He looked at the silent TV set placed in front of the climbing machine. Why don’t we have our own porn channel here in Britain, when every house and third-rate hotel across Europe can tune in? “It’s been debated in Parliament, mate,” the cable mechanic had informed him. What was it about the British and sex? Hadn’t the delectable Louise Brooks proclaimed that the English were the best cocksmen? So where was the evidence—hard core porn on television? Mary Whitehouse would ride a white cart-horse to Downing Street, where the soft-cock Cabinet would be manning a barricade. None of them had ever attended a party; nobody would ever consider asking them. Maybe that was the problem.

His wife rolled him over and began to rub the muscles of his stomach. He opened his eyes a fraction and glimpsed the glint of her earring through her sheet of black hair. She was perspiring. He could smell the natural gardenia odour of her body through the chemical tuberose. She’d be hot to trot tonight. He wondered if there’d be anything worth trotting out for.

Then a provocative idea for a game floated into his head, just as his wife said, “By the way, Turk, thought of a good opener for tonight."

THE EVENING

PRUDENCE COULD HEAR murmurings as she passed the second-floor bathroom. She didn’t stop; it was a weekly ritual, one of the many that Zeno still indulged in with his daughter. This particular routine had started soon after Zen was born. Bath night was something her husband had brought with him from his working-class boyhood; showers sufficed for most of the week, but Friday was bath time. The high-pressure alternating shower that Kenny Wisdom had bought for them in America still functioned perfectly and was used by Zeno religiously every day. But Prudence felt sure it was only to give ‘tub night’ its sense of occasion. She had often said that their daughter was getting too old to still be bathing with her father, and Zeno had promised to change the routine when she was nine. Zen had celebrated her ninth birthday this week (a high tea had been given, with Zen’s two best friends, Karma and Alleluiah, in attendance), and Prudence waited to see if Zeno would keep his word.

Inside the bathroom, bevelled discs of glass cast prisms on the walls. The windows were misted up, and the condensation had been used by father and daughter to practise freehand circles drawn with their fingers. Some were quite perfect. Those less good had been made into faces, with the names of Zen’s schoolteachers written underneath.