But without any beer? Without that spark of happiness that only ever lasted for two or three cans, then was replaced by something that might not have been satisfaction, but was at least its little sister, indifference? How was he going to kill the afternoons and evenings now?
Should he, as Furrer kept suggesting, register as a street vendor for Gassenblatt, the homeless newspaper? ‘It gives you a structured day, your own income and you meet normal people,’ he said. And you can’t drink, Schoch thought. For him, those were precisely the ‘advantages’ that militated against it.
He’d tried it once. Furrer had lent him sixty francs, which had allowed him to buy twenty copies of the paper and keep 100 per cent of the income from these.
But after a short spell beside the escalator of the pedestrian underpass he’d had enough. He felt silly in the light-blue coat and matching baseball cap, and found it so embarrassing trying to talk to people. He recalled how he’d given the vendors a wide berth when he was one of those passers-by.
In almost two hours Schoch had sold a single paper, to an old lady who looked as if she needed the money just as much as him, and he sold the remaining nineteen copies to another vendor at half price. He invested his thirty-four francs in beer and cigarettes and still owed Furrer the sixty francs to this day.
Schoch stood indecisively beneath the porch of the hostel, staring at the pouring rain. He plumped for the closest option.
13
The same day
To begin with he thought the old man next to him was talking to the guy opposite, but then Schoch realised that both of them were talking to themselves. One he knew by sight, the other even by name: Ormalinger. He used to be with the dog lovers. He’d owned a large, shaggy mongrel, a ‘Giant Schnauzer-Alsatian’, as he used to call it. One evening during Carnival the animal had bitten a five-year-old dressed as Darth Vader, who’d threatened it with a light sabre. The injury was only slight, but the ‘Giant Schnauzer-Alsatian’ had been impounded and put down, which turned the alcoholic into a severe alcoholic. Schoch hadn’t realised, however, that Ormalinger had now reached the stage of chatting away to himself unintelligibly.
He nodded, but Ormalinger didn’t react. He probably couldn’t remember Schoch.
The AlcOven was an institution for cases so hopeless that it had given up stopping them from drinking. Although no alcohol was offered for sale, visitors were permitted to bring their own wine and beer. And the management couldn’t prevent people sharing the drinks they’d brought with others, nor stop money being exchanged under the table for such generosity.
There were a few who earned a bit of cash selling beer and wine at a slight profit to those who were stranded and couldn’t summon the energy to make it to the nearby CONSU. When the weather was as bad as today, business was good. A lot of passing trade had joined the regulars: homeless people simply escaping from the rain. The dining room was jam-packed and everyone was drinking.
Everyone except Schoch, who wasn’t consuming anything liquid apart from a bowl of free soup.
This he managed without a problem.
Which meant he wasn’t dependent.
The next time one of the sellers offered him a beer he took it.
To combat the boredom.
14
The same day
After the AlcOven Schoch had passed by the dog lovers in the hope that Giorgio might be there, as they had the same route home. And by now Schoch was no longer feeling so steady on his legs.
But Giorgio had already left and at this time of day those who were still there didn’t make much sense. He accepted the beer he was offered out of politeness and set off on his way.
It wasn’t until he hit the riverside path that Schoch noticed it had stopped raining. The river was brown and churned up, taking twigs and branches in its wake. In the west a slim strip of clear sky brightened up the twilight gloom. Slowly and with the utmost concentration, Schoch put one foot in front of the other.
There was a man standing a little further along the path. He wasn’t moving and seemed to be waiting for Schoch.
As Schoch came closer he could see that the man was from the Far East. Short and weedy-looking, but perhaps he had fighting skills.
Schoch made to go past him, but the man walked beside him and asked something Schoch didn’t understand. He kept going.
‘Where is cave?’
I see, Schoch thought, someone after our caves. ‘There aren’t any caves here,’ he replied.
But the man wouldn’t give up. ‘You sure?’
‘Piss off,’ Schoch snarled. Now the man kept his distance.
At the whirlpool stood an elderly man that Schoch knew by sight. He had one of the nearby allotments. ‘They pulled one out of here today,’ he said.
‘A dog?’ Schoch said.
‘A man. With a bag around his neck. Empty.’
The river tugged at some plastic tape that was tied to the trunk of a willow. It had red and white stripes like the tape the police used to seal off a crime scene.
‘I wonder what was in it?’ the elderly man muttered.
Schoch didn’t reply.
‘It’ll turn up at some point. The whirlpool doesn’t keep anything for ever.’
Schoch was about to mention the two men he’d seen early that morning, prodding around in the eddy with the rescue pole. But he had second thoughts. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the police and, besides, there was nothing anybody could do for the drowned man now. So he continued on his way.
The gap in the clouds to the west had closed again, and the twilight blurred the contours of the landscape. Schoch had to pay close attention to the cracks and holes in the asphalt.
After about five hundred metres he’d reached the spot directly above his cave. As ever, he walked on past, in case anybody was watching. And, as ever, he peed up against a nearby poplar and looked around cautiously. When he was sure there were no witnesses he clambered down the steep embankment.
The ground was slippery. Even for a younger, more sober man it wouldn’t have been easy to come to a stop with the bulky holdall at the right place, then climb back up the two metres to the cave entrance. He slipped and caught a projecting root that had saved him more than once before. The entrance was now three metres above him.
Cursing, and on all fours, he waited until he’d got his breath back.
From here the entrance to his cave seemed to have changed. The bushes that partially concealed it in summer looked ragged. A result of the storm, perhaps.
His pause now over, he started scrambling up the slope on muddy hands and knees. When he got to the bushes he saw that they’d been mangled: leaves and twigs ripped off. That couldn’t have been the wind.
Schoch pushed the bag past the bushes into his cave and then crept into the dim light.
There it was again, fluorescent pink and its ears cocked – the phantom from last night!
Schoch held his breath