8.30pm

     “Time for another cup of tea I suppose, what do you think mutt?”

       From her basket by the fire the dishevelled, no that’s too kind a word, try scraggy, lump of fat covered in thick black fur, the type you find deposited randomly in large clumps all over the house and that has you, on many occasions, amazed at how the thing wasn’t bald by now, slowly raised her head, gave her “did you mention food” look, farted, and went back to pretending to be asleep.

      It was easy to tell she was pretending by the absence of the low, resonating half growl, half grunt noise she made when she was really sleeping.  This being religiously accompanied by intervals of randomised paw twitching and short, high pitched yelps which signified she was either dreaming of something immensely pleasurable or incredibly painful.   

     She’d been doing that quite a lot lately, farting, and come to think of it burping as well; came with getting old probably.  At the not quite ancient age of twelve she was still sprightly and alert and an excellent guard dog.  Her growl alone put many a so called purpose-built security hound, Rottweilers, Alsatians, Pit Bulls and the like, to shame.  It had become part of the job description for any Postman or Milkman unfortunate to have to deliver to her house to possess the speed of Linford Christie and the agility of a cat.  Maybe not so much nowadays, though, as she approached her 13^th year; or in doggy terms, neared 91.

     “Why is it that 7 dog years equal 1 human year?”  Ray said, not really caring what the answer was.  To him she was 12 going on 13 and nothing would persuade him to think otherwise.

     13 or 91 she was still a lovely, faithful old dog despite the sound effects, he thought as he passed through the door from the lounge to the kitchen, fumbling for the light switch which by now he should have been able to find with his eyes closed.

     “Happens to us all eventually” he said aloud as the room was bathed in light.

      As he went through the motions of making himself  what must have been the 19th cup of tea that day, he realised that he had been doing a lot of that recently, talking to himself, out loud.  Or was he talking to the dog, whose head know appeared in the doorway, her nose sniffing the air hopefully?

     “There’s no food so sod off!”

     He didn’t mean it to sound as harsh as it came out and felt instantly guilty as the old dog lumbered back to it’s basket, farted and grunted as it settled down again, giving him a look of hurt that would have melted the iciest heart.

    “I’m sorry, taking it out on you again aren’t I Jen?” he said apologetically, as he waited for the kettle to boil. 

     He’d developed a very short fuse and, at times, a vicious, scathing tongue, both of which seemed to have detached themselves from the controlling influence of his brain, and would quite often unleash verbally, thoughts which ordinarily would never reach completion let alone travel unchallenged all the way to his voice box.

     Once these thoughts had escaped and discharged their depravity there always followed an immediate sensation of overwhelming self-consciousness, pity and shame.  He would profusely apologise to the point of annoyance; blaming it on present circumstances and the adverse effect they were having on him, when he knew inside, deep down inside out of sight of prying eyes, that that was only half the story.  He felt this now as he watched her settle herself down again in her basket.

     The kettle boiled, announcing the completion of its purpose with the obligatory click as the switch popped into the off position.  As he poured the boiling water into the mug, he imagined momentarily, just for a second or two, that it was trickling down his arm.  He could see his skin gradually change colour as the heat penetrated the top layers and started to boil the tissue and nerve endings underneath.

     As abruptly as it had started, the vision disappeared and was erased from his memory. All he felt was a brief ‘click’ somewhere inside his head as if a light switch had been turned off leaving the room in total darkness; or like that of the kettles that signified the end of a task.

     Thinking nothing more he finished making his tea and returned to the lounge where he was greeted by a half-hearted wag of the tail from Jenny who had already forgotten her masters terse words.  Either that or she had, in her own doggy way, forgiven him knowing that he hadn’t been himself of late.

    “Yes I have been talking to myself a lot lately,”  he told himself as his mind returned to the thought he had had in the kitchen, and how he still felt bad about shouting at Jenny.

      Ever since Alison left and he had been in this house on his own with just a tatty old, but forever faithful, hound for company, he’d discovered a few oddities in his behaviour that he hadn’t noticed before.  Talking out loud was one of them.

      “Quite simply,” he had mused on more than one occasion since she had left, “it’s because after living with someone for 8 or so years my mind still thinks there is another person here so I automatically say out loud whatever I am thinking as if I were talking to them.”

      His attempts at amateur psychology nearly always brought a somewhat cheesy ‘pleased with myself’ grin to his face despite the fact, and it was certainly true in this instance, that it wouldn’t have taken too much brain power to reach his diagnosis.

     ‘You talk bollocks at times,’  said a voice he instantly recognised and which, even after all this time, still surprised him as if someone had crept up from behind and tapped him on the shoulder, ‘you’ve always had little conversations with yourself ever since you were a kid.’

