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But I know this city!                                                  This green ticket-hall, the long office half-rounded at its ends, that ironic clerestory, brown glazed tiles, green below, the same, the decorative hammerbeams supporting nothing, above, of course! I know this city! How did I not realize when he said, Go and do City this week, that it was this city?                               Tony.               His cheeks sallowed and collapsed round the insinuated bones, the gums shrivelled, was it, or shrunken, his teeth now standing free of each other in the unnatural half yawn of his mouth, yes, the mouth that had been so full-fleshed, the whole face, too, now collapsed, derelict, the thick-framed glasses the only constant, the mouth held open as in a controlled scream, but no sound, the head moving only slightly, the white dried and sticky saliva, the last secretions of those harassed glands, cauterized into deficiency, his mouth closing only when he took water from a glass by his bed, that double bed, in his parents' house, bungalow, water or lemon he had to take frequently, because of what the treatment had done to his saliva glands, how it had finished them.                           H i m

Covered courtyard, taxis, take a taxi, always take a taxi in a strange city, but no, I know this city! The mind circles, at random, does not remember, from one moment to another, other things interpose themselves, the mind's                                           The station exit on a bridge, yes, of course, and the blackened gantries rise like steel gibbets above the Midland red wall opposite.            I should turn right, right, towards the city centre, yes, ah, and then that pub! On one visit here I came from this station sullen with depression, savage at myself for some reason I found it hard to define, isolate: and went into that pub, the nearer, on the corner, green glass, leaded plates, ordinary, for relief, which was a green shield Worthington, as I remember, if I remember. To arrive at their place in a fit state, Tony and June's, smothering my misery, which must have been because of her, now I come to define it, isolate it, because of Wendy's treachery, since we had come to this city together, ah, perhaps the time before, perhaps the last time I came had been with Wendy, that must have been it, though certainly it was not by train, for she and I hitched the time we came together, together, so it must have been somewhere else—yes, that's it, to the left here, over the bridge the other side, there is a Chinese restaurant where the four of us went on that first occasion, or was it the first? And June told, very well, that perhaps apocryphal story of the woman in a Chinese restaurant who, feeling an inedible lump in her mouth, genteelly transferred it to her handkerchief and then to her coat pocket, and later, some time later, had a call from the police wanting to know why, in the pocket of a coat she had sent to the cleaners, there had been discovered the top joint of a human little finger: and how the restaurant had nothing further to add but that they received the soup themselves in big cans from Hong Kong. And where Wendy had not liked lychees, her first taste of them, in some ways such a suburban innocent, then, she was, saying they tasted like balls of cottonwool soaked in methylated spirit, and I no doubt said at the time what strange tastes she must have to be able to recognize them as such, or think now I must or might have said that. Now I feel no pain, from her, from the memories of Wendy in this city, no need now to drink to relieve that bitter depression, now, no, drink for fun, because I like the taste, on this occasion, in this same city, that I know.

Time? A quarter past twelve. Nearly two hours to kill, to have lunch, rather, before I need think of work, of going on, wander off, then.                 Right, from the station.

Sign to Castle Boulevard, yes, that's right, I remember now, they call streets boulevards in this city, some streets, that is, the university is on another of them, University Boulevard, logically. And yes, there is a castle here, of course, of a kind, there, up on its stump of rock, sandstone, as I remember, pale yellow, friable, the pub at its foot with some rooms carved out of the solid rock, it is that soft, and other caves, dwellings which were used until comparatively recently, until the early 1800's, did Tony tell me, he had a great mind for such historical trivia, is that the right word, no, nor is detail, trivia to me perhaps, to him important, or worth talking about, if that is important, which I doubt, to me, but he had a great mind for such detail, it crowded his mind like documents in the Public Records Office, there, a good image, perhaps easy, but it was even something like as efficient, tidy, his mind, not as mine is, random, the circuit-breakers falling at hazard, tripped equally by association and non-association, repetition, while from him it flowed regularly, pointedly phrased, constantly, at a high constant, knowledge, learning, information, perhaps slowly, some, but how he embraced conversation, think of an image, no. My visits here were long talks broken only partly by eating, what a generalization, there, more talk on his part than mine, far more, but I learnt, I selected and elected to hear what I needed, what was of most use to me, at that time most use, from his discourse, yes, the word is not too pompous, discourse, a fine mind, a need to communicate embodied in it, too, how can I place his order, his disintegration?