'So,' says his mother. 'A clean getaway.'

'I do believe so. Have you got the cheque safe?'

'The cheque, the medal, everything.'

A gap. They are at the airport, at the gate, waiting for the flight to be called that will take them on the first stage of their journey home. Faintly, over their heads, with a crude, driving beat, a version of Eine kleine Nachtmusik is playing. Opposite them sits a woman eating popcorn out of a paper bucket, so fat that her toes barely reach the floor.

'Can I ask you one thing?' he says. 'Why literary history? And why such a grim chapter in literary history? Realism: no one in this place wanted to hear about realism.'

Fiddling in her purse, she makes no reply.

'When I think of realism,' he goes on,'I think of peasants frozen in blocks of ice. I think of Norwegians in smelly underwear. What is your interest in it? And where does Kafka fit in? What has Kafka to do with it all?'

'With what? With smelly underwear?'

'Yes. With smelly underwear. With people picking their noses. You don't write about that kind of thing. Kafka didn't write about it.'

'No, Kafka didn't write about people picking their noses. But Kafka had time to wonder where and how his poor educated ape was going to find a mate. And what it was going to be like when he was left in the dark with the bewildered, half-tamed female that his keepers eventually produced for his use. Kafka's ape is embedded in life. It is the embeddedness that is important, not the life itself. His ape is embedded as we are embedded, you in me, I in you. That ape is followed through to the end, to the bitter, unsayable end, whether or not there are traces left on the page. Kafka stays awake during the gaps when we are sleeping. That is where Kafka fits in.'

The fat woman is observing them frankly, her little eyes flicking from the one to the other: the old woman in the raincoat and the man with the bald patch who could be her son, having a fight in their funny accents.

'Well,' he says, 'if what you say is true, it is repulsive. It is zoo-keeping, not writing.'

'What would you prefer? A zoo without keepers, where the animals fall into a trance when you stop looking at them? A zoo of ideas? A gorilla cage with the idea of a gorilla in it, an elephant cage with the idea of elephants in it? Do you know how many kilograms of solid waste an elephant drops in twenty-four hours?

If you want a real elephant cage with real elephants then you need a zookeeper to clean up after them.'

'You are off the point, Mother. And don't get so excited.' He turns to the fat woman. 'We are discussing literature, the claims of realism versus the claims of idealism.'

Without ceasing to chew, the fat woman removes her eyes from them. He thinks of the cud of mashed corn and saliva in her mouth and shudders. Where does it all end?

'There is a difference between cleaning up after animals and watching them while they do their business,' he starts again. 'I am asking about the latter, not the former. Don't animals deserve a private life as much as we do?'

'Not if they are in a zoo,' she says. 'Not if they are on show. Once you are on show, you have no private life. Anyway, do you ask permission from the stars before you peek at them through your telescope? What about the private lives of the stars?'

'Mother, the stars are lumps of rock.'

'Are they? I thought they were traces of light millions of years old.'

'Boarding will now commence on United Airlines flight 323 non-stop to Los Angeles,' says a voice above their heads. 'Passengers requiring assistance, as well as families with young children, may step forward.'

On the flight she barely touches her food. She orders two brandies, one after the other, and falls asleep. When, hours later, they begin the descent to Los Angeles, she is still asleep. The flight attendant taps her on the shoulder. 'Ma'am, your seat belt.' She does not stir. They exchange looks, he and the flight attendant. He leans over and clips the belt across her lap.

She lies slumped deep in her seat. Her head is sideways, her mouth open. She is snoring faintly. Light flashes from the windows as they bank, the sun setting brilliantly over southern California. He can see up her nostrils, into her mouth, down the back of her throat. And what he cannot see he can imagine: the gullet, pink and ugly, contracting as it swallows, like a python, drawing things down to the pear-shaped belly-sac. He draws away, tightens his own belt, sits up, facing forward. No, he tells himself, that is not where I come from, that is not it.