     “I haven’t,” he retorted,

     ‘Have’.

     “For the last time, I haven’t!”

     ‘Then what are you doing now?’

     Annoyed at how easily he could be drawn into a ridiculously juvenile argument with himself, he picked up the remote control from the table in front of him and stabbed at the on button.  The television crackled into life.  A faceless voice was announcing the ‘End of the year show’ starting at 11pm tonight and hoped that we would all stay tuned as it was going to be a party ‘not to be missed’.

     “Oh really, I can’t wait,” he said aloud and with a touch too much sarcasm in his voice.  Jenny wagged her tail and farted.      

     Ray Anders was not the type of person that stood out from the crowd; in fact he usually went out of his way to avoid the centre stage, leaving it to people whom he thought were more suited to that sort of thing.  You know the type, tall, dark and handsome, granite chiselled features, highly toned and muscled bodies, supremely confidant, etc., etc., etc.  In fact, modern day Adonis’s who had women throwing themselves at their feet.  He tried to blame it on jealousy, but deep down he knew that no matter how much he yearned to be like them, to be the centre of attraction,  the life and soul of the party so to speak, there was something deep inside that just would not let him go.  It was as if  he were tied to a post by a huge rubber band that would let him get so far, then at the critical moment at which he would do something spontaneous, catapult him back where he would  crawl into his invisible shell and watch whilst others took the lime-light.

      God, he hated that!  Watching someone else get the attention, the adulation, for something he could probably have done better, funnier, if it wasn’t for the crippling restraints put upon him by, when it came down to it, nobody but himself.

      At school he bore the brunt of constant verbal, and quite often physical, abuse.  He was viewed by other pupils as being a ‘bit strange’ because he was not one of them.  He didn’t rampage through the school, disrupt lessons or beat up younger kids just because it was a ‘cool thing to do,’ or to impress the class tart who had promised a quick grope of her grossly under-developed chest behind the bicycle sheds after school if  some kid, whose name she didn’t even know, was taught a lesson for calling her  ‘an old scrubber’.

      Ray Anders wasn’t like the rest because he was quiet, shy and reserved.  He wanted to learn, at least in the subjects he liked; English, Music, Sociology and the like.  He didn’t want to end up on the scrap heap when he left school but paid the price by having to endure the ritual taunts both in and out of the classroom; “Teachers plaything,” and “Is it lonely in your world with no friends?” being just a couple of the kinder insults thrown at him with monotonous regularity.

      The subject of friends was a particularly sore one.  Yes, he had known people he was friends with, but only one or two whom he could call friends.  Those who would stand by you in a crisis, give their support when you were being threatened by the school bully and his gang, and who would give you their weeks' dinner money if you needed it.  Everyone apart from these pitiful few were really just acquaintances, people on the fringe.

‘Outsiders’ he sometimes called them even though he welcomed their company when the occasion arose.

      Being an only child, what he really missed having was someone to talk to.  Not just conversation and general everyday stuff but ‘proper’ talk.  Someone to express his feelings to without fear of being ridiculed, laughed at, or having all his innermost secrets broadcast to the world like a special edition of News at Ten.

   BONG!!  RAY ANDERS HAS A CRUSH ON DENISE HEWITT IN CLASS 3S                          

   BONG!!  RAY ANDERS WISHES PEOPLE WOULD STOP PICKING ON HIM                        

   BONG!!  RAY ANDERS IS STILL A VIRGIN

     Someone who could take away some of the hurt that was eating its way through him like a cancerous rat; gnawing and gnawing bit by bit.

    What scared him more than anything else was not knowing what would happen when there was nothing left to gnaw at.  What happens when the last few fibres that are holding together the fragile remains of your soul are consumed.  Would those representing heaven and hell bother to fight to claim you as one of their flock?

    They say that your school years mould you into the person you will turn out to be in adulthood.  They give you confidence, bring out your personality and generally prepare you for the ‘big wide world’ and all it can throw at you.  In Ray’s case his school years crucified his confidence and strangled his personality making him withdraw further and further into himself.

    People began to think he was constantly miserable and a touch ignorant because of his sullen appearance and off-hand manner, therefore he found he was not included in their conversations or ‘conveniently overlooked’ when it came to gatherings or get-togethers.

    Life generally got worse but something kept his head above the metaphorical water.  Maybe the thought that school didn’t last forever and one day he would be rid of these morons helped, or maybe it was the comfort he got from knowing he had at last found someone he could talk to. 

    Flicking through the channels on the T.V. searching for something that might look remotely interesting he noticed the time, 9.15pm.  ‘She’ll probably be getting ready to go out or already on her way to some pub; it’ll be too early for a club so she will be...’

