These are the first chapters I wrote for a proposed fourth book in the Coll and Art series. I wanted to write Art’s story, because their relationship was a totally different event for him. I thought it would be exciting to see into his mind, and see Coll through his eyes. To filter her through him, as he was filtered through her. I gave him a very different 'voice' to Coll, and planned for him to take half a book relating what Coll had taken three books over! Then the second half would be Art missing her like crazy, opening out, Coll’s letters to him – and then what happens when she comes back from Canada at Christmas. I really wanted to do the airport scene – with Coll’s scary mum and Val, maybe Greg, waiting for her – and Art turning up too.

I hadn’t decided if Coll and Art stayed together or not. I still haven’t!.

ART HISTORY

If I didn't swim so much I'd commit PATRICIDE.

God, I love that word. Patricide. It sounds really official, end-of-the-line important, like if you committed it with a good enough reason they'd have to let you off.

And I've got a good enough reason. The last five years.

'Patricide - the act of killing one's father.' You bet.

I go up and down the pool thirty times, fifty times, until I'm too wasted and tired to think about killing him any more. Then I go home and sleep.

And sometimes, every now and then, there's a bit more to swimming than that. There's this girl at the pool now for instance. She's been there for the last three weeks. Really fit looking, long dark hair, great body, with shape, not too skinny. Bet she's bothered about her weight. Most girls with great bodies are bothered about their weight. I'd like to tell her not to be, only there's not exactly a way you can do that without sounding insulting.

She looks like a seal when she comes up from the water, big brown eyes, spiky lashes, all dripping, looking at me. She looks so hurtable. She looks like she thinks people are basically nice. I'd like to say to her: Get real. They're not.

Got dried, got dressed, got home to a message that Rosamond had phoned, will I phone her back. Which comes down to - do I want a shag Friday night or not. Guess I probably do. Sex and swimming keep me sane. What passes as sane.

Rosamond has a car. She collects me in it. She's some catch. She's had her hair cut different, she's wearing some kind of tight jacket, she looks OK. We go to some phoney wine bar and she reaches over the table and gets hold of my hand and says, 'Getting to be a habit, isn't it, Art?'

'What?' I say.

'Us seeing each other.'

Oh shit here we go. She wants to give me the boyfriend badge. 'What about Kevin?' I ask. Kevin is her real boyfriend. I'm just the bit on the side that makes her think she's being wild and wicked and confused and all kinds of crap. She tells me about it, her confusion, and I want to say to her: No, you're not confused, you're just a bitch, Rosamond. Kevin's an OK bloke and he's crazy about you and you're a bitch. And I'm one too, because I'm going along with it, but the difference is I don't care and you ought to care.

'Kevin trains on Fridays, you know that,' she was saying. She pulled a little dolly thing with her mouth. 'He's too busy for me. Honestly Art - sometimes I think he never has time for me.'

Oh, God. Let's drink up get home get our clothes off. Then we needn't talk any more.

'What do you think, Art?' she was saying. 'I can't go on seeing both of you. It's too complicated.'

'I can't tell you what to do with your life, Rosamond,' I say. 'It has to be your decision.' Girls love that stuff. They really do. Like you've really thought about their problems. Hah.

She goes all soft-eyed at me, and I start pressing my knee between hers under the table, and pretty soon we're driving back to my place.

Rosamund is smirking as we walk up the drive. She loves all this crap, the big door and the big gates and the wide stair case. 'Little rich boy,' she giggles.

'Not so little,' I say, mechanically.

Oh, shit. The door starts to swing back as I try to get my key in the lock and there's Dad in the doorway. He has a fat whiskey glass in one hand and he's smiling all suave and man-of-the-world. He's met Rosamund before. He likes her.

'Hi, kids,' he says. 'Good evening?'

No, you prick. Stale as shit. 'Yes, fabulous, thanks, Mr Johnson,' goes Rosamund.

Then there's the usual awkward bit when Dad says want a drink? and Rosamund looks at me and I don't look back, just shrug. Dad wants to feast on Rosamund for a bit. He wants to run his tired old lechy eyes over her. Maybe you can do that when we've finished, Dad, I'd like to say. Only I don't, I push her a bit with my shoulder and she stumbles and giggles and we head to the stairs and Dad calls out, 'Well, goodnight then!' all dry and knowing and man-of-the world.

