Just as Fred is beginning to wonder if the Northern-or as the London papers call it, the Misery-Line has stopped running, a train arrives. He gets into it, is carried by slow stages to Tottenham Court Road station, and makes his way through a series of cold tiled sewerlike tunnels plastered with posters advertising cultural attractions available in London in February. He pays them no heed. Because of the desperate condition of his finances he cannot afford to go to any of these concerts, plays, films, exhibitions, or sporting events; nor can he afford to travel anywhere outside of London. Last fall when he and Roo were planning their trip together, counting on his study leave, both their savings, and the sublet of their apartment, it seemed as if time were the only barrier to their plans for exploring London, and beyond: Oxford, Cambridge; Cornwall, Wales, Scotland; Ireland; the Continent. He wanted to see everything then, to travel forever; he felt that forever was hardly long enough for him and Roo. Now, even if he had the funds, he lacks the spirit to explore Notting Hill Gate.

Roo, for instance, wanted to go to Lapland in June to photograph the midnight sun, the glaciers, the Northern Lights, the reindeer-the whole landscape, she explained, of Andersen’s “Snow Queen.” But there is no point in thinking about Roo, Fred tells himself as he waits on the platform for a westbound train. She cares nothing for him and never did; she has insulted him and probably betrayed him and said she never wants to see him again. And he doesn’t want to see her again; how could he, after what has happened?

But in spite of this he can see her now: her dark eyes wide, her hair electrically springy, talking about the green ice of the glaciers, the mountain flowers-and then, even then, Roo was destroying him, photographing and possibly, probably, fucking-you couldn’t use a more polite word-both of those- And what made it worse, at the exact same time she was photographing and fucking him.