THE INFORMATION

gesture with his head, Richard said ordinarily,

'What about this??

He opened his hands over the dining table. He meant the soiled plates, the leftovers, the inevitable decomposition .. .

'Pamela'll get it.'

But before she did that she brought them coffee and brandy-in the octagonal library, as they settled over the board-and lingered to plump Gwyn's cushions and assist him in the ignition of his cigar. All this she did with an air both secretive and devout. Richard kept his eyes on the pieces he was assembling. These pieces, with their divine heaviness. Even the pawns responded greedily to gravity; and you could feel their affinity with the center of the earth.

The door closed. They were alone. Gwyn said:

'Adolescence is the best. I'm glad I left it this late. It's the tops. Can you remember-all that sexual loneliness? Lying in a single bed, thinking: there must be a million women out there, feeling like me. Sexually lonely. Nothing really changes. Even Tolstoy thought that. Time happens to your body. But not to your head. You're still looking out of a window watching them all go by. I'm still fifteen. But there are differences. They aren't out there anymore. They're in here. Or they're on the preselect of my mobile phone. Audra Christenberry. Gal Aplanalp. Hey, I've switched. I'm with Mercedes Soroya. You were right. Gal's list is so tacky. Novels by couturiers. Novels by synchronized swimmers. And Mercedes. Man. You could just drown in those eyes. Guess what. Gal had a crush on you, way back. When we were kids. You know, I really lucked out, marrying a Catholic. They can't get away. Ah. E4. Wait.. J'adoube.'

'Resign,' sighed Richard, for the second time in half an hour.

He went on staring at the board. It wasn't anything Gwyn had done, particularly. The chess just followed from everything else.

This was his last shot. 'You remember that weird little sister I brought round to see you-Belladonna?' He waited, with his head down. 'What happened?'

'That would be telling now, wouldn't it.' 'Naturally.' He waited. 'You didn't fuck her, did you?' 'Are you out of your mind? Or do you just think / am? A little spook like that. And someone of my visibility. All she's got to do is drop ten pee into a phone box. And tell Reuter's I raped her or got her pregnant. I need that. Not to mention the risk of disease.'

On the whole Richard felt quite impressed by himself. His disappointment was mild.

'Come on' said Gwyn.

'Yeah. Well.'

'No. I just let her give me a blow job.'

Gwyn's face was open, was declarative: the face of a man keen to transmit information clearly. He said, 'After she'd taken her clothes off and done a little dance. She asked me what my favorite was. And I told her. It was pretty amazing actually. You know when they're actually down there-one thing it does is shut them up. For the time being. But not her. She took it out every ten seconds to say something. Me on TV Her on TV. Holding it there, like a mike. It was kind of brilliant because it meant it lasted about two hours. Very skilled she was. Very noisy all round. I bet you think you're going to put all this in your piece. But you won't. You won't.'

'Not Belladonna. I'm not sure but I think … Deadly nightshade. I think she's got it.'

'It?' Gwyn considered. 'I'm not surprised. Going round doing everyone's favorite all day.'

… The way the white pieces were configured, like a hairline, and the squares drifting in his milky gaze: the board resembled the image of a face, on TV; the smeared cubes of some wrongdoer, some child-murderer, pixelated-the face of Steve Cousins. As in the first game the position was far from conclusive. But the chess just followed from everything else.

'It's late.'

They stood up. Suddenly and startlingly Gwyn turned and seized Richard by the shoulders. What was this? More adolescence? With an expression of primitive alarm, Gwyn said,

'You didn't fuck her, did you?'

'Who? No.'

And they sagged together, over the chessboard.

Richard said, 'I'm touched . . . It's strange. Whatever happens, we balance each other out. We're like Henchard and Farfrae. You're part of me and I'm part of you.'

'You know something? I understand exactly what you're saying. And I couldn't disagree more.'

With a gesture at the chessmen Richard said, 'It's a blip.' And he meant the whole day. 'I'll be back. I'll get you next time.'

'I think not. I think there just won't be a next time. I think we've got to

the end of one another, This'll do me, It's a wrap.'

He walked home. In Calchalk Street, as he approached, he looked toward the rooftop. Two of the half-dozen stars that still shine on Lon-don (sufficiently fat or proximate) were burning; but no lights were burning at 49E. He went up the stairs, past the bikes. In the kitchen he drank a glass of water, a glass of milk, and a glass of sweet vermouth. With his head sticking out of his study window he smoked a final cigarette. Then he sat there, listening: no noises you could go ahead and locate. But the place was subtly unsilent.

He went out into the passage . .. Nothing. Just the boys. He could hear them writhing and whispering away in there. And this was very bad: Marco was supposed to be ill. Richard entered, and told them what time it was. They countered with a demand for a story-the new kind of story he had, he thought, unwisely introduced them to. Twins stories: stories in which the twins personally appeared-and invariably distinguished themselves for their ingenuity and valor. He felt uneasy as he told these tales (Marius suddenly realized. It was Marco who), while the boys lay on their backs, clutching their boyhoods, with drugged eyes. No story, he said. But he told them one anyway. In which they bravely rescued their daddy-rescued him, then tended to his wounds.

He leaned back against the cold outer wall and the window frame. And he thought: the Man in the Moon looks younger every year. It used to be a joke face he wore: a clown face. No longer. He looks pretty mainstream now, like a contemporary: I know people as fat-cheeked, people as pale, people as bald. He looks like me. His face used to smile. Now it pleads. He's sorry-about how he looks. When I'm old, that face will pout. And the Man in the Moon will look like a baby-like the god of babies.

Why cars? Why stars? Why pounds and pence? Why fog, why clouds? Why cold and gold, why dust and rust? Why tramps and vamps and dukes and nukes, why fucks and fights? Why planes? Why trains? Why jobs? Why nickel and dime? Why time? Why mire? Why fire?

I will arise … I will arise and go now, to the callbox, with a suitcase. A phonecall will I make there. Who to? Balfour? R. C. Squires? Keith Horridge? Gwyn, his oldest-his only-friend: Gwyn had never been a candidate. Ever. Richard realized that it had always been Anstice at the end of the line (waiting, in her urban bird's nest with its dust and trinkets, and ever eggless), but Anstice was already dead.

He turned away from the window. The twins were asleep. More than asleep. They looked like figures on a battlefield, arrested, abandoned. They too looked already dead … Richard didn't want to be telling them these stories; these stories about themselves. They were bad for the boys. They reminded him of pornography.

But pornography was surveillance on the act of love.

If he had climbed into his weepship and reared up over Calchalk Street, over