That’s providing you can overcome your sexual attraction to me ha ha. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll lock you in your room at nights. Anyway, now the  big one—

3  –  As soon as you’ve read this, go to the student travel agency on Tottenham Court Road and book an OPEN RETURN flight to Delhi to arrive as near as possible to August 1st, two weeks’ time, 

which  in  case  you’ve  forgotten  is  my  birthday.  The night  before  get  a  train  to  Agra  and  stay  in  a cheap  motel.  Next  morning  get  up  early  and  go  to  the  Taj Mahal.  Perhaps  you’ve  heard  of it,  big white building named after that Indian restaurant on the Lothian Road. Have a look around and at precisely 12 midday you stand directly under the centre of the dome with a red rose in one hand and a copy of  Nicholas Nickleby in the other and I will come and find you, Em. I will be carrying a white rose and my copy of Howards End and when I see you I will throw it at your head.

Isn’t that the greatest plan you’ve ever heard of in your life?

Ah,typical Dexter you say, isn’t he forgetting something? Money! Plane tickets don’t grow on 

trees and what about social security and the work ethic etc. etc. Well don’t worry, I’m payi ng. Yes, I’m  paying. I’m  going  to wire  the  money  to  you  for  your  plane  ticket  (I’ve  always  wanted  to  wire money) and I’m going to pay for everything when you’re here which sounds swanky but isn’t because it is so  DAMN CHEAP  here. We can live for months, Em, me and you, heading down to Kerala or across to Thailand. We could go to a full moon party  –  imagine staying awake all night not because you’re worried about the future but because it’s  FUN. (Remember when we stayed up all night after graduation, Em? Anyway. Moving on.)

For three hundred pounds of someone else’s money, you could change your life, and you mustn’t worry about it because frankly I have money that I haven’t earned, and you work really hard and yet you don’t have money, so it’s socialism in action isn’t it? And if you really want you can pay me back when you’re a famous playwright, or when the poetry-money kicks in or whatever.