Stats

ONLY 1.5% OF BRITAIN'S POPULATION ACTUALLY GAY
Morgan holds up the paper, annoyed.
'Well that's my chances fucked, then.' he murmurs.
The slightly old, very squeaky door slams. DeWitt bounces in.
'Hi,' he says, throwing his bag down on the floor.
'I'm not talking to you.'
'Is that so.'
They stand, back to back, for several minutes of silence. Morgan begins whistling a Fleetwood Mac b-side to himself.
'Is this because of Come Dine With Me?'
'I'm NOT TALKING!'
He slams the door.

So that makes three. Devlin is still feeling self-righteous after the 'patisserie incident' a few weeks ago, as well as Morgan's general attitude of disrespect towards pastry. DeWitt's surprise upcoming stint on the nation's favourite dinner-party gameshow has got everyone pissed off, especially as the camera crew descends this weekend. And Esther, their third flatmate? She's, as always, nowhere to be found.
Morgan works part-time in an organic concept cafe after losing his job last February to a cartel of ruthless, serial temping addicts. The cafe is called 'Basha', which were the first four scrabble letters picked out of a hat by the white, Eton-educated owners when they decided what to pour their trust funds into. It's in the middle of Soho, frequented by the 'media types' he sort-of came down to London to join the ranks of. The squabbling classes. The net-a-porter classes. What once were known, a very long time ago, as the foccacia classes.

He throws around clothes like confetti. For some reason it seems there's only a multi-coloured jumpsuit, a too-short, stinky t-shirt and a pair of jeans with a rip in the crotch. There is nothing, even though there are so many clothes hanging up- nothing, nothing to wear. And in this cafe, even the staff wear Balenciaga (under their vintage denim jackets and scarves).
He throws a t-shirt over a shirt, sniffs the armpits (just about OK), styles with the same jeans as yesterday and walks out the door and bumps into the celebrity vicar.
'I'm late.' he says, running towards the bus.
'Morgan! Morgan!'
Morgan leaps on the number 2 and laughing, sees the celebrity vicar recede into the distance. Before realising he has only one shoe.

A bus journey deciding whether or not to walk barefoot (fashion has dicated Morgan isn't wearing socks this season) or hop to work is not a fun one.

We View Horizons Kindly

The voice at the end of the phone says 'no'.
'Phone says no.' says Morgan.
'I heard it.' says Esther. 'Wait a sec.' She grabs it off him, roughly, and chucks it into the water below. It makes a sound like a head hitting the water; beneath, the canal silt shifts and disappears. 'We'll never hear from them again.' she says.

'God, I wonder who that was. I mean, when does that kind of thing happen?' asks Morgan.
'I don't know,' pleads Esther. 'I'm really tired. I've got a party to host tomorrow. See you soon. Bye.'
Her door slams in his face.
Oh well, thinks Morgan. He sort-of misses the phone and reaches for his own one. No-one's rung. Hmm.

But the whole thing bugs Morgan for days. Though it's not the only thing distracting him from today's band practice- that would be Emily.
ugh. EMILY.
Morgan distractedly plonks a keyboard.
'I've been musing on... dubstep,' says Emily.
'What actually is a dub step?' asks a distracted Morgan. 'is the step the dance you do?'
'I think dubstep is the TIME. It's the PLACE. It's the MOTION. Dubstep is the
way We View Horizons Kindly is feeling. You know!' she twirls around. Today, Emily's dressed like a one-woman homage to Shakespeares Sister's 'Stay' video, dusty too-tight sequin top, mascara and tiara competing for attention.
'Are feeling. Not is.' a quiet voice from the corner, a self- contained, self-made mysteriousness. His given name is 'Dennis', he's the third member of We View Horizons Kindly and Emily and Morgan found him playing guitar on top of a skip in Mornington Crescent last summer.
Yes, that's the name of Morgan's band. Oversized.Denim.Shirt, TTL FCCKRZ, Yoshi's Island- all these band names had been rejected in narrow favour of one taken from a tattoo Emily's first boyfriend had on his lower arm (the other arm had his name and address tattooed on it).
'I forgot!' squeals Emily. 'Shocking, isn't it, for a classics grad.'
'Though you did only get a 2:1,' mumbles the band's least with-it member. They'd been attempting to play chronological Sugababes covers since twelve; it was now five, and Morgan couldn't take any more.
'I just feel like... We need to fag it up a bit. Get with what the kids are doing. I mean, everyone's talking in patois now, aren't they? Black is back.'
Oh GOD, thinks Morgan.
'Did it ever go away?' intones Dennis, mystically.
'Look- it's time to buck our ideas up. We're supposed to be a multi-media art collective. Not just some musicians in a room.'
They pose on crates in Dennis's warehouse somewhere off Mare Street, feeling the cold and inhaling cups of stale peppermint tea. Dennis isn't much of a shopper. Dennis is in love with Emily. Emily is in love with Robert Pattinson and the Lord of the Rings hobbits.
'I just think our sound needs to be more ambient, you know. It's like every fucking decade's been done. Especially with this 1910's sound that's coming back.'
'We haven't written a song for five weeks,' says Dennis, in his usual, ageless monk voice.
'I thought we were supposed to be divining ambient soundscapes rather than writing songs?' says Morgan.
'Ambient songs, temperate soundscrapes...' whispers Dennis. 'Everything is fragments-'
'-I was thinking about writing this epic song,' quips Morgan. 'It was going to be a requiem for our generation, a modern-day version of We Didn't Start The Fire, starting with MTV and running through Party of Five, the Spice Girls and 9/11, played on a melodica.'
'Are you still seeing that vicar off the TV?'
'NO.' says Morgan, loudly. PHONE SAYS NO. 'And while we're on the subject, what's happened to the shaman?'
'Oh,' Emily twiddles her tiara, wipes a bit of hummus off her sequins. 'He's a dreambout, isn't he?'
'Don't you mean dreamboat?' Morgan has probably never been so keen to not be in a room, on a comfy chair, before. What with the crazy phone and the upcoming gig, it's all a bit much.
'Are you totally soft in the brainbox!? I've never heard anyone say dreamboat before.'
'Maybe they don't,' he says, slamming the top down on his keyboard. 'Sorry. I don't know what came over me. I've never heard anyone say that. Go on.' says Morgan. You absolute fucking idiot.
'We've got a meeting at the shaman's studio next Saturday.'

