Have sex with a girl who isn’t a prostitute. (‘Why did you need to put the prostitute bit in?’ ‘For practice.’ ‘It’s disgusting.’ ‘Loads of people do it.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Every single rapper in the world.’ ‘Not Will Smith.’ ‘Probably Will Smith.’)
4. Cocaine. (‘Aslam, when have we ever done cocaine?’ ‘That time in the woods by Matt’s.’ ‘That was like speed and mephedrone. It might have even been crushed-up sweeteners.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘I kissed Sarah and Ben didn’t sleep for two days. But he drank four Red Bulls too, so I don’t know.’ ‘Okay, fine. Do some drugs, though.’ ‘I’m not going to do drugs on my own. I ate some of Mum’s codeine.’ ‘Okay, cross this one off.’)
5. Go to the pub with Aslam.
‘I’m not coming out,’ I say. ‘Alice sort of sexed Aaron Mathews. Nothing is ever going to happen ever again. I’m staying in bed.’
‘You have to get back on the wagon sometime.’ ‘That means not drinking.’
‘Does it?’
‘Yes. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Come out.’
‘No.’
‘I’m going to do an intervention on you.’
‘I’m not letting you into my house. I’ll lock everything.’ Me and Aslam sometimes play a game where we break into each other’s houses. You have to find a way in and sneak up on the other person and shout police.
‘You’re being a dick.’
‘I want to not do anything.’
‘I’m trying to help.’
He hangs up. I don’t understand why people can’t just let other people lie in their beds and slowly disappear if that’s what they want to do. People are allowed to get facial tattoos and sex changes and speedboats, but I’m not allowed to stay in bed for four days. Aslam’s being a dick. Amundsen nudges the door open and climbs up next to me. He never makes me go to The Outside and sit in pubs and talk about girls with him. He’s a perfect friend.
*
Amundsen wakes me up with ear licking. Morning colours wiggle under my eyes. I stare at the ceiling. I imagine Damien Hirst pulling the roof off and pouring formaldehyde into my bedroom. Me and Amundsen will never move again. We’ll sit in the middle of a museum until someone buys us for one million pounds.
It’s still raining.
I go downstairs and boil the kettle and make Nesquik tea. Amundsen goes into the garden to touch things with his nose. He plays staring with a squirrel near the dead apple tree. I look at the mound where the butter knife is buried and feel somehow like I miss my eleven-year-old self. I imagine sitting with him on the sofa, simultaneously scratching our hands and talking about how everything outside of this house is upsetting and unnecessary.
I make a cigarette. My phone shakes.
Alice to me: wer r u? I want to come home now. Let’s watch evry Wes Anderson in my bed.
There’s a bald man in the television saying that another man has died. Cher Lloyd comes on and a blonde woman asks her questions about nothing. Cher Lloyd smiles and looks at a camera and says something about being yourself. I don’t want to be myself, Cher. Leave me alone. The bald man appears again. The bald man says things about money and debt. None of it is real. None of it is happening. The only real thing is Alice. Alice is the only thing that exists. Alice doesn’t exist any more. Alice and Aaron Mathews. They are still sort of having sex in my head. He is extremely well endowed. Big feet. The bald man points at me. He knows everything.
‘Following the emergence of leaked information regarding Alice Calloway, Etgar Allison has suffered considerable loss of motivation, energy and interest in his usual pursuits (Wikipedia,YouTube, Kurt Vonnegut). He has been seen to spend long periods of time staring at inanimate objects and will occasionally stop whatever he is doing to lie face down on the floor and sing “One Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton (a song he has described as “all that’s left”).
‘In an official statement given earlier today, he described bed as “better than sex” and Alice Calloway as “the horriblest bitch I know”.’
I go back up to my bedroom and sit in the middle of my carpet with Mum’s computer. Macy’s online.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi.’
‘Are you at work?’
‘Yes.’
‘What can you see?’
I look at the bonsai tree Mum bought me for Christmas. Its leaves are composting in piles along my windowsill. The sky behind is grey and empty.
‘The whole of London. It’s raining a little. There are red lights on the tops of buildings. The sky is pink and orange.’
‘Sounds beautiful.’
‘It is but there are people next to it, and things with people next to them aren’t fun.’ That sounds too bleak. Stop being bleak. ‘I mean too many people. There are a lot of people and I don’t want to see them.’
‘At least you get to meet girls if you want to.’
‘You don’t get to meet men?’
‘Sometimes, when my ex takes the kids. Usually there’s no time.’
‘So you cyber?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘I don’t really go out and meet girls.’
‘Why not?’
Because they tend not to go for fifteen-year-old boys with back acne and anxiety issues.
‘Because I’m not very good at it.’
‘You’re fine at it,’ she says. ‘And you’re young. You probably pick them up in clubs by sliding drinks down bars and winking.’
‘I don’t do that,’ I say. ‘I don’t slide glasses at people. I’d worry about the glass smashing and pieces going on the girl and her suing me.’
‘A man did it to me once and I slid the drink back to him.’
‘I’d be scared of that.’
‘But it’s nice to have drinks slid at you.’
‘I guess.’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you doing now?’
‘Just chatting. Kids in bed.’
‘I still wish people could climb through computers.’ ‘Me too. Just not to here. You should try.’
‘I’m trying.
