Didn’t feel too bad after the gym walking around Soho looking for record shops but as soon as my head hit the pillow that night it started to feel like my body was turning into wood.Every muscle was tightening and even my eyelashes ached.

I managed to fall asleep but in the early hours the pain in my calves woke me up. Never felt anything like it. It was as if Medusa was sucking my toes and turning my calves into knotty stony things. The pain grew and grew in both legs and then ..........ahhhhhhhhh! The most intense searing pain I´ve ever felt.

“Fooking ‘ell! What the fook´s going on?”

My screaming had woken up Finbar who shared the room.

“Oh god...ahhhhh....I dunno.......ahhhh... no, no, no, no! Feels like my legs are on fire.”

“Fooking ´ell. Calm down will ya? You´ve got cramp that´s all.”

“That´s all? I said in between screaming on the top of my voice and hoping about the room “I can´t move my toes.”

I fell onto my back on the floor in search of some relief with my legs up in the air and as I looked up I could see my toes were sort of ninety degrees to my feet like if they were looking at me.

“Finbar do something will you before it goes up to my holiday money...oh god...no...no...no!

He got out of bed reached for his glasses and got hold of both my legs, pulled them up towards his chest and then pressed my feet towards my head.

“Wha... what you doing?” I sort of whimpered.

“This is what the footballers do at Wembley when they go down in extra time.”

“But I haven´t been playing football.. ahhh.. and anyway ...ahhhh...you...ahhh... support Stoke so how would you know?” I said.

“Will ya fooking stay still and shut up, you´ll wake up your brother and Sean and anyway it can´t be hurting you that much if you can take the piss.”

After a couple of minutes of this the pain started to ease so I pulled my legs towards myself forgetting to tell Finbar of my intentions and as he was pushing down on my feet he fell on top of me and just as his nose met mine the light went on and there was Sean and there we were, me and Finbar in our bundies with Finbar lying on top of me.

Sean just raised his eyebrows and turned to go back out of the bedroom.

“It´s not what you think Sean” said Finbar sheepishly.

“Oh come on Finbar, you know you like me” I said trying to contain my laughter.

“Fook off will ya” he said getting up and as he climbed into bed he mumbled

“that´s just fooking champion innit. Selfless as ever and now all I´ll get in return is people thinking I’m partial to a roll around the carpet in my drawers with a fooking grinning Welsh bastard.”

Never heard Finbar say so many fooks so he must have been well pissed off.

The next thing I remember hearing was the alarm clock.

I turned to switch it off but realized my legs weren´t moving with my torso.

“Finbar, wake up I can´t move my legs.”

“I´m already awake” he said turning off the alarm clock “and after all the appreciation you showed me last night you can fook right off.“

He raised himself up to sit on the edge of his bed rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and turning towards me said “look it´s quite simple. You´re a fooking wimp who´s spent the last three years getting pissed, living on Bobbies Burgers and onion bhajis, who went to a gym one day and was daft enough to work out with a body builder. You´ll be in agony for a few days and then you´ll be as bad as new as is your case. Anyway, that´ll learn ya. Start doing some exercise before you become a fat old git.”

I was hoping for a bit more sympathy but it was more than obvious that I wasn´t gonna get any.

“You´re right Finbar I need to start living healthy. Yeah, from tomorrow I´m gonna start treating my body like a temple. As for today do you fancy a full English washed down with a big mug of tea in the café downstairs?”

“Now you´re talking?” he said rubbing his hands and smiling.

It took what seemed like half an hour to get dressed as my legs weren´t cooperating at all. I mean, have you ever tried putting trousers on without bending your legs?

Every step was agonizing and the only way to get down the stairs was sideways, dropping one foot at a time. Making whimpering noises seemed to help mind and I was making plenty.

When we eventually got into the café I asked Finbar to order me the full cowboy and sat down at the nearest table grimacing as I eased myself slowly into the chair.

The owner Benny caught my eye and shouted over “heya, howa you goes?”

He must have been about 60, four feet tall, bald with a few twigs of white hair above each ear and spoke a mixture of Italian, English and something in between which was incomprehensible. Never saw him in anything other than his chef´s whites with a toque that looked a few sizes too small and always more hanging on his ear than on top of his head.

“OK Benny and yourself?”

“Yeah, you young, you happy.”

“Me and you both Benny” I replied worrying if I´d picked up Ossie´s habit of always adding a person´s name to the end of every sentence.

We weren´t always so pally and you could say we started off on the wrong foot. You see the bedroom me and Finbar were now sharing was where I´d stay when I came to visit my brother for a weekend and as luck would have it was right above where Benny had his potato peeling machine which he´d turn on at sparrow fart every day without fail.

Made the gloppitta gloppitta machine sound like autumn leaves falling on freshly fallen snow in comparison and more often than not would wake me from my drunken slumber to find it was still dark.

I was visiting my brother a while back and after one particular heavy session Benny started the gloppitta gloppitta machine up at amnesiac sparrow fart. I poked my head out of the window and asked him if he could postpone the potato peeling for a few hours and he went mental.

Well, I think he did as I couldn´t understand what he was shouting up in Italian but seeing as his face had turned bright red and was shaking his fist so violently that his toque fell off, I sort of guessed he wasn´t offering me discount on the spotted dick!

Gave me daggers the first time I went into his café but as my brother became a regular his hostility thawed and he actually came over and chatted the last time I was down.

