Joy

That's what I always forget when I write about him, W. says. It's what's always left out: our joy. Were ever two people so joyous? Did laughter come so readily from any other pair of friends?

Laugh – that's what we do. We shake the air. We laugh until we cry, laugh until beer runs from our nostrils. We become giddy and light with laughter; we stagger like drunkards, and it's worse when we're drunk. Worse we attain that mystical plane of drunkenness, when Sal tells us she's sick of us and goes to bed.

'Stop fucking laughing, the pair of you', she says. But we're possessed. We're madmen who have set fire to all seriousness, and to the rubbish tip of their lives.