Homecomings by C.P. Snow

IN Whitehall the fog was dense: it was a little whiter, I could make out the lights in the shop-fronts, as the taxi nosed up Baker Street. By the time we reached Regent's Park, the pavements were clear to the view as far as the glowing ground-floor windows. Trying to damp down expectation, I was soothed by the fog shutting me in: instead of the joggle of the taxi, the reminder of adult expectations to which one did not know the end, I felt the sheer cosiness of a childhood's winter afternoon.

Whatever my expectations had been, I was surprised when I entered Davidson's study. For Margaret smiled at me, without much trace of trouble: Davidson did not look up: they were playing a game. In the fireplace stood a teapot, cups, a plate of crumpets, but on Davidson's side the tea had a skin on it. The crumpet's butter was solid. He was leaning, his face still distinguished even though his mouth was open with concentration, over the board. So far as I could pick up at a glance, the board was home made, something like a chess board but not symmetrical and with at least three times the number of squares on the base line: at some points there appeared to be blanks and hazards. They were using ordinary chessmen, but each had some extra pieces, together with small boxes whose function I did not begin to understand.