Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd

fell to the floor. There was general uproar and Sam was hauled away by the manager before being dismissed from the staff. It happened within an hour. And in that hour Sam’s life changed.
    He vowed that he would never work again. He had no plan of action, no goal, but the very act of working seemed to him to be a form of death. He could live off the food in the house, purchased by his father; his father had a habit of leaving his wallet on the mantelpiece, when he returned from his long hours of driving, and Sam took small sums. He did not tell anyone that he had been fired. He left the house at the same time each morning, and returned at the same time each evening. He wore the same grey suit. He wandered.
    One late afternoon he was walking along one of the paths in the local park, not far from the café where Harry and Hilda and Daniel had drunk tea beneath the trees. There was a young man sitting, slumped, upon a wooden bench. His clothes were old and soiled; he looked weary, his face hollowed by exhaustion or want. He was sighing, or groaning, it was hard to say which; he was trembling, slightly, as if he were trying to ward off pain. His eyes were closed, and there was spittle at the corners of his mouth. Sam sat down quietly beside him. He stared straight ahead, frowning slightly, and from time to time he would glance at this fellow on the bench. The young man opened his eyes and stared at him. Sam said nothing, and looked ahead once more. He could have sat there indefinitely. He had no reason to move on. One place was as good as another. But a sudden thought struck him. “Are you hungry?” he asked him. The young man did not reply. “Hang on,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” After a few minutes he returned with two packets of crisps and a bottle of Tizer. The young man took them without a word. From that day forward, at the same time, Sam always brought two packets of crisps and a bottle of Tizer to the bench where the young man was waiting for him.
    Now that he had lost his job, Sam also seemed to become part of a floating world. There was, for example, the matter of the stone post. It stood at the corner of Lowin Street and thehigh street. Its function was obscure, and Sam had no idea of its age. It was a weather-beaten piece of old stone that may have been on that spot since the building of Camden Town; it may even have stood there in an earlier period. Who could tell? Now, from across the street, Sam had the time to observe it. A young boy came up to it, placed his hands upon it, and began to beat it like a drum; he seemed to derive enormous pleasure from this. Someone called him, and he ran off. Sam continued to stand and watch. He noticed a curious fact or coincidence—most of those who passed the post put out a hand and touched it. It was an unwitting, and perhaps even an unconscious, gesture. Yet the stone post was being endlessly patted and felt.
    As he continued watching the stone, it seemed to become aware of his presence. Sam was astonished when the stone rose several feet into the air; as it hovered there several ribs and pillars of stone, several arches and mouldings, began to exfoliate from it, creating an intricate shrine or shelter of stone. He thought he could hear the sound of hammering, of banging, of the labour of construction. Then it began to fade into the air. The stone post, once more a solitary presence, hovered above the ground before descending and resuming its original position. All this may have been the work of a moment. Or it may have taken many centuries.
    If he had shouted aloud, he would have drawn attention to himself. He wanted to find somewhere in seclusion, somewhere he might sit and think. There was such a place. The church of Our Lady of Sorrows, the church where Harry had thwarted the arsonist, was only a few hundred yards away from this corner of the high street. Sam had passed it many times.
    He bowed his head as he went into the porch, struck suddenly by the