HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR BOSS?

I hear sporadic laughter bursting out through the office. Elaine is in fits, trying to suppress her high seagull screech laughter. The guy at the desk across from me spits coffee all over his PC screen as he explodes into a laughter-induced choking fit.

Tim is in the midst of a severe meltdown and I don’t blame him. In terms of character assassination, it is a six man rifle squad all aimed directly at Alma's character, personality, dress sense, looks, soup and cigarettes obsession and racist views. Every detrimental aspect which makes up her workplace persona has now been condensed, displayed, and viewed by the whole of the office. Over two hundred people.

I had written this satirical questionnaire one afternoon at work –whilst severely pissed off for some reason or other, and had sent it to a few friends in the office, but not Tim, he hadn’t been in that day. It didn’t mention Alma by name, but every question was linked directly to her. Someone wanted Tim in trouble and had found a nice easy way to do it and at the same time manage to humiliate Alma.

I look over at Alma’s empty office. She was probably out topping up her nicotine intake.

“If I was you I would get over to her computer now and delete that email before she gets back. Do it now. Quick.”

Like me, Tim is a temp, and not one of Alma’s inner-circle of friends, Easily expendable and replaceable.

He darts up and races down the room, receiving rounds of applause and cheers as he runs over to Alma's office, all the time protesting his innocence in a high pitched squeal.

“Have you read this, Cal? He is going to be in so much trouble. I think this will be a sacking offence.”

Rick stands over me with a printout of the memo and begins reading it out to me word for word in his booming German accent. As if I needed reminding of what it said.

2 Your boss has been asked the question: “What are your views on racial equality in the workplace?” What is her answer?

3 What example does your boss set with her own dress code in the workplace?

C Leisure/track suits, bought from Sunday supplement magazines, i.e. nylon with elasticated waistbands, a bargain for the whole family at £2.99 each, which blow out like a tent in the wind.

B “They have to sign a late book and then give me some obviously made up excuse, which I never fucking believe, and then they get down and give me fifty press-ups.

C “I’ll take those fuckers down, down to Chinatown if they’re even two minutes late. It’s just taking the piss, isn’t it? I get up at five am, why shouldn’t they?

B A light to moderate drinker, but has been known to get a little tipsy.

C Gets completely fucked by nine and is taken home in an ambulance.

6 Which description best fits your boss as you arrive at work in the morning?

A Bright and breezy, always happy to see you, lights the workplace up.

A Always the boss, I know I can rely on her to sort out any problems.

B I just sit and stare at my PC until home time. You get the same results.

C I’d rather go to the cleaner than ask the boss. At least the cleaner won’t try and make me look like a cunt.

8 Your boss was once stopped by the police whilst driving. What was the offence?

A Driving too slowly due to over-loading her car with stolen stationery supplies.

B I don’t like my staff making them; it’s a waste of business resources.

C Fucking great, the internet. It takes up most of my working day and I run my book club business from work as well. Everyone’s got to have perks, ‘innit? (Except my staff).

A Make sure someone from head office or the van driver is not off on the same day, or you won’t get it.

C Make sure you have a good excuse ready, such as your whole family has caught leprosy and you want to spend as much time with them as possible before they die. (That one rarely works).

11 Your boss tells you that she used to do modelling work. What is your response?

A You wake up in the emergency ward after a near fatal laughter attack.

B You believe her and say you saw the poster campaign for Help The Aged.

C You ask her if it was the “after” picture for the effects of smoking ninety cigarettes a day.

Mostly A’s: You don’t know your boss very well, do you? You’ve just started as a temp, had a lobotomy or are one of her chosen favourites. Give it a few more days and you will be checking out how much a contract to bump someone off costs. Alternatively, the boss still does not know you work for her as you disguise yourself as a cleaner every day, pretend you don’t speak English and are deaf and blind.

Mostly B’s: You’ve pretty much got your boss’s number: 666, the number of the beast, but you know you won’t be here much longer as you’ve already applied for the Burger King job and would take a considerable pay cut to get out of this place.

Mostly C’s: Spot on. You know your boss through and through. You’ve been here for fucking years. You now have a serious drink problem and are addicted to Prozac and any other illegal drugs you can get your hands on. The boss has noticed that you’ve already had chickenpox seven times this year, and it’s only February. She does not bother you much now, as every time she looks at you, you are making strange carvings from blue tac and sticking pins in them, whilst drooling spit and laughing hysterically. There is no hope for you, but suicide is painless.

“That is funny, yes?” Rick is red faced, tears coming from the sides of his eyes. “Most of it’s bullshit, though. Not the Alma I know.”

“Yeah he’s pretty funny. Actually, do you think he wrote it? I don’t think anyone would write something like that and then send it to the person they wrote it about. Kind of a strange resignation letter.”

“Dead man walking,” shouts Rick swaggering back to his office, waving the printout.

“I can’t do it. She’s got a password. This is shitsville. I am not taking the blame for this, Cal. I didn’t even write it.”

“Calm down. Like I said to Rick, you’re not going to be stupid enough to write that and send it so Alma can read it. Someone’s obviously trying to set you up.”

“It doesn’t matter where she is. Everyone in this building has a computer and anyone she’s speaking to could potentially open the email right in front of her. Tim,” I grip him by the shoulder, “there’s nowhere to run or hide.”

“Who did this? Who was it?” he says this while putting his head down and running his hands frantically through his hair.

I feel sorry for him now, and then it begins to dawn on me that this could be what they call a moment of truth. I could keep quiet and let Tim take the rap, and in all probability be sacked and have a shit reference on his CV. Or I could own up and admit that yes, I actually wrote the piece but it wasn’t me who sent it, and then no doubt be sacked myself.

Either way something bad was going to happen, but I knew I couldn’t let someone else take the blame for something that was partly my fault. I wasn’t about to become one of the dog eat dog people I hated just to save this shitty job. The schoolyard rules still apply. They’re just magnified here in the Big World. I wasn’t going to own up straight away. Better to play it by ear and see what pans out. At least that email had managed to put some life back into the office. At least if I were sacked it would have been worth it. Probably.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky, Tim, and everyone will stand up and say, I’m Spartacus.

Alma stands at her office door, gripping the handle. We all glance at her and then quickly look down at our computers. What makes it blatantly obvious to her that we have all seen the email is the silence...the office is now in complete silence. Only the hum of the computers and the whirring of printers can be heard, although I’m pretty sure I can hear Tim’s heart beating.

I look back down, hear her door slam and that’s it. For the rest of the afternoon she holes herself up in her office and never reappears. Her blinds were down so no one could see what was happening in there and inwardly I found myself sighing in pity. I had never meant for this to happen. She was obviously upset and indirectly I was the cause of it.

By leaving-time the mood in the office had largely changed in Alma's favour. There were still people congratulating Tim, mostly the younger ones, but the older workers who had been here for years told him that he’d gone too far. Every time he protested his innocence I sat there trying not to look guilty, trying to work out who had done this.