'I can't believe he's this laid back,' she whispers as we shuffle upwards. 'Letting you have …anyone you like up here.'

'You,' I hiss back. 'It's you I like up here.' She giggles again.

Rosamund gets home whatever time she likes. As long as she phones first. She has a very liberal mother. They discuss me and Kevin and the problem of it all.

She high-heels it along to the phone on the landing and dials her number. Then she's whispering into it: 'Hi, Mum. I'm fine, I'm fine. Yeah I'm with Art. He's …ooooh! I know, I know … I don't know …I know I've got to ….I know …' I come up behind her and put my arms round her and start nuzzling into the back of her neck cos it's expected of me and 'cos it makes things quicker afterwards.

She puts the phone down, and I drag her into my room and lock the door.

I've got to stop sleeping with her. I don't like her, and it sucks to sleep with people you don't like. But it's OK when you get going.

She thinks I'm depraved. She thinks I'm brilliant. She's told me Kevin is a bit of a straightforward can't-hold-off-for-long type. I'm not because my mind is always on something else. I can go on for ever.

Afterwards I pretend to sleep. I make out it's been so earthshatteringly good I have to sleep, and that's OK by her. She gets up to go about 1 am, puts her clothes back on, whispers 'Good night, baby,' and creeps out.

I don't feel bad. Only about Kevin, because he's the nicest of the three of us. There's nothing needy in Rosamund.. There's nothing in her that needs. She thinks I'm the same - cool, detached. She wouldn't think that if she pulled the top of my skull off and looked inside. She wouldn't think I was so cool then.

I lie there in the empty dark and wait to sleep. I hear Dad talking to Fran on the landing. Fran. Stepmother. The woman your dad marries when your mother dies.

Fran's complaining and Dad's soothing, blustering, joking, and then Fran laughs, which probably means he'll get a shag too. Clever Dad. Like father, like son.

When Mum died, Dad died. Just as surely as if he'd plugged himself with pills and left me a note saying Sorry, son.

Sometimes I wish he had done that.

CHAPTER 2

I decide to finish it with Rosamund. It's not worth it. If I really miss the sex I can find it with someone else, can't I, a great looking bloke like me.

I phone her; I don't even bother to rehearse anything first because I know what I'm going to say, it's the same sort of stuff I always say. When she answers I mumble and choke my way through stuff about how I don't want to share her, I can't handle it any more, she needs space, Kevin needs space. I'm like this relationship therapy book all mushed up into porridge and spewed down the phone line.

And Rosamund swallows it. She cries and says she can't choose, and I say I'm choosing for you, you were with Kevin first, you have to work it out with him first, and she cries again and says can she call me if she ends it with him.

And I say yes, call. And if she does, I'll say - Rosamund who?

I stay in on Saturday night. This is only partly my choice. Just as I'm wondering what I can do, who I can call, where I can go, Dad pins me against the wall and tells me I have to come to their phoney dinner party that night. 'Al J's just cancelled,' he says. 'We're a man short.'

'I'm not a man, Dad,' I say. 'I'm a little kid.'

Over by the sink, Fran shrieks like a seabird. 'Ha! Little kids don't have girls up in their rooms all hours of the night! Making noises! '

'Come on, Son,' Dad says. 'Help us out.'

'Do I have a choice?' I ask.

'No,' says Fran.

So there I am at 9.30 pm, seated between two harpies, being charming. Oh, it's working all right. It's dead easy to make women like you at first. The one in the red dress is leaning closer and closer and the one in the black keeps saying 'Don't you think, Art, darling?' and then she rests her arm all knobbly with bracelets on my shoulder. They're talking across me, and their breath is meeting across my mouth, and I'm smiling and laughing, and across the table, Fran raises her glass to me.

Everyone gets very drunk and stupid and noisy. And I think - how can they waste their time like this, how can they think what they're talking about matters, and I hate all of them, I hate the way they're making out they're happy. Then Fran makes coffee, then she throws everyone out. And at the front door I see Dad pawing the red harpy, the last to go, and she's saying, 'Oh, he reminds me of you, he'll be a horrid heartbreaker just like you.' And Fran doesn't see it because she's in the kitchen, and Dad's saying, 'Oh, Jessie, don't, I never wanted to break your heart,' and smooching down at her hair, and then he looks up and sees me and winks over her head.

And I go upstairs, hating him most of all.