU CAN FIT IT IN A MATCHBOX A TINY BIRD YOU'RE LIKE A LITTLE BIRD CAN'T THINK OF ITS NAME." He holds his finger and thumb an inch apart. "SMALL BIRD TINY YOU'RE LIKE THAT."

"You're nice too," he fires back and thinks, God, this is really going just incredibly well, this back and forth, just so well. She's so small and neat that she reminds him of a little wren, but he can't summon up the word "wren" so he takes hold of her hands, pulls her towards him, shouts in her ear, "What's the name of that tiny bird that fits in a matchbox?"

And she nods, either in agreement or to the music, her heavy eyelids fluttering now, pupils dilated, her eyeballs rolling back in her head like one of those dolls his sister used to have and Dexter has forgotten what he's talking about, is unable for a moment to make sense of anything, so that when Tara takes his hands and squeezes them and tells him once again that he really is lovely and that he must come and meet her friends because they're lovely too, he doesn't disagree.

"Home! It's two in the morning. I've got work to do."

Dexter hugs Callum, and tells him how great he is, but Tara is tugging on his hand once again, and so he turns and allows himself to be led through the crowds towards one of the chill-out rooms.

"And you are off your face. Go on, do what you've got to do. I'll call tomorrow."

"Where are you going, mate?"

The club is expensive and supposedly upmarket, though Dexter rarely pays for anything these days. It's also a little quiet for a Thursday night, but at least there's none of that scary techno marching music here, or those scary kids, the bony shaven-headed ones who take their shirts off and leer in your face with their teeth bared, their jaws clenched. Instead there are mainly lots of pleasant, attractive, middle-class people in their twenties, people he belongs with, like Tara's friends here, lolling around on big cushions, smoking and talking and chewing. He meets Gibbsy, or was it Biggsy, The Lovely Tash and her boyfriend Stu Stewpot, and Spex who wears spectacles and his boyfriend Mark who, disappointingly, seems to be just called Mark, and they all offer him their gum and water and Marlboro Lights. People make a big deal about friendship but it really does seem incredibly easy here, and soon he is imagining everyone hanging out together, going on holiday in a camper van, having barbecues on the beach as the sun goes down, and they seem to like him too, asking him what it's like, being on TV, asking him what other famous people he's met, and he tells them some salacious gossip and all the while Tara perches behind him, working on his neck and shoulders with her tiny bony fingers, giving him little shudders of elation until suddenly for some reason there's a pause in conversation, perhaps five seconds of silence, but just long enough for a flash of sobriety to take him by surprise and he remembers what he has to do tomorrow, no, not tomorrow, today, oh God, later today, and he feels the night's first shiver of panic and dread.

"Dex, I don't want to meet Tara. I've got to go."

He looks around for Callum O'Neill, his old flatmate from University and sees him pulling on his coat. Once the laziest man in Edinburgh, Callum is a successful businessman now, a large man in expensive suits, made wealthy by refurbished computers. But with the success has come sobriety; no drugs, not too much booze on a weeknight. He looks uncomfortable here, square. Dexter crosses to him and grabs both hands.

"You know what you are? You're a lightweight!"

"Come with me. I want you to meet Tara!"

As he heads for the exit Dexter imagines the journey home, the menacing crowd of illicit cabbies who will be outside the club, the irrational fear of being murdered, the empty flat in Belsize Park and hours of sleeplessness as he does the washing-up and rearranges his vinyl until the thumping in his head stops and he is able to sleep and face the day, and once again he feels a wave of panic. He needs company. He looks around for a payphone. He could see if Callum's still awake, but male company is no good to him now. He could call Naomi, but she'll be with her boyfriend, or Yolande but she's filming in Barcelona, or Scary Ingrid but she has said that if she sees him again she'll rip his heart out, or Emma, yes Emma, no not Emma, not in this state, she doesn't get it, won't approve. And yet it's Emma that he wants to see the most. Why isn't she with him tonight? He has all these things he wants to ask her like why have they never got together, they'd be great together, a team, a pair, Dex and Em, Em and Dex, everybody says so. He is taken aback by this sudden rush of love he feels for Emma, and he decides to get in a cab to Earls Court and tell her how great she is, how he really, really loves her and how sexy she is if only she knew it and why not just do it, just to see what happens, and if none of that works, even if they just sit up and talk, at least it will be better than being alone tonight. Whatever happens, he mustn't be alone…

But it's okay, it's fine, because Tara is saying let's go and dance before it wears off, so they all go and stand in the railway arches in a loose group facing the DJ and the lights, and they dance for a while in the dry ice, grinning and nodding and exchanging that strange puckered frown, eyebrows knitted, but the nodding and grinning are less from elation now, more from a need for reassurance that they're still having fun, that it isn't all about to end. Dexter wonders if he should take his shirt off, that sometimes helps, but the moment has passed. Someone nearby shouts "tune" half-heartedly, but no-one's convinced, there are no tunes. The enemy, self-consciousness, is creeping up on them and Gibbsy or Biggsy is the first to crack, declaring that the music is shit and everyone stops dancing immediately as if a spell has been broken.

The flat is a large space on top of an old pub. Kitchen and living room, bedroom and bathroom are all laid out without walls, the one concession to privacy being the semi-transparent shower curtain that encircles the free-standing toilet. While Biggsy sorts out his decks everyone else goes and lolls in a great tangled pile on the huge four-poster bed, which is covered in ironic acrylic tiger skins and black synthetic sheets. Above the bed is a semi-ironic mirror, and they stare up at it through heavy eyelids, admiring themselves as they sprawl beneath, heads resting in laps, hands searching around for other hands, listening to the music, young and smart, attractive and successful, in the know and not in their right minds, all of them thinking how great they look and what good friends they're going to be from now on. There will be picnics on the Heath, and long lazy Sundays in the pub, and Dexter is enjoying himself once more. "I think you're amazing," someone says to someone else, but it doesn't matter who, because they're all amazing really. People are amazing.