“Tim, just leave it. Let her sleep on it. I mean either she can bluff it out and pretend that it isn’t about her, or she’ll call a meeting about it tomorrow.”

“I can’t have this hanging over my head until tomorrow. I need to tell her it wasn’t me.”

“I’m going for a drink,” I say. “I’ll be in the World’s End if you want to come along.”

Walking through Camden High Street is usually enough to give me a buzz after a day cooped up in the office. I’ve always liked this area of London, you can find every species of human here, but today I’m not in the mood to window shop on the parade. I make my way directly to The World's End and enter the quieter side bar instead of the heaving, cavernous main bar where I usually go to drink and check out the population whenever I’m in the mood for a good time.

I sit down with a pint of Guinness and consider the route to take in this particular dilemma, but I know there’s only one possible outcome. If Tim is going to be sacked, that’s it, I’ve got to own up. There’s no alternative. I have fucked up, plain and simple. I should never have sent that memo out to anyone. I had forgotten what other people are like, people with hidden agendas, people who love to shit on others and cause trouble just for the sheer hell of it. People who...

Sofia appears and sits down beside me, beaming that killer smile that makes me happy and sad at the same time.

“Just having a drink, needed to unwind after today, you know what Mondays are like.”

“I know. I thought Alma would’ve went ape over that memo. Tim’s in the shit now.”

“You wrote it? I had no idea,” she says quietly and then continues. “Oh fuck Tim, and you didn’t send it did you? I know he’s your mate, but screw taking the blame for him.”

“Stop being a martyr, Cal. Do you think he’d do the same for you? Look, can you keep a secret?”

I think she’s about to tell me some gossip about Tim, or maybe some juicy sex scandal doing the rounds in the office, but in the back of my mind I have a feeling she is about to tell me something I don’t want to hear.

“Because that little shit has gotten on my nerves from day one, and actually he gets on all the women’s nerves in there. He’s always pestering me, never leaves me alone and when someone sent me that questionnaire I thought fuck it, kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of Tim and show Alma what people think of her.”

Suddenly the rose-coloured glasses had slipped and the ideal of near but not quite perfection that she had been was now gone.

“I can’t believe you did that. Someone tries to chat you up and you end up getting them the sack. If he was getting to you that much, why not just tell Alma instead of doing all this shit?”

“Because Alma’s been getting right on my nerves. You know what she’s like, the way she treats people, her views...she deserves it.”

“Look, I’m not that bothered about Alma reading it, although it wasn’t my intention that she ever would, but involving him is out of order, and I’m involved as well. I don’t even know why you would tell me you did this.”

“Because I thought you’d understand, that's why. I’m not letting people fuck around with me.”

“This isn’t a game. This is people's lives you’re playing with. Do you get so bored in the office that anything's fair game to while away the hours? I know you got fed up playing me, so what, you thought you’d move to something else?”

“You were the one who went silent on me Cal. Everything I wrote in that letter was true. You didn’t even acknowledge my existence after that. What? Was it too much for your ego to take? My life has been in a mess for a long time. I can’t just jump between relationships because a guy shows interest in me.”

“You don’t know anything about my life or what I’ve been through, so don’t judge me.”

“I know that you don't shit on people just because you’re having a bad time. Fuck it. I’m getting another drink. Do you want anything?”

I should have just left right then, but as I stood there at the bar looking at her I knew that I couldn’t hate her for what she’d done. Maybe it was the fact that she kept life interesting. These games she played and involved people in – as if the world were her own little playground – kept things from getting boring. She had managed to turn a hangover Monday where nothing ever happens into a minefield of problems to be solved. She sat there with that innocent expression on her face as if she wouldn’t harm a fly, when in reality there was something darker below the surface, some part of her that wanted to cause trouble and shake things up, as if she knew that life was just too short to punch the keys and sleepwalk through every day.

But I still can’t forgive the fact that she involved an innocent person in her games. As I look over at her sitting there, she looks up towards me and smiles and I can't help it...I want to believe, I want to believe that there is something else inside Sofia, that this is all maybe just some cry for help. She wants someone to save her, just as I want someone to save me and once again I am hooked. Deep down inside I know this is all part of her game. Now that I know she was the one who sent the memo, she’ll be wondering what my next move is going to be. We are still playing.

Oh great, this is all I need. Tim waves to me from the other side of the bar. I pretend that I haven’t heard him and walk over to Sofia.

Why am I feeling guilty? I haven’t done anything wrong. And then it hits me that Tim is about to sit down with the person who wrote the questionnaire and the person who sent it.

“Cal, mate, all right? Sofia, how you doing? Sorry, I didn’t know it was going to be the two of you.”

“All right, Tim. No, we just bumped into each other in here. Both gagging for a drink I guess.”

“Oh, she’s pissed right off. She knows it’s about her but she’s not letting on. She’s going to decide what to do tonight. There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow. She didn’t really want to discuss it with me. I just want to know who hates me enough to try and get me sacked.”

“I don’t know, mate. You got any ideas, Cal?” Sofia looks over and smiles at me as she says this.

“What, do you think it was a girl then? I don’t think I’ve got on any girl's nerves that much.”

“Well it looks like the sort of thing some girl would do,” I say, looking directly at Sofia. “You know what these game players are like. A guy would just confront you if he had a problem. Some pissed-off girl might hatch what they thought was an elaborate plan and then wait for the fun to begin. That’s how some of them get their kicks isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but it could be a guy,” Sofia says casually. “Some guys are just too cowardly to confront people and would hide behind something like this. Maybe we’ll never find out.”

“It’s office politics bullshit, that’s what it is, and I’m the fall guy. I’m really not in the mood for this drink. I’m gonna’ get off home, get my head straight for tomorrow. I’ll see you guys.”

“Yeah, see you, Tim, take care. What about you Cal, do you want to stay out with me for a few more drinks?”

“Don’t get me wrong Cal. I seriously do give a shit, but unlike you I don’t go around giving a two-minute analysis on people. I like to see what people are really made of.”

“Yeah well, I guess we’ll see what some people are really made of tomorrow.”

My mind is a virtual trash can by the time I make it home. Thoughts are floating all around it, banging into each other. I really wanted to stay with Sofia and get drunk but I just can’t deal with her tonight. All her talk just seems to be leading nowhere. She knows if I land her in it it's just my word against hers and I'd still have to admit it was me who had written it. Catch 22.

The living room is in near darkness but I can make out Kara’s figure slumped in the corner chair, curled in a ball, and I can hear her sobbing. I flick on the light.

I switch on the small lamp and bend down to her, lift up her face, which reveals a large purplish bruise on her cheek, her eyes puffy from crying.

“He isn’t going to leave his wife, he doesn’t love me and he doesn’t want to see me again.”

She reaches over and takes a swig from the bottle of Absolut sitting on the table.

“Get yourself a glass, Cal. Have a drink with me to celebrate how shit our lives really are.”

“No, I gave as good as I got. I started hitting him first. I just lost it when he told me this. He’s found someone else, someone who wasn’t always pestering him to talk after sex or wanting to go out to dinner all the time, and she is younger.”

