anyway and fought the pangs in his stomach. He woke with his mouth dry.
At breakfast he took his cornflakes outside and dumped them in the long grass.
On his bed that afternoon he stretched out his torso and thought about how flat his belly was becoming. The boy looked for clues to his uncle’s body in his own: the chest concave, the ribs taut, the arms bare and rippled. His mother caught him staring in the mirror but she said nothing. He left abruptly, wandered along the cliff face, and spent hours in an abandoned Vauxhall down near a cove. He sat at the steering wheel, faced the shattered windshield, and began driving home, down narrow country roads toward the city. The gear lever rattled in his fingers. The accelerator touched the floor and he was tremendously skillful with the clutch. He broke through roadblocks and avoided the pursuit of a black helicopter. A crowd of masked men waited for him on the side of the road. He picked them up and they traveled east toward the jail for their own breakthrough.
At dinnertime he asked if he could eat outside on his own, and when his mother agreed he walked out, feeling lightheaded, with a dull throb in his stomach now. He threw the plateful in the grass beside the morning’s cornflakes, most of which had already been picked over by seagulls.
* * *
THE GIRL STOOD above the vat of oil, waiting for it to heat. She had a pretty face and he was embarrassed when she looked at him a second time. Outside the church bells struck eleven chimes. He had been on hunger strike for thirty-four hours now. A picture of the Italian football team was hung above the rack of sweets. A statue of a saint was taped to the cash register. His palms were sweaty and he switched the coins from hand to hand. You’re the first customer of the morning, she said to him. He nodded and looked at his reflection in the stainless steel frontispiece of the counter. It made his face alternately fat and thin. He rose up and down on the tips of his toes and scrunched his face violently, then stopped when the girl behind the counter giggled.
When he finally came out of the chip shop he was weeping, the vinegar so pungent that afterward he could smell it on his hands for days.
* * *
THE KAYAK WAS OUT EARLY . He saw how the old couple plied gracefully through the water and right then he hated them for their solitary joy, for the tandem rhythm they struck, for the way they knew each other’s moves in what he was sure was silence.
He felt like a lone sniper at dawn, looking down on them.
They were a hundred yards out, moving parallel to the headland. The waves rocked the boat up and down; it could have been the single beat of a cardiac machine. Farther out, there were whitecaps that broke early, but the kayak never moved off its course, the blades cutting the air, the nose sideways to the breakers. It was startlingly yellow on the water, as if the sea had decided to give it more color than it deserved and only the old couple, in their drab clothes, diluted that color, the man in a blue work shirt, the woman in a gray dress.
The boy said to himself: Bang. Bang.
On the step of the caravan his mother watched him out of the corner of her eye. He had been badly constipated after his hunger strike but he had not told her the reason why. She had given him medicine that had caused him to throw up, but now he told her that he felt much better, that he would like to take a walk into town.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and dug deep and came up with a fifty-pence coin, which she handed to him.
Fifty pence?
Yeah.
What am I going to do with fifty pence?
Get in half the trouble you will with a pound.
The boy chuckled.
Fair enough, he said.
He ran down the hill, knocking at the brambles with a switch of stick. At the foot of the hill the chill of the early summer day cut through his shirt, and he hugged his arms around himself.
Out on the water the kayak had become a tiny speck.
In town
At breakfast he took his cornflakes outside and dumped them in the long grass.
On his bed that afternoon he stretched out his torso and thought about how flat his belly was becoming. The boy looked for clues to his uncle’s body in his own: the chest concave, the ribs taut, the arms bare and rippled. His mother caught him staring in the mirror but she said nothing. He left abruptly, wandered along the cliff face, and spent hours in an abandoned Vauxhall down near a cove. He sat at the steering wheel, faced the shattered windshield, and began driving home, down narrow country roads toward the city. The gear lever rattled in his fingers. The accelerator touched the floor and he was tremendously skillful with the clutch. He broke through roadblocks and avoided the pursuit of a black helicopter. A crowd of masked men waited for him on the side of the road. He picked them up and they traveled east toward the jail for their own breakthrough.
At dinnertime he asked if he could eat outside on his own, and when his mother agreed he walked out, feeling lightheaded, with a dull throb in his stomach now. He threw the plateful in the grass beside the morning’s cornflakes, most of which had already been picked over by seagulls.
* * *
THE GIRL STOOD above the vat of oil, waiting for it to heat. She had a pretty face and he was embarrassed when she looked at him a second time. Outside the church bells struck eleven chimes. He had been on hunger strike for thirty-four hours now. A picture of the Italian football team was hung above the rack of sweets. A statue of a saint was taped to the cash register. His palms were sweaty and he switched the coins from hand to hand. You’re the first customer of the morning, she said to him. He nodded and looked at his reflection in the stainless steel frontispiece of the counter. It made his face alternately fat and thin. He rose up and down on the tips of his toes and scrunched his face violently, then stopped when the girl behind the counter giggled.
When he finally came out of the chip shop he was weeping, the vinegar so pungent that afterward he could smell it on his hands for days.
* * *
THE KAYAK WAS OUT EARLY . He saw how the old couple plied gracefully through the water and right then he hated them for their solitary joy, for the tandem rhythm they struck, for the way they knew each other’s moves in what he was sure was silence.
He felt like a lone sniper at dawn, looking down on them.
They were a hundred yards out, moving parallel to the headland. The waves rocked the boat up and down; it could have been the single beat of a cardiac machine. Farther out, there were whitecaps that broke early, but the kayak never moved off its course, the blades cutting the air, the nose sideways to the breakers. It was startlingly yellow on the water, as if the sea had decided to give it more color than it deserved and only the old couple, in their drab clothes, diluted that color, the man in a blue work shirt, the woman in a gray dress.
The boy said to himself: Bang. Bang.
On the step of the caravan his mother watched him out of the corner of her eye. He had been badly constipated after his hunger strike but he had not told her the reason why. She had given him medicine that had caused him to throw up, but now he told her that he felt much better, that he would like to take a walk into town.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and dug deep and came up with a fifty-pence coin, which she handed to him.
Fifty pence?
Yeah.
What am I going to do with fifty pence?
Get in half the trouble you will with a pound.
The boy chuckled.
Fair enough, he said.
He ran down the hill, knocking at the brambles with a switch of stick. At the foot of the hill the chill of the early summer day cut through his shirt, and he hugged his arms around himself.
Out on the water the kayak had become a tiny speck.
In town
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