    “Stop it!”  he groaned aloud, interrupting his thought of Alison and where she will be on this New Years eve. 

   “I’ve got to get her out of my head, it’s over, let it go for Christ’s sake!”

      Jenny stared at him without moving her head off her pillow.

      She had heard it all before, seen the tears, felt the backlash of his grief, and been cuddled, a bit too tightly for her liking, like a child cuddles it’s favourite teddy bear for protection from the dark, as her master finally lost his battle to control his anguish.

     She had spent many an hour listening to him blame himself unreservedly for the demise of their relationship; “if only I had done this,” he told her, “if only I had done that,” he told her, “if only...,” “if only...,” “if only...”.

     She had spent many a night curled up at the end of the bed listening to the sobbing that coursed through his body like a runaway train, feeling him toss and turn, gripped in the throes of another bad dream.

    Yet she was always there in the morning to give him his wake up call; a poke in the face with her cold, wet nose, followed by a slobbery kiss which, for some reason, never failed to rouse him from the deepest of sleeps.

    “What would I do without you?” he had asked her one day whilst sitting on a bench by the river.  This was after bending her ear for at least an hour as they walked from the house on their usual route at the usual time of day, on things like if he hadn’t been such a boring old fart, Alison would still be here, etc., etc., etc..

    Of course Ray knew that she didn’t understand a word he was saying, but she played her part well and at least looked as if she was listening.

    ‘You can’t can you?’

    “No!”

    ‘No matter what you do or how hard you try you just can’t help wondering what she’s doing, who she’s with, where she is now?’

    “I know.  It’s not getting any easier.”

    ‘You’re weak!’

    “Fuck you!”

   ‘Do you love her?’

   “You know I do, I’ll never stop loving her,”  replied Ray, bemused at the fact that he could be asked such a stupid question when the answer was so obvious.

   ‘Do you love her?’

   “I just told you!” Ray said through clenched teeth as the first stages of irritation started to settle in.

   Jenny raised her head and gave him that ‘not again’ look.

   ‘You’ve told me what you think people expect you to say, not what you really feel and you know it don’t you?  You know you’ve just lied.’

   “I’m not fucking lying!” the irritation he felt a moment ago was quickly replaced with anger and frustration.  Anger at having his integrity questioned, which he hated at the best of times, and frustration because in a way he knew that there could be an element of truth in what the voice was saying.  Maybe he was lying, knowingly trying to fool people into believing he still adored Alison and would love her till the end of time.  Maybe he was telling the truth.  It had become easier for him to accept the latter of the two, take the less complicated option: why change the habit of a lifetime?

   “What is it with you anyway,” he continued, “one minute you’re 100% behind me telling me I should do this or do that, really helping me, the next you’re slagging me off, calling me a liar and saying I’m weak, no wonder I’m an emotional wreck!”

   ‘I fail to see the point in putting up this false facade when you know the real truth but are too feeble to admit to it.  You know that Black Sabbath C.D. you’ve got, I suggest you listen very closely to the words on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, they sum you up perfectly.’

     To an outsider listening in, this apparent one way conversation would have had them running for the telephone and sending for the men in white coats, but for Ray it was a common occurrence, part of the ‘conversations’ he had been having since childhood.

     Usually they were conducted in the privacy of his head, but now and again the silence was shattered as he voiced an opinion out loud.  Fortunately up to now, out of earshot of anyone who happened to be nearby.

      For a moment he remained silent, going over what he could remember of the lyrics to the song; what he did remember only added fuel to his rising anger.

            You see life through distorted eyes

                                                            You know you have to learn,

                                                            The execution of your mind

                                                            You really have to turn,

                                                            The race is run, the book is read

                                                            The end begins to show,

                                                            The truth is out, the lies are old

                                                            But you don’t want to know.

     “What would you know about it anyway?” This time Ray kept silent, letting his inner voice vent his rage, “ I bet you’d be one of those that treated a woman like a piece of  dog crap.  Pick them up, shag them, and dump them all in the same night that’s you isn’t it?” He was in full flow now and on a subject that he felt passionately about, “Another conquest to add to the collection!  It really makes me proud to be a man when there’s arseholes like you representing us!”

      The silence was complete.

      Ray waited for some sarcastic or snide comment but nothing came.  On the television, a pretty, young woman dressed in a bright red suit was pointing at a map and informing anyone who happened to be listening, that the ‘weather we had been having the last few days would continue into the New Year with little change for the foreseeable future’.

     Jenny was now snoring and showing signs of dreaming.

     “I’m trying hard to let go, really I am.” Ray could feel his weariness ooze from every word as he spoke it, he could also sense the resignation in the tone of his voice.