The phone is in his hand when, thank God, Biggsy or is it Gibbsy, suggests they all go back to his place, it isn't far, and so they head out of the club, safe in a crowd as they walk back to Coldharbour Lane.

Hours slip by with no-one noticing. Someone is talking about sex now, and they compete to make personal revelations that they'll regret in the morning. People are kissing, and Tara is still fiddling with his neck, probing the top of his spine with her hard little fingers, but all the drugs have gone now and what was once a relaxing massage is now a series of jabs and pokes, and when he peers up at Tara's pixie face it suddenly seems pinched and menacing, the mouth too wide, the eyes too round, like some sort of small hairless mammal. He also notices that she's older than he thought -- my God she must be like thirty-eight -- and that there's some sort of white paste between her little teeth, like grouting, and Dexter can no longer control his terror of the day ahead from crawling up his spinal column, dread, fear and shame manifesting itself as a sticky chemical sweat. He sits suddenly, shivers and drags both hands slowly down his face as if physically wiping something away.

It is starting to get light. Blackbirds are singing on Coldharbour Lane and he has the sensation, so vivid that it is almost an hallucination, that he is entirely hollow; empty, like an easter egg. Tara the masseuse has created a great twisted knot of tension between his shoulders, the music has stopped, and someone on the bed is asking for tea, and everyone wants tea, tea, tea, so Dexter disentangles himself and crosses to the immense fridge, the same model as his own, sinister and industrial like something you'd find in a genetics lab. He opens the door and stares blankly inside. A salad is rotting in its bag, the plastic swollen and about to burst. His eyes flicker in their sockets, making his vision judder one last time, and coming back into focus he sees a bottle of vodka. Hiding behind the fridge door he drinks a good two inches, washing it down with a sour gulp of apple juice that fizzes repulsively on his tongue. He winces, swallows the liquid down, taking his chewing gum with it. Someone calls for tea again. He finds the milk carton, weighs it in his hand, has an idea.

"Nope. Empty. I'll go and get some." He puts the full, unopened carton back in the fridge. "Back in five minutes. Anyone want anything? Ciggies? Gum?" There's no reply from his new friends, so he quietly lets himself out, then tumbles down the stairs and out onto the street, barrelling through the door as if coming up for air then breaking into a run, never to see any of these amazing people ever again.

"Should be," shouts Gibbsy or Biggsy.

On Electric Avenue he finds a mini-cab office. On the 15th of July 1993 the sun rises at 05.01 a. m. and already Dexter Mayhew is in hell.

"There's no milk!" he shouts.

Emma Morley eats well and drinks in moderation. These days she gets eight good hours sleep then wakes promptly of her own accord at just before six-thirty and drinks a large glass of water, the first 250ml of a daily 1.5 litres, which she pours from the brand new carafe and matching glass that stand in a shaft of fresh morning sunlight next to her warm, clean double bed. A carafe. She owns a carafe. She can hardly believe it's true.

She owns furniture too. At twenty-seven she is too old to live like a student anymore, and she now owns a bed, a large wrought-iron and wickerwork affair bought in the summer sales from a colonial-themed store on the Tottenham Court Road. Branded the "Tahiti" it occupies the whole bedroom of her flat off the Earls Court Road. The duvet is goosedown, the sheets are Egyptian cotton which is, the saleswoman informed her, the very best cotton known to man, and all of this signifies a new era of order, independence and maturity. On Sunday mornings she lounges alone on the Tahiti as if it were a raft, and listens to Porgy and Bess and Mazzy Star, old Tom Waits and a quaintly crackling vinyl album of Bach's Cello Suites. She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell. Emma is lost on anything less than 120gsm.

But at other times she finds herself writing happily for hours, as if the words had been there all along, content and alone in her one-bedroom flat. Not that she's lonely, or at least not very often. She goes out four nights a week, and could go out more often if she wanted to. Old friendships are holding up, and there are new ones too, with her fellow students from the Teacher Training College. At the weekend she makes full use of the listing magazines, everything except the clubbing section, which might as well be written in runic script for all its talk of shirts-off-up-for-it crowds. She suspects that she will never, ever dance in her bra in a room full of foam, and that's fine. Instead she visits independent cinemas and galleries with friends, or sometimes they hire cottages, go for hearty walks in the country and pretend they live there. People tell her she looks better, more confident. She has thrown away the velour scrunchies, the cigarettes, the take-away menus. She owns a cafetiere and for the first time in her life she is considering investing in some pot-pourri.

At twenty-seven, Emma wonders if she's getting old. She used to pride herself on her refusal to see two sides of an argument, but increasingly she accepts that issues are more ambiguous and complicated than she once thought. Certainly she doesn't understand the next two news items, which concern the Maastricht Treaty and the war in Yugoslavia. Shouldn't she have an opinion, take a side, boycott something? At least with apartheid you knew where you stood. Now there's a war in Europe and she has personally done absolutely nothing to stop it. Too busy shopping for furniture. Unsettled, she throws off her new duvet and slides into the tiny corridor of space between the side of the bed and the walls, shuffling sideways to the hall and into the tiny bathroom, which she never has to wait for because she lives alone. She drops her t-shirt into the wicker laundry basket -- a great deal of wicker in her life since that fateful summer sale on Tottenham Court Road -- puts on her old spectacles and stands naked in front of the mirror, her shoulders pushed back. Could be worse, she thinks and steps into the shower.

