Low life | 14 January 2012

I was woken by my phone ringing. My boy. ‘What time is it?’ I said. ‘Ten past one,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’ This was said with a very obvious and unkind touch of schadenfreude. ‘Terrible,’ I said. I felt as though I might be dying, and the sooner the better. ‘Where are you?’ he said. That I did know. ‘I’m in the bar manager of the Merry Fiddler’s bed,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes?’ he said, pretending heightened interest. Feebly, I checked under the duvet. ‘But she’s not here,’ I said. ‘And I’m still wearing my suit and overcoat.’

He rang off and I sank back into oblivion. When I woke next the house was still quiet.  I found to my surprise that I could stand on my own two feet. I tottered downstairs, retched unproductively over the lavatory bowl, then tottered into the sitting room. In here were two sofas, a telly and a glass corner unit, lit from within, containing a large tropical snake — a python, I guessed.