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day?
    He ’d drink all day, says W., if he had nothing to do. Sometimes they punch him or throw ashtrays at Sal, but that’s alright. He’d be exactly the same, says W.
    Sand beneath an exposed cobblestone. Under the paving stones, the beach, I say to W., who’s showing me old Plymouth. Not much of the old city survives, W. comments. We pass through a walled medieval garden, with a low maze and a fountain. Alcoholics drink beneath a portico, listening to a radio. There’s no one to move them on, W. says. He approves of that.
    These are the end times, we both agree. It’s enough to be left alone like the alcoholics, but our time will come just as their time will come. We’ll be rounded up and shot, W. says. It’s only a matter of time, we know, before we are found out. They haven’t really noticed us yet, that’s what saves us. But when they do …!
    The clock is ticking, we agree.—‘This is not our time’, W. says as we walk through the newly converted Victualling Yard. Who lives in these flats?, we wonder as we pass through the wide boulevards. Who can afford them?
    What are the signs of the End?, I ask W.—‘You. You are a sign of the End’, says W. ‘Actually, we both are. The fact that we have careers or flourish at all is a sign of the End. Of course, the fact that we won’t have them for much longer is a sign that the End is coming closer’.
    There’s something sick about us, W. says, something depraved. Only it’s not just about us, says W., but about the whole world. We’re seismographic, W. says. We register the great horrors of the world in our guts. That’s why I’m always about to soil myself, W. says. It’s why I have a continual nosebleed and always feel ill.
    Many illnesses have coursed through W.’s body. Colds, of course. Myriad flus. Pneumonia, once. Gastroenteritis, twice. We’re weak, he says, we’re the runts of the litter. Something has come to an end with us. We’re the end of the line in some important way.
    It all finishes here, W. says, pointing at his body and then pointing at mine. Especially here, says W., pointing his finger at my belly.
    My obesity always impresses him, W. says. My greed. The way I eat, the amount I eat. He’d call me a carnal man, W. says, but that sounds too grand.—‘You’re just full of greed’. He wonders what would I be like if I didn’t go to the gym?, It’s all channelled into my enormous thighs, W. says. They’re grotesque.—‘You’re out of proportion!’ And my great fat arms, W. says.
    For his part, W. takes no exercise. He hasn’t felt well for many years—eleven or twelve, he’s not sure how many. There was a time when he’d go for great walks on the moor, he remembers. He had a walking friend, of course. You can’t go walking on your own, that would just lead to enormous melancholy , he says. In fact, that’s what I always say, isn’t it: that going out walking on my own would lead to enormous melancholy?
    W. is no stranger to melancholy, he says. He’s essentially agoraphobic. He’s only really happy holed up in his room, working. He’d prefer never to leave his house, says W. Or indeed his study. He’d like to become a recluse like Howard Hughes, he says, with jars of toenails and bottles of urine. It’s only the love of a good woman which saves him from that.
    Now and again, he thinks he should walk to work, or cycle. But it’s too far, and all uphill. It would only depress him, W. says. In the end, he’s not cut out for exercise. He’ll lead a short life, says W., as will I. A short, unfulfilled life, which will come to nothing.—‘What’s it all been for?’, W. asks. ‘Nothing!’, he says. ‘Not a thing!’
    How much time do we have left?—‘Not long’, W. says. ‘We’re not the sort who live long lives. Look at us!’ He hasn’t felt himself for twenty years, says W., and I’ve long since run to a fat and bleary-eyed alcoholism. But I am more of a whiner than he is, W. says. There’s