For example, the critic Boyd Tonkin adds the additional interpretation that Barnes's "show-off" characters could be typical readers of Kermode's work. Structure and synopsis The novel is divided into two parts, entitled "One" and "Two", both of which are narrated by Tony Webster when he is retired and living alone. The first part begins in the 1960s with four intellectually arrogant school friends, of whom two feature in the remainder of the story: Tony, the narrator, and Adrian, the most precociously intelligent of the four. Towards the end of their school days another boy at the school hangs himself, apparently after getting a girl pregnant. The four friends discuss the philosophical difficulty of knowing exactly what happened. Adrian goes to Cambridge University and Tony to Bristol University. Tony acquires a girlfriend, Veronica, at whose family home he spends an awkward weekend. On waking one morning he finds that he and Veronica's mother, Sarah, are alone in the house, and she apologises for her family's behaviour towards him. Tony's and Veronica's relationship fails, with some acrimony, as he breaks up with her and has sex with her after breaking up. In his final year at university Tony receives a letter from Adrian informing him that he is going out with Veronica. Tony replies to the letter, telling Adrian that in his opinion Veronica was damaged in some way and that he should talk to her mother about it. Some months later he is told that Adrian has committed suicide, leaving a note addressed to the coroner saying that the free person has a philosophical duty to examine the nature of their life and may then choose to renounce it. Tony admires the reasoning. He briefly recounts the following uneventful forty years of his life until his sixties. At this point Tony's narration of the second part of the novel – which is twice as long as the first – begins, with the arrival of a lawyer's letter informing him that Veronica's mother has bequeathed him £500 (which Veronica mysteriously calls "blood money") and two documents. These lead him to re-establish contact with Veronica and, after a number of meetings with her, to re-evaluate the story he has narrated in the first part. On consulting the lawyers, Tony learns that Veronica has Adrian's diary, which was bequeathed to him. This leads him to send Veronica repeated emails requesting the diary. Veronica eventually