“The great outdoors.”

“Surely. Then sometimes, you know, you lie awake and listen to no noise, though that’s rare nowadays—but sometimes you can listen to no noise—positive no noise and go out and out and out, searching—”

“Nature mysticism.”

“No, sir. It’s just how living is. Then there’s music. Oh my God. But I hadn’t the talent.”

“Had to settle for the groves of academe.”

“Yeah. No—I mean, sincerely no!”

“Let’s get on.”

Rick came towards me, his cleft chin out where it belonged now, as if the sound of water was a cure for diffidence. I had one of those moments, not so much of thought as rapid reflection, a split second in which possibilities, alternatives were considered and dismissed. I dismissed. Was a cleft chin a sign of weakness? No. Was it the sign of a divided nature? Absurd. Was it a delay in the hardening of the bones, a hint of foetalism, as the biological boys used to say and perhaps still did?

He held out his hand, and it seemed natural to take hold and allow myself to be pulled up off the low rock. The careful Swiss had inlaid hollow trunks in the road so that though the path sloped slightly up, the water ran straight across it. To get across was no more than a step. We crossed into a place where it seemed there was no solidity but a dimly seen rail on the left hand and tree roots on the other.

I stood still.

“For a scenic stroll, it’s spectacularly null.”

“This’ll clear.”

“If it weren’t for the silence, we might be strolling in Regent’s Park. I come here in expectation of scenery and all I get is a white-out.”

“The manager said it was unusual for the time of the year.”

“Every two hundred years.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“I must have been to dozens of places where they swore to me it was the worst weather for two hundred years. Always two hundred years. Cairo, Tbilisi—”

“Now, now!”

“Remind me to tell you some time about the highest tide for two hundred years.”

“Tell me about the highest tide for two hundred years.”

“I crewed for a man once in his yacht. Highest tide for two hundred years. I ran him aground on it.”

Rick laughed, a genuine, unservile, happy laugh.

“If he was skipper, it was his doing.”

“No, no. I claim the distinction. Curse this fog.”

“We start climbing again soon. I guess we’ll climb out of it.”

“Quote, mother, give me the sun, unquote.”

“The medics say he got his facts wrong.”

“He got everything wrong. Stagey old twit.”

Rick gave a scandalized guffaw. He was having a real good time. I could see his mental notebook. All the same—

“I know! I know! Gee!”

“Like Wagner.”

The guffaw prolonged itself. There was a sudden extraordinary twisting of the vapour before our faces, a humming sound in the air, a wooden knock on the left, then somewhere down in the fog a mighty thump.