The clock radio clicks on but she allows herself to lie in bed and listen to the news headlines. John Smith is in conflict with the unions, and she feels torn because she likes John Smith, who seems the right sort, headmasterly and wise. Even his name suggests solid man-of-the-people principles, and she reminds herself once again to look into the possibility of joining the Labour Party; perhaps it will ease her conscience now that her CND membership has lapsed. Not that she doesn't sympathise with their aims, but demanding multilateral disarmament has started to seem a bit naïve, a bit like demanding universal kindness.

She eats breakfast looking out of the window. The flat is six floors up in a red brick mansion block and the view is of an identical red brick mansion block. She doesn't care for Earls Court particularly; shabby and temporary, it's like living in London's spare room. The rent on a single flat is insane too, and she may have to get somewhere cheaper when she gets her first teaching job, but for the moment she loves it here, a long way from Loco Caliente and the gritty social realism of the box room in Clapton. Free of Tilly Killick after six years together, she loves knowing that there'll be no underwear lurking greyly in the kitchen sink, no teeth marks in the Cheddar.

Because she is no longer ashamed of how she lives, she has even allowed her parents to visit her, Jim and Sue occupying the Tahiti while Emma slept on the sofa. For three fraught days they commented endlessly on London's ethnic mix and the cost of a cup of tea, and although they didn't actually express their approval of her new lifestyle at least her mother no longer suggests that she come back to Leeds to work for the Gas Board. "Well done, Emmy," her father had whispered as she saw them onto the train at King's Cross, but well done for what? For finally living like a grown-up perhaps.

Emma has a proper, formal date. She is going to sit in a restaurant with a man and watch him eat and talk. Someone wants to climb aboard the Tahiti, and tonight she will decide if she is going to let him. She stands at the toaster, slicing a banana, the first of seven portions of fruit and veg today, and stares at the calendar. The 15th of July 1993, a question mark, and exclamation mark. The date looms.

Of course there's still no boyfriend, but she doesn't mind. Occasionally, very occasionally, say at four o'clock in the afternoon on a wet Sunday, she feels panic-stricken and almost breathless with loneliness. Once or twice she has been known to pick up the phone to check that it isn't broken. Sometimes she thinks how nice it would be to be woken by a call in the night: "get in a taxi now" or "I need to see you, we need to talk". But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel -- independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic. At twenty-seven years old Emma Morley has a double-first in English and History, a new bed, a two-roomed flat in Earls Court, a great many friends, and a post-graduate certificate in education. If the interview goes well today she will have a job teaching English and Drama, subjects that she knows and loves. She is on the brink of a new career as an inspiring teacher and finally, finally, there is some order in her life.

There is also a date.

Dexter's bed is imported, Italian, a low, bare black platform that stands in the centre of the large bare room like a stage or a wrestling ring, both of which functions it sometimes serves. He lies there awake at 9.30, dread and self-loathing combined with sexual frustration. His nerve-endings have been turned up high and there is an unpleasant taste in his mouth, as if his tongue has been coated with hairspray. Suddenly he leaps up and pads across high-gloss black floorboards to the Swedish kitchen. There in the freezer compartment of his large, industrial fridge, he finds a bottle of vodka and he pours an inch into his glass then adds the same amount of orange juice. He reassures himself with the thought that, as he hasn't been to sleep yet, this is not the first drink of the day, but the last drink of last night. Besides, the whole taboo about drinking during daytime is exaggerated; they do it in Europe. The trick is to use the uplift of the booze to counteract the downward tumble of the drugs; he is getting drunk to stay sober which when you think about it is actually pretty sensible. Encouraged by this logic, he pours another inch and a half of vodka, puts on the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack and swaggers to the shower.

Half an hour later he is still in the bathroom, wondering what he can do to stop the sweating. He has changed his shirt twice, showered in cold water, but still the perspiration comes bubbling up on his back and forehead, oily and viscous like vodka which perhaps is what it is. He looks at his watch. Late already. He decides that he'll try driving with the windows down.

There's a brick-sized parcel by the door so that he won't forget it, elaborately wrapped in layers of different coloured tissue paper, and he picks this up, locks the flat and steps out into the leafy avenue where his car waits for him, a Mazda MRII convertible in racing green. No room for passengers, no possibility of a roof rack, barely room for a spare tyre let alone a pram, it's a car that screams of youth, success, bachelorhood. Concealed in the boot is a CD changer, a futuristic miracle of tiny springs and matt black plastic and he chooses five CDs (freebies from the record companies, another perk of the job) and slides the shiny disks into the box as if loading a revolver with bullets.

He listens to The Cranberries as he negotiates the wide residential streets of St John's Wood. It's not really his thing, but it's important to stay on top of stuff when you're forging people's tastes in music. The Westway has cleared of rush-hour traffic and before the album ends he is on the M40, heading westward through the light-industrial estates and housing developments of the city in which he lives so successfully, so fashionably.

Before long the suburbs have given way to the conifer plantations that pass as countryside. Jamiroquai is playing on the stereo and he's feeling much, much better, raffish and boysy in his sporty little car, and only a little queasy now. He turns up the volume. He has met the band's lead singer, has interviewed him several times, and though he wouldn't go so far as to call him a friend, he knows the guy who plays the congas pretty well and feels a little personal connection as they sing about the emergency on planet earth. It's the extended mix, massively extended, and time and space take on an elastic quality as Dexter scats along for what seems like many, many hours until his vision blurs and judders one last time, the remnants of last night's drugs in his veins, and there's a blare of horn as he realises that he is driving at 112 miles an hour in the exact centre of two lanes.

