Part 14 (1/2)

Correct.

'You know, University Challenge, on the telly . . . ?' Maybe they wouldn't take the p.i.s.s. Maybe they'd think it was a bit of fun - well done Bri - we are old mates after all. . .

'One more question, we win two quid!'

'Alright, concentrate . . .'

I'm definitely going to tell them about The Challenge . . .

'Star Wars was nominated for how many Oscars?' 'B - Four,' I say.

'D - None,' says Tone.

'I'm pretty sure it's four,' I say.

'No way. It's a trick question. It didn't get any . . .'

'Not win, nominated . . .'

'It wasn't nominated either, trust me Spence . . .'

'It was four, Spence, I swear it, B - four . . .'

And we're both looking at Spencer now, pleadingly, 'choose me, please, me not him, I'm right, I swear, choose me, there's two quid at stake here' and, yes, he chooses me, he trusts me, he presses B.

Incorrect. The correct answer's D - Ten.

'You see!' shouts Tone.

'You were wrong, too!' I shout back.

'You t.w.a.t,' says Tone.

'You're the t.w.a.t,' I say.

'You're both t.w.a.ts!' says Spencer.

'You're the t.w.a.t, you t.w.a.t,' says Tone.

'No, mate, it's you that's the t.w.a.t,' says Spencer and I decide that maybe I won't tell them about The Challenge after all.

The fourth pint of gin and lager makes us sentimental and nostalgic about things that happened six months ago, and we 149.

sit and fondly reminisce about people we didn't really like and fun we didn't really have, and was Mrs Clarke the PE teacher really a lesbian, and exactly how fat was Barry Pringle, and then, finally, finally, they call last orders.

Outside The Black Prince, it's started raining. Spencer suggests maybe going to Manhattan's nite-club, but we're not that drunk. Tone nicked a new video recorder for Christmas, and wants to watch Friday The 13th for the eighty-ninth time, but I'm too depressed and drunk, and decide to head home, in the opposite direction.

'You around for New Year?' asks Tone.

'Don't think so. I think I'm staying with Alice.'

'All right mate, well see you around,' and he smacks me on the back and stumbles off.

But Spencer comes over and hugs me, his breath smelling of lager with a gin-top, and whispers wetly in my ear, 'Listen, Brian mate, you really are my mate, my best mate, and it's

great that you're out there, meeting all these different people, *

and having all these experiences, and new ideas, and staying in .t cottages and everything, but just promise me something, will $ you?' He leans in really close. 'Promise me you're not turning '

into a complete c.u.n.t.'

I.

I.

15O.

19.

QUESTION. If a burn that affects only the epidermis is defined as first degree, what is the term for a burn that reaches the subcutaneous tissue?

ANSWER A third-degree burn No matter how predictable, ba.n.a.l and listless the rest of my life might be, you can guarantee that there'll always be something interesting going on with my skin.

When you're a kid, skin is just this uniform pink covering: hairless, poreless, odourless, efficient. Then one day you see that microscope cross-section in the O-level biology text-books - the follicles, the sebaceous glands, the subcutaneous fat, and you realise there are so many things that can go wrong. And they have gone wrong. From the age of thirteen onwards it's been an on-going medicated soap opera of blemishes and scars and in-growing hairs, spreading from region to region, taking on different forms, from discreetly corked pores behind the ears to lit-from-inside boils on the tip of the nose, the geometric centre of my face. In retaliation, I've experimented with camouflage techniques, but all the skin-tone creams that I've tried are a sort of albino-pink and tend to actually draw attention to the spots as effectively as a circle drawn with a magic-marker.

I didn't really mind this in my adolescence. Well, I minded of course, but I accepted it as part of growing up; something unpleasant but inevitable. But I'm nineteen now, an adult by most definitions, and I'm starting to feel persecuted. This morning, standing in my dressing gown under the glare of 151.

the 100 watt bulb, things are looking particularly bad. I feel as if I'm leaking gin and lager and peanut oil from my T-zone, and there's something new, a hard pad of matter under the skin, about the size of a peanut, that moves around when I touch it. I decide to call out the big guns. The Astringents. On the back of one of them is written 'Warning - may bleach fabrics' and there's a momentary anxiety that something that can burn a hole in a sofa might not be a good thing to apply to your face, but I do it anyway. Then I apply a final wash of Dettol, just for luck. After I've finished the bathroom smells like a hospital, but my face at least feels taut and scrubbed, as if I've been through a car-wash strapped to the bonnet of the car.

There's a knock on the door and Mum enters, carrying my best vintage white linen granddad s.h.i.+rt, freshly ironed, and a foil parcel.

'It's some gammon and turkey, for your friend.'

'I think food's laid on, Mum. Besides they're all vegetarians.'

'It's white meat . . .'

'I don't think it's the colour that's the issue, Mum . . .' 'But what are you going to eat?'

Till eat what they eat!'

'What, vegetables?'

'Yes!'

'You haven't eaten a vegetable for fifteen years! It's a wonder you don't have rickets.'

'Rickets is Vitamin D2, Mum, scurvy is Vitamin C, lack of fresh fruit.'