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Minister’s visit had already spoilt half a morning’s figures, making timings less precise and the rats’ behaviour—because of the shift in routine—less comparable with other days. Foxe was determined to get the afternoon back on keel, starting precisely at 2.15. That meant eating somewhere close-by. With a shrug of distaste he turned towards the beach.
    He came out behind a hotel whose architecture had often caught his eye. It had clearly been designed by an admirer of the Sydney Opera House and had the same look of being unlikely to stand on its own feet, but then somebody had become bored with all that scalloped whiteness and ordered theouter shell to be painted in great swoops of pink and orange and green. Inside this gaudy carapace, like a hermit crab in an exotic shell, lurked the mean-proportioned slab of the hotel proper. Foxe pedalled round to the front and found a wide terrace where tables were laid for a formal meal and white-jacketed waiters moved beneath a trellis of scarlet-trumpeted creeper. Foxe didn’t feel like that at all, and by now knew that it was inconceivable that a waiter on Hog’s Cay would bring him a meal in thirty-five minutes flat. He was just about to cycle on when his eye was caught by a neon sign saying “Igloo Bar”.
    The phrase had a weird appeal. It seemed to incorporate the coolness he longed for after the frustration and heat of his ride, and the stillness and isolation he preferred for his meals. He locked his bike to the trellis and followed the pointing arrow.
    The bar was a small, white-domed room with settees upholstered in polar-bear skins. It was empty except for a handsome black barmaid wearing an Eskimo parka.
    â€œMorning,” said Foxe. “Got anything to eat in here?”
    â€œNuts,” she said.
    Foxe sighed. The air-conditioning was actually working. There are more forms of food than the merely solid.
    â€œCan you do me a Bloody Mary?” he said.
    â€œBring it to you, sir,” she said.
    Foxe sat on one of the bear-skin settees. The table in front of him was a plastic rock, flat-topped. The ash-tray was a trepanned seal-head. When the girl brought his drink it came in a walrus tusk. Her parka stopped at hip level and below that her uniform was fish-net tights and immensely high platform shoes.
    â€œYou don’ mention snow-shoes to me, sir, please,” she said, gritting the teeth behind her smile. As she moved away the door swung open and a tall thin man came in. He was black, and wore a pale blue suit, white hat, pink tie and shirt of the most intense iridescent violet Foxe had ever seen. Though his clothes were new and smart and clean, he was still somehow a little dishevelled and moved with the stooping, fretted look of the native Islander.
    â€œRub noses, honey?” he said.
    The girl didn’t look up but poured some green goo into a tall glass, added soda and then something which instantly sprang into a ball of fluffy foam on top of the concoction, which she pushed towards the newcomer. He craned towards her, wrinkling his nose invitingly. She whispered swearwords through her compulsory smile. He took his hat off and put it over her face, then picked up his drink and carried it across to join Foxe.
    â€œLike it, sir?” he said.
    â€œIt’s a change,” said Foxe, guessing he might be talking about the bar.
    â€œAmerican?”
    â€œEnglish.”
    â€œYou poor old imperialist wash-out. Didn’t think you’d have the dough for a place like Hog’s Cay.”
    Foxe realised that the man was fairly drunk.
    â€œI’m not a tourist,” he answered. “I work here.”
    â€œUh? You the new feller at the Dorchester? Feller they’ve hired to teach that accent to the waiters?”
    The Dorchester was a gabled, half-timbered, diamond-paned-windowed, twisty-chimneyed fantasy a mile along the beach.
    â€œNo,” said Foxe. “I work up in those buildings