He stops scatting and tries to steer the car back into the middle lane, but finds that he has forgotten how to steer, his arms locked at the elbows as he tries to physically wrench the wheel from some invisible grasp. Suddenly Dexter's speed has dropped to fifty-eight miles an hour, his feet on the brake and the accelerator simultaneously, and there's another blast of horn from a lorry the size of a house that has appeared behind him. He can see the contorted face of the driver in the rearview mirror, a big bearded man in black mirror shades screaming at him, his face three black holes, like a skull. Dexter wrenches the wheel once more without even checking what is in the slow lane and he is suddenly sure that he is going to die, right here and now, in a ball of searing flame while listening to an extended Jamiroquai remix. But the slow lane is empty, thank God, and he breathes sharply through his mouth, once, twice, three times, like a boxer. He jabs the music off and drives in silence at a steady sixty-eight until he reaches his exit.

Dexter leans matily on the bar and orders a half of lager and a double vodka tonic. He remembers the barman from the early Eighties when he used to drink here with mates. "I used to come here years ago," says Dexter, chattily. "Is that right?" replies the gaunt, unhappy man. If the barman recognises him he doesn't say, and Dexter takes a glass in each hand, walks to a table and drinks in silence with the gift-wrapped package in front of him, a little parcel of gaiety in the grim room. He looks around and thinks about how far he's come in the last ten years, and all that he's achieved -- a well-known TV presenter, and not yet twenty-nine years old.

Exhausted, he finds a lay-by on the Oxford Road, reclines his seat and closes his eyes in the hope of sleep, but can only see the three black holes of the lorry driver screaming at him. Outside the sun is too bright, the traffic too noisy, and besides there's something shabby and unwholesome about this anxious young man wriggling in a stationary car at eleven forty-five on a summer's morning, so he sits up straight, swears and drives on until he finds a roadside pub that he knows from his teenage years. The White Swan is a chain affair offering all-day breakfasts and impossibly cheap steak and chips. He pulls in, picks up the gift-wrapped parcel from the passenger seat and enters the large, familiar room that smells of furniture polish and last night's cigarettes.

His father is already standing in the doorway, as if he's been there for years. He is wearing too many clothes for July; a shirttail is hanging down beneath his sweater, a mug of tea is in his hand. Once a giant to Dexter, he now looks stooped and tired, his long face pale, drawn and lined from the six months in which his wife's condition has deteriorated. He raises his mug in greeting and for a moment Dexter sees himself through his father's eyes, and winces with shame at his shiny shirt, the jaunty way he drives this sporty little car, the raffish noise it makes as it swoops to a halt on the gravel, the chill-out music on the stereo.

Sometimes he thinks the medicinal powers of alcohol border on the miraculous because within ten minutes he is trotting nimbly out to the car and listening to music again, The Beloved chirruping away, making good time so that within ten minutes he is turning into the gravel drive of his parents" house, a large secluded 1920s construction, its front criss-crossed with fake timber framing to make it look less modern, boxy and sturdy than it really is. A comfortable, happy family home in the Chilterns, Dexter regards it with dread.

Chilled-out.

They freeze.

Loved up.

Sorted, you tawdry little clown.

"Don't think I'd fit in it anyway. Toys for boys. We were expecting you some time ago."

He jabs off the CD player, unclips the removable facia from the dashboard, then stares at it in his hand. Calm down, this is the Chilterns, not Stockwell. Your father is not going to steal your stereo. Just calm down. In the doorway, his father raises his mug once again, and Dexter sighs, picks up the present from the passenger seat, summons up all his powers of concentration, and steps out of the car.

Somehow Dexter has developed a kiss reflex. He has made the "mmmmoi" noise in his father's tufted ear. Some unconscious part of him thinks that he is back under the railway arches with Gibbsy and Tara and Spex. He can feel the saliva, wet on his lip and he can see the consternation on his father's face as he looks down at his son, an Old Testament look. Sons kissing fathers -- a law of nature has been broken. Not yet through the front door and already the illusion of sobriety has shattered. His father sniffs -- either with distaste or because he is sniffing his son's breath, and Dexter is not sure which is worse.

Buffoon.

Idiot.

"Well you don't have to drive it, do you?" Dexter takes comfort from the ease of the old routine, his father stern and square, the son irresponsible and cocky.

"What a ridiculous machine," tuts his father.

"How are you, old man?" says Dexter, feeling a sudden swell of affection for his dear old dad, and instinctively he loops his arms around his father's back, rubs it and then, excruciatingly, kisses his father's cheek.

The hallway is dark and cool after the sun's glare. His older sister Cassie is entering from the back garden, a tray in her hands, her face aglow with competence, commonsense and piety. At thirty-four she has settled into the role of stern hospital matron, and the part suits her. Half smile, half scowl, she touches her cheek against his. "The prodigal returns!"

"How is she?" he asks. Perhaps he'll say "much better".

"Your mother is in the garden. She's been waiting for you all morning."

"Go and see. I'll put the kettle on."

Dexter's mind is not so addled that he can't recognise a dig, but he ignores the remark and glances at the tray. A bowl of grey brown cereal dissolved in milk, the spoon by its side, unused. "How is she?" he asks. Perhaps she'll say "much improved".

From the doorway he watches her. She is sitting in an old-fashioned wing-backed chair that has been carried out to face the view across the fields and woods, Oxford a grey hazy smudge in the distance. From this angle, her face is obscured by a large sunhat and sunglasses -- the light hurts her eyes these days -- but he can tell by the slender arms and the way her hand lolls on the padded arm of the chair that she has changed a great deal in the three weeks since he last came to see her. He has a sudden urge to cry. He wants to curl up like a child and feel her put her arms around him, and he also wants to run from here as fast as he can, but neither are possible, so instead he trots down the steps, an artificially buoyant jog, a chat-show host.

"Go and find out," says Cassie, and he squeezes past and wonders: Why will no-one tell me how she is?

"Expensive."

