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some sort. I would take a few photographs and collect their printed material. That way all our trips were on expenses. I had been planning a drive to St Ives when she said, ‘Do you mind if we don’t go anywhere this weekend, Chris?’ I shook my head and shrugged.
    â€˜Not if you don’t want to,’ I said. ‘I thought you enjoyed it.’
    â€˜I’d just like to be still for a while.’
    So that weekend we went nowhere. I continued my study of vegetarian cookery, occasionally looking out of the window and lamenting the waste of such glorious motoring weather, while Alice sat in front of her canvas over by the window. As I said, that painting of hers seemed to go on for ever. I stood behind her, taking a drag of the joint she had just passed back to me. Sometimes there were railings and a pond and grass and swings. There had been a rainbow there the day before, but now that too was gone.
    â€˜Why did you paint over the rainbow? I really liked the rainbow – I thought it gave a shape to everything.’ I looked down at Alice. The white clock of her face was measuring out its own slow time. She said nothing as I handed her back the joint.
    And on she went, painting in and painting out, blackening the sky or brightening the grass, adding a red van, or deleting the same, only stopping from time to time to roll and smoke some more of her herbal spliff. The music from the hi-fi system swelled and coasted, and for a while there were no hard edges at all in that flat with Alice. All geometry was abolished, as the straight lines and right angles slowly distorted and the ragged scrolls of smoke rose to the ceiling.
    The following Monday Andrew made one of his rare appearances at Shipley’s. He handed me the invoice for the work at the West London College. That was going back a bit.
    â€˜I hadn’t realised we’d started working for charity,’ he said. Andrew still had his smile in place, but it had thinned out somehow.
    â€˜Just to get the work,’ I said.
    â€˜Hardly seems worth it for five thousand brochures a year, does it? You weren’t even quoting at cost. By the way, from now on use CP Transport for all freight and deliveries, all right? I have asked you before.’
    â€˜It was only the other side of London, Andrew. I drove over with the stuff myself.’
    â€˜Thereby giving something else away free. Well done. As I said, from now on use CP for everything. No exceptions.’
    â€˜But they’re in Bristol. Surely you don’t want me to bring them up here for local deliveries?’
    â€˜For the third time, Chris’ – Andrew’s voice was now quiet and low, and there was even a hint of menace in it, the first time I’d ever heard it – ‘use CP for everything.’ I felt the need to change the subject quickly.
    â€˜By the way, I’m no longer alone.’
    â€˜Did you find Jesus?’
    â€˜No. Alice. She’s moved in with me.’ Andrew’s full smile returned.
    â€˜Alice. Not a dog or a budgie, I take it? A girl?’
    â€˜A girl.’
    â€˜A grown-up one?’
    â€˜A woman, in fact.’
    â€˜Well, how exciting. Bring her over for dinner on Friday. I’m sure Helena will be thrilled. She kept asking where you’d suddenly disappeared to. I told her it must be either sex or religion.’
    *   *   *
    I don’t know how much Alice smoked on an average day. I didn’t even know who or where her supplier was, though I had a suspicion. It made her serene, perhaps even a little distant. Occasionally she seemed actually disconnected from everything around her; immersed entirely in the world of her own preoccupations. There were minute time lags between her eyes and her words. What she said often seemed unsynchronised with what she was thinking. At a guess, I would say that she’d already had a good few joints by the time I arrived back that Friday. So when she