My dreams seem interminably dull of late, with the exception of one which woke me up last night. I dreamt, or rather “nightmared”, that Nat’s head fell gently apart into shards so small as to be invisible. Each shard landed upon a star. The anterior part of his body did not so much explode as travel innumerable light years in seconds.

SAT MAY 9

Nat and Mark have so much in common. They are virtually the same age and both dolefully on the dole. Also, they are both obsessed by things morbid. I am sure that they cannot be good for one another.

Nat sees less of the increasingly political Greg and more of the macabre Mark. At one time they were going to manufacture—in large quantities—Nat’s eldritch art object, the horrid dead baby in a coffin, but thankfully the practicalities of such a dubious venture deterred them. Mark still frequents the “A Centre”, but Nat doesn’t go unless Greg has got the band a gig there.

Nat certainly leads a less sequestered life than when I first encountered him, but I’m not sure if it’s enough. Occasionally he admits that the death wish, though it may not be so obvious now, still “lurks in the wings”.

SUN MAY 30

Nat’s friends, Greg and Mark, have been tarrying in London after gigs, sampling the squatters’ lifestyle. Nat is very dismissive of their experiments, probably jealous of their growing thirst for independence. The drummer in Nat’s band, Jim, has also moved away from home recently, and I have gained the impression that Nat is being gently mocked of late as a mother’s boy.

This image is not entirely a true one. Even during his phase of acute clinical depression he tended to his own needs, the practical ones at least, far better than many men manage in a lifetime. However, he is not keen to sever the symbolic umbilical cord. He never gets into “real” arguments with his parents, unlike Greg and Mark. Mark’s father recently cut off an overelaborate “hair fetish” from his son’s already extravagant coiffure. The deepest emotions are invariably expressed through superficial appearances at this stage. I see a lot of cases like this.

SUN JUL 4

Nat’s band’s first E.P. is doing very well in America. The studio has recently taken over its pressing and distribution, somehow making it possible to earn the band more money whilst selling the individual records at almost cost price. Apparently, over there such music is known as “hardcore”, which sounds rather rude to me. Nat has paid back the cash that he borrowed from his parents. In Europe and America they have sold five thousand records; Nat says that they are a “cult band within a subculture”. I don’t imagine for one moment that they will ever make a living out of it, but the knowledge Nat is gaining must be useful, if only as an ego-booster.