Free Imago Bird by Nicholas Mosley

mother, like a seagull, had gone for his eyes and got him —
    I thought—Should I not just have put out a hand to him and said—Get it out, get it out, it won’t hurt you —
    Or—Is it not the best in the best of all possible worlds, that there are these dark horses to take me to my beloved?
    I had come to one of the pornographic bookshops at the back of Victoria Station. I thought—You go out through a door, along a passage, and in through the same door —
    The covers of the magazines seemed to have been carrying on for some time a contest about how far they could see up women’s arses.
    I thought—And all these men, like ghosts, in their chain-mail, clanking; who want to post things like letters up women’s arses —
    A voice behind me said ‘Hullo.’
    I said ‘Oh hullo.’
    â€˜Have you got the time on you?’
    He was a flat-faced man, rather elderly.
    I thought I might explain—I’m here just to study the anthropology of this strange tribe; the question of why it is customary to make letter-boxes of arses —
    I said ‘No.’
    He said ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’
    I thought—Well, I would, wouldn’t I?
    Then—This is not a dark horse to take me to my beloved!
    He said ‘I know quite a good place round here.’
    I thought I could explain—But I’m carrying out an experiment, you see, to discover what happens if you simply act what seems truthful —
    I said ‘All right.’
    In fact I would like a cup of coffee.
    We walked round the corner.
    I thought—An experiment is not an experiment, is it, if you think you know the result —
    Round the corner there was a café with red-topped tables and bottles of sauce like fly-traps.
    He said ‘You’ve done this before?’
    I said ‘No.’
    He said ‘You’d like some coffee?’
    I said ‘Yes.’
    I sat at the table while he went to the counter.
    I thought—There is that story about the prison warder who goes to bed with the man in the condemned cell out of pity —
    Then—But I’m not his warder?
    The man came back with some coffee. He said ‘Here.’
    I said ‘Thanks.’
    He said ‘Where do you come from?’
    I said ‘Cowley Street.’
    â€˜Cowley Street!’
    â€˜Yes.’
    I could say to Dr Anders—You see, I told you —
    He said ‘What do you do?’
    I said ‘Philosophy.’
    We drank our coffee.
    He said ‘I’ve got a room round here.’
    I thought—Dear God, perhaps I do not after all know about dark horses!
    He said ‘I’ll give you twenty pounds.’
    I said ‘Twenty pounds!’
    I thought—Can it possibly be true, that I would not like twenty pounds?
    He was a man with such a sad flat face; as if his mother hadsat on him.
    I thought—But even if everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds —
    Then he said ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’
    I said ‘I don’t know, have you?’
    He said ‘Excuse me.’
    He got up and went to talk to the man behind the counter.
    He seemed to pay for the coffee. Then he went out through a door at the back.
    I thought—Perhaps it was the photograph of me getting out of the car at Mr Perhaia’s party?
    Or—Could he be all the time one of Uncle Bill’s detectives put on to follow me —
    I could explain to Dr Anders—But this is still the point: if you just let things happen truly, at least you get a cup of coffee —
    â€” But perhaps I should not think that I could talk about this too much anyway.
    The man behind the counter was eyeing me suspiciously.
    After a time I went out into the street. There was no sign of the flat-faced man.
    I thought—And I did know, all the time, that nothing unpleasant would happen, didn’t I!
    Then—One day there will be horses, or