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  I know where he lives.

  David

  It’s almost like I wake up to find myself already awake, I’m so irritable, so damn angsty. And it’s a little while after I get up that I realise what it is. I want sex. I’m actually sexually frustrated. I’d thought I’d given up feeling that. I thought I’d just got used to feeling that.

  I get up and, in a complete reversal of habit, don’t log on to the net. Instead, I make a tentative phone call and, having struck lucky, rush out of the house without a single Rice Krispie inside me.

  I have a plan, clearly a plan born of extreme frustration and the simple knowledge that I just have to do something – anything – to find Mary. But it’s still a plan.

  I must have made it while I was sleeping, or dreamt it, or something, because it almost feels like I woke up knowing exactly what I needed to do.

  The thing is, I don’t know much about Mary. I certainly don’t know anything useful like her phone number or her email address, but I do know that she’s a student. And I’m pretty sure she said her tutor was called something Mercury. Doctor Mercury. And that’s probably enough information for someone like me. Because I am someone with contacts, proper contacts at the university, ones in the IT support department, which means I’m in a better position than most obsessives to track her down. In short, I’m going to have a word with my old workmate and partner in all things laddish, Larry.

  I got my job at the university the old-fashioned way – nepotism. When I was growing up, my mum had this part-time job there, in admissions, so when I came back from Sheffield she found me a job there doing computer support. It was only meant to be a stopgap. I was supposed to be en route to bigger and better things, what with my university education and all that. But, well, I guess I got a bit diverted from that road to riches because I stayed in that temporary job for nearly three years.

  Because I fucking loved it.

  Once upon a time, back when I was a fully functioning human being, I was also a shag machine. Who could blame me? There I was, early twenties, and I was adrift in a sea of witless, clueless, shag-hungry students. A long line of interchangeable, fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds, still naive enough to be impressed by a guy with a job and a (shared) flat and a motorbike.

  I had all the blow jobs behind the main servers that any guy could ever need, and if I deigned to reciprocate – which I did most times – I was a sex god. Don’t think for a moment that I was a selfish git, only after my own pleasure. Sure, my pleasure came pretty high on my to-do list, but I always gave them as good as I got, and usually better.

  Back then, Larry was the one other guy in the computer support department who played the game I played – after he saw just how much sex I was getting. Everyone else who worked there spent their free time rolling around in the lush, verdant hills of the internet. Larry wasn’t as good-looking as me (a fact I secretly relished), but he was just about normal enough that he could easily follow in my footsteps. And his looks, like mine, were more than enhanced by the fact that we were the only normal-looking human beings in a department of ultra geeks.

  It was almost as if, until I started to work at the university, Larry had never really seen the potential of his job to cherry-pick the cutest of the students (and then pick their cherries). And Larry was incredibly grateful. Actually he used to call me The Guru, which sounds pretty dumb now, but I certainly don’t remember rushing to stop him doing it back in the day.

  Larry, it would be fair to say, doesn’t quite revere me in the same way these days. In fact, Larry is spectacularly uncomfortable with my new status as a member of the disabled community. Which is the main reason why Larry and I aren’t exactly close these days. I haven’t seen him since he came to visit me a couple of times in the hospital. After that, sporadic email contact has been the gossamer-thin lifeline of our friendship. He drops me three or four lines each time he makes a conquest, and I cheer from the side-lines. Pathetic, really. Really pathetic. Although, I must confess, I take heart from the fact that he isn’t making anything like as many conquests now he hasn’t got me to lead the way.

  So Larry might not exactly be going to welcome me with open arms today, but that’s just tough, because I figure that, as he has been a spectacular failure as a friend lately, he owes me a favour or two. He isn’t going to like it, but one way or another I’m still Larry’s Guru and I reckon he needs a little reminder of that.

  We meet in the foyer of the Students’ Union building and then have to take a lift down to the Union Bar, which is in the basement. Larry acts studiously laidback about having to take the lift, but he makes far too much fuss about finding it – essentially making it clear that he has never had to use it before. Yeah, yeah, Larry, I get it – you can walk, I can’t. You win.

