The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge

Author:David Lodge [David Lodge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-04-06T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

During the autumn and winter the delivery of a book is not infrequently hindered by darkness or fog.

A Guide to the Use of the Reading Room (1924)

IN THE LATE afternoon the Museum was still there, but he was not going to it any more. It was foggy in London that afternoon and the dark came very early. Then the shops turned their lights on, and it was all right riding down Oxford Street looking in the windows, though you couldn’t see much because of the fog. There was much traffic on the roads and the drivers couldn’t see where they were going. The traffic lights changed from red to amber to green and back to red again and the traffic didn’t move. Then the drivers sounded their horns and got out of their cars to swear at each other. It was foggy in London that afternoon and the dark came very early.

The house in Bayswater looked on to a square. There was a playground in the square and some big trees. The swings in the playground squeaked but you couldn’t see the children who were swinging because of the trees and the fog. It was a tall narrow house and it hadn’t been painted for a long time. The old paint had flaked off in places and underneath you could see the raw brickwork. There were six steps leading up to the front door and more steps leading down to a basement area.

Adam knocked on the front door but it was the basement door which opened. A man wearing a dirty vest and with a lot of thick black hair on his arms and chest looked up.

‘Mrs Rottingdean?’ Adam said.

‘Out,’ the man said.

‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

‘No,’ the man said, and shut the door.

Adam stood on the top step for a while, listening to the squeak of the swings in the square. Then he went down the area steps and knocked on the door of the basement.

‘Come in,’ the man said. He held the door open with his left hand and Adam saw that two fingers were missing from it.

‘I just wanted to leave a message.’

‘I said, “Come in”.’

Adam went in. It was a large bare kitchen. There were some wooden chairs and a table and a lot of empty beer bottles in one corner. On the walls were some bull-fighting posters. The bulls were painted to look very fierce and the bullfighters to look very handsome. Two men sat at the table drinking beer and talking to each other in a foreign language. They were not very handsome and when they saw Adam they stopped talking. Adam looked at the bull-fighting posters.

‘You are aficionado?’ the hairy man said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You follow the bulls?’

‘I’ve never been to a bull-fight.’

‘Who is he?’ one of the men at the table said. The thumb was missing from his left hand.

‘Who are you?’ the hairy man said to Adam.

‘He’s from the café,’ the third man said. This man’s left hand was in a sling.

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