ATDTDA (8): Children, children, 219-223

[Paul Nightingale]

To London. Or more precisely: "... Chunxton Crescent,
in that ambiguous stretch north of Hyde park known
then as Tyburnia". Note "that ambiguous stretch": the
location cannot be easily confirmed. Also "known
then": the now of the narrative voice is highlighted
here, to emphasise the distance between then and now.
Something similar happened when Constance Penhallow
was introduced: "... now passed into legend" (127).
Descriptive passages in the western scenes, those
dealing with landscape, have often focused on the
past-in-the-present: "... ruins haunted by an ancient
people whose name no one knew," etc (214). Or: "...
mountains and their mirage-reflections like skulls of
animals from other times" (200).

The reader is aligned with Lew as the Ns try to
explain to him the "secret neo-Pythagorean way of
knowledge" (220). Furthermore, his outsider status is
emphasised by the need to interpret--perhaps colonise,
perhaps ethnocentrically, given the anthropomorphic
rendering of western landscape: "... poses reminding
Lew of contortionists at the ten-in-one". Perhaps this
also takes us back to the Chicago Fair.

The Ns are also outsiders of a kind, signalled at the
outset: "The idea, as nearly as Neville and Nigel
could explain it ..." indicates an inability to do so,
at least to his satisfaction. Hence the appearance of
another of the novel's authority figures, Nicholas
Nookshaft, who discusses with Lew his experience of
the explosion: he believes Lew to have come from a
"[l]ateral world-set" (221), in which case the London
of the novel isn't part of the same world as the
Colorado Lew was in before, let alone the Chicago he
began in.

There is some indication here that the Cohen thinks
Lew exceptional: "If you are who we are beginning to
believe you might be."

However, further discussion is prevented by the
appearance of "a strking young woman", named by
Neville as "really only old Yashmeen". Nigel is a bit
put out by this, his wordy introduction, and indeed
pomposity, reminiscent of Lindsey aboard the
Inconvenience: the bickering between the Ns here
recalls the tension between Lindsay and Darby,
established in the opening pages, not to mention the
scene a few pages ago between Reef and Frank before
their mother (217). The Cohen ("Children, children
...") adopts a paternalistic pose: if Lew belongs to,
or comes from, another world, the Cohen is aloof from
this one, speaking of Yashmeen as though she weren't
there (222). His status, like that of Webb when
confronting Lake (189-190), depends on a superior
knowledge and a protective outlook. Yashmeen, like
Lake before her, is inclined to see that
protectiveness as oppressive: she insists ("not, it
seemed, for the first time") she can look after
herself, her put-down of Lew ("beam[ing] in frank
admiration") confirming she is not about to be seduced
by his charm (222).

This is no more than an interlude, the Cohen picking
up where he left off "to explain his personal concept
of the Psychical Detective". Hence, Lew is taken from
the company of the Ns and Yashmeen: from his pov here,
the Cohen's description of a conspiracy recalls Nate's
ongoing talk of Anarchism, but he finishes "genuinely
puzzled" (223).