     Still silence.

      When Alison and Ray split up a few months ago, there were none of the usual bitter hostilities associated with relationships that not just hit the rocks, but pulverised them until all remnants of something once so solid and impeccable are washed away piece by piece until what’s left is so small and ineffectual it just slips through the fingers.

      There were no rows, no tears; the latter came afterwards.  They didn’t fight over the possessions, dividing everything evenly and fairly from the car to the matching Wallace and Gromit egg cups.  In fact, the transition from relationship, coupledom, if there’s such a word, to non-relationship or individuality, passed practically unnoticed, so much so that when Alison left the house for the last time it followed a night of passion the intenseness of which neither had experienced for the last 3 or 4 years.  Their parting embrace and lingering kiss more the actions of love-struck teenagers then those bringing an era to an end.

      They remained friends, stayed close, in a brother/sister kind of way.  She’d phone at least once a week just to see how he was and to chat about this and that.  They’d meet for a drink, non-alcoholic for Ray, or to go shopping.  All very amiable.

      Ray coped amazingly well during their meetings, managing to keep his emotions under wraps until he returned home and was alone again.  He coped despite the increasing awkwardness he was feeling when with her, as if it was wrong that they should enjoy each others company outside of a relationship.  At times though, he got the impression that Alison wished she were somewhere else and that their meetings had become a chore being considered more duty instead of pleasure.        

    With just a brief thought of Alison, Ray resumed his exploration of the television channels, settling for a repeat of a comedy sit-com he remembered first seeing at least 12 years ago.

    “Anyway, she said she would phone me tonight to wish me happy New Year.” he said defiantly,  almost begging for a reply.

     Nothing.

     At the tender age of 32, Ray looked at least 5 to 8 years younger.  The most striking feature about his otherwise unremarkable face were his eyes.  They were of an indescribable shade of green that was enchanting yet at the same time discordant.  Piercing, yet etched with a pain that has been driven deep, very deep, into the dungeons of his self-consciousness, but like a persistent spot, it festers below the surface doing just enough to remind you that it hasn’t gone away.

     To look into those eyes could leave you feeling refreshed on the one hand, and stripped emotionally on the other, as if your very soul had been touched and laid bare for all the world to see.  Some people fell in love with him just for his eyes, others would do anything to avoid contact with them. 

      He was slightly over-weight for his height, which was short.  He wasn’t of dwarf proportions but, as someone had once diplomatically put it, he was ‘a tad below average.’

      Below average?  But what exactly was ‘average’, and how did they come by this measurement?  Had somebody gone around secretly measuring people in their sleep?   His argument on this subject, and he tended to have one on most subjects, was based around the fact that  people of Chinese and Japanese origin, not forgetting those from other Eastern countries such as Mauritius, Burma, Nepal etc., etc., who constituted the majority of the worlds population, were, on the whole, a bit on the short side: in fact, ‘a tad below average.’  With this in mind, he declared himself  ‘of average height’; which still didn’t detract from the fact that he was over-weight and, judging by the size of the ever expanding spare tyre where once was a relatively flat stomach, getting fatter.

       He regularly promised himself that he would go on a diet and take more exercise to rid himself of his excess blubber and get his body back into some sort of ‘acceptable’ shape.  He promised to take the dog out more; if anyone could do with the exercise she could.

      Even thought about going swimming once or twice a week; he had reservations about this though because it meant people would see his near naked body, which to him had become a grossly misshapen bulbous blob.  He’d made a point of buying only food that had a low fat content and avoided dairy products like full cream milk preferring instead, or rather enduring, semi-skimmed.  All he ended up doing though was eating more, therefore nullifying any  benefit the lower calorie intake would have given him.

       Alison had regularly tried to reassure him that he wasn’t a Mr Blobby look-a-like, in fact wasn’t even fat, just out of shape.  Of course, he took it that she was being kind and wouldn’t tell him the truth to his face as she obviously knew he’d take it badly: probably going into one of his insufferable sulks which, he was well aware, infuriated her with their futility.

       As usual she was right, he would reluctantly concede to himself; his pride wouldn’t allow him to come right out and say ‘I’m sorry darling, why would you lie to me, I’m acting the twat again aren’t I?’

     No he couldn’t do that could he? Couldn’t lower himself that far.

     Inevitably, all his efforts at self-improvement came to nothing, lack of will power, zero self control, no matter what you called it the result came out the same; the weight stayed on, the spare tyre remained and Alison continued to tell him, truthfully, that she was more  than happy with him just the way he was.

    Ray had been contemplating another fight the flab war when the phone rang startling Jenny out of a dream laden sleep and causing an impromptu emission of air.

    As he reached for the receiver he glanced at his watch.