Younger than Kara? Kara’s 25. How much younger did this guy want? I take the bottle from her and pour myself a large one, and then sit down at her feet.

She says this very quietly, deflated, as if the life has disappeared from her. How many times has she been through this in her short life? You fall in love with someone only to have it end with a kick in the face. The bruise will fade quickly, but the mental scarring can last for years, changing your character forever.

“He’s not worth it Kara.” Cliché Man strikes again. “You can do a lot better than that piece of shit.”

“Yeah, but you don’t do it all the time. I mean, when you think about it, he really he was your only client. Kara, you're a beautiful woman. Any guy would be lucky to be with you. If that fuck-head can't see what you’re worth then he definitely has more money than sense.” I mentally tick off each cliché I’m saying on one hand.

She passes the bottle down to me and I pour another large glass. I can hear her sobbing again. This is going to be a long night.

A few hours later and we’re both pretty wrecked. Kara has at least stopped crying, her mood turning from despair to anger and now she’s reached some sort of quiet resignation. The drink seems to be helping, somehow. It's helping me anyway. I have completely forgotten about Sofia and Tim and work problems. I lie on the couch on my back with Kara lying on top of me on her back, my arms across her, my fingers edging the outline of the piercing in her stomach. Jeff Buckley is sitting in the corner of the room, softly singing songs from Grace, and we haven’t talked now for about twenty minutes. We drink the vodka and comfort each other in a silence that is broken only by the police sirens as they rush by to deal with someone else’s troubles in the city.

“Well, I know I’ve only known you for a few months, but I don’t think you’ve had a girl back here since you moved in, unless you're sneaking them in. What are you waiting on? What is it you’re looking for?”

“Unconditional love,” I reply half-heartedly, a line that I find myself repeating in deja vu situations like these.

“Complete bullshit. That’s just a myth made up by poets and writers...you know, delusional people,” she laughs. “It doesn’t exist.”

“I know, but it’s kind of what we’re all searching for isn’t it? Someone who’ll take us, faults and all. Failing that, a good fuck will do.”

“Kara, you’re drunk, I’m drunk. Do you really think that would be the answer to our problems?”

I can’t help myself. We start to kiss. Soft, slow, wet kisses, our lips melting into each other, one tongue rubbing against the other. The alcoholic fuzzing of the brain makes it feel even better, as if I am drowning into her, Buckley singing, “Lover, you should’ve come over”, it’s too much. She turns around and lies against me and we kiss for I don’t know how long, then we move to her bed, pulling off each other’s clothes, stripping each other.

I start to kiss her neck, working my way down her body, sucking on her nipples until they are hard, as she tells me to bite, my hands pressing against her warm skin as she pushes my head further down, lower. Kissing her soft stomach, tasting her flesh, smelling her body, in-between her thighs, tasting her through her underwear and then pulling off her underwear and then I am inside. My tongue tasting her wetness, pushing deep inside and then slower, running my tongue back and forth as she runs her hands through the back of my hair, pulling my head tight against her, my fingers running up and down her thighs and then inside her moving in time with her thrusts and I know I won’t stop until she comes.

Instinctively I’m listening to the noises she is making. I want to make her feel good, I want to take her mind off the troubles she has, and as the rhythm becomes more urgent and I suck and lick over and over again she becomes more frantic. Her legs part wider, her moans grow louder, out of control and I look up at her in the light filtering through the window and see her face become tense, willing herself to let go, until finally she is still and I can see the flush cover her face and neck as she gasps and holds my head tightly against her. She slowly relaxes and begins to stroke the back of my head.

Monday is nearly over, and as we lie there holding each other I think that at least it has ended on a good note. Tuesday is far away at this moment, if it even exists at all.

Kara doesn’t answer because Kara is nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t heard her leave this morning and at first I thought it must be pretty early, but now I realise it's me who’s late.

This is becoming too much of a habit even for me. I’m really taking the piss out of the description of temporary worker. I hear the bleeping again and bend over to grab my trousers. Someone is texting my mobile.

“While u hve bin lying in bed, ur 'ickle friend has bin sacked. When u wrnt in by 10 I covrd and said u were feeln ill last night. C what a friend I am?”

A wake up call from Sofia. Tim sacked. There's nothing I can do about it just now. At least I have a day’s reprieve from the downpour of shit flowing around my feet. I call my agency and feed them a bad curry excuse. Then, lying back down on the bed, I remember last night and the consequences last night would now bring.

I can smell Kara’s perfume on the sheets and on my body. I have an ominous feeling that last night’s only going to bring more trouble. The fact that Kara left this morning without waking me signifies that something is wrong. And where was she going this early in the morning? She usually only gets in around noon.

Images of Kara and I together keep drifting through my head. I have to admit to myself that it was the best time I’d had in a long while, but had I taken advantage of her? She was emotionally distressed and very drunk, but then so was I. She’d never displayed any interest in me before on that level. I had always found her attractive but it just didn’t seem like a good idea due to the flatmates scenario. And suppose I did get serious about her. I don’t think I would be able to handle the jealousy that her kind of work would inspire in a long term-relationship scenario. Hypocrite. Forget about Kara for now. She’s using up too much brainpower too early in the day.

A day off work. What to do with a day off work. By noon I'd already gotten rid of the worst part of the day. I’d tidied up Kara’s bedroom, which mainly consisted of throwing a used condom in the bin and emptying an overflowing ashtray. What now? If I’d just arrived in London the possibilities would be endless, but as I’d lived here twice before I’d pretty much seen everything I had wanted to, as well as some things I could have lived without seeing.

By two o’ clock I’m sitting outside a coffee shop just off Leicester Square, drinking a tourist priced coffee and waiting on a text from Kara. I've already sent two texts with not at all probing messages. Just asking where she is and hoping she is okay; definitely no mention of the previous night. The crowds are tourist heavy, either on their way to Piccadilly Circus or heading down to gawp at Nelson's Column. Their cameras are no doubt already filled with snapshots of them standing in front of every conceivable tourist attraction. Relatives and friends will be bored for weeks to come with their fabulous trip to London. And then I see him coming towards me.

Fuck. Baxter. God, I hate Baxter. I don't exactly hate him...I could just do without him sucking up my brainwaves today. I lift up my menu to cover my face, hiding behind it, pretending to read the words, but it's no use.

Baxter hovers into my airspace. He's over six feet tall and almost as wide, if that’s possible. Red hair and thick, black rimmed glasses.

"Who is that?" I pretend the sun is blocking my view of him, although it’s actually the other way around. "Oh, hey, Baxter. How you doing?"

He sits down and scans the menu, discards it and then lights a cigarette. He's annoying me already so I decide to pre-empt any further annoyance by asking some awkward questions.

"Was a joke, wasn’t it?" he grimaces. “My lawyer just did not get what I was trying to do. Fined and put on the sex offenders register."

"It was a statement. I was making a protest against those fuckers who are killing babies in Africa with powdered milk."

