Chapter 2 Summary

Roland Michell returns to the flat he shares with his girlfriend Val. He assumes Val is in a bad mood, because she is cooking furiously and does not acknowledge him when he arrives. They sit down to dinner, and Roland begins to tell Val about his discovery of Randolph Henry Ash's letters. Val is not interested at all in Roland's work, and tells him that he is lucky to have things that turn him on. She tells him about the less attractive side of humanity she witnesses in her boring job. She is frustrated that he spends all of his time piecing together a dead man's life while they continue to live in poverty in the real world.

Later that evening, Roland secretly reads the letters again in the bathroom and decides he must try to find out the identity of the woman...