He did not want to drink, he was allowing himself no anodyne, but he was all of a sudden hungry, rapaciously so. The bread was dry on the sandwiches; he got through them and went to the bar for more. His mind wasn’t clearing, he was looking at the faces round him as though through smoked glass. Then he walked through the market place towards his home. In sight of the cathedral, all was dead quiet. There were no stars, the spire lifted away vague, assimilated into the dark. As he entered the familiar hall, so familiar that for years he hadn’t noticed the little Varley, chaste reminder of Thomas Freer’s predilection, he saw a note on the letter table. It had been written by their housekeeper, and said: ‘Mr Robinson rang, 9.20. Will Mr Stephen ring him back at 10.15?’ There followed a telephone number which wasn’t Mark’s and which meant nothing to Stephen. Time had elongated since Neil’s first shout, but it was still not ten o’clock. Stephen went up to his room, lay on his bed, picked up a book, even glanced at an equation.