"Because I wanted to get caught. It got the message out, didn’t it? I was in the papers a few times. Believe me, if I’d done what I was going to do I would’ve been in a lot more papers, television, the works."

"Why, what were you going to do?" I’m not sure I want to know the answer to this.

"Let’s just say if I hadn’t had too much to drink the night before and hadn’t been so hungover the hot chocolate would’ve been extra creamy."

"Jesus Baxter, you sick bastard. You know they probably would’ve put you in a mental home if you had done that."

"Yeah well, I didn’t get the chance and there were too many people milling around the shop. Pissing was easier."

"It's what I do, Cal. It's how I conduct my life. Look, what's your life’s theme?"

"Exactly. You. Do. Not. Have. One," he spits out each word. “There is no theme whatsoever to your life. You're lost. You're one of those people who hopes or is sure that something is going to happen, so you just sit and wait. Maybe it will happen, but more than likely it won’t. I'm not willing to take the chance that it will. I'm an instigator. I make things happen. I control the theme of my life. It doesn’t control me."

This is what pisses me off about him. Most of the time he talks crap and I don't know whether to believe what he's saying or not. But he'll say something like that and force you to look at how your own life is panning out without even realising it.

"It's..." I'm grasping at straws, "...it's hidden under a myriad of plotlines and will reveal itself when the time is right."

"Ha! You prick. I knew it. No theme. Yet you lie with some creative talent. What are you working at now?"

"The theme, the theme. Come back and do some articles for me, it's better than sitting in some mindless office working for the man."

"The man?" I sneer. “How do you make money on your website again, remind me? Isn’t it from Google advertisements? Google, a billion dollar corporation. Very radical, very cutting edge."

"Yes, but ,Cal, they do not have say over the content. That's down to the writers and you were quite good at it, if a little undisciplined."

Baxter proceeds to stub out his cigarette then takes a slug from my coffee while fishing around in his jacket pocket with his free hand. He takes out a joint and lights it.

I had worked on Baxter's website when it was still quite small, writing four hundred word articles on any topic under the sun. They mostly took the form of questions. What is plastic surgery? Who was Attila the Hun? What is the best way to treat genital warts? In the end it was too much hard work for too little pay.

"Well the editor you assigned me didn’t think I was that good, always complaining," I say, eyeing the joint, “always cutting out good lines and complaining about misplaced commas. That was her job, to correct my mistakes and she was paid double the amount I was."

"She's not there anymore. Once we got Google into it she wanted a lot more pay. Come on, thirty quid per article. What do you say?"

He handed me the joint and I thought about how easy it would be to work from home, writing those crappy articles. Some of them only took twenty minutes but some could take a couple of hours although thirty quid for an hour’s work, which was four times the amount he had previously paid would be over double the amount I was making slaving as a temp, and at least I would be writing again, even if it was this drivel.

I hand him back the joint and my phone starts buzzing at the same time my head does.

"My boyfrnd is out till tmrw. Y not come tonite for a chat? Will fill u in on work. Txt me bk."

"Anything important?" Baxter says, standing up and handing me his business card.

I'm sitting across from Sofia in the living room of her tiny flat, wondering why I’m here. I’d sworn to myself no more of Sofia’s games, and yet each time she contacts me I happily run like a puppy after a stick that Sofia has just thrown. We're drinking red wine and Sofia is rolling a joint. When I hear from Sofia everything – or what little there actually is – flies out of the window. I don’t think about Kara or about work. It's as if my mind becomes a cotton-filled blank. Sofia is love's equivalent of self-harming.

"No, with John. He’s moving out of London next Monday. He's found a house and got his job sorted. He wants me to go as well."

I knew that no matter how much Sofia protested about her head being a mess or that she didn’t know what to do, I knew that she would go there with him.

"Well, you know, it's up to you, it's your decision. I thought it was all over between the two of you but obviously not."

I look into her brown eyes and want to tell her to tell him to fuck off. But people have to make their own decisions. Why should I give advice and then be the one who's in the wrong later down the road? I take a long hit on the joint and feel my brain and then my stomach dissolve.

"I don't know, Sofia. Ten years is a long time. You said there was no love between you anymore. Is there?"

She draws deeply on the joint and thinks about it. I wanted rid of her. I wanted her out of my life. She gets a kick out of these games. Why am I even here?

"You can't just stop loving someone, Cal, not just like that. It's hard, you know. I don’t know, maybe I should try and make it work. It's a lot to throw away."

"Well, I wouldn’t know. I told you I’ve never made it past three years with anyone, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask."

"Why? What's so valuable about my opinion? Do I look as if I’m making a great success of my life? Do I look as if I have all the answers? I'm just like anyone else, trying to make it through - the maximum fun, the minimum effort."

"You know, going by my track record," I interrupt her, standing up very shakily, "every decision I decide to make, I should suddenly stop before acting on it and do the opposite, that's how bad at decisions I am. So please do not take any advice from me, okay. If I hadn’t written that email Tim would still have a job and if I hadn’t pissed off to Greece I would still have a girlfriend who loved me."

Sofia stands up to steady me and I put my hands on her bare arms. She stares into my eyes and is about to say something that I don’t want to hear, so I don’t give her the chance.

"I've got to leave. I’m sorry. I've had too much to drink and smoke today and not enough to eat."

She's holding my arm tightly and the smell of her perfume is making my head cloud over. I flop down onto the chair.

"I can’t stay, okay, Sofia, I can’t. There's too much going on right now, problems with my flatmate."

I'm lying. I just want to get out here, into my own bed or futon. Just away from Sofia.

I take a swig of the wine and look up at her. She looks down at me and smiles, and if I wasn't so full of alcohol and weed I would realise what she has done.

It has to rank up there as one of the worst holidays of my life. Perhaps one of the worst weeks of my life although if I’d known what was going to be waiting for me back home I would have realised that the holiday was just a gentle prelude to the actual worst week of my life.

When Kate walked away at the airport I instinctively knew that I wasn’t going to see her again. Maybe it was because everyone I had spoken to about the holiday was less than enthusiastic about it being a good idea. I pretended not to pick up on the ‘ums’ and ‘ahhs’ that were coming from everyone when I told them.

I didn’t know. Maybe I saw this as a last chance for a holiday with a friend. We had arranged it a year ago. But as soon as Kate kissed me goodbye at the airport and as soon as I boarded the plane I knew I had made a big mistake. A life-changing mistake. And I hated every minute of that holiday.

For the entire week, if I wasn’t drunk I was stoned. I made no effort at all to even pretend I was enjoying myself. One night, after scoring a lump of hash, I went to a bar, locked myself in the toilet and sat in a comatose state for two hours. By the fourth day of the holiday I had hit my Grand Canyon of depressive lows. I hid from the sun during the day and went for the obligatory drinks at night, and as soon as I could I would lose my friend in a bar or club and head back to the hotel room. Once I was locked in the room I would sit on the balcony and get completely stoned.