She reaches across and touches his shirt with the back of her hand. Her nose wrinkles with distaste. "Where from?"

"Prada."

"It's this shirt. Artificial fibre."

"Well it's a hot day." She looks unconvinced. Not good enough. Concentrate. Remember who you're talking to.

"You're soaked through"

"Hellooo there!"

"Only the best," then keen to change the subject he retrieves the parcel from the rockery wall. "Present for you."

"You're sweating," she says.

"Not from me, from Emma."

"I can tell, from the wrapping." Carefully she undoes the ribbon. "Yours come in taped-up bin bags…"

"How lovely."

She smiles as if smiling itself has become an effort. He stoops beneath the brim of her hat to kiss her, the skin of her cheek disconcertingly cool, taut and shiny. A headscarf is tied beneath her hat to disguise her hair loss, but he tries not to scrutinise her face too closely as he quickly reaches for a rusting metal garden chair. Noisily, he pulls it close and arranges it outwards so that they are both facing the view, but he can feel her eyes on him.

He's finding it harder to maintain this smile, but thankfully her eyes are on the parcel as she carefully folds the paper back, revealing a pile of paperback books: Edith Wharton, some Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald. "How kind of her. Will you thank her for me? Lovely Emma Morley." She looks at the cover of the Fitzgerald. "The Beautiful and Damned. It's me and you."

"… when they come at all."

Dexter smiles and sniffs obediently but he hates this type of thing, gallows humour. It's meant to show pluck, to lift the spirits, but he finds it boring and stupid. He would prefer the unsayable to be left unsaid. "How is Emma anyway?"

"But which is which?" he says without thinking, but thankfully she doesn't seem to have heard. Instead she's reading the back of the postcard, a black and white agit-prop collage from '82; "Thatcher Out!" She laughs. "Such a kind girl. So funny." She takes the novel and measures its thickness between finger and thumb. "A little optimistic maybe. You might want to push her towards short stories in future."

"That's not true…" he smiles, keeping things light-hearted.

"No' is all she says. There is a silence and he feels the day slip from his control once more. Dexter had been led to believe, by TV, by films, that the only up-side of sickness was that it brought people closer, that there would be an opening-up, an effortless understanding between them. But they have always been close, always been open, and their habitual understanding has instead been replaced by bitterness, resentment, a rage on both their parts at what is happening. Meetings that should be fond and comforting descend into bickering and recrimination. Eight hours ago he was telling complete strangers his most intimate secrets, and now he can't talk to his mother. Something isn't right.

"Very good, I think. She's a fully qualified teacher now. Job interview today."

"Now there's a profession." She turns her head to look at him. "Weren't you going to be a teacher once? What happened there?"

He recognises the dig. "Didn't suit me."

"So. I saw largin" it last week," she says.

She is silent, so he's forced to add, "What did you think?"

"Did you?"

"I'm not a prude either, I don't mind vulgarity, I just don't understand why it's suddenly necessary to humiliate people all the time --"

"It's fun, the whole point is the guys love them even though they're… not conventionally attractive, that's the whole point, it's fun!"

"Not really, no --"

"You mean I wasn't drunk enough to enjoy it?"

"No --"

"You keep saying it's fun, are you trying to convince me, or yourself?"

"You have competitions to find Britain's ugliest girlfriend. You don't think that's humiliating?"

"No-one's humiliated, not really, it's fun --"

Flustered, he continues, "I mean, it's just a silly, late-night programme, that's all. It's post-pub --"

"Well it's not really meant for people like you, is it?"

She bridles at the phrase, and turns her head imperiously. "What do you mean, people like me?"

"Asking men to send in photos of their ugly girlfriends…"

"I think you're very good. Very natural. You look very nice on the screen. As I've said before, I don't care for the programme very much."

"And do you think they find it fun, the girlfriends, the "mingers'--"

"Let's just not talk about it, shall we?"

"But to what end, Dexter? We always raised you to believe that you can do anything you wanted. I just didn't think you'd want to do this."

"Mum, I just introduce the bands, that's all. I just ask pop stars about their exciting new video, that's my job. It's a means to an end."

"What do you want me to do?"

She waits a moment, then says, "Well you must do it then, I suppose. You must do what you enjoy. And I know you'll do other things in time, it's just…" and she takes his hand, without finishing the thought. Then she laughs, breathlessly, "I still don't see why it's necessary for you to pretend to be a cockney."

After a moment, he speaks. "It is good. In its own terms." She sniffs. "It's a silly programme, just entertainment, and of course I don't like all of it, but it's an experience, it'll lead to other things. And actually I think I'm good at it, for what it's worth. Plus I'm enjoying myself."

"I don't know; something good." Abruptly she places her left hand on her chest, and sits back in her chair.

"Late night?"

"It's my man of the people voice," he says, and she smiles, a very slight smile, but one which he latches onto.

"We shouldn't argue," she says.

"We're not arguing, we're discussing," he says, though he knows that they are arguing.

Her hand goes to her head. "I'm taking this morphine. Sometimes I don't know what I'm saying."

"You haven't said anything. I'm a little tired myself." The sun is bouncing off the paving slabs and he can actually feel the skin on his face and forearms burning, sizzling, like a vampire. He feels another wave of perspiration and nausea coming on. Stay calm, he tells himself. It's just chemical.

"Larging it, were you?"

"Quite late."

"A little." He rubs his temples to indicate soreness, says, without thinking, "Don't suppose you've got any of that morphine going spare, have you?"

She doesn't even bother to look at him. Time passes. Recently he has noticed idiocy creeping up on him. His resolve to keep his head on straight, his feet on the ground, is failing and he has observed, quite objectively, that he is becoming more thoughtless, selfish, making more and more stupid remarks. He has tried to do something about this but it almost feels out of his control now, like pattern baldness. Why not just give in and be an idiot? Stop caring. Time passes and he notices that grass and weeds have started to push their way through the surface of the tennis court. The place is falling apart already.

