Stella had, some time ago, moved into her own room the little collection of Japanese netsuke, gifts from her father, which had once stood upon the sitting-room mantelpiece. She had ranged them upon the white window-sill facing the end of her bed. George burst in with this hammer, eagerly anticipating the work of destruction. But the window-sill was bare. He looked about the room, opened the drawers: gone. The little gaggle of ivory men and animals had disappeared. Stella must have come, foreseeing his rage, and taken them away. She treasured them as tokens of her father’s love. George felt a pang of jealous misery and frustration. He went to the dressing-table and swept off it on to the floor the few oddments, some little silver boxes, make-up, a hand mirror, which had lain there untouched since the evening when he and Stella had set off to see Alex, a hundred years ago. He kicked the delicate legs of the dressing-table, cracking one. Then it suddenly seemed to him strange and rather amusing that Stella should actually have come to the house, secretly, fearfully turning her key in the door, and put the little netsuke into her pocket. Or perhaps she had sent someone else to fetch them. George did not proceed to wonder where his wife was now. Wherever she was, she would be being well looked after. She was all right. He went downstairs and put on his overcoat. It was a cold dull windy day. He had not breakfasted, of course; breakfast was out of the question.
George and Stella lived in a modest pretty house, an old cottage long modernized and painted blue, which backed on to the Common. There was a view of the monoliths, the Ennistone Ring, from the upper windows. The area was called Druidsdale in homage to the legendary creators of the Ring; it was not very far from Victoria Park and counted marginally as one of the ‘nicer parts’ of the town. The quickest way from Druidsdale to Burkestown was by taking the path along the edge of the Common as far as the level crossing. However, George avoided the Common since a contentious encounter with a white-heather-selling gipsy. (There is, and has long been, a gipsy camp, persistently persecuted by Ennistonians, on the far side of the Common.) Passing through the town, it would be possible to cross the River Enn by the Roman bridge and go past the Glove Factory, or else to cross by the New Bridge and go past the Ennistone Royal Hotel (whose sumptuous grounds coted the river). For Hare Lane, the way by the hotel was slightly shorter, but George wanted to avoid the vicinity of Travancore Avenue. Bill the Lizard, from whom he had learnt of Rozanov’s whereabouts, had also told George of Tom’s advent. Eastcote cared about George and thought about him a lot. It was by now general knowledge at the Baths that Tom McCaffrey was in town and living in Greg and Ju Osmore’s house with a mysterious male friend. (Tom himself had not yet turned up to swim because he could not persuade Emma to come with him.)
As George was crossing the Roman bridge he became aware, in the cloudy daze in which he was walking, of an awkwardness. He had put the hammer into the pocket of his coat and it was knocking regularly against his knee. He took it out and went onward holding it in his hand, passing a row of little modern houses called Blanch Cottages, built after a bomb had devastated this piece of Ennistone during the war. Some of the front gardens had bushy evergreen shrubs which leaned out over the pavement. George dropped the hammer over a low fence into the branches of a yellow privet bush. He was beginning to wish that the walk could last forever. He knew the house in Hare Lane since he had been long ago, in his very earliest Rozanov days, invited to tea there when John Robert, teaching in London, had come to Ennistone to visit his mother. Mrs Rozanov, a sturdy bonny Ennistonian Methodist, not at all in awe of her famous son, had been kind to George. George did not want to remember that occasion. He must have been very happy.
Now at last, sick with apprehension and horrible frightened joy, he had reached the door and rang the bell.
Opinions differed about whether John Robert Rozanov was ‘in his own way’ rather handsome, or whether he was one of the ugliest creatures ever seen. He was tall, he had always been burly and was now stout. He had an extremely large flat-topped head and a low brow, with hair which had always been very short and grizzled, curly, almost frizzy, and was now grey with no sign of balding. His eyes, large and with an odd fierce rectangular appearance, were an unnerving shade of light yellowish-brown and gleamed brightly. His face was broad and high-cheek-boned, and when one knew about his Russian ancestry could look Slavonic. He had a big strong aquiline nose and a big wet sensuous flabby mouth which pouted out above his chin. He dressed carelessly and was voted by women, some of whom found him attractive, some repulsive, to look a ‘perfect wreck’.
The door opened and Rozanov confronted his pupil. There was no pretence on either side that this was a social call, supposed to be a surprise or uncertain in its purpose. George said nothing. Rozanov said, ‘Come in,’ and George followed him into the little dark parlour at the back of the house. Rozanov turned on the lamp.
Apart from the shock glimpse at the Baths, it was some years since George had seen his old teacher and (as he later observed, at first he was too stunned) Rozanov had changed a good deal. He had become fatter, slower in his movements and stiffened by arthritis. The shabbiness and shagginess was now clearly that of old age. A little saliva foamed at the corners of his protruding lips as he talked. His once-smooth brow had grown soft pitted flesh, humped between deep lines of wrinkles. Coarse hairs were growing from his nose and ears. Grey braces, visible under his gaping jacket, supported his uncertain trousers half-way up his paunch. He had always looked rather dirty and now looked dirtier. He filled the little room with his bear-like presence and his smell. He stared gloomily at George.
George did not attempt to conceal his emotion. He found a sweet aggressive little pleasure in giving in to it. He leaned back against the wall and put a hand to his throat. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, and said, ‘Well, hello.’ His voice shook.
Rozanov said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ He had a curious stilted voice which mingled English academic with American and traces of his mother’s Ennistonian.
George said, ‘God.’
Rozanov, scratching and poking his large fleshy ear, moved across to the window and looked out at the scrap of back garden with the Cox’s Orange Pippin tree which his father had planted. Other thoughts, momentarily dispelled, pressed obsessively back into his mind.
George took hold of his wits and shook himself like a dog. He advanced a little. There was not far to move. The room was very small and there was a desk and a sideboard and two armchairs in it. He said, ‘I’m glad to see you.’
John Robert said, ‘Oh yes,’ still looking out of the window.
‘We hope you’re going to stay in Ennistone.’
‘Yes — ’
‘You are going to stay with us?’
John Robert turned round from the window and stood awkwardly with his back to it. He said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Anyway we can have some talks,’ said George. As the philosopher did not reply he added, ‘That’s good.’
There was a silence. He could hear the philosopher’s noisy breathing and the little tearing sound as he began to pick at the top of one of the chairs.
‘Are you writing your great book, I mean the final one?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I don’t mean the final one, you’re not all that old, I suppose. I hope you’re writing philosophy?’
‘No.’
‘What a pity! Why not, are you tired of it at last? I often wondered if you’d ever get tired of it and give it up.’
‘No.’
‘Look, there’s an awful lot I’d like to talk to you about, an awful lot I’d like to ask. You know I always felt there was something behind everything that you said.’