One night the floor to ceiling glass door collapsed outwards, smashing onto the balcony, barely missing me, and it hardly even registered, just a blurry, "What was that?"

Sometimes I would sit in front of the mirror, staring at myself, hating myself for leaving Kate alone in a town we had only been in for six months.

"Look at you, you're nothing, you're a piece of shit.” I would say to my reflection, "You’re lucky to have a girlfriend like that and you just leave her? Without her you are nothing and you don't deserve her. Who the fuck do you think you are? When you get back she'll be gone and you deserve everything you've got coming to you."

Only once did I phone her. I had everything that I wanted to say to her planned in my head. How sorry I was that I had come on this stupid holiday, that I loved her and that I would get on a plane tomorrow and come back home. But when I phoned her at three in the morning and heard her voice I blanked, hung up the phone, lay down on the deserted beach and smoked more and watched the stars form into the shape of God’s face staring down at me, pointing a finger directly at me, and I don’t even believe in God. I was right about one thing, I didn’t deserve her.

I arrived at the airport back home at around eight in the morning. I didn’t bother looking for Kate. I knew she wouldn’t be there.

You don’t have to believe in karma – I don’t – but you can bet your ass that karma will have been keeping an eye on you.

The opening bars of Radiohead's No Surprises floats through my head. It's Kara's alarm sounding a wakeup call. My head is ripping apart. I have no memory of arriving home last night, but that's the beauty of blackouts - I did get home, I just can't remember how.

I don’t want to go to work today. It will be a trying day of avoidance, both Sofia and Alma. I steady my stomach with a coffee and sleepwalk through the tube crush knowing that nothing much is going to affect me in my zombified hungover state.

I spy an empty carriage as the Northern Line train pulls in. No sweatiness by the time I get to work, great. I get on and the door shuts and I notice that everyone is standing crushed at the far end of the carriage. There is only one enormous woman, lying sprawled out on the seats. I have no option and I sit down facing her. As the train starts moving she lets out a deep moan. Crazy woman alert. Now I know why everyone is standing at the other end of the carriage.

As the train speeds up she begins howling, her eyes shut tight as she rolls around in her seat. She begins shouting, "Oh my God. Oh my God."

I'm not going over there to see if she's okay, no way. Just have to sit here for ten minutes, I can bear it for ten minutes.

Her howling gets louder and her eyes open from time to time as she lets out more moans. Every train stop we make is like a stab in the guts to her. Drugs, it has got to be drugs. I look towards the people at the other end of the carriage, who look towards me, then back to the woman, and this spectator sport continues for most of the journey. I look at them, they look at me, and then we all look back at the screaming woman. I look closer at her until I finally work out what is wrong with her. From time to time she places her hand on her jaw, holds it and then pulls it away.

I hear her say, from time to time through a clenched, saliva loaded mouth, "My tooth."

Every time the train lurches forward or comes to a stop it is affecting her tooth. Look at these people all crushed into a corner, scared of a woman with toothache. No doubt thoughts of crazed suicide bombers are going through their heads. The war on terror has become a war against sanity, where even a woman with acute dental pain is viewed as a life threatening situation. My stop comes and I stand up and casually saunter off, past the crushed people. I could’ve told them what was wrong with her, but why spoil their no doubt exaggerated, water-cooler moment.

Switching on the computer brings the immediate effect of dumbing down my brain in order to cope with another day of boredom. The still-throbbing hangover is making this an easier task than usual. Tim’s empty seat next to me nudges me into remembering just how temporary people are in each other’s lives in this city.

No doubt I would never see him again. His work friendship with me resulted in him losing a job even though it wasn’t really my fault, at least that’s what I’m telling myself now although I could have put this right if I’d wanted to, I guess. I can see Alma hovering around, and know she will eventually make her way to me with some snide remark about my absence yesterday. I can’t spot Sofia anywhere, and although I love seeing her face I don’t really want to talk to her this morning.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I had to let Tim go. This will mean extra work for you until I can arrange a new temp, but I know you’ll be able to cope with a little extra work.”

This isn’t a request, of course, it’s a demand. She continues to speak without waiting for a reply.

“We’re one down in accounts as well but this shouldn’t affect anyone’s work in this department.”

This time she does wait for a reply. She stands, staring at me, waiting. She has some news for me and she’s waiting for me to ask a question.

“Sofia emailed her resignation last night. She won’t be coming back and her holiday leave was almost enough to cover her notice.”

For some reason it looks as if she’s relishing this. This is a small office, and as in any office, gossip is its lifeblood. She knows I am friendly with Sofia and she’s scanning my face, looking for some reaction to this news.

“Right, okay. I didn’t realise she was thinking about leaving. Two down in one day, unlucky.” I say and then smile as if I’m completely unaffected by her news.

“Strange, I thought she would have told you. Well I’m sure we’ll cope,” she says, walking away. “It’s no one we’ll miss.”

So Sofia is gone for good. That was it, her decision had been made. With no help from me last night she must have decided that I simply didn’t care enough and had taken the safer option, the easier option. The harder option? I’m not sure. Maybe I didn’t care enough. If I had, I would have said something, wouldn’t I? I would have put my side of it, told her how I felt about her, asked her not to go. Anyway, nothing was ever easy with her. I had made the right decision; I was sure of it. Yet inside my head there was another voice pushing its way past the reasonable, ‘You’ve had a luckily escape’ voice.

That voice was whispering to me over and over again. “You were scared,” it said. “You were too scared to put up a fight for something you cared about. You were simply too scared.”

I arrive home around eight and place the bottle of Johnny Walker on the living room table. Kara’s door is shut so I know she’s home. I creep over to her door but hear nothing. Cracking open the door silently I peer into the darkness and can just make out her figure underneath the duvet. Not a sound is coming from her. I shut the door quietly and once back in the living room I pour a large glass of whisky – well it is Friday night – and switch on my ancient laptop. I already know that there won’t be any emails from Sofia, but I scan both my mail and my Facebook page – nothing. I don’t know why I look at my Facebook, as I’m not even friends with Sofia on it.

It’s never a good idea to get drunk whilst browsing the internet, especially not when you have unfinished business on your mind. Getting drunk means that at some point you won’t care about the consequences of sending emails or posting messages for all to read. But in the morning there will be a point, around a minute after you wake up, when you look over at the computer and it starts to dawn that maybe you just might have written something that you wouldn’t have when sober. This can all be accomplished in only a few hours with the help of alcohol, a computer and an email address or social networking site. You won’t wake up on a park bench or in a jail cell or have work friends reminding you of what you got up to the night before, but the embarrassment will be just as great.

I awake slumped over the laptop. Daylight is shining through the blinds. I look at the quarter bottle full of whisky and feel the acid burning in my stomach. The living room door is shut, so I can assume I didn’t sneak through to Kara’s room last night. It’s nearly mid-day and that gnawing feeling in my brain has arrived to tell me that I did do something last night, I just can’t remember what that something was. I just know that I don’t want to look at my sent emails. Instead, I decide to check on Kara. Her drama will far surpass mine at the moment, I’m sure. Kara is still in bed, silent, not moving, and there is the distinct smell of vomit in the air.

