Alison switched off the recorder and together we stood. I did not want to stop. I wanted to weigh up the merits of thematic hangs and nonstatutory learning while Gillian sparred with her Scottish colleague. I’d kept to my word and let Alison run the interview. She had done it masterfully, without notes, her blunt questions conveying not rudeness but genuine curiosity that provoked them both into thinking aloud.

“We’ll be putting together a report,” I said. “Maybe a journal article.”

“Yes, of course,” said Gillian. “It’s a great shame you can’t be here for our opening.”

“The Past in the Present,” Ian said in his deadpan brogue. “Misrepresentation comes in many forms. Omission. Idealization. Nostalgia . . .” He too was reluctant to bring this to an end. He had a sucked-in, bony face, with cushions for lips and all the color drained upward into his vivid hair. You wouldn’t find either of these characters back home, with their offhand wit, their folksy dental work, their refusal of style that was, in its way, stylish. “We want to show the past is something to be tampered with. Defrosted, as it waire.”

“Shame you can’t join us,” said Gillian.

“The show’s been curated by educators,” he went on. “It’s the longtime quarrel—”

“Tension,” she said. “I’ve really got to go.”

“Tension between curating and educating. Curators came up with the conceptual framework. And then the educators explained it to Mrs. Bloggs.”

“Mrs. who?” asked Alison.

“The lowly public. Usually in the basement.”

“Why not Mr. Bloggs?”

“Oh, Mr. Bloggs too!” Gillian assured her. “And all the little Bloggs.” She offered me her cool fingers. “You’ll be gone by the fifteenth?”

I glanced at Alison. Her eyes were alive. “Maybe we could stay. We’d love to.”

“You’d be welcome,” said Ian warmly. “Very welcome indeed.”

•  •  •

On the escalator, I murmured, “When did you prepare all that? You’re a natural.”

“This isn’t a vacation, you know.”

We would have preferred to go slowly and stop often, but Ian’s long stride pulled us through the displays—Structure and Clarity, Poetry and Dream, Transformed Visions—before delivering us to the sloping floor of the Turbine Hall, part warehouse, part mall. We followed him through the arch to a windowless area, where giant slanted buttresses held up the ceiling. The walls were a moonscape of pocked, stained, and riveted concrete.

“The Tanks are through those doors. Where they used to store the oil for the power station. The only gallery space in Europe dedicated to performance and installation.”

“Can we go in?” Alison wanted to know.

“Well . . . no. They’re open when there’s a show on. And during private views. In 2013 they’ll be shut while we convert the Switch House.”

“I’d really like to see,” said Alison.