An Almost Perfect Moon. Jamie Holland

flat on a seedy street in the arse-end of Hammersmith. Jesus. Makes me feel really quite ill. What the hell are we all doing here, for God’s sake?’

      ‘Yeah, but, Flin, who the hell wants to live in Northumberland?’ said Ben, passing the paper round to Lucie and then Harry. ‘I mean, it’s so bleak. And nothing to do unless you’ve a bit of a thing for sheep.’

      ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Tiffany. ‘I think it looks nice.’

      ‘You like sheep, do you?’ asked Harry, handing the folded paper back to Flin. ‘It’s cheap for a reason.’

      Flin looked at it again. It seemed to be nestled in a small valley, although behind it, to emphasize the land that came with it, could be seen the empty Northumbrian uplands. Beautiful, but Ben was right – not exactly practical.

      ‘You’re right,’ he said at last, ‘but to think I could own that when I live in a glorified shoe-box still makes me feel a bit depressed. I mean, just look at all that space. The fresh air, no traffic jams, no graffiti, and yes, just the melodic sound of contented sheep bleating from the upper pastures. Maybe that’s the way forward. Get out of the madness of London and wind down for a while. Lead the simple life. De-stress. It’d be great, wouldn’t it? I’d get out of bed and be greeted by a vista of uninterrupted fields, instead of a mirror image of my own flat on the other side of the road. No Underground to scrabble through. No feeling grimy and soiled as soon as I got to work. Just clean, wholesome living.’

      ‘Wholesome but piss-boring,’ added Ben.

      Flin looked at the picture once more. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said. ‘It was just a thought.’

      

      As Harry left Ben and Lucie’s that afternoon, he was pleasantly surprised to note how the March days were slowly lengthening. He looked up to see a suggestion of clear blue lingering over the Common. The ground was wet underfoot, but the air felt dry and bracing after an afternoon spent surfeiting on food, drink and warmth. Feeling bloated, Harry decided to walk home. Anyway, he could never be bothered to wait for buses. Much better to be on the go.

      The walk back to Brixton took half an hour. Across the quiet, wide-open stretch of Clapham Common, then an amble down the genteel calmness of Abbeville Road. The boundary between Clapham and Brixton was unmistakable. As he turned onto Acre Lane, he was greeted with immediate bustle and noise. Not far away, sirens cut across the evening air; then a shiny four-by-four with blacked-out windows thudded past him, vibrating music pulsing tremors along the road.

      As Harry arrived outside his flat, he made his normal inspection of his beloved old Citröen, but, as usual, it was fine, not a blemish to be seen. His fellow Brixtonians seemed to respect rather than resent it. He sighed, feeling uncharacteristically low. On the cusp of thirty and a life that felt suddenly empty.

      He stomped up the stairs. In his kitchen, a faint odour of cleansing fluid still lingered around the sink and surfaces. His answerphone, neatly attached to the wall by the door, was flashing the message light. Underneath, lying equally neatly on top of each other, were two bills, two more final warnings. Harry cursed himself. He’d intended to pay those first thing on Saturday morning but had forgotten. That meant he’d have to phone the following morning and explain that he would pay them that day, as he was bound to have already exceeded his seven days’ grace. This was the trouble with being a self-employed artist: irregular pay which it encouraged irregular payment of bills. Still, nothing he could do about on a Sunday night. He pressed the answer machine.

      ‘Oh, Harry, it’s your father here. Need to come down to town this week and was hoping to bunk up at your place. How about tomorrow? Bye.’ His father often did that, always ‘bunking up’ or ‘bunking down’ armed with his old leather overnight bag and battered briefcase. Harry smiled; he loved the fact his father felt he could. The second was from Julia, her smooth Galaxy bar tones filtering their way through the distortions of the machine.

      ‘Hi, Harry. It’s Julia. Just wondering when I’m going to see you next. I loved last night – it was wonderful. Call me.’

      He would, but later. In his bathroom he undressed and ran a bath. Looking at himself in the mirror, he realized how tired he looked. It wasn’t surprising. There were just a few grey hairs amongst the otherwise light, soft mop that shaggily covered his head, and the beginning of a wrinkle at one side of his mouth; curiously the other remained unblemished. Nearly thirty and yet his life still felt utterly directionless. His other friends seemed to be leaving him behind. Nearly all of them were now married or living with their partners. Ben and Lucie were about to have a child. His parents had been twenty-nine when he’d been born, but there still seemed an enormous gulf between his present situation and settling down. He wished he could; he felt ready to in his heart, but he just didn’t seem able to find the right person to do it with.

      What was the matter with him? Was he so obsessed with finding his one true love that, like Mrs Danvers, he would slowly go mad, eventually setting fire to his flat and himself? He plodded out of the bathroom, his towel wrapped around him, put on some cheering music, and sighed once more, this time a little more heavily. At least he had his flat. That was something. Just his and no one else’s. He could be as selfish as he wanted without it affecting anyone. Slumping down on the sofa, he looked about him. His taste, his choice; the television positioned in the corner, or the painting by his mother next to the door, simply because he wanted them there. There was no one to compromise with over what video to watch or when to have a bath. No one to stop him farting if he felt like farting. He could eat what he wanted to eat, and not be chided for putting too much butter on his toast like Lucie did with Ben. And no matter how envious he might feel of his friend’s advanced situation in life, once the baby was born, Ben’s life would not be the same. Being an artist also meant he was his own man, with no one telling him what to do. Unlike Julia, or his other friends, he wasn’t a slave to some higher being. Really, he had a lot to be thankful for.

      The rain had finally given way to a half-clear sky as the blanket of cloud slowly disappeared. But, leaving Ben and Lucie’s, Flin barely noticed the upturn in the weather; his mind was preoccupied with a different matter entirely.

      ‘You know what, Tiff, perhaps we should leave London,’ he suggested to her in what he hoped was an offhand, easy-come, easy-go kind of manner.

      ‘OK,’ said Tiffany, as the bus pulled up on St John’s Road.

      ‘Well, perhaps we should,’ said Flin again, his excitement level rising.

      ‘When?’ said Tiffany casually as she stepped up to the driver. ‘Two to Hammersmith, please.’

      She took the tickets and they squeezed themselves into one of the seats, which was far too small for Flin’s six-foot-something frame. His knees were wedged against the carpet-backed seat in front, and even Tiffany, who was tiny, looked cramped.

      ‘Are you serious?’ said Flin.

      ‘I don’t know. Are you?’

      ‘I’m not sure. Am I?’

      Tiffany laughed. ‘You’re so funny. Flin, baby, I don’t know. I mean, what would we do?’

      ‘I’m sure we could find work. There must be PR companies worth working for outside London.’

      ‘Well, if we can both find something to do, then we could think about it. I wouldn’t mind moving out to the country. Don’t forget, hon, I’m a country girl. I’d never been anywhere a quarter of the size of London before I came here.’

      ‘It would be good though, wouldn’t it?’ continued Flin. ‘We could get a dog, have long walks, it’d be really quiet. We’d probably become regulars in some flagstoned local boozer. And just think – no more of this: taking hours to get anywhere. If we wanted to go to the beach, we could just go; we wouldn’t have to fight our way through one traffic jam after another, and walk past endless amounts of litter and graffiti.’

      She looked up at him and grinned. ‘Darling, I’ll go anywhere with you. You know that.’

      ‘Be