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man with fair hair stood before us. He stared blankly at Jordan through protuberant blue eyes.
    â€œYes?” he said coldly.
    â€œDr. Bott!” Jordan cried jovially. I turned and went hastily down the stairs. “Are you busy?” Jordan said. A note of hesitation crept into his voice.
    â€œYes,” Dr. Bott said, lifting his upper lip in what could only be described as a snarl. “I’m afraid I am.” By this time I had reached the pavement and was heading for the Brompton Road. “Wife,” Jordan was babbling, “family … here … visit….” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dr. Bott smiling at me.
    â€œWhat!” he called, “All the way from America?”
    â€œYes,” I called back, using his favorite word, and hotfooted it down the empty street. I waited for Jordan at the corner. He appeared shortly, with a peculiar expression on his face. “Good old Dr. Bott,” I said.
    â€œHe said he wanted some time with his family,” Jordan said. “‘I’d like
some
time with my family, you know,’ was the way he put it.”
    â€œHow did he know we didn’t want medical help?”
    â€œHe didn’t. He didn’t ask me what we wanted.”
    We walked through the empty streets, holding hands, and staring with unseeing eyes into shop windows. Finally we hadsome coffee and then we went home, and Jordan began writing letters, all beginning “My dear Dr. Bott …”
    Bruce and Eric came home. They said all they had done in the park was lie on the grass while Jane rubbed Tom’s back. Then they went on lying in the grass and Tom rubbed Jane’s back.
    We turned on the television set, but the only thing on both stations (there were only two) was Harold Wilson going in and out of Ten Downing Street. A Commonwealth Conference had started. The children played checkers; Mrs. Stackpole’s glass curtains stirred in the breeze. It occurred to me that it was the middle of June, and that if we were home the children would be out riding their bicycles or swimming at the beach, but I pushed that thought away.
    After a while, Mark returned, looking annoyed. He said Vincent didn’t have any money, so he shared all his money with Vincent, and then when all his money was gone except his carfare, Vincent called him selfish. He said that since Mark was the son of an American millionaire, he had to be lying when he said that all he had left was carfare.
    â€œVincent’s an idiot,” Jordan said.
    Our Saturday ended with a trip in a cab to a delicatessen in South Kensington where we purchased goodies for dinner and for the next day, when Jane and her mother and brothers were coming to tea.

9
Liz and Jane
    T HE NEXT DAY being Sunday, we all had a leisurely breakfast together, consisting of eggs from the Woolworth frying pan, and toast made under the broiler, one piece lifted by fork every three minutes. I piled the chipped mismatched dishes and glasses in the dish drainer to dry cloudily, and thought about my old electric dishwasher at home. For years I had complained about machine civilization and life in the wasteland of materialism: now I felt a subtle change taking place in me. Henry James was being replaced by Buckminster Fuller.
    I shoved twelve or thirteen of Mrs. Stackpole’s blanket and linen layers into place on our oversized bed and got dressed shortly before the doorbell rang. Descending, I found the eight-by-ten-foot sitting room bulging with people in t-shirts and blue jeans.
    Jane was there with her friend Tom and several of her brothers, all with long bangs or fringes, and her mother Liz, a rather paunchy lady with orange hair and fingernails, who was wearing a green silk print blouse, a tight red wool skirt, and blue high-heeled shoes. After effusive greetings, we went down to the kitchen where we ate little sandwiches I had prepared, and drank tea. Mrs. Stackpole, incredibly, had left only a small