He could stay the night, he thinks. Here is an opportunity to make amends. "Actually, no," he says.

Eventually she speaks. "I'm telling you now, your father's cooking lunch. Tinned stew. Be warned. At least Cassie should be back in time for dinner. You are staying the night, I suppose?"

Silence once more.

She half turns her head.

"Oh. Well." And there's a silence. "The life you lead," she says levelly.

"I've got tickets for Jurassic Park tonight. The premiere actually. Lady Di is going! Not with me, I hasten to add," and as he speaks the voice he hears is of someone he despises. "I can't skip it, it's a work thing, it was arranged ages ago." His mother's eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly, and in mitigation he quickly tells a lie. "I'm taking Emma, you see. I'd skip it, but she really wants to go."

"Okay."

"Dexter, you'll have to excuse me, but I'm afraid the morning has taken it out of me. I'm going to need to go to sleep upstairs for a while."

Anxiously, he looks around for his sister, or father, as if they had some kind of qualification that he doesn't possess, but they're nowhere to be seen. His mother's hands are on the arms of the chair now, straining uselessly, and he realises that he must do this. Lightly, without conviction, he loops his arm under hers and helps her up. "Do you want me to…?"

"I'm going to need some help."

"How do I?…"

"No, I'm fine getting indoors, I just need help with the stairs."

They walk across the patio, his hand just touching the fabric of the blue summer dress that hangs loosely off her like a hospital gown. Her slowness is maddening, an affront to him. "How is Cassie?" he asks, to fill the time.

"Oh fine. I think she enjoys bossing me around a little too much, but she's very attentive. Eat this, take these, sleep now. Strict but fair, that's your sister. It's revenge for not buying her that pony."

"Don't worry about that." She removes her sunhat and settles her headscarf. He takes a firmer hold of her below her shoulder blade, the fingers of his hand aligning with the grooves of her ribs, then bends at the knee, feels the back of her legs beneath her dress against his forearm, smooth and cool, and when he thinks she is ready he lifts, scooping her up and feeling her body loosen in his arms. She exhales deeply, and her breath is sweet and hot on his face. Either she is heavier than he expected or he is weaker than he thought, and he bumps her shoulder against the stair post, then readjusts, turning sideways as he starts to climb the stairs. Her head rests against his shoulder, the headscarf slippery against his face. It feels like a parody of a stock situation, the husband carrying the bride over the threshold perhaps, and several light-hearted remarks run through his head, none of which will make this any easier. As they reach the landing, she obliges instead -- "My hero," she says, looking up at him, and they both smile.

So if Cassie's so good at this, he wonders, where is she when she's needed? They are inside, at the bottom of the staircase. He had never realised there were so many stairs.

"Does it hurt anywhere? I mean is there anywhere I should?…"

"It's best if you just lift me. I'm not heavy, not these days."

I am not up to this. I am not capable. I thought I would be, but I'm not. Some part of me is missing, and I cannot do this.

"Please. But leave the window open."

"Goodbye, darling."

"No, I'm fine."

"Do you want to get under the covers?"

He smiles tightly at her, but she is already lying on her side with her back to him, and he steps out of the room, pulling the door loosely closed. One day quite soon, probably within the year, he will walk out of a room and never see her again, and this thought is so hard to conceive of that he shoves it away violently, concentrating instead on himself: his hangover, how tired he feels, how the pain throbs in his temples as he trots down the stairs.

"Curtains closed?"

"Can I get you anything?"

The large, untidy kitchen is empty so he crosses to the fridge, which is almost empty too. A wilted celery heart, a chicken carcass, opened cans and economy ham all indicate that his father has taken over the domestic duties. In the fridge door is an opened bottle of white wine. He takes the bottle out and swigs from it, taking four, five gulps of the sweet liquid before he hears father's footsteps in the hall. He replaces the bottle, wipes his mouth with the back of the hand just as his father enters, carrying two plastic bags from the village supermarket.

"Are you due anything? Medicine or…"

"I'm fine."

"Oh yes please."

"Just that blanket, please."

"See you later then."

He kicks open the door to the dark room, and lays her on the bed.

"Dry martini with a twist?"

"See you."

"Where's your mother?"

"I see. Did you chat?"

"I'm looking for something. Old books."

"Don't you want lunch? Little food with your wine perhaps?"

"What for?" scowls his father.

"Tired. I carried her upstairs for a lie-down." Dexter wants him to know that he is brave and mature, but his father seems unimpressed.

"A little. Just about this and that." His voice sounds strange in his own head, booming and slurred and self-conscious. Drunk. Can his father tell, he wonders? "We'll talk more when she wakes up." He opens the fridge door again, and pretends to see the wine for the first time. "Mind if I?" He takes it, empties the dregs into a glass then heads out past his father. "I'm just going to be in my room for a bit."

On the landing, he notices the door of his parents' room has swung open, and silently he steps inside once again. The curtains move in the afternoon breeze, and the sunlight comes and goes on her sleeping form beneath an old blanket, the dirty soles of her feet visible, toes curled up tight. The smell that he remembers from his childhood, of expensive lotions and mysterious powders, has been replaced with a vegetable odour that he would rather not think about. A hospital smell has invaded his childhood home. He closes her door, and pads to the bathroom.

Dexter glances at the shopping bag at his father's feet, splitting from the weight of all the tins. "Maybe later," he says, already out of the room.