  Actually, on one level, I am far more weirded out by Larry than I think he could ever be by me. Looking at him, I can’t help remembering how it used to be between us. We used to be so tight. And back then I thought I knew him so well. I thought he was just like me. I even used to respond to his ‘The Guru’ nickname by calling him Mini-me sometimes – despite the fact that he is four years older than I am, and rather different in looks, with his goatee-and-glasses geek-boy vibe even extending as far as the pot belly, bigger now than ever and quite the opposite of my own hard muscle. But, physicality aside, Larry still isn’t like me at all. He’s a creep.

  Example: In the bar, this girl comes over almost as soon as we sit down. She’s kind of weird-looking, gawky, all teeth and limp hair.

  ‘Hey, Larry, how are you doing?’ she says, breezy-cool on the surface, but I recognise that tone only too well. It’s the surface breezy-cool of a woman who has been shagged and never called. Of course, hanging round a university campus and picking off the students means dealing with this kind of thing all the time.

  Larry looks at the weird-but-passable girl who is standing by the table. He gives her a questioning look, a kind of do-I-know-you? which has her confidence visibly withering before he even says, ‘Ella, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says.

  Larry doesn’t say anything. He waits a moment, as if he’s waiting for her to say something else, and when she doesn’t he nods vaguely at her and turns back to me, about to continue our conversation.

  ‘Hey, um,’ says Ella, forced to interrupt or be ignored, ‘I was just wondering. There’s a party in my house on Friday. Would you and your friend …’ She tails off, because she suddenly notices that I’m not sitting on a bar stool. (Really, her suddenly bulging eyeballs couldn’t have made it any more obvious.) ‘Oh,’ she says, round a hand suddenly clapped to her mouth. ‘Oh, Larry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

  Larry smiles. ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘no problem. Look, I’ll try and make your party. Put the address down here.’ And he hands her a slightly sticky cigarette paper and a biro from his top pocket. That move reminds me of the old days, because one of my rules – one of the rules I taught Larry – was always to carry a pen, for writing down phone numbers, but not to carry paper – or, god forbid, an address book – because that looked too obvious. It’s never that hard to find something to jot on. Larry complained about this rule at first, calling me a Luddite for not using a palm pilot to collect addresses and other useful details. But it looks like he’s finally come round to my way of thinking, which is that nothing looks wankier than standing typing a girl’s number into a fiddly lump of plastic. A little pen in the pocket – so the dashing way to go.

  While she’s writing her address on Larry’s fag paper with her head down, Larry flashes me a distinctly pleased sort of look. A party invite was always a good score. Always rich pickings at a student party.

  After she’s gone, shooed away by Larry’s promises of an imminent phone call, Larry’s smug look cranks up at least ten notches. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘What, you playing that poor girl who was all of, what, nineteen?’

  Larry pulls a face. ‘Since when did you care about birth certificate d
etails? Aren’t you the guy who used to say “legal is legal”? Anyway, what I meant was: did you see the way she clocked you? She was interested. Very interested.’

  ‘In me?’ I say, wondering if suddenly all women have become kinked-up sickos and I am very hot property.

  ‘No, dumbass, in me. Did you see the way she looked at me when she realised I was having a drink with a disabled guy? Mucho de Brownie Pointas. You’re better than a puppy, dude.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, irritated to fuck, but I suppose, as I am here trying to get Larry to do me a favour, I’m just going to have to put up with his particular brand of creep-chic for a little bit longer. And try not to remember that that was exactly how I used to be too.

  ‘Anyway, this favour you wanted,’ says Larry, suddenly reading my mind.

  ‘Well there’s this girl…’ I begin but that’s as far as I get.

  ‘Oh my god, man, there’s that fucking ponce Thomas.’ Larry almost spills my Coke as he points a vicious finger at a tall guy standing by the bar.

  ‘What?’ I say, completely thrown. What has happened to Larry? He has the attention span of a three-year-old.

  ‘Thomas. God, I hate him. He thinks he’s fucking god’s gift. Just look at him. All the bloody girls seem to fancy him and it’s so obvious he’s gay. So fucking obvious.’

