Ah took out my plastic bag of Es from doon my baws. – These are shite, ah said holding them up to the light. Ah’ll never fuckin well sell these. Ah stuck them down on the table.

None of the poofy Weedgie cunts were into daein trips. Stevo stuck on the telly while Amanda and Claire started spliff-building.

The acid wasn’t up to much at first. Then it kicked up. Then it kicked up some mair.

5

THERE IS A ringing in my ears and ah hear some cunt say something which sounds a little like ‘perhaps they’ll understand the truth someday of why things remain different’ in an accent which is reminiscent of The Crow’s: not quite Manc, a bit more small-town East Lancs.

Who said that? Ah start to panic because it’s goat nae context and because nobody could have said it. There are four of us in the room: me, yes, I’m here, and there’s Stevo, who is sitting watching the golf or rather watching the blue arse of this guy who may or may not be a golfer; Claire, lying on the couch laughing loudly and talking about why people in the catering game make crap shags (fatigue through unsocial hours and alcohol-induced impotence ah think she concluded – a bit unfairly, I’m thinking, but well, fuck it); and Amanda is here too, eating strawberries with me.

We’re eating strawberries and cream cheese.

The best approach is to slice the strawberry, kind of cross-sectioning it. This reveals an aspect of the fruit we seldom see. Aye right ye are, ya daft cunt. Then just enjoy the reverb of the red and white and watch the brown carpet in the room change into polished, speckled-marble floor tiles and extend luxuriously into infinity and doing this, just indulging the whim ah see myself moving away from Amanda and Claire on the couch and Stevo, who’s still watching the golf and I’m screaming: PHOAHH YA CUNT THAT YE ARE FUCK THIS MAN and ah drop the strawberry and the room assumes something approximating its normal dimensions and they look round at me and Stevo puckers his lips which look like huge strawberries and Claire laughs even more loudly causing me to emit gasping, fractured, machine-gun laughter and now Amanda’s at it too and I’m going: – All hands on deck! These are good fuckin trips, ah’m off ma fuckin tits here, man …

– You’ve got the Flight Lieutenants in a big way there, Lloyd, Stevo laughs.

It’s true. Ah have.