He scampered to the edge of the roof, impossibly sure-footed on its steep angle. Clinging on to the guttering, he scouted some distance round the edge, until he found what he was looking for. He turned and gestured for Saul to follow him. Saul edged along the roof ridge on all fours, afraid to expose himself to the wicked-looking grey slate. He reached the spot directly above King Rat, and there he waited.
King Rat bared his teeth at him. ‘Slide down,’ he whispered.
With both hands, Saul gripped the little concrete ridge he was straddling, and slowly swung his leg over until his whole body was spreadeagled on the slope above King Rat. At this point his arms rebelled and would not release him. He swiftly changed his mind about his actions, and attempted to haul himself back across the roof ridge, but his muscles were stiff with terror. Trapped on the slippery surface, he panicked. His brittle ringers lost their grip.
For a long, sick-making moment he was sliding towards his death, until he met King Rat’s strong hand. He was halted sharply, plucked from the roof and swung up and over in a terrifying hauling motion before being dropped hard onto a steel fire escape below.
The noise of his landing was muffled and insubstantial. Above him grinned King Rat. He still hung on to the edge of the roof with his left hand, his right extended over the stairs where he had deposited Saul. As Saul watched, he released himself, and fell the short distance to the iron mesh of the platform, his big rough boots landing without a sound.
Saul’s heart was still racing with fear, but his recent undignified precipitation galled him.
‘I… I’m not a fucking sack of potatoes,’ he hissed with spurious bravado.
King Rat grinned. ‘You don’t even know which way’s up, you little terror. And until you’ve a bit of learning in your Loaf, that’s exactly what you are.’
The two crept down the steps, past door after door, descending to the alley.
Dawn came fast. King Rat and Saul made their way through the crepuscular streets. Afraid and excited, Saul half expected his companion to repeat his escapades of last night, and he glanced from side to side at drainpipes and garage roofs, the entrances to rooftop passageways. But this time they remained earthbound. King Rat led Saul through deserted building sites and car parks, down narrow passages masquerading as culs-de-sac. Their route was chosen with an instinct Saul did not understand, and they did not pass any early morning walkers.
The dark dwindled. Daylight, wan and anaemic, had done what it could by seven o’clock.
Saul leaned against the wall of an alley. King Rat stood framed by its entrance, his right arm outstretched, just touching the bricks, the daylight beyond silhouetting him like the lead in a film noir.
‘I’m starving,’ said Saul.
‘Me too, sonny, me too. I’ve been starving for a long time.’ King Rat leaned out of the alley. He was peering at a nondescript terraced row of red brick. Each roof was topped with a dragon rampant: little flurries of clay enthusiasm now broken and crumbled. Their features were washed out by acid rain.
That morning the city seemed made up of back streets.
‘Alright then,’ murmured King Rat. ‘Time for tucker.’
King Rat, a figure skulking like a Victorian villain, stepped carefully from his point of concealment. He lifted his face to the air. As Saul watched, he sniffed loudly twice, twitched his nose, turned his face a little to one side. Gesturing for Saul to follow him, King Rat scampered down the deserted street and ducked into a gash between two houses. At the far end was a wall of black rubbish bags.
‘Always follow your I Suppose.’ King Rat grinned briefly. He was crouched at the end of the narrow alleyway, a hunched shape at the bottom of a brickwork chasm. The surrounding walls were inscrutable, unbroken by windows.
Saul approached.
King Rat was tearing at a plastic sack. The rich smell of rot was released. King Rat plunged his arm into the hole, and fumbled inside in an unsettling parody of surgery. He pulled a polystyrene box from the wound. It dripped with tea-leaves and egg yolk, but the hamburger logo was still evident. King Rat placed it on the ground, reached inside the bag again, and pulled out a damp crust of bread.
He thrust the sack aside and reached for another, ripped it open. This time his reward was half a fruitcake, flattened and embedded with sawdust. Chicken bones and crushed chocolate, the remnants of sweet corn and rice, fish-heads and stale crisps, the bags yielded them all, disgorged them into a stinking pile on the concrete.
Saul watched the mound of ruined food grow. He put his hand over his mouth.
‘You have got to be joking,’ he said, and swallowed.
King Rat looked up at him.
‘Thought you was peckish.’
Saul shook his head in horror, his hand still clamped firmly over his mouth.
‘When was the last time you puked?’
Saul furrowed his brow at the question. King Rat wiped his wet hand on his trenchcoat, adding to the camouflage-pattern of stains hidden in its dark grey. He poked at the food.
‘You can’t recall,’ he said, without looking at Saul. ‘You can’t recall because you’ve never done it. Never spewed nothing. You’ve been ill, I’ll bet, but not like other Godfers. No colds or sneezing; only some queer sickness making you shiver for days, once or twice. But even then, not a sign of puke.’ He finally met Saul’s eye, and his voice dropped. He hissed at him, something like victory in his voice. ‘Got the notion? Your belly won’t rebel. No sicking up Pig’s, no matter how plastered, no sweet sticky chocolate bile on your pillow the night after Easter, no hurling seafood across the tiles, no matter bow dodgy the take-away. You’ve got rat blood in your veins. There’s nothing you can’t stomach.’
There was a long moment of silence as the two stared at each other.
King Rat continued.
‘And there’s more. There’s no grub you don’t want. Said you were starving. I should coco; it’s been a while. Well here we go. Sitting comfortably? I’m going to teach you what it is to be rat. Look at all this scran your uncle sorted you out with. Said you were starving. Here’s breakfast.’
King Rat picked up the fruitcake without taking his eyes from Saul. He raised it slowly to his mouth. Moist chunks dropped from his hand, sultanas made juicy from their long marinating in black plastic. He bit into it, crumbs bursting out of his mouth as he exhaled in satisfaction.
He was right. Saul could not remember a time when he had thrown up. He had always eaten a lot, even for his frame, and had never been able to sympathize with people put off their food. Stories about maggots told over risotto left him unmoved. He had never suffered after too much sugar or fat or alcohol. This had never occurred to him before; he sympathized with others when they complained that something made them feel sick, never stopping to ask what it meant or if it was true.
Now he was sloughing off those layers of habit. He stood watching King Rat eat. The wiry figure would not take his eyes from him.
It had been hours and hours since Saul had last had food. He investigated his own hunger.
King Rat continued chewing. The stench of slowly collapsing food was overwhelming- Saul gazed at the leftovers and remnants heaped in front of the bags, the flecks of mould, the bite marks, and the dirt.
He began to salivate.
King Rat kept eating.
When he opened his mouth wet chunks of cake were visible. ‘You can eat pigeon-meat scraped off a car-wheel,’ he said. ‘This here’s good scran.’
Saul’s stomach growled. He squatted before the pile of food. Gingerly, he picked out the unfinished burger. He sniffed it. It was long cold. He could see where teeth had torn through the bun. He brushed at it, cleared it of grime as best he could.