''We've got a meeting at the shaman's studio next Saturday.''
He even inserts the finger quote marks.
'Have you read Kyki Czukay's column this week? He's literally insane. He's lost the plot.' Devlin, the scone, scours today's copy of the Metro. 'And I quote. BAG ABOUT TOWN, by Kyki Czukay,' he puts on a drawling, awful voice, 'Shitfaced. It was only a Wednesday morning and I'd already found myself semi-naked in Daffodil's bed with a male prostitute called Ludovic. We'd snorted what was supposed to be weed tranquiliser in the back of a German shadow minister's car on the way back from Daisy Lowe's new clubnight, Lowe and Behold. Where the man-whore was concerned, I was definitely doing all the holding.'
Morgan picks up a baseball cap from the side and tries it on, spinning round in the mirror. 'I don't know how these social diarists even get their jobs. I mean, that doesn't even make sense.'
'Kyki Czukay wears a baseball cap,' says Devlin.
'Does he?'
'You just put that one on as I was reading it out.'
'Did I?'
'That's weird...' Devlin shuffles back slightly. 'Put it down, Morgan, put it down.'
Morgan's phone rings again.
'Oh god. It's her.'
'Emily?'
'Queen of the nymphs. The three-headed dog at the gates of hell.'
'Cerberus.'
'That, too.' he picks it up. 'Emily...'
Devlin continues to flick through the paper, his stick-on arms moving the pages somewhat unsteadily.
'Yep, yep...' Morgan picks his nose as he talks. 'Yep. The what? The Shaman's flatmate is holding a spirit quest next Saturday. We can't walk within a five hundred yard radius.'
'Because that's what people get up to on a Saturday...' mumbles Devlin, shaking his crust in dismay.
'You want to hold it here? At ours? Is that alright?'
Devlin's eyes light up.
'Oooh... maybe not such a good one. There's something I forgot to tell you.'
'Forgot. Sorry, Emily. Just a sec.' Morgan silences the phone. 'What?'
'I'm cooking next Saturday. For a few friends.'
'How many.'
'Why? It doesn't matter, it's-'
'It's four strangers, isn't it.'
'It's just a little thing. It must have slipped my mind.'
'Ohhhhh no you don't.'
'What?' cries Devlin, splodges of jam falling from his mouth. 'What!?'
'It's Come Dine With Me, isn't it. Isn't it! You've bloody applied!'
'I might have done.' says Devlin, shuffling out of the room as fast as a baked good can.

'Aren't you supposed to be Morgan Furzedown?'

'We need to set you up with somebody,' says DeWitt.

'We need to set you up with somebody. When was your last girlfriend?'

'I had a few dates with a bacon roll last year... she was a little on the greasy side, though. And there was that iced finger we met at the bus-stop. She was a bit more Gregg's than Taste The Difference, if you know what I mean.'

DeWitt stares blankly at the passing shops as they search for a new place to lunch. The trattoria on the corner? Done it. That pizzeria in Hay's Galleria? Don't ask.

'You've dated a human girl though, surely... ' Morgan asks, plonking him down on the table as they slip into a coffee shop just by London Bridge.

'Too many. They're crazy... some have tried to eat me.'