  I glance over at the guy Larry is pointing at. This Thomas is very good-looking. Tall, dark curly hair, Angelina Jolie lips. There is nothing about him that screams ‘raging poofter’ to me, but Larry has that thing that a lot of so-heterosexual-it-hurts guys have, whereby any bloke who is good-looking is automatically defused as competition by being pronounced gay.

  Another, slightly weird thing about this Thomas – and this is going to sound a bit I-love-myself after what I’ve just said – is he looks quite a lot like me. (Except he is standing up.) So, by that logic, Larry would probably think I was gay, despite the fact that he has been witness to masses and masses of evidence to the contrary – except that he currently thinks I have no cock at all.

  ‘Larry,’ I say, slowly, realising I’d better take charge of this conversation before it goes off on another wild tangent, ‘I’m a bit pressed for time, mate, sorry, so can I just tell you about Mary?’

  ‘Heh. There’s something about Mary, eh?’

  Well, quite.

  After I’ve explained the situation to Larry, he is distinctly unhelpful. Well, up to a point. He does do what I ask – mostly as an opportunity to show off the fact that he can access databases he probably shouldn’t be accessing via his palmtop. But then he stops being so helpful.

  ‘Well, look, mate,’ Larry says, hiding the screen so I can’t see the info he’s found. ‘I’ve got her details here. Mary Taylor, Victorian Literature MA, address, phone number, etc, but I can’t just give this stuff out, even to you.’

  ‘What the fuck? Larry, since when did you have scruples?’

  ‘Since I got a written warning for misconduct, that’s when,’ Larry mutters, not looking at me. ‘But, look, I know you’re in a fix. So, as it’s you, how about I just give you her address?’

  ‘How about you give me her phone number?’

  ‘Mate, I can’t. I can’t give you her number!’

  ‘And yet you can give me her address. Surely giving out her address is way dodgier.’

  ‘You don’t want me to give you her address?’

  ‘No. Oh god. OK, shoot.’

  I note down the flat number and my heart sinks a little. A little bell rings as I remember Mary in the park café a million years ago saying something about her place having lots of stairs. One more obstacle to overcome.

  ‘Come with me,’ I say, once I have made a note of Mary’s address (because, yes, I do follow my own advice and I do, still, always carry a pen).

  ‘Oh, mate, I can’t. I’m meant to be working.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re not, are you? You’re in the pub,’ I say, gesturing at the smoky surroundings.

  ‘Ah, well, it might look like I’m in the pub to your untrained eyes, mate, but I’m actually checking the terminals in the psychology lab right now. And I can stretch that a bit, like as far as the bar here, but actually leaving campus – well, that’s taking the piss.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Larry, is there really any piss left to take? Come with me. I have a feeling I might need you.’

  ‘Well, maybe I could be persuaded …’

  ‘What do you want, Larry?’

  ‘Come with me to Ella’s party. Be my girl-bait puppy dog.’

  Mary – bless her – lives on the third bloody floor. And never mind getting up to her flat, I can’t even get up the three huge stone steps from street level to ring the buzzer on her entryphone. If Mary really does have this huge kink for disabled guys you’d think she might have chosen where she was going to live a little more carefully.

  But luckily, as Larry wants to strut about with his I-have-a-disabled-friend cachet and so get to be a sex god by standing next to me at this stupid party (whatever happened to my semi-hermit status?), he can bloody well climb up and press the buzzer for me.

  A few seconds later a window is thrown open high above our heads. I hold my breath in anticipation, but the crazily frizzed head that pops out is a long, long way from Mary’s sleek bob.

  ‘Yeah?’ shouts the frizz.

  ‘Um, does Mary Taylor live here?’ Larry shouts, taking a big step backwards and craning to make eye contact.

  ‘Yes, but she isn’t here.’

  ‘Oh, er.’ Larry looks at me. ‘Do you want to leave a message or something, mate?’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Hey,’ says the frizz, looking at me and then back at Larry, ‘is your friend, like, all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I reply, wishing I had something more withering up my sleeve. The fact that I’m in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be allowed as much eccentric lovesick behaviour as an able-bodied nutcase. But I can’t think of anything. (And forget I used the word ‘love’ then – it doesn’t mean anything.)

