And he felt insulted, as though the place had tricked him or let him down, had turned its back on him. And so he hurried on to meet his friends at the café.

Which was no longer there.

Grodzinki's, which had been a fixture on the street for goodness only knows how long, had disappeared completely, and in its place was the inevitable brand-spanking-new Starbucks. The jumbly, intricate interior of the old Grodzinki's had been completely gutted and stripped and made over into the soft-edged comfy veneers of corporate creams and browns. There were none of the old posters, no nooks and no crannies, no mirrors; Grodzinski's had been full of mirrors. You could sit over your coffee in Grodzinski's and watch yourself sit over your coffee in Grodzinski's, watching yourself sit over your coffee in Grodzinski's, ad infinitum. It was a flaneurs' paradise. Israel had grown up there.

But now-what was it now? What was it supposed to be? What did it mean? In Grodzinki's you could have imagined Carson McCullers and Karl Kraus and Frank O'Hara sitting down and enjoying some strudel together, and espresso in pure white espresso cups, but here, now, in Starbucks, the best you could imagine was Elton John getting together with the man with ginger hair out of Simply Red for a sunrise muffin and a skimmed milk latte in a stupid fat mug with a logo.

The smell of Grodzinski's-the smell of long-seated men and women of all ages, people with strong opinions and good humour-had been replaced by the smell of young people, of deodorant and of frothed milk. When you entered Grodzinski's, Mr Grodzinski would catch your eye-Mr Grodzinski, the son of the original Mr Grodzinski-and indicate to you with a nod of his brilliantined head where he expected you to sit, which table, or which booth, and then someone in a white shirt and black trousers, male or female-and often it was difficult to tell the difference, because Mr Jacobs employed a lot of little, hunched, elderly, wrinkled Lithuanians: 'So many little Litvaks!' Israel's mother would complain-would bustle over to take your order. Now you could sit anywhere, and serve yourself, but why would you bother? The place was absolutely sickening; the place was a joke. He was never going to taste Grodzinski's coffee again, coffee so strong and so sweet and so thick it was like Turkish coffee, only better, because it was Grodzinski's.

The boys were already there, drinking coffee from the big heavy mugs with the logos on them, foam clinging to their lips, Scylla and Charybdis.

'Israel Armstrong!' said Ben.

'The wanderer returns!' said Danny.

'Hi!' said Israel. 'Danny. Ben. How are things?' Danny attempted to engage Israel in an embarrassing high five, fist-knocking kind of a thing, and Ben shook his hand.

'Good.'

'You're looking well, gentlemen,' said Israel.

'You too,' said Ben.

'So, that's the pleasantries over,' said Danny. 'Now, are you buying me a coffee or what?'

Israel bought a grande-grande!?-cappuccino for Danny and a double espresso for himself and by the time he returned to the table the boys were deep in typical conversation.

'You can't rank writers like that, it's ridiculous,' Ben was saying. 'Tell him, it's ridiculous.'

'What?'

'Of course you can,' said Danny. 'Who says you can't? Firsts to the Renaissance; 2:1s to the nineteenth century; and then that leaves the eighteenth with the 2:2s and the Thirds to everything pre-Shakespeare.'

'Beowulf and Chaucer?' said Ben.

'They're exceptions.'

'Post-1945?' said Ben.

'Borderline Thirds.'

'What do you think, Israel?' asked Ben. 'He's got this idea you can mark authors like he marks his students.'

'Ha. Right. Very good,' said Israel. 'Very funny.'

'Did you read the new Pynchon?' asked Danny, his face deep in muggy cappuccino.

'No, I must get round to that,' said Israel.

'A 2:2,' said Danny, face full of froth.

'Oh.'

'So, what have you been reading lately?' asked Ben.

'Erm.' Israel had mostly been reading large-print true-crime books. 'This and that.'

'You should really check out the Pynchon though,' said Danny. 'I mean, a 2:2's respectable these days.'

Israel pondered for a moment the chances of the new 2:2 Thomas Pynchon making it into the acquisitions list for the mobile library in Tumdrum.

'Or that new Cormac McCarthy,' said Ben. 'Devastating.'

'Devastating,' agreed Danny, '2:1.'

'Right.'

'I've just been rereading Cien años de soledad.' Danny never read books; he only ever reread them.

'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' glossed Ben.

'Really?' said Israel. Danny did not read Spanish, as far as Israel was aware, but with Danny it was absolutely de rigueur to refer to titles in their original, so it was always A la Recherche du temps perdu, please, and Der Zauberberg.

'It's for a course I'm teaching.'

'Oh yeah? How's that going then?' He knew Danny through Gloria: they were old friends; their families were friends. Danny taught English at University College London, which was like teaching at Oxford or Cambridge, except much hipper. According to Danny.

'It's okay,' said Danny. 'What can I say? It's teaching. Every day's kind of the same, you know.'

'Groundhog Day!' said Ben.

'Yeah.'

'That is a great film,' said Israel.

'Punxsutawney Phil,' said Ben.

'Bill Murray,' said Israel. 'I love Bill Murray in that film.'

'Yeah.'

'And in Lost in Translation.'

'Yeah.'

'Basically, I love Bill Murray!' said Israel.

'Excuse me, ladies,' said Danny. 'Did your mother not teach you it was rude to interrupt when you'd asked someone a question?'

'Sorry,' said Israel.

'So, as I was saying, when you asked me. The teaching is fine, thank you very much.'

'Good.'

'It's kind of like working in a factory, only in a factory you get longer lunch breaks and get to knock off at five, and the stuff on the production line doesn't talk back.'

Danny talked like he was in a successful HBO returning series; he talked like he was on all the time, and as he heard him spiel Israel realised that in Tumdrum he had effectively switched himself off, possibly forever. Danny was transmitting on a channel that Israel no longer received.

'Huh,' said Israel. 'You're enjoying it then?'

'It's fine.'

'How about you, Ben?' asked Israel. 'How's work?'

Ben was smart, really smart-smarter than Danny. He was just quieter, and like Israel he'd drifted, had never quite found his niche; he was nicheless. Which was maybe why Israel got on with him so well; they were similar; they were on the same wavelength. Ben did something in the Civil Service which did not require a suit. And he was on flexi-time.

'Work's the usual,' he said. 'You know what it's like. Sometimes you feel like you can't go on-'

'But you go on,' said Danny. 'Samuel Beckett.'

'He went to school at Portora,' said Israel. 'Did you know that?'

'What?'

'Portora? It's a school in Enniskillen.'

'Weird!' said Danny.

Israel was about to ask them what they thought he should do about the mobile library.

'So, anyway, I was going to ask-' he began.

'How is life in bonny Scotland?' said Danny.

'Ireland,' said Israel.

'Oh, right, sorry. I thought it was Scotland.'

'Me too,' said Ben.

'They're all the same, though, eh? Celtic fringe.'

'Where are you based, then, Dublin?' said Ben.

'No, it's in Northern Ireland.'

'So what's it like with all the bogtrotters then?' said Danny.

'They're not bogtrotters,' said Israel.

'Top of the morning, to ye!' said Danny. 'Begorrah, begorrah, begorrah.'

'It's Northern Ireland,' said Israel.

'Hoots, man!'