From what I could make out he was originally from Naples and moved to Rome as a nipper and had been in London for over thirty years which by my reckoning meant he´d learnt a new word of English every two years with “hey, you young, you happy” being his preferred form of communicating.... anything!

Most conversations would be like playing a game of charades and the icebreaker after the potato peeling machine encounter went like this;

“Wozunam”

“Do I want ham?”

“Na, wozunam?”

“Sorry I don´t understand. Are you asking me what I want to eat?”

“Na, I Benny, wozunam?”

“Ah, what´s my name? “

“It what I tell you.”

“I´m Jack.”

“Yack?”

And so it went on with Benny code switching ad nauseum and me racking my brains to try and get what the hell he was on about.

Finbar brought two mugs of tea over and as he sat down said “hey, have you phoned that Italian bint yet for a date?”

“Well not yet. I´m waiting for that gig Vinny told us about to be sorted. I mean, I´d like to impress her.”

“Why don´t you take her to the bar where Frank’s working the door. Hey and you could ask Benny for some tips on how to woe Italian women while we´re here?”

No sooner had Finbar finished his sentence than Benny came over with our breakfasts.

“Hey Benny, Jack´s got an Italian girlfriend. Got any advice on how to keep her sweet?”

“ Iz true? You young you happy” he said with a beaming smile as if he was seeing me in an altogether new light.

“Well, I can’t fail after hearing that” I thought but he went on “ meglio bonk before marry I say you” looking over at his wife Agnese who made a fridge in a dress look more appealing.

Her ears must have been burning as she you looked over and said something very slowly in Italian which definitely wasn’t “could you brew some more tea when you´ve a mo darling?” and Benny scurried back behind the counter.

“Any idea what meglio bonk means?”

“Think he´s trying to tell you you won´t get a sniff after marriage so make a pig of yourself while the going´s good” said Finbar shaking the bottle of ketchup nonchalantly like he was bilingual in Italian..

As we tucked into our breakfast I glanced out of the window and who do I see coming down the road but Frank looking like Gigantor the space age robot. When he got on us he pointed to his legs, shook his head, smiled and made a sign with his hand as if to say order me a mug of tea.

“Up all night with cramp?” I said as Frank eased his way through the door.

“Listen, if I´d have known that Ossie´s tuition would result in not being able to walk for a week I would have politley told him to stick it up his jacksee. I was telling Terry who does the door with me and he told me you´ve gorra ease into weights and not go mad the first time. He also said that there´s a new gym opening in Covent Garden and he can get us discount if you fancy it?”

“I´ll have to get back to you on that one. You know, like sometime next year” I said, as the last thing I was thinking of was weight training.

As Benny put Frank´s mug of tea down on our table I introduced him

“Benny, this is Frank. “

“Pleased to meet you “said Frank and as Benny turned to go back to join Agnese he said “yeah, you young, you happy.”

“Whatever he´s taking I hope he´s put it in the tea” said Frank which tickled me pink.

“Listen” said Frank “are you all coming to the bar on Friday and then looking at me said “are you gonna bring the barmaid from the pub?

“He hasn´t even asked her yet” said Finbar putting it right on me.

“I can´t ask her if I don´t know where it is now can I? I said hoping we´d change the subject.

“Sounds like you´re bottling it to me” said Finbar.

“Listen, It´s quite simple. The bar´s in Covent Garden and it´s called Cuff Links and it´s a wine bar” said Frank.

“What no wallop?” said Finbar sounding almost distraught.

“No and no pork scratching either” said Frank laughing and then to our relief added

“don´t worry, I know the manager in the bar next door and he´ll let us buy bottles of beer we can smuggle in if we´re subtle. Do you do subtle Finbar?”

“Yeah as subtle as a gynaecologist wearing a gas mask” I said.

“That´s put me right off my breakfast” said Finbar.

“Can I have your sausage then?” I said.

“Slim´s just left town” said Finbar as he put half a ketchup splattered sausage into his mouth making a face like it was milk and honey and he was on his way to the Promised Land.

“Well, I´d better be going” said Frank grimacing as he raised himself out of the chair.

“See you on Friday then but make sure you get there before ten o´clock. Oh and Jack, think about the gym membership.”

“OK, see you on Friday.”

Watching Frank climb into his clapped out fifth hand Volvo made us laugh as his legs just wouldn´t go where he wanted them to and he looked like he had magnets in his shoes.

“No reason why you can´t phone your girlfriend now then is there” said Finbar which started the nerves off in my stomach.

“I´ll phone when we get back to the flat. It´s more private.” I said finishing off my mug of tea.

We finished our breakfasts and made our way back up to the flat with my legs no better going up than down but this time I had butterflies in the stomach to distract me from my aching limbs.

When we got inside I walked straight past the phone and could hear Finbar saying “excuse me but isn´t that white thing with cables you´ve just walked past a phone?

Get it over with will ya! You´re only gonna feel worse and anyway what you worried about? She said she´d go out with you didn´t she? She did didn´t she?”

“Yes she did and you´re right Finbar, I´ll phone now” I said picking up the phone trying to look cool on the outside whilst trembling inside.

As soon as the phone´s earpiece had touched my ear I felt like putting it straight back down and doing a few laps of the flat to practice what I was gonna say but with Finbar standing there I couldn´t bottle it.

The ringing tone seemed to go on forever and then a voice said “hello” at which point I felt all the blood drain from my cheeks and I slammed the phone down.

“What happened?” said Finbar.

“A bloke´s just gone and answered that´s what´s fucking happened!”