decades, but her tongue leaps about enough . .He stands there letting it all lap over me, while his own tongue circles the ice rink of silver amalgam that Missus Uren, the dentist in East Finchley, has implanted in his molar. . We don’t, as it ’appens, get much in the way of callers, she’s saying when this vestibular interlude is abruptly terminated by the unmistakable sound of a saucepan boiling over — and, now he comes to think of it, the pong of fish cooking in milk has been steadily building all this while. — Oh, oh —! Missus Haines does indeed jump to it, the cat scats, and Busner is left alone to consider how it’s Albert De’Ath’s way, apparently, to always keep in touch — this, and how useful one of the tent-sized macs would’ve been when he was getting soaked in Greenwich Park. When she returns Missus Haines is wrapped up in an apron printed with photographs of the front doors and fanlights of Georgian houses. They’re all from Dublin, she says, pretty, ain’t they? I’ll see to some tea, she goes on, you’ll find Sir Albert in the front room to your left there, and mind —. She stops, and in her expression Busner sees mingled protectiveness and a sort of outrage? He waits for her to complete the sentence but she doesn’t, only leaves him to go through the door indicated with the admonition, mind, hanging in his own. It rapidly transpires that mind is spot on — as warning, as description, as mantra, motto and injunction. Emanating from the tall old man seated in the wing armchair in the red-velvet-curtained bay window of the large and fiendishly cluttered room is such a strong sensation of a brain churning through calculations, evaluations, judgements, deductions, inductions and assays, that Busner near-staggers under the impact of this furious concentration: mental activity that’s beamed through large, limpid, protuberant grey eyes either side of a Palaeolithic flint axe of a nose, and focused directly on him. It doesn’t help matters . .that Sir Albert is Mekon bald, or that a number of pairs of wire-rimmed spectacles are pushed up on his soaring forehead, their oval lenses shining in the downlight of a standard lamp positioned by his chair. Busner thinks: A shaven and mummified big cat that yet lives! For Sir Albert is wound up to his armpits in a bright red-and-yellow tartan rug, above which rises the corpse-like skin of yet another mackintosh buttoned up high on his columnar neck. It doesn’t help matters . .that there is nowhere Busner can look to for repose: every surface is piled with books, papers, leather-covered boxes, scientific instruments — he recognises a primitive centrifuge, gramme scales and an astrolabe — framed photographs of power stations and models of electricity generators, Gestetner machines and old upright typewriters, rubber-stamp stands and blotters cluttered with dipping-nib pens, clocks, vases and china figurines, silver trays and salvers piled with foxed visiting cards and golf-tees, presentation model aircraft cast in steel and mounted on wooden plinths — he identifies a Mosquito fighter-bomber — rococo golf trophies with miniature players immortalised on their lids in mid-swing. It doesn’t help matters . .that all this stuff spreads across a terrain of heavy old Edwardian furniture — settees and tables, desks and revolving bookcases — so that, rather than appearing as inert, it seethes and undulates threateningly. The wall above the fireplace is tiled with framed certificates and photographs of a younger Sir Albert rearing over diminutive delegations of Japanese civil servants, or else intimidating political leaders with his already-bare cranium — registering some satisfaction, Busner spots one in which he’s bearing down on an uneasy-looking John Foster Dulles. However, this doesn’t help matters much . .because there are further oddities, such as a globular rattan chair dangling from a chain attached to the ceiling, and a new-model colour television set plumped on a leather pouffe, which is switched on with the volume mercifully turned down, but displaying the Black and White Minstrels in lavender tailcoats and top hats hoofing it . .All of these things, in their various ways, refer Busner back to the supervening factor of Sir Albert’s mind, and nor does it help matters . .that on the tray-table set across the arms of the old man’s chair are ranged a number of hearing aids, the wires of which are belayed up the slopes of his eminence to where two or three disappear into the confusing outcroppings of his Gautama ears . .And most of all, it doesn’t help matters . .that the first words Sir Albert says are, Are you a Jew? then he rearranges