So. To the hunt!

Mary Lou?

I would avoid her as much as possible, only tolerating them until I had all the relevant information on my pursuer. I would suffer a little but then she would be gone.

Rick and I met in the foyer. I was in moderately heavy boots and anorak, Rick dressed, except for the skates, as if he were about to play ice hockey. He looked enormous. OLE ASHCAN was to the fore again. Yes, he was enormous.

“How tall are you, Rick?”

“A metre—”

“Old style, please.”

“Six feet three inches, sir.”

“And you weigh—not in kilos but pounds?”

“Two hundred twenty-five.”

“Could you divide that by fourteen?”

He did so. I whistled.

“And you look it, Rick, every hunkish pound. What on earth got you stuck with academics?”

“I wanted it, Wilf. Wilf, those boots, they wouldn’t last over rough country.”

“They are not going to be taken over rough country.”

“Maybe not today, but—”

“Have you noticed?”

“Yeah. Fog.”

“They don’t advertise it.”

“No, sir, they don’t. Wilf, I was really sorry not to see the stars with you last night. Mary Lou said it was truly inspirational.”

“She did? Well, today we can see all of twenty-five yards. We are down to earth, Rick.”

“Am I going too fast for you, Wilf?”

“Not yet but it’s a kind thought.”

“Maybe you wondered why I didn’t join you last night?”

Mindful of my new role as hunter, I nodded.

“Yes, why?”

“We take this path to the left. My God, the fog’s thickening, Wilf. But don’t worry, there’s a handrail all the way. Even if the fog closes right in, we can feel along the cliff edge—”

“Christ!”

“I didn’t say anything last night, Wilf, but the altitude got to me too.”

“You’re like her, Rick, you’re just not physical. I’ve never met such a truly spiritual pair. But this cliff: I warn you, I don’t like heights. I don’t even like that bloody balcony.”

“Come to that, Wilf, I don’t like the way these fields smell.”

“Stink. Doctor Johnson.”

“Fertilizer.”

“It’s shit, you fool. It doesn’t disappear for ever in the John and Jean. It’s human. They spread it around. They don’t waste anything.”

Rick gagged and clapped a handful of Kleenex over his mouth and nose. He broke into a canter and soon disappeared into the fog a few yards further along the path. I peered up into the fog and could detect slightly more luminosity in it in one direction than another. Presumably the sun was up there still and moving towards midday. Later perhaps I should be able to see the cliff and decide whether I would go on or not. Meanwhile I strolled slowly between malodorous and invisible fields. I took my time. Some people can’t stand heights. Others can’t stand faeces. Chacun et cetera.

Ten minutes later there was the hygienic smell of pines and the suggestion round me of their massive darknesses in the fog. Rick was waiting for me. At that point the air was clearing a trifle, so that as soon as I saw him I also saw tree tops on my left at eye level and pine roots in a bank on my right. Rick, I now saw, was leaning negligently against a railing on the left-hand side of the path.