Chapter 26Now that he was alone there, Richard noticed how desolate the little room at the Chicken Arms was. All he could see when he was there with Jimmy was Jimmy; the room seemed to radiate his presence and endow it with a charm that Richard now knew, looking around, was never there.
The windows, one boarded up and the other a network of cracks just waiting for a certain fate at a gust of wind, let in little of winter’s grey light. The old mattress, which occupied one corner, was heaped with tattered blankets and coats, some so dirty they stunk. Richard wondered about vermin. The floor was littered with soda and beer cans, wine bottles, wadded-up bags from fast-food places like McDonald’s and Burger King.
Richard sat down in the middle of all this, wondering how these kids got by, how
