A - Milk &; Cola

"Found my leg the other day."

Hen and Manley are on their way back from the Yoofo with bags of food
- plus milk, pineapple juice and washing up liquid. Back to Waveney for
lunch, maybe - scramble, with season all and toast. Ice cream for
dessert.

"Legs are overrated, Hen."

"Lost it in Vietnam, I did, in 1967. It must've floated off down a
river and into the sea, been carried here on the tide and then been
towed upstream by geese. Fished it out of the Wensum just yesterday and
sewed it back on. Good as new."

"Wo&;#8230;That was lucky."

It starts to rain on them then, pretty rough and bainful, so that they
have to squint, shrug and quicken their pace. Passing Nelson Court, Hen
points out a arrow and sign outside one of the window bays. It says,
"Voting Station." And they both remember being served notice about the
local elections some time in the week behind them, as well as gloss and
pearl faces coming under the door bordered in proclamations.

"We can get out of the rain by voting!"

So they head down the path, past the beat soil beds and inside,
flinging the bolts of rain off them, and they head through an alcove to
one of the Nelson Court lounging areas. It's bare except for a pair of
old ladies, a lacquered table covered in clipboards and papers, and
three temporary wooden booths. Hen and Manley drop their shopping by
the wall and march up to the table like model citizens.

"What's your name please, dear?" one of the old ladies asks Manley,
who tells her, truthfully, and receives a small slip of paper for his
trouble. The old lady ticks him off her clipboard.

Manley, Sebastian - tick.

Hen follows suit, the figure of politeness, and they head over to the
booths, where Manley votes for the Liberal Democrats, Hen for the Green
Party. Then they gather up their bags, return to the alcove, out of the
old ladies' line of sight, and watch the rain through doors, falling in
sheaths across the concrete.

"It's a well-known fact," Hen says supinely, like he's selecting the
words from those sheaths, and handpainting them too, with his forehead
professionally furrowed, "that a man desires most avidly what he's
least able to get a hold of. Now, with regards to women, Manley, a
friend of mine practically lives by this rule, repeatedly selecting
the&;#8230;intrigue of an enticing feminine figure from the
back&;#8230;or maybe the side view, then abstaining from her
presence for months afterwards. Months! In the mean time he collects as
much information as possible regarding their loves, hates,
err&;#8230;marital status - and he laments mournfully on the loss of
this divine spectre. If, by some unfortunate occurrence, he should come
to possess, say, their phone number, or any means by which he may
contact them, he will, after various attempts to lose the item, not
make any use of it on the pretext that he might be drawn into
conversation. To heap gravity upon his already formidable woe, he will
torture himself over the issue of whether or not it is too soon to ask
her out&;#8230;and the inevitability of rejection.

"When he's struck down by that affliction which some men occasionally
suffer from - that of being chased by a girl who likes him first - he
comes to me in a near blind panic for advice on how to throw off his
pursuer without having to confront them over the matter. Then again, I
imagine anyone'd be frightened of something named Bonfiglioni."

Manley blinks and goes, "Wow! That's some &;#8230;er&;#8230;
disease."

"Now," Hen continues, angling his way round to the point tentatively,
"taking all this into account, I've been trying to work out a
convincing philosophy that would support my own complete, eternal,
remorseless abstention from relationships with women."

Manley puzzles over this.

"Why?"

"Well, so that once I have, in a winning manner, furnished harpies
everywhere with this philosophy and reason, I'll suddenly be infinitely
more desirable. Because I'm unattainable, you see, and they'll want
what they can't have."

"Masterstroke ahoy," says Manley, bankrupt of all sincerity.

"Well exactly. But I think I've tried everything. I've tried proposing
to myself that my destiny is one of some courageous solitude - that I'm
a lone ranger, an outsider and desolate wanderer. Tried that one for
far too long.

"I've said to myself in endless, posturous speeches that a close
companion like that would tame my wild genius, oh yes. And I've tried
humility too."

"Drastic!" Manley opined.

"I pronounced myself unworthy of a woman's love, in all seriousness.
And I tried to loathe women and all they stand for - have them as my
lovely enemies. Then I sought spiritual asexuality, and even considered
chemical castration, which still sometimes appeals to me. I once wrote
down in black that if were I to erm&;#8230;love a woman I would not
want to change her by my intervention in her, and then I crossed it out
and wrote underneath that I couldn't love anyone who was blind or
tasteless enough to love me in return. Nothing's worked, not one of
them. I still can't stay away from harpies. They're all too cruel," Hen
concludes, and sinks into the rollneck navy of his sweater, between the
lapels of his raincoat, breathing in his own musk.

"Mmm. Dear, dear, Hen."

Lightly-attired Manley kneels down to tie up his lace, muttering about
buying new ones when he goes out to root for more films in town.

"Rain's easing off," says Hen. "Let's get back and eat."

Hen's got a written account of his first trip to the twenty-four hour
launderette. He was asked by vamp countess Si?n, and he took up the
handles of his orange laundry bag without hesitation. He went with her,
Helen and Besse, between Nelson Court and the studio, down under the
canopy and into the street. He couldn't open the door to the washer,
and had to be shown how. He hadn't got money for the dryers, and had to
share one with the harpies. There was an illicit pleasure to helping
them sort through hot knickers, lace, lycra, jean and straps, robed in
a soap perfume. Coming back, Si?n said, "Well! At least we can say we
touched Hen's pants," then added, as if that had been a misdemeanour of
her tongue, "I mean&;#8230;hi."

All in all, Hen's success with the harpies hasn't been great,
considering his lucky head start. Besse has kept her distance. Helen
always flatters and forgives, but she's the same to any one of the tens
of people she's met already here. Mary and Lianne are passive elements
of the social tornado. The vampire countess, as a neat exception, has
called after Hen and Manley, come down and into their rooms, taken them
out and followed their advice. For a James Bond night she bought the
boys a rubber dart gun each from Poundland. Hen brandished his in the
kitchen.

"I like Si?n," he said. "I like the way she looks a little like an
overexposed photograph."

"She's more like a panda," replied Manley, pretending to shoot Hen in
the head. "Pitchoo!"

"She says her mother thinks she's got anaemia."

By which they meant she is wild mint and foamflower, dame's rocket,
wild calla and bastard toadflax, climbing across one another like
stains of white sun, and her hair is hei hua kui and the silhouette of
crows in a fleet taking off from stripped trees against a naked winter
sky. She has the most dishlike eyes of the five harpies - she's the
only one who doesn't wear glasses or contact lenses. Hen swears he saw
the palette of Oleander hawkmoths in her irises, of young mango,
woodvein and dry blood. She has a mole on her upper lip like a
Victorian beauty spot, and metal screws through the bone of her nose,
under the skin. They were put there after her jaw was dislocated by
surgeons in Liverpool, who were heading inside her head to remove the
larger part of her chordoma. While she was under general anaesthetic, a
blood clot developed in her leg and travelled up to her lung, where it
became an embolism. She was prescribed warfrine for the embolism, and
three months later the remainder of the brain tumour was treated with
lasers in Boston, Massachusetts. She remained there for a further three
months, but now she's doing fine.

"She's far too young for me, Manley," Hen decided, laying his dart gun
on the kitchen table. "And you're too young to ever understand."

Hen is two weeks and four days older then Si?n, and over three months
younger than Manley.