THE INFORMATION

'Where shall we go first? The reptile house?'

Marius shrugged. He was working on this shrug, palms loosely out-thrust from tight elbows. Five years ago he was practicing his reflexes. Now he was practicing his gestures-his shrugs.

Richard said, 'The aquarium?'

'The gift shop,' said Marius.

'You're very quiet, Marco. What are you sitting there thinking about?'

And Marco came alive and said, 'My secred idendidy!'

In the zoo there were many kinds of animals for the people to look at. But there were only two kinds of people for the animals to look at. Children. And divorcees.

He was not a divorcee, he knew. At night, in the arid fever and miserable magic of the dark, he would whimper up to his wife, and hold on. He wasn't seeking warmth. He was trying to stop her going away. Which she wouldn't do, so long as he held on. More than this: in the depleted menagerie of their bed he could sense certain rumors of beasthood, not the beast of old, which was a young beast, but a new beast, which was an old beast. Something patched together, something inexpensively revamped. In the mornings, too, especially at weekends: watching her as she showered and dressed, and then looking up through the skylight at the clouds, their paunches, their ashen love-handles … I will arise and go now, with a suitcase, to the callbox. He thought of the fame-ruined lines from 'The Second Coming,' about the rough beast, its hour comeround at last, slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. What would it look like, this beast of his? Yeah. Rough. Now he was impotent again but without his excuses. And what is a man, without his excuses? There was nothing for Gina to stick around with. There was nothing for Gina to leave. Richard no longer cried in the night. He thrashed, and gnashed-but he no longer wept. Because he did all that in the day. The day, and the dusk. He wasn't crying in front of anyone yet, as women do. Crying in front of people was part of their catharsis. He was determined never to cry in front of the boys, as he had that one time, in front of Marco, long ago.

At the zoo he felt the end of all childish promises.

I will stay with you for ninety-nine billion nine million nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million billion-

I will love you forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and-

She wouldn't leave him. She would never leave him. What she would do was ask him to go.

And I will go, with a suitcase, to the callbox.

The children will have to come to love us separately.

Saturday morning Richard rose late. Around noon Gina said,

'Why don't you go out for a newspaper? Look in at the pub. Do the crossword.'

'I might well.'

'Pop in and get the Hoover on your way back. This afternoon if they're very good you can take them to choose a video. Something nice, mind. Disney. The Jungle Book or Beauty and the Beast. None of that Tom and Jerry.'

Who are the girls in the backs of police cars? He stepped through the pigeons and their truckdriver tans.

London pubs always lag ten years behind the stretch of city they serve. If, ten years ago, Calchalk Street had made that upward lurch it was gearing itself for, then the Adam and Eve, starting today, would call itself the Tick and Maggot and would offer you quiche and cheesecake in a pavilion of striped parasols. But Calchalk Street had stayed where it was, and the Adam and Eve had stayed where it was-ten years behind. The same donkey-jacketed Irishmen drank the same black beer. The same black dog was still dying in the cardboard box beneath the pie-warmer. Richard found his usual seat. A pale girl moved past him, powdered and tinted like a bride of Dracula. As he started flinching and mumbling over his crossword Richard thought, quite unconstructively:always give the devil the best tits. Such thoughts, thoughts of unknown provenance, came often to him now.

'Charisma bypass,' said a voice in his ear.

He looked up, wondering if this, or something like it, was the answer to 3 down, and said, '.. . My dear Darko. Or is it Ranko?'

'Darko,' said Darko.

Or was it Ranko? One or other of them, at any rate, had lost all his hair, or given it away. What remained was gathered in little fungal patches here and there, above a face essentially and now irreducibly his own-the purple orbits, the purple lips. And Richard, who had had some bad haircuts in his time, found himself thinking: Samson and Delilah. Oh, what a haircut was that! Ah, what syrup work was there … The Adam and Eve was ten years behind. Darko, somehow, was ten years ahead. No, twenty. He asked him,

'How's the writing?'

'That's Ranko. I don't do that shit.'

'How is Ranko? And how's Belladonna?'

'They're both fucked.'

'Now this is kind of great, you know, because you're the very man I need to talk to. Let me ask you something.'

In his Profile, Richard was arriving, with a show of regret, at the first of his paragraphs about Gwyn's sexual delinquencies; and he was doing all he could with Audra Christenberry. But there was another paragraph he wanted to write. Quite recently I. Doubtful privilege to introduce. Barely sixteen, this young student was keen to. Of their two-hour encounter, she. The child, whom I shall call Theresa, had this to …

'Did anything happen between Gwyn and Belladonna? I need to know because I'm doing a long piece about him. For the papers.'

'Oh yeah.'

Richard thought it might look good if he wrote this down. He produced his checkbook-all scrolled and furled.

'I get it,' said Darko. 'Checkbook journalism.'

'… Do you want a drink? At last. We can have that 'jar.' '

'I'm out of here. And you're a piece of shit. She did his favorite, right? She's way out there. She wanted them to die together.'

'What? In the poetic sense?'

'What? She ain't mega-well. She's positive, man.'

It took a moment. But Richard's body was quicker than his mind. His body was walking past a dry cleaners' on a warm day: it breathed its false breath on him, and a hot damp gathered in every crevice of his clothes.

'Jesus. What about you? Are you all right??

'Ranko-he's got it. But I'm clean.'

'Stay well, Darko. Stay well.'

Left alone, he sat for half an hour with the crossword on his lap. He still had his pen out but he wasn't called upon to use it. The only clue he was sure about was 13 across (eight letters). There was only one possible answer: shithead. And that couldn't be right.

He thought: the lion will lie down with the lamb. The lion can and must lie down with the lamb. But he doesn't have to fuck it. Unless they both say it's cool.

Come to Denial.

Denial. For that 'holiday of a lifetime.' Or just to 'get away from it all' and take a well earned 'break.'