'But you're a sandwich. That's natural. That's normal.'

'I wouldn't try and eat you.'

'You're about one fiftieth of the size of me. What do you want?'

'The least trendy coffee on the menu.'

As they watch the world go by, men in puffa vests and silly boots, people with armfuls of dead pig and twentysomethings in high-street gypsy clothes, a familiar beat comes on the stereo.

'Guess who I bumped into the other day' cries DeWitt. 'Esther!'

Esther is their other flatmate- she's lived there for two years and they probably see her about twice a month.

'Hold on, isn't this song one of mine?' says Morgan, almost spilling his coffee.

DeWitt gets angry.

'Watch out! I'm permeable, you know!'

'Excuse me,' Morgan heads to the counter. 'Whose music is this?'

The man behind must be the same age as Morgan, his mid twenties, but the contrast of massive farmer's beard and incredibly youthful eyes made him look somehow like a kid in a wig.

'It's Mischa's. She does the playlist.'

'Well that's my band. It's uh... ambient dub-hop.'

'Wait a second... I'm gonna write that down. That's good, that is.'

Morgan looks proud and glances at a confused DeWitt, who seems to be watching a fight on the street outside.

'Oh, hold on.' says the coffee man. He clears his throat, dramatically. 'Aren't you supposed to be Morgan Furzedown?'

'Yes. Yes! Of course that's me. Yep. My band. Moorrgan...'

'I'm supposed to give you this from the Syndicate.'

The man reaches beneath the counter and hands Morgan a phone. He suddenly adopts a sinister face.

'What's this for?'

'You left it on that table. The one in the corner. Last time you came in.'

'No I didn't.'

'Oh yes you did.'

'I've never been here before. And I wouldn't buy a shitty phone like that.' Morgan reaches into his pocket. 'I'm actually an iPhone user?'

'Maybe the talking sandwich left it.'

'He has a Motorola pay-as-you go.'

'Well if it's not yours then why has it got all your numbers in it?'

The coffee man lifts up the phone, scrolls through and Morgan sees- Dad, Devlin, DeWitt, Diane, Egbert, Esther...

'Take it,' says the man. 'It's yours.'

People only say that in films were something ludicrous is about to happen, thinks Morgan.

'Well, now they say it in real life.' replies the man.

I've got to stop saying what I'm thinking! cries Morgan.

'That, too.'

'Thanks,' says Morgan, in those audible, ironic quote marks as he slips the phone inside his jacket.

'Am I right?' cries an excited voice from somewhere. A woman emerges from the back looking more like she's jumped from a more experimental back pages of Vogue circa 1997; all headscarf, Nike t-shirt and leggings. 'Is this your group?'

'There's customers waiting,' moans the coffee man.

'Fine, fine, I'm out of the way,' Morgan holds up his hands and shuffles along irritatedly, but there's no room 'cause the cafe is about three tables wide anyway. He's still in the way. 'Yep. We View Horizons Kindly.'

'Amaaaaaaaaaazing. That Replete reaper track, I got it stuck in my head.'

She has an odd way of talking- a little bit Czech, a little bit Australian, old-fashioned staccato.

'It's a, uh, banger, isn't it.' God, I sound like an idiot. Morgan looks to DeWitt. 'We should... talk about music, you know.'

'I have a boyfriend.'

'Oh, and I'm a... massive... gay,' he replies, blank-faced.

'Oh thank god for that.' she looks relieved. 'I mean, I was 99% sure by the way you talk, but like, you can never tell these days, can you.'

'I can't.'

'So is your band playing soon? I'd love to see them.'

'We're doing... the... you know, the festival that doesn't have a name, but the logo is shaped like a triangle.'

'KRK! festival?'

'I think it's pronounced BRAP! the organiser was telling me.'

'I think it's KRK.'

'Maybe.'

She laughs.

'Listen,' he says. 'I've never been in this shop before but your friend there...' he gestures at the counter, 'gave me this phone and said it was mine.'

'Oh, Jerry? I think he does that to everyone.'

DeWitt bounces onto the table.

'Hi...' he beams, holding an arm out to Mischa.

That night it gets colder and Morgan finds it hard to switch off.

He spends twenty minutes deciding to delete the bastarding celebrity vicar off of facebook. He contemplates going to the press and outing him to the good listeners of radio 4. Are they liberal or conservative? What was anyone, anymore?

The small, black, plastic phone from the coffee shop rings. An unknown number.

It rings again at 12.05. He doesn't pick it up but there's no voicemail to identify... He puts the phone on silent and begins to feel slightly uneasy....

After he's finished brushing his teeth and preparing for bed, Morgan checks the phone. Someone has rung the phone 50 times. Someone 'walks over his grave'; he shivers. His shaking fingers grip the phone and waits for them to call again, but nothing. His flatmates are asleep.