the spectacles so as to align the lenses of three pairs, through which his eyes swell alarmingly. Yes, he says eventually, I see that you are one. Busner is at a loss — he thinks back to his first encounter with Marcus six months before. He had thought that a tricky encounter, and the St John’s Wood flat a bizarre habitation — but now this! Clearing his throat, he offers a shameful exculpation: Erhem, yes, well. . but not at all an observant one. If Sir Albert had had any eyebrows he might have been raising them, but as it is his spectacles coruscate from the corrugating of his iron brow, then he continues blithely: People often claim that their friends are Jews, as if this were in some way meritorious. . He pauses, giving Busner time to savour the accentless quality of his voice and its lack of resonance or timbre. . None of my friends, he resumes, were ever Jews — to my knowledge, some members of your tribe can pass exceptionally well. However, I have had many Jewish colleagues, subordinates and some superiors throughout my career, and on the whole I’ve found them to be markedly more efficient than gentiles. If, Doctor Busner, we can maintain a professional demeanour in our dealings with one another, I see no reason why there should be any unpleasantness — d’you smoke? Wrong-footed, Busner blurts: Y-Yes, I’m afraid I do. Sir Albert smiles encouragingly — a worrying sight. If, he says, you lift the top of that model lighthouse you’ll find it is, in point of fact, a cigarette box — the lighter is beside it in the guise of a rickshaw. While Busner flips up the rickshaw-wallah’s head, the ancient Mandarin fiddles with one of the hearing aids on his tray-table, so that for the remainder of their interview a high-pitched electronic whistling ebbs and flows in unnerving accompaniment. Do you know much about the application of the transistor to the amplification of sound? Sir Albert asks once Busner’s cigarette — a bone-dry Senior Service — has been lit, and he stands puffing on it with what he hopes is a semblance of relaxation: one elbow propped on the mantelpiece in among its welter of knick-knacks — clearly, he is not going to be offered a seat. Um, no, he answers, I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about deafness generally, it’s not my special —. No, the old man interrupts him, it isn’t necessary for you to raise your voice — I know a great deal about it, and these devices are the latest and most efficient models. As to your specialism, Missus Haines told me that you are a psychiatric practitioner, on the staff of the Colney Hatch asylum I believe? Yes, Busner agrees, unwilling to correct the Mind on a point of fact . .Where, or so I’m informed, you are responsible for the supervision of various lunatics, among them my sister, Audrey Death. Again, Busner assents, although this was a flat statement — but then, full of acrid seniority, he at last finds the balls to caviclass="underline" Your sister, Sir Albert, is not remotely insane — indeed, she’s very possibly one of the sanest people I’ve ever met, especially considering the ordeal she’s been through these past fifty years. Stunned by his own bravado, he wonders distractedly whether the ashtray is in the guise of a pottery tortoise. Next, he ponders the grate, which is piled with neatly arranged coals. Don’t, Sir Albert says perfunctorily, the fire is coal-effect — far more efficient, there’ll scarcely be a coal-mining industry left in this country in twenty years’ time — not that this will affect the domestic-pricing structure. . For a moment it appears that Mind may be exhibiting the very human vagaries of age, and wandering, but then: You’ll find that the tortoise you suspect is indeed — if you raise its shell — a viable receptacle. I’m surprised by what you tell me regarding my sister — the last time I saw her she attempted to assault my wife and young son, and had to be removed from this house by the police. She had suffered, it seemed, a complete mental collapse. I discovered soon after that that she’d been confined at Colney Hatch — as next of kin they sent me a questionnaire they wished me to fill out, it concerned her health, her habits, her moods, mode of life and so forth — I was ill-equipped to assist, having had virtually no contact with her for some years preceding this. It is scarcely any business of yours, Doctor Busner, but I suppose Alea iacta est, so I may as well tell you that her morals were loose and her politics, frankly, extreme. It seems to Busner that Sir Albert has timed this speech to coincide with Missus Haines’s entrance: she comes through the door bearing. .