. This was a different variety of roughhouse: the sodden bodies grappling on top of each other, the slack canvas inches deep in water, and the lighting so bad you can’t see the action, only the result: the master-sergeant’s KO’ed corpse rolled over the side, followed by the bodies of two others who’d died in the night. The Hoosier and his pal lie back to savour the remainder of their repast, which is. . bupkis: salty Spam and a few crackers. Claude considers whether to congratulate them — it takes some robust self-belief to muscle in on the action when there’re so many other, sleeker, heavier-weight contenders around — but then they turn their attention to him: I say, loo — tenant, the Hoosier whines, and his stooge joins in. I say, loo — tenant, the Hoosier needles, how come you’re down here in the sea with all us sad swabs? How come you ain’t up there with your pals? I seed 24 s and 29 s coming over all day — seems like maybe they don’t love you. That surprise you? Really, now? — Claude’s disinclined to answer. . I prefer not to . . because, when all’s said and done, there are a thousand million questions about hate and death and war. Instead the smarter option is to give the Ka-Bar fighting knife a wide berth. . slide by the hat-check, wait for a cab out front . . Where it’s cold and grey and almost silent to begin with, save for the holy rollers’ hissing: Forgive us our tresssspassses, asss we forgive those who tressspasss against us . . But as soon as the sun pushes above the wave beyond the wave beyond this one, Claude feels the warmth ebbing from the ends of his fingers and toes. He gropes up under his life-vest. . No! No! Jesus, no! The last syrette is a useless scrap of tin — it must’ve been burst in the night by the first or the ten-thousandth concussion as Claude was thrown against the raft. Now pain is everywhere in the sea. . the sea is pain . . and blanched body parts swirl in it, stirred by the long tendrils of a man-o’-war jellyfish — while the holy rollers who’re still alive greet the dawn with a rousing chorus, ’cause we’re the worms. — The first hit is so spectacular Claude experiences a kinda awe: a man is lifted clean out of the water and comes water-skiing between the others, a broad wake curling behind him, red, red flounces all over his sambaing body as he wing-walks down to Rio. After that the Katzenjammer Kids zip it and await their turn with sullen resignation. No one’s minding the store any more. . now that the padre’s amscrayed, the men tied together in the water slowly unravel, as first one is winkled out of his life-vest — then another is asked to dance. Yet still poor Claudine remains a wallflower, her bare tootsies a-twinkling, her salt-encrusted, oil-smeared face too ugly to attract any suitors. She pals up with one girl who spews up blood, then jitterbugs under a second, who calmly unhooks her own brassiere . . then, with a relieved, grateful expression, offers her body to the football team. — The sun’s right up when the last of the MS ebbs from Claude’s veins. His eyes widen and widen. . great dishes focusing all the rays. . on to exposed nerves. Sight, Claude realises, is pain. . always has been. To look upon the adorable face of a newborn baby is as hurtful as it is to contemplate the huddle of men he’s floating towards, who’ve still got the spunk to whoop and holler and flail the water. Floating into a patch of lucidity, Claude estimates there are maybe two hundred left alive, and — good logistics man that he is — he figures that with each one who goes the odds diminish for all those who remain. It should consternate . . but it doesn’t. Wehe dem Fliehenden . . Welt hinaus ziehenden! If Pop were here, Claude would share this dope with him: The odds don’t matter, ’cause no matter how bad they may be. . it’s always the others who die. When the hallucinations begin, Claude joins in enthusiastically: he too can see the railroad tracks laid out around the horizon in a great and scintillating circuit — he also sits, ready to drive to the station and catch a train outta here in a stalled Studebaker, if only I could find the ignition. He also looks up into the sky and witnesses hippogryphs and pterodactyls escorting vast formations of skin angels away to the plains of heaven. Some clever girls, who believe they have an angle, have figured out their suitors are mostly preceded by pilot fish, so they go for these with their knives, convinced that if they can kill them, they’ll be left unmolested. Claude’s irritated he’s been dragged back down from the wide-open sky to this badlands of bluffs and sinkholes that won’t keep still. He ducks his head down for the first time since he said so long to the Kid. They’re all there: Ivan Shark, Fury Shark, Admiral Himakito, that Chink shit-bird, Fang . . the sinister Barracuda . . and there’s another one he hasn’t seen before, one he immediately realises is. . my nemesis. This shark has an enormous swollen white brow, hateful piggy little eyes. He charges straight at Claude, travelling so fast his dorsal fin sends up a fine whip of spray towards the hot white sky and the sun’s throbbing white-hot disc . . The shark wears a threadbare pale-blue regulation dressing gown with CT stencilled on its breast — its skirts flap wildly in his churning wake as he comes on, his button-black eyes slipping and sliding across the swimmers’ faces, sizing them up as meat hangin’ on the bone — and still he aims unerringly for the most defenceless man in the oceanic room, with its peeling wallpaper sky, its dank-grey towelling clouds, its linoleum waves, its bobbing avocado mines, its wreckage of bath cubes and soap bars worn smooth and dry as cuttlefish under a 40-watt sun — and as he rises up out of the water it purls away from his forehead in red swirling curls! and Claude is gripped by a terrible rage: Better to end it. . now! Right now! Not go on round annaround! He tears at the tangle of dog tags about his neck and discovers among them a can opener! He fumbles out its corkscrew attachment with swollen nerveless fingers, then lunges at the shark’s face again annagain, until the blood is full of bathwater and the shark is bellowing for Help! He-elp! HEEEELLLLP! — a cry no one hears at first because we’re all gathered together in the back garden of 119, looking up at the window of the bedroom Maggie shares with Irene. Irene arches her long back and curtseys to a broken cucumber frame. You are the wind, my darling, she declaims, wind-milling her arms, you are the rain, the sun and the sky. Miriam says through gritted teeth, I don’t think that’s altogether helpful. Oh! But Zoroaster and Zarathustra, Irene cries, Finnegan and Alice! They’ve all been through the rainbow door and now it’s Podgie’s turn! You are blessed, my darling, she calls to Podge, chosen from among all of us spectrum girls! Miriam doesn’t think Podge seems especially blessed, sitting there on the outside ledge, her bare legs dangling, her blonde tresses messy, her eyes locked on the railway embankment, and her thin white arms flexing as they take up the strain. I’m ready, she calls down, I’m ready to go through the rainbow door — but you will join me there on the other side, won’t you? You won’t be a meanie, will you, Rene? A train comes fernicketing along, and under its noisy cover Miriam curses her husband: Do something, you bloody idiot — do something! She’s going to jump any second! But Zack only stands there, the jar of Mellow Bird’s still in his hand, his