"Wha-? Oh, the old man's there, is he?" Eric said. "T-ell him he's a bag of effervescent pus, from me."
"Jamie sends his regards," I called up to my father, who turned without a word and went back to his room. I heard the door close. I turned back to the phone. "Eric, where are you this time?"
"Ah, shit, I'm not telling you. Guess."
"Well, I don't know…. Glasgow?"
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha!" Eric cackled. I clenched plastic.
"How are you? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. How are you?"
"Great. Look, how are you eating? Have you got any money? Are you hitching lifts or what? They're looking for you, you know, but there hasn't been anything on the news yet. You haven't-" I stopped before I said something he might take exception to.
"I'm doing fine. I eat dogs! Heh heh heh!"
I groaned. "Oh, God, you're not really, are you?"
"What else can I eat? It's great, Frankie boy; I'm keeping to the fields and the woods and walking a lot and getting lifts and when I get near a town I look for a good fat juicy dog and I make friends with it and take it out to the woods and then I kill it and eat it. What could be simpler? I do love the outdoor life."
"You are cooking them, aren't you?"
"Of course I'm fucking cooking them," Eric said indignantly. "What do you think I am?"
"Is that all you're eating?"
"No. I steal things. Shoplift. It's so easy. I steal things I can't eat, just for the hell of it. Like tampons and plastic dustbin-liners and party-size packets of crisps and one hundred cocktail sticks and twelve cake-candles in various colours and photograph frames and steering-wheel covers in simulated leather and towel-holders and fabric-softeners and double-action air-fresheners to waft away those lingering kitchen smells and cute little boxes for awkward odds and ends and packs of cassettes and lockable petrol-caps and recordcleaners and telephone indexes slimming magazines potholders packs of name-labels artificial eyelashes make-up boxes anti-smoking mixture toy watches-"
"Don't you like crisps?" I broke in quickly.
"Eh?" He sounded confused.
"You mentioned party-size packets of crisps as being something you couldn't eat."
"For Christ's sake, Frank, could you eat a party-size packet of crisps?"
"And how are you keeping?" I said quickly. "I mean, you must be sleeping rough. Aren't you catching cold or something?"
"I'm not sleeping."
"You're not sleeping?"
"Of course not. You don't have to sleep. That's just something they tell you to keep control over you. Nobody has to sleep; you're taught to sleep when you're a kid. If you're really determined, you can get over it. I've got over the need to sleep. I never sleep now. That way it's a lot easier to keep watch and make sure they don't creep up on you, and you can keep going as well. Nothing like keeping going. You become like a ship."
"Like a ship?" Now I was confused.
"Stop repeating everything I say, Frank." I heard him put more money into the box. "I'll teach you how not to sleep when I get back."
"Thanks. When do you expect to get here?"
"Sooner or later. Ha ha ha ha ha!"
"Look, Eric, why are you eating dogs if you can steal all that stuff?"
"I've already told you, you idiot; you can't eat any of that crap."
"But, then, why not steal stuff you can eat and don't steal the stuff you can't and don't bother with the dogs?" I suggested. I already knew it wasn't a good idea; I could hear the tone of my voice rising higher and higher as I spoke the sentence, and that was always a sign I was getting into some sort of verbal mess.
Eric shouted: " Are you crazy? What's the matter with you? What's the point of that? These are dogs, aren't they? It isn't as though I was killing cats or field mice or goldfish or anything. I'm talking about dogs, you rabid dingbat! Dogs!"
"You don't have to shout at me," I said evenly, though starting to get angry myself. "I was only asking why you waste so much time stealing stuff you can't eat and then waste more time stealing dogs when you could steal and eat at the same time, as it were."
"'As it were'? 'As it were'? What the hell are you gibbering about?" Eric yelled, his strangled voice hoarse and contralto.
"Oh, don't start screaming," I moaned, putting my other hand over my forehead and through my hair, closing my eyes.
"I'll scream if I want to!" Eric screamed. "What do you think I'm doing all this for? Eh? What the hell do you think I'm doing all this for? These are dogs, you brainless little shitbag! Haven't you any brains left? What's happened to all your brains, Frankie boy? Cat got your tongue? I said, Cat got your tongue?"
"Don't start banging the-" I said, not really into the mouthpiece.
"Eeeeeeaaarrrggghhh Bllleeeaarrrgggrrllleeeooouurrgghh! , Eric spat and choked down the line, and there followed the noise of the phone-box handset being smashed around the inside of the booth. I sighed and replaced the receiver thoughtfully. I just didn't seem to be able to handle Eric on the telephone.
I went back to my room, trying to forget about my brother; I wanted to get to bed early so that I could be up in time for the naming ceremony of the new catapult. I'd think about a better way to handle Eric once I had that out of the way.
… Like a ship, indeed. What a loony.
4: The Bomb Circle
OFTEN I've thought of myself as a state; a country or, at the very least, a city. It used to seem to me that the different ways I felt sometimes about ideas, courses of action and so on were like the differing political moods that countries go through. It has always seemed to me that people vote in a new government not because they actually agree with their politics but just because they want a change. Somehow they think that things will be better under the new lot. Well, people are stupid, but it all seems to have more to do with mood, caprice and atmosphere than carefully thought-out arguments. I can feel the same sort of thing going on in my head. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn't really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.
For example, there has always been a part of me which has felt guilty about killing Blyth, Paul and Esmerelda. That same part feels guilty now about taking revenge on innocent rabbits because of one rogue male. But I liken it to an opposition party in a parliament, or a critical press; acting as a conscience and a brake, but not in power and unlikely to assume it. Another part of me is racist, probably because I've hardly met any colored people and all I know of them is what I read in papers and see on television, where black people are usually talked of in terms of numbers and presumed guilty until proved innocent. This part of me is still quite strong, though of course I know there is no logical reason for race hatred. Whenever I see coloured people in Porteneil, buying souvenirs or stopping off for a snack, I hope that they will ask me something so that I can show how polite I am and prove that my reasoning is stronger than my more crass instincts, or training.
By the same token, though, there was no need to take revenge on the rabbits. There never is, even in the big world. I think reprisals against people only distantly or circumstantially connected with those who have done others wrong are to make the people doing the avenging feel good. Like the death penalty, you want it because it makes you feel better, not because it's a deterrent or any nonsense like that.