I pretended to sleep and watched him carefully. He had a brown housecoat which he called “the animal.” He wore it on the rare occasions that he needed comfort or warmth. He was wearing the animal and sitting at his desk. He looked at a book occasionally but I could tell he wasn’t reading. Ant and I went out. He let me sign out to his aunt’s place and we ended up in Hull. I was so grateful to be taken away from school that Saturday. “I don’t know where Chuck and J are tonight,” he said. We went to his aunt’s place, a large apartment on the canal, and we drank and got ready to go out. His aunt was in Paris. She had a fully stocked bar and a vast array of Dresden ware which Ant ignorantly referred to as China. “Don’t go to China,” he said, meaning don’t break the dishes. We drank tequila, which I had never had before. I was wearing a white shirt, which I had untucked, and a pair of jeans. Ant said that I should borrow a shirt. We went into his bedroom and he tossed me a red T-shirt that he said would look good on me.
