an excerpt from the novel, in the bonds of love, chapter twenty-four.  

In the Bonds of Love

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING on the bridge in town. A cluster of people peer over the down-river rail. Some seem to be holding conversations with unseen persons in the water. Other hold handkerchiefs to their faces. If the awe-struck look on his face is an indication, an old duffer leaving the bridge has just seen God. He coughs a couple of phlegm-balls into the gutter. Brian, stopping the car beside him, lowers the window to ask what's going on, but before he can get the words out, he is overtaken by the feculent reek of a Glaswegian cludgie, a Cairo fish market--a stink so ghastly his gonads shrink into his stomach.
  As the old man gives Brian a sick grin, Brian grinds the gears into reverse, pulls into the kerb, covers his nose with his shirt tail, and checks out the river. Thirty seconds is enough. Brian hurries back to the car, drives to the post office, and enters the telephone kiosk. The operator, a middle-aged, hawk-nosed, over-curious spinster, causes conversations to be somewhat cryptic.
  Brian says, "Jorge, I'm in Warkworth. O'Grady's in town."

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