Turns out it's Lionel, who blurts out that he's going to Norwich. Jean seems unflustered and tells him to have a good time. He says he wasn't leaving just then, but he wanted to make sure she didn't think he disappeared again. When it becomes apparent that he isn't just walking away, Jean invites him in for a drink. He has a scotch and soda. He says he's back at his flat and that the hotel at the staff were "practically inconsolable" about having lost him.
He asks if Jean has read his manuscript. The copy she ran off is next to her on the couch and she quickly moves it behind her hoping he won't see. He doesn't. They quibble about whether or not she should read it. Neither seems to want to make a commitment. "Do you want me to read it?" Do you want me to want to you read it?" sort of thing. They become exasperated. Lionel doesn't want to make a court case about it.
Judith's dressed and ready to go. She walks in and asks if she rightly overheard Lionel say something about Norwich. Jean advises Lionel that Judith has ears "like a bat." Judith, still trying to push the two of them together, suggests that Jean go to Norwich to listen to the lecture. It's obvious that Lionel doesn't want her to come, but it doesn't seem to be a problem because Jean doesn't appear anxious to go anyway. Still trying to get them together, she innocently asks if Lionel is coming to dinner with them.
The three of them are in a restaurant and Judith is wolfing down what appears to be a chocolate soda. Both Lionel and Jean are staring at her incredulously. "I don't feed her at home," Jean explains. Judith ignores the comments and reminds Jean that she's in a hurry because she's catching a late showing of a film and will be home very, VERY late. In fact she might even pick up a pizza. It's clear that this is the first time Judith has mentioned this movie. She leaves the two of them alone.
Lionel takes the opportunity to again call Judith "artless." Jean says that Judith has often been kicked in the teeth for being so artless. This reminds Lionel of the time he was kicked in the teeth by a mule in Korea. Jean stares at Lionel and tells them they look good, his teeth. Lionel seems offended because those are his own teeth. "Must've been a very puny mule, " Jean concludes. No, turns out Lionel embroidered a bit and left out the "nearly" -- as in he was NEARLY kicked in the teeth by a mule. We will hear this story again.
While they are in the restaurant Jean sees a man she used to go out with. Turns out he had asked her to marry him, but she refused. Lionel is puzzled by that because "good offers don't exactly pour in" at her time of life. Jean bristles. She wonders what kind of offers Lionel has had. He mentions some woman named "Mabel" in Kenya who always spit when she talked, but that was about it. Jean says the only thing that tempted her about that man's offer was the sex. They make a couple of jokes about her old boyfriend's masculinity and his girlfriend's femininity and they begin to laugh together. He asks if she's busy the next day. He wants to spend some time with her because he has such an uncertain schedule and he's off for Norwich the day after and wants to make sure they find time to get together. "And after tht it's farewell?" Jean wants to know. They begin to quibble again. But she agrees to go with him.
The next morning Jean is fussing about whether or not she's properly dressed. She's a bit nervous about the day. She said they were going to Buckinghamshire -- an area they used to visit long ago when he had leave and she was able to get away from the hospital. There were, she said, lots of old familiar places there. Judith wondered whether or not Lionel and Jean had misted the windows of the car when they were younger. A few minutes later Lionel rang the doorbell and as they were headed towards the car that Lionel had hired Judith hollered after them to stop and buy a can of something that will de-mist the windows. Lionel doesn't understand.
They drive towards the country, but nothing looks familiar. After all, it's been 38 years. But Lionel remembers a little restaurant where he wants to eat.
LIONEL: What was the name of it? Spinning wheel? Wagon Wheel? I know it had "wheel" in it.
JEAN: The Copper Kettle?
LIONEL: That's it!
When they arrived at the place where the Copper Kettle used to be, they saw only a garage. The mechanic had only been there for a year and had never heard of the Copper Kettle. He asked when the restaurant was there. 1953. No wonder he hadn't heard of it -- he wasn't born yet. He said his father might remember, though. Jean wonders if perhaps the mechanic could ask his father. "He's in an old folks home." These references to their age are beginning to take their toll on both Lionel and Jean. They walk back towards their car and Lionel says he has a place in mind for lunch -- a pub in a village whose name he can't remember:
LIONEL: Upper something. Upper Marlow.
JEAN: Marlow Bottom.
LIONEL: That's the place!
Then Lionel is horrified to see that the car is wedged in so near the car next to it that they can't get in to move it. Jean suggests they dine right there. Lionel is insistent. He can barely get between the cars, let alone open the door. Then he tries to squeeze into the car. All the while Jean is laughing at him, suggesting that he's the one at fault because he parked so badly. Lionel looks foolish trying to get into the car and Jean keeps telling him to stop and eat there. Reluctantly and angrily he gives up.
They find themselves in a noisy, crowded pub and have to push their way to a table. Things just don't seem to be going well for them. When they finally got to the table, Lionel had to push his way back because he forgot the knives and forks. Jean suggests they "stroll around the cemetery and cheer themselves up."
They go wandering through the fields. Lionel points out that there was a path they had taken before -- they used to "pick bluebells - metaphorically speaking." They began to walk along that path. It was overgrown and a bit hazardous." Lionel turned behind him. He didn't sean Jean. He called out after her and she said she fell over. "Why?" he asked. He was busy telling her to mind the brambles and in the meantime he fell into a muddy ditch. He told her to jump and they came out of the field near the road looking disheveled and tired.
It actually turned out to be a good thing. Right in front of them stood a hotel where they often used to come to have tea or dinner in the old days. They apologized for their appearance to the woman at the front desk and she told Lionel to take his shoes and socks off and she'd have someone wash the socks while they had their tea. They went into the lounge and were delighted to find that nothing really had changed except the calendar, which Lionel almost expected to say 1953. Even the same wobbly chair. And the same cups. The hostess, when she heard that they were familiar with the hotel thought it was nice that they looked it up. Lionel said it wasn't so much that they looked it up, but that they "stumbled through a hedge and found you."
They asked if she worked there in 1953. No, she said -- she was still in school.
LIONEL: At least she was alive in 1953.
JEAN: "Someone had to be.
They had their tea and Lionel was asking Jean why she was smiling. She refused to tell him. If he didn't know, then she wasn't going to say. A bit more quibbling. Suddenly he remembered: it was at this hotel that they first made love. Said he was so nervous that he ordered 28 cups of coffee before they went up to the room (another case of embroidery). On an impulse he asked the hostess if, by chance, she had a room. She left them watching each other while she went to check.
The scene shifts to Jean's living room, where Judith is asking why they didn't stay, why they didn't "go with the flow." The flow, reported Jean, had "diminished to a trickle." There were a lot of excuses: he was going to Norwich the next day, she had to get up early, he had to return the hired car, they had no luggage. Judith seemed disappointed. Now Jean was going to bed with a hot drink and a dull book and that was that.
And speaking of dull books, Judith finished Lionel's manuscript and found it to be "better than a sleeping pill." The most interesting part of the book was the dedication: "To Pooh." Judith found this to be so romantic. "Let's go and see him in Norwich," she says. Jean tells her not to be so silly.