Existence could have been much better, much better indeed. But that’s the way existence is, you canni fucking ask for this that and the next thing, you’ve just got to take whatever they fucking throw at you. Aye but you dont have to take it. You dont have to accept it. It’s this age. This age. This age was getting on his nerves. No it wasnt. Even that wasnt true. He didni really care. People said twenty-nine was a landmark but he didni really care one way or the other. Gavin was fucking three-and-a-half years older than him. And you never heard him grumbling – at least no about his fucking age, he grumbled about everything else! He was smiling and Alison was smiling as a reply. She thought he was smiling at what the temporary English teacher was saying, old Norman there, who was in rare animation about something that had happened to him at the teachers’ trainers. It was obviously funny because Alison was genuinely smiling. And she could put on the false yins when she wanted to but this smile was definitely genuine. Patrick inclined his head as though to listen all the better. Something seemed to be wrong with his ears though. He couldni fucking hear a damn thing the guy was saying and yet Alison seemed so damn pleased with it and now taking a puff at her fag, her pale lips.