No answer. I pull back her duvet slightly to reveal her face and even in the dim light I can see that she shouldn’t look this white. Vomit covers on side of her pillow next to her mouth and it doesn’t even look as if she’s breathing.

Nothing. I pull the duvet down further and that’s when the pill-bottle rolls out, empty.

I can see the pills in her vomit but I know that she could have choked on her own sick.

“What? What are you doing, Cal?” she murmurs, coming to, trying to lift her head from the pillow. Relief floods through me.

“Leave me alone, let me sleep. I’m tired. I just took some Valium to help me sleep.”

“I’m not letting you go back to sleep. You took enough pills to throw up. You could have choked on them. Sit up.”

“Pills and booze? Come on, what were you trying to do? If you don’t sit up I’m phoning an ambulance and you’re going to explain it to them.”

She sits up and looks at me through blood shot eyes and then starts to cry softly.

“I don’t know what I am doing. I just wanted to stop feeling shitty, I’m sorry. Don’t be angry with me.”

I put my arms around her and stroke the back of her head. I’m not angry with her, I’m angry at that piece of shit Kendal and I’m starting to feel slightly guilty that I may have taken advantage of her now that I realise how much he has affected her. I’m not responsible for this but now it looks as if I might have to clean up the mess caused by someone else. I’m being selfish, I know. I should feel responsible because in some way I am responsible whether I want to accept that or not.

For the rest of the weekend I’m on suicide watch, although it isn’t really suicide watch as Kara tells me she has no intention of doing this again and had no intention of doing it in the first place. We spend Saturday on the sofa, wrapped up in a duvet, sometimes talking, sometimes just avoiding talk with mindless films. I treat her as gently as I can and she tells me I am treating her like someone who is ill when I try to feed her chicken soup, but I don’t really know what else to do.

I finally put her to bed around ten after changing her sheets and pillows. When I sit back in the living room I can once again hear her crying through the thin wall, as she has done a few times throughout the day, but there’s really nothing more that I can do for her. I realise, maybe for the first time, that Kara is someone who is important to me and probably my only real friend in London. I could easily have lost her whilst drinking myself into a coma the previous night. It shouldn’t take near tragedies for people to recognise the value in each other, but more often than not it does.

I’m trying to make light of the situation, but I know Kara is about to hit me with something. We’re sitting in a small café in Wimbledon, just to get out of the flat for a bit. It’s a dark, slightly rainy Sunday and we are wedged into this little corner next to the window, doing what people do in cafes on a Sunday, talking and people watching, except we are one of the few couples without a hangover, although Kara still looks pale enough to give the illusion that she is suffering from one.

“My next step, Cal, I’ve come to a decision,” she says while circling the salt cellar repeatedly with her finger.

“It will make a difference to you. I am going home for a while, for a few months, to get my head in order.”

“I will take a break for the rest of the year if I can. I need time with familiar things, with my family. Do you think that’s wrong?”

“No.” I shake my head. “No I, well, you know you’ve worked hard to make a life for yourself here. I just don’t think you should give up because of this, because of him.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m taking a break, that’s all. I need to take a break, to re-evaluate what’s going on and I miss my home as well. Now more than ever.”

“You can stay in the flat, it’s all yours, but of course it will mean double rent unless you want to find something smaller.”

“Don’t look so sad. I’ll be back. It’s only for a few months.” She places her hand on mine, strokes my finger.

“Everything changes quickly. People just drop in, stay for a while and then drop out again.” I say.

“But that’s natural. Nothing stays the same for long, especially not in this city. If you want to make a change yourself, Cal, you must do it, no one else can. Life is about evolving not about being frozen in ice. You’ll be fine. I know it.”

She’s saying things that she thinks I want to hear to make it easier. Most people believe these unmerited statements.

By Wednesday evening Kara is gone; it’s that quick. I am now completely alone in London, or at least it feels like it. On Tuesday night we had had a slight argument, or do they call it a heated discussion, probably due to the fact that she had told me she was leaving the next day. The argument ended with me shouting that she was running away from Kendal, letting him push her out of the city. I knew inside that I wasn’t really angry with Kara, I was angry with myself.

I was angry at the fact that Sofia had left without a word and not even replied to the drunken email I had sent her on Friday night. As drunken emails go it wasn’t that bad, just a request that she get in touch and an apology that I hadn’t explained myself as well as I had wanted to, and that I really wanted to talk to her. Five days later and still no reply. I could either shut off my feelings for her or continue to analyse the situation to death. The former seemed easy but I had nothing but time at the moment, and no matter how much I tried not to think about her, it was no use. Sofia’s face kept reappearing in my head, and drinking alcohol wasn’t blanking her out.

Thursday at work brings a new face. I’m sitting trying to stop myself from clicking in and out of my email account when Alma walks over with another innocent victim unaware of the hell she is about to enter.

“Cal, this is Ellie, she’s going to be replacing Tim. I want you to show her the ropes.”

I shake Ellie’s hand. “Your training should take all of ten minutes so there’s nothing much to worry about and you will learn how to sleep with your eyes open, so bonus time there.”

“I think there is a bit more to it than that, Cal,” Alma says while walking away.

Ellie sits down and stares at me, waiting on me saying something. I figure from her clear skin and shining eyes that she must be in her early twenties. I should at least try to make a good impression, although today I’m finding it almost impossible not to simply get up and walk out of this place.

“So what did you do to deserve working here? Something bad in a previous life?” I ask.

“Ah, I’m well aware of temp job hell,” she says cheerfully. “I’m just doing this for a couple of months to save some money before going back home.”

“Baltimore but I’m moving to New York. I have friends there. So we’re sharing an apartment.”

She seems like a normal. Another person who is just using London as an experience before moving on somewhere else, to another big city. Getting as much out of life before the inevitable settling-down phase kicks in. When that happens people need memories of more exciting times to keep them going through the banality of married life with two kids and a television in every room.

For the next fifteen minutes she grills me with questions about my life in London. Why I am here, where I live, what I’ve done in the past.

She ends the Q & A session by saying, “So you want to get a drink after work?”

We have four double Jack Daniels and Cokes lined up on the bar. Neither Ellie nor I have eaten anything and by nine o’ clock we have consumed a fair amount of lager and whiskey.

“I really don’t know if I can drink any more, Cal. I’m so drunk already.”

“Well if you don’t drink, it’s all the more for me then,” I say, taking a gulp from one of the glasses.

Ellie looks into my eyes and I’m starting to realise, with the help of alcohol, how pretty she actually is. She has one of those faces that is extremely cute and no doubt easily loveable, and she has this way of talking out of the side of her mouth that for some reason I’m finding extremely enticing.

“I thought you were feeling down and disheartened because your friend had left. You seem to be enjoying yourself now,” she laughs, gripping my thigh, which at the moment is a not too unpleasant a feeling.

