Instances does George notice the omission which makes it meaningless.

What is left out of the picture is Jim, lying opposite him at the other end of

the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so

completely aware of each other's presence.

BACK at home, he changes out of his suit into an army-surplus store khaki

shirt, faded blue denims, moccasins, a sweater. (He has doubts from time to

time about this kind of costume: Doesn't it give the impression that he's

trying to dress young? But Jim used to tell him, No, it was just right for him

– it made him look like Rommel in civilian clothes. George loved that.)

Just when he's ready to leave the house again, there is a ring at his

doorbell. Who can it be at this hour? Mrs. Strunk!

(What have I done that she can have come to complain about?)

"Oh, good evening — " (Obviously she's nervous, self-conscious; very

much aware, no doubt, of having crossed the frontier-bridge and being on

enemy territory.) "I know this is terribly short notice. I — we've meant to ask

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you so many times — I know how busy you are — but we haven't gotten

together in such a long while — and we were wondering — would you possibly

have time to come over for a drink?"

"You mean, right now?"

"Why, yes. There's just the two of us at home."

"I'm most terribly sorry. I'm afraid I have to go out, right away."

"Oh. Well. I was afraid you wouldn't have time. But — "

"No, listen," says George, and he means it; he is extremely surprised

and pleased and touched. "I really would like to. Very much indeed. Do you

suppose I could take a rain check?"

"Well, yes, of course." But Mrs. Strunk doesn't believe him. She

smiles sadly. Suddenly it seems all-important to George to convince her.

"I would love to come. How about tomorrow?"

Her face falls. "Oh well, tomorrow. Tomorrow wouldn't be so good,

I'm afraid. You see, tomorrow we have some friends coming over from the

Valley, and..."

And they might notice something queer about me, and you'd feel

ashamed, George thinks, okay, okay.

"I understand, of course," he says. "But let's make it very soon, shall

we?"

"Oh yes," she agrees fervently, "very soon...."

CHARLOTTE lives on Soledad Way, a narrow uphill street which at night is

packed so tight with cars parked on both sides of it that two drivers can

scarcely squeeze past each other. If you arrive after its residents have

returned home from their jobs, you will probably have to leave your car

several blocks away, at the bottom of the hill. But this is no problem for

George, because he can walk over to Charley's from his house in less than

five minutes.

Her house is high up on the hillside, at the top of three flights of

lopsided rustic wooden steps, seventy-live of them in all. Down on the street

level there is a tumbledown shack intended for a garage. She keeps it

crammed to the ceiling with battered trunks and crates full of unwanted junk. Jim used to say that she kept the garage blocked in order not to be able to

own a car. In any case, she absolutely refuses to learn to drive. If she needs

to go someplace and no one offers to give her a ride, well then, that's too

bad, she can't go. But the neighbors nearly always do help her; she has them

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utterly intimidated and bewitched by this Britishness which George himself

knows so well how to em-ploy, though with a different approach.

The house next to Charlotte's is on the street level. As you begin to

climb her steps, you get an intimate glimpse of domestic squalor through its

bathroom window (it must be frankly admitted that Soledad is one whole

degree socially inferior to Camphor Tree Lane): a tub hung with panties and

diapers, a douche bag slung over the shower pipe, a plumber's snake on the

floor. None of the neighbors' kids are visible now, but you can see how the

hillside above their home has been trampled into a brick-hard slippery

surface with nothing alive on it but some cactus. At the top of the slope there