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Over the next few years he made his way across Europe, drank a lot of ouzo, and taught English wherever he could find a job. Whenever he was home for a visit he would get in touch with his childhood friend. Drewe would invariably show up in a brown suit and tie, and the two of them would again disappear into an imaginary world of gravity-defying scientific theories and Nobel prizes.

On one occasion, in the early seventies, Drewe stayed with Stoakes for a whole week, which did not please Stoakes’s parents at all. They had long ago taken a dislike to him. There was something about his tight smile and rigid walk, something shifty and unsavory that rubbed them the wrong way. Whenever Mrs. Stoakes saw Drewe march up to the house, his torso thrust forward with an exaggerated momentum, his arms swinging in time with his stride, her hackles would go up. She felt that he was carrying some hidden burden, something much too heavy for so young a man.

About two years later, the two friends went on a picnic. They sat together until twilight, eating and talking about politics and sex. Drewe told Stoakes that he had completed a doctorate at Heidelberg and Kiel universities in Germany, and had taken a job with the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell. He was now involved in nuclear research. None of this seemed fanciful to Stoakes, who had always been convinced that his twenty-seven-year-old friend was headed for the bright lights. Drewe had taken a flat in Golders Green, and after they’d finished all the food, Drewe invited Stoakes up. The flat was musty, filled with dark, heavy furniture left behind by a former tenant: an enormous mahogany wardrobe, a sideboard, and a file cabinet covered with documents. They settled in and began to brainstorm the way they had in the old days. Drewe sketched out a blueprint for an article on hydrostatics, and Stoakes took notes and typed them up. They labored for weeks on the piece, cutting, pasting, and editing. Stoakes smoothed it out until they were both satisfied, and Drewe put his name on it.

When the paper was rejected, Drewe said he’d outdone them again. He’d gone one step beyond where the journal editors believed the leading edge to be. It was only a matter of time before the custodians of the various scientific disciplines would have to acknowledge his contributions.

As far as Stoakes could tell from their infrequent meetings, Drewe kept himself in good physical shape. His clothes seemed tidy enough, in a thrift-shop sort of way, nothing fancy. He was tall and sturdy now, his youthful nervousness gone. In its stead was a minus, a vacancy. He had about him “the air of a masked ascetic, a disordered sainthood,” Stoakes recalled.

A few years later the two friends met up again in Leicester Square. Drewe seemed even taller and more solidly built than Stoakes remembered. Over drinks Drewe talked about his hopes and fears. He felt undervalued, he said, but he intended to rectify that state of affairs. He proposed that they collaborate again. This time they would focus on the philosophy of science. Stoakes would provide the conceptual framework and Drewe the technical details. They fell into their old colloquy, and Stoakes felt that their boyhood intimacy had been refreshed.

In a mellow mood, they strolled across the square and saw Apocalypse Now in velvet comfort in front of a mammoth screen and a mountain of blaring speakers. Stoakes was blown away by Francis Ford Coppola’s combination of Conrad, Vietnam, and psychedelics, but the experience seemed to have little effect on Drewe, who was aroused only by the airborne weaponry and the apparent effects of a B-52 on the jungle foliage. Apparently, neither the film’s grandeur and tragedy nor its politics made the slightest impression on him. This did not surprise Stoakes, who considered his friend a nuts-and-bolts man, a technician and cold-fusion genius. Poetry was for those who had time for it.

After the film they took the tube to Drewe’s flat, where Stoakes was