  ‘What do you want me to tell Mary?’ she shouts. I feel suddenly very shy. Some people from the hairdresser’s over the road are looking.

  ‘Nothing,’ I shout back.

  And then Larry, who appears to be interpreting for me, shouts, ‘Nothing, forget it.’

  The frizz shrugs and closes the window, leaving us back on the street and no further forward.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say, turning away and starting to wheel back to where I parked the car.

  Larry comes up behind me and puts his hands out towards my chair, as if he’s going to push me. ‘Don’t,’ I say, almost subliminally quietly but Larry picks it up and takes his hands away.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave her a message, mate?’ Larry says, once we’re in the car heading back to the university.

  ‘Because it looks so lame, that’s why. A message is trying too hard. A message says, ooh look, I managed to find out where you live. A message says bunny-boiler.’

  Larry laughs. ‘Don’t be a dumbass, dude-mate, only chicks can be bunny-boilers.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so damn sure.’

  Mary

  I don’t have a driving licence. Never a problem when I lived slap-bang in the middle of Bristol. In fact, as there was nowhere to park there anyway, a car would have been a hindrance. But, now I live in the middle of East Midlands Nowheresville, not having access to a car makes certain things very difficult. Things like tracking down suburb-dwelling disabled sex gods like David.

  God, to be more mobile. This part of town is so inaccessible by foot. Vast and sprawling and stupid. And there are bloody roundabouts everywhere, which means to get from A to B I am obliged to go via X, Y and Z – which translates into three pedestrian crossings and a scary subway. None of that would be much of a problem if I knew where I was going. But I don’t – not really.

  When David drove me to his house my mind was on other things for the best part of the journey. I probably looked at him more than I
looked at the landmarks or noted the route we were taking. And as for the journey back, in the taxi I called at god-knows-what-hour-of-the-morning, it was dark and I was more than a little sex-drunk.

  About midday I start to get hungry and give up. I’m having lunch with Mercury and, if I can’t find David, at least I can spend a bottle and a half of wine and twenty cigarettes talking about the miserable fact that I can’t find David.

  Monroe is a new and really not at all bad gayish café/bistro near the centre of town. In fact, by this town’s standards, Monroe is quite a revelation. Not that it’s perfect. The décor leaves a lot to be desired, for a start. Basically, the inside is a riot of floor-to-ceiling wood, with tables and chairs so rough-hewn they might have been gnawed into shape by beavers. It’s so like being inside the Faraway Tree that I’m fully expecting Moon-face to show me to my table.

  I make for a cosy corner where Mercury is already plonked, waiting for me with a glass of sticky-looking red in his hand and a talcum-powder cloud of Gauloise around his head.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he says, standing and greeting me with a whiskery air-kiss. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not great,’ I say, managing to make a ‘mwah-mwah’ noise, sit down with a bump and simultaneously slosh a generous helping of the wine into my glass.

  Once lubricated by a few glorious gulps, and with one of Mercury’s fags lit and dancing in my hand, I explain all about my current preoccupation with, and quest for, David. Ignoring the fact that my disappointment at not finding him is a complete reversal of the shagging-poor-David-is-bad-and-wrong line that I was touting last time I talked to Mercury about him.

  I trot all it out, anyway, along with a big side order of talk about how sexy David is. Most of which Mercury heard yesterday, when we were meant to be having a tutorial, but that’s tough on him, because I am too obsessed, in too deep, to think or talk about anything else.

  Mercury listens patiently, pausing only to order a Welsh Rarebit from a cute waiter, and it turns out that my change of heart has not escaped him. He says, ‘Well, darling, so, since I last saw you, a little over twenty-four hours ago, you have decided that you are in fact obsessed with this boy. This boy who, you assured me, was nothing but a “one night shag sort of thing.” ’ He says that as if it’s a direct quote, but I don’t think I said those words. Doesn’t sound like me. But I don’t get the chance to question it, because Mercury keeps right on talking. ‘And you are obsessed to the point that you are now stalking him cross-country with an almost pathological gleam in your eyes.’