She said: GEORGE. This boy wants to talk to you. It’s for a school project. Can we find him a time?
He laughed. He said: Does it have to be in the next 18 months?
She said: GEORGE.
He said: I can’t think about it now, I’ve almost convinced this heretic of the error of his ways, isn’t that right Ken?
The man by the window gave a dry smile.
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that.
Sorabji began to talk impetuously again and she said: GEORGE.
He said: I’d have to check my diary. I daresay I can manage something. I’ll have a look later. Why don’t you stay for dinner?
I said: Thank you.
He said: Splendid, my wife will find you some problems to do—
His wife said GEORGE again but he said No, a rule’s a rule, and he explained that the rule was that if you finished a page of problems you got to eat with the grown-ups. He explained that his children had a page of problems to do every night. He said grinning: Don’t take it too seriously, will you? God knows the girls don’t, they’d far rather eat in front of the TV than sit listening to Ken and me talking nineteen to the dozen, if you find you can’t hack it you can stay and watch EastEnders and we’ll go through my diary later on.
His wife took me into the other room.
She said: George has this bee in his bonnet about mathematics, Steve.
I said it was all right.
The TV was on. Three girls were watching it and working on pages of problems. She introduced me and they looked up and then back at the TV. She said I could work on anything I thought I could do, and she said now she really must see about dinner.
The youngest girl was working on a page of problems in long division. I thought that they would take a long time to do, and what was the point? He was not going to think much of it if I brought in a page of long division. It wouldn’t matter whether it was right or not, it would be the type of thing anyone could do.
The middle girl was working on a lot of equations in three variables. He was not going to think much of it if I just came in with solutions to three-variable equations, and they would take a long time to do.
The oldest girl was working on a page of determinants. It would be hard enough to be worth doing, but there were so many problems that it was going to take a long time.
I said to her: Are there any other problems I could do?
She said with a shrug: You can see if you can find anything in there.
She was pointing to a folder on the table. They all laughed. I said: What is it? And they said: Nothing.
I opened the folder and in it was a big pile of printed pages with problems on them. There were a lot of things I couldn’t do, but I could see there were some about Fourier analysis so I thought that would probably be all right.
At the top of each paper it said 3 hours. I said: When is dinner?
They said: He starts at 8:00.
It was 7:15. I thought I would just divide by three the number of problems you were supposed to do and then it would probably be all right if I went in at 8:15.
The problems on the pages were rather miscellaneous, whereas the girls were each doing all one kind of problem. So I got four problems about Fourier analysis off different pages. They were a bit more complicated than the ones in my book. It was about 8:30 by the time I finished.
I went into the dining room. He was sitting at the head of the table pouring out a glass of wine for the other man. He was saying
There’s absolutely no question, Ken, about the importance of this proposal— Yes, what is it?
I said I had finished my problems.
He said: Have you now?
I said: Do you want to check them?
He said: I’m afraid it’ll have to wait—
I said: Then you’ll have to take my word for it.
He laughed. He said: Firoza, would you mind setting another place?
His wife set a place for me, and she gave me a big serving of curry. She told me Dr. Miller had something quite important to discuss but her husband would go through his diary with me later. Sorabji kept talking impetuously and filling Dr. Miller’s glass with wine, and Dr. Miller kept saying To get back to what I was saying earlier. This went on for about two hours but the girls never came in with their problems.
After dinner Sorabji said: We’ll have coffee in my study.
I was going to have to do it soon.
I followed them out of the room with my pieces of paper. We passed the room I had left; the three girls were still sitting at the table watching TV and working on their problems. They had plates of curry beside them.
Dr. Miller followed him into the study and when I followed too he looked at me and said with a smile: I’m afraid we’ve some business to discuss.
But Sorabji said: Oh that’s all right, it’s really only the finer details that need thrashing out— the main thing is that we understand each other
Miller said: I’d like to think so
Sorabji said: You can be sure of it
and he said Coffee or something stronger
Miller looked at his watch and said I really should be going, it’s a bit of a trek
Sorabji said: Sure I can’t tempt you
Miller said: No, better not— now where did I leave my coat?—Ah!
He picked up an old raincoat that was hanging over a chair and put it on, and he picked up an old briefcase that was standing by the chair. He said: Anyway I think we’ve cleared up the main issues.
Sorabji said: Absolutely. I think we’ve really covered a lot of ground
Miller said: Well I hope you’ve got a clearer picture of what we’re hoping to accomplish
Sorabji said: It’s been tremendously helpful, thank you for coming
Miller said: Not at all, and he said I’ll try to get you something in writing by the end of the week.
Sorabji said: I’ll see you to the door.
I heard the door close and he came back down the corridor whistling softly.
He came into the room and saw me. He said: You’re not exactly the soul of tact, are you?
I said: What do you mean?
He said: Never mind. I owe you one. Let’s have a look at these problems.
I gave him the pages. I said: I did some different problems instead because the others would take too long.
He looked down smiling. Then he looked up at me quickly and looked back; he said: Where did you get these?
I said I got them out of the folder.
He said: The folder? You mean the past papers?
He flipped through the pages quickly to see if they were all the same kind of problem and then he looked through them slowly to see if there were mistakes. At one point he picked up a pencil and crossed something out and wrote something underneath it. Finally he put the pages down on the desk. He was laughing.
He said: Good for you!
He said: I’ve seen first-year undergraduates who couldn’t—I’ve seen finalists that this puts to shame.
He said: It almost restores one’s faith in the educational system of this—but then I suppose you’ve had private tuition.
I said my mother helped me.
He said: Well I take my hat off to her!
He was grinning. He said: Make my day. Tell me you want to be an astronomer.
I said I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.
He said: But you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested in the subject. I suppose you’d be open to persuasion!
He said: I’m afraid I was rather preoccupied when you turned up, I can’t quite remember exactly what it was you came for. Did you want a signed book?
I thought: I can’t stop now.
He raises his bamboo sword. He draws it back with a slow sweeping motion.
I said—
I said it so quietly he couldn’t hear.
He said: Sorry, what was that?
I said: I wanted to see you because I’m your son.
He drew in his breath sharply. Then he looked at me quickly, and then he picked up the pages again and looked down at them without speaking. He looked at one page, and then at another, and then he turned his head away.