“Easier said than done,” Adam remarked to himself, out loud, as he contemplated his box, now shifting about agitatedly on the mud beach as the panicked gull flapped and skittered inside. Easier planned than executed. But he was hungry: he had caught his prey, he had fuel, a knife and roast flesh was what he craved. There was nothing for it — he reached quickly under the box and grabbed the gull by a leg. Its hard yellow beak stabbed viciously at his forearm, drawing blood, until Adam battered the bird senseless with the driftwood prop. He rinsed his forearm in the river — more wounds, who cared? — and went back to pick up his limp and lifeless gull, its broad white wings thrown wide. As he did so a big laden barge appeared under Chelsea Bridge heading upstream. There was a man standing on its prow staring over at him. Adam moved the gull behind his back and waved, casually. The man did not wave back.
Adam plucked the gull and somehow, with the knife from his knife-fork-and-spoon set, managed to gut it, throwing the intestines in the river. Then he cut slivers of greasy flesh from its surprisingly raw-boned body and, pronging them with the fork, held them in the blue flame of the gas jet until they blackened. The taste of the hot meat was gamey but inoffensive, though the flesh was sinewy and required much chewing, washed down with draughts of Thames water. He ate as much as he could and flung the carcass into the river, the tide now beginning to surge upstream. Then he sat down on his seat of three rubber tyres and wept.
♦
It had been good to cry, he told himself, later: it was a salutary release of emotions, very necessary after everything he had been through — the mugging, the trauma of that first surprise attack, the relief of rescue, then the trauma of the second attack. At the darkest hour of the night he left the triangle for the first time in days and went into Chelsea to scavenge. He felt better, calmer and more determined, as he rummaged in dustbins and scampered cautiously down empty streets, peering in basement wells. It was amazing what people left out in their rubbish. By dawn he had managed to acquire a newish, white denim jacket (one breast pocket disfigured by a stain of black ink, as if from a leaking biro), a pair of golfing shoes that had been left on a back step — a little tight but more tolerable footwear than the flip-flops. He had also eaten from the rubbish bins of fast-food franchises — cold chips, the end of a kebab, half-inches of cola and other fizzy drinks remaining in the bottom of tin cans. He returned to the triangle belchingly replete and newly attired — he almost looked normal, he thought. But what was uplifting him was the realisation that he could survive, now. It was as if the roasted gull-meat had strengthened and emboldened him in some way, had given him new resolve and heart. He had some of the squawking cheek and strutting arrogance of a big white seagull. Once the scab on his forehead had healed and disappeared he would venture forth with more confidence and range more widely. Perhaps, he thought, and this was a measure of his new frame of mind, he might even take Mhouse’s advice and go to Southwark and see what help the Church of John Christ might offer him.
12
IVO, LORD REDCASTLE STOOD AT HIS OPEN FRONT DOOR WEARING A T — shirt that read: ‘FULLY QUALIFIED SEX INSTRUCTOR — FIRST LESSON FREE’. Ingram said nothing, affecting not to notice that anything was out of the ordinary.
“Ingram, baby,” Ivo said, “you made it.”
“Is Meredith here?”
“She is indeed—mi casa — su casa.” Ivo didn’t move, standing squarely in the doorway, clearly expecting me, Ingram thought, to comment on his stupid T — shirt. He could expect in vain.
“Do I have to push past you? Is that the idea?” Ingram said. “Shoulder charge? Wrestle you to the ground?”
“Very droll. Come on in, you old wanker.”
Ingram entered the wide hall of Ivo’s Netting Hill house
— stripped pine floorboards, a huge stuffed grizzly bear in the corner wearing a pork pie hat and, on the wall, some erotic felt-tip drawings by Ivo’s latest wife, Srnika. Ingram glanced at them, noting breasts, vulvae and various types of penis, flaccid and erect. Climbing the stairs towards the drawing room, Ingram passed a series of black-and-white photographs — the usual suspects, Ingram thought: Bill Brandt, Carrier Bresson, Mapplethorpe, Avedon — astounding how they had managed to retain, in minds like Ivo’s, the idea that these perfectly fine but over-familiar images were still ‘cutting-edge’. His spirits declined further as he ascended, hearing the volume of the babble emanating from the knocked-through rooms on the first floor. Six was the ideal number for a dinner; eight at a pinch — anything above that was a complete waste of everybody’s time. A young man in a shot-silk Nehru jacket stood at the door holding various coloured drinks on a tray.
“Any chance of a glass of white wine?” Ingram asked.
“No,” Ivo said. “Pick a colour: red, yellow, blue, green, purple.”
“What’s in them? I have allergies.”
“That’s for me to know and your allergies to find out.”
Ingram chose a purple drink and followed Ivo into the reverberating room, seeing, and immediately changing course towards, his wife, Meredith, somehow absurdly, ridiculously pleased to see her — he was already hating this evening with unusual intensity — though as he approached her he noticed a roseate glow on her cheeks, always a give-away about her alcohol consumption.
“Hello, Pumpkin,” he said, kissing her. “We can’t stay long, remember?”
“Don’t be silly, it’s Ivo’s birthday.” She squeezed his bum and winked at him and Ingram thought, a little wearily, thank the gods for PRO-Vyril, one of Calenture-Deutz’s more successful drugs. It treated erectile dysfunction — slogan: “unmatched act duration”—not up there with Cialis or Viagra or Foldynon but a nice steady earner for the firm all the same. It worked very well for him, also, Ingram acknowledged, some sort of individual metabolic conformity with the chemicals occurring, he supposed. After a couple of PRO-Vyrils he felt he could take on anyone, or indeed anything, for an hour or so. He and Meredith made love fairly regularly for an old married couple with a grown-up family, he reckoned, though it was always at her behest. He had never figured out what made her randy — there was no discernible pattern, but she always contrived to give him a few hours’ warning when the mood came upon her — like the phases of the moon, he thought: something, somewhere, triggered her off. They slept in separate bedrooms divided by their dressing rooms and bathrooms, but all with connecting doors. Ingram actually quite enjoyed the sessions — though it was more a matter of mechanics, thanks to PRO-Vyril, than passion, and was a distant world away from his Phyllis encounters.