“Alcohol has a tendency to put me into a good mood, and I’ve got to make the most of it before the crash hits later.”

“I’m a poet,” she declares, “and you look like you could be a writer, maybe a failed writer, full of angst and anger, looking for someone to take away the pain.”

“Where the fuck did that come from?” I laugh. “The only thing I’m full of is Jack Daniels; my angst and anger has disappeared for the night. A poet? What sort of poetry do you write, like I would know the difference. Have you been published?”

“No, I don’t even send it out. I write for myself, not for anyone else to read. I write about all the places I’ve been to, the people I’ve met. I do it as a kind of scrapbook. They’re my memories for the future.”

“Well I hope they’re good ones. Good memories are probably a better investment than a pension plan,” I say, taking a cigarette out and try to light it. Ellie stares at me with an amused yet slightly shocked look.

I light the cigarette and on cue a barman is at my side. They never appear this quickly when I want a drink.

But I don’t put it out. Instead I blow the smoke into the barman’s direction.

Within a few moments I am grabbed by the ape and shunted to the front door, but instead of simply pushing me out he continues to push and shove me until I fall into the middle of the pavement.

I’m too drunk to be embarrassed and manage to stand up quickly, the cigarette still clamped between my teeth. People are walking around me, staring, and I stagger slightly trying to regain my composure. I feel a hand grab my arm.

We walk along Camden High Street and I’m glad it’s dark. I’m at the stage where I’m well aware that I’m drunk and well past the stage of making reasonable decisions, which is why I shouldn’t be answering the guy who now stands in front of us.

I take a crumpled twenty and hand it over in exchange for a small block of something that feels, and in the darkness looks, like hash. If I’d been sober I would never have bought this on the street, but I’m not sober, so why not add to the night’s entertainment?

“Anything else you would like to do tonight, Cal? I mean we could always kick a cop’s ass or something.”

My first kiss with Ellie starts with a typical drunken lunge on the platform of Camden Town tube station. She gives no resistance and we continue to kiss after changing trains at Warren Street and then Victoria, until we finally begin the walk hand in hand from Southfields to my flat.

Back at the flat I pour two glasses of whisky and unwrap the cellophane covered block of hash, which unsurprisingly crumbles into mud and small twigs.

“What did you expect? Come on, there was a good chance it was just going to be shit. Never trust a street dealer, especially when you’re drunk,” laughs Ellie.

“Yeah well, I could have done with a joint right now, would have evened me out.”

I start kissing down her neck, unbuttoning her blouse, my hands pushing underneath her, pulling her on top of me. The never ending kiss, the soft warm tongues, pushing up her skirt.

“Let’s go through to the bedroom,” she whispers into my ear. “Do you have any condoms?”

I awaken from a typically dreamless sleep and try to piece together the night before. Getting thrown out of the pub hits me first and I push that bad memory away like a glass of sour milk. I start to replay last night’s drunken sex with Ellie in my mind when my phone bleeps.

“Sorry, tried to wake you but was a thankless task. Am already at work, where r u? Hope u make it in before lunch. – Ellx”

Okay, so I’m late again, but the important question is, how late? My mobile phone says 10.30am. By the time I get ready and arrive at work it is going to be noon at least. The word ‘fuck’ repeats many times in my head. With Ellie now in place and fully trained Alma can get rid of me and hire another temp without thinking. The thought of phoning into work and using the sick excuse is almost enough to actually make me physically sick although the hangover is doing a good enough job already.

I struggle to stand up, instantly feel dizzy and have to sit down. Okay, get a grip, cigarette and coffee, phone Alma and just explain what’s happened. I pick up the phone and it immediately starts ringing. It’s my recruitment agency.

“Oh hi, Debbie, how’s it going?” I’m trying to sound casual but my voice is not playing along.

“Look, I’ve just had Alma on the phone. She said that she won’t be requiring you to come back into work.”

“Well she seems to be under the impression that you have too many other commitments and that it’s not really going to work out. What do you think?”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling too good today. I was just about to phone into work.”

“Well you won’t have to now, Cal. You know this has put my company in an awkward position, it makes us look unreliable. I’m sorry, but that job has ended. I’ll keep my eye out for something else and get back to you if anything else comes in. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Bye.”

I get back into bed, pull the duvet over my head to shut out the light, curse Alma a few times and then try to sleep. Sleep is the answer to all of life’s problems, at least temporarily, and for now, that’s enough.

“Ah well, you know, I was thinking you were maybe right. These temp jobs are going nowhere and I thought of your job offer. So if the offer’s still there I wouldn’t mind giving it a go again.”

“Look, of course I’ll give you a job, I said I would, didn’t I? But it’s hard work, none of this faffing about temporary work where you sit and play act and shuffle papers about. I want at least ten articles per day for it to be worth my while. Can you commit to that?”

“Turning up at my house without a phone call, asking about work, come on, Cal, you need the job. What happened, did you get sacked? I bet you fucking did. One too many times late were you?”

Bloody Baxter, he’s got me and he knows it. I have no negotiating power here whatsoever and he knows that as well. Just come clean and hope he has some sympathy.

“Okay, I should have known better than to try to fool you, “I laugh. “Yeah my job kind of ended, but you know it was a temporary gig.”

“Admit it, you were fired. They threw your arse out on the street like a spunked-on-too-many-times sock. Just admit it.”

“Okay, bloody hell, yes I was fired. There, you happy? I need a job and I thought of you.”

“Okay, calm down.” He hands me a glass of wine. “Just don’t want to start on the wrong foot, that’s all. I need to know I can trust my employees. Right, twenty pounds per article and at least ten per day. Think you can handle that?”

“Wait, wait, wait. When we spoke before you said thirty pounds per article.”

“Yeah, but that was when I needed people. I put adverts online and was inundated with replies from writers, most of them bloody university graduates. Supply and demand. It still works out at two hundred quid per day. Easy money for you.”

Inside my head I’m cursing him. The salary has been halved now...in what, a week? Like most employers he knows how to tighten the screws. He knows I need the money. He knows I don’t want to lose my flat or not be able to pay the bills and that’s when they’ve got you. Baxter, for all his talk of being the conscience and salvation of the working man he’s just the same as any other employer. I simultaneously gulp down some wine and what’s left of my pride.

“Excellent, excellent my little writer friend and latest employee. Let’s celebrate.”

We clink our wine glasses together and I do feel a sense of relief that I’ll at least now be able to earn some money. Working from home will also save me money at in travel charges. Plus, Baxter won’t want the hassle of paying me tax so I’ll have to sort that out myself. But that can wait for a while. I watch him skinning up a joint and settle back into his huge leather couch and knock back some more wine. The tension in my neck has gone, it’s late Saturday afternoon and when it comes to celebrating Baxter does know how to party, and he will no doubt pay for it all.

“Right a few joints, finish this wine and then move onto the tequila. And I’ve also got some of this.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, it’s raining pineapples out here.What happened to the sunshine?”