Slowly, watching the skewed shadows, he creeps downstairs into the house's breezy kitchen. Upturned plates and stacked dirty pans, the rattle and hum of a house at night. A tapping from in the living room.

'Esther?'

'AAAAIIIIIIIEEEE!!!!!!!'

She's on the sofa, screaming and turning round.

'It's me! Morgan.'

'Oh god. You scared the... living daylights out of me.' She's wearing a full outfit like she's just about to go out, or come back.

'Are you going for a walk?' he asks.

They stand on the edge of a bridge- not a real one, over water, but a fake one over some man-made underpass or strange bike route that nobody's ever used. The better bridges of London, Morgan thinks. The phone still hasn't rung.

'I think this is the first time I've ever walked at night with someone,' sighs Esther, stubbing out her cigarette. 'And it might be the last.'

'I suppose it loses the magic, doesn't it.'

'Yu-hum.'

Suddenly, the phone rings.

'Well, are you gonna answer it or what?' she asks.

He gives her a troubled look, and clears his throat.

'...Hello?'

Celebrity Vicar

1

'The world is wide, weird and wonderful,' he says, 'and never forget that-'
'Never forget what?' says Morgan.
'-----'
'Never forget what?' cries Morgan. 'You were going to say something else! Something else!'
Summer was uneventful. Spring was uneventful, but autumn is definitely not being uneventful so far.
'TELL ME!'
The young man shakes his head and closes the grille.
'I know what you were going to say. You were going to say never forget that I love you! Never forget! ! !'
The grille opens up again.
'Nope.'
And shuts. Morgan's heart breaks .

Later...

'My heart's broken.'
'Yu-hum.' Devlin seems ensconced in his programme.
'Doesn't that disturb you?' interjects Morgan.
'What? You were only seeing him for two weeks, weren't you...? I'm trying to watch this show...'
'It disturbs me that you're a talking scone and you're watching scones being made and eaten. What is this, that new lesbian baking show?'
Devlin turns to Morgan with a classic patronising look.
'You humans love programmes with yourselves being born, and beaten up, and killed. It's exactly the same. Now shh! They're having a very interesting conversation about string theory.'
Morgan glances blankly at the screen. Two scones, being buttered.
'I'm sure they are.' he says.

The next day...

I can't deal with this anymore, thinks Morgan, neatly seated on the throne.
There are crumbs all over the bathroom floor; several feet up, the window is iced and London is wheezing, falling headfirst into the lean months.
Morgan Furzedown has several mini heart-attacks from just one page of today's ES magazine, the glossy featured every Friday in the Evening Standard. As his eyes scan the tales of socialite sheiks, business divas from countries that no longer exist and gay spies, he spots Jim. Last summer's love of Morgan's life, Jim Summerton, posing in a silk jacket next to some new actress person with a short haircut.
Morgan flicks the page and notices his ex-best friend's best-friend's boyfriend's one-man show is the talk of the town. There's a photo of 'Eduardo' (which Morgan knows isn't his real name), styled and standing horrifically smug outside the guerilla pop-up theatre where the show is on- a former brothel in Croydon, 'the new new Shoreditch' according to the ES's fawning reporter. 'His Pre-Raphaelite curls will have girls fainting in the front row'.
Ugh, thinks Morgan. These people. I'd better be careful. Too many people have died of toilet heart attacks. I just don't hope Devlin and DeWitt are on the next page.

'How did things go with the celebrity vicar?' asks DeWitt, cautiously, sitting calmly on the counter.
'Don't sit there!I Or I swear, someone will end up eating you.' cries Morgan, scooping him up onto a jazzy plate.
'Sorry.' mumbles DeWitt, a talking sandwich.
'Sometimes I feel like the only person who cares about you, and you don't even notice.'
'Oh, for god's sake.'
Morgan folds his arms and stares hard at DeWitt's Friday filling- a cheese and ham combo.
'All he said was, 'the world is weird and wide and wonderful' and then he stopped as if to say something else, like I love you. And I asked him if that's what he meant and he said, no.'
'What an absolute bastard.' DeWitt's ham and cheese mouth wavers as he talks. His stick-on eyes are eyeing the window. 'I think it's beginning to snow.'
'Snow! Snow! Bloody snow! I need a drink. It's only September!'
'Tell me about it. Have you seen Devlin today?'
'Nope.' Morgan is hastily rummaging through the cupboards for something, anything, to drink. '
'I think he hates you. Apparently he saw you rolling around and stuffing your face with a cinammon danish on the carpet drunk last week, and thinks you show no respect for pastries. Apparently it was four in the afternoon.'
'Oh for fuck's sake!!!'
Morgan stops and bursts into tears.
'It was four thirty.'
'Apparently it was a big cinammon danish.'
'Can I not even eat pastries anymore?'