I woke up the day after the oyster disaster feeling pretty fresh, all things considered. I still wasn’t entirely over the jet-lag, though – and to be honest, I think I never really got over it the whole time I was in the States. How’s your body meant to realign its sleep cycle when you’re pumping it full of chemicals and making it run around the streets all night?

The girls were exhausted and sickly – they got to sleep at 5am – and I felt very smug of course but tried not show it (I did show it a bit). We were meant to be going to see Annie’s family that morning, driving down to Los Gatos to stay with them at their family home for Thanksgiving, and the aim had been to be out on the road by 11am. In the end we left around midday, which I thought was pretty impressive given the girls had been up all drinking and dancing and shagging.

More hip hop as we drove south, more blunts. Annie missing turnings everywhere, Taylor scolding her, Annie apologising profusely, both of them talking over each other, and me in the back, drinking a Mexican Coke and looking out of the window at the trees and hills and houses. We saw a million Teslas on the road, and even a couple of squat ugly Cyber Trucks. I took a photo of one, with the same outlander interest that one might photograph a kookaburra or geisha.

It was only an hour south, but the temperature rose considerably as we drew into Los Gatos. Winter was still a long way off, here. The air was crisp and zesty, and the trees shone in brilliant reds and greens against the clear sky. There’s something about the light over in California that makes everything look extra vivid, every hue cranked up a few notches beyond European familiarity.

Annie’s parents live in a house they’ve only recently moved into: a cream-coloured, smooth-walled home that reminded me of a palisade fort, the sort you’d see John Wayne shooting over the ramparts of. It was radically different from what I’d imagined; nothing at all like the Home Alone house.

It was a quiet, safe neighbourhood, with lots of US flags in driveways and lots of palm trees shading the pavement. We parked up and rang the doorbell, and when Annie’s mum, Pam, answered the door, a beautiful, feather-tailed white puppy leapt out and wiggled its way around our legs.

“Hey Clover!” said Annie, tickling the puppy’s belly. “Who’s a sweet girl?”

I said hello to Pam and followed everyone inside – deliberately staying at the back so I had a chance to give Clover a good scragging. The house had a Tardis effect: twice as deep as it was wide, it opened up into a beautiful, artistic space in a style that Annie’s dad later told me was called ‘Mid-Century Modern’; a lot of bold colours, lots of light and open space. 

We had lunch and talked about the differences in American and British traditions – Bonfire Night, that sort of thing. I tried my best to be respectful, to listen attentively and reply in the very sober, god-fearing, golf-pants sort of way that I’ve seen American families converse in on TV. 

“My mom is a proud Southern lady,” Annie had briefed me beforehand. “Usually in America when visiting a friend’s parents you’d call them ‘Mr and Mrs [surname]’, but you’re British so she won’t expect you to do that. Remember to be very polite, offer to help out, all that stuff. Just be yourself, she’ll love you. Don’t stress boys.”

But I did and do stress – because when people say ‘just be yourself’, what they really mean is ‘I think you’re great, therefore the person I’m about to introduce you to will also think you’re great’. And it’s a nice sentiment but – well, it’s just not true, is it? Annie thinks I’m great because I make her laugh and I talk about fairytales and farts and heartbreak and authors and bodily fluids and dubious trivia I can’t remember where I heard and cannot verify. I doubted her family would be quite as enamoured if I were to bust out the old Berlin ‘stoned out of my mind vomiting into three separate U-Bahn bins in succession’ stories.

So I decided to be mild mannered – agreeable, inoffensive. Unfortunately, however, polite, obsequious Sunday-Best Dan is, in my opinion, one of the shittest Dans (after ‘Drunken Lout Dan’, ‘Misreading The Room Dan’ and ‘Righteously Indignant While Missing Crucial Information Dan’). He’s just dull. He laughs awkwardly at everything because he’s scared of leaving a silence at the end of anything anyone says, for fear that it should be taken as a sign of disinterest or disagreement. He tells bland, safe stories. He bookends opinions with ‘as far as I’m aware’ and ‘though I could be wrong’. He’s a big vanilla bore, but I daren’t get rid of him – because the alternative is worse.

*****

In the evening we all went out to see Wicked at the cinema – a nice cosy family outing that reminded me of Christmas Eve cinema trips as a kid. Annie, Taylor and I each bought a glass of wine for the film and settled into enormous recliner sofa-chairs that looked brand-new.

“Welcome to America,” said Annie. “We like pleasure.”

The wine wasn’t a great idea, however: the film was very long and there was a lot of singing, and after so many days running around on the trot, I nodded off thirty minutes before the end. I think I fell asleep around the time the two friendly witches reached the Emerald City; when I woke up the green witch was screaming triumphant high notes while baboons with wings flew around clattering into things.

I made a tremendous faux-pas when we left the cinema. I’d been sitting between Annie and her mum, and when the film ended I heard Gary, Annie’s dad, comment something like ‘Jeez, thank god that’s over’. In the foyer, therefore, seeking to bond with him, when Gary asked me what I thought of the movie, I was honest:

“I fell asleep!” I laughed.

I’d thought, madly, that he might laugh too – that we might bond over our mutual dislike of the film. Ha ha! Wasn’t it lame! But of course, Annie’s Dad had paid for everyone’s tickets. And they’re the rules, aren’t they: if you pay for it, you’re allowed to not like it – as vocally as you like. If you’ve been paid for – Daniel Scott Hackett, you twat – keep your damn lips zipped.

Anyway we walked around the town for a while after that – not sure of the name of it, it looked like one of those Hallmark-movie Netflix towns where everything is picture-perfect – and ate pizza in a restaurant. I tried to drink a beer but my stomach rumbled at me, and after my butthole bonanza the evening before I didn’t push my luck.

Back home in the evening – after making sure I said my thank yous lavishly and repeatedly in the hope of compensating for calling Wicked shit – I stayed up until past midnight playing Vice City and Mario Kart with Annie. There’s often so much to think about in life – so much I go mad. But for those two hours, sitting side-by-side with controllers in hand like little kids, I felt very happy and lucky and full-hearted.