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lovers trailed through their protracted routine of shared sarcasms about himself. He still found it uncomfortable that his boyfriend had a son, as though it showed a weakness of character in him. Justin hated weakness of character. He needed his lovers to be as steady in the world as they were in their devotion to him. He found himself apologising that Robin was not a more famous or original architect. And Danny himself was rudderless, doing bits of work here and there, sharing a house that smelt of smoke and semen with various other young pill-poppers and no-hopers; and yet always giving off an irritating sense that he knew where he was going. But tonight the freshness of him was abruptly arousing, the blue-veined upper arms, the fat sulky mouth with its challenge to make it smile and the little blond imperial under it, and the crotch thing, of course, the packet, which was the first and final arbiter with Justin, and qualified and overrode all other feelings and judgements. “Like father, like son,” he said, with evident if uncertain meaning, as he thumped back into his seat.
    “Now who wants to play Scrabble?” said Robin. He swept the crumbs from the table in front of him and smiled irresponsibly.
    Alex looked ready to play, but ready too for Justin to say, “You lot have a game. I’m far too dyslexic tonight.” In fact he could read and write perfectly well, even though certain words were liable to slippage: shopfitter, for instance, he always saw as shoplifter, and topics as optics, and betrothal as brothel. Last week, in a glance at one of Robin’s plans, he had seen the words MASTER BOREDOM.
    “I’m not playing,” said Danny, with anxious firmness, and wiped the draining-board and plugged in the kettle.
    Justin said, “Why don’t we play Alex’s Encyclopaedia game? Alex invented it, it’s marvellous.”
    “Okay,” said Robin, in a tone of fair-mindedness tinged with pique that his own game had not been preferred. “What is it?”
    Justin bowed his head to Alex, who gave a tentative explanation of the rules. “It’s based on the idea of a multi-volume dictionary, like the
OED
or something. You have to make up the names of the volumes, like “Aardvark to Bagel,” that sort of thing. Except that they have to describe the other people you’re playing with. Then they’re all read out, and you have to guess who they are. It’s not a game anyone can win, it’s just a bit of fun.”
    “I’m not sure about that,” Justin said, and watched Robin’s rapid competitive assessment of the idea.
    “You could get two points if you guess right,” Robin said, “and one point if you wrote the definition.”
    “I suppose so,” said Alex.
    “Actually it’s not fair on Alex,” Danny said, “as he only really knows Justin.”
    Justin said, “It doesn’t matter, because he’ll be nice about everybody.”
    Robin went to a drawer for scrap paper and a handful of chewed pencils and biros, and picked up a fine Rotring pen for himself. Alex said, “Okay, so you can only go two letters ahead. You can have “Awkward to Cuddle,” say, but not…”
    “But not “Back to Front,”” said Justin. “Or “Bad to Worse.””
    “Oh, I get…” said Danny.
    Robin looked round at them all. “Presumably one also does oneself?” And then smiled secretively.
    Justin watched them as they pondered and scribbled and crossed things out. Occasionally one of them would catch the eye of another. Alex coloured slightly when Danny caught him looking at him; but Robin held Danny’s gaze for several seconds and then looked away impassively – it was the bridge training that made even a game of Scrabble so steely, and filled Justin with an urge to cheat or deliberately misunderstand the rules. Danny frowned touchingly over his piece of paper, and when he had written something down looked at it sideways to judge the effect. Robin was already tearing his paper into separate strips, while Alex sighed and smiled weakly,