But what was he thinking of that nonsense for? He was getting a little tired and his brain was going. It was what happened when you got old, at least that’s what idiots were always saying. He would take a nap when he got home, and have only a little soup for dinner. All that rich food at lunch was making him sluggish, he shouldn’t have let her put on all that yellow sauce.

He achieved the hill.

Past the Wilsons’ he noticed a new house which had gone up overnight. Canvas flapped against the skeletal form. The ground was dug up, and leaves had collected in the muddy ditches.

He turned onto Curtis Road, their road. He heard children shouting behind the Stockwells’. In the light they must have been having a touch football game out on the lawn. George Stockwell would be out on the terrace watching, a blanket over his lap, in his wheelchair.

He felt hot. His forehead was wet. Passing under the pines it was cooler, the sun never shone there at all, and then he came to their graveled turn. He stopped for a moment and leaned against the big elm. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he felt rotten. Their sign was there across from him by the rhododendrons, a white sign with E. M. ELIOT painted in black. He noticed for the first time, though he’d seen the sign for years, that the letters had a wave to them as if they were underwater. He blinked. Was his sight going? Could he really not have noticed it properly all this time? He did not feel well at all. He wanted to lie down. He would stretch out on the library sofa till his radio show then go to bed early. Something about those letters unnerved him, seeing his name in unfamiliar print, and as he made his way slowly up to the slender pillars on either side of the front door, he tried to think of what it was. As the light faded around him, he had a growing sense of dread.