which seemed to be a seriously deranged example of the species.
After a minute or so more of nursing his hand, curiosity-allied to a strong sense that the eagle had definitely retreated to the far end of the hall and stayed there - overcame him, and he bent down once more to the letter-box. This time he used his pencil to push the flap back upwards and scanned the hallway from a safe position a good few inches back.
The eagle was clearly in view, perched on the end of the bannister rail, regarding him with resentment and opprobrium, which Dirk felt was a little rich coming from a creature which had only a moment or two ago been busily engaged in trying to rip his hand off.
Then, once the eagle was certain that it had got Dirk's attention, it slowly raised itself up on its feet and slowly shook its great wings out, beating them gently for balance. It was this gesture that had previously caused Dirk to bolt prudently from the room. This time, however, he was safely behind a couple of good solid inches of wood and he stood, or rather, squatted his ground. The eagle stretched its neck upwards as well, jabbing its tongue out at the air and cawing plaintively, which surprised Dirk.
Then he noticed something else rather surprising about the eagle, which was that its wings had strange, un-eaglelike markings on them. They were large concentric circles.
The differences of coloration which delineated thc circles were very slight, and it was only the absolute geometric regularity of them which made them stand out as clearly as they did. Dirk had the very clear sense that the eagle was showing him these circles, and that that was what it had wanted to attract his attention to all along. Each time the bird had dived at him, he realised as he thought back, it had then started on a strange kind of flapping routine which had involved opening its wings right out. However, each time it had happened Dirk had been too busily engaged with the business of turning round and running away to pay this exhibition the appropriate attention.
'Have you got the money for a cup of tea, mate?'
'Er, yes thank you,' said Dirk, 'I'm fine.' His attention was fully occupied with the eagle, and he didn't immediately look round.
'No, I meant can you spare me a bob or two, just for a cup of tea?'
'What?' This time Dirk looked round, irritably.
'Or just a fag, mate. Got a fag you can spare?'
'No, I was just going to go and get some myself,' said Dirk.
The man on the pavement behind him was a tramp of indeterminate age. He was standing there, slightly wobbly, with a look of wild and continuous disappointment bobbing in his eyes.
Not getting an immediate response from Dirk, the man dropped his eyes to the ground about a yard in front of him, and swayed back and forth a little. He was holding his arms out, slightly open, slightly away from his body, and just swaying. Then he frowned suddenly at the ground. Then he frowned at another part of the ground. Then, holding himself steady while he made quite a major realignment of his head, he frowned away down the street.
'Have you lost something?' said Dirk.
The man's head swayed back towards him.
'Have I lost something?' he said in querulous astonishment. 'Have I lost something?'
It seemed to be the most astounding question he had ever heard. He looked away again for a while, and seemed to be trying to balance the question in the general scale of things. This involved a fair bit more swaying and a fair few more frowns. At last he seemed to come up with something that might do service as some kind of answer.
'The sky?' he said, challenging Dirk to find this a good enough answer. He looked up towards it, carefully, so as not to lose his balance. He seemed not to like what he saw in the dim, orange, street-lit pallor of the clouds, and slowly looked back down again till he was staring at a point just in front of his feet.
'The ground?' he said, with evident great dissatisfaction, and then was struck with a sudden thought.
'Frogs?' he said, wobbling his gaze up to meet Dirk's rather bewildered one. 'I used to like...frogs,' he said, and left his gaze sitting on Dirk as if that was all he had to say, and the rest was entirely up to Dirk now.
Dirk was completely flummoxed. He longed for the times when life had been easy, life had been carefree, the great times he'd had with a mere homicidal eagle, which seemed now to be such an easygoing and amiable companion. Aerial attack he could cope with, but not this nameless roaring guilt that came howling at him out of nowhere.
'What do you want?' he said in a strangled voice.
'Just a fag, mate,' said the tramp, 'or something for a cup of tea.'
Dirk presse d a pound coin into the man's hand and lunged off down the street in a panic, passing, twenty yards further on, a builder's skip from which the shape of his old fridge loomed at him menacingly.
Chapter 24
As Kate came down the steps from her house she noticed that the temperature had dropped considerably. The clouds sat heavily on the land and loured at it. Thor set off briskly in the direction of the park, and Kate trotted along in his wake.
As he strode along, an extraordinary figure on the streets of Primrose Hill, Kate could not help but notice that he had been right. They passed three different people on the way, and she saw distinctly how their eyes avoided looking at him, even as they had to make allowance for his great bulk as he passed them. He was not invisible, far from it. He simply didn't fit.
