3

It's Tuesday morning, and this is Eric Jones. He's sporting the maroon thumbnail, the big black shapely fuck-you Druid's hood. Yes, hooded is exactly how he likes to feel.

For a period of time. For a period of time, he stands in the doorway of a camera shop and watches the mall. He has money in his pocket and blood in his ralph. He has crisp new notes in his wallet and blood in his tackle.

A blue mid-morning whim fares like a match in him. Prompting him to stir and straighten up, muster and marshal forces.

Bamboo Grove Apartments are tricky to get into. You have to wait for a citizen to exit, then duck inside with no apologies. On the third shallow floor lives Henry Hawke, the oldest surviving junkie in the realm, notorious and grey.

Notorious and grey and pigeon-chested. Like some derelict knight of yore, bony and big-knuckled. 'Look what washes up. Just as I'm about to have my lunch.'

'Lunch? You?'

'I pick. I pick.'

'I'm Eric if you've forgotten.'

'Yes. No. I remember you from that Narcotics Anonymous meeting. So how's the battle, Eric?'

'I slipped. I crashed and burned.'

'So what the fuck is new? But never mind. Would you like a cup of coffee?'

The man himself, at home. A steely cook and chemist of the old school, ground and sanded to a narrow-shouldered skeleton, a bristly skull with Auschwitz-ashen temples, skin as grey as dishwater. 'The name of Henry Hawke has entered the textbooks. I've outlived any number of quacks, addiction specialists and hepatologists. To say nothing of cops and probies.'

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'Hepatologists.'

'I buried my own lovely brother. Also several arseholes of whom I was fond. But Craig lies in a quiet place, and I know I could have taken better care of him.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. And how are you having this coffee of yours?'

A Buddha here, a crucifix there. Many antique LPs are angle-parked along the skirting-board. The silent Panasonic is tuned to the horse-racing channel, its screen a brilliantly colourful display.

Henry lives on Nicorette gum, with hogget and tepid gravy delivered by Meals on Wheels. And Eric Jones observes him, and not without respect. 'I graduated from smack to methadone. I got my shit together,' Henry continues, 'and even began to drink. Imagine it. I took to the grog and thought I'd joined the human race. Methadone and Mogadon and wine. With taxis to the pharmacy, the bottle store. Plus also I smoked to the level of national representative.'

'Carbon monoxide. Tars.'

'Where are you stopping now?'

'Here and there. I'm seeing a chick.'

'And you're keeping your hand in, I suppose.'

'Xylox. I'm moving a little Xylox.'

'What can I tell you? You've got to get back on the horse, begin again. You should at least continue with the meetings.'

'I could maybe handle a treatment centre. When I'm good and ready, like.'

'Shrinks and cardiologists and kidney guys—they all despaired of me. Said I was in for death or insanity.'

'They love that line.'

'Years passed. Decades. And then one day I couldn't do it anymore. I was sick of the hideous weight, the unabating demands of my addictions. I was sick and tired of the huge responsibility of being me.'

As a maker of instant coffee, Henry is not deficient in technique: the milky brew he hands to his guest at last is free from undissolved clots of powder. 'I need a lucky break,' Eric ventures.

'You need a lucky break, which is what I got. It was as if a clock had wound itself down and finally stopped ticking. Some sort of page 147inner, organic clock, the thing that had craved and hungered through thousands of days and nights. Silent now, defunct.'

'This gives me hope. No shit.'

'I can't see why. My very own brother lies in a quiet place.' Henry indicates a framed photograph. 'The pair of us at the races. Seventy-six, that was. I guess you can tell by the Starsky and Hutch costumes.'

'Disco lives.'

'And what about yourself? Do you have any brothers anywhere?'

Eric shrugs. Sips at his coffee and makes a face. 'Christ. Point me at that sugar bowl, Henry.'