As he pees, he checks in the medicine cabinet: his father's copious sleeping pills tell of night fears, and there's an old bottle of his mother's valium dated March 1989, long superseded by more potent medication. He shakes out two of each and slips them into his wallet, then a third valium, which he swallows with water from the hand basin's tap, just to take the edge off.

His old bedroom is used for storage now, and he has to squeeze past an old chesterfield, tea chest and cardboard boxes. On the walls, a few dog-eared family snapshots, and his own black and white prints of shells and leaves that he took as a teenager, imperfectly fixed and fading now. Like a child sent to his room he lies on the old double bed, hands behind his head. He had always imagined that some sort of emotional mental equipment was meant to arrive, when he was forty-five, say, or fifty, a kind of kit that would enable him to deal with the impending loss of a parent. If he were only in possession of this equipment, he would be just fine. He would be noble and selfless, wise and philosophical. Perhaps he might even have kids of his own, and would presumably possess the maturity that comes with fatherhood, the understanding of life as a process.

He wakes with a start and looks at his watch, then looks again. 6.26 p. m. He has slept for six hours, clearly impossible, but when he pulls open the curtains the sun is starting to dip in the sky. His head still hurts, his eyes are somehow gummed shut, there's a metallic taste in his mouth, and he is parched and hungrier than he has ever been before. The glass of wine, when he reaches for it, is warm in his hand. He drinks half of it, then recoils -- a fat bluebottle has found its way into the glass and buzzes against his lip. Dexter drops the glass, spilling the wine down his shirt and onto the bed. He stumbles to his feet.

But he isn't forty-five, he is twenty-eight years old. His mother is forty-nine. There has been some terrible mistake, the timing is out, and how can he possibly be expected to deal with this, the sight of his extraordinary mother diminishing like this? It isn't fair on him, not with so many other distractions. He is a busy young man on the edge of a successful career. Expressed in its frankest terms, he has better things to do. He feels another sudden urge to cry, but he hasn't cried for fifteen years, so he puts this down to the chemicals and decides to sleep a little. He balances the glass of wine on a packing case by the side of the bed, and rolls onto his side. Being a decent human being will require effort and energy. A little rest, then he will apologise and show how much he loves her.

In the bathroom, he splashes his face. The perspiration on the shirt has gone sour, taking on an unmistakeable alcoholic stench. A little queasily he paints himself with his father's old roll-on deodorant. Downstairs he can hear pots and pans, the babble of the radio, family sounds. Bright; be bright and happy and polite, then go.

But as he passes his mother's room he sees her sitting on the edge of the bed in profile, looking out across the fields as if she too has been waiting for him. Slowly she turns her head, but he hovers on the threshold like a child.

"I overslept."

"You've missed the whole day," she says quietly.

"No."

"So I see. Feeling better?"

"No change there then." She smiles indulgently and, encouraged, he adds, "Everyone seems pissed-off with me at the moment."

"Poor little Dexter," she says and he wonders if she is being sarcastic. "Come and sit here." She smiles, places one hand on the bed next to her. "Next to me." Obediently he enters the room, and sits, so that their hips are touching. She knocks her head against his shoulder. "We're not ourselves, are we? I'm certainly not myself, not anymore. And you're not either. You don't seem yourself. Not as I remember you."

"Oh well. Your father is a little angry with you, I'm afraid."

"No, not tonight. You're busy. Come back and start again."

"A little. But then I'm angry with pretty much everyone these days. Everyone who isn't sick."

"Do you have to?"

"I think I do. It is my prerogative."

She presses her thumb into the palm of his hand. "I know you are."

"You mustn't take this badly, but sometimes…" She takes his hand in hers, rubbing the palm of it with her thumb. "Sometimes I worry that you're not very nice anymore."

"I think…" She lifts her head from his shoulder. "I think that you have it in you to be a fine young man. Exceptional even. I have always thought that. Mothers are supposed to, aren't they? But I don't think you're there yet. Not yet. I think you've got some way to go. That's all."

They sit there for a while until eventually he says, "There's nothing I can say to that."

"I see."

"I mean… can I speak frankly?"

"There's nothing that you have to say."

"I'm sorry, Mum. I am so, so sorry."

"I'll stay. Tonight."

"Go on then."

"Are you angry with me?"

"In what way?"

He remembers his lie. "Yes, yes I will. And I'm sorry if I haven't been very… very good today."

He turns a page of the newspaper. "Yes, I know."

"Well. I suppose there's always the next time," she says, and smiles.

"Tonight?"

"Thank Emma for me," she says. "For the books."

He stands, holds her shoulders lightly, and presses his cheek against hers -- he can hear her breathing in his ear, the warm, sweet breath -- then he walks to the door.

"Send her my love. When you see her tonight."

"There didn't seem much point. Also I tend to think that I shouldn't have to." He turns another page. "You're not fourteen years old, Dexter."

"I will."

"Yes. You're seeing her tonight."

"Why didn't you wake me, Dad?"

"I overslept," says Dexter, to his father's back.

Dexter takes the stairs at a run, counting on the momentum to hold him together, but his father is in the hallway reading the local newspaper, or pretending to. Once again, it's as if he has been waiting for him, a sentry on duty, the arresting officer.

"May I ask why?" he says, indignant.

"My car keys."

Dexter can't help but laugh. "You can't hide my keys!"

Dexter laughs, but without conviction. "No, I'm not!"

His father glances over his shoulder. "Dexter, I know when someone is drunk. You in particular. I've been seeing you drunk for twelve years now, remember?"

His father lifts his head from the paper, as if sniffing the air. "Because you are drunk."

"But it means I've got to go now!"

"Well clearly I can because I have. Do you want to play looking for them?"

"But I'm not drunk, I'm hungover, that's all."

"Well, if you've got to go…" The sentence peters out. He can see Cassie in the living room, also pretending to read, her face flush with condemnation and self-righteousness. Get out of here now, just go, because this is all about to break. He places one hand on the hall table for his keys, but it comes up empty.

In the living room, Cassie gets up from the sofa, crosses to the door and pushes it closed.

"I've hidden them," says his father, reading the paper.

"I'm not going to argue with you, Dexter."

Again, Dexter gives a scoffing laugh, and rolls his eyes in protest, but no words will come out, except for a feeble, high-pitched "Dad, I am twenty-eight years old!"

On cue his father says, "Could have fooled me," then reaches into his pocket for his own car keys, tossing them in the air and catching them in feigned joviality. "Come on. I'll give you a lift to the station."

Sometimes I worry that you're not very nice. His father drives in silence, Dexter steeping in shame in the big old Jaguar. When the silence can no longer be borne, his father speaks, quietly and soberly, eyes fixed on the road. "You can come and get your car on Saturday. When you're sober."

"Well either way, you are not driving home."

Dexter does not say goodbye to his sister.

He huffs and slides down in his seat, his forehead and nose pressed against the window as the country lanes and smart houses flash by. His father, who has always abhorred all confrontation and is clearly in agony here, punches on the radio to cover the silence and they listen to classical music: a march, banal and bombastic. They approach the train station. The car pulls into the car park, emptied now of commuters. Dexter opens the car door, places one foot on the gravel, but his father makes no gesture of goodbye, just sits and waits with the engine running, as neutral as a chauffeur, his eyes fixed on the dashboard, fingers tapping to that lunatic march.

"I'm sober now," says Dexter, hearing his own voice, still whining and petulant, the voice of his sixteen-year-old self. "For Christ's sake!" he adds, redundantly.

And suddenly there is real rage in his father's face, his teeth bared and clenched tight, his voice cracking: "Do not dare to insult my intelligence or your mother's, you are a grown man now, you are not a child." Just as quickly the rage is gone, and instead he thinks his father might be about to cry. His bottom lip is trembling, one hand is gripping the wheel, the long fingers of the other hand wrapped around his eyes like a blindfold. Dexter hurriedly backs out of the car and is about to stand and close the door, when his father turns off the radio and speaks again. "Dexter --"

Dexter knows he should accept his chastisement and go, but pride won't let him. "Okay, I'm going now, but can I just say, I think you're completely over-reacting to this…"

Dexter stoops, and looks in at his father. His eyes are wet, but his voice is steady as he says -- "Dexter, your mother loves you very, very much. And I do too. We always have and we always will. I think you know that. But in whatever time your mother has left to her --" He falters, glances down as if looking for the words, then up. "Dexter, if you ever come and see your mother in this state again, I swear, I will not let you into the house. I will not let you through our door. I will close the door in your face. I mean this."

Dexter's mouth is open, though there are no words.

"Now. Please go home."

The rural train station is empty. He looks along the length of the platform for the payphone, the old familiar payphone that he used as a teenager to make his plans of escape. It's 6.59 p. m. The London connection will be here in six minutes, but he has to make this call.

At 7 p. m., Emma takes one last look in the mirror to ensure that it doesn't seem as if she has made any kind of effort. The mirror leans precariously against the wall and she knows that it has a foreshortening, hall-of-mirrors effect, but even so she clicks her tongue at her hips, the short legs below her denim skirt. It's too warm for tights but she can't bear the sight of her scuffed red knees so is wearing them anyway. Her hair, newly washed and smelling of something called forest fruits, has fallen into a "do", flicked and fragrant, and she scrubs at it with her fingertips to muss it up, then uses her little finger to wipe smears of lipstick from the corner of her mouth. Her lips are very red, and she wonders if she's overdoing it. After all, nothing's likely to happen, she'll be home by 10.30. She drains the last of a large vodka and tonic, winces as it reacts metallically with the toothpaste, picks up her keys, drops them in her best handbag, and closes the door.

Dexter closes the car door, but it doesn't lock. He closes it again just as his father, flustered too, jolts forwards, then into reverse, leaving the car park at speed. Dexter stands and watches him go.

The phone rings.

"Hi there, Emma, it's Dexter here. What was I going to say? Well I was going to say I'm at this train station near home and I've just come from Mum's and… and I wondered what you were doing tonight. I have tickets for the Jurassic Park premiere! Actually we've missed that I think, but maybe the party afterwards? Me and you? Princess Di will be there. Sorry, I'm waffling, in case you're there. Pick up the phone, Emma. Pick up pick up pick up pick up. No? Okay, well I've just remembered, you have your date tonight, don't you? Your hot date. Well -- have fun, call me when you get in, if you get in. Let me know what happens. Seriously, call me, soon as you can."

"… leave your message after the beep and I'll get back to you."

She is halfway down the institutional hallway when she hears it. For one moment she contemplates running back to answer it but she is late already, and it's probably just her mum or sister to find out how the interview went. At the end of the hall she can hear the lift door opening. She runs to catch it, and the doors of the lift close just as the answering machine picks up.

The rails are clicking now, and he can hear the hum of the train approaching, but he can't get on board, not in this state. He'll just have to wait for the next one. The London train arrives and seems to be waiting for him, ticking politely, but Dexter stands shielded by the plastic carapace of the payphone booth, feels his face crumple inwards and his breath become broken and jagged, and as he starts to cry he tells himself that it's just chemical, chemical, chemical.

He stumbles, catches his breath, then says: "Just an unbelievably shitty day, Em," and falters again. "I've just done something so, so bad." He should hang up, but he doesn't want to. He wants to see Emma Morley so that he might confess his sins, but she's on a date. He pulls his mouth into a grin and says "I'll call you tomorrow. I want to know everything! Heartbreaker you." He hangs up. Heartbreaker you.