“Clark had thought he was meeting his oldest friend for dinner, but Arthur wasn’t having dinner with a friend, Clark realized, so much as having dinner with an audience. He felt sick with disgust. When he left a short time later he found himself wandering, even though by now he’d oriented himself and knew how to get back to the Tube station. Cold rain, the sidewalk shining, the shhh of car tires on the wet street. Thinking about the terrible gulf of years between eighteen and fifty.”
