‘We might as well have a cup of tea,’ he said, and we noisily marched over the hollow boards of the glass-covered bridge, down the stairs to Platform Four. We entered the filthy Gothic tea-room and Everett ordered. The serving-woman served us with tired distain; she treated her customers like a dull and endless film that could only, with order and money, make a very rare stereoscopic contact with her real though duller world. Everett took me to a table and began to talk sadly but eagerly.
Anthony Burgess