REMEMBER THIS MOMENT, REMEMBER US

Published by Faber and Faber.

Loyal readers. You’ve been with me since January, less than a month after my fall. I had no idea then that people would be at all interested in my continuing degradation, but we have grown to sixteen-thousand subscribers, which is phenomenal and very moving.

I like my writing to be freely available, which why my dispatches are for everyone. But paying subscribers must get value too, so in the coming weeks I plan to:

1.     Send Out Books: finally, I will be sending out signed copies of my books to Founding Members.

2.     Ask Me Anything: a post in which you can ask me questions in the comments and I will endeavour to reply to as many as I can.

3.     Material From My Back Catalogue: more material from my back catalogue.

As always, if you have the means, it’d mean a great deal if you could support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber, and keep this show on the road.

It is nearly Christmas and Rick is getting quite drunk at a party in a friend's clothes shop. It is a vast shop in a smart area of west London, and tonight the girls who work there have got dressed up in shiny black dresses, white velvet bunny ears and high shoes. When Rick and Daniel arrived, the girls were holding trays of champagne, mulled wine and mince pies. Has there ever been anything so inviting?

The girls helped Rick's son Daniel out of his pushchair, removed his little red coat and showed him to the children's room where remote-controlled electric toys buzzed across the floor. There was a small seesaw; several other local children were already playing. Rick sat on the floor and Daniel, though it was late for him, chased the electric toys, flung a ping-pong ball through the open window and dismantled a doll's house, not understanding that all the inviting objects were for sale.

Rick had begun drinking an hour earlier. On the way to the party they had stopped at a bar in the area where Rick used to go when he was single. There, Daniel, who is two and a half, had climbed right up onto a furry stool next to his father, sitting in a line with the other early-evening drinkers.

'I'm training him up,’ Rick said to the barmaid. 'Please, Daniel, ask her for a beer.'

"Blow-blow,’ said Daniel.

"Sorry?' said Rick.

Daniel held up a book of matches. "Blow-blow.'

Rick opened it and lit a match. ‘Again,’ Daniel said, the moment be blew it out. He extinguished two match books like this, filling an ashtray. As each match illuminated the boy's face, his cheeks filled up and his lips puckered. When the light died, the boys laughter rang out around the fashionably gloomy bar.

'Ready, steady, blow-blow!'

"Blow-bloody-blow,’ murmured a sullen drinker.

"Got something to say?' said Rick, slipping from the stool.

The man grunted.

Rick persuaded the kid to get into his raincoat and put on his hat with the peak and ear-flaps, securing it under his chin. He slung the bag full of nappies, juice, numerous snacks, wipes and toys over his shoulder, and they went out into the night and teeming rain.

It has been raining for two days. News reports state that there have been floods all over the country. The party was about ten minutes' walk away. Rick was wet through by the time they arrived. His successful friend Martin with the merry staff in the big lighted shop full of clothes Rick could never afford embraced him at the door. Martin has no children himself, and this was the first time he had seen Daniel. The two men have been friends since Martin designed and made the costumes for a play Rick was in, on the Edinburgh fringe, twenty years ago. Rick congratulated him on receiving his MBE and asked to see the medal. However, there were people at Martin's shoulder and he had no time to talk. The warm wine in small white cups soon cheered Rick up.

Rick hasn't had an acting job for four months but has been promised something reasonable in the New Year. He has been going out with Daniel a lot. At least once a week, if Rick can afford it, he and Daniel take the Central Line into the West End and walk around the shops, stopping at cafés and galleries. Rick shows him the theatres he has worked in; if he knows the actors, he takes him backstage.

Rick’s three other children, who live with his first wife, are in their late teens. Rick would love always to have a child in the house. When he can, he takes Daniel to parties. Daniel has big eyes; his hair has never been cut and he is often mistaken for a girl. People will talk to Rick if Daniel is with him, but he doesn't have to make extended conversation.

As the party becomes more crowded and raucous, while drinking steadily, Rick chats to the people he's introduced to. Daniel is given juice which the girls in the shop hold out for him, crouching down with their knees together.

Quite soon, Daniel says, 'Home, Dadda.’

Rick gets him dressed and manoeuvres the pushchair into the street. They begin to walk through the rain. There are few other people about, and no buses; it is far to the tube. A taxi with its light on passes them. When it has almost gone, Rick jumps into the road and yells after it, waving his arms, until it stops. As they cross London, Rick points at the Christmas lights through the rain-streaked windows. Rick recalls similar taxi rides with his own father and remembers a photograph of himself, aged six or seven, wearing a silver bow-tie and fez-like Christmas hat, sitting on his father's knee at a party.