It’s true, the sun has disappeared, but as we have been ensconced in Baxter’s massive flat with the curtains shut for about five hours we have no idea when this downpour began.

“Baxter, are you sure this is a good idea? I’m feeling slightly shaky as it is.”

“Stop being a lightweight. We’ll head down to the Market Bar and see who’s in.”

We walk slowly down Portobello Road until we come to a bar situated on the corner. I peer in through the door and see it’s sardine-packed with people.

“It’s nearly 10pm on a Saturday night that’s why. These bloody tourists are always clogging up my local bars down here, hoping to catch some fucking celebs in Notting Hill.”

Baxter is shouting this as he pushes his way through the crowd to the bar while I trot along in his wake. I stand in the corner oblivious to all that’s going on around me, my gaze focussed on the huge melting candle stuck on the corner of the bar until I hear Baxter’s voice shouting above the buzzing sound of the crowd.

Staring over the throng it takes me a few seconds to make out Baxter’s reddening face only inches from a woman’s, who then slaps him as someone else behind him pushes him to the floor.

By the time I make it over to him the woman has poured a pint over his head and is now kicking him furiously in the ribs.

“Come on, come on that’s enough. His wife just left him for another woman, he’s just angry,” I lie to her, helping Baxter to his feet.

“My wife hasn’t fucking left me,” shouts Baxter, “and this woman is a lesbian if ever I saw one and I...”

Another fast punch to the face from the woman, and Baxter hits the floor once again.

“You should get this Neanderthal out of here before I do some real damage,” She spits in my face.

“Yep, yep we’re just leaving,” I say. “He’s not in his right mind just now, he’s not usually like this.”

“I fucking am in my right mind you know,” he slurs while trying to stand up. The steam has disappeared from his voice and his knees, so I wedge my arm under him and half drag him out to the bench outside the pub.

“Women shouldn’t drink pints, Cal, it’s not ladylike, and they shouldn’t refuse when offered a drink.”

“Jesus, Baxter, let’s just go back to yours. I thought I was bad, you’re a fucking mess.”

“Watch it. I’m your employer now. Let’s go to another pub, come on. I’m fine, I’m fine. Some people can’t take a joke, that’s all. Fuck them if they can’t take a stupid little joke.”

Baxter’s face lands on my shoulder, his soaking wet hair dripping on my cheek. He’s in no condition to go anywhere but should just about manage the five minute stagger to his house with my help. I hoist him up and as the drool drips from his chin I wonder if I should actually photograph this and use it as negotiating power to ensure a wage rise.

Knowing Baxter, a one off original who pisses on canned goods in supermarkets because he thinks it’s a ‘cause’, tonight’s escapades will simply seem like a good night out for him. He will walk back into that pub when sober and think nothing of it. To him, that’s character and makes him a character.

The rainy days are finally gone and every morning the city workers, tourists and those who merely exist and survive in this metropolis will awake to see bright sunshine pouring through their windows. Summer is always welcomed by the tourists. It means long days of sightseeing in shorts and t-shirts. It means sitting outside in pavement cafes and in parks and bars enjoying coffees or cold beers while undertaking the obligatory people watching scenario.

For the city workers however, the months of continual heat can be a torturous prospect. For city workers it means a daily commute standing in the vacuum packed sardine cans commonly known as the tube. You can take a shower before you leave home but that cold shower will simply be a happy memory by the time you reach the office - it’s like putting a band aid over a shotgun wound. The sweat from that tube ride will linger all day and God help those who work in offices without air conditioning – forget Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, these people are the true cooler kings.

It’s ten in the morning when I awake on the first day of my work from home job. Awake is a major overstatement as sleep was almost impossible to attain throughout the night. I am still feeling the after effects of Saturday night’s drinking and have been sweating profusely during Sunday night as a result of both the amount of alcohol I had consumed and the oppressive heat in this non air-conditioned flat. The ice cube trays placed on my back during the night had a momentary cooling effect but constant deep sleep evaded me.

I know from previous experience that this summer heat will be relentless and there is going to be no reprieve, even during the night. My flat has turned into a claustrophobic crematorium and I am going to be stuck inside, my skin slowly simmering in this oven for most of the day now that I am working from home. Item number one on the agenda, buy a fan.

I make coffee and switch on the computer. Baxter has duly sent me the link that will take me to a spreadsheet where I can choose the ten articles to be written today. The thought of writing 4,000 words today after a sleepless night makes my heart sink slightly, but I have plenty of time. No distractions just get down to it, although the television remote control is already taunting me. Okay, a quick email to see if there are any messages, that won’t take up much time. Nothing, wait, there is one, from Baxter. I click on it.

Okay 400 words on dental implants, which should be easy enough and take minimal research time. I begin looking at the information on the net. This is easy, just find an outline of a dental implant procedure and then rewrite in my own words. This should take about 45 minutes.

The phone rings. No distractions, don’t answer it, you are working from home and if you were in the office you wouldn’t be allowed to take personal calls.

“Hello, Cal, this is Astrid, Kara’s mother. I’m glad to be able to finally talk to you.”

“Hi. How’s Kara? I haven’t heard from her at all since she left for home. Is she okay?”

“That is what I am phoning about. Kara has mentioned you a few times since arriving back home. I already knew you were sharing a flat but she hasn’t mentioned the exact nature of your relationship.”

“Kara is not well at all. She barely leaves her room and won’t tell me the specifics of why she left London or why she left her course. It’s all just generalities such as she just needed a break. I have never seen her this down and depressed before. I thought you may be able to help shine some light on this. I am really worried about her.”

Was it my place to tell Kara’s mother what had happened? If Kara didn’t want her knowing then I didn’t really see telling her as an option.

“Kara was feeling down and said she just wanted a break for a while just as she’s said to you. I mean I can speak to her if you like. I’d like to talk to her.”

“Cal I need you to understand that I am extremely worried. She is on anti-depression medication now. When I eventually managed to get her to go outside and take a walk I found empty vodka bottles in her room. She has gone from a bright happy girl here to a depressed person after her time in London. Something serious has happened, I know it. And I’m begging you to help me.”

“Okay she was involved with a guy. I think it was quite serious but he turned out to be an idiot, which is kind of an understatement. She was down when it ended, extremely down. I tried to get her to stay here and work her way through it but she wanted to go home. That’s about all I can tell you.”

“Thank you for being honest. Can I ask a favour of you? Can I ask that you phone and talk to Kara. I’m sure that speaking to you will help. She won’t see any of her old friends here.”

“Maybe around nine o’ clock tonight? She seems to be more awake during the evening hours.”

With a weak goodbye Astrid hangs up. How had things suddenly gotten worse for Kara? She said that going home was the right thing to do. Maybe being back at her parent’s house and giving everything up in London made her feel like a failure. But she could come back here anytime. I would make sure she was aware of this fact tonight.

Mid-day and I haven’t written a single word. I place my hand to my forehead and feel the sweat. Screw it, I need that fan, it should take me an hour at most. I can’t work in this mutherfucking heat.