At home, Rick smokes a joint and drinks two more glasses of wine. It is getting late, around ten-thirty, and though Daniel usually goes to bed at eight, Rick doesn't mind if he is up, he likes the company. They eat sardines on toast with tomato ketchup; then they play loud music and Rick demonstrates the hokey-cokey to his son.

Anna has gone to her life-drawing class but is usually home by now. Why has she not returned? She is never late. Rick would have gone out to look for her, but he cannot leave Daniel and it is too wet to take him out again.

When Rick lies on the floor with his knees up, the kid steps onto him, using his father's knees for support. Daniel begins to jump up and down on Rick's stomach, as if it were a trampoline. Rick usually enjoys this as much as Daniel. But today it makes him feel queasy.

Yesterday was Rick’s forty-fifth birthday, a bad age to be, he reckons, putting him on the wrong side of life. It is not only that he feel more tired and melancholic than normal, he also wonders whether he can recover from these bouts as easily as he used to. In the past year two of his friends have had heart attacks; two others have had strokes.

He guesses that he passed out on the floor. He is certainly aware of Anna shaking him. Or does she kick him in the ribs, too? He may be drunk, but he means to inform her immediately that he is not an alcoholic.

However, Rick feels strange, as if he has been asleep for some time. He wants to tell Anna what happened to him while he was asleep. He finds some furniture to hold on to, and pulls himself up.

He sees Daniel running around with a glass of wine in his hand.

‘What's been going on?' Anna says.

‘We went out,’ Rick says, pursuing the boy and retrieving the glass. 'Didn't we, Dan?'

'Out with Dadda,’ says Daniel. 'Nice time and biscuits. Dadda have drink.’

'Thanks, Dan,’ Rick says.

Rick notices he has removed Daniel's trousers and nappy but omitted to replace them. There is a puddle on the floor and Daniel has wet his socks; his vest, which is hanging down, is soaked too.

He says to her, ‘You think I was asleep, but I wasn't. I was thinking, or dreaming, rather. Yes, constructively dreaming…’

'And you expect me to ask what about?'

'I had an idea,’ he says. 'It was my forty-fifth birthday yesterday and a good time we had too. I was dreaming that we were writing a card to Dan for his forty-fifth birthday. A card he wouldn't be allowed to open until then.’

‘I see,’ she says, sitting down. Dan is playing at her feet.

‘After all,’ he continues, ‘like you I think about the past more and more. I think of my parents, of being a child, of my brothers, the house, all of it. What we'll do is write him a card, and you can illustrate it. We'll make it now, put it away and forget it. Years will pass and one day, when Dan's forty five with grey hair and a bad knee, he’ll remember it, and open it. We’ll have sent him our love from the afterlife. Of course, you'll be alive then, but it's unlikely that I will be. For those moments, though, when he's reading it, I'll be vital in his mind. What d'you say, Anna? I'd love to have received a card from my parents on my forty-fifth birthday. All day I thought one would just pop through the door, you know.'

He is aware that she has been drinking, too, after her class. Now, as always, she begins to spread her drawings of heads, torsos and hands out on the floor. Daniel ambles across the big sheets as Rick examines them, trying to find words of praise he hasn't used before. She is hoping to sell some of her work eventually, to supplement their income.

She says, 'A card's great. It's a good idea and a sweet, generous gesture. But it's not enough.’

‘What d'you mean?’ he says. He goes on, 'You might be right. When I was dreaming, I kept thinking of the last scene of Wild Strawberries.'

‘What happens in it?'

‘Doesn't the old man, on a last journey to meet the significant figures of his life, finally wave to his parents?'

'That's what we should do,’ she says. 'Make a video for Daniel and put it in a sealed envelope.'

'Yes,’ he says, drinking from a glass he finds beside the chair. 'It's a brilliant idea.’

'But we're quite drunk,’ she says. 'It'll be him sitting in front of it, forty-five years old. He'll turn on the tape at last and - ’

‘There won't even be tapes then,’ Rick says. They'll be in a museum. But they'll be able to convert it to whatever system they have.’

She says, 'My point is, after all that time, he'll see two pissed people. What's his therapist going to say?'

"Don't we want him to know that you and I had a good time sometimes?

'Okay,’ she says. But